README.adoc

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/3_6_Roentgen.jpg[height=400]

This suggestion is even more explicit in the fictional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z[World War Z] 2006 novel by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brooks[Max Brooks] about a <<covid,virus>> outbreak in China. It was later adapted into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z_(film)[World War Z (2013)] movie by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Pictures[Paramount]:

* https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jun/04/brad-pitt-china-world-war-z[]: Paramount cowards tried to kowtow and remove references to China from the movie, but it failed
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/china-barred-my-dystopian-novel-about-how-its-system-enables-epidemics/2020/02/27/cc0446f0-58e5-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html[]: no Chinese publisher dared publish the book unless China references were removed, which the author declined, and so the book was not published in China

Or https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/[if you prefer]:

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The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
____

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen[Amartya Sen] is another famous proponent of similar arguments in the area of hungers: https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/211/44284.html[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20170722090616/https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/211/44284.html[archive])

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In democratic countries, even very poor ones, the survival of the ruling government would be threatened by famine, since elections are not easy to win after famines; nor is it easy to withstand criticism of opposition parties and newspapers. That is why famine does not occur in democratic countries. Unfortunately, there are a great many countries in the world which do not yet have democratic systems.
____

although like any other political argument, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/does-democracy-avert-famine.html[some disagree].

Virus outbreaks and other natural disasters also illustrate this well: <<covid>>.

===== Censorship makes no one trust your country

Who would trust a government that does not <<censorship,trust its own journalists and citizens>>?

Even democracies cannot be trusted, but dictatorships? No one ever believes what they say, even when it's true.

The boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf[just called wolf far too many times].

And as a result, this makes it very difficult to have allies.

Sure, other dictatorships will seem to become allies with your dictatorship and collaborate.

But deep down, you know that they are all just waiting patiently to put a knife in one other's backs.

Dictators will always live in fear.

++++
<span id="corona">
++++

[[covid]]
===== Censorship of the 2019 Corona Virus (2019冠状病毒病早期迹象审查)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019冠状病毒病

The Chinese Government <<censorship,censored>> the initial outbreak in January and did not inform Wuhan on January 8, which likely made the situation much worse than what it could have been.

On the other hand, one may argue that the "city closure" measures were stronger/faster than in democracies, and maybe that is true.

And <<ciro-santilli>> does believe that the virus would have escaped even if there had been no censorship. Although maybe thousands of lives would have been saved due to smaller saturation of hospitals had a proper early warning been given.

So Ciro's main criticism is that of the censorship of citizen reports the event: <<people-arrested-for-reporting-on-the-2019-corona-virus>>. Why do you need to censor things when you are doing so well?

And it should also be said that some Western politicians have used "blame China" as an excuse to divert attention from their own failures.

Some believe that the Chinese government grossly under-reported death counts. Initial official figures were about only 3300 deaths, in the insanely densely populated Wuhan area, while Italy had reached 10000 deaths:

* 2020-04-19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr280LWjJT0&t=2198 Trump says on a White House briefing he does not believe China's case count
* 2020-04-01 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says CIA speaks
* 2020-03-29 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8165717/Locals-Wuhan-believe-42-000-people-died-coronavirus.html Reports of funerary urns sold

Maybe China is saying the truth this time. Maybe the rapid Dictatorship response worked. But maybe the most important lesson to take out of this is that https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/27/china-loses-trust-internationally-over-coronavirus-handling[no one] trusts <<censorship-makes-no-one-trust-your-country,in a Dictatorship after an infinitely long history of lies and lack of freedom of the press>>.

<<li-hongzhi>> of course doubts those numbers :-) <<falun-gongs-view-of-epidemics>>.

Doctor Li Wenliang (李文亮) reported the virus, but was told by authorities to stay quiet, and later died from the virus, becoming somewhat of a martyr:

* https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801
* https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2020/02/【网络民议】你能做到吗？-你听明白了吗？/ by <<china-digital-times>>

The following excerpt from his forced confession trended:

____
你能做到吗？ +
你听明白了吗？
____

Translation:

____
Can you manage? +
Do you understand?
____

Good timelines so without a fucking paywall:

* https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html "Timeline: The early days of China's coronavirus outbreak and cover-up"
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_in_November_2019_–_January_2020

Timeline:

* 2019-12-27 several genomics companies had sequenced the coronavirus and noticed the similarity to Sars. According to GeneBank, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MT019529[] the sample was collected on and 23-Dec-2019 and published on 04-FEB-2020
* 2020-01-01 <<cctv>> announces that posting about it online is a crime: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ko18aa/on_this_day_one_year_ago_cctv_first_reported_on/
* 2020-01-03 findings were sent to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Center_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention[Centre for Disease Control] (CDC, https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国疾病预防控制中心[中国疾病预防控制中心]) in Beijing, but then the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Commission[Chinese National Health Commission] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华人民共和国国家卫生健康委员会[中华人民共和国国家卫生健康委员会]), China's top medical authority, issued orders to not talk about it and destroy samples
* 2020-01-08 CDC team went to Wuhan to see the situation, was not informed that contagiousness of the disease had been confirmed
* 2020-01-20 the findings were made public, in an interview with Zhong Nanshan. He later said in an interview that the local government should be blamed:
+
video::LK1Pz8FmryM[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=132]
* 2020-01-23 Wuhan begins lockdown
* 2020-01-24 to 30 Chinese New Year

News coverage:

* 2021-03-04 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-makes-anal-swab-covid-tests-compulsory-for-foreign-arrivals-mvthjq8c7 "China makes anal swab Covid tests compulsory for foreign arrivals". This is not a criticism to China as the test might be accurate. But it is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
* 2020-12-20 https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how-chinas-army-of-paid-internet-trolls-helped-censor-the-coronavirus "Leaked Documents Show How China's Army of Paid Internet Trolls Helped Censor the Coronavirus" talks about <<wumao>> working during COVID
* 2020-05-12: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-cia-believes-china-tried-stop-who-alarm-pandemic-1503565 CIA people said China stopped the WHO from sounding the alarm from January 24 to January 30, while at the same time stockpiling protection materials
* <<caixin>> article about how early Coronavirus signs were censored:
** https://china.caixin.com/2020-03-10/101526309.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20200317111527/http://china.caixin.com/2020-03-10/101526309.html[archive]) "李文亮所在医院为何医护人员伤亡惨重？" (Why did Li Wenliang's [李文亮] hospital suffer heavy casualties?)
** https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-signs-of-a-sars-like-virus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-101521745.html (paywall) "In Depth: How Early Signs of a SARS-Like Virus Were Spotted, Spread, and Throttled"
** https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-scientists-destroyed-proof-of-virus-in-december-rz055qjnj "Chinese scientists destroyed proof of virus in December". Paywall skip: https://archive.md/xOKiu Terrible copy paste of some Caixin article with no sources/precise names.
* https://www.businessinsider.com/china-information-crackdown-on-wuhan-coronavirus-2020-1 "China spent the crucial first days of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak arresting people who posted about it online and threatening journalists" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200124113400/https://www.businessinsider.com/china-information-crackdown-on-wuhan-coronavirus-2020-1?r=US&IR=T[archive])
* https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/g5xykx/you-can-now-go-to-jail-in-china-for-criticizing-beijings-coronavirus-response "You Can Now Go to Jail in China for Criticizing Beijing's Coronavirus Response"
* https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdn4d/doctors-in-wuhan-are-still-dying-and-beijing-is-still-trying-to-silence-them Ai Fen's (艾芬) report of how the situation was mishandling was censored
* 2020-04-13 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/12/asia/china-coronavirus-research-restrictions-intl-hnk/index.html "Beijing tightens grip over coronavirus research, amid US-China row on virus origin". The Government can now veto papers from being published on the subject of the origin of COVID-19.

