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drewdevault.com

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Re: China

#441

Post by tw04 »

DarthGhandi wrote: post #417
perennate wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's consider a hypothetical scenario similar to the one you put forward then. Suppose the US government conducts mass imprisonment of a certain population in concentration camps, like CCP is doing to Uighurs in Xinjiang. Well, it's not hypothetical, we already did it during WWII to Americans of Japanese ethnicity. And newspapers across the US spoke up against this atrocity [1]. Contrast that with China where the ne…

> Suppose the US government conducts mass imprisonment of a certain population I'd argue that's not hypothetical at all, even with Xinjiang the US has by far the highest rate of imprisonment on the planet both of adults and children. Most are black. Vast majority are not violent crimes. It's entirely out of step with the rest of the developed world.

Ah, yes. Because someone convicted of a crime going to jail is the same thing as someone being sent to a camp due to their religion. Equating the issues in the US justice system to concentration camps is ridiculous.

Re: China

#442

Post by nine_k »

camgunz wrote: post #188
ilamont wrote: post #43

Xi's in a trap. The nationalist fervor that the CCP has whipped up for decades, coupled with the demonization of the HK protestors by Chinese media and Xi's 'no compromise' stance, makes it impossible for him to lighten up -- and the protests to de-escalate -- without him seeming weak. The HK protestors/population at this point are so angry and the radical wing so large, that they won't willingly de-escalate. Even if…

> Xi's in a trap. The nationalist fervor that the CCP has whipped up for decades, coupled with the demonization of the HK protestors by Chinese media and Xi's 'no compromise' stance, makes it impossible for him to lighten up -- and the protests to de-escalate -- without him seeming weak. Yeah I don't have any sympathy for him or for the CCP. Appealing to nationalist sentiment to amass political power is making a deal…

But free market did liberalize regimes in both China and Russia, if you compare to the 1980s! It also fed their populations, that is, shortages of food are now hard to imagine.

The free market did not turn either country into an efficient democracy, that's true. It did not improve the tolerance to dissent to Western levels (sadly, not a particularly high mark recently). It did not prevent an authoritarian regime in either country, too.

There's no silver bullet.

Re: China

#443

Post by throwaway1997 »

pinkfoot wrote: post #242
nafizh wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This line of thinking just makes people sit on their hands. Individual citizens can always urge their Government to take actions against atrocities such as being committed by China. The fact that I, a non-citizen can live in US and call out its mass killing of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan denotes the difference between US and China.

I am sure the relatives of the mass killings in Iraq and Afghanistan appreciate this subtle difference.

This is an example of whataboutery, a fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Re: China

#444

Post by throwaway1997 »

gregwebs wrote: post #433
ddevault wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I am not trying to troll but genuinely interested in figuring out the boundaries of these proposed boycotts. No problem, I'm grateful for your comments. The difference is subtle but important. First of all, the Chinese users of my service or a minority of a minority. Their participation has little to no effect on the direction of the site. Their $5/mo subscription fee is not going to move mountains. The kinds of inv…

Then the principle would be that it is okay to do business with China if you don't kowtow. That works well for selling to China but it can only work for buying if there is a distributor outside of China which would just encourage buying direct from China. A general boycott doesn't work with the kowtow principle because an individual or company in China isn't in a position to be able to state their opinion of the gove…

The problem is that in general for most companies, especially related to discretionary spending, the proportion of customers who are from China is increasing. Over time they end up kowtowing because the Chinese users threaten to boycott them unless they "respect China", which usually means doing whatever they are told to do.

Re: China

#445

Post by throwaway1997 »

uitersers wrote: post #211
baron_harkonnen wrote: post #21

If I might post an unpopular opinion, and let me assure you I'm not secretly a pro-CCP shill: what's happening HK has much more to do with changing economic realities than it does with an evil agenda from the Chinese government. In 1997 HK had 1/3 of the GDP of mainland China and was the only way for Western companies to interact with China. Today HK has 3% of the GDP of mainland China and a huge part of this is beca…

It’s definitely about the economy. Just look at Macau. There are no protests there. They were also a former Westen colony and now under 1 country, 2 systems like Hong Kong. The only difference is their GDP per capita is almost twice that of Hong Kong’s.

Macau is all in on a single industry which works when the economy is going well, but not so well when it tanks. Furthermore, the concentration of wealth in Macau is even more skewed towards the top. The average Macanese is poorer than the average Hong Konger which is why so many now live in HK.

