Obviously nobody cares about right or wrong. The average westerners only want to accuse China so they can feel good about themselves for a while, and their leaders only want to secure world domination.

Look at some of the comments here, people have no idea what they are talking about. Seriously? A civil war is good in his/her book? How many people do you think is going to die? And would the US and the Europe happily accept Chinese refugees? It is fine for millions of people from other parts of the world to die, billions to suffer, as long as it is for western values. Just look at the Middle East.

Also, an unbaised standard does not exist when it comes to international affairs. Do you think the billions of poor people in India are enjoying their lives? How come the west always focus fire on the Chinese when they talk about human right issues? Have you heard of the caste system?

About culture, as a Chinese living in the US, many Americans have asked me whether I eat dogs, or do I have microwaves/tap water back in China. Do you think they will change their minds even if I try my best to explain my experience to them? Americans want culture diversity as much as kids want to visit a zoo: lol look at these barbarians, now let's go back to our modern, superior way of life.

Edit: People read several biased articles online and think they know everything about China, because why would the media lie? We obviously do not need to set foot on this huge country to see it for ourselves, a few news reports are all we need.

> and their leaders only want to secure world domination.

projection?

> the west always focus fire on the Chinese when they talk about human right issues?

we don't. maybe you just pay attention to those stories more though.

> Also, an unbaised standard does not exist when it comes to international affairs.

i'll agree with this, however it doesn't make morally wrong things less wrong, or mean people don't suffer.

> as a Chinese living in the US, many Americans have asked me [...] do I have microwaves/tap water back in China

this could just be a weird thing Americans do, even in Canada or Europe they'll ask if it's safe to drink tap water.

out of interest, how many of your countrymen to have access to clean tap water?

Judging from how active and well-received Dalai Lama is in the west and how many westerners have bothered to go to Tibet to see it for themselves, I would say yes you focus too much on our human right issues for how little you care about what's really happening.

Right or wrong do exist, I also think Xi is an a-hole. But people ignore issues that are "inconvenient" for them and their allies is what drives me crazy. I would prefer people put their own oxygen masks on before helping others.

For the southern parts of China, I would say almost all the countrymen have access to tap water. For the northwestern parts, it is still pretty bad, a lot of them still rely on rivers/wells, although I don't have numbers. As for how clean the water is, that is something I have no idea about, and I am not optimistic.

Edit: grammar.

I used to be a total supporter of the Dalai Lama. I mean, great philosophy. Great clothes. Great ritual. Great sand paintings. And so on.

But then I starting thinking about what life would have been like in Tibet, under the Buddhist theocracy. Maybe benign enough, but not so much freedom for the serfs.

Thanks. It's great to see a comment by a Chinese person.

As I've said, individual rights and freedoms matter a lot to me. I'm pretty radical about it. More or less an anarchist, in the Crowley sense. Or as Stover would say, a Cainist.

But still, I do my best to be open-minded. There's always the risk of infection, I know, but my mental immune system is pretty damn hardcore.

Thanks. I also think our current government is one of the worst, the problem is that the western leaders doesn't genuinely want to help us from our point of view, it seems that they want puppets like the South Korea and Japan. Human rights, environment issues are just tools they use to make us look bad.

There was a time when there were powers and authorities in the Western world that would silence dissent via violence and murder.

See Galileo and the Catholic Church as an example. Or the Inquisition. Or any number of other examples of absolute authority executed by a State or State based actors in the pursuit of silencing dissent and controlling discourse.

A fundamental component of American ideology is the protection of free speech and dissent. Pretty much unequivocally. E.g., the "old" and "different" culture of authoritarianism that controlled Western civilization was overturned to give individuals more freedom.

So far this dedication to individual liberty and freedom of thought and expression is a relatively short lived blip in human history - but arguing that Chinese culture is just "old" and "different" side steps the fact that on the one hand we see an evolving and changing culture that embraces the individual...and on the other we see a continuance of abusive authoritarianism that subjugates individuals in pursuit of preserving the status quo.

Sure, I get that. That's why I came to the US. And I do believe that, for the most part, the US does display an honest commitment to those values.

But still, imposing your values on others is an iffy thing.

In the one case you have China actively violating the freedoms and liberties of the people living under its control and on the other hand you have the UN as a collective body seeking to have a discussion about that.

