I’m reasonably certain the two are not mutually exclusive
Learning and critique are the same thing. If you look at China and go “this is perfect in every way and we should copy it,” then you aren’t actually learning anything at all. In my experience MLs don’t get angry with anarchists and others critical of China because they don’t learn from Chinese socialism, but because they don’t like the conclusions they’ve made.
If you look at China and go “this is perfect in every way and we should copy it,” then you aren’t actually learning anything at all
MLs do not hold this view. China isn’t perfect, and copying their model completely wouldn’t work at all. The Soviet Union, China, and the DPRK all use different models of socialism.
You say this, but I have met MLs (not on lemmy) who tout the DPRK as a utopia and shut down all of my criticism as western brainwashing.
I feel both our perspectives are anecdotal and the real answer lies between our observations.
I have met MLs (not on lemmy) who tout the DPRK as a utopia and shut down all of my criticism as western brainwashing.
Again, MLs don’t hold the view that the Soviet Union, China, the DPRK, Cuba, Vietnam, or any socialist country is perfect. Here’s an example of criticisms brought against Stalin
The Great Firewall is unequivocally authoritarian, although Western governments are certainly moving in a similar direction. On the other hand, Chinese open ML models like Qwen are more aligned with what U.S. companies like “OpenAI” originally promised before going completely closed and subscription only. These Chinese open models represent a more promising future than the grim and dystopian direction the US is heading with AI.
The Great Firewall is unequivocally authoritarian
Like the tooth fairy, there’s no such thing as “authoritarianism”, but even if there was, you’d have a difficult time making the case that allowing the US surveillance state to operate within your borders, is “anti-authoritarian”.
The US is more likely than any other country to harm you psychologically (or physically), coup your government, misinform you, or push far-right propaganda, all based on the information they gain about you and your peers through their spying platforms. India’s most popular social network for example, is Facebook, meaning the US controls nearly the entire social media and information landscape of a country many times larger than itself.
You can watch a vid here on why the PRC is not naive enough to do this.
Most of us on Lemmy regularly criticize the US and big tech, so no disagreement there. Yes, we all know the US is a corrupt, warmongering, exploitative, profiteering country and that both our government and our oligarchs are plundering the world for their own profit while the average US citizen is seeing their quality of life continually wane with each passing decade. The US is for sure authoritarian with the collaboration of big tech and 3-letter agencies to spy on citizens, and also the regime change wars that destroy sovereign nations and install leaders more favorable to US oligarchs.
Meanwhile, the quality of life and wealth for the average citizen in China has increased in many respects. That doesn’t mean the Chinese government and Chinese oligarchs aren’t also exercising an unjust degree of control over their own citizens. The Chinese government surveilling its citizens and tightly controlling the flow of information is not being done out of benevolence. I just called what the US does authoritarian, so how would that not apply equally to China? Or is there another term you’d prefer?
this is so close to being self aware lol
if the bottom was “learn from China without imagining it as infallible, while understanding there is nuance and depravity in all political systems” it’d be extremely correct.
sadly the .ml obsession with China does not include nuance. it’s just a “western country bad, therefore China good” thought pattern that y’all seen to be weirdly proud of for having, even though it’s a clear fallacy most of us would have recognized in middle school.
western country bad, therefore China good
Nope.
China has AI models for me. The power of intelligence in my own computer. Pretty futuristic. The west hasn’t made anything futuristic for me in my whole lifetime.
Then there’s more cool future stuff over there, like democracy, that people where I live can only dream of.
…that’s your selling point? this kinda proves my point
The joke here is calling China “socialist”, right?
The PRC is a mixed economy, with the state-planned, socialist sector commanding the heights of the economy, and a smaller sector for capitalist development.
Is China State Capitalist?
- The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
- Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
- Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
- Didn’t China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn’t it liberalize its economy? Is China’s drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
- Is the CPC committed to communism?
- The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
- The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
- Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
- Isn’t China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn’t it fully planned like the USSR was?
- Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.
- Roderic Day - China has billionaires.
- What is socialism with Chinese characteristics (SWCC)?
- How is SWCC not revisionist? How is it any different from Gorbachev’s market reforms?, 2
- Domenico Losurdo - is China state capitalist?, 2
- Did Lenin say anything about Market Socialism, or productivism?
- Vijay Prashad - Is China capitalist?
- Why do Chinese billionaires keep ending up in prison? Why are many billionaires and CEOs going missing? China sentences Ex-Chairman of a major bank, guilty of embezzling ~$100M USD, to death in 2019.
