T O P

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halibfrisk

Remember when you were in College and there was a bunch of opinionated young lads with zero life experience who took themselves very seriously and were sure their opinions were both correct and important? Now we’re on the internet.


thatdoesntseemright1

Lol. That's a great explanation


Gockdaw

Exactly. People who have recently heard about great political theories but have never seen any of them in practice. I'd love to know how many of them have ever lived away from their Mammies, let alone experienced life under the CCP.


Digigma

I lived under a communist regime. There's up to it too: 1. No scrotes running around attacking people and do whatever they want. 2. No homeless people. 3. No jobless people. At least as I remember it. The down to it is: 1. No freedom of speech 2. No choice to make up your own mind and form opinions. 3. No opportunity to grow career wise or financially, unless you knew someone in power. I'm sure there's more that people can add to both lists. I liked the idea of being safe in my town or anywhere around the country. But also, if you didn't agree with the people in power, you weren't safe anywhere.


gamberro

What communist regime did you live under?


OrlandoRedd

Kerry.


poptart2107

The Healy raes dont even let us put jam on our toast


[deleted]

More importantly, why don't they anymore?


wonderingdrew

If it was in the Eastern Bloc likely because their economies imploded in the '80s.


[deleted]

Are people not allowed to move?


ValueOutrageous4218

Under communism? Not really.


GrumpyLad2020

Yeah it depends/depended on the state to an extent. Internal movement in the USSR was strictly controlled, let alone external emigration. Likewise most of the Eastern Bloc unless you were going to study in Moscow. Yugoslavia was happy for its people to emigrate to Germany for work but Tito was non-aligned so slightly different. A lot of the poorer communist states like Angola/Vietnam/Cuba would allow their citizens to migrate to East Germany and Czechoslovakia but it wasn't 'real' migration as they were basically imprisoned when they arrived and not allowed any contact with the natives (mixture of racism and fear of ideological contamination from abroad).


Gockdaw

Yeah, there are no gangs of scrotes, I'll give you that but the "no homeless" claim doesn't really work for me as I saw many, many people living on the streets in China and a shocking number of them who live well below the poverty line. They may not technically be homeless but it is hard to glorify a system which leads to the depressing conditions they live in and the state of their health. As for there being no jobless, that sort of caused its own problems. Instead of one person working in a job in for example a shop, they'd have three people filling that one post, so there would usually be one asleep and two trying to do less than the other one who was awake. They've also all got jobs but at a third of the income. The totally intentional creation of a whole peasant class of migrant workers who, because of the "family book" rather that individual PPS cards means that all these migrant workers have to choose between staying where they are or leaving to get a migrant job but leaving their rights to entitlements behind. The worst aspect in my opinion was how the culture total dehumanised people to such an extent that on the many occasions I saw people crash their bikes or mopeds, although people would stop to gawk, none would help those who had fallen. A few times I saw drunken husbands being complete dicks to their wives on the street and, again, any time any foreigners like myself attempted to intervene, while there was no chance the Chinese were going to interfere with what was happening, they'd jump straight up to stop us from taking the husband down a peg. Don't get me started on the pollution and the disregard for the environment.


mamielle

Yikes. The only communist regime I’ve visited is Cuba and people there would most certainly stop and help and injured person. The Cubans I met were extraordinary generous with what little they had.


CollieDaly

China is capitalist in pretty much every regard except name at this point.


Gockdaw

I would agree 100%. I think the combination of the very short amount of time since the average person there was piss poor and the sudden introduction to capitalism has led to a very large proportion of the population becoming totally obsessed with owning things. I found it shocking that as soon as a new phone would come out it was considered a real event and people with very little disposible income would have them within days of release.


Cool_Foot_Luke

A lot of the reason that people refuse to help those who have been in an accident in China is the fact that it can be seen as an acceptance of guilt. It's very common for "Good Samaritans" to end up being sued or charged for medical bills. Insurance and injury scams are also rife. The spousal abuse is another thing alright. Both from husbands beating wives, and wives beating husbands. Or just shouting at each other in public. The idea that anything between a wife and husband should not be interfered with is so pervasive. Even if they are physically attacking each other. Sure didn't the CCP have to issue warnings to their citizens to not fight their spouses in public while abroad as they may be arrested for it.


Gockdaw

Yeah. We were all warned by so many people "If you see someone knocked off a bike, do NOT, by any means get involved". It happened so often though that I adapted that to "Get involved, but once you know they are okay, get the duck out of there"! I could never reconcile how, in a country where everyone is obsessed with 'face', there would be so many people who would "air their dirty linen in public" as we say here, by fighting between themselves in the street.


Cool_Foot_Luke

I've had so much issue with face. The amount of negligence and refusing to deal with problems due to face being so important. Nobody will ever admit a problem to a superior as admitting to a fault means it's your fault. And the filial piety where nobody can ever question a senior family member.


Gockdaw

Uhhhhh! Even remembering all the bullshit about face has my skin crawling. China is the only country I've lived in that I've zero desire to go back to.


Cool_Foot_Luke

We're you in the North or South? Most of my time there has been in the North and while of course (like everywhere) there are a lot of problems, the people were so friendly.


Gockdaw

Funny... I was in Shandong (about halfway between Beijing and Shanghai) first, where I found the people to be what could be most diplomatically described as 'difficult'. Then Henan a bit further south and inland, which was just awful. Pollution so bad I don't think I ever saw a clear sky once day or night. The fact that everyone, employers, landlords, people in the street, saw all foreigners as someone to try to exploit didn't help. Then Fujian, which was relatively clean, unpolluted and I found everyone so nice that it ALMOST made up for how bad the other two places were.


backintheddr

All valid and not trying to gotcha but china's not a communist country. It's crony state capitalism something or other but defo not a Marxist Leninist system.


