China

NorthReport wrote:

Poor naive Canadians don’t have a clue what China is really all about. Their is only one thing a dictatorship understands: the fist!

Maybe it is overdue time to revoke the citizenship of these pro-dictatorship folks and kick them out of Canada 

 

Err, no, they have as much right to support a bad government overseas as any other citizen.

If non-citizens commit crimes on behalf of their favorite foreign-country, they can certainly be kicked out of Canada after serving their sentence(just as all non-citizen criminals would be), but other than that, let a hundred flowers bloom.  

Voice of the Damned:  Thanks for taking care of that.  Looking back on my post, I sounded a lot harsher than I meant to or should have. Sorry.

WWWTT:  I get it that you support the current model in China, and that's your call.  The fact that you support it doesn't mean that everybody on the Left should be obligated to support it, or that it's the only possible model for a socialist future.   It's just as valid to support the idea of building socialism from below, without repression, without the Party having to have the "leading role".

Most of the world wants to move to a model where people work together to create a humane, equal, and liberated future. It's in support of that model that I've said what I've said-and my views have nothing to do with anything any cynical Western capitalist types want.  

If the people of China actually, voluntarily back their existing government, that is their call. By the same token, if they want to replace it with something else, that is also their call-as should be the case with every other place on the planet, no?

'Dan Behrman 2020: Support from Hong Kong'

https://twitter.com/DanForTexas/status/1163219234689826816

"Don't Tread On Me..."

'If You Want Peace Prepare For War'

https://twitter.com/Liam_Stone18/status/1163144733230686208

Lights, Camera Action: Roll on Stars & Stripes (Again)

https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1162926722066481153

Read Joint Statement By Canada and the European Union on the Situation in Hong Kong

https://twitter.com/cafreeland/status/1162795684338241537

Opinion: Canada-EU Joint Statement On Hong Kong is Just Another Trap

https://twitter.com/CGTNOfficial/status/1163193853165342720

WATCH: Senior HK Resident Alerts Young Radicals to the Danger of Foreign Manipulation

https://twitter.com/CGTNOfficial/status/1163108747692036097

Ken Burch wrote:

There has got to be SOME way of working out a relationship between Hong Kong and the authorities in Beijing that is neither about the vestiges of Western imperialism OR about fetishing a totally rigid notion of "unification".  There are autonomist arrangements being made all over the world between various countries...there was the concept of "sovereignty-association" between Canada and Quebec which might have been a way to preserve some sense of a unified Canada AND respect Quebec's right to self-determination.  

Well, there IS already the one country/two systems thing, which I think currently gives Hong Kong more privileges than Quebec would have enjoyed under Meech or Charlottetown(both places considered relative to their respective metropolitans). I don't know about all the details of that arrangement, though I assume the protestors thought the extradition treary would have been a rollback on that front.

I agree that the idea of the regime in Beijing being overthrown bears little relation to reality.

NDPP wrote:

Hong Kong in the Crosshairs of Global Power and Ideological Struggles

https://popularresistance.org/hong-kong-in-the-crosshairs-of-global-powe...

 The problem is neither the extradition bill that was used to ignite protests nor China, the problems are Hong Kong's economy and governance. Building the anti-China movement in Hong Kong has been a long-term NED project since 1996 particularly among university students. With 2047 as the year for the end of the agreement with the UK, US and western nations are working toward preserving their capitalist dystopia of Hong Kong and maintaining consensus for long-term conflict with China.

Why is it so difficult for you to accept that these protests might actually be genuine, valid expressions of dissent?  You are sounding like the inverse image of all those right-wing types who argued that any and all acts of resistance against their authority were either the work of "outside agitators" or "a Communist plot".

Is it that difficult to accept that ordinary Hong Kong people might not want to be put under the absurdly excessive paranoid control freakery that Beijing applies to political and social discourse?

Why should the young in Hong Kong simply accept that "father knows best"?  

And since the PRC does everything Western capitalists want, why would you think "The West" would even want to undo anything Beijing is currently doing?

@ Ken Burch 

Still waiting for the so called “4dead in Ohio” style crackdown from Beijing to happen in Hong Kong?

I guess when you realize what you wanted to happen fails to materialize, your going to have to reinvent your hatred of communism into something that’s more plausible in convincing  the faux “lefties” to follow your pro corporate materialism. 

Which Hong Kong Protest Size Estimate is Right?

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/08/which-hong-kong-protest-size-estim...