- China cracks down on billionaires - Ben Norton interviews Ian Goodrum
- Do capitalists control the communist party? No, pic
- How the State runs business in China.
By reading a book.
That’s the actual hardest challenge for most westerners to pass.
Harry potter doesn’t count btw…
Harry Potter counts as -1 books.
What is .ml obsession with defending China ?
The richest country in the world has homelessness, poor infrastructure, malnutrition, terrible education, stagnating wages, etc. Meanwhile V China was able to go from an agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse. There are a few lessons to be learned here if we’re objective enough.
Meanwhile V China was able to go from an agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse.
Because of the rich men from the U.S. essentially stealing our jobs and giving them to cheap laborers overseas.
Seems like China’s version of socialism won’t work without the capitialist hegemony in place. Which makes me wonder ‘Is that really socialism?’
Because of the rich men from the U.S. essentially stealing our jobs and giving them to cheap laborers overseas.
Seems like China’s version of socialism won’t work without the capitialist hegemony in place.
Yeah I’m not gonna use ChatGPT to summarize essays to prove my point like your .ml heroes. You can look up what happened in Detroit in the 50’s and 60’s, actually most manufacturing areas have followed the same trajectory. Something like two-thirds of our manufacturing potential has been lost since ww2 — the reason is consistent for every sector. Globalization allowed for cheap labor overseas to arrest manufacturing from capitalist countries. China as it is never could have existed without capitalism.
Your points on what happened in the US are fair, and I refined my specific critique. That being said,
Yeah I’m not gonna use ChatGPT to summarize essays to prove my point like your .ml heroes.
Wild take with no evidence. I question whether you’re even arguing in good faith.
China as it is never could have existed without capitalism.
Elaborate. Do you refer to their policies or the inflow of capital to the country?
Wild take with no evidence. I question whether you’re even arguing in good faith.
I guage the time it takes for them to respond with their essays. Something strikes me as off when I respond to someone and within 5 minutes I get an essay with 10 sources all neatly formatted. Is it AI? Are they canned templates tuned for individual threads? Don’t know, I do know something is off and I don’t trust it — you clearly don’t think the same.
Elaborate. Do you refer to their policies or the inflow of capital to the country?
I refer to their transition from an agricultural society to an industrialized one. If you think that China is where it is today without the effects of globalization then we don’t really have anything to speak about.
Are they canned templates tuned for individual threads?
Chances are this is what you’re seeing. Essays and sources made and compiled, kept on hand. I do the same for the latter at minimum.
I refer to their transition from an agricultural society to an industrialized one. If you think that China is where it is today without the effects of globalization then we don’t really have anything to speak about.
The industrial base formed by Mao remains completely intact. State-owned Enterprises have always had full or near-full control of all critical industries. Let’s not forget the Soviets industrialized without any of those benefits. Moreover, while what happened under Deng Xiaoping sped up development, China was never capitalist nor state capitalist.
Jeff J. Brown, a China analyst, details this further in this excerpt from an interview about his book China Rising: Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations:
“The greatest misunderstanding about China is that when Deng Xiaoping came out with his reform, everybody thinks that China became a capitalist country. Only part of the economy was turned over to capitalist practices, the vast bulk of the Chinese economy is still very much Communist. Let me explain why, first off China has no private real estate, every square inch of this country is owned by the state, people are not buying land, they’re buying long-term leases up to 70 years, this has a powerful impact on keeping people from amassing tremendous wealth. Secondly, the economy, all the big heavyweight industries are all state-owned. They only allow maximum 30% ownership by non-state owners, and they have very strict stock concentration laws that prevent anybody from amassing more than a tiny percentage. That’s the bulk of the economy, the rest of it is the small business entrepreneurial sector that is almost all privately owned. What the Chinese do is they turn these consumer goods, these high volume, low margin industries over to the people and let them fight it out, helping keep prices and inflation down. With the government owning all the land and the huge industrial sectors, it is still very very Communist. The other thing that makes it Communist is they still have the Five-Year Plan, just like Lenin set out. The reason why China is kicking the butt off of Europe and North America is because the government has already planned to have X number of products. This is why the mixed model of a predominately government-owned economy mixed with a vibrant lower economy in the private hands is working wonders.”
I guage the time it takes for them to respond with their essays. Something strikes me as off when I respond to someone and within 5 minutes I get an essay with 10 sources all neatly formatted. Is it AI? Are they canned templates tuned for individual threads? Don’t know, I do know something is off and I don’t trust it — you clearly don’t think the same.
