https://www.jordanharbinger.com/sam-cooper-how-the-west-was-...
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/03/30/us/california-police-unio...
Then again, I don't care if someone thinks that a reference to a communist party is negative, as long as the negativity is about the communism aspect (as opposed to the ethnicity or general culture of that country). Just like I don't care if the NSDAP would find it insulting if I call their party the Nazi party.
Also in your link is a reference to the official CCP website, where they themselves (or so the talk page claims) state while they prefer CPC, CCP is also acceptable.
So it seems to me that this is a nothing-burger, where some activists are fighting on behalf of a group that doesn't really see the reference as a slur in the first place.
Based on this link, CCP was even the original abbreviation, which was changed to CPC as late as 1943 due to pressure from Comintern/Stalin:
https://chinamediaproject.org/2023/03/30/ccp-or-cpc-a-china-...
In almost every single case, those using these drugs are trying to escape the physical and/or emotional pain. They didn't wake up one day and say "I want to have fun, I'm going to do heroin"
Almost every fentanyl user I've talked to in harm reduction work started out on prescribed painkillers. Whether they got the taste and moved up quick, or just couldn't get their fix and couldn't deal with the horrible weeks of withdrawal and found a place to get it, they didn't just up and start shooting fentanyl one day.
1: https://drugabusestatistics.org/prescription-drug-abuse-stat...
As opposed to the non-pharmacy filled prescriptions people pick up?
Your argument is that the statistic only works because so many people don't pick up meds their doctor calls in for them?
I'm not a statistician so maybe I'm not understanding correctly, but that seems like a very weak argument.
Tell that to historians, especially Chinese historians, regarding Britain’s opium trade.
Also important to note it wasn't the Opium in Opium War that led to the century of humiliation - the humiliation was due to the War that weakened the Qing mandate and economic consequences of the unequal treaties. Great Britain via gunboat diplomacy forced Qing to open trade to opium that Qing tried to ban domestically by seizing stocks from British merchants. The shame/damage wasn't having citizens tripped up on drugs and the social ills that entail, but loss of sovereignty/state capacity over economic affairs that drained silver reserves and reversing trade surplus, which had knock on consequences. Wasn't addicts that brought down Qing, but the throne being weakened due to loss of sovereignty and inability to put down multiple uprisings due to loss of treasure. PRC waging opium war on US comparison only works if PRC was militarily coercing the US to not enforce domestic drug policies. As if that can happen. Does PRC propaganda benefit from US inability to curtail drug use domestically? Yes. But not enough to not cooperate with the US on drug trade when the relationship was good.
Things can be similar even if they're not identical. If a state actor supports criminal forces to transport harmful substances into a country, it's not so different from supporting the East India Company in doing so.
Also, the purpose matters. When the EIC sold opium in China, the motive was probably profit. If China sponsors sale of opioids in the US, it's more likely to be motivated by a desire to cause harm, which most would consider worse.
> Does PRC propaganda benefit from US inability to curtail drug use domestically? Yes. But not enough to not cooperate with the US on drug trade when the relationship was good.
Well, this implies that you agree that the main purpose is not their own gain, but the harm they can inflict on their perceived rival.
What would it look like if the US developed the same kind of desire to inflict pain and suffering in China, as a goal in itself?
Besides, the US drug epidemic predates PRC/fentanyl for decades. PRC is fine with reaping benefits of US dysfunction on the sidelines - most of the world and their politicians get propaganda value from mocking dysfunctional US drug policy. America the Great not being able to control drug use within their borders is an quintessential American problem through and through. Again being indifferent schadenfreude =/= supporting. PRC hasn't even unscheduled fentanyl yet, a legal drug previously scheduled at US request. If PRC was actively malicious, they would go back to skipping Mexico/LATAM as middle man and coordinate at state level to swamp the US directly at scale.
IMO the main benefit of poor US drug enforcement for PRC is MSS (PRC intelligence) being able to exploit opportunity to coordinate with LATAM based PRC triads to build out intelligence networks and influence. Their primary business is money laundering, largely for PRC capital flight. It doesn’t matter who actually provides the drugs/precursor (India/Mexican producers are in the game as well), or if it even needs to be drug trade in the first place.
>inflict pain and suffering in China, as a goal in itself
If US wants to reverse fentanyl trade into PRC they can go ahead. PRC state capacity is much better at dealing with domestic drug trafficking - like many other Asian countries. Otherwise the US has been trying to infiltrate PRC civil society to ideologically undermine CCP for decades despite PRC protest. PRC's ultimately decided to crack down domestically - see western NGO closures, eradicating CIA spy network, or HK protests. Something is uniquely dysfunctional with the US approach when PRC can fight ideas/influence better than the US can fight drug trafficking.
Not only this is counterproductive, it would be definitely something those hypothetical Chinese agents would say! This sentiment is what you call "the dumbest part of America" - one of personal responsibility when facing dangers that are by design above most people's threshold of self-control. If there is one thing that's likely to destabilize and destroy the western society, it's marketing and advertising industry - it's your own companies that rely on and encourage people blaming failures on themselves, because it lets them use psychological tricks to move wares.
Also:
> Who is being forced to (...) listen to extremist propaganda?
These days, everyone consuming the Internet and western mass media? There are (at least) two extremes in the US politics and culture, and while listening to one may be a choice, it's partly because the other extreme won the meme spreading battle.
Not criticizing or anything, but actual extremes look significantly different, wake me up when a proper anarchist sits in White house for example
Proper left wing extremists were the RAF who murdered people they fought against. Protestors are not extremists.
Genuine question: I purposely don’t spend any time on social media or any other blog/forum that makes use of Internet “memes” so I’m blissfully unaware of what kind of content is circulated. Also, as (another) European, I try to not let myself be overly distracted by American political drama. I need to have some awareness of what’s going on in the US as it influences the political discourse in the rest of the Anglosphere (Hacker News posts like this one suffice for that level of awareness).
... I hope you're not in charge of anyone's life
So just like what the British empire did to China during the century of humiliation with opium? Mainlander hypocrisy is comical
Do you feel the same about he Opium Wars?
That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen to extremist propaganda? Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that.
The instability of American culture is currently seen as an intrinsic virtue. China is not causing any change. They're just apparently exploiting what was already the dumbest part of America. Even America's allies do this. If America finally grows up it would be a good thing and the only way that will probably happen is more self-inflicted disaster.