First of all, I want to say that it’s wonderful to see all of you here, and your critical support of the nation I proudly call home. But more and more recently, especially reading through Chinese internet too, there has been a sense of overconfidence and overglorification of China. It is honestly a little worrying at times for me, because as much as I love my homeland and is proud of what we are doing, I know full and well that we are still a long way to go. I see this sentiment of China being the glorious land far away as a bastion and utopia against Western Imperialism and while there’s a lot of truth behind that sentiment, and I definitely understand why one not living in China would choose to believe this (I live in the US now and I understand your pain, fellow US comrades). I just want to remind everyone to exercise dialectal materialism on this subject and try to look at China in a less idealised way. We cannot grow to be better without recognising our mistakes. Anyways that is my little message to you all. Have a nice day!
As a Westerner, I think a lot of this sentiment comes from how far advanced China is in comparison to our own societies. I am forced to essentially step over homeless people on my way to class while China has eliminated absolute poverty. I am ostracized for studying principles of Marxist economics while China has built the most successful economy of the century based upon them. When pressed, I always acknowledge that China has a long way to go. I don’t think the work culture is sustainable, I don’t always agree with their foreign policy, and social dynamics can be reactionary. However, I would never lead with those criticisms because I’m not Chinese and I live in the most corrupt, capitalist country on earth. It’s much more important for my own community to be exposed to the juxtaposition between active Capitalism and Socialism, and for me that involves sharing China’s successes without constantly qualifying that my support is critical.
Thanks for saying this, I totally agree though it’s a bit harder for me to have such a strong stance on the topic because I don’t research China nor do I live there so my knowledge is just from visiting there often the past few decades
Can I ask what you see that’s over-glorifying or over-idealising?
For me, I see people way overestimating the quality of life in China overall, underestimating how poor the rural regions are, and underestimate how good the West has it in many areas (work/career life for highly educated/skilled workers, cost/availability of many goods and services, etc.)
In many provinces of China there are a lot of farmers and small lands so that many farmers must come to cities to hunt for job. I mean…… China can’t be compared with the western, China is still a developing country. The Communist Party of China believes that the main contradiction in Chinese society is the contradiction between the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development. The revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard - Sun Yat-sen
There is a tendency to deem revolution as impossible in the West, and rest all hope for the future on China. Regardless of whether China is blazing the trail towards Communism or not, this is an excuse for apathy and inaction. It is a form of de-politicization.
why weren’t you more specific about the ways that china is imperfect? i agree, of course, but one can be a strong supporter of something without needing to glorify it.
One major existing problem is the labour rights of Mingong (migrant workers). I would like the explain but it has such a complicated history background as well as a changing development in recent years, it will probably take me a few hours to type a reasonably comprehensive review of it. (Let alone looking for the Eng translation for the tons of Chinese jargons involved.) The English wiki article on it is precise but way too short to gain a dialectical understanding of it.
The difficulties for foreigner to understand the downsides of Chinese development is that there are not many English articles written about them from a dialectical perspective. These issues are either unknown to the West or very often written by ill-intended liberal journalists who refuse to explain to the readers neither the historical causes of the problem nor the step-by-step reform that has been taking place.
As a Chinese myself I find it quite ironic that many foreigners in GZD have an even higher opinion of China than Chinese themselves. The average Chinese worker is likely to work more hours per week, receive a smaller wage and benefits, and have a standard of living lower than that of a similar worker in Denmark or Sweden. CPC has been very clear about improving the lives of common people but there still exists three major contradictions it has to struggle against: 1) the materially inevitable need to exploiting surplus value in order to achieve rapid capital accumulation; 2) the fact that China is situated in a capitalist world economy and it has to compete with other countries in a capitalist market; 3) the internal resistance from local vested interests, bureaucrats, the bourgeoisie, and sometimes the middle class, against properly implementing the reform directed by the central government. China is very far from a “totalitarian” monolith where everything Xi says goes. That’s why it always take time for improvement and the road is not always smooth.
