[ben_w]

Religious persecution doesn’t disappear just because of economic growth. Neither does discrimination against sexual preferences (+). That’s the fear expressed above.

(+) unless you limit your knowledge of sexual preferences to just gay/straight — human sexuality is much more complicated than that.

[coldtea]

>Religious persecution doesn’t disappear just because of economic growth. Neither does discrimination against sexual preferences (+). That’s the fear expressed above.

The hypocrisy of a country that props constant wars all around the globe, has bombed/invaded 3-4 countries in the last 20 years alone, and constant meddling and manipulations of other governments for its "interests", that had segregation up to the 70s, the worlds largest prison populations by a huge margin, with routine police shootings in the 10x of any other country, pointing the finger to another country for "religious persecution" and "discrimination against sexual preferences" (which itself until 2000 or so had laws declaring "illegal" in many states, and even now has a good 40% or more of the population considering them immoral and believing in all kinds of Bible crap), never ceases to amaze...

[mcv]

I agree that the United States' run as the world's biggest superpower has been far from perfect. I criticise the US a lot. And I actually consider China to be one of the few countries that is not governed by amateurs. China gets a lot of things right.

The one big problem, though, is that China does not believe in freedom. At all. Censorship, no free press, no freedoms of opinion, expression, religion, etc. And they see nothing wrong with that. Whenever the US hurts these freedoms, they get criticised, even by their own people, and they eventually back down.

The fact that the US promises freedom but constantly breaks that promise makes them hypocrites, but it also always has the option that they will get back to their promise. China does not see the point of freedom at all, and considers it dangerous. And that's terrifying.

If we're going to have a superpower, I would love a China that respects freedom in that role. They would be better at it than the US. But current China is not that China.

As flawed as the US is, they at least have that going for them (pre-Trump US, at least). Though ideally, the EU would step up. They don't seem to want to, though.

[coldtea]

>If we're going to have a superpower, I would love a China that respects freedom in that role. They would be better at it than the US. But current China is not that China.

Where I disagree is that as a superpower China has been benign. They might have their territorial issues with their neighbors (like every other country, much more an ancient one in a much changed region), but they don't impose their (internal) non-freedom or whatever on the rest of the world with any kind of crusades.

>The one big problem, though, is that China does not believe in freedom. At all. Censorship, no free press, no freedoms of opinion, expression, religion, etc. And they see nothing wrong with that.

That's for themselves to fix/decide, as it is a matter of internal politics. Heck, their majority of their people might very well be fine with it, as they have a totally different political tradition than democracy, going back to taoism and on. Are there dissenters? Sure, but the kind of Chinese people westerners tend to fraternize with are exactly those that would adopt various western values or want some regime change, but that doesn't mean they represent anywhere near a majority -- it's a selection bias.

[2510c39011c5]

  The one big problem, though, is that China does not believe in freedom

I feel it is not that china doesn’t believe in freedom...it is just that they don’t practice freedom for the time being...but their government always promises future freedom to their people — although that promise may never become true...but the good thing about promising without a specific time is that the promise can always appear to be credible even when one is pushing the day of its realization to the infinity...

[kiliantics]

US has only ever been about securing freedom for a small and privileged minority of people, usually at great cost to people outside that group

[andai]

The EU is not your friend.

[ben_w]

No government is capable of friendship with a private person, any more than a human can be friends with a single white blood cell. What they are, governments in general and the EU in particular, is a useful ally.

[mcv]

There is indeed a lot wrong with the EU, as there is with the US and China. But of the three, the EU seems to care the most about protecting regular people from abuse and oppression. They're not perfect about it, and there's a lot of different forces at play in the EU, but on the whole, I tend to like their approach more than those of the US and China.

[ben_w]

Likewise, although it has only been recently that my opinion of human rights in the USA has declined — America takes its constitutional rights very seriously, or it seemed to until Snowden.

