The authoritarian lens is a useless one since every single nation in the history of humanity uses authority.

The Hong Kong protests were a great example of the difference. In the US you have protests because a cop killed a man in cold blood and the cops come out and tear gas protestors and some died. They even let a vigilante kill people and then let him off without punishment.

In Hong Kong, which was a colony of Britain, the youth of Hong Kong decided to protest and it got really violent - on the part of the protestors. They were throwing molotovs at police. And the police just backed off most of the time. The protests went on for weeks and the police exercises significant restraint compared to US cops.

The important thing to note about Hong Kong is that it was violently ripped away from China and turned into a British colony because the Brits wanted to sell opium to China and China said no. For most of the British occupation the Chinese in Hong Kong suffered immensely, but when the Brits realized they weren’t going to be able to hold on to Hong Kong they changed all their policies to create social conditions that would lead inevitably to this exact conflict. That’s partly why there was such a generational gap in the Hong Kong protest movement. Many of the older generation knew what Britain was about and wanted to rejoin their country but the youth were fed a lot of lies and propaganda so when China moved forward with the national security aimed at preventing foreign interference the students protested.

As for Xinjiang, I encourage you to look at a map. The US military establishment has openly stated that they are collaborating with East Turkistan separatists as part of their strategy in the region and have been for some time. This is an extension of the US strategy that developed the Mujahideen into a terrorist group to fight the USSR and ultimate spawned Al-Qaeda and ISIS. In short, the US has been training, arming, and organizing terrorism in the region as part of their strategy to destabilize any opposition, and for China specifically they targeted Xinjiang.

If you look at the number of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang over the years, there was clearly a problem, but it’s equally clear that China launched an anti-terrorism campaign and the number of attacks has plummeted. This again shows the difference between the Western use of authority and the Chinese us of authority. When the West does anti-terrorism they carpet bomb countries, commit mass war crimes, destroy infrastructure, and kill millions. China’s anti-terrorism campaign focused on economics, education, social integration, and counterintelligence. Not only did it work, 50+ countries have inspected Xinjiang and approved of the program. The Uyghurs still govern the region as an autonomous cultural zone. They still openly practice their religion and cultural practices, they still teach their children in their language. Birth rates have come down to stabilize at the same rate as Western societies, or higher, which is inline with social progress women getting more autonomy, better health outcomes across the board, and better economic prospects.

So yeah, I won’t disagree that both the US and China are authoritarian, but I don’t really see any country in the world that isn’t authoritarian. It’s the way things are right now. So given that there will be authoritarianism, who is actually working to improve lives and who is working to destroy them?

The pro colonial on the Commonwealth side use the same arguments like they we let them use their languages and don’t force them into reservations? The SCOTUS, with RBG leading the opinion, reaffirmed that US territorial claims are based on the Doctrine of Discovery, a papal bull that establishes indigenous people as subhuman as the legal basis for why it was OK to murder, rape, and disposses them.

That doesn’t sound anything like what China is saying or doing in the least. Again, there are no Russian or Chinese intelligence agencies training indigenous terrorists and sending them into America to wreak havoc and kill innocents. The language of Tibet is thriving while in the US there are dozens of languages that have fewer than 10 speakers left.

It’s really a night/day comparison. I can’t imagine anyone actually believing that the pro-colonial position in the Commonwealth is anything akin to what China is doing.

What does it mean for it to be OK? It is a thing that China did in the 1600s. I don’t think colonization is OK. China’s current management of its occupied populations is head and shoulders above what what all other occupations have done and are doing.

Further, it’s clear that any reduction in shared national security in Tibet would result in violent American intervention. That much they have proven. So now the question is - what is to be done? As far as I can tell, the Chinese hypothesis is to maintain shares national security while collaborating with the people to promote their culture, their collective thriving, and their autonomy to best of their abilities. And it appears to be working well both on maintaining security against American terrorism and maintaining healthy communities.

I’d say that’s sort of the best we’ve seen in history so far.

But can’t defend against soldiers with no helmets and no armor?

Tibet is occupied in a way that there is almost no historical precedent for. Tibet was a slave economy with a monarchy. China’s occupation has increased the autonomy of the masses of Tibet over their previous formation. There have been very few, if any, occupational in history where the people being occupied run their own government, speak their native languages, maintain their cultural traditions, and collaborate with their occupier on programs to reduce poverty and increase quality of life.

But of course the reality is always multifaceted. In American occupied territories you don’t see foreign governments training terrorists and air lifting them into the territory to create chaos and death. Whereas in Tibet that’s exactly what the US has done.