Hove you considered the fact that anti-communists such as yourself tend to revolve 5-6 talking points/narratives which means whenever you recycle it many people can simply search the keyword in their own histories and copy paste a reply with minimal edits. If you were more creative you’d definitely see less fast replies.
Im sorry for the dislikes. Sometimes lemmy reminds me of reddit when people ask genuime questions yet get disliked.
Sadly I’m use to it. I have my theories to why . But it is what it is. And I know it’s not all communities and people on here.
for one, china has never done anything against my country while the US has and continues to do a lot of harm to us.
i think china is pretty neat :-D
There’s nothing wrong with thinking highly of a country, especially one on an upward trajectory in so many ways: working to end world poverty, end dependence on fossil fuels via a green energy revolution, and put a stop to the low-wage trap that US imperialism has imposed on the global south.
The only reason these seem offensive to you, is that you’re propagandized to hate the geopolitical enemies of the US police state (and its vassals), so anyone saying something positive about them must be heresy that demands a public condemnation.
If I spoke highly of any other US enemy (like Cuba or Venezuela or the DPRK), it’d likely evoke the same reaction, but if I spoke highly of a neutral country like Tanzania, Malaysia, or Switzerland, it wouldn’t need the same condemnation.
I’m not from the US, nor do I endorse capitalism. Also I educate myself a lot on non market based political systems. And I know of positive changes over the last few decades. And STILL I think glorifying China while brushing over the many human rights violations happening in China is absolutely not it.
many human rights violations happening in China
The “many human rights violations” are part of the imperial propaganda that needs to be deprogrammed
Short version is EVERYTHING you have been told about Tibet, Xinjiang and Tiananmen is a thinly sourced lie propped up by Western intelligence.
A lot of us are communists and China is an existing socialist state.
I think I got my answer. Thanks
What is .worlds obsession with defending zionist nazis?
Why do you(liberals/westerners) have an obsession with spreading/lies/rumors/exaggerations and sinophobia? And before you do the hate the government not the people white saviour nonsense even according to harvard the government satisfaction rate is in the 90%s the CPC has over 100 million members (over 1/14 people) the government is made up of and vastly supported by the people they’re not separable in that manor.
I didn’t join Lemmy for politics so I usually read these discussions from the sidelines, but there are some points that maybe you guys can help me with.
As someone against US’s imperialism and capitalism, I seem to be a prime candidate to support the Chinese worldviews, but it’s really difficult for me to get past my concerns. First of all I always see these rebuttals to criticism about China that compare it to the US or say that “westerners” are in no position to criticise. Which from my Eastern European point of view is just annoying because I’m far more critical of these anyway and the whataboutism doesn’t actually address anything.
I had 3 “personal experiences” with Chinese people. One back when I was at university and was studying with a Chinese exchange student. We were talking about university stuff for days being all buddies, when I was helping him with some app not working on his phone, which turned out to be due to the lack of Google services. Being relevant to the topic, I asked about the Chinese firewall. I expected anything between “It’s not a problem, we use Chinese services anyway”, or “It’s not a problem, it’s easy to work around”, or “I think it’s good, it protects against X and Y” or even “I prefer not to talk about it”. But instead he looked at me as if I just insulted his grandma, left, and never interacted with me again.
A few years later I was talking with a Chinese acquietance at a bar, there were some local political news on the TV and he cracked a joke about the politician shown, I joked back about the CCP. He looked insulted and stopped talking to me. Come on you started and it’s all in good heart… Maybe these 2 people were just weirdos and not representative, but that’s my experience.
Then there was a Chinese person making science videos online, posted on BiliBili and YouTube that I watched for a long time. One time they made a different video about how they are disillusioned about life in China and it was critical of some aspects of Chinese politics. After years of making content, it was their last video and all their social media were deleted shortly after. I’m not saying it’s government intervention, maybe they did want to just randomly stop making content without saying a word, everything is possible.
But all these experiences tell me Chinese society is not accepting of even apparent criticism, which does not look like a free society to me. Someone else under this post says all criticism, even if constructive and in good faith, serves western propaganda interests. Which… Sure I don’t disagree, but how can anyone buy in to an idea if they are not allowed to question it? I personally never got into these communities because I know I’m more likely to be accused of being US-paid bot or whatever than to get a good faith answer to my questions.
