I got the chance to attend a lecture by Kissinger about 10ish years ago, also read his book On China (think I still have the copy at home? will have to check). Very smart guy, was interesting to hear his perspective on the whole China debate. I was taking history classes on China at the time and we had just hit the Nixon era, so it was great to hear from the guy who helped build the history. I agree at the time it seemed a great decision, considering it was all about isolating the allies of the Soviet Union and such. Long term it would be fantastic to have them as allies, but is the cost of ignoring the CCPs fragrant authoritarianism and human rights violations? They have no incentive to give their people democracy or "rights," the day they start doing that is the day they start the downward spiral to losing power.
Hypothetically, if I was a very powerful political figure in United States like a 21st century Kissinger and hypothetically if I was a pure Machiavellian that was completely concerned with the best outcome for the United States and had zero concern for human rights, I would still not to work with the CCP. The CCP does reward their friends for their support. The CCP still traffics kidnapped women from Pakistan and South Korea. The CCP steals military secrets from Russia. The CCP confiscated Jackie Chan's Chinese mansion even after he played defense for them publicly. A few corrupt corporate individuals got big fat bribe money but a lot of them were put over a barrel with blackmail. Corporations that overlook the CCP's human right's abuse still have their IP stolen and risk having their Chinese assets "nationalized." Disney lost a lot of money working with slavers to make Mulan. The Belt and Road Initiative is little better than theft of natural resources because none of the jobs they promise to create go to people who are not Chinese. If you are going to metaphorically sell your soul, at least make sure you get a good price for it! Other authoritarians at least know to be nice to their supporters and allies. They are really big on "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further." Indeed, many prominent CCP officials are recorded in either audio, video, or writing stating that based on their observations of the fall of the Soviet Union, they believe the second they start making concessions or softening their stance is the second they sealed the party's death warrant. The Hong Kong protests started with very simple requests, but the CCP would not give them an inch. They don't even bother to hide their iron fist in a velvet glove. Not really. Though when the CCP sponsored media outlooks talk about "international cooperation" that is sort of a very feeble velvet glove. Their version of cooperation is "you give us whatever we ask for when we ask for."
I've been reading and videoing a lot of Ancient Roman history. There was a prominent Roman senator who made frequent speeches about Carthage was a threat that should be eliminated. Even if he was giving a speech on something completely unrelated he ended every speech with Ceterum autem censeo Carthaginem esse delendam ("Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed"). It's certainly debateable that the destruction of Carthage was necessary but I like his style. I would love to see a modern politician in a legislative body end every speech with "Furthermore, the CCP is systematically harvesting human organs from prisoners of conscience and we haven't even censured them." It says something that the massive use of slave labor is NOT the worst thing the CCP is doing and the Western world's response is still lackluster. At least politicians are kinda sort of trying to stop this.
Carthage had a Temple to Moloch (aka Molech in Canaan/Levant). For that alone, Carthage deserved to be ended. Rome later had the Colosseum and wound up little better.
I am pretty sure that is not why Senator Cato said this. He thought Carthage was a military and/or economic threat to Rome. But then again, I have lowered my expectations so much that I no longer object when politicians do the right thing for the wrong reasons and I have no tolerance for politicians who do the wrong thing for the right reasons. That won't bring the dead soldiers back you sent on a fool's errand.
Article blew my mind: Australia publishes report of war crimes committed by it’s armed forces China foreign minister tweets photoshopped image of Australian soldier and a dead civilian draped in an Australian flag Australian minister demands apology from China China rejects call for apology, numerous agencies to include the Global Times (mouthpiece of the party) say it is shameful the Australians asked and they are overreacting I hope the Australians throw Hong Kong, Uyghur concentration camps, COVID-19, and organ harvesting back in their faces.
we have become too soft in our diplomatic relationships. Diplomacy is, by definition, diplomatic... but politeness must not be mistaken with weakness, moreso because too often politeness IS a simptom of weakness. We should realize that we cannot afford a certain kind of approach when dealing with CCP, because they are not going to modify their behavior. Even Tau learned that you cannot deal with orks.
Australia's politicians have been CCP apologists for years, but they have seen the light, they have outed a lot of politicians that were on the CCP's payroll, and have been loudly calling out the CCPs misdeeds for some time. The CCP has been using this technique all the time. They like to broadcast the misdeeds of the United States. "I can't breathe" was a popular phrase on Chinese social media for a while. Essentially to their own people, the CCP wants to say "We are good, the West is bad." The CCP knows this message won't fly in the West, so they have aimed for "The West needs to fix it's own problems before they should start looking at our problems" or "Everyone is doing bad stuff, there is nothing that can be done about this, so get off our back." Moral relativism I guess. When my friends and I were discussing politics (danger zone) and one friend said "with all the US racial and class issues we are just as bad as them." I lost my temper. We are not on the same moral level as the CCP. The United States and the West in general has many problems but we are trying to fix them. We have a free press, so people are able to discuss the issues and possible solutions publicly. The CCP does not even acknowledge that they have done wrong. They do not allow discussion and violently silence those who bring up what should be changed in Chinese society. Anyone who has been to China will tell you that their police is as least racially biased as US police and I'm pretty sure the United States has not murdered thousands of minority populations in order to harvest their organs and sell them.
