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293 points doener | 17 comments | | HN request time: 1.26s | source | bottom
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room271 ◴[] No.23831071[source]
This kind of thing is going to play out a lot over the next few years. It's a tough question: how to marry globalisation with the political realities. When China was very poor, it didn't really matter, or perhaps the assumption was that China would liberalise more quickly than it has. But China, while increasingly mature economically, has not developed proper civil society, human rights, freedom of expression, democracy, and so on. Let us hope they do so as quickly as possible, not least for the sake of the Chinese people themselves. And let us work to improve our example and unity too in countries where we do have these things, however imperfectly.
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1. mytailorisrich ◴[] No.23831103[source]
Whether China liberalise is a red herring.

This is a geopolitical clash of power. It's not about respective political regimes, it's about relative power and influence. If China liberalises tomorrow none of the fundamental issues will change and China will still be a threat to the US. The only thing that will change is that the US will have to find something else in order to label China 'evil'.

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2. ahelwer ◴[] No.23831147[source]
This is a good analysis. You aren't seeing a constant drumbeat of bad China news because the US suddenly cares very deeply about Muslim lives - otherwise we'd be hearing a lot more about India, for example. China threatens the US' global hegemony. To the extent people in power care about China's political system, it is used to rope in liberals to an anti-China stance and manufacture consent for various measures against them, military or otherwise.
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3. typon ◴[] No.23831158[source]
This is why the Chinese strategy is not to give in to US bullying but create an alternative order in the world. Either the US comes to terms with it or we see the US empire lash out even harder
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4. jaekash ◴[] No.23831160[source]
> If China liberalises tomorrow none of the fundamental issues will change and China will still be a threat to the US. The only thing that will change is that the US will have to find something else in order to label China 'evil'.

Cite please. And won't the best way to debunk the "propaganda" be to just liberalize right? So ... everybody is waiting and has been waiting for decades, China should stop making excuses and get on with it.

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5. enitihas ◴[] No.23831320[source]
The comparison with India is wrong, or you don't understand the scale of what is happening in China. For starters, India is not re-educating anyone.
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6. ferest ◴[] No.23834300{3}[source]
i doubt you understand the "fact" you are talking about in person, rather than from some "news".

India is not re-educating anyone, but rules out muslim from citizenship? Not even mention the caste system, which is way worse than the color discrimination in US. When India became the 2nd biggest power in the world, all these will become target

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7. enitihas ◴[] No.23834501{4}[source]
Your arguments lack context. India isn't ruling out Muslims from citizenship. While the CAA is a very bad step forward, and has several problems, it is about what criteria satisfying refugees are available for quick citizenship, and doesn't apply to citizens of the country. India is certainly not running anything close to the camps China is running for Uyighurs.

India is actively trying to fix disparities caused by the caste system. It took the US 200 years to get civil rights, India had affirmative action from day one, and one of the biggest examples of affirmative action at that. The caste system is horrendous, but social change can never be brought so quickly ( atleast in a democratic way, we certainly don't want Stalin or Mao style quick changes)

The caste system, while bad, isn't in any way worse than color discrimination in the US. To quote just one example, India has very strong laws against caste based violence.

India has it's own shares of issues, but it's still an order of magnitude better than the Chinese Government.

8. ferest ◴[] No.23834993{4}[source]
> Your arguments lack context. India isn't ruling out Muslims from citizenship. While the CAA is a very bad step forward, and has several problems, it is about what criteria satisfying refugees are available for quick citizenship, and doesn't apply to citizens of the country. India is certainly not running anything close to the camps China is running for Uyighurs.

I could argue the same, the so-called reeducation camps only applies to xinjiang province, and for those could only get education from religion maniacs, rather than a normal school. And there were numbers of attack events were caused by it. Keep in mind Uyighurs are not only living in xinjiang, there are uyighurs living in rest parts of China and doing well.

> India is actively trying to fix disparities caused by the caste system. It took the US 200 years to get civil rights, India had affirmative action from day one, and one of the biggest examples of affirmative action at that. The caste system is horrendous, but social change can never be brought so quickly ( atleast in a democratic way, we certainly don't want Stalin or Mao style quick changes)

Aye aye, it took 200 years for the US to have civil rights for all (still problematic), and Inida takes 70+ years still working on the caste problems, when it reaches China, which was founded after India, we are suddenly asking for all equal society. Yes, unwillingly education is bad, but keeping them blank and poor is evil. Learning skills to fit into a society, even it doesn't fit into your propaganda, is not wrong.

> The caste system, while bad, isn't in any way worse than color discrimination in the US. To quote just one example, India has very strong laws against caste based violence.

US also has strong anti hate crime law, and is one of countries offers most assistance for anti-discrimination, law doesn't help unless vast majority are educated to do so, and vast majority has economy power to do so.

9. advanced-DnD ◴[] No.23836309[source]
An alternative where criticizing the CCP or that Pooh will end you up in jail? An alternative where China claim my country's ocean, far from its Mainland?

No thank you. Stop pushing "China is victim of bully" or "China is here to save you from evil West" rhetoric.

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10. sudosysgen ◴[] No.23836539[source]
The US destroyed Iranian democracy and replaced it by the Shah, a brutal autocratic leader whose abuse of power and violation of human rights led to the rise of the current far-right Islamic theocracy : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...

