I agree there is a lot of unreasonable bashing of China, but I guess my perspective is a bit between you and the irrational China bashers. One claim about China which has always annoyed me is this idea that China is a nation hell bent on world domination eager to spread and take control akin to Nazi Germany.
I think that is in part due to an American need to see the world in terms of cartoon villains and heroes. You also make a good point about companies having a free choice to come to China and share technology or not. We did exactly the same in Norway. We could not offer large internal markets like China but valuable resources. If you wanted to drill for oil in Norway in the 70s and 80s you had partner with Norwegian companies just like in China. In fact to my knowledge that particular model China uses was copied from Norway. There was a Chinese delegation here in the 70s which wanted to discuss how China dealt with large multinationals from large powerful countries like the US.
Still I don't want to let China off the hook. There is no denying that China is an oppressive regime, and I don't think surveys really dispels that. In a regime with no press freedom people are easily lulled into thinking everything is great and the government does a great job because all criticism is suppressed and censored.
You will find many of the same results in many other dictatorships through history. All these surveys really show is that indoctrination at school and curtailing of freedom of expression actually works very effectively. If everything in China was as good as they claim there would be no need to brutally suppress freedom of expression.
I know very well as a Norwegian how serious China is about this. We have given the peace prize to people speaking up for human rights in China. That has not happen without sever consequences. Big powerful nations like the US never face such consequences because China doesn't dare challenge a big powerful nation like this US. They are pretty okay with twisting the arm of smaller nations however.
Thus as citizen of a small country, I see it as quite worrisome that Chinese democracy and freedom reforms are regressing while China is growing more powerful. It means they can increasingly bully smaller nations to do their bidding. To be clear this is not criticism of China as a country and its people but of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese people have not made these choices.
I think part of the reason many do a 180 degrees on China is that much of the American characterization of China has been utterly cartoonish. People who visit China will feel they got lied to as the dystopia they had been told to expect does not quite materialize in front of their eyes.
Reality however is that most dictatorships except North Korea, I suppose, don't fit the image of a dystopia. Read the accounts of visitors to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the 1930s. The characterizations of both countries is often glowing with praise about how well run, clean and neat everything is. Full of happy people etc.
Dictatorship is rarely felt by the masses. If it didn't it couldn't retain power. It is the minority who tends to get oppressed.
> I see it as quite worrisome that Chinese democracy and freedom reforms are regressing while China is growing more powerful.
Is that what Western mainstream media tell you? I've not seen any real evidence of this.
And I find it puzzling that you refer to Chinese democracy and freedom reforms, and dictatorship all in one breath.
> It means they can increasingly bully smaller nations to do their bidding.
What nations has China bullied? It's helping Global South countries build their infrastructure and develop their economies through Belt and Road. It helped Global South countries vaccinate their populations when the Western powers hoarded their vaccines. It has legitimate disputes in the South China Sea along with five other countries (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam), and China is pursuing diplomatic solutions.
Taiwan is part of China according to the One China principle, which nearly the entire world subscribes to, including USA!
And speaking of bullying, USA has bullied many, many nations...through countless wars and countless sanctions and countless coups.
I don't consider China a democracy. I wrote "Chinese democracy" as a reference to something they could and should create in the future. Something they should be on the path towards, not an actual existing thing today.
As for bullying. China has bullied plenty of small countries in Europe. I even used my native Norway as an example. We have certainly experience the wrath and pressure from China.
Yes the US is a bully, but how on Earth does that give China a license to be a bully. I choose the US as the lesser of two evil. At least the US is able to distinguish between governments and what independent organizations and companies within that country do. The US would never sanction Norway for awarding the peace prize to somebody criticizing US wars.
The US has an irrational paranoia about anything socialist, but they at least respect freedom of expression. That is a pretty core principle for any Western democracy which is why most of us can cooperate with the US despite its many flaws.
It does not matter whether or not we in the West consider China a democracy. What matters is that the Chinese regard China as a democracy. Politically, the Chinese did not ask for our help, nor do they need our help.
