
China Warns World Leaders: Don't Talk About the Hong Kong Protests - lawrenceyan
https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/d3njzv/china-warns-world-leaders-dont-talk-about-the-hong-kong-protests
======
mc32
Wait, is China putting world leaders under a gag order? Under what authority?

Are there mechanisms by which they are allowed to do this (stipulated in
bilateral or international agreements of any type?). Or is this just the
height of arrogance and delusion on the CCP side?

I don’t think even Putin goes to these extents to quash dissent.

I can even understand internal (domestic censorship, it makes some sense from
their perspective), but this is attempting to control what sovereigns of other
nations may say... What?

~~~
devoply
Money and power drives leaders mad. It's not delusional if you can retaliate
against people who don't toe the party line. Just look at the US destroying
whole countries for not upholding "freedom and democracy" mythology... well
that's different you say... but is it, really?

~~~
Fjolsvith
> Money and power drives leaders mad. It's not delusional if you can retaliate
> against people who don't tow the party line. Just look at the US destroying
> whole countries for not uploading "freedom and democracy" mythology... well
> that's different you say... but is it, really?

What do you mean by, "Uploading the 'freedom and democracy' mythology?"

~~~
mc32
It’s referring to thd Middle East meddling we got involved during Bush and to
a somewhat lesser extent Obama presidencies (though North AfricanNear East and
Middle East Arab spring was a debacle as well).

------
loceng
Does the Streisand effect work with politicians?

China already would censor anything related to it, so isn't this simply China
trying to see who will fall in line?

Re: Tiananmen Square Massacre

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement commemorating the 30th
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre -
[https://www.newsweek.com/tiananmen-square-massacre-china-
say...](https://www.newsweek.com/tiananmen-square-massacre-china-says-us-
violating-international-law-honoring-30th-anniversary-1442014)

China's response - [http://www.china-
embassy.org/eng/zmgxss/t1669295.htm](http://www.china-
embassy.org/eng/zmgxss/t1669295.htm) -

"On June 3, 2019, the US side issued a statement on China in the name of
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo out of prejudice and arrogance. Under the
pretext of human rights, the statement grossly intervenes in China's internal
affairs, attacks its system, and smears its domestic and foreign policies.
This is an affront to the Chinese people and a serious violation of
international law and basic norms governing international relations. The
Chinese side expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to it.

The Chinese government and people reached the verdict on the political
incident of the late 1980s long ago. Over the past four decades of reform and
opening-up, China has enjoyed rapid economic and social development,
continuous progress in democracy and the rule of law, flourishing culture and
significantly improved standards of living. China's human rights are in the
best period ever. Socialism with Chinese characteristics, a choice of history
and the people, has been proved a right path in line with China's national
conditions and supported by the whole population. China is firmly committed to
the path of peaceful development and to the development of human rights in
China and the whole world, and has made significant contribution to the
international human rights governance. This is a fact that is recognized by
all unbiased people.

The Chinese people have the best say on China. Their pursuit of a better life
cannot be stopped by any force. Whoever attempt to patronize and bully the
Chinese people in any name, or preach a "clash of civilizations" to resist the
trend of times will never succeed. They will only end up in the ash heap of
history."

Talk about our past and we'll leave you in an ash heap? Sounds like they
didn't learn anything in whatever "verdict" the government and people
supposedly came to.

~~~
PavlovsCat
From the totalitarian perspective, ultimately the whole globe, and the inside
of any mind, is an "internal affair".

That they talk of "resisting the trend of the times" is just par of the
course:

> _More specific in totalitarian propaganda, however, than direct threats and
> crimes against individuals is the use of indirect, veiled, and menacing
> hints against all who will not heed its teachings and, later, mass murder
> perpetrated on "guilty" and "innocent" alike. People are threatened by
> Communist propaganda with missing the train of history, with remaining
> hopelessly behind their time, with spending their lives uselessly, just as
> they were threatened by the Nazis with living against the eternal laws of
> nature and life, with an irreparable and mysterious deterioration of their
> blood._

[..]

> _The scientificality of totalitarian propaganda is characterized by its
> almost exclusive insistence on scientific prophecy as distinguished from the
> more old-fashioned appeal to the past. Nowhere does the ideological origin,
> of socialism in one instance and racism in the other, show more clearly than
> when their spokesmen pretend that they have discovered the hidden forces
> that will bring them good fortune in the chain of fatality._

[..]

