Yes I'm aware the book series is from the 50s, it's excellent.

But the image is AI slop. It's very clear of that. Have a look at the letters around the edge, they blur and artefact in a way no human would do, and the same generic overly rendered hair that they always have in AI slop.

I'm on about the ugly-ass image, which is very very clearly made by AI.

Another telltale sign is inconsistent level of detail, stuff like a heavily rendered background element right next to a loosely rendered foreground element, something humans would never do.

That's not actually the situation, but thanks for playing. There is a country called China. It has existed for many years. Taiwan become a province of China in 1683 by force. 212 years later, Japan invaded it and made it a colony.

In 1945, the country known as China was ruled by a party called the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang and party in the country of China, the Communist Party of China, joined forces to push the Japanese out of China, which included pushing them out of Taiwan. Taiwan becomes a part of China again.

So Taiwan is a part of China at this point and the CPC and the KMT fight in a civil war The KMT loses. This makes the CPC the ruling party of China. Much like how the Union defeated the Confederacy and reunited the USA.

At this point, however, Britain, a country actively occupying colonial holdings in China, and the USA, actively asserting its privilege to own the colonies of Japan, decides that they would rather work with the KMT than the CPC so they intervene in the civil war and prevent the integration of Taiwan so they can engage in financial neocolonialism. They do this through force of arms.

So which is it?

A) Taiwan was never part of China because they stole it from the indigenous Islanders? In this case the US should be dissolved, as should Australia and all of Latin America.

B) Taiwan was part of China but because might makes right they rightfully seceded by the force of arms from the British and American imperial program? So now might makes right and Puerto Rico and Hawaii and Guam and the Marianas are colonial holdings fair and square.

C) Taiwan has been a part of China for centuries and restoring territorial integrity is the first step to ending the primarily contradiction of imperialism which threatens all progress in all other realms? China has demonstrated a commitment to 1-country-2-systems so we know Taiwan will be able to administer itself relatively autonomy except in areas of national defense. And we know China supports the cultural expression of indigenous peoples and that the indigenous of Taiwan will be afforded the ability to express cultural automony on the island and eventually will partake in a post-colonial movement after the existential threat of Western imperialism is contained.

Love the mental gymnastics, gold medal.

And we know China supports the cultural expression of indigenous peoples and that the indigenous of Taiwan will be afforded the ability to express cultural automony

Also lol.

Tibet is occupied in a way that there is almost no historical precedent for. Tibet was a slave economy with a monarchy. China's occupation has increased the autonomy of the masses of Tibet over their previous formation. There have been very few, if any, occupational in history where the people being occupied run their own government, speak their native languages, maintain their cultural traditions, and collaborate with their occupier on programs to reduce poverty and increase quality of life.

But of course the reality is always multifaceted. In American occupied territories you don't see foreign governments training terrorists and air lifting them into the territory to create chaos and death. Whereas in Tibet that's exactly what the US has done.

There's a reason why the Dalai Lama's brother wrote in his memoirs that he deeply regrets collaborating with the Americans/CIA - because they made everything fundamentally worse and there only interest was attacking communism at all costs.

Further, Tibet never had any standing as a Westphalian nation-state. It was never recognized as a nation-state internationally. Now, I don't personally think the Westphalian system is a great system to make judgements by - Palestine has never been a Westphalian nation-state, for example - but we need to be clear in what our comparison points are. Tibet is occupied like Palestine and the Americas are occupied. Of those 3, Tibet is doing the best, has the greatest quality of life, has the greatest autonomy, has the safest cultural practices, and is on an upward trajectory.

Would I love to see decolonization everywhere? Yes. But I am fully able to hold that desire while realizing we have to decolonize the Commonwealth first if there are to be any unsustainable gains along that dimension. Any attempt to decolonize territory that is not part of the historical Commonwealth is going to be a movement that strengthens the EuroAmerica global colonial/neocolonial empire.

The majority of the Tibetan people are living good lives, are happy enough with the current situation, and are not agitating for separation, likely because they understand first hand what US and British meddling leads to - mass death. The Free Tibet and other similar orgs are Western orgs, not homegrown ones, and they primarily serve the purposes of US imperialism.

