China

This is certainly possible, and I of course applaud anti-corruption policies. We have something of a corruption problem here in the US you may have heard about.

The mistrust comes from the fact that the CCP doesn't respect the rule of law. If we had faith in its legal system, then we would have confidence. But we don't. It's also an odd coincidence that anti-corruption has consolidated Xi's power. Anti-corruption efforts need to be independent, lest they too become corrupt efforts. When they're led by those in power, how can they be anything other than a purge? Here's what Wikipedia--citing Willy Lam from the Jamestown Foundation--says the process is:

> Investigations by the party's disciplinary bodies are not part of the state judicial system. When an official is detained for an investigation, known as Shuanggui, they are essentially placed under house arrest and are isolated from the outside world. The subject often must endure days of grueling interrogation.[50] Data from the first half of 2014 showed that the conviction rate of those who were investigated in that time period to be around 99%.[50] The CCDI and its local counterparts usually gather evidence covertly well in advance of detaining the subject. Generally, when an official is announced to be under investigation, the CCDI has already collected an overwhelming amount of hard evidence. China scholar Willy Lam also wrote that the CCDI has seen a massive expansion of its powers since Xi's ascension, and that it was increasingly involved in the governance of the state. Lam also contended that the CCDI seemed to be deriving most of its power from Xi Jinping personally.

This process is a joke. It cannot be taken seriously.

> Again, when did I justify?

This is a justification:

> Different countries apply different models at different points in development - "rule of law and respect human rights - is simply not a priority for China or many developing nations, where the moral calculus is better spent on attaining other freedoms, chiefly the freedom from want.

Here you are justifying China's violation of human rights because they're a developing nation. Plain as day.

> Your bad behaviour undermines (but doesn't invalidate) your ability to criticize others, which this open letter and many myopic US arguments couched in moralism refuses to comprehend.

If your argument is that the CCP should only listen to perfect governments (or citizens of perfect governments), that's a bad faith argument. If you don't think they need to be perfect, maybe you could list some governments you would listen to, or what standard a government could meet to warrant being an authority on human rights, in your eyes, because numerous governments have spoken out against the CCP's human rights abuses. It's also worth saying that non-governmental organizations like Amnesty International and the UN have as well. Also whistleblowers in the CCP government itself, also people under the CCP's rule, etc. etc. etc.

So let's be honest, you're setting an impossible standard so you don't have to take responsibility.

> Nor was I suggesting the OPs letter was not warranted, just poorly reasoned and articulated.

So how would you articulate it? How do you justify the CCP abducting people, and murdering them by harvesting their organs? Something that, to be clear, the US definitely does not do and has never done.

> The 1/3 (open elections) elected a leader that is rapidly dismantling the global order or undermining allies everywhere.

Yeah that's how elections work. You live with the results, even when you don't like them and even when they're objectively bad. That's the commitment we have to our values. The CCP could learn from our example.

And lest you think I'm being sarcastic here, I'm absolutely not. Free and fair elections are a bedrock principle of any democracy.

> ...anyone with passing knowledge of contemporary US history knows vast components are degrading. Which makes these appeal to values arguments particularly unsuccessful.

You are again arguing that economic development trumps human rights. To be clear, this is the kind of argument used to justify human rights abuses like abduction, slavery, executions, mass censorship, and other horrors.

> You have a much rosier evaluation on the US system than the last 20 year warrants.

In the last 20 years, multiple states have rolled back laws on felon disenfranchisement. We've passed significant criminal justice sentencing reform (we have a long way to go here). We weathered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We passed Obamacare. We've legalized recreational marijuana use in 11 states and DC, and some of those states are reversing convictions and expunging records. We've had the longest economic expansion on record. Oh and we legalized gay marriage.

Am I all sunshine and roses about everything that's happened in the last 20 years? Absolutely not. I'm no US apologist. I've read A People's History of the US. I proudly accept being an SJW, and I'm often hypercritical of US policy foreign and domestic.

