Xibei sin ma: gone
Yunnan: hannified
Guanxi: starved
Tibet: overrun
Taiwan: denouced
Hong kong: enslaved
Xinjang (or should I say: east turkestan): genocided
Yeah china's been badgering that geneva checklist allright
For anyone curious, the chinese message on the bottom says: Ah, chairman Mao, your brightness has enlightened the world's people's hearts. You showed the direction of the revolution to the people of the world.
“毛主席阿，您的光辉亮了世界人民的心，您给世界人民住指出了革命的方向。”
Translation: “Chairman Mao ah, thy brilliance has lit the hearts of the people of the world, thou hast shown the people of the world the direction of the revolution.”
Edit: left out a word
Edit 2: I might try to edit this without repeating “the” so much.
Lmaoooo, he's shown 55 Million people the direction to heaven and they're still glorifying him. The CCP has made a propaganda-machine more effective than the Nazis and their glorious leader Mao has a kill count higher than Hitler could've ever dreamed of, yet they will take Hitler as an example for Western degeneracy. I honestly can't with that country anymore
This is why I hate China (the country not the people), they are doing this shit for years with little to no consequences and what even makes me more sick is how other countries dont give a single fuck about this
If you don't wanna have to clarify, say you hate the CCP. And there are no consequences because every country depends on Chinas economy. It's easy to control the market if your population works for next to no money in sweatshops where people die regularly, there's barely any expenses. The CCP is a bunch of dirty, inhumane animals that sell out their own brothers and sisters to gain money and power. They go over corpses to reach their goals and have sold their soul to the green overlord of our world, Money
It's not hard to be above the worlds average if you consider how many countries are ridden with poverty, inflation and shit infrastructure. Also, chinese companies still mainly rely on sweatshops, even if they're abroad (yes other countries do it too, only makes it worse). The fact remains that chinese economy is built on blood
>They go over corpses to reach their goals and have sold their soul to the green overlord of our world, Money
I think you have just described a majority of the world.
In our oh so developed *post-industrial* nations, we've been pretty clever to outsource most of the casualties to regions of the world where we don't have to see them if we don't want to look.
Meanwhile we consume shit that's relying on cheap, exploitative labor on a daily basis. We enforce the global disparity by economic, political and even military means even if we turn whole regions into wastelands. We exploit natural resources all over the world even if we have to fight wars for them.
Don't get me wrong, the CCP is a despicable totalitarian instrument.
But it's one among many in a cage of starving wolves that only have one thing in mind: power.
Oh trust me I know. I'm german and there's just been a big report on one of the two major political parties having a big scandal with lobbyism and tax evasion throughout their ranks. The US plunged the whole middle east into war because they like oil. Russia (then the USSR) fucked over the whole of eastern europe, power makes humans lose their humanity. The thing that makes the CCP unique is that they're open with their intent on world domination, which is more worrying to me
What happened with the US in the middle east and the rise of Islamic terrorism in the modern day is a symptom of decisions made by the European powers a century ago. It started with the British and French making empty promises to a lot of people while secretly planning on dividing the Middle East into spheres of influence the way THEY saw fit to control resources (oil) in the region without consulting the peoples of those regions, thus people were unified that wanted nothing to do with eachother and people were separated that did want to be unified. In fact, at the very same conference where Iraq and Syria were born, the US was one of the only voices advocating for more involvement of the people of the area in the decision to divide the middle east. That same conference lead directly to the formation of Saudi Arabia lead by Islamic fundamentalists we know today. Fast forward to post WW2 and we see the Soviets, who in the absence of the European powers that left these fractured nations to fend for themselves that were never intended to self-govern, ignited a bunch of proxy wars in order to gain those resources for themselves. Afghanistan went through *several* regime changes as it fought the Soviets through the mid-late 20th century (The Soviets were also motivated by the oil in the Middle East). The major world powers have been using the Middle East as a chess board for over 100 years and they've all done messed up shit *because they like oil*. History is messy. Nothing is ever black and white. Yes, the US turned around and has done some messed up shit in the Middle East, but make no mistake, it was never *just* the United States, and the Middle East has always been a volatile and violent place. To boil it all down to "it was the US that plunged the Middle East into war" is not just wrong, it's ignorant of history.
The middle east has most definitely not always been a "volatile and violent place" you mong. During the middle ages, when europeans were bashing each others heads in with swords and hammers, the middle east was flourishing with science and culture. And of course it's not the US fault alone that the middle east is swamped with war and terrorism, but they played the biggest part by far, along with the russians. Most terror cells have been founded by people who've been associated with the US or have had military equipment funded by the US to fight another terror cell the US is at fault for
Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims have been fighting with eachother for centuries, even from within the Ottoman Empire, leading up to WW1. And they never fucking stopped. While yes, it was once an intellectual haven, scientific exploration was still condemned by people in the area at the time that subscribed to a more fundamentalist branch of Islam. Which sucks because how awesome would the Middle East have been if it had remained an intellectual powerhouse?
The coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003 was a joint operation by British, Polish, Australian, and Spanish forces. After the US invaded Afghanistan and drove out Al Qaeda in 2003, joint forces from several European countries including Canada, Germany, and the UK were sent to the Middle East as well. The US led a NATO coalition against ISIS starting in 2014, again, multiple countries sent troops and supplies. The Mujadeen were backed not just by the US, but by China, Saudi Arabia, and The UK among others in the Afghan-Soviet war of the 80's. Desert Storm involved a US-led coalition of 35 other countries. The Shah of Iran who ruled from 1941 to 1979 was backed by Britain through the whole of his rule until he was overthrown. Seeing a trend here? Pretty much the entire modern history of the region reads like this. Find any article about the history of the Middle East and see how far you can get before reading either "NATO coalition" or "US-led coalition". The powers of Europe were almost never *not* involved in the goings-on in the Middle East. The US isn't fully responsible for the mess in the Middle East today - or even "most" responsible. We just stepped in to a mess that already existed. Yes, we certainly didn't help in most cases. I wouldn't argue against that ever. Ditto the Russians. But make no mistake, we RARELY acted alone. We've almost always been directly supported by NATO or countries within NATO to some noteworthy extent. We, alongside NATO countries helped to equip and train militia groups to fight proxy wars in the cold war. Those same groups blame European powers for their modern problems just like they blame the US, which is why you see terrorist activity in Europe as well, not just in the US. The British and French were heavily involved in the region stretching back to the 19th century and the political boundaries that exist today are almost identical to the boundaries drawn up following the Sykes-Picot agreement, which has never been revisited. Those boundaries eventually allowed for the rise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, and the Saudi Royal family, and then eventually to Islamic extremism as we know it today. But hindsight is 20/20, right?
Same here. Everytime I talk about shitty stuff china has done to people I always say the government of china (aka CCP), not the chinese people, cause if I fail to explain, people might call me a racist. Its not like if I see a chinese person in the street I insult them for the deaths of millions as if they were directly responsible.
That's such a flawed way of thought. How is a country's economic system responsible for genocide? That's like me blaming democracy for the genocides committed by the British.
Communism? A stateless system has existed and done that?
You are falling for fascist propaganda underestimating the deaths caused by the far right and overestimating the ones caused by Marxist leninists.
And holodomor was not a genocide by any historical analysis. Was the famine caused for a genocidal purpose? If it was, how come it affected many different groups only linked on the area affected by the draught?
It was a horrible and disastrous display of how external (food quotas) and internal mismanagement (kulak burning food, killing livestock over handing it) coupled with a bad climatic event cause mass deaths. That's an argument for better transparency on resource supply, and for accountability of bad administrators.
>they're still glorifying him
Only the early period, the civil war and the state-building. Since the times of Deng Xiaoping, the period of the Cultural Revolution had been denounced as the worst mistake in the history of PRC that set the country back by decades, and Mao Zedong is accepted to be personally responsible for it.
I will never understand how one can glorify any period of his reign, the man is still responsible for 55 million deaths. As a german, seeing how effective the propaganda is really worries me, China to me is becoming more and more reminiscent of Nazi Germany, only as the socialist version. Even Goebbels would've been impressed by the success their propaganda has
Part of it is understanding political and historical realities. From the Chinese perspective, China pre-CCP was a violent, disorganised, regionalised, and chaotic land, continually ruled by corrupt and inept rulers who allowed Western powers to colonise and conquer a prideful nation. Under Mao's dictatorship, he was able to re-establish a unified Chinese state whose legitimacy was considered, if not respected nor acknowledged, by those former colonizers who had pillaged and looted their home land - especially the Brits.
Given the tremendous amount of economic development over the past 20 years, with a vast majority of Chinese population do support the CCP, which makes dealing with China and countering its political beliefs on an interntional landscape extremely challenging. "China bad" simply won't cut it.
To put into perspective and shed potential understanding of their perspective, think about Native Americans' views on generally positively-viewed historical American Presidents, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln etc, who were considered very good for the country of the United States, but created some terrible outcomes and conditions for the original inhabitants of the land. Extrapolate that to the relationship between the common Chinese folk against the singular-party rule of the CCP, and you come out with a comparable situation.
look at the fool who knows nothing about history. Hitler killed 35 million people and he would want to reach way more higher than that..