There’s a reason why the Dalai Lama’s brother wrote in his memoirs that he deeply regrets collaborating with the Americans/CIA - because they made everything fundamentally worse and there only interest was attacking communism at all costs.

Further, Tibet never had any standing as a Westphalian nation-state. It was never recognized as a nation-state internationally. Now, I don’t personally think the Westphalian system is a great system to make judgements by - Palestine has never been a Westphalian nation-state, for example - but we need to be clear in what our comparison points are. Tibet is occupied like Palestine and the Americas are occupied. Of those 3, Tibet is doing the best, has the greatest quality of life, has the greatest autonomy, has the safest cultural practices, and is on an upward trajectory.

Would I love to see decolonization everywhere? Yes. But I am fully able to hold that desire while realizing we have to decolonize the Commonwealth first if there are to be any unsustainable gains along that dimension. Any attempt to decolonize territory that is not part of the historical Commonwealth is going to be a movement that strengthens the EuroAmerica global colonial/neocolonial empire.

The majority of the Tibetan people are living good lives, are happy enough with the current situation, and are not agitating for separation, likely because they understand first hand what US and British meddling leads to - mass death. The Free Tibet and other similar orgs are Western orgs, not homegrown ones, and they primarily serve the purposes of US imperialism.

And yet Ukraine can’t seem to defend against them? Russian territory gains have been accelerating over the last 4 weeks. Pretty bad situation if Ukraine can’t defend against unarmored and unarmed soldiers

By way of example, in the USA, indigenous children were stolen by the government, forced into boarding schools, and beaten for using their native language. In Tibet, all schools teach Tibetan, from the earliest childhood schools to higher education. In Xinjiang, all schools teach the Uyghur language from the earliest childhood to higher education.

That’s not actually the situation, but thanks for playing. There is a country called China. It has existed for many years. Taiwan become a province of China in 1683 by force. 212 years later, Japan invaded it and made it a colony.

In 1945, the country known as China was ruled by a party called the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang and party in the country of China, the Communist Party of China, joined forces to push the Japanese out of China, which included pushing them out of Taiwan. Taiwan becomes a part of China again.

So Taiwan is a part of China at this point and the CPC and the KMT fight in a civil war The KMT loses. This makes the CPC the ruling party of China. Much like how the Union defeated the Confederacy and reunited the USA.

At this point, however, Britain, a country actively occupying colonial holdings in China, and the USA, actively asserting its privilege to own the colonies of Japan, decides that they would rather work with the KMT than the CPC so they intervene in the civil war and prevent the integration of Taiwan so they can engage in financial neocolonialism. They do this through force of arms.

So which is it?

A) Taiwan was never part of China because they stole it from the indigenous Islanders? In this case the US should be dissolved, as should Australia and all of Latin America.

B) Taiwan was part of China but because might makes right they rightfully seceded by the force of arms from the British and American imperial program? So now might makes right and Puerto Rico and Hawaii and Guam and the Marianas are colonial holdings fair and square.

C) Taiwan has been a part of China for centuries and restoring territorial integrity is the first step to ending the primarily contradiction of imperialism which threatens all progress in all other realms? China has demonstrated a commitment to 1-country-2-systems so we know Taiwan will be able to administer itself relatively autonomy except in areas of national defense. And we know China supports the cultural expression of indigenous peoples and that the indigenous of Taiwan will be afforded the ability to express cultural automony on the island and eventually will partake in a post-colonial movement after the existential threat of Western imperialism is contained.

Historical revisionism at its finest. Next you’ll be telling me Puerto Rico isn’t a colony, Korea has always been partitioned, and Hawaii doesn’t have a king.

The US was taking over the occupation of Korea from the Japanese. The USSR wanted the Koreans to govern themselves and be self-sufficient enough to not become vassal states of the USA which the USA would use to invade and nuke the USSR.

It’s not just a both sides wanted to control Korea thing. That’s not accurate

Apologies for missing the sarcasm. Yes, the USSR did engage, but from a position of weakness. They had no motivation to divide Korea but they didn’t have the will or strength to resist the beligerence of the US.

Ok, idolize/glorify is different than praise. Go ahead and argue that point. I am interested in understanding the position.

They said they didn’t praise Stalin, you said that saying good things about Stalin is praising him. He disagrees with your definition. I don’t. I think you’re right. That’s praising Stalin. But I don’t see anything wrong with praising people for the good things that they did.

Further you didn’t say they should admit that they idealize Stalin, you said they should admit that they praise Stalin. There’s definitely a difference in those two words. You’re moving the goal posts again.

You think I am projecting that I have a problem with cognitive disaonance based on what evidence? I am not trying to get you cross some moral line like “admit to everyone here you’re just a dirty liberal who thinks Obama was a good guy”. I am engaging you and critiquing you. If you can’t tell the difference, I can’t help you yet.

