[mellow2020]

> The last guy who touched upon it

On the other hand, people like Chomsky aren't being persecuted. Though all in all, I would also say they get ignored very efficiently, Chomsky still isn't exactly unknown either. Is there a Chinese author and speaker with decades of real harsh criticism of their government under their belt, who is living in China with their works being translated in all sorts of languages and also available in China?

[l332mn]

You can't really draw a direct comparison between PRC and the US, and ask how China would react to a 'Chinese Chomsky'. Their respective conditions and rational incentives for population control are not very similar. The US (after the fall of the USSR) is a country who's stability has not truly been threatened by criticism and dissident voices, while China is a state which has been and currently is extremely vulnerable and threatened by instability, unrest and separatism, and is consequentially on high alert.

Reaction to criticism and dissidence not really a principled stand in the eyes of a state. The way the US clamped down hard on leftist political groups and organizations during the Cold War is rather the actions of a country believing itself to be threatened by instability and unrest. Political figures who fronted harsh criticisms against the government have routinely been assassinated or framed and arrested. COINTELPRO is a program which shows how political repression works the US when it feels politically vulnerable.

[stjohnswarts]

I don't think any of what you say is true. The people in China would like to be free just like in the USA (although our freedoms are fading with time). People have the right to speak freely. What the CCP is doing is a dictatorship, plain and simple. They're afraid of free thought and criticism.

[l332mn]

That's just not true. The Chinese don't consider themselves unfree, the CCP is very popular, and its approval rate has only increased in recent decades. Moreover, the US does not have a very good reputation around the world. Who envies their predatory health care system? Their high-cost system of education? Their oppressive police force? The world recognizes the failure of the US in providing for their citizens, "freedom" is ultimately just the excuse for society being the way it is.

[ahmedalsudani]

Very brave of you to post this comment on HN ;)

[l332mn]

Hm, what are you implying?

[ahmedalsudani]

Usually comments that highlight US misbehaviour are downvoted to oblivion.

[l332mn]

Ah, yeah. I am a little surprised to be honest.

[craigsmansion]

> Is there a Chinese author and speaker with decades

This is only as I understand it, but technically, yes.

People like to think that the Chinese Communist Party is a single body with a single well-defined set of ideas.

It's not.

It's perfectly possible for academics and even party politicians to utter criticism of the current party direction. They can, for example, advocate the return of fundamental Maoism, or advocate free market mechanisms. As long as you can argue a point of view that lies within the party's tenets, there is usually no problem.

It's different when:

- you are a person of influence.

and

- you argue against the stability of the country (where, conveniently, the CCP is seen as the most important stabilising force in mainland China (by the CCP)).

I don't know if a Chinese Chomsky exists. I have the impression that if he would exist, he would be marginalised by the media, or some of his ideas would be adopted and used in some splintered minority faction of the CCP and hailed as a great but impractical thinker, and mostly ignored.

[shadowprofile77]

a so-called Chinese Chomsky (an academic type as you say) could indeed advocate either of those two points or variations between them from inside China but for one thing, he or she would have to couch their phrasing in very careful ways to avoid being coercively punished by the apparatus of the state. Furthermore, they'd have a harder time of doing these things today with Xinping's domineering influence at play. In 2005 or 2006, it would have been much easier.

Secondly and much more fundamentally, even if they made such arguments, at no point could they get away with simply advocating for the full removal of the CCP's monopoly on political power.

That's a no-go and it's also something that defines a huge difference between China and, say, the U.S, where an academic or media personality or pretty much anyone can freely advocate all kinds of stuff against the political system without having to phrase it in any particularly careful way.

This includes being able to state that the Republican/Democrat duopoloy is a piece of ineffective garbage and needs to be removed. They might face some social backlash from fans of opposing views but they won't have their legal, financial or human standing destroyed by the government through literal punishments.

[brisance]

https://twitter.com/XinqiSu/status/1295211377259237378