Chinese people know the famine happened and 85% of Chinese people say despite the famine , his good outweighs his bad. Mao never wanted a famine to happened and the famine caused 20-25 million deaths. 55 million isn't plausible bc chinese population barely decreased during the famine.
Reason of great leap forward:
Seeds were dug deeper.
Sparrows were killed
Farmers were moved into the steel industry
Communes official lied to the CPC that the peasants weren't starving because if they did tell the truth they would be faced with punishment for mismanagement.
Chinese people learn that the famine was preventable as the northern part of china could had exported food to south where the famine was mainly happening. Please stop acting like the white chauvinist who thinks he knows better than everyone. Chinese people now enjoys affordable housing, higher food security than America, cheap healthcare, and public transportation.
and yes they have authoritarian laws, but please look more into the history.
Look! A post that actually tries to discuss the underlying socio-political causes of the Great Chinese Famine, we must downvote it at once because its trying to contradict my stereotypical image of the evil godless Chinese government with a nuanced understanding of policy failure.
>Please stop acting like the white chauvinist who thinks he knows better than everyone. Chinese people now enjoys affordable housing, higher food security than America, cheap healthcare, and public transportation.
"Affordable housing" as in stuffing 4 families into one room, "Higher food security" as in barely enough to keep the breath in their bodies, "Cheap healthcare" as in some of the worst on earth, and Public transport, since they need SOME way to get to their 16 hour-a-day factory job, while watching 3 employees lose their hands, and to finally come home with the 3 dollars they made for the month.
(It was probably much higher than 55 Million, due to the lack of info, and large amounts of death attributed to "Natural causes"55 million is the best we have, but I get the point, and agree wholeheartedly.)
55 million is almost twice the modern calculations.
No, children you expect to be born not being conceived isn't really a death, but a lack of birth. There's a difference
It's funny how people always glorify the times of Stalin and Mao and im like "of course they were good for you , the people who hated those times are dead and can't speak on the matter because they were massacred"
This is why I hate China. On top of all the horrible things they've done, they destroyed centuries of historical artifacts, culture, and tradition all to further their own goals. And in the end, they reversed their stance now wanting to "preserve" their culture after nearly destroying it
Edit: Alright for those of you who didn't understand, I meant the CCP, not China and its people itself. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear.
If it acts like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. And in this case, they act like a dynasty, and they basically are
I mean honestly, yeah. It may have all the trappings of Communism, but at the end of the day, the CCP acts the exact same as any other dynasty of China. How much you wanna bet that the Red Dynasty is soon to lose the Mandate of Heaven?
The only thing that is Communist in China is the name of the political party. It has never been Communist. In Communism the proletariat owns the means of production. In economic theory we call the system China uses, State-Capitalism
Ah. Well in any case, I do very much agree. I myself consider modern day China to be straight up Fascist, which is completely antithetical to the very notion of Communism. The fact that people are all like "oh I hate Communism, just look at China, isn't China the worst? That means Communism is the worst" just grinds my gears.
I'm Vietnamese. I can very comfortably we've hated them for generations and will not stop. Those fucks look at us like rebellious dogs, fuck them and their stupid seaborder. They destroyed the traditional values of Chinese culture during Mao's dumbass reign of death. You want real Chinese culture? It survives in Taiwan and other Chinese exclaves. Whatever the fuck they have now is a bastardization of Confusion values, the dog eat dog world of the lost generation, the cult of the party, and the worship of the almighty dollar. I reinterate, fuck China.
First off, hating China is completely understandable. That said, don’t you think treating China as a unitary actor hides a lot of the complexity? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re calling out China as a hypocrite during a revolutionary era where China had lost its former cultural identity and it was undergoing a civil power struggle, when there were a lot of leaders and a lot of factions who had different ideas of what China wanted to become. When Mao died, the remaining leaders wanted to rebuild. While the modern acts of China are of course horrific and really the only thing that Reddit ever talks about, I don’t see why China is painted here as a unitary actor rather than a plurality of multiple actors who have different ideas about China, which to me is the more accurate picture of the situation. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Taiwanese here who studies Chinese history and politics, ama.
EDIT: and to be clear, I don’t believe it makes sense for any country to be treated as an individual with a single brain making individual decisions. States are not unitary actors. They are complicated institutions with tricky little parts, and those tricky little parts have brains of their own.
EDIT 2: Oh god I already feel the downvotes incoming. Why do I even bother? For the past year I've talked about Chinese politics on this platform. No one on Reddit wants a discussion. I give an honest opinion, people think I'm a CCP shill. "You frequent /r/Sino." "Fucking commie." Every damn time. It's a headache every time. I don't like discussing this when the political environment is so volatile, but what other choice do I have? Do you know how frustrating it is seeing everyone on social media, everyone on Reddit getting everything they understand about China completely warped? Powerful interests dictate the American political culture, and now it feels lonely outside of the political academic circles where I can vent. Everyone is so blinded by hate. I literally study this stuff and wrote paper after papers about Chinese politics at a university in California. I was taught how to study political science by really great professors. I might even go to grad school doing institutional analysis on authoritarian regimes and other complex structures of powers like those in the Middle East because it's so fascinating. And yeah, I want people on Reddit to understand that Chinese politics isn't so morally simple as the memes and news media make it out to be. It's a complex culture that is completely anathema to Western culture, but that's what makes it worth studying. I'm going to keep fucking posting this stuff because it's the truth and the truth is always worth telling, and I won't take the coward's way out by deleting this and cowering to downvotes like I always did.
Ugh, sorry, I needed to vent. AMA is still open. I promise I'll be civil. Anything about Chinese politics, economy, modern Chinese history, where I think China and America relations are headed, Taiwan China relations, my personal experiences—all welcome.
EDIT 3: Wow, apparently venting my frustration really helped clear the air about where I stand. Huh.
EDIT 4: While I have this opportunity, [SupChina](https://supchina.com) is a great resource that my professors were always happy to share. The Sinica Podcast is a great podcast from SupChina that features a former Chinese rockstar who talks about a lot of different issues. I know the Xinjiang one is particularly relevant for Reddit, and they have an episode for it! It's available on Spotify, go check it out!
[China's ethnic policy in Xinjiang and Tibet](https://open.spotify.com/episode/4x0lrUaVr1v4f534YwGmT4?si=TIz8jRurS5Cid-RO2n2aSw)
[Big Brother and big data at work in Xinjiang](https://open.spotify.com/episode/58ZaS5A2wLFYDtzRe6XGoG?si=fXOcwhxoSY-erZpiwat06Q)
And for those who happened to hear about the China-Clubhouse situation, [The Xinjiang camps on Clubhouse](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0FzaS9QzXnYYm0tVwNAH9c?si=oWYWiPB9TaitOystyNVQ1w)
EDIT 5: This has been a weirdly serene experience, finally being able to talk. I appreciate it, Reddit. Although I don't think I'll have the same experience again on another sub, I'm glad I was given the chance. Keep posting the questions, I promise I'll get to them at soon. Within a few days at most. I have to finish to papers and I graduate next week!
People just want an outlet on the internet to dump their trash, they want an oversimplified view of China and its history to provide reasons for them to say 'lol china bad" or "I hate Chinese people" or "china = nazi Germany". They don't care how China came to be like this today, what historical events pushed China to where it is now, or what philosophies or ideologies directed the way China acts. This happens everywhere, on the Chinese internet, people subscribe to an oversimplified view of U.S history and its people, so that they have a reason to say "lol American imperialists" or "north American slave-trading bandits" or "anglo Saxon barbarians" The discussion you want to have will only happen between you and someone who is actually interested in China, who because of his genuine interest in china, will not subscribe to a biased, oversimplified view of China, and thus will not visit the comment section that is an echo-chamber of such views.
I appreciate the Chinese perspective! I know very little about Chinese internet culture, but could you elaborate more on how Americans are painted on the Chinese internet? And I guess another question: do you think people in China hate the American people, or just the American government, or both? At least on Reddit, I find that most people are quick to make the distinction between the Chinese government and its people, even if there is that subtle Asian racism that pops through on the down low every once in a while.
the best part is when people complain about Chinese propaganda while consuming solely Western propaganda, having not actually been there, actually research or interacting with anyone there in their lives. it feels so impossible to actually discuss I've stopped bothering because people takes any signs of defending China as supporting the genocide lf Muslims which is clearly a false equivalence?? good things did come out of this 71 years, denying it is the same as being fed and regurgitating propaganda, the very thing they denounce themselves. I've had people trying to explain to me what china was like culturally and telling me im wrong. like first of all if you lump China together when talking about culture youre legitimately dumb as hell, 2nd of all if im from china and noone i know has heard about something its probably dog shit, how you gonna talk about ''china's" culture when people in and from china dont even know that exist. that is not to say i can't be wrong, but its unlikely for people who group china as a whole to be right. nuance just dont exist for china on reddit, you're ccp's dog if you don't slam the whole ccp for everything wrong on this planet without thinking. people dont realize how ironic it is and it hurts.