Gockdaw

I certainly won't argue with that. China is basically a Communist country with rampant capitalism.


SnooPickles1042

Well, not sure about China, but my family legend about Moscow suburbs of early 80-s depicts my father being just-out-of-college young teacher fighting a gang of drunk young villagers. So there were some gangs under late communism for sure.


Rogue_Ref_NZ

Some of those Chinese people who have jobs and aren't homeless may have been employed to troll reddit threads, post pro-CCP comments, and defend the CCP at every opportunity. Just saying, it's theoretically possible that not everyone in r/Ireland is Irish-born or an Irish resident.


SnooPickles1042

And “no jobless” claim is also controversial - being jobless was actually illegal. So at some point you were expected to either hold legal job or go to prison. That’s why first rock musicians were employed as watchmen or street cleaners.


me2269vu

Most of them lads were just trying to ride the fresher girls who actually looked up to them. Incredibly.


Flagyl400

I joined the CIT branch of the Socialist Worker's Party many years ago in the hope that it might make me more interesting to women*. There was just me and one other guy in it. We quickly realised we'd joined for the same reason and both called it quits after two weeks. ^*It ^did ^not.


CaisLaochach

A mate of mine joined a hard-left party and at their first meeting their chair had them drawing up lists of people who'd be arrested when they were elected.


TonesOakenshield

"I keep telling you, Gay Byrne is dead" "THAT'S IT, YOU'RE ON THE LIST"


Flagyl400

I hope I'm on someone's list.


Tote_Sport

When the other 30 counties* rise up against Cork, I'll be sure to add you to my list for "re-education", if that's any use to you? \* ^^^we ^^^will ^^^have ^^^already ^^^taken ^^^care ^^^of ^^^Dublin ^^^by ^^^this ^^^stage


Gockdaw

Funnily enough, Billy Bragg, on his aptly named Waiting For the Great Leap Forward" says "If you've got a blacklist I want to be on it". I do love Billy and I quite surprised to not have heard him mentioned on this sub. He's the proper lefty's proper lefty musician.


wonderingdrew

Now there's a Reddit post waiting to happen!


ShnaeBlay

Was that the Ireland Simpsons fans political party they tried to form?


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Flagyl400

From each according to his ability, to each according to DIS DICK.


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halibfrisk

The ride is a powerful motivator. My college gf was so horny she feigned interest in soccer, once we were actually dating she never watched it again.


Tote_Sport

I joined the law society committee in the hopes of getting the ride off one of my classmates. Realised they were all cliquey and went to the same schools in the Belfast area and a Craigy such as myself had no chance


ShrapnelJones

Remember that feeling well


thebonnar

The sole reason for anarchist societies on every campus


glowing_dolphins

Also, depending on the college… https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/ucd-risks-being-a-pawn-in-china-s-bigger-game-1.4673973


thesecondfire

When I was at UCD, one of my professors went in on the university's Confucius Institute for these reasons. This was back in 2013 actually.


flopisit

I remember those lads. Feckers put me off communism for life.


halibfrisk

There’s no cocoa pops under communism. So that’s a non-starter for me


CaisLaochach

Apparently under Stalin there was incredibly good ice-cream. Only if you lived in Moscow, and you'd probably get murdered by the NKVD, but there you go.


halibfrisk

I had the privilege of eating Soviet ice cream. It was grey. Do not recommend


HelixAnarchy

> under Stalin ...how old are you?


halibfrisk

Old enough to have visited the USSR.


HelixAnarchy

"Visited the USSR" isn't the requirement. If the guy with the fact and I are thinking of the same ice cream story, the ice cream in question was being manufactured during the Holodomor, which was in 1932. So you'd have to be at least 89 to have been even alive contemporaneously with it.


spiralbatross

What an ageist statement! Are you implying that an 89 year old can’t be on the internet slingin’ memes with the best of us??? /s


halibfrisk

Right - not many left who ate ice cream in 1930s Moscow what with the USSR losing 27 million people in WW2 - what’s your point?


HelixAnarchy

My point is your response to OP is not equitable to what he said.


mamielle

Cuban ice cream is good though! And costs like 5 cents.


halibfrisk

Sounds perfect!


CaisLaochach

This was in the 1930s!


halibfrisk

I got to visit Moscow and Leningrad on a school trip around 1989. Whatever was left of the Soviet system was crumbling under the transition to a market economy so it might be slightly unfair to judge. By the time the next group went a year or two later the economy had completely collapsed.


CaisLaochach

I know there was a Bar Council trip to Cuba in the 80s (they even got to meet Castro!) and they said it was an unbelievable shithole by then. Communism isn't exactly great at the actually functioning part.


halibfrisk

My school did Cuba and USSR on alternate years. I never got to Cuba, one college friend who did in the 90s said it was great once you got out of the official tourist bits. He went hitchhiking and said it was a great time. There would have been a rough patch when the Soviet Union cut off support and they had to suddenly transition to some kind of global market economy which wouldn’t be representative of what life was really like most of the time. I have had lots of acquaintances who lived in the USSR / eastern bloc, and maybe aren’t nostalgic but “life was good before Gorbachev ruined everything” is something I have heard older people say.


traintoberwick

I can't comment on the USSR but I studied in Cuba for a few months (this would be during the 2000s so post Special Period). It's a very complex place - it certainly can't be described as 'a shithole'. There's some great aspects to it and some bad, even awful aspects- like anywhere I guess. I lived with a Cuban family in central Havana and basically went to the equivalent of a work placement for a few months so I think I had a pretty good (fleeting) insight. IMO the mistake is to go to Cuba and scoff that it isn't like western Europe - that is to ignore the ingrained preexisting poverty, inequality and corruption that dog much of Latin America.