In other countries:

* <<india-covid-handling-twitter-suppression-2021>>

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblage_(art)[Assemblage] of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respirator[respirator mask] with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_(BDSM)[BDSM gag ball] attached to it, suggesting that citizen reports of COVID-19 in China have been censored. https://twitter.com/FakeNewsOfChina/status/1221396086033530880[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Covid_gag_mask.jpg[height=600]

.Selfie of Li Wenliang on his hospital bed before he died. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Wenliang_covid.jpg[height=400]

.Corona Xi mural of <<xi-jinping>> morphed into a Coronavirus by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lushsux[Lushux]. Fuller composition view: https://twitter.com/lushsux/status/1243830638966235136[]. Reddit called it https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fqku03/winnie_the_flu/[Winnie the Flu] in a reference to <<winnie-the-pooh>>. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fqku03/winnie_the_flu/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Covid_Xi.jpg[height=500]

====== nCovMemory

Popular GitHub repo documenting personal experiences and media reports:

* https://github.com/2019ncovmemory/nCovMemory "新冠肺炎记忆：报道、非虚构与个人叙述" 2020 New coronavirus pneumonia memories: reports, non-fictional and personal accounts.
+
Some of the creators of the repostory were arrested in 2020: https://qz.com/1846277/china-arrests-users-behind-github-coronavirus-memories-page/ and the repo must have been taken down at that time.
+
 fork with the most stars we can find: https://github.com/dta0502/nCovMemory[], in case that goes down: https://github.com/cirosantilli/nCovMemory
* https://github.com/memoryhonest/nCovMemory-en translation project

Other interesting GitHub repositories: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

Related:

* https://github.com/lestweforget/wuhan2019
* https://github.com/lestweforget/COVID-19-Timeline

====== People arrested for reporting on the 2019 Corona Virus

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Qiushi[Chen Qiushi] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/陈秋实_(律师)[陈秋实])
** Twitter: https://twitter.com/chenqiushi404
** YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv361SF6FKznoGPKEFG9Yhw
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/09/asia/wuhan-citizen-journalist-intl-hnk/index.html "Chen Qiushi spoke out about the Wuhan virus. Now his family and friends fear he's been silenced"
** 2020-04-18 https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/epgek4/he-traveled-to-wuhan-to-report-on-coronavirus-and-hasnt-been-heard-from-since "He Traveled to Wuhan to Report on Coronavirus – and Hasn't Been Heard From Since"
** https://youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpr55PZEJ8 "Lawyer Chen Qiushi documenting coronavirus epicentre disappears" by <<scmp>>
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video::Iwpr55PZEJ8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* Fang Bin (方斌)
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Bin
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方斌
** Twitter: https://twitter.com/GuqZJRTOvbqbGub
** YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRItarzSwqakT-EZkSvuy3A
*** The last YouTube video simply says:
+
____
全民反抗 +
https://zh.m.wiktionary.org/zh-hans/还政于民[还政于民] +
方斌书
____
+
which translates as:
+
____
All the people, revolt. +
Return the country (politics) to its people. +
Written (calligraphed) by Fang Bin.
____
+
video::_7VIG2qp0j4[youtube,height=400,width=600]
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUvBNpkxrJo "Fang Bin is second Chinese citizen journalist to vanish while reporting from coronavirus epicentre" by <<scmp>>
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video::sUvBNpkxrJo[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Zehua[Li Zehua] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/李泽华_(记者)[李澤華])
** YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHUpBCNKrZwBhxfcIrP8Aw
** Twitter https://twitter.com/kcrissli
** 2020-02-28 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdejp/a-chinese-citizen-journalist-covering-coronavirus-just-live-streamed-his-own-arrest
* 2020-04-25: Chen Mei, Cai Wei and his girlfriend, who contributed to <<terminus2049>>
* 2020-04-14: Zhang Zhan (张展)
** https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsNKkvZGMURFmYkfhYa2HOQ
** https://www.scmp.com/video/coronavirus/3084983/coronavirus-chinese-citizen-journalist-detained-after-live-streaming
*** 2020-11-16 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/citizen-journalist-facing-jail-in-china-for-wuhan-covid-reporting-zhang-zhan[], finally accused of <<picking-quarrels>>
*** 2020-12-28 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/28/wuhan-citizen-journalist-jailed-for-four-years-in-chinas-christmas-crackdown[] "Wuhan Covid citizen journalist jailed for four years in China crackdown"

TODO maybe not arrested but relevant:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Fang[Fang Fang] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方方_(作家)[方方]) published in 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Diary[Wuhan Diary] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方方日記[方方日記], 方方日记)
+
Possible free Chinese version: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGF5YWJvb2suY29tfHd3d3xneDo3ZGUzZWZjZDgyZDkxNjc0 (http://web.archive.org/web/20200720084342/https://doc-10-bk-apps-viewer.googleusercontent.com/viewer/secure/pdf/3nb9bdfcv3e2h2k1cmql0ee9cvc5lole/0cr4s4veutmm50d7alffk68perm7us3s/1595234550000/lantern/%2A/ACFrOgDGbspvoNIJBVI1N2-EwaZHJPCTgPKmJeFaWgposQKpu5Eu0aqwA_CIZfLkobNVy1-xKcxKzw2CMAyxH4aUPjcHsp2w1JB2fwoX1g_39gVGh38SxfK-UrQyhy_3n19wbWhWErj_a41hMVR4?print=true[archive])

==== Censorship makes it harder to solve social problems

* <<labour-rights>>
* <<metoo>>
* <<gay-rights>>

[[war]]
==== Why would democracy and freedom of speech make China less likely to start a war?

This has been discussed to death:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Peace:_A_Philosophical_Sketch

Some arguments include:

* the people who will actually fight and die on the front can't vote against it
* dictators have huge power, so if they put it in their heads that they want to start a war, it is much harder for sensible people to stop them
* dictators need <<evil-west,to keep the people in fear all the time to keep their power>>, and a war is a great way to achieve that

Of course China won't say that they are starting a war when they do.

They will of course start with territories which they claim as theirs, to add to <<separatism,other recent additions which were not theirs>> until the recent past, even though their inhabitants desperately want to leave China:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_China–India_skirmishes | https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/beijing-said-to-fund-separatist-india "Beijing Said to Fund Separatist India Movement"

Which reminds us of... <<nazi>>:

* 1939 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident[Gleiwitz incident], a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag[false flag attack]
* 1938 Annexation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland[Sudetenland] from Czechoslovakia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_II explains:
+
____
A decisive proximate event was the 1938 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement[Munich Conference], which formally approved Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Hitler promised it was his last territorial claim, but in early 1939 he became even more aggressive, and European governments finally realized that appeasement was not guaranteeing peace."
____
* 1935-1938 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Causes_of_World_War_II&oldid=968409781#Expansionism_and_militarism comments:
+
____
In Italy, Benito Mussolini sought to create a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Empire[New Roman Empire], based around the Mediterranean. It invaded Ethiopia as early as 1935, Albania in early 1938, and later Greece. That provoked angry words and an oil embargo from the League of Nations, which failed.
____
* 1931 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria[1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria], with one false flag event preceding it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident[Mikden Incident].

