I do not and will not dispute that either.

I have low expectations on your words alone. But also am satisfied with that because at best it's meaningless, at worst I am wrong.

What do you actually know about China?

"authoritarian oppression" entirely meaningless when stripped of context.

I can see why you would think it's negative, but i don't have the ability to put into words why it really isn't.

China institutionalized what USA prefers to make private.

Assuming I was being rude seem pretty negative

Here's some sources, some even from far-right US journals that have looked into it. It has more to do with regulating businesses and execs found to be in violation anti-trust laws.

It's really just standard anti-trust / financial legislation, IE things the US used to do before 1980s when they let finance capital take over.

• The US's credit score system is vastly more influential and detrimental to a majority of its population than China's social credit system, which largely doesn't even exist, and where it does exist it is only used to target businesses.
• China’s Social Credit System is more about regulating businesses, and execs who are found to be in violation of anti-trust laws.

If you're going to mischaracterize it in the future, at least post some sources.

They seem incapable of realising that two things can both be bad.

Even three things can be bad at the same time, holy if we as species evolve we can even have four things!!!!!!!

But the problem is that one of those two things is not even true in the first place.

What do you think is happening in Xinjiang? Do you mean the lies about a genocide? Please be specific.

You are treating “authoritarian” as a special category of state. That is simply untrue. Every state is an instrument of organized authority. A state exists precisely to enforce the rule of a particular social order. Laws, police, prisons, intelligence agencies, and armies are not neutral features. They are mechanisms through which the dominant class secures its position and suppresses forces that threaten it. In that sense every state in a class society must act “authoritarian,” because it must compel obedience and defend the structure that produced it. The label therefore functions less as a meaningful description and more as a moral signal. Governments aligned with Western power are described with neutral language such as “government,” while adversaries are cast as “authoritarian” or reduced to the “regime” of a rival country. China becomes “authoritarian China,” Iran becomes the “Iranian regime,” yet the United States is rarely framed through the same lens even when its institutions exercise clear coercive authority, whether through domestic repression such as COINTELPRO or the routine enforcement of property and political order. The distinction therefore obscures the basic reality that all states rest on organized force. What changes from place to place is not the presence of authority but the historical conditions and social interests that direct it.

I still rather like to live in Europe,

And that's your right like it is mine to say I would never want to live in any of the imperial core nations especially not at this moment in time where austerity and fascism is coming home to them as imperialism declines and the contradictions of capitalism are heightening. I am happy in China.

I want you to really try to make a singular definition of Authoritarianism and Libertarianism that applies to all examples you would classify as authoritarian or libertarian. Is it theoretically possible for them to exist at the same time in the same place? Would that be a common definition? If not, why is your definition different and more importantly do you have enough evidence to justify having a different definition from the majority of people who use those terms?

Not what a strawman is

Yes like every state. Capitalism is entirely based on the violent control of people and things.

In a world where credit is allocated on the basis of trust,

lol jfc. What world are you talking about?

Credit is allocated based on people printing money, starting wars, murdering people, etc.

WOOOSH!

They're high-fiving themselves about being able to buy a house. DUR.

Under capitalism basic human needs are allocated only to the most privileged.

Many many libs celebrate their participation in this privilege, especially in terms of housing.

State-enforced privilege is basically the entire goal of liberalism.

Start editing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit_system

Just copy pasting the shit lib catch phrases word for word

Wrong.

Is China State Capitalist?

• The backbone of the economy is state ownership and socialist planning. 24 / 25 of the top revenue companies are state-owned and planned. 70% of the top 500 companies are State-owned. 1, 2 The largest bank, construction, electricity, and energy companies in the world, are CPC controlled entities, subject to the 5 year plans laid out by the central committee.
• Workplace democracy in action in the CPC.
• Is modern day china communist? Is it staying true to communist values?
• Didn't China go Capitalist with Deng Xiaoping? Didn't it liberalize its economy? Is China's drastic decrease in poverty a result of the increase in free market capitalist policies?
• Is the CPC committed to communism?
• The Long Game and Its Contradictions. Audiobook
• The myth of Chinese state capitalism. Did Deng really betray Chinese socialism?
• Tsinghua University- Is Socialism with Chinese Characteristics real socialism, or is it state Capitalism?
• Isn't China revisionist for having a capitalist sector of the economy, and working with capitalists? Why isn't it fully planned like the USSR was?
• Castro on why both China and Vietnam are socialist countries.