"The New York Times [and CBC] further promotes the protests in Hong Kong by quoting an extravagant crowd size estimate of yesterday's march..."

"Isn't it interesting how the corporate media ignores these huge demonstrations in Hong Kong *AGAINST* the US-backed violence? It's like how the media ignores massive pro-gov protests here in Venezuela. I'm sure it's just a coincidence. Ignore the pattern."

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1163565144305258496

"Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam says Hong Kong gov will initiate fact-finding including on complaints against police violence, and dialogue with all sectors of public. This is one of the demands of protesters. Let's see if protests will continue..."

https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1163643067380842496

US Fingerprints All Over Hong Kong Violence

https://youtu.be/JKXvLtX7tvs

"The US never hesitates to jump on an opportunity, especially when it smells blood and there's a chance to destabilize China..."

Twitter Shuts Chinese Accounts Targeting Hong Kong Protests

https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1163909228236627970

"Twitter has decided to unilaterally shut down 200,000 accounts it claims are 'spreading disinformation' about Hong Kong, proving once again that it can act immediately to decide what is truth and shut down accounts it doesn't like."

West's News Dominated By Hong Kong While Yellow Vests Largely Ignored  - Pilger (and vid)

https://on.rt.com/a0bc

"They see a challenge in China. Undoubtedly it's an economic challenge, but it's not a military challenge. This 19th century view of the world that permeates Washington and has returned to this country, the United Kingdom, has now created a war situation with China..."

Why couldn't the Chinese government simply have agreed to what the protesters asked?  

It's not as though Beijing has to be able to extradite political dissidents just to stay in power.

cco wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

And there's no chance that the Chinese government could be overthrown by "The West" anyway.  Governments with nuclear stockpiles don't GET overthrown.

The Soviet government will be surprised to hear that.

It wasn't actually overthrown.  Gorbachev agreed to disband the USSR because it had become unsustainable.  There was no way to have kept the USSR going in that situation.  And clearly, the Warsaw Pact states could not have survived any longer without a massive bloodbath-what good would have COME of having them to survive if the only way to do so was for tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of people to be slaughtered by the Red Army.

What happened in that place was on the stubborn, bloodyminded Stalinist bureaucrats who had spent decades preventing any change from happening and had made the people of the Warsaw Pact live under military occupation for forty years when those people had done nothing to deserve that.

The lesson is that socialism can't be built from above, through coercion, through censorship, through wiretapping every room and sending out the secret police to surveille everyone.

It needs to be built gently and humanely, from below.

I believe the people of China are capable of making their own decisions and should be allowed to do so.  But that's "the people", not "the state".

Trust the people.  

Everywhere.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

Why couldn't the Chinese government simply have agreed to what the protesters asked?  

It's not as though Beijing has to be able to extradite political dissidents just to stay in power.

 

 

They did the extradition treaty has been off the table for weeks. It was always a red herring. Thje problem now is there are no real demands that could be realistically dealt with.

Ken the problem is that my preferred system would be syndicalism however that view is not shared by the majority of Canadians nor the majority of China's population.  I find it extremely telling that all your examples of brutal regimes are non-capitalist. Your world view has exceptional blinders.

Clearly, you don't understand my worldview.

I have attacked capitalist regimes in many places and times and will continue to do so.  

I agree that the economic leadership of "the West", a leadership which matters far more than our supposed political leadership in the current scheme of things, needs to be brought down.

Nothing China is doing, however, can bring the Western economic leadership down-my own view is that China doesn't want Western capitalism brought down-and replacing Western-style repression with Chinese-style repression would not be a gain for the working and non-working poor.  None of what is good in the Chinese model DEPENDS on what is bad.  No state has to repress and censor just to be able to feed people.

In this thread, I've talked mainly about China, that is true-that is because this is a thread about China.

I simply don't regard China as a socialist state-as I've made clear, I didn't regard the USSR as socialist or communist in any way after 1924, though I join all others who salute the courage of the Red Army at Staliningrad and in the liberationo of the camps and of Berlin.

And I've said, IN THIS THREAD, that the US and "the West" need to stay the hell out of this situation, since their intentions cannot be trusted.  Nothing that goes on in China is the business of the Western economic and political establishment at all.

If the extradition law is off the books, that's good.  It's a victory for the protesters.  By the same token, sending in the PLA to force an end to the demonstrations should also be off the books.  Beijing just needs to back off on this one-just as every "liberal" American mayor who sicced the cops on Occupy should have backed off and left that alone.