All of which is to say I might be wrong about all kinds of things. I might be overly optimistic. But I'm definitely not uninformed. And even given all that, I can say without hesitation I would never choose CCP-occupied China over the US. And I deeply hope the world won't buy the kinds of arguments you're making. In fact, I hope you come around too :) Everyone can change.

> Here you are justifying China's violation of human rights because they're a developing nation.

...

> So let's be honest, you're setting an impossible standard so you don't have to take responsibility.

Again, I'm not absolving China of their failures and abuses. But I also recognize that currently, China is operating within hegemonic standards set by 70 years of US leadership. That is, the privileged to ignore international laws and norms because as the great power, standard bearer, US set the precedence for such behavior. XJ specifically maps onto hysteric over reaction to post 9/11 attacks. There's a reason that XJ crackdown plays well to domestic audiences besides shared Islamophobic ignorance - there has no been no serious extremist attacks since the security apparatus was established. Great powers with the resources to keep their population safe will do so even if the cost is disproportionate to the risk or if the cost means eating away at domestic rights. This isn't an argument that China has a "moral right" to conduct such abuses like US in their war against terror, both are gross human right violations, rather the precedents set by the largely unchallenged US actions abroad, outside of concerned words like this letter, set the established the allowable scope of of atrocities in the name of security. So if Americans wants to have a credible podium to compel others to reduce their scope of atrocity, then they must also reduce their own. Security follows MAD logic in that regard, no one is willing to do less than what is acceptable. And if free and fair elections are the bedrock, then every American is culpable for setting the bar this low. Personally I wouldn't attribute blame to voters, because I find the US electoral system too imperfect to express populace desires when these conflict with challenge national interest.

> You are again arguing that economic development trumps human rights.

Economic development IS human rights. It's the basis for establishing the four freedoms Roosevelt preached everyone ought to enjoy - speech, worship, want, fear. There's a reason most Chinese / developing countries are preoccupied with "want" and countries that are victims to extremist attacks over react in response to "fear", because physiology and safety is the base of maslows hierarchy of needs. Not everyone has the luxury of affluence to fulfill everything freedom right now. Sometimes they must choose, moral calculus is not easy when every decision are bad trolley problems.

>And I deeply hope the world won't buy the kinds of arguments you're making. In fact, I hope you come around too :) Everyone can change.

This is your fundamental misreading of my position. I prefer liberal values as well but understand the conditions they spring from, and the long trajectory it takes / will take to get there in developing countries. All the Asian tigers that the west hoped China would emulate sprung from established authoritarian regimes who grew their economies via protectionism policies until the people reached a level of wealth that made pursuing other freedoms attractive. IMO China will be no different, even accounting current developments in surveillance society. And more specific to the quoted point, my criticism is the lack of US moral consistency and leadership is what makes the Chinese model attractive. And it is. Most developed western country that requires immigration to support their future is being destabilized by massive demographic and social changes, read non white immigration influx no small fault to US ME policy, leading to nativism and populism that's springing up in liberal societies around the world. No one has a solution to this, US is not offering a credible alternative. Nor do they have competing plans to help underdeveloped countries like Chinese B&R. If Chinese integration camps work in XJ, expect it to be adopted elsewhere relabeled as civic lessons with * characteristics. IF BRI works well, expect the many countries it touches to be Sino aligned if not out of ideology but dependence. Focusing on China bad and debt trap is ultimately deflection to the fact that an absence of US moral leadership and inability to address contemporary and global problems is causing people to lose faith in the model that US is championing.

> XJ specifically maps onto hysteric over reaction to post 9/11 attacks.

The Uighurs predate the CCP by hundreds of years. They are indigenous to their area of Xinjiang. They've resisted CCP rule--which has been imposed on them unwillingly--and because the CCP hasn't provided a political solution, some have resorted to violence (you might recognize this dynamic from what's happening in Hong Kong right now).

The 9/11 attacks had many motivations (Osama bin Laden made them all clear). But "you've annexed our homeland and are systematically erasing our religion and culture" was not one of them.

