To admonish, you'd have to
1) Stop buying Chinese made products
2) Stop US violations of human rights (gitmo)
Frankly, without doing this, you'd never be able to admonish and have it carry any real weight with Chinese policy makers. They'd just see a black pot calling out the kettle.
They'd just see a black pot calling out the kettle.
Not they would. They DO. But honestly, despite its evident corruption that even their own leader admits is the biggest threat to the viability of their government, their government still strikes me as more competent in a gets-shit-done way than most other countries I see these days (considering only G20 countries, the smaller your country is, the less complex your problems are, and consider that China's problems are MASSIVE).
Canadian living in China, amazed by how well things get done here, despite the massive problems they have. Albeit they aren't a democracy, so they don't need to care as much about doing what people want. On the flip side, the government is focusing mostly on what people want anyway, so it mostly works out. People who are ignorant about China are significantly ignorant about how well-run their government is. It's much more of a meritocracy than other countries' governments are, despite the evident corruption.
I'm not justifying abusing human rights. I am torn in that I don't know how they keep a handle on their country if they don't have an iron fist. I find that most people who say otherwise are ignorant about the complex reality in China. It's not a simple situation.
The problem highlighted here is that a lack of free press in China means you will never know the scale of corruption, especially at a provincial level. Unless you have access to a vast underground network of informers, I don't much trust your view that the government is 'well-run'.
I'd say the question is what does "well-run" mean? Does it mean infrastructure is getting built at a high-quality level, GDP per capita is rising, life expectancy is increasing, quality of life is increasing, and so on? All of that stuff is happening in China, and the world doesn't require a free press to confirm that. Again, people who don't know much about China don't know about the details of what's happening on the ground. They just see all this fear-mongering in the press about how horrible and evil China and its government is. The truth is always much more nuanced.
Everyone lives in their own echo chamber. Just some people aren't aware that they do. If Clinton supporters didn't live in such an echo chamber, they wouldn't have realized how out of touch they were with all the people who voted for Trump, and how angry all those Trump supporters were at the establishment. If the Trump supporters didn't live in such an echo chamber, they wouldn't have elected someone who looks like he doesn't know what he's doing.
Again, Xi Jiping is on record saying that corruption is the biggest risk being faced by the Chinese government. He is on record saying that the Communist Party's future depends on stamping out corruption. Their methods for identifying and stamping out corruption may or may not work. But it is disingenuous for anyone to suggest that their government is either ignorant of the level of corruption or actively trying to hide it. You didn't say that. But constantly focusing on corruption is preaching to the choir.
Would a free press help? It may, it may not. It may not because a free press is also a blunt instrument. You have a large percentage of the population that's uneducated and easily manipulated. Think fake news and alternative facts are a problem in the US? China does not want to open that Pandora's Box. Seeing what's happening in the US, I don't blame them. A lot of China's problems require finesse in terms of sound long-term policy and policy execution, and I am sad to say that after living here for a while, I agree that a free press could whip uneducated masses into an unproductive frenzy. This situation is very dissimilar to how Wycliffe, Huss, and Luther translated the Bible to English to free them from control of the Catholic Church. These people are often literate already, thank you very much.
> Does it mean infrastructure is getting built at a high-quality level, GDP per capita is rising, life expectancy is increasing, quality of life is increasing, and so on
No, that says nothing about how we'll run a country is. China imported a lot of ideas and technology which enables progress without competence. You can compare median per capita earnings after modernization to get an idea of competence but so far China has taken much longer to modernize than for example Japan or South Korea suggesting huge issues even if the GDP numbers are not quite terrible. Further, they where starting from huge self inflicted wounds due to massive incompetence, a 30% drop in output, and corruption leading to millions of deaths from starvation.
Yeah, South Korea is doing REALLY well right now. Speaking as someone who has South Korean roots. @@
Yes, they are starting from huge self-inflicted wounds, which you accurately quantify. My own personal view is that China is not fixable. I don't think it has a bright future. It's Japan with less education, less innovation, and a bigger biological time bomb. That doesn't change the fact that I respect the heck out of its modern day government post-Deng Xiaoping. They were dealt a horrible hand, and they are staying in the game longer than I thought possible.
> I am sad to say that after living here for a while, I agree that a free press could whip uneducated masses into an unproductive frenzy
That's astonishing. You think so little of your fellow countrymen that you don't trust them to receive information from sources other than the government?
Look at other countries that have introduced freedom of speech laws. I cannot recall countries being destroyed by such unproductive frenzies, but I do remember corrupt politicians being forced out of power, and people standing up for the rights of individuals, etc.