I'm convinced (based off interactions I've had on NextDoor) a lot of people think capitalism=uses money. But also that socialism/communism=failed/corrupted capitalism. China looking better than the USA nowadays means they have to be capitalist since they obviously aren't failing.

I've been in the process of making a powerpoint-esque presentation to show to my friends who haven't read any theory and the thought of framing and organizing it as "bitter pills" is super exciting to me. Starting out the presentation with definitions and history would've made them fall asleep.

You're not wrong, but they generally don't issue loans to people who aren't expected to keep up with payments.

OK but I would hi-five those people. It's harder to fight capitalism if you're also fighting health problems!

Well, I can't argue with that! Carry on, watch your back

That's a cute opinion. Did Epstein give it to you?

Have you considered doing research and applying analysis before just saying things?

I don't think it can be overthrown today; surveillance of means of communication is now total; their only restriction is the massive amount of data.

It CAN collapse in on itself, that is inevitable.

I would be delighted if I was proved wrong.

They didn't even read the first section of the article they linked.

There have been widespread misconceptions in media reports that China operates a unitary social credit "score" based on individuals' behavior, leading to punishments if the score is too low or rewards if the score is high.

Yeah, I just wonder which sources are "from outside the west" since I'm trying my best to break my echo chamber

Ranked choice and proportional voting are 2 very different concepts. You are falsely pretending they're similar when they're wildly different concepts. Only Ireland presently uses it from the eu, because they as well have an establishment, and ranked choice voting is anti establishment at its core.

Why are you trying to pretend they're the same concept?

How do you expect to have a revolution if 90% of people don't agree with your viewpoint? And I say that as a socialist. Pushing forward the agena over the course of decades is more likely to be successful than a single revolution, in my opinion.

It's quite possible it's too late for the usa, but I still do want other democracies to push for it. Only 4 odd countries have it worldwide.

Worth saying, while grassroots is less common, it is not gone. Kat in il-9 is somewhat a good example of this though she failed community engagement and came from out of town so she's unlikely to win. Though it is arguable how grassroots she is. Of course the top priority is revoking citizens united.

It's one of the simplest ways of helping push countries to the left, because it allows you to have people vote for the leftist politicians without worrying about boosting a right wing politician or party, as first past the post forces, and also not forcing people to vote for parties, which lock out leftist candidates from being able to gain traction as easily such as in proportional voting systems.

It's an important reform no matter what, even if we have to resort to other methods to take out the class first.

Sorry if I came off that way. Was not my intention

Fair point, thanks for clarifying the restrictions.

Yes, they are different, but the point at the core of my argument is that it's irrelevant as they serve the same purpose at their core.

Whether it's s RCV or MMP, the outcome remains austerity, imperialist foreign policy, and rising far-right influence because the state remains an instrument of capital. Ballot mechanics don't override class power. RCV isn't "anti-establishment at its core"; it's a procedural tweak that can just as easily stabilize bourgeois legitimacy.

How do you expect to have a revolution if 90% of people don't agree with your viewpoint?

In my country the revolution has already happened. We now conduct class struggle through party debate and socialist democracy, not bourgeois elections.

Also revolutionary consciousness isn't a precondition you wait for, it is forged through struggle. The 90% figure is wrong for a start, even in the US communist sympathys are quickly growing, you also assumes static opinions under static conditions, but material crises radicalize people faster than decades of electoral gradualism. Reformism doesn't build toward socialism, it manages capitalism more palatably and demobilizes movements by channeling energy into cycles of hope and disappointment.

Pushing forward the agenda over the course of decades is more likely to be successful than a single revolution, in my opinion.

History suggests otherwise. Social democracy produced the welfare state only under the unique pressure of postwar reconstruction and Soviet competition, then dismantled it once those pressures faded (and even that was built off massive exploitation and imperialism in the periphery). Capital concedes reforms only when forced and retracts them the moment profitability demands it. Waiting for electoral consensus while the climate burns, fascism rises, and imperialism massacres isn't a strategy. Bourgeois democracy won't let you vote through its own abolition. The task for those still under bourgeois democracy is to build dual power: organs of working-class authority that can confront and replace the dictatorship of capital. That's how you can make voting matter.

So you haven't. I would recommend it. It'll help you void these vibes based politics errors.

