"Learn about Chinese democracy by reading Xi Jinping's personally written propaganda book"

It's like telling someone to learn about the ethics of drone strikes from Obama's memoirs

Thanks for your reply!

I know about the distribution of power, that has a kind of pyramid shape, sorry for the lack of vocabulary.
I have also seen videos, of cause one sided, from people that lived in China for some time and displaying their view.
One very popular story is the "they paint their grass green", which I understood as follows:
There is the goal of having a certain amount of green land in the country, so each region trys to reach that goal and show the higher ups how good it is going by having green grass and hills.
This is of cause a very simplified scenario, but I have read a few other things that aren't so great. Of cause you can say the same thing about many other western and global north countries, but very few people are so emotional and strong opinionated as supporters of China, some north korea or Russia. I feel like i have not read a comment with such a strong opinion about any other country here on Lemmy.

I see that the view of most westerns is shifted from reality, but I have not read a comment that seems to see both sides of that country, it seems very extremistic.

Now when I think of China, these things come to mind:
- the Uighurs
- not quite working democracy
- extreme surveillance
- stories of people getting herassed by the police for criticising the state or being different (Naomi Wu on yt for example)
- impressive industrial development in the last few decades
- high working ethics
- creativity in engineering
- skilled labour
- high building rates of solar and renewable energy sources
- also high coal production and high building rates of coal power plants
- high censorship, as it can be seen with deepseek and other AI or media
- stories about testing radioactivity on a village
- striving for higher environmental regulations in the industry
- affiliation with Russia, that invaded Ukraine (after the Nato got closer of cause, which might be seen as a provocative move)
- affiliation with north korea, which is a different conversation
- their problem with Taiwan and tsmc
- hard working conditions in factories (owned by western companies sometimes, but the government is supposed to protect the citizens in my view)

Now this is of cause not at all everything and I am aware its a view fuelled by western media.
But if half of those things are true, its still not going great.

I don't want to talk China down, I want to understand why so many people in this space are pro china, when I see the government as pretty critical.
I know the us is putting a ton of effort into discredit other forms of government or markets, and there are for sure a few points in this list that is heavily influenced by them.

To be short, communists support China because it's a socialist country, and is one of the three states that the west puts as much misinformation on as possible. Considering the PRC is much better than western countries, there's a lot of discussion on it.

Some of these points you raise are true, but good, like maintaining positive relations with the DPRK. Others are partially true, partially false, as an example censorship is usually for capitalists. China still has capitalists, so it restricts their ability to influence society. Others are misleading, China does use coal but it's also rapidly electrifying, outproducing everyone on solar panels, and actually exceeds its climate goals with low per-capita emissions.

I recommend looking more into the situation in Xinjiang. The best and most comprehensive resource I have seen so far is Qiao Collective's Xinjiang: A Resource and Report Compilation. Qiao Collective is explicitly pro-PRC, but this is an extremely comprehensive write-up of the entire background of the events, the timeline of reports, and real and fake claims.

I also recommend reading the UN report and China's response to it. These are the most relevant accusations and responses without delving into straight up fantasy like Adrian Zenz, professional propagandist for the Victims of Communism Foundation, does.

Tourists also go to Xinjiang all the time. You can watch videos like this one on YouTube, though it obviously isn't going to be a comprehensive view of a complex situation like this.

Returning to China in general, though, there's a lot to like about it thanks to socialism, and it's important to dispel mythos used as justification for souring relations between China and the west.

Xinjiang: A Report and Resource Compilation

Western governments have levied false allegations of genocide and slavery in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. A closer look makes clear that the politicization of China’s anti-terrorism policies in Xinjiang is another front of the U.S.

^{Qiao Collective}