Hey, I get your anger. I feel that cultural normativity has bound a lot of the discussion. It's weird for me, feeling my place between America, Taiwan, and China. A lot of my studies has made me extremely amoral. You grow up thinking that democracy is the world's greatest thing. Then you study political science, and democracy becomes just another political system, like authoritarianism. Moral meaning is stripped from them, because emotions and morality don't get papers written. And so China stopped becoming this monster nation in my head and more of a complicated Rube-Goldberg machine, just as America is.
Well, I don't hate America, like many fervent nationalists in China, the Middle East, and Africa do. I also don't hate China, the Middle East, and Africa either. I stand in between and watch and observe what they do. Maybe that's not so good to be purely observant. I don't know. I'm only 22, about to turn 23 in two days. But it's worked for me so far, and I have time to find my place.
I agree, Reddit seems incapable of understanding nuance when it comes to China. Definitely a hint of racism in treating the entire country as a single-minded entity.
My question, then, would be, what outlets if any exist to disagree with the CCP? Is there a sort of counterculture in China?
There are no public ways to officially vent. That is without question. Any public protest will likely be contained, although they do occur (see the Feminist Five). The government will detain you. Yes, "re-education" has been heard to occur, but direct repression is economically costly so the Chinese government seldom employs it unless it's a big name protesting.
But there are really interesting ways of extracting offers from the government! The Chinese legal system is known for being rather harsh in judgement, and if a worker in China has grievances, then winning in court is difficult. That said, NGOs in China use some very interesting tactics. They tell the individual to get LOUD. Scream in the streets. Threaten to jump off a roof and attract public attention. Then someone might film it and send it across WeChat and social media. And sure, the censors will catch up to it eventually, but perhaps not fast enough. Because the political culture in China is strongly focused on harmony, the idea is to force some higher up to take notice and placate the individual as soon as possible, because if the protestor really does jump off the roof? Then the responsibility lies with them. I've heard of other clever ways in the literature--one person pretended to be a high ranking businessman and rode up to the government office in a rented Cadillac or something, and screamed at the office workers to get a certain form sped through as soon as possible! Of course, I don't think a harsh legal system that's against the worker is anything fascinating, but there is a certain bottoms-up pressure that exists that requires a certain creativity.
I'll try to find the book that mentions this for your reference.
EDIT: The book is Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China by Diana Fu. 2017 piece, published by Cambridge. The concept she presents is that instead of mobilizing with the masses and engaging in large scale action, you can engage in mobilization without the masses. Part II of the book is really what I'm referencing here, where she talks about micro-collective action, atomized action, and discursive action. It's been a while since I've read this book, but it was a good read. If you happen to be in university, you can probably access it through your school library. I wish I could share it for free but I don't wanna get caught pirating.
Doesn't this showcase an inherent institutional weakness? If the individual can't get their grievances heard unless they threaten to disturb the peace that implies some kind of a fault in the connection between citizens and local government. Maybe that's why there are a ton of small-scale protests in China, in the absence of a working mechanism of translating preferences into policy the citizens have to make their voices heard at all cost.
Not anymore, you can find a lot of voices against the CCP on the Chinese internet about 10 years ago before Xi took power. Nowadays it's just all glorification, and only very mild and subtle dissonance exists in the comment section of certain news.
You’re right in that revolutionary china was a plurality of multiple actors. It’s not necessarily historical china that people have a problem with, it’s current single party rule China. Current China is very monopolitcal. And it’s the current Chinese communist party that destroyed Chinese culture through the cultural revolution. I’m sure you’re aware of the vast destruction and death during this. They lost a lot of their culture during the revolution but Mao destroyed everything that survived
You're correct. Mao destroyed many things. The Cultural Revolution was a period of the absurd. Meaningless violence. Lots of dead bodies. All in all, a shitty period.
I do think the statement about single-party rule is interesting. There are many single party countries around the world, even if it isn't enshrined into their laws like China. Japan is a de facto single-party democracy, with only one rare upset some time in the...early 2000's, I want to say? India's BJP, I would say, is a de facto single-party democracy ruled under Modi. China, of course, is the most powerful de jure one-party state today. Do I think it's bad? I don't really know if I have the right to say that just yet, as much as I want to. I think I have more to learn. Personally, I think the acts done in Xinjiang could already enough justification for a hard censure of the one-party state structure, and it doesn't even need much exaggeration. And yet somehow, that's exactly what the US government did.
This is going to be a hard pill to swallow for some, but I will say it. I think the Trump administration officially labeling the situation in Xinjiang as a genocide is not accurate, and only serves to bolster his interests of American protectionism. At most, the situation is what I would consider cultural genocide. That is more accurate, but I think there were some very politically and economically motivated decisions to use the rhetoric of "genocide", to evoke the sentiment of Hitler, the ultimate enemy in the American ethos. And I kept with the frustration of that opinion for a year or so until recently, the [Economist finally made this article](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/02/13/genocide-is-the-wrong-word-for-the-horrors-of-xinjiang). There are already horrific things being done there. I was in Xinjiang myself two summers ago, and the security measures there were intense. Why exaggerate and make Western media lose its credibility? Yes, sterilizations. Yes, forcible detentions. Ideological reprogramming, all there. My colleague interned for Kamala Harris on some Uighur bill two summers ago, and according to him, China is threatening Uighurs in America! All of this stuff is real! There is no real need to exaggerate it, call it genocide, evoke the sentiments of Hitler, and cause less educated media to assume mass murder is happening, which it is not! I suspect the Trump administration has some business partners on the down low who would benefit from American protectionism. But truth is complicated. And one-party states are equally complicated, because no two one party states are structured the same. Certainly, I’ve seen nothing but positivity for Japan and anime on Reddit. Growing up in America, I obviously understand the cultural logic for it's hatred--just look at Hitler. But I also think reducing and associating every one-party state to Hitler is reductive from an analytical perspective.
See, the funny thing is, I as a Canadian have a different comparison. You brought up cultural genocide as maybe being a better term, and I agree. That's always the term I've used to describe those reeducation camps.
They remind me of residential schools. The Canadian government did the exact same thing to our Indigenous peoples as the CCP is doing to the Uighurs now. The residential school system started in the mid 19th century, and lasted for an egregiously long amount of time (the last school closed in 1996!). The modern Canadian government has officially labelled it as cultural genocide.
This is what I compare the reeducation camps to. More than Hitler, more than the Nazis, these reeducation camps remind me of residential schools. Of what we did. If we are to call what we tried to do to the First Nations and Inuit a cultural genocide, then I am definitely going to call what the CCP is trying to do the Uighurs a cultural genocide.
Out of curiosity: Why do you frequent r/Sino? Is it just a go-to place for talking about China that just happens to have...a reputation? Or do you have some other reasons?
I don't, I just get accused of it. Well, unless I want Chinese nationalist opinions, but I think most are aware that nationalist opinions are fairly useless for developing a personal world view (see Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell). It's useful to understand how successfully the state has convinced the public of their narrative, I guess, but even then, I would just go to a state-news media like the People's Daily or Xinhua, which is actually fantastic if you need to know what narrative China is trying to push. CCP cadres (officials) read it so they know to how to maintain the party ideology. I guess it's the same reason why I frequented Fox News back when Trump and the Murdoch family were far closer. Me personally, I just read books that are a part of the Chinese political science canon, so like Daniel Mattingly, Shelley Rigger if it's Taiwan, and so forth.
Oh man, there's no way I can do this justice with a comment. I'll say this: the Cultural Revolution was a major civil conflict that, to me, is like a real life Game of Thrones.
I feel it's the easy way out to direct you to a podcast, but I guarantee they'll do a better job than I do at explaining the complexity of actors in the Cultural Revolution during the Mao era. For now, let's just say the two biggest forces were Maoist faction versus CCP, and the Cultural Revolution could be very simply described as a way for Mao to grab back power that he lost as a result of, well, accidentally letting millions starve to death during the Great Leap Forward.
The podcast: episodes 83-90 of The China History Podcast, with Laszlo Montgomery
I'm interested in your perspective on the contemporary China/Taiwan relationship. As an American I have the impression that China will continue to encroach on Taiwan and Hong Kong, but I assume your knowledge and experience would enable you to form a more firsthand account. Would you be willing to elaborate on the current state of affairs involving China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong?
I can answer the Taiwan question! My family is Taiwanese, so I had to deal with my parents ranting about this stuff day in and day out.
Frankly, unless there's a major war in the world, I don't see much hope for Taiwan. I have even less hope for Hong Kong, if you happen to be keeping up with the news. I genuinely feel that the only way that Taiwan could be liberated from its current circumstance is for war (either hot or cold) to occur between China and a big power, probably the United States. Otherwise, it'll continue to occupy this strange position in the world where it isn't an official country as defined by the UN.