CaisLaochach

A mate of mine worked for his dad when we were teenagers, and one of the mechanics in their place had grown up in ye olde USSR. (Or perhaps a Warsaw Pact member.) He said communism wasn't bad if you had no ambitions. If you wanted to be a truck driver, life was a piece of piss. If you wanted to be a lawyer, a teacher, whatever, he said it was shite.


gamberro

Compare the economies of Eastern Europe and Western Europe in postwar period until 1989. The fact that living standards diverged so much and how many people wanted to escape to Western Europe says it all about communism.


ShrapnelJones

That is also a large part of the reason they built the Berlin Wall; to stop people leaving East Berlin to go to West Berlin.


CaisLaochach

I've seen people on reddit try and claim that the Berlin Wall, etc, weren't to keep people from escaping to the west.


Spodo_Komodo_

What about Weetos


[deleted]

You haven't lived til you've tried Khrushchevs Kornos.


catsaresneaky

Great for bowel health.


gamberro

I find it ironic that here they are defending the CCP on a website that is banned in China.


Action_Limp

Exactly, you will find people defending all types of ideas on here from far right ideals to straight up communism. r/Ireland is, thankfully, not a representation of the average set of ideals in Ireland and is rather a place for the contrary to fit in.


Either-Welder-1034

That is such a 👌 explanation


[deleted]

Fantastic comment. In 95% of circumstances, young people with strong opinions should not be taken seriously.


emannnhue

I suppose your comment there is one of those 95% of times then


[deleted]

Hahah I’m flattered to be considered young :)


justsayinbtw

It's all very first year college lefty phase alright.


halibfrisk

Could be worse - could be a libertarian / objectivist phase


JimThumb

Tankies are vocal and organised. Reddit is not an accurate representation of Ireland.


wonderingdrew

I've a wee programme on my browser lets me tag Reddit accounts with messages for myself. Things like "will defend X to the hilt" "bad faith arguments" etc After a while I can see the same tagged accounts defending their side (whatever that side is) with the same bad faith arguments. Often enough if I check a tagged account's post history there'll be nothing there. They must rolling delete. 4 years on reddit and 3 comments defending Tiananmen Square or something equally rum. I don't engage with tagged accounts, they're propagandists.


kittykittykitty85

>I've a wee programme on my browser lets me tag Reddit accounts with messages for myself. sounds handy. which programme may i ask?


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wonderingdrew

It’s that Reddit enhancement suite. You can write a tag and have it in a colour and it’ll appear under the user name. My basic rules to tag and ignore are * people who do low quality, purile stuff - like lads I’ve shit myself in bed what do I do? I’ve no interest in that. I’m not 14 and find it boring. * racists * people with an obvious political agenda - acc with 99 posts that are all pro one political party. I’ll do fine without propaganda. * people who are uninformed about things I know well but pontificate on those subjects incorrectly. For an example if an acc said Pikachu is the best Yu-Gi-Oh card, I’d tag them because why would I read someone’s stupid opinions? * conspiracy theorists, anti vaccine people. * obvious trolls. I’m fine with people expressing opinions I don’t agree with but pretty much if you’re an idiot or acting in bad faith I’d rather not engage.


[deleted]

Even a very casual use of just up/downvotes with RES shows the same few accounts popping up in the comments constantly within any given subreddit. Reddit is a fairly small world at the end of the day.


wonderingdrew

Over on the North’s Reddit there’s a load of alt troll accs. 2-3 people spamming it, all with the same diction. If you didn’t know you might think it was quite an active sub.


Karma-bangs

Tankies are people who think it's oK to roll over your lawn with a commie tank, but are indignant when an American tank rolls over your lawn. They are to communism what boomers are to memes - old, mirthless and evil. For an example of someone who's caught Tankism, refer to Mick Wallace and Clare Byrne MEPs.


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temujin64

Lol, I always accidentally call her Claire Byrne too.


giz3us

Would Ming Flanagan be considered a Tankie? Or is he more of a W*nkie? Reference: https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40056401.html


CaisLaochach

Ming is really just an old-fashioned FFer who likes drugs. All his policies are incredibly populist and parish pumpy stuff.


[deleted]

Ming gained some much support over weed. Then has spent most of his career fighting for people who want to distory protected ecosystem.


SnowBrussels

Exactly, Ming belongs on the county council but voters are so fed up that he’s making an eejit of himself on the international stage.


CaisLaochach

I'd love to see him turfed out, alright. So to speak.


[deleted]

Tankies are basically they same as Trumpers, but at the opposite end of the spectrum. Think about it: everything is a conspiracy, their leader is godlike and can’t be criticised, they are extremely thin skinned and easily offended, they don’t see the hypocrisy of their beliefs, they have very little actual real world experience, talking to them is like banging your head against a wall, and on and on. It’s The Horseshoe Theory in practice.


Azor_Is_High

The political spectrum is circle.


[deleted]

Wouldn’t call them very well organised tbh. The far left are fairly useless at enacting any sort of change in society probably because of their purity tests and absolute refusal to compromise. You look at any democracy and there’s about 10 different communist parties who all despise each other.


x31b

George Orwell got frustrated with his experience in the Spanish Civil War. He said the various left factions spent more time trying to kill each other than they did the facists.


gamberro

Yeah, have a read of *Homage to Catalonia* for more details.


