The demonization of China

There's a difference between "is in bad taste" and "should be censored".

WWWTT wrote:

I remember Michael Moriarity saying something along the lines about the Great fire wall of China blocking all kinds of shit. When I was in China last fall, I regularly read rabble articles. So much for icm bullshit hey?

Well, I, a resident of Korea, can read English-language articles from, say, Canada, proclaiming that the DPRK is a wonderful place and Kim Jong Un the greatest leader in the world. Doesn't change the fact that someone starting a pro-DPRK website in South Korea, written in Korean, is likely going to have his site blocked by the authorities, and his personage subject to state investigation. Even English-language sites written by pro-DPRK people in Japan sometimes get blocked here.

So how long have you been in the 50 cent army, WWWTT?

Timebandit wrote:

So how long have you been in the 50 cent army, WWWTT?

Since about the same time as you have been posting for CSIS. You seldom have anything to add to a thread except a cheap shot that is personal and unrelated to any topic. Of course only left of social democratic posters get your "special" treatment. You and Magoo do you have the same paymaster?

PS - It’s not about being left of social democracy that I have an issue with. It’s when somebody pisses on my leg and tells me it’s raining. 

I source and fact check for a living. We have some posters on this board who make some pretty wild claims, and WWWTT is one of them. If you’re okay with the aroma of horseshit, more power to you, but I’m disinclined to join you in that. 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Martin N. wrote:

WWWTT wrote:

Martin N. wrote:

kropotkin1951 wrote:

And to think this is the same country that is just waiting to pay us above market rates for tar sands gunk, go figure.

Spare a moment to consider the effects of sharing your opinions in China itself. Your sanctimonious moaning about Canada as the Eeevil Empire misses the salient fact that you can moan here to your heart's content without the threat of joining a million odd Uyghers in a 're-education' camp.

You use all the benefits of Western civilisation to bemoan its perceived failure. China weaponises globalisation in order to extend its totalitarian reach and you support it.

Pure ignorant comment! Straight back to spreading BS about communist China to prop up the imperialist western regimes.

 

You must be one of those Imperialist China tools that condemn any criticism of  The Party or its insidious weaponisation of globalisation. Are you the obnoxious Chinese ambassador by chance?

I notice that you decry China and want the RCMP to forcefully remove indigenous people from their territories so the oil and gas corporations can plunder what remains of their homeland. Your concern for the Uyghurs is belied by your hatred of all aboriginal protestors and advocates.

Martin everyone once in a while you go all nasty on us . So in keeping with your mood today, fuck off you fascist sycophant.

I notice you make up your quibbles on the go without much regard for accuracy. Is this a function of ideology or are you unable to relate to the reality of the world around you?

I realize that there is a certain shock when self-righteousness runs into reality but is the apoplectic fury worth the price. Oscar Wilde once said: "A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing". 

If I may, I suggest that the self-righteous know the answer to everything but the cost of nothing because their concern only extends to the half of the equation that supports righteousness while ignoring the half that requires assuming responsibility for how their decisions affect others .

The Chinese state is a totalitarian nightmare that not only has no concept of human rights but a disregard for human life itself. 

I'm not  nasty, I'm honest - you should try it sometime - very liberating.

Re 150,000 on the streets in Hong Kong - more like a million people, 1/7th of the population. The media (icm if you like) is systematicaly playing down the numbers and significance of these protests. Autonomists in Hong Kong are being demonized. 

voice of the damned wrote:

re: WWWTT possibly being a member of the 50 Cent Army... 

Probably would have been better to say something like "Gee, WWWTT, have you considered hiring yourself out to the 50 Cent Army? Your material is just the kind of stuff they're looking for." Which would have indicated his posts are pretty much what you'd expect from a paid spammer, without actually making claims that he is one. 

You’re right, I should have considered the death of irony before posting. However, it does bear repeating that his posts are not be much different from what you would expect from that source. 

I remember thinking the immediate protests were a little too quick to be spontaneous when Meng was arrested 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party

 

What makes you guys think Chinese peoples are not allowed to voice their opinions? If the Chinese people’s do not voice their concerns about any random issue does not mean that they are being suppressed, it means that such an issue is probably not much of a concern for most.

So first there's a denial that there's any problem at all.

The other point is that the icm overrates overvalues freedom of speech in the west by making the false claim that freedom of speech is not allowed in some countries. But other rights such as the right to work and the right to rest is conveniently pried  right of the picture.

Then we move on to freedom of speech not being it's all cracked up to be anyway, possibly even an invention of the west, so it's okay there's suppression that isn't happening.

Hey I’m sure there’s lots of stuff that’s blocked banned and censored. 

Pornography is illegal in China and a lot of these bs scare stories stem from that. Hence fb and youtube not being allowed 

And now we've got suppression, but it's for everyone's own good and probably for the best - and it's the pornographers' fault, so who'd want to side with them?

Neither am I denying protests occuring in Hong Kong.

