china-dictatorship
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2018新疆改造中心，1989六四事件，1999法轮功 ，2019 996.ICU, 2018包子露宪，2015 710律师劫，2015巴拿马文件 邓家贵，2017低端人口，2008西藏骚乱
= China Dictatorship 中国独裁统治 :china-dictatorship-media-base: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship-media/master :cirosantilli-media-base: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master :idprefix: :idseparator: - :sectanchors: :sectlinks: :sectnumlevels: 6 :sectnums: :toc: macro :toclevels: 6 :toc-title:
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship[GitHub Pages] | https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[GitHub project] | https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/archive/gh-pages.zip[HTML download]
Chinese "Communist" <<dictatorship,"Dictatorship">> "facts". 中国《共产主义》<<dictatorship,《独裁统治》>>的《事实》。<<faq,FAQ>>, <<news,news compilation>> and <<restaurants,restaurant>> and <<music,music>> recommendations. <<faq,常见问答集>>，<<news,新闻集>>和<<restaurants,饭店>>和<<music,音乐>>建议。<<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,Heil Xi 卐>>. <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,习万岁>>。
This README is too large and so https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/1610[GitHub cuts it up] on https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[github.com]. You can view it fully at https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship[] or by downloading it locally as shown at: <>.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_The_Governance_of_China_photo.jpg[height=600]
toc::[]
[[about]] == About (关于)
This repo has the following goals:
== Copypasta
Here's an image/sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copypasta[copypasta]/summary of key events for the <>.
Another advantage of this is that since it comes first in the repo, it ensures that key elements show up on github.com despite file size cutups: https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/1610[].
Each summary section contains a link to the main section, which contains sources and description of each image.
Text only:
Text and image:
六四事件 Tiananmen square protests 1989
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#tiananmen
Music!
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_students_sitting.jpg[height=400]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man.jpg[height=400]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tianmen_crushed_dead.jpg[height=600]
法轮功 Falun Gong 1999 70M believer religion banned
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#falun-gong
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_Ghuangzhou.jpg[height=600]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_lady_silenced.jpg[height=600]
新疆改造中心 Xinjiang re-education camps 2018
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#xinjiang
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_prisoners_sitting_identified.jpeg[height=400]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_prisoners_march.jpg[height=400]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uyghur_sale_website.jpg[height=500]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_camp_in_camp.jpg[height=600]
小熊维尼 Winnie the Pooh 2018
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#winnie-the-pooh
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Pooh_Obama.webp[height=400]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Abe_Pooh.webp[height=400]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_heart.jpeg[height=400]
郝海东 Hao Haidong Chinese soccer superstar turns against the CCP 2020
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#hao-haidong
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hao_Haidong_kick.jpg[height=500]
冠状病毒审查 Censorship of the 2019 Corona Virus
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#corona
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Wenliang_covid.jpg[height=400]
基督迫害 Christian persecution 2018
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#christianity
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Church_demolition.jpg[height=400]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Last_Supper_Mao.jpg[height=400]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pope_CCP_deal.jpeg[height=400]
LGBT权利 The suppression of homosexuality
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#gay-rights
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tianmen_lesbian_kiss.jpg[height=500]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Addicted_bed.jpg[height=400]
996.ICU
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#nine-nine-six-icu
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/996ICU.png[height=400]
Gay Putin
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#gay-putin
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Gay_Putin.jpg[height=400]
The poisoning of Alexei Navalny 2020
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#the-poisoning-of-alexei-navalny-2020
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Navalny_hospital_sitting.jpg[height=400]
Vajiralongkorn Hamtaro
https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#thai-king-hamtaro
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Side_by_side_comparison_between_Thai_king_Vajiralongkorn_and_Hamtaro.jpg[height=400]
[[mirrors]] == Mirrors of this page (这个网页的镜像)
You can download the webpage locally from GitHub at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/archive/gh-pages.zip
Media such as images are not stored in this repository, but rather at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship-media to keep the lightweight clone. The locally downloaded HTML will then read images from that repository. But we've learnt after creating that repository that the subdomain that serves the images is censored: <>, so they might still be broken.
You can also clone locally with Git:
.... git clone https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship cd china-dictatorship git checkout gh-pages xdg-open README.html ....
or build it yourself:
.... bundle install make xdg-open README.html ....
You can also build with local images:
.... git clone https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship git clone https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship-media cd china-dictatorship make MEDIA=../china-dictatorship-media ....
Given <>, this might be the only way to view the images from China.
The cool thing about Git is that we can maintain several mirrors on multiple websites very easily:
GitHub Pages: https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship trade-offs with https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[]:
It is really interesting to see how many people star the GitHub repository, and then a few minutes later they think about how they might get put in jail, and then unstar it. Talk about <>! But yes, for the love of God, please stay safe: <>.
GitHub Pages was first enabled in 2020-03-22 at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/commit/0b362a83fb5dd55f67b9d351551d0c18e7f3229a[].
The perfect solution might be to download all images and upload them to https://github.com/cirosantilli/media since GitHub content does not go through Camo, we have to see if such images don't fail to load as often.
We also have a NPM Node.js package https://www.npmjs.com/package/china-dictatorship[]. After https://askubuntu.com/questions/594656/how-to-install-the-latest-versions-of-nodejs-and-npm/971612#971612[installing NPM], you can be use it as:
.... npm i -g china-dictatorship china-dictatorship > README.html ....
This forces China to also block/curate package managers to block this repo. The package is already available in the following NPM Chinese mirrors, both which were blocked at some point:
Noticed down as of 2021-02-23, replaced by a dummy package admined by fengmk2@gmail.com presumably https://github.com/fengmk2 and https://fengmk2.com/ and https://twitter.com/fengmk2 He is a large NPM contributor, and likely cnpm too. TODO is he pro or against <> based on online comments?
+
In order to overcome this, includers
Taken down as 404 likely around 2021-02-22 after come incoming links from https://developer.aliyun.com[] to https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship?spm=a2c6h.14275010.0.0.60be9dc4vwIZTP[] and ?spm=.14275010.0.0.60be9dc4PsRmA.
There is actually a cnpm tool to install from Chinese mirrors: https://github.com/cnpm/cnpm[].
We also managed to upload a Python PyPi package at: https://pypi.org/project/china-dictatorship/ Is as:
.... python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade china-dictatorship china-dictatorship.py > README.html ....
Like NPM, this will also have Chinese mirrors that will need to be censored by their admins ovrview https://titanwolf.org/Network/Articles/Article?AID=25a20c20-c97b-4bfe-af67-760861343658 :
We later found on Google by chance that libraries.io picked it up and rendered the README.adoc nicely as well: https://libraries.io/pypi/china-dictatorship (https://web.archive.org/web/20200318043050/https://libraries.io/pypi/china-dictatorship[archive]). This is why packaging is a good idea.
A programmatic interface is also exposed on those packages, making it easy to quickly add a --china option to your project, e.g. from Python:
.... import china_dictatorship assert "Tiananmen Square protests" in china_dictatorship.get_data()
print(china_dictatorship.get_data()) ....
or from Node.js:
.... const china_dictatorship = require('china-dictatorship'); if (!china_dictatorship.get_data().includes("Tiannmen Square protests")) throw 0;
console.log(china_dictatorship.get_data()); ....
You have to do the assert after the imports because otherwise Chinese mirrors could replace the real package with dummy packages to not break imports, as was already done once at https://registry.npm.taobao.org/china-dictatorship[].
This outputs the rendered HTML, which end users should the pipe into a file:
.... ./your-program --china > README.html xdg-open README.html ....
Concrete examples:
TODO: create an Ubuntu PPA and Ruby gem as well.
Another source of China-specific mirroring are GitHub proxies, https://linuxpip.org/github-in-china/ contains an overview:
Update all mirrors in one go with: link:push-mirrors[]:
.... ./push-mirrors ....
In particular, that script calls link:push-gh-pages[]:
.... ./push-gh-pages ....
which is more lightweight and pushes just to GH Pages, so we are going to be using that more often to avoid overloading package managers too much.
There is no need to update package versions or add git tags, all of that gets done automatically by the script!
[[faq]] == FAQ 常见问答集
[[why-keyword-attack]] === Why attack websites with censored keywords? 用审查词攻击网站有什么用呢？
The attack: <>.
To <<effective,destroy the firewall>>.
This would then end <>.
And then <<dictator-needs-gfw,Ciro believes>> that this would also <<why-end-dictatorship,end the dictatorship>>.
The keyword attacks increase the cost of censorship.
If commies censor things, they will get worse IT technology, and thus become <<richer,less rich>> and militarily powerful.
Since all they care about, like any other politicians, is power, the only way to make them stop censorship is to make the cost of censorship higher than not censoring.
Without the threat that China will be less technologically, and therefore militarily advanced, there is no incentive for the CCP to destroy the firewall.
The goal is to put them in a position where they have to choose between either:
but not both, since having both means that they will <<war,start WW3 and destroy humanity>>.
And if they decide to destroy the dictatorship, Ciro wants to help China become <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,the most awesome country on Earth>>.
Closely related/identical ideas are <> and <>.
Related attack: <>.
[[harm-programmers]] ==== Does Ciro Santilli want to harm the Chinese programmers? 三西猴想要伤害中国程序员吗？
No.
This is not a <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,revenge>> of any kind.
Ciro knows that he is harming you in the short term, and he doesn't like that.
But he believes that this harm is a necessary means to reach his real goal, which is to destroy the <<gfw,firewall>>, and the <<dictatorship,dictatorship>>.
Don't you think it is worth a try? Destroying the firewall, would <<why-end-dictatorship,enormously benefit>> not only Chinese programmers, but every single other Chinese person too.
Once the firewall is destroyed, which <<dictator-needs-gfw,may destroy the dictatorship>>, he want China to develop the best science and technology in the world, and <>.
And by the way, with his https://github.com/cirosantilli[extensive contributions to open source software], Ciro is already helping China, and all underdeveloped countries, to become stronger. His hope is that if poor countries become richer and better educated, that they will be less likely to be influenced by the CCP's money, and therefore are more likely to be allies of democracy.
See also: <>.
[[harm-people]] ===== Does Ciro Santilli want to make the Chinese people people look bad?
No, the opposite.
Ciro only wants their <<dictatorship,dictatorial government>> to look bad to destroy it, and help China become <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,the most awesome country on Earth>>.
Even the Chinese that are against their own Government <<what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship,cannot do much about it openly>>, so it is not their fault.
And even those <<i-like-my-dictatorship,who supported their dictatorship>> must be respected, whoever <<stupid,stupid>> and <<brainwashed-by-usa,brainwashed>> you might think they are, <<democracy-is-a-religion,since it is impossible to prove who is right or wrong in politics>>.
See also: <>.
[[stupid]] ==== Does Ciro Santilli think that the Chinese are stupid or brainwashed? 三西猴觉得中国人是啥子或被洗脑吗？
Obviously not, if you even thought about this, it is likely because of: <>.
Don't you see that this is just pure and simple politics? And likely ineffective one at that: <>.
[[keyword-attack]] ==== Screen name keyword attack
A keyword consists of adding censored words to your username: https://stackoverflow.com/users/895245
This only works on websites that show usernames everywhere.
This then leads to your username appearing on thousands of pages, depending on how much you contribute to the website.
It is also possible to do it with images, although this is less effective in taking down websites since images are harder for the firewall to track automatically. But:
so maybe the most effective approach is to use both keywords and images to get the best of both worlds ;-)
This type of attack is essentially an <>, and it is especially effective in websites that contain valuable technical content, such as <> and <>.
See also: <>.
Some people say https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/284671/dont-st-where-you-eat[don't shift where you eat]. Ciro says: bring a shitbucket to the canteen, and start a shitfight.
.<> has been used by Ciro Santilli as a profile picture censored image attack image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Chrysanthemum_Xi_Jinping_with_black_red_liusi_added_by_Ciro_Santilli.jpg[height=400]
[[cute-cat-theory-of-digital-activism]] ==== Cute cat theory of digital activism (可爱猫理论)
Someone told <> a while after he had started doing his <> on <>, he didn't know about it before, but it is basically what he was doing.
You can never invent anything new anymore nowadays!
This is especially relevant to <>! And GitHub's mascot is also a cat ;-) Some mentions of this:
Related:
===== Bitcoin blockchain
Blockchain technologies, such as Bitcoin, provide essentially uncensorable (at a transaction cost), because the messages are put together with financial transactions which are extremely valuable to its users.
Services that can be used to easily view this data online include:
We have been able to find the following anti-CCP information in the blockchain so far:
Tiananmen massacre <--- I dare China to censor this.
But of course, there are crypto-<>'s there too!!! The incongruence of a dictatorship and uncensorability is just mind blowing:
South China Sea belongs to China-pc
Neutral references:
On the test blockchain (boring!):
Bibliography:
Other blockchains:
===== Collateral Freedom
<> people called a <>-related project of theirs "Collateral Freedom" (a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage[collateral damage]), in which they seem to be trying to forward censored websites somehow through AWS to force the Chinese Government to block the entire AWS in China:
Collateral Freedom ties access to information to the Chinese economy. If [authorities] truly want to block access to this information, then they must give up certain access to economic freedoms.
2015 coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/30/greatfire/
There's an useless Wiki page for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom
https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/10/amazon_backtracks_on_s3/ clarifies that on Amazon S3 the question is about:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/<bucket_name>/<object_key_name>https://<bucket_name>.s3.amazonaws.com/<object_key_name>the second of which can be easily blocked by domain, but the first can't, and how amazon was planning on killing the first option.
===== Dual-use technology
Normally, the term "dual-use technology" is used in the context of blocking exports that can be used either for peace, but also for war.
However, as mentioned https://twitter.com/Dogbert_Catbert/status/1372467670826684419[by a Twitter friend], a <> for Freedom of Speech is also essentially a dual-use matter.
[[meant-to-be-used]] === Politics should not be posted in technical websites such as GitHub or Stack Overflow 不应该在技术网站例如Stack Overflow和GitHub讨论政治
Is the Chinese government using the Internet the way it was meant to be used, by investing billions in <>?
What about <>? Did you also complain about it, or did you just star it like 250k of your fellow programmers?
Any act of protest will use things in ways that it was not meant to be used.
For example, the street is not meant to showcase protest banners, it is meant to be a passageway for cars.
As engineers, we have a moral responsibility towards society. We should not blindly follow orders of those in power if it violates our principles, e.g. build weapons or censorship mechanisms. And we should freely express our principles and violation concerns.
Making a statement where no one will ever see it, like a personal website, is <<effective,sure to have no effect>>.
Much of the best art and technology is about using something in a way that it wasn't meant to be used.
Finally, the political powers of each website decide what is allowed or not on their website, and what is not allowed gets blocked. So far, Stack Overflow and GitHub's Terms of Service have said to go ahead:
Another consideration is that any profile information is essentially a form of advertisement. Some people advertise their skills for hire, or their company and product. Other people, advertise their <<falun-gong,religion>> or <<gay-rights,sexual orientation>>. So why should you not be able to advertise your political position? Companies pay millions of dollars to grab other people's attention. Ciro feels it is much fairer to instead pay for those ads with your labour of love.
<> has, of course, a beautiful reply to this at https://github.com/programthink/zhao/tree/e8eea46424549c11792dfe61cf9e7698bdbd7240#致反对此项目的墙内程序员[]:
[[programthink-meant-to-be-used]]
致"反对此项目的墙内程序员"
本项目上线第二天，就收获 363 个 star 兼 88 个 fork，甚至还挤进 GitHub 的"当日 Trending"——俺很荣幸，也很高兴有这么多人给俺捧场。
但是在本项目的 issue 列表中也看到好几个反对此项目的程序员（应该都来自墙内），他们担心这个项目导致 GitHub 被 GFW 封杀。
这几年来，类似的言论俺已经看了不少。就好比强盗拿刀杀人，围观者不但没有谴责强盗，反而去谴责卖刀的店家——这就是传说中的"link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/斯德哥爾摩症候群[斯德哥尔摩综合症]"。
有兴趣的同学，可以看俺之前的博文——《link:https://program-think.blogspot.com/2012/06/stockholm-syndrome.html[天朝民众的心理分析：斯德哥尔摩综合症]》
Translation:
In reply to: "Programmers behind the <<gfw,GFW>> who are against this project"
The second day after the project went online, it got 363 stars and 88 forks, and even squeezed into GitHub's "Trending repositories of the Day". I am honored and I am so happy that so many people gave me their support.
However, in the issue list of this project, I also saw several programmers who opposed this project (likely all from within the GFW), and they worried that this project would cause GitHub to be blocked by GFW.