North Korea can call itself a democracy, but it doesn't make it one. I can claim gravity doesn't exist but it doesn't stop existing. China is NOT a democracy by any sense of the meaning of the word.
You can redefine words to mean whatever you want to mean yourself, but you cannot demand that others share your unique definition.
And this brings us full circle to the title of my article, "Western Arrogance and China."
The West feel entitled to define what is and isn't democracy. The West have a very specific definition of democracy, and multi-party elections are at its core.
But as I indicated earlier, even the Greeks never required this of democracy.
The fact is that China's democracy hews much closer to the original Greek definition.
The fact is that China's democracy works well for the Chinese people. They're happy with it. Why can't we accept this?
Ahem. All world powers are bullies. It's the nature of the beast. America. Soviet Union before it. Great Britain before it. France before it.
USA respects freedom of expression??? Is that why they block anyone who presents the other side of the Russia-Ukraine story? Independent journalists and bloggers on social media (Twitter and YouTube in particular have censored many people). RT America was completely shut down by the US government.
Whataboutism. I don't really approve of any world powers. I just question why you are so eager to defend and promote yet another hegemon. Hasn't history taught us that we should have LESS of these kinds of countries, not more of them?
But regardless there is a ranking. The US has been much worse than China in terms of invading other countries. No doubt about that. That is plus points for China. But on the positive side for the US they have at least tried to defend democracy and freedom in other countries, even if they have squashed it at other times. The US is a bit of a wildcard.
China in contrast has never been on the side of ANYTHING positive. They have NEVER in their life sided with democratic forces. They are always on the side of oppressors. They sided with f*cking Cambodia and Pol Pot against Vietnam which brought an end to that horror regime. Pol Pot was in fact inspired by Chinese style communism which IMHO says a lot about what a horrible brand of communism that was. Sure, today's China is not like that but they have never owned up to that.
All China is about is self-victization. It is always about the evil West. They themselves apparently have never done anything wrong. At least fricken own up to Tianaman square where they flatten countless students to the point that the pieces of the students left had to be scraped up afterwards.
The US is deeply flawed but is much better at owning up to its mistakes or at least allow them to be discussed. The US prosecuted their own citizens for war crimes in Vietnam and elsewhere. Have you ever seen China prosecute anyone of their own for the crimes they committed during the worst period of the communist regime?
One cannot simply claim to be good because one never did something bad the US has done. One has to actually be able to demonstrate doing something good. That one is willing to take serious self criticism and own up to past and present human rights abuses.
It's true, China geopolitical history hasn't always been admirable.
But China underwent a massive transformation in 1978 with Deng Xiaoping's sweeping reforms. Today's China is nothing like China of half a century ago.
Today, China respects all nations and their sovereignty. (USA doesn't.)
Today, China does not interfere in the internal politics of other nations. (USA does.)
Therefore, China won't side with "democratic forces" or with any other country's political system. China only wants to trade with everybody. China looks after its own economic interests.
Even in the Russia-Ukraine situation, China doesn't take sides. Sure, it continues to trade with Russia; it's good business. Sure, it cooperates with Russia militarily; against the US threat, it's good strategy. But China has been working to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine because China has excellent relations with both countries.
> But on the positive side for the US they have at least tried to defend democracy and freedom in other countries
Yes, by conducting coups or outright invading other countries, thus violating their sovereignty. This is what I meant by Western arrogance.
USA thinks it can hold the moral high ground and impose its ideological and political values on countries that are not considered democratic. And Europe goes along with this bullshit.
Just because China hasn't adopted Western liberal democracy doesn't make their government a dictatorship. China has democracy based on a one-party system. I know Westerners like to think democracy must be based on a multi-party system but even the Greeks originally did not require multiple parties in their definition of democracy.
In China, there are free elections at the local level, and within the CPC itself there are elections. The government listens to the people through various means including 8 other political parties that serve within the government, feedback from local officials, and public surveys. Westerners do not know any of this because they choose to be ignorant.
