Gulags in China?

On top of what Siberia and Joe posted, I keep thinking back at the alleged proof that was posted, and at one of the videos/discussions Itellsya linked to from an older thread.

This has been discussed a few times elsewhere - not just in the thread linked by Palinurus - although that's not to say that there's not room for further discussion. But it would help to avoid repetition to first read the following threads:

China
- Starting here.
BRICS: Laying the Foundations of the Next Empire?
- Again the 'camps' are discussed here.

Here's the video:

If that's the kind of "proof" they have of a tyrannical repression, "gulags" and abuse of prisoners, let them compare it to what the Western powers are famous for (Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, anyone?)
 
Tony Cartalucci nails it on gulags in China, Western interference, and absolutely dismantles the recent NYT piece in the process.


The New York Times has once again exposed itself as an organ of US special interests operating under the guise of journalism - contributing to Wall Street and Washington's ongoing and escalating hybrid war with China with a particularly underhanded piece of war propaganda.

Its article, "'Absolutely No Mercy': Leaked Files Expose How China Organized Mass Detentions of Muslims," at face value attempts to bolster allegations made primarily by the United States that China is organizing unwarranted and oppressive "mass detentions" of "Muslims" in China's western region of Xinjiang.

But just by investigating the quote in the headline alone reveals both the truth behind what is really happening in Xinjiang, why Beijing has reacted the way it has, and that the United States, including its mass media - is deliberately lying about it.

Ten paragraphs into the NYT article, the quote "absolutely no mercy" appears again - only this time it is placed within proper context. It was the response Beijing vowed in the aftermath of a coordinated terrorist attack in 2014 that left 31 people dead at China's Kunming rail station.

The NYT would write (emphasis added):
President Xi Jinping, the party chief, laid the groundwork for the crackdown in a series of speeches delivered in private to officials during and after a visit to Xinjiang in April 2014, just weeks after Uyghur militants stabbed more than 150 people at a train station, killing 31. Mr. Xi called for an all-out "struggle against terrorism, infiltration and separatism" using the "organs of dictatorship," and showing "absolutely no mercy."
The NYT - which has actively and eagerly promoted every US war in living memory - would unlikely flinch at the notion of the US showing "absolutely no mercy" against "terrorism, infiltration, and separatist," yet it demonstrates a particular aversion to it in regards to Beijing just as the prominent newspaper has done regarding Syria and its now 8 year struggle against foreign-funded terrorism.

Despite claiming to have "400 pages of internal Chinese documents" - the most damning allegations made by Washington and indeed the NYT itself - are still left unsubstantiated.

This includes claims that "authorities have corralled as many as a million ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs and others into internment camps and prisons over the past three years." No where in the NYT article is evidence derived from these documents to substantiate that claim.

Dubious Origins

Like much of what the US media holds up as "evidence" to bolster establishment narratives - the "leaked files" come with it doubts over their provenance, translation, and the context and manner in which they are being presented to the public. There are also the lies of omission deliberately presented by the NYT and others covering this recent "leak" that need to be considered.

The NYT itself admits (emphasis added):
Though it is unclear how the documents were gathered and selected, the leak suggests greater discontent inside the party apparatus over the crackdown than previously known. The papers were brought to light by a member of the Chinese political establishment who requested anonymity and expressed hope that their disclosure would prevent party leaders, including Mr. Xi, from escaping culpability for the mass detentions.
Regardless - nothing appearing in the NYT article is actually a revelation of any kind. China has made its policies clear regarding terrorism and separatism in Xinjiang. Like every other nation on Earth - China refuses to tolerate violent terrorism and the extremist ideology used to drive it. These policies - when presented out of context as the NYT has deliberately done - appear heavy-handed, oppressive, unwarranted, and authoritarian.

If presented together with the very real violence, terrorism, and foreign-sponsored separatism emanating from Xinjiang - the polices take on an entirely different and understandable light.

