China has lashed out at Germany after its foreign minister called Xi Jinping a “dictator” and summoned Berlin’s ambassador for a dressing down, in the latest flaring of tensions with a western democratic power over how the Chinese leader is described overseas.
Yes, connect lets you block instances, but it still shows that there was a comment there and lets you show it. It’s handy to see how much you’re blocking.
Thanks for the recommendation, but I’m on Android, so I can’t use it. On spezit I loved, and supported Infinity, the Infinity fork Eternity is very good. I love having my own colour theme, it’s great for qol, and all the other nice features it has.
Have you ever bothered to read the rules of your instance? If I go on there and say anything negative about your cute dictator I’ll be banned. However, you can freely go on our greedy capitalist instances and praise your teddy bear as much as you want. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. I guess your mind can’t comprehend being free.
Do you mean the rule about not being Sinophobic? Is that really a hard rule for you to follow? I like to look at objective reality instead of just barking the same nonsensical shibboleths when the topic of China arises.
Most anti-communism has no basis in reality and often are myths perpetuated by state agencies. All Anti-Capitalist sentiment is rooted in the material realities of our world and life. To deny socialist historical reality is to deny your own history, and ultimately is an admission of your disingenuous support of the truth.
Historical Materialism is truth seeking in practice. It requires you to have a fact based, objective view of our past and present.
Also I don’t know why I would whine, because I’m not using lemmy.ml. That instance can have whatever rules they want. I wouldn’t block or defederate from them because of it either. But if you are not interested in seeking the truth and objectively observing reality, then I guess you can insolate yourself from it and keep your echos.
There’s differing opinions and then there’s just shittalking. When it comes to differing opinions most of Hexbear interactions deliberately (by the admission of their own users) fall under shittalking. They deliberately antagonize and troll anyone with a different opinion because in their mind anyone who doesn’t agree with them should be trolled. You don’t get differing opinions from Hexbear, you get a bastardization of a differing opinion. One that is different only on the basis them telling you you’re wrong, and in most cases even that has to be intuited.
Nobody should wade through shit to get a few nuggets of gold which is why most people just block Hexbear.
But they have posted to .ml which is federated with hexbear. So the poster’s instance needs to be federated no the instance of the community where the post is?
Yeah they don’t tell you much about what’s going on in your police state do they? The feds paid a visit around to all the social media giants and forced them to censor negative news about paedo Joe. This is well known outside your prison state.
When “Don’t let people post pictures of my son’s dick” becomes “China will disappear you if you call Winnie the Pooh a dictator as a citizen of China”.
We know about it. You’re like a Libertarian acting like they have secret knowledge when they tell you you still have to pay taxes for Universal healthcare.
Ah yes, because they are all very different and diverse and definitely don’t kowtow to the same political group. A wolf in a different hat is still a wolf.
“I was reelected as the general secretary of the CPC central committee,” Xi said in opening remarks, before presenting the six other members: Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, and Li Xi.
Hitler obviously wasn't a dictator as he was democratically elected by a majority (after competing parties were banned) and then -just out of situational necessity of course- got a lot of extra powers to ignore laws and constitution.
Hitler obviously wasn’t a dictator as he was democratically elected by a majority (after competing parties were banned) and then -just out of situational necessity of course- got a lot of extra powers to ignore laws and constitution.
Well you can fuck right off! The same person *supposedly upset about the KKK just discriminated against 330,000,000 people from every country on Earth in the very next breath. You’re worse than racist.
I’m an American so I can answer this question sincerely. When you are already the one winning, you work as hard as ever to keep winning. You innovate more. This is the American way. It’s why we’re the most advanced country on the planet, and it’s how we maintain that lead. Building off of the work of previous generations who made and did amazing things. That’s our approach and it works fucking awesome.
The Taiwanese use the meme all the time. Obviously not because it looks like Xi in particular and especially because of fragile censoring, but because they like to be racist against themselves. That must be it.
Calling Trump a guinea pig is probably also considered racist in lemmygrad.
The guy who replied to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in your second screenshot seems like one of the far-right wingers. They do not, in any capacity, represent the general population.