By the way, even the United States doesn't have a multi-party democracy. Julius Nyerere famously said, “The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”
Foreigners who have lived and worked in China (and there are more than half a million of them) understand the Chinese people. They know the Chinese do accept their government for what it is because the government has served them well for over four decades. At the end of the day, people everywhere (not just in China) care about their standard of living — do they have enough food to eat, do they have shelter, do they have medicine, do they have safety, do they have employment, and so on? Freedom of expression is low on their priority list.
But I think you give the Chinese people short shrift. They aren't as easily fooled as you suggest. They know their history. They know that the Chinese have never had it better than today.
And the Chinese do have considerable freedom. Did you know, for example, that on any given day, there are about 500 public protests all across China? Did you know that on Chinese social media, you can find substantial amounts of criticism about government policy? And the government has not quashed these. Doesn't this fly in the face of your assertion?
In fact, it was the public protests over lockdowns that caused the government to lift Zero Covid. That's democracy at work: people criticizing and the government responding.
Other examples include protests over the housing crisis and banking crisis and working conditions at Foxconn. I'm not sure I understand how you managed to miss all these.
I don't think it is possible to talk about citizens accepting their government when those same citizens have no ability select their government or advocate for its removal. Of course you will only hear people expressing they want the government when saying the opposite is pretty much illegal. Also must citizens will think everything is fine because they live in a bubble with minimal critical info about the government.
I respect that you are trying to bring some balance to this discussion given all the negative one sided criticism of China, but you are also looking at this with some rather rose tinted glasses. You don't seem to know how dictatorships normally work. Usually there is a fair amount of tolerance of nobodies complaining or expressing discontent sporadically because those people are small fish who cannot affect the government much.
If you are anybody of any influence it is quite another matter. You will very quickly get silenced. It works the same in Russia. Russians will tell you that as a nobody you can say a fair amount of things without government caring. But say you are a You tuber with a lot of followers, a professor, well known author, a doctor, teacher etc and it is quite a different matter.
Yes, I know there are plenty of protests in China, but that is a quite risky to engage in and they are generally not reported on. There is strength in numbers. Government is usually more carful if there are more people. And people are desperate which is why they protest. They are willing to take on the risk.
Zero Covid has been unpopular for a long time. Did you miss how people were screaming out of their windows during night time, because they could not go out an protest. This has been building up over a long time. In a free society this policy would have changed a long time ago.
This isn't democracy at work. Even dictatorships respond to people people can care about staying in power. The difference is that dictatorships only respond when the pressure really starts to mount. It is not like you could have a fair open public discourse on Chinese COIVD19 policy in China.
You are cherry picking to paint a too pretty picture of China. That is no better than painting a too bleak picture of China. Living standards have dramatically improved in China, but China is now quite behind in democratization given their level of development. Other Asian countries were already well under way towards democracy at similar level of economic development. For Western and Eastern European countries they are even further behind.
You cannot fairly discuss freedom of expression in China by ignoring cases like Liu Xiaobo, the exile of Dalai Lama, persecution of Falun Gong, The UN has produced a report of serious human rights violations in Xinjiang province: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932
Not to mention the decades long oppression of Tibetans, or the constant threats against Taiwan. China has no right to Taiwan just because China has ruled it for a period. Should the Netherlands be able to claim Taiwan because they ruled it even earlier? Should the Japanese? They were after all the last ones to actually rule Taiwan, not China. The people of Taiwan have every right to decide their own destiny and their own rule. It should be none of China's business.
This isn't any different from Russia trying to swallow Ukraine. Just because Ukraine was part of the USSR doesn't give Russia some kind of free license to invade at their leisure. Should Britain be allowed to invade India and take it over just because they once ruled it? That makes no sense.
> I don't think it is possible to talk about citizens accepting their government when those same citizens have no ability select their government or advocate for its removal.
You may think whatever you like but people on the ground in China see the acceptance. Have you even been to China?
