Hey, tankies, decent countries don’t have to violently suppress their populations and then lie about it. Oh, and socialism is worker ownership of the means of production, not whatever the fuck they’re doing in China.
(inb4 people assuming I must support the US since I hate China)
Decent countries. What a slippery slope for supremacist thoughts.
Ah yes.
Being against China’s racist genocide is racist.
China, the imperialist ethno-state, is clearly innocent.
Lol. Thinking some countries have better governments than others is supremacist? Whatever, dude.
By the way. If there are any countries with decent governments, I don’t know of them. But like. If there were decent countries, they wouldn’t behave like China.
Saying “decent countries” clearly has a perverse slip within the thought, the idea of a collective I in the our countries and an objectifying negation of the I in the other group. Basically good ol’ civilisation and barbarians. The same rhetoric you and your people have been using to oppress me and my third world brothers and sisters all around the world. You really think you need to do the missionary work of educating the beasts, don’t you?
Eyeroll. Literally said in the first message that I don’t support the US, but yes, clearly it’s us (countries I don’t support) vs. them (countries I also don’t support). The only possible reason one could think China is an oppressive hellhole is racism, I guess. Never mind that I also think Western countries are oppressive hellholes. But clearly thinking two things are bad at once means you actually like one of them. Christ, you’re like the bizarro world version of conservatives who think that hating America means you support China. Tankies really are just libs who simp for different countries.
Educating the beasts in third-world countries? I don’t have time for that. I’m too busy trying to fix my own shithole country. Are a lot of people in third-world countries wrong about shit? Yeah, obviously. But I think most people in the world are wrong about shit, because most of them aren’t libsocs. Me disagreeing with you doesn’t make you special. If thinking a specific group has it wrong means you’re prejudiced against them, apparently I’m prejudiced against 99.7% of the world. And I’m pretty sure most people in third-world countries aren’t state capitalists, so I guess you must be prejudiced against them too for disagreeing with them.
Why is it that you tankies always ignore that anarchists, libsocs, and other non-tankie leftists spend much more time fighting libs and fascists than we do fighting you? We make fun of you online. We argue with you when you say dumb shit. We don’t march against you in the streets, except in countries where you rule over us. The effort we dedicate to you is really minuscule compared to how we fight and die trying to change the right-wing status quo. And yet, somehow that counts for nothing when you need to claim that our disagreements with you are rooted in bigotry.
Don’t ever let anyone forget or brush under the rug the horrible acts that occurred in Tiananmen Square on June 4th, 1989.
https://www.history.com/topics/asian-history/tiananmen-square
I’m not sure I understand China’s reactions here… if nothing happened, then why not just let them congregate and “remember” something that supposedly didn’t happen? What’s the harm? If they were blocking traffic or riots were involved, it would understandable to want to stop it, but if it’s peaceful, where’s the harm? Unless of course, something did happen that they want people to forget…
China doesn’t say nothing happened, what they say is that counter revolution happened, and it was effectively suppressed. Why would you let someone celebrate the equivalent of an extremist movement?
Corrupt, murderous dictatorships rarely tolerate accurate recollections of history.
You must have experience with that, it’s what you’ve been doing for the last 200 years.
It’s almost as if Chinese Imperialism, genocide and ethnic cleansing is still bad even if the West built its powerbase on Imperialism.
How many colonies does China have? How many countries has it invaded? How many wars has waged?
Fascists like you and followers of the capitalist death cult can only say this: Tibet, because they drove the feudal lords and dalai lama paedophiles; Taiwan, because the bourgeois dictatorship claimed that land as theirs, as if it isn’t historically all one China, a similar story with Malvinas, I guess you also think they belong to the British; Hong Kong, which was a British colony but for some twisted reason you think they should be it’s own thing, because again it historically has not belong to China; the Uyghur thing, which even Western sources deny and/or doubt of its veracity and which was propelled by a right-wing organisation pro US imperialism; and delirious ideas about China being “imperialist” in Africa or South America because it trades with them and builds infrastructure, instead of providing bogus “financial aids” which then end up in the hands of US puppets like you did in Argentina with IMF funds. So basically all of the “imperialism” you claim is China trying to recover its historical territories lost in the process of the proletarian revolution.