Re: China

#446

Post by flukus »

Aperocky wrote: post #216
ilamont wrote: post #43

Xi's in a trap. The nationalist fervor that the CCP has whipped up for decades, coupled with the demonization of the HK protestors by Chinese media and Xi's 'no compromise' stance, makes it impossible for him to lighten up -- and the protests to de-escalate -- without him seeming weak. The HK protestors/population at this point are so angry and the radical wing so large, that they won't willingly de-escalate. Even if…

Both the west and China omit information when reporting about HK. China highlights protester violence, the west talk about police. The only difference is that west is doing it voluntarily. If you step back and think about it, if this protest were to happen in the US, with subways burned, shops destroyed, road blocked, for 6 months. What is going to happen? Compare this hypothetical scenario with what happened in Hong…

> If you step back and think about it, if this protest were to happen in the US, with subways burned, shops destroyed, road blocked, for 6 months. What is going to happen? Compare this hypothetical scenario with what happened in Hong Kong.

It's not hypocritical because the US has democratic avenues and Hong Kong (and China) doesn't, disruption is their only option.

When Hong Kong has universal free and fare elections I'll think about joining your condemnation.

Re: China

#447

Post by natch »

rlue wrote: post #429
natch wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perverse incentive part makes sense. For the other part, I have trouble understanding why a dead person would care about anything after their death ...although I can understand them having wishes before death, but any such wishes should be weighed in context for their reasonableness given all factors.

It's not just about the rights of the person being executed, but also those of their loved ones. You may say you wouldn't care if your dead carcass was, say, grotesquely abused for someone else's amusement—after all, you're dead and no longer around to have any feelings about it—but how would your children feel? How would you feel if that was the fate awaiting your life partner? The shared endeavor of human society e…

>grotesquely abused

Yeah that would be disrespectful. Kind of moving the goalposts though to use that example when talking about organ transplant, something that helps people who might otherwise die. Obviously I am not saying execution is worth it for that. Just more that if someone is dead already for whatever reason, it's hard to see it as a bad thing to help the living, if that can be done.

I mean if we're going to fashion extreme examples for dramatic effect, that can be done on the other side too. Imagine if the relatives have racist objections to donating an organ, and let someone die because their own feelings would be hurt if they saw a person of the "wrong" race being helped. How do you weigh their racist feelings, versus the life being saved? It's not that clear to me that their feelings should be at the forefront when other factors are considered.

I agree that dignity in death is a good thing. Just not so certain as you that there is only one way to get there. And none of this is to claim that China does what they do with dignity... I highly doubt that. But organ transplants are not such a terrible thing.

Re: China

#448

Post by skrebbel »

camgunz wrote: post #411
treebeard901 wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The West naively thought the "free market" would liberalize China (and Russia) and we were very wrong. We have all heard this idea thrown around now for some time. It’s only in the last few years it seems people have accepted that it wasn’t going to work. In the context of the trade war and everything lately, I’ve really been thinking about this theory. On one hand, we know the current reality. An ascendant authori…

Yeah, that's all fair and counterfactuals are impossible. My instinct, though I have nothing to back this up, is: - The US foreign policy of regime change and bullying hegemony was a complete failure, and totally counterproductive. - We should have deployed soft power, like aid, diplomacy, and the Peace Corps, to places that were vulnerable to falling into authoritarian rule long term, and invested in the development…

> We should have more seriously considered deploying hard power to places that initially fell into authoritarian rule. I know Cuba was a failure and I know military action has serious consequences (especially for civilians), but compared to authoritarian governments wielding vast nuclear arsenals and ponderous economic weight... it's a tough choice.

I'm impressed how you blatantly assume that marching into some foreign country, guns blazing, will magically turn them into a liberal democracy.

I mean, your track record is abysmal. There are exceptions (eg Japan) but generally when the US puts boots on the ground somewhere, the place turns to shit.

Re: China

#449

Post by pinkfoot »

throwaway1997 wrote: post #443
pinkfoot wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure the relatives of the mass killings in Iraq and Afghanistan appreciate this subtle difference.

This is an example of whataboutery, a fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

Not its not, but even if it was - so what? Since when did pointing out double standards become trivially dismissable by a single word?

Its seems to be a very recent American phenomenon.

Where I live it is shameful and very damaging to one's credibility to be exposed for maintaining double standards.

Re: China

#450

Post by kashmiri »

It would be naive to say that China is the only country perpetrator of genocide today, look at its another neighbour i.e. India who is governed by extremist political party today and has locked down 8Million Kashmiri people from more than 100+ days who's land has been UN designated disputed territory. There are well documented genocides perpetrator by Indian military there. Whole of Kashmir is loced down under curfew (no mobiles, no data, no business, no healthcare services etc) from Aug 5 after Indian parliament unilaterally abrogated their rights articles. NO one talks about them :(
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