China is, historically speaking, the most influential country in East and Southeast Asia, as evidenced by the fact that Korea, Japan, and Vietnam all use or used a script derived from Chinese characters and that there is a large Chinese diaspora in even more countries in the region. On what basis would we consider China an outlier? Just the post-war era? Despite ambitions to do so the CCP did not exactly sweep away Chinese culture as it existed prior to the ascendance of Mao.
I'm not sure why we're arguing. China clearly is different from the West. And so are other Asian nations. Not as different as China is, however. Maybe more or less proportionally vs relative cultural influence from China and the West.
I disagree with the idea that it "isn't useful to lump in China with Asia overall" because, in fact, there is a lot of commonality between Chinese culture and other Asian cultures.
Well, there are lumpers and splitters, and I tend to be a splitter.
But anyway, should one judge China based on Western principles and values. If so, what would be the basis for that?
And if not, should one judge China based on principles and values of <some other Asian nation>? I don't see the basis for that, either.
However, it is of course valid for Chinese to judge their own country, based on whatever principles and values they might hold. And to work for change. But that's a very different thing from random Westerners judging China.
Personally, I can't imagine living in China. I have a hard enough time tolerating the US. But it's for sure better than where I came from. Although, I must admit, far from what I had imagined. But so it goes.
There's a distinction that I've been failing horribly to make clearly. I don't like the current Chinese regime. I wouldn't want to live there. And I support projects to help Chinese dissidents.
However, I do my best to avoid judging. Labeling. Appealing to illusory fundamental ideals and standards.
Sure, but maybe "authoritarianism" is just an abstract concept, and there's a lot more to the current Chinese situation th
Also there are counter examples of singapore, hong kong, macau and taiwan to show, no, chinese people are not culturally prone to creating a '1984' dystopia.
You can split hairs saying 'it used to be more authoritarian', 'one party has been in power for a long time', or 'it used to be under the nominal control of a western state' since no place is 1:1, but in the end it shows typical chinese people do not want it either.
Without getting into the weeds of what exactly we should say they are, I would argue there is such a thing as a set of universal principles that anyone should be held to (to take the trite, obvious example, we shouldn't excuse the Holocaust on the basis of some distinct German values).
No, there's no excusing the Holocaust. But it is useful to understand how the Nazis got to that point. Wars make people crazy. WWI was a horrorshow. And just a couple decades later, WWII. Germany felt beaten and cornered, and the Nazis offered hope. And then things got totally out of hand.
