Struggle session engage. Post your pathetic arguments so that I and the other China Good Posters can dismantle them and you can learn.

Key points:

  • China is a democracy. It is arguably the most functional and responsive democracy in a major country today. Its citizens consider it more democratic than the citizens of almost any other country do their own.

  • China is on a clear path to socialism and economic justice. No nation in history has ever reduced poverty in anything like the way China is doing it.

  • The vast majority of people in the PRC support the CPC. This is not due to being brainwashed. Americans are brainwashed and still hate their government.

  • Almost everything you hear about China in the West sits on a spectrum between malicious misrepresentation to outright fabrication with no basis in reality.

  • China's ascension to the premiere global power is an extremely good thing for world peace and the global socialist movement. While China does not actively support other socialisms (sadly it's not as good as the USSR in this regard) it does not do imperialism. China will allow socialisms around the world to flourish simply by not actively crushing them like the US and Europe.

    • yeahhhhhhhhhboiii [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      I will dig up some links one day and post to c/sino, but here's the situation:

      • In China, the government has literal websites and apps where people can leave their views and opinions about various policies. The local government uses these opinions to inform themselves on whether this policy is popular, whether its effective, and the people's grievances with said policy.

      -Very popular social media sites such as Weibo and Sina are also used to assess the opinions of the masses on politics

      • There is voting for politicians, especially at the local level. The system is called the "Three ups and the three downs" （三上三下). Beyond the local, lower levels, the government promotes those who have performed the best. The government officials essentially have to compete with each other at every level, and this is what brings great efficacy to the system in China. This competition extends up the government to entire provinces, competing for the best performance and highest satisfaction.

      • The people express dissatisfaction with their local government by protests. By protesting, the central government in Beijing knows there is an issue, and this is usually sorted by removing the local official and replacing them. Interestingly, this is why the more protests there are in China, the more support there is for the CPC. You can think of it like this, the Central government is the one you call upon when local officials act up, and when they sort it out, you are even more satisfied with the CPC than before.

      -That's all I can think of for now, I'll add more to an effortpost in c/sino one day, please look out for it!

      • CommieGirl69 [he/him]
        ·
        4 years ago

        Beyond the local, lower levels, the government promotes those who have performed the best.

        i've heard this being called "confucian meritocracy", got no idea if it's a good expression for it, but it honestly looks far better than periodically choosing officials from a list of candidates to me

      • PaulRyansWorkoutTape [none/use name]
        15·
        4 years ago

        In China, the government has literal websites and apps where people can leave their views and opinions about various policies.

        And a history of murdering the people who complain when prompted like this...

        • yeahhhhhhhhhboiii [none/use name]
          1·
          4 years ago

          Yeah sure, they kill gazillions of their own people.

          Edit: No but seriously, you maybe don't understand just how varied political opinion is in China, but there is PLENTY of variety, with plenty of people behind each variety as well. Obviously the overton window is shifted left in chinese politics, but there is variety, and they are allowed to express it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have headaches when I go onto Weibo, the platform notorious for white worshippers and capitalist-shills.

          • PaulRyansWorkoutTape [none/use name]
            1·
            4 years ago

            So you're denying that people died in the cultural revolution?

            Or you just think murdering statistics worth of people is a joke?

            you maybe don’t understand just how varied political opinion is in China, but there is PLENTY of variety

            This is a roundabout way of implying without sticking your neck out and saying "China doesn't kill political dissidents"

            Are you actually claiming this? Or that free speech is allowed to go further than posting?

            • yeahhhhhhhhhboiii [none/use name]
              1·
              4 years ago

              Lol when tf did I say no one died in the cultural revolution? Don't stick words into my mouth and try to argue against it, bad form.

              Also, when did I say that murdering political dissidents is a funny joke?

              I'm saying that there is political dissident, and no, not all of them are killed because if they were, most of China would fucking disappear. You know that there are multiple parties within China right? Including the KMT? So yes, there is freedom to have different political views, and even have a place in government.

              Furthermore, I'm not sure why you are so obsessed with free speech. It is not very useful to bitch about Trump on twitter, when you're dying of Covid because he is incompetent. So yes in a sense, the west is very free in speech, and you are also free to starve in the streets, free to go into lifelong debt for education etc.

              And don't get me started on how the West kills political dissidents. You're beyond naive if you thing the free and mighty west doesn't kill rebels, and then co-opts their image and whitewash them of all their revolutionary intent. That shit takes real skill.

            • Janked [he/him]
              1·
              4 years ago

              Okay - you wanna find it and link it?

                • Janked [he/him]
                  1·
                  4 years ago

                  This site has a pretty robust search feature, and if you're making these claims, you should be able to back them up.

                  • PaulRyansWorkoutTape [none/use name]
                    5·
                    4 years ago

                    Yeah, fuck me for piping up about a discussion I remember and not remembering the exact search terms that will bring it up. Next time I just won't participate and only people who agree will participate in the 'convince people who disagree' thread.

                    Really fucking helps when all the post titles are ironic shit like 'is dis u?'

                    I've been trying to find it this whole time people have been downvoting me and replying with snide shit and I'm already past 'fuck it'.

                    • Janked [he/him]
                      1·
                      4 years ago

                      I mean if you're admitting you don't really know what you're talking about that deeply, and you're just saying something you remembered you saw in another thread - but can't remember any details at all about that thread, and can't provide other sources backing up your (quite extreme) claim...I expect you to get shit on, sorry.

                      • PaulRyansWorkoutTape [none/use name]
                        7·
                        4 years ago

                        Well I have the memory of all of the revisionists on this website acknowledging it then and pretending they don't know what I'm talking about now, so I give this 'convince people china is not actually bad' thread an A+

                          • PaulRyansWorkoutTape [none/use name]
                            2·
                            4 years ago

                            "the cultural revolution never happened because you can't find a thread with an unsearchable title"

                            A+ outreach. I love the pompous frills from this last reply.

                            I guess the only way to have an actual conversation about Mao or the Chinese government is to keep a list of every negative thing you ever hear about them, which I guess I must now actively seek out. Hope that was what you were going for.

                            Of course none of the 'China experts' in here will help jog my memory.

                              • PaulRyansWorkoutTape [none/use name]
                                3·
                                4 years ago

                                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution

                                "If you can't find a thread with an unsearchable name, that means you didn't actually see the thread or read what it was about"

                                Cool.

    • CommieGirl69 [he/him]
      1·
      4 years ago

      The bullet points are good but you need to back up the democracy stuff more because it’s not really widely known how regular Chinese people participate in politics.

      i don't know much about how the system itself works, but i think we have some weird normative conceptions of democracy that aren't very helpful and this is the wrong way to go about it tbh

      i only consider 2 basic things when i'm thinking about democracy to avoid falling into normative stuff:

      1. we can't define anything as a straight up democracy or dictatorship, because like everything in reality these values exist in degrees

      2. the more responsive the government is to popular demands, the more democratic i consider it to be

      the chinese government is pretty responsive to popular demands, much more so than mine (brazil), so i don't really mind how they're elected or acquire administrative powers or whatever

    • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
      4·
      4 years ago

      Tbh there's just a limit to how much effort I can put into this right now

        • jack [he/him, comrade/them]
          1·
          4 years ago

          I'm relying on a lot of other good posters in here to help pick up some of the slack and utilizing my real skill of shit-stirring