I have. Many times over the past 25 years.
China experts have, like Kishore Mahbubani, Martin Jacques, Jeffrey Sachs, Pascal Coppens, Cyrus Janssen, and countless others. They all see the same thing.
It's peculiar that you don't.
You cannot understand China without experiencing China. Reliance on Western media and Western education is foolish.
Plenty of people have lived in China and visited reaching different conclusions from you. This is the classic "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.
I think you have this naive idea that dictatorships are like Mordor and because you didn't see that when visiting China you think everything is fine there.
Maybe everything isn't fine there. In what countries is everything fine? USA? UK? France? Germany?
I think you have this naive idea that a country can be perfect and that if it isn't perfect, we should excoriate it.
China is a magnificent, wonderful country. It isn't perfect. Nor is it anything like what you portray it to be, which confirms my suspicion you've never been to China.
There are 1.4 billion people in China. Even if one million Chinese protested against Zero Covid (and the actual number is far less than this), that only represents 0.7 percent of China's population. How does this translate into "unpopular"?
The vast majority of Chinese recognize that Zero Covid was for their own good.
> China has no right to Taiwan just because China has ruled it for a period.
Did you miss the part where I said that nearly the entire world accepts the One China principle?
The UN does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state. The USA does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Heck, even Taiwan's own constitution stipulates that the mainland and Taiwan are one country! This is international law.
And let's not forget the Three Communiques.
So on what legal basis do you say that Taiwan isn't part of China?
> Based on what? A handful of reports out of China?
When you whole neighborhoods of high rise buildings with people screaming and protests all over China, then that means something. When people protest that represent the top of the iceberg. It is like when you see unarmed black men shot in the US by police. You think that is the only negative thing black people experience? No, stuff like that is top of the iceberg. Below that is a large amount of violence which never reach the news desks because it isn't dramatic enough.
> Did you miss the part where I said that nearly the entire world accepts the One China principle?
Come on Richard, don't engage with word play with me. You are to smart and decent for that. Leadership on both Taiwan and China initially claimed to be the true government of China. That is the background for the one China policy. Whether you backed mainland China or Taiwan you would thus get behind the one-China policy.
But none of that means any democratic country thinks the threats China levels against Taiwan are acceptable or means that we would not strongly support Taiwan if the chose to declare themselves an independent state. At this point the whole one-China policy is a big joke. For all practical purposes Taiwan is its own country. It is just laughable that we don't formally treat it as such.
The primary reason countries "support" the one-China policy today is just to be on good terms with China. It is just lip service. It doesn't mean anybody thinks China has a right to invade Taiwan or deny it independence.
> So on what legal basis do you say that Taiwan isn't part of China?
Legal basis? That is a preposterous question. On what legal basis did India cede from the British empire? On what legal basis did the Baltic countries leave the Soviet Union? Self-determination baby! People have a right to decide their own faith and their own rule.
On what legal basis this Americans revolt against British rule? None. But people have a moral right to self determination. Who rules the Taiwanese people is the choice of the Taiwanese.
May I ask under what legal basis did China invade and take Taiwan in the first place?
> May I ask under what legal basis did China invade and take Taiwan in the first place?
On what basis did USA slaughter millions of indigenous people to steal their land, or wage war with Mexico to steal their land (Southwest US), or overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy to steal their islands?
On what basis did Quebec become part of Canada through several wars and conflicts?
All nations have been formed through military conflict. China is no exception.
Taiwan was part of the Qing Dynasty in 1683. Then it fell to the Japanese in 1895.
However, Taiwan was returned to China (ROC) after WWII. The CPC defeated ROC in a civil war and inherited Taiwan.
Now, the salient question here is: To what lengths will the West go to prevent China's reunification with Taiwan? Fight another world war?
I agree there is a lot of unreasonable bashing of China, but I guess my perspective is a bit between you and the irrational China bashers. One claim about China which has always annoyed me is this idea that China is a nation hell bent on world domination eager to spread and take control akin to Nazi Germany.