Over the past few years, I have read a lot of similar comments. A good comparison would be if a robber were killing someone with a knife, and the onlookers not only did not condemn the robber, but instead condemned the shop that sold the knife. This is the legendary "link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome[Stockholm syndrome]".
Interested people can read my previous blog post: https://program-think.blogspot.com/2012/06/stockholm-syndrome.html["Psychological Analysis of the People of the Heavenly Dynasty: Stockholm Syndrome"].
The more places we can denounce dictators, the better people are off, <<disturbs,the minor annoyance to sensitive people is worth it>>. Ciro wrote a poem:
Don't discuss politics on Stack Overflow. + Don't discuss politics on GitHub. + Don't discuss politics on YouTube. + Don't discuss politics on Facebook. + Don't discuss politics on Twitter. + Don't discuss politics. + Don't discuss. + Don't. + . +
Infinite duplicate pool:
==== Is Ciro Santilli making programming contributions with the main intent of promoting his political agenda?
No, that is just a side effect.
For example, if that were the case, he would definitely target more widely used technologies, in particular Web and JavaScript, instead of obscure things like C and assembly in which I have spent tons of my time.
Also, <<effective,any attempt to influence a billin people is unlikely to have any effect>>. Much more likely to have any effect, would be for <> to become rich and powerful first, and the best way to do that is to invest in whatever he thinks is most useful.
Actually, it can even be argued that Ciro's somewhat irrational, since he would be much more likely to become rich and powerful by bowing down to the CCP and trying to get their money instead.
On the other hand, becoming rich and powerful is also highly unlikely, so maybe it's justa matter of taking a low-risk low-reward path?
Ciro has have very little free time, and he will never do something for political reasons, only things that interest me technically.
Finally, do you really think he'd be able to do such awesome projects if he had primarily political considerations in mind? XD
===== Is Ciro Santilli making trivial edits on questions just to spam your name further?
No.
I just think that the website is great, and want to push it to perfection, in particular with better Google keyword hits, and uniform grammatically correct titles.
If you think that any of my edits were harmful, please ping me and open a meta thread to discuss specific edits, and I will comply with consensus.
[[why-end-dictatorship]] === Why would China be better without its Dictatorship?
Because it would make China, and the world:
[[richer]] ==== Why would democracy and freedom of speech make China richer? 言论自由让中国比较富有
There is infinite debate about this out there, some examples:
For:
This greatly increase the probability of dealing poorly with such problems, see e.g. all the global problems listed at: <>.
Against:
Killing a million people will make us richer? No problem, let's do it. + That is great when they make good decisions, but it sucks when they make <<war,bad ones>> more likely.
<> really likes https://web.archive.org/web/20180923192824/https://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/can-poor-countries-afford-democracy-becker.html[Posners'] way of putting it:
[[dictatorship-variability]]
While average rate of growth do not appear to differ much between democracies and authoritarian regimes, the variability in performance does differ more among authoritarian governments. China has had remarkable growth since the 1980s, but the prolonged devastation and hardship produced by China's "<>" (when millions of farmers starved to death) and its Cultural Revolution would unlikely have occurred in a democratic country like say India. Nor is it likely that say Cuba and many African nations would have suffered so long with such terrible economic policies if they had reasonably democratic institutions.
Maybe China was poor because of Mao's crazy communist regime. Similar regimes also made <> poor. And yes, before that exploitation by the West may have been a factor.
Definitely, the current regime is better than Mao's, but just imagine how rich China could be if it had more freedom and justice.
Imperial China lost the race for the Industrial Revolution. Will another dictatorship be able to stay on top of the next technological revolution?
.XKCD 937 "TornadoGuard" comes to mind in relationship to the <<dictatorship-variability,variable performance of dictatorships>>. https://xkcd.com/937/[Source]. image:https://web.archive.org/web/20200825230502im_/https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tornadoguard.png[height=600]
==== Censorship makes countries poorer
<<dictatorship,Dictatorships>> need <> to survive, and they must control all information to make themselves always look good: <>.
As a result, knowledge of problems flows more slowly, and therefore they also take longer to solve.
Maybe this hurts the argument, but Hillary agrees: :-)
But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccGzOJHE1rw&t=2110 "Secretary Clinton Speaks on Internet Freedom", U.S. Department of State, 2010-01-22 video::ccGzOJHE1rw[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=2110]
Also mentioned at: link:https://youtube.com/watch?v=d3dE_LDz_9E?t=1681[Google versus China - VPRO documentary - 2011]
This is also the basis of a <>.
This is also well illustrated in the link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)[HBO 2019 miniseries "Chernobyl"], which suggests that part of the reason why Chernobyl happened is because of the Soviet Union's obsession to save face.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocBVLMHK6c8 Chernobyl supercut scene where the reactor explodes, and a chief engineer "Comrade Dyatlov" accepts the 3.6 Roentgen measurement as "Not great, not terrible" and forwards it to his superiors who take actions based on that, even though the radiation measurement apparatus only goes up to 3.6 Roentgen. Needless to say, the actual radiation was much, much higher: when a proper measurement is made, the value is 15000 Roentgen! The URSS only admitted Chernobyl three days after when Swedish nuclear plant radiation detector alarms started going off. Notably, in order to keep it secret, they for example did not cancel the https://time.com/4313139/post-chernobyl-parade/[International Workers' Day parade in Kharkov, Ukraine which happened five days after the disaster]. video::ocBVLMHK6c8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.Photo of a CDV-717 radioactivity meter that maxes out at 3.6 Roentgen like the one that would have been used in Chernobyl. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChernobylTV/comments/bnio6n/36_roentgen_on_a_cdv717/[Source]. 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 <<corona,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]:
Or https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/[if you prefer]:
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])
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: <>.
===== 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.
[[corona]] ===== Censorship of the 2019 Corona Virus (2019冠状病毒病早期迹象审查)
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 <> 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: <>. 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:
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 <<censorship,the lack of freedom of the press>>.
<> of course doubts those numbers :-) <>.
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:
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:
Timeline:
video::LK1Pz8FmryM[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=132]
News coverage:
.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 <> 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 <>. 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:
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
Other interesting GitHub repositories: <>.
Related:
====== People arrested for reporting on the 2019 Corona Virus
video::Iwpr55PZEJ8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
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 <> + video::sUvBNpkxrJo[youtube,height=400,width=600]
TODO maybe not arrested but relevant:
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
2021-03-02 https://hk.appledaily.com/news/20210302/EK4WOQBICNEGDFP2SSG7ZJ3PGI/ (https://hk.appledaily.com/china/20210301/KM2MXDHHXRAQHFB4MYFU6XOFTY/[Chinese version]) "Chinese food delivery worker detained after campaigning for labor rights"
Chinese authorities have detained a worker after he advocated for fair pay and other labor rights from his former employer, the food delivery giant Ele.me.
Chen Tianhe (陳天河) has not been heard from since he was detained on Feb. 25, according to mainland Chinese media reports.
[[nine-nine-six-icu]] ===== 996.ICU (2019)
https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU
Repository published in 2019-04 protesting against excessive work hours by Chinese programmers.
At some point it moved its README to English.
This was not directly censored to our knowledge, but the fact that it was published on GitHub rather than Chinese social media highlights the obvious fact that Chinese programmers were weary of doing it under CCP controlled media which they do not trust.
The project name refers to:
Reached 180k stars in a week, and was the second most starred repository as of 2019-10 https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E100&s=stars&type=Repositories[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20191023084929/https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E100&s=stars&type=Repositories[archive])!!!
This is therefore the best example for Chinese tech workers that <<richer,freedom of speech is a good thing>>.
Coverage:
Related:
Other interesting GitHub repositories: <>.
.996.ICU logo. https://github.com/996icu[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/996ICU.png[height=400]
[[war]] ==== Why would democracy and freedom of speech make China less likely to start a war?
This has been discussed to death:
Some arguments include:
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:
Which reminds us of... <>:
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."
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.
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. <> translates literally as "The New Frontier"! Not to mention obviously the Qin unification of the <>.
===== 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, <>.
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 <>.
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 <>/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]:
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 <> 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: <> and borderline <>.
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>>?
<> argues that China would be even richer if it weren't for the CCP: <>, and that the CCP only violates people's human rights as a tool to stay in power: <>.
.<> 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::{cirosantilli-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 <>. 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 <> 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:
Related events:
===== 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 <> of their family is not.
Publicized by China itself: <> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-11/05/content_22375920.htm
[[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:
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:
.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:
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: <>.
Even if it is not, it does not matter, since <> spends so little time doing it: <> 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:
The key dilemma is:
Some interesting aspects of the keyword attack embargo:
By political and technological information is together, and this immediately puts the dictatorship in a bad spot, without us having to decide anything.
One point in favor of the embargo is that China has opened up since the '80s '90s, but did freedom improve at all? Under <>, 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 <> 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: <>
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 <> 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, <> 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 <> 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:
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 <>.
Installing any of those immediately give you <<social-credit-system,10 Sesame Points>>, <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,习万岁>>.
See also: <>.
.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? <> 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)
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 <<corona,fails to control a viral outbreak>>, other countries might get infected.
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: <>. + .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>>? <>.
See also:
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:
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: <>. + Foreign influence can be both good or bad.
[[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.
<> 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 <>.
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: <>.
[[evil-west]] ==== The commies exaggerate the threat of the West to keep in power
First, obviously, <>.
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, <> 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 <>).
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 <>, where a <<corona,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 <> was an evil western plot.
Duplicate pool: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Aevil-west+
Bibliography:
[[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]
[[bias]] === Ciro Santilli and this page are completely biased against the Chinese Government!
<> prefers the term focused :-)
That being said, <> 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 <> content, then maybe this repository would be considered a more reputable source by Chinese people.
However, there are a few practical problems to that:
Conversely, bad China news are always OK because, because those are all censored in China and help Chinese people learn about it.
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:
[[throne]] ==== Ciro Santilli's claim to the Qing Dynasty throne 三西猴清朝皇帝觊觎
Ciro Santilli's <>, 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[].
The family tree that Ciro has reconstructed orally from his mother-in-law is:
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: <>.
Bibliography:
.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::{cirosantilli-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
<> 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: <>.
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. <>.
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: <>.
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 <>.
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: <>.
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 <> to start the <> on <> was when on March 2015 his girlfriend's mother was arbitrarily kept 15 days in jail for doing <>. He posted about this at:
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. <> 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 <>.
.<> 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::{cirosantilli-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:
[[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: <>.
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 (1973)
<<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 <> 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 <>.
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 <> or <>.
Also ask the millions of people who were affected by <>, <>, <> or <>.
See also: <>.
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. <> 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]
.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". 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,Nazi>>. 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)
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. <> 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 <> (2020) talks about the <> video::_-hCdbsyWw0[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[intolerance]] ===== Most Chinese people don't care about the minorities
How can you be that certain that your children won't have dissident ideas and be punished unfairly for them?
Intolerance is a risky way to live. Everyone is part of one minority in one way. If all minorities were oppressed, everyone would be oppressed.
Dictatorships crush minorities much more than democracies.
Do think the majority of the Chinese people would vote to put 50 year old <> meditating <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,aunties in jail>>, if the CCP hadn't made a huge propaganda campaign and used an iron fist?
Are the Chinese really that selfish to vote for this oppression, even as the <<censorship,free media>> would show videos of meditating old ladies in jail on national television? <> does not believe this.
Minorities are put in jail because the CCP fears them. Dictatorships can only survive if there is zero difference in opinion in the population.
The famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...[First they came ...] text comes to mind in which <<nazi,the priest Martin Niemöller regrets not having supported the rights of his opponents that were unfairly treated by the Nazi Government>>:
[[first-they-came]]
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out + Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out + Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out + Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me + and there was no one left to speak for me.
See also:
====== This is Ciro Santilli's personal problem, we have nothing to do with it, stop punishing us for it
We have to fight for justice for our fellows, or else when injustice happens to us, no one will fight for use either: <>.
Every form of protest incurs some damage. E.g., if we manifest on the street, it generates a traffic jam.
<> doesn't like it, but he thinks it is worth it.
If you just work to make money and have a good life, without any plans to improve the government, you are just making the economy of the dictatorship stronger, then when they start a <<war,war>> or kill yet another minority, blood will also be on your hands. See also: <>.
[[stability]] ====== If anyone disagrees with the government they must be punished to keep the stability of the country
Destroying diversity is the best way to reach a point where everyone can agree to start <<war,a new big war and destroy everything>>.
The CCP thrives on the excessive <<evil-west,fear it instigates into its own people>>.
How can society improve, if we are never allowed to try new things out?
Change in democracies does not require <<violence,violence>>. Violence happens because the government punishes any dissidence, even if pacific, to retain its own power.
In democracies, radical policy changes happen without dropping a single drop of blood. People vote, and policies change, end of the story. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy[JFK's] words:
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable
See also:
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXRG7yiqR3I Passage of Kennedy's discourse that contains the quote "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable". video::Iwpr55PZEJ8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
=== There are bad things happening all over the world, why doesn't Ciro Santilli fight for those causes as well/instead?
We have to choose the one we think is the worst, and focus on it.
What is worse is a subjective choice. For <>:
Ciro <<keyword-choice,SO username>> and <<better-to-do,protest time>> are not infinite.
However, it is good that different people have different interests, and someone will surely be fighting for whatever cause you care about.
See also:
[[western-democracies-are-not-perfect]] ==== Western democracies are not perfect (西方的民主有很多缺点)
That is definitely true.
Nothing is perfect in this world.
<> just believes that they are way better than a <> like China, and that the Chinese government <<evil-west,brainwashes its people to think that the West is evil to stay in power>>.
As link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority[Churchill] once brilliantly link:https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government[put it]:
Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
However, this is all obviously subjective, and believing that dictatorship is a better form of government is also a valid belief.
If you find an event on a Western democracy that you would like to highlight, send a pull request.
We will not however include events that are not currently censored.
Every country did fucked-up things in the past, the question is if they currently allow discussion about it or not.
Posts that only mention <<evil-west,"evil West">> non-censored events without adding anything to the discussion will be marked as <> and treated as such, since spamming those is the primary <> technique to stop intelligent discussion.
The reason why "Evil China" posts are not shitposts in general on the other hand, is that they have one specific purpose: <<why-keyword-attack, to destroy censorship>>.
This "Western censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copypasta[copypasta] string" https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/gct0ox/all_moderation_services_suspended_for_the_next_24/fpeends/[was posted automatically] by a bot during <<anti-ccp-info-sources,r/China>> purge day:
North Dakota Access Pipeline Protests 北达科他州接入管道抗议 + Ferguson Riots 弗格森暴动 + 2017 St. Louis protests2017 年圣路易斯抗议活动 + Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll 比基尼环礁的核试验 + Unite the Right rally 团结右集会 + Charlotte riots 夏洛特暴动 + Attack on the Sui-ho Dam 袭击穗河水坝 + Milwaukee riots 密尔沃基骚乱 + Shooting of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile 奥尔顿·斯特林和菲兰多·卡斯蒂利亚的射击 + Occupation of the Malheur NationalWildlife Refuge Malheur国家野生动物保护区的占领 + death of Freddie Gray 弗雷迪·格雷的死 + Shooting of Michael Brown迈克尔·布朗的拍摄 + death of Eric Garner, Oakland California 奥克兰奥克兰市埃里克·加纳（Eric Garner）逝世 + Operation Condor 神鹰行动 + Occupy WallStreet 占领华尔街 + My Lai Massacre 我的大屠杀 + St. Petersburg, Florida 佛罗里达州圣彼得堡 + Kandahar Massacre 坎大哈屠杀 + 1992 Washington Heights riots 1992年华盛顿高地暴动 + No Gun Ri Massacre 无枪杀案 + L.A. Rodney King riots 洛杉矶罗德尼·金暴动 + 1979 Greensboro Massacre 1979年格林斯伯勒大屠杀 + Vietnam War 越南战争 + Kent State shootings肯特州枪击案 + Bombing of Tokyo 轰炸东京 + San Francisco Police Department Park Station bombing 旧金山警察局公园站爆炸案 + Assassination of MartinLuther King, Jr. 小马丁·路德·金遭暗杀。 + Long Hot Summer of 1967 1967年炎热的夏天 + Bagram 巴格拉姆 + Selma to Montgomery marches 塞尔玛到蒙哥马利游行 + Highway of Death 死亡之路 + Ax Handle Saturday 星期六斧头 + Battle of Evarts 埃瓦茨战役 + Battle ofBlair Mountain 布莱尔山战役 + McCarthyism 麦卡锡主义 + Red Summer 红色夏天 + Rock Springs massacre 岩泉大屠杀 + Pottawatomie massacre 盆大屠杀 + Jeju uprising 济州起义 + Colfaxmassacre 科尔法克斯大屠杀 + Reading Railroad massacre 阅读铁路大屠杀 + Rock Springs massacre 岩泉大屠杀 + Bay viewMassacre 湾景大屠杀 + Lattimer massacre 拉蒂默大屠杀 + Ludlow massacre 拉德洛屠杀 + Everett massacre 埃弗里特屠杀Centralia Massacre 中部大屠杀 + Ocoee massacre Ocoee大屠杀 + Herrin Massacre 赫林大屠杀 + Redwood Massacre红木大屠杀 + Columbine Mine Massacre 哥伦拜恩矿难 + Guantanamo Bay 关塔那摩湾 + extraordinary rendition 非凡的演绎 + Abu Ghraib torture and prison abuse 阿布格莱布的酷刑和监狱虐待 + Henry Kissinger 亨利·基辛格 <>
See also:
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signe_Wilkinson[Signe Wilkinson] 2017 Free Speech "Can you just move it so it doesn't cover them?" umbrella cartoon. Ciro once saw a <> post this. It made him smile. If the cartoon were about <<dictatorship,dictatorships>>, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam[Uncle Sam] would be instead <<intolerance,decapitating and raping the people on one half of the umbrella>>. Of course humans are <<flg-intolerance,shit in democracies as well>>, but at least that system makes it harder for them to oppress each other. http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=161799[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Free_speech_umbrella.jpg[height=400]
===== The West is racist against black people
Notably mentioning:
The murder video went viral and was not taken down (would have been in China), all four officers were charged, and the event sparked nation wide protests
Of course there is racism in the West. And we must recognize that, and fight it.