So there is no comparison between the CCP's actions against the Uighurs and the US's actions towards Muslims. The only thing they share, at all, is that the victims are Muslims. The Uighurs aren't immigrants. That's their land. It's a facile comparison, and reflexive whataboutism from a regime so used to playing this card it doesn't even think about it anymore.

If you're interested in a truer comparison, look to the US's treatment of Native Americans. Unfortunately that comparison isn't favorable to the CCP at all, because while we certainly committed atrocities when we invaded their homes hundreds of years ago, and while the reservation system has serious flaws, it's absolutely not "re-education" camps holding millions of people outside any rule of law or oversight whatsoever.

> Economic development IS human rights.

If the CCP is interested in economic development at all costs, why does it have such extreme income inequality? Let me quote the first paragraph from the Wikipedia article "Income inequality in China":

> China’s current mainly market economy features a high degree of income inequality. According to the Asian Development Bank Institute, “before China implemented reform and open-door policies in 1978, its income distribution pattern was characterized as egalitarianism in all aspects.”[1] At this time, the Gini coefficient for rural – urban inequality was only 0.16. As of 2012, the official Gini coefficient in China was 0.474, although that number has been disputed by scholars who “suggest China’s inequality is actually far greater.”[2] A study published in the PNAS estimated that China’s Gini coefficient increased from 0.30 to 0.55 between 1980 and 2002.

What's actually happening is a relatively small number of CCP elites are exploiting the people of China for their own enrichment. They use the politics of fascism to secure their hold on power, they use their extremely sophisticated and wide-reaching surveillance state to curb dissent, and they leverage their economic might to gag nations around the world.

> So if Americans wants to have a credible podium to compel others to reduce their scope of atrocity, then they must also reduce their own.

I 100% agree with this. I'm not arguing that the CCP should listen to the US though, and I'm not arguing that the US should be listened to. I'm arguing that the CCP is a violator of human rights on a scale close to some of the worst in history, and the world should do something about it.

> Not everyone has the luxury of affluence to fulfill everything freedom right now. Sometimes they must choose, moral calculus is not easy when every decision are bad trolley problems.

I 100% agree with this too. The problem I have with the CCP is that they argue that they absolutely must violate human rights on staggering scales in order to raise the quality of life for their citizens. This is, I hope obviously, a false choice. China's GDP has no relationship to putting a million Uighurs in camps. Actually that probably cost a lot of money, just like the political unrest in Hong Kong will cost a lot of money as the recession deepens and businesses leave.

But if the CCP refuses to see it this way, I'm comfortable playing on this field. Like OP, I call on everyone everywhere to make it known that if you violate human rights anywhere near the level that the CCP does, your economy will not grow. We should expel these regimes from world governing and trade bodies. We should not engage with them economically. Any diplomatic relations must be predicated on their respect for rule of law and human rights.

> All the Asian tigers that the west hoped China would emulate sprung from established authoritarian regimes who grew their economies via protectionism policies until the people reached a level of wealth that made pursuing other freedoms attractive.

Not for nothing, but this is a real bad comparison. First of all, almost every nation started out in some way as an authoritarian nation. So if your argument is that you need to spend some time in a fascist incubator before your people can be free, that's pretty dark.

Second, the Asian tigers are Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and South Korea. It's true that South Korea has a history (again like almost every nation) of authoritarian rule. It's also true that the KMT in Taiwan imposed martial law for decades but has recently blossomed into a vibrant democracy. But Singapore is not a free country, and Hong Kong isn't a country--much less a democracy--at all.

(To be clear, Singapore has made great strides and I'm obviously not in charge of who's free and who's not. I'm going off indexes like Freedom in the World and the Press Freedom Index).

I'm sure people in the US thought free market principles would liberalize the CCP. I've brought that up elsewhere, even in this thread. That was very wrong, and it's important for us to realize that while economic development is, as you say, necessary to ensure human rights, it's far from sufficient.