I remember some protests there a few years ago (not sure how long ago, but it was the last wave that made headlines in the west). And I know for a fact from several people in ShenZhen and my wife that most of those protesters where furious over immigrants from the mainland working for lower wages. Not what the western ICM was reporting! I'm suggesting that this issue of immigrants from the mainland working for lower wages is continuing, and probably needs to be addressed.

Do you really believe I'm making this up???

That people taking to the streets to protest mainlanders, not the issue that the protesters are actually saying they're protesting? Yes, I do think you're making that up. Because anything that would be remotely negative about the PRC government cannot just be what it is when it comes to your posts. Deflect, move goal posts, contradict, invent.

Meanwhile, everybody's pant cuffs smell like a urinal.

The Great Firewall of China blocks off Wikipedia

And it's not because of students cheating on research papers.

https://www.cnet.com/news/the-great-firewall-of-china-blocks-off-wikipedia/

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China Blocks More News Websites – Free Press Crackdown Continues 30 Years After Tiananmen Massacre

 

https://jimheath.tv/2019/06/china-blocks-more-news-websites-free-press-crackdown-continues-30-years-after-tiananmen-massacre/

It's because you piss on our legs and tell us it's raining. If the idiom is difficult, let's just call it the aroma of horseshit.

Blocking nearly all media sources that aren’t controlled by your government is not a positive, whether you agree with their opinion pages or not. This is a hallmark of an authoritarian state. 

Its not just pornography that’s blocked. That claim is utterly absurd and you’ve clearly pulled it out of your ass - which is why I suspect 3/4 of what you post is either fantasy or purposeful misinformation. 

Nobody has used the word “evil” except you. 

You just listed off a large number of news sites. Rabble is more opinion than news, is very small and so far hasn’t had a lot to say about China. I guarantee that if they were more critical, you’d see less. 

So a very high proportion of these journalistic outlets are banned. My comment still stands. This is authoritarian playbook stuff - anybody who publishes anything negative is banned. Keep your population isolated. Control the message. Dampen dissent. 

Whats next? Ai Wei Wei’s sunflower seeds were pornographic so the PRC justly jailed him?

That's still not why they were protesting.

cco wrote:

The issue of whether Hong Kongers are biased against mainlanders is completely irrelevant to the issue of whether China should be able to extradite people from Hong Kong. Unless anybody thinks Canada should respond to domestic Islamophobia by signing an extradition treaty with Saudi Arabia and returning Rahaf Mohammed.

Exactly. 

Timebandit wrote:

But I have to ask - Do you actually find his assertions that there is no censorship in China or that the Hong Kong protests aren’t happening (or the protestors aren’t protesting the thing they say they are) credible? 

I didn't read him saying any of that. You are reading into other peoples posts.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Timebandit wrote:

But I have to ask - Do you actually find his assertions that there is no censorship in China or that the Hong Kong protests aren’t happening (or the protestors aren’t protesting the thing they say they are) credible? 

I didn't read him saying any of that. You are reading into other peoples posts.

I really don't want to get into this conversation, but I read WWWTT as saying about the same things as Timebandit suggests he did. In general I read him as minimizing any possible wrongdoing by the Chinese Communist Party, to what I think is an unreasonable degree.

Strangely enough this is a Hong Kong Legislative Council initiative presented by Chief Executive Carrie Lam. Se was elected wasn't she? Please do not start a lecture on how the electoral process is rigged to keep the dominant powers in power. We all know it but frankly WTF do you think we have in Canada? You love the facade and refuse to look ar the real politic. I can ask the Duck or any other search engine anything I want about the world and it will regurgitate page after page of Western biased fake news coverage.  We have the freedom to consume anything the corporate world will produce including its false narratives that are leading to the destruction of the planet.

This is a multi-faceted issue not a knee jerk democracy issue. It would appear to me that the people have spoken but the question is how do you deal with a real problem of criminals committing crimes that we in Canada extradite people for all the time but because it is Taiwan it can't be done.  Denying there is no problem at all is imperialist propaganda ignoring the people in the streets is tyranny.

The bill was introduced following a case last year when a local man allegedly killed his pregnant girlfriend while on holiday in Taiwan, but could not be extradited as Taipei and Hong Kong do not share an extradition agreement.

The bill, however, has become a diplomatic quagmire as Hong Kong and Beijing both consider Taiwan, a self-ruling island, to be part of greater China.

Taiwanese officials have spoken out against the agreement, which some fear could be used to coerce it into acknowledging Beijing's sovereignty, DPA news agency reported citing the South China Morning Post.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/04/hong-kong-launches-extradition-la...

So what did you think of the Chinese leader who said he was going to work on ensuring that Scheer doesn't get elected in October. Oops my bad that was an American defender of democracy talking about a socialist Brit.

 

Kropotkin, Lam was elected, but half the legislative positions in Hong Kong are appointed by the PRC. You’re ignoring or maybe just don’t know some of the larger context and pressures that come into play. 

I was at an umbrella protest site in Hong Kong. I’ve actually talked to people who live there. What WWWTT is claiming about that protest and this one misrepresents both - and in a way you’d condemn if it came from a source you’re less inclined to sympathize with.