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Comment by mpol | Hacker News Reader

If you allow me to throw in an idea, and please correct me if you see fit.

In earlier times the Confucian pacifist ways of China were not up to the aggression of Western Europe, the US and Japan. In more recent times they learned to deal better with these foreign powers. The last thing they want is to give up their autonomy and culture and get run over by all these well meaning politicians that are very much after power anyway.

The moslim communities might be seen as a threat to Chinese conformity since they often hold very tight their moslim culture. The same thing might be happening around Falun Dafa. I don't really know how it started, but where we are now, they might be seen as a threat as well, since they are now quite aggressive in their wordings towards the Chinese government.

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Don’t let the propaganda fool you — like any other empire, China has never been “pacifist,” whether we’re talking about the PRC that established itself through a long and brutal civil war, or the Qing dynasty and its endless internal and external military conflicts.

The modern mainland state has been very clear — all the more so since the 3rd and 4th plenums under Xi — that every aspect of the Chinese sociopolitical superstructure is there to ensure the Party remains paramount. In today’s China, 法治 means not that law rules the Party, but that the Party rules by law.

In their syllogism, any threat to Party leadership is a threat to the Party; any threat to the Party is a threat to its ability to legitimize itself to the people of China; any threat to their legitimation is a threat to the nation. Therefore, any attack on Party leadership or actions is, to them, existential. (I say this the same week the Tiananmen Square “pillar of shame” memorial came down in Hong Kong.)

Thus, the big lie they’re promulgating is that Intel et al. are disparaging the nation or government of China, rather than the Communist Party, because the theoretical basis of the state admits no light between them. Anyone doing business on the mainland needs to understand that they will have to subordinate every interest and goal they have to whatever the Party considers important — hence the “we apologize for pointing out that slave labor is not popular” walkback.

> In earlier times the Confucian pacifist ways of China

Imperial China was not pacifist. A basic model of Chinese history, which IIRC came from scholars in imperial China, was that China repeated a three stage cycle (from memory, the terms won't be exactly right): ascension (of a new dyansty) and prosperity -> decline and corruption -> chaos (and war) -> ascenscion ....

China's borders reguarly changed through force. Look up historical maps, for example. However, China had no peers in size and wealth nearby, and therefore didn't fight existential wars.

I'm not sure Confucian philosophy is pacifist, regardless.

> China were not up to the aggression of Western Europe, the US and Japan

They were not up to the technological advantages of the industrial revolution, and took a long time to recognize it and to change. In the early-ish 19th century, the Qing emporer wrote a famous letter to the king of England saying that China did not need their trinkets (industrial revolution technology) that the subordinate king (I forget how that was implied or expressed) offered, apparently not realizing the severe disadvantage. Even after the subsequent brutal, imperialistic attack on China, seizure of ports, and forced trade, the Chinese emporers tried to minimize change, IIRC first trying to just buy military tech without the infrastructure of knowledge, training, skills, etc.

Even today, the CCP seems to think it will have a wealthy capitalist country without a free market (which itself requires freedom and free thinking).

That makes perfect sense to me. What China fails to understand is that this approach have it’s own problem, in respect to their role in the world. It protects China and it’s culture, but makes it impossible for western nations to depend on the country.

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