I met a white American guy that lives in China over the weekend, he was awesome. No real story about it, yes he said he can speak mandarin and he had the friggin cutest little half Chinese baby with his wife. Shoutout Paul
Literally any country that enforces its laws is “authoritarian”. It doesn’t mean anything.
There’s a reason that George Orwell is studied in middle school. Literally baby’s first politics
Incidentally, Asimov wrote a great review of 1984 basically calling Orwell an emotionally stunted manchild who wrote a tantrum disguised as a novel. Orwell was a guilt ridden rich kid who played hippie in the slums then got his feelings hurt in Spain and spent the rest of his life writing revenge fantasies against Stalin instead of actually trying to understand how the world works.
1984 was just boring and lifeless rant where nothing happens, and the technology is nonsensical like having humans watch every citizen on camera instead of just using computers which even Asimov in the 1980s could see was laughably inefficient. Orwell couldn’t imagine women as anything but brainless sex objects or proles as anything but subhuman animals and he thought ballpoint pens were worse than actual scratching steel nibs. The guy was a technophobic elitist with zero forward vision who projected his personal grudge onto the future and millions of people treat his little hissy fit like prophecy. It’s frankly incredible that his shallow writing became a cultural icon in the west.
Hey, I take offense to that. Steel nibs are great fun to write with.
(the tips gotta be something ultrahard like iridium though)
No, the reason is that his books are anticommunist drivel and projection masquaraded as accessible political theory. They serve to teach you anticommunism and liberalism.
You mean the same Orwell that collaborated with the British government to snitch on communists?
Yeah, no wonder he gets taught in schools. Better to get your political education from works of fiction than reality I suppose.
The US has set the bar pretty low. It would take tremendous effort to look worse than USA under Trump extremist leadership.
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ruler
It’s so cute when you guys pretend to know stuff
I am actually open to being educated, so please - do explain. I am just allergic to condescending half-truths I see in most comments.
What happened at that square?
At the square itself, not much, peaceful demonstrations that were peacefully dispersed.
Outside the square on the other hand there were violent clashes between the military (acting as riot police) and violent rioters.
Thanks for a genuine answer. What was the riot about, and how did it get violent?
I had spoken about this to my Chinese colleagues, and I heard different versions.
What was the riot about,
Many things, but the 2 biggest groups student groups protesting peasants needs being prioritised and hardline gang of four supporters protesting reform and opening up.
how did it get violent?
Hard to pinpoint the exact starting incident but most evidence points to a US backed student group lynching a member of the PLA. You should also listen to the Chai Ling interview where she talks about her groups goal of causing bloodshed and causing a government response before she fled with US intelligence agency help.
Finally, a half-decent meme about something I agree with. Thank you for making a not dogshit meme like half of the communists on this forum lmao
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“If you don’t think every single bad thing the West says about China is true, then you must think it’s flawless!”
seems like the person regurgitating propaganda lines out of context may in fact be the one with the brain rot
Beautiful strawman.
I lived in china for 4 years, got out of the expat bubble, lived in smaller cities and I gotta say, for people that have never been to china or actually been friends with Chinese people, y’all are pretty allergic to any criticism, no matter how legitimate, of china. Maybe take a step back from YOUR OWN biases and be a little objective. There are great things about china. There are bad things about china. No country’s perfect
i’ve also lived in china, well outside of the “expat bubble”
every criticism presented in the post that’s repeated ad nauseam by shitlibs is false and if you’ve actually lived there you’d know it. and fyi, we communists have plenty of actual criticisms but “see see pee 1984 one gorillion uyghurs dead adrian zens said so” isn’t one we lend any credence to because it’s stupid as fuck
Wow, no one can have a well informed opinion that’s different than yours? Well fuck me
Literally nobody here says that China is perfect or that there aren’t bad things about China. The reality is that no human society is perfect, but ones not run by pedo kleptocrats are objectively better than ones that are.
Quite the impressive straw man you’ve built here. At risk of falling into a no true Scotsman, I have never seen anyone on here even approach implying China is perfect simply that criticism should be situated within the proper context of material reality and pushing back on the unfortunate tidlewave of nonsense many people seem to believe is true and valid criticism.