Nonetheless most Chinese are hopeful about their country not because we’re already the best country in the world, but that they believe, justifiably, China will develop into a better country than any of the Western ones. In China, having a developmental, dialectical perspective makes you a leftist; believing in making static comparison with Western countries makes you a self-hating liberal. In general I just hope Westerners who over-romanticise China don’t just one day get “disillusioned” and turn their love into hate overnight like how many Western leftists did in the 60s with Soviet Union.
We honestly need more criticism of China. China does a lot of things right, but simply handwaving the unsavory things about the Chinese government doesn’t make us better. In fact, in a few cases it makes us hypocrites (e.g. selling arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia).
And before anyone comes for me, criticism isn’t chauvanism. We can understand why China does something from their point of view and still acknowledge the harm it does.
If you aren’t Chinese, we don’t need your criticism actually.
There are things that China does that affect the entire working class worldwide. If you are a conscious member of the working class who stands for its interests, that is if you are a communist, you have every right to criticize China.
Ok. Just preface your criticism with your nationality so I don’t waste too much time reading.
Liberal IDPol on Lemmygrad. Neat!
Aye, over the top glorification has been a problem for a while domestically with phrases such as 厉害了我的国 quite common on social media. There is still a long way to go and one can’t afford to be overconfident with powerful enemies still trying to destroy them.
What does that phrase mean? Googling it suggests a movie of some sort
It roughly translations to “so amazing, my nation” which (prior to the 2018 documentary naming) had been a common phrase online used to celebrate the many achievements of the nation (e.g. J-20, 055 destroyer and aircraft carriers being built).
That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but many ended up posting overly confident content as if they were at the stage where they wouldn’t have to worry about anything coming from the west or the US.
Trump being elected and the further rabid wave of Sinophobia that swept through ever since has to a degree alerted and woke many up from this overconfidence.
Thank you for the explanation. In the same vein, do you think it could be a sign of nationalist tendencies?
It could be likely in some of the more extreme cases when hearing phrases such as “only a nation/peoples such as ours could accomplish this feat”.
Fortunately in terms of ethnic nationalism, the PRC is not a ‘Han nationalist ethnostate’ that liberals would bullshit about to paint them in an extremely negatively light. The PRC’s constitution states that “to maintain unity amongst the people, nationalism, especially Han nationalism and local nationalism must be opposed”.
China does indeed do things for which it deserves criticism, for instance not going far enough with its climate goals, failing to completely bust the trafficking of endangered animals and plants, allowing 996 schemes to exists, and continuing to cooperate with rogue governments like the USA, Brazil, or Israel. It is by no means a perfect country, and though its current economic situation explains some of these unsavory policies, other problems still may be caused by neglect or blatant corruption. We do need to criticise China.
However, if you live or work in China, then it is your duty to do so, much more than it is ours. It is both a lot easier and more meaningful to call the kettle black if you don’t live in the pot.
Is 996 still a thing in China? It’s my understanding that it was never legal and that businesses that do this get prosecuted. But I’m not Chinese so idk
Banning 996 completely or not is a problem. According to the law, the salary of working twelve hours a day is twice that of working eight hours a day, last year in a region in Beijing local government completely banned 996, then its government received a lot of complaints. Many people 996 everyday to support their high consumptions but now they couldnt. But if voluntaral 996 is allowed, you know that China’s competition is fierce, so in fact there must be some people forced to 996 or they will be fired. When thinking of a problem we need to see the both sides.
I didn’t know that 12 hour days were allowed. Is that different from overtime?
Yep 12hours is overtime
Sheesh… Chinese workers better stand up for themselves before they become Japan 2
996 schemes do still exist in China, where they are employed by at least 40 companies. Numerous scientists have denounced it as modern slavery and the People’s Court has declared it illegal in 2021, but as far as I know the government only has actually cracked down on a few cases, most notably fines against the Alibaba group in general and Jack Ma specifically.
Banning 996 completely or not is a problem. According to the law, the salary of working twelve hours a day is twice that of working eight hours a day, last year in a region in Beijing local government completely banned 996, then its government received a lot of complaints. Many people 996 everyday to support their high consumptions but now they couldnt. But if voluntaral 996 is allowed, you know that China’s competition is fierce, so in fact there must be some people forced to 996 or they will be fired. When thinking of a problem we need to see the both sides.
