The Hostile Forces of Beijing

https://scholars-stage.org/candlelight-vigils-and-hostile-forces/

by jseliger • 3 years ago

113 118 3 years ago

toss17• 3 years ago

Just another reminder that if you are in any way doing business in China, you are helping the despots who made disappear Cao Zhixin and all her fellow vigil attendees, violently overthrew Tibet, broke every international agreement on Hong Kong, and are this minute militarily threatening Taiwan.

It might cost more, but it is worthwhile to do business elsewhere.

Pulcinella• 3 years ago

Unfortunately there is little to no real ethical consumption under the current economic systems of the world (at least in the developed world). E.g. my mere existence in the USA funds the actions of the federal government and military. It is not my intention to legitimize actions you speak against (I.e. “there are none without sin” is not an invitation to sin your heart out). I just want to remind everyone that even true statements and facts can nevertheless be used as propaganda (I.e. focus on the bad things our enemies our doing, not that we are doing). I have no doubt that on the Chinese equivalent of hacker news there are people saying that doing any business in the USA is helping the US imperial war machine that has violently over thrown many governments, disappears people into Guantanamo Bay, etc.

winReInstall• 3 years ago

The opening wage gap since the 70s have pathed the way for this. Raising wages could have paid for free produced products, but the haves decided that freedom for the have-nots has a price point.

josephcsible• 3 years ago

You'd have to be out of your mind to think the US government/military does even 1% as much bad stuff as the CCP/PLA does.

theowawwyaansn• 3 years ago

I kept using 10y laptop to avoid giving my money to China.

I will buy parts made not in China to assemble PC when it breaks down.

I don't know how Americans support the evil CCP after knowing it's exporting fentanal which ends up killing 100k young people per year.

America doesn't care about its workers it seems

scottLobster2• 3 years ago

Uh, sticking it to the CCP is the one issue that brings Democrats and Republicans together: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/09/28/some-americ...

If you're demanding an immediate, national economic decoupling on moral grounds, well that's just not a good idea for a whole host of reason. Would produce a lot more suffering than it would prevent.

maoista• 3 years ago

I’m as anti-CCP and pro “buy local” as they come (or at least pretty far down the path)

But they’ve kind-of won… I just can’t feasibly avoid China with my pocketbook every single day.

I have no idea where to get a (usable) phone / computer that isn’t touching on them at some level. That company down the street that sells me a beer and a burger, well I guarantee they’ve got an add of Made in China.

They’ve sadly outplayed us (or our shit heel political and business elite) to the point of overly tight integration.

scottLobster2• 3 years ago

Meh, Chinese labor is already more expensive than equivalent Mexican labor (at least from an American perspective). They're running on inertia at this point. Might take a decade or two to relocate the industrial plant, but it'll shift on cost alone given enough time.

notch656c7• 3 years ago

America just moved their slavery elsewhere and got the CCP to administer it. Out of sight, out of mind, get me my iphone while the plebs desperately jump out 5th story factory windows.

toss17• 3 years ago

>I have no idea where to get a (usable) phone / computer

Samsung is Korean, and does much of their production in Vietnam, none in China AFAICT. They have a pretty broad line from premium down to good enough value that I've seen my provider offering multiple models for free (as in beer) with the phone plan. You can certainly get an older/refurb premium model for cheap.

Yes, they have outplayed us so far, but that tide is changing fast. Obviously, the big govt & biz players must drive it, but we can do our part.

Yes, there's a billion civilians unwillingly living under CCP's despotism, but the best we can do for them now is to not do things that support that system.

The Great Experiment has utterly failed. The generous idea that open trade and exchange would bring open democratic systems turned out to be false, it only empowered the autocrats, who are now on the expansion warpath (see Ukraine and Straits of Taiwan, this minute).

Obviously we can't yet be absolutist about it, but just making the effort on everything we buy, try to shift it to a substitute from ANYWHERE else. If you can, great, and if not, next time there probably will be one.

jeoqn3• 3 years ago

Might is right. Even if I don’t like the result, I respect the natural order of things. The opposite is anarchy.

notch656c7• 3 years ago

That's a pretty compelling argument for anarchism.

elefanten2• 3 years ago

Yeah, you have that perfectly backwards. "Might is right" implies the most powerful entity has 'the right' to do what it wants on the basis of the ability to assert it. That it cannot be bound or constrained by rules / laws. And all other conflicts also reduce to "which entity is more powerful". So, by the time you go down the entity list from most to least powerful, there is no room for rule of law to bind any given actor.

