Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

1. Germany was preparing for outright war throughout the 1930s. Conscription was introduced in 1935.Is China seriously planning to militarily annex Taiwan? Leaving aside propaganda etc.

2. This point appears to be about how unfair historical treatment can lead to fascism. Are you saying that the people of China are headed in this direction?

3. I'll defer to your judgement as I presume you read mandarin/canto, but I don't see a big difference from western social networks there, except for probably in terms of number of users (larger userbase) . I can read Korean fairly well and see those kinds of nationalist comments on Korean social media sites as well (funnily enough, they also aren't fans of Japan at the moment. )

4. I know what's happening there and am a little hurt you'd assume I'd get into a discussion like this without knowing. Human rights abuses are bad. That seems like the most one can say without getting accused of whataboutism. Are there gas chambers in those camps? (edit:clarification below)

>Maybe I'm wrong and just being an alarmist

Maybe you're right and I'm just trying to hope for the best.

My original post on this thread came mostly from shock as I was raised on the internet era where it was considered a faux pas to do blithe Nazi comparisons. so I was mildly astounded to see that the top voted comment in here boiled down to "China is Weimar/Nazi Germany."

> Are there gas chambers in those camps?

What on earth does it change whether there's gas chambers in there? If you're trying to claim they're not 1940s nazi germany, just say they don't speak german and be done with it.

If you're aware of what's happening over there then you are aware of the torture, yes?

sorry, on mobile and could have phrased that better. Does the outright extermination of the Uyghurs appear to be the PRC's ultimate goal?

Uh… yes?

You assume that a regime that does exterminate an ethnicity makes it appear from the outset as their ultimate goal. Historians of the Holocaust rigorously debate whether the Nazis intended from the start to exterminate all Jews worldwide. There's no straightforward answer.

If you want to know where the threat of genocide exists, you don't look merely at rhetoric. Genocide happens across several discrete stages. It usually starts with popular sentiments such as "you are not like us, you are not one of us", proceeds to "you may not live among us", then ultimately ends in "you may not live". China is at the step immediately before extermination. The number one predictor of extermination isn't rhetoric, it's ghettoization and internment.

> 1. Germany was preparing for outright war throughout the 1930s. Conscription was introduced in 1935.Is China seriously planning to militarily annex Taiwan? Leaving aside propaganda etc.

China is one of those rare countries in today's world which has border conflicts with each and every of its neighbors and is openly ignoring international norms. On top of that I don't think that it is investing heavily in military just for show.

This always happens, someone compare X to Nazi Germany, he means it's similar in points Y, and then everybody says but X doesn't have gas chambers or X doesn't want to kill all jews.

I'm pretty sure OP meant that it's similar because it's a dictatorship, it is very aggressive internationally, it uses propoganda against its own civilians like no other country, right now with a very strong air of nationalism and "the world is against us", it isn't shy about killing opposition, it built a huge army. The powers at be in the west (today's powers are large international corporations) are intent on appeasing China.

Do I think China is 1930s Germany? No, you can only get in the same river once. Is this parallel interesting? Yes

South Korea has a... border conflict with its northern neighour, a territorial conflict with Japan, and a massive and well armed military given its size.

>openly ignoring international norms.

Could you explain a bit more about what this means exactly? If you are talking about international law, plenty of world powers ignore it when it suits them.

As someone else said, force integration is the goal. Chinese culture rarely need to eliminate anything, it just absorb them

For example the arbitrary nine-dash line and China's claim over other countries's territories. China's even lost the case against Philippines [0], but has chosen to ignore it.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines_v._China

1. China and Taiwan have had several skirmishes since the PRC came into being in 1949 -- there just haven't been any in recent times since China doesn't want to risk American intervention or accidentally hitting a US Navy ship in the Taiwan Strait. The status quo is China effectively allows Taiwan to function autonomously so long as they don't claim outright sovereignty, which is when China starts flexing the warhammer. The current government in Taiwan has floated the idea of declaring independence far more openly than in the past which combined with Trump's wishy-washiness on alliances raises the risk that China might try something, even if not outright invasion.

2. Japan committed some horrific atrocities they have yet to atone for and Shinzo Abe is certainly not helping the situation with his nationalist rhetoric either, but China is chomping at the bit to justify a conflict with Japan (see the Diaoyu/Senkaku island situation). I take it you're familiar with Korean history and current events, so it's effectively the whole comfort women dispute x10.

3. What the rest of the world sees of Chinese social media is likely a filtered version, and some platforms like Tik Tok straight up have different versions for China/the rest of the world. Who knows, perhaps the excessive rhetoric there is just users trying to buff up their social credit score, but the fact that there are different versions for Chinese users and external users feeds the divide (probably by design).

4. Nobody can know the full extent of what goes on there given how deep Chinese surveillance runs, but we can draw a negative inference from that itself. Why does Xinjiang need special surveillance programs and restricted access even beyond the measures already imposed in the rest of China?

I get the comparisons can be a touchy subject but I think the world ought to have its moment of reckoning with China sooner rather than later, since later might turn out to be too late.

> China is one of those rare countries in today's world which has border conflicts with each and every of its neighbors

Many countries have territorial disputes. India has territorial disputes with China and Pakistan. Japan has territorial disputes with Russia, South Korea and China (and Taiwan, if you count them as a country). Basically every country bordering the South China Sea has territorial disputes with every other country bordering the sea.

Yet China hasn't fought a war since 1979, which is something that gets lost in all these discussions. It doesn't fit with the China = expansionist Nazi Germany narrative, I guess.

> is openly ignoring international norms

There's a very good case to be made that China respects international norms much more than the United States does. The US has repeatedly violated the most important post-WWII international norm - the ban on aggressive war. For citizens of the country that invaded Iraq without provocation and caused the deaths of a million people there, it's a bit rich to go on and on about China not respecting international norms.

> I don't think that it is investing heavily in military just for show.

Definitely not for show. They're afraid of the United States military, which is funded to the tune of $700 billion/year. China spends a tiny fraction of that on its military. Even as a fraction of GDP, China's military spending is small compared to that of the US.