Terrorism in Xinjiang is Real, But Omitted When Reporting Beijing's Counter-terrorism Efforts

The Western corporate media itself has even repeatedly covered deadly terrorism carried out by a minority of extremists among China's Uyghur population. However - they do so in the most ambiguous way possible - and refuse to mention it when subsequently covering Beijing's attempts to counter it.

Aftermath of the Kunming train station attack

For example, CNN in a 2014 article titled, "China train station killings described as a terrorist attack," would report:
A day after men armed with long knives stormed a railway station in the southwest Chinese city of Kunming, killing dozens of people and wounding more than 100, authorities described what happened as a premeditated terrorist attack.
The article also admits that Xinjiang is beset with "frequent outbreaks of violence," in reference to waves of violent terrorism carried out by Uyghur separatists, but falls far short of qualifying just how bad this violence has been.

The BBC would extensively elaborate on what CNN meant by "frequent outbreaks of violence" in a 2014 article titled, "Why is there tension between China and the Uyghurs?," reporting that (emphasis added):
In June 2012, six Uyghurs reportedly tried to hijack a plane from Hotan to Urumqi before they were overpowered by passengers and crew.

There was bloodshed in April 2013 and in June that year, 27 people died in Shanshan county after police opened fire on what state media described as a mob armed with knives attacking local government buildings

At least 31 people were killed and more than 90 suffered injuries in May 2014 when two cars crashed through an Urumqi market and explosives were tossed into the crowd. China called it a "violent terrorist incident".

It followed a bomb and knife attack at Urumqi's south railway station in April, which killed three and injured 79 others.

In July, authorities said a knife-wielding gang attacked a police station and government offices in Yarkant, leaving 96 dead. The imam of China's largest mosque, Jume Tahir, was stabbed to death days later.

In September about 50 died in blasts in Luntai county outside police stations, a market and a shop. Details of both incidents are unclear and activists have contested some accounts of incidents in state media.

Some violence has also spilled out of Xinjiang. A March stabbing spree in Kunming in Yunnan province that killed 29 people was blamed on Xinjiang separatists, as was an October 2013 incident where a car ploughed into a crowd and burst into flames in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
While the NYT also references deadly terrorism in Xinjiang - it does so in a muted, secondary fashion, attempting to decouple it from Beijing's motivations for pursuing polices with "absolutely no mercy" in response.

One need not imagine what would follow if such violence took place on US or European soil or the polices demonstrating "absolutely no mercy" that would undoubtedly follow not only domestically, but across the globe against nations perceived - or claimed - to have been involved.

The September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington D.C. precipitated a now 20 year long "War on Terror" which has evolved into multiple ongoing wars, military occupations, and covert operations across scores of nations. The US Department of Defense's own newspaper, Stars and Stripes, in a recent article titled, "Post 9/11 wars have cost American taxpayers $6.4 trillion, study finds," would admit (emphasis added):
American taxpayers have spent some $6.4 trillion in nearly two decades of post-9/11 wars, which have killed some 800,000 people worldwide, the Cost of Wars Project announced Wednesday.

The numbers reflect the toll of American combat and other military operations across some 80 nations since al-Qaida operatives attacked the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001, launching the United States into its longest-ever wars aimed at stamping out terrorism worldwide.
By comparison, China's attempts to rehabilitate extremists through education and employment is a far cry from America's global war - in which as many have died, as the US claims China is "detaining."

This is before even considering that out of the 80 nations the US is waging war and killing people in - the one nation from which the majority of the 9/11 hijackers came from - Saudi Arabia - has not only been spared, but is sold record-breaking amounts of US weapons and hosts US troops to protect it from regional states it openly attacks with legions of armed extremists espousing the same toxic ideology that motivated the 9/11 hijackers.

The US Sponsors Xinjiang Unrest

Worse still, the US has been repeatedly caught jointly-sponsoring the very strain of extremism allegedly behind the 9/11 attacks in its various proxy and regime-change wars beforehand and ever since.

