• socsa@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Is that why the democratically elected Hong Kong legislators were arrested from the floor of their own legislative chamber for supporting democratic ideals? Is that why China still has non-public trials?

    Also, China ranks poorly on democracy indexes, freedom indexes and human development index.

    But yes, individual freedoms and civil liberties are foundational to political agency. You cannot engage freely with political issues you can’t freely discuss. This should be self evident.

    • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      The US has non-public trials, with secret evidence, and even secret charges. China is nowhere NEAR the top offender on these issues. Not even close.

      Hong Kong was a literal British colony and China has allowed Hong Kong, a city that was stolen by Europeans and completely changed, to have its own system of laws and politics based on the British colonial project, and the politicians on Hong Kong that demand that freedom have Euro-centric financial interests since the UK made it into a global finance hub. The idea that these politicians were “pro-democracy”, but the Democratic People’s Republic of China was arresting them for being “pro-democracy” is about as smooth-brained a take as “they hate us for our freedoms”. It’s propaganda and the fact that you parrot it demonstrates you know nothing of the history or present of China, Hong Kong, and like Taiwan, Tibet, and Xinjiang. The subversive activities of the “pro-democracy” politicians is primarily their alignment with a Hong Kong independence movement, which is effectively a secession movement led by a pro-European minority that wants to keep financial ties with London and the US. It would be like New York City trying to secede to maintain its ties to Holland.

      Also, China ranks poorly on democracy indexes, freedom indexes and human development index.

      Most of these are Eurocentric, meaning orientalist and anti-communist. None of them are unbiased. 95.5% of China’s own people support how their government is serving them and supporting them. Whatever the fucking fascist Euro-colonists think “democracy” is, it’s curious that includes apartheid states, genocidal states, and monocultural states but excludes incredibly happy, incredibly diverse nations that have managed to life 800 million out of poverty in 60 years.

      But yes, individual freedoms and civil liberties are foundational to political agency

      Do you think that Chinese don’t have individual freedoms and civil liberties? If they didn’t, do you think they’d have a 95.5% approval rating over 15 years that was increasing among the most poor in the country while also managing 5 separate a distinct autonomous regions where unique cultures speak their own language in the millions? If individual freedoms and civil liberties are so foundational to political agency, then what’s up with the entire Western hemisphere where the colonist have stripped everyone of their individual freedoms and civil liberties except the land-owning white people? How’re those Nicaraguan Death Squads and Haitian assassinations and US trained coups, and US and Canadian genocidal policies against millions of natives - how are they doing? Do they impact those “indexes” you mentioned?

      You cannot engage freely with political issues you can’t freely discuss. This should be self evident.

      It is. And you’d be surprised just how much dissent there is in China that’s open, written about, etc. There are protests, there are essays, there are factions. You’re getting confused by the US media painting legitimate government intervention with universal oppression. The fact that 95.5% of people approve of the government should tell you this, alone. But even just doing a little bit of research on your own would disprove everything you believe about China. For example, Winnie the Pooh is not banned, nor are products bearing its visage, nor are websites with the content, etc.

      It’s really astounding how much projection you exhibit here. You say China does poorly on indexes, but you don’t question why those indexes look good for genocidal mass murdering settler-colonial states. You say Chinese people lack individual freedoms and civil liberties but don’t think about the binding arbitration epidemic, structural racism, deaths of poverty, the Princeton report demonstrating zero democratic influence in the USA, monocultural oppression throughout most of Europe, refusal of colonial states to repair the damage they did up to and including levying debt on all of Haiti for each black person freed because the slave owners need their money back (that debt is still generating profit through interests and fees and Citi is the one currently collecting that profit).

      Just take everything you criticize China for, look at the North Atlantic, and you’ll see the North Atlantic does this so often and so thoroughly that OF COURSE China has to do it worse, and then actually research China and realize that every single source you’ve ever believed on what’s happening in China is just bald-faced lying to you, completely outright, shamelessly. It was fucking eye-opening when I did it. I’m sure it will be for you, too.

      • socsa@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        The US criminal justice system does not have closed trials. Almost all trials in China are closed.

        • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_trial#United_States - The USA has secret courts

          https://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1991/us/ - and the USA has secret trials

          https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/01/09/us-secret-evidence-erodes-fair-trial-rights - and the United States has open trials with secret evidence

          https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-37515399 - The BBC, state-owned media by a country that launched multiple wars against China, got 40% of their population addicted to opium, then invaded them when they tried to outlaw opium and forced them not only to legalize opium but also make all Europeans completely immune to Chinese law, that colonized multiple parts of their country and only recently gave back their land holding but still operates a spoiler campaign against them and extracts as much wealth as possible from them, THAT BBC, the BBC even writes about the Chinese government live streaming trials.

          You can select any Euro-centric standard you want and show that China doesn’t meet your Euro-centric standard. It won’t change the fact that China is serving its people far better than European countries ever have and ever will. You can always imagine that China is violating some inviolable ideal that makes it evil and terrible, but even closed trials are not seen by the Chinese people as a significant hindrance to their fulfillment, most likely because the court systems haven’t actually been organized against the working class, against non-white people, and against women, like they have been in Eurocentric countries.

          • socsa@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            FISA courts don’t convict people of crimes.

            But sure, let’s talk about why FISA courts are bad, and also why China should have public trials?

            I’ll start - though some consider them a national security essential, FISA courts represent a fundamental gap in oversight which has the potential to erode civil liberties. If it must exist at all then it needs a significant overhaul in the way oversight is handled, even mandatory congressional review.

            Now you go. How would you improve China’s legal system?

            • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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              1 year ago

              I don’t live there. The idea that I could improve China’s legal system is arrogance on top of ignorance. Keep beating your drum and drowning out everything else. Your cognitive dissonance will eventually get the better of you.

              • socsa@lemmy.ml
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                1 year ago

                Ah I thought you were interested in having a conversation perhaps instead of just vomiting geopolitical head cannon, so that’s on me.

                But just to clarify, you are or are not in favor of public trials?

                • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  I could go either way. In China, it seems as though each municipality has different rules for who’s admitted and different criteria. I think whether trials are public is far and away less important than class warfare. For example, see all of the public trials that didn’t do shit to stop the cash-for-kids travesty.

                  Also, you thought I wanted to engage you in trying to analyze the precise details of the Chinese judicial system vis-a-vis trial access in order to arrive at analytical conclusions about how to improve China? Yeah, that is on you. The idea that you think you’re even remotely qualified to have that conversation is ridiculous.

                  As for spewing geopolitical headcanon, I know you’re a lost cause but try going back to the beginning of this thread and look at your own words wherein you spew forth completely unfounded claims based in entirely Eurocentric cultural virtue signaling as though it’s the standard from which to judge all societies and try to here the words “spewing geopolitical headcanon” while imagining the multiple ongoing cultural genocides that the Eurocentric world is actively maintaining to this day against indigenous people on multiple continents.

                  • socsa@lemmy.ml
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                    1 year ago

                    To recap, it seems like I’m the one here willing to engage in critical discussion about both the west and about China. Perhaps that’s because I have a personal stake in both societies and wish better for both. You are just hiding behind unfounded and poorly defined accusations of “eurocentrism” and name calling to shut down discussion, without even realizing that it’s the exact same cognitive bias you seem so critical of.

                    Obviously European enlightenment values are not above reproach. I have certainly never made such a claim. You, however seem to be actively asserting that the Chinese system is indeed above reproach, and you also seem to be under the impression that this is the less biased stance. I have not and will not remove your agency by declaring you brainwashed as you have done repeatedly.