A lot of places, even western media censor any unflattering news of the Chinese Communist Party. Sometimes because the CCP threatens the media source's ad revenue (doesn't apply to L-O). Sometimes because it creates arguments with user communities. I feel strongly about raising awareness of important issues like this, so I am doing this with the permission the Red Devil, long may he ribbit. The forum rules for civility apply here. Jokes are fine, but trolls and personal attacks are not. I will also that this caveat for this thread. The human rights abuse, blatant corruption and mishandling of the virus outbreak are laid at the feet of the Chinese Communist Party. Not the Chinese people. The Chinese people are as much victims of the CCP as are the rest of the world is. It is possible to talk about Chinese culture on this thread, that's relevant. But note that the Chinese people do not control the Chinese government. The CCP does not represent Chinese culture, they are an aberration of it. The cultural revolution got rid of the "Four Olds", old customs, old culture, old habits, old ideas. The CCP destroyed untold numbers of Ancient Chinese artifacts and practices. As far as I'm aware, Chinese culture is based on the island of Taiwan. Semantics are important. I don't want people to say China did this, China did that. The CCP did this and that. The CCP knows how Western media works. Despite having some of the most racist policies of the 21st century, the CCP loves to conflate all attacks against them as attacks against the Chinese people. Therefore anything that attacks the Chinese people without specifying the CCP will not be tolerated. Everyone is concerned with the CCP virus epidemic but we cannot forget that the CCP hasn't stopped their human rights abuses.
This is a very commendable endeavour. I cannot stress how much I agree with this and how true it is. Chinese and Japanese culture, if studied, is one of the most peaceful and humanitarian on the planet. Unfortunately, such honorable values and religious peace messages are inevitably attacked by those who do not wish for peace. There is one quote that I feel is very applicable, which I heard from a German speaker: "People often forget that the first victims of the Nazi's were the German people themselves." The simile of Nazi Germany is very applicable to the situation in China, I feel. If I hear of any specifics or reporters doing something about this I will definitely post.
Here's a six year old video, but it's not like Falun Gang has been getting oppressed less in the last six years. Falun Gang very much embodies much of the best traits of traditional Chinese culture and it's a threat to the CCP. Truth, compassion and tolerance are the three main principles, and it just so happens that truth, compassion, and tolerance are diametrically opposed to the CCP. Less violent is the CCPs attempts to squash the Shen Yun show. What's impressive about this is that the CCP is managing to hinder this show within other sovereign nations.
If you discount the ritual suicides, beheadings and disembowellings that the Samurai practiced upon each other and themselves... But yes, I agree that the threat of the Chinese Government is getting more and more powerful, and the thing is, it will not stop unless the West does something concrete about it. As sad as it may be to have to resort to another war, I can only see that as being the one way to stop the CCP once and for all, if all the Western countries and as many allies as possible club up and pool their resources. In addition to the corruption, brutality and oppression you’ve mentioned, it’s been said that the Chinese are behind much of the poaching of animals still going on, for their savage ‘traditional’ medicines that don’t even work and other sad money-making schemes - though the dirty work is done by Africans and others, I wouldn’t be surprised if the operations were being funded by big Chinese magnates. While these wretches are still active, there will always be weak fools who will seize the opportunity to murder animals in return for some of their cash, whereas if they can be assassinated, exposed or apprehended, the head should be cut off the snake and the trades will die, as there will no longer be anyone supplying the big money. Again, the West should actively do something about this, as the CCP aren’t going to listen to protests and complaints. This point in time is especially crucial, as the CCP are eyeing Taiwan, which is an ally of America, as a ripe target for conquest. If it goes ahead, it’ll be another ‘Britain and Poland’ issue - what will Donald ‘Biff Tannen’ Trump do? If he decides to help them out, a war between them (and possibly the rest of NATO) could almost certainly kick-start. If, on the other hand, he abandons them, America’s credibility as an ally and their reputation as being ‘saviours of the world’ will go up in smoke.