Pelosi with an Uyghur representative
Not surprisingly, there is also evidence that the US is fueling the violence in Xinjiang itself as well as recruiting extremists from the region to fight in US proxy wars abroad - most notably in Syria. These militants are then returned to China with extensive experience in terrorism.

US State Department-funded and directed Voice of America (VOA) in an article titled, "Analysts: Uyghur Jihadis in Syria Could Pose Threat," would admit (emphasis added):
Analysts are warning that the jihadi group Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in northwestern Syria could pose a danger to Syria's volatile Idlib province, where efforts continue to keep a fragile Turkey-Russia-brokered cease-fire between Syrian regime forces and the various rebel groups.

The TIP declared an Islamic emirate in Idlib in late November and has largely remained off the radar of authorities and the media thanks to its low profile. Founded in 2008 in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang, the TIP has been one of the major extremist groups in Syria since the outbreak of the civil war in the country in 2011.

The TIP is primarily made up of Uighur Muslims from China, but in recent years it also has included other jihadi fighters within its ranks.
Uyghur recruits have been trafficked through Southeast Asia where - when discovered, detained, and deported back to China - are followed by protests from the US State Department.

When Thailand refused to heed US demands that Uighur recruits be allowed to move onward to Turkey - where they would be armed, trained, and sent into Syria - a deadly bomb would detonate in Bangkok killing 20. The bombing was linked to the Turkish terrorist organization, the Grey Wolves, co-sponsored by the US for decades to augment NATO's unconventional warfare capabilities.

Bangkok bombing aftermath

The US government's own National Endowment for Democracy (NED) openly funds fronts operating out of Washington D.C. espousing separatism with the NED's webpage detailing its funding of these groups even including the fictional name of "East Turkestan" used by separatists who reject the official designation of Xinjiang which resides within China's internationally-recognized borders.

The inclusion of the term "East Turkestan" implies US support for separatism as well as the very real, ongoing deadly terrorism demonstrably used to pursue it.


And more than just implicitly supporting separatism, US government support in the form of NED money is admittedly provided to the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) which exclusively refers to China's Xinjiang province as "East Turkistan" and refers to China's administration of Xinjiang as the "Chinese occupation of East Turkistan." On WUC's own website, articles like, "Op-ed: A Profile of Rebiya Kadeer, Fearless Uyghur Independence Activist," admits that WUC leader Rebiya Kadeer seeks "Uyghur independence" from China.

WUC and its various US-funded affiliates often serve as the sole "source" of allegations being made against the Chinese government regarding Xinjiang. As the US does elsewhere it lies to fuel unrest in pursuit of its geopolitical agenda, allegations regarding Xinjiang often come from "anonymous" sources based on hearsay and lacking any actual physical evidence.

The US State Department's "Radio Free Asia" network even maintains a "Uyghur Service" which pumps out daily accusations aimed at stirring domestic tension within China, and smearing China's image internationally. RFA allegations are uncritically repeated by other Western corporate media networks in an attempt to bolster the impact of this propaganda.

US Gaslighting on a Global Scale

The US through its policies and propaganda - including this most recent NYT article - accuse Beijing of "repression" for responding to very real, admitted, and extensively documented deadly terrorism plaguing China.

At the same time, the US pursues a global war spanning 80 nations and resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands, destroying entire countries, and displacing or otherwise destroying the lives of millions.

While citing "terrorism" as a pretext for its global aggression, it is simultaneously fueling the very armed extremism it claims it is fighting against. This includes the very real terrorism the NYT attempted to downplay to maximize the propaganda value of its "leaked files" story - despite other Western media networks covering this terrorism for years.

Not only is this US policy disjointed, deceitful, and deadly - it is incredibly dangerous. It is essentially a low-intensity version of what the US has been doing in Syria and had previously done in Libya leading to the North Africa nation's destruction.

It is all but a declaration of war against China - not through direct military intervention - but through armed proxies, propaganda, and a deliberate, concerted effort to sow instability, division, and strife across Chinese society.