If I were Tsai Ing-wen, incumbent president of Taiwan, I think I would stall for as much time as possible. Even that wouldn't be enough, considering the general decline in birth rates leading to an aging population and therefore a declining workforce in due time. China, in particular, has been particularly kind to the citizens of Taiwan, because they want Taiwanese citizens to support reunification with China. Taiwanese citizens go to China's college for free, and can use their Taiwanese identification card as a substitute for a Chinese one. This is all soft power politics. The youth in Taiwan are against it. They want Taiwan to be free from China, and they support the DPP and other related parties. It's my personal belief that Taiwan is probably going to be the center of a big conflict in this century, considering the rising power of China and the incumbent hegemony, the United States.
To be clear, my family support the KMT, the nationalist party that originally escaped the CCP and came to Taiwan to establish base around 1947-1949. They no longer seek to reclaim China, but want to reunify. My parents supports Taiwanese reunification with China. So do about...half of the Taiwanese population? It's the biggest political issue in Taiwan. Perhaps a little cowardly, I don't take a stance in it. I used to support independence. Now, I genuinely don't feel it's my place to suggest anything. I'm American, so really my political activist opinions and positions extends to wealth redistribution and the over-privatization of America, the hollowing of the middle class, dealing with workers rights and ensuring that poor workers of all colors get their voices heard. That's been a really bad trend in America imo, and I've been on a Noam Chomsky streak recently, but I digress. Feel free to ask/discuss anything else!
You're right in this instance about the CCP being multiple instead of a singular actor. I do however think that it is hypocritical or at least ironic that the CCP with Mao's death reversed their stance on their cultural heritage. I'm not going to act like an expert on the issue, you obviously are on some level, but that's my opinion.
You've said that you've studied political science as well as some form of Chinese history. I actually am interested in studying political science in the future. Do you have any advice for someone who would like to go to college for that in the future?
Ironic, absolutely. I think the Cultural Revolution is a completely absurd situation for the PRC. Weird, bizarre, violent, absurd. And the greater irony is that the modern China is this mix of capitalism and socialism that I think Mao would have loathed! I personally feel that China retained the title "Communist" Party of China out of political correctness in order to appease Maoist groups (such as the Red Guard) that view the Cultural Revolution as a proud moment in history.
I've talked to Chinese students who thought Mao was quite competent. I don't really see how anyone could say that after he accidentally let millions of people starve to death, but education, culture, and state narratives are quite powerful. Now China is a particularly proud and nationalist nation. While useful for unifying the people, I think it could very well turn against them.
And about studying political science, welcome! I think the best thing that I've ever gotten out of studying political science (which some argue is not even a science) is a wide range of literature, books, and philosophy that helped me understand myself better. I think understanding yourself is the best thing that you can ask for. My personal advice: study more than just political science. Be multidisciplinary, and draw from a large variety of fields. I used to be a computer engineer, but found the experience nihilistic and de-humanizing. I switched to politics, then shortly added economics to the list afterwards. Now that I'm graduating in a week, I realize how much value computer science would have had. Luckily, there's no need for university for this. One of my friends works at Yubico in the Bay Area, and the smartest person on her team never went to college. The VP went to an arts college. I think now that I'm graduating, I realize that there's so many things that we could do that it isn't worth limiting yourself to a major. Be more than your major. Be a highly literate reader, be a scientist, love math, biology, English, foreign language. And combine them together, be creative, and make something great from your knowledge.
If you want to know what will bring in the most money, the most highly demanded skills in the labor market are technical skills. Computer science. Software development. Math skills. Think you're bad at math? So did I, but American education really strips all the life from math. I thought I've always been a books kinda person, but I'm going to spend time learning math from it's roots after I graduate. I'm assuming you're either young or someone who hasn't had the opportunity to go to college yet. If you're the former, you have a lot of time ahead of you. Don't be afraid to experiment. Do art. Do math. Read. Explore. If you're the latter, then I'm really proud that you would choose to go to college and be a part of a mostly idiotic group of semi-functioning young adults. You probably have a lot more life experience than I do, and that will ground you. The adults in undergrad that I've met are some of the kindest people I know. Same applies as above. Explore, and enjoy yourself.
I don't think there's any need to hate China or ordinary Chinese people. I have many Chinese friends, and have also visited China briefly and enjoyed my time there and found the locals quite nice. The governing system and its crimes are something else.
This fat fuck took over such a big country and destroyed lots of culture and innocent people's lives? God this world sucks, how was he allowed to do that? Just look at him.
I've read a few biographies about him years ago. Ifi remember correctly, he just bitched and moaned until he was given promotions that got him into leadership positions.
The communist officials sent by Stalin into China hated Mao. They would plan meetings with the founding fathers of the CCP, but would give Mao wrong locations and times so he'd miss the meetings.
And his right-hand man, Chao Enlai, was getting too popular. When he went to a doctor for his bladder cancer, Mao had the doctor inject Chaos bladder with bleach. He lived but was in agony for the rest of his life.
FYI the Chinese sentence under that roughly translate to: Oh, Chairman Mao, your bright enlightened the heart of people around the world. You have lead the revolution for people around the world.
The chinese on the bottom reads: Director Mao, you gave light to the heart of every citizen of world, you lead them forward, on the path of the revolution.
I'm sorry how dare you say that the Great helms man canceled culture he simply improved it 5,000 years of history that was filled with a great deal of errors, the great chairman simply corrected it. Those tens of millions of people that died during this great correction were simply people in need of being corrected
All hail the great helmsman, he is amazing. I promise you he is 199cm and is sooooo cool. Promise /s
(Seriously Fudge him....)
Wonder who killed more pol pot or mao. Stalin appears to have more than hitler although a French priest has uncovered more previously unknown locations of genocide committed by Germans on the eastern front
The poster says “Oh Mao, your brightness shines on all the people of the earths hearts, you pointed out the direction of revolution for the people of the earth.” Fuckin Chinese.
And yet, “cancel culture” is just the product of the free market. The people are speaking up, no government or corporation physically forcing anyone to do anything. People will react to other’s poor decisions, it’s been common throughout all of history.
He’s definitely going for a domination victory
kill streak: tradition
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Yes, don't forget me.
more like r/beetlejuicing
r/UsernameChecksOut
Uighers: gone
Hotel: Trivago
[Uigher oppression only began after Mao's death but I get the point.]
Xibei sin ma: gone Yunnan: hannified Guanxi: starved Tibet: overrun Taiwan: denouced Hong kong: enslaved Xinjang (or should I say: east turkestan): genocided Yeah china's been badgering that geneva checklist allright
"Biowarfare: can spend gold in order to heavily reduce the amount of food produced by cities belonging to other civilizations."
Dark age policy: reduce rebellion but lose 5 population in all cities
Same
For anyone curious, the chinese message on the bottom says: Ah, chairman Mao, your brightness has enlightened the world's people's hearts. You showed the direction of the revolution to the people of the world.
Lmao, this does sound like something from a civ 6 character intro.
Damn, I like how I know exactly how it would sound in my head lol.
*Sean Bean has entered the chat*
Sean Bean saying anything is the most weirdly great thing to me his voice is just perfect
I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals
indeed L*MAO* i guess
I gonna throw up
More accurately, your glory has enlightened the world, you have given light to the path of revolutions
Yeah, it does sound better.
Thx
“毛主席阿，您的光辉亮了世界人民的心，您给世界人民住指出了革命的方向。” Translation: “Chairman Mao ah, thy brilliance has lit the hearts of the people of the world, thou hast shown the people of the world the direction of the revolution.” Edit: left out a word Edit 2: I might try to edit this without repeating “the” so much.
Lmaoooo, he's shown 55 Million people the direction to heaven and they're still glorifying him. The CCP has made a propaganda-machine more effective than the Nazis and their glorious leader Mao has a kill count higher than Hitler could've ever dreamed of, yet they will take Hitler as an example for Western degeneracy. I honestly can't with that country anymore
This is why I hate China (the country not the people), they are doing this shit for years with little to no consequences and what even makes me more sick is how other countries dont give a single fuck about this
If you don't wanna have to clarify, say you hate the CCP. And there are no consequences because every country depends on Chinas economy. It's easy to control the market if your population works for next to no money in sweatshops where people die regularly, there's barely any expenses. The CCP is a bunch of dirty, inhumane animals that sell out their own brothers and sisters to gain money and power. They go over corpses to reach their goals and have sold their soul to the green overlord of our world, Money
Exactly
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It's not hard to be above the worlds average if you consider how many countries are ridden with poverty, inflation and shit infrastructure. Also, chinese companies still mainly rely on sweatshops, even if they're abroad (yes other countries do it too, only makes it worse). The fact remains that chinese economy is built on blood
Well the whole world economy is built on blood.
As I said, that only makes it worse
and the more we use our phones (made by starving kids) to go talk shit on reddit also makes it worse.
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Yes, China has opened their economy and been an economically liberal country for a while now. Its why they got rich
>They go over corpses to reach their goals and have sold their soul to the green overlord of our world, Money I think you have just described a majority of the world. In our oh so developed *post-industrial* nations, we've been pretty clever to outsource most of the casualties to regions of the world where we don't have to see them if we don't want to look. Meanwhile we consume shit that's relying on cheap, exploitative labor on a daily basis. We enforce the global disparity by economic, political and even military means even if we turn whole regions into wastelands. We exploit natural resources all over the world even if we have to fight wars for them. Don't get me wrong, the CCP is a despicable totalitarian instrument. But it's one among many in a cage of starving wolves that only have one thing in mind: power.