What does it mean for it to be OK? It is a thing that China did in the 1600s. I don't think colonization is OK. China's current management of its occupied populations is head and shoulders above what what all other occupations have done and are doing.

Further, it's clear that any reduction in shared national security in Tibet would result in violent American intervention. That much they have proven. So now the question is - what is to be done? As far as I can tell, the Chinese hypothesis is to maintain shares national security while collaborating with the people to promote their culture, their collective thriving, and their autonomy to best of their abilities. And it appears to be working well both on maintaining security against American terrorism and maintaining healthy communities.

I'd say that's sort of the best we've seen in history so far.

The pro colonial on the Commonwealth side use the same arguments like they we let them use their languages and don't force them into reservations? The SCOTUS, with RBG leading the opinion, reaffirmed that US territorial claims are based on the Doctrine of Discovery, a papal bull that establishes indigenous people as subhuman as the legal basis for why it was OK to murder, rape, and disposses them.

That doesn't sound anything like what China is saying or doing in the least. Again, there are no Russian or Chinese intelligence agencies training indigenous terrorists and sending them into America to wreak havoc and kill innocents. The language of Tibet is thriving while in the US there are dozens of languages that have fewer than 10 speakers left.

It's really a night/day comparison. I can't imagine anyone actually believing that the pro-colonial position in the Commonwealth is anything akin to what China is doing.

The authoritarian lens is a useless one since every single nation in the history of humanity uses authority.

The Hong Kong protests were a great example of the difference. In the US you have protests because a cop killed a man in cold blood and the cops come out and tear gas protestors and some died. They even let a vigilante kill people and then let him off without punishment.

In Hong Kong, which was a colony of Britain, the youth of Hong Kong decided to protest and it got really violent - on the part of the protestors. They were throwing molotovs at police. And the police just backed off most of the time. The protests went on for weeks and the police exercises significant restraint compared to US cops.

The important thing to note about Hong Kong is that it was violently ripped away from China and turned into a British colony because the Brits wanted to sell opium to China and China said no. For most of the British occupation the Chinese in Hong Kong suffered immensely, but when the Brits realized they weren't going to be able to hold on to Hong Kong they changed all their policies to create social conditions that would lead inevitably to this exact conflict. That's partly why there was such a generational gap in the Hong Kong protest movement. Many of the older generation knew what Britain was about and wanted to rejoin their country but the youth were fed a lot of lies and propaganda so when China moved forward with the national security aimed at preventing foreign interference the students protested.

As for Xinjiang, I encourage you to look at a map. The US military establishment has openly stated that they are collaborating with East Turkistan separatists as part of their strategy in the region and have been for some time. This is an extension of the US strategy that developed the Mujahideen into a terrorist group to fight the USSR and ultimate spawned Al-Qaeda and ISIS. In short, the US has been training, arming, and organizing terrorism in the region as part of their strategy to destabilize any opposition, and for China specifically they targeted Xinjiang.

If you look at the number of terrorist attacks in Xinjiang over the years, there was clearly a problem, but it's equally clear that China launched an anti-terrorism campaign and the number of attacks has plummeted. This again shows the difference between the Western use of authority and the Chinese us of authority. When the West does anti-terrorism they carpet bomb countries, commit mass war crimes, destroy infrastructure, and kill millions. China's anti-terrorism campaign focused on economics, education, social integration, and counterintelligence. Not only did it work, 50+ countries have inspected Xinjiang and approved of the program. The Uyghurs still govern the region as an autonomous cultural zone. They still openly practice their religion and cultural practices, they still teach their children in their language. Birth rates have come down to stabilize at the same rate as Western societies, or higher, which is inline with social progress women getting more autonomy, better health outcomes across the board, and better economic prospects.

So yeah, I won't disagree that both the US and China are authoritarian, but I don't really see any country in the world that isn't authoritarian. It's the way things are right now. So given that there will be authoritarianism, who is actually working to improve lives and who is working to destroy them?