Coupled with economic warfare aimed at crippling China's economy - Beijing finds itself a nation under siege. The fact that it has not responded to this very real, demonstrable existential threat with a fraction of the violence and global-spanning destruction the US has employed to fight its fictional "War on Terror," is the best proof of all that the dystopian authoritarian regime the NYT tries to portray Beijing as - is as fictional and nonexistent as journalism is at the NYT's office.
 
This is how the Western mind typically looks at these things:

I'd be careful about making any sweeping generalizations [...]

That may very well be the motivation, but I've gotta say, if I were one of the ones "sacrificed" by the government for the good of the many, I would probably be fairly resentful, especially if I knew I'd done nothing wrong.

The individual is paramount!

And this is how the Eastern/Eurasian mind typically looks at these things:

Just thought it may be useful to have a closer look at some of the maps to illustrate how crucially important this region is from the geopolitical point of view, the key point being Urumqi city. [...]

Now let me also share the following map to get the bigger picture [...]

As can be seen, the railway that connects China with Europe goes through Urumqi. The map also shows, that this route is way shorter than the sea way. Also, it connects China and Europe almost directly, because it goes through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus which are all members of the Customs Union. [...]

The collective is paramount!

Neither is right nor wrong, but there they are.
 
This is how the Western mind typically looks at these things:



The individual is paramount!

And this is how the Eastern/Eurasian mind typically looks at these things:



The collective is paramount!

Neither is right nor wrong, but there they are.

Not so much individual vs collective, or East vs West IMO, but rather the personal experience vs the big picture, and anyone can (or ideally should) appreciate both in any situation anywhere on the planet.
 
This is how the Western mind typically looks at these things:

The individual is paramount!

And this is how the Eastern/Eurasian mind typically looks at these things:

The collective is paramount!

Neither is right nor wrong, but there they are.

Seems weird to call someone an individualist because they don't want innocent people to be imprisoned. When did we stop looking at the behavior of countries who use the threat of terrorism as a cudgel against the innocent as being the acts of evil people? ‌
‌Seems like your take is lacking in nuance and romanticizing the East. I don't think the Chinese, especially in the big cities, are the most friendly, "collectivist" people. Look at charitable donations. It's abysmal in China, and the US is #1 (I think). But we're supposed to be the selfish ones?
 
Last edited:
Here are the Stats of “individualism” measurements across world. US 91 France 71 India 48 China 20.

Notice they are defining collectivism as having/being part of "extended families":
Individualism is the one side versus its opposite, collectivism, that is the degree to which individuals are integrated into groups. On the individualist side we find societies in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after him/herself and his/her immediate family. On the collectivist side, we find societies in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong, cohesive in-groups, often extended families (with uncles, aunts and grandparents) which continue protecting them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.

That surely is an issue in the West, but I don't think that's the same definition for collectivism that was used by Niall to make his point.
 
Seems weird to call someone an individualist because they don't want innocent people to be imprisoned. When did we stop looking at the behavior of countries who use the threat of terrorism as a cudgel against the innocent as being the acts of evil people? ‌
‌Seems like your take is lacking in nuance and romanticizing the East. I don't think the Chinese, especially in the big cities, are the most friendly, "collectivist" people. Look at charitable donations. It's abysmal in China, and the US is #1 (I think). But we're supposed to be the selfish ones?

Yeah, on second thoughts, my generalization about West/East was inappropriate to this context and dismissive of AI's empathy for those caught up in it. I'm remembering my own advice to one of our editors recently to 'stay human' wrt to empathizing with Catalonian protesters feeling the force of the Spanish state. (The editor in question was taking a one-sided 'big picture' view - in open, uncritical support of Madrid - that effectively whitewashed harm done to protesters.)

We don't know what exactly is going on in these 'camps' and the region of Xinjiang generally. And the Chinese govt would apparently prefer that we don't know. So we continue gathering data while attempting to keep 'open lines' for understanding both how Uyghurs see and experience the situation and why Beijing acts as it does.
 