Why do you assume they are my countrymen? I said I'm Canadian. Furthermore, I point to where fake news and alternative facts have led the US. Freedom of the press is a double-edged sword that is only wielded properly in the hands of the just and intelligent. I am sad that I have this conclusion these days.
Fake news and alternative facts have not led the US anywhere. Donald Trump had no endorsements from any nationally-available newspaper. Newspapers across the US were full of unflattering reports about both candidates, and ultimately Clinton's unfavourability in the swing states meant a lot of people stayed home.
Now the press is as vital as ever – Trump's favourability ratings are at historic lows, and there are countless stories about the disarray in the White House. That's good (from my perspective). None of that would be possible in China, as there's no press to hold leaders to account.
Venezuela had freedom of the press when the populist Chavez grasped power. Guess the first thing he did.
In the US, the populist Trump is trying to get the same effect with the "the press is all lies, trust only what I say" rhetoric.
The antidote to lies is education, and it's not in the interest of an authoritarian regime to educate its population to the point where they can question the state's propaganda. So the only way out to freedom seems to be to start with independent (even if illegal) press.
>You think so little of your fellow countrymen that you don't trust them to receive information from sources other than the government?
He clearly said that he was Canadian.
I'm American, and my countrymen just elected someone who's clearly incompetent to the highest office in the land (and in the primary elections before, the other party chose someone who's clearly corrupt as the opposition candidate). I don't really trust my countrymen either.
>Look at other countries that have introduced freedom of speech laws. I cannot recall countries being destroyed by such unproductive frenzies, but I do remember corrupt politicians being forced out of power, and people standing up for the rights of individuals, etc.
Have you forgotten the Arab Spring? That wasn't really from free speech laws per se, but it was fueled by social media which acts the same. A bunch of dictators were forced out of power or killed, and then the people proceeded to elect Islamic extremists to power, as in Egypt where they elected the Muslim Brotherhood, who then proceeded to oppress minorities. Libya is a complete mess now, and Syria has been going through a brutal civil war for over 5 years now. Those countries were better off under their previous dictatorships. I think all evidence points to democratic systems and freedom of press and information being a very bad thing in places where the populace is uneducated and incapable of electing decent leaders. It isn't even working very well in America. It works great in places like Norway and Switzerland though, places where the populace is highly educated.
> Have you forgotten the Arab Spring? That wasn't really from free speech laws per se, but it was fueled by social media which acts the same.
No, it was fuelled by decades of oppression by leaders propped up by Western powers, most especially the oppression of Islamic elements that had nevertheless enjoyed widespread public support.
To ascribe that failure to "freedom of speech" is, it seems, a gross violation of reality.
> the world doesn't require a free press to confirm that
Well, yes, we do.
I also can't imagine how Chinese people could ever know those without a free press. They can at most gather some anecdotes about them and their family, such anecdotes are almost guaranteed to be highly correlated and thus useless for knowing any overall trend.
I'd propose that a free press is not a binary thing. Sure, by definition, if all we care about is government censorship and intimidation, China's press is not free. But if we want to see the root issue of good quality, comprehensive, bias-free news, most media (at least in the US according to the following study) fails the test [0].
That said, are you suggesting that highly-correlated, anecdotal evidence of having more wealth, better quality social services, and not currently suffering in a retrogressive cultural revolution can't be trusted because there is no free press to tell people that their quality of living is definitely trending upwards?
It is certainly not a binary thing. But as the saying goes, a big enough quantitative difference becomes a qualitative difference.
The US government can not lie too much about the US wealth. Somebody would immediately call the lie, and people would become mad. Even here at Brazil, that scales way lower on press freedom, the government can not lie about any objective measure of wealth (but has extensive lies about subjective ones). The Chinese government seems to lie about their numbers every single time - everybody just discounts them by now, but there is no reason to assume the official numbers have even the correct signal.
And yes, I'm saying exactly that. People there have no way of knowing if for anybody they see progressing in life there isn't a dozen other having their life ruined, because those later dozen are invisible.
People there have no way of knowing if for anybody they see progressing in life there isn't a dozen other having their life ruined, because those later dozen are invisible.
If you want to make claims, you better have evidence to back it up. Because what people experience in China is a significant increase of quality of life at all levels. Yes, the income inequality is huge. Yes, a huge amount of wealth is generated by capitalists on the backs of factory workers. That doesn't mean that the poor are worse off than they were before. Lifting tide truly lifts all boats in China. Yes, there are significant suspicions that China lies about its numbers. That doesn't change the seeing eye test that people in China are way better off than they were 10 years ago. I know a girl who moved to Shenzhen at 16 years old to join a factory. She's approaching 30 now, just finished her university degree, and has a career in advertising. She started out as an uneducated country girl. Her story is common. Those who never make it out of the factory? Fact of the matter is, their quality of life is still better than if they did something else. The book Factory Girls by Leslie Chang is an incredibly insightful look into the lives of these people.