And hence it is anarchy.

pphysch8• 3 years ago

All of this except Julian Assange, ethnic cleansing of Yemenis, Palestinians, threatened ICC, flattened Iraq & Libya, ongoing looting of Syria, etc. Barely scratching the surface.

There are no "good guys". The world is not divided into good vs. evil, as much as our Western worldviews are conditioned that way. There is zero moral difference between supporting businesses backed by Beijing or Washington.

There is a moral benefit to not being wildly xenophobic on the internet, however.

toss17• 3 years ago

You really think there is zero difference between Beijing (or Moscow, or Tehran) v Washington?

Try going to live there and hold up a protest sign against whatever is the biggest anti-govt issue of the day. In any of the first three, you'll end up in jail for a fortnight to a decade, depending on the climate. In Washington, The worse you'll get is a "move along" if you are blocking traffic.

Or try being a neighboring country, like Taiwan. Right this minute, China is threatening it with its air force, navy, and army all harassing or doing target practice in it's direction. Hong Kong has lost ALL of the freedoms that were internationally agreed. All other neighbors are under varying degrees of threat & coercion. Meanwhile, Mexico, Caribbean islands, or Canada have trivial border checks and even Cuba have zero worries of any invasion.

The world really is divided between autocracy and democracy.

It may or may not be "good vs evil", but there is an absolutely critical difference. There are people who want to live a self-determined life free of coercion, and want a government determined by the people and not some tyrant. There are others who want to on a local level, be the bully and steal your lunch money, and on a geopolitical scale, rule and take everything.

This is a fight everywhere from the local level to be free, to the national level where abusers, bullies, crooks, and autocrats try to take over the reigns of democracy (and they recently succeeded in Hungary, Turkey), and internationally where the autocracies like China, Russia, Iran, NK, etc. are in expansionist.

Vladimir Lenin had a term for people who didn't understand the difference — "Useful Idiots". People who don't get it, and will happily do things helpful to their autocratic intentions, out of what they think are good intentions. You are in this territory, and should stop deluding yourself.

mdp2021• 3 years ago

good guys

Yes there are. Harder to find in aggregates though. (And in complexities.)

And incidentally, I have seen that "good guys" argument used very recently to undermine the idea of "moral authorities", through the device of abstracting the set of actors as only including the institutional ones. But the Moral Authority is in individuals.

And no "flattening" (or "twoweightstwomeasures" shout) is an excuse for deeds.

xenophobic

That was in reply to a poster that stressed the concept of "money is power and vote", and expressed no aversion of strangers as strangers.

throw0101c• 3 years ago

There are no "good guys". The world is not divided into good vs. evil, as much as our Western worldviews are conditioned that way. There is zero moral difference between supporting businesses backed by Beijing or Washington.

One moral difference is that you can protest and public object to what Washington does and not disappear: it's possible to judge them against a moral standard which they profess to have, and note when they fall short. Try holding an anti-government/leader rally in Beijing.

There used to be an old Cold War joke: In both America and Russia we both have free speech. But you Americans have freedom after speech.

yorwba2• 3 years ago

Just another reminder that if you are in any way doing business in China, you are helping the despots

That may be true, but don't forget that you're helping ordinary people like Cao Zhixin as well. When you're buying stuff made in China, only a small part of the money you pay is captured as taxes by the government; the rest goes to other people, improving their livelihoods.

Of course the same is true when you buy things made in other countries; it'll just be a different group reaping the benefits. So bettering people's lives is not a good reason to prefer products made in China, but it's also not a good reason to avoid them either.

toss17• 3 years ago

It isn't about the flow of money, it is about the flow of power.

Even if some of your purchase winds up in the pockets of ordinary Chinese, it does nothing to help them get out from out from under autocratic rule.

