Okay, so background: I'm your average pro-gun fuck-the-police, fuck-trump zoomer honed by years of unsupervised internet access and I've just discovered this community and started lurking for a while. But I still hold extremely negative views on China, which I still think are justified.

"Which views?" I'll throw them out real quick: child labor! internet censorship! media censorship! anti-LGBTQ! uygher genocide? positive and pro war relations with russia! (because fuck putin)

So I get really confused anytime I see people expressing pro-China sentiments. Have I been spoonfed by the media or are some of these points actually justified?

  • robinn [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    1. Child Labor

    Not only is child labor illegal in China, but China's labor regulations are extremely progressive compared to the West, and the West is what I'd assume most would claim the "baseline" of what adequate labor regulations are [despite them of course not being adequate]; nearly all jobs have trade unions which are under the one CPC trade union [which meets twice every year and targets problems in every single union], most jobs have 30 minutes to an hour in addition to lunch to sleep [also happens in schools as well], jobs can't extend beyond 8.5 hours a day [with most jobs being between 7.5 hours to 8 hours, and to show this isn't arbitrary, my last job was 9.5 hours a day]. Days off are required under law to be provided for laborers on New Year’s, Spring Festival, International Labor Day (May Day), National Day, and so on. In regards to "high labor exploitation", I'm not sure what you're referring to by this, but China's annual national income rises by 16% every year [largest in the world, so is the 400% annual income rise since the 1980s], all pensions are nationalized, China has the lowest retirement age in the world, workplace safety standards are higher than all Capitalist countries, and more. Where did this narrative arise? Likely from the period during the 1980s to very early 2000s where heavy industrialization occurred, and the introduction of the foreign bourgeoisie began to properly occur, so the famous "sweatshops" [which lasted for an extremely short period, but did exist, and thus you have those Apple suicide net pictures and such] and things arose. Most people have nary a clue on China, and still believe they're something like this, thus coming to the conclusion that they're some dystopian labor farm. I'd also assume that, China challenging the West, while differently from the West being an exporting country, means that people fall under the belief that they're completely squeezing labor to the greatest degree in order to maximize profits.

    2. Internet/Media Censorship

    During the July 5th, 2009 terror attacks in Urumqi (the capital of the Xinjiang Autonomous Region in China), 197 people were killed and ~1700 were wounded. Facebook, Twitter, and Google refused to crack down on misinformation relating to the attacks which could contribute to further violence, and declined to give information relating to the attacks which had been communicated through such services. This prompted the central government to set up a (near-net) ban regarding most areas of mainland China of regular access to these websites via internet blocks. There are two things to note: firstly, it is not illegal to access these websites in China, and license revocations can be circumvented with VPNs which are also not illegal. Secondly, this ban had a dual approach: both to get rid of misinformation contributing to further deaths and to revoke the right of these corporations to profit from their use by Chinese citizens unimpeded (after they had demonstrated that they had no interest in the safety of such people).

    To quote Lenin, “All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake ‘public opinion’ for the benefit of the bourgeoisie. This is a fact. No one will ever be able to refute it… The bourgeoisie (all over the world) is still very much stronger than we are. To place in its hands yet another weapon like freedom of political organization (= freedom of the press, for the press is the core and foundation of political organization) means facilitating the enemy’s task, means helping the class enemy. We have no wish to commit suicide, and therefore, we will not do this. We clearly see this fact: ‘freedom of the press’ means in practice that the international bourgeoisie will immediately buy up hundreds and thousands of Cadet, SocialistRevolutionary and Menshevik writers, and will organize their propaganda and fight against us. That is a fact. ‘They’ are richer than we are and will buy a ‘force’ ten times larger than we have, to fight us. No, we will not do it; we will not help the international bourgeoisie. How could you descend from a class appraisal-from the appraisal of the relations between all classes-to the sentimental, philistine appraisal? This is a mystery to me… Freedom of the press will help the force of the world bourgeoisie. That is a fact, ‘Freedom of the press’ will not help to purge the Communist Party in Russia of a number of its weaknesses… because this is not what the world bourgeoisie wants. But freedom of the press will be a weapon in the hands of this world bourgeoisie.”

    Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich. V. I. Lenin: Collected Works, vol. 32, Progress Publishers, 1965.

    3. Anti-LGBTQ

    We must not look at historical development in a uniform manner; China emerged from feudalism only 70 years ago. I would like to see gay marriage legalized in China as well, but there are other LGBTQ developments that are promising (sources from state media):

    China's first clinic for transgender children and adolescents set up in Shanghai (Global Times)

    Mutual Guardianship (Sixth Tone)

    And CGTN has produced a couple of LGBTQ documentaries you can find online

    4. Uyghur Genocide

    I have a post on this bookmarked in the Sino comm, but I'll quickly add some resources below

    Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation

    Xinjiang Responds (video and written responses from people in Xinjiang)

    State Department Lawyers Concluded Insufficient Evidence to Prove Genocide in China

    Estimations of 1 million detainees (and onwards):

    1. 2018 UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination report authored by the NGO (Network of) Chinese Human Rights Defenders [which has received NED funding]

    The report (which concludes 1.3-2 million detainees) was based on interviews with only 8 Uyghur individuals, then extrapolated to form percent estimates on the population of detainees in the XUAR

    1. Adrian Zenz, member of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

    Adrian Zenz’s deliberate fabrications regarding sterilization statistics [“new IUD”]

    [On “net IUD” (~80% as misleading figure)]

    Xinjiang Police Files (XPF) Debunk

    5. Relations with the RF

    China does not have pro-war relations with Russia, that would mean uniting with them in invading Ukraine which has not happened (China has lobbied for "peace" which you may see as one-sided). Xi and Putin are in good relations because of similar immediate aims and because of Russia's progressive foreign impact mirroring the Ottoman Empire (see Marx's comments on the latter). Russia is not a "good" country, they are not socialist, but strategic allyship should not immediately be thrown out because of this.