Meanwhile, I don’t see any of the likes of you denouncing the plethora of colonies Europe and the US has been having and continue having for centuries. Why are you no so openly in favour of a Hawai’ian independence movement but you are so fervently obsessed with China? I know why, because you have fascists freudian slips and you can’t even realise about it yourself, since you live surrounded by people who justify themselves, and you have never interacted with a person from the Global South that’s not a fascist. By the way, the things I’m telling you, this is not “tankie” stuff, I have Peronists friends, Trotskyists friends, and all over the spectrum in Argentina, and they all know what you people say is complete and utter disgusting, the thought that everyone agrees with this kind of thought is something only maintained in first world imperialist countries. Don’t fool yourself.
Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet are all Colonies of China, which it treats as Colonial Territories, by -
Forcibly destroying the local culture. Forcefully extracting to harm of the locals. Genocide, abuse, kidnapping, rape.
But there is no point in engaging to you. You are a liar. You know you are. When you deny genocides, you put yourself on the same side as the fascists and reactionaries of the past.
Yeah, don’t bother. Tankies are red fascists.
Yup, tankies are fascists under a new name.
You’re a racist
Effectively suppressed by tanks and rifles? What exactly is the problem with acknowledging what happened if it can be seen as a deterent for future counter-revolutionaries?
China didn’t have anti protest gear at that time, that’s why they took tanks over there, there weren’t any of those trucks that shoot water and the like, basically what they had where guns and the military since the police wasn’t that well equipped. And as I said in me previous comment, they do acknowledge it, as a counterrevolutionary movement that must be stopped. Think about it in the same way that how the US handled the Black Panthers, they were basically risking the status quo (the bourgeoisie staying in power) and they effectively suppress them through different means.
Right, the point I was trying to make was; they acknowledge that people died in the protest (300 or whatever it is), so what exactly is the issue and necessity to deny what happened? Why this obsession with “setting the record straight” when there is nothing really to refute?
It wasn’t a massacre of peaceful students, but a skirmish between PLA soldiers and armed detachments from the pro-capitalist / free market reform movement. The protest movement, as evidenced by their own accounts, called for market liberalisation, and free market reforms, rallying around a replica of the statue of liberty. After the movement had been building in the square for seven weeks, unarmed soldiers were sent in to disperse the protesters, after which many soldiers were beaten to death, torched, and lynched. The New York Times death count went from 2600, to many thousands, to 8000, to tens of thousands. In reality only around ~200 (including soldiers) were killed or trampled, in smaller clashes outside the square. The on-scene New York Times reporter disavowed the article, especially about machine-gunning of protesters. A wikileaks cable from a US ambassador to the US state department, confirmed that no killings or machine-gunnings took place in the square.
Well, one could say it doesn’t make sense to let people rally nowadays for this, since there’s probably counter intelligence funding that’s propelling the massification of this news and so on, so why would you let some people go and complain that you suppressed a US coup d’Etat attempt?
So you argue that the massacre makes sense, that it is fair for the Chinese government to kill whoever took part in the protest. I just don’t understand why denying the extent or rationalizing it through ‘they attacked first’, when killing counter revolutionaries seems to be a completely valid reason for killing people who took part
Doesn’t that make you more seriously consider that the CPC’s position on this issue has been misrepresented?
Wow a post on lemmy denouncing the CCPs actions instead of denying them or even trying to justify them? Thats rare
I plan on actively posting to counter the constant barrage of tankie propaganda that is very clearly an issue here. Misinformation is a very real issue that we face in our society and unless we actually do something about it, it will only continue to get worse.