I think that is in part due to an American need to see the world in terms of cartoon villains and heroes. You also make a good point about companies having a free choice to come to China and share technology or not. We did exactly the same in Norway. We could not offer large internal markets like China but valuable resources. If you wanted to drill for oil in Norway in the 70s and 80s you had partner with Norwegian companies just like in China. In fact to my knowledge that particular model China uses was copied from Norway. There was a Chinese delegation here in the 70s which wanted to discuss how China dealt with large multinationals from large powerful countries like the US.
Still I don't want to let China off the hook. There is no denying that China is an oppressive regime, and I don't think surveys really dispels that. In a regime with no press freedom people are easily lulled into thinking everything is great and the government does a great job because all criticism is suppressed and censored.
You will find many of the same results in many other dictatorships through history. All these surveys really show is that indoctrination at school and curtailing of freedom of expression actually works very effectively. If everything in China was as good as they claim there would be no need to brutally suppress freedom of expression.
I know very well as a Norwegian how serious China is about this. We have given the peace prize to people speaking up for human rights in China. That has not happen without sever consequences. Big powerful nations like the US never face such consequences because China doesn't dare challenge a big powerful nation like this US. They are pretty okay with twisting the arm of smaller nations however.
Thus as citizen of a small country, I see it as quite worrisome that Chinese democracy and freedom reforms are regressing while China is growing more powerful. It means they can increasingly bully smaller nations to do their bidding. To be clear this is not criticism of China as a country and its people but of the ruling Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese people have not made these choices.
I think part of the reason many do a 180 degrees on China is that much of the American characterization of China has been utterly cartoonish. People who visit China will feel they got lied to as the dystopia they had been told to expect does not quite materialize in front of their eyes.
Reality however is that most dictatorships except North Korea, I suppose, don't fit the image of a dystopia. Read the accounts of visitors to Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in the 1930s. The characterizations of both countries is often glowing with praise about how well run, clean and neat everything is. Full of happy people etc.
Dictatorship is rarely felt by the masses. If it didn't it couldn't retain power. It is the minority who tends to get oppressed.
> I see it as quite worrisome that Chinese democracy and freedom reforms are regressing while China is growing more powerful.
Is that what Western mainstream media tell you? I've not seen any real evidence of this.
And I find it puzzling that you refer to Chinese democracy and freedom reforms, and dictatorship all in one breath.
> It means they can increasingly bully smaller nations to do their bidding.
What nations has China bullied? It's helping Global South countries build their infrastructure and develop their economies through Belt and Road. It helped Global South countries vaccinate their populations when the Western powers hoarded their vaccines. It has legitimate disputes in the South China Sea along with five other countries (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam), and China is pursuing diplomatic solutions.
Taiwan is part of China according to the One China principle, which nearly the entire world subscribes to, including USA!
And speaking of bullying, USA has bullied many, many nations...through countless wars and countless sanctions and countless coups.
I don't consider China a democracy. I wrote "Chinese democracy" as a reference to something they could and should create in the future. Something they should be on the path towards, not an actual existing thing today.
As for bullying. China has bullied plenty of small countries in Europe. I even used my native Norway as an example. We have certainly experience the wrath and pressure from China.
Yes the US is a bully, but how on Earth does that give China a license to be a bully. I choose the US as the lesser of two evil. At least the US is able to distinguish between governments and what independent organizations and companies within that country do. The US would never sanction Norway for awarding the peace prize to somebody criticizing US wars.
The US has an irrational paranoia about anything socialist, but they at least respect freedom of expression. That is a pretty core principle for any Western democracy which is why most of us can cooperate with the US despite its many flaws.
> I don't consider China a democracy.
It does not matter whether or not we in the West consider China a democracy. What matters is that the Chinese regard China as a democracy. Politically, the Chinese did not ask for our help, nor do they need our help.
