To avoid getting into an argument about the blanket term "dictatorship," can you list the specific things you think China does that are uniquely immoral (i.e., that the Five Eyes countries don't also do)?

- block access to the (non-Chinese) internet - deny land ownership rights to everyone other than the gov't - routinely exercise this power by confiscating homes and plots of land - force the granting of CCP membership on corporate boards - penalize people for criticizing the government - including (sometimes permanent) house arrest - put an entire region of the country (Xinjiang) under permanent martial law

Look, chairman Xi isn't shy in saying that he regards Mao Zedong as his model, and that his goal is for ethnic Chinese inside and outside the mainland to line up single-mindedly behind Mao Zedong thought and, since he had it enshrined in foundational documents, Xi Jinping thought. You might not call that "dictatorship", but a lot of us do, and we don't welcome the concerted effort to export it to our countries. It's an aggressive and expansive ideology.

I know, I know: democracy and individual liberty is an aggressive and expansive ideology too. All that means is that the world is likely to square off over the distinction. As it should be.

> a lot of us

Who is "us" here? Anecdotally, a lot of Chinese people just don't care that much about the specifics of their political system as long as the economy keeps growing strongly and social harmony is encouraged. And yes, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and now Xi Jinping Thought are regarded as important models and doctrines for how China should develop in the future. And they seem to be working well enough so far. "Democracy and individual liberty" may be okay for the West (though even here they're quite recent developments historically!), but China is a huge country with a very significant legacy of its own, and we should respect that.

What you don't get (or try to spin away) is this:

- the money that China spends at Oxford and at US universities is an attempt to spread the ideology I describe

- inside China (I lived there for many years) there is ZERO ambiguity about the purpose of these soft power programs. it is only wumao working outside China who push the fiction that to object to propaganda programs that are focused on the West is to interfere in Chinese internal affairs.

- this has absolutely nothing to do with respecting the legacy of China inside its own borders. it is about a concerted "Unified Front" that is an open policy of the Chinese gov't and is being pursued using every manner of soft power or sometimes sharp power, but most especially money, outside the borders of China.

My question is what is unique to China. Do the Five Eyes not also invest in universities so they can spread their ideology throughout the world, using both soft power and bombs? Do they not also have ethnonationalist leaders?

If we are going to reject money for principled reasons, let us first have principles and see who fits them. Let us not say who we don't like and then find better-sounding reasons to dislike them.

luddy already comprehensively answered your question further up the thread with a list of power abuses unique to China. Nor is it some great mystery what principles we have that China does not respect. "Freedom of speech" is a big one. "Representative government" is another.

When you ask "can you list specific things", and someone does so, and then you ignore the answer and ask again, it begins to look like "whataboutism" in bad faith, rather than an attempt to further the discussion.

rejecting for example Confucius Institutes at universities because they are promulgating an ideology that is diametrically opposed to the foundational principles of universities in the West -- open discussion without political interference -- is a principle and a principle that fits perfectly. Tsinghua would reject a program from the West that pushed principles that for example reject Maoism. It doesn't fit. Where's the mystery?

Even if I agreed that China does nothing “uniquely immoral”, their lack of freedom of the press, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly means that it is harder to change whatever immoral things they are doing.

As for specific things China has done, their latest campaign of persecution has been in the news recently: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/asia/china-uighur-m...