Many people, myself included, view them as offensive, crass propaganda that will just further irrational hate against Chinese people.
Since Trump was elected, the US has descended into what I can only describe as hysteria about China, which I think will be viewed in the same way as the McCarthy era is viewed today. The hysteria is fundamentally driven by deep insecurity about the US losing its geopolitical preeminence, which it has enjoyed since the end of WWII, and it is aided by a jingoistic media that uncritically propagates nationalistic narratives.
The hysteria is not driven by anything China itself has specifically done. China hasn't launched any wars in decades, and has essentially just been focusing on its own economic development. Inside China, the view that the American public has of China is incomprehensible: living standards have been getting steadily better, and most people are optimistic about the future. But just the fact that China is growing is viewed as a strategic threat in the US, and since Trump, Bannon et al. came in and initiated a confrontational policy towards China, US public opinion has taken a dramatic turn.
So I don't view this as an episode of the university "kowtowing" to "CCP" demands. It's just another example of grotesque propaganda, which caused a reaction on campus. The university initially decided to take the propaganda down, but now has been cowed by an opposite anti-Chinese reaction in the media and on social media, so the propaganda will stay up. Anyone who thinks the "CCP" controls dialogue in the US hasn't been paying attention over the last 5 years - the anti-Chinese messaging has been intense.
> a bad awakening
I have not seen people becoming more informed about China. Much the opposite: I have seen the rapid spread of a bizarre image of China that has almost nothing to do with the reality on the ground.
Even the western propoganda will come with its own hyperbole.
But some things are clear cut, like creating artificial islands and claiming rocks near other countries to claim maritime territory like in South China Sea. There are many more examples which are not helping CCP's case at this point.
Criticism of what CCP is doing now is not criticism of Chinese people. Taiwan is a state which is majorly ethnically Han Chinese and it doesn't get the same criticism even though its past is also not all happy.
But an increasing number of people, especially Americans, really think the Chinese government/police really are just openly killing people in the streets with no consequence (lol), they’ve enslaved the entirety of Africa and stolen the land due to the debt of building a few trains, and other bizarre stuff. Any time anyone is like “I’ve been there and it’s not that bad,” people scream that you’re a shill and scream “WINNIE THE POOH” as if that does anything. The level is discourse involving the country is embarrassingly low, and when it reaches that level, it does just two things: breeds absolute hatred (hate crimes involving Asians are up) and pushes people not buying into it the the opposite direction of the propaganda.
There's a set few countries where if you post anything not explicitly negative about them, people come out of the wood works to post a few set phrases.
here's a submission on the frontpage right now https://www.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/snzur..., particularly look at some completely benign comments getting buried with downvotes, you basically have to preface everything with "I hate the chinese government, but" or else you get called a chinese shill and downvoted.
edit: like look at this https://www.reddit.com/r/iamatotalpieceofshit/comments/snzur..., this dude is literally copy and pasting this comment and getting 5000 upvotes and awards for it and all the responses are basically "i haven't watched any of this but all chinese are cheaters by blood so you're definitely right" and all the responses to those are "you will lose social credit" or "winnie the pooh" or talking about chinese shills despite every copy and pasted anti china post having positive votes, its so weird.
it makes me mad that these huge internet communities that are and have always been racist against chinese people (i.e the brainwashed, cheaters, drones rhetoric that has existed since 2013 and almost certainly before) but now they use tragic humanitarian crises as cover to shut down all pushback. reddit discussion on the olympics is literally more racist than what gets posted on /sp/, and is far less self aware.
Are you denying that China has wrongfully imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs and begun to deny Hong Kong the autonomy it is promised under the law? Just to pick two of the posters' subject matter.
Perhaps you meant "bizarre image" in a purely aesthetic sense. It does not seem like condemnation of what's treated in the posters is even controversial outside China. It's certainly not unique to the US.
On the other hand, an actual Chinese state official tweeted a photorealistic fake image of an Australian soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan child.
https://twitter.com/zlj517/status/1333214766806888448
Which is more graphic, & more likely to engender hate?
Olympic athletes are not committing war crimes or violence as suggested by the agitprop posters.