An incompetent government turns its potential into garbage. See Argentina, Brazil, India, and others. Each of those countries could be so much farther than they are, but they shot themselves in the foot due to corruption, poor economic planning, and poor infrastructure planning. China started at the same starting line as many of them. I remember attending the Asia Pacific AmCham thingy in Beijing in 2010. The big story was how India was the future poised for becoming the big story. Here we are seven years later with India still treading water in the same place it was before due to political deadlock and corruption.
But as the saying goes, a big enough quantitative difference becomes a qualitative difference.
As such, it's possible to verify whether or not things are working. Whether or not things will last, that's a completely different story that's yet to be told. I'll admit my own prediction is that China's problems are too big for any human institution to solve, it will likely implode. But that's neither here nor there regarding this topic if we're comparing past to present, given the complexity of their problems.
What do I have to do to get you to understand that I give respect to today's Chinese government, not Mao's Chinese government? Even inside China, all the Chinese people I know acknowledge that Mao had crazy and stupid ideas, especially during the Cultural Revolution.
Seeing Eye Test. I go and volunteer regularly in remote poor villages in multiple provinces to help run little camps for kids, including orphans, in my spare time. I talk with these people. I listen to what they tell me. I see how they live.
>Does it mean infrastructure is getting built at a high-quality level, GDP per capita is rising, life expectancy is increasing, quality of life is increasing, and so on?
The OP is not invoking whataboutism. It's actually an important point. If the US (or any other western country) tries to admonish China there are plenty of human rights violations in our own countries which China will come back with. The point is that they will be able to engage in whataboutism. In global politics hypocrisy (why do we need to call it whataboutism?) is going to come back to bite you.
No, it's textbook false equivalency. When Gitmo was called "the gulag of our time", the UN failed to mention that while Gitmo had about 150 prisoners at it's peak, Sibera had tens of millions.
> In global politics hypocrisy (why do we need to call it whataboutism?) is going to come back to bite you.
No, that is exactly the very definition of a whataboutism!
Many Chinese feel like they always need the high ground, and if their criticiser is not "perfect", whatever they say is null and void. This is just nuts, because no one is perfect.
What do US torture camps have anything to do with BBC journalists? Really, what?
And anyways, how do US torture camps compare to Chinese torture camps? Its not like China is a paragon of virtue here, torture by the police is a huge problem that even the gov admits to (hey, police shouldn't torture people, please don't, it makes us look bad).
> When the US preaches about human rights it devalues the concept.
And who is the "US"? It is like some unified person that speaks with one voice? Is the NyTimes the US? Is the BBC the US? When I speak out on China, am I the US?
> That makes it harder to hold countries like China to account.
That is a straw man. We can't hold China to account for their human rights behavior, we have no right to do that. But we can damn be sure that everyone knows about it. I would expect the same for other countries with respect to the US.
When people speak of a country admonishing or lecturing another, they refer to their respective governments.
> how do US torture camps compare to Chinese torture camps?
Bringing the conversation there is super weird. A torture camp is not a normal thing for a civilized country to have.
The US government failed to dismantle it for 8 years when it had a democratic mandate to do that. Now, with a president elected after proclaiming torture a fine thing, when a western country tells a dictator to stop human rights abuse, they can just shut the conversation with "tell your American friend to stop it first".
Yes they aren't. But as you clai. Guantanamo bay is one, well, china has plenty of examples of that. America has first world problems, china has third world problems, different scales completely.
Anyways, this whataboutism-ing is idiotic. If you want to talk about the USA whenever we are talking about china fine, but why don't you start a separate article submission.
"Actually, the principle that I think we ought to follow is the principle we rightly expected Soviet dissidents to follow. So what principle did we expect Sakharov [a Soviet scientist punished for his criticism of the U.S.S.R.] to follow? Why did people here decide that Sakharov was a moral person? I think he was. Sakharov did not treat every atrocity as identical-he had nothing to say about American atrocities. When he was asked about them, he said, "I don't know anything about them, I don't care about them, what I talk about are Soviet atrocities." And that was right-because those were the ones that he was responsible for, and that he might have been able to influence. Again, it's a very simple ethical point: you are responsible for the predictable consequences of your actions, you're not responsible for the predictable consequences of somebody else's actions."