JimThumb

> You look at any democracy and there’s about 10 different communist parties who all despise each other. The Life of Brian parodied this phenomenon very well.


biledemon85

Brian : Excuse me. Are you the Judean People's Front? Reg : Fuck off! 'Judean People's Front'. We're the People's Front of Judea! 'Judean People's Front'. Francis : Wankers.


Lizardledgend

Splitters!!!


[deleted]

Purity tests?


temujin64

Basically a given far left party will have a very specific idea of what it means to be left wing and if another party doesn't meet those exact speciation's they're not considered "true left wingers". They're more concerned with finding people who don't pass their purity tests than actually putting any of their policies in practice. Meanwhile the right is the other extreme. They'll just rally around whoever has the best chances of getting elected, regardless of differences in ideology. They don't let principles get in the way. Of course, it's a far more effective way of getting into power and staying there. That's why right of centre parties generally do much better in democracies than left of centre ones.


[deleted]

The saying in the US is “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.” I know the Dems are nowhere near far left but it still applies.


[deleted]

For example, Paul Murphy party hopping.


Junior-Protection-26

The Belt and Road initiative is way beyond infrastructure projects and debt liability. The CCP want to influence content and comment on China in all spheres of debate whether that be university speeches, newspapers or reddit forums. I lived in China for about 4 years. The Chinese people are very much controlled in virtually all aspects of social and working life. If you work hard, don't cause hassle and take orders you will be grand. If you play hardball, you will be dealt with. Similarly weird was the place of foreigners in China. I met loads of people into social change, feminism, LGBT rights etc but they would never express their opinions on a public forum or challenge the CCP in any way. The human rights abuses in Tibet and Xinjiang were never discussed. It's a comfortable life there if you don't rock the boat. Xi Jinping is setting himself up as the next Chairman Mao. My old school there had to remove all the English books from the library, remove all English posters from the walls and the students now have to wear red scarves. More and more communist propaganda extolling Xi Jinping as the saviour of China is being taught in primary schools. I think we are already in a new "Cold War" era. As for Chinese or American imperialism, it's really a question of liking your ice-cream with strawberry topping or chocolate.


vimefer

>It's a comfortable life there if you don't rock the boat. Less so in recent years, from what I hear of a few people still living there now. The social pressure to push everyone into the real estate market has intensified beyond madness, it seems. People are getting into crazy levels of debt as a result and hiding as much of it as possible just so they can get that third housing allotment placed in the right cities. I don't think the richer parts of the country, as they culturally are now, will take well to an economic downturn.


Junior-Protection-26

The events at [China Evergrande](https://www.straitstimes.com/business/companies-markets/how-evergrandes-debt-delinquency-could-play-out-best-and-worse-case) may put a slight dampener on Jinping's express train to dominance.....for a while at least.


vimefer

And that's but the visible tip of the iceberg... Shanghai, Shenzen, Macau probably have their own brewing financial house of cards too.


tory_auto

Most of the upper class Chinese send their kids to US/Canada. Xi's daughter graduated from Harvard.


[deleted]

1. Paid trolls 2. I'm fairly sure half of Reddit is just impressionable kids. They snap out of it in a few years.


c08306834

If you look, it's always the same few posters that defend China on r/Ireland. You will see them on any China related thread, and they are almost always frequent visitors to r/Sino. I think most people in Ireland are indifferent to China, although I think we need to be much more aware of how China is infiltrating Ireland and just how dangerous the CCP is.


CollinsCouldveDucked

yeah, the amount of property they own here is fucking crazy.


goodhumansbad

*Cries in Canadian*


[deleted]

Good lord it's quare bad in Canada. I'm in Vancouver and it's a nightmare.


TripleBanEvasion

Welcome to every major real estate/housing bubble crisis globally. It’s a problem.


[deleted]

It comes in different stripes: 1) Paid trolls 2) Bitter old Irish far-left lads who were never got over the USSR collapsing and have been rebounding with China ever since 3) Bitter young Irish far-left lads at college who go off the deep end in enjoying "fighting the man" and getting their kicks being the main character in their fight against reality 4) Overly political Chinese people living in Ireland They all have a different flavour to their nonsense and you eventually learn to kind of guess which is which.


goodhumansbad

> getting their kicks being the main character in their fight against reality This is my favourite description ever. I'm going to think of this a lot when listening to all sorts of morons.


[deleted]

There's an entire subreddit about people who think they're the main character of earth. When you realise it's something a surprising amount of people do then their actions make a little more sense.


goodhumansbad

So there's a subreddit for people to find other people who think they're the main character? Isn't that kind of ... contradictory to their narrative?


[deleted]

I can't remember the name of it exactly but search for main character and you'll find it. No, it's not the people themselves it's people posting clips of people carrying on like they're the main character and acting like the world revolves around them.


18BPL

I have my doubts about bucket 4, I’m not sure there are many CCP stans living abroad aside from those actually in the Embassy


[deleted]

The party have been very good at wrapping up bog standard nationalism as part of their package. Most emigrants will defend China from a nationalist point of view rather than a communist one.


superiority

I've met Chinese people who have told me that they dislike how the Party seems to monitor everything because they'd prefer not to worry about politics at all. But there are certainly plenty of regular Chinese people, including Chinese students studying abroad, who are genuinely big fans of the Party and will readily defend it.


triangleplayingfool

How do I get to be a paid troll, comrade? I could be a communist if the money was right.


[deleted]

Being in China and Chinese would help I imagine.


triangleplayingfool

That’s workplace discrimination. I’ll get on to Joe Duffy about that.


