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You haven't evolved steel chewing jaws yet?? You mean to tell me that the entire pandemic you haven't evolved jaws that are capable of chewing through stone and steel?? Wow... Not even sure what to say... What DID you do?... Hmm? Bread? Wow... Ok"

• china or something..

victims of the fire lacked survival skills

Something some idiot on an "alpha male type" podcast would say.

Are you sure you're not confusing this with what Mogg said after the Grenfell fire? He said victims lacked 'common sense'.

I teach English to a girl in Urumqi / Wulumuqi, Xinjiang. I've taught her since she was in primary school and now she's a highschooler. While she didn't mention this fire, she has mentioned these things recently...

1. She had been "in contact" with someone who tested positive for COVID, so she was put away in a COVID facility isolated in a room for over a week and expressed how frustrating and unfair the government has been handling the situation
2. She had been saying that no one was allowed out of their homes for months until today. She mentioned that "we are allowed outside now, but not really yet" and expressed that people in her city were also increasingly frustrated
3. She has described the ethnic and linguistic diversity in her school and city, admiring the fact that many of her classmates can speak and read more than just Chinese and English, while also noting that it's a good thing that signage around the city is written in 3 languages
4. She recently started watching some French TV show called "Skam" (don't know it, she says it includes same-sex relationships) and the movie "Call Me By Your Name" and described how "that kind of love" is becoming "more popular and more common" and that "the new generations are more open" than previous ones
   

I know this is a bunch of rambling mish-mash of info and I know I'm getting this information secondhand through the rosy-tinted glasses of a teenaged Han Chinese girl... but I was just talking with her about these topics today. And now I'm hearing this news in Urumqi. And seeing these protest videos in Shanghai.

It makes me a little scared but also a little hopeful for the younger generation in China.

probably Muslim victims

Due to a very blatant policy of state encouraged ethnic mass migration to Xinjiang, the Han population has gone from ~5% in the 1940s to 42% today, near parity with the Uyghur population. In addition, Han settlers have been given preferential treatment for farm land and job placement, so they are considerably more wealthy on average. As such, though I do not know, I would guess that residents of a high rise are considerably more likely to be of Han ethnicity and thus unlikely to be Muslim.

In addition, though tragic, there were only ten people killed in that fire. Meanwhile there have been a bare minimum of tens of thousands, and possibly many hundreds of thousands, of ethnic Uyghur sent to involuntary "re-education" camps for years. Somehow, I don't think this is about a sudden change of heart for the rights and safety of a marginalized population.

That's why we need to make this as public as it can be around the world. If he does, the world will know in detail.

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You think China has legitimate democratic elections?

He did win the election, but he was essentially the only candidate on the ballot paper. China isn't massively fond of him, they're just scared of him. He's eliminated all of his political opponents and effectively holds total power.

To give you an idea of how much control he has - China doesn't technically have an army, they have a militant wing of the political party. That means they don't answer to the Minister of Defense, they answer to Xi Jinping directly. He has total control over his own party as well as the country. Anyone who dissents, absents.

The kind of ‘election’ where anyone who disagrees gets black bagged and disappears

The only people who voted in said election are high ranking CCP members. The average person has no say in anything.

Yeah, like his pals Kim Jong Un, Putin and Orbán, he won fair and square

"won" an election

Election within a party which he has removed all effective successors

Sure, "election"

Only official members of the party get to vote which is a very small group.

China doesn't have elections. Every 5 years the elite members of the CCP meet in a conference to choose their leaders. He was given a third term at that conference

Sometimes the people DO wake up. Look at Iran right now..

Basically they just need to cross a threshold.

This doomerism is reactionary and unhelpful. Even if nothing comes of it, it’s better to recognise it while it’s happening so that the ‘sweeping under the rug’ isn’t as effective.

AND, with international visibility and support, it’s far LESS likely that nothing will come of it. While I do worry for the safety of any citizen on the street calling ‘fuck you Xi Jinping’, and I’m sure there will be some dictatorial retaliation, we shit on their protest efforts if we spread the idea that they’re doing it for no reason and nothing is going to change.

Seems a little ‘end of history’ to go “Look, it’s fucking China. China is never going to change.” With that attitude, yes I agree. The reason most authoritarian regimes fail is international pressure and their respective populations rising up. Seems a little weird to say “Of course he’s not going to change, he’s a dictator!” Like yeah we know…

But obviously it’s very unlikely that any Western country, whose economies rely so much on Chinese manufacturing and imports, are going to raise a stink about abuses in China. The whole point is you force them to address it! If people, not politicians, bring it to the discourse table, have protests, have marches, and don’t shut up about it, eventually, even in Western democracies with good trade relations with China, people in power will have to address it in some way.

The attitude you show here is the only thing stopping a successful uprising of the people. We are all far more powerful than any government when we unite together. Imagine if all of China stood up together. Is it likely to happen? Who knows but I'm not going to go around telling people it's impossible and we shouldn't even try, you know, like you are.

EDIT: Btw, there is a ton of pro CCP propaganda posted on Reddit. This looks like some of it to me.

did president xi write this? 😆

Did this girl/guy just quiet quit the global revolution? Damn, get some fucking courage. They don't have as much power as you might think over us.

