I find western obsession with "being able to critique X" very weird because it stops at just that. There's very little attention paid to whether the critique produces useful outcomes. While cost of living, energy scarcity, employment, education, wars, etc are all getting worse, people focus on being able to insult the president as the ultimate freedom, even when that achieves nothing.

Meanwhile in China, you can't change the ruling party but you can change policies. They restrict media and speech freedom, but they also work tirelessly to improve the livelihoods of the people.

If the west chooses the value empty talk over outcomes, fine, you have the right to choose that. But no need to force that value on other societies. China and Chinese society at large has the right value unity and livelihood over speech. They have the right to prefer what westerners call an "authoritarian" government that delivers on those values, without getting demonized. They're not forcing their way on you, no need for you to force your way on them.

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kelnos 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> they also work tirelessly to improve the livelihoods of the people.

They work to improve the livelihood of people with the same background and ideology, you mean.

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FooBarWidget a day ago | parent [-]

Go travel to lower tier cities and rural places in China. The development those places have gotten in the past decade are huge. Go talk to regular people ask them to compare 10 years ago with now.

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MiiMe19 a day ago | parent [-]

Just like how they harvest the organs of people with a different religion. So progressive!!

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FooBarWidget a day ago | parent [-]

You can travel to Xinjiang and witness for yourself whether religious people and minorities live in daily fear of concentration camps and organ harvesting. There are no special travel restrictions beyond standard country-wide visa requirements. If you're in a western country then odds are you can enter visa-free.

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strangegecko an hour ago | parent [-]

Go to Russia and ask the average person on the street what they think of Putin. Thing is, the people who had to be afraid are already long gone. The rest just didn't care or tried to stay safe rather than prioritizing their beliefs and principles.

You really think the people who are left on the streets feel free to speak their minds if it would conflict with what the Politburo is enforcing?

	▲	FooBarWidget 10 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not asking you to hear what they say, I'm asking you feel their fear (or lack thereof). If all the allegations are true then they don't need to say anything, you can feel the fear effortlessly, there's no hiding that. Also, nobody is stopping you from interacting with them in a place without cameras and witnesses. Also, China has got nearly nothing in common with Russia. Don't lazily lump them together just because western popular thought likes to put the same label on them.

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MiiMe19 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In china they imprison priests for existing. And sure, they have the right to prefer that, but I can demonize them all I want. If you are the type of person to say the government, made up of people like you, should be able to tell you what to do without voting on if they should be in government at all you are foolish. There is one ethical form of government and it is democracy. Also, they regularly attempt to force their inferior ways onto others. Look at North Korea's obsession with South Korea. China's obsession with Taiwan. Russia's obsession with Ukraine (not really too much of a democracy there though o algo). There is no such thing as a country of that type having freedom to vote and freedom to speak because as soon as you give people those freedoms they choose a different system. It is no different than slavery.

	▲	FooBarWidget a day ago \| parent [-]
		You ought to travel to China and tell these things (just the parts about China and Taiwan, Russia/Korea etc irrelevant) to locals. In private, in a place with no cameras and no other onlookers, just to sooth your paranoia. People will laugh in your face. Maybe they'll even tell you where to find a church/mosque so you can attend a sermon or bid in the direction of Mecca or whatever. While you're at it, go look for elderlies in their 80s or older, who were born before the People's Republic's founding. Maybe they even witnessed the democratic era of the early Republic (not People's Republic). Go tell them your maximalist thoughts about democracy and see how they respond.

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0xDEAFBEAD 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Agreed.