Because there are real material differences? What is it that you don't understand? Fully 1/3 of indigenous children were separated from their families by the US and forced in torture schools to "get the Indian out of them". China has done no such thing. The US administered forced hysterectomies on "undesirables", tens of thousands of women had the uteruses just removed. China has done no such thing.

China doesn't have a reserve system like the US. China hasn't broken all of its treaties with the Tibetans or the Uyghurs the way the US has with indigenous nations. China didn't hire a fascist to desecrate a sacred mountain that was stolen by breaking a treaty.

Read your history. Stop comparing American propaganda narratives and actually learn about what's really happening. These two historical processes are incredibly materially different

China has done no such thing. The US administered forced hysterectomies on "undesirables", tens of thousands of women had the uteruses just removed. China has done no such thing.

Except for the Uyghurs, and the organ harvesting from the homeless.

China hasn't broken all of its treaties with the Tibetans or the Uyghurs the way the US has with indigenous nations.

Cause the wrote the treaties and brake them without consequence

I know i know it's allllll western propaganda right. Nothing China has ever done is bad everything is sunshine and rainbows under the iron fist with a firewall to keep outside info coming in, with a social credit system to keep people pushed down. It's alllll fake.

You need to learn your history too it seems. Stop comparing Chinese propaganda narrative and learn what is actually happening. Two different processes with the same outcome.

We went through the Uyghur situation. The birthrate of Uyghurs is higher than white people in America. They didn't forcibly sterilize tens of thousands of Uyghurs. It's quite literally a propaganda war about Xinjiang with the US trying to paint China's successful anti-terrorism program as a genocide in order to continue the USA's program of training and arming terrorists in Xinjiang. Like, it's literally a propaganda game and you're losing because you can't see it.

The organ harvesting propaganda comes from Falun Gong, a group that is funded by the CIA. It is further propagated by Victims of Communism journalists, again, an organization tied to the US propaganda machine. Another propaganda war that is winning the battle for your brain. No. There is no actual evidence of organ harvesting from homeless people in China. It is literally just baseless allegations.

Go find me treaties that China broke with the Tibetans or the Uyghurs. I can wait.

I will never understand why anglos think they are more susceptible to Chinese or Russian propaganda than they are to American and British propaganda. American propaganda spans then entire globe. They run entire media companies for the USG. American and British propaganda analysts have demonstrated just how powerful Anglo propaganda machines are.

Chinese propaganda, by comparison, can only be a very recent phenomenon because 70 years ago they were a total agrarian society without any technology while the US was the most technologically advanced society on the planet.

It doesn't take much to understand that when the CIA funds a group like The Epoch Times and the Victims of Communism that they can't be trusted with telling the truth. But they don't even TRY. All you have to do is look into their claims and they fall completely apart. The original authors of the book of the victims of communism have denounced their own writing as fabrication and deliberately misleading. They counted KIA Nazi soldiers as victims of communism FFS!!

No, these are not equal sides. No these are not abstractions that have equal valence. They are distinct and distinguishable historical processes. You can look at them individually, you can compare them. You will not find an equivalent of Voice of America or Radio Free Asia. You will not find an unbroken history dating back to before the Opium Wars of oligarchic manipulation of the media for the purpose of going to war and plundering. You will not find another empire that dominated 80% of the world's population.

You imagine me some empty headed brainwashed robot but you fail to understand that I was raised on the same TV shows, video games, movies, books, and rhetoric that you were. I was taught the same false history you were and I believed it like you do. I am aware of the information you have access to and the perspective you had because I personally used to have it.

I have empathy for your position. You have none for mine.

You imagine me some empty headed brainwashed robot

I promise you I don't.

You have none for mine.

That's not true at all

Chinese propaganda, by comparison, can only be a very recent phenomenon because
because

Being recent doesn't mean it can't be effective.

Look, I can't trust what comes from the Chinese government because of what I've seen and heard, I don't trust pretty much any government based on what I see and hear, China is no different. There are no governments that genuinely serve the interest of their governed. I know not everything said by governments are lies, but when you see a graph with "how happy are you" and China and north Kora are at the top of the lists you gotta wonder. I don't take what is said to me by my countries propaganda at face value, and neither should uou

I know not everything said by governments are lies, but when you see a graph with "how happy are you" and China and north Kora are at the top of the lists you gotta wonder.