But Ciro feels strongly that the Chinese are also obviously at least as racist against blacks, if not more, based on conversations he's had/overheard, and other circumstantial indications:
Wumao example: https://web.archive.org/web/20200618071130/https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/112#issuecomment-645716105
[[don-t-hire-blacks]] .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d81mEbL8Yw8 Don't Hire Blacks - A Corporate Exposé of Racist Companies | The Chinese Tea | Chinese T | CCP | CPC by <<aaron-dewitt,The Chinese Tea>> (21-09-2020) video::d81mEbL8Yw8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
===== Western democracies have invaded other countries and crushed separatism
Yes, <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect,Western democracies are not perfect>>.
What matters is that citizens can disagree with those actions, publicly say it, vote accordingly, and not go to jail, so that policy will be changed if the majority so wants.
In China, the minority controls the majority, and the majority cannot say anything even if they disagree.
If the majority wants to do evil however, evil will get done, it is impossible to prevent that.
See also:
[[hate-speech]] ===== Western democracies also censor subjects such as child porn and hate speech
First, child porn and hate speech are also banned in China, so shut up. <<china-has-more-freedom-of-speech-than-the-usa,every type of speech>> is less free in <>.
Second, if you don't think child porn should be banned, there isn't much point in arguing with you.
Now, hate speech is a very complex subject. <> does feel that we should be very careful when banning hate speech, and he is not sure if it should be banned at all, as perhaps it might just make matters worse.
But of course, there is also censorship in Western democracies, and there is a gray area between what should be censored or not.
<> only argues that there is on type of speech that must never ever be <<censorship,censored>>: political speech.
This way, the majority can always discuss and vote to change what can be censored or not.
In China, however, trying to discuss such changes in laws <<internal-censorship,puts you in jail>>, so bad laws cannot be changed. This lack of freedom <<most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship,also gives the impression to many brainwashed Chinese>> that dicatorships are better because you see less conflict online. Which is great, until your human rights are violated, and you've got no one to talk to.
The lack of ability to discuss political problems leads to extremely serious problems:
Deciding on hate speech, means having to decide what level of hardcoreness we are willing to accept, and there is no clear right or wrong answer.
For example, which of the following do you think should be banned:
Ciro believes that none of the above should ever be censored, because any form of "hate-speech censorship" immediately opens a precedent for political censorship.
If someone is idiotic enough to organize illegal acts like hurting someone publicly before doing it, it will just make it easier for them to get caught.
And if its just empty words, just block those idiots to not see their posts, or downvotes their posts to reduce their impact.
And if the majority supports idiotic acts like killing someone because of their race, it will get done in a democracy regardless, because that's what democracies do: they cater to what the majority wants.
There's not point in censoring them. Such censorship only makes things worse, as the perpetrators will use that as publicity for their cause.
See also:
====== Fake news
When a government controls all information to make it look good, and no one can challenge it, you cannot trust any of the news produced by that country, as anything could be fake.
It is much better to have some fake news, but also few sources that are likely telling the truth.
<> is also extremely critical of Western social media companies such as <> and Facebook which have censored "fake news" from real legitimate accounts or real people, which is a point that Trump has justly criticized in Ciro's opinion.
If it is from a Chinese/Russian botnet, sure, destroy those accounts.
But from legitimate accounts of citizens? The people have to decide for themselves what is fake or real, not you, Twitter and Facebook. If the majority is made of idiots who believe in fake news, then so be it, that's how democracy works.
Censoring any citizen, no matter how stupid you think they are, creates a precedent for dictatorship, and even an <<luxor,incentive to terrorism>>.
More interesting case is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_First_Amendment_Institute_v._Trump[]. Ciro feels strongly that people who try to have meaningful discussions on Twitter should automatically lose a lawsuit, and that people should be able to block whoever they want from their personal controlled accounts or forums. It is only the companies who provide the forum service that must be neutral.
Recent cases in which Ciro feel that Western countries have gotten it wrong:
All of those banning should not be done. If the people want to rebel, they must be allowed to communicate and rebel.
*** https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html + <> however believes that discussing politics at work is not an efficient way to go about it, because you will be discussion amongst a small group of people since companies are opaque to the outside. Unless maybe if you feel that you employee is directly attempting to influence politics in a way that you feel is unfair. + Ciro believes without evidence that unfortunately anti-discrimination-hiring laws are likely inefficient, as it is too hard to convict anyone. And that providing equal education through scholarships to unprivileged groups and university entry selection where examiners cannot see the applicant's race is the only way.
[[politically-incorrect]] ====== Censorship of "politically incorrect speech"
<> strongly believes that this is a problem with Wester social media. For example in <> Stack Overflow forbade Ciro from saying:
I think Trump is disgusting as a person
because they thought Trump would become sad and cry.
Western governments should pass laws that prevent this kind of arbitrary political censorship by companies.
But of course as usual: <<censorship,censorship in a dictatorship like China is always a million times worse>>.
."Please enjoy this culturally ethnically religiously and politically correct cartoon responsibly" cartoon by Michael Shaw from the New Yorker (2006) makes a reference to the fact that all humour is a criticism of something, and that excessive political correctness can be used as a way to limit free speech. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Please_enjoy_this_politically_correct_cartoon.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiqDZlAZygU Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean) defending freedom of speech in the context of the http://reformsection5.org.uk/[Reform Section 5] campaign to remove all criminalization of insults. The campaigns slogan was "Feel free to insult me!". He then quotes: "The strongest weapon against hateful speech is not repression, it is more speech" from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2012/09/25/remarks-president-un-general-assembly[an Obama speech]. video::BiqDZlAZygU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNjYSns0op0 Munk Debate on Political Correctness (2018) features Stephen Fry and Jordan Peterson speaking against political correctness. Those dudes are awesome. https://youtu.be/rJOMYEXK6cs?t=150 summarizes it well. video::MNjYSns0op0[youtube,height=400,width=600]
===== Western society is extremely unequal
Exactly! And this is something <> fights daily against through his open source contributions.
And politicians don't really care enough. Partially because:
But do you really think that further increasing the power concentration as done is China is going to help reduce inequality?
If so, you have been <<stupid,brainwashed beyond reason>>. Increasing the concentration of power <<chinese-politicians-really-care-about-the-chinese-citizens,will obviously make society even more unequal>> and <<corruption,corrupt>>, never less.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHFrhIAj0ME Can't get you out of my head - Part 1 (2021) documentary by Adam Curtis for the BBC. This awesome documentary suggests and explains why Western politicians care less and less about the people, and why Western companies have gained more and more power. It also mentions how after China gave up on communism and became a capitalist country, it completley lost any guiding ideal. The West still had the ideal of democracy. But for China, there was only one thing left: money. Our dear <> is of course doing his best to instill nationalism into China to fill that void. What could <<war,possible go wrong with that>>? video::MHFrhIAj0ME[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[life-of-brian-1979]] ===== Life of Brian (布莱恩的一生, 1979)
This movie was almost banned in Britain at the time due to lobbying by Christian groups as shown in <>.
Key scenes:
====== The secret Life of Brian (2007)
Documentary about <>.
Key points:
video::hdU_6jUQI9s[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[snowden]] ===== Snowden (斯诺登)
Censoring anyone who says "my president is shit", which is what China does, is much, much more serious than censoring intelligence leaks.
The problem with dictatorships, is that they make every information that makes them look bad a "state secret". Including any information that hundreds of thousands of people have witnessed, or economic performance metrics! See also: <>.
The level of unknown surveillance that Snowden uncovered is a bad thing about the US.
Snowden's prosecution was inevitable. Countries need secret services. Secret services need laws that prevent leaking classified information that was produced by government officials.
<> has never and will never criticize China or any other country for spying or prosecuting spies.
If Snowden were Chinese, the Chinese government would ban talking about him or anything he uncovered. A <<keyword-attack,keyword attack>> with "Snowden" in the West has no effect.
It is obvious that the level of surveillance in any dictatorship will be infinitely higher, since the Government has much more power and no-one can criticize.
On the West however, the debate Snowden sparked cannot be censored, and has helped to control excessive and secret state power.
Ultimately, Ciro thinks camera surveillance is somewhat inevitable, because people will always want to fight crime and terrorism and surveillance technology keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.
He is however strictly against the ban of cryptography.
He also believes that a good solution to balance out government power is the second amendment. It is better to have more school shootings and less full-blown dictatorship led genocides / mass human rights violations.
In 2019 China amusingly censored passages Snowden's "Permanent Record" autobiography book, which Snowden then published on Twitter:
As a https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dv5q8o/china_censors_edward_snowdens_new_book_he/f7axckl/[Redditor put it]:
I don't think they understand that what Snowden stands for is completely the opposite of what the Chinese gov is lol
Snowden then later released the entire Chinese version of the book for free online with the censored parts underlined: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/10/snowden_china_censorship (https://web.archive.org/web/20200213001653/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/10/snowden_china_censorship[archive]), link to the book: link:++https://a.temporaryrecord.com/Permanent_Record_-_CN_edition_with_underlined_redactions.pdf++[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20200212144108/https://a.temporaryrecord.com/Permanent_Record_-_CN_edition_with_underlined_redactions.pdf[archive]). One wonders why he didn't just do that in the first place for all versions, maybe he needed to pay the writer that helped him?
.Snowden highlighted defects on abuses of power in a Western democracy, and the discussion he sparked helped to control such abuses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Snowden-2.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Snowden.jpg[height=400]
===== Bad things have been done in the name of freedom
E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks[September 11th].
Bad things have been done in the name of anything.
It's just that <<war,much>>, <<xinjiang,worse>> <<tiananmen,things>> are done without freedom than with it.
Democracies cannot necessarily protect weak countries from powerful ones either. No political system can do that, because humans are trash essentially.
What democracy do is to protect its own people against its own government. Because when the government turns against part of the population in a dictatorship, that part of the population gets crushed entirely, without any chance to fight, because they don't have an army or ally countries like other countries do.
Here are some images that <>'s like to post:
[[ccp-evil]] === Is the Chinese government evil? 中国共产党是邪恶吗？
Obviously not, just <<richer,inefficient>> and <<war,dangerous>>.
It is just another non-democratic empire like the Qing Dynasty, we might as well cal it:
共产朝 + The Communist Dynasty
Expression previously mentioned at: https://web.archive.org/web/20161025220242/http://tieba.baidu.com/p/752094668
Like any other organization and individual everywhere in the entire world, they are just doing everything that they can to maintain their own power.
It just happens that China's the current is political system allows the CCP to do really bad things.
And it should also be noted that <<henri-meyer,it is in part the West's fault>> that China currently has this shitty system.
<> thinks otherwise of course, they think the CCP is actually made up of real actual devils in some dimension: <>. E.g. on the https://endccp.com/ Falun Gong lead campaign:
The demon CCP has plundered the ancient land of China
==== Chinese politicians really care about the Chinese citizens
Sometimes people say Ciro Santilli is naive.
Politicians are the same all over the world.
Some might have good intentions, but most don't give a shit about anyone else.
But all must play a careful political game, and sometimes betray their own beliefs to not lose power entirely.
Even those that genuinely care might have to play suc political games.
China's problem is not its politicians.
It's the current shitty political organization, which allows/convinces those politicians to do really bad things: <>, <> and <>.
Western politicians don't care about the people either: <>. But at least they have to pretend a little.
==== Is Chinese politician X evil?
The term evil does not make sense unless you are <<falun-gong,religious>>.
The best definition of evil is a psychopath with zero empathy for anyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy although this can be better characterized as a disease or extreme personality trait.
The huge majority of those politicians are just regular dudes with a knack for politics but brought up in a fucked up political situation.
Just like you, Ciro Santilli and other politicians in any country.
See also: <>.
[[nazi]] === Comparisons between the CCP and Nazi Germany (纳粹德国)
Keywords:
The most notable aspect is the persecution of minorities of course, notably <> and <> which closely ressembles that of the Jews, see also: <>.
See also: <>.
Articles:
https://www.southbankresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020/01/ZHA-issue-2510-free.pdf has a good quote:
Would you have stood up to Hitler when he came to power? Or would you have been an appeaser, like Chamberlain? Or perhaps even a supporter of fascism, like the Daily Mail's owner at the time?
We all like to imagine we're courageous enough to stand up to tyranny and persecution. That we would have stood up to the villains of the past. Seen them for what they really were, even helped rescue their victims from danger. We certainly don't like to think we would have bought their goods or funded, invested in their economies...
Well today, you're going to find out what you're made of.
.Photoshopped <> with raised fist with Nazi uniform and flag on the background. https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cuf3p7/chinazi_xitler/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Nazi_war_flag.jpg[height=400]
.Likely original or similar image of <> with raised fist as he took oath when coming into or renewing office. http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2018-03/19/content_50723040.htm[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_raised_fist.jpg[height=400]
.German's 1938-1945 war flag called the "War Ensign of Germany" in English or "Reichskriegsflagge" in German. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskriegsflagge[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nazi_war_flag.png[height=400]
.Hitler has of course a few raised fists on Google Images, but they tend to be more aggressive, and less compatible with Xi's apathic poker face. https://bodylanguageproject.com/xarticles/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Hitler-4.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hitler_angry_rehearsal.jpg[height=400]
.Photoshopped cover of Mein Kampf with Xi's face on top of Hitler's and other modifications such as Mian instead of Mein, likely the same 面 (mian4, face) as the Chinese character at the bottom right. https://foreignerinformosa.typepad.com/the_foreigner_in_formosa/2017/07/president-xitler-of-china-murders-political-dissident-liu-xiaobo.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_mein_kampf.jpg[height=400]
.Original cover of Mein Kampf. link:++https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolf_Hitler_-_Mein_Kampf_(855._Auflage,_1943).pdf++[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mein_kampf.jpg[height=400]
.Photoshopped photo of Hitler giving the Nazi salute from a car with Himmler on the background with Xi's face on top of Hitler's. https://chinhdangvu1.blogspot.com/2017/09/xitler-chinazism.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Nazi_car_salute_photoshop.jpg[height=400]
.Original photo of Hitler giving the Nazi salute from a car with Himmler on the background. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/heinrich-himmler-holocaust[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hitler_Himmler_salute.jpg[height=400]
.Chinazi flag by <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests,Hong Kong protesters>>. Seen https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2019/08/【盛世一景】赤纳粹旗（chinazi-flag）/[on streets]. https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dbrken/google_bomb_china_flag_search_query_into_chinazi/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chinazi_flag.png[height=400]
[[xi-salute-young-pioneers-nazi]] .Xi Jinping basically <<nazi,Nazi saluting>> kids from <> in Beijing, June 1, 2015. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[Source] (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[biased]). image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_scout_salute.jpg[height=500]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD53MEbLDIE <<serpentza-laowhy86,laowhy86>> video "Can We Compare China to Nazi Germany?" published on 2020-04-29. Good side-by-side video comparisons. Says that China is more like Nazi than <>, but Ciro disagrees, all three are <<is-chinese-politician-x-evil,evil dictatorships>>. video::wD53MEbLDIE[youtube,height=400,width=600]
=== Contributing guidelines
[[shitpost]] ==== I want to take my chances and make a shitpost in cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
So, have you reached the conclusion that your https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitposting[shitpost] is link:CONTRIBUTING.md[worth the risk of getting blocked]?