> _Totalitarian propaganda raised ideological scientificality and its
> technique of making statements in the form of predictions to a height of
> efficiency of method and absurdity of content because, demagogically
> speaking, there is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing
> an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the
> future can reveal its merits. However, totalitarian ideologies did not
> invent this procedure, and were not the only ones to use it. Scientificality
> of mass propaganda has indeed been so universally employed in modern
> politics that it has been interpreted as a more general sign of that
> obsession with science which has characterized the Western world since the
> rise of mathematics and physics in the sixteenth century; thus
> totalitarianism appears to be only the last stage in a process during which
> "science has become an idol that will magically cure the evils of existence
> and transform the nature of man." And there was, indeed, an early connection
> between scientificality and the rise of the masses. The "collectivism" of
> masses was welcomed by those who hoped for the appearance of "natural laws
> of historical development" which would eliminate the unpredictability of the
> individual's actions and behavior. There has been cited the example of
> Enfantin who could already "see the time approaching when the 'art of moving
> the masses' will be so perfectly developed that the painter, the musician,
> and the poet-will possess the power to please and to move with the same
> certainty as the mathematician solves a geometrical problem or the chemist
> analyses any substance," and it has been concluded that modern propaganda
> was born then and there._

\-- Hannah Arendt, "The Origins of Totalitarianism"

Same book, but I'm note sure if this passage comes before or after the above:

> _[The method of infallible prediction] is foolproof only after the movements
> have seized power. Then all debate about the truth or falsity of a
> totalitarian dictator’s prediction is as weird as arguing with a potential
> murderer about whether his future victim is dead or alive – since by killing
> the person in question the murderer can promptly provide proof of the
> correctness of his statement. The only valid argument under such conditions
> is promptly to rescue the person whose death is predicted. Before mass
> leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is
> marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact
> depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it. The assertion
> that the Moscow subway is the only one in the world is a lie only so long as
> the Bolsheviks have not the power to destroy all the others. In other words,
> the method of infallible prediction, more than any other totalitarian
> propaganda device, betrays its ultimate goal of world conquest, since only
> in a world completely under his control could the totalitarian ruler
> possibly realize all his lies and make true all his prophecies._

same thing for this quote (since this discussion was flagged like a brick
anyway I don't feel bad for taking up that much space -- if it's an additional
incentive for even just one person to read that book, it's worth it)

> _We don 't know a perfected totalitarian power structure, because it would
> require the control of the whole planet. But we know enough about the the
> still preliminary experiments of total organization to realize that the very
> well possible perfection of this apparatus would get rid of human agency in
> the sense as we know it. To act would turn out to be superfluous for people
> living together, when all people have become an example of their species,
> when all doing has become an acceleration of the movement mechanism of
> history or nature following a set pattern, and all deeds have become the
> execution of death sentences which history and nature have given anyway._

edit:

> _The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits
> 'atrocities' but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims
> to control the past as well as the future._

and

> _Already history has in a sense ceased to exist, ie. there is no such thing
> as a history of our own times which could be universally accepted, and the
> exact sciences are endangered as soon as military necessity ceases to keep
> people up to the mark. Hitler can say that the Jews started the war, and if
> he survives that will become official history. He can’t say that two and two
> are five, because for the purposes of, say, ballistics they have to make
> four. But if the sort of world that I am afraid of arrives, a world of two
> or three great superstates which are unable to conquer one another, two and
> two could become five if the fuhrer wished it. That, so far as I can see, is
> the direction in which we are actually moving, though, of course, the
> process is reversible._

\-- George Orwell

If you got this far, read this speech, it's really good, and I want this ray
of hope to be your takeaway more than anything:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20262265](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20262265)

~~~
loceng
Thank you for sharing all of this.

------
Shivetya
and I ask again, how are American tech giants defending their production in
this country. Very quick to toot their human rights horns yet show no shame in
being in China.

~~~
bassman9000
this

No issue bashing collaboration with DoD, but damning silence when it's the
business in China.

------
mfatica
First thought when reading this headline is what is Trump about to say

~~~
devoply
Whatever you wanna say about Trump, in the end silencing dissent all over the
world is not something good. It's good that someone stands up to this before
we can't do that anymore.

~~~
Arbalest
I was thinking something similar. Trump might not be the brightest person, but
he sure can't keep his mouth shut... Which is exactly what we need in this
instance.