This is a question simply answered by speaking to some Chinese people with local knowledge. Unlike trying to speculate as to what is happening in a galaxy a million light years away, the region of dispute here is but within reach.

I don't suppose there are Chinese people who frequent the forum? They might hold the key!
 
Yeah, on second thoughts, my generalization about West/East was inappropriate to this context and dismissive of AI's empathy for those caught up in it. I'm remembering my own advice to one of our editors recently to 'stay human' wrt to empathizing with Catalonian protesters feeling the force of the Spanish state. (The editor in question was taking a one-sided 'big picture' view - in open, uncritical support of Madrid - that effectively whitewashed harm done to protesters.)

We don't know what exactly is going on in these 'camps' and the region of Xinjiang generally. And the Chinese govt would apparently prefer that we don't know. So we continue gathering data while attempting to keep 'open lines' for understanding both how Uyghurs see and experience the situation and why Beijing acts as it does.

Thanks, Niall. That's what I was trying to get across with my post. I can understand the big picture and why China is doing what it's doing, but I don't think that necessarily means they're doing everything right. Like you say, we don't know exactly what's going on, precisely because there isn't any real transparency - for example, no court documents and witness statements, etc. I've got nothing wrong with rounding up jihadists, but where I draw the line is the same place I draw the line with all the stuff going on in American culture like with #MeToo and 'cancel culture': due process, evidence, transparency. Maybe those are western concepts, but I think they're valuable ones. I think it's possible to be aware of the big geopolitical picture - dispassionately seeing the motivations and big picture - but at the same time I don't think we should blind ourselves to what that means for ordinary people, who often get caught up in the geopolitical games their leaders play.

I want to share a bit more about where I was coming from in the comment you quoted. I don't think it's just a cultural phenomenon to feel that arresting or otherwise detaining an innocent person is wrong, which is what I was talking about. If your brother or grandfather is arrested and you know they're innocent, you will recognize it as an injustice, whether you're Chinese, American, or Palestinian. Like Beau pointed out about collectivism, collectivist cultures have very strong family ties. I'd guess that the feeling might even be MORE intense in such a culture. Just look at how some westerners respond when a loved one is accused of a crime: they will defend them until their death even if it's clear to everyone else that they're guilty.

As for individualism and collectivism, I think Stephen Covey in 7 Habits has a much better way of framing things: dependence > independence > interdependence. Interdependence is very similar to the "S" or "community" state in the Stoic interpretation of Pauline Christianity. At that level, the individual sacrifices himself for the good of the collective. I think it helps to add this degree of complexity: there is good individuality and bad individuality, good collectivity and bad collectivity. Good individuals sacrifice themselves for their community. Bad collectives sacrifice innocent individuals for the "greater good". And maybe it's just me, but I think every culture is crap - pardon my french. That is, cultures may be different, but people are people, and average isn't very good anywhere. (But if you ask me on a different day I'd say all people are awesome - that's the thing about people, they have some great qualities, and some absolutely reprehensible qualities.)

To sum up that line of thought, I think that healthy individuals form healthy collectives, and healthy collectives respect the individuals who make up those collectives. But keeping in mind that most people are automatons, I'd hazard a guess the the only healthy collectives really possible are ones like our group here, some families, and potentially tribes even though modern civilization doesn't really make them possible. The result is that aside from small pockets of healthy collectives and individuals, the norm is unhealthy individuals and unhealthy collectives. And I think there's a whole lot of unhealthy individualism and collectivism going on on the planet right now, east and west, though perhaps in different proportions.