Why not post about the atrocities committed by the USA and their allies on their anniversaries then?
Might get exhausting posting every day.
Having been a life long socialist myself, it’s a bit mystifying to me how anyone can believe that the atrocities commited by the US somehow makes the PRC or Russia in any way deserving of praise.
For sure I’d like more people to call out the American genocide of its natives, or honor the heroes that fought for their emancipation during the time of chattel slavery.
But I’ll be damned if any of those atrocities will make me defend the human suffering caused by the Chinese or Russian regimes. To me, being a socialist means standing up for the little guy, judging a society by how we care for those who have the least. The only us vs them struggle there is, is the one between the working and the ruling class - not the one between east and west. Idolising Zedong only puts another Emperor on a pedestal. I say fuck them all, western or eastern rulers and billionaires, they’re the real enemies of a social and equal world.
There’s a propaganda push in the west to demonize China, with the obvious goal of creating consent for a potential war. Even the Trotskyists of wsws.org (which have no favorable view of China) usually defend China from fake or misleading shit. Repeating US propaganda uncritically, or even criticizing China for good reason without proper context, is helping the US propaganda machine bring us to the brink of annihilation.
It’s important to be truthful and fair, and not encourage sinophobia and war propaganda, so be careful when criticizing China.
Whether it’s China or really anything, I’d agree to being critical of any claims made without proper context, yet the context here is the massacre and subsequent cover-up perpetrated by the Chinese government following peaceful protests on the Tiananmen square.
Meeting that with whataboutisms and vague excuses is disrespectful towards the victims full stop.
Being a socialist should be easy, because truth is on our side. It should be easy to point to Tiananmen square and say “this is what happens when the ruling class feels threatened”, just like you can say the same thing when the US government busts their unions or murders their black citizens. Being an unquestioning supporter of either of these regimes is not what socialism is to me, and it never was. I just don’t understand how anyone can reconcile these opposing views in their heads.
Imagine there’s this guy at your work, who every day brings up some crime or another, but somehow the perpetrator is always black. So you tell him “Can you talk about something else?”, to which they get defensive and say “Why don’t you want to talk about this? Can’t we all agree that this is bad?”. If you let this situation go on for too long, you’ll soon find your workplace taken over by open racism, and everybody who’s uncomfortable with this is going to quit, reinforcing this trend.
This is what’s happening on almost all western social media, and society in general, regarding China. Open sinophobia, hate speech, and calls for violence.
That does explain the issue in a much more understandable way to me, and I thank you for not assuming I’m here just to argue.
I guess my slice of the social media “bubble” has always been more left leaning so I tend to see much more criticism of NATO and the US and haven’t really thought much about criticism of China since to me at least it has seemed fairly balanced or at least not too imbalanced.
Also, maybe read this thread on Twitter and also follow the sources there, as you seem to be under the false impression that the protests were entirely peaceful.
Threads on Twitter are usually not a very compelling source, I am not against changing my opinion if the evidence is compelling, but that was not it.
See for example how the question is answered over on r/askhistorians:
Well sourced with actual recent publications and honest as to what the uncertainties are.
Why, also, do you conflate violence against workers or minorities with violence against liberals (and people mislead and cynically used by said liberals). These are not the same thing, and no socialist I know is opposed to political violence in principle. And neither, by the way, are liberals. One of these things is clearly always wrong, the other is or is not, depending on the circumstances.
Most I know are generally opposed to violence, with some exceptions allowed for any revolution or class struggle.
When it comes to countries like the US or China, using violence in the form of the military or police against your own population is such a big difference in power that any violence ought to be as minimal as possible.
Using tanks and rifles against a group of civilians is so far beyond that, that it’s not within what I think any of the IRL socialists I know would deem appropriate or acceptable.
Not sure I’ve seen many reports of the USA jailing or disappearing its own citizens when they dare speak up about said atrocities.
Yeah, like Julian Assange? Who’s that guy? No idea.