I don’t know where I’m going with this. I guess I’m just telling you lot that you could be more approachable because I think you are pushing back on would-be allies.
Not just China, no country on earth should be naive enough to let the US surveillance corporations operate within their borders. Here’s a good video on why the PRC keeps them out.
But all these experiences tell me Chinese society is not accepting of even apparent criticism, which does not look like a free society to me.
The PRC doesn’t just allow criticism and freedom of speech, it acts on it, unlike western countries where everyone (arguably) has the freedom to shout into the void and change nothing. The CPC is the world’s biggest pollster, which constantly gets feedback from its citizens, and acts on them.
On your first issue I can’t really talk on this as I don’t know what specific criticisms you’re talking about and people who are on here and in general are not a hive mind and believe different things for different reasons. However if I were to make an educated guess I would say most of it comes down to stick in your eye Vs speck in ours as you fall sort of generally under the status of US client state and at current most of Europe, the US and their client states are sliding fast and hard towards fascism once again.
On your first experience that sounds like an extreme reaction by any chance do you remember what you said specifically? On the firewall more generally: The firewall was created to foster and protect China’s fledgling digital infrastructure and data sovereignty. China built its own ecosystem instead of depending on foreign companies. We have seen what happens when foreign platforms operate with impunity: Facebook facilitating genocide in Myanmar, coordinated anti-vax disinformation campaigns in Southeast Asia, algorithm-driven radicalization. The firewall makes those kinds of external influence operations far harder or close to impossible to run at scale. I support it and so do many others as the alternative is plain to see.
On the second experience again I’d have to hear the joke it is possible you said something racist bigoted or otherwise harmful without realising due to possibly lacking context. Also it’s CPC not CCP. CCP is the acronym pushed by the US to attempt to pull it closer to the CCCP in people’s mind so they can reuse coldwar/redscare propaganda.
Then on your third experience again hard to say without knowing exactly what their criticism was but sounds like they had their own issues.
On your closing paragraph I think 3 anecdotes really doesn’t give a good view of a society of 1.4 billion people, in reality criticism is extremely common from didi drivers to friends to colleagues and smalltalk. Not to mind the local party offices whose entire purpose is recieving feedback and criticisms and then acting on them to build up merit to be able to run for higher office.
On communist Lemmy communities I really rarely see people being called US bots, in fact I have never once seen it. If you come in regurgitating propaganda with a smug attitude and doubling down in the face of facts contrary to your narrative you’ll definitely get some sharp responses, however people seem to generally prefer to educate than deride so long as you ask in good faith and are polite (communists also appear to want to minimise ableist or dehumanising language even against people they don’t like as opposed to the more “liberal” instances). On the other hand what is extremely common and has happened to me personally many times is non communist Lemmy instance users calling me and others a bot, brainwashed, shill, government agent etc. when its pointed out that reality doesn’t actually match with the narratives they have internalised.
I think if you have genuine curiosity and questions you should try asking around on communities like AskLemmygrad or any other other lemmy.ml, hexbear, lemmygrad communist communities that take questions and you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised.
Do note that these three anecdotes, particularly without complete context, do not paint an accurate nor complete picture on their own.
That being said, you’re replying to a very knowledgeable Chinese user who I’m sure can help clear things up if you’re open for it.
The average westerner has their entire concept of reality built upon the idea that capitalism is “as good as it gets” and that people are divided roughly 50/50 into two separate camps, therefore a government with broad approval is impossible. They can’t see that their culture wars are manufactured precisely to keep them from ever questioning that system. They throw aside any high approval rating as manufactured. (Nevermind the fact that those states that do have manufactured approval ratings are imperial puppets and China is obviously not one of those.)
To those libs who love to talk about the 99%, I posit the following: if a government actually were made by and for the 99%, wouldn’t you expect it to have high approval ratings?
I don’t mind the criticism as long as something like "I know I live in a murderous imperialistic Western country and I hate it too, but… ". But when does it? Quite rarely.
Prefacing your criticism with criticism of the west doesn’t really change the function of your criticism. In the end you’re still legitimizing western agitprop.
I think they meant actual good faith criticism, not the usual 100 billion dead nonsense
Of course, propaganda is effective, and well-meaning people might repeat propaganda unintentionally because it’s easy to take something you know as “fact” for granted. It’s good practice, not just in political topics, to trace back where you’ve learned something from.
Sure, but that’s besides my point. Whether their criticism comes from a place of good faith has no bearing on whose interests that criticism serves.
