What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

If you do think you defend me, then you should see that I am still in a situation where I am becoming more and more attacked based on narrow view on China-related topics, especially politicizing everything to the degree that alternative and reasonable discussions are plainly impossible.

If you do still have faith in HN's value, then you should not defend me, you should defend the value.

And if you think I am not embodying HN's value, then do whatever you think it's reasonable. I don't care much about personal "support", I have long forsake those narrow views.

This is something I have heard many times before, but it just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

For one, I have debated with a lot of people. The majority of them say something along this line, but then a few messages later they post things like "Chinese people can't innovate, only copy" or "they are brainwashed". A lot of people hide blatant racism, sinophobia or plain prejudice behind "we are only against the CCP, not the people". This is no criticism to you or the other poster specifically, but is a criticism against the general public.

Furthermore, even among the more honest people, what I have noticed is that most of even them are not so much "against the CCP and not the people", but rather "against the CCP and don't care about the people". They will happily suggest actions (sanctions, revolutions, overthrow of government, war, etc) that will result in Chinese people suffering. But they consider that fine, because they are just "standing up to the CCP". In other words, they don't care whether Chinese people become cannon fodder and collateral damage in their fight of justice against the Chinese government.

Why would Chinese people want this? We just got out of 120 years of war, revolution and famine. We've tried many things. Many different governing and social organization forms failed, and now when things are finally going well foreigners want us to start over again just because they think our government is bad? Can't we have a say in this too? Can't we say, look the government is not perfect but it's not as bad as you think, they also do a lot of good things and things are still improving (and they have improved), so we don't want another revolution and we certainly don't want you to encourage one for us?

Anti-China sentiment (or anti-CCP sentiment, as you'd prefer to call it) isn't just about logic and debate, it's a gateway drug into a war against China. The US military industrial complex is literally pouring millions of dollars in anti-China propaganda and the prop-up of "the China threat", with the aim of manufacturing consent for a war against China.

The more people jump on the China-evil (or the CCP-evil) bandwagon, the more you enlarge the echo chamber and the more willingness there is for a war. It doesn't matter whether the bandwagon is "China is evil" or "the Chinese government (but not its people) is evil" — the potential outcomes are equally disastrous. You can already see this on the streets: anti-Asian violence has spiked in the US thanks to all the anti-China reporting. Thugs on the streets don't care whether a person is Vietnamese or Taiwanese or anti-CCP Chinese or whatever, they are all Chinese to them. Kishore Mahbubani, ex-UN Security Council head, ex-Singapore diplomat, recently visited New York, reporting that the mood in New York is very dark: people see the Chinese state as "the enemy".

As someone who thinks about many things rationally, what I find stupid about this bandwagon is that half of the reasons people cite for declaring the Chinese government as bad, are based non-understanding of Chinese context and values, an inflated sense of "the China threat", the idea that the western perspective is the only legitimate one, or just plain biased reporting. Yet most people refuse to critically examine whether their attitude against China/CCP is even correct and based on the right facts and the right perspectives. Most people start with the final conclusion that China/CCP is evil and then they find arguments to fit that conclusion, while sticking to the notion that the western perspective is the only perspective that could possibly be right. This attitude perfectly aligns with the goal of manufacturing a consent for war.

TLDR: focussing on the people-government separation is akin to sleepwalking into a war.

TLDR 2: Attacks on the CCP are attacks on the Chinese people. But not because I see it as such, but because the western public makes it into such, as measured by potential practical outcomes.

I probably don't need to remind you that a war with China can escalate into WW3, in which lights all over the planet will go out.

I didn't say "that's just your interpretation" (implying I am downplaying that opinion), I said "whatever interpretation you hold is fine, it's not up to me to decide" (implying respect). That's something totally different.

This sentence is rather condescending, and I believe it reveals something of your true intention here that you refuse to admit.

There is something about Peng Suai’s post that you believe exonerates Chinese officials or the Chinese government in some way, but you are unwilling to explain what it is for some reason.

> It's not up to me (or the media) to decide what interpretation is right: it's up to each individual.

Humor me. What is the alternate interpretation of these events that you believe is missing from western media reports? What are the different interpretations that people may arrive at other than “the media’s interpretation” as you put it?

> Letting people read the original post allow people to individually determine whether they agree with the media's interpretation.

You seem not to agree with the “media’s interpretation”. Why not? Why in your opinion would anyone disagree with the media’s interpretation of events after reading Peng Shuai’s post?

All I am asking for is an articulation of the alternative interpretation of events that you have said is lacking in media reports.

I can only think of one reason why you would believe that my questions somehow show me to be “extremely angry” (when I am not) or that I want to “dictate others’ thoughts” (which I don’t) or that I am somehow on a “witch hunt” just because I am being persistent in responding to your comments (this is a two-way street). It is the same reason that you cannot articulate any other interpretation than the one found in media reports:

In your own heart you know that there is only one reasonable interpretation of these events and of Peng Shuai’s writings. This poor woman was abused—certainly emotionally and possibly physically—by a senior member of the Chinese Communist Party, and officials of the Chinese government have taken extraordinary steps to cover it up.

If there were any other reasonable interpretation you would say what it is!