Tiananmen 20th anniversary brings new repression

[Darth Hoth]

Or maybe not and we should continue to belittle and heckle said nation and apply our own stringent standards to it and complain when it fails to meet up to them, when in fact our own cushy western societies may not meet all those lofty standards either.

No, retard, and I do not believe I suggested that. But we should not claim that they are better than we presently are unless we can prove it.

How's this for a statistic: Tibetan life expectancy: 67, Australian Aboriginal life expectancy 60-62.4 (Tibetan life expectancy has doubled since 1959 - Aboriginal life expectancy has remained relatively stagnant in the same period)
Difference between TIbetan life expectancy and Chinese life expectancy: 6 years
Difference between Aboriginal life expectancy and Australian life expectancy: 18-20 years

That's right - China takes better care of the health of its least-favourite minority group than Australia does.

Official Chinese figures? And the data on Aboriginals looks dated, considering that recent studies show that the life expectancy gap has been decreasing.

The West isn't just America, you know.

It is also more than Australia. When we talk about "Western countries" collectively, we typically mean the majority, not single examples with exceptional problems.

One thing that you are missing in the rights that I mentioned for Chinese minorities (language, one child policy exemption) is that these are rights not granted to Han Chinese. Han Chinese are not taught their local dialect in school - their schooling is done in Mandarin, and the local dialect is suppressed, and an exemption from the one child policy means that not having to follow it is special.

And this shows that they are treated better than our Western minorities how? Because we do not arbitrarily impose policies on our majorities and exempt the minorities from them, we are somehow worse?

And why are you discounting attitudes towards immigrants? Do immigrants suddenly "not count" or something?

Immigrants are not taught in their native language, since that harms their integration into society by isolating them, and furthermore they have no claim of traditional rights in such cases. National minorities have such rights in most European countries.

Maybe if China confined the Tibetans to shitty ghettoes ruled by tribal law, where rape, alcoholism and various vices are commonplace, and where the local authorities won't interfere in "tribal matters" - i.e. exactly what Australia does with its aborigines - then maybe it'll be better for guys like Darth Hoth and everyone else?

No, retard, and I do not believe I suggested that. But we should not claim that they are better than we presently are unless we can prove it.

[Darth Hoth]

Excessive punishments for real crimes, of which a person has been duly convicted, is in my mind not a fair comparison to imprisonment in labour camps for political activism (real or perceived), which was brought up in this thread.

Yeah, but you do realize that the "good old administration" of labour camps had most of it's population convicted for non-political crimes like robbery, etc. - they just had extremely harsh sentences for everything? The difference is the presence of politicals, but what is their weight in the overall number of incarcerated?

Excessive punishment for real crimes is not the same as political persecution, but it's critical to this system.

"Good, old" was sarcasm on my part, of course.

[ray245]

Official Chinese figures?

Can you give us any sort of proof that we cannot accept those figures? Correct me if you are asking for links regarding official Chinese figures.

[Fr33ze]

I questioned the claim that China generally treats its minorities better than first-world Western countries generally do, is all.

1. Minorities in China, by law, don't need to follow the "one-child" policy.

2. They are taught in their own languages and Mandarin.

3. High school graduates, whose parent is minority, will get from 10-100 extra points (depending how "rare" the minority is) for their university entrance exams.

So, could you name one country that offers such "privileges" to minorities comparing to their own majority?

[Shroom Man 777]

No, retard, and I do not believe I suggested that. But we should not claim that they are better than we presently are unless we can prove it.

But we can also recognize the fact that China has made remarkable progress in the last two decades, and acknowledge that fact as a damn good thing rather than whine about how they're a bunch of inhuman yellow menaces not much better than those Saudi shits or anything. We can't reasonably expect them to meet Western standards 100% and become as fun and as nice as, say, Iceland (with its Bjorks and shit) in terms of UN statistics and stuff. But at least they're showing progress, which is a good thing.

The People's Republic of China has existed for little more than half a century and arguably it has made faster progress than Western governments that have existed for far longer periods of time, in regards to treating minority races.

