China has upset many countries in the Asia-Pacific region with its release of a new official map that lays claim to most of the South China Sea, as well as to contested parts of India and Russia, and official objections continue to mount. What is the map, and why is it upsetting people so much?
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It seems significant, then, that Beijing chose to release the map on the heels of a late August meeting of the BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and just before China is to participate in top-level meetings of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Group of 20 rich and developing nations.
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In releasing the map now, Beijing is widely seen as signaling it has no intention of backing down on any of its claims and is making sure that its positions are fresh in the minds of other countries in the region.
I’m sure some of those people would say China has a lot of flaws and fucks up a lot but I’d have them a hundred times over America.
Stop being egocentric.
So what you’re saying is that you’re fine with a dictatorship? You’re fine with millions of people being rounded up, tortured, and killed? You’re okay with genocide? You’re okay with mass censorship and mass surveillance?
Say yes. Because if you say no you’d go against your previous reply.
I mean I don’t agree with them but they could easily really with: “You’re fine with restricting women’s rights? You’re fine with a country controlled by corporations? You’re fine with police summarily killing people in the streets? You’re fine with a media that intentionally lies to manipulate parts of the population into attempting a coup? You’re fine with a small ghetto of inflected officials making arbitrary decisions on laws that take away fundamental rights based purely on religious and political ideology?”
A better argument would be to point to statistical data that shows that the US is still a better place to live than China. e.g. the US scores a 8.73 ^1 on the Freedom indeed while China only scored a 5.57 ^1.
Or direct to each country’s amnesty report. ^2 ^3
^1 https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-index-by-country
^2 https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/
^3 https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/americas/north-america/united-states-of-america/
Begging the question. I wouldn’t mind a benevolent dictatorship. As for the other presuppositions, I live in America, so yes.
I’ll assume you’re 15 years old since you keep looking up the definitions of words and expressions and I guess that does explain your stance.
Of course everyone would love to live in a “benevolent” dictatorship that always does exactly what I want and never does anything bad…
You met even dream about one day being lucky enough to live like that, but it’s yoo bad that those don’t exist. Dictatorships exist for the benefit of a very select few, of which you are not a part. As long as you follow in line all is fine, but step out of line, or happen to stand in the way, and you’re fucked. If a new rule is pushed down that you don’t like? Well too bad because fuck you, you’re living in a dictatorship now.
If you happen to be part of the group that is ethically or politically or religiously or culturally different, then you will soy be arrested and tortured because fuck you, you live in a dictatorship.
The only reason why the common populace gets anything nice is to avoid them rebelling against you. They’ll get just enough to not rebel, the testis for you and your first line buddies that protect you.
This is how life is in ALL dictatorships and if you’re dumb enough not to understand or believe this then please, by all means, move to China. Move to Russia. When there, raise your voice and then we’ll talk.
Oh wait, we won’t, because you’ll have disappeared
Hope you feel better soon. I continue to struggle with anger issues. What helps me is focusing on my breathing and reminding myself that I control my emotions, they don’t control me. Then I dissociate and try to objectively understand what is making me angry. Are you angry with me because I don’t view the world as you do? Or, because I’m challenging beliefs you’ve long held? Realize that not everyone has to believe the same, but a consensus reality, or basic truths, are necessary.
So in other words, you know you’re wrong but have no good reply do you’ll just feign a smile with some petty insults.
Makes for a good conversation.
More reason to assume you’re a teenager with little experience and knowledge of the world, yet thinking you know everything
I did not mean for you to feel insulted. You just seemed unnecessarily angry. I don’t even think I have the capacity to know everything. But I do enjoy learning and encountering different perspectives.
Uh huh, comments like that really show that. Grow up
I’ll have to wait for the next life to do that. That time has passed.
Sure but where would they prefer to live? Where do their kids live?
They prefer to live where they prefer to live. 1,425,587,668 people. 1,000,000,000 more people than the US. You’re deluding yourself if you think they are all prisoners.
Oh no, they’re not ALL prisoners. The Han Chinese especially. Maybe you should ask the Uyghurs what they think about the Chinese government? I mean, I’d tell you to ask them, but you really can’t now, as you very well know.
Also reminds me of this interview with a Dutch doctor who was brought to china as a transplant specialist. When there he asked about the source of the transplant he was told that the prisoner would be executed soon. He left without performing the transplant, which is good.
You presume that I defend China, I do not. Just because America genocided Native Americans, and carried out extrajudicial executions in Vietnam and Iwo Jima, doesn’t mean that they are evil. The same metric should be applied to China. Maybe both countries are bad. Don’t limit your understanding. I’m rooting for you.
You talk about two VERY different things here.
One is attrocities committed by the military, which are horrible, should not happen, and those responsible should be punished. Also some of these attrocities you mention are over 200 years ago…
The other is (current) governments and government policies.
China is a dictatorship. America is a (very falwed and at this point maybe even a failed, but still hanging on) democracy. Do I really need to spell out the practical differences here?
They are NOT the same.
If I were in China right now, just for writing this part above, I’d likely be jailed, and likely somewhat tortured just for good measure.
The USA has a host of issues, but at least it isn’t government policy to jail and torture it’s own citizens for whatever reason they deem fit.