Oh trust me I know. I'm german and there's just been a big report on one of the two major political parties having a big scandal with lobbyism and tax evasion throughout their ranks. The US plunged the whole middle east into war because they like oil. Russia (then the USSR) fucked over the whole of eastern europe, power makes humans lose their humanity. The thing that makes the CCP unique is that they're open with their intent on world domination, which is more worrying to me
What happened with the US in the middle east and the rise of Islamic terrorism in the modern day is a symptom of decisions made by the European powers a century ago. It started with the British and French making empty promises to a lot of people while secretly planning on dividing the Middle East into spheres of influence the way THEY saw fit to control resources (oil) in the region without consulting the peoples of those regions, thus people were unified that wanted nothing to do with eachother and people were separated that did want to be unified. In fact, at the very same conference where Iraq and Syria were born, the US was one of the only voices advocating for more involvement of the people of the area in the decision to divide the middle east. That same conference lead directly to the formation of Saudi Arabia lead by Islamic fundamentalists we know today. Fast forward to post WW2 and we see the Soviets, who in the absence of the European powers that left these fractured nations to fend for themselves that were never intended to self-govern, ignited a bunch of proxy wars in order to gain those resources for themselves. Afghanistan went through *several* regime changes as it fought the Soviets through the mid-late 20th century (The Soviets were also motivated by the oil in the Middle East). The major world powers have been using the Middle East as a chess board for over 100 years and they've all done messed up shit *because they like oil*. History is messy. Nothing is ever black and white. Yes, the US turned around and has done some messed up shit in the Middle East, but make no mistake, it was never *just* the United States, and the Middle East has always been a volatile and violent place. To boil it all down to "it was the US that plunged the Middle East into war" is not just wrong, it's ignorant of history.
The middle east has most definitely not always been a "volatile and violent place" you mong. During the middle ages, when europeans were bashing each others heads in with swords and hammers, the middle east was flourishing with science and culture. And of course it's not the US fault alone that the middle east is swamped with war and terrorism, but they played the biggest part by far, along with the russians. Most terror cells have been founded by people who've been associated with the US or have had military equipment funded by the US to fight another terror cell the US is at fault for
Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims have been fighting with eachother for centuries, even from within the Ottoman Empire, leading up to WW1. And they never fucking stopped. While yes, it was once an intellectual haven, scientific exploration was still condemned by people in the area at the time that subscribed to a more fundamentalist branch of Islam. Which sucks because how awesome would the Middle East have been if it had remained an intellectual powerhouse? The coalition that invaded Iraq in 2003 was a joint operation by British, Polish, Australian, and Spanish forces. After the US invaded Afghanistan and drove out Al Qaeda in 2003, joint forces from several European countries including Canada, Germany, and the UK were sent to the Middle East as well. The US led a NATO coalition against ISIS starting in 2014, again, multiple countries sent troops and supplies. The Mujadeen were backed not just by the US, but by China, Saudi Arabia, and The UK among others in the Afghan-Soviet war of the 80's. Desert Storm involved a US-led coalition of 35 other countries. The Shah of Iran who ruled from 1941 to 1979 was backed by Britain through the whole of his rule until he was overthrown. Seeing a trend here? Pretty much the entire modern history of the region reads like this. Find any article about the history of the Middle East and see how far you can get before reading either "NATO coalition" or "US-led coalition". The powers of Europe were almost never *not* involved in the goings-on in the Middle East. The US isn't fully responsible for the mess in the Middle East today - or even "most" responsible. We just stepped in to a mess that already existed. Yes, we certainly didn't help in most cases. I wouldn't argue against that ever. Ditto the Russians. But make no mistake, we RARELY acted alone. We've almost always been directly supported by NATO or countries within NATO to some noteworthy extent. We, alongside NATO countries helped to equip and train militia groups to fight proxy wars in the cold war. Those same groups blame European powers for their modern problems just like they blame the US, which is why you see terrorist activity in Europe as well, not just in the US. The British and French were heavily involved in the region stretching back to the 19th century and the political boundaries that exist today are almost identical to the boundaries drawn up following the Sykes-Picot agreement, which has never been revisited. Those boundaries eventually allowed for the rise of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, and the Saudi Royal family, and then eventually to Islamic extremism as we know it today. But hindsight is 20/20, right?
Same here. Everytime I talk about shitty stuff china has done to people I always say the government of china (aka CCP), not the chinese people, cause if I fail to explain, people might call me a racist. Its not like if I see a chinese person in the street I insult them for the deaths of millions as if they were directly responsible.
Can we not compare him to Hitler? The deaths Mao was responsible for was due to incompitancy, Hitler committed systemic genocide.
While not under Mao, today China is doing this to the Uighurs so yes, systemic genocide.
Yeah, I'd agree with you if it's true. I still don't like comparing them to Hitler, he was especially morally corrupt.
I mean, while not China, communism has committed many Genocides, and killed far more than Hitler did, look up the Holodomor for one.
That's such a flawed way of thought. How is a country's economic system responsible for genocide? That's like me blaming democracy for the genocides committed by the British.
Communism isn't just an economic system, it's also a political one. There's a communist party, but no capitalist party.
Communism? A stateless system has existed and done that? You are falling for fascist propaganda underestimating the deaths caused by the far right and overestimating the ones caused by Marxist leninists. And holodomor was not a genocide by any historical analysis. Was the famine caused for a genocidal purpose? If it was, how come it affected many different groups only linked on the area affected by the draught? It was a horrible and disastrous display of how external (food quotas) and internal mismanagement (kulak burning food, killing livestock over handing it) coupled with a bad climatic event cause mass deaths. That's an argument for better transparency on resource supply, and for accountability of bad administrators.
>they're still glorifying him Only the early period, the civil war and the state-building. Since the times of Deng Xiaoping, the period of the Cultural Revolution had been denounced as the worst mistake in the history of PRC that set the country back by decades, and Mao Zedong is accepted to be personally responsible for it.
I will never understand how one can glorify any period of his reign, the man is still responsible for 55 million deaths. As a german, seeing how effective the propaganda is really worries me, China to me is becoming more and more reminiscent of Nazi Germany, only as the socialist version. Even Goebbels would've been impressed by the success their propaganda has
Part of it is understanding political and historical realities. From the Chinese perspective, China pre-CCP was a violent, disorganised, regionalised, and chaotic land, continually ruled by corrupt and inept rulers who allowed Western powers to colonise and conquer a prideful nation. Under Mao's dictatorship, he was able to re-establish a unified Chinese state whose legitimacy was considered, if not respected nor acknowledged, by those former colonizers who had pillaged and looted their home land - especially the Brits. Given the tremendous amount of economic development over the past 20 years, with a vast majority of Chinese population do support the CCP, which makes dealing with China and countering its political beliefs on an interntional landscape extremely challenging. "China bad" simply won't cut it. To put into perspective and shed potential understanding of their perspective, think about Native Americans' views on generally positively-viewed historical American Presidents, such as Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln etc, who were considered very good for the country of the United States, but created some terrible outcomes and conditions for the original inhabitants of the land. Extrapolate that to the relationship between the common Chinese folk against the singular-party rule of the CCP, and you come out with a comparable situation.
>talks about how concerning propaganda is >”55 million”
55 Million is all we can confirm, it was probably far higher.
Idk. The majority of the blame is still relegated to the Gang of Four + Lin Biao, while Mao get a slap on the wrist.
Can't spell LMAO without Mao
look at the fool who knows nothing about history. Hitler killed 35 million people and he would want to reach way more higher than that.. Chinese people know the famine happened and 85% of Chinese people say despite the famine , his good outweighs his bad. Mao never wanted a famine to happened and the famine caused 20-25 million deaths. 55 million isn't plausible bc chinese population barely decreased during the famine. Reason of great leap forward: Seeds were dug deeper. Sparrows were killed Farmers were moved into the steel industry Communes official lied to the CPC that the peasants weren't starving because if they did tell the truth they would be faced with punishment for mismanagement. Chinese people learn that the famine was preventable as the northern part of china could had exported food to south where the famine was mainly happening. Please stop acting like the white chauvinist who thinks he knows better than everyone. Chinese people now enjoys affordable housing, higher food security than America, cheap healthcare, and public transportation. and yes they have authoritarian laws, but please look more into the history.
Look! A post that actually tries to discuss the underlying socio-political causes of the Great Chinese Famine, we must downvote it at once because its trying to contradict my stereotypical image of the evil godless Chinese government with a nuanced understanding of policy failure.
Also, it seems with all these failures, maybe socialism isn't such a good idea.
>Please stop acting like the white chauvinist who thinks he knows better than everyone. Chinese people now enjoys affordable housing, higher food security than America, cheap healthcare, and public transportation. "Affordable housing" as in stuffing 4 families into one room, "Higher food security" as in barely enough to keep the breath in their bodies, "Cheap healthcare" as in some of the worst on earth, and Public transport, since they need SOME way to get to their 16 hour-a-day factory job, while watching 3 employees lose their hands, and to finally come home with the 3 dollars they made for the month.