Which is all just to reiterate my point in my post before the last one: things are complicated. American culture actually has some positive features, and Chinese culture has some negative ones. America may be individualist, but per capita Americans are right up there in charitable giving, like Beau mentioned - China's near the bottom. Top countries: Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Ireland, UK, Singapore, Kenya, Manmyar, Bahrain (quite the spread!). Bottom countries are some of the poorest (and war-torn): Yemen, Greece, China, Palestine, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Latvia, Afghanistan, Tunisia. Apparently Chinese are particularly reticent to help strangers, but Libyans and Americans are in the top 10. This morning I watched a video on this, from the South African guy living in China I previously mentioned:


For those who don't have the time to watch, he makes the point that in his travels throughout Asia, and after living in China for 14 years, he has noticed that it's very rare for Chinese people to help strangers - something he finds particularly frustrating. He shows videos from a channel that does pranks/social experiments and who captured what he has seen for himself on numerous occasions. The guys stage fake but fairly realistic kidnappings and pickpocketing, among other things, and the bystanders do and say nothing - they don't even tell the pickpocketed guy that someone has just stolen his wallet, for example.

It's not a perfect case: he doesn't show other countries as a comparison, for instance, and the bystander effect is probably universal to some degree or another. But the problem apparently is particularly bad in mainland China to the extent that it's very noticeable. I've heard westerners, Japanese and Koreans all make the same observations. Which isn't to demonize Chinese, just to point out, again, that all cultures have their negative features, even if there are always exceptions to the rule.

Personally, I find it fascinating to learn about other cultures - warts and all, good and bad. One of the things I think I've learned over my admittedly small experience is that all cultures have their flaws. And being away from my own for periods of time, I find myself more critical of it too. Which, in the topic of this thread, is just to say: China isn't perfect, and there's plenty there to criticize - keeping in mind all the big-picture stuff and geopolitics. Anyways, I think I'm rambling and repeating myself, so I'll leave it there.
 
To sum up that line of thought, I think that healthy individuals form healthy collectives, and healthy collectives respect the individuals who make up those collectives. B

And then there's JBP's take on this with his emphasis on the individual. Ultimately I think that is where the focus must be. The individual attempting to improve themselves with the goal of doing just that, and then by extension their family, friends and society. The problem here is that, as you said (I think) AI, there are many different 'types' of people on this planet and one approach will never fit all.

The way the world is set up seems to be perfectly designed to provide a crucible in which people progress from a collective mindset, where they rely on the "collective" (primarily government) to get their needs met, to becoming frustrated and unhappy with the constraints that that imposes, and then seeking increasing levels of autonomy, primarily in their thinking or consciousness, which then leads to changes in behavior and therefore life situation.
 
For those who don't have the time to watch, he makes the point that in his travels throughout Asia, and after living in China for 14 years, he has noticed that it's very rare for Chinese people to help strangers - something he finds particularly frustrating. He shows videos from a channel that does pranks/social experiments and who captured what he has seen for himself on numerous occasions. The guys stage fake but fairly realistic kidnappings and pickpocketing, among other things, and the bystanders do and say nothing - they don't even tell the pickpocketed guy that someone has just stolen his wallet, for example.

China is very hard to understand, but Winstons videos do seem to give a perfect picture of what life there is like through the eyes of a westerner who went there to truly live and experience it. I would recommend watching more of his videos as some of it is pretty mind-blowing, especially how deep the concept of "face" can go, which explains really baffling things like their creation of an entire fake Venice, Paris, London etc.


There are many other differences I've learned a bit about but am not really qualified to write about accurately.

Over all Chinese people seem less preocupied with their feels, their soul, their passions. They are smarter, are better educated, work harder and more efficiently than westerners, and they cooperate better (whether that cooperation is "forced" by a very centralised society or not). They are absolutely out-competing the West, and Westerners often completely misunderstand their mindset.

Moreover the leadership of China completely understands the west. They have experienced and studied history well. They know the west is a psychopath who will pretend to be your friend, turn opinion against you, and eventually put a dagger in your back.

Notice how they barely even bother to respond to the charges levied against them? Whether it's the South China sea, Hong Kong or Xinjiang, they simply don't care for western criticisms. They do not even give them a platform or take them seriously. They have no love for Israel and they make that very obvious, and don't play the friendly pretend game that all other countries do (including Russia). China just keeps acting, buying up all the property in the world, beating the US to Mars, to quantum computing, to 5g/6g etc. They even teleported a particle to space.