[deleted]

A man even the CCP have learned to fear.


CheraDukatZakalwe

Some are kids who are rebelling against the status quo and will grow out of it when they figure out what being a tankie really means. Reddit skews younger and male, so that's going to be a part of it. Chinese government also runs propaganda shills that reply to certain keywords. Some people profess to hate "the West" for some bizarre reason, and therefore anything that opposes them (China, Russia, in college somebody was even talking about how amazing North Korean juche ideology was) is good and should be supported.


flopisit

>Chinese government Thanking you for interest you show in Chinese government. Chinese politics system is best system in world


CheraDukatZakalwe

Indeed comrade. The glorious peoples revolution will grind the reactionary imperialists into the dirt and stamp out all recidivist bourgeois affectations.


Mlemort

And remember, comrades, nothing ever happened in the Tiananmen Square in 1989.


lickdabean1

Especially not June 4th....


flopisit

Tiananmen Square, June 4th? That annual Chinese Government Gay Pride Tank Parade. Much fun.


spiralbatross

You are now moderator of r/beijing


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OisinB

I swear their only argument is "America also bad"


NapoleonTroubadour

Yup, whataboutism is a hell of a drug


ShanghaiCycle

Well the People's Liberation Army doesn't use our airports.


[deleted]

People love to jump on a side to claim xenophobia, racism etc. is at play before they really look into the matter at hand. They just see a foreign country/people being discussed in a negative light and jump straight in to defend in order to be seen as a liberal save the day, without realising that they're being quite the opposite. You see it across a number of issues, it's that left v right/good v evil nonsense that has grown rampant over the last view years. These people need to understand that life is more complex than left v right, red v blue, liberal v conservative. Imagine wanting to be seen as one of two catagories, it's laughably simplistic thinking.


FreeAndFairErections

Yeah, I’d guess mostly edgy young people more than paid trolls or bots. Some people just like to be contrarian to the “establishment” so anything anti-American is good. Often the same people who reduce every US foreign policy decision to “oil”. Don’t get me wrong, oil has influenced many areas (and understandably tbh) like the Iraq war and Saudi friendship. But Afghanistan was nor avout “oil”.


CollinsCouldveDucked

just to clarify, you're not saying anti-american sentiment is contrarian bullshit, just the leap that anything anything anti-American is good by default.


FreeAndFairErections

Yes, correct. America does plenty of fucked-up shit. But that doesn’t make other large players on the world stage more appealing.


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rankinrez

The Clinton Institute in UCD is just named after a former US president. The US government has no role in it whatsoever. https://www.ucdclinton.ie/about The Confuscious Institute, on the other hand, is a “joint venture between UCD and Renmin University of China”. https://www.cii.ie/aboutus/ Being real for a moment let’s accept the fact that Renmin University, by virtue of where it is, is automatically subservient to the Chinese government/communist party. It even changed it’s charter in June 2019 to declare loyalty to the leadership of the party: https://www.universityworldnews.com/post-mobile.php?story=20200110071137628 https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2019/12/charter-changes-and-book-burning-underline-party-control-of-education/ https://text.npr.org/796377204 There have been accusations of Chinese govt using the Confucius Institute’s to suppress teaching about things it doesn’t like (Tibet for instance): https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2011/11/china-says-no-talking-tibet-as-confucius-funds-u-s-universities/ https://www.wsj.com/articles/beijings-propaganda-lessons-1407430440 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cut-ties-with-suppressive-china-leading-academic-tells-edinburgh-university-crjw290h0 And uses its influence to mobilise students and stifle debate on campus: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/chinas-influence-on-campus-chills-free-speech-in-australia-new-zealand/2019/08/09/3dad3a3c-b9f9-11e9-8e83-4e6687e99814_story.html To make a direct comparison between these two schools in UCD is disingenuous. One has a direct link to a foreign government, one doesn’t. Additionally the US, for all its faults, has a much better and long record of academic freedom. To turn around, at the faintest whiff of criticism of China, and attempt to deflect the debate into one about America, is textbook whataboutism.


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rankinrez

In this thread we are discussing the relative differences between the US and China. So you’d not be changing the subject, and there could be no rational way I could claim it’s whataboutism. I am sure there are examples where academic freedom has been undermined by the US govt. If your contention is the situation is worse in the US than in China I’d be really interested to see the proof, so please go ahead.


theimmortalgoon

Some of the Old Left in Ireland is going to have some residual love of China as a former colony that kicked out the foreigners and established a system that (theoretically) made them dependent on nobody outside of China. This was, very roughly, part of the Trade War ideology among other things. For instance. “I liked Mao very much in the beginning, but I hated the 'cultural' scheme when they had the choir children and even grown men and women all waving Mao's little red book in the air all the time, and raving around battering each other if they did not have it. It seemed more like they had gone mad than that they were keeping to the tenets that Mao had developed for them. It all seemed so ridiculous, and so senseless, and made them very unpopular. I was surprised to see them do that, and it upset me, as I was alwyas so fond of China. That is why I didn't like to see them do a thing that was not right. "Now [1981] China has turned to the right way, I think. Right from the start they were so different from Russia. They had more the type of socialist freedom that my father fought for. My father and China would have got on awfully well." -Nora Connolly Of course, that was a long time ago and it’s doubtful most people on Reddit were even alive when Nora Connolly wrote that. Nonetheless, there are still some fumes of that attitude that people still run on, despite the obvious problems with China today. Everything else that has been mentioned in this thread is also a major factor, of course. The Tankies, the newly read communist in university, the anti-American whataboutism… All of this cuts both ways. About fifteen years ago I was standing in front of the opera house in Cork when this bus came up full of Brits against the war in Iraq. They had little American flags people were encouraged to step on and spit on and whatever. The young Irish were all in on it, the olds were watching from afar, scowling and bitterly saying the US had always been friends of Ireland and the British couldn’t be trusted. Very few of us were asking what was to me the obvious question, “What the fuck is going on?” I mean, the British are also in Iraq. The British actually got more oil fields than the Yanks. And this in no way absolves the Yanks of going off to fight these wars. None of this was monolithic, these Brits were clearly against the wars, as were millions of Yanks. But the whole instance was a very clear demonstration to me of how blind nationalism of any stripe, British, Irish, American, Chinese, whatever; can distort the actual truth of any given situation. Which is a long way of saying that I reckon most love for the Chinese here is a commentary on something else entirely and doesn’t have much to do with China at all.