> Most developed western country that requires immigration to support their future is being destabilized by massive demographic and social changes, read non white immigration influx no small fault to US ME policy, leading to nativism and populism that's springing up in liberal societies around the world. No one has a solution to this, US is not offering a credible alternative.

Let me introduce you to a place called New York City, one of the most (if not the most) diverse, densely populated places on the planet. We have literally provided a blueprint and a working model for how to build a thriving, multicultural, hyperproductive city.

Or feel free to look at other western cities like Amsterdam, Paris, London, Toronto, Los Angeles, Sydney, etc. etc. etc. Of course there are problems, and we need to work seriously to address them. But to my knowledge, we've yet to disappear a million people into a secret camp.

---

To be frank, it's clear what the CCP's values are. If you look at the economic development of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and other cities, their investments in growing their influence in the world, their policies to try and change the demographics and politics of states like Xinjiang (migration incentives for Han Chinese to move there) and Hong Kong (housing subsidies, etc.), their aggression in the South China Sea, their development of weapons to threaten their neighbors like Taiwan, their development of a sprawling propaganda and surveillance apparatus, their investment in stealing intellectual property, it's clear what kind of regime we're dealing with. If they were at all interested in multiculturalism, human rights, democracy, the rule of law, healthy political dialogue and dissent, religious freedom, or any other liberal values, they'd invest. They can build an insane metropolis in less than a decade, but they won't build a just court system. They aspire to build a national park system to rival that in the US in a fraction of the time, but they can't countenance rival political parties.

It's not because these things are hard. The CCP is obviously capable of doing hard things. It's because these things would be threats to their power.

Of course context varies but doesn't matter in relation to the response being a counter insurgency and domestic security issue. Which XJ is. It's not about GDP, it's about safety and control over security. Atrocities in the interest of that is a false argument, but it's also an predictable response as 9/11 demonstrated. Such comparison is not whataboutism, claiming so is just lazy rhetoric. Bringing up Native American treatment in NA is apt, XJ strategy is ostensibly "residential school" cultural genocide aka absolutely "re-education" with the ultimate goal of forced integration. The difference is China will backup stick of reeducation with carrot of development. XJ will have better infrastructure and growth opportunities than reservations up in Canada that doesn't have road access and water boiling notices. Incidentally Canadian Tribunal on indigenous treatment labelled it has "cultural genocide", but at the end of the day, few cares. Ultimately XJ will fall on the same deaf years as much as US and a handful of allies tries to weaponize it as geopolitical tool. Regardless, refer to explosive Tibet GDP growth and development in the last few years for context. As far as actual cost, building the infrastructure to intern a million is trivial compared to Chinese building capacities. The scope of XJ seems huge but relative to 1.4 billion people, it's literally trivial undertaking. The greater security apparatus throughout China on the other hand to maintain power is much more demanding, internal security budget exceeds that of military.

As for other strategies, they tried but it didn't work. The reason why Tibet and XJ are "autonomous regions" is because they were based of soviet oblasts where these regions and minorites retained extraordinary affirmative action privileges. Much more in the west - exemptions from taxes, family planning, bonuses to education enrollment on national test etc. The idea was multiculturalism salad bowl, but the riots and terrorists attacks failed hence integration strategy - the rational was melting pot analogy literally inspired by US and the cities you highlighted. Also these cities you named fails to recognize that multiculturalism is causing undeniable shift in nativism at the national scale, all around the world. A few liberal cities doesn't change the trend. The blue print works for some urban centres who can brain drain the best to build flourishing societies is fails in other contexts. Of course the issue in the west is immigration so the solutions / atrocities are different. Whole of EU delegates war refugees via Turkey. Australia has Nauru Regional Processing Centre. US has your camps and political pressure to Mexico to militarize their migration routes etc. Canada is chill right now, but there's backlash towards multiculturalism model all the same.