Unless you're looking for Tibetan Reservations with Tibetan Casinos or something. Or other nappy Chinese minorities being brought from Africa and enslaved for, like, forever, before someone makes an Emaciation Proclamation and then, nearly a century later, are then de-segregated so they can live with all the freedom and equality they can get in their ghettoes with all their crack whores and bling bling and jazz musicians and Chinese rap music, and then some minority Chinese gets elected as Premier or Presidente in a campaign promising Change, winning over some majority Chinese candidate like McChinchang or something.

But then again that would have to take the PRC another 183 years to accomplish, if we assume they progress as fast as our awesome Western SPARTAFREEDOMERICAN societies with all the democracy, freedom, free market capitalism, battle-briefs and oiled abs we can get from our local fast food restaurants.

And I never claimed that they're better than "we" presently are, anyway.

[The Yosemite Bear]

basically in 1854 The pope declared that the church could not be wrong about anything (The policy of Dogma), and that the policy of the Seperation of Church and State was Heresy. I'm having trouble finding the actual Bull issued between april and may of '54 that declared that the seperation of church and state, or that the ideals of the founding fathers including the treaty of Tripoli were heretical.

[Qwerty 42]

Some deeper prodding of Google turned up "Ineffabilis Deus" as the pertinent bull, but I'm having difficulty finding a pertinent passage in the document.

[Darth Hoth]

So, could you name one country that offers such "privileges" to minorities comparing to their own majority?

That was not the question, was it? This is about whether they treat them better in absolute terms. I find it mindboggling that one would think that just because they are exempt from some dictatorial ukas for which no Western country even has any equivalent, they are somehow better off.

1. Minorities in China, by law, don't need to follow the "one-child" policy.

Our Swedish minorities do not, either.

2. They are taught in their own languages and Mandarin.

And our minorities are taught in Swedish and in their language (Finnish, Lapp, and so on)

3. High school graduates, whose parent is minority, will get from 10-100 extra points (depending how "rare" the minority is) for their university entrance exams.

We have positive discrimination on university applications as well, although given that I am unfamiliar with the Chinese high school system, I cannot say right away how comparable it would be. This, by the way, applies to immigrants as well.

And I never claimed that they're better than "we" presently are, anyway.

But that was what I was discussing with Lusankya when you joined in.

[ray245]

Our Swedish minorities do not, either.

I wasn't aware that Sweden have a one child policy for the majority.

[Darth Hoth]

Our Swedish minorities do not, either.

I wasn't aware that Sweden have a one child policy for the majority.

[mr friendly guy]

Our Swedish minorities do not, either.

I wasn't aware that Sweden have a one child policy for the majority.

Since Sweden's demographics are clearly different from China's, its pointless bringing up that Sweden doesn't have a one child policy. They are pointing out the exceptions minorities get to the majority. Kind of obvious when he said "So, could you name one country that offers such "privileges" to minorities comparing to their own majority?" But I suspect you knew that and this is your brilliant attempt to dodge the point, right? Or perhaps your reading comprehension just sucks donkey balls.

Oh wait, thats right, the one child policy is an arbitrary policy, I mean its not like the world has too many people, so we have to decrease population it by having less kids right? Even if you disagree with the methods used, the reasoning behind it is not arbitrary.

BTW, by your logic of what absolute comparisons are allowed, I could find a country x with lower taxes than country y, and then claim that country x treats its minorities better because it taxes them at a lower rate. So can I expect you to fire off a "I never talked about taxes" and totally missing the point. So I will save time I ask you to read better.

Official Chinese figures? And the data on Aboriginals looks dated, considering that recent studies show that the life expectancy gap has been decreasing.

So the different life expectancy gap is now a bit under 2 times instead of a bit under 3 times, according to the figure of 11.8 years from the article you linked to. I am sure this helps your argument a lot.

It is also more than Australia. When we talk about "Western countries" collectively, we typically mean the majority, not single examples with exceptional problems.

Feel free then to bring up more examples of Western countries (such that it constitutes a majority) which teach minorities in their native language as well as the majority, give some type of affirmative action for university graduates and exempt them from some other policy affecting the majority besides Sweden.

