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China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

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Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#91

Post by throwawaysea »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #79
jplr8922 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. A month ago I found myself in a debate about the moral equivalency of the US empire vs CCP. My opponent seems to think that any form of power is equaly bad and that the goals and intent does not matter. Therefore, US and China are ''both equals''. I fail to understand how can this form on one-sidedness can come from...

Classic false equivalence. Compare US democratic and republican parties. While they both have their issues the modern D party versus the R party is a clear winner. One supports the general welfare and has humane policies while respecting the will of the majority while the R party recently tried to install a fascist leader over the votes of the majority of the country, the same leader which also tried to have Congress…

There's a lot I disagree with in your comment so let me offer my perspective:

1. I don't think Trump was actually "fascist". That word has lost all meaning, and has been used as an empty political attack for nearly a century. George Orwell literally wrote back in 1946, "he word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable’." (https://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_poli...)

2. It is completely legal to challenge election results, and both parties don't just blindly accept what you're calling the "will of the majority" when it affects their own power. Democrats have challenged election results many times in the past, for example in Bush versus Gore (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore) in the 2000 presidential election. They also did the same in 2004 and again in 2016 (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/06/opinion/democrat-republic...). Even right now, during this very election cycle, there is a case where Democrats are challenging election results for a House seat, with Pelosi's support (https://time.com/5950292/iowa-congress-election-rita-hart/). Additionally, although most of Trump's cases were never heard and dismissed on procedural grounds, he has actually won 2/3 of the cases that were actually heard by the court (https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/03/exclusive-accurate-...).

3. Trump did not send his "minions" to attack the Capitol building. The transcript of his speech on January 6th (https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-sav...) explicitly calls for a peaceful march and protest. Twitter's own blog post announcing and justifying their ban of Donald Trump's account (https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...) does not provide any clear evidence of Trump doing this. All it has are vague opinions and hyperbolic claims like trying to suggest that Trump's plan to not attend the inauguration is somehow a "glorification of violence". Keep in mind that there were tens of thousands of people in DC attending Trump-related events and rallies on January 6th. There were thousands even just in front of the Capitol. Only a few hundred actually went past the barriers. Let's also not forget about Democratic politicians encouraging a capitol riot of their own back in 2018 (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kavanaugh-protesters-arrest...) - it didn't receive the same coverage in news media but was a very comparable incident, and resulted in Capitol police arresting hundreds.

Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#92

Post by hutzlibu »

leereeves wrote: post #86
hutzlibu wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Boycotts, disinvestment, and sanctions is how civil rights movements are fought." How about: leading by good example? There are plenty of chinese people outside of the great firewall regulary going back. So that information would get in.

Why not both? We can (and should) lead by good example while also actively opposing human rights abuses in China.

Yeah, but since the US is NOT leading by shiny good example and continues to be allied with really bad examples like saudi arabia - the rest of the world views it all as just power struggle between china and US - which it mostly is.

Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#93

Post by leereeves »

hutzlibu wrote: post #92
leereeves wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? We can (and should) lead by good example while also actively opposing human rights abuses in China.

Yeah, but since the US is NOT leading by shiny good example and continues to be allied with really bad examples like saudi arabia - the rest of the world views it all as just power struggle between china and US - which it mostly is.

Perhaps our government should cut ties with both Saudi Arabia and China. I (and I think most people opposed to the CCP's recent actions) would support that.

Of course realpolitik keeps us supporting the Saudis, but one morally wrong choice doesn't justify another morally wrong choice.

Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#94

Post by katbyte »

luckylion wrote: post #83
stjohnswarts wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genocide isn't "shady stuff" it's fucking genocide.

I was referencing things like their grab of Tibet, power projection in the South China sea, projects in Africa etc. Please don't try to read everything in the worst possible interpretations.

Tibet wasn’t a genocide?

Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#95

Post by jsiepkes »

qwertox wrote: post #57
ChemSpider wrote: post #48

Chinese diplomats even go after Children books: China gets German children's book about COVID withdrawn https://www.dw.com/en/china-gets-german-childrens-book-about... "The Chinese consulate in Hamburg promptly threatened the Carlsen publishing house with filing criminal charges, demanding the recall of the book as well as a public apology."

> Moritz already knows something about Corona. > "The virus comes from China and from there it spread over the entire world", he says. "When you get infected, you can get a strong cough and fever. Sometimes also the lung gets sick, so that you can't breath well anymore." https://imgur.com/a/fyB8CnE

When I traveled to China about 10 years ago and we were about to land in Beijing everyone was shown a short movie on the inflight entertainment system (of China Southern airlines). It started with: "Swine influenza comes from America, spreads around the world."

You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4uEJIsbVyI

Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#96

Post by onethought »

spookybones wrote: post #85
jplr8922 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. A month ago I found myself in a debate about the moral equivalency of the US empire vs CCP. My opponent seems to think that any form of power is equaly bad and that the goals and intent does not matter. Therefore, US and China are ''both equals''. I fail to understand how can this form on one-sidedness can come from...

If you study the US empire’s clandestine coups and embargoes and the resulting mass casualties, it’s a valid debate. I still think the US is the slightly lesser evil at the moment. The bigger point is that none of this should be happening. Saying “well your side is worst” is a moral misdirection. Rather, there should be mutual agreement that these are atrocities that need to end.

Agree. But we have a United Nations and international courts... so countries violating human rights themselves are setting a defensible precedent for others.

It’s not whataboutism or moral misdirection, it’s about fairness: how come you are allowed to do far worse things, but I am not allowed to do this?

This applies to human rights, climate change, foreign aggression... This is actually the issue we (the world) need to solve.

Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#97

Post by onethought »

katbyte wrote: post #94
luckylion wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was referencing things like their grab of Tibet, power projection in the South China sea, projects in Africa etc. Please don't try to read everything in the worst possible interpretations.

Tibet wasn’t a genocide?

No, Tibet wasn’t a genocide. Xinjiang isn’t either. It’s extremely bad and unjust, but it ain’t systematic slaughter of a race either.

Let’s not stretch the meaning of genocide.

Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#99

Post by dang »

hutzlibu wrote: post #92
leereeves wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not both? We can (and should) lead by good example while also actively opposing human rights abuses in China.

Yeah, but since the US is NOT leading by shiny good example and continues to be allied with really bad examples like saudi arabia - the rest of the world views it all as just power struggle between china and US - which it mostly is.

It looks like your account has been using HN primarily for political/ideological/national battle. This is against the site guidelines: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We ban the sort of account that does this, because it destroys the curious conversation that HN is supposed to exist for.

More explanation if desired:

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

Re: China pressured Concordia University to cancel event with Uighur activist (2019)

#100

Post by hutzlibu »

dang wrote: post #99
hutzlibu wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but since the US is NOT leading by shiny good example and continues to be allied with really bad examples like saudi arabia - the rest of the world views it all as just power struggle between china and US - which it mostly is.

It looks like your account has been using HN primarily for political/ideological/national battle. This is against the site guidelines: please see https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . We ban the sort of account that does this, because it destroys the curious conversation that HN is supposed to exist for. More explanation if desired: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... https://…

I don't think my account was using HN primarily for "political/ideological/national battle", but this was indeed such a debate.

Still, can you help me finding out, where exactly I was destroying curious debate here?

Because in my opinion, I was trying in honesty to actually have a rational, curious debate about the implications of a trade embargo against china. Without attacking persons, just by arguments supported by citations. Maybe a bit too snarky at times, but I don't see, how that would validate a ban, but it is your site and your decision.

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