[Tinfoilhat666]

Why are Westeners always criticizing other cou tries? I think its great that there are different competing systems. The best ones evolve. It's not a good idea to have all eggs in one basket. It would be sad if all countries were like USA.

[brobdingnagians]

I think the core problem is this:

The people who run China believe in "freedom" for themselves. They think of ideas and implement things, they have a great degree of freedom and set up the systems to watch everyone, but they themselves have ways around it, connections, access to information about what's going on in the world, etc.

They fundamentally believe they are better than the other Chinese they make decisions on (bureaucrats have a tendency to arrogance and belief in their own "best ideas"). Maybe they have some good ideas, maybe they don't. But the fact that _they_ view themselves and treat themselves differently is the point. In such a system, the violent and ruthless usually rise to the top, which eventually shows in society. Humanity has tried that lots of times, it doesn't work out.

In a truly free society, you are free to _truly_ start a competing system or a different system. You can take your strange ideas and start up a commune if you want. You can start an authoritarian commune (as long as people choose to let you and can leave), or an artistic commune, or a free-love commune. That is where you get different systems, and everyone can make a different system. Yeah, it's great to have that, but that gets us back to square one: people being treated like they individually can go do something important of their own choice and different than those around them. Instead of one bureaucrat thinking their ideas are the best ones and then imposing it violently on everyone else. That's not different competing systems, that's hell.

It's all great for the homogeneous, apathetic majority, but where are the schools, education, healthcare, spacious apartment, etc. for the Uighur?

[_lessthan0]

The core problem is that you could put any country in there. USA think they have freedom to do what they please because of their economic and military power. Britain thinks they can leave and have a better time out of the EU etc. All countries are ruthless. Some do it a pleasant but deceiving way the others do it out in the open. At least with China you get to see what and how they are implementing it. US you don't. Who's more secretive?

[brobdingnagians]

I'm not holding any country up as a shining light. I don't think there is any country that even comes close to what I'm describing as an ideal. I wish there was. Some are more some are less, in different ways.

[gurkendoktor]

The problem is that the PRC is going for an authoritarian ethnostate, and I think this a reasonable system to have in the global "marketplace of ideas", but at the same time they refuse to give up non-Han territories like Xinjiang that don't fit into this equation at all.

Also, the CCP won't leave people alone who leave China for more attractive systems. They're hardly interested in a competition of systems.

[pjc50]

> authoritarian ethnostate, and I think this a reasonable system to have in the global "marketplace of ideas"

It really isn't, as it's not achievable without mass murder or at the very least "ethnic cleansing".

[gurkendoktor]

That's kind of my point. They wouldn't need to cleanse the Muslim regions (or Tibet for that matter) if they weren't part of the PRC to begin with. But of course China will never give up these territories -- in fact they're busy trying to annex other places where the CCP system is not welcome.

(Not trying to imply that everything that happens within the "core" of China is awesome.)

[hyperdunc]

The best do not evolve. The strongest and most adaptable survive. That doesn't necessarily mean the people in those societies have quality lives.

[NeedMoreTea]

If Britain were putting their dissidents and muslims in concentration camps I would be very vocally criticising my own country - which I suppose means I'd be a dissident earmarked for a concentration camp. I already do criticise on lots of other topics, and some of our worse moments of empire in history, or the lives ruined by UK's austerity dogma. I criticise the US too, and don't want to be just like them either.

Why should I not do the same for China when they are destroying lives of people whose only crime is being an ethnic minority, or trying to bring repressive laws to Hong Kong?

It's good to have different systems when the basics of humanity are remembered.

[arethuza]

"I'd be a dissident earmarked for a concentration camp"

From what I remember of Duncan Campbell's Secret Society I believe the legislation for just emergency measures as interment of 'subversives' and other emergency measures was drafted during the Cold War - this would be expected to be passed by parliament in the event of a suitable emergency. I would suspect these things have never been thrown out but will still be there in a filing cabinet somewhere in Whitehall.

Let's hope we don't meet in a camp one day and laugh about the naivety of our postings on HN....

[NeedMoreTea]

I laughed, but you're right, I'm sure the state of emergency measures are still there in some form, since you never know when they might be needed. I always thought such a thing would be fairly clear cut, but possibly state of emergency is the only way Brexit is going through...

Still that veneer of civility and rule of law is important, however artificial it sometimes seems. Democracy is all too fragile. I remember the nuclear war programme Threads, and the documentary at the same time - possibly Panorama - where some petty bureaucrat or councillor was positively itching for Armageddon to happen just so he could start shooting people. I think he only had a very minor place in the emergency hierarchy. It was his answer for every disagreement - shoot them - he must have mentioned it a dozen times!

See you in camp... :)

[pjc50]

Internment was used in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, and the last prosecution for "sedition" in the UK was 1972 before it was reformed in 1975. http://www.bailii.org/ew/other/EWLC/1977/c72.pdf

[peisistratos]

> If Britain were putting their dissidents and muslims in concentration camps I would be very vocally criticising my own country

The UK did lock up dissidents in a mass internment during the 1970s - in the six counties of north Ireland. The Irish marched through the streets of Derry to protest and 14 (unarmed) men were shot. The queen then proceeded to pin medals on the parachute regiment who fired on the crowd.

Chinese needs no help from the Britains who launched a war to keep selling their opium and heroin to Chinese drug addicts - drug pushers using violence to keep addicts addicted, to "remember their humanity".

[NeedMoreTea]

After intense fighting between the catholics and loyalists in the 1969 riots, and the IRA petrol bombing and shooting at police - unprovoked. Nearly 2,000 casualties of the IRA campaign - nearly all unarmed.

Yet I don't condone the use of internment - even if I do understand how and why it happened. All it did was intensify the already high tensions.