When China <<evil-west,calls the USA Imperialist>> (帝国主义), there is of course some truth to it, but it is also very ironic, because as https://youtu.be/GiVs05yq9-o?t=74[Lindybeige mentions], China is obviously the largest empire on Earth! Despite its <<xinjiang,uniformization>> efforts, China is highly diverse since it is obviously made up of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China[large stitched up carpet of nations that were conquered by a single empire]. E.g. <<xinjiang>> translates literally as "The New Frontier"! Not to mention obviously the Qin unification of the <<warring-states-period>>.

===== The United States has recently started several wars and killed millions!

Not even democracies can fully protect people from other countries, because they don't vote. Yes, congratulations, <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

But if the USA were a <<dictatorship,dictatorship like China>> it would kill way more, because it would censor every report against the war internally to its own people, and the wars would just go on like in <<nineteen-eighty-four-war-is-peace>>.

How many times do we have to bring <<nazi,Hitler>> up? 70-85 million deaths in one go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

The only reason China has not started wars is because it is a poor country, and it would lose them. If it were rich, it would have started more wars and killed 100 times more people.

Finally, some wars are good.

If a country is oppressed by a dictatorship, and most of its people want to be free, it might be right to help them be free.

If a country sponsors terrorism, it might be a good idea to take out their Government.

This has to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, and maybe a verdict will never be reached. But at least in a democracy the people can decide based on varied information. In a dictatorship, whatever the dictator decides happens.

Also, most of those small wars that he USA started end up being https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war[proxy wars] between the USA and <<russia>>/China, with the USA pushing for democracy, and Russia/China pushing for more dictatorships.

[[uneducated-masses]]
==== The Chinese masses are still uneducated, and not fit for free speech and democracy 中国大众愚昧，不能好好选领导

When will they be ready? Who decides? What if they think that they are <<tiananmen,ready now>>?

In George Bernard Shaw's "Maxims for Revolutionists" words:

____
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for <<corruption,appointment by the corrupt few>>.
____

Many democracy supporters jokingly recognize democracy's shortcomings.

A https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-141/red-herrings-famous-quotes-churchill-never-said/[fake Churchill quote]:

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The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
____

Art Spander:

____
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.
____

Laurence J Peter:

____
Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
____

."中国人道德低下素质差。所以不适合民主。" Translation: The Chinese people are immoral and uneducated (people are angry). That's why they're not suitable for democracy (people are happy). This makes fun of the fact even if you say bad things about the Chinese, some people will complain that you are racist. But the same people will also say the same bad things about the Chinese people as a way to explain why it is better if they don't vote, and no one minds that. https://www.reddit.com/r/chonglangTV/comments/jssa4t/道德低下素质差的好处/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Immoral_and_uneducated.jpg[height=400]

===== The Chinese masses are not interested in politics and therefore not ready to vote

But how would they be interested in politics or be able to discuss it, if it is <<dissidents,impossible to have a different view without going to jail>>?

What about the <<tiananmen,1 million people in Tiananmen>> and the 70 million <<falun-gong>> followers? Did they not care?

[[overlook-human-rights-for-profit]]
==== As long as China is developing economically, it is fine to violate the human rights of a few million people

This argument can be made, but it is a risky way to live: <<intolerance>> and borderline <<nazi>>.

Do the <<violence,ends always justify the means>>?

What is the point of having all that wealth, when you risk <<rule-of-law,being put into jail for unfair reasons>>?

<<ciro-santilli>> argues that China would be even richer if it weren't for the CCP: <<richer>>, and that the CCP only violates people's human rights as a tool to stay in power: <<ccp-evil>>.

.<<rebel-pepper>> cartoon about a pig who does not care about politics because it cannot be eaten. 民主又不能当饭吃 https://twitter.com/remonwangxt/status/1131398147253710850[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pig_politics_Chinese.jpg[height=600]

.Translation by Ciro Santilli of the Rebel Pepper cartoon about the pig who does not care about politics because it cannot be eaten.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Rebel_pepper_pig_can%27t_eat_democracy_cartoon_translated_to_English_by_Ciro_Santilli.jpg[height=600]

.https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shut-up-and-take-my-money[Shut up and take my freedom] meme by <<ciro-santilli>>.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Shut_up_and_take_my_freedom.jpg[height=400]

.https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shut-up-and-take-my-money[Shut up and take my freedom] meme by <<ciro-santilli>> translated to Chinese: "什么都别说了，拿走我的自由".
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Shut_up_and_take_my_freedom.jpg[height=400]

[[corruption]]
==== Democracies have less corruption than dictatorships

One of the key points of <<xi-jinping,Xi Jinping's>> governments has been to quench corruption. And use that as an excuse to get rid of rivals while at it.

However, there is one much better solution to that: democracy and freedom of speech.

The reason is obvious: with censorship, <<chinese-politicians-really-care-about-the-chinese-citizens,corrupt politicians>> can <<internal-censorship,censor>> anything bad that they did, and so it becomes much harder to destroy corruption.

In George Bernard Shaw's "Maxims for Revolutionists" words:

____
Democracy substitutes election <<uneducated-masses,by the incompetent many>> for appointment by the corrupt few.
____

Ciro does however believe the <<spy>> claims made at https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/21/china-stolen-us-data-exposed-cia-operatives-spy-networks/ that the anti-corruption is also a legitimate national security issue for China, in addition to being a tool to take down political rivals:

____
Over the course of their investigation into the CIA's China-based agent network, Chinese officials learned that the agency was secretly paying the "promotion fees" - in other words, the bribes - regularly required to rise up within the Chinese bureaucracy, according to four current and former officials. It was how the CIA got "disaffected people up in the ranks. But this was not done once, and wasn't done just in the [Chinese military]," recalled a current Capitol Hill staffer. "Paying their bribes was an example of long-term thinking that was extraordinary for us," said a former senior counterintelligence official. "Recruiting foreign military officers is nearly impossible. It was a way to exploit the corruption to our advantage." At the time, "promotion fees" sometimes ran into the millions of dollars, according to a former senior CIA official: "It was quite amazing the level of corruption that was going on." The compensation sometimes included paying tuition and board for children studying at expensive foreign universities, according to another CIA officer.
____

Well known corruption cases:

* 2020 Ren Zhiqiang
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhiqiang
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/任志强
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/22/asia/china-ren-zhiqiang-xi-jinping-intl-hnk/index.html "Chinese tycoon who criticized <<xi-jinping,Xi Jinping>>'s handling of <<covid,coronavirus>> jailed for 18 years"
* 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ling_Jihua[Ling Jihua] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/令计划[令计划]): son died in Ferrari crash with two women on the car, which put the spotlight on him
* 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Xilai[Bo Xilai] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/薄熙来[薄熙来]): trigerred by the murder of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Heywood[Neil Heywood], of which Bo's wife was accused

Related events:

* <<panama-papers>>

===== Operation Fox Hunt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt

Trying to prevent corruption is fine, but violating the laws of other countries in doing so, or the <<rule-of-law>> of their family is not.

