It's ok to say "China was going the right direction between years X and Y" without being an "apologist".
* "China steals everything" (which essentially labels Chinese people as thieves).
* "Chinese scientists created CoVID-19 and then lied about it" (alleging that Chinese scientists have no integrity).
* "China only copies" (implying that Chinese people aren't creative).
* "Chinese numbers are all fake" (implying that millions of Chinese people are in on some conspiracy to fake everything).
In other words, in my experience, many people who say they just hate the CCP actually hold a huge number of negative stereotypes about Chinese people, and have a very conspiratorial view of the country.
One fact that everyone here should take into consideration is that the Communist Party has a very broad base of support in China, and is fairly popular. Most people actually approve of the central government, not in everything, but in general. If the Communist Party were as comically evil as people in the West tend to think, it wouldn't have this level of support, and it would lose power pretty quickly.
And one can't explain its popularity by claiming that Chinese people don't know what's going on - they tend to be far better informed about happenings in China than 99% of commenters in your average English-language internet forum. If you can't imagine why people in China would support the government, just consider the fundamental transformation that hundreds of millions of people have gone through in the last few decades. People who did not even have running hot water in their homes or reliable electricity are now wealthy enough to fly to Paris for a week.
I'm not trying to paint a rosy picture of the Chinese government or the Party, but I'm just pointing out that things are significantly more nuanced than most people here think.
This is an incredible claim, given that nobody has even alleged that China is killing anyone in Xinjiang.
I recall when "genocide" used to mean "murder of a race" (as both the history of the term and its etymology make clear). It's now being devalued by obviously hyperbolic, rhetorical use.
I didn't consider it "genocide" when the US killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Iraq. If that's not genocide, there's no way it's genocide when China carries out political indoctrination in Xinjiang.
Amazing that this needs to be said...
They also are responsible for stealing hundreds of billions of dollars of IP from the US every single year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_pr...
And masters at stealing R&D and tech from US companies for their own use
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_spy_cases_in_t...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-hackers-took-trillions-...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/17/chinese-h...
Best evidence of this is the previous 2020 elections.
Okay, if so, then why complain about Chinese spying? They are just doing what the US is even more guilty of.
As a westerner I would love to see the US stop embarrassing us in front of autocrats.
Source?
“If some random Russian not can trigger a coup”
It’s still an act of aggression regardless of whether the US is equipped to deal with it. While I agree that the US does lots of shitty things, we have way more checks and balances than our key enemies. For one, it is the people who elect those who represent us.
I think it would be naive to think similar programs are not being enacted in the present day.
He has openly been a an advocate for military action and regime change by the US in several countries[1]. Recently he also openly mentioned his role in helping plan coups d'etat in an interview, when asked about the events on January 6th that followed the 2020 election:
"As somebody who has helped plan coups d'etat— not here but you know (in) other places— it takes a lot of work." [2]
Also, tragically enough, he in fact served as the 25th United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Just a reminder, when listing its principles, the first point of the UN's foundational charter reads: "The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members."
The USA counting a self-proclaimed "coup planner" as their ambassador to the UN can give us an idea of how fundamental interfering (ie, "hacking") other nation's affairs is to their foreign policy, and how little it respects the sovereignty of nations.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bolton
> Source?
Not even hiding it: https://content.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19960715,00.htm...
"Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens.
This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders." - George Carlin
But the coverage is probably outsized to their actual impact compared to the hundreds of billions spent by the local monopolies trying to influence the elections themselves.
Trump ignoring his personal issues for a moment, has shown with his rise and fall, just how much of the media are just working together - I have never seen all of them including interestingly enough CNBC and Fox constantly dismissing the same candidate in unison for months towards to 2016 election.
Add the tech monopolies into the mix for 2020 and it was another eye opener.
Not being daft, but what fall? Sure the non-Right media wants to paint him as a has-been, but that's revisionist history, and wishful thinking.
Key fact: Trump in losing received more votes than Obama in either of BO's victory. Yet Obama is generally painted as popular and love, and Trump a nothing?
I'm not a fan of DT but a false hope in a false narrative is an opportunity for him to exploit.
[0]https://www.history.com/news/industrial-revolution-spies-eur...
> billions of dollars of IP
I like how your make claims about important societal issues, but the evidence provided is all about money.
For instance when we started getting problems with vaccination of people in Norway it was not due to China but fake news and conspiracies pushed by the radical conservative movement in the US.
The US holds a special position in advancing and protecting democracy, but is itself turning into a liability. China is a concern but first priority has to be to fix American democracy before it drags the whole West into the mud.
Authoritarian regimes are bad. The fact that this authoritarian regime has mongoloid/asiatic facial features is irrelevant. I hated GWB’s expansion of the security state and two senseless middle eastern wars, I hated Obama killing American citizens without trial, and I hated Trump’s… everything, basically, but admittedly withdrawing from Afghanistan was p cool. Stopped clocks etc.
Anyways it’s totally consistent with wanting a just world to also hate the largest authoritarian regime in that world. This “but what if it’s because you’re racist?!?!” line is an absurdity
But the bad guys are the chinese, who hasn't been involved in a war in 40 years.