North Korea can call itself a democracy, but it doesn't make it one. I can claim gravity doesn't exist but it doesn't stop existing. China is NOT a democracy by any sense of the meaning of the word.
You can redefine words to mean whatever you want to mean yourself, but you cannot demand that others share your unique definition.
And this brings us full circle to the title of my article, "Western Arrogance and China."
The West feel entitled to define what is and isn't democracy. The West have a very specific definition of democracy, and multi-party elections are at its core.
But as I indicated earlier, even the Greeks never required this of democracy.
The fact is that China's democracy hews much closer to the original Greek definition.
The fact is that China's democracy works well for the Chinese people. They're happy with it. Why can't we accept this?
Ahem. All world powers are bullies. It's the nature of the beast. America. Soviet Union before it. Great Britain before it. France before it.
USA respects freedom of expression??? Is that why they block anyone who presents the other side of the Russia-Ukraine story? Independent journalists and bloggers on social media (Twitter and YouTube in particular have censored many people). RT America was completely shut down by the US government.
Whataboutism. I don't really approve of any world powers. I just question why you are so eager to defend and promote yet another hegemon. Hasn't history taught us that we should have LESS of these kinds of countries, not more of them?
But regardless there is a ranking. The US has been much worse than China in terms of invading other countries. No doubt about that. That is plus points for China. But on the positive side for the US they have at least tried to defend democracy and freedom in other countries, even if they have squashed it at other times. The US is a bit of a wildcard.
China in contrast has never been on the side of ANYTHING positive. They have NEVER in their life sided with democratic forces. They are always on the side of oppressors. They sided with f*cking Cambodia and Pol Pot against Vietnam which brought an end to that horror regime. Pol Pot was in fact inspired by Chinese style communism which IMHO says a lot about what a horrible brand of communism that was. Sure, today's China is not like that but they have never owned up to that.
All China is about is self-victization. It is always about the evil West. They themselves apparently have never done anything wrong. At least fricken own up to Tianaman square where they flatten countless students to the point that the pieces of the students left had to be scraped up afterwards.
The US is deeply flawed but is much better at owning up to its mistakes or at least allow them to be discussed. The US prosecuted their own citizens for war crimes in Vietnam and elsewhere. Have you ever seen China prosecute anyone of their own for the crimes they committed during the worst period of the communist regime?
One cannot simply claim to be good because one never did something bad the US has done. One has to actually be able to demonstrate doing something good. That one is willing to take serious self criticism and own up to past and present human rights abuses.
It's true, China geopolitical history hasn't always been admirable.
But China underwent a massive transformation in 1978 with Deng Xiaoping's sweeping reforms. Today's China is nothing like China of half a century ago.
Today, China respects all nations and their sovereignty. (USA doesn't.)
Today, China does not interfere in the internal politics of other nations. (USA does.)
Therefore, China won't side with "democratic forces" or with any other country's political system. China only wants to trade with everybody. China looks after its own economic interests.
Even in the Russia-Ukraine situation, China doesn't take sides. Sure, it continues to trade with Russia; it's good business. Sure, it cooperates with Russia militarily; against the US threat, it's good strategy. But China has been working to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine because China has excellent relations with both countries.
> But on the positive side for the US they have at least tried to defend democracy and freedom in other countries
Yes, by conducting coups or outright invading other countries, thus violating their sovereignty. This is what I meant by Western arrogance.
USA thinks it can hold the moral high ground and impose its ideological and political values on countries that are not considered democratic. And Europe goes along with this bullshit.
Just because China hasn't adopted Western liberal democracy doesn't make their government a dictatorship. China has democracy based on a one-party system. I know Westerners like to think democracy must be based on a multi-party system but even the Greeks originally did not require multiple parties in their definition of democracy.
In China, there are free elections at the local level, and within the CPC itself there are elections. The government listens to the people through various means including 8 other political parties that serve within the government, feedback from local officials, and public surveys. Westerners do not know any of this because they choose to be ignorant.