Remember that shitposts can also be creative: if you are going to insult Ciro Santilli, at least do it in a creative way, or else you look like an even bigger idiot than you really are.
A collection of shitposts for you to take inspiration from can be found at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ashitpost+
Also, when opening a shitpost you may mark it clearly such with the shitpost issue template which automatically assigns the shitpost label. Doing so will make you look like less of an idiot.
While we require polite replies to polite posts, no matter what which side they are defending, if a post is marked as a shitpost, things are much more relaxed and fun, and you can generally get away with telling the OP to fuck themselves link:CONTRIBUTING.md[without getting blocked].
.Real shit photos may be posted in reply to shitposts. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Feces_(cropped).jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Shit.jpg[height=400]
.Amazing shitposts may recieve a Golden Shit award. The image is from a Japanese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_no_unko[Kin no unko (金のうんこ)], which is likely inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycee[golden Sycees]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kin_no_unko.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Kin_no_unko.jpg[height=500]
.To censor or not to censor good shitposts: that is not the question, <> will never censor them! https://imgur.com/gallery/rA0K90g[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Like_shitposts.jpg[height=600]
[[caonima]] .The legendary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Mud_Horse[Grass Mud Horse 草泥马 (caonima)] is also said to appear in shitposts from time to time. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Caonima.jpg[height=600]
==== I am going to write a huge wall of text to prove my point
Feel free to do that, but no one will ever read most of it.
If you want your comment to be read, choose your key point well, and deliver it.
It is a shame that most people who are ever able to do that are <<shitpost,shitposters>>, but credit where credit is due.
==== Can I contact Ciro Santilli in Chinese?
If you don't know English well enough, that's fine though, go for Chinese, Ciro Santilli will likely understand it: <>.
But if you do, use English.
Ciro is not going to learn Chinese because of your message.
It is more productive for you to write in English, so that the rest of the West can also learn something new.
Especially since it seems that most Chinese already know what you are talking about, so you are better off teaching Western people about it.
[[slang]] ===== I am going to use a bunch of Chinese slangs because it makes me feel smart 我知道网络语言，我很聪明
Obviously, if you want to be understood, use simple and standard Chinese, since as Ciro has already stated clearly, his Chinese sucks: <>.
Avoid slangs, otherwise Ciro might not have patience to Google your useless slangs down <<zhihu,Zhihu>> questions.
Of course, if you have to read this, you likely are not going to say anything useful in the first place, so not reading your post is likely fine, just make sure to mark it as a <> if you don't want Ciro to think you are a complete idiot.
Using slangs makes some people feel smart due their advanced knowledge of a specific subculture, or makes them feel part of that subculture to gather allies. I.e., it is a form of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibboleth[shibboleth]. It mainly comes down to a way of avoiding any rational conversation about China's obvious problems by highlighting <>.
Or maybe they just want to waste Ciro's time.
Such idiots don't see however that every major slang is Googleable, and that every overly obscure slang is already not understandable by a large part of the Chinese population, and won't be understood by anybody in 5 years, so that you are wasting your time writing this gibberish. But since you are an idiot, it's not like you have anything better to do with your time, so maybe it doesn't matter.
If you want to efficiently prevent anyone from understanding your stuff, Ciro recommends that you just use SHA-256 instead:
.... $ printf 'heil xi' | sha256sum 286b183bf41d6c9de5315bbd64f1ca35a58157ae2e7f38086978c108e67c4882 - ....
A Chinese insult tip 101, avoid similar sound euphemisms. If you are going to say shit at least grow some balls or tits and use the proper characters, Ciro will respect you more for it:
Places to try and decrypt Internet slang when you feel like wasting your time:
Random slangs of interest and related concepts:
Some useful slangs seen on the wild:
GitHub issue label: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ai-know-slangs-i-smart+
[[vagina]] .A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina[Vagina] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/阴道[阴道]) also known as cunt (屄), is the female reproductive organ, including the naturally occurring black hole that appears in front of it whenever a picture is taken to prevent <> from taking down this page. Even though <<porn,you've never seen one>>, there's no need to be afraid of it, and refer to it in euphemisms like "SB". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rugae_vaginales.jpg[Background source] and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Hole_Milkyway.jpg[black hole source]. image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Rugae_vaginales_with_black_hole.jpg[height=400]
[[shina]] ====== Shina (zhina, 支那)
Derogatory or humorous way to refer China. Occurrences:
[[internet-number-slang]] ====== Internet number slang (网络数字语言)
https://newrepublic.com/article/117608/chinese-number-websites-secret-meaning-urls highlights how numeric emails and URLs are especially popular in China, in part due to the ASCII/West-centrism of web standards: https://www.quora.com/What-is-126-com-and-why-are-they-the-owner-of-millions-of-good-domain-names/answer/Ciro-Santilli
Examples in this page:
Bibliography:
=== Personal questions about Ciro Santilli
==== Has Ciro Santilli you ever lived in China?
Not as of 2019, he has only visited once in 2012, and it was <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,amazingly beautiful>>.
.Ciro Santilli with a stone carved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai[Budai (布袋和尚)] in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maitreya_and_disciples_carving_in_Feilai_Feng_Caves.jpg[Feilai Feng caves (飞来峰)] near the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingyin_Temple[Lingyin Temple (灵隐寺)] in Hangzhou taken during his legendary 2012 touristic trip to China. Will he ever be able to go to China again to re-experience such marvelous locations? If the CCP falls before he dies, and if the statue hasn't been destroyed by the commies, Ciro will return to that exact spot and take a second picture. How will he look like? image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_with_a_stone_carved_Budai_in_the_Feilai_Feng_caves_near_the_Lingyin_Temple_in_Hangzhou_in_2012.jpg[height=500]
But he doesn't think it is a good idea for him to do that now, in case his Visa got accepted, because he is not interested in learning about the Chinese jail system! :-)
He knows that if you don't mind contributing to making <<war,WW3>> deadlier and shut up and obey the CCP, China is already a fine place to live as much as any other developing country.
===== Would Ciro Santilli like to live in China?
If the dictatorship ends, <> would like to <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,migrate to China>> if given a decent job to help China develop and become awesomer.
Before the Dictatorship, Ciro likely won't be able to enter/it wouldn't be a good idea: <>.
And it is immoral to help make dictatorships richer by working for their companies: <>.
===== Would Ciro Santilli be able to visit China before the CCP ends?
It would be interesting to apply for a VISA to find out.
But Ciro won't do it because it is too risky that it would be a waste of Ciro's precious <<better-to-do,time and money>>.
Firstly, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45812399[Jamal Khashoggi] taught us that walking into enemy into consulates of enemy countries is a bad idea.
Then, even if the VISA were accepted, Ciro could still be turned back on entering the country, thus wasting the flight time and money. This could either be a genius plot to waste the money of enemies of the state, or due to a crappy divided IT system between the border control and the VISA people.
Finally, even after the border, there is still the possibility that Ciro could be stopped in the country half-way through the visit and sent back, or be interrogated for a few days, or less likely murdered with poison.
Therefore, if you think that living in China is fundamental to understand it, please just explain what you think one can learn from the experience instead. Do you really need to live there to see its censorship machine working? It would arguably be harder to see it from the inside.
See also: <>.
Bibliography: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/93
[[is-ciro-santilli-chinese]] ==== Is Ciro Santilli Chinese? 三西猴是中国人吗？
See: https://cirosantilli.com/#ciro-santilli
And it does not matter: <>.
But <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,his wife is>>.
[[does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese]] ==== Does Ciro Santilli speak Chinese? 三西猴会说中文吗？
As of 2019, oral enough for daily things, but not understand most natural casual dinner conversation or watch TV series, because they go too quickly into vocabulary subject areas that he doesn't know. And obviously, using <<slang,slangs>> just makes things really hard.
When it matters, and with some patience, he can make himself understood though with https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/[some analogies] (https://web.archive.org/web/20190908144612/https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/[archive]) and a dictionary.
From the HSK vocabulary list, he estimates that he is definitely HSK 3, but not quite HSK 4. This would likely equate A2/B1 in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages[European system].
Phonetics wise, Ciro can't distinguish or produce a few sounds, notably -ing vs -in and his off-tone rate is high, but it tends to not matter at all compared to his lack of vocabulary. Except for his <<wife,mother-in-law>>, who sometimes does not understand it at all without correct tones!
Ciro reads with link:https://www.perapera.org/[Perapera] when he wants to learn new words/has patience/something is very important, and can basically understand everything in that way. TODO perapera support stopped in 2021: https://www.perapera.org/plugins/ and since browsers don't have stable API's it very quickly stopped working for everyone. Alternatives asked at: https://softwarerecs.stackexchange.com/questions/78268/on-mouse-hover-pop-up-chinese-dictionary-browser-extension-alternative-to-perape/ https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zhongwen-chinese-english/kkmlkkjojmombglmlpbpapmhcaljjkde[Zhongwen] worked, source at https://github.com/cschiller/zhongwen
When he has no patience or for larger not very important chunks of text though, he reads with Google Translate as it tends to work, and then if there is an important sentence that was translated to garbage with Perapera.
Ciro writes with a mixture of link:https://www.pleco.com/[Pleco], Google translate and Googling to see if Chinese actually say the sentences that way, never Google translate alone as it would be too imprecise.
Ciro really wishes he could learn more Chinese. Ciro really loves the Chinese language. But he has other more important endeavors at the moment. There simply aren't enough hours in a day.
Spoken Chinese is in Ciro's opinion a relatively easy language to learn from scratch, because word formation is so often logical:, e.g.:
and there is no useless crap like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation[verb grammatical conjugation], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender[grammatical gender], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural[plural inflection], capitalization, etc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino_sine_flexione[latino sine flexione] anyone?)
Ciro <<characters,hasn't tried to learn characters>> because <<chinese-characters-are-insane,too much effort>>, but he did learn some of the most common ones without trying.
Ciro initially learnt from book that come with audio recordings in the first 6-months to 1 year in 2010, but that got impossibly boring afterward, so he later moved to just basically talking as much as possible non-important things to <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,his wife in Chinese>>, and whenever he reaches one that he doesn't know that seems useful, he Plecos it up or just 怎么说 to his <> and then Pleco.
It should also be mentioned that Ciro also feels that it would be better if all countries more officially adopted English as an international language that everyone should learn for reasons explained at: https://cirosantilli.com/#having-more-than-one-natural-language-is-bad-for-the-world
[[chinese-characters-are-insane]] ===== Chinese characters are insane (汉字是疯狂的)
Maybe the commies for once <<richer,did something good>> by introducing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters[simplified Chinese characters (简化字)]?
But they should have gone further and reduced it to pinyin like the Korean and Vietnamese did, this will make your culture much easier to export.
No foreign adult will every learn to read and write Chinese unless they are completely obsessed by the culture or need it as part of their jobs. And even then, they will avoid it at all costs, because life is just too short!
Japanese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana[furigana] also comes to mind. The characters are so insane that you need a well specified and widely used phonetic reading aid!
Yes, ideograms are:
but they just take too much time for any sane person adult to learn, it's harder than {cpp}!
<> smirked when he came across the character "蒄" in Pleco, and the translation was: "meaning unknown (herb mentioned in old books)". Yes, at the word level, the same like exists in phonetic systems, but that it takes up a modern dictionary and Unicode slot is still funny.
Posts that express similar ideas:
.The "fictional" Chinese character "Dou" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncyclopedia[Uncyclopedia] is roughly translated as "Impossibly complex pictogram-based writing system that takes a person a thousand thousand years to learn." and illustrates well why pictograms are a bad idea. https://uncyclopedia.ca/wiki/File:Chinese_character_extreme.svg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chinese_character_extreme.svg[height=400]
.The Sweet Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_Nobody_Got_Time_for_That[Ain't Nobody Got Time for That] meme (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sweet-brown-aint-nobody-got-time-for-that[knowyourmeme]) fits perfectly into how Ciro feels about learning Chinese characters. image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Sweet_brown_chinese_characters_meme.jpg[height=500]
//// .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_cbW5JK9WM "The most complex Chinese character" by Vladimir Skultety does a reasonable analysis of which Chinese character is the most complex video::t_cbW5JK9WM[youtube,height=400,width=600] ////
[[evil-chinese-characters-by-ted-chiang]] ====== 坏汉字 by Ted Chiang
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/162835411/
Ciro's <> was mentioned in a related Zhihu answer: <>.
[[radical]] ==== Is Ciro Santilli a radical?
Saying that someone is a radical is useless <<brainwashed-by-usa,ad hominem>>.
If you want to say something useful, give specific reasons why you think one specific thing that <> said is incorrect.
Do you consider him a radical because it is unthinkable that China is not perfect?
Or just because he's trying to <<keyword-attack,take down>> some more websites that your dictatorship still does not dislike enough to block: <>?
Don't you think that it is much more radical to <<intolerance,be put in jail for your beliefs>> and <<censorship,silenced if you disagree with anything the government says>>?
Ciro doesn't think either China or West is perfect: <>.
He's just listing arguments why he thinks democracy is better, e.g.: <>, <>.
See also:
And Ciro never gets mad. Only a slightly sad or annoyed sometimes.
But maybe no radical ever considers themselves a radical? Hmmm...
Or maybe: link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc[The Dark Knight - Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burn]?
==== Ciro Santilli is stupid
D E E P: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/labels/you-are-stupid-argument
Feel free to publish any proof of your own incredible intelligence.
==== Is Ciro Santilli a SJW?
SJW: there is a seed of SJW in <>.
One major difference between Ciro and the stereotypical SJW is that he never engage in lengthy discussions as per <>.
He limits himself to listening as much as he can to learn new arguments.
So the rationale of his actions is no_ to convince anyone, but rather:
See also: <>
===== Are you a SJW?
Moved to <>.
[[does-ciro-santilli-hate-china]] ==== Does Ciro Santilli hate China? 三西猴讨厌中国吗？
On the contrary. China has his favorite:
It is hard to understand how the same people have not managed to speak up when <<flg-persecution,70 million old ladies were put into jail when Falun Gong was banned>>. Only the extreme fear of also going to jail could explain it. Living in China is living in constant fear if you can think for yourself. ** enormous importance given to education. One must not forget however: grades are useless, and all that matters is how much you improve society
And because of that: <>.
As link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne_Stroustrup[Bjarne] said:
There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses
Ciro only focus here on negative things to provide content that will <<keyword-attack,activate the Great Firewall>>.
A small poem:
持华反党 + 爱国恨党 +
Support the Chinese people, oppose the Party + Love the country, hate the Party +
The second sentence well known: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/e8g3qv/爱国恨党love_china_hate_ccp/
[[yuyuan-garden]] .Round gate at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_Garden[Yu Garden 豫园] in Shanghai. link:++https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shanghai_-_YuYuan_Gardens_and_Old_Town_(584867794).jpg++[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Yuyuan_garden_door.jpg[height=600]
[[chinese-traditional-painting]] ===== Chinese traditional painting (中国传统绘画)
See also: <>.
Some free online collections:
."Plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum" (梅兰竹菊) painting by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_Xie[Zheng Xie (郑燮)] representing the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Gentlemen[four gentlemen (四君子)]. Ciro is a big fan of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird-and-flower_painting[traditional Chinese bird-and-flower painting (花鸟画)] like this. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/315744623848820315/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Four_gentlemen.jpg[height=600]
===== Why does Ciro Santilli love China so much?
<> does not <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong,believe in reincarnation>>, but sometimes he's tempted to.
It is interesting how different people get <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,different impressions>>!
Of course, the fact that his wife is Chinese and <<flg-bias,does Falun Gong>> may or may not have played a role in it :-)
It was like this: Ciro started getting interested in Chinese culture, then he started hanging out with Chinese people, and then he started hanging out with his wife!
So yes, it is a chicken and egg type of thing. The fact that she is one of the most intelligent, morally upright, cute, and "never give up" person I know may have helped me choose too.
[[selfish]] ==== Ciro Santilli's China freedom campaign is selfish
See also:
[[famous]] ===== Ciro Santilli is doing his China freedom campaign to become famous
No, he am a selfless human being, only concerned with the greater well being of humankind.
More serious answer:
Keyword: attention whore.
Duplicate pool:
===== Ciro Santilli is doing his China freedom campaign because it makes him feel important
See: <>.
===== Ciro Santilli is doing his China freedom campaign to vent off his anger
No, he is not angry at all, see also: <>.
[[cia-funding]] ===== Is Ciro Santilli's china-dictatorship campaign funded or otherwise supported by some organization?
