Remember ChInA EvIL : memes

[+] MyBrainHurts@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (4 children)

Chinese citizens both think democracy is important at higher rates than the west, and believes their country to be democratic and represent their interests fairly at much higher rates than the west:

Taiwan isn't a threat to the PRC, and neither is Xinjiang nor the Uyghurs living there and elsewhere.

[–] Omnipitaph@reddthat.com -4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'mma be honest, if I was living in a country where it was common knowledge that slandering the government in anyway got you disappeared, I'd rate them highly on any study put in front of me :/

I know I'm going to have comments telling me I don't know what I'm talking about, and that's ok. I've enough friends in China, and from China, who have talked about this kind of thing to understand that this graph could represent the feelings of the people, but likely doesn't.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

You don't get "disappeared" for "slandering the government in any way." That's a very western framing of cracking down on capitalists that get out of line and try to undermine the socialist government. You have your anecdotal evidence, I also speak with Chinese citizens, and they more often than not do agree with the graph.

[–] Havald@lemmy.world -4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

And in this one by the European union they rank themselves lower or equal to western countries. As well as ranking low on things like freedom of speech and separation of power.

Perceived democracy survey by the EU 2025

One survey, be it from the EU or Harvard doesn't really prove anything. If you want to convince people then you should find a meta analysis.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

That survey acknowledges that different countries see democracy differently, both in what it is and what the purpose of democracy is. The EU, for example, says it's about "protecting individual rights and freedoms," while China says it's about "improving living standards and well-being."

The kicker is that they specifically ask questions surrounding how well a country abides by liberal, capitalist democracy while not asking how well a country abides by socialist democracy! As you admit, they focus on concepts like "separation of powers," or "freedom of the private press," or "political pluralism," as well as "peaceful transition of power." This fundamentally is meant to disqualify socialist concepts of democracy, focused on cooperation, cohesion, social unity, rule by the common people, and limiting of the powers of the wealthy over society.

Ultimately, both polls are accurate. What's dishonest is the EU poll framing democracy purely in a liberal manner. It isn't a survey about democracy, it's a survey about how well a country abides by Eurocentric, liberal democracy. This isn't an example of polls conflicting each other, when polled in a manner that reflects how well society represents the interests of the common person, the poll I cited is a much better reflection.

You may need to work on your media literacy.

[–] Havald@lemmy.world -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

freedom of the private press

I apologise but my media literacy is so bad I can't find where press is even mentioned in the document. The closest I could find is freedom of speech but those are two different things.

As you admit, they focus on concepts like "separation of powers," or "freedom of the private press," or "political pluralism," as well as "peaceful transition of power." This fundamentally is meant to disqualify socialist concepts of democracy, focused on cooperation, cohesion, social unity, rule by the common people, and limiting of the powers of the wealthy over society.

How do those "fundamentally disqualify" democracies that focus on "cooperation, cohesion, social unity, rule by the common people and limiting the powers of the wealthy over society"?

I would have thought that separation of powers makes it easier to limit the power of the wealthy. Does that concept impede cohesion, cooperation, social unity or rule by the common people in any way? How can the common people have any chance to rule if you don't have courts that make sure the law is upheld by the powerful?

In my very limited worldview political pluralism plays a pivotal role in establishing a functioning socialist democracy. Yes, having many differing opinions on any given topic slows the decision making process down. However, how can you expect the marginalized to be represented in any way if you don't have a party representing them? But I guess if you educate your people properly then even in a population of 1.4 billion people everyone's political opinions can be represented by a single party.

As for peaceful transition of power, how is that bad exactly?

Since we're cherry picking questions here, how do "government transparency", " freedom of speech" or "rule of law" prohibit the rule of the common people? I would think that they only help strengthen the common people? How are they at odds with any of the other socialist concepts you mentioned?

Please excuse my stupid questions, as you mentioned, my media literacy is terrible so I don't even understand these really basic concepts.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

In the section on how democratic a country is, it says "freedom of the press," which is taken to mean freedom of the private press as that's what isn't very high in China.

As for why things like allowing the private press to way whatever they want even as they are funded by the wealthy, political pluralism, etc, the concept of a state that changes hands constantly or is fractured and led by factions is more of a liberal thing. Socialist countries tend to have one major party and perhaps a few other special interest parties, because the goal is unity and cohesion.

That doesn't mean there's no room for discussion either, in fact that becomes far more important because it doesn't become a party v party issue but one that anyone can give their input on. Same with separation of powers, there is room for specialization, but the idea that government needs to be hostile to itself to function is more liberal.

"Peaceful transition of power" in the context of the PRC means the bourgeoisie can succeed in ousting the CPC, in a country where class struggle is definitely very alive you have to limit that.

Gov transparency isn't the worst metric, but it also isn't what makes something democratic. Freedom of speech in the context of a socialist country that still has a capitalist class means freedom for the bourgeoisie to mouth off and destabilize the system, so in practice it's typically billionaires like Jack Ma that are oppressed. Rule of Law isn't bad, but it has little to do with democracy.