China is actively seeking in this case to kill any sort of discourse. The UN has no power to impose its values on anyone else. It can, as a body, take certain actions to indirectly affect nations of the world...but it is not a world government that can impose anything.

In this case all that was on the table was a discussion - and even that was untenable to China.

That is China imposing it's values on others in a very absolute way - and I agree...that's an iffy thing. I would go even further and say it's unacceptable (by any country) to try to completely silence discussion.

> ... freedoms and liberties ...

Yes, they are for sure doing that.

But then, those are European concepts. I'm not even sure if they're really expressible in endogenous Chinese languages.

So is cultural imperialism OK, as long as we're really "in the right"? That was basically Spain's argument for taking over Mexico etc. God was on their side.

> those are European concepts

Only inasmuch as they were born in Europe who in turn had to flee their home country to pretty much make it a reality.

In the article in questions here no one is talking about intervening in the internal affairs of other countries.

The point of contention is that China is actively working to prevent the very discussion of what is happening under its authority. And they are actively using violent physical force to impose their authority and prevent discussion and dissent within their borders.

Is history replete with examples of Western countries undertaking violent imperialistic expansion? Absolutely.

Is that what we're doing now or talking about here? No.

> I'm not even sure if they're really expressible in endogenous Chinese languages.

And it never will be expressible unless and until free and open discussion can be engaged in.

Sure, China doesn't want people dissing its internal policies. No country does, do they?

And yes, they are repressing dissent within China through "violent physical force". That again isn't unusual. There's a broad consensus that a state has internal monopoly on force.

Me, I hate that. But it's not as if China is alone, in that. I'd love to go buy some LSD or shrooms. But authorities put people in jail for that shit. Some huge percentage of US citizens are locked up for nonviolent drug offenses. How is that not just as bad as what China is doing?

Edit: And what if some were organizing a UN conference to discuss the violent repression of recreational drug use in the US etc? That's not even a credible possibility, is it? And that's largely because the US has so thoroughly dominated the world regarding the issue.

I absolutely agree that there are questionable aspects to how the U.S. enforced drug prohibition laws and how non-violent offenders are treated.

But again, the fact is that we can openly have, and pursue aggressively, discussion about and attempts at reform around how this is handled.

In fact we see this by the spread of various drug legalization efforts in the U.S. and efforts at prison reform.

Though there is also a huge difference between a governments authority to regulate the distribution and consumption of psychoactive compounds (and/or the sale of such compounds) and the ability to even discuss how the government is handling the issue.

Free speech and criticism of the government are a bare minimum baseline. So you can actively organize your fellow citizens in an effort to legalize various compounds in the US and you can lobby and protest the government without any fear of being arrested because of what you are saying. That is a completely different world than what goes on in China. If you are a dissident you are a criminal.

And with respect to whether or not the UN could openly address internal affairs of the U.S. - well it does: https://undocs.org/A/HRC/38/33/ADD.1

Yes the U.S. ambassador to the UN had some choice words about that specific report but it was all out in the open and wasn't suppressed

> But again, the fact is that we can openly have, and pursue aggressively, discussion about and attempts at reform around how this is handled.

Yes, freedom of expression in the US is wonderful. As is freedom of religion. But still, when I'm feeling cynical, I observe that freedom of expression in the US ends when you're actually doing anything.

Or even talking about actually doing anything. Issues around the ritual use of peyote and ayahuasca come to mind.

And still, it's about as good as it gets on planet Earth. Except for, in some ways, northern Europe.

That's a great US report. Thanks. I've drifted a lot around the US, and I was seriously into whitewater for a few years. traveling barely navigable creeks and rivers in the southeastern US, I saw some unbelievable stuff.

I suggest you should read up on the far more recent case of Fred Hampton and COINTELPRO regarding US "protection of dissent". American institutions protect the status quo and allow "safe" dissent (meaning bounded (e.g. NY Times) or ineffective (tiny groups / grandpa screaming) dissent). However, free speech is treated more seriously here than most other places and times in history, that is true and good.

https://www.zinnedproject.org/materials/assassination-of-fre...