Checking out Wikipedia’s Chinese sources, I see that they’re pretty unanimous in condemning the practice. Are there any Chinese comrades here that can speak about this? I have 0 trust in western media’s reports on this topic.
Banning 996 completely or not is a problem. According to the law, the salary of working twelve hours a day is twice that of working eight hours a day, last year in a region in Beijing local government completely banned 996, then its government received a lot of complaints. Many people 996 everyday to support their high consumptions but now they couldnt. But if voluntaral 996 is allowed, you know that China’s competition is fierce, so in fact there must be some people forced to 996 or they will be fired. When thinking of a problem we need to see the both sides.
Banning 996 completely or not is a problem. According to the law, the salary of working twelve hours a day is twice that of working eight hours a day, last year in a region in Beijing local government completely banned 996, then its government received a lot of complaints. Many people 996 everyday to support their high consumptions but now they couldnt. But if voluntaral 996 is allowed, you know that China’s competition is fierce, so in fact there must be some people forced to 996 or they will be fired. When thinking of a problem we need to see the both sides.
Excuse me? Rogue governments?
When you have 20% of humanity to provide for you can’t just ignore huge masses of land, some of the largest food producers(USA and Brasil), for any reason whatsoever. Especially Brazil, China buys millions and millions of tons of food from us every year, do you propose both them and us to starve and get fucked just because our current president is shit? Do you support unilateral sanctions? Because that’s what they do.
We’re seeing it with Russia - you can’t just ignore a continent-size country. Regardless of regardless.
I’m not talking sanctions, I’m talking about simply not doing horrid shit like trading arms with the IDF or supporting Bolsonaro’s quest to eliminate the rainforest
You are right.Although China is developing fast China still has problems
I do not glorify China, but I’m sure it comes across that way when I am defending China and their successes against a lib. There’s just so much shit and propaganda to overcome. Of course China has its flaws, and that’s why people full all across China participate in the CPC.
I agree… Westerners can’t put all our eggs in the China basket. We are not Chinese, we don’t control China. But we are westerners who do have the potential to influence our own countries. So we should support China but make it so that they are not the only hope. We should also have hope in our own revolutions so China isn’t alone taking on the capitalist hegemonic world.
We should also have hope in our own revolutions
I think we can do one better than that.
It’s imperative that we build parties, movements, and organizations that provide the people of the world not only with hope but also with inspiration. It has always been the imperative.
“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”
— Gramsci
This is key. We can’t passively expect capitalism to collapse and socialist governments to follow; if anything, fascism will probably take place if we don’t seize the chance to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat when the capitalist state is at its most de-legitimized. If we don’t do massive amounts of agitprop and organize right now, it’s not gonna get any better soon.
tl;dr: don’t become the soulsborne community that suck off miyazaki so much that he just keeps making the same game but worse each time.
Shut up. He doesn’t and its only the last bastion of games where the boss design and level design evolves after every release and each games alway have different approach to level design. Miyazaki is one of the best game director to ever exist despite leaving in shitty country like japan.
The only thing is that he focused too much in imitating Monster Hunter for a Dungeon Crawler and should have also copied the organic combat of Ocarina/Majora’s and not only the platform design of Dark/Demon. But yeah on the rest.
Wtf? If anything it’s the same game with a lot less of FromSoft bullshit
ER 100% exacerbated many souls bullshit.
ie.
“everything sucks gais” so much that we forgot to make a meaningful open world, instead here’s just the same post apocalypse area reskinned 100 times. Every town, mansion, castle, settlement are all just a delivery vehicle for more zombies.
“NPCs will give you literally no information, aren’t we quirky gais?” so much that they still give you no clear instructions, drop a bullshit name you have no clue about, and telefuckoff to their next quest location across the map and hours of gameplay away and you’ll probably never find them again unless you read a guide.