All in all, all of these are things Europeans describe democracy as, but the very word means "rule by the people," meaning different countries have different views on what that looks like. The questionaire seems to benefit one where the press is freely dominated by billionaires, where there is endless squabbling in government between parties vying for power, etc while not allowing democratic one party states to be seen as democratic even if the people believe it to represent their interests.

[–] zjti8eit@lemmy.dbzer0.com -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But that's none of those things are democracy. Democracy is rule by the majority. Whether you get individual rights, social protection, or something else is all dependent on who makes up that majority.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

Sure, the PRC has rule by the majority. It's definitionally democratic. The EU poll specifically tested for liberal models of democracy designed to give more freedom for capitalists and work against social cohesion.

[–] vatlark@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Super interesting survey, thanks for sharing.

[+] kwezelaar@mastodon.nl -9 points 1 week ago (3 children)

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

No, I don't. China doesn't have a more effective propaganda machine than western countries.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Do you really think you could propagandize a billion people with 55 distinct and recognized cultural groups speaking different languages after having nearly every single communication appartus totally destroyed in a civil war 75 years ago while England and the US, who have uninterrupted propaganda operations that go back centuries have been deploying their empire's propaganda against China since the Opium Wars?

No. Absolutely not. You imagine that China has deep propaganda control over a billion lemmings because your propaganda system is so strong it's convinced you of something so ridiculous.

[–] kwezelaar@mastodon.nl -1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

@freagle how did you escape the matrix?

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

A lot of reading, listening, arguing with people I disagreed with, forcing myself to contend with discomfort, to reexamine my beliefs, trying to disprove what others were saying or writing, and lots and lots of time.

I was already a relatively well-read kid by the time I hit college, and I had some counter cultura approaches to political beliefs (like taking care of people being more important than raw profit), but I was fully invested in the American project and had a ton of unexamined racism, mysoginy, classism, and cultural appropriation that I just replicated without question.

I studied philosophy and my particular path through that degree forced me to develop not only the ability but the respect for the process of arguing something from multiple perspectives equally well (or aspiring to that as best we can). So by the end of college I was committed to taking up the best version of anything I disagreed with so I could understand it better but also to boost my ego so I could defeat it more soundly.

But "no go" zones always bothered me. For example, we studied the classic skeptics Descartes and Hume, but never responded to them once. We simply examined how their skepticism led to the impossibility of knowledge and then just never solved it. Worse, whenever someone used an argument that was sufficiently skeptical, it was met with "well that just leads to solipsism". That bothers me as it's not a refutation. What bothered me more was the position that if anyone used arguments from solipsism that we could just dismiss them as bad faith and ignore what they had to say.

That particular aspect of my path built this sort of vigiliance for these "no go" zones of thought and I saw them popping up all over the place. If a Republican said something, some people would immediately dismiss it without examining it at all, and the same would be true for different people if a Democrat said something. The same was true if a Chinese or Russian report made a claim. The same was true about satanists, communists, addicts, and many others.

These were far more numerous than people arguing strong skepticism. And the positions being discussed didn't threaten all possible knowledge or the existence of reality, but they did threaten deeply held personal beliefs.

So, overtime, when I witnessed someone else saying "well, that's pro-China so it can't be trusted at all", I slowly started to examine these things. And then I found myself saying the same thing - "oh you're a communist, you can't be trusted with anything you say".

That's when I realized I had some built-in problems. And it was about that time I started to question my long held beliefs that I wasn't racist, that I wasn't sexist, that I wasn't mysoginst. And that was really hard. It took years of stop and start, years of resisting the evidence, years of not paying attention because it made me uncomfortable.

But eventually 2020 happened, I was forced to slow down, I had far fewer social connections reinforcing my behavior and beliefs, and the national discourse at the time gave me huge opportunities to "argue it from the other side" and examine what was really going on. And that was a hell of a ride. Anger, depression, rage, resentment, just everything came up. But my commitment to earnest engagement with ideas and reality and facts and history forced me through the process.

There were distinct periods where (1) I believed the USA was the greatest country in the world and also I and most of the people I knew were not racist, mysoginst, and white supremacist, and then (2) the USA was the greatest country in the world with some problems and I can see how I have unconscious racism but I can fix that and I'm not mysoginst or white supremacist and most of the people I know are not either, and then (3) the USA is a pretty bad actor but at least it's better than Russia, China, DPRK, Cuba, Iran, etc and racism is actually a system not a personal moral failing and while I can work against it I have been raised in this way and also wow ok I realize now that mysoginy is insidious and embedded in so many of my ways of relating to the world but I can work on that and then (4) oh wow the US is the evil empire and racism and mysoginy and white supremacy are actually these massive historical processes that I haven't even begun to wrestle with and I actually can't really say anything about them until I really dig in and am willing to be wrong in ways that makes me sick to my stomach....

And my process is still ongoing now, but, this is maybe a long winded story about how I escaped the matrix.

[–] mathemachristian@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 week ago

I should think western propaganda is more effective and yet look at how unhappy eperyone is. You cant just propagandize people into a feeling of happiness.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 week ago

Democracy: China is constantly evolving it's democratic mechanisms, currently referred to as whole process democracy. In the West you can change the party but not the policies. In China you can change the policies but not the party.