I think it was Mao (or maybe someone under him) who once said the Soviet Union of today is China fifty years from now. The CCP watched the fall of the Soviet Union very closely. Before the Soviet Union collapsed, the Soviet state made a lot of concessions to protestors and foreign powers. Most of these concessions were trivial and symbolic only, but the CCP believed that since B followed A, then A likely caused B. In this case A is the Soviet Union compromising and B is the government collapsed. That's why the CCP never gives an inch on anything. They believe that the moment they do, that will be an admission of weakness. They haven't backed down on their laughable claims in the South China Sea. They haven't backed down on their border dispute with India. Note that one of the CCP's few international friends is Pakistan. Pakistan seems to have the foreign policy that they will support ANYTHING that inconveniences or harms India. That's why they are relentless at keeping Taiwan isolated. It's why they doubled down on Hong Kong oppression rather than giving even the tiniest concessions. (too many videos to choose from). And they don't buckle when their human rights abuses are exposed. (too many videos to choose from). Gaslighting is popular. So is "Well you're doing it too!" Right now, the PLA navy is not very good. Amphibious assaults are hard to do. If the PLA invades Taiwan right now, it's possible that Taiwan could defend their shores without the United State's involvement just with the weapons they have right now. Japan can definitely defend themselves by themselves. (note this video is from 2017 when CCP and the Japan had their best relations, but the point of Japan having a scary military stands). Japan's defense force is funded by a very small percentage of Japan's GDP but Japan has a lot of GDP. Also, the Japanese military is relatively free of corruption and inefficiency relative to almost every military on Earth. However, the CCP is putting a lot of resources into expanding their navy. They are clearly hoping to change their naval power issues. They tend to think long term. If the PLA goes to full war, it probably be after 2024, so Trump definitely won't be involved. Unless India attacks China first, then we might actually see a real war before 2024. Not likely, but possible. I've watched some Indian news videos and there is clearly a hawkish element within Indian society. I don't know enough about Indian politics to know how much influence the hawks have but they make a lot of noise on Youtube. About 20 Indian soldiers died in the last skirmish. The CCP has not released their casualty numbers. The only reason they would not release their numbers is because they lost more soldiers. The CCP and India had a real (but short) war decades ago and the PLA lost almost two soldiers for everyone the Indians lost. I suppose it's also possible that the CCP could accidentally start a war. When CCP leaders face internal dissent they often use the military to make a show of strength and Winnie the Pooh may push too far. If no fires a nuclear weapon, a hypothetical war between the United States and the PLA would be pretty short. The best way to avoid war. The only way to avoid war now is to financially starve the CCP. If everyone cuts off business with CCP tied companies (most Chinese companies in other words), the CCP will not have the fuel to keep their oppression going. This is kind of happening already. Hong Kong was the economic powerhouse of China. Hong Kong does not have much in terms of natural resources. They became prosperous because they were allowed freedom, at least economic freedom and that leads to wealth generation. Also, CCP leaders were able to use Hong Kong as an intermediary to launder money onverseas, now that's a lot harder. The CCP cannot really grow their domestic economy. They are not competent enough to manage that and that was before unprecedented natural disasters devastated numerous provinces. Their agriculture industry was in decline BEFORE the natural disasters. And their construction industry is plagued by incompetence and graft. When the same company that builds the project is the same company that performs the inspection, they will ALWAYS pass inspection. They eat the mahrlect sparrows!
Why I think the United States and the rest of the world needs to be strong in the face of CCP bullying. Also the One Child Policy has an unintended side effect (besides the demographic winter and the imbalance between males and females). Before Chinese culture was known to proscribe to tough love when raising their kids. That was when they had large broods of kids. Now that couples are limited to one child, the child gets all the parental care and attention from the extended family. This has caused what they call Little Emperors. In other words, spoiled brats. There was some documentation leaked that military officials are upset that now that the Little Emperors are reaching young adulthood, Little Emperors make bad soldiers because they are soft and whiny.