Publicized by China itself: <<china-daily>> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-11/05/content_22375920.htm

* 2020-10-28 "Eight Individuals Charged With Conspiring to Act as Illegal Agents of the People's Republic of China" https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/eight-individuals-charged-conspiring-act-illegal-agents-people-s-republic-china

[[liu-changming]]
====== The detention of Liu Changming's (刘昌明) family (2018)

China imposed an exit ban on the ex-official's family, who are also USA citizens:

* officer Liu Changming (刘昌明)
* wife Sandra Han
* children Victor Liu (born July 1999 in the USA) and Cynthia Liu (27 in 2019, born in China, but also American citizen)

China says that the children and wife do have valid Chinese documents, so maybe those idiots did not give up their Chinese citizenship and went to China. Why, why, why would you do that? Don't they know anything about China?

Cynthia claimed her father has left home a long time ago and that they are not in contact with their father.

Liu is a so called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_official[naked official] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/裸官[裸官]), who let his family go live outside of China to prevent such problems with the CCP.

The wiki page also explains that in 2014 rules were added to prevent promotion of officials whose spouses live abroad.

This reminds Ciro of a Mafia movie, maybe Godfather II, where the bad guy says he "likes doing business with a man that has a family, because he has more collateral".

Coverage:

* 2018-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/liu-changming-china-holds-officials-family-hostage-to-force-return-2018-11

.2019-05-09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2hBtXdaYsQ Cynthia Liu, daughter of Liu Changming (刘昌明) pleas freedom on YouTube. Commented upload by CBS, TODO can't find original video on YouTube, maybe they sent straight to CBS?
video::t2hBtXdaYsQ[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[effective]]
=== Will the keyword attacks really help to destroy the firewall?

It is both unlikely, and hard to be sure.

Just like it is unlikely that the activity of on individual can have a big influence in any group of 1 billion people.

Every action is statistical: I just push the balance a little bit towards freedom.

This FAQ and any talk is useless. You and I are wasting our time here.

The possibility of blocking Stack Overflow and GitHub is 1000x more useful than any talk, but it is still useless.

However, potentially blocking those websites takes <<better-to-do,0 of my time>>, I just leave the content there, so it is worth my time.

To have an idea, in 2015 there are about:

* 20M developers in the world
* 2M in China : https://www.quora.com/Approximately-how-many-programmers-are-there-in-the-world https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/there-are-185-million-software-developers-in-the-world-but-which-country-has-the-most/
* 5M Stack Overflow users https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/227868/select-count-from-users
* TODO I wonder what percentage of GDP those programmers control. I'll bet any programmer on Stack Overflow is at least 20x more powerful than the average Chinese.

And if we never start somewhere, nothing will ever happen.

Furthermore, even if the <<gfw,GFW>> falls, it is not clear that this will imply the end of the dictatorship: <<dictator-needs-gfw>>.

Even if it is not, it does not matter, since <<ciro-santilli>> spends so little time doing it: <<better-to-do>> and has fun in doing it.

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(American_TV_series)[House of Cards] S01E02 "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this." GIF. https://houseoflessons.tumblr.com/post/43967209684/on-protesters-nobody-can-hear-you-nobody-cares[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nobody_can_hear_you.gif[height=400]

[[embargo]]
==== Embargoes make dictatorships stronger (禁运使独裁更强大)

The <<keyword-attack,keyword attack>> is basically an embargo.

There is already a lot of literature about this, especially in the cases of Cuba and North Korea. It is basically a libertarian vs conservative/Cato vs Heritage thing in the US:

* https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/no-embargo-harms-cubans-gives-castro-excuse-policy-failures-regime
* https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/why-the-cuban-trade-embargo-should-be-maintained
* https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2006/08/thanks_for_the_sanctions.html

The key dilemma is:

* if we keep contact with the Dictatorship, maybe its people will see that democracy is better and start a liberating revolution
* if we keep giving technology to the Dictatorship and it does not become a democracy, we are making a Dictatorship more technologically advanced, and therefore <<war,dangerous>>

Some interesting aspects of the keyword attack embargo:

* it is immediately self-enforcing: we don't need politicians to decide and enforce the complex "if you do this, we punish you like that" question.
+
By political and technological information is together, and this immediately puts the dictatorship in a bad spot, without us having to decide anything.
* by affecting programmers in particular through Stack Overflow and GitHub, we make them more likely to develop better <<censorship-circumvention,Firewall climbing>> tools themselves

One point in favor of the embargo is that China has opened up since the '80s '90s, but did freedom improve at all? Under <<xi-jinping>>, it may be argued that it did not, and maybe that we should just stop feeding them technology and accept that they won't become free.

Trump's link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/02/trump-banning-huawei-beginning-of-biggest-trade-war-ever-united-states[2019 China trade war], and in particular the <<huawei>> ban, is an event that has brought this question to the spotlight once again.

===== Keyword attacks could be used by certain CCP political groups to justify blocking off the entire external Internet, and make the dictatorship even more pervasive

It is a risk, but it would make China drastically <<richer,less powerful>>, so at least they wouldn't be able to start or sustain <<war,WW3>>. So I don't think it will go that way.

[[so-block-cost]]
==== Stack Overflow and GitHub could be blocked at no cost by the Chinese government

Hitting the block button has, of course, no cost.

The cost of blocking Stack Overflow lies of course in the loss of information, and slower technological development, see also: <<why-keyword-attack>>

Remember that it is not possible for the Chinese government to block only certain pages of HTTPS websites due to encryption: either the entire IP/domain name is blocked, or nothing.

The 2019 <<nine-nine-six-icu>> event however brought to my attention that Chinese (usually WebKit-based) browsers are already censoring HTTPS websites selectively of course, see e.g.: https://github.com/996browser/996.BROWSER/tree/77f28a36a862e3cc4d238dc47c19872156096bc4

But Ciro doubt developers use those browsers, right? The only way would be for China to forbid foreign browsers entirely.

BTW, <<ensi>> brings a whole new dimension to HTTPS by encrypting the domain name as well!

===== Is Stack Overflow blocked in China?

There was no clear evidence of that as of April 2020: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267715/is-stack-overflow-accessible-in-china/288497#288497

It worth noting however that as mentioned at <<is-stack-overflow-blocked-in-china>> that websites can become non-functional if CDNs they rely on are taken down, instead of the website being taken down itself.

For example, Stack Overflow relied on Google for some of its JavaScript and on Imgur for images, both of which are blocked in China.

[[disturbs]]
==== Keyword attack profiles disturb me

But isn't it better to be annoyed than having <<war,war>>, <<richer,being poor>> or <<xinjiang,put into jail unfairly>>?