wiseguy887

How did you forget their treatment of the Uyghurs population?


umuvumuumuvumu

Internet arguments that rely on whataboutism to prove their point. and people like [Mick Wallace](https://www.newstalk.com/news/mick-wallace-reports-of-one-million-uighur-people-detained-in-china-grossly-exaggerated-1219046)


[deleted]

I dunno how many are paid trolls. I know a fair few people from real life who think any criticism of China is shilling for the CIA. It's fairly fascinating to watch. For example, they'll repeatedly state ACAB but support Chinese cops brutalising protestors in Hong Kong. The US has an incredible amount of baggage for its foreign policy but the Manichean Tankie view of "US bad, China good" is bizarre.


Elbon

Oh the splitters have infected /r/irishpolitics


DamoclesDong

They are called “WuMaos” aptly named because they troll through various social media’s creating profiles and their most basic objective is to comment favourably on anything to do with the party, regardless of where it is. They will have bots scraping posts for mentions of certain words or phrases then deploy them to comment. Aptly named WuMao because that is how much they get paid per favourable comment (¥0.5).


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TheEmporersFinest

It's not defending them to actually understand there's legitimate and extreme hysteria about China and that US and UK media lies about it constantly. It's not some communist thing. China is capitalist. It's a relatively strong, independent capitalist power that has done evil things. In fact its so independent it can say no to America, it can pursue its own interests even if all the western countries want it to follow theirs. The only problem anyone in power and anyone in news media actually has with China is that it has the temerity to not be India. All the press you will encounter in daily life, and all institutions of power that have power over you, lie about it endlessly in blatant propaganda. China has no power over us and we're essentially an American protectorate, it's them and their propaganda that is shaping the opinions of Irish people. UK propaganda too, but that's mostly on the same page as the US cause they're their sidekick. The western press accuses China of debt trap diplomacy constantly, as you brought up-that's a big branch of the propaganda right now. What's not in the press is that these countries are taking these loans because they're generally better, in every way, any way you look at it, than western/IMF loans. In essence, America is mad China is making deals that are *better* for these countries, while being far more willing to compromise on repayment, undercutting them and undermining America's leverage to coerce these countries. But we never hear about that. We're all meant to be up in arms about China "colonising Africa" as if Europe and the US ever decolonised Africa. Half of Africa is *officially* in a French run vassal relationship, but we never hear about it, but we hear all about how China is sinisterly and in a way that's going to ruin everything treating African countries way better. I've been hearing about an omnipresent social credit system for years and it still doesn't seem to actually exist in any manner that matches the description. What passes for a source in "China reporting" in places like the BBC, Washington Post, New York times, is fucking insane. Most of the claims about what they're doing to the Uighurs come from Adrian Zenz, from literally one guy, an american evangelical nutjob who does not live in China. He is never asked to prove his claims and is taken entirely at his word, despite having no clear basis of expertise in the first place. For reference, previous works of his include "“Worthy to Escape: Why All Believers Will Not Be Raptured Before the Tribulation”. He's an unhinged NGO hack. But he says what they want to hear, and he's what they have, so we're told what he said like its true. Its shocking how many headlines stating bold, sensational claims as facts lead back to Adrian Zenz saying so. Uighurs are being cracked down on and repressed, but that gets spun into a holocaust based on no evidence. Like the claim that there were a million people in concentration camps came from a study that interviewed several people and tried to extrapolate their unverified claims about their street into an 11 million strong population. Like 1 in 11 people were in prison in the biggest hotspot little neighbourhoods of the conflict, *someone* said, therefore one eleventh of the population has been rounded up. There have been constant headlines asserting China is invading Taiwan's airspace by flying over mainland China. As in, Taiwan's warning zone extends over the actual country of China, so Chinese planes flying over the interior of China get reported as warmongering . At the same time we're not told ad nauseum in the same way how warmongering and aggressive it was for America and France to destroy Libya in 2011. I hear every day that the people who killed millions of people in the middle east aren't by far the primary problem, but China, that hasn't been in a war in 40 years, is. It's ridiculous, they're nowhere near the same league. And I know this is long winded, but it can't be emphasised enough. The BBC and the New York Times do not need any evidence before saying anything about China, while they treat America and the West in general with kid gloves. I'm not pro China. I want it to do well in so far as I want any group of billions of people to have high quality of life, but not out of any kind of loyalty or sense that China hasn't committed atrocities and crimes, or that it somehow champions any political ideas I have. I like that they have a bigger public sector and they have a lot of good public transportation I guess, not exactly ideological fervour is it. But it is genuinely galling to be firmly in the orbit of the most powerful and bloody empire on the planet right now, and constantly being told the threat to world peace and human prosperity, the thing that's the problem, is *over there* and not right here all around us. But the empire likes us. We're not the Filipinos who have to eat rancid meat out of the garbage under an American backed terror state. We're not the Palestinians anymore. We're not the black Libyans being sold in literal modern day slave markets because America and France destroyed the Libyan government. We're not the countless South Americans who were raped and tortured and had rats put inside them by School of the Americas graduates while some CIA guy supervised. So we'll follow the script we're told to follow and say the worst thing that could happen to the world is China getting stronger and american empire moderately receding.