Sure, the CIA sends Ciro 10 thousand USD checks from time to time, but that doesn't change at all what he would be doing.
Just kidding.
A shady supporting organization might require that he does not disclose their support, so maybe the best answer is that you will never know for sure.
Of course, a hidden support would represent a reputation hit for both such organizations and for me, which makes it less likely that I would have accepted or had such an offer.
Also consider Ciro's motivation. If your <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother in law were put into jail unfairly for 15 days>>, for following the same religion that <<flg-bias,your wife follows>>, and if you had a social media presence, wouldn't you be tempted to do the same?
What about you, are you funded by the CCP?
==== Would Ciro Santilli be doing his China freedom campaign if he was in China?
Not with his real name attached to it, see also:
===== Does your employer support this?
My employer has nothing to do with this.
He doesn't approve or disapprove of the Chinese government or of my private actions.
The only thing that my employer does believe in is that employees can have their own political opinions, and that this should not affect hiring decisions.
Obviously, this action limits my ability to lead high profile deals with China.
Also I'm quite curious if this would limit my ability to go to China for business, but I haven't applied for a visa since I've started this. It likely wouldn't be a good idea for me to go to China :-)
But my employer believes that inclusion and non-discrimination are more valuable.
I will always do my best to not let my personal opinions affect my professional decisions, as that would be unfair to my employer.
[[better-to-do]] ==== Doesn't Ciro Santilli have anything better to do than pissing off China?
In 1989, besides <> and <>'s birth, a beautiful thing called the World Wide Web was invented!
The Internet gives everyone the magic power of writing something, and having million people read it for free!
This is how much time Ciro spends on this project to give you an idea:
Then Ciro just contributes to programming websites exactly as he would if he weren't making this campaign, and voila.
Edit: to be fair, the end of 2019 and start of 2020 was such as hot year with <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>> and <> that Ciro might have spent a tiny little bit more ;-)
But Ciro did it only when his brain was too tired of technical stuff and unable to do more, or as a brain warm up routine in the morning.
Telling the CCP to fuck off is surprisingly relaxing, you should try it some time too. It uses a different part of your brain other than the programming one. It is, one could say, an art form.
=== People in China have already considered democracy, and rejected it
OK, shall we put that to an anonymous vote just to make sure?
Dear sir or madam: do you want more control over your government? y/n
Oops, I forgot that <<most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship,proposing such a vote would put in you jail>>, nevermind.
[[violence]] === Would it be right to use violence to overthrow the CCP?
In an ideal world, Ciro Santilli is of course "against violence".
But what if you could prevent a lot of future violence with some violence today?
Ah, the eternal question which only God can answer:
Do you really think that the communists will step down if you ask them nicely enough? Even after <>?
A quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film)[V for Vendetta (2005)] comes to mind:
Q: If they do, what do you think will happen [the people protest against their Government]?
A: What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people with guns.
[[v-for-vendetta]] .https://youtube.com/watch?v=TcoBv6ibh8M V for Vendetta (2005) "What you think will happen" scene. video::TcoBv6ibh8M[youtube,height=400,width=600]
How do you think the CCP or any other party got into power and maintained that power in the first place? Obviously https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Revolution[through violence]. And likely due to earlier <<not-chinese,Japanese invasions which weakened the Guomindang>>.
And the CCP actually uses "the ends justify the means" as an argument to justify its own actions: <>.
The question of if anything is morally right or wrong makes no sense. All that matters is: what is the government that maximizes the happines of its own people, and who has the power to do what? <<richer,Getting richer,>> is part of the equation, but so is <<rule-of-law,not being constantly affraid that you will be randomly put in jail for no good reason>>.
If you do decide to strike though, <<what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship,stay safe, gather your forces on the Internet, and only strike when victory seems certain>>.
For "violence is illegal" arguments, see also: <>.
.One baby <<nazi,Hitler>> or 5 Million Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem[trolley problem] illustrates well the moral dilemma of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism["the ends justify the means"]. image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Baby_Hitler_vs_5_million_Jews_trolley_problem.jpg[height=400]
.Translation: What women think men want (a kiss). What men actually want (decapitating <>). The image from the left comes from the Japanese manga https://mangakakalot.com/manga/vm922794[Okaeri Alice] according to Reddit comments. The image to the right is based on an illustration of the decapitation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_XVI[Louis XVI] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/路易十六[路易十六]) during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution[French Revolution] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/法国大革命[法国大革命]), but with Louis' head replaced by Xi Jinping's head. An original can be found at: https://castinet.castilleja.org/users/pmckee/frenchrev/violentphase.html[]. https://www.reddit.com/r/chonglangTV/comments/m8qwz4/真正的需要/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/What_Chinese_men_really_want.jpg[height=400]
==== It is fine for the CCP to treat some of its citizens unfairly if the majority is better off
Basically same discussion as: <> but with the tables turned.
See also: <>
[[dictatorship]] === Why does Ciro Santilli say that China is a dictatorship? 中国不是独裁！
Ciro is using the word in an slightly extended/joking sense.
Maybe "authoritarian" is a more precise term, but it is just too much of a mouthful.
In particular, dictatorships are harder to sustain than authoritarianism, since it generally implies even less freedom, and a single leader whose death can destabilize everything.
The CCP is more like a social class with a large number of members and various sub-layers, and it is therefore much harder to take down on the other hand.
Dictatorship is becoming link:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-party-term-limit.html[more and more precise under Xi] however.
Even <> admits it and put it into the constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democratic_dictatorship[People's democratic dictatorship 人民民主专政], so funny.
Well known <<evil-west,Evil Western media>> that also call China a dictatorship:
Further discussions about this useless terminology question:
[[anti-ccp-info-sources]] ==== What are the best sources of anti-CCP news?
https://www.reddit.com/r/China[], see also: <>
Catches all the important news.
A large part of the posts has controversial material.
Has some noise of course as well, but less than other media I find.
Highly worth your feed.
Reddit was banned in China in August 2018: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/965k4c/reddit_banned_in_china/
Tencent will invest 150 million on Reddit in 2019: https://gizmodo.com/reddit-banned-in-china-is-reportedly-set-to-land-150-1832375439 See also: <>.
Subs with lots of anti-commie info:
TODO review:
===== r/chonglangTV
https://www.reddit.com/r/chonglangTV/
15k users 2020-03.
Chinese language, pretty good content, anti-CCP samples:
Unsurprisingly there appears to be some overlap between that community and <>: 2020-09-07 https://2047.name/t/7292 "如何评价reddit小组“冲浪TV”？" (What do you think about the chonglangTV sub?)
====== r/sino
https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/
Any comment critical of China and mods immediately ban you, e.g. on 2020-08-21 at https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/ie0mak/china_is_building_a_github_alternative_called/ which is related to <>, <> commented:
Let's see how long it takes them to block my repo/account: https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship | http://web.archive.org/web/20200821202450/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
The ban message is:
You have been permanently banned from participating in r/Sino. You can still view and subscribe to r/Sino, but you won't be able to post or comment.
Try https://www.reddit.com/r/westerner/[r/westerner] TRASH doesn't get by mods here. Tiananmen Square is vindicated by China's development. Anti terror system in Xinjiang is working. End result for HK is the same since 1997, regardless of rioters. Scientology-esque FLG/Shen Yun cult show has failed for decades, if you believe their claims, it's all of them losing badly.
Dec 31 China informed WHO about mysterious pneumonia. Jan 11 Chinese reveal virus genome Jan 23 Wuhan quarantine - businessinsider/sciencemag
You had the genome and saw the lengths China went to. Don't blame others for failing months later.
US accused of 'modern piracy' after diversion of masks meant for Europe - theguardian
Democracies Are Better at Fighting Outbreaks - theatlantic XD
The US leads in coronavirus cases, but not pandemic response - sciencemag XD
Beliefs of founder cultleader of Falun Gong from own lectures on official falundafa site https://redd.it/42wlvf
====== r/russia
Completely pro-Putin, e.g. removed https://www.reddit.com/r/russia/comments/kd21ck/cnnbellingcat_investigation_identifies_russian/ about <>
===== Telegram
Lists by <>:
After Trump was unfairly banned from Twitter, his social media team created an amazing "Chongald Xrump" account <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,pretending ridiculously to be a CCP PR person>>, it had really good posts.
But that amazing account was banned: https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-sneaks-back-on-twitter-by-disguising-self-as-pr-rep-for-chinese-communist-party Twitter is <<politically-incorrect,trying really hard>> to beat the <<censorship,CCP at its own game>>.
===== Tumblr
==== Where can I find good words for a keyword attack?
See also:
[[keyword-choice]] ==== How do you choose keywords for the keyword attack?
I haven't counted, but the limit for Stack Overflow is quite low, and I'm always almost at the maximum, which is about "Ciro Santilli" + 3 3-4 Chinese character events with a separator.
These are some of my prioritization guidelines:
E.g., I've heard there is even some opening towards acknowledging the Great Famine, thus 烏坎事件 (and others from my previous profile names)
E.g. "High <<corruption,corruption>> rates, high pollution", although very serious, feel too generic.
E.g.: <>, <>. + Non e.g.: corruption and pollution. Those are hard to quantify, and there is always an immediate reply: china GDP per capita is low, same happens in India, Brazil, etc. + Freedom of speech however, is immediately verifiable (e.g. "my Weibo was taken down"), and undeniably caused by the current central government.
I am currently trying to maintain in my Stack Overflow Location a ranking of events in a single string, so that it can be easily copy pasted around. The location appears on every page if you hover over my account name, so it is likely in the HTML at least.
If you think that this list can be improved, please open an issue explaining how and why.
==== Other notable keyword attacks
[[notepad]] ===== Notepad++
It might be a newbie text editors for newbie Windows users, but at least they use it to good use by doing keyword attacks:
The creator appears to be a Vietnamese immigrant or descendant living in France. There are many such immigrants due to Vietnam being an ex-colony: https://github.com/donho Also he must have good reason to dislike the commies due to similar commit bullshit in Vietnam. He was at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Diderot_University[Paris Diderot] in 2000: https://donho.github.io/#education (https://web.archive.org/web/20190424004100/https://donho.github.io/#education[archive]).
[[separatism]] === Separatism (分离主义)
If a large number of people in a given region want to leave an country strongly or have greater autonomy, <> believes that they should be allowed to do so.
Rationale:
Which in turn implies terrorist backslash. + All of which are against <>'s principles. + [[luxor]] .https://youtube.com/watch?v=eouBCMPtNDQ?t=1170 "It happened in ... Luxor" by Al Jazeera English (2011) is a short documentary about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre[Luxor massacre in Egypt (1997)]. At this timestamp, survivor https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_E._Müller[Felix Mueller] whose girlfriend was killed in the attack comments that it is when people don't have an official way to express their needs due to censorship that they are more likely to turn to terrorism to express themselves. video::fASh2_RzMuE[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=1170]
What makes Ciro the maddest is the censorship. If you are going to put people in jail, write a clear law about it, and let international reporters come to see the situation.
But why do you do something and then hide it? Maybe because you are not doing the right thing?
Ciro also believes that although terrorists must be fought with all our strength, they must also be given some degree respect (interspersed simultaneously <<sacred-cows,with humour>>). He sometimes prefers the term "warriors" or "fighters", because their actions are largely indistinguishable from many ideological or purely greed based actions that larger nation states have done many times over and over. It is just a war, plain and simple.
The reason why they kill mostly civilians is that they don't have the means to kill the presidents those civilians elected. An amazing scene from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Algiers[The Battle of Algiers (1966)] comes to mind. After the head of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War[Algerian independence] movement and terrorist, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larbi_Ben_M%27hidi[Larbi Ben M'hidi] is arrested, the French military let him be interviewed by the press on 4 March 1967 https://youtu.be/uHWZkiBuKGY?t=5312 (TODO real words? Cannot find source):
Translation:
Journalist: Don't you think that it is cowardly to use the handbags and pushchairs of your women to transport your bombs? Those bombs that make so many innocent victims? [Earlier in the movie, we saw women carriying bombs into the French areas of Algiers through those means]
Larbi Ben M'hidi: And you, don't you think that it is much more cowardly to drop on defenseless villages your napalm bombs that kill thousands times more? Obviously, with airplanes, it would have been much more convenient for us. Give us your bombers, and we will give you the pushchairs.
Original text:
Journalist: Ne trouvez-vous pas plutôt lâche d'utiliser les sacs et les couffins de vos femmes pour transporter vos bombes? Ces bombes qui font tant de victimes innocentes?
Larbi Ben M'hidi: Et vous, ne vous semble t-il beacoup plus lache de larguer sur des vilages sans défence vos bombes au napalme qui tuent mille fois plus d'innocents? Évidement, avec des avions, ca aurait été beaucoup plus comode pour nous. Donnez vous vos bombardiers monsieur, et on vous donnera les couffins.
See also: <>.
[[taiwan]] ==== Taiwan (Republic of China, 台湾, 中華民國)
If you are interested in Taiwan, one important programmer forum is: <>.
Some interesting links:
News:
[[one-china-policy]] ===== One China policy (一个中国)
Taiwan is not a case of <>.
Taiwan is a completely separate country split due to civil war, long ago.
Almost every country, and all reasonably powerful countries, have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. They just don't call them diplomatic relations to not piss off China so they can keep doing business.
The fact that most countries in the world does officially recognize Taiwan as a country is a joke, considering that the only thing keeping it afloat is the West's military threat.
<<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,The West must not>> let China advance and take more territories. The more they take, the more they will want.
The West must protect China's neighboring countries with military support and assurance.
The West must recognize Taiwan for what it is: a separate country, under threat of invasion, and in need of support.
If China's claim to Taiwan is valid, then Taiwan also has an equally valid claim on China.
If China's claim to Taiwan is valid, then so will its claim to any other country.
China, if you want to claim that Taiwan is a part of you, just grow some balls and invade them already. Or just stop this stupid joke.
Interesting quote from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/taiwans-status-geopolitical-absurdity/593371/
Taiwan's Status Is a Geopolitical Absurdity
And https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/02/16/americas-affirmation-of-the-one-china-policy-pleased-taiwan-too calls the One China policy a:
polite fiction
https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/62447/how-can-a-citizen-of-mainland-china-visit-taiwan/62466#comment178495_62466 hi, I want a "not VISA" to Taiwan. Thanks.
A well educated Mainlander who lived outside of China once told Ciro:
Taiwan should not be considered a country by China, because then it would not join back to China when China becomes a democracy, and would be used by the USA to do evil things as they did in the Middle East
Ciro was shocked. He considered that person highly intelligent and not fully brainwashed! Reply:
China claiming that Taiwan is a part of them only drives Taiwan closer to the West! Who wants to be part of a dictatorship unless you have been brainwashed by one?
They truly believe in <>.
The US first caved in in 1972 with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Communiqué[Shanghai Communiqué].
News:
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=fASh2_RzMuE WHO officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Aylward[Bruce Alyward] pretends not to hear question from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTHK[Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK)] about the possibility of Taiwan's membership in the WHO during a one-to-one Skype interview, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/senior-who-adviser-appears-to-dodge-question-on-taiwans-covid-19-response[reference]. video::fASh2_RzMuE[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.The flag of Taiwan. Like most modern countries, Taiwan has one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg[height=400]
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Office_Building[Presidential Office Building of Taiwan] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/總統府_(臺灣)[總統府_(臺灣) | 总统府 (台湾)]). What is that flag we see on top of the central government building of Taiwan? It appears to have a blue rectangle on the top left! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TaipeiROCPresidentialOfficeBuilding.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Taiwan_White_House.jpg[height=400]
.It is fun to see that some small random Latin American countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguay–Taiwan_relations[like Paraguay] recognize only Taiwan and not Mainland China. Brave warriors!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Chinas.svg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Countries_that_recognize_Taiwan.jpg[height=400]
.Washington DC TECRO. Instead of "embassies", Taiwan has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_Economic_and_Cultural_Representative_Office["Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Offices" (TECROs)] https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/臺北經濟文化代表處[(台北经济文化代表处|臺北經濟文化代表處)] The just happen to issue VISAs and passports like embassies, but remember, they are not embassies. No flag you see? This is because idiotic countries don't allow TECROs to have the Taiwan flag. In 2019 Senator Ted Cruz planned on passing a law to allow that though: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3825086[]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taipei_Economic_and_Cultural_Representative_Office_in_the_United_States_from_VOA_(1).jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/TECRO_Washington.jpg[height=400]
.2014 cartoon by D Nguyen summarizing the Taiwan China relationship in history. Featuring: fatter and fatter <> on first three cartoons to the left, likely <> to left on the last, and <> to the right. TODO middle figure on last cartoon. TODO find proper attribution source, originally seen at: https://i.redd.it/xb5qr3asfns41.jpg[]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Taiwan_we_are_China_cartoon.jpg[height=600]
[[taiwan-number-one]] ===== Taiwan #1 (2915)
2015 meme started by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z1_Battle_Royale[H1Z1] streamer AngryPug, in which he repeatedly taunts the Chinese streamer Em0 by pretending to be Taiwanese.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vTqZ9xrxhHk ANGRYPUG's official YouTube upload of the clip "Taiwan #1" meme. video::vTqZ9xrxhHk[youtube,height=400,width=600]
See also: <>.