I partially agree with him or her. Historically, the US' effort in disenfranchising blacks were largely in the interests of maintaining White supremacy (much alike what the CCP is doing now in their attempts in creating their ethnostate). And these efforts went far beyond slavery, with racist policies inspiring the likes of the Nazis. Here's an article listing various influences US geography and history had on Hitler. I mean... we are also kind of guilty of this as well? Trump and many other republicans have openly advocated for a militarized response to the BLM protests. In fact, we were already militarized in our response any way: Journalists have also been attacked by US police idk if this is a joke to highlight that China's police is very racially biased, but there's plenty of evidence to support the notion that police in the US is. And i downright agree! But no, in all seriousness, there's nothing preventing the U.S. government from addressing both of these problems. And the CCP has unfavorable views almost everywhere in the west.
The sobering testimony of a British journalist and freelance fraud investigator detained for 700 days on trumped up charges. I know not everyone wants to sit through a one hour video. I wrote and deleted several summation. I just cannot summarize his experiences and do it justice. He talks kind of slow, you can speed up the play rate.
@Paradoxical Pacifism brought up valid criticisms of actions sponsored by people in the US government both historically and recently. I believe in in terms of scale, even the worst leaders United States does not inflict the level of suffering that the CCP does. But beyond quantitative suffering there is a qualitative difference. Here's an old joke from the 1980s. [T]his was an argument in which the American, trying to prove how great this country is, said, "Look, I can walk into the President's Oval Office. I can pound the desk and say, `Mr. President, I don't like the way you're running our country.'' And the Russian said, "I can do that.'' He said, "You can?'' He said, "Yes. I can walk into the Kremlin to the General Secretary's office. I can pound on his desk and say, `Mr. General Secretary, I don't like the way President Reagan's running his country.'' In the United States we can talk about the evil things people in power are doing but people cannot do this in China (and many other places). Two wrongs don't make a right. And a past wrong is not as bad as a current wrong. I have been aware of the evils that Americans have perpetrated since I was eight years old. I created this thread to raise awareness of the evils perpetrated by the CCP. You are welcome to talk about the social problems the United States is dealing with here on L-O but is probably best in it's own thread. The Jim Crow laws have been abolished decades ago. There is a lasting legacy but we are at least trying make things better. The China is doing this right now. African migrants in China have huge limits on where they can rent shelter or where they can shop. The CCP is pushing the supremacy of the Han ethnic group right now. Tibetans, Mongolians, Uighers are all facing systematic discrimination for where they can work, shop, or live. Not to mention arbitrary detentions, attempts to overwrite their culture. Not to mention the reproductive genocide with forced abortions, sterilization or human trafficking of minority groups. Also minorities are literally enslaved right now, whereas the United States abolished slavery 150 years ago. Everyone I know who has been through public school in the United States has watched Roots and talked about the many things involved. No one is disputing that the United States has a dark history with race relations. Not you, PP, but I have seen media figures and ordinary people wave other CCP human rights abuses but REALLY make a lot of noise about much smaller abuses in the West. That's hypocritical. The CCP's propaganda arm has been employing the same general strategy since the 1990s whenever people shine on a light on their human rights. "Well, you guys are racist! So get off our backs!" They know that "racism" is a magic word in the United States. Any accusation of racism immediately forces someone on the defensive. I'm not saying we shouldn't try to make race relations in the West better, but I don't think a discussion on the CCP is the best time or place to bring it up.
I'm not brining up the multitude of problems that have faced the U.S. historically and are now facing it in the present day to defend China, but to highlight that the 'west' isn't as ideologically pure as this thread or China Uncensored seems to think it is. Most of these issues that the CCP is displaying such as authoritarianism, fascism, and massive minority discrimination aren't just isolated events that are impacting only China, but have been historically significant in the west as well and are still issues to watch out for, especially in America. It kind of bugs me that people who mainly talk about the CCP don't point this out. I haven't made that point clear, so i'm sorry. However, the only time I'll probably defend the CCP is in regards to the coronavirus. For the simple fact that those in power such as Trump are blaming them for it (while seeming doing everything he could to worsen the effects of the pandemic for Americans). China could've done anything, and most countries would still have to deal with the pandemic due to how interconnected the world is. Depends if you look at the present or at history. I know that history isn't as important as what is happening now. imo, however, the effects of past events don't just magically dissipate. They still linger, and they can partially explain why the world is the way it is. With that in mind, the Iraqi war in 2003 caused anywhere from 151k casualties to 601k casualties depending on the survey you use. Most of which being Iraqi civilians. (though i'll note that most politicians in the U.S. agree that the war was a terrible idea). In general, US foregin policy in the middle east has massively destabilized the region in the last century. The overthrow of democratic governments in Latin America massively deteriorated the countries involved. These overthrows soon followed suit with mass executions, mass imprisonments, and the destruction of democratic institutions. Hell, we've even engaged in state terror in the aforementioned countries. But even then, we in the U.S. and in other western countries have the freedom to criticize our governments and i'm thankful for that (though we shouldn't take this for granted). So you're right that we aren't as bad as the CCP. But I believe that the margin is somewhat slim.