So, my sins don't matter, let's ALWAYS focus on the other side's sins.
AKA my country, right or wrong.
AKA, refusal to accept that value judgements are relative, not god given absolutes.
AKA, priority (let's focus on X and only X now) without actually prioritizing (let's compare to see if X is actually the major offender we should be focusing on)
There's 41 people in Guatanamo, but there's 1.3 billion people in China. Sure there might be human right issues in the US and in other Western democracies but not at the same scale as China.
Who said this should be limited to Guatanamo? E.g. there are 1.5 million people in US prisons, the 25% of the world's prison population for a country with a mere 4% of the world's people. Predominantly black too. How's that not a huge human rights issue? Or the police abuse/innocent shootings, in numbers unheard of even in developing backwater countries?
But even more so, who said the 1.3 billion people in China are "victims" needing our compassion? Have you asked them whether they like their government and how their country is going?
And don't just ask some group back in the 90s in Tiananmen square -- because we could always ask the Kent State students in 1970, the blacks in Selma, the OWS, the Tea Party, the ones protesting against Bush/Obama/Trump etc and get a picture that wouldn't necessarily be what most of American's feel too.
There surely are human right abuses in China.
But it's the Chinese (the people, not the government) that should define what they are, through their own values and preferences, not some finger pointing foreigners. Especially from countries with a large history of plundering, which also involves China (opium wars, etc) and most of the Pacific.
> But even more so, who said the 1.3 billion people in China are "victims" needing our compassion? Have you asked them whether they like their government and how their country is going?
From the article
"We'd arranged to meet a woman in her village in China's central Hunan Province and to then travel with her by train to Beijing, filming as we went.
But we never did get to meet our interviewee.
The story we ended up with, however, reveals more about the exercise of power in China than any interview ever could.
It is one that involves violence, intimidation and a forced confession - my first in my long reporting experience in China - in which I found myself apologising for "behaviour causing a bad impact" and for trying to conduct an "illegal interview"."
So, yes, this exact story is about asking Chinese people about their government and having their equipment smashed and being forced to sign confessions for their efforts.
It should certainly be for the Chinese to define these things, the fact they can't is rather the point.
> But even more so, who said the 1.3 billion people in China are "victims" needing our compassion? Have you asked them whether they like their government and how their country is going?
> We were surprised when many women in Afghanistan didn’t take them off after being “liberated,” seeing as they had become such symbols of oppression in the West. But we were confusing veiling with a lack of agency.
Agency doesn't mean "the will of the majority", it means individual ability. The Taliban imposing veiling removed agency. Now it's given back. Even if no more than a single woman in Afghanistan willingly removed the veil, it's still a good thing. If 10 years from now 100% of the women there decide they don't want to wear it anymore, they'll (hopefully) be able. Not under the Taliban.
> many women saw it as a liberating invention because it enabled them to move out of segregated living spaces while still observing the requirements of separating and protecting women from unrelated men.
I see how it can be liberating in that way for a woman whose religious beliefs make separation and protection a moral mandate. The difference, of course, is that religious beliefs shouldn't be imposed, and the Taliban did impose them.
> If we think that U.S. women live in a world of choice regarding clothing, we need to look no further than our own codes of dress and the often constricting tyrannies of fashion.
This is the most ridiculous argument. Of the many many women of the free countries that purposely dress against the norm, none are sent to jail, stoned to death, or whatever.
I agree with your statement of agency, but the problem the article was pointing to was the view of the veil as an oppressive device. Despite claiming to be a freedom-loving country, France (Liberté, Equalité, Fraternité) did no better by its Muslim women by removing their agency.
> I see how it can be liberating in that way for a woman whose religious beliefs make separation and protection a moral mandate.
Huh? I think you're mixing up religious beliefs with social ones. This mandate is not unique to Islam and can be found all over the world in societies of varying development and even Christian ones. In fact, you should look at pictures of pre-revolution Iran [0] as proof that Islam itself is not incompatible with women mingling with men or not being veiled.
> This is the most ridiculous argument. Of the many many women of the free countries that purposely dress against the norm, none are sent to jail, stoned to death, or whatever.
Oh really? Men have been beat for wearing drag or for dressing effeminately. (or if you care specifically about women, see: transgender women) Gang members kill people over the color of their shirt or shoes. It's still illegal in most states for women to go topless. Just because you're not forced to wear a veil, doesn't mean you aren't oppressed by society's fashion.
What the French legislative does doesn't define what liberty and agency mean.
> proof that Islam itself is not incompatible with women mingling with men or not being veiled
There are many branches of Islam, the same as there are many branches of Christianity.
