welshbairn Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 2 minutes ago, Genuine Hibs Fan said: You forgot the caveat: unless it's something which makes the US, the UK, the EU or any state which he doesn't ideologically agree look bad. We have no right to condemn Chinese actions in Xinjiang given what Britain did in the Boer war. Or I think that's what he means. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 14 minutes ago, MixuFruit said: Do you believe unless you've seen something with your own eyes, no other evidence is admissible? No but if something comes from a source which is directly funded by the US government or indirectly via Ford, Gates, Soros, Rockefeller etc then I mark it down as propaganda. It's undeniable that China has done a great deal to improve the lives of its citizens and that the USA has shown complete contempt and disregard for the lives of non white people around the world. That is the context in which this is occuring. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genuine Hibs Fan Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 The mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward - a barrel of laughs 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Random photos don't outweigh lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and providing health care and education. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Just now, Genuine Hibs Fan said: The mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward - a barrel of laughs And was this the first famine in China? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 These sort of daft Spectator level criticisms rely on a wiful ignorance of pre revolutionary conditions. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genuine Hibs Fan Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Just now, Detournement said: And was this the first famine in China? The first one which came about because they followed absolutely nuts Stalinist policies like Lysenkoism, and local officials were too frightened to report poor harvests to the central government. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 There had been famines in China regularly at 10-20 year intervals as far back as records go. The exceptional factor isn't that there was a famine but that it was the final one for 60 years and counting. I don't doubt that the CCP made some mistakes but expecting them to take over after centuries of feudalism, imperialism and 30 preceding years of continuous war and immediately create a stable state that provides for all isn't realistic. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JTS98 Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 31 minutes ago, Detournement said: Random photos don't outweigh lifting hundreds of millions out of poverty and providing health care and education. Given that China was at a low point in its history and was lagging majorly behind most major countries in the world, did you expect any government to just leave things as they were? Providing healthcare and education are the basic functions of a government. You seem to think The Party is exempt from criticism because it has managed the minimum that could have been expected of it. For all that you seem keen to criticise others' 'Lorraine Kelly'-level understanding, you seem utterly credulous in the face of obvious propaganda from a propaganda state. Would you like to move to China? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 4 minutes ago, MixuFruit said: You're starting to tie yourself in knots here. The famine doesn't reflect poorly on the Chinese government because they learned from their mistake, and after all famines happened before so what use is there in blaming anyone? After all they still had their L plates, give them a break. Is that about the size of it? Famines were a constant recurring feature of Chinese life for centuries. The question is why one famine is constantly highlighted by 'historians' and all the other ones are memory hole'd. It's not about L plates, giving a break or learning from events. It's about being able to view events in their historical context. The right constantly highlight events like the Great Leap Forward or the Great Purge as exceptional events which completely invalidate all communist development while obscuring similar events in or by Western capitalist countries. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 2 minutes ago, JTS98 said: Given that China was at a low point in its history and was lagging majorly behind most major countries in the world, did you expect any government to just leave things as they were? Providing healthcare and education are the basic functions of a government. You seem to think The Party is exempt from criticism because it has managed the minimum that could have been expected of it. For all that you seem keen to criticise others' 'Lorraine Kelly'-level understanding, you seem utterly credulous in the face of obvious propaganda from a propaganda state. Would you like to move to China? I've got friends who live in China. It looks good. There are lots of countries where the government does not provide health care so it's not a basic function. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Detournement Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 minute ago, MixuFruit said: But it's the worst famine ever recorded anywhere by miles and it happened the same year they found the time to invade Tibet. Honestly there's not a fag paper between you and those weird Americans who can't condemn Nazism without also mentioning Communism on some issues. The upper limit death tolls don't stand up to much scrutiny. Some of the claims are ridiculous. A Dutch historian claimed a few years ago 1/4 of the dwellings in the country were demolished. The constant bar raising is about reinforcing narratives to contemporary audiences. I'm discussing the way that events outside the west are framed to propagandise western voters so it's obviously going to involve comparisons. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genuine Hibs Fan Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 minute ago, Detournement said: Famines were a constant recurring feature of Chinese life for centuries. The question is why one famine is constantly highlighted by 'historians' and all the other ones are memory hole'd. It's not about L plates, giving a break or learning from events. It's about being able to view events in their historical context. The right constantly highlight events like the Great Leap Forward or the Great Purge as exceptional events which completely invalidate all communist development while obscuring similar events in or by Western capitalist countries. These have been highlighted, to you, because you like to make blanket statements about all the good that the CCP has done in reducing poverty etc. You're surely wasting your time if you think you're sharing your searing insights with people who don't know that famines were a regular occurrence in China. It's brought up because you like to ignore/conveniently forget the crimes carried out by the regimes you support by either citing positives which are unrelated, or citing crimes carried out by rival regimes, often so long ago that they are past the point where we are apparently no longer allowed to criticise the CCP because they'd just started out. That's when it is a matter of historical record so entrenched that not even you can pretend it didn't happen. When they are modern crimes, of course, you can pretend it didn't happen as it is propaganda. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genuine Hibs Fan Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 6 minutes ago, Detournement said: I'm discussing the way that events outside the west are framed to propagandise western voters so it's obviously going to involve comparisons. That's nice, but it's not what anyone else is discussing. Two questions: 1. Does the CCP have any culpability for the famine which occured during the great leap forward, whether because of the need to follow ideologically pure Lysenkoism in farming practices, or the corruption and fear of local officials? 2. If the CCP is persecuting and ethnically cleansing the Uighers (they are), is this something you would condemn and cause you to waiver in your support for the CCP? If you can answer either of those questions without reference to or comparison with Western Capitalist States or neoliberals or the USA; or with what it was like before the CCP took power, I'd be really interested to know. We all know the context, the context is a given. With that accepted, what would you say to those two questions? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 It's possible to criticise China for their appalling record on human rights without supporting Trump's and increasingly Johnson's escalating trade war and gun waving, which has fuckall to do with human rights and all about money and a misguided understanding of how comparative advantage works. Rome didn't see themselves as victims of the wily Egyptians when they bought most of their grain from them, they just thought how great it was to be rich and not have to grow it themselves. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JTS98 Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 18 minutes ago, Detournement said: I've got friends who live in China. It looks good. There are lots of countries where the government does not provide health care so it's not a basic function. Not mad keen on your right to free assembly, then? Or your right to join a political party of your choosing? Or to have the religion of your choosing? Or to not be sent arbitrarily to work in another part of the country (or another country) because the government wants you to balance out a racial divide somewhere? Or not mad keen on your ability to visit any city you want to in your country without approval from the government? And cool with knowing that you can't visit these places because you're poor and you're not allowed to go to the places where the rich people live because you can't be trusted to go back? Cool with having the government knowing where you are, what you're doing, and who you're doing it with at all times and openly using this information against you? Not too bothered about losing your job or going to jail for saying something true to another person (or in a text message) that the government doesn't want you to say? Not fussed about the government racially and religiously profiling its population and putting undesirable types in camps (far from a muslim-only policy) and sending 'desirable' types to literally live in their houses to check up that they aren't doing anything dangerous. Like praying, for example. Or speaking the wrong language at the dinner table. In their own house. No problem with the government wiping major political events from your country (like, I don't know, shooting thousands of people for asking for a say in the running of their country) out of the school textbooks and blocking all online access to them from within the country? That sound good to you? Not to mention the pile of books, publications, journals, magazines, tv channels that China outlaws. Sound fun, aye? You'd love China. Give it a bash. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genuine Hibs Fan Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 minute ago, JTS98 said: Not mad keen on your right to free assembly, then? Or your right to join a political party of your choosing? Or to have the religion of your choosing? Or to not be sent arbitrarily to work in another part of the country (or another country) because the government wants you to balance out a racial divide somewhere? Or not mad keen on your ability to visit any city you want to in your country without approval from the government? And cool with knowing that you can't visit these places because you're poor and you're not allowed to go to the places where the rich people live because you can't be trusted to go back? Cool with having the government knowing where you are, what you're doing, and who you're doing it with at all times and openly using this information against you? Not too bothered about losing your job or going to jail for saying something true to another person (or in a text message) that the government doesn't want you to say? Not fussed about the government racially and religiously profiling its population and putting undesirable types in camps (far from a muslim-only policy) and sending 'desirable' types to literally live in their houses to check up that they aren't doing anything dangerous. Like praying, for example. Or speaking the wrong language at the dinner table. In their own house. No problem with the government wiping major political events from your country (like, I don't know, shooting thousands of people for asking for a say in the running of their country) out of the school textbooks and blocking all online access to them from within the country? That sound good to you? Not to mention the pile of books, publications, journals, magazines, tv channels that China outlaws. Sound fun, aye? You'd love China. Give it a bash. You're wasting your time, none of these things are real. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thistle_do_nicely Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) are the death vans still roaming about China? Going back a few years to my modern studies at school, but iirc human rights groups weren't very fond of the things seeing as they were (shit shock horror) being used to carry out summary executions without proper trials. edit: sure there was a thing about them harvesting organs from prisoners too. A great bunch of lads. Edited July 23, 2020 by Thistle_do_nicely 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JTS98 Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 minute ago, Thistle_do_nicely said: are the death vans still roaming about China? Going back a few years to my modern studies at school, but iirc human rights groups weren't very fond of the things seeing as they were (shit shock horror) being used to carry out summary executions without proper trials. Nefarious foreign interference! Silence! Mods, please evict this foreign agent immediately. And ban all other foreign trouble-makers who are enemy of the people. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thistle_do_nicely Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 5 minutes ago, JTS98 said: Nefarious foreign interference! Silence! Mods, please evict this foreign agent immediately. And ban all other foreign trouble-makers who are enemy of the people. More recent propaganda from Amnesty International, who had the sheer temerity to call China the world's top executioner in 2018: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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