zifnab25

In China, we have health care and housing and full employment and ample access to fresh food and potable water.

Okay, yes, but in America we have a dream of one day having those things.

In the heat of the moment, Tops can go for it as well.

This Whataboutism Claim is itself an example of Whataboutism and I can no longer take your statements seriously.

Please educate yourself before speaking again.

I see a few flaws in their analysis. Straight off the bat

A claim like “There’s cultural genocide of Uyghurs in Xinjiang” is simply unreal to most Westerners, close to pure gibberish.

Because it isn't merely a stated claim. It is a work of propaganda enforced by a blizzard of images, testimonials, and bits of statistical data intended to build a conception of who the Uyghurs are, what Chinese state officials are doing, and how there is an urgent need for American intercession.

there’s no reason to expect them to study China, and retrospectively I think to some extent it was a mistake to personally have spent so much time trying to teach them

I agree its a fool's errand to run in after the fact and try to deprogram a person sold on a heavily invested narrative. You're bringing a pen to a gun fight.

At the same time, a broad understanding of historical patterns and a materialist understanding of global conditions over time forms a foundation that's resistant to these kinds of explosive claims. If you have a population that's familiar with the historical arc of the East Asian sub-continent - the famines, the wars, the Century of Humiliation, the repeated failed revolutions, the genocide committed by the Japanese, and then the 60 decades of rebuilding that brought the modern nation of China into its current state - then seeing the Chinese modernization of Xinjiang as meaningfully distinct from British Enclosures or the American Homestead Acts or King Leopold's conquest of the Congo is easier.

Its this understanding that leads to agitation. But it has to come from some broader historical understanding, particularly one that they can get a piece of in their own lives.

People aren’t “falling” for atrocity propaganda; they’re eagerly seeking it out, like a soothing balm.

I don't buy this, because I know too many people who are functionally agitated and are actively looking for opportunities to rebel. Its these people who the "Uyghur Genocide" or "Slava Ukraini" narratives work the best against, as they can channel efforts into a struggle against evil colonialism in a manner that doesn't kick the hornet's nest quite so close to home.

By contrast, the folks who are all in on American Exceptionalism tend not to respond to the baseline of outrage. A weak ethnic minority being suffocated by its neighbor is fine - even desirable. A regional rebel government espousing liberal-ish values is Woke beside the Based Might of Big Daddy Russia and deserves to lose.

If people were eagerly seeking this shit out to balm their consciences, American conservatives would be the first ones in line to gobble this shit up.

No. I think trying to displace blame from a central cohort of influence peddlers and bullshit artists onto a generic mass of information consumers by claiming they're subconsciously complicit in their own gullibility... It really is just victim blaming.

I'm more trying not to think about what he does to his mom.

This would be a funny bit if I didn't know it would end with us bombing another of their embassies.

Listen, Shadow Inc said I need to support Pete Buttigieg so why are you yelling at me for writing in Mayo Rat?

I thought you didn't want Trump to win.

There is a reason that people feel compelled to believe China is horrific.

It is, largely, because they are bombarded with this message. And they're bombarded with the message because the national leadership needs to win the consent of the governed in order to pivot to a hostile stance against the nation's largest trading partner.

The China-hate wasn't anywhere near this bad 20 years ago. And nothing between our two countries can really explain it outside of the geopolitical need to engage with their nation as hostile.

Demonization of enemies is the direct reflection of the fascist need to venerate one’s homeland.

Okay, but why China and why now? We could be doing this same dance with Japan or Indonesia or Brazil or India just as easily. If anything, it would be easier because it is true. This is a purely arbitrary move by a handful of PNAC goons who see Big China Line Go Up and fear what their GDP eclipsing ours means for the future.

The China Hate is purely a consequence of the international dick measuring contest run out of DC. It doesn't have anything to do with the lay American's self-perception.

Hands off is better than actively supporting Israel I guess.

China is in the same place as all the other post-industrial nations wrt the Suez Canal. They need to play nice with everyone in the region to keep trade flowing. The Chinese policy response to every conflict in the region is to be diplomatic and remain unaligned so that when this finally burns itself out they won't be on the wrong side.

But they're also a major trade partner with Israel too right?

Israel de facto controls the Suez. They've got a knife to the neck of Israel and a gun pointed at Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Iraq. That's what gives them so much clout in the region.

Since the Chinese have their eyes on the development of Western Africa and the Red Sea is a vital trade corridor into Europe and the more densely populated areas of the Middle East, they're functionally in bed with Israel whether they want to be or not. In that light, the Houthis closing the canal fuck them as much as anyone.

But unlike the dipshits at the Pentagon, Chinese officials are continuing to pursue a non-confrontational strategy of deescalation.

"You guys ready to talk about ratcheting down the tensions in the Taiwanese straight?"

"NO PEACE WITH TAIWAN! ONLY WAR WITH YEMEN!"

Pretending to care so much about the Uighurs is a projection of their own guilt for living on stolen indigenous land

I wish it was even that deep. I more see it as standard fascist blood libel. You need to paint the nation of China as irredeemably evil, so you invent a litany of crimes that only your expert China-Watchers can see.

There's no projection, no inner sense of guilt or personal conflict. This really does boil down to "Chinese people are monsters and they're eating babies, I have proof "

How do we not have a Stavi emoji? God damn.

Well, anyway, I will see your Apolitical Stavros Dick Jokes With Celebrities show and raise you Bring Back Virgil.