Imagine thinking China is worse than the US when the US killed something like a million Iraqis, and that’s just one of the many war the US was waging in the last 30 years while China checks notes attacked nobody in that timeframe.
I think the distinction between China and the US is how they directly treat their own citizens. Arguments could be made that they’re both equally shitty in that regard, but in different ways.
In 2016, the last year the survey was conducted, 95.5 percent of respondents were either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with Beijing. In contrast to these findings, Gallup reported in January of this year that their latest polling on U.S. citizen satisfaction with the American federal government revealed only 38 percent of respondents were satisfied with the federal government.
Googling this took me a couple of seconds. Less time than writing a comment.
“Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, formerly known as the Ash Institute, was established in 2003 and is part of the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.”
If you think a result where 95.5% of any population have their opinion aligned means there nothing wrong going on behind the scenes, you must be naive as hell.
A western study doesn’t make the participants any less pressured by their authoritative goverment to not give negative feedback. Regardless of who asks the questions, these people still live their lives under the goverment.
It would be one thing to have a majority of their citizen be satisfied with how a goverment is run, but 95.5% approval rating is just illogical. It could only happen if there is pressure to give a positive answer or they are living in a utopia, and we all know human nature rules out the possibility of the second from ever existing.
You’d think the libs at Harvard would mention this. How do you think this actually works?
Better explanation: China has lifted 800 million out of poverty over 40 years, and quality of life has improved massively for almost everyone (also things that are confirmed by western institutions). Why would they not approve of the government?
What were the repercussions for saying they were dissatisfied? Say what you will, but the US doesn’t use your loved ones as leverage if you speak out against the US. Their embassies don’t arrest and detain American civilians in other countries.
Aside from all that, I sincerely find it hard to believe that 93% of people in a country will agree on something, let alone their government. To me that indicates a fear of criticism, not an amazing government.
The panic that gripped the region a few years ago has subsided considerably, and a sense of normality is creeping back in.
Best bit:
Behind him, a drunk Uyghur man was yelling. Alcohol is forbidden for practicing Muslims, especially in the holy month of Ramadan.
“I’ve been drinking alcohol, I’m a little drunk, but that’s no problem. We can drink as we want now!” he shouted. “We can do what we want! Things are great now!”
Have… have you read the rest of the article? It’s fucking terrifying. It’s basically saying “this place went from a concentration camp to a prison”, and even then that’s what a random foreigner saw and has been told by the government. We don’t know if that’s the truth, and even if it was that’s still pretty fucking bad.
Uyghur activists abroad accuse the Chinese government of genocide, pointing to plunging birthrates and the mass detentions. The authorities say their goal is not to eliminate Uyghurs but to integrate them, and that harsh measures are necessary to curb extremism.
Regardless of intent […]
They’re actually doing the false balance thing. When was the last time the western press was fence sitting this much about this issue?
China eased up on their crackdown, which is good, but the western press went so far above what they could prove, they’re now walking back. Actually more like dropping the story: When was the last time you saw a new article about Xinjiang and not some social media echo?
The OHCHR Report isn’t even a year old. And if a country was actively committing genocide I’d guess they wouldn’t really make it easy to have constant news about it.
Two years ago, that shit used to be in German newspapers every month or so. Haven’t seen anything in like a year now. Also, pretty sure the UN report didn’t allege genocide, which is what the media here was claiming back then.
Heck I remember one of my friends was under the impression that there was ethnic cleansing and some major refugee movements, despite the media never actually alleging that. But when they hear the word “genocide” over and over, that’s what people imagine.
In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.
The report details the second, third and fourth of those acts. It effectively qualifies as genocide.
There’s plenty of evidence of China trying to improve the living conditions for Uyghurs in Xinjiang and in the rest of China (poverty alleviation, affirmative action programs for university students, the crackdown against hate speech on social media, …). So imprisoning some people based on some vague “extremism score” and then seemingly releasing them after some months doesn’t show intent to impose living conditions in order to destroy a group. It shows intent on crushing separatism.
Preventing births is true for everybody in China, how does that show an intent to destroy a particular group? It doesn’t.
So we’re left with “serious bodily or mental harm”, which can be explained just as well by an intent to suppress separatism and religious extremism. Literally every war causes some nationality “serious bodily or mental harm” far worse than what China is doing, and we don’t call every war a genocide, do we?
