Pro tip: If you ever find yourself in a semi-professional discussion, I would avoid referring to democracy, human rights, and individual freedoms as "Western values." Attaching a specific cultural and anthropological carte to what I view more as universal values that have yet to take roots universally, is exclusive and counter-productive. For one, China went through a period of Western domination starting in the 19th century, and Chinese people haven't forgotten that. Asking China to follow Western values in this context is about the worst thing you can say. Just because these concepts originated in the Western world should not preclude one from putting them in the context of the larger human enterprise. Do not ask, "Why shall China not walk in the footsteps of the West in giving its people the right to shape their destiny?" Ask, "Why shall the Chinese people not be at liberty of shaping their own destiny?"
Yeah it also invites all sorts of stupidity to paint totalitarianism as "just their culture" which is itself bigotry wearing a mask of anti-colonialism in apologetics to that which should be condemned. It brings to mind dismissing infamous warlord oppression with child soldiers and instituionalized rape as "just their culture".
This should be universally obvious but fundamentally people are people no matter their origin or culture.
Oddly enough, the West conceded this battle against the Muslim world to some degree. We are exhausted from that debate. The Muslim world mostly believes in their own bullshit, thankfully we bowed out from that fight.
We need to bow out in the same manner with the debate against the East. There’s a billion people, if they don’t want free uncensored Internet, who are we to say anything? If they wanted it, they’d have it. They know the ins and outs of the idiosyncrasies of their society, the same way the west does (how the west reconciles virtual slave labor to maintain it’s lifestyle of affordable luxuries (everything from food to clothes to electronics)).
But, there is a new issue. Slavery in America was considered the ‘peculiar’ institution. Surveillance state is something we have to ignore, similar to, I don’t know, making your women wear varieties of face coverings (Islam), we have to accept they are acclimated to the mental gymnastics required to sustain their pride. Whatever. We shouldn’t waste our energy on that, it’s a losing battle.
But, the ‘peculiar’ institutions are the things we need to probe. A repeat of pre-extermination Holocaust in China is a no go. I hope the examination keeps up, and I hope we retroactively apply this new spirit to some of the trespasses that occurred in Palestine as well.
Oddly enough, the West conceded this battle against the Muslim world to some degree. We are exhausted from that debate. The Muslim world mostly believes in their own bullshit, thankfully we bowed out from that fight.
China, though, owns an Islamic region. So they can't run away from it. They could build a wall, as Israel did, but that just contained the problem. Israel was never able to get large numbers of Arabs to abandon Islam. So Israel has an ongoing headache. China is trying to avoid getting stuck in that deadlock.
It's not the surveillance system that's the big problem. It's that they went all the way to concentration and re-education camps. They're trying to break the hold of Islam. In too brutal a way.
It's pretty much an official propaganda policy of CPC to maximally polarise the conversation, and convert it to "US vs them" format, with "our (imagined) values," and "their values"
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Pro tip: If you ever find yourself in a semi-professional discussion, I would avoid referring to democracy, human rights, and individual freedoms as "Western values." Attaching a specific cultural and anthropological carte to what I view more as universal values that have yet to take roots universally, is exclusive and counter-productive. For one, China went through a period of Western domination starting in the 19th century, and Chinese people haven't forgotten that. Asking China to follow Western values in this context is about the worst thing you can say. Just because these concepts originated in the Western world should not preclude one from putting them in the context of the larger human enterprise. Do not ask, "Why shall China not walk in the footsteps of the West in giving its people the right to shape their destiny?" Ask, "Why shall the Chinese people not be at liberty of shaping their own destiny?"
Yeah it also invites all sorts of stupidity to paint totalitarianism as "just their culture" which is itself bigotry wearing a mask of anti-colonialism in apologetics to that which should be condemned. It brings to mind dismissing infamous warlord oppression with child soldiers and instituionalized rape as "just their culture".
This should be universally obvious but fundamentally people are people no matter their origin or culture.
Oddly enough, the West conceded this battle against the Muslim world to some degree. We are exhausted from that debate. The Muslim world mostly believes in their own bullshit, thankfully we bowed out from that fight.
We need to bow out in the same manner with the debate against the East. There’s a billion people, if they don’t want free uncensored Internet, who are we to say anything? If they wanted it, they’d have it. They know the ins and outs of the idiosyncrasies of their society, the same way the west does (how the west reconciles virtual slave labor to maintain it’s lifestyle of affordable luxuries (everything from food to clothes to electronics)).
But, there is a new issue. Slavery in America was considered the ‘peculiar’ institution. Surveillance state is something we have to ignore, similar to, I don’t know, making your women wear varieties of face coverings (Islam), we have to accept they are acclimated to the mental gymnastics required to sustain their pride. Whatever. We shouldn’t waste our energy on that, it’s a losing battle.
But, the ‘peculiar’ institutions are the things we need to probe. A repeat of pre-extermination Holocaust in China is a no go. I hope the examination keeps up, and I hope we retroactively apply this new spirit to some of the trespasses that occurred in Palestine as well.
Oddly enough, the West conceded this battle against the Muslim world to some degree. We are exhausted from that debate. The Muslim world mostly believes in their own bullshit, thankfully we bowed out from that fight.
China, though, owns an Islamic region. So they can't run away from it. They could build a wall, as Israel did, but that just contained the problem. Israel was never able to get large numbers of Arabs to abandon Islam. So Israel has an ongoing headache. China is trying to avoid getting stuck in that deadlock.
It's not the surveillance system that's the big problem. It's that they went all the way to concentration and re-education camps. They're trying to break the hold of Islam. In too brutal a way.
You quite get the tone of the conversation.
It's pretty much an official propaganda policy of CPC to maximally polarise the conversation, and convert it to "US vs them" format, with "our (imagined) values," and "their values"