I don't disagree with your views, as such. I feel comfortable judging countries on the merits of their policies and track records, etc.
However, the real question is, what do you think we should do about it?
Consider our range of options:
- learning Mandarin and translating controversial English language documents, then distributing them into China.
- Traveling to China carrying a hard drive full of uncensored wikipedia pages.
- boycotting Chinese products
- finding an activist (terrorist according to the Chinese government) charity and donating a few dollars.
- Lobbying your local officials to support trade/economic sanctions on China (sanctions create intentional non-death suffering intended to inspire political uprisings).
- Lobbying your local officials to advocate for a zero tolerance policy on human rights violations from US trading partners, etc.
All of these specify a clear course of action and have a fairly expectable outcome.
But suppose your goal is one of the following:
- To have the US send war ships into the oceans near China.
- To have the US impose sanctions on other nations that trade with China (sanctions create intentional non-death suffering intended to inspire political uprisings).
- To have the US demand the release of all Chinese political prisoners with a threat of selling arms to China's enemies if it fails to comply.
As you can see, we start from basic moral outrage and find ourselves very quickly sounding like raging neoconservatives.
My view is that we should REMOVE all trade barriers with China and increase immigration from China by 10000% over 5 years. I elaborated in the previous thread about the causes of China's behavior (and the existence of much similar behavior on the part of a slightly younger USA)...
Also, if you're concerned about censorship, consider the JFK assassination and how a major event (seemingly a very significant conspiracy of some kind to overthrow the US government) has been kept top secret, etc. Is it really that much of a stretch that China wishes to suppress knowledge of its own governmental overthrow attempt?
If, at the time of the JFK assassination, there had been dozens of Chinese journalists covering the event and getting camera footage, firsthand accounts, etc., then perhaps the US would have tried some fairly disreputable ways of censoring the info after the fact. I am no expert on this, but it seems to me that if it was just one crazy guy with a gun, then all of the information should have been declassified long ago.
Americans tend to put things like protests on a pedestal... but what about KKK protests in the US? Many Americans pat themselves on the back and support the banning of the expression of such views. I find the views of the KKK appalling, but we either have free speech or we don't... we either have full transparency or we have censorship. China is no different.
Everything you've said sounds very logical to me. We don't want to accept what China is doing and go with it, but we certainly don't want to go with embargoes or anything drastic. Things change slowly, and we need to realize that. Demanding things won't work - particularly, I think, in China's case, where responding to a demand would surely hurt their sense of nationalism which they (I think?) value highly.
I'm confused at your last statement though. What about KKK protests? They should be allowed and protected. Free speech is for everyone, regardless of opinion. That's the whole point of it.
That was my point about the KKK protests too... I brought it up b/c many people claim to support free speech but oppose some kinds of free speech, and in essence that's the sort of free speech we have in the US (the KKK has been banned from having its parades, etc.). In China, there is no pretense of free speech, yet some things are allowed and some disallowed.
I agree with you that demands won't work, and will probably make things worse. I think the danger of the sort of anti-China propaganda that we're seeing is that it's becoming an emotional groundswell quite similar to the anti-Saddam groundswel that preceeded the Iraq war. Not quite as bad, but there could always be some minor event (a plane shot down accidentally, a person detained, etc.) that would rapidly transform things into an irrational state where we'd have politicians seriously calling for warlike behavior.
I think the most important bottom line is that for the vast majority of Chinese people, the status quo will be better for their future and their families than if the US enacts sanctions or intervenes militarily. If we advocate making those people worse off (through sanctions, etc), we should realize that doing so without any cost to ourselves entails great hubris -- the core hubris of neoconservatism.
It's true... but I assume (and hope) that US politicians are not stupid enough to advocate anything actively harsh against China. China is nearly a superpower, and we do not need anything like another Cold war. (Not that it would be as bad, but two large countries in a state of conflict do note bode well for their inhabitants.)
However, the real question is, what do you think we should do about it?
Consider our range of options:
- learning Mandarin and translating controversial English language documents, then distributing them into China.
- Traveling to China carrying a hard drive full of uncensored wikipedia pages.
- boycotting Chinese products
- finding an activist (terrorist according to the Chinese government) charity and donating a few dollars.
- Lobbying your local officials to support trade/economic sanctions on China (sanctions create intentional non-death suffering intended to inspire political uprisings).
- Lobbying your local officials to advocate for a zero tolerance policy on human rights violations from US trading partners, etc.
All of these specify a clear course of action and have a fairly expectable outcome.
But suppose your goal is one of the following:
- To have the US send war ships into the oceans near China.
- To have the US impose sanctions on other nations that trade with China (sanctions create intentional non-death suffering intended to inspire political uprisings).
- To have the US demand the release of all Chinese political prisoners with a threat of selling arms to China's enemies if it fails to comply.
As you can see, we start from basic moral outrage and find ourselves very quickly sounding like raging neoconservatives.
My view is that we should REMOVE all trade barriers with China and increase immigration from China by 10000% over 5 years. I elaborated in the previous thread about the causes of China's behavior (and the existence of much similar behavior on the part of a slightly younger USA)...
Also, if you're concerned about censorship, consider the JFK assassination and how a major event (seemingly a very significant conspiracy of some kind to overthrow the US government) has been kept top secret, etc. Is it really that much of a stretch that China wishes to suppress knowledge of its own governmental overthrow attempt?
If, at the time of the JFK assassination, there had been dozens of Chinese journalists covering the event and getting camera footage, firsthand accounts, etc., then perhaps the US would have tried some fairly disreputable ways of censoring the info after the fact. I am no expert on this, but it seems to me that if it was just one crazy guy with a gun, then all of the information should have been declassified long ago.
Americans tend to put things like protests on a pedestal... but what about KKK protests in the US? Many Americans pat themselves on the back and support the banning of the expression of such views. I find the views of the KKK appalling, but we either have free speech or we don't... we either have full transparency or we have censorship. China is no different.