You cannot be that naive not to understand that these are not the same.
They are not the same, but comparable. China hasn’t invaded a country since Vietnam. America unjustifiably invaded Iraq in 2003. My goal is not to defend China, but to make people aware that America isn’t the arbiter of justice in the world. Both countries are using propaganda to demonize the other. You don’t have to pick a side.
You’re doing a poor job of it though… What your doing is going on posts that have nothing to do about America and saying “yeah, but America is bad”. Most people here are aware that america does a lot of bad things. But denying that China is magnitude worse for its citizens isn’t “not to defend China”.
You sound like a China apologist more than anything. You convince nobody by doing that.
I don’t defend China at all. They are imperialist just like America. But I tire of the hate for China propagated by western media to justify war.
How do you know that China is magnitudes worse for its citizens?Everything you believe you know about China is filtered through the lens of western media. I don’t apologize for any nation. I don’t think nations should even exist. We are all humans. Try not to forget that. If I’m doing a poor job of it and not convincing anyone, why did you feel the need to reply?
No.
Again, no.
These countries cannot be compared, they’re not even in the same category.
I’m not trying to tell you that the US is awesome, it isn’t. But comparing it to China is disingenuous at best and just plain ignorant.
Tianmen square? Uyghurs? Hongkong?
The US indeed invaded Iraq based on lies and just for money grabs, it has a moment problem and it has a lot of bad actors in the government that van push it to do bad things.
China is a defacto dictatorship that commits genocide as a state policy. It downright murdered thousands of innocent students because they protested. That sort of shit would never fly in the US. Prisoners are executed for their organs, one amongst other sources on that was the testimony of a Dutch doctor going there to help with a transplant.
The US is badly flawed and recently got quite a bit worse and I worry for it. However, it’s an enormous far cry from China, don’t compare appels to torture.
Why do you feel the need to pick one over the other? Depending on what you value, one might be better than the other. But they can both be bad in different ways. You’re convincing yourself that they’re mutually exclusive, when it’s really a false dichotomy. They can both be bad, and we, as a civilization should seek to do better than either has to offer.
I guess you didnt see all those videos during covid when people had their front doors nailed shut by the government so they couldn’t leave, or the travel bans between cities. Or maybe your definition is different from mine or maybe the citizens prefered being dragged to a covid facility because someone in their household tested positive.
China’s zero COVID policy saved lives. source So, unless you love death, that’s not a good argument. In fact, I wish America had been more disciplined during the pandemic, which is not over. But the wheels of the economy must turn.
China is definitely more disciplined. Like when that Chinese doctor first discovered covid he was disciplined by the Chinese government, the coverup might have worked if covid was less dangerous but it was allowed to spread throughout Wuhan. When the world suspected something was wrong and wanted to close their border with China the CCP called it a over reaction. As things got worse the CCP finally admitted their was a problem and decided to stop travel out of Wuhan but gave everyone 24 hours notice, by than tens of thousands were able to flee to other parts of China and the world. blah blah blah and finally the step where other countries could have done something to stop the spread of covid happens. Yes, the USA should have been more disciplined and they could have been more effective at slowing down covid but by that point China had made it impossible to stop covid. None of this was the Chinese covid policy, just general cover your butt policy. Since China was so proud it created sinovac the CCP could not admit mRNA vaccine was more effective, how many more lives could have been saved if Chinese policy could admit to making mistakes? Sure, a high number of people in the west died doing stupid things like taking horse deworming medicine to fight a virus, but it was their choice. Unlike all the other people who took the necessary precautions and still died or the countless people in China who died from covid or they starved to death because they couldn’t get food - countless because the CCP covered up the number of cases and deaths. Check the WHO website for worldwide covid deaths. USA had 100 million confirmed cases (probably too low) and 1 million deaths (too low). China has four times the population but also has 100 million cases and only 120 thousand deaths. You are right, the CCP hates death - that’s why their made up number is so laughably low. If we assume deaths are 1% of cases than China deaths are 8 times less than what they should be. BTW my parents would agree with you 100%, my mom watches countless mainland media and my dad has dementia and even they would never want to live in China.
Sorry your dad has dementia. Enjoy the moments you have with him.
Heh? I would think you’re commenting on the wrong message but you quoted me so… What are you trying to say?
The Chinese feel the same about America as you feel about China.
Most Chinese feel exactly what they are told to feel by the government. That is not acceptable in my book.
edit: deleted as I realized I was defending China and I don’t want to do that. There are a great deal of massively problematic issues with their government which the comments here brought back to the front of my mind and I don’t want to get into an argument where I’m defending Whinnie the Pooh’s government.
You are proof that Americans are not that different, in that regard.
I’m not american, nor do I live there.
European? You’re still bombarded with American propaganda. We all are, they have cultural hegemony.
You should learn about something called free press and specifically the consequences on the societies that have that compared to others. It doesn’t immunize a population against propaganda, but its effects are much more tame. Also free press also means that you can have main stream media that goes against the government’s narrative. This is just not possible everywhere.
Of course we are bombarded by American culture, but science and investigative journalism still exists and where I live, we don’t lock people up for having “bad” beliefs or for simply investigating and sharing ideas.