That's the point — the Great Experiment failed. It would be fantastic to free the billion++ people of China, and we thought that open exchange would do it, but it only empowered their rulers and now threatens us. The best we can do is to strongly oppose that government and the society running under it (and yes, that this will end up benefiting others in other countries who are already overlooked, that is also a good thing).

trollerator23• 3 years ago

Ayep. China's government sucks.

pookha2• 3 years ago

There's no rule of law in China. It's strictly a fascist crony capitalist regime. And there's not much room for human error. If you fuck up in China you might pay with your life. They have an organ harvesting system and all it takes is a kangaroo court and a mobile van and then they've got your kidneys, eyes, liver etc. Tim Cook runs a college in China (amongst other things). I have no idea how he sleeps at night.

Overtonwindow• 3 years ago

China is the single greatest threat to freedom, human rights, and prosperity, the world over. I don't know how anyone who makes money from China can sleep at night.

chinabot• 3 years ago

While china is controlled by the CCP this is true. But remember Chinese people have no choice like we do in the west. I would exclude the USA from this too as they are different colours of the same shit.

throwaway920102• 3 years ago

China is the single greatest thread to personal freedom, but may also be the world's best hope for dealing with tragedy of the commons problems like existential threat of climate change or AI / biotech safety where swift, undemocratic action is needed that goes against the short-term benefit of moneyed interests.

saiya-jin• 3 years ago

Not sure about the downvotes, I've read some serious articles with very graphic pictures more than 20 years ago about mass organized organ harvests operations running very effectively as you describe.

It may not be some official state policy but rather some rogue effort from corrupt local officials in few places, but numbers were running in thousands per year at least, and they didn't even try to hide it too much since reporter(s) were allowed on execution fields and operating places. Murderers, drug traffickers, addicts and dissidents alike.

Given even back then critical organs were running in tens of thousands of dollars for mostly western/arabic receivers who were too low in donor list in their countries or didn't qualify (ie heavy smokers / drinkers refusing to quit). Imagine what some 20k or 50k meant in china some 25 years ago.

pookha2• 3 years ago

Very difficult to get accurate info out of China but a multi-nation tribunal painted a pretty clear picture on why it's so easy to get organs in China:

https://chinatribunal.com/final-judgment/

I think there's a major financial incentive to harvest cheap organs within China and there's a major supply of dissidents.

jasmer3• 3 years ago

It's definitely not 'crony capitalist'.

It's an authoritarian one-party system, now edging towards a bit of an ideological dictatorship.

The crony capitalism is the second or third layer of power.

The crony capitalists are nothing compared to the state apparatus.

Ask Jack Ma.

unity10015• 3 years ago

Regularly such 'disappearances' of personas in targeted countries are posted in the Western media. Then those people show up a few months later, having being doing their own thing. They posted that some guy had disappeared in an Xinjiang prison. The guy was then discovered in his own home, giving an interview to a local TV, unaware of his own disappearance. Some other woman was told to have been 'disappeared'. A few weeks later she was interviewed while manning the cash register in her own small cellphone shop, being unaware that she has disappeared. When it comes to North Korean dignitaries, its a regular thing - frequently major US outlets post that some NK dignitary has been 'vanished'. Two months later the guy shows up somewhere else, busy with something else. Because the public seems to have the memory span of a fish, nobody notices.

This kind of smearing has been used against many countries before. From all the small countries that were attacked by the US in the last decades to the actual superpowers that the US targeted.

It took only SIX months for the mainstream US press to turn the country I grew up in from being a 'model democracy in the region' to 'authoritarian state' after that country refused to play along with the US foreign policy in the region. Now that its pushing war in Taiwan, its no surprise such smears seem to be increasing. Nothing surprising.

What's suprising, however, is how easily the supposedly educated Western public buys into lies. Its only 20 years after the Iraqi WMDs lie. The people were supposed to have learned something from that. However look at the comments in these threads, people raging about this supposed event far worse than how people raged against Iraq during the war propaganda back in 2003. All of this without any consideration for CIA rendition flights, Assange etc of course. Those things are 'bad but dont talk about them'. Such smears are 'rage all about it with all your might'.

From what the Brexit process has taught, reviling, smearing others and uniting over this hatred of an external enemy seems to be a cultural paradigm in various countries - foremost the Angloamerican ones. Everyone else is most evil. They themselves are, well, 'okay with some problems'. Even if the problems are atrocious violations of most basic human rights, from killing people if they cant pay for healthcare to jailing whistleblowers to murdering people for their oil.

