[infinity0]

You seem to have a bit of sour grapes that a non-Western country dares to talk positively about their own policies.

You should understand that translations often lose some cultural context, so when you have a prejudice against the English word "harmonious", understand that the Chinese equivalent is used much more freely in everyday speech. "Solidarity" might have been a better translation.

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Reply to the comment below:

> I recall that, in the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony, China celebrated its ethnic minorities by having Han children dress up as them [..]

In a big place like China or the US, there are always going to incidents like this. Furthermore, most news stories will exaggerate the headlines or twist the details, so I am not even sure if this particular incident is as you described. What matters is what the policies are doing for the larger scale of individuals. You can't judge anything about this larger scale by looking at a few incidents, especially when Western media have a vested interest in showing you these news items and ignoring the vast majority of what is going on. (To be fair, the vast majority is quite boring.)

"Ask the people themselves" is used typically in these discussions as a weasel phrase, as if Western liberal democracies are truly "asking the people themselves". You have mass media bombarding the general population all the time with pre-ordained narratives. Nobody votes in elections with an independent analysis. So sure, it depends on what you mean by "ask the people themselves". There's lots of content on social media including from ethnic minorities, people are generally happy with their lives and the amount of freedom they have. Are you going to pick holes in that? Why not pick holes in what's happening with mass media de-jure "independent" de-facto manipulative elections in the West?

[elefanten]

You seem to have some sour grapes about criticism of China and some kind of twisted, paranoid presumption about Western attitudes toward non-Western policymaking.

The point was not to make fun of the word choice “harmonious”, but rather to point out that CCP-led China is functionally an ethnostate that bluntly prefers and privileges one identity over the others.

[infinity0]

> paranoid presumption

There is no "paranoid presumption", that's literally what the comment I'm replying to was doing.

So, look at reality instead of sitting on your high horse, believing that all defenses of China are "paranoid".

> The point was not to make fun of the word choice “harmonious”, but rather to point out [..]

Again, read the comment. You are denying reality. They literally said nothing concrete, only imply negative connotations about the word "harmonious".

[elefanten]

There was no indication whether that poster was Western or not. Only you read that aspect into the comment. The poster was ripping on China specifically. And then you magnified it into higher stakes: that the presumably Western poster must be skeptical of or hostile to all non-Western policymaking. That says more about your presumptions about Westerners than it does about the comment.

And yes, the poster ribbed on the word harmonious, but again, that wasn’t the point. The meat of the post was about being ruled by big brother Han. Interestingly, you didn’t object to that bit at all!

[jcranmer]

I recall that, in the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony, China celebrated its ethnic minorities by having Han children dress up as them instead of letting any ethnic minorities represent themselves.

I don't think "harmonious" or "solidarity" or whatever other positive word you come up with would be an accurate representation of the relations of ethnic minorities. Especially if you were to ask the ethnic minorities themselves to come up with a word.

[Clewza313]

I've been to Tibet, and the endless barrage of slogans and posters celebrating 和谐 and 西藏各族人民的幸福生活 are there for a reason.

[seanmcdirmid]

Ya but is that any different than Beijing? The Chinese government has to keep the propaganda and slogans up everywhere, it’s really the only tool they know of to communicate broadly their apparent successes to the people.

[Clewza313]

It actually was, both in sheer intensity and in style. For example, in Beijing (at least when I last visited) it was kind of hard to find posters of Xi Jinping, while in Lhasa you had a lot of this kind of thing: https://imgur.com/a/GRN9VZz

Which to me seemed remarkably tone deaf (nothing like reminding Tibetans to celebrate their "liberation" and its mastermind Mao), but presumably worrying about how the message would land was not among the KPIs of the cadre responsible.