There's a plan behind this and if that plan requires sacrificing a few people (or a few million) it's just a factor in a very pragmatic calculation. Much the same as our western leaders operate really, just more effective.
 
Much the same as our western leaders operate really, just more effective.

Not only more effective, but I'd say less brutal. Consider the way Western nations have dealt with their "terrorism problem", which was never a genuine terrorism problem but rather one that the West decided should be created to achieve their geopolitical and social goals. As part of that process, they periodically murdered (from thousands to dozens) of Western citizens to create the "reality" of terrorism and, as a bonus, keep the population in thrall to 'strong leadership'. They then used the political capital that these attacks provided to invade 'terrorist' countries and slaughter their populations (1.5 million dead in Iraq, for example).

The Chinese could have followed the same approach but have apparently opted instead for 're-education' camps.

Which is worse?
 
AI said:
Which is all just to reiterate my point in my post before the last one: things are complicated. American culture actually has some positive features, and Chinese culture has some negative ones. America may be individualist, but per capita Americans are right up there in charitable giving, like Beau mentioned - China's near the bottom. Top countries: Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, USA, Ireland, UK, Singapore, Kenya, Manmyar, Bahrain (quite the spread!). Bottom countries are some of the poorest (and war-torn): Yemen, Greece, China, Palestine, Cambodia, Azerbaijan, Lithuania, Latvia, Afghanistan, Tunisia. Apparently Chinese are particularly reticent to help strangers, but Libyans and Americans are in the top 10.

That's interesting, but then China's current New Silk Road/OBOR is arguably the greatest giveaway in the history of man. We don't know that, yet. It could turn out to be mass plunder, or devolve into such over time, but so far it's a good candidate for actually making manifest what Western empires said they were about: 'spreading civilization'.

My 'cross-cultural comparative standard' is more like this:

Does the country/culture in question turn other countries into depleted uranium terror-ridden wastelands? No, ok, I 'like' that country. Ah, and it consistently condemns other countries for doing so? Well then, I 'like' it even more.

So you see, my bar is set real low. Thereafter, we can discuss how life flows - or not - in said country, but until then I'm primarily concerned that carpet-bombing other countries isn't built into its way of life.
 
Good points AI, and there are plenty of things that can and do go wrong in every society. I'm sure there are unfair cases, but if we are just discussing these alleged "gulags", their existence, etc., then looking at the bigger picture and basically comparing how the Chinese government deals with "dissidents", as opposed to what the US does, is already quite telling. You can then talk about each mentality and what not, and that's where the subtleties you described are important, although then the problem becomes generalization.. Because like you said, individuals are different. Some may show "charity" just to look good, for example, or because it's expected. Others may want to, but don't dare because their society/group condemns it. Etc. The actions themselves (or lack thereof) aren't always proof of a more empathic nature.

As for individualism and collectivism, I think Stephen Covey in 7 Habits has a much better way of framing things: dependence > independence > interdependence. Interdependence is very similar to the "S" or "community" state in the Stoic interpretation of Pauline Christianity. At that level, the individual sacrifices himself for the good of the collective.

I don't remember Covey talking about anyone sacrificing themselves for the good of the collective... Maybe I forgot, or did you mean that they are willing to MAKE sacrifices? There is a big difference, IMO. The former can very often go wrong and be exploited, because of people's "weak substratum", programming, lack of critical thinking, etc. Many can "sacrifice themselves for the good of the collective", but they don't question the collective's principles, morals or aims! "Interdependence", however, involves a) getting past the point where one is only dependent (blindly following), b) getting past the point of being only independent (not needing anyone), to c) finally learn to be oneself, do one's best, while understanding that we need others, and can create something much better together. It is the sum of individuals. As such, not many good (interdependent) collectives would ask their individuals to "sacrifice themselves". They WOULD, however, expect sacrifices from everyone to keep the wheels turning, to make the whole work better, and to accomplish more. That's how I understand it, at least.
 
Back
Top Bottom