anon · 6d
hello! I want to encourage you to put some attention into learning more about China before you start falling into tankie rhetoric. China is an enormous country with thousands of years of history and billions of people living in it. I would ask you to think - how much do you know about China? what do you know about the demographics, about the generational gaps, about the difference between city and rural life, about the pop culture, about the average person's life? how much do you know about the history and present of the CCP?
it's absolutely true that the American government has vested interest in manipulating information about China, and it's true that there is a lot of casual sinophobic mindset and rhetoric within America because of the propaganda framing of China as "evil communists." I ask you to consider your current level of knowledge not because China is inherently Evil (or Good) but because it is a country full of people that operates like every other country full of people. the casual sinophobia in America means that people are very prone to exoticizing it in one way or another, but it is just a country - a country with a lot of thriving culture and subcultures, and with a lot of beauty, and with a lot of varied ways of life. it is also a country that has been under a communist dictatorship for most of the modern age, and that is currently under the absolute power of a dictator who has displayed interest in further restrictions of freedom.
I would encourage you to learn about the mass surveillance, censorship, ethnic cleansing, and protest-crushing under the CCP - especially the human rights violations against Muslim minority groups in Xinjiang and the repression of the Hong Kong protests. I would also encourage you to learn about the beauty of Chongqing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Xi'an, and so many other cities. there is so much life in China, because it is a country full of people who are alive. I'm not saying you need to have memorized a textbook in order to have an opinion about a place, but sometimes you need to learn and listen and understand before you start speaking. what I am seeing right now is a lot of Americans talking about China as either an evil unknowable state, or a benevolent cute-innocent socialist paradise - and both of those things are not just orientalism 101, they also flatten a huge complicated country into whatever narrative serves you as an American best. I think the more you can learn, the more you can actually understand about the reality of a place - and the less you are in danger of slipping into tankie rhetoric and disregarding the humanity of the people who are subjugated under the CCP
you're absolutely right that it's impossible to generalize a huge country, and it makes sense that from an american perspective once you unlearn sinophobic propaganda, it's easy to swing in the other direction and think of it as some flawless communist utopia. i'm not really operating through either framework. i'm able to look at some things tankies say and acknowledge they are true and i agree with them. i hear some of the things the people i know who live in china/have lived in china/hk/taiwan say that are critical of the govt and i believe those things too. the thing is, my political principles make me a communist, and china is a large communist country, so of course i am going to agree with some of the actions of their communist government.
i like that you're encouraging me to just learn more about china in general because i think that's what i would like to do. if you have any non-CIA, non-Voice of America resources that I can use to learn more, please send them my way.
i know it's not the same but i am cuban and was raised in a household where the only time we talked about cuba was when my grandma complained about the revolution, about communism, about the senseless killing and looting of the upper middle class. of course, i believed her--after all, she was there! she saw it happen! she left on a boat with only a suitcase and a newborn baby! but then once i got older, i was able to take a step back and look at outside perspectives. i realized my grandmother is and has always been extremely conservative, racist, capitalist, and traumatized--and that lens is not the one i want to look through. i realized i had to also value the opinions and knowledge of people who were not connected to cuba through identity. they were able to see things my grandma, from a rich upper middle class farming-owning family, was not. i'm sure my family benefitted from the slave trade, and i'm sure they underpaid their workers after slavery was abolished. a lot of their trauma came from the destabilization of their perfect life that was built on the backs of poor people in punishing conditions.
i'm talking about this because it's the reason i'm not inclined to take all my opinions of a place from the diaspora. if you had asked me as a member of the cuban diaspora if i was a communist, if i supported the cuban revolution, up until a few years ago i would have repeated the same lies and biased opinions my grandma told me!
i'm not saying that's exactly what you're doing here. i'm not saying that you're even wrong or i know more than you. that's not true and not really what i care about. what i am saying is there's a chance you're motivated to send this message because you can't take a step back and be objective. that's not a bad thing necessarily, but it does change how you view things, and why you'd choose to send me this message.
fwiw i'm not uncritical of tankies either because i find some of them are patronizing and cynical and obsessed with theory. but i keep being told to focus only on confirmed history (confirmed by who?), only on history that i've already learned, only on history reported by news outlets funded by the CIA, and i am not super interested in that right now. it's literally the only kind of history i've ever gotten on china. please understand i don't have an uncritical lens even if i talk like i do sometimes. i want to know the whole truth, the good and the bad. i just think it's impossible for me to not compare what i learn with the truth of living in america, and how america comes out worse every single time. like i cannot stress enough how so much of my unlearning of american propaganda is focused on how america is a singular evil in this world, genuinely. because of that, i can look at almost any other country and find the good things about it.
also this isn't just a specific focus i have on china. i also feel this way about cuba too. i've read and listened to a lot of info about cuba, but i know in the end i won't truly know what it's like until i go and see for myself. i'm excited to have the chance to unlearn things i thought would be true, to demystify this place that i was so propagandized about. hopefully i can get to china someday too and see the good, bad, and everything in between.
this has been an interesting topic to discuss w anonymous people for sure, but i would like it better if it was more generative rather than these "warnings" i keep recieving. i am well aware that i should be critical and question things. it feels a little patronizing to recieve these messages where you're well meaning but kinda talk down to me. i don't think i'm in danger of slipping into a place of no return idealogically. in future if you (or anyone else who wants to talk about this) want to send me a message on this topic, please come with some links to things i should be looking at, reading, listening to. if you don't want to do that i understand, but if you had the time to type this message out you could probably have made it shorter and just sent me a few articles.
also, my dms are open! i would rather talk about this with You, a Person, instead of someone anonymous on a website that won't exist in two months. have a good night!
