- Dec 17, 2010
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I found this Facebook post to be convincing.
One of the more curious aspects of how the Chinese Communist Party is perceived outside of China is that, all else being equal, this regime would be admired by the far right and abhorred by the far left. Yet, the opposite positions are reflexively entrenched as a result of our domestic dogmatic culture wars.
China no longer pretends to be a communist utopia. Its workers are amongst the most exploited on earth while boasting the second-largest concentration of billionaires in the world. It's GINI coefficient, which measures economic inequality, is higher than South Korea, Japan, Australia, and all of Europe.
It is a police state with an extensive surveillance network that prioritises national security and law and order above civil liberties, while executing more prisoners than any nation on earth.
It is socially conservative, there is no same sex marriage, nor any legal protection from discrimination, and homosexuality was only removed from the official government list of mental illnesses in 2001.
It promotes "traditional" gender roles for women, there are no women in the 24 member Politburo that rule the country, only 13 serve in the 203 member Central Committe, and only 3 of China's 31 Provincial Governers are women.
It has one of the world's most restrictive immigration systems. Patriotism is taught in schools and mandated throughout movies, TV, and even music. There is no version of history taught in school in which the crimes of China's government or military are exposed.
In fact the CCP's new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress should be celebrated by the "monoculture" proponents by the way it mandates a shared Chinese national identity and seeks to erase minority customs and tradition... though it is worth adding that the 55 ethnic minorities of China aren't immigrants... they were colonised... and there is no talk of decolonisation in Beijing, only promises to reclaim lost imperial colonies through a revived era of military expansion.
In many ways, the CCP regime is the exact brand of nationalist authoritarianism that those on the far fight want to emulate. But with ideological battle lines drawn up decades ago, we are left with the irrational state of affairs where progressives routinely defend a fascist dictatorship purely because conservatives hate them.
One of the more curious aspects of how the Chinese Communist Party is perceived outside of China is that, all else being equal, this regime would be admired by the far right and abhorred by the far left. Yet, the opposite positions are reflexively entrenched as a result of our domestic dogmatic culture wars.
China no longer pretends to be a communist utopia. Its workers are amongst the most exploited on earth while boasting the second-largest concentration of billionaires in the world. It's GINI coefficient, which measures economic inequality, is higher than South Korea, Japan, Australia, and all of Europe.
It is a police state with an extensive surveillance network that prioritises national security and law and order above civil liberties, while executing more prisoners than any nation on earth.
It is socially conservative, there is no same sex marriage, nor any legal protection from discrimination, and homosexuality was only removed from the official government list of mental illnesses in 2001.
It promotes "traditional" gender roles for women, there are no women in the 24 member Politburo that rule the country, only 13 serve in the 203 member Central Committe, and only 3 of China's 31 Provincial Governers are women.
It has one of the world's most restrictive immigration systems. Patriotism is taught in schools and mandated throughout movies, TV, and even music. There is no version of history taught in school in which the crimes of China's government or military are exposed.
In fact the CCP's new Law on Promoting Ethnic Unity and Progress should be celebrated by the "monoculture" proponents by the way it mandates a shared Chinese national identity and seeks to erase minority customs and tradition... though it is worth adding that the 55 ethnic minorities of China aren't immigrants... they were colonised... and there is no talk of decolonisation in Beijing, only promises to reclaim lost imperial colonies through a revived era of military expansion.
In many ways, the CCP regime is the exact brand of nationalist authoritarianism that those on the far fight want to emulate. But with ideological battle lines drawn up decades ago, we are left with the irrational state of affairs where progressives routinely defend a fascist dictatorship purely because conservatives hate them.