Incorrect Thought: yes defending the KKK with arguments for free speech is not the high minded position you think it is. Incorrect Thought includes fascism, cultism, chauvinism, and neoliberalism. Working against those things is a perennial obligation of any liberatory movement.

Taiwan: China does not see Taiwan as a threat at all. They see the US and UK as a threat and they see Taiwan as a vulnerability. Not the least of which because the US has openly published strategy documents detailing the Pacific Kill Chain which projects lethal nuclear force at China and it uses Taiwan as the key component of that kill chain.

Uyghurs: Uyghurs aren't a threat, Uyghur terrorists trained by the US as part of their never ending program of training terrorists and radicalizing people - that's the threat. Uyghurs in China who are not connected to the terrorist trainings are for the most part completely unaffected by China's de-escalation program. And China's de-escalation program has worked incredibly well when you look at the raw numbers of terrorist attacks Xinjiang over the last decade.

[–] CityPop@lemmy.today 14 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

China: These islands belonging to our peaceful small neighbors are our biggest threat.

[–] the_q@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The World: the people in power are our biggest threat

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago

Depends on where you are, some governments are better than others, and the people are in power.

[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

China: political dissidents are our biggest threat

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 week ago

China doesn't spend that much time on political dissidents in comparison to the US. The US has been chasing Assange and Snowden for decades now, they have Manning in prison probably for life, they had Peltier in prison until he was basically at deaths door. And they constantly renew and redouble their efforts to attack these dissidents. Meanwhile in China they spend way more effort on reducing the number of billionaires than they do reducing the number of political dissidents.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 week ago

Not really, billionaires are kept in check. Corruption was a big issue in the 2000s, but the majority of the opportunists were already purged. At the same time, the PRC has dedicated a huge portion of its economy to electrification and green energy, as well as combatting desertification.

China is also quite democratic, which is why it takes climate change seriously:

[–] Reality_Suit@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

China is building the worlds largest dam that is going to cut off a huge amount of water to India.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 week ago

The US has done this pretty deliberately as part of their genocide of the indigenous peoples. China and India are in peer conversations as sovereigns and negotiating their differences as equals.

[+] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca -1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

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[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 9 points 1 week ago

Democracy: China is constantly evolving it's democratic mechanisms, currently referred to as whole process democracy. In the West you can change the party but not the policies. In China you can change the policies but not the party.

Free Speech: defending the KKK with arguments for free speech is not the high minded position you think it is. Free speech includes fascism, cultism, chauvinism, and neoliberalism. Working against those things is a perennial obligation of any liberatory movement.

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago

I'll repost my response, then:

The opposite is true, actually.

According to the most recent report (2024), people in China have overwhelmingly positive views of their political system. 92% of people say that democracy is important to them, 79% say that their country is democratic, 91% say that the government serves the interests of most people (rather than a small group), and 85% say all people have equal rights before the law. Furthermore, China outperforms the US and most European countries on these indicators – in fact, it has some of the strongest results in the world. The figure below compares China’s results to those from the US, France and Britain. These results may help explain the high levels of satisfaction with government reported by the Ash Center.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org -2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Been a while since I heard anyone call China "~~our~~ the biggest threat". Come to think of it, I don't remember ever hearing that.

Edit: the, not our. Makes no ultimate difference.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 10 points 1 week ago

What are you talking about?

https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/counterintelligence/the-china-threat

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/07/27/americans-name-china-as-the-country-posing-the-greatest-threat-to-the-us/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_threat_theory

https://thedefensepost.com/2025/03/26/china-biggest-threat-us/

https://www.voanews.com/a/vice-presidential-nominee-vance-calls-china-biggest-threat-to-our-country-/7701298.html

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 week ago

I hear it all the time from the US gov and from liberals.

[–] brucethemoose@lemmy.world -4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Do people in China really think this?

Turn on Fox News, or Left comedy shows. Or major influencers.

The Americans biggest threat is… Americans. Specifically the other side. I haven’t heard mega conservative or mega liberal family, or anyone, even utter the word “China” in a while. Honestly the only place I see it now is finance news, and they are just jawboning to move stocks anyway.

Trump and senators do say it sometimes I guess, but TBH it’s mostly on deaf or bored ears.

Can’t speak for the UK, but I imagine they are starting to look across the pond with worry.

[–] Deifyed@lemmy.ml -5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If China is so great, why the constant need for propaganda?

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If China is so bad, why the constant need for propaganda?

Ultimately, all media pushing a narrative is propaganda. Propaganda isn't bad in and of itself, it can be used to push good messaging and good information. The reason why there's strong pushes for pro-China sentiment from the left is because right now, in the west, the majority sentiment is anti-PRC based on US State Department narratives.

[–] Deifyed@lemmy.ml -5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I see way more "China is good"-propaganda than any other nation or group of nations

Edit: they are also quick to downvote, delete my comment or ban me when I write things like this

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 11 points 1 week ago

Have you ever seen a super cut on YouTube of 50 US news stations literally repeating the exact same line over and over and over again?

[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 10 points 1 week ago

Depends on the space you're in.

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