Dont forget snowden!
Inb4 libs call him a Russian spy.
So clearly- if I go to Washington DC and start protesting in the street on behalf of these people (who I’d agree are being persecuted unjustly, despite one of them being Australian), I’ll be taken away and jailed within minutes, right?
Do you mean like this?
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/20/politics/blm-protesters-analysis/index.html https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2022/02/22/fact-check-thousands-black-lives-matter-protesters-arrested-2020/6816074001/ https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/08/us/dc-police-arrests-blm-capitol-insurrection-invs/index.html https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/08/george-floyd-killing-police-arrest-non-violent-protesters
I mean literally standing near the White House, with a large sign condemning the administration for not dropping its case against Assange, or Edward Snowden, BLM protestors, or whatever other situation I’m unhappy about.
Is there an expectation that I’m going to be carted off and sentenced with subversion, ‘endangerment of national security’, or whatever other nonsense you’re guaranteed to find in an actual totalitarian system like the PRC’s?
Only if you’re not white.
To be fair, Julian is not USA’s “own citizen”.
True, unsure if it makes it better or worse, though, to be detaining other countries’ citizens because you are literally doing journalism.
You boys seem to have that handled.
@Senokir @Solaris1789 I hope they don’t ban you
If this community doesn’t welcome people who actively fight against misinformation then I am more than happy to be banned.
It is my understanding that that has been the case for a long time, yes. But I also hope that with the large influx of new users that we will overshadow any bad actors attempting to spread misinformation.
@Senokir @realcaseyrollins Yeah we should nuke Beijing.
?
Did anyone here suggest that we do such a thing?
Don’t bother posting if you have nothing interesting to contribute.
If this was reddit i’d be concerned but there isnt any censorship here i know of
@Solaris1789 Didn’t the #Lemmy software literally use to have a hardcoded blocklist of words it wouldn’t let you use?
By words you mean slurs?
@raresbears Yeah, although there were some other words that were banned as well IIRC
There were words like “sl**” that where normal words in Danish or something like that, which caused issues with multi language stuff, that’s why it was removed.
Meanwhile in Taiwan, the island’s equivalent of the Tiananmen massacre from the KMT dictatorship (the 228 incident) has its own memorial park and museum.
No need for a self-inflicted legitimacy crisis when you respect your citizens’ basic rights.
Wow. There’s a lot of CCP folks working the federated space.
One of the big instances, Lemmygrad, is basically dedicated to that crowd. If the influx of Reddit refugees doesn’t counterbalance them then at some point I’ll probably move to an instance that doesn’t federate with them.
I’ve already done the same, can recommend it
Could just block it, that way you don’t have to see it, and don’t have to start a new account.
Sure, though I like the idea of more explicitly supporting instances with better quality control.
Seems like there’s also no way around blocking individual users who openly support fascists.
Can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen?
an unknown number of deaths… yet calls it a massacre
It’s a large number, but it’s hard to tell how large because the CPC keeps that information tightly under wraps. The official statement claimed just 200, but recently declassified diplomatic cables from the UK give an estimate of 10,000 dead (source). The original source was inside China’s State Council. It’s important to remember that the actions taken that day were far from universally supported even inside the party. There was a massive purge afterward of officials that were deemed to be sympathetic to the protestors.
Edit: This estimate likely has fog of war issues itself, though, since it was sent so shortly after the massacre. Other estimates are far lower, but still much higher than the official figures. The CPC does not want to admit the extent that it screwed up and killed its own citizens.
10,000 is absurd and it’s a disgrace that the absolute bullshit reporting that some hack journos gave at the time is still treated credibly. Do you think there were machine guns on roofs and tanks deliberately pulping bodies, too?
That’s what I said in the edit. That said, the CPC really isn’t helping the situation. They have shown themselves to be highly untrustworthy when it comes to any level of transparency.
