It’s so weird to hear people talk about China like its this hermit kingdom. Visited there a few months back and… the biggest difference between Zhuhai and Houston is the number of people speaking Mandarin. Oh, also, lots of trains and buses.
But the idea that Chinese citizens are somehow oblivious to the country’s politics, its security systems, its cultural strictures, or its relationship to western nations is fucking bananas. They know as much about the Chinese Civil War, Tienanmen Square, and the Hong Kong protests as you know about The American Civil War, 9/11 and the War on Terror, and the BLM protests. There’s no shortage of young Chinese folks saying the Mandarin ACAB equivalent, listening to punk rock, and feeling unfairly persecuted. There’s no shortage of stogie old MAGA conservatives who think liberals are ruining everything and the country was better 30 years ago. There’s no shortage of middle-aged middle-income bureaucrats just going through the motions and getting their jobs done, without thinking to hard about what it means at a national socio-economic scale.
There’s no shortage of people shitposting on the Chinese internet. There’s no shortage of mods banning those people, either. And if you believe otherwise, go on RedNote and see for yourself.
As someone that’s spent a lot of time in China with Chinese people I strongly disagree with this assertion, “They know as much about the Chinese Civil War, Tienanmen Square, and the Hong Kong protests as you know about The American Civil War, 9/11 and the War on Terror, and the BLM protests.”
In my experience Chinese people know extremely little about world history as well as their own uncensored history. It’s not a casual topic of discourse and many are hesitant to even speak about these things. They are not a truly free people but they are not ignorant of that. Often they believe that because of their size harsh controls are needed to prevent chaos and they now easily point at the US as an example of what they don’t want to become.
In my experience Chinese people know extremely little about world history as well as their own uncensored history.
We must be talking to different people. No shortage of history buffs and politics nerds in the neighborhoods I visited.
Often they believe that because of their size harsh controls are needed to prevent chaos and they now easily point at the US as an example of what they don’t want to become.
Well, the US has QAnon and other elaborate conspiracy theories. They’ve got all sorts of horrifying racist media that stokes tension and fear between communities and ethnicities. They’ve got a political system that rewards persecution of opposition and spawns enormous amounts of corruption and waste.
I can’t blame other countries’ leaders wanting to avoid that.
But if you’re a racist then hearing “the government says you’re not allowed to post ‘Black people are eating the dogs and the cats’ to social media” will feed a combined sense of paranoia and self-righteousness.
And then you end up with people who double down, get louder, get more insidious, and start calling down a police response as a result.
Then you’ve got a group of ugly reactionaries buried in a “Freedom of Speech” movement, which poisons the idea on both sides of the issue.
Their narrative on the US goes back even when America and the world would have classified the US as rock solid. The current events is just them seeing that they were correct the whole time.
I’m more referring to the rank and file Chinese who don’t speak or read any English.
There are far more Chinese English speakers than American Mandarin speakers. Not that it matters, as we’ve had translation software for decades and quite a few people doing the yeoman’s work of manual translation for even longer.
But it might say something about the insightfulness of Chinese political analysis that they picked out the flaws in our system way back when the vast majority of Americans were fully blind to it. Perhaps the Reagan and Clinton Eras should have been a warning sign we heeded a bit earlier. Perhaps there’s something to this historical materialism that you’re not giving enough credit.
You can make an argument that they are correct, but most of America is panicked about the rise of fascism, whereas China sees fascism as a solution to chaos.
Fully with you, just pointing out that they do have a higher standard of censorship. Tiananmen square is the obvious one but there’s also things like when an accident happens where lots of people die the local governments often report 35 deaths because if more than 35 people die, a government official gets fired.
In America police violence is shown on tv and presented as a good thing actually, in china it’s not on tv.
No shortage of crime dramas and procedurals on Chinese networks.
It’s so weird to hear people talk about China like its this hermit kingdom. Visited there a few months back and… the biggest difference between Zhuhai and Houston is the number of people speaking Mandarin. Oh, also, lots of trains and buses.
But the idea that Chinese citizens are somehow oblivious to the country’s politics, its security systems, its cultural strictures, or its relationship to western nations is fucking bananas. They know as much about the Chinese Civil War, Tienanmen Square, and the Hong Kong protests as you know about The American Civil War, 9/11 and the War on Terror, and the BLM protests. There’s no shortage of young Chinese folks saying the Mandarin ACAB equivalent, listening to punk rock, and feeling unfairly persecuted. There’s no shortage of stogie old MAGA conservatives who think liberals are ruining everything and the country was better 30 years ago. There’s no shortage of middle-aged middle-income bureaucrats just going through the motions and getting their jobs done, without thinking to hard about what it means at a national socio-economic scale.
There’s no shortage of people shitposting on the Chinese internet. There’s no shortage of mods banning those people, either. And if you believe otherwise, go on RedNote and see for yourself.
As someone that’s spent a lot of time in China with Chinese people I strongly disagree with this assertion, “They know as much about the Chinese Civil War, Tienanmen Square, and the Hong Kong protests as you know about The American Civil War, 9/11 and the War on Terror, and the BLM protests.”
In my experience Chinese people know extremely little about world history as well as their own uncensored history. It’s not a casual topic of discourse and many are hesitant to even speak about these things. They are not a truly free people but they are not ignorant of that. Often they believe that because of their size harsh controls are needed to prevent chaos and they now easily point at the US as an example of what they don’t want to become.
We must be talking to different people. No shortage of history buffs and politics nerds in the neighborhoods I visited.
Well, the US has QAnon and other elaborate conspiracy theories. They’ve got all sorts of horrifying racist media that stokes tension and fear between communities and ethnicities. They’ve got a political system that rewards persecution of opposition and spawns enormous amounts of corruption and waste.
I can’t blame other countries’ leaders wanting to avoid that.
But if you’re a racist then hearing “the government says you’re not allowed to post ‘Black people are eating the dogs and the cats’ to social media” will feed a combined sense of paranoia and self-righteousness.
And then you end up with people who double down, get louder, get more insidious, and start calling down a police response as a result.
Then you’ve got a group of ugly reactionaries buried in a “Freedom of Speech” movement, which poisons the idea on both sides of the issue.
Their narrative on the US goes back even when America and the world would have classified the US as rock solid. The current events is just them seeing that they were correct the whole time.
I’m more referring to the rank and file Chinese who don’t speak or read any English.
There are far more Chinese English speakers than American Mandarin speakers. Not that it matters, as we’ve had translation software for decades and quite a few people doing the yeoman’s work of manual translation for even longer.
But it might say something about the insightfulness of Chinese political analysis that they picked out the flaws in our system way back when the vast majority of Americans were fully blind to it. Perhaps the Reagan and Clinton Eras should have been a warning sign we heeded a bit earlier. Perhaps there’s something to this historical materialism that you’re not giving enough credit.
You can make an argument that they are correct, but most of America is panicked about the rise of fascism, whereas China sees fascism as a solution to chaos.
???
Fully with you, just pointing out that they do have a higher standard of censorship. Tiananmen square is the obvious one but there’s also things like when an accident happens where lots of people die the local governments often report 35 deaths because if more than 35 people die, a government official gets fired.
That’s news to me. Certainly possible given what I’ve seen of domestic cya reporting.
But “nobody talks about the cops in China” is just… pure Western mythology.
And if you talk about police violence in China the police come to your house and tell you to stop.
If you don’t stop you and your family dissappear.
At least it’s not on TV, otherwise the public might get concerned!