Taiwan is where the former Republic of China retreated after being defeated by the People’s Republic of China. The censorship of Xi=Pooh in China isn’t rooted in racism, it’s rooted in the political conflicts between the ROC and PRC. China censors these comparisons because they are used by opponents to attack the government. You don’t have to agree with their methods to understand why they would want to do this. Censoring realistic threats to the ruling government is a common practice in all nations.
The racist aspect originates from how the meme is used in Western circles where there is a long history of racism towards minorities and the enemies of the US as well as a long history of sinophobia.
If your understanding of history, racism, and their opinions of Trump are so shallow, maybe lurking Lemmygrad to learn why users from this instance act so aggressively towards racism and war-mongering propaganda would be helpful.
I’m a communist who likes cats and puns. If you can make a compelling argument for how celebrating Mao in the form of a cat pun has a basis in racism and the historical oppression of a people, I’m ready to change it.
I’ve no need to read between the lines, a dude named mao just told me the ruling government should be worried about cultural sparks for violent political change, and doesn’t see the irony
Not racist at all. It’s against one person. Trump’s face is seen on an orange all the time. No one is calling for racism. He just looks like a damn orange.
Just because the Winnie the Pooh meme isn't actually racist doesn't mean I'm not going to call it racist in a pathetic attempt to establish a fake moral high ground over people who have arguments I can't counter
FYI, citing the fact that the meme originated in China does not negate how it is used by others after the fact. It’s like arguing that when neonazis use the swastika, it’s ok because its actual origins are as an ancient religious symbol. The meanings of things can change and be used for reasons other than their original intention.
I’m not saying the meme is racist, I’m saying that it’s being used in a racist way here, specifically in the form of Sinophobia.
True, but you can also see that I clarified my statement in better detail after initially wording it poorly. You got me, I guess I’ll go rethink my entire worldview now.
Xi isn’t in the US and his country isn’t part of NATO. Political cartoons are as old as time. They poke fun at the individual, not their descent. By trying to make it more you’re arguing for it to be censored. He has feelings (maybe), but he has gone so far as to attempt to censor the cartoon from his own country. Not because he believes it is racist, but because his opinion is that he doesn’t like it. Streisand Effect of course, it gets used more. I think Xi does remarkably look like Pooh. Do other Asian persons? No. There isn’t an innocence about it. Xi feels bad by it, people use it to make him angry. He is a dictator with lots of power so people use the one tool they have to attempt to fight that power - a fucking cartoon bear.
I think you misinterpreted part of what I’m saying. The use of the meme in Taiwan and Hong Kong were political dissent, not racism.
The use of the meme in NATO countries is racist due to their history of racism and because this is one of the tools these governments use to convince you that China is your enemy and you should support military actions against them before their military becomes stronger than that of the US and they lose their monopoly on international power and subsequently their power to bully the rest of the world.
Before you dismiss this argument by saying it’s just because Xi doesn’t like the meme, where did you get this information? From what I’ve seen the Chinese government has not responded and the reasoning behind the ban is purely speculative. Sure, I believe they banned the comparison as it was the basis of geopolitical dissent, but to claim it’s because a world leader who gets insulted frequently and in worse ways has thin skin is a stretch. He has bigger worries than Westerners tweeting at him.
If you want a tool to fight the power of dictators, you’d be better served focusing on organizing the citizens of your own country against the powers that work against their interests at home. They point you toward foreign leaders and say “look, they’re worse” so you won’t criticize the shit job your own “representatives” are doing at home.
That would be racist, because of the whole monkey-black-people existing racial insult. In the same way, it is not racist to depict Xi as Winnie the Pooh since there is no “President Xis look like cartoon bears” racial insult.
Dehumanizing people through racism is a well established method the US has historically used when manufacturing consent to go to war among its people. Look at depictions of Germans and Japanese in WWII. Look at depictions of Koreans, the Vietnamese, Afghans, and Iraqis during the invasions of their countries.
Just because its origins weren’t racist doesn’t mean it hasn’t taken on a racist meaning. Sinophobia is rooted in racism and ignorance.
Right, because if you allow racist tropes a little bit of leeway they won’t become normalized and propagate over time.