20 years after Iraq. The same thing. Shame. What's worse, against all objective, repeated reality repeating itself over and over and over and over again, people still reject such criticism as evidenced by the downvotes. If the 'educated and intelligent' segment in the West is like this, imagine the non-educated segments...

jeoqn3• 3 years ago

It’s like every time they say some big guy in North Korea got executed because South Korean intelligence said so and then reappears a few months later.

Never believe the media.

unity10015• 3 years ago

Yep. I guess they now prefer smearing about such normal citizens because they are much less visible than NK dignitaries since they can easily be spotted in TV broadcasts. To discover that such 'disappeared' ordinary people are actually living their lives, some TV must go there, find them and interview them. And when they do, it doesn't do much impact outside the targeted countries anyways because the Western press has already moved on. The targeted country's TVs' reports never make it into the Western press in the first place anyway.

...

But, after 20 years of following geopolitics and social matters out of interest, my current opinion is that this kind of thing works because certain demographics in the West ! like ! it. Smears, reviling of others, the talk of danger, tyranny, war, immigrants, hatred etc. Leaving aside the social study cases like Brexit debacle, the presence of Murdoch press can only be explained with that. This social trait seems to be the #1 manipulation tool that the establishment uses in such countries.

xdennis• 3 years ago

It took only SIX months for the mainstream US press to turn the country I grew up from being a 'model democracy in the region' to 'authoritarian state' after that country refused to play along with the US foreign policy in the region.

If the country you are referring to is India, it has been backsliding democratically for a while under Modi. Just look at how the entire state apparatus is mobilized to prevent people from seeing a BBC documentary called The Modi Question.

Say what you will about American journalism: but from fascists to communists and everything in between they are all allowed to publish.

unity10015• 3 years ago

If the country you are referring to is India, it has been backsliding democratically for a while under Modi

Its not. Its another country far in the West. Moreover, the US press has alternatively depicted the social/cultural segment that I belonged to as 'antidemocratic elites' and 'democratic opposition' over and over. One day, you belong to the 'antidemocratic elite' according to NYT, Wapo etc. 6 months later when the US policy changes, you suddenly find out that you are now 'the democratic opposition'.

But that's not something that dumbfounds me - its how the Western public just believes what they are told and even the educated people you personally know change their opinion with the changes in the mainstream press, while still insisting that they are 'informed and objective'...

selectodude• 3 years ago

It's probably Poland or another one of the Eastern Bloc that is backsliding into authoritarianism.

netsharc• 3 years ago

I wonder if the people who get these Security Commission briefings believe the bullshit about "hostile external forces" or if they all know it's just a pretend boogeyman and the population unrest happened because they don't tolerate the government's behavior.

Then again a lot of American reddit/Twitter users screamed "Russian bot!" when they see things they didn't like. Some of it maybe were Russian bots, but imagine if all the Russian interference disappeared, would all the anti-American commenters disappear off the Internet?

red-iron-pine• 3 years ago

How could you NOT think it was bots, esp. knowing what we know now about ChatGPT?

Nation-state level actors could and almost certainly do have similar options at their fingertips, on top of having enough cash to pay a legion of folks to troll. We know they exist -- they have names like 50 Cent Army (or Mechanical Turk, or "online marketing firm").

dirtyid2• 3 years ago

if the people who get these Security Commission briefings believe the bullshit about "hostile external forces"

They do and should. West working hard to deny that foreign coordination occurs - the magnitude of impact is subject to debate - but telegram group like @actionshanghai with 100s of particapants coordinating live SH protests with foreign journalists (including FLG/Epoche) and trained aggitators providing support were real. And within MSS ability to monitor / prosecute. Western influence OPs in PRC is as real as CCP influence ops abroad that warrants crackdown. CCP did not crack down on foreign NGOs and purge CIA network for shits and giggles. It was forgone some protestors would be naive enough to work with "hostile external forces" and would get slapped hard by state security, hence handful of arrests versus thousands. There's been surprising tolerance for protests so far, but also good reason not to tolerate protestors' behaviours that effects national security. The fact group is begging for attention on youtube good sign they're the kind of naive libtards that thinks it's fine to work with hostile external forces who has some ability to impact, i.e. media who manufactures consent vs internet trolls. Otherwise they'd receive the basic tea invite + self criticism ceremony and can move on with their lives like thousands of others.