> Inequality & Corruption

This is an intentional Chinese development strategy for anyone versed in the subject matter. Deng wanted to rapidly develop successful economic models via SEZ on coastal cities, then apply these models to the interior provinces which has languished. The pivot towards interior development happening now with goal of total poverty elimination by 2030s. Current per capita GDP is $10,000 (actual forecast is $12,000), followed by complete urbanization and poverty alleviation by 2030, followed by "China Dream" of per capita GDP of $40,000 by 2050. Some of the coastal cities are currently at $20,000 or $40,000 by PPP. Rampant corruption was a tool used to direct state resources to generally meritocratically selected local officials whose opportunities to graft is connected to tied to fulfilling state mandates, i.e. take a little on the side as long as it fulfills X growth goals to meet Y targets established by politburo. This is why Chinese corruption is correlated to growth, against conventional wisdom. The nature of Chinese mixed economy allows state-directed capitalistic development. The problems you highlighted are features (well hacks) not bugs. It's the only country in the world where this is true. Everywhere else corruption leads to stagnation. But excess wealth inequity via corruption also disrupts social stability hence anti-corruption drive. This is posited by Yukon Huang, former World Bank director for China, Russia, and Former Soviet Union Republics.

> Tigers & Development

The demand for other freedoms doesn't happen until certain levels of economic development is reached. So yes, IMO absolutely "fascist incubator" is a dark but necessary stage towards eventual liberalization, because that's the default path. CPC is consistently responding to peoples needs, there's been legal reforms, environmental improvements etc. People are fixated with money right now, eventually they'll worry about values. The result will likely be something along the lines of Singapore, a rich dictatorship with more western compatible values but all that is dependent on people getting rich first. There's been large regressions under Xi, but overall I'm positive about future trajectory assuming the next phase of income equalization and development and the demographic time bomb can be negotiated successfully. My view is as long as China has GDP of Iraq there will be no broad pressure to purse values - not democracy mind you - HK instability has ruined the Chinese appetite for that.

> CCP's values

You've just listed all the goals of every great power, some manner of hegemony and political influence like that's somehow explicit to CPC. SCS claims is a multi party dispute by many nations, CPC just happen to be powerful enough to win. Building an military that makes neighbours feel threatened is the natural byproduct of a big country modernizing it's military to fit security needs. Chinese defense spending is only 2% of GDP, lower than her neighbours. Of course, the goal is going to be regional hegemony like Munro doctrine. That's not CPC values, that's just inevitable side affect of great power geopolitics and the natural reaction by neighbors in response should be concern. Like is the CPC not suppose to have an military suitable to her size or have missiles that can hit Taiwan? The island 130km away.

Obviously the primary goal for CPC is power and self-survival, but that doesn't mean it doesn't also pursue other policies that improve quality of life, it just so happens those are safety and economically related right now - hence CPC having broad domestic support. Explicitly because Chinese do not want CPC to collapse, they just crawled out of period of anarchy, it's in most Chinese people's self-interest that a competent CPC survives.

Again you have the right to call on people to antagonize CPC because you think they're the historical tier bad human rights violator, but I think you'll find that's a profoundly American-centric analysis. Relative to Chinese population, the atrocities happening in China is comparable to US prison industrial complex and wars abroad. No amount of moralizing is going to make such equivocation not true. Just because US dominated social media ceaseless spam China bad and HK protests to the exclusion of all else doesn't mean the rest of the world minus a few staunch US allies will take the bait. It's a filter bubble of American exceptionalism. Ultimately, my argument is you can't eat your morals. So trying to undermine China via moral arguments is fruitless, especially coming from Americans, who, having voting rights is individually culpable for US behaviours that undermines their ability to critique. If the west wants to contain China, they need to offer better alternatives - vaunted US democracy and values is not it. There's a reason why so many nations are taking loans from China and many Indians would trade in their democracy for a few decades of Chinese development. Because it's more appealing than what the west has offered in a long time.

> [XJ is] not about GDP, it's about safety and control over security.

If this were the CCP's goal they would grant Uighurs independence--or at least religious freedom. The violence would stop immediately.

Unless it is about GDP and power, then granting independence is a terrible idea.