Perhaps living under a censorious regime creates such gullibility, & obliviousness to metaphor & sarcasm?
(Separately: prosecutions of the Australian soldiers involved in the incidents Mr. Zhao "symbolized" are still possible – but as far as I can tell, none of the incidents involved the slitting of children's throats, as in his graphic photorealistic rendering.)
Such is life here in America...
If you're used to a system in which the courts assume the prosecutor is always right and so the judge's only task is to decide the sentence, then a trial with rules of evidence, burden of proof, etc., will seem very slow.
CCP policy and behaviour towards Xinjiang shows a clear intent to eradicate Uighur culture, possibly the Uighur people, on the part of the CCP state. Simlilarly for Hong Kong, Tibet. A warcrime by an Australian soldier is being dealt with as a matter of military discipline.
There is no equivalency between the two. Pretending that a crime is equivalent to state genocide is classic "wolf warrior" trolling.
A better equivalency would be between what's happening with the Uighurs and what happened to Australia's first nation people in the nineteenth century. Modern China does have more than a little in common with those old European colonial empires.
But the Irish remained the top ethnicity in Ireland and their population increased fast for most of that period, so I have no clue what the IRA were going on about.
Can we go there and freely discuss the situation with residents, without minders nearby?
Can they freely practice their relgion? Can they leave? Can they choose not to have regime loyalists stay in their homes? (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/11/30/uninvited-guests-k...)
Escapees report differently, & fear retaliation against their remaining family: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2021/04/uy...
Wire me $1000 and I'll produce video testimony of an Asian-looking person alleging literally any atrocity you want by China/Russia/Iran.
Unverifiable testimony not made under oath and grainy Google Earth screenshots are simply not reliable evidence in the current year.
As for actual evidence, PRC publishes their census data online for everyone to see. If you don't believe that, you can look up "Ürümqi street" on YouTube and get a ballpark figure for how many Turkic people and cultures are represented there. If you still think there is Holocaust 2.0 going on in Xinjiang, you are ideologically poisoned beyond reason.
Why is your first thought creating hoaxes for pay rather than collecting honest testimony?
Why is your go-to source “PRC census data” rather than any evidence of actual freedoms to live without minders, travel, speak, practice religion?
That doesn't seem to be true. Whatever you think about the truth of China's treatment of Uighurs or Tibet, clearly people have strong opinions about what china itself has specifically done. And the government's behavior to its own ostensibly unoppressed citizens seems to me to border on dystopia; that again concerns things that China has or has not done. It feels like a bit of facile stubbornness to claim that no criticism of China is legitimate.
There were students complaining about Tibet when I was a child, 30 years ago. Given the rise of the social justice movement in the US and events in HK I don’t see anything odd about a resurgence of such concerns from the youth of America. It’s not like these students previously thought it wasn’t a problem - they weren’t even born.
While the issues are real, the timing seems very convenient.
These are the same western countries otherwise which overlooked a genocide in East Pakistan which is now Bangladesh just because they needed a state for their guerilla warfare against Soviets. When India went to stop the genocide and fight for liberation of Bangladesh, it was threatened with US naval might.
Morality is not why they are doing it but that doesn't mean the moral side should not be supported.
The other reason being that CCP now has the economic muscle to influence narrative which was reserved to just West till now.
For others reading, while the parent is entitled to their opinion, that is a very pro-Indian description of events. IIRC, many believe India created the situation in order to split Pakistan in half.
Do you reject what the US ambassador wrote in Blood Telegram itself? As far as I have read, it wasn't that they created the situation, the genocide was already happening; they created a situation for an independent Bangladesh by supporting rebels.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blood_Telegram:_Nixon,_K...
It is a shame that we aren't apologetic for this genocide and haven't given its due and how West had largely ignored it even though Holocaust wasn't even 3 decades back when this happened.
It wasn't sudden at all, but a long-discussed, ongoing issue of international relations: What to do if/when China's economy grows to the point of them becoming a major regional or global power (economy being the necessary component of national power, required for financial and military power).