===== Hololive
Hololive is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_YouTuber[VTuber] management company from Japan.
<> didn't know WTF a VTuber was before coming across this event, he's too old for that.
The key event was 2020-09-28 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4018580 "Japanese VTubers banned for mentioning Taiwan during livestream":
During their most recent livestreams, Hololive Japanese VTubers Kiryu Coco and Akai Haato announced the countries where they have received the most followers based on YouTube analytics. One of the countries that they highlighted was Taiwan because it accounted for seven percent of viewers and they displayed the flag of Taiwan to represent the nation.
therefore joining the long list of <>.
This event was clarified to Ciro at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/157 and is tracked under https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/labels/vtuber
Interestingly, this led to a large number of <>/spam on https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues[], culminating notably at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/191[], and many of them seemed to involve:
It is however hard to understand the rationale of such posts.
===== Internal politics of Taiwan
As of 2020, there are two relevant parties:
[[chiang-kai-shek]] ===== Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石, 蔣中正)
[[xinjiang]] ==== Xinjiang (新疆)
Events:
Terrorist attacks done by Xinjiang separatists:
Notable ones:
The public must realize that a handful of extremists are far from qualified to represent tens of millions of local residents in Xinjiang. It is not only an irrational and biased mindset to put the blame on the entire Uyghur community or the Muslim world, but the idea will also abet and aid those separatists and terrorists who are desperate to take advantage of ethnic and religious conflicts.
and yet as of the <>, all Xinjiang Muslims were fucked. <> comes to mind.
.<<rebel-pepper,Rebel Pepper>> 2017-04 cartoon showing that Xinjiang is like a prison inside a greater prison, which is China itself. Chinese characters read: 新疆(Xinjiang) and 中国(China). TODO source. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_camp_in_camp.jpg[height=600]
[[xinjiang-re-education-camps]] ===== Xinjiang "re-education" camps (新疆再教育營, 2017-)
The keyword is <>: because of a few terrorists, every single Muslim was fucked even if they did not commit any crime.
Overview projects:
Also includes the <> report.
News:
Although it is often extremely difficult, if not impossible, for Uyghurs overseas to receive information about the whereabouts of their family members, some parents have received bits and pieces of information in the form of coded words, or photos and videos, from relatives and friends that make them believe their children were taken to state-run “orphan camps” or boarding schools.
Chinese officials have named women, disclosed what they say is private medical data and information on the women’s fertility, and accused some of having affairs and one of having a sexually transmitted disease. The officials said the information was evidence of bad character, invalidating the women’s accounts of abuse in Xinjiang.
<>: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/lvrkoi/china_counters_uyghur_criticism_with_explicit/
The document: http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/32832/Document/1687588/1687588.htm also quoted on <>: http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0918/c1001-31865875.html + Official English translation: http://english.scio.gov.cn/whitepapers/2020-09/17/content_76712251.htm + Title: 新疆的劳动就业保障 (Employment and Labor Rights in Xinjiang) + Quote:
全疆年均培训城乡各类劳动者128.8万人次，其中，南疆地区年均培训45.14万人次。参训人员至少掌握1项就业技能，绝大多数取得了职业资格证书、职业技能等级证书或专项职业能力证书，实现稳定就业。
Google translation:
The average annual training for all kinds of workers in urban and rural areas in Xinjiang is 1.288 million, of which 451,400 are trained in southern Xinjiang. Participants have mastered at least one employment skill, and most of them have obtained vocational qualification certificates, vocational skill level certificates or special vocational ability certificates to achieve stable employment.
In the 1990s about 350,000 people were sterilized in Peru under a program promoted by President Alberto Fujimori, who argued a lower birth rate was the key to eliminating poverty. "Peruvian women should be the owners of their destiny!" Fujimori said in a 1995 speech to congress. He presented his family-planning campaign as a step forward for feminism, and even got funding from the US Agency for International Development, USAid. Many of the women who were sterilized, however, came from poor indigenous backgrounds and were coerced or forced into the procedure.
video::dEkliuqQo-g[youtube,height=400,width=600]
video::gGYoeJ5U7cQ[youtube,height=400,width=600] ** News coverage *** https://news.sky.com/story/chinas-detention-of-uighurs-video-of-blindfolded-and-shackled-prisoners-authentic-11815401 Drone footage, video sources: ** Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/d78aog/chilling_video_of_chinese_police_transferring/ + .Video still of 2019-10 drone footage of blindfolded Xinjiang prisoners being marched taken at time 00:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGYoeJ5U7cQ[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_prisoners_march.jpg[height=400]
video::WmId2ZP3h0c[youtube,height=400,width=600] + .Man wearing traditional Xinjiang clothing and playing a traditional instrument inside a classroom setting inside a prison camp, as the CCP tries to show the world that they are happy and their culture is being respected, and only makes things worse. The man also shows on the video at: https://youtu.be/WmId2ZP3h0c?t=407[] made by the BBC when they got supervised access to the camps to film, nearby segment uploaded at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/169[]. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-48700786[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uyghur_playing_guitar.jpg[height=400]
video::ULaJVWOr4ko[youtube,height=400,width=600]
video::dsd1NkCKaNg[youtube,height=400,width=600]
video::Eak3WRtcdko[youtube,height=400,width=600]
Note that Muhammad is incredibly popular in Islamic countries, and thought to be the most popular name in the world with 150m people sharing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_(name)#Transliterations + It is so prevalent, that it is often shortened to just "Md." and people are just called by their second name to reduce ambiguity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_name#Ism
.Image of prisoners wearing blue sitting down in Xinjiang concentration camp, with some prisoners identified to indicate that they are not criminals but rather detained purely for political reasons. A sixth one was https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/camp-photo-04262019171258.html[identified in another report]. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/camp-photo-04262019171258.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_prisoners_sitting_identified.jpeg[height=400]
[[uyghurs-for-sale]] .Advertisement published by Qingdao Decai Decoration Co. claiming to supply government-sponsored Uyghur workers from Xinjiang to other provinces. Source of translation: https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale["Uyghurs for sale" report]. Original website archive from 16 Jan 2020: http://archive.ph/r7T8r[]. The ad features a caricature of two dancing Uyghurs in traditional clothing. This is evidence of the CCP's mass forced eviction and slavery of Uyghurs. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uyghur_sale_website.jpg[height=500]
.Uyghur workers at Taekwang Shoe Manufacturing waving the Chinese flag, October 2019. Viewable on the pro-CCP China Ethnic Religion Net (中国民族宗教网) website: http://www.mzb.com.cn/html/report/191130765-1.htm[], and also shown in the https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale["Uyghurs for sale" report]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uyghur_workers_waving_China_flag.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx0JFgwATho&t=128 "New footage shows Uyghurs bussed across China for forced labour in factories". At the given timestamp, contains 30 seconds of footage extracted from 3 social media posts showing Uyghurs being sent in busses to work in far way regions. video::M_aXcH1zDEE[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=128]
====== Merdan Ghappar's video (2020-08-05)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53650246
Self made video shows the ex-model chained to a bed in a camp. Text messages give further details.
Text messages and translation: https://medium.com/@millwarj/wear-your-mask-under-your-hood-an-account-of-prisoner-abuse-in-xinjiang-during-the-2020-3007a1f7437d
++++
++++[[xinjiang-cotton]] ====== Xinjiang cotton (新疆棉花, 2021)
Reports surfaced that <> people were being used to pick cotton, and boycotts followed.
Companies that boycotted, subst of <>:
Companies that supported:
Here's a link to the Weibo mentioned: https://weibo.com/2329770312/K7RDviZl4?from=page_1006062329770312_profile&wvr=6&mod=weibotime&type=comment archive: https://archive.ph/tOcum + Original text: +
Hugo Boss秉持着对生产制造高品质产品的坚持，使用来自世界各地，包括原材料源自中国各大产区的面料。多年来，我们一直尊重一个中国原则，坚决捍卫国家主权和领土完整。我们与许多优秀的中国企业建立了长期合作，并将继续保持。新疆长绒棉是世界上最好的棉花之一，我们相信优质的原料一定会实现价值。我们将会继续采购和支持新疆棉花。
and the Google translate: +
Hugo Boss adheres to the insistence on manufacturing high-quality products, using fabrics from all over the world, including raw materials from major producing areas in China. Over the years, we have always respected the one-China principle and resolutely defended national sovereignty and territorial integrity. We have established long-term cooperation with many outstanding Chinese companies and will continue to maintain them. Xinjiang long-staple cotton is one of the best cotton in the world, and we believe that high-quality raw materials will surely realize value. We will continue to purchase and support Xinjiang cotton.
Statement on Hugo Boss' website in English saying that they are ethical: https://group.hugoboss.com/fileadmin/media/pdf/sustainability/company_commitments_EN/HUGO_BOSS_Statement_on_Xinjiang.pdf (https://web.archive.org/web/20210326134037/https://group.hugoboss.com/fileadmin/media/pdf/sustainability/company_commitments_EN/HUGO_BOSS_Statement_on_Xinjiang.pdf[archive])
Reports:
.Side-by-side comparison of black american slaves from 1908 and <<xinjiang-re-education-camps,happy Xinjiang workers>> working in cotton collection. This was posted by the verified account of Chinese government official Hua Chunying (华春莹) on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpokespersonCHN/status/1375015592944537605[], archives: https://archive.ph/3PTiA and https://web.archive.org/web/20210326034948/https://twitter.com/SpokespersonCHN/status/1375015592944537605[]. Pure beauty. Does she have a brain? The images read: "The cotton planter and his pickers, H. Tees, West Point, Miss[ssisipy]", https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cotton_planter_and_pickers1908.jpg[source], and "Uighus people picking cotton in Xinjiang China". image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_cotton_vs_American_plantation_from_1908.jpg[height=400]
[[other-islam-countries-speak-up-for-uyghur]] ====== Why don't many other Islamic countries speak up for the Uyghur persecution?
Either because those countries:
Analyses:
Related:
.<> 2019-07 cartoon showing <> claiming to have won the global opinion on the Xinjiang re-education camps because all other dictatorships support him, including <<other-islam-countries-speak-up-for-uyghur,Islamic dictatorships>>. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/XiJinping-uyghur-camp-cartoon-07162019155441.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_I_won.jpeg[height=400]
[[inner-mongolia]] ==== Inner mongolia (内蒙古)
[[tibet]] ==== Tibet (西藏)
Events linked to reducing the teaching of the Tibetan language in schools and replacing it with Mandarin:
===== Tibet "re-education" camps (2020)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_camps_in_Tibet
2020-09-22 the <> reported that <>-style camps were started to be built in <>: https://jamestown.org/program/jamestown-early-warning-brief-xinjiangs-system-of-militarized-vocational-training-comes-to-tibet/ and were housing half a million people.
[[tibetan-unrest-2008]] ===== 2008 Tibetan unrest (2008年西藏骚乱)
Good gory photos from the event: https://file.wikileaks.org/file/tibet-protest-photos/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20200410200709/https://file.wikileaks.org/file/tibet-protest-photos/[archive])
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=B-tEi4uLM_E "Hundreds of Tibetan protesters clash with police after anti-China protest" published by AP Archive. video::B-tEi4uLM_E[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[tibetan-unrest-1987-1989]] ===== 1987-1989 Tibetan unrest (1989年拉萨骚乱)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=qMZgoRuPJBg "Troops stormed the Tibetan holy site the Jokhang Temple and beat monks" video::qMZgoRuPJBg[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=3uQcGcGGepw "Latest Spate Of Violent Unrest In Lhasa And The Imposition Of Martial Law" by AP Archive video::3uQcGcGGepw[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[hong-kong]] ==== Hong Kong (香港)
News source: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/ Became larger than r/china during the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>.
There is only one solution to Hong Kong's problem:
These have started happening seriously in response to the <>.
Hong Kong related posts at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ahong-kong+
Related:
===== Hong Kong 97 SNES video game
1995 video game realistically depicts the fight of Hong Kong against the Communist Party predicted to happen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong[at the handover], featuring Bruce Lee (often represented as <<entertainers-who-support-the-ccp,Jackie Chan>>) who returned from the grave to join the fight and kick <<jiang-zemin,Jiang Zemin's>> ass.
The dead body from the game over screen was taken from a still from a video of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War[1992 Bosnian War]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCDWyzZyNdw
The track is a sample of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_Beijing_Tiananmen["I Love Beijing Tiananmen" (我爱北京天安门)] Cultural Revolution song that was popular before <> and later became an ironic protest song:
我爱北京天安门 + 天安门上太阳升
which means:
I love Beijing Tiananmen Square + The sun rises over the Tiananmen
Full song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is_Z2K7guKs
.Cover of the Hong Kong 97. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hong_Kong_97_cover.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hong_Kong_97_cover.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_aXcH1zDEE The venerable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Video_Game_Nerd[Angry Video Game Nerd] made a review of Hong Kong 97. video::M_aXcH1zDEE[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[hong-kong-national-security-law]] ===== Hong Kong National Security Law (香港国安法, 2020)
News:
<> is the founder of <>, the flagship newspaper under Next Digital and the biggest pro-democracy paper in Hong Kong, reported that nearly 200 officers were entering their offices. + Other notable arrests: ** <> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/08/10/who-are-jimmy-lai-agnes-chow-two-hong-kong-democracy-advocates-arrested-monday/ + The CCP is not even pretending anymore. + 2020-08-12: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/hong-kong-media-tycoon-lai-released-bail-arrest-200811173810887.html[]: they were released on bail
Police in Hong Kong are seeking the arrest of six pro-democracy activists living in exile in Western countries, including the UK, media reports say.
The group reportedly includes former UK consulate worker Simon Cheng, well-known activist Nathan Law and US citizen Samuel Chu.
The name of the hotel is Metropark Hotel (維景酒店), address: 148 Tung Lo Wan Rd, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong: https://goo.gl/maps/1uR4RntpLMFaCYpq6 + Using hotels as a base of operations is of coures common in occupied regions, see e.g.: ** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peninsula_Paris[The Peninsula Paris] (previously Hotel Majestique), which was used by the <<nazi,Gestapo>> and figures in the movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Shadows[Army of the Shadows (1969)]. An important quote from that movie when a prisoner of the Nazis dies, his friend says: +
All debts will be paid. + Toutes les dettes se paieront.
With the Chinese Communist Party's imposition of new security measures on Hong Kong, the risk that sensitive U.S. technology will be diverted to the People's Liberation Army or <<ministry-of-state-security,Ministry of State Security>> has increased, all while undermining the territory's autonomy. Those are risks the U.S. refuses to accept and have resulted in the revocation of Hong Kong's special status.
Resources:
.Over 100 police officers raid the Apple Daily Hong Kong newspaper soon after the <> started. https://hongkongfp.com/2020/08/10/scores-of-police-raid-office-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-newspaper-apple-daily/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Apple_Daily_raid.webp[height=600]
====== Hong kong national security department hotline
2020-11-06 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-54835955 "Hong Kong: Snitch hotline gets more than 1,000 calls"
An official source: https://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/03_police_message/nsdrh.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20201106164104/https://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/03_police_message/nsdrh.html[archive]).
The contacts:
Related: <>
Discussion:
===== 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests
Wiki page of the event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy
Songs:
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=YhN6jipSHFI Hong Kong Yoga - Sammy J S2 (ep31) published by ABC Comedy on 2019-09-19. Very good. video::YhN6jipSHFI[youtube,height=400,width=600]
====== LeBron James opposes Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests (2019)
NBA is huge in China.
On 2019-10-05 (Friday) 7:41PM Daryl Morey, NBA's Houston Rockets manager sent a tweet with an image that read:
Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.
Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20191005025317if_/https://twitter.com/dmorey/status/1180312072027947008
Then Daryl was a coward, removed this tweet, and apologized on 2019-10-07 (Monday) 1:18 AM https://twitter.com/dmorey/status/1181000808399114240 (https://archive.is/6Sdpn[archive]), so by then it was already deleted.