I agree with you. I believe the Iraq War is the biggest mistake made by a president in the last 50 years. I'm not sure if it's worse than the Vietnam War or if it's worse than FDR interning Japanese Americans, but it's pretty bad. The worst act a president did by inaction in modern times, in my opinion in Bill Clinton ignoring the Rawandan genocide. But I cannot blame someone for inaction as much as action and in truth, if one American died in Rawanda it would have been a PR disaster for Clinton. He got a lot of flak for Kosovo and zero Americans died there. FDR made some major mistakes but he did a lot of good things too. And the blame for the Vietnam War can be spread among many different presidents. Therefore I nominate George W. Bush the worst American president of modern times. The Iraq War wasted American lives, Iraqi lives, billions of dollars, weakened our reputation, and created new enemies while also drawing resources away from the search for Bin Ladin and Bush pushed tax cuts in the middle of war, something that has never happened in history as far as I know which is crazy. No president has failed at everything the way that Bush did. Militarily, morally, economically, and politically. Usually presidents only mess up two of those four things. I nominate Woodrow Wilson and Andrew Jackson as the worst presidents of their times. Among many many moral failings and tactical blunders, Woodrow Wilson is basically the president who invented the idea of America interfering in the developing world and he was the first president to interfere militarily in South America, at least in the sense that we did through the Cold War and into the present. Though I guess Teddy Roosevelt did some poked his nose in Cuba and Panama, my understanding at least at the time most of the populace of Cuba and Panama viewed the Americans as friends and liberators. I believe the margin is wide, but we can agree to disagree here. because we seem to agree on core values at the very least. If historical atrocities do not magically dissipate, then the US is still a wide margin ahead of the CCP given that Mao Zedong may have killed more people than Joseph Stalin and both Mao and Stalin killed more people than Adolf Hitler, who is the icon for evil in the 20th century. Besides the loss of human life, Mao's insane policies did irreparable damage to China's cultural history and their natural ecosystems.
I could probably go on and on for pages about the historical atrocities the United States either committed or supported that while not racking up a similar body count as the ones the likes of Hitler and Mao committed, still have a very profound affect on the world. But i'll not since we do agree on the core issues and that'll probably be more fitting for another thread. And whether or not one country is more ethically sound than another doesn't interest me (i'm very nihilist on this). But Again, it kind of annoys me that most of the discourse on the CCP seems to be largely one-sided. Not that i'm advocating for one side to support the CCP, but rather I don't like that most of it is largely rooted in American nationalism. It doesn't address the issues that motivate the CCP to commit these present-day atrocities. And even if the discourse does so, it wouldn't really matter. Most of China's economical gains from dealing with the U.S. doesn't come from the public, but from corporations investing into the Chinese market and trade.
They bring up the motivations all the time. The CCP states that due to the exploitation and hardship that the West inflicted on China during the Opium wars and the periods leading up to that and due to how China suffered at the hands of the Japanese in WWII (and how the United States unfairly didn't hold Japan to task for this) that China is justified in doing anything to even the scales. The CCP justifies their actions by perpetually claiming China is the victim. That's also why they talk about how the actions of insert Western nation or media company here "deeply offended the Chinese people" by spreading lies about insert human rights attrocity here. Also they like to justify their territorial ambitions with "______ was part of China in ancient times" never mind that A) Mao tried to erase the legacy of Ancient China and B) Ancient China was far smaller than modern China.
I meant the reasons/motivations i've stated earlier that are behind CCP's atrocities such as authoritarianism, fascism (or the propensity to enact fascist policies such as the Uyghur concentration camps), and harsh discrimination towards minorities. I haven't included nationalism, but that is also another significant motivator behind many of CCP's issues. I'm probably wrong, but i haven't seen most discuss these topics that are also relevant in western countries when it comes to the CCP.
My new favorite Australian He's done more good in his early twenties than most people do their whole lives.
Write your Congressman, Senators, or MPs. Anyone from any country who is involved in CCP organ harvesting, even peripherally must be harshly sanctioned or punished. Emailing your elected officials is good but most politicians have an old school mentality are more likely to take snail mail seriously than emails. Send