Even 20 years ago, it was a problem for the future. China's GDP was low (but growing), the country was poor (in aggregate, it's still not at all wealthy on an individual level), and as a result, their military and diplomatic power was weak. Still, everyone could see the direction their power was heading. There were two poles of opinions:
1) Embrace China in the international order, share with them its benefits (e.g., the World Trade Organization), accomodate their power, and help them gradually reform and become a democratic country. This idea may seem insane in hindsight but before Xi Jinping, China was opening up. I remember reading (translations) from Chinese internet forums, which had a much richer, sophisticated discussion of democracy and human rights than what I read in the US - democratic reform was a serious topic and many top Chinese leaders supported it to varying degrees. Also, a democratic China would be a lasting foundation for world freedom, peace, and prosperity. Russia would be the only serious outsider.
2) Oppose China: This one is easy to understand, but don't let the simplicity and certainty draw you in. Opposing them will make them an enemy, no matter the nuances, a major threat and cost for generations. Also, we may not prevail in that confrontation: The concentration of economic activity and population in the world will be in East and South Asia, with China geographically in the center of it; imagine China trying to compete with the US for influence in North America. Also, military power depends mostly on economic capacity, and with 4 times the population of the uS, if China becomes even half as rich per capita then their economy will double the US's. The US has never had a foe anywhere near it in economic capacity. The US would be the underdog in the long term (without lots of allies).
Option #1 was attempted, even exhausted, for obvious reasons. Now China has grown to present an immediate, not a future, threat. And Xi Jinping has strongly embraced aggressive, nationalistic foriegn policy, including militarily threatening almost all their neighbors (Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, India) and Taiwan; seizing territory in the South China Sea; threatening other countries such as Australia and (economically) European countries; censoring any business that criticizes them; and transforming a reforming, opening country into a brutal dictatorship and cult of personality. As one example: Chinese leaders before Xi (and since Mao) served 10 year terms; Xi did away with that and has become a lifelong dictator, like Mao, Stalin, and others before him.
At this point, the options are to oppose them or surrender. The Trump administration certainly didn't help (and was a strategic disaster, because the US's only hope is to balance China's great mass with the alliances that Trump worked to destroy, and which depend on the US's reputation, which Trump also worked to ruin), but by then there was no option but to oppose the Chinese Communist Party.
The Chinese Communist Party hasn't had the ability to launch wars for decades, though that has changed. The CCP takes pride in aggression toward other countries; look up 'wolf diplomats', for example. The CCP also censors critical speech in businesses worldwide, including the American film industry. Their military (it's the CCP's military, not the people of China's) regularly threatens India (including occasional shooting conflicts) and Taiwan, with forces sent into their neighbors' territories, and at least in the recent past, Japan. They've also used force to sieze parts of the South China Sea from neighbors such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and from international waters.
Internally, the CCP has used security forces to brutally oppress people in Tibet (including a takeover of the Buddhist religion there), Xinjiang (Uyghurs), and Hong Kong, as well as many other civilians and groups not associated with any nationality or region (e.g., the Falun Gong). They also murdered people in Tiananmen Square, as we know well, on June 4, 1989.
We should be protecting the freedom of Chinese people - from the CCP and from intolerance in our own country - not demonizing them. The problem is an organization that happens to be Chinese, the Chinese Communist Party. In fact, the people of China are their main victims. Americans of Chinese descent have no more to do with the CCP than Americans of Russian descent are responsible for Putin. I hope more Chinese people come to freedom in the US - I was hoping we'd take in a lot from Hong Kong.
Well, one thing you failed to mention that the CCP has done that the posters do highlight is the genocide being perpetrated on the Uyghur people which seems quite rational for people across the world to be outraged by and want to put pressure on the government to end such practices. Indeed China hasn't launched any kinetic wars, how about trade wars (e.g. WTO ruling against China RE Rare Earths which was used to badger the Japanese over a border dispute), how about intense economic pressure like what is happening with Lithuania right now, how about rampant forced technology transfer across the world.
Let's try to have an evenhanded debate here in good faith. I'm happy to admit there are many things I think America has done and is doing wrong, no country is perfect, but it doesn't serve your cause to pretend that certain events have never happened or to gaslight people.