I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China
Then TODO date the uberstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeBron_James[LeBron James] (not a Houston Rockets player), a big supporter of black rights in the US, criticized this.
https://apnews.com/article/dd96d002394f45a6859c280c889afcb7[LeBron's words]:
I don't want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn't educated on the situation
Related video of LeBron saying similar things on interview (TODO same?): 2019-10-15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjM43blzaRc "LeBron addresses Daryl Morey's tweet and Lakers' trip to China | NBA on ESPN"
Led to: <>.
.Fan wearing Taiwan flag in 2019-10-07 Lakers vs. Heat showing fan and text (TODO from Tencent?) saying that the match will be cancelled. https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dtrx4b/tencent_nba_live_broadcast_got_cancelled_because[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/NBA_Taiwan_flag.jpg[height=600] ** https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49956385 ** https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/07/business/houston-rockets-nba-china-daryl-morey/index.html
Some good LeBron cartoons:
.In 2020-10-04 American billboard company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfront_Media[Outfront Media] refused to post this ad by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legal_and_Policy_Center[NLPC conservative think tank] critical of LeBron James' stand on Hong Kong. The ad shows the NBA superstar with a Chinese flag covering his mouth and the message "Silence is Violence." and URL http://freedom4china.com/[]. https://www.foxnews.com/sports/billboard-company-refuses-to-post-ad-critical-of-lebron-james-stand-on-china[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Silence_is_violence.jpg[height=400]
=== What should all pro-democracy people do about China?
A propaganda slogan from a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance[French Resistance] flyer (see also <>):
To obey is to betray. + To disobey is to serve.
Obéir c'est trahir. + Désobéir c'est servir.
."Obéir c'est trahir. Désobéir c'est servir." flyer featuring the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Lorraine[cross of Lorraine] https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/images/Obéir_cest_trahir_Désobéir_cest_servir/1314227[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/To_obey_is_to_betray.jpg[height=400]
==== Photobombing-like attacks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photobombing
In online video games:
Explicitly forbidden in China by the law: <>.
See also: <>.
===== Appropriation attack
An appropriation attack is one where the attackers attempt to associate an existing symbol to their cause.
For example during the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>> attackers attempted to use this technique to associate a generic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chun-Li[Chinese Chun-Li-like] character Mei from Blizzard's link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwatch_(video_game)++[Overwatch game] to try and get it blocked in China after the gaming company punished a pro gamer for defending the Hong Kong protests. Coverage https://www.businessinsider.com/blizzard-fans-overwatch-mei-hong-kong-protests-memes-2019-10 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191012094950/https://www.businessinsider.com/blizzard-fans-overwatch-mei-hong-kong-protests-memes-2019-10[archive]).
.Mei from Blizzard's Overwatch was used in an attempted <> during the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>. https://twitter.com/marnofavonlea/status/1182557311539150849[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mei_with_Hong_kong.jpg[height=600]
===== Sport event live broadcast image attacks
NBA in particular is super popular in China, and people sitting at the front row can easily bomb emissions due to the small court size:
Started in particular due to the <>
==== What should Western countries do about China?
Force all their Western servers to accept <> connections only: <>.
Western governments must reciprocate unfair Chinese practices: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/18508/why-dont-western-countries-penalize-chinese-companies-in-the-same-way-that-chin
Companies only care about money and have no long term view, the following must be imposed by governments on Western companies.
Serious sanctions must be pot on companies that sell sensitive things to dictatorships:
Related approaches taken by the CCP that should also be stopped dead by strict enforcement of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act[Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)]:
Physical presence influence must be completely blocked, e.g. cultural centers that report directly to the CCP such as <> and <> must be banned.
News about Chinese state media using Western social media:
Accounts that are not labelled as being from the Chinese government, but which support the CCP, must be investigated to determine if they are actually funded by the Chinese government.
TODO what to do with websites of: <>? Blocking them has the downsides that:
Let's just leave them up to start with, who gives a fuck about them? :-) If they are getting too many page views, we can make search engines add the disclaimer too.
Chinese social media such as WeChat and <> must be banned. This is less serious than regular websites, because you can always repost on Western social media but without getting spied on:
Whenever China kicks out a western journalist who is in China and reports there, the Western country must do the same and kick out a Chinese journalists for a Chinese media.
An upside of restricting Chinese servies is that it would hugely bolster <> technologies, as every Chinese expat would need to buy a VPN.
Western governments must identify raw material dependencies on China, and reduce them, while at the same time forbidding technology transfer to China. China has been trading cheap resources for technology, and we must stop that now.
Unfair Chinese commercial practices must be reciprocated. Chinese companies should be forced to open joint ventures to operate outside of China, which is a trick China uses to control profits and more easily steal IP from Western companies:
Sanctions must be imposed directly on Chinese officials. They must not be allowed to "escape to a better life or have investments in the West":
.<> 2016-09-07 cartoon entitled "宽衣<<xi-jinping-memes,撒币>>" depicting <> as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_dance[pole dancer] and throwing money at other world leaders during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_G20_Hangzhou_summit[2016 G20 Hangzhou summit] is a reference to how China buys political influence in other countries by promising profitable trade deals with those countries. https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/biantailajiaomanhua/biantailajiaomanhua-09072016131637.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_pole.jpg[height=400]
===== Mark government controlled social media
All posts of all state-sponsored social media accounts must be clearly marked as such.
This should be done not only for China, but of all countries, including Western democracies.
Even better, they should add funny censored images on top of those that are from dictatorship countries.
Furthermore, marked media from dictatorships must be forbidden to both monetize and pay to promote its content.
Any outlets that do not announce themselves as state sponsored but are, must be banned forever when they are found out.
What to do about personal accounts is much harder to decide however, and especially so in the case of <>, where they might really not be state sponsored, and the creator's nationality won't help make the decision either.
Some websites have started marking such accounts, which is a great start.
Reports of Chinese influence on social media:
[[spy]] ===== China spy stories
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_abroad
Do not underestimate the CCP and its control over every Chinese companies and people. Every Chinese company and person is a potential spy.
This is <<evil-west,true for all countries however>>, and <> does not not reproach China specifically for its secret service, e.g. <> used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#NSA_sub-contractee_as_an_employee_for_Dell[Dell] as an NSA front-end.
The point is just that the West should not underestimate this menace that comes from a <>.
For university espionage in particular see: <>.
Some Chinese spy stories:
Good profile. He was first approached via LinkedIn. As a related case, Jun Wei Yeo was arrested as LinkedIn spy recruiter in 2020: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53544505 + And those stupid Chines handlers gave him a phone that was supposed to be encrypted, but it crashed and then rebooted unencrypted, right when the FBI agents were around. +
But after the 2008 real estate crash, his fortunes changed. His house plummeted in value, and later he lost his job.
** 2019-04-04 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/how-230-000-debt-linkedin-message-led-ex-cia-officer-n990691 "How a $230,000 debt and a LinkedIn message led an ex-CIA officer to spy for China" + Good profile, gives important points: he was 230k in debt, and "Mallory began reaching out to former CIA colleagues in an apparent effort to pump them for information. The ex-colleagues grew suspicious and contacted the CIA, prosecutors say." ** 2019-05-18 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48319058 "Kevin Mallory: Ex-CIA agent jailed for spying for China". + The article also contains a good summary section "CIA spy operation in China: Key dates".
====== 2010 dismantling of CIA's network in China
Around2010-2012 about 20 CIA spies in China were killed. One was shot right in the courtyard of a government building as a message to others.
After identifying some of the websites, possibly with a double agent, Iran was able to reach the rest through Google searches for similar sites.
The trouble started in when the CIA was investigating nuclear weapons in Iran in 2009.
The fact that China soon followed could indicate that Iran sold the secret to China.
TODO do we have any such sample websites or screenshots of them? https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/167
https://news.yahoo.com/cias-communications-suffered-catastrophic-compromise-started-iran-090018710.html mentions that:
A 2011 Iranian television broadcast that touted the government's destruction of the CIA network said U.S. intelligence operatives had created websites for fake companies to recruit agents in Iran by promising them jobs, visas and education abroad. Iranians who initially thought they were responding to legitimate opportunities would end up meeting with CIA officers in places like Dubai or Istanbul for recruitment, according to the broadcast.
therefore the websites might not have been in English.
TODO find that broadcast. News broke 2019-06-22[] apparently:
Iran claims to have captured spies working for CIA
[[ministry-of-state-security]] ====== Ministry of State Security (MSS, Guoanbu, 国安部)
The Chinese <<snowden,counterintelligence>> organ.
Report website launched in 2018 https://www.12339.gov.cn/[], some coverage:
[[pla]] ====== People's Liberation Army (PLA, 中国人民解放军)
The Chinese army, and also one of the central intelligence agencies, notably on cyberattacks.
===== The West must ban the Chinese telecommunications software and hardware
They are an entry point to spying, censorship and <>. Notable companies that should be banned:
Reports:
===== What should Western media do about China?
When you report something about a person, for fuck's sake include the person's name in the title of the article, at the very least the pinyin.
Then, in the body, also add the corresponding Chinese characters on the first mention. This is how you do it: "San Xihou (三西猴)"
Yes, Chinese people also have names. And yes, pinyin has infinitely more homonyms than characters.
In the body of the article, notably in photos, include the exact location of the event if applicable.
City at the very least, but if recognizable, where withing the city.
Yes, China is big! There are many different places in China.
==== Western companies that comply with Chinese censorship requests
Western governments should prevent companies from complying to Chinese censorship requests, or at least impose fines and sanctions on them.
Citizens should boycott such companies and require them to be punished.
See also: <>
Some hell known companies and events:
.Chinese flag with Apple characteristics. https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/11/apple-shares-tumble-5-amidst-china-concerns/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Apple_China_flag.png[height=400]
.2019 summary of companies that kowtow to China. https://twitter.com/hoho90272496/status/1182669015937966080[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Brand_censorship_chart.jpg[height=600]
.<> 2019-10 carton showing several brands kowtowing to <>, while South Park alone gives the middle finger. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/china-hongkong-us-10102019153228.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_bat.jpg[height=400]
.<> 2017-07 showing <> eating an Apple Inc. logo referring to the many events where Apple gave in to Chinese demands to have access to the Chinese market. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/China-Apple-cartoon-08242017103540.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Apple.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WBsahU3X4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert[Stephen Colbert] comments in 2015 on how American films make a good image of China to be allowed in China by censors to increase sales. video::V4WBsahU3X4[youtube,height=400,width=600]
They have a <> policy:
Extremelly dictatorial, we should test other approaches, e.g. background image, and <> on about.
We're a global platform with an obligation to respect the laws that apply to us, including adhering to Chinese government regulations for our localized version of LinkedIn in China," LinkedIn added. The company declined to elaborate on which local law it was examining.
===== Chinese interference in Western media
This lists links between owners of several US media outlets and China: https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/has-china-compromised-every-major-mainstream-media-entity/[] "A Rundown Of Major U.S. Corporate Media’s Business Ties To China". No direct evidence that this has affected the news however.
[[china-watch]] ====== China watch (2011-)
Campaign by <> to add paid articles/ads that read like news in/distributed with Western newspapers. They appeared to be marked as China watch ads, but still, they should be crushed.
As per the documents filed by China Daily with the Justice Department, the Communist party mouthpiece had paid over $6 million to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), $4.6 million to the Washington Post, $2,40,000 to Foreign Policy, $50,000 to the New York Times, $34,600 to The Des Moines Register and $76,000 to CQ-Roll Call.
Besides, spending $11 million in advertising on prominent US papers, China Daily shelled out an additional $7.6 million to The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, and The Boston Globe for printing copies of its own paper. For instance, the Los Angeles Times reportedly received $657,523 for printing services. The Communist party-mouthpiece had also spent $2,65,822 on advertising on Twitter.
The Washington Post is the one that had received the most attention earlier on since 2011: + ** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#China_Daily_advertising_supplements ** https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/official-chinese-propaganda-now-online-from-the-wapo/70690/ "Official Chinese Propaganda: Now Online from the WaPo!" + They even had online distribution channel: http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/ It is https://web.archive.org/web/20200708133054/http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/[dead as of 2020-07], but https://web.archive.org/web/20180330150602/http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/[was alive in 2018]
2020-04-14 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegraph-stops-publishing-section-paid-for-by-china "Daily Telegraph stops publishing section paid for by China"
China Daily itself claims certain partnerships: <> https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/static_e/global.html[]:
China Daily has also developed diversified cooperation with over 40 media organizations around the world, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, etc.
===== bandinchina GitHub repository
https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina
Contains a "List of companies who have apologized to the Chinese government and implemented censorship requests".
It only lists companies that implemented censorship outside of China however (with Hong Kong, <<taiwan,Taiwan>> and Macau defined as outside of China), therefore it is basically a Taiwan flag takedown + Hong Kong / Taiwan censorship list:
Other interesting GitHub repositories: <>.
===== Western companies that stood up against the CCP
See also:
====== Western companies that supported the CCP
See also:
===== Entertainers who support the CCP
Western:
Chinese who are famous in the West:
Chinese celebrities who opposed the CCP:
=== Chinese Interference in the Western education systems
Related about university interference:
China buying pre-University educational institutions:
[[confucius-institute]] ==== Confucius institute (孔子学院)
News and reports:
==== University espionage
Lists:
People:
==== German high school coordinator 2020
YET UNCONFIRMED VIDEO, we have to find who that person is exactly.
The video shows what seems to be Chinese a high school dorm coordinator saying that their Chinese exchange students must staty away from ideas democracy and freedom.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOArB434ykU video::aOArB434ykU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
First ripped from uploader's <<tiktok,Douyin>> account named Michael_c118, who also appears to be the person on the video.
Original proeminent report on the West: 2020-10-04 https://twitter.com/SDeutschlands/status/1312682617888796673 by "Voice From Germany 德國之音"
https://m.yorkbbs.ca/forum/chat/5228712.aspx contains reported screenshots of the Douyin profile (no web interface it seems), include a clear face shot.
Video also commented at:
Key markings:
https://twitter.com/Hujo_DR/status/1312793758203748357/photo/1 is a screenshot of the Douyin profile showing a phone number, which looks like a Chinese number due to prefix 139: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_China#Mobile_phones
The screnshots posted on yorkbbs link him to "北京智享德意国际教育" (Beijing Zhixiang German/Italian International Education).
Googling "北京智享德意国际教育 linkedin" leads to UNCONFIRMED a Yun Xiao https://www.linkedin.com/in/xiaoyun79/ | https://archive.vn/CzZft which is not marked as working in the above organization, but could be the person in the video based on the profile picture (uncertain), and also works with education, thus the Google hit at his current organization (北京智晗未来教育咨询有限公司).
Searching for Google exact hits to "北京智享德意国际教育" leads to https://www.tianyancha.com/company/3283146644 which rejects foreign visits as of 2020-10-26, shows up on Google cache at https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AihPPyAAZr8J:https://www.tianyancha.com/company/3283146644+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=ubuntu[on 2020-10-21] (https://archive.vn/xCfBQ[archive]).
[[thousand-talents-program]] ==== Thousand Talents Program (千人计划)
<> believes that this is exactly the type of thing that poor countries need to do to get richer: https://cirosantilli.com/#what-poor-countries-have-to-do-to-get-richer[].
But we can't allow China to do it because China is a <<dictatorship,dictatorship>>.
[[cssa]] ==== Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA, 中国学生学者联合会)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Students_and_Scholars_Association
Abbreviation: CSSA.
News and reports:
[[ufwd]] ==== United Front Work Department (UFWD, 中共中央统一战线工作部)
China's "Diaspora management" organ.
The likely organizers behind <>, <>, and likely several forms of <>.
==== Astroturfing
[[soft-power]] ===== Soft power (软实力)
=== What should pro-democracy Chinese living in China do about the dictatorship?
First of all, hide and stay safe, unless you can deal the final blow. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War[World at war, 1973], ep. 16:
A dictatorship is like a snake. If you put your foot on its tail as you do it, it will just bite you and nobody will be helped. You have to strike the head.
Once that is taken care of, a few good options are:
If you don't manage to do either of the above, don't do any technological work. Go work on the fields or washing dishes. Working well for Chinese companies makes the Chinese <<dictatorship,Dictatorship>> stronger and <<war,more deadly>>. See also: <>.
And regardless: remember your kids that the commies are bastards every day.
[[reply-policy]] === Ciro Santilli's reply policy (三西猴的回答政策)
People get kind of passionate sometimes about politics. And some of them might also be just malicious <<wumao,wumaos>>, although it is generally not possible to distinguish between them.
If you are not a wumao, consider this:
In order to not waste too much time on those, Ciro Santilli uses the following strategy.
If the original thread post is not very interesting, try to parse it quickly and reply once, always <<better-to-do,linking to the FAQ>>, and then unfollow the thread. This shows that you're still alive, and takes little effort.