The US destroyed Bolivia, replacing an elected government that was legally found to be allowed to run, with a far-right nationalist military-backed junta that refuses to hold elections : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_political_crisis

The US installed a brutal dictator in Chile, with the coup killing the legitimately elected president and overthrowing the liberal democracy, replacing it with dictatorship : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende

No, it is entirely clear to anyone in the world that the US will destroy your country and kill you if you oppose, no matter how liberal it is, if it suits their geopolitical interests.

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11. chrischen ◴[] No.23836839{3}[source]
China claiming your ocean is exactly the same political power clashing as US claiming UK’s 5G networks.
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12. adventured ◴[] No.23837526{4}[source]
No it's not. The US isn't claiming the UK's 5G networks. The alternative solution providers such as Samsung, Ericsson and Nokia are not US companies.

China is using its military to forcibly steal territory the size of France from neighboring nations. That territory does not belong to China.

The US can rightfully sanction any nation that uses its technology and its currency. Those things belong to the US. The sea territory that China is stealing does not belong to it.

Other nations do not have to obey US sanctions. They're free to abandon all US technology and abandon the US dollar and its banking structures. Go for it.

13. adventured ◴[] No.23837765{3}[source]
> The US destroyed Iranian democracy and replaced it by the Shah

Iran had no democracy. Mosaddegh was appointed Prime Minister by the Shah, he was not democratically elected by the people of Iran. The Majlis that nominated him were a collection of feudal lords that dominated Iranian politics, they were not democratically elected by the people of Iran, they co-ruled Iran as a feudal kingdom.

If Iran were a democracy the Shah wouldn't have been appointing the Prime Minister.

It has been 40 years, and just look at Iran today: zero human rights. You're going to try to blame the US for four decades of theocratic dictatorship? Laughable. The timer on that excuse has long since expired. Iran is responsible for the condition of Iran today, and the people that installed the theocracy are solely responsible for that too.

> The US destroyed Bolivia, replacing an elected government

That's an entirely false, invented claim. Which is why you didn't even try to support it.

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14. sudosysgen ◴[] No.23838211{4}[source]
> Iran had no democracy. Mosaddegh was appointed Prime Minister by the Shah, he was not democratically elected by the people of Iran. The Majlis that nominated him were a collection of feudal lords that dominated Iranian politics, they were not democratically elected by the people of Iran, they co-ruled Iran as a feudal kingdom.

The Majles was literally an elected body. Yes, he was appointed by the Shah after being nominated by the parliament. That's how constitutional monarchies work. Justin Trudeau also was elected by a parliament and then appointed by the Queen.

The fact that a lot of the people in the Iranian parliament had feudal land is completely orthogonal here. They were still elected. A lot of the people in the US Congress are also incredibly wealthy.

Mossadegh was elected fair and square. He was overthrown and replaced by a puppet when he went against Western interests.

As for Bolivia, Morales was a legitimate, elected president of Bolivia. Under US pressure and support, the OAS fabricated evidence that the election was illegitimate, and the US backed a millitary coup. It was a coup orchestrated and following the interests of the US. Here is my source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/02/the-oa...

All of that information is also in the link I provided.

15. allarm ◴[] No.23839725{4}[source]
> Iran had no democracy

Oh, it’s totally fine then.

16. jjcon ◴[] No.23840196{3}[source]
I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish but the wiki articles you list don't support the point you are making.

The US isn't responsible for the 2019 Bolivan political crisis and certainly didn't destroy Bolivia. I have to believe you are just trolling with language like, "The US destroyed Bolivia". Unless you call supporting the second round of elections (along with the European Union) the cause of the crisis they had. I've been in Bolivia recently, they will be just fine.

Not sure what you are implying wrt the Chilean coup d'état - the US didn't like Salvador Allende but he was overthrown by his own military.

The UK support of the Iranian coup d'etat in the 1950 (post WWII) was due to a conflict with AIOC (a British corporation) and US supported in turn. Not a good look by any means but also not a pattern of machinations as you make it out to be.

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17. sudosysgen ◴[] No.23841561{4}[source]
So when the OAS [0] fraudulently, according to the Guardian, the New York Times, and every subsequent study, accuses the legitimate Bolivian elections to be fraudulent, after which a well-coordinated coup by the military and the far-right establishes a dictatorship that keeps postponing elections (Haven't seen that happen in Egypt before), that is also completely coincidentally the group supported by the government of the United States despite the press, academia and intelligentsia of the country recognizing that the elections were legitimate, that is not a US-backed coup?

Because it seems to me that it was a coup. That was backed by the US. Which makes it a US backed coup.

[0] The OAS is a cold-war era organization that was literally founded in order to instrumentalize the Monroe Doctrine. Moreover, the current chairman of the OAS publicly states his support for regime change, and the organization is largely funded by the US. It was designed in order, and still largely acts, to implement US foreign policy.

The CIA literally had a budget in order to remove Allende from power. One of their top priorities was to fund, cause, and instrumentalize a military coup in order to remove Allende, which happened exactly in the timeframe they planned, and was executed by the actors that they had counselled and financed for the past two decades in the goal of removing any left-wing president : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_.... It is absolutely certain that the US was instrumental in the overthrow of Allende, with the CIA even publicly taking credit for creating the conditions that led to the coup. After the coup, the US politically and economically backed the military dictatorship. So yes, the US caused, and backed the coup. He was overthrown by his own military, that were organized to perpetrate a coup by the US.

It is literally a pattern of machinations. There aren't a series of dozens of coup d'états that mysteriously happen in countries with CIA activity that also happened to be against US interests, and that turned out exactly to further US interests. The CIA didn't make contacts in the militaries, in supranational organizations, and with local interest groups for fun.