[Darth Hoth]

Since Sweden's demographics are clearly different from China's, its pointless bringing up that Sweden doesn't have a one child policy. They are pointing out the exceptions minorities get to the majority. Kind of obvious when he said "So, could you name one country that offers such "privileges" to minorities comparing to their own majority?" But I suspect you knew that and this is your brilliant attempt to dodge the point, right? Or perhaps your reading comprehension just sucks donkey balls.

Oh wait, thats right, the one child policy is an arbitrary policy, I mean its not like the world has too many people, so we have to decrease population it by having less kids right? Even if you disagree with the methods used, the reasoning behind it is not arbitrary.

BTW, by your logic of what absolute comparisons are allowed, I could find a country x with lower taxes than country y, and then claim that country x treats its minorities better because it taxes them at a lower rate. So can I expect you to fire off a "I never talked about taxes" and totally missing the point. So I will save time I ask you to read better.

This is a retarded line of argument. A country that treats its majority badly does not treat its minorities better than we do ours just because it does not impose the same privations on them. Are we somehow worse because we grant equal rights for everyone, including freedom from dictatorial policies that could never even have been introduced here in the first place? This was not about taxes, but about rights. Which are objectively measurable. Are you being intentionally dishonest or just stupid? Seeing the absolutely appalling standard of the arguments that have been brought up in favour of the Chinese side so far ("Tibetans aren't regularly lynched [but Blacks in the US implicitly are]!"), it could easily be either.

So the different life expectancy gap is now a bit under 2 times instead of a bit under 3 times, according to the figure of 11.8 years from the article you linked to. I am sure this helps your argument a lot.

Because we know that official Chinese figures on how good they make life for the poor, backwards people in Tibet are of course true and to be taken at face value. And of course, Lusankya's claim was that the situation for Aboriginals was not improving, which I disproved. Furthermore, such a direct comparison is disingenuous because it does not consider the histories of the peoples concerned prior to colonisation (hunters/gatherers vs peasants, an isolated population with less opportunity to develop resistance against infectious disease vs a non-isolated one, and so forth).

Feel free then to bring up more examples of Western countries (such that it constitutes a majority) which teach minorities in their native language as well as the majority, give some type of affirmative action for university graduates and exempt them from some other policy affecting the majority besides Sweden.

Nice attempt to dodge the burden of proof. Your side is claiming that the People's Republic of China treats its minorities better than the majority of the Western World does its, therefore it is up to you to provide evidence for this. Which would include comparing the respective minority treatments, rather than just declaring that China is doing this or that (and at that, I am not seeing any links or sources for any of the claims made . . .). Please show that most Western countries do not live up to Chinese standards, if you want to argue this. I do not have to do your homework for you.

[Lusankya]

Regarding the language issue: yes, the instruction in their native language is a privilege that minorities in China receive but Han Chinese don't. Most people probably don't realise this, but in linguistic terms, "Chinese" is not a language. It's a language family. The 8 (is that the right number) "dialects" are actually mutually unintelligible and they're only united by the writing system. Han children are not given dual instruction in Mandarin and their local dialect (read: language), while minority children are. You're European, so I realise that you probably just forget what a large scale is, but China is a country that is over 90% the size of Europe, and has a similar diversity in spoken language. You might consider all Chinese dialects to be "just Chinese", but in terms of scale, that's like considering all European languages to be French.

An analogy that you might understand would be if all children in Sweden did their studies only in English (no Swedish allowed in school - not even at lunchtime), except for the minorities who could get educated both in English and in their own language.

And while you might disapprove of what basically amounts to the CCP attempting to eradicate the majority of the Han dialects, it is not an arbitrary policy. Language unification will aid in the governance of China, aid in internal trade, aid in education, aid in external trade and so on. Doesn't change the fact that the Han are getting a poor deal in comparison to the minorities though。

[Darth Hoth]

We have dialects in our country that are for all practical intents and purposes languages of their own; that is, there is no mutual intelligibility whatever between them and the main tongue (what used to be called Imperial Swedish); and they do not get their education in their dialect, either, while the minorities do. Whatever point this is supposed to make. Showing that recognised minorities are afforded privileges over unrecognised such does not in any way prove that China's treatment of its minorities is better than those of most Western countries.