That’s because Pakistan is the separatist Muslim part of India. Under British rule both Islam and Hinduism lived alongside each other quite happily, but as soon as India gained independence and the Muslims in India wanted a separate Muslim state, there were a load of riots as Hindus tried to get back into India and Muslims tried to get to Pakistan, and they’ve disliked each other ever since. Their rivalry is akin to those between Scotland and the UK, Catalonia and Spain and Quebec and Canada. What if Trump gets back in though? Because if Biden gets in Taiwan will most likely be on their own as he’s a spineless left-wing advocate. That’s a good idea - China as a superpower was a monster created by the West, when the West outsourced all its manufacturing there and gave it a free Industrial Revolution. If our businesses could just think about anything other than their own pockets for even a moment, we could essentially ‘take the batteries’ out of China and, as you say, starve them into submission. Of course, that requires our businesses to relax the Ferengi principles they’ve been using for centuries, and they’re not going to like that. Certainly in the case of evils like Amazon they could be too powerful to listen to such advice and won’t comply, which will then make the current issue doubly the West’s fault for allowing our businesses to become so strong without proper restraints. As a Briton, I’m pretty miffed that my own country can’t do a thing about any of this because its stupid government always decides to behave like Bajorans and do practically nothing to expand its military. None of the occupants of the House of Commons have played RTS games, obviously, because one rule I’ve learned from that is if you want to survive, you have to build your army first and your civilisation later, because if you don’t there will always be some git with an army more powerful than yours who will come along and stomp you for it. We’ve been lucky so far, but we need to show some guts and do more to expand our own armed forces and rely less upon Biff Tannen to be our bodyguard. Something of interest which has come up is the idea of CANZUK, a cooperative alliance between Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the four biggest Western powers in the Commonwealth, now that we’ve told the EU to This would not only allow all four countries to pool its resources, military and intelligence and allow population movement between the four, but would also establish a ‘third pillar’ of the West alongside the EU and America to strengthen us against the threats of China and Russia. I’d certainly be up for this, as it’s a way to make each of the four countries stronger and avoid entering a messy political alliance like the EU. Funnily enough, I’m an only child, and I would say I’m certainly not a spoiled brat. I was always encouraged to save my money for things I would treasure forever, I always look after my possessions and I’ve learned the value of helping my family around the house and garden, principally because my parents actually disciplined me and taught me what was right and wrong during my upbringing. Most of the time, the reason children become spoiled brats is not necessarily their fault, it’s the fault of the parents and family for not disciplining them when they should be, because the child doesn’t learn that being a spoiled brat is wrong - this is a major flaw of the modern parenting philosophy in many countries, including the UK and the USA, because the parents either are too lazy to get off their arses and play with and guide their children or are too afraid to implement discipline for fear of upsetting the child for a short time (my own parents are older parents who grew up in the 60s and 70s, so continued to uphold the values of those times, and I will also uphold those values when I eventually have offspring of my own because it is the right thing to do for the greater good of the child). Schools are the same - I was bullied by someone or other during the majority of my school life, yet that could have been different had the teachers implemented some suitable discipline to show the perpetrators how to behave. In the case of China, however, that is probably the one instance where this pathetic modernist philosophy will actually do some good for the rest of the world.
I'm aware of why Pakistan has bad blood with India. I just am flabbergasted that the bad blood lasted this long without simmering down even a little bit. I didn't say spoiled children are destined to be spoiled brats. I'm an only child myself and I don't think I was a spoiled brat. I'm not even saying all of China's children are spoiled brats. "Little emperors" is a slang turn that showed up in China that older Chinese use to complain about the younger generation and foreign visitors have collaborated this. No one says every child is a little emperor, but you get a group of children you are guaranteed to have at least one.
I’m not, given that the following reasons apply: Rivalries between countries have lasted longer than that (England VS Scotland as an example) Where in the Middle Ages Islam was a religion that was advanced beyond Christianity’s wildest dreams, nowadays it seems to have become the other way around, in that where Christianity has advanced to seen the error of its ways of burning people at the stake and launching holy wars of extermination, Islam in general has reverted to being a vengeance-driven faith intolerant of other viewpoints (I’m not saying all Muslims are like this, I have had Muslim friends in the past who were OK, but in the case of governments of Muslim countries this often applies). I wasn’t implying any of that at all, I was just sticking up for those only children who aren’t spoiled brats like you and I.