By the way, even the United States doesn't have a multi-party democracy. Julius Nyerere famously said, “The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”
Foreigners who have lived and worked in China (and there are more than half a million of them) understand the Chinese people. They know the Chinese do accept their government for what it is because the government has served them well for over four decades. At the end of the day, people everywhere (not just in China) care about their standard of living — do they have enough food to eat, do they have shelter, do they have medicine, do they have safety, do they have employment, and so on? Freedom of expression is low on their priority list.
But I think you give the Chinese people short shrift. They aren't as easily fooled as you suggest. They know their history. They know that the Chinese have never had it better than today.
And the Chinese do have considerable freedom. Did you know, for example, that on any given day, there are about 500 public protests all across China? Did you know that on Chinese social media, you can find substantial amounts of criticism about government policy? And the government has not quashed these. Doesn't this fly in the face of your assertion?
In fact, it was the public protests over lockdowns that caused the government to lift Zero Covid. That's democracy at work: people criticizing and the government responding.
Other examples include protests over the housing crisis and banking crisis and working conditions at Foxconn. I'm not sure I understand how you managed to miss all these.
I don't think it is possible to talk about citizens accepting their government when those same citizens have no ability select their government or advocate for its removal. Of course you will only hear people expressing they want the government when saying the opposite is pretty much illegal. Also must citizens will think everything is fine because they live in a bubble with minimal critical info about the government.
I respect that you are trying to bring some balance to this discussion given all the negative one sided criticism of China, but you are also looking at this with some rather rose tinted glasses. You don't seem to know how dictatorships normally work. Usually there is a fair amount of tolerance of nobodies complaining or expressing discontent sporadically because those people are small fish who cannot affect the government much.
If you are anybody of any influence it is quite another matter. You will very quickly get silenced. It works the same in Russia. Russians will tell you that as a nobody you can say a fair amount of things without government caring. But say you are a You tuber with a lot of followers, a professor, well known author, a doctor, teacher etc and it is quite a different matter.
Yes, I know there are plenty of protests in China, but that is a quite risky to engage in and they are generally not reported on. There is strength in numbers. Government is usually more carful if there are more people. And people are desperate which is why they protest. They are willing to take on the risk.
Zero Covid has been unpopular for a long time. Did you miss how people were screaming out of their windows during night time, because they could not go out an protest. This has been building up over a long time. In a free society this policy would have changed a long time ago.
This isn't democracy at work. Even dictatorships respond to people people can care about staying in power. The difference is that dictatorships only respond when the pressure really starts to mount. It is not like you could have a fair open public discourse on Chinese COIVD19 policy in China.
You are cherry picking to paint a too pretty picture of China. That is no better than painting a too bleak picture of China. Living standards have dramatically improved in China, but China is now quite behind in democratization given their level of development. Other Asian countries were already well under way towards democracy at similar level of economic development. For Western and Eastern European countries they are even further behind.
You cannot fairly discuss freedom of expression in China by ignoring cases like Liu Xiaobo, the exile of Dalai Lama, persecution of Falun Gong, The UN has produced a report of serious human rights violations in Xinjiang province: https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/08/1125932
Not to mention the decades long oppression of Tibetans, or the constant threats against Taiwan. China has no right to Taiwan just because China has ruled it for a period. Should the Netherlands be able to claim Taiwan because they ruled it even earlier? Should the Japanese? They were after all the last ones to actually rule Taiwan, not China. The people of Taiwan have every right to decide their own destiny and their own rule. It should be none of China's business.
This isn't any different from Russia trying to swallow Ukraine. Just because Ukraine was part of the USSR doesn't give Russia some kind of free license to invade at their leisure. Should Britain be allowed to invade India and take it over just because they once ruled it? That makes no sense.
I side with people, not political elites.
> I don't think it is possible to talk about citizens accepting their government when those same citizens have no ability select their government or advocate for its removal.
You may think whatever you like but people on the ground in China see the acceptance. Have you even been to China?
I have. Many times over the past 25 years.