Imagine thinking China is worse than the US when the US killed something like a million Iraqis, and that’s just one of the many war the US was waging in the last 30 years while China checks notes attacked nobody in that timeframe.
I think the distinction between China and the US is how they directly treat their own citizens. Arguments could be made that they’re both equally shitty in that regard, but in different ways.
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https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
Googling this took me a couple of seconds. Less time than writing a comment.
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“Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, formerly known as the Ash Institute, was established in 2003 and is part of the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.”
You were saying?
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Goal post shifting much?
You: It’s just Chinese propaganda with no source!
Me: provides source
You: Well it’s not a Harvard study!
Me: It definitely is.
You: Well that study sucks anyway!
Me: 🙄
If you think a result where 95.5% of any population have their opinion aligned means there nothing wrong going on behind the scenes, you must be naive as hell.
It’s a western study! Is Harvard part of a communist conspiracy or what’s your point?
A western study doesn’t make the participants any less pressured by their authoritative goverment to not give negative feedback. Regardless of who asks the questions, these people still live their lives under the goverment.
It would be one thing to have a majority of their citizen be satisfied with how a goverment is run, but 95.5% approval rating is just illogical. It could only happen if there is pressure to give a positive answer or they are living in a utopia, and we all know human nature rules out the possibility of the second from ever existing.
You’d think the libs at Harvard would mention this. How do you think this actually works?
Better explanation: China has lifted 800 million out of poverty over 40 years, and quality of life has improved massively for almost everyone (also things that are confirmed by western institutions). Why would they not approve of the government?
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Removed by mod
What were the repercussions for saying they were dissatisfied? Say what you will, but the US doesn’t use your loved ones as leverage if you speak out against the US. Their embassies don’t arrest and detain American civilians in other countries.
Aside from all that, I sincerely find it hard to believe that 93% of people in a country will agree on something, let alone their government. To me that indicates a fear of criticism, not an amazing government.
The US imprisons 4x more people per capita. And China lifted 800 million people out of poverty in the last 40 years. How are they equally shitty?
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Yeah right, let me ask the Uyghurs how they’re doing real quick
Let’s see how the western press thinks things are going:
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-lifestyle-china-health-travel-7a6967f335f97ca868cc618ea84b98b9
Best bit:
Cheers!
Have… have you read the rest of the article? It’s fucking terrifying. It’s basically saying “this place went from a concentration camp to a prison”, and even then that’s what a random foreigner saw and has been told by the government. We don’t know if that’s the truth, and even if it was that’s still pretty fucking bad.
Yeah but have you seen what they used to write?
There’s this passage:
They’re actually doing the false balance thing. When was the last time the western press was fence sitting this much about this issue?
China eased up on their crackdown, which is good, but the western press went so far above what they could prove, they’re now walking back. Actually more like dropping the story: When was the last time you saw a new article about Xinjiang and not some social media echo?
When even the “false balance thing” includes relaying an admission of cultural genocide, you know the reality is really fucking bad.
The OHCHR Report isn’t even a year old. And if a country was actively committing genocide I’d guess they wouldn’t really make it easy to have constant news about it.
Two years ago, that shit used to be in German newspapers every month or so. Haven’t seen anything in like a year now. Also, pretty sure the UN report didn’t allege genocide, which is what the media here was claiming back then.
Heck I remember one of my friends was under the impression that there was ethnic cleansing and some major refugee movements, despite the media never actually alleging that. But when they hear the word “genocide” over and over, that’s what people imagine.
The report details the second, third and fourth of those acts. It effectively qualifies as genocide.
There’s plenty of evidence of China trying to improve the living conditions for Uyghurs in Xinjiang and in the rest of China (poverty alleviation, affirmative action programs for university students, the crackdown against hate speech on social media, …). So imprisoning some people based on some vague “extremism score” and then seemingly releasing them after some months doesn’t show intent to impose living conditions in order to destroy a group. It shows intent on crushing separatism.
Preventing births is true for everybody in China, how does that show an intent to destroy a particular group? It doesn’t.
So we’re left with “serious bodily or mental harm”, which can be explained just as well by an intent to suppress separatism and religious extremism. Literally every war causes some nationality “serious bodily or mental harm” far worse than what China is doing, and we don’t call every war a genocide, do we?
But those were brown people so they dont count - Americans probably.