[Fr33ze]

If you didn't get my point earlier, I'll rephrase it for you: Since China gives privileges to all minorities that the majority simply doesn't get, do you know any other country that does the same to their own minorities and the majority?!

And our minorities are taught in Swedish and in their language (Finnish, Lapp, and so on)

That reminds me of:

Sweden criticized for lack of effort on minority languages

Published: 7 May 09 08:08 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/19300/20090507/

Sweden has been taken to task by the Council of Europe for a lack of progress in raising social awareness about and promoting educational programs in the country’s five national minority languages...

We have positive discrimination on university applications as well, although given that I am unfamiliar with the Chinese high school system, I cannot say right away how comparable it would be. This, by the way, applies to immigrants as well.

Again, it only makes sense when you compare the minorities' rights with the majority's within one country. 1 point difference in the university entrance exam result can determine whether you get in or not, and there will be hundreds of students within that range. Imagine what 10 extra points or even more mean.

I didn't know being immigrants in Sweden would get anything "special", only the negative effect as far as I heard. Would you enlighten me on this?

[Shroom Man 777]

It seems to me then that China isn't, like, the bleak shithole that Darth Hoth likes to imagine it is and that it is actually sincerely trying to make progress to better itself as a nation. Rather than languishing around in centuries of deprivation, abuse and injustice like some certain Western nations where natives, aboriginoids, Jews and coloured people are systematically abused, China is actually improving itself at a comparatively faster pace than those Western nations have historically had - despite the fact that it is burdened with, like, one sixth of the entire universe's human population. So maybe instead of hurling rotten vegetables at ancient China and the mystical orient, maybe we could like encourage China to continue on and wave pompoms and throw confetti and cheer it on. Like, express relief that dissenters are no longer being crushed by tanks, and that dishonorable foreign mortal human gaijin like Lusy-chan are being allowed to visit and stay in prolonged periods of time in places like Edo, and that China is attempting to reprimand irresponsible officials who sell contaminated Chinese food like kimchi and sushi with unhealthy additives or something.

[K. A. Pital]

A country that treats its majority badly...

Wait, you are saying China's attempts at demographic control, which are critical for the well-being of it's citizens by the way (check correlation between demographic explosive growth, industrialization and prosperity)... are "treating the majority badly"? How retarded is that?

It's not "treating the majority badly", it's "treating the majority so the nation with all it's people won't have all it's economic progress erased by explosive population growth".

Yes, clearly because the First World had different climatic and historical conditions, and never faced the danger of overpopulation, you can lecture others on how to control their population? Kool Aid drinking much, no?

[Shroom Man 777]

But Stas Bush, China should never match the first world's living standards because it will be of detriment to the environment and to our cushy well-to-do yuppies living comfortably in overprivileged Freedomerica! They don't deserve it! [/Ryan]

Also, let's not recognize the harsh realities of China's 1 billion+ population and the tough solutions needed to face them and will instead be content to suck on the teat of the succulent black gold provided by our good humanitarian friends and generally abusive and genuinely far more backwards assholes in Saudi Arabia and the oh-so-shiny and glamorous Emirates where striving immigrants from other Third World nations go there to make a living while being systematically abused and are subjected to far worse rules than in China. But that's okay since they're our best friends and since they're not threatening to upstage us on the world stage, we won't bother to throw rotten vegetables at them or criticize them for their ass-backwards ways while they go rich and fat on our almighty dollar and we live fat and comfortable, heedless and comfortably ignorant of our great western Spartafreedomerican civilization's own advertent and inadvertent abuses of other people whom we've lied to, manipulated to, and have left dead and bloody along the way to our glorious free market capitalism's success story.

No, let's go and continue our blackwhite goodevil criticisms and rotten vegetable throwing at a troubled nation that's trying to claw itself to the 21st century and has shown remarkable progress in the last two decades compared to, say, the longterm abuses of Western nations and/or the backwards nigh Medieval cultures of our superbestfriends in the various oil-rich Bakalakadakastans of the world.

[Darth Hoth]

A country that treats its majority badly...