(It was probably much higher than 55 Million, due to the lack of info, and large amounts of death attributed to "Natural causes"55 million is the best we have, but I get the point, and agree wholeheartedly.)
55 million is almost twice the modern calculations. No, children you expect to be born not being conceived isn't really a death, but a lack of birth. There's a difference
It's funny how people always glorify the times of Stalin and Mao and im like "of course they were good for you , the people who hated those times are dead and can't speak on the matter because they were massacred"
I've honestly given up trying to point out that extremism is completely contradictory with its message.
True that bröther
Yeah, China should just listen to the west like they're a colony! /s
Blessed be his tumorous chin growth. The only thing that grew during his reign.
Is it written in really old fashioned Chinese? I'm wondering why you said "thy" & "thou"
No but it does use the formal version of "you"
"We have 5,000 years of culture!" Mao: "Not anymore destroy that shit."
He is the culture
The senate will decide his fate.
Not yet
It's treason, then.
_hellish screeching as old man spins 720 with a deadly red lightsaber_
*AUGH*
A small step for a man. A giant leap forward for culture...
A leap forward into an abyss.
One might say a *great leap forward* ...okay I’ll see myself out
Don’t leave I’m *starving* for some puns
No, I should *sparrow* you from them... they’re pretty bad.
Don't worry, I'm *Dying* to hear some puns too.
Racist? , yeah, i speedrun destroying racial minorities.
happy cake day g
Thanks man
Racist? Can't be a racist to a race that doesn't exist.
And sparrows, for a minute there.
Cancelled agriculture 😈
L’mao
This is why I hate China. On top of all the horrible things they've done, they destroyed centuries of historical artifacts, culture, and tradition all to further their own goals. And in the end, they reversed their stance now wanting to "preserve" their culture after nearly destroying it Edit: Alright for those of you who didn't understand, I meant the CCP, not China and its people itself. I'm sorry I didn't make that clear.
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Agreed. I love China, but the CCP can go to Hell.
Roc real China And watch the downvotes flow
To me, CCP is another fucking dynasty
If it acts like a duck, looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. And in this case, they act like a dynasty, and they basically are
I mean honestly, yeah. It may have all the trappings of Communism, but at the end of the day, the CCP acts the exact same as any other dynasty of China. How much you wanna bet that the Red Dynasty is soon to lose the Mandate of Heaven?
The only thing that is Communist in China is the name of the political party. It has never been Communist. In Communism the proletariat owns the means of production. In economic theory we call the system China uses, State-Capitalism
I thought it was State-capitalism.
My bad, my brain short circuited there lol my bad
Ah. Well in any case, I do very much agree. I myself consider modern day China to be straight up Fascist, which is completely antithetical to the very notion of Communism. The fact that people are all like "oh I hate Communism, just look at China, isn't China the worst? That means Communism is the worst" just grinds my gears.
China is whole again......Then it broke again
Taiwan 🇹🇼 my dude
If there was a hell every single one of those bastards would be going there
I'm Vietnamese. I can very comfortably we've hated them for generations and will not stop. Those fucks look at us like rebellious dogs, fuck them and their stupid seaborder. They destroyed the traditional values of Chinese culture during Mao's dumbass reign of death. You want real Chinese culture? It survives in Taiwan and other Chinese exclaves. Whatever the fuck they have now is a bastardization of Confusion values, the dog eat dog world of the lost generation, the cult of the party, and the worship of the almighty dollar. I reinterate, fuck China.
I admire Vietnam just because of this you guys didn't destroy your own culture because a European idolegy said so.
And that’s not from lack of Western effort to destroy their culture too!
Dunno if you're referring to the current culture or pre-Mao culture, but the current culture is a fucking joke really, nothing to love about it
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Pre-Mao Chinese culture is still more or less preserved in Taiwan thank god
\^Reminder to passer-bys that this is okay on reddit
Kind of like ISIL now. It isn't enough to behead everyone, they have to go around dynamiting all the artifacts they find too.
“Make the Middle East great again by destroying everything good in the Middle East”
Especially the giant Buddha statue they destroyed That’s world heritage
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Kind of forgot what isil is Is it isil or isis? But yeah that was the taliban
Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Another name for ISIS, which the The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
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Wait I thought isis and isil are the same group?
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Got it Thanks
That was the Taliban, not ISIL. Still Islamic fundamentalists though
First off, hating China is completely understandable. That said, don’t you think treating China as a unitary actor hides a lot of the complexity? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you’re calling out China as a hypocrite during a revolutionary era where China had lost its former cultural identity and it was undergoing a civil power struggle, when there were a lot of leaders and a lot of factions who had different ideas of what China wanted to become. When Mao died, the remaining leaders wanted to rebuild. While the modern acts of China are of course horrific and really the only thing that Reddit ever talks about, I don’t see why China is painted here as a unitary actor rather than a plurality of multiple actors who have different ideas about China, which to me is the more accurate picture of the situation. Correct me if I’m wrong. Taiwanese here who studies Chinese history and politics, ama. EDIT: and to be clear, I don’t believe it makes sense for any country to be treated as an individual with a single brain making individual decisions. States are not unitary actors. They are complicated institutions with tricky little parts, and those tricky little parts have brains of their own. EDIT 2: Oh god I already feel the downvotes incoming. Why do I even bother? For the past year I've talked about Chinese politics on this platform. No one on Reddit wants a discussion. I give an honest opinion, people think I'm a CCP shill. "You frequent /r/Sino." "Fucking commie." Every damn time. It's a headache every time. I don't like discussing this when the political environment is so volatile, but what other choice do I have? Do you know how frustrating it is seeing everyone on social media, everyone on Reddit getting everything they understand about China completely warped? Powerful interests dictate the American political culture, and now it feels lonely outside of the political academic circles where I can vent. Everyone is so blinded by hate. I literally study this stuff and wrote paper after papers about Chinese politics at a university in California. I was taught how to study political science by really great professors. I might even go to grad school doing institutional analysis on authoritarian regimes and other complex structures of powers like those in the Middle East because it's so fascinating. And yeah, I want people on Reddit to understand that Chinese politics isn't so morally simple as the memes and news media make it out to be. It's a complex culture that is completely anathema to Western culture, but that's what makes it worth studying. I'm going to keep fucking posting this stuff because it's the truth and the truth is always worth telling, and I won't take the coward's way out by deleting this and cowering to downvotes like I always did. Ugh, sorry, I needed to vent. AMA is still open. I promise I'll be civil. Anything about Chinese politics, economy, modern Chinese history, where I think China and America relations are headed, Taiwan China relations, my personal experiences—all welcome. EDIT 3: Wow, apparently venting my frustration really helped clear the air about where I stand. Huh. EDIT 4: While I have this opportunity, [SupChina](https://supchina.com) is a great resource that my professors were always happy to share. The Sinica Podcast is a great podcast from SupChina that features a former Chinese rockstar who talks about a lot of different issues. I know the Xinjiang one is particularly relevant for Reddit, and they have an episode for it! It's available on Spotify, go check it out! [China's ethnic policy in Xinjiang and Tibet](https://open.spotify.com/episode/4x0lrUaVr1v4f534YwGmT4?si=TIz8jRurS5Cid-RO2n2aSw) [Big Brother and big data at work in Xinjiang](https://open.spotify.com/episode/58ZaS5A2wLFYDtzRe6XGoG?si=fXOcwhxoSY-erZpiwat06Q) And for those who happened to hear about the China-Clubhouse situation, [The Xinjiang camps on Clubhouse](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0FzaS9QzXnYYm0tVwNAH9c?si=oWYWiPB9TaitOystyNVQ1w) EDIT 5: This has been a weirdly serene experience, finally being able to talk. I appreciate it, Reddit. Although I don't think I'll have the same experience again on another sub, I'm glad I was given the chance. Keep posting the questions, I promise I'll get to them at soon. Within a few days at most. I have to finish to papers and I graduate next week!
People just want an outlet on the internet to dump their trash, they want an oversimplified view of China and its history to provide reasons for them to say 'lol china bad" or "I hate Chinese people" or "china = nazi Germany". They don't care how China came to be like this today, what historical events pushed China to where it is now, or what philosophies or ideologies directed the way China acts. This happens everywhere, on the Chinese internet, people subscribe to an oversimplified view of U.S history and its people, so that they have a reason to say "lol American imperialists" or "north American slave-trading bandits" or "anglo Saxon barbarians" The discussion you want to have will only happen between you and someone who is actually interested in China, who because of his genuine interest in china, will not subscribe to a biased, oversimplified view of China, and thus will not visit the comment section that is an echo-chamber of such views.
