[chrischen]

Chinese people are also beholden to China (the government). It may be a political game to you, but trying to destabilize the government would have serious consequences to the livelihoods of the people there, just because some policies (that don’t affect you) don’t agree with your world view.

Even though there are kinks in their regime, for the most part they’ve lifted hundreds or millions out of poverty. Imagine if the U.S. had a massive foreign power prodding it during the early years of slavery, manifest destiny (the justification for eradicating the Native Americans), racism, drug war, Vietnam, and mass incarceration.

Yes, they have a big brother-style regime, but they are also capable of sorting out their own political issues. And if not, they’ll reap the consequences without you having to do it form them.

If you really believe in democracy, then trying to influence their politics from afar is ultimately going to be far-less democratic than they influencing their own politics. I understand they don't have directly elections or a multi-party system, but that does not mean there is not opinion sharing in policy decisions, or intra-party elections. In a representative form of government direct-elections are not really a thing anyways.

If you truly support democracy, the last thing you would do is to try to influence the policies of another people. That would be robbing them of their self-determinacy, even if it is to prevent them from robbing themselves of it.

[ksec]

That is very much a Mainland Chinese World view, which is accurate to the point of only to Mainland Chinese people, and no offence intended.

>they’ve lifted hundreds or millions out of poverty

And they did, by first and foremost down to joining WTO.

Once this government starts ( and has already done so ) influence or force Rest of the world to cooperate or kowtowing to their own self interest, which fundamentally undermines everyone else basic value and principles, then it is no longer their own policy and issues.

And that is about as civilised as I can put it.

[chrischen]

> That is very much a Mainland Chinese World view, which is accurate to the point of only to Mainland Chinese people, and no offence intended.

Yes because this is a Mainland issue. So only Mainland opinions are legitimate. They enact their policies with their best interests in mind, however misguided it may be because a foreigner can only enact policies with their own interests in mind, however well-guided they may be. A white person probably shouldn’t go into a black community to tell them how they should run things for their best interests.

The issue isn’t that they are doing something right or wrong—all governments will enact policies that are disagreeable... the US included (in the case of Edward Snowden). The issue is that to the Chinese they will never take the protests of foreigners seriously because foreigners will have their own interests in mind, not to mention are generally poorly educated about Chinese policy decisions in general.

Trying to influence policy from afar is simply a form of taxation without representation. A foreigner really should have no say in the policy decisions of afar because 1) they do not have to suffer the consequences of the policies, 2) they cannot understand the experiences leading to such policy decisions and 3) as a result of 1 and 2 they will always have their own interests in mind rather than those or their constituents. Imagine a product manager in the US trying to manage a product built by a team of engineers in China for the Chinese market. He’ll sure fail because he will have no grasp pf the product in practice being used over there, and for that reason anyone that detached from something should not be trying to exert influence for their own interests.

A poor inner city black family may have a whole different set of daily problems than a rich white suburban family. Imagine if the white family admonishes the black family because their kids are failing school or dealing drugs. In absolute terms dealing drugs is wrong, illegal, and failing school may be a sign of bad parenting, but in reality the needs and priorities of the black family are on a completely different level from the white family.

Disenfranchising the Chineses’ right to self-govern because of your limited frame of reference that they are doing it wrong is myopic. Waging political and ideological war against them because they do things differently is the true crime. You should criticize their bad policies by pointing out why they are bad, not by disenfranchising and belittling the voice of the rest of the population.

[toxik]

You talk a big talk about right and wrong, but it’s clear to everyone that the CCP is intent on not honoring the agreement that HK be allowed to elect their own leader.

That’s what this is about: tyranny versus freedom. It’s disingenuous and frankly racist to compare this struggle to what a poor family lives through, and then conflating that with their skin color. I’m sure there are legitimate concerns with regards to the justice for minorities, but your argument is that that’s only the concern of black people? No. Your argument is a very typical CCP stance that the West best keep out of their dealings. No, I say, let’s stand for freedom and democracy when it is truly being attacked.

[frequentnapper]

If the Chinese govt were to be destabilized then maybe those in the internment camps will have a better chance at survival and life in general. What are your thoughts on that?

Are the lives of the Han more valuable than other ethnicities?

[tuyhtoolots]

Or it could get worse. The American Civil Rights movement was during a time of economic prosperity. When times are lean, there is more competition and people generally have less empathy.

[goatinaboat]

they’ve lifted hundreds or millions out of poverty

This is the same argument that “they made the trains run on time”.

[toxik]

> That would be robbing them of their self-determinacy

So like what the CCP is doing to Hongkong? In spite of having agreed not to?

[mattigames]

> If you really believe in democracy, then trying to influence their politics from afar is ultimately going to be far-less democratic than they influencing their own politics

Giving them money buying their products _is_ influencing, preferring them to hire manufacturers there _is_ influencing, influencing is just not just the opinions you dislike people giving on the internet about the situation there, in reality such comments are near nothing compared to the influence actual money and American (and world-wide) business exert politically by doing business there.

> for the most part they’ve lifted hundreds or millions out of poverty

The genocide or religious groups[0] is a price far far superior than anything any sensible human being would pay to get their country out of poverty, btw are you counting the people living in cages[1] a 'out of poverty'? And are you counting those who died living in extremely toxic conditions near factories as 'out of poverty'?

[0] http://theconversation.com/despite-chinas-denials-its-treatm...

[1] https://i.imgur.com/zlfjiOG.jpg

[2] https://imgur.com/gallery/7CFjIgK

[seanmcdirmid]

> Even though there are kinks in their regime, for the most part they’ve lifted hundreds or millions out of poverty.

They did that by stop screwing up the economy and let capitalism do its things from the 80s on. Giving them a win for a policy of “stop meddling” I guess makes sense, but only from a perverse point of view. The best decisions the CPC made were to stop doing things.