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They are canceling Tienanmen,again

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  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Lately, it's always China but it's the same Bad Faith shutdown that informed the occasional helicopter post when Israel came up; criticism framed as anti-Semitism to paper over unethical actions. While, presumably by extension of this "logic", criticism of authoritarian regimes in Africa is actually racism against black people. It's nonsense, and as you imply, says more about those accusing than the accused.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    To my mind,our "democratic" states are indeed under attack because despotic regimes realize that they need to attack and discredit them in order to protect their own position


    The world will not stand still and if we do not fight for our democratic rights they will be worn down .

    Hong Kong ,a colony of Britain was never militarily defendable (we can indeed have "democratic over reach") and it was naive to suppose the Chinese regime would honour its word.


    Even Boris Johnson doesn't do that. ;-)



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,173 ✭✭✭✭Dav010


    I agree, the despot SF’s in Ireland need to be slapped down.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    Not sure what your point is.Some kind of an innuendo?



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,173 ✭✭✭✭Dav010


    Sorry, I thought this thread wasn’t serious. I see you that to you it is.



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Check out the forum it is in. I think you thought it was in AHs for some reason. Because China depriving people of the representatives they desire is tots LOL.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    Why did you think it wasn't serious?

    In what sense ,the subject or the treatment of the subject?

    Some other way?


    To me it is indeed a very serious subject.


    Be careful how you reply ,you may have used up most of your sarcasm allowance.



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,173 ✭✭✭✭Dav010


    When you start a thread comparing the removal of thousands of years old religious monuments to the taking down of 30 yr old sculptures by the government of a region. That kinda gives a hint as to the weight of the thread.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    Well this is a serious thread, so if it doesn't suit you post (or go) elsewhere.



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,173 ✭✭✭✭Dav010


    I bet the irony of your intolerance of other peoples opinions on China is lost on you. You asked if other posters are concerned about the sculptures being removed, and in doing so likened it to ISIS destroying religious monuments thousands of years old, though people may not agree with what the governors of HK did, it most certainly is not the same as what ISIS did, in fact, to equate the two is absurd.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    The two actions have not been equated by me

    viz

    "How does this barbaric vandalism compare to the Taliban's destruction of ancient religious monuments in the recent past?"

    but I did describe it as "barbaric vandalism", (so the description could apply to either)


    You think the Chinese authorities are simply exercising their rights .

    I point out that they are an illegitimate regime ,and I can add ,extremely repressive with very little open dissent allowed.


    In that context the removal of artworks depicting a bloody repression should be pointed out and discussed by those of us who have the liberty and privilege to do so without fear of being rounded up .



  • Registered Users Posts: 12,169 ✭✭✭✭MadYaker


    And when they’ve subjugated Hong Kong and Taiwan what’s next?



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    To be fair ,as a huge economic power with a huge population the Chinese can reasonably expect to have a comparable zone of influence.


    The problem only arises because the centre of power in China is illegitimate and repressive.


    So we can anticipate they will spread that nasty influence around either by hard means or ,as they no doubt prefer by soft means.


    I don't expect the Chinese empire to last forever but it will probably outlast my lifetime.



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 22,324 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    The Chinese state for one. There are a good few people in the country if I remember my geography correctly. There is also a fair bit of support for communist authoritarian views remaining in the world. Even in countries that should know better

    Post edited by Pawwed Rig on


  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    I remember the East Germans'(was it them?) incredulity as to why we believed that they swallowed the lies of their government when they had no choice to express their real views



    The same is likely to apply to Chinese nationals forced to live under that regime.


    There will be a day of reckoning but we may not see it and that regime may do for us too before that happens.

    That is one reason they are wary of swallowing up Taiwan



    I agree they must have much of the nationalist sectors of society supporting their policies for now.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,547 ✭✭✭rock22


    Why do you think it is appropriate to impose our (Western) values on China? I imagine China has no need for our so called 'democracy'.

    Neither did the UK when they held Hong Kong ( Another result of British Imperialism). They only introduced the parliament there immediately before handing ot back to China in order to annoy the Chinese.

    Why do you think a UK parliament act which created the interim arrangement, should be respected by China.

    I am no fan of China, but you are suggesting that they should disregard their 3000 yr old values and adopt our western democracy because ...why ??

    Are our values so much better. Perhaps consider alll the wars started in the last thirties years by so called democracies before answering.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    You are living in a dream world if you think democracy is some kind of a passing fad that belongs to the victors of economic power


    Democracy is as intrinsic a function of human society as breathing and will always resurface after periods of repression

    Indeed it is wrong to attempt to crudely impose one's ideas of "correct" democracy on any other political state but there is also the principle of solidarity at play(do you remember when they shot people trying to escape into Western Germany -which practice continues of course and is aided and abetted by the Chinese state)

    Of course it was naive to expect the Chinese (or any) state to keep its word but perfidy should be called out at every opportunity surely?