Not a strong start. You open by implying that if someone disagrees with you on this they must either be part of the Chinese government or “brainwashed.” That's chauvinism. People here are perfectly capable of thinking for themselves. And if you have proof for your claims you are welcome to post it. Most people who are online regularly have VPNs anyway and even many who aren't regularly too. What tends to happen in these discussions, though, is that the same small circle of sources gets recycled, often tracing back to figures like Adrian Zenz(evangelical on self proclaimed mission from god to destroy china), Rushan Abbas(Guantanamo bay torturer and pretend activist), and outlets like Radio Free Asia.

It is also worth noting that major international bodies have not formally classified the situation as genocide. The United Nations has raised concerns about human rights abuses but has not declared a genocide. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, representing dozens of Muslim-majority countries, has not described it that way either. That does not mean nothing problematic happened. During the crackdown on ETIM after the numerous attacks there were clearly heavy-handed policies and abuses. But there is still no credible evidence that meets the legal definition of genocide.

If the standard being applied is simply “serious abuses carried out by the state,” then that label would have to be applied much more broadly. By that logic you could argue the United States is committing genocide against African Americans through decades of structural abuse in policing and incarceration. Practices like dragnet policing and mass surveillance have produced enormous harm. Yet most people understand that this still does not meet the legal threshold for genocide, which is exactly why the distinction matters.

You quoted the definition of authoritarianism from Wikipedia. By that definition a very large portion of the world would qualify, including most Western states in one form or another. Centralized power, limits on certain kinds of political activity, and institutions designed to preserve the political order exist almost everywhere. When a label becomes broad enough to describe nearly every state operating in a world structured by power and class conflict, it stops being analytically useful. Terms like “authoritarian” much like “regime”, (as I tried to illustrate already) are often used as political shorthand for governments that oppose Western geopolitical interests (often with racial undertones).

You also seem to assume that people in China cannot criticize politics or joke about leaders. That is simply not accurate. People complain about policies, argue about politics, and make jokes about officials all the time. The idea that political discussion just does not exist here is a caricature that mostly survives outside the country. If you ever spend real time here and actually talk to ordinary people about politics, you will see very quickly that the reality is far more complex than the version usually presented abroad.

Seemingly not, there’s a lot of evidence that what’s happening in Xinjiang are not “lies”… And that is certainly not chauvinism. Or well I don’t want to deny that you are thinking for yourself, but when a lot of relevant variables/info is missing than the conclusion of the thought is well incomplete (and thus incorrect).

If you read my post you'd see I know there were abuses but characterising it as a genocide is a lie built on lies and exaggerations of those abuses.

I mean the necessity for that alone is proof to me that china is authoritarian, I cannot imagine having to use a VPN for basic things, like accessing something like the Wikipedia (great loss for you btw. it’s probably one of the greatest things that the internet has brought so far, not all the capitalistic bullshit that the Silicon Valley creates)

The firewall was originally created to foster and protect China’s fledgling digital infrastructure and data sovereignty. That was a legitimate policy choice. Many countries regulate foreign platforms and data flows. China built its own ecosystem instead of depending on foreign companies. We have seen what happens when foreign platforms operate without local oversight: Facebook facilitating genocide in Myanmar, coordinated anti-vax disinformation campaigns in Southeast Asia, algorithm-driven radicalization. The firewall makes those kinds of external influence operations harder to run at scale.

I like many others here support the firewall even though it can be inconvenient (so long as vpns remain accessible and legal). I have seen the alternatives. The trade off makes sense to us.

Also fuck Wikipedia it constantly sites bullshit like RFA and is used by American intelligence to run psyops. If you use it as a source for anything outside of scientific facts like the atomic number of an element you're an idiot.

Pointing out genocide is distinct from abuse is bad

You do realise if you call all abuses genocide you're not only diluting the term genocide but also slinging mud on the real grievances of people?

While I agree, that most of our democracies are not perfect (European/EU, the US is basically fascism at this point), they basically all allow political plurality, well lets start even by democracy… Rule of law is independent of the executive (separation of powers), nah the more I get into it the less I agree with that

So you agree it applies to pretty much every country? And again can see how that makes it largely meaningless?

Can they do that with state funded TV, like Winnie the pooh (funny story btw. that your great leader is so offended by that caricature…)?

Why do you need TV to agree with you? Are you incapable of having independant political discussion with people in your country without the TV telling you what to think? Also Winnie the pooh isn't banned Winnie the Pooh merch is all over the place it's super popular. Not to mention Disneyland and it's Winnie the pooh themed areas. What was banned was platforms regulating the spread of a racist caricature in the same way they do all other racist caricatures because social media harm is actually regulated here as opposed to allowed run rampant for profits sake.