[smaddox]

That would be hypocrisy... if a county could critisize. However, a citizen of such a country can critisize both countries without being a hypocrite.

[ben_w]

I am not an American.

I am criticising American states for criminalising a sexuality that my own country never legalised.

I am also appalled by my own country’s behaviour in the colonial era.

[TheSpiceIsLife]

Can you imagine China having a government shutdown?

[chvid]

Actually it does - history is full of examples of just that. As the middle class grows in economic terms, it grows in political influence and the overall values of the society changes to accommodate that class. Introduction of democracy and women’s rights in Europe are good examples.

[cabalamat]

China may be different. Their planned social credit reputation system, coupled with ubiquitous surveillance, may make it impossible for public opinion in China to force the Chinese government to liberalise.

In the past, the West has had a massive advantage because: (1) their econpomic system was better than everyone else's, and (2) in order to modernise, other cultures have had to adopt some of the West's characteristics, including a greater level of freedom of speech/thought than in other societies. The combination meant that the West had few serious ideological competitors.

But if China becomes the world's biggest economy, if it continues to increase its economy so its per capita GDP is the same as in the USA and western Europe, and it does this while still being an autocracy, things will get very very serious.

The future may well be a jackboot stamping on a human face forever.

[chvid]

Maybe. But china’s overall path is towards more democracy and civil liberty. Compare tianamen square 30 years ago with the handling of the Hong Kong protests.

[coldtea]

Or, maybe, compare Tianamen square with Kent state, the Chicago '68 democratic convention, and so on.

[dctoedt]

After both Chicago '68 and the Kent State shooting, there was immediate, extensive blowback in the American press and public. Quite the opposite happened in China after Tiananmen Square.

(Of course, all of the above were decades ago, so we need to keep an open mind about the condition today in the respective countries.)

[coldtea]

>After both Chicago '68 and the Kent State shooting, there was immediate, extensive blowback in the American press and public. Quite the opposite happened in China after Tiananmen Square.

I'd say after those it was business and usual, and those involved didn't get even a slap on the wrist. If anything, venting through the press merely let people get steam out and forget more easily....

[phil21]

Why? These things are not even remotely on the same scale. How are you going to reconcile an event that caused ~20k some odd deaths (recent foreign consul leaks during the time) that was nearly 100% covered up by the government vs. Kent State? That's a bit ridiculous imo.

[coldtea]

Well, one event threatened a whole regime (and the country's stability) the other was some hippie students protesting at their university.

And still, "twenty-eight guardsmen fired approximately 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds" -- killing 4 and injuring many more.

Which begs the question, if there was major potentially elite affecting / government toppling issue instead of a small scale anti-war protest at a local university, what would be the response?

[rayiner]

Many of the rights we consider intrinsic to modern society, due process, etc., didn’t arise in Europe in respond to the rise of a middle class. In the Anglo tradition, they date back 800 years to the Magna Carta.

[Chris2048]

Europe had similar cultures to begin with, there's high correlation between European cultures such that you can't assume that i a universal norm.

[ben_w]

> Introduction of democracy and women’s rights in Europe are good examples.

Which is why I said “religious” and “sexual preference”.

Jews were widely discriminated against even a few years after WW2; Muslims are a current whipping-boy; I’m not sure if Catholic-vs-Protestant is as big a divide in Northern Ireland as it looks from the outside, but it does look big; In the USA, Atheists are almost as disliked as Muslims.

Then there’s sexual preference. You’re fine if you’re gay (finally!), but not so much if you’re into BDSM or have any fetishes more complicated than underwear. Also, I have a friend whose sexuality was previously legal, but which was outlawed in half of Europe and half of the USA this century. I invite you to guess what that might be.

[semperdark]

Not pedophilia, I hope? Unclear if you mean this century (2000 onwards) or the last hundred years (1918 onwards).

[ben_w]

No, and I had no even considered that as a possible misinterpretation, so thanks for checking. I mean post-2000.