Well I am pretty sure the CCP already has my internet search history (I have watched a lot of China Uncensored too) and have been marked on their books as a heretic. I do love China and Chinese culture. I have taken a few history courses on China in college, and between those and Japanese history they were the best history courses I have ever taken. Growing up learning Western European History really doesn't do justice to a whole world's worth of history on the other side of the globe. I particularily loved the intrique surrounding the Warlords Era at the end of the Qing Dynasty, rise of the Kuomintang, and the subsequent WWII/War with Japan/Rise of the CCP (incidentally this would make an excellent setting for an Assassins Creed game). I understand a bit where the CCP is coming from; they want to maintain power and have learned the mistakes from the fail of the USSR, and will continue to be as repressive as possible to maintain power. They haven't forgotten the opium wars (the only reason Hong Kong doesn't belong to them right now) and see their reacquisition of the city as inevitable and fixing a mistake (and a great failure) of the past. Knowing this doesn't diminish my feelings for the people of Hong Kong however, and it is terrible how they have suffered at the hands of their own government, and soon to be the CCP, so far. COVID certainly hasn't helped their cause. I do hope I can visit China someday. Obviously the Great Wall and Bejing would be great to see, but so would hundreds of sites within the country, many which are difficult for foreigners to reach. Maybe someday
I dare you to find a culture that survived longer than a hundred years without doing something despicable! We shouldn't throw out the good because there was also bad things. This applies to philosophers. Just because a famous philosopher said or did one awful thing doesn't mean all their work is crap. Rousseau though. I hereby throw out everything he wrote because he was a dick. Rousseau is best known for his notion that people are inherently good, but government ultimately corrupts all it's citizens. Sort of the opposite of Thomas Hobbes who believed that without government life would "nasty, brutish and short" and only the threat of government power lets peaceful society function. But Rousseau was the world's worst father forcing his children into an orphanage for philosophical reasons. It's not hard to find philosophers who were bad husbands and fathers though. Muslim majority countries are very common. Muslims make up roughly a fifth of the world and will probably overtake Christianity in our lifetime. Lots of Muslim countries are pretty peaceful and lots of Muslim countries with religious inspired laws manage to not be vengeance driven. I don't like to paint all Muslims with the brush. That's like blaming all Christians for the Crusades and all Christianity inspired deaths. I believe more people have been killed in the name of Christianity than Islam, but Islam is closing the gap. Both religions got beat out by the dark horse candidate in the 20th century, Atheism. Between Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot alone have let atheists lead the lead the pack. Maybe Hitler. In his autobiography he expressed contempt for the very idea of religion. I don't know if that qualifies him as atheist. That's a side topic I guess. I don't want to paint all atheists by the brush of the worst members either. So nice, I wish I could like it twice. With how large video game companies have been bending the knee to the CCP, I highly doubt we'll see anything like that. They've been riding the Opium Wars thing for too long. Hey CCP, got any recent attrocities against China to report on?...that aren't caused by you. The way I see it, Taiwan is the true holder of China's ancient legacy and it's relative easy to visit, you know barring the CCP. Taiwan knew what was going on with Covid before anyone else because they watch the CCP like a hawk. I actually met some Hong Kong natives yesterday! They were long time friends of my aunt. They immigrated to the United States 40+ years ago they didn't have much recent insight though. They said their parents and grandparents and great grand parents kind of a had a tradition of the young men going abroad throughout China to work (most commonly Hong Kong) and sending the money home to the women and older men who bought property and managed the properties for passive income gradually making the family stronger ever generation. When Mao took over, the CCP seized all their property. They came to the US with very little money left, worked in Chinese restaurants, worked and saved long enough to buy and run a restaurant, retired, and raised three kids who have all gone on to high end tech careers as American citizens. As far as I can tell, any country should be thrilled to welcome Hong Kongers into their lands! Also, the CCP is now flooding the United States with opiates. Two wrongs make a right of course. Also, the CCP have a big dam problem they need to address. What the whole dam video for some dam good analysis.
All these China Uncensored Videos and you don't cover the real news. Vox is actually more concise than Chris Chappel and less jealousy towards pandas. I cannot really fault Chris for being jealous of pandas though.
Perhaps I overuse China Uncensored, it is my favorite news source. I hope the rest of the world follows Japan's lead and we can break the CCP monopoly on rare Earth metals. Rare earth metals are arguably the CCP's best economic weapon now that cheap manufacturing has moved to southeast Asia and is slowly creeping it's way into Africa.
China in Focus is a good source of CCP news. The downside is that it doesn't go deep into any single issues but it does touch on many issues each broadcast. I would suggest interested parties subscribe to them.
From what i've heard, it was the local government of Wuhan that covered up the early sightings of the coronavirus, not the national government. I don't think the CCP would've gained anything from intentionally letting the coronavirus ravage the world since China, like most other countries, rely on international trade. The virus ravaged their economy.
Possibly. I will note that local government heads have a maximum number of suicides, industrial accident deaths, and traffic accident deaths they are allowed to report. Essentially they are rewarded for sweeping bad news under the rug and punished for letting bad news out. Maybe in this case, the national party would prefer they be honest (hindsight is 20/20) but they have created a culture where lies are preferable to the truth. It's still the national CCP's fault.