And as to syndicalism...I think the possibility of a syndicalist future is growing as the number of co-ops grows.  The existence of worker-controlled enterprises is teaching people that an economy can be run on a basis other than greed or coercion.  Practical examples like that can teach millions, maybe tens of millions.

As to how popular syndicalism is in Canada, or the US, or China-well, how can we KNOW how popular it is?  No polling agency polls on the popularity of syndicalist ideas, and in China people can't express support for syndicalism without putting themselves in danger of a long prisoin sentence.

It's not likely that Market Stalinism is more popular in Canada and the U.S. than syndicalism is, though.

My point as to brutal regimes is this:

As people of the left, we know that there have been horrific, bloody perversions of what we stand for.  Those of us who work for socialist or syndicalist transformation in this era have an obligation to make it clear that we get it that nothing we stand for ever justified the brutality of the USSR and Mao's China, and that, as we continue the fight for a transformed world, we get it that the methods used by those states have no place in the world the left is trying to construct-that, from the start, projects that call themseves "Left" need to make it clear that there are some things that should never have been done and must never be done again.

And obviously, OBVIOUSLY, the West has been equally brutal and every aspect of its current political and economic structure needs to be brought down.

But how can any authoritarian, paranoia-and-secrecy-driven model bring those structures down?

We should be working for a world with NO empires.

That's why I've said what I've said.

Is any of that truly unreasonable?

Cross-posted with Ken, it seems.

Hong Kong Demos 'Straight Out Of Ukraine Playbook'

https://youtu.be/6n1eNqfbHLs

"Former UK MP George Galloway weighs in on the latest Hong Kong protests as the Chinese detain a UK consulate worker."

China Warns Canada To 'Stop Its Wrongdoing' Over Meng Wanzhou Arrest, Hong Kong Comments (and vid)

https://globalnews.ca/news/5793653/china-comments-canada-meng-wanzhou-ar...

"China issued a stern warning to Canada and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland following her statement over the weekend condemning the violence in Hong Kong and the continuing detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, stating the Canadian government should 'stop its wrongdoing' before it's too late.' On Tuesday, China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said the Canadian government 'has made irresponsible remarks' and 'grossly interefered in China's internal affairs. 'Attempts to create chaos and undermine Hong Kong's prosperity and stability will never win the support of the people and are doomed to fail,' Shuang said... '

US Sec State and former CIA head Pompeo visits tomorrow - as always Canada will 'follow the leader'. Here's a little music for those who have decided to tag along...

https://youtu.be/TKAwPA14Ni4

Re: "Good!"

FOX News Exclusive: Activist Warns Hong Kong is On The Brink of Bloodshed, Says Fight For Democracy is Far From Over

https://youtu.be/57TSKaIBge4

US/NED pocket-puppet Joshua W[r]ong tells Faux News he is willing to meet with Chinese president...

Hong Kong Gets New US-Backed Party

https://journal-neo.org/2016/04/18/hong-kong-gets-new-us-backed-party/

"...Freedom House marks its 75th anniversary by honoring three generations of Hong Kong democracy leaders: Joshua Wong, Benny Tai and Martin CM Lee. The notion that Wong's new party, 'Demosisto,' stands for Hong Kong's 'self-determination' is an absolute absurdity. During the Freedom House event, all three US-backed agitators admitted that their work sought not only to influence Hong Kong, but to serve as a vector for their political movement to make its way deeper into mainland China..."

NorthReport wrote:

The sooner Canadians realize what China is really all about, as opposed to some make believe fantasy, the better off we will all be.

I'm no big rah, rah Freeland fan, but this is indeed outrageous on the part of Dictatorship China

 ‘A warning’: China’s central television takes direct aim at Canada’s Foreign Minister

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-a-warning-chinas-central-television-takes-direct-aim-at-canadian/

Freeland is a CIA plant so why shouldn't everyone on this board decry her war mongering and militaristic viewpoint. She is a nasty jingoistic attack dog for a viscous empire, the worst Foreign Minister in my lifetime.

The CIA didn't have to 'plant' her. She truly represents their values held in common by the Canadian faux-liberal, pro-imperialist set that pretends to run with the hares but in the end  hunts with the hounds. Like her, they may present as 'feminist foreign policy' progressives but always support 'rules-based-international order', status quo imperialist hegemony.  Hence Israel is untouchable, Sinophobia is all the rage and Canadian sovereignty or an independent foreign policy is unthinkable.