Wait, you are saying China's attempts at demographic control, which are critical for the well-being of it's citizens by the way (check correlation between demographic explosive growth, industrialization and prosperity)... are "treating the majority badly"? How retarded is that?

It's not "treating the majority badly", it's "treating the majority so the nation with all it's people won't have all it's economic progress erased by explosive population growth".

Yes, clearly because the First World had different climatic and historical conditions, and never faced the danger of overpopulation, you can lecture others on how to control their population? Kool Aid drinking much, no?

Please do not feed Shroom.

Since part of the pro-China argument revolves around the minorities not receiving this limitation, it appears implicit that they consider it a violation of the rights of the majority. Ergo, "bad treatment". It might be necessitated by the state of the nation, but the point remains. Many nations have historically imposed hardships on their people as necessitated by the common good (e.g., wartime privations and rationing, conscription, and so on), but the salient point is that we are comparing China as of today with the West as of today. A comparison in which China of course loses, and quite understandably at that, given their current stage of development. I have never argued otherwise, or that the comparison is a fair one.

That said, I do love how Shroom and his crowd try to pretend that I am being the unreasonable one in having the same expectations on China as on the West, when I have only been calling them on the claim that China would objectively be treating its minorities better than we do ours.

[K. A. Pital]

Thanks for the clarification - I had a mistaken impression you're criticizing China's attempts to actually modernize it's society...

[Shroom Man 777]

That said, I do love how Shroom and his crowd try to pretend that I am being the unreasonable one in having the same expectations on China as on the West, when I have only been calling them on the claim that China would objectively be treating its minorities better than we do ours.

Hrm... I think that was Lusy-chan's claim anyway. So yeah, maybe I was too trigger happy. It's not like I really like China that much, either.

[Darth Hoth]

If you didn't get my point earlier, I'll rephrase it for you: Since China gives privileges to all minorities that the majority simply doesn't get, do you know any other country that does the same to their own minorities and the majority?!

And again, this is a red herring. In objective terms, one group is not better off because another has it worse.

That reminds me of:

Yes, thank you for posting evidence that we are transparent and open to criticism for not doing enough. I wonder if the same could be said about China . . . Which brings us back to the old issue, I am not seeing any evidence presented that these positive-discrimination rules even apply, much less are actually enforced in practice . . .

I didn't know being immigrants in Sweden would get anything "special", only the negative effect as far as I heard. Would you enlighten me on this?

Here, one with parents born abroad will be advanced ahead of an ethnic Swede with the same grade. This might not sound too impressive to the Affirmative Action supporters, but considering that all the most sought after programmes basically require maximum grades to get in . . .

[Darth Hoth]

That said, I do love how Shroom and his crowd try to pretend that I am being the unreasonable one in having the same expectations on China as on the West, when I have only been calling them on the claim that China would objectively be treating its minorities better than we do ours.

Hrm... I think that was Lusy-chan's claim anyway. So yeah, maybe I was too trigger happy. It's not like I really like China that much, either.

Ah, no hard feelings, then, if it was only a misunderstanding. Friends?

[Shroom Man 777]

Yeah. You, me, Stas and Lusy-chaaan!

We can go to ancient China and eat Chinese cuisines like kim chi, sushi and dog!

[Fr33ze]

I was giving examples to people who have no idea of how minorities are treated in China, not for the sake of making comparisons with other countries, but you seem to hang on such issue, as follows:

And this shows that they are treated better than our Western minorities how? Because we do not arbitrarily impose policies on our majorities and exempt the minorities from them, we are somehow worse?

Minorities in China get the privileges, while in most countries minorities do not. Which is "better" and which is "worse", you tell me.

Yes, thank you for posting evidence that we are transparent and open to criticism for not doing enough. I wonder if the same could be said about China . . . Which brings us back to the old issue, I am not seeing any evidence presented that these positive-discrimination rules even apply, much less are actually enforced in practice . . .

Since English is neither the official language nor such an important language to China, there is no point in translating Chinese laws/policies/rules/news into a language that most native people don't speak. That you're not seeing the evidence doesn't mean they don't exist. If you don't want to believe what other people said, why not DO something like go collect evidence and fact yourself?!