> Tibet's GDP really blew up

Did the CCP ask the people of Tibet before annexing their land and installing a brutal police state in the name of "GDP growth and development"? This "ends justify the means" thinking is again the exact same logic used to justify insane horrors like the Stalinist industrialization of the USSR.

> the CCP tried US-style multiculturalism, but the Uighurs messed that up.

The anti-religion policies forced on the Uighurs by the CCP are nothing like policies in NYC, LA, or anywhere else in the US. There is no comparison. I'll again point out that the Uighurs were there first, and if the CCP were really interested in multiculturalism and human rights, they would simply leave or erect a liberal system that would protect those rights. But they're obviously not; what they are interested in is, as you say, "forced integration". It's ridiculous to think that policy can be applied without violence. The policy itself is violence.

> A few liberal cities doesn't change the trend.

You were saying there were no examples, so the CCP was justified in perpetrating cultural genocide. I listed several examples to counter. You are moving the goalposts like crazy.

> The blue print works for some urban centres... but nowhere else

It's true that our cities are more diverse than the rest of the country. But it's a common misconception that minorities only live in our cities. More Black Americans live in suburbs and rural areas than cities, and the Hispanic/Latinx representation outside of cities is evening out too (27% to 22%) [1].

Incidentally, it also leads to economic growth [2], your stated chief goal. So the CCP doesn't need to worry, they can simply follow our example.

> multiculturalism is causing undeniable shift in nativism at the national scale, all around the world.

There's no denying there's a lot of passion around multiculturalism and immigration in the US. But not even a plurality of Americans think they're bad. Clear majorities believe the opposite [3]; they think they're our strength, and reinforce our responsibility in taking in refugees [4]. Incredibly, support for refugees has even increased among Republicans.

There's a propaganda campaign largely led by Russia to leverage these issues to cause instability in multicultural societies. Your rhetoric here echos that campaign, and it's similarly incorrect. Americans are proud of our multiculturalism and our freedoms.

> Inequality & Corruption -- the CCP's plans

I admit to not being interested in the CCP's justification for running kangaroo courts (if an anti-corruption process that never holds a trial can be said to use courts), even if that justification is "they used corruption for economic growth", which is a weird kind of incidental confession. It only reemphasizes the CCP's commitment to economic growth and consolidation of power over any kind of human rights.

> The demand for other freedoms doesn't happen until certain levels of economic development is reached.

Then how do you explain nations like Uruguay, Mauritius, and Costa Rica? These countries are "full democracies" according to the Democracy Index (better even than the US), and their nominal GDP per capita is $17,118, $11,693, and $12,015 respectively. Feel free to look through this list [5] for other countries with similar--arguably worse--economic development to China, but with governments far more liberal than the CCP.

I agree China has unique challenges and it's had a rough history. But you simply can't hand wave the CCP's atrocities away with "but the people are poor". There are too many counterexamples for that.

> My view is as long as China has GDP of Iraq there will be no broad pressure to purse values - not democracy mind you - HK instability has ruined the Chinese appetite for that.

This is the opposite lesson they should learn. If they granted the 5 demands--something they could instantly and easily do--HK violence would be over. Same for Tibet and Xinjiang.

> Chinese defense spending is only 2% of GDP, lower than her neighbours.

China's GDP is massive. Cherry picking stats like this is disingenuous. China's military spending is the 2nd highest in the world, after the US.

> Like is the CPC not suppose to have an military suitable to her size or have missiles that can hit Taiwan?

What they should do is not shoot missiles within 30 miles of Taiwan's major cities (3rd Taiwan Strait Crisis), not develop weapons specifically with the aim of invading and annexing Taiwan, and not threaten "profound disaster" when Taiwanese politicians assert independence from China--which it obviously has. The "One China" policy is idiotic, belligerent, and responsible for so much violence.