And if you can read the thread, the thread you are replying to invokes Rule 6 which is what caused the commenter you are debating against to start this conversation about praise/deification/etc

Read

Wow. Try inventing a partition line like Yosemite Sam and saying “I dares ya ta cross this line” and when the Korean people tried to push the racist American colonizers out of their country. Try forced them to lives in caves because of the amount of napalm they dropped. Try bombed every single building to the point where bombers were sent out and and there was nothing left to destroy.

There was no North/South division before the US created it, and they created it because they wanted to nuke China.

I am claiming that you pretend malaria and bad humors are both bad. One exists. The other doesn’t. You don’t seem to have the willingness to acknowledge that. The social credit score in China that effects individuals does not exist. Sure. You can say both the US credit scoring system and the nonexistent Chinese personal social credit score are bad, but that would be foolish.

You could be saying that the US credit score system and the Chinese social credit score that is used to manage negative externalities of businesses are both bad, but I would disagree with you.

But I am pretty sure you don’t know that the social credit score for individuals does not exist.

Perhaps you don’t understand what the word means.

The commenter said this only effects speculators.

You replied with:

No, it effects ‘ordinary’ Chinese people as many invested their life savings hoping to pay for a house or an apartment for themselves and their children.

That’s speculation. Investing with the hope of a big pay out is the definition of speculation. Yes, ordinary Chinese people can be speculators. Do you think speculators are not ordinary people?

It is absolutely driving away North Korea. You need to read more. North Korea has never and will never Trust the USA after what we did to them.

Rule 6 says “idealizing/glorifying”. A poster in this thread. Dogbert said the word “deifying” in this thread. Maybe you don’t think those are interchangeable. I could be convinced either way.

As for what I am talking about, the fact that Dogbert praises Stalin is apparently a problem for you. It is possible to praise people for the positive things they have done. Some people argue against that praise because they think the negative things the person has done are more important. Some people go so far as to believe it’s not possible a person has done anything praise worthy ever because of the bad things they have done and that therefore anyone praising them is clearly morally derelict and that their opinions no longer matter.

The fact that you are trying to paint Dogbert’s praising of Stalin as something he should “admit” is a way of drawing a boundary between acceptable and unacceptable beliefs, a form of thought policing, and also a way to create an echo chamber where you can’t be confronted with positions that challenge your own position and threaten some of the beliefs that you hold tied into your identity.

So what I am talking about is you, choosing to interpret Rule 6 as applying to a positive analysis of Stalin’s actions in office because you can’t really handle discourse that runs counter to an orthodoxy that you adhere to.

You said “you don’t know how much I considerer both systems” in another comment.

That’s pretty much all the back up one needs.

The social credit system in China does not apply to individuals. It was originally designed for businesses. A limited pilot in certain locales was applied to individuals. That pilot program was shutdown in 2019.

So sure, go ahead and consider both systems that actually really exist. Go ahead and claim that both things can be bad. Keep on pretending!

signs of the same authoritarian and imperialist cancer

China accounts for 75% of poverty alleviation globally

China has not dropped any bomb in 36 years.

China invented the social credit system in response to dairy producers cutting corners and poisoning people. It was punishing profit seekers that harmed the people. It then ran a limited experiment with some local governments to apply it to people. It did not go well, and the democratic will of the people was that the program should end, so it did.

China’s opposition to the West is a bare minimum requirement. The alternative is an integration with the West that subordinates the needs of the people to the needs of the Western elite. It doesn’t stop there, but it’s a necessary prerequisite.

Once that bar has been cleared, the next problem becomes one of defending against Western interference. One cannot be materially opposed to the West and not materially capable of defending against the West. So the second bar is whether the nation is capable of defending against the West. China is clearing this bar as well, but it includes authoritarian behaviors in order to stop covet operations. There is currently no known way to stop covert ops without use of authority.

From there each individual thing you want to discuss needs to be discussed on detail, but the overall picture is one of separating from the imperialist cancer and maintaining that separation and an attempt to build a space for healthier growth for which there are no models and there are not successful experiments that can be drawn from, which means creating sufficient space for experimenting and that means sufficient space for doing it wrong, and likey doing it wrong more often than doing it right for a significant period of time. (Looking at Mao)

No, tankies don’t see the same imperial cancer because it clearly isn’t the same imperial cancer

The Chinese government ended the pilot programs for social credit scores for individuals in 2019 because the Chinese people didn’t want it, so Xu Xiaodong is likely one of those examples where a local government running their implementation of the pilot overreached and the central government, responding to the will of the people, ended it.