  • Registered Users Posts: 14,173 ✭✭✭✭Dav010


    You are guilty of what you seem to despise so much, when you try to impose your beliefs on others. The Chinese people have lived this way for longer than democracy has been around. It shows an extreme level of arrogance and ineptitude to tell a nation of 1.4 billion people who live a certain way, that they are wrong, you are right.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    It is my belief that the path of human progress and enlightenment lies through democracy.


    Maybe you consider that to be "imposing my views on others"?



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Entertainment Moderators Posts: 35,941 CMod ✭✭✭✭pixelburp


    Nobody's telling anyone anything, unless you consider a discussion about the suppression of history somehow an instruction for the Chinese government. Which, uh, wildly overestimates amandstu's international reach 🙂 While conflating the institutions with the people is also reductive and a cheap way to shut down discussion;, not least given this entire conversation in the first place stems from the ruling party attempting to erase a pro-democracy rally, violently suppressed by said party. There's an irony in there: stop talking about a country stopping people talking about democracy.

    Anyway, "Democracy" is not a monolith: even within western nations there's a wild disparity between (say) Irish democracy and American (the latter a debate in of itself with its partisan duopoly). Or indeed Switzerland which it's "direct democracy", and requirement for votes on what seems like everything. Whatever might work for China as a system of governance, the first starting point should always be truth and openness. "Reeducation" camps and the systematic scrubbing of unconformable histories? It isn't arrogance to call it, they're inimical concepts to fair rule. Benevolent dictatorships aren't impossible but this ain't it either. And "They can do what they like, it's part of China now" would guarantee many sins ignored, and flies in the face of international cooperation - and mutual progression. Good friends call you out on your bad shít.



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  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 22,324 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    Your belief exactly. Other people believe that anarchy is the answer and I have heard more than a few put forward the idea of a 'good' dictator. We live in a world where there are still monarchies FFS.

    Your belief is no more (or less) valid than someone who thinks that theocracy is the path of enlightenment



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    So you disagree?We can dispense with the goal of creating political systems that maximise democratic ideals?

    And we can ignore the repressed voices in other countries who share those ideals ?



  • Moderators, Category Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 22,324 CMod ✭✭✭✭Pawwed Rig


    It doesn't matter what I agree or disagree with. I am not so arrogant to believe that what I believe is the only truth out there. Other people's beliefs are just as valid in many cases even if I disagree with them.

    Democracy has had some spectacular failures and is unlikely to be the end point in how humans organise themselves.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    You might have been civil enough to answer my question.


    Some form of democracy is very likely to be the form whereby people organize themselves successfully in the future.


    There is no "end point" as you put it.Human development does not come to a dead end

    (unless it dies).


    Failure is part of the fabric of human life

    It is no surprise that (imperfect)democratic systems should also exhibit that behaviour.



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,185 ✭✭✭Good loser


    The Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is an oppressive bunch of immoral, sadistic billionaires presided over by an obnoxious control freak. With immense power which is more and more intrusively exerting control over citizens' lives. They misuse specious arguments to restrict free speech and obliterate all and every manifestations of democracy. Which is what the murder of thousand of protestors in Tianamen Square was 30 years ago. Shame on anybody in a free country who approves or excuses their behaviour.

    [ A businessman some few years ago called Xi a 'clown' - he got 18 years in prison.]



  • Registered Users Posts: 3,425 ✭✭✭amandstu


    To me it seems like mob rule (as in "The Mob")



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,547 ✭✭✭rock22


    So are you talking about some sort of 'ideal future democratic state' ?

    Or do you believe such a state already exists?



  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    In a way its amazing that any democracies exist. By far the easier type of rule is like that in China, where the elite take control and use the machinery of state to keep control and pass to their preferred successors, the more brutal they are the more likely to succeed.

    Just because a country has been a way for thousands of years doesn't mean it shouldn't strive for something more free. If a country supports slavery should we simply think, shur they've been doing it for thousands of years, so it's okay for them.

    I'm amazed that democracy is so prevalent, and wonder if we are in the 'age of democracy' which won't last forever.



  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 19,422 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sam Russell


    The last Emperor of China ended his reign in 1912. It was the end of 5,000 years of such reigns where one ruler had absolute power. It should be no surprise that China is reverting to such rule since 1949. Moa Tse Tung was effectively an Emperor, as has all his successors.

    Democracy does not suit China - at least not yet. Remember, if democracy is defined by universal suffrage - one person, one vote, then the UK has only been truly democratic since 1930 when women got the vote on the same terms as men. [Women had the same voting terms as men in Ireland since the founding of the state] Of course, FPTP does dilute the legitimacy of their democracy.

    Also, within the Chinese (and other such states, there is an element of democracy within the ruling party. [Not to sure how open or transparent it is though].



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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    It doesn't suit 'the Chinese'? That's rubbish. Democracy isn't hard to accept. One person one vote. What's not to suit? As I said above brutal dictatorship is the default. The Chinese seem fine with democracy when living in democratic countries.



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