Pretty ignorant of China’s politics myself, who to follow for good coverage of what’s going on in China? This latest consolidation of power by Xi, is it more of the same or is this something we haven’t seen before?
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china pretty much controls whatever news comes out of china, so the sources you have to search elsewhere. xi has been consolidating power for like 10 years, and he made a “president for life” a while back too. the evergrande situation , plus thier population crisis which they are trying to “solve”.
some other points like thier college graduates are way exceeding the amount of jobs available in thier tech sector, so they have become very incensed, also with HCOL which leads to thier populaiton issue, in addition to the one child policy has left the country very woman deficient.
china like most insular asian countries are very anti-immigration, they allow very few to naturalize in the country and the caveat is denouncing your other citizenships. ALso westerners, particular white ones that move there are often used by the ccp as propaganda to legitimize companies in the country.
For china I only trust reputable human right organizations
This is a continuation of Xi solidifying control over the government, which is a break from the post-Mao CCP in having power more diffused across different people. It is likely that the corruption allegations are correct, but bribing officials to win government contracts are pretty par for the course for people in those positions.
It kind of depends on whether or not you speak Mandarin.
One thing to keep in mind is that noone has a clear picture of what is going on in the top levels of the PLA, nor the CCP. And that is intentional, of course.
Unless you have a foundation, avoid the China-Fact-Chasers guys, as they are very one-sided, despite their vast 1st person experience living in China. Lei-talks has a less extreme interpretation, with lots of numbers to back things up - and will also go off on the fantastical topics here and there. Ken Cao puts out a lot of content, as does David Zhang, also very anti-CCP
There is a GProf show that focuses on the Chinese markets which helps balance the economy knowledge, but is weak on politixal content.
@SpruceBringsteen@lemmy.world @jaxxed@lemmy.world
I’m a native mandarin speaker and China’s politics seems so opaque af. All I really know if the real life experiences as like a civillian, and stories my parents told me, and my 8 years of childhood memories there. No clue what the fuck is happening inside Beijing.
I mean I can tell you about my personal experiences of what life is like, but I don’t know about how the political system even fuctions. Even my parents that grew up there and lived there for decades there doesn’t know wtf is going on in the politics. Its blurry, it’s confusing. In my view, it feels kinda like another imperial dynasty, but with CCP as a party at top instead of a traditional monarch.
Edit:
Also: Regarding June 4, 1989, I asked my parents about it and they just said “oh there was something happened with university students… civil unrest” that’s all they know. Guangdong Province was where they were at and its far away from Beijing. Now that we’re in the US and told them about the western side of the story, and they’re like: “whatever happened, it was probably necessary, its not like the country could just allow such chaos to happen” so… yeah… they don’t really care. I suspect most people in China don’t pay too close attention either.
My older brother made a huge fuss about it when he learned it in the US, I think it was in school where he learned it, totally shocked him and shattered his worldview. I remember him telling me about it, and telling me to “Google Tiananmen Square Massacre”. Now he’s seems like a conspiracy theorist that distrusts any and all governements, that shock is probably what turned him to Antivax, I mean the shock of his schools in China hiding the other side of the story.
Who do you follow, that you might suggest?
What’s wrong with being anti-CCP? I hate China’s corrupted government almost as much as I hate the USA’s.
Some of the anti-CCP stuff is too heavily algorythmucally captured, and ends up being “China will lose” - which is both wrong, and the wr0ng way to look at the world.
The China-Chaser guys can be the worst for this, as the tend(ed) to phrase the everrything as a US vs China competition - for which the US is destroying the Chinese. Any realist out there knows that the Chinese and US economies are so intertwined that they are both in trouble.
Truthfully, I find that I am anti-CCP, as you can tell bt my suggestions. I try to balance it out, bit I avoid those “US fails as China soars” channels. I tjimk that I tend to follow Taiwanese producers, as they have healthy concern but strong independence. Also I hate bully countries.
One of the few reputable and non-biased sources is the South China Morning Post
SCMP used to be unbiased. However, I’m not so sure if that’s still the case.
SCMP used to be unbiased.
When was that? When it was Murdoch owned? Yeah I’m sure!
https://youtube.com/@leisrealtalk
Plenty of interesting stuff going on that she covers (generals being ousted, political infighting etc.).
There’s a bias there but once you filter through that lens the information is really interesting.
She’s actually one I’ve already been listening to, but was looking for others to round out the perspective.
seems just gossip. Couldn’t have the patience to wade through until a policy difference between Xi and anyone else in Chinese establishment was mentioned. What are the policy differences being explored?
Private people who have traveled there.
What do y’all think of RedNote?
On this topic, I am myself somewhat partial towards the sources associated with Falun Gong, for while they obviously are highly motivated to spin everything to make the Communist Party look as bad as possible, they’re also not easily intimidated and well placed to find actual facts that few others are able to uncover.
Bro they’re a literal cult wtf
The alternative is outright state censored and strictly follows party lines. If you know how to read between the lines you can pick out the bits of actual news that don’t make it out through more mainstream sources. Granted, it’s still by and large just cult propaganda, but any port in a storm as they say.
Still though, for your own mental health, just use Chinese forums that aren’t hosted in China.
As far as cults go, they don’t sound like a “literal cult” when reading about them on Wikipedia:
Ian Johnson argued that applying the ‘cult’ label to Falun Gong effectively “cloaked the government’s crackdown with the legitimacy of the West’s anticult movement”. He wrote that Falun Gong does not satisfy common definitions of a cult: “its members marry outside the group, have outside friends, hold normal jobs, do not live isolated from society, do not believe that the world’s end is imminent and do not give significant amounts of money to the organisation … it does not advocate violence and is at heart an apolitical, inward-oriented discipline, one aimed at cleansing oneself spiritually and improving one’s health.”[74]: 224 David Ownby similarly wrote that “the entire issue of the supposed cultic nature of Falun Gong was a red herring from the beginning, cleverly exploited by the Chinese state to blunt the appeal of Falun Gong”.[63]
Falun Gong is anti China and you’re gonna take an anti China dude’s word on this uncritically?
It is a cult. Go look into it more than just on Wikipedia ffs.
Is it more cultish than Mormons, Scientology or the weirder evangelicals?
“do your own research, but don’t trust the thing stitched together by obsessive nerds trying to help you do research” is the sort of thing conspiracy nuts say.
To support your position on contested facts, always provide a link. Any link, with as many options as you care to include. Quotes are nice but not required.
I don’t have time to try and educate someone who’s desire to learn stops at Wikipedia lmao. I have better things to do. Be more curious and challenge yourself a bit
If you have time to yell “go do your own research!” but can’t be bothered to provide even one link, please don’t get upset if you’re dismissed as a loon.
To paraphrase an old idea: That which was asserted without evidence should be dismissed without evidence.
Seems you are proving my point here instead of spending time to go look anything else up you’d rather remain ignorant and keep blabbing here lol
I too always get my actual facts from pro Trump antivaxxers rightwing crackpots!
As god intended