Citation: Other stories as-covered by western media. The CPC has censorship laws, but when they actually publish official statistics on something, those are pretty accurate. Their estimate on Tiananmen fatalities is much more like the statistics published by most journalists than the 10k number or even that hack’s revised 2k - 3k count, and their accounting of events is much more like the ones that have held up over time among western journalists (the square was cleared without killings, there weren’t machine guns on rooftops, most protestors left peacefully, there was no mulching of corpses, etc.)
There were many estimates from western press at the time that were in the realm of reason, those claiming it was a few hundred dead. There’s no excuse for the 10k guy unless you want to argue he suffers from hallucinations.
You’re essentially relying on cultural osmosis from the same culture that uncritically parrots the 10k figure and other such nonsense that you see spouted on Reddit. If you keep digging, eventually you will find that just about every story holding up that Ba Sing Se vibe is a fabrication.
There’s no excuse for the 10k guy unless you want to argue he suffers from hallucinations.
There’s a pretty good excuse. He was told a piece of information by a source
You’re essentially relying on cultural osmosis from the same culture that uncritically parrots the 10k figure and other such nonsense that you see spouted on Reddit.
I brought that specific one up because I found it first, but walked it back when I found out it was unreliable. But more broadly, I’m looking at hundreds of citizens being killed by their own government. In the US, the closest to that was race riots against Black people that ended a hundred years ago. We’re not censoring discussion of them and there are efforts to reconcile with the nation’s past, even if some dullards don’t want their precious feelings hurt.
There’s a pretty good excuse. He was told a piece of information by a source
Oh, “a source” gave him information that was completely incongruous with any observation made by people on the ground? It sure seems like using “a source” to launder absolute bullshit would be effective if it can merely be brushed off after the fact, so it’s a good thing western rags don’t do that constantly.
I brought that specific one up because I found it first, but walked it back when I found out it was unreliable
That’s the lovely thing about anglosphere propaganda, you don’t need to censor the truth (well, mostly) so long as you make your version of a story a thousand times more accessible than the other versions of that story.
But more broadly, I’m looking at hundreds of citizens being killed by their own government.
Remember the death total there includes soldiers, and we are talking about militants who killed unarmed soldiers clashing with the PLA, with students being deliberately driven into the crossfire by student leaders.
In the US, the closest to that was race riots against Black people that ended a hundred years ago.
If we mean “against their own citizens” then, uh, sure, I acknowledge that the types of conflict the US is involved in is very different from what China does. China fights off color revolutionaries domestically while the US kills millions abroad, an unknowable number of migrants, and is in a constant process of lynching black people and occasionally protestors to those lynchings.
We’re not censoring discussion of them
Are you kidding? There’ve been ongoing efforts for the country’s history to censor discussions even just of chattel slavery in schools, to say nothing about how talking about the summary executions otherwise referred to as “officer-involved shootings” are basically considered satanic CRT material and any attempt to call the no-note-“suicide”-by-hanging of BLM organizers a lynching when the cops say otherwise makes you a conspiracy theorist.
Can you imagine if this happened just once in China? An ethnic minority pretty much ritually murdered in the form of historic violence against that ethnicity, written off as “suicide” and brushed under the rug with no further contest, despite of protests from the victims’ parents that the thesis makes no sense.
and there are efforts to reconcile with the nation’s past
The current head of state, the leader of the so-called left wing party, is an unrepentant segregationist who justified his actions with a “states’ rights” argument as recently as, like, 2019 (and he just hasn’t been challenged on it since). Do you think the dashiki stunt helped us towards reconciliation? There is no effort to “reconcile” with shit. There’s an allowance for more black drone pilots, but reparations or even just basic restitution for the destruction and theft wrought on black communities is a pipe dream.
China teaches about the June 4th incident in its schools, it’s a matter of public knowledge, and claims to the contrary are made by ignorant redditors who read 1984 and just kind of imagine what China’s domestic policy is based on vibes.