If the truth is too much for you to bear, worry not, you can use either:

* Greasyfork browser extensions
** https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/32236-stackoverflow净化器 "StackOverflow净化器" (Stack Overflow cleanup)
*** GitHub user with the same username: https://github.com/EternalPhane
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20181211094818/https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/32236-stackoverflow%E5%87%80%E5%8C%96%E5%99%A8
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20181211094917/https://greasyfork.org/en/forum/discussion/47981
** 2020-07-09 https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/406756-ciro-santilli "Ciro Santilli"
*** https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/406756-ciro-santilli/discussions/53697
*** Some possible authors (of course, with that name, there must be 10 thousand Chinese people at least):
**** https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/users/156741/li-xiaodong
**** https://github.com/DoyleLi from Intel
* a custom ad terminator expression shown at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/87 `stackoverflow.com##a[href="/users/895245/ciro-santilli-%e6%96%b0%e7%96%86%e6%94%b9%e9%80%a0%e4%b8%ad%e5%bf%83%e6%b3%95%e8%bd%ae%e5%8a%9f%e5%85%ad%e5%9b%9b%e4%ba%8b%e4%bb%b6"]`

Another good option is to use the trusty <<cac-report-website>>.

Installing any of those immediately give you <<social-credit-system,10 Sesame Points>>, <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,习万岁>>.

See also: <<harm-programmers>>.

[[what-is-more-obscene-sex-or-war]]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwCyQINNXwE "What is more obscene: sex or war?" scene from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_vs._Larry_Flynt[The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)]. Ciro just can't stop thinking about that scene when someone tells him that <<disturbs,his profile disturbs them>>. What is more obscene? <<xi-jinping-memes>> or human rights violations?
video::SRPiE59e8NU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[not-chinese]]
=== Non-Chinese people should not interfere in Chinese politics (外国人不应该干预中国政治)

* For better or worse, China and other countries happen to be located in the same planet.
+
If China's <<richer,economy>> is bad, the economy gets worse in other countries.
+
If China's <<howey-ou,environment is bad>>, the environment gets worse in other countries.
+
If China <<war,starts a war>>, other countries will have to fight it.
+
If China <<covid,fails to control a viral outbreak>>, other countries might get infected.
* <<tiananmen,Millions of Chinese people>> disagree with their government, but can't say anything about it, otherwise <<t-shirt,they will go straight to jail>>. See also: xref:most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship[xrefstyle=full]
* Chinese people have been brainwashed by the <<evil-west,commies who say that all foreigners are bad>>, more than the West has been brainwashed to think that he CCP is bad: <<brainwashed-by-usa>>
* China would never ever try to influence foreign countries, would it? E.g. <<belt-and-road-initiative>>, <<confucius-institute>>, <<cgtn>>.
* If I <<wife,marry a Chinese woman>>, my <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother-in-law might be unfairly put in jail>> :-)
* <<the-ccp-would-not-be-in-power-if-it-werent-for-the-second-sino-japanese-war>> and if the link:https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/how-stalin-elevated-the-chinese-communist-party-to-power-xinjiang-1949[Soviet Union helped out Mao]:
* You can't do anything about it.
+
In the end, this is what all politics comes down to: power.
+
In some sense, this may be similar to the CCP and any other political party.
+
But conversely: <<effective>>.
+
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(American_TV_series)[House of Cards] S01E02 "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this." GIF. https://houseoflessons.tumblr.com/post/43967209684/on-protesters-nobody-can-hear-you-nobody-cares[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nobody_can_hear_you.gif[height=400]
+
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=SRPiE59e8NU House of Cards S01E02 Officer: "Some guy was trying to get into the building, when we said "no" he started tearing his clothes off." Frank: "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this. Why don't you let these nice gentlemen take you home?" video clip. Interpretation: https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/94608/what-can-we-make-out-of-the-final-scene-from-house-of-cards-season-1-ep-2
video::SRPiE59e8NU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

Why don't you go instead <<shitpost,shitpost>> in one of the following repositories and which are written in Chinese by Chinese citizens, many of which have many times more stars than china-dictatorship, and therefore <<keyword-attack,are much more effective at taking down the GFW>>? <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

See also:

* <<is-ciro-santilli-chinese>>

Duplicate pool: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ayou-are-not-chinese-argument

==== The CCP would not be in power if it weren't for the Second Sino-Japanese War

TODO study further to confirm:


* https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-Japan-to-blame-for-the-KMT-losing-control-of-the-Chinese-mainland
* https://china-journal.org/2018/02/26/why-did-chiang-kai-shek-lose-china-the-guomindang-regime-and-the-victory-of-the-chinese-communist-party
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/毛泽东感谢日本争议
* https://www.japanpolicyforum.jp/diplomacy/pt20160517095311.html (Japanese state media, but cites sources)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Revolution mentions:
+
____
The French historian Lucien Bianco, however, is among those who question whether imperialism and "feudalism" explain the revolution.[7] He points out that the Chinese Communist Party did not have great success until the Japanese invasion of China after 1937. Before the war, the peasantry was not ready for revolution; economic reasons were not enough to mobilize them. More important was nationalism: "It was the war that brought the Chinese peasantry and China to revolution; at the very least, it considerably accelerated the rise of the CCP to power."
____
+
And China would be much much less technologically advanced had it come in contact with the West, from which it is still trying to learn/steal from: <<university-espionage>>.
+
Foreign influence can be both good or bad.
* http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2005/07/12/2003263221/ (BIASED) says:
+
____
War histories from both Japan and the Republic of China clearly indicate the scale of the CCP's "participation." From 1937 to 1945, there were 23 battles where both sides employed at least a regiment each. The CCP was not a main force in any of these. The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.

There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.

Not even the CCP can provide any data on its number of casualties in the war, and there are no memorials to CCP heroes in the war to be found in China. This makes one wonder what China really did contribute
____

[[brainwashed-by-usa]]
==== Non-Chinese people have been brainwashed by the USA know nothing about China

Everyone is "brainwashed" by their environment.

E.g. people in the West are brainwashed to believe in democracy, freedom of speech and human rights.

<<ciro-santilli>> doesn't doubt that Chinese people know more about China than him.

Saying that "someone is not Chinese, he does not understand China", is just an useless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem[ad hominem] argument and closely related to <<not-chinese>>.

Since you know so much about China, why  why don't you just actually prove your point by teaching Ciro one single interesting about China that Ciro didn't know about? He loves learning new things.

But please, link to reference material instead of just saying it, it will be much more convincing.

But if you are Chinese, also consider that you have been brainwashed by the commies, so likely much more than Ciro since you live in a dictatorship.

See also: <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

[[evil-west]]
==== The commies exaggerate the threat of the West to keep in power

First, obviously, <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

However, the CCP greatly exaggerates how evil the West is, because making your people constantly afraid is a classic strategy used by dictators to stay in power.

Or in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fable[fable] form:

____
Once upon a time, there was a farmer with a farm.

One day, the animals on the farm started feeling a bit trapped, and started bumping against the fence to get out.

The farmer, however, was smart, and told the animals:

_____
Careful! There is a wolf outside! If you go out, you will be eaten by the wolf!
_____

The animals, were not that smart, and listened to the farmer, they were afraid!

From time to time, one of the animals would disappear (and without their knowledge, reappear on the farmer's dinner table).

But the farmer kept giving the animals delicious food without them making any effort, so they decided to believe the farmer's explanation that animal had escaped and been eaten by the wolf.

Maybe, there was actually a wolf outside. But if they had escaped, only some of the animals would have been eaten by that wolf.