How has voting in your bastion of democracy been working out for you? Did you get to vote to go to war? It’s not like your leaders are any less authoritarian.
The most recent case you can find is from 2006? Jesus, dude. Please, I beg of you, get outside and interact with a person face to face. It has to have been years for you at this point.
There’s plenty of more recent examples, but I’m not going to go to the effort to dig up more in a conversation where the majority of the replies I get boil down to “nuh-uh, I saw different online stupid tankie.”
If 2006 is the year that you landed on, I’ll again point you to the two specific names I dropped, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, both of whom experienced this with the US and allies more recently.
Do you see why I wouldn’t bother putting the effort into finding a better source? The low effort replies and baseless personal attacks are all over this thread. Even the people I gave the benefit of the doubt to while replying didn’t reply in good faith.
What do you feel like you’ve added to the conversation by trying to personally attack me? Does it feel good to attack someone behind the protection of anonymity? I wonder, if we did meet face-to-face, would you have the courage and strength of character to engage with me in a conversation as a fellow human worthy of respect despite our differences in belief or would you still hide behind weak, uninspiring insults as you have here?
Altering public opinion is definitely on their agenda. I’m not the type of person that screams China bad on everything, but this simply wouldn’t surprise me. Also, nobody is trying to feel special here, except for you.
Dictator is the better word because it implies a choice by the people. It’s the reason why Octavian is the first Roman emperor but every ruler wants to be a Caesar.
In a way, calling Xi a dictator recognizes his legitimization. I am sure that was not intended.
I did for a bit too until someone here pointed out the underlying issue. Winnie is yellow in all the images of him Disney made or not. And “yellow” people in Western racism are Asians particularly Chinese people.
It would be really fucked up for Germany to call Xi any variation of that name IMO.
This just in: calling a black person Mickey mouse is racist! Can’t call a white person “Snoopy”, that’s racist too. Likening a Chinese person to a character from the Simpsons? Believe it or not, racist.
The meme was created by Chinese bloggers, who used it to mock Xi despite heavy monitoring and censorship. If anything, perpetuating it is a show of support of Chinese dissenters.
She’s not exactly known for being a smart person in Germany. Whoever thought she had what it takes to be a diplomat was clearly deluded. She only got the job as foreign minister because of proportional representation.
Most dictators haven’t gone by that term, preferring instead some other executive role like chairman, supreme leader, or president. If Xi doesn’t want to be called a dictator, maybe China should start holding open elections, see how popular the CCP really is.
Yeah, our elections suck. They should be more open and should be ranked choice. Likewise, the Electoral College is complete bullshit. Even still, Xi is a dictator and China is not a democracy. Multiple things can be true.
China is a democracy, the USA isn’t. Xi is the democratically elected leader of his country and enjoys massive popular support. Your past two presidents are hated by the peasantry. You have no understanding of the world because you live in what you think North Korea is like.
Your press is censored, your internet is censored, you have a one party state with no democracy and people die from preventable diseases daily. Homelessness and poverty are rampant. Child slavery and child poverty have skyrocketed under the current regime. America is a shithole, circling the drain and your pathetic racist shit in this thread just exemplifies how little you have to come back with.
No idea. I couldn’t even tell you that about my own country or the USA, you know that place that’s totally a democracy where they don’t count all the votes and keep the black people from voting with dirty tricks.
The general population does not vote for the presidency in China, the electors chosen by the CCP do. That is significantly less democratic than the US which is also not a very democratic country when it comes to the presidency.
Hate to break it to you but China is a dictatorship. They don't even pretend otherwise, the primacy of the Communist Party is literally part of their constitution.
Most forced elections haven’t gone by that term, preferring instead some other description like people’s elections, free elections, or secured elections. Made up words but you get the idea.
The CCP has higher approval rates than western governments and the vast majority of Chinese believe they are living in a democracy. This is confirmed by western studies; latest one I’ve seen was from Harvard.
If 95% of ford owners were satisfied with their black cars, vs 40% for another manufacturer that provides cars in multiple colors, then ford would be the better manufacturer.
Enough for them to believe that they live in a democracy, it seems (and I don’t say that sarcastically).