You haven’t been the discourses I have. All my previous comment is based on firsthand experience right here on lemmy.
So’s mine, and my experience says you’re lying about your experience
Imagine someone having a different experience than you. The shock and horror.
Might it have anything to do with your demeanor, disposition, actions and words?
Idk, I’ve been much more civil than you. Probably has to do with the fact my views on china aren’t as rosy as the sinophiles here on lemmy. Usually goes something like this “Idk man, there’s a lot of merit to the claim that there’s aggressive censorship in China. I experienced it firsthand.” And the response will be something like “You’re a brainwashed western chauvinist.”
But I also get it from the other side. Like when it comes to healthcare in China. People call me a liar when I tell them it was fast, cheap, and good.
So I guess I’m a liar to both sides of the china brain rot.
Idk, I’ve been much more civil than you.
Haha, no.
Probably has to do with the fact my views on china aren’t as rosy as the sinophiles here on lemmy.
The classic western liberal thing of pretending that any other westerner who sides with the empire’s enemies must simply be doing it out of some kind of contrarian fetishism or pseudoreligious mania. Whatever the reason you decide, it can’t possibly be that the communist is in his right mind, because that’s a terrifying prospect you have no answer for.
That comment makes me question your other experiences.
Bullshit, bring receipts
I think your previous comment is based on a dream you had one night.
If you say so just doesn’t seem accurate to my experience.
When you believe truth is only dependent on who says it (west=lies, not west=truth) you start believing nonsense like china has not flaws, or events with verifiable footage (1989 TS) are exaggerations/a western lies.
Your strategy of pretending communists merely think west=lies and not west=truth, and of pretending communists believe China has no flaws, is unfortunately a common mischaracterization of communist analysis of China. The truth is that communists have a materialist analysis of China, one that focuses on the class chacter of Chinese society as a socialist state, and that common western allegations against China are simply wrong. Nobody thinks China has literally 0 flaws, just that the average western perception of China is wrong.
How familiar are you with dialectical materialism, and Marxism-Leninism? How familiar are you with socialist theory, history, and practice? The ways we evaluate and understand China are shaped largely by our understanding of these subjects. The fact that communists identify western imperialism as the primary obstacle to socialism globally, and therefore have a heightened sensitivity to western misinformation, does not actually mean we think the west only tells lies while the non-west only tells the truth.
As for Tian’anmen Square, there’s literally no evidence of the western-alleged student massacre of 10,000 on the square. Even Wikipedia now agrees with the official story that it was dispersed peacefully. What communists do not deny and in fact assert is that hundreds died on June 4th, 1989, in areas in Beijing surrounding the square. There’s video and photo evidence of this, not of some massacre on the square.
This is actually an excellent example of western distortions of the truth.
I don’t know those terms tbh because Im just some pleb. i would welcome some simple explanation of it.
Wikipedia asserts “300 to 2700” dead, with the CCP asserted toll (according to wikipedia) being 241. That isn’t a peaceful dispersion, and, while not 10,000 people, is still a massacre.
I just don’t understand how events like this doesn’t substantially taint your image of them, in the same sense the stolen generation policies (for my country, Australia) are massive stains on my countries’ histories that we havent fully contented with.
But trying to relate it to what I my original comment, I worry about denials of mistakes that countries have made, results in failing to see their current mistakes. In particular aswell, seeing what would normally be considered a grave immoraility, to be seen in a much more positive light because its anti western imperialism.
What I am saying aswell, is this also distorts the truth of events or facts, in a similar manner to an average western citizen’s truth because of their aversion to china.
I’ll start off with a brief explanation of Marxism-Leninism, socialism, and communism.
Marxism is an ideological framework centering the Marxist Law of Value (derived from earlier labor theories of value), the philosophy of dialectical materialism, and the application of each to analysis of history and society in the form of scientific socialism. Lenin carried Marx’s critique to the era of imperialism, where bank and industrial capital merged to form monopoly capitalism that exploits the world through export of capital, rather than simple sale of commodities, as well as advancements in organizational theory and the theory of nations. This forms Marxism-Leninism.