That said, what is being done to the Uyghur people in China is vile and is contradictory to established human rights. It is completely appropriate to take China to task at the UN. However, as US citizens, it is difficult for us to have a strong moral voice given the wars, assassinations, coups, and destructive sanctions we have initiated along with our history of indigenous genocide, colonialism, and slavery that we have still not fully reckoned with. Even now we are implementing a slightly different version of the Japanese internment camps for the most vulnerable people in our society, undocumented immigrants, to distract from the economic depredations of the ruling class.

If we want to be a more effective and just nation, we have a lot of work to do at home.

I am not saying that there aren't parts of the U.S. government that actively work against free speech - because that is certainly the case.

However the very fact that we can discuss these things (or that there is a book that is freely accessible to all on the subject of a specific instance of institutional oppression in the U.S.) openly and without fear that our doors are going to get knocked in and see us getting swept off to a "reeducation camp" are the signs that we live in a country that strongly values free speech.

The U.S. does not have a perfect track record by any means...but for all of the examples you give of bad action by the U.S. as an institution I am aware of large and public and accessible documentation in the forms of museums, installations and other means of dissemination and availability.

In other words the U.S. airs (or allows to be aired) its dirty laundry as much or more than most other countries. And while this invites "whataboutism" it certainly, in my opinion, helps validate our position to openly question and try to discuss the actions of other nations.

> ...it's somewhat disingenuous to tar them for lobbying (even ~threatening) other UN diplomats.

We're not tarring and feathering them _for_ lobbying. We are tarring and feathering them for _what_ they are lobbying. Is that not a valid distinction?

What strikes me as disingenuous is to frame your argument in this way, when it misses the point of _why_ this is drawing any attention in the first place.

On the scale of what the US does about those who trade with Iran, say, what China is doing is nothing.

Trying to sweep human rights violations, to put it as mildly as humanly possible, under the rug, using threats by your own admission, is nothing? Why is your default position here whataboutism?

OK, not Iran. The trade embargo on Iraq, which killed many thousands through starvation. How is that not a human-rights violation?

And the thing here is that this is about how China is treating people in areas that are part of China, and have off-and-on been part of China for thousands of years. Some of them were part of China long before the proto-US was importing slaves from Africa.

So if the US wants to focus on human-rights violations, they arguably ought to focus on African-Americans. Some huge percentage of African-American men are, or have been, in prison. Far more than the Chinese are fucking with.

And fundamentally, it's not whataboutism. It's about realistic expectations. I mean, just consider what the US diplomatic response would be if China started organizing a UN conference on treatment of African-Americans. Pretty soon, as with China, it'd come down to "don't mess with us".

The god of humanism and human rights. We are right and Chinese are wrong for oppressing their own people with what amounts to racism and fascist nationalism.

OK, but why does our god beat their god?

Their god is a fuck of a lot older ;)

Is it just because we can? And that we'll kick their ass hard enough and long enough that they worship our god? That's cool, I guess. But we ought at least be honest about it.

And what if we can't? What then?

Their God was invented by Marx, Mao, Fascism, and Capitalism. This has nothing to do with Confucianism or Buddhism or Taoism.

So you say.

But I've heard even vaguely liberal Chinese argue differently. And seriously, have you actually read Confucius? Or the Yi Jing? Concepts like social benefit trumping individual freedom, and respect for authority, go back a long way.

Fascism and Communism are relatively modern European inventions. Even Chinese Communism, at its peak, was never anything like what Marx and Engels imagined. Although they talked about social evolution, they were fundamentally operating in the context of individual freedom.

Yes historically Chinese civilization has been highly hierarchical and authoritarian. Which has to do with their state craft, not something due to the will of the people. So much so that they used to completely mistreat people, like for instance see how the great wall was built. That does not mean that we should laud or tolerate that as their culture and the way that it has to be. And if we're talking about living in the past then we should be arming the Uighurs to defend themselves as that's a part of our cultural heritage.

In the end the point is for people to have rights and not be subjected to arbitrary harassment, detention or murder by the state. That's a universal global thing now. And that's for the better.

I have nothing with the Chinese wanting to be great. That's the purview of all humans. I just have a problem with the way they have decided to go about it. And the rest of the world should as well.

> That's a universal global thing now.

Except for China. And not really even for India. Or for much of the Middle East, for that matter. Or even for Russia, when you really get down to it.

So maybe not so much a "global" thing. Maybe a European culture thing. Which thinks that it ought to be global.

And yet, I do believe that it ought to be global. But I realize that I'm on shaky ground there.