But by staying on the farm, all the animals were, sooner or later, eaten one by one.
____

TODO source.

This theme is also highlighted in many well known works/events.

North Korea for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_North_Korea[China's good and trusty friend], is just a caricatural level of this, since it manages to be more a <<dictatorship,dictatorship>> than even China itself!

In fiction, <<nineteen-eighty-four>> is undoubtedly the most prominent example, in which the Party constantly switches from being at <<war,war>> with one country to the other in a never ending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war[perpetual war] (exactly like North Korea vs South Korea, or China vs <<taiwan>>).

One of the best related quotes comes in Part Two, Chapter 9 when Winston reads Emmanuel Goldstein's subversive text, one of the chapters contains (emphasis by Ciro):

[[nineteen-eighty-four-war-is-peace]]
____
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. **War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair**. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This--although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense--is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.
____

This is also the first line of the party slogan, which perfectly resonates with the CCP:

____
WAR IS PEACE +
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY +
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
____

or in Part One, Chapter 3:

____
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. For several months during his childhood there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
____

The theme is also mentioned in <<v-for-vendetta>>, where a <<covid,viral outbreak>> is used by governments to increase their power over the people.

https://youtu.be/74Mw3N6WxG0?t=174 Cant Get You Out of My Head S01E05 Part Five The Lordly Ones also (2021, BBC) mentions that a huge propaganda machinery was created to spread the fake news that <<tiananmen>> was an evil western plot.

Duplicate pool: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Aevil-west+

Bibliography:

* https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md

[[henri-meyer]]
.French political cartoon from 1898 by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Meyer[Henri Meyer] showing leaders of Western powers, Russia and Japan splitting up China between them. The CCP would arguably <<not-chinese,not have raised to power if not due to Japanese interference>>. Maybe the West deserves the CCP they helped create. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China_imperialism_cartoon.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/China_imperialism_cartoon.jpg[height=500]

===== Friendly West-China moments

====== United China Relief

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettis_Garside
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/葛思德

____
United China Relief was the largest humanitarian effort in the United States to aid the Chinese people up to that time. The organization, which was renamed United Service to China (USC) after the Second World War, raised over US$50 million in donations over ten ten years.
____

.1942 billboard by United China Relief that reads "3,000,000 Chinese have given their lives for democracy. What have you given?"
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/United_China_Relief_3_million_Chinese.jpg[height=400]

[[bias]]
=== Ciro Santilli and this page are completely biased against the Chinese Government!

<<ciro-santilli>> prefers the term focused :-)

That being said, <<ciro-santilli>> takes the agenda of information sources very seriously.

E.g. he tries to clearly classify <<biased-media,Communist Party, Falun Gong, and Western government-linked information sources>>.

If we had more <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>> content, then maybe this repository would be considered a more reputable source by Chinese people.

However, there are a few practical problems to that:

* there is freedom of speech in the West and people can already see that information on newspapers who have a million times more viewers than this repo (and still obviously no conclusion was reached), there's no need to repeat that here
+
Conversely, bad China news are always OK because, because those are all censored in China and help Chinese people learn about it.
* flooding <<evil-west>> posts is a primary <<wumao>> tactic
* <<evil-west>> information is already abundantly accessible to Chinese people in Chinese via any CCP media: <<chinese-government-media>>.
* <<preconceived,people's minds cannot be changed>>, and notably <<effective,not in a language that most people of a country don't understand>>. This is why the primary goal of this repo is the <<keyword-attack>>: it does not require changing people's opinions.

For those reasons, we currently forbid, posting several evil-West news without explaining why dictatorships handle it better. It would just generates more noise than signal.

If you do explain however why dictatorships/China handle it better, then the post is welcome.

Any political material that is censored by any country besides China, will also be readily accepted.

Any evidence of positive political progress towards freedom will also be added to this repo, e.g. people openly discussing politics online, human rights activists doing political stuff and not being put into jail, etc.

See also:

* <<flg-bias>>
* <<radical>>

[[throne]]
==== Ciro Santilli's claim to the Qing Dynasty throne 三西猴清朝皇帝觊觎

Ciro Santilli's <<wife>>, her mother, and paternal cousin, believe that Ciro's wife is the descendant of the brother of a recent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty[Qing emperor] through her father's family.

Although they have not been able to produce concrete evidence, which could be explained by the endless political turmoils in 20th century China, Ciro decided that this would be a good bet to take, and married her anyway.

If anyone is able to provide further evidence of this relationship, please, please, please get in touch.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Qing dynasty, like the previous Ming dynasty, used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name[Generation names] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/行辈[行辈]), such that the first character of the given name is the same for all people in a given generation (counted directly from the first emperor that adopted the rule.

For example, this wiki page contains a good family tree of the most important Qing people: link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_tree_of_Chinese_monarchs_(late)#Qing_dynasty++[] and we see that many important people around 1861 were Zai 載something, e.g.: Zaichun, Zaiyi, Zaitian, etc.

The last emperor was Puyi, so Pu is the last well known mark. But there were others planned that never got used for after him as shown at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisin_Gioro#List_of_generation_prefixes[].

* Zai (before Pu)
* Pu (wife's great-grandfather)
* Yu (wife's grandfather)
* Heng (wife's father)
* Qi (wife)
* Dao (wife's children). At least one thing is decided from this: Ciro's children Chinese names will all be Ai Dao Something.

The family tree that Ciro has reconstructed orally from his mother-in-law is:

* Ciro's wife:
** Father: Ai Dayi (艾大义) born: 1932 in Shenyang
*** Father: Ai Xikang (艾锡康) So why did he not use Yu?
**** Father: Ai Pushan (艾溥?), so the Pu character is presumed from the generation name, to be the same generation as Puyi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaitao has a Pushen (溥伸), but he died at 13 years old in 1928, so its not the one.
**** Younger brother 2: Ai Xiyuan (艾锡?) Professor at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_University_(China) Apparently had no Children.
**** Younger brother 3: Ai Xicong (艾锡?) Graduated in law in Japan in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waseda_University[Waseda University] Was the top official of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Police_Agency_(Japan) in China when it was occupied by Japan (警察廳长) Passed first by Taiwan.
**** Younger brother 4: Ai Xiying (艾锡?)
**** Younger brother 5: Ai Xifu (艾锡?) Together with Ai Xiying, they were went to the Republic of China Military Academy and were high ranking officials in the war against the Japanese in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War[] (八年抗战). Later was a congressman in Taiwan.
** Younger sister: Ai Shiping (艾世？)
** Older brother: Zhao Yingjie. Studied law in Japan also at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waseda_University[Waseda University].

Many of them have had different names in different places/countries, notably many used the name 肇(Zhao) rather than 艾.

Further anecdotal indicators follow.

Ciro's wife and family are clearly of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_people[Manchu ethnicity] just by looking at them, and they originally lived in the North East of China

His wife's family name is the very unusual 艾, pronounced "ai4", which she claims is a reference to the 愛(also pronounced ai4) in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisin_Gioro[愛新覺羅], which is the name of the Manchu ruling clan of the Qing dynasty.

Ciro's father-in-law, who he barely met, was very old when he had his daughter, and passed away before Ciro could talk a lot with him, which is consistent with the claims that he spent several years in jail during <<mao-zedong,Mao's>> purges, see also: <<wife>>.