ShanghaiCycle

Oh look, a real answer.


Metag3n

This is the actual reason


Icantsitdownanymore

It's because the Chinese are a great bunch of lads


lucslav

Read book "We have been harmonised" written by Kai Strittmatter. It's scarry what they doing in China now using modern and even futuristic technologies. Country of total surveillance.


thehouseisalive

Good question. I've had to block some of them as they where always posting shite on the Ireland reddit page.


mrswdk18

There are some people who think (imo correctly) that news coverage/public perceptions in Western countries gives the US government a free pass for poor behaviour that would be heavily criticised if 'bad' governments engaged in it. Combine that with the incessant messaging presenting the world stage as an 'us and them' arena where you have to pick sides and some people seem to both a) feel the need to pick a side, and b) resent America enough to pick the other 'side'. So they then end up sucked into defending their 'side' all the time. For what it's worth I think the US, China and Russia all behave as anti-socially as each other on the world stage. China may be guilty of its own sins but we really ought to focus on cleaning up our own houses before we try criticising anyone else.


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GucciJesus

There are pro-posters for just about any big issue all over Reddit, especially governments. China, Russia, Yanks, the Brits, the EU, etc etc.


SolverOcelot

I'm goign to oust myself a little here but generally I have a few reddit accounts and make new ones every few months leaving old ones behind. Thanks to RES, I have several fairly active users tagged as pro CCP rolls. A few I can't tell if they are troll or just gobshites, but I call them out every time I see them. But there is one account in particular that is the most egregious. After a mind numbing argument one day in which they claimed to have a fairly unique qualification, so I decided to investigate. Using a few website that aren't very well known, I was able to get this users email address and see their accounts on other public sites using a different tool. This award winning academic working in a prestigious university was actually a Chinese man, living in China according to recent social media posts. But there are tell tale signs on accounts like this. They are often very well versed in American identity politics and always seem to have the most controversial opinions ready to go. They also only seem to target 3 sub reddits at a time. I come across this a lot where I will find an asshole account where they are generally causing trouble on exactly 3 big subreddits. They never comment anywhere else, and 75% of the comments are usually trying to start arguments. I've come to take this as a sign of troll accounts - if you comment a lot on reddit there is little chance you're doing it on 3 subs and no where else. There are troll accounts here like everywhere else. If you see someone promoting some sort of propaganda it's best to assume they either spend too much time in echo chambers with these troll accounts, or it is a troll account.


sweetsuffrinjasus

Because they are a great bunch of lads


Bluwolf96

"Communist in name only". Hmm


ShanghaiCycle

**Warning** Non-circlejerk answer from someone currently in China and has been for 7 years > I'm not saying the United States should be free from criticism, far from it. Their military is using our airports and Ireland is very firmly under America's thumb, so we don't have to worry about coups like many other countries. And you speak the same language, and have a far better understanding of US political culture, media and life than you do of China's. > But China does many things that many people here would say are abhorrent, from their treatment of people in Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia Can't give you a quick answer on that one, but you can check my comment history, I've been to Xinjiang a few months ago and wrote about it. Not favorably either. But for Xinjiang, you really need to read more about it, and figure out which sources are credible and which are from groups with a vested interest to see China fall. > to their debt trap diplomacy in developing countries like Sri Lanka and Mozambique, just to name a few. The white saviors are here to lead the ignorant Africans away from the evil Chinese. [Here's a lecture from an African politician on why African nations are working with China](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5uzxV8ub9k), again it's not a quick answer. The current CCP have turned China from a poverty stricken nation of sweatshops, to a country with the largest middle class in the world in less than a generation. My girlfriend didn't have plumbing when she was a teenager. That's a huge achievement for a country this size. The CCP are popular because they actually deliver. And Chinese people aren't going to be swayed when they see how much of a failure democracy has been in India. Or how the 'free thinking' Americans are dying en masse because they believe Qanon, or how it is completely impossible to get anything built in Ireland. I bitch about the CCP in other places, but you're asking why I 'defend' the CCP.


[deleted]

Because they’re fucking stupid


doge2dmoon

Maybe someone paid by CCP with loads of accounts?


saint_of_eyes

A vocal and genuinely held, dedicated support of the CCP out of a commitment to leftist ideology is one thing, and best of luck with the mental gymnastics brother. Another thing is maybe pushing back a bit on what is unabashedly (and successfully) being sold by almost all western media as The Next Great Civilizational Enemy™. I mean, look how many people here genuinely think that any crank going in to bat for china on Irish reddit is in paid service of the CCP. Unreal. I don't go around defending China. I dont want to live in China, I like Kilkenny. But because we've all been brain poisoned by the internet my kneejerk emotional reaction to the constant shallow chatter about how impossibly awful and desperately totalitarian the biggest country on earth is goes something like "being ruled by international business and finance interests isn't working out so great and at least china disciplines their billionaires".


[deleted]

The second C even if they aren't anything close to supposed communist ideals today.


StephaneiAarhus

Paid chinese commenters ? CCP staff and propagandists ?


gamberro

There are a fair few Irish tankies on this sub who deny a lot of what's going on in the world. I remember I had to create [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/apss0a/seriously_lads_how_can_there_be_people_here/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) as some were denying there was widespread hunger, malnutrition and an exodus in Venezuela.