[1]: https://pewrsr.ch/2qGzUJE

[2]: https://bit.ly/37vpQ73

[3]: https://nyti.ms/2pHZ8qF (sorry paywall, the headline is "75% of Americans Say Immigration is Good For Country, Poll Finds")

[4]: https://pewrsr.ch/35jMEEW

[5]: https://bit.ly/2Oez1ks

> That's not CPC values, that's just inevitable side affect of great power geopolitics and the natural reaction by neighbors in response should be concern.

I am extremely confident that Canada and Mexico have no fear of the US sending missiles to their cities, or troops into their territory. That's because we don't do things like constantly assert that their land is our land, threaten them with destruction, run propaganda campaigns to that affect, and develop weapons specifically with the goal of penetrating their defenses.

> You've just listed all the goals of every great power, some manner of hegemony and political influence like that's somehow explicit to CPC.

I fully admit that the US committed atrocities against Native Americans when we invaded North America. Slavery too was an abomination; Japanese internment camps were disgusting, our treatment of Chinese laborers and immigrants (as well as those from other parts of East Asia) was abhorrent, our criminal justice system is an affront to justice itself, our border control and immigration systems are deeply inhumane and unjust, etc. We would earn and deserve international condemnation if we did any of that stuff today. And we do, look at what organizations have to say about our immigration policies and our criminal justice system. I wish the West would exert more pressure on us, truly.

I'm happy to talk about those issues, just not in a thread about the CCP's actions. When are you going to stop using the actions of others as justification for the CCP?

And again if your argument is "well the US did it", why doesn't the CCP do the good things we do (rule of law, elections, etc.)?

> Obviously the primary goal for CPC is power and self-survival...

This is the definition of a corrupt regime.

> hence CPC having broad domestic support

How could you possibly measure that, given the CCP's surveillance state, re-education camps, vast propaganda network, and lack of any kind of free speech.

> Again you have the right to call on people to antagonize CPC because you think they're the historical tier bad human rights violator

"Antagonize" means "to cause someone to become hostile". By any reasonable standard, the CCP is a hostile regime. You cannot make something hostile if it already is. Do not try and imply the CCP is a peaceful, benevolent government when the facts clearly show otherwise.

It's also very telling that you think my words, my political beliefs, could cause a government to become hostile. Of course, when you're dealing with a regime with no respect for human rights, that's a concern.

> Relative to Chinese population, the atrocities happening in China is comparable to US prison industrial complex and wars abroad.

It is not. Here are the things we do not do as a matter of policy:

- Forced sterilization

- Forced rape and impregnation

- Organ harvesting

- Interning millions of people without cause

- Forcing millions of our own citizens to violate their religious beliefs and to renounce their religion

> US dominated social media ceaseless spam China bad and HK protests...

This is pretty funny. Have you seen all the stories about the CCP's efforts to censor anything about HK? This is the CCP's playbook, whether it's 8964, Xinjiang, Tibet, or HK.

> Ultimately, my argument is you can't eat your morals.

Again, this is a false choice. You absolutely do not have to choose between human rights, rule of law, and economic development. Again feel free to look at the Democracy Index for examples.

> So trying to undermine China via moral arguments is fruitless, especially coming from Americans, who, having voting rights is individually culpable for US behaviours that undermines their ability to critique.

I'm not saying the CCP has to listen to my government or me. They obviously won't; regimes that invest in propaganda as heavily as the CCP does aren't interested in listening. I'm not even telling them what to do. You're making excuses for their behavior, and I'm offering alternatives (invest in independent legal systems, build liberal institutions that respect human rights), but I'm not saying they should. I'm saying if they don't, that's the definition of an authoritarian regime, valuing its own power and enrichment over the well being of its people.

I am imploring the West and our allies to take action though.

I also think it's funny how you're trying to tie me to every action my government takes via our democratic elections like I won't accept it. I do wholeheartedly accept it, every American is responsible for the actions of our government. That's because our government not only represents us, it is us. To paraphrase The West Wing: when you try and hurl that at my feet, as if it were something to be ashamed of, something dirty, something to run away from, it won't work. Because I will pick it up and wear it as a badge of honor.