In terms of tone, storytelling, world design, ER highlights why the way From does these things is god awful.
I won’t even get into the de-evolution of boss design
Since when has the storytelling in FromSoft been good? I mean, the lore is usual really good and all, but I have never seen the resources well done in this issues. I mean, until Sekiro, FromSoft hasn’t made a really acceptable controller mapping, and yeah, bosses seem a little bullshit, but they are more Sekiro than DS if anything, while also have a lot more of ground to grind up to beat them up.
Gotta say, I find my standard to be Zelda64 in therms of environment and combat control to be a good game, even if today those N64 games are stiffy and without a second stick to control the camera beyond Z-target system, but it works way better than what FromSoft has been doing for a Dungeon Crawler. Have you played those Zeldas? Can you imagine playing them successfully with a control simmilar to DS-like series or a Classic Monster Hunter?
Yep, which is my point that people cope themselves into thinking Fromsoft can do no wrong when they actually do a lot of wrongs and they’re right out in the open, people just refuse to acknowledge them.
I mean, I recognize the first, but maybe because I am an spoiled Zelda enjoyer/conneseur snob, and oh boy it’s hard to get back to 3D Third Person semi-platformer Dungeon Crawlers once you have know what intuitive gameplay is. And trust me that FromSoft has take a lot from Ocarina of Time at 50/50 as from Monster Hunter… With Berserk a e s t h e t i c 。
I support China purely because I think China as a world power will be more beneficial for our future than the US. Future revolutions will do it better, but China is making an excellent blueprint on how state capitalism can be better than the free market.
Off-topic but Cuba brightens my heart, a strong revolutionary spirit coupled with true socialist progress right off the coast of the gaudiest space in the Imperial Core. What they have done with regards to Revolutionary Medicine is mind-blowing to an American Capitalist Pig like myself.
I get you, but i will say that overconfidence is just a very normal human sentiment that is difficult to control on a large scale. We have been seeing examples of this since the ancient times, several countries and empire shot themselves in the foot because they were blinded by their own feeling of superiority.
I agree, we should be careful, but on the other hand there isn’t much to do about it.
Valid point, OP. What worries me about overglorification of any specific country is that it verges into nationalism which isn’t very ML.
Depends on the nationalism, really. The IRA fighting for sovereignty is based, but Hong Kong pleading to get recolonized by Britain is cringe.
I think mild nationalism is acceptable. Anyway Mao took nationalism to set up new China.You can also find some extreme nationalits in Chinese internet but they can not represent the whole China. China has 1.4 billion people you can find different kinds of people. China even has a big group of reverse nationalists whice think it’s a shame to be Chinese, they call other Chinese 支那人, which can be regarded as ChingChong
Edit: cultist sectarists coping much, I see.
Thanks for the reminder. If I wanted to idealize things, I would have remained religious, which also reminds me, that China needs to enforce laws and education against all sort of religions, since not a single religion is free of reactionary rethoric, and even the leftiest of Catholics vows to the same Pope the fasciest of catholics vow too. On another hand, I would also love to know how China goes in regard of animal care and protection, which I understand that protecting people goes before, like, a lot, yet there’s no valid excuse for animal cruelty… I would like to know more on this subject and about animal rights activists in China (don’t fuck with me, comrades, empathy towards living beings is universal and its not a liberal shit thing), and look for some vegan commies over there if I could give some sort of support, at least a moral one.
法轮功，it’s a terrible religion. They said certain god could cure China’s patient in Singapore and it needed much money. Many people believed that and lost everything without patient cured
What is 法轮功? Another mix of Buddho-Tao-Christian cult?
法轮功 is a evil religion that created in 20th century in China. The creator 李洪志 gathered a lot of money by the believers. They are called to start parade in front of China’s governments many people even killed themselves to meet the god. China finally banned it. But it’s protected by America to fight against China. Many lies about China you can hear now are made by 法轮功’s believers
Ah! Falun Guong!? Yeah, I see them as the Chinese Aum Shinrikyo equivalent. Good thing China is more reluctant to give religious privileges to organizations just because “muh freedumb of religion!”