What western country has an appetite for any more kinetic conflicts? I think this is why Crimea was such a shock to people, because the seizing of territory just seemed so odd in this day and age. Plus, why put people's lives on the line in a war when you could hit their power grid with a cyberattack you can pin on a non-state actor since attribution is so hard or you can use the weight of your economic activity to force other countries to do what you want?
A "genocide" in which nobody is being killed.
The fact that anyone is even using the word "genocide" regarding Xinjiang with a straight face is a perfect example of how extreme the propaganda in the US has become in the last 5 years.
It's also a perfect example of US media not doing its job to hold the US government accountable when it makes absurd claims (à la WMD in Iraq).
Killing members of a group is not necessary for something to be genocide. I realize the legal meaning of genocide is different than how some people generally use the word, but I don't think your objection holds up to scrutiny.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention#Definition...
That's why, for example, birth control policies are only genocide if they're intended to completely physically annihilate the group. China's 1-child policy severely restricted the growth of the Han population, but it wasn't genocide, because there was no intent to physically annihilate the Han. The 3-child policy that the Uyghurs and the Han are now equally subject to is not genocide: there's no intent to physically annihilate the Uyghurs, and indeed the Uyghur population continues to grow.
> I realize the legal meaning of genocide is different than how some people generally use the word
The legal definition is essentially the same to the colloquial usage of the term. The problem is that people pushing the "Uyghur genocide" narrative almost always leave out the physical annihilation requirement, which is right at the beginning of the official definition (which you linked).
I have to say, though, that it's a slick rhetorical trick:
1. Allege "genocide," which everyone understands as mass murder of an ethnic group.
2. When someone points out there's no mass murder, claim (incorrectly) that the technical definition of "genocide" is completely different from how the public understands the term.
Even if it were true that the technical definition of genocide were completely different from the colloquial definition (it isn't), this would still be a dishonest rhetorical move.
Genocide is about extinguishing an ethnic, racial, or religious group.
One way is to simply murder everyone that belongs to it. It is effective, but hard to do without consequences.
Another, perhaps more insidious way is to prevent that culture from propagating, thus destroying it in the long run. Tools you can use are involuntary birth control, displacement, and indoctrination. Which is what is happening in Xinjiang.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/09/uyghurs-subjec...
UK Tribunal calls it a genocide: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59595952
Forced Sterilization of Uyghur women: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/asia/xinjiang-china-response-...
Mass internment camps: https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/exposed-chi...
Survivor Testimony: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/uighur-xinjian...
Multiple governments pass motions declaring it to be genocide or that the serious risk of genocide existed: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/politics/trump-china-x...
Do I need to go on?
This is how the propaganda game is played.
Nobody is being killed, and killing people is pretty much the some qua non of genocide. Anyone can throw around "genocide" as a rhetorical trick. The US killed hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq - genocide? US sanctions against Afghanistan are causing widespread hunger - genocide? Of course not, because genocide actually means something, and we shouldn't hollow out the word to score geopolitical points.
What's happening in Xinjiang? The Chinese government is using police-state methods to destroy the Uyghur separatist movement and to go after religious extremism that it thinks endangers the state and society. The government is certainly violating a great many people's civil rights and dragging up people with only vague connections to the separatist movement or religious extremism. At the same time, the government is pouring money into the region in order to try to raise living standards, on the theory that that will dry up support for separatism and religious extremism in the Uyghur population. As a result, incomes and life expectancy among Uyghurs are increasing. The Uyghur population is also increasing.
There's a real "there" there, but it has nothing to do with genocide, and calling it "genocide" is frankly just propaganda.
To those claiming that this somehow meets the technical UN definition of "genocide," this is simply untrue: the definition requires a deliberate attempt to physically annihilate (not culturally assimilate) an ethnic group. Historically, this has always been through mass killing. The definition says that attempting to annihilate a population by completely stopping any member of the group from giving birth would be genocide, but nothing of the sort is being alleged. The Chinese government has a 3-child policy, and the Uyghur population continues to grow, in fact.