I wish I could leap through the screen and shake you emphatically. Why?! Why do you gotta wonder!? Listen to your inner voice answer the question. Then continue.

No seriously. Home ownership in China and Cuba is higher than in the US. China accounts for nearly ALL global poverty alleviation. Chinese people went from living on a dollar a day to having purchasing power parity with the richest countries in the world in 70 years. That means from Grandma being born to now she has seen her family go from rice farming and dying of infections to driving an electric car. It's quite literally stunning.

But more to the point, Harvard University spent 15 years studying Chinese sentiment about their government. Harvard. A US university, that propogated and profited from race science and the slave trade. That has graduated so many US presidents. That university spent 15 years studying Chinese citizens and determining that the Communist Party of China enjoys a 95.5% approval rating by the people in China.

That not the Chinese government saying that. That's a Western imperial institution saying that.

As for North Korea, just think of the history. In 1953 they had no buildings and were living in caves because the Americans bombed literally every structure in the territory and then started dropping napalm on the people. They were literally living in caves to avoid the US raining fire down upon them.

And now they have a nuclear ICBM. They built an entire nuclear program and an entire rocketry program in 70 years after having every single productive capacity completely annihilated. You don't do that without food, so they had to build their agriculture back up, while they were under the world's worst embargo in history. They had to rebuild all of their power infrastructure. They had to rebuild all of their transportation infrastructure. They had to rebuild all of their manufacturing infrastructure.

Every single industry had to be built from rubble and they are only 70 years into it. And their people are fed, they are safe from invaders, they are safe from the Americans specifically, and they did all together as a unified society.

I would be very unhappy if my country was bombed to the raw earth, but honestly after decades of working side by side with my neighbors to rebuild my home, my village, and my country, I think I would be pretty happy.

The only reason you say that it seems fantastical that Chinese or North Korean people are happy is because you are starting from the assumption that the people live under a tyrannical government that deliberately impoverished them while they get rich and force everyone to comply with corrupt whims. That's the propaganda story, not reality.

The reality is that corruption is everywhere in all governments, and the West loves corrupt governments because it can bribe anyone to do anything anywhere in the world. When countries like China implement anti-corruption programs, Western propagandists call it authoritarian and say it's terrible, but it's only terrible because the people getting purged are compromised by the West.

The reality is that Russian and Chinese spies can't really do too much damage to the US because they don't have the global network of terrorists, death squads, and paramilitary groups that the US has. On the reverse, US spies in China or Russia could cause massive damage because they have been working for 70 years to cultivate armed paramilitaries and terrorists to destabilize entire regions on command. So when China implements counter-intelligence and national security programs, we hear on the one hand US intelligence officials saying things like "the CPC has crippled our spy networks in China" and on the other hand we hear news reports of draconian authoritarianism for no reason other than being evil and bad. Which is it? Did China apply it's authority to keep the country safe from the CIA's deep and wide network of spies or does China just enjoy punishing it's people for no reason?

Back to what started this, why do you think it makes perfectly logical sense to believe the Chinese and North Korean people couldn't possibly be as happy as reports indicate they are? What specific things do you think make that impossible, and very importantly, how did you come to the conclusion that those specific things are true?

Because I know what I used to think. I used to think "It's obvious! Everyone knows this! It's all over the news all the time! Look at the great firewall, look at the social credit score, look at how they censor pooh bear!"

And what I found out was that none of that shit came from my own research. It came from the Western propaganda machine. And when I finally started to actually dig in, I found out it was just paper thing garbage. Chinese ecommerce in China sells Winnie the Pooh kitsch just like anywhere else in the world. The social credit score is for businesses that harm the public, and while they did try it out for individuals it was so easily abused the government shut it down to protect their people.

I don't know how to convince you. I probably can't. But maybe this puts some doubt in your mind, or someone else who finds this thread.