In addition to freedom of speech, we also have freedom of assembly. Combined both freedoms allow our citizens to both bring awareness to the problem(s) and to try to stop it. Is this perfect? No, but it's still better than China (at least on that front)
Shanghai is modern. Huge parts of the country are developing.
Whether a country is developed or not is defined based on their standard of living per capita, not their absolute size. A country with a billion poor people has completely different social, demographic, industrial and political drivers than a country of 300m high I come people.
The last thing on my mind when I think of China is "its a developing nation." China seems to own quite an empire.
Coastal China has per capita GDP comparable to Taiwan. Interior provinces is much poorer, with 600M living on 1000RMB/month or 2000USD/year, on the level of Haiti. In aggregate China is a middle income country with per capita GDP of Iraq.
The Chinese system harnesses this income disparity + 1.4 Billion people to concentrate talent, wealth and development systematically rival developed nations. That's just a factor of scale. Quantity has a quality of its own if properly coordinated, which is basically broad TLDR of Chinese history up to industrialization. I suppose people didn't think China could catch up this fast.
You'd be surprised. Plus, it's not like something they'll admit openly.
Second, there's also internalized violence/indoctrination, from a young age.
There is of course voluntary choice too -- even western women who have converted and adopted wearing it (in which case there's no youthful indoctrination). But for tons of muslim women in Europe, which see their non-muslim friends not having to wear any, it's imposed by their families and communities.
The ongoing demoralization of the US like this is outright sister.
[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=china+highway+built+around+house&t...
and many more cases like
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holdout_(real_estate)#Nail_hou...
How is that possible at all with no liberty, no justice, no recourse ?
Disagree if you mean in general sense. You need to define it in far more details. I guess you mean “when their interest conflicts with the government”. Ask common Chinese citizens who live a non-activist life if they agreed that they are slaves and don’t have any of those rights
Yeah. Accurate.
The crackdown in Xinjiang is a response to terrorist attacks. Both America and China are pretty reliable for grossly disproportionate responses to terrorist attacks that ruin the lives of millions.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_....
While not concentration camps, the US still does have residential schools where they put Native American children into Christian foster homes and educate them to follow our political system in public schools. Plus the church makes millions doing it. Certainly better, but still pretty terrible.
> Where journalists repeteadly disappear? Where a treaty with the UK is ripped up and a city is invaded?
The "Collateral Murder" is video evidence of the US killing journalists during their illegal invasion of a nation. You can disagree with my evaluation of those events, but it's hard to see how we have the moral high ground here.
Of course there’s no winner here, only losers...
Does that make it okay then?
What do you think the school-to-prison pipeline and legal prison labour amount to? Black, brown and native people being forced into slavery and imprisonment. Not to mention ICE detention camps.
> Are they tracked through a social credit system where you can't get a train out of your town if it's bad?
Ever had to get a background check for a job? To rent a house?
The only reason this is so visible in China is because it's foreign to us. We grew up with redlining and ghettos and mandatory minimums, so we don't even realize it's a different implementation of the same system
Forced surgeries and sterilizations? For a claim like that, you're going to have to cite a credible source. As imperfect as we are, we're not as bad as China.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/21/unwanted-hys...
Still, unlike in China there are lawmakers publicly trying to stop it, and we are free to speak & write about it and say that it’s wrong
you may have law which makes being muslim illegal and put in jail. and that jail will become "concentration camp", but only if you view it from outside of that country.
"A camp where persons are confined, usually without hearings and typically under harsh conditions, often as a result of their membership in a group which the government has identified as dangerous or undesirable."
> the children at a facility in Clint, Texas, were sleeping on concrete floors and being denied soap and toothpaste. They described “children as young as 7 and 8, many of them wearing clothes caked with snot and tears … caring for infants they’ve just met.” A visiting doctor called the detention centers “torture facilities.” At least seven children have died in U.S. custody in the past year, compared with none in the 10 years prior. More than 11,000* children are now being held by the U.S. government on any given day.
> Chris Rickerd, a policy counsel at the ACLU. “But this all-encompassing skepticism of asylum seekers fleeing violence—justifying cruel treatment, justifying changes in the law, and justifying overcrowding to the point of unsafe and deadly conditions—[is] of a scale and a type that we haven’t seen before.”
> The Trump administration has previously deliberately inflicted suffering on children to deter illegal immigration, with its use of family separation. It has altered immigration policy and the asylum process so as to force the authorities to hold migrants, whether they have properly sought asylum at a port of entry or crossed illegally [1]
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/07/border-fac...
Maybe not to the scale of China, but basically. They are prison, reservations, and immigration detention centers.
> Are they tracked through a social credit system where you can't get a train out of your town if it's bad?
Again, not as bad in the US, probably, but we do have a credit system that can make it much more difficult for certain people to have a place to live, buy a car, or get a job. Add on the felony system, and we also take away their right to vote, and again make it harder for them to get good jobs. Finally, we even have a no-fly list.
> Where journalists repeteadly disappear?
Does that happen in China? A quick Google search didn't bring up much. I do agree that the US has more freedom of speech.
> Where a treaty with the UK is ripped up and a city is invaded?
We have and still regularly do this with treaties we made with Native American tribes.
Yes, they are called ghettos.
> Are they tracked through a social credit system where you can't get a train out of your town if it's bad?
Yes, it's called the prison system.
> Where journalists repeteadly disappear?
not only journalists, but political leaders, rappers, pastors, etc.
> Where a treaty with the UK is ripped up and a city is invaded?
Well, that's the easiest one. The US is waging war against 3 or 4 African countries right now.
It's clearly worse in China, but I do feel fear, even in the US.
Imagine 0.01% of Chinese population have the awareness and willing to fight for it, that’ll be a huge deal already.
I look at Taiwan with great hopes.
And we never used the prisoners as organ banks.
When did China last have a Uighur dictator? (Since it’s a dictatorship I mean I guess they don’t really care about having representation of minority groups in positions of power). Does China have schemes to help minorities in China attend college? Are there advocate groups representing Uighu interests in Beijing? Do they have any history or education in Chinese textbooks about the Uighur or other minorities? In the US we did a lot of bad stuff (we all benefit from it now, so every single American born today is as guilty as any other) but at least we actually acknowledge it!
How many immigrants of any sort does China allow to fully immigrate into China on a yearly basis? Can a Syrian apply for a visa or move to China as a refugee?
Why are some Chinese racist against Africans and why is that overlooked? [1], [2], [3]
Does the US have problems? Yep. Even if the US “was the same”, last I checked we have protests and people campaigning to fix our issues. So even if you wanted to make the outlandish claim that “the U.S. is the same”, you can easily look around and see that at a minimum we highlight problems in our society. Who is running against Xi to stop the genocide of Uighur Muslims?
The only thing that makes sense to me here is social media. You (not you specifically) see that first outrage article and then down the scrolling and clicking hole you go until you’re just addicted to being outraged.
I put what I call America-denialism on a similar level as I do anti-vaxers, flat earth era, 9/11 truthers, or Trump deep-state conspiracy theorists. It’s just another wacky idea that you get from extended periods of time going down social media rabbit holes.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-racism-africans-chi...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/china-fails-to...
[3] https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/15/chinas-racism-is-wrecki...