China experts have, like Kishore Mahbubani, Martin Jacques, Jeffrey Sachs, Pascal Coppens, Cyrus Janssen, and countless others. They all see the same thing.
It's peculiar that you don't.
You cannot understand China without experiencing China. Reliance on Western media and Western education is foolish.
Plenty of people have lived in China and visited reaching different conclusions from you. This is the classic "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.
I think you have this naive idea that dictatorships are like Mordor and because you didn't see that when visiting China you think everything is fine there.
Maybe everything isn't fine there. In what countries is everything fine? USA? UK? France? Germany?
I think you have this naive idea that a country can be perfect and that if it isn't perfect, we should excoriate it.
China is a magnificent, wonderful country. It isn't perfect. Nor is it anything like what you portray it to be, which confirms my suspicion you've never been to China.
> Zero Covid has been unpopular for a long time.
Based on what? A handful of reports out of China?
There are 1.4 billion people in China. Even if one million Chinese protested against Zero Covid (and the actual number is far less than this), that only represents 0.7 percent of China's population. How does this translate into "unpopular"?
The vast majority of Chinese recognize that Zero Covid was for their own good.
> China has no right to Taiwan just because China has ruled it for a period.
Did you miss the part where I said that nearly the entire world accepts the One China principle?
The UN does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state. The USA does not recognize Taiwan as an independent state. Heck, even Taiwan's own constitution stipulates that the mainland and Taiwan are one country! This is international law.
And let's not forget the Three Communiques.
So on what legal basis do you say that Taiwan isn't part of China?
> Based on what? A handful of reports out of China?
When you whole neighborhoods of high rise buildings with people screaming and protests all over China, then that means something. When people protest that represent the top of the iceberg. It is like when you see unarmed black men shot in the US by police. You think that is the only negative thing black people experience? No, stuff like that is top of the iceberg. Below that is a large amount of violence which never reach the news desks because it isn't dramatic enough.
There are many reports and news articles reporting on this problem: https://chinadatalab.ucsd.edu/viz-blog/how-unpopular-is-covid-zero/
> Did you miss the part where I said that nearly the entire world accepts the One China principle?
Come on Richard, don't engage with word play with me. You are to smart and decent for that. Leadership on both Taiwan and China initially claimed to be the true government of China. That is the background for the one China policy. Whether you backed mainland China or Taiwan you would thus get behind the one-China policy.
But none of that means any democratic country thinks the threats China levels against Taiwan are acceptable or means that we would not strongly support Taiwan if the chose to declare themselves an independent state. At this point the whole one-China policy is a big joke. For all practical purposes Taiwan is its own country. It is just laughable that we don't formally treat it as such.
The primary reason countries "support" the one-China policy today is just to be on good terms with China. It is just lip service. It doesn't mean anybody thinks China has a right to invade Taiwan or deny it independence.
> So on what legal basis do you say that Taiwan isn't part of China?
Legal basis? That is a preposterous question. On what legal basis did India cede from the British empire? On what legal basis did the Baltic countries leave the Soviet Union? Self-determination baby! People have a right to decide their own faith and their own rule.
On what legal basis this Americans revolt against British rule? None. But people have a moral right to self determination. Who rules the Taiwanese people is the choice of the Taiwanese.
May I ask under what legal basis did China invade and take Taiwan in the first place?
> May I ask under what legal basis did China invade and take Taiwan in the first place?
On what basis did USA slaughter millions of indigenous people to steal their land, or wage war with Mexico to steal their land (Southwest US), or overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy to steal their islands?
On what basis did Quebec become part of Canada through several wars and conflicts?
All nations have been formed through military conflict. China is no exception.
Taiwan was part of the Qing Dynasty in 1683. Then it fell to the Japanese in 1895.
However, Taiwan was returned to China (ROC) after WWII. The CPC defeated ROC in a civil war and inherited Taiwan.
Now, the salient question here is: To what lengths will the West go to prevent China's reunification with Taiwan? Fight another world war?