One, we don’t censor that information.
Two, I’d expect most Americans to freely criticise those government actions, as well as the people and agencies responsible. The latter is prohibited in China.
You don't have to, when nobody really cares for it, and the system is such that nobody is gonna do anything about it (and the people who did those things get a slap on the wrist, if not a pat on the back).
It's regimes that lack this that censor information -- regimes that are worried that e.g. protests could result in bringing them down.
If you don't worry about that, you can let almost anything be said. Especially if you just let it be declassified/acknowledged decades after the fact, when even fewer will care.
Your response and the others here have nothing to do with that.
I wouldn’t, but that’s because of something deeper than anything we experience in America or Australia.
Consider pre-Snowden public opinions on mass surveillance. The public didn’t know and didn’t believe. Once the information came out, however, people believed. Some actions were taken, and on many fronts activism got aggressive. (A large minority accepted the new facts while deeming it acceptable. A smaller minority thinks the disclosures themselves were a conspiracy.)
It would be surprising if a majority of Chinese students, after learning about the massacre at Tiananmen Square [1], rejected it as a global propaganda campaign. Some will. More than in America, given the energy given to brainwashing by Beijing.
The difference will be in the number who believe it happened but defend it as having been necessary. Teaching the worth of democratic values is tough. The violence exhibited towards the Hong Kong protesters, and Beijing’s emissary’s support of it as patriotism, exemplifies that.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_protests_of...
I'm sick of this holier than thou attitude that people have here. There's this patronizing attitude that if only the brain washed Chinese knew what was really happening they would rise up! Yet you know about the Nayirah testimony, MKUltra, Snowden, Cambridge Analytica, migrant camps... why aren't you out protesting, storming congress, why isn't Bush in prison, why isn't Trump impeached? It's not a "small minority"; it's the majority. Most Americans don't care enough to find out and if they did they wouldn't care enough to do anything.
I'd argue that the propaganda is much deeper and subtle in the West. The media is a oligarchy yet it's still "independent" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWLjYJ4BzvI You believe are the good guys despite history despite everything.
You have legislators and media critical of the government wrt CA and migrant camps. That's why you don't see so much civil disobedience, because these concerns are visibly reflected in the government.
This doesn't mean I disagree with you that Chinese who know more about Tiananmen wouldn't "rise up", but against your argument that it is propaganda in the West that prevents people from civil disobedience.
I would agree that propaganda and soft power shape opinion and taboo in the West and US, but on the other hand, I don't think that this insidious and subtle propaganda is anywhere near as powerful as the total propaganda and coercion practiced by some other regimes.
Because in America you can openly talk about those things on the press and the internet and comments, and thus let off steam...
Of course the end result is the same, as in China they keep happening!
Every country is going to have problems. It can never make decisions that satisfy everyone. What matters is the ability to talk about it, like what we're doing here. Politics is always going to be slow, though; that's the tradeoff versus having a dictator.
And if they had to learn about something that bad, they’d learn about it as soon as possible and the government would be powerless to cover it up.
Yes, this commonly occurs in fact. Americans trash their own country aggressively, routinely all over social media, for its flaws and past mistakes. See: Twitter, Reddit or Imgur comments every day of the week.
We pay sports athletes and celebrities tens of millions of dollars and they regularly trash the US for its flaws and past mistakes. They do so all over social media, routinely, and with few repercussions (essentially none from the government, and few from social blowback).
How many famous millionaire Hollywood celebrities would you like me to quote - eg from their tweets - saying they somehow hate the US or wish to leave?
Just because you have problems doesn't mean you can't point out that someone else does too, as long as you have acknowledged yours.