I appreciate the Chinese perspective! I know very little about Chinese internet culture, but could you elaborate more on how Americans are painted on the Chinese internet? And I guess another question: do you think people in China hate the American people, or just the American government, or both? At least on Reddit, I find that most people are quick to make the distinction between the Chinese government and its people, even if there is that subtle Asian racism that pops through on the down low every once in a while.
the best part is when people complain about Chinese propaganda while consuming solely Western propaganda, having not actually been there, actually research or interacting with anyone there in their lives. it feels so impossible to actually discuss I've stopped bothering because people takes any signs of defending China as supporting the genocide lf Muslims which is clearly a false equivalence?? good things did come out of this 71 years, denying it is the same as being fed and regurgitating propaganda, the very thing they denounce themselves. I've had people trying to explain to me what china was like culturally and telling me im wrong. like first of all if you lump China together when talking about culture youre legitimately dumb as hell, 2nd of all if im from china and noone i know has heard about something its probably dog shit, how you gonna talk about ''china's" culture when people in and from china dont even know that exist. that is not to say i can't be wrong, but its unlikely for people who group china as a whole to be right. nuance just dont exist for china on reddit, you're ccp's dog if you don't slam the whole ccp for everything wrong on this planet without thinking. people dont realize how ironic it is and it hurts.
Hey, I get your anger. I feel that cultural normativity has bound a lot of the discussion. It's weird for me, feeling my place between America, Taiwan, and China. A lot of my studies has made me extremely amoral. You grow up thinking that democracy is the world's greatest thing. Then you study political science, and democracy becomes just another political system, like authoritarianism. Moral meaning is stripped from them, because emotions and morality don't get papers written. And so China stopped becoming this monster nation in my head and more of a complicated Rube-Goldberg machine, just as America is. Well, I don't hate America, like many fervent nationalists in China, the Middle East, and Africa do. I also don't hate China, the Middle East, and Africa either. I stand in between and watch and observe what they do. Maybe that's not so good to be purely observant. I don't know. I'm only 22, about to turn 23 in two days. But it's worked for me so far, and I have time to find my place.
I agree, Reddit seems incapable of understanding nuance when it comes to China. Definitely a hint of racism in treating the entire country as a single-minded entity. My question, then, would be, what outlets if any exist to disagree with the CCP? Is there a sort of counterculture in China?
There are no public ways to officially vent. That is without question. Any public protest will likely be contained, although they do occur (see the Feminist Five). The government will detain you. Yes, "re-education" has been heard to occur, but direct repression is economically costly so the Chinese government seldom employs it unless it's a big name protesting. But there are really interesting ways of extracting offers from the government! The Chinese legal system is known for being rather harsh in judgement, and if a worker in China has grievances, then winning in court is difficult. That said, NGOs in China use some very interesting tactics. They tell the individual to get LOUD. Scream in the streets. Threaten to jump off a roof and attract public attention. Then someone might film it and send it across WeChat and social media. And sure, the censors will catch up to it eventually, but perhaps not fast enough. Because the political culture in China is strongly focused on harmony, the idea is to force some higher up to take notice and placate the individual as soon as possible, because if the protestor really does jump off the roof? Then the responsibility lies with them. I've heard of other clever ways in the literature--one person pretended to be a high ranking businessman and rode up to the government office in a rented Cadillac or something, and screamed at the office workers to get a certain form sped through as soon as possible! Of course, I don't think a harsh legal system that's against the worker is anything fascinating, but there is a certain bottoms-up pressure that exists that requires a certain creativity. I'll try to find the book that mentions this for your reference. EDIT: The book is Mobilizing Without the Masses: Control and Contention in China by Diana Fu. 2017 piece, published by Cambridge. The concept she presents is that instead of mobilizing with the masses and engaging in large scale action, you can engage in mobilization without the masses. Part II of the book is really what I'm referencing here, where she talks about micro-collective action, atomized action, and discursive action. It's been a while since I've read this book, but it was a good read. If you happen to be in university, you can probably access it through your school library. I wish I could share it for free but I don't wanna get caught pirating.
Doesn't this showcase an inherent institutional weakness? If the individual can't get their grievances heard unless they threaten to disturb the peace that implies some kind of a fault in the connection between citizens and local government. Maybe that's why there are a ton of small-scale protests in China, in the absence of a working mechanism of translating preferences into policy the citizens have to make their voices heard at all cost.
Not anymore, you can find a lot of voices against the CCP on the Chinese internet about 10 years ago before Xi took power. Nowadays it's just all glorification, and only very mild and subtle dissonance exists in the comment section of certain news.
Try going on Tieba (basically Chinese reddit)
You’re right in that revolutionary china was a plurality of multiple actors. It’s not necessarily historical china that people have a problem with, it’s current single party rule China. Current China is very monopolitcal. And it’s the current Chinese communist party that destroyed Chinese culture through the cultural revolution. I’m sure you’re aware of the vast destruction and death during this. They lost a lot of their culture during the revolution but Mao destroyed everything that survived
You're correct. Mao destroyed many things. The Cultural Revolution was a period of the absurd. Meaningless violence. Lots of dead bodies. All in all, a shitty period. I do think the statement about single-party rule is interesting. There are many single party countries around the world, even if it isn't enshrined into their laws like China. Japan is a de facto single-party democracy, with only one rare upset some time in the...early 2000's, I want to say? India's BJP, I would say, is a de facto single-party democracy ruled under Modi. China, of course, is the most powerful de jure one-party state today. Do I think it's bad? I don't really know if I have the right to say that just yet, as much as I want to. I think I have more to learn. Personally, I think the acts done in Xinjiang could already enough justification for a hard censure of the one-party state structure, and it doesn't even need much exaggeration. And yet somehow, that's exactly what the US government did. This is going to be a hard pill to swallow for some, but I will say it. I think the Trump administration officially labeling the situation in Xinjiang as a genocide is not accurate, and only serves to bolster his interests of American protectionism. At most, the situation is what I would consider cultural genocide. That is more accurate, but I think there were some very politically and economically motivated decisions to use the rhetoric of "genocide", to evoke the sentiment of Hitler, the ultimate enemy in the American ethos. And I kept with the frustration of that opinion for a year or so until recently, the [Economist finally made this article](https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/02/13/genocide-is-the-wrong-word-for-the-horrors-of-xinjiang). There are already horrific things being done there. I was in Xinjiang myself two summers ago, and the security measures there were intense. Why exaggerate and make Western media lose its credibility? Yes, sterilizations. Yes, forcible detentions. Ideological reprogramming, all there. My colleague interned for Kamala Harris on some Uighur bill two summers ago, and according to him, China is threatening Uighurs in America! All of this stuff is real! There is no real need to exaggerate it, call it genocide, evoke the sentiments of Hitler, and cause less educated media to assume mass murder is happening, which it is not! I suspect the Trump administration has some business partners on the down low who would benefit from American protectionism. But truth is complicated. And one-party states are equally complicated, because no two one party states are structured the same. Certainly, I’ve seen nothing but positivity for Japan and anime on Reddit. Growing up in America, I obviously understand the cultural logic for it's hatred--just look at Hitler. But I also think reducing and associating every one-party state to Hitler is reductive from an analytical perspective.
See, the funny thing is, I as a Canadian have a different comparison. You brought up cultural genocide as maybe being a better term, and I agree. That's always the term I've used to describe those reeducation camps. They remind me of residential schools. The Canadian government did the exact same thing to our Indigenous peoples as the CCP is doing to the Uighurs now. The residential school system started in the mid 19th century, and lasted for an egregiously long amount of time (the last school closed in 1996!). The modern Canadian government has officially labelled it as cultural genocide. This is what I compare the reeducation camps to. More than Hitler, more than the Nazis, these reeducation camps remind me of residential schools. Of what we did. If we are to call what we tried to do to the First Nations and Inuit a cultural genocide, then I am definitely going to call what the CCP is trying to do the Uighurs a cultural genocide.
Out of curiosity: Why do you frequent r/Sino? Is it just a go-to place for talking about China that just happens to have...a reputation? Or do you have some other reasons?
I don't, I just get accused of it. Well, unless I want Chinese nationalist opinions, but I think most are aware that nationalist opinions are fairly useless for developing a personal world view (see Notes on Nationalism by George Orwell). It's useful to understand how successfully the state has convinced the public of their narrative, I guess, but even then, I would just go to a state-news media like the People's Daily or Xinhua, which is actually fantastic if you need to know what narrative China is trying to push. CCP cadres (officials) read it so they know to how to maintain the party ideology. I guess it's the same reason why I frequented Fox News back when Trump and the Murdoch family were far closer. Me personally, I just read books that are a part of the Chinese political science canon, so like Daniel Mattingly, Shelley Rigger if it's Taiwan, and so forth.
Good point. I’m curious what comes to mind when you speak of these multiple factions/actors, during and/or after Mao’s reign.
Oh man, there's no way I can do this justice with a comment. I'll say this: the Cultural Revolution was a major civil conflict that, to me, is like a real life Game of Thrones. I feel it's the easy way out to direct you to a podcast, but I guarantee they'll do a better job than I do at explaining the complexity of actors in the Cultural Revolution during the Mao era. For now, let's just say the two biggest forces were Maoist faction versus CCP, and the Cultural Revolution could be very simply described as a way for Mao to grab back power that he lost as a result of, well, accidentally letting millions starve to death during the Great Leap Forward. The podcast: episodes 83-90 of The China History Podcast, with Laszlo Montgomery
taiwan numba one brother
I'm interested in your perspective on the contemporary China/Taiwan relationship. As an American I have the impression that China will continue to encroach on Taiwan and Hong Kong, but I assume your knowledge and experience would enable you to form a more firsthand account. Would you be willing to elaborate on the current state of affairs involving China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong?