Socialism is a mode of production and distribution by which public ownership is the principal aspect of the economy, ie dominant and rising, and the working classes control the state. This is a pre-communist formation. Communism is the global end result of socialism, when all production and distribution has been collectivized, and therefore class, the state, and money become superfluous and die away. Administration and central planning remain.
The Marxist view of economics asserts that private property has a tendency to stitch together production first nationally, and then internationally, creating an interconnected and centralized system. Socialism advances upon this by controlling the direction of production and the distribution of its gains collectively, rather than privately, essentially turning humans into the masters of production, rather than capital, for the benefit of the collective, rather than profits for the few.
For more, see this basic Marxist-Leninist study guide I put together. The first section is really all you need to get a brief overview.
The “300-2700 dead” figure is for the hundreds I said died in the areas surrounding the square, not the square itself. Here’s the Wikipedia section, copied and pasted directly:
Deaths around and in Tiananmen Square itself
Government officials have long asserted that no one died in the square in the early morning hours of 4 June, during the “hold-out” of students’ last batch in the south part of the square. Initially, foreign media reports of a “massacre” on the square were prevalent, though subsequently, journalists have acknowledged that most of the deaths occurred outside of the square in western Beijing. Several people who were situated around the square that night, including former Beijing bureau chief of The Washington Post Jay Mathews[i] and CBS correspondent Richard Roth[j] reported that while they had heard sporadic gunfire, they could not find enough evidence to suggest that a massacre took place on the square.
Student leader Chai Ling claimed in a speech broadcast on Hong Kong television that she witnessed tanks arrive at the square and crush students who were sleeping in their tents, and added that between 200 and 400 students died at the square.[268] Ling was joined by fellow student leader Wu’er Kaixi who said he had witnessed 200 students being cut down by gunfire; however, according to Mathews, it was later proven that he had already left the square several hours before the events he claimed to have happened.[211] Taiwan-born Hou Dejian was present in the square to show solidarity with the students and said that he did not see any massacre occurring in the square. He was quoted by Xiaoping Li, a former China dissident to have stated: “Some people said 200 died in the square, and others claimed that as many as 2,000 died. There were also stories of tanks running over students who were trying to leave. I have to say I did not see any of that. I was in the square until 6:30 in the morning.”[269]
In 2009, human rights activist Robin Munro, stated that he was present during the clearance of Tiananmen Square and that, according to his account, there were ten Western reporters near the Monument to the People’s Heroes at the time. He also reported a Spanish television crew that recorded footage of the event. Munro disputed Wu’er Kaixi’s claims of mass killings inside the square, stating that he did not witness fighting there and instead observed students peacefully complying with the soldiers’ demands to leave the square in an orderly manner. He further noted that the Spanish TV crew reported not seeing killings within the square during the final clearance.[270][271]
In 2011, three secret cables from the United States embassy in Beijing from the time of the events were leaked and published by WikiLeaks, all of which stated that there was no bloodshed inside Tiananmen Square itself.[194] Instead, they said Chinese soldiers opened fire on protesters in Beijing outside the square, around Muxidi station, as they fought their way from the west towards the centre.[194] A Chilean diplomat who had been positioned next to a Red Cross station inside the square told his US counterparts that he did not observe any mass firing of weapons into the crowds in the square itself, although sporadic gunfire was heard. He said that most of the troops who entered the square were armed only with anti-riot gear.[194][216]
The west makes the claim that thousands were killed directly in the square, the peaceful protestors massacred. What actually happened is that rioters that were lynching PLA members engaged the PLA in surrounding areas, leading to hundreds of deaths of rioters and dozens of PLA members killed. There was no “Tian’anmen Square Massacre,” there were many riots outside of Tian’anmen Square that were violently suppressed. The west presents a fictionalized, dramatized account of tanks rolling over innocent students that simply never happened.
As for how it changes how I view China, it’s a deep tragedy. When Communists begin to analyze the June 4th incident, as it’s referred to in China, we begin with the class background. What caused the protests? It was largely sparked by 2 main groups: urban students upset that the peasantry was being prioritized in development by economic reforms made by Deng Xiaoping, and by those supportive of the economic line of the Gang of Four, who wanted a more dogmatically planned economy.