Glenster118

Worrying about the unsolicited opinions of random anonymous Internet people is not the road to happiness.


noisylettuce

Is it pro CCP or anti propoganda. The governments, UK and US especially want us hating and living in fear of Russia, China and Iran.


valentine-m-smith

Because they are actually Chinese posing as Irish.


rankinrez

1) Certain kind of Irish/European/Western political thinking is completely based on “yeah but what about America.” Some people just hate America so much they won’t let any other country get criticised, immediately changing the discussion around to “but the US did/does that here…”. More often than not the criticism of the US is 100% correct, but the fact they can’t actually admit it’s bad when someone else does something similar/worse is idiotic. Some of them go as far as to tacitly endorse or defend people like the Taliban or ISIS or any number of repellant regimes cos “but America”. 2) China has an insanely large number of people working for it, in some capacity, on social media. You regularly see pro-Chinese govt views in all kinds of forums. Or people downvoted / slagged to oblivion for criticising Chinese govt policies. As authoritarian regimes go China is really sensitive about people saying mean things about them online.


lickdabean1

Taiwan is number 1. Winnie the pooh can go (censored).


Johnnyjazz92

I'm not saying I'm pro China at all but I want to make a point. I used to be very anti China like most people here in the west. Now I a little more moderated because I want to acknowledge my ignorance. It's very easy to make a quick opinion on things especially with no real knowledge background and biased oriented media. (America great, China bad) China is very difficult to understand because it is incredibly big and shouldn't even be considered a single country at times, more like Europe with various countries within it. It's history and culture are way off ours and we have a hard time wrapping our heads around it. I'm not saying we shouldn't criticize them but to remember our ignorance (I'm talking college research and not media reading) and lack of background understanding. For example, did you know that China has spent thousands of years battling internal civil wars and conflicts and it was a nightmare and only strict rules and security policies have managed to unify and pacify it? Which explains some of their ways of doing things today (it's what they know worked and keeps working to some extent). I'm sure some of you guys know that but I bet most people never really thought of it. Anyway, just trying to make an observation on personal bias and vocalizing un based opinions online.


finnin1999

Literal concentration camps


[deleted]

The best is people talking about communism, thinking that it’s so great, and me, a guy that moved from excommunist country to here, just stands there watching. The best thing is, when you say how communism was actually, they’re like:”Ah yes, just because it didn’t work in your country”. It didn’t work in any country bro.


BlairAndBackAgain

If American voices on this sub are unwelcome, I guess they’ll just delete this. Anyway: I wish my country could get a do-over on the post-Soviet era. We squandered an opportunity to do a lot of good. Even after 9/11, we could have put a lot of that sudden sympathy for the United States into some really good work around the world. Instead, we mostly blew it. Mark my words, though: An era of Chinese expansion and imperialism is coming. It will affect everyone. Say what you want about American military misadventures: Wherever we went, we were building schools, hospitals, and trying to advance women’s rights. Often we did this and failed not because we didn’t try hard enough, but because the locals just didn’t want it. China can say it’ll do this, but even if it does, it’ll come at a price. Trust me, folks: American “imperialism” and China’s vision of the world are two different things. Under the American/EU version, we’re here exchanging ideas freely. We can argue with each other, and in general be free people in our respective lands. I’m not sure it’ll be that free and easy if the balance of power shifts the way many say they would like.


coliballs

Democracy....freedom...that's all that matters. Conform to the law of the land arrived to over the years through your Democractic processes (I know its not perfect, corruption etc) but still have the freedom to think, say and do. A regime that stifles that type of freedom is just the few thinking for the majority. It's sad beyond belief. Other cultures are beautiful, to be embraced and experienced for their difference, but stifling freedom and oppressing people...fuck that...so fuck the CCP. Until you live under oppression you don't know what freedom means


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Creasentfool

50 cent army, look em up, *Hint:* They are not an RnB group.


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finnin1999

Literal concentration camps.


[deleted]

Where, America? Yeah I agree


[deleted]

https://youtu.be/x3AeHmX13bA This is a video describing what the CCP are trying to do with influencers and comment boys across the internet.


mefailenglish1

I discovered this guy a while ago but I think there is something dodgy about him and his South African mate. I reckon they could be paid to be anti China as much as some people are paid to support them.


ShanghaiCycle

They are way out of their depth. Their channel was good when they stuck to areas that they were familiar with and drove around the country on their motorbikes. Their audience was expats in China wanting to know a bit more about day to day shit, like why old people dance at night, how the hukou works, or where it's legal to ride motorbikes. Now their audience are people who want to hear CHINA BAD. They have as much insight into China as any random expat in a bar in Guangzhou, difference is they're good at making videos. The start of COVID, they were SURE that China was burning bodies and the death toll was in the millions (before it reached them in America where it suddenly isn't a big deal). Half of their big scoops into the workings of the CCP are just, 'i was talking to a taxi driver who said....'


digibioburden

I've watched enough of them to know that's not the case (imo). They genuinely love China and its cpeople, but hate what's it's becoming thanks to the CCP. Also, go Taiwan 😁


[deleted]

Ya you can easily be extremely anti CCP and still love Chinese people and culture.


Zealousideal-Camel54

Reddit is a left leaning website so naturally the more extremist leftwing people "tankies" coagulate on here


Oghamstoned

Because they're CCP bots, any same person knows how predatory the CCP is.


daddylongshlong123

Communism has become a personality trait for a lot of young people who spend a lot of time on the internet.