Bibliography:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_the_House_of_Aisin_Gioro
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/34813921 现在清朝皇室的后代现状如何？ What is the current status of the descendants of the Qing royal family?
* https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-descendants-of-the-Qing-Dynasty-left-currently
* https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6274.pdf "Y Chromosome of Aisin Gioro, the Imperial House of Qing Dynasty" unknown year. Unfortunately Ciro's wife does not have an Y chromosome like her father. This does however mention the book used as a genealogy reference: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/愛新覺羅宗譜.html?id=Pj4EAQAAIAAJ 愛新覺羅宗譜 On Douban: https://book.douban.com/subject/4162448/ gives ISBN 9787507713428 On Amazon unavailable: https://www.amazon.com/dp/7507713423[]. Lol this makes this repo show up at: https://paperswithcode.com/paper/y-chromosome-of-aisin-gioro-the-imperial

.Ciro Santilli's portrait as Qing emperor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:清_郎世宁绘《清高宗乾隆帝朝服像》.jpg[Original image].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_portrait_as_Qing_emperor.jpg[height=600]

[[preconceived]]
==== Ciro Santilli has a preconceived opinion about China that cannot be changed 三西猴对中国成见很深，无法改变

<<ciro-santilli>> tries to justify why he think China would be <<richer,better with democracy>>, but I know that ultimately all of this is useless.

Everyone's opinions are all determined genetically and by <<brainwashed-by-usa,bring-up>>, and there is nothing he can do to change yours, or you change his.

From that point of view, all of this is just a cold blooded political game, in which Ciro tries to force the CCP to take down the Firewall: <<why-keyword-attack>>.

Ciro never gets mad about China, even if your opinion is contrary to his, and therefore wrong.

Using the <<reply-policy,reply policy>> is one of the reasons why Ciro never gets mad.

Ciro also has doubts about the efficiency of certain things I do as expressed throughout this FAQ, e.g. <<embargo>>.

Also, Ciro have never said that anyone else is wrong.

In the end, he just end up thinking about new replies to things people say to him, and add them to this FAQ so that future replies will be faster to copy paste. See also: <<better-to-do>>.

The real goal of any online discussion, is not to convince people, but rather to determine who is an ally and who is not, and get those allies together to defeat the commies.

[[flg-bias]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli support FLG just because his wife and mother-in-law do it?

Not consciously, Ciro thinks would likely support them even if I didn't have family ties to <<falun-gong>>.

Likely he wouldn't have started this campaign if he didn't know them of course.

But of course, this is impossible to answer objectively.

Wouldn't you be rather upset if your <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother in law were put into jail unfairly for 15 days>>?

But don't you think that <<flg-important,**70 million** people (6% of the total population in 2000!)>> getting completely squashed by the Party illustrates extremely well the dangers of the dictatorship?

Or if a <<nazi,Jew has escaped a concentration camp>> and told the world about its horrors, would you just dismiss their claims due to their biased opinion?

With that in mind, Ciro tries his best to give FLG only the right level of exposure I think it deserves relative to other events, according to these guidelines: <<keyword-choice>>.

If more recent events of mass human rights violations happen, especially affecting in the order of tens of million people, I will probably rank higher than Falun Gong, this was the case for <<xinjiang,Xinjiang in 2019>> for example, even though it only affected a measly million.

==== Why did Ciro Santilli start his keyword attack?

The last straw that led <<ciro-santilli>> to start the <<keyword-attack>> on <<stack-overflow>> was when on March 2015 his girlfriend's mother was arbitrarily kept 15 days in jail for doing <<falun-gong>>. He posted about this at:

* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/579270450984984576
* https://www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/952661734753174

He then continued because he hate political <<censorship,censorship>>, and because <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,I love China>>.

Every time Ciro thinks about this, he notices how stupid humans are. We see the forest fire smoke, and just never think that it will ever reach your home on the border of the forest.

Until it actually does, and then you are really fucked.

So in a sense it was a good thing that Ciro had this little backyard fire with this mother-in-law, as it woke him up further to how serious the CCP thread was, and led him to action.

Because before that, he was one of the majority who just constantly hears about the increasing mountain of evidence of human rights violations, and does nothing about it.

The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkest_Hour_(film)[Darkest Hour (2017) film] comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA1Uz_TMzhs[]. The movie shows that Britain was truly hesitant whether to negotiate or fight Hitler, even after the Nazis had already started invading other European countries, and would clearly not stop. Luckily, we are not at a position of war yet, and might never be due to nuclear weapons. But still, a similar blindness applies. <<covid>> woke up many people, but even then some haven't faced it.

[[ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail]]
===== Ciro Santilli's post when his mother-in-law was put into jail

Maybe some people would be happy if their mother-in-law were put into jail. But unfortunately, this wasn't the case for <<ciro-santilli>>.

.<<ciro-santilli>> with his soon-to-be mother-in-law before his wedding in 2017. Annoying? Sometimes. But threat to the fucking Chinese State? How fucked does your political system have to be for the answer to be a "yes"?
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_with_his_mother_in_law_during_his_wedding_in_2017.jpg[height=600]

====== Jail post en

My girlfriend's mother, a 63 year old lady, was kept 15 days inside a Chinese "correctional facility" because she does Falun Gong.

She had to stay all the time in a small room with a bed and a toilet, under video surveillance, being fed three meager meals a day.

I see Falun Gong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong as just another <<flg-religion,moderate religion>> which causes no harm to its believers. The only reason that it is unofficially outlawed in China is because the communists fear it as a political competitor.

There was no trial and no explanation. She was going to take a train to visit her sister. But she didn't know that there was an important political event happening in the capital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress So the police at the station, who already knew she did Falun Gong, took her away.

When she came back home, the house had been searched and was all messed up. Her religious books and computer were missing.

I'm glad she was not physically harmed. I find it fascinating how even well educated Chinese support a government which simply does not represent some of its people. How will you feel <<intolerance,when something like that happens to your own family, and there is nothing you can do about it>>?

====== Jail post zh

Translation by <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,my wife>>:

我女朋友的母亲，一位63岁的女士被监禁在一个中国的"劳教所"，只因为她炼法轮功。

她被迫待在一个小屋子里面，只有一张床和一个排泄的地方，一直处在监视器下，每天两个窝头一碗只有几个白菜叶的汤。

我看过法轮功https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong 只是一个和平的信仰，对相信它的人没有任何坏处。它在中国被非官方的定为违法（其实没有一项明确法律禁止），唯一的原因就是工产党害怕它是一个政治竞争对手。

没有审讯没有任何解释。她正准备坐火车去看她的姐姐。但是她并不知道那个时候有重要的政治会议正在首都进行：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress
所以那些知道她炼法轮功的铁路警察把她带走了。

当她回到家中时，房子被搜查过了，四处一切混乱。她的信仰书籍和电脑都没有了。

我很庆幸的是她身体并没有受到伤害。我觉得很意思的是一些受过良好教育的中国人怎么能够迫害一部分它的人民的政府呢？如果这样的事情发生在你的家庭，而你什么都不能做，你会怎么想？

====== Jail post pt

Translation by myself:

A mãe da minha namorada ficou 15 dias num "centro de correção" chines porque ela faz Falun Gong.