Within this was the deliberate influence of the CIA, who made contact with the leaders of the student protests. The students largely hated the workers that were protesting, and wanted liberalization. The workers were upset that the reforms increased marketization. They were not unified, and eventually the workers left, leaving the students. The student leaders then admitted to wanting the state to crush the protests violently, so as to turn the people against the socialist system.
In this context, it was a clear color revolt attempt, with far more blood shed than there would have been without the west’s involvement. It was good that the socialist state remained, considering the immense gains made by socialism, and it was good that the CIA did not succeed in overturning socialism. It was tragic that hundreds lost their lives. See Another View of Tian’anmen by Sun Feiyang for more.
What gets ignored by western media is that Taiwan had their own massacre. The Kuomintang murdered 10,000+ native people upon taking over Taiwan in an event called the White Terror. The Republic of Korea also murdered thousands in many massacres, such as the 1979 Gwangju Massacre against a pro-democracy movement protesting the South Korean dictatorship under Chun Do-Hwan. These events eclipse 1989 in scale, but are virtually unknown in the west due to being geopolitical allies.
This is what we communists are pointing out. We begin with class analysis, analyze the causes and effects historically from a materialist basis, and go from there. We point out the double-standards and seek truth from facts.
Hope that made sense!
Thanks for the write up. I’ll have a look at the sources you sent
No worries! Feel free to ask any questions you may have. I’ll answer to the best of my abilities.
Events with verifiable footage such as TS where the footage is conveniently cut off right before the man in front of the tank is safely escorted away if you look at the full footage.
Also, Tiananmen Square is in the background of said footage. The tank is actively driving away from it, but who needs context when the goal is to demonize China?
Can you share this footage?
My app doesn’t allow that, but I’m sure you can find it on Youtube if you type “tank man full footage” with people in the comments completely talking out of their asses about how the tank man is so brave for resisting the Chinese government when in fact the tanks were driving away from the square and also didn’t run him over which is often implied.
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Would technically also, and indeed commonly go the other direction, but please .ml, stop navigating the world based soley on whether the west supports/is against something
please .ml, stop navigating the world based soley on whether the west supports/is against something
Yeah that’s not what we’re doing; it’s what you imagine we’re doing.
Name one major western critic of china you agree with.
I’ll name a critic of the US: the cuba embargo for the past 70 has been a major disaster, and any deaths from economic collapse isnt due to cuba’s socialism, it is instead because of the US.
Do that, I’ll be far more willing to believe you.
China’s support of the Khmer Rouge was shameful.
Name one major western criticism of China you don’t agree with.
I think they aren’t the aggressor in the China/USA relationship. The US is in their “backyard” and has clearly surrounded them, and China is naturally nervous about it
That’s all well and good, but it raises the question: if you think the US is the aggressor, why do you believe their accusations against China?
It depends on the evidence for the accusation just like anything else. I admit, for most accusations I don’t have time so just move on. For more serious accusations, I would think about it more whether its true.
Sometimes the US makes shit up, sometimes it doesn’t. Same with China. I just have to take the time to determine if the evidence is sound, at least in principle.
(This is more of a train of thought, and is not intended to roast or provoke a response)
When you consider who the aggressor is, and then consider that the aggressor has spent a century building the most enormous and sophisticated propaganda machine in human history, you can begin to see why, for someone born into that machine like you or me, who get virtually no real information about these Designated Enemy countries, someone supporting them might just look like someone supporting “the bad guys” for no understandable reason. Of course our media isn’t going to show us any reason why anyone would support China, because they want us to support the Epstein Empire instead.
So for those of us who grew up in that bubble, supporting The Enemy is just made to look like some kind of insanity, like “oh these poor people just snapped out of hatred for capitalism, and now they support something even worse.” Of course, in reality there is nothing worse than what our countries (i am assuming you’re western here) are doing and have done. The standard liberal outlook on other countries is that we have good or at least understandable reasons to do the horrible things we do, but our exes, all those countries we’ve exploited and invaded? Don’t talk to them, they’re crazy. Don’t even listen to anyone who likes them, they’re crazy and liars and paid and we may be bad but everyone else is worse, trust me.
oh these poor people just snapped out of hatred for capitalism
This is like the silly rationalization some religious people have for atheists, that we’re just angry at god.