It’s not like people in liberal democracies have more influence. We can’t choose who runs, and each individual’s vote is negligible. I don’t know the specifics of China’s government, but I suspect they value being able to influence local policy and higher official elections via the Communist Party more than a direct vote on its leader – I would too, honestly.
don’t make conflations with the USA and other liberal democracies. There are plenty of transparent, effective democracies where popular votes matter massively, and saying because the USA is electorally broken that everywhere is only serves the narrative that true liberal democracy “isn’t possible” i.e., exactly what China and Russia suggest.
A fair bit, actually. China’s political system is basically a popularity system from bottom to top. At the lowest level, politicians only stay in power if their population is happy. This trickles up to the provincial level, where politicians again only stay in power if their population is happy. At a national level, the national leaders stay in power by building, essentially, large cabinets out of different provincial and regional leaders - thus, their entire position relies on keeping the provinces happy.
It’s not the perfect system, but Chinese citizens can fairly easily impact local and even provincial policy and, by extension, influence national policy (recently, by repealing the COVID lockdowns with mass protests).
The CCP isn’t an absolute monarchy or something. At the end of the day, it serves it’s people. The power of the Chinese economy is in its industrial capacity, after all, not in its wealth: the needs of the people need to be addressed to keep the country stable.
The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) told the BBC the CI on its campus was solely educational and that there was “nothing about this straightforward QUT CI’s work that could be identified as Chinese propaganda nor does it threaten academic freedom”.
In 2008, Israel’s Tel Aviv University closed an art exhibition on Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that originated in China. The following year, America’s North Carolina State University cancelled a visit of Tibetan spiritual leader the 14th Dalai Lama.
An Israeli court found that the Tel Aviv University had illegitimately cancelled the Falun Gong exhibition because of Chinese government pressure. In North Carolina, the Confucius Institute’s director warned state officials that the Dalai Lama’s visit could hurt “strong relationships we were developing in China”.
Since their inception in South Korea’s Seoul in 2004, Confucius Institutes have enrolled up to 9 million students at 525 institutes in 146 countries and regions, as per the Heritage Foundation. In 2018, Politico magazine reported that the Chinese government was pouring in up to $10 billion annually into the initiative.
It’s an interesting sum for the promotion of one’s language. But it’s not. In the Chinese government’s own words, the initiative is a propaganda arm of the state. Politburo standing member Li Changchun said in 2009 that Confucius Institutes are an “important part of China’s overseas propaganda set-up”.
He further said, “The Confucius Institute is an appealing brand for expanding our culture abroad. It has made an important contribution toward improving our soft power. The ‘Confucius’ brand has a natural attractiveness. Using the excuse of teaching Chinese language, everything looks reasonable and logical.”
Politico cited a 2010 Chinese state-run People’s Daily article by propaganda minister Liu Yunshan as saying, “With regard to key issues that influence our sovereignty and safety, we should actively carry out international propaganda battles against issuers such as Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, human rights, and Falun Gong. We should do well in establishing and operating overseas cultural centres and Confucius
Yes (I’m not saying it’s terribly wrong, other countries have their equivalent, but at least own up to what you’re doing)
Best take I’ve seen here. The big countries in the world have way too much power. Problem is, if any one country has this amount of power, it automatically makes it so that other countries will also want to match that level of power.
Plenty of people would raise their eyebrows on you for mentioning the US, but you would not exactly be wrong. China and Russia are authoritarian. However, the US is a highly flawed democracy with extremely flawed and abusive foreign policy. Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has had recent precedence, with US invading Iraq out of trumped up charges. In Putin’s mind, he must have thought “if the Americans did it, why can’t I”? This is why I believe in a multipolar world.
Multipolar means there are more than two influential/great power. Personally, I think this is better than the current state of US being the sole superpower, or during the cold war when there was two rival superpowers. However, some people argue that a multipolar world is not more stable (it led to World War I). I’m not an expert myself, but since we’ve got more democracies now than the time before World War I, I would argue that a multipolar world composed of mostly democratic countries might work.
I was not aware that term length was the method by which a dictatorship was determined. (Hint : It is not) In a democratic country, keep the people happy, stay in power. Is that how China works?