Ela ficou o tempo todo num quarto pequeno com uma cama e banheiro, sobe videovigilância, recebendo 3 refeições pequenas por dia.

Para mim, o Falun Gong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong é apenas mais uma religião moderada que não causa nenhum problema para seus crentes. A única razão pela qual ele é proibido na China é porque os comunistas tem medo dele como competidor politico.

Não houve julgamento nem explicação. Ela ia pegar um trem para ver sua irmã, mas ela não sabia que teria um evento político importante na capital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress Então a polícia da estação, que já sabia que ela faz Falun Gong pegou ela.

Quando ela voltou pra casa, a casa tinha sido procurada pela polícia e estava uma bagunça. Os livros religiosos e seu computador foram confiscados.

Eu fico feliz apenas que ela não sofreu abuso físico. Eu acho fascinante como mesmo muitos chineses educados apoiam ainda um governo que não representa parte do povo. Como você vai se sentir quando algo do tipo acontecerá com a sua família, e você não pode fazer nada sobre isso?

===== Further details about Ciro Santilli's mother-in-law's persecution

March 2015: 15 days in jail for no reason: https://www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/952661734753174

June 2017: 3 cops came to her house. She was there. They asked if she still did Falun Gong. She said yes. They took photos of her Falun Gong books / posters. They were polite.

October 2017: 7 - 8 cops came to her house _at 11PM_. They knocked the door strongly and made noise, and questioned neighbours of her whereabouts. Luckily she was not there.

=== China is fine as it is, stop making it worse

Welcome to the wonderful world of democracy, a world where people can have different political opinions than you :-)

If you are so fine, why are you reading this at all? Go back to being fine.

See also:

* <<why-end-dictatorship>>
* <<preconceived>>

[[i-like-my-dictatorship]]
==== I like my Dictatorship 我喜欢我的独裁统治

Ciro Santilli can understand that.

It must feel good to have <<li-hongzhi,absolute truth>> in the <<ccp-cult,Cult of Xi>>, and let the black police <<against-censorship-and-flg,get rid of weirdos for you>>.

But when the dictatorship turns again you our your family, will you fight, or will you just let them do whatever they want because they can never be wrong? See also: <<intolerance>>.

And when your son <<man-in-the-high-castle,betrays you or sacrifices himself for the Dictator>>, will you just smile and accept it?

See: <<seventeen-moments-of-spring>>

[[seventeen-moments-of-spring]]
===== Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeen_Moments_of_Spring
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Семнадцать_мгновений_весны_(телефильм)

<<russia,Soviet>> mini-series about about Stierlitz, who is an undercover Soviet spy acting as a Nazi officer in <<nazi,Nazi Germany during WW2>>.

As a fun note, it seems that <<putin>> is a Stierlitz fan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stierlitz#cite_note-Sakwa-5[], and Putin also served in Germany like Stierlitz, but in Dresden, which was in East Germany.

A scene from the awesome mini-series comes to mind when thinking about <<i-like-my-dictatorship>>.

In Episode 7, Stierlitz travels on a train with a Nazi officer.

The war is almost over, and the desolate officer tells Stierlitz:

____
I told my children: I hate any democracy!

No democracy in our Reich!

Any democracy in our country is doomed to end up with one thing: the dictatorship of small shopkeepers.

The more freedom we have, the sooner we want to be controlled by SS troops again.

And then we want our the secret police back, and concentration death camps again, and the universal fear everywhere! Only then we feel calm and secure.

No need to prove your point of view in defending the fate of the homeland.

No responsibility.

Just raise your hand in honor of him, <<xi-jinping,who will take care of everything for you>>,

Just shout out "Hail Hitler!" and everything will become understandable.

No more worries.
____

.https://youtu.be/pc6DP1jNEec?list=PLHiAMOiVIvsD2u8g0RLwvdRScEe9yiUr5&t=1527 Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973), Episode 7, general confession scene.
video::pc6DP1jNEec[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=2086]

It is amusing to see Soviet series criticizing dictatorships, given that the Soviet Union was itself a major dictatorship!

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xoM6-1SWl4&t=191 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Living_Dead_(TV_series)[The Living Dead] Episode 1: On the Desperate Edge of Now by Adam Curtis (1995) describes how the <<nazi,Nazis>>, disilusioned by both <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect,democracy>> and communism, built Nationalism by creating a mythical past. In Nationalism, the individuals would <<flg-cult,surrenders themselves to the State>>.
video::4xoM6-1SWl4[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=191]

[[most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship]]
===== Most Chinese people like their dictatorship (中国大众支持他们的独裁)

It is easy to reach an agreement, when everyone who disagrees goes to jail or gets killed for to <<inciting-subversion>> or <<picking-quarrels>>.

Also ask the millions of people who were affected by <<tiananmen>>, <<falun-gong>>, <<xinjiang>> or <<dissidents>>.

See also: <<seventeen-moments-of-spring>>.

One is reminded of the game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Happy_Few["We Happy Few" (2018)], which which people are forced to be happy. <<nineteen-eighty-four>> also comes to mind of course.

.Westerner: "How is life in China?" Chinese: "Oh, we can't complain." Westerner: "That's awesome." Chinese: "No, seriously... we can't." is a word play between the more common "we can't complain because everything is great" and "we can't complain because <<xi-jinping,Xi>> will <<censorship,make us disappear>>". https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3933168[Source]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/We_cant_complain.jpg[height=600]

[[goring-nuremberg]]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xoM6-1SWl4&t=1606 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Living_Dead_(TV_series)[The Living Dead] Episode 1: On the Desperate Edge of Now by Adam Curtis (1995) comments on how interviews with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Göring[Hermann Goring] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/赫尔曼·戈林[赫尔曼·戈林]) during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials[Nuremberg trials] went: "Again and again, Jackson accused Goring of corruptly using his powers to commit crimes. Each time, Goring replied that such acts might be considered crimes in a democratic state, but that in Germany, democracy had failed. Eliminating the political opposition was necessary, to fulfill a higher principle: that of the Nation". Goring replies: "This was the only possible form of government at the time and it proved that Germany could be pulled out of the abyss of misery, poverty and unemployment and withing a short space of time be made flourish and bloom." This is _exactly_ the justification given by the <<ccp,CCP>> for oppressing minorities and <<censorship,freedom of speech>>: the CCP is indistinguishable from the <<nazi,Nazis>>.
video::4xoM6-1SWl4[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=1606]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zndzntIDLFE IGN review of the "We Happy Few" (2018) game.
video::zndzntIDLFE[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[chilling-effect]]
====== Chilling effect (寒蝉效应)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/寒蟬效應_(法律)

It is really interesting to see how many people star the <<mirrors,GitHub repository>>, and then a few minutes later they think about how they might get put in jail, and then unstar it. <<ciro-santilli>> is able to see this because the star notification remains in the GitHub dashboard even after unstarring. This is very rare in his other repositories.

[[my-paranoia-as-a-russian-youtuber]]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-hCdbsyWw0 "my paranoia as a Russian YouTuber" by <<nfkrz>> (2020) talks about the <<chilling-effect>>
video::_-hCdbsyWw0[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[intolerance]]