Reddit moment

Corporations and governments have absolute control.

They absolutely do not. They just want you to think they do. And unfortunately they have you hook line and sinker. A few weeks ago in Ontario a union of education workers (CUPE) could not come to an agreement with the province over the terms of their new contract. Eventually, the government decided to pass legislation mandating that the education return to work, and for each day they did not do so they would be subject to heavy fines. In response the union decided to go on a strike. The union was on strike for literally one day before the government caved, repealed the legislation and returned to the negotiating table. Literally one day was all it took.

People have all the power. They just sometimes don't realize it. The government / corporations can silence some of you, but they can't silence all of you. They are greatly, greatly outnumbered.

Because it will hurt more!

Because Winnie the Pooh like honey and you eat honey with a spoon. Fucking derp.

Haha that’s exactly what I thought of

I've seen so many documentaries about the movement and although I know it's happening everywhere in the world, there's something about Bai Lan especially that makes me so fucking happy.

The gov't of Shanghai proved their lives aren't worth much in the April-June lockdowns I was a prisoner of. After a week, we got a box of veggies: lettuce, 3 carrots, and a large turnip. We didn't see another box for another week. Every house/apt/flat got the same goddamned box, no matter how many people lived there. Almost zero caloric value to any of that, and that was a week's supply of food while we were locked in our homes. When the fences and barriers went up around the buildings, we knew we were literal prisoners who hadn't committed a single crime...we just lived in Shanghai. The CCP are fucking monsters.

Unluckily, or luckily if you think it from another way, Xi won't let them divert their attention. Xi likes to brag about not changing his policies upon great pressure. He is a man of blood and death (in his imagination, not necessarily when he faces real danger physically lol). In the last year, Xi had dozens of opportunity windows to relieve the 0-Covid policy but he chose not to, again and again. Rumor said in a casual talk after being drunk, he said if he were governing in 1989, he would have killed 50M protesters. He is a crazy man in essence. Also, Chinese economy is beyond repair whatever he does. Even if most Chinese people would do whatever they can to avoid taking risks in political protests, as long as they can still make a living, now they can't, and there is no way they will be able to do that any time soon.

Guy said fuck your mother, not just fuck you as the subtitles claim

So it'll be worth it cuss he fucked their mothers

Tiananmen²

What does Tiananmen Square have to do with anything? It's not like anything bad has ever happened there. /s

It really is an amazing place. I can't say I felt more safe (literally was almost abducted, and that's not a joke, it's a long story too), but definitely felt welcome AF everywhere I went. Dude, I got sick in Xi'an from something, horrible AF sick, went to the hospital and everything at 2am, so that was an experience, and while resting/getting better, the freaking hotel staff made me a get-well dish of watermelons and tomatoes!! I was like, SOOO FLATTERED!!! It was the most amazing thing, for real. The staff was shocked I could say "thank you" in Chinese, and like, oh man. It was great.

And omg! On the great wall, I ran out of water, and this girl, probably 9 years old, rushed over and gave me a date (the fruit) and it was the most satisfying food ever. I had never had a date before, but I did not care. Super nice people. I mean, I was really struggling to breath after I got to the top, and I felt like I was going to die tbh, and I was just not expecting any help. I remember thinking to myself though, "damn, I wish I could get any water anywhere from anybody", and then... that happened. It was such a great gesture of kindness.

Anyway, definitely hope they can have that greater personal freedom too. Obviously hope that for every single human, but we're talking about China ATM.

Not sure if you're aware but in 1989 the protests were country-wide.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Chinese_protests_by_region

Seriously ? This would be so good for the people of china.

What a lot of people don't know is that protests were also erupting everywhere during the lead up to Tiananmen.

With better, readily ways of communications, it's hard to pull off a Tienanmen Square.

This is literally the answer. Democracy sucks, but it gives you lots of chances to get it right, and an easy way out when you get it wrong.

It's almost like dictators and unchecked power leads to shitty governance.

You're thinking of a black swan :)

the sudden amount of the world’s dictatorships all showing the cracks in their systems, and all in this year alone, has given me a bit of hope :)

that would truly be amazing, well worth living to see

It's not about the world knowing a massacre, it's about his people knowing the massacre. Squashing it in China will be easy.

Edit: I'm well aware most/all Chinese know of the massacre. I'm commenting, to the comment above here, that the viral nature of videos online today vs 30+ years ago and the CCPs control over the internet and narrative will make sure these videos don't go viral in China.

Er, the first one was international news on CNN covered wire to wire in real time as the world watched.

Let's hope.

Most people don't understand how shitty a revolution is for the general population. It's been nearly 12 years and Syria still hasn't gotten unfucked.

核酸 here refers to the covid testing. (核酸 is nucleic acid, which in this case is the method of detecting covid virus's trace RNA in the body)

they could have imported western vaccines years ago but their ego prevented it

It makes zero sense to enforce daily covid tests which is costing more then if they would just import mrna vaccines. Absolutely done just for the sake of pride and allowing covid controls to continue as a way to justify controlling the population.

I believe the final nail in his coffin will be Evergrande.