In any case, my point was just that I can see how it's liberating for someone who would have personally chosen separation anyway. The Taliban imposed it. The author's argument that "many women saw it as a liberating invention" is like saying "many African slaves did live happy lives in the US south, and remained with their masters after liberation". Even if it's factually true, it's dishonest. If the veil's so good, let each woman choose.
> Men have been beat for wearing drag or for dressing effeminately. (or if you care specifically about women, see: transgender women) Gang members kill people over the color of their shirt or shoes.
You know that has nothing to do with fashion, which is what the author talks about. And you know those things are illegal, as opposed to mandated by law. So I don't think you're being frank in this conversation, rather just arguing for the sake of it.
If you think no one's talking about fashion then you didn't read the essay well, nor my initial response to it:
> we need to look no further than our own codes of dress and the often constricting tyrannies of fashion.
Codes of dress, and tyrannies of fashion.
As I said, this is the most ridiculous argument. Of the many many women of the free countries that purposely dress against the norm, none are sent to jail, stoned to death, or whatever.
> you make disingenuous statements like "mandated by law"
Maybe I'm misinformed. I honestly believe the Taliban government imposed that all women had to wear a veil. Is that not the case?
US human rights violations surely do not all take place within the confines of Guantanamo Bay, nor are all of China's 1.3 billion people subject to mistreatment.
> AKA, refusal to accept that value judgements are relative, not god given absolutes.
Even in China, the dispensation of justice is relative, which is what the article is about. I suppose you're OK with that too. Next you'll be telling us nobody can accuse the Chinese judicial system of corruption because the Americans are lynching Negroes.
Actually human rights are universal. China doesn't recognize that, sure. It doesn't give them special rights. Legal rights within their borders are theirs to adjudicate, sure, but they are still wrong to suppress journalists for instance.
ah, "let he who is without sin throw the first stone" an oldie but a goodie.
in other words, only the infallible may criticize anyone/thing? that seems counterproductive.
If my hair is messed up and i tell a stranger that their hair is messed up, does that make me wrong? should they ignore what i said because /my/ hair is messed up?
Invocation of whataboutism is a mind bug and a lazy excuse to be one-sided that has to die.
And it's not just a "let's focus on X FOR NOW" issue (which would still be wrong, as issues should be judged relatively to gauge their importance).
It's mainly invoked by people who never bother to point fingers on the non-X sides, so the "let's focus on X FOR NOW" is more like "let's focus on X permanently".
Invocation of whataboutism is not a mind bug. It's the problem of never acknowledging your own issues and deflecting the criticism/concerns.
The hypothetical interaction that would go "US: Hey China, we worry about your policy X. China: Hey US, we sort of understand where you're coming from, given your history. We also see similar issue with some of your policies..." would be perfectly fine.
Stopping buying Chinese products isn't going to help anyone in China and isn't going to hurt the Chinese government even slightly. In fact arguably supporting the growth of the economy outside the government sector in the long term could be the single most important factor in opening the country up by lkeading ona path from expectations of property rights to expectations of civil rights.
Frankly there is very little we as individuals outside China can directly do about the situation over there. Maybe contribute to some charities or such that operate in China? They have to be very careful not to be seen as interfering politically, but just the fact of them existing and doing good work can help establish a culture of civic engagement and responsibility.
Your second point is bang on. Restrictions on free speech and rights, intrusions into private life and communications over here, all of that is hugely harmful not just to ourselves but also to our moral authority and expectations of civil liberties across the world.
Then you still need to have a perspective (which includes seeing what all players are doing) instead of merely choosing one side.
Especially since lots of those not living in the US, e.g. in large parts of Europe still take a lot of US-based worldviews and US-influenced news in (the "Americanization of Europe").
Your point is that the 41 people held at Guantanamo Bay invalidate every human rights criticism made by an American? I don't follow. You don't need to think the Gitmo nether void is a good or just thing to realize that there are staggeringly larger human rights violations in the world...
Ad hominem appeal to hypocrisy (tu quoque) is not a valid argument. The pot can call the kettle black, and be objectively correct. The kettle can then call the pot black, and be objectively correct. It makes no difference if neither one subsequently goes over to the kitchen sink to take a bath in the dishwater.
The EU tried this with Africa, doesn't work so great as long as there are countries which don't do it. That's one of the reasons China is successful in Africa, they don't care what the countries do as long as China gets what it wants.
Frankly, without doing this, you'd never be able to admonish and have it carry any real weight with Chinese policy makers. They'd just see a black pot calling out the kettle.