I could speak more on this but I will match your low effort and pause there.
The survey team found that compared to public opinion patterns in the U.S., in China there was very high satisfaction with the central government. In 2016, the last year the survey was conducted, 95.5 percent of respondents were either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with Beijing. In contrast to these findings, Gallup reported in January of this year that their latest polling on U.S. citizen satisfaction with the American federal government revealed only 38 percent of respondents were satisfied with the federal government.
I could speak more on this but I will match your low effort and pause there.
I’d rather not read any more stupid comments from smug and uninformed liberals like you in my inbox, thanks for the favor.
Did you keep reading to the part about low level satisfaction with local government. And some thoughts on why. It’s more complicated than you summarise.
Did you keep reading to the part about low level satisfaction with local government.
I did, did you? Or are you just skimming the introductory article for something “negative” to comment on?
You’re painting a pretty disingenuous picture, the satisfaction levels for local government are lower than for the central government but they’re still pretty good:
Do you believe that 75% or more of Americans believe their local representatives are “Knowledgeable”, “Kind” or that they feel “Satisfied with [the] Eventual Outcome” of their decisions?
It’s more complicated than you summarise.
I didn’t summarize anything, I pasted a direct quote from the article you seem to not have read:
Let’s first recall the initial assertion, readers please keep it in mind, (Image asserting dictatorship among western politicians)
Let’s see what conversational traps the troll uses.
“Proves” China is happy. Let’s assume their proof is valid to save time. Pause, revisit initial point, is it related? Doesn’t seem to be. Alright let’s continue.
Asserts I am liberal? Odd, seems related to nothing. None of the topics seems attached to this assertion. Let’s continue.
End of post, so let’s revisit, has the responder provided anything of value on the topic (recalling that this is a topic that they initialized). Well, no.
2/10 troll. Mildly entertaining though. I’m glad they posted, its a good education for people to see common tactics used by time vampires. Have a nice day troll or trollbot.
The irony of calling me a troll while at the same time dismissing a study you haven’t read to attack my character. Please keep your word and stick to just one low effort reply here, I don’t think anyone needs to read you embarrass yourself any further.
You were called a liberal because of your support of liberal governments, making it related to the topic. The holier-than-thou tone of your response highlights your lack of education on the relevant topics. Seeing as you think no one else provided any value to the discussion and you knowingly chose to contribute nothing of your own (is coat-tail time vampire an established term?) Let’s try to salvage something out of this thread. Beyond the derisive tone of this first paragraph, everything beyond is provided as a measure toward engaging in a good-faith conversation.
Why were you called a liberal and why would a communist see this as a fault? To add some clarity before the quote, communists usually apply the term “liberal” to what people in the US refer to as “conservatives” and “liberals.” They are lumped together due to their mutual support of liberalism and neoliberalism. The following quote is from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Section 2.4. It does not fully answer the above question, but it will begin to give some context. Any additional clarification can be gained by reading further into Marxist theory.
My comments are simple, direct. I inject nothing and ask questions about statements. If this is offensive, it is inferred without being implied.
Let’s address your assertions and questions one-by-one without all the fluff.
A subjectively-observed attitude indicates lack of education.
What does time vampire mean.
You acknowledge an aggressive tone and suggest the next paragraph will contain a shift.
You provide a contextual quote.
My responses.
Disregard, I draw no connection between attitude and education so choose not to engage, defend, or otherwise.
I’ll admit, this is close to a joke/slang term. Colloquially, time vampire is someone who takes your time as a hobby. Related to “bullshit asymmetry” aka, the amount of effort required to debunk bullshit is always greater than the initial bullshit. Giving the bullshitter infinite ammo to destroy the time of a good faith responder. A vampire takes blood, a time vampire would take time. I am sure you can draw the connection from the above info.
No response required. Clear.
This is where the assumptions go wrong, I do not support neoliberalism. I support clarity of discussion. I responded because I found the initial comment to be misleading, unclear, and poorly framed. On liberalism I have no stance due to lack of education on this topic. Your quote is interesting, I’ll have to read more on this.
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