• OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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    6 hours ago

    You do understand that free speech that doesn’t threaten the government is tolerated everywhere, right? Us having more free speech here is just a function of the US government feeling more secure in its power, you can still find examples of free speech being punished in the US when it has threatened its power.

    • lousyd@lemmy.sdf.org
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      4 hours ago

      Then China must feel real threatened. According to this, it’s against the law in China to even say you don’t agree with the law.

      “A citizen, when exercising the right of freedom of the press, shall abide by the Constitution and the law, and shall not oppose the basic principles established by the Constitution or damage the interests of the State, the society or the collective, or the lawful freedom and rights of other citizens.”

      A million Uyghurs, whose only apparent crime is being Muslim, have been sent to labor camps and undergone forced sterilization.

      Tiananmen Square started out as people peacefully protesting government corruption, and ended in the state murdering them.

      With respect to free speech, there’s not even a comparison there with respect to America. It’s not “potato potato”.

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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        3 hours ago

        A million Uyghurs, whose only apparent crime is being Muslim, have been sent to labor camps and undergone forced sterilization.

        Do you know the sources of these claims? Because you’re repeating stuff that was first spread around by a German Christian nationalist (a euphemism) employed by a cia front group, which had already been debunked, and could be debunked by anyone looking at his methodology who is able to read mandarin.

        Why is this myth pushed so hard by western countries which slaughter Muslims by the millions, and are engaged in genocide against a majority Muslim population as we speak?

        Why do Muslim delegations visiting uniformly support the way China has treated its minority Muslim populations? Before you say sectarianism, investigate and realize that the delegations were intentionally multi-sectarian.

        Tiananmen Square started out as people peacefully protesting government corruption, and ended in the state murdering them.

        How violently do you think the US would have responded to US protestors trying to overthrow the government when they start burning and lynching to death unarmed soldiers? You can still find photos online of mutilated PLA soldiers corpses from june 2nd. 300 or so dead, including the soldiers that were killed, seems pretty light. Oh wait, the US military would never show up to a protest not armed to the teeth, silly me.

      • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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        1 hour ago

        A million Uyghurs, whose only apparent crime is being Muslim, have been sent to labor camps and undergone forced sterilization.

        The US tried to foment division in China by funding and organizing terrorist cells in Xinjiang, and once those efforts failed, it concocted and promoted a genocide narrative. Antony Blinken is still pushing this slop.

        The “forced sterilization” nonsense is especially silly when even NATOpedia says otherwise. As part of China’s affirmative action policies, the Uyghurs and other ethic minorities were excepted from the One-Child policy, and in Xinjiang they have grown in numbers relative to Hans as a result, and this happened similarly with other ethnic minorities.

        .
        The blueprint of regime change operations

        We see here for example the evolution of public opinion in regards to China. In 2019, the ‘Uyghur genocide’ was broken by the media (Buzzfeed, of all outlets). In this story, we saw the machine I described up until now move in real time. Suddenly, newspapers, TV, websites were all flooded with stories about the ‘genocide’, all day, every day. People whom we’d never heard of before were brought in as experts — Adrian Zenz, to name just one; a man who does not even speak a word of Chinese.

        Organizations were suddenly becoming very active and important. The World Uyghur Congress, a very serious-sounding NGO, is actually an NED Front operating out of Germany […]. From their official website, they declare themselves to be the sole legitimate representative of all Uyghurs — presumably not having asked Uyghurs in Xinjiang what they thought about that.

        The WUC also has ties to the Grey Wolves, a fascist paramilitary group in Turkey, through the father of their founder, Isa Yusuf Alptekin.

        Documents came out from NGOs to further legitimize the media reporting. This is how a report from the very professional-sounding China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) came to exist. They claimed ‘up to 1.3 million’ Uyghurs were imprisoned in camps. What they didn’t say was how they got this number: they interviewed a total of 10 people from rural Xinjiang and asked them to estimate how many people might have been taken away. They then extrapolated the guesstimates they got and arrived at the 1.3 million figure.

        Sanctions were enacted against China — Xinjiang cotton for example had trouble finding buyers after Western companies were pressured into boycotting it. Instead of helping fight against the purported genocide, this act actually made life more difficult for the people of Xinjiang who depend on this trade for their livelihood (as we all do depend on our skills to make a livelihood).

        Any attempt China made to defend itself was met with more suspicion. They invited a UN delegation which was blocked by the US. The delegation eventually made it there, but three years later. The Arab League also visited Xinjiang and actually commended China on their policies — aimed at reducing terrorism through education and social integration, not through bombing like we tend to do in the West.


        Tiananmen Square started out as people peacefully protesting government corruption, and ended in the state murdering them.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 hour ago

      Well, it depends on what the government considers threatening.

      The mere suggestion that the state is illegitimate in China would have gotten me disappeared. But I could join protests in the US denouncing the government in front of government-owned buildings without much worry.

      But then we look at how China continues to develop and grow their sphere of global hegemony, while the US is collapsing before our very eyes. So it makes you wonder if ruling with an iron fist and crushing dissidents has some merit after all.

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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        60 minutes ago

        The mere suggestion that the state is illegitimate in China would have gotten me disappeared.

        China has a smaller surveillance state than the US, so I doubt it. Also yeah, the US hasn’t faced serious coup attempts in the last 50 years.

        So it makes you wonder if ruling with an iron fist and crushing dissidents has some merit after all.

        Their execution or imprisonment stats must be much higher than the US! Wait. I’m just hearing… oh dear.

    • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
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      31 minutes ago

      You can make that exact same argument about dropping bombs.

      When countries are threatened and dropping bombs relieves that threat instead of increases it, then they do. It’s just that right now violent escalation doesn’t benefit China, so it stays in the realm of sabre rattling

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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        12 minutes ago

        Sure, if you know literally nothing about the military industrial complex and government capture and its role in creating war, and you want to buy into the propaganda that the US only attacks when it feels threatened.

        When countries are threatened and dropping bombs relieves that threat instead of increases it, then they do.

        Settler-brained-as-fuck idea about how conflict works

    • starman2112@sh.itjust.works
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      53 minutes ago

      Lmao “free speech that doesn’t threaten the government is tolerated everywhere”

      This statement would still be true if you were talking about Oceania. It’s totally meaningless. Who decides what speech threatens the government? The government. I can say fuck Joe Biden, fuck Donald Trump, and fuck every member of Congress and the Supreme Court. Can you point me towards someone living in China who’s comfortable openly saying “fuck Xi Jinping?”

      • OurToothbrush@lemmy.ml
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        26 minutes ago

        Who decides what speech threatens the government? The government.

        Uhuh. In other words, governments restrict speech that they think threatens them.

        I can say fuck Joe Biden, fuck Donald Trump, and fuck every member of Congress and the Supreme Court. Can you point me towards someone living in China who’s comfortable openly saying “fuck Xi Jinping?”

        First off, how many Chinese people have you actually talked to? You know there are Chinese people on the internet that you can talk to, right? And foreign exchange students? You can even visit the country if you want.

        And yes, you’re free to say things that don’t actually threaten the US, like saying fuck Trump or Fuck Biden. You’re allowed to be as ineffectual as you’d like. Compare your statements to all the black lives matter organizers who’ve been found to commit suicide by bullets to the back of the head or public hanging from trees.