Georgelemental• 3 years ago

Tanner Greer is one of the most thoughtful commentators I know, I have learned a lot from his blog.

lazyeye2• 3 years ago

Well at least these "hostile forces" are not facilitating the import of massive volumes of fentanyl into China.

8jef• 3 years ago

Uh... Try the other way around:

https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-03/DEA_GOV_DIR-...

lazyeye2• 3 years ago

Yep

"Currently, China remains the primary source of fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked through international mail and express consignment operations environment, as well as the main source for all fentanyl-related substances trafficked into the United States."

georgeg235• 3 years ago

After Trump, we can't knock China for being defensive. We sail warships by their ports and concoct distorted narratives of their policy. Meanwhile we STILL have Guantanamo and we invaded over a dozen countries in the last century.

You'd think after the "weapons of mass destruction in Iraq" that we'd realize our hysteria doesn't help the world.

Dig1t• 3 years ago

This is the classic whataboutism that always pops up around China.

You're right about the stuff you said.

It doesn't mean we're not allowed to discuss the CCP disappearing people or bad things happening in authoritarian countries in general.

georgeg235• 3 years ago

The point is we all need to turn down the temperature and stop being hysterical. They didn't disappear, they just aren't using social media.

jimbob45• 3 years ago

I don't know that pointing out the Guantanemo Bay detention camp is the moral victory you think it is. I encourage you to research how many inmates remain in that camp[0].

Also if we're comparing crimes between the US and China over the past 100 years, surely China looks worse, right?[1]

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

mrtnmcc8• 3 years ago

You have to understand that after the cultural revolution, most all Chinese understand that internal rebellion can be very bad (leading to mass famine and death). Hence they largely support strong government regulation, even on speech. Americans think individual independence is a noble "Western value" because the Revolutionary War worked out fine for us. But these experiences each lead to biased extrapolations from the past. For the future, the specific conditions matter for individualism versus collectivism.. on which is the better path.

mrtnmcc8• 3 years ago

Arguably a more Chinese-style philosophy is prudent now as the world becomes a smaller place. Chinese people have sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on continuously invading new territory. Now the whole Earth is settled, we need to learn how to live together. Not that China is perfect, but we certainly have much to teach each other, and the Chinese have been the better listener so far.

notch656c7• 3 years ago

Does Chinese history show they are any more immune than others to our weaknesses in living together?

influx2• 3 years ago

Which part of history does Genghis Khan fit into your narrative? He died in 1227, having killed between 4 million to 60 million people...

alephnerd3• 3 years ago

That ignores the massive expansion into Central Asia (Tibet, Turkestan, Badhkashan, Altai), Mongolia, Borneo, the Yenisei Basin, Yunnan, Kachin, the Miao/Viet/Tai/Hmong frontier, and Formosa/Taiwan that the Qing Dynasty (which itself is Manchu, not Han) lead. Modern China is very much a reflection of that mass expansion.

Also, Chinese are not homogenous. Ignoring the 20th century Han social construct, there have always been distinct ethnic and cultural differences among differing "Chinese" ethnic groups like Cantonese, Teochew, Hokkien, Hakka, Guangzhong, etc that were erased during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution.

dilyevsky• 3 years ago

Chinese culture has sustained for thousands of years on the same land, without needing to rely on invading new territory.

You should probably brush up on your asian history - there was incredible amount of conquest wars in what became modern China with casualties rivaled only by ww1/2

albertopv2• 3 years ago

I very much prefer living in a country where I can go where I want without asking to government or say almost what I want without risking to go an education camp. So no thank you, current chinese is not my way and never will.

beebmam2• 3 years ago

This is plainly, a lie. Here's a list of Chinese territorial acquisitions since the communists rose to power:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_changes_of_the_Peo...

klipklop• 3 years ago

I don't really find their modern day philosophy (in terms of a society/country) all that enlightening. The earth is full so we should tolerate governments like the CCP/CPC? China's style of government is dysfunctional and dystopian, not prudent.

From my viewpoint China never expanded not because they were chill people, they could not even repel foreign invaders, let alone expand an empire.

Totally agree we should work together on this planet, but with a dictator like Xi in power that wont happen.

The Hostile Forces of Beijing

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