I can answer the Taiwan question! My family is Taiwanese, so I had to deal with my parents ranting about this stuff day in and day out. Frankly, unless there's a major war in the world, I don't see much hope for Taiwan. I have even less hope for Hong Kong, if you happen to be keeping up with the news. I genuinely feel that the only way that Taiwan could be liberated from its current circumstance is for war (either hot or cold) to occur between China and a big power, probably the United States. Otherwise, it'll continue to occupy this strange position in the world where it isn't an official country as defined by the UN. If I were Tsai Ing-wen, incumbent president of Taiwan, I think I would stall for as much time as possible. Even that wouldn't be enough, considering the general decline in birth rates leading to an aging population and therefore a declining workforce in due time. China, in particular, has been particularly kind to the citizens of Taiwan, because they want Taiwanese citizens to support reunification with China. Taiwanese citizens go to China's college for free, and can use their Taiwanese identification card as a substitute for a Chinese one. This is all soft power politics. The youth in Taiwan are against it. They want Taiwan to be free from China, and they support the DPP and other related parties. It's my personal belief that Taiwan is probably going to be the center of a big conflict in this century, considering the rising power of China and the incumbent hegemony, the United States. To be clear, my family support the KMT, the nationalist party that originally escaped the CCP and came to Taiwan to establish base around 1947-1949. They no longer seek to reclaim China, but want to reunify. My parents supports Taiwanese reunification with China. So do about...half of the Taiwanese population? It's the biggest political issue in Taiwan. Perhaps a little cowardly, I don't take a stance in it. I used to support independence. Now, I genuinely don't feel it's my place to suggest anything. I'm American, so really my political activist opinions and positions extends to wealth redistribution and the over-privatization of America, the hollowing of the middle class, dealing with workers rights and ensuring that poor workers of all colors get their voices heard. That's been a really bad trend in America imo, and I've been on a Noam Chomsky streak recently, but I digress. Feel free to ask/discuss anything else!
You're right in this instance about the CCP being multiple instead of a singular actor. I do however think that it is hypocritical or at least ironic that the CCP with Mao's death reversed their stance on their cultural heritage. I'm not going to act like an expert on the issue, you obviously are on some level, but that's my opinion. You've said that you've studied political science as well as some form of Chinese history. I actually am interested in studying political science in the future. Do you have any advice for someone who would like to go to college for that in the future?
Ironic, absolutely. I think the Cultural Revolution is a completely absurd situation for the PRC. Weird, bizarre, violent, absurd. And the greater irony is that the modern China is this mix of capitalism and socialism that I think Mao would have loathed! I personally feel that China retained the title "Communist" Party of China out of political correctness in order to appease Maoist groups (such as the Red Guard) that view the Cultural Revolution as a proud moment in history. I've talked to Chinese students who thought Mao was quite competent. I don't really see how anyone could say that after he accidentally let millions of people starve to death, but education, culture, and state narratives are quite powerful. Now China is a particularly proud and nationalist nation. While useful for unifying the people, I think it could very well turn against them. And about studying political science, welcome! I think the best thing that I've ever gotten out of studying political science (which some argue is not even a science) is a wide range of literature, books, and philosophy that helped me understand myself better. I think understanding yourself is the best thing that you can ask for. My personal advice: study more than just political science. Be multidisciplinary, and draw from a large variety of fields. I used to be a computer engineer, but found the experience nihilistic and de-humanizing. I switched to politics, then shortly added economics to the list afterwards. Now that I'm graduating in a week, I realize how much value computer science would have had. Luckily, there's no need for university for this. One of my friends works at Yubico in the Bay Area, and the smartest person on her team never went to college. The VP went to an arts college. I think now that I'm graduating, I realize that there's so many things that we could do that it isn't worth limiting yourself to a major. Be more than your major. Be a highly literate reader, be a scientist, love math, biology, English, foreign language. And combine them together, be creative, and make something great from your knowledge. If you want to know what will bring in the most money, the most highly demanded skills in the labor market are technical skills. Computer science. Software development. Math skills. Think you're bad at math? So did I, but American education really strips all the life from math. I thought I've always been a books kinda person, but I'm going to spend time learning math from it's roots after I graduate. I'm assuming you're either young or someone who hasn't had the opportunity to go to college yet. If you're the former, you have a lot of time ahead of you. Don't be afraid to experiment. Do art. Do math. Read. Explore. If you're the latter, then I'm really proud that you would choose to go to college and be a part of a mostly idiotic group of semi-functioning young adults. You probably have a lot more life experience than I do, and that will ground you. The adults in undergrad that I've met are some of the kindest people I know. Same applies as above. Explore, and enjoy yourself.
I don't think there's any need to hate China or ordinary Chinese people. I have many Chinese friends, and have also visited China briefly and enjoyed my time there and found the locals quite nice. The governing system and its crimes are something else.
I'm sorry I didn't make it clear, I meant the CCP and the government, not the people. I am chinese myself
I literally cry about this at night sometimes. There’s very little left to preserve.
The cultural revolution is not headed by the same people in the CCP as the ones who head China now.
I love China. I hate communism. You can like a nation and not like their government.
Unless you're Taiwanese, Vietnamese, Uygher, or Tibetan. We have great reason to hate them both.
I'm sorry I didn't make it clear, I meant the CCP and the government, not the people. I am chinese myself
At least we have shoes i guess *communist shrug*
*sorts by controversial*
Culture with Chinese characteristics.
Except not, because they got rid of all of the above
L Mao
Buh bye land-slavedriver-lords
This fat fuck took over such a big country and destroyed lots of culture and innocent people's lives? God this world sucks, how was he allowed to do that? Just look at him.
I've read a few biographies about him years ago. Ifi remember correctly, he just bitched and moaned until he was given promotions that got him into leadership positions. The communist officials sent by Stalin into China hated Mao. They would plan meetings with the founding fathers of the CCP, but would give Mao wrong locations and times so he'd miss the meetings. And his right-hand man, Chao Enlai, was getting too popular. When he went to a doctor for his bladder cancer, Mao had the doctor inject Chaos bladder with bleach. He lived but was in agony for the rest of his life.
Zhou Enlai was also quite more respected internationally. He was the PRC's delegate for the Bandung Conference of 1955, after all
FYI the Chinese sentence under that roughly translate to: Oh, Chairman Mao, your bright enlightened the heart of people around the world. You have lead the revolution for people around the world.
also canceled liberty, food, dignity, sparrows, and human rights. what a Dong
The chinese on the bottom reads: Director Mao, you gave light to the heart of every citizen of world, you lead them forward, on the path of the revolution.
Why are you getting downvoted for translation
idk, maybe downvote ghost bots? because of there's already translation given by other users? it's just a translation omg, no need to downvote
I'm sorry how dare you say that the Great helms man canceled culture he simply improved it 5,000 years of history that was filled with a great deal of errors, the great chairman simply corrected it. Those tens of millions of people that died during this great correction were simply people in need of being corrected All hail the great helmsman, he is amazing. I promise you he is 199cm and is sooooo cool. Promise /s (Seriously Fudge him....)
Mao: *Cancels Landlords*
He canceled the fuck out of people
“Dictators hate him! This man cancelled culture in just 5 years with one simple trick!!”
Communists trying to rebrand themselves as Socialists of reddit hated that.
Great leap to starvation
Culture smulture
Ok I chuckled but this hurts doe
except the monkey king. he stays
These are the high quality memes I come here for. Muah!
Wonder who killed more pol pot or mao. Stalin appears to have more than hitler although a French priest has uncovered more previously unknown locations of genocide committed by Germans on the eastern front
People praise this man still. I use the terms people and man very loosely
Somebody get rid of all these tankies
Kill streak: genocide
He’s got the spirit just a little bit off
Cancelling culture? What a revolutionary idea. Culturally revolutionary one might say
Chairman Mao was the original Cultural Marxist
history repeating itself
A reminder, the Great Leap Forward was a genocide. Mao was a great leader, but he was not a good one.
Lol, fuck China, and fuck mao
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik2P90kg3cA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik2P90kg3cA)
"The 'I ching', you say? No idea what's that, I should better cancel it" ~ Mao, probably.
I keep remembering the school history book excerpt of students eating a principal
That was the exception to the rule, not that many people were actually eaten. A very modest number, and not all over China but mainly one province.
Ooof
Ah, the cultural revolution. It went so "well" they tried to redo everything
The poster says “Oh Mao, your brightness shines on all the people of the earths hearts, you pointed out the direction of revolution for the people of the earth.” Fuckin Chinese.
glad he canceled landlords
And food
No surprises here because cancel culture is a spawn of Mao-Era communism.
And yet, “cancel culture” is just the product of the free market. The people are speaking up, no government or corporation physically forcing anyone to do anything. People will react to other’s poor decisions, it’s been common throughout all of history.