Always quote reply, and always write down the ID of the OP on your reply, because discussions like this lead to a large number of comment and account deletions, which could make your reply not make much sense without the context.
Then do your best never to read the inevitable reply again, and above all, never ever reply. An interesting reply never follows from a non-interesting original post. It is hard at first, but you will eventually get the hang of it.
If the user keeps generating notifications, block them as per link:CONTRIBUTING.md[], replying to a single person multiple times is useless.
Never block users for an initial <<shitpost,shitposts>>, just reply with a stupid joke instead. This approach creates more uncertainty and makes you look cooler. Only block if the user is generating multiple notifications.
If a shitpost is made on most other social media except GitHub issues in this repository, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, immediately block the user on that website if you have the permission to do that, with a canned reply:
Hi <idiot's name>, I don't reply to China issues here, please open an issue at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues instead, cheers.
Note however that this is not possible on idiotic websites like <> where such comments may be deleted, possibly automatically, who the fuck knows, e.g. as done at: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli/comment/143227962 In that case just link to sections of the FAQ, or mute people, or maybe just block all comments on the post to not waste time with new useless notifications.
This is because it is not worth answering anywhere else where the information will be scattered and impossible to find later on, and especially on websites that are already blocked in China. Shitposts on Stack Overflow and other non-blocked websites are encouraged however, as they further help to get the website blocked in China.
For outbursts of activity from Chinese websites, usually programming (<<backlinks,v2ex, hacpai, pincong>>), only post the following canned answer and nothing else, because cowards/people who don't know English from the website might delete your posts, so you shouldn't waste time there with that shit:
大家你好
在我的GitHub中国FAQ repository我已经回答了好几个关于我常见的问题。
你们要是在那儿找不到一个回答，请在那个repository开一个issue，我马上就回答。
我不要再在这个网页评论。
Finally, don't forget the golden rule from https://biblehub.com/proverbs/26-4.htm[Proverbs 26:4]:
Don't answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.
which is now usually seen in the form https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/66460/origin-of-do-not-argue-with-idiots[of unclear attribution]:
Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Where basically idiot == someone who creates posts that obviously aren't teaching you any new useful thing, or that not praising you :-)
Alternatively, there is also the Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] version:
对牛弹琴
which means:
Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow.
which means to talk to someone who does not have intellectual conditions of understanding what you are trying to say, bibliography:
More <<wumao,wumao>> focused strategies at: <>.
.Cartoon depiction of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] "Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow" 《对牛弹琴》. https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/438181067.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Play_qin_to_cow.png[height=600]
.XKCD 386 "Duty Calls" and the famous "Someone is wrong on the Internet" quote. It is a waste of time to be like that. https://xkcd.com/386/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Someone_is_wrong_on_the_Internet.png[height=400]
=== Who is behind this amazing FAQ?
[[ciro-santilli]] ==== Ciro Santilli (三西猴)
Original creator of https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[]: https://cirosantilli.com/
.Ciro testing his webcam for https://askubuntu.com/questions/348838/how-to-check-available-webcams-from-the-command-line/848390#848390[an Ask Ubuntu answer]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli.png[height=400]
[[wife]] ===== Ciro Santilli's wife (三西猴的老婆)
Born and raised in China: <>.
She and her mother do <>, see also: <>.
Believes to be descendant of the brother of a recent Qing emperor, see also: <>.
For this same reason, her father, who Ciro's wife worships, spent around 10 years in the 50's for being branded a counter revolutionary rightist (右派) during one of <<mao-zedong,Mao's>> purges, possibly:
It is also for this reason that many Manchu changed their names to hide their Manchu origins, which makes reconstructing their family tree much harder, as mentioned at: https://www.scmp.com/article/982136/proud-manchu-reclaims-his-rich-heritage for the purposes of <>.
Ciro's wife:
and is way smarter than Ciro.
<<wumao,Wumaos>> can say many things about her, but claiming that she is not intelligent or has no culture or would have any difficulty in obtaining a qualified worker VISA without a marriage, is a lost argument from the start, she would likely kick your butt in a raw intelligence competition.
Ciro is actually the lucky one for having found her!
The fake "the woman makes the man" Obama story comes to mind https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spousal-success-story/[] (Obama would never say that in public):
One night President Obama and his wife Michelle decided to do something out of routine and go for a casual dinner at a restaurant that wasn't too luxurious. When they were seated, the owner of the restaurant asked the President's Secret Service if he could please speak to the First Lady in private. They obliged and Michelle had a conversation with the owner.
Following this conversation President Obama asked Michelle, "Why was he so interested in talking to you?" She mentioned that in her teenage years, he had been madly in love with her. President Obama then said, "So if you had married him, you would now be the owner of this lovely restaurant," to which Michelle responded, "No. If I had married him, he would now be the President."
=== How do different websites view Ciro Santilli's profile?
<> contains a more general overview. This contains website specifics.
==== Stack Overflow
Stack Overflow is where <> started his <> originally in 2015 as explained at: <>.
For non-programmers, Stack Overflow is by far the leading programmer question and answer forum of the Internet.
A programmer's daily job involves asking Google about 50 times a day "how to do X", and 90% of the time or more the best answer will be found on the Stack Overflow result that will be one of the top 3 results.
This makes Stack Overflow a fundamental tool of every programmer's daily jobs.
The current community consensus says that keyword attacks are allowed:
However, you can't say "Public figure X is disgusting as a person" so <>s, could you please report Ciro making fun of Xi Jinping X and see what they do about it?
Reposts:
Oh, and you can't criticize God either! https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/231334/is-it-acceptable-to-insult-god-in-a-user-profile
The Chinese law doesn't allow Ciro's profile unfortunately: <>
Since you will fail through Stack Overflow moderation, please consider instead making a report on the <>.
===== Stack Overflow forbids criticizing the character of genocidal political leaders like Xi Jinping
Ciro was actually quite shocked by this.
He thought more people on Stack Overflow would have sided with him and favored stronger freedom of speech.
But this event made him notice that people in Stack Overflow simply didn't push back against Ciro's anti Xi Jinping campaign because they don't know who the fuck Xi Jinping is, or they don't care, or they are completely hypocrite and allow criticizing Xi Jinping but not Trump.
But they do know who Trump is, and "offending Trump" makes their feeble little feelings be hurt, and they must maintain their sacred "<<politically-incorrect,political correctness>>" at all costs, even when talking about politicians. Including that the cost of freedom.
This therefore morally justifies the take-down attempts made by hundreds of <>s against Ciro's anti Xi Jinping content.
First by initiative of Stack Overflow employee https://meta.stackexchange.com/users/508266/cesar-m[Cesar Manara (Brazilian)], the sentence:
I think Trump is disgusting as a person
was removed from Ciro's profile and notified.
In response, Ciro created a meta thread to confirm that the community agreed, and they did: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361486/can-i-say-on-my-profile-that-i-find-that-an-ex-president-of-a-country-or-other[Can I say on my profile that I find that an (ex) president of a country or other major political public figure is “disgusting as a person”?] and the community agreed with the removal: it reached only 5 upvotes and 25 downvotes. Ciro's profile at the time was linked to Trump's ban on social media: link:trump-ban-is-bad.md[].
Ciro then created https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361493/if-a-politician-has-committed-genocide-can-i-say-on-my-profile-they-look-like-w[If a politician has committed genocide, can I say on my profile they look like Winnie-the-Pooh to insult them because they hate that?] was it was also mostly downvoted, and deleted, without any answer. Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20210227034430/https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/361493/if-a-politician-has-committed-genocide-can-i-say-on-my-profile-they-look-like-w also reproduced at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198#issuecomment-787047672 The deletion voters were:
There was no yes/no answer by anyone, because the of cowardice and hypocrisy:
So their brains just tilted, and they clicked the "delete" button as the only possible resolution. The overly speedy deletion of posts was then raised as an issue two days later for an unrelated post: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/405585/can-we-slow-down-on-the-deletes-on-meta-folks
Then Ciro created an answer to https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/286082/does-the-be-nice-policy-require-se-users-to-be-nice-to-people-who-are-not-se-u/361497#361497["Does the Be Nice policy require SE users to “be nice” to people who are not SE users (e.g. public figures)?"] which is a superset of the previous ones referred by them. That post is reproduced at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198#issuecomment-787047242 It cites the case in which the law was tested, but it was single-handedly by journeyman-geek (from Singapore) without any justification.
Ciro then finally updated his profile picture to contain <>, archive at: https://archive.vn/iV1L8 to test the Winnie-the-Pooh case which people simply refused to answer. Let's see show that goes. As Ciro learned however, only wumaos will continue to complain, and due to hypocrisy their complaints will be ignored.
Other users who publicly went against freedom of speech in that case (in the name of "political correctness"):
we don't have to host or pay directly or indirectly to support your opinion. That's well established policy"
Freedom of speech in social media is truly threatened by the <>.
Related issue: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/198
===== Other openly dissident users on Stack Overflow
For non-Stack Overflow specific ones see: <>
Query to find them: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/312860/chinese-dissidents-by-keyword-aboutme-or-displayname
Notable ones only here (high rep or innovative criticism):
https://stackoverflow.com/users/1230329/scott-混合理论 + The same message as Yu Hao, I wonder if it is an external thing or direct copy of Yu, but no Google hits besides them.
Users who had <<gfw,GFW>> references but removed it:
Misc interesting stuff:
Query to find them: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/312863/mentioned-ciro-santilli-on-aboutme-or-displayname
====== Stack Overflow anti-dissident users
==== GitHub
GiHub is the new <>! :) See also: <>.
GitHub's site policy can be seen at: https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy
If you believe this page violates those policies, you can click the report abuse button on https://github.com/cirosantilli[Ciro's profile], which links to: https://github.com/contact/report-abuse?report=cirosantilli+%28user%29 or you can just contacat support@github.com
If you do so, please feel free to also open an issue on this repository saying why you believe the site policy has been violated.
Those issues will be marked with: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Aabuse-report+
It will be fun to watch you try, and fail.
This is because you do not understand how important the concept of <<richer,freedom of speech is>> in the West, and how amazing it feels when you are right, and it protects you.
The only thing that would work is if the Chinese government makes a gov-takedown on this repo: <>, in which case: <>.
In order to get this repository in gov-takedown, your best bet is to use the <>.
China's GitHub censorship history is documented at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#China[], some events:
Related:
===== GitHub censored subdomains
It appears according to <> however that there are some important GitHub censored subdomains, notably:
However, at least for raw, <> disagrees:
More information:
===== GitHub gov-takedowns
https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns
GitHub has absolute transparency on Government takedowns, which is awesome: https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/tree/master/China
This makes that repo into a list of fun things.
As of 2019-05 there had only been only two takedowns by China however, compared to dozens by <>. The Chinese commies are not big fans of transparency it seems.
As of 2020-03, besides the <<programthink,Zhao>> takedown, all other takedowns happened in 2019, and most seem to be <>/<> sponsored ways to <<censorship-circumvention,climb the wall>>.
The message GitHub shows on the blocked countries is:
Repository unavailable in your location
This repository is currently disabled in your location. For more details please see the takedown notice.
Here are some examples of people reacting to the blocking of https://github.com/programthink/zhao/issues/38 as per https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/78775b09e64d85f08547287cab204b48b2491192/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md from China (and likely on the entire repository, which appears to be the block granularity implemented):
See also: <>
To check China only takedowns such as this, we cannot use <<censorship-monitoring,Great Fire Analyzer>>, which reports the page as accessible: the only tool <> could find so far to capture a page from China a bit like Web Archive was: <>
.<> of https://github.com/programthink/zhao/issues/38 from <> taken on 2020-09-31 from China. The "Repository unavailable in your location" message shows, since https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md[this repository is in gov-takedowns/china]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/GitHub_Programthink_Zhao_issue_38_China_geoscreenshot_2020_09_31.png[height=400]
====== Strategy if this repo gets added to GitHub gov-takedowns
If this happens, we well proceed to create alternative repos china-dictatorship-2, china-dictatorship-3, etc. and it would be fun to see how that gets handled.
Can they add an entire user to gov-takedowns?
But remember that we also have: <>, and that this can be easily rendered as a single HTML page and uploaded to any static website host.
[[gov-takedowns-china]] ====== gov-takedowns/China
Skipping all <>/<> repos with very few stars, mostly some <> skip methods, those are noise, and possibly added only to dilute the real deal.
===== GitHub repositories with censored information
For lists of censored information outside of GitHub see: <>.
For content outside of GitHub: <>.
Mentioned in other sections:
Not mentioned in other sections:
Interesting users:
Non-information but also interesting:
TODO evaluate:
Reasonable topics:
[[terminus2049]] ====== Terminus2049 (端点星计划)
Jekyll GitHub Pages repository that saves full text copies of censored articles:
本仓库存放被删文章
This repository stores deleted articles.
Also accompanies a dynamic forum https://2049bbs.xyz/ which appears to be where content for the static pages gets discussed and brought up. But it possible that the website has been compromised and is leaking identity of users. At some point, https://2049bbs.xyz went down. Live https://web.archive.org/web/20200719151022/https://2049bbs.xyz/ dead: https://archive.vn/JFqCJ
The "Terminus" in the repo name seems to be a reference to Isaac Asimov's fictional https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Terminus[Terminus planet] which is called https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/端点星[端点星] in Chinese, but it is not clear where the 2049 comes from in that context. Forgetting the Chinese name, Terminus2049 could be a reference to the fictional https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/World_War_Terminus["World War Terminus"] from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049[Blade Runner 2049 (2019)] movie, which also explains the 2049.
First commint on 2018-04-27, GitHub pages domain blocked in China at least since 2019-03 according to <>: https://zh.greatfire.org/search/all/https%3A//terminus2049.github.io but not in <> as of 2020-04.
The full post list can be seen most conveniently at: https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/tree/master/_posts The number of articles is insane, usually several every day.
Most articles appear to be taken from recent news at the time of writting, although there are a few from before the repo started. As of 2020-04, the oldest article was from 2016 <> events reported by Yue Xin, some other topics include:
They use Jekyll tags a lot, which makes for a good grouping of the topics.
In 2020-04-25, it was reported that three Beijing-based contributors were arrested during <>:
People:
In 2020-06-12 their families received calls saying that they had been charged with <>:
Ciro's petition to free them: https://github.com/cirosantilli/chen-mei-cai-wei-ziyou
How their identities were found:
Terrible opsec... they used real name GitHub emails on early commits, including the institutional university address, before they started better opsec under https://github.com/TerminusBot / terminus2049@protonmail.com
https://github.com/thphd/2047 is a project to restore terminus, live at https://2047.name[] Ciro mention at: https://2047.name/e/76182458[] by https://2047.name/u/5155 which is similar to a <> mention, so they seem to share the database? Who knows what's the relation between all those <> lookalikes. TODO that website shows an <>? Very confusingly also mirrored at https://pincong.org e.g. https://pincong.org/t/10219[]/https://2047.name/t/10219[], which is very similar to <>'s address. Related account: https://github.com/PincongBot
https://2047.name[] has a links section at: https://2047.name/links shown on the sideboard, containg links of interest. Some all not are very China specific.
https://2047.name/register registration requires an invitation code.
https://github.com/2049bbs/2049bbs.github.io[] / https://2049bbs.github.io/[] maintains another archive up to 2019-03-03.
.Side-by-side photos of Chen Mei (陈玫) and Cai Wei (蔡伟). https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/7-04252020144555.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chenmei_Caowei.png[height=400]
[[chinatimeline]] ====== chinatimeline (中国时间线)
https://github.com/chinatimeline/chinatimeline.github.io
Explores several sensitive topics through interesting timelines with many pictures, for example:
Some minor relationships with <>:
====== duty-machine
The anonymous user https://github.com/duty-machine has some automation setup such that anyone can request certain webpages to be copied on to GitHub anonymously through a separate website, notably:
The project claims to have been inspired by <>, but hopefully they will have better operational security.
Unfortunately, it was found that the project could be used by malicious users to at mention spam GitHub users: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/192[], let's see if they patch it.
[[zhao-heming]] ====== Zhao Heming (召赫名)
A few accounts were created by this pseudonym, e.g.:
Much more sanely encoded/formatted/rendered versions can be found at:
Both Zhao Heming repos contain reproductions of two manifestos are pasted together on a single file, and somewhat broken encoding.
Ciro noticed that thoe repos attracted an incredible ammount of <> on the comments, despite having very simple copy pasted content, it was very impressive!!! Ciro was jealous, and added some anti-wumao comments in. On commits:
https://github.com/zhaohmng/-21-/issues/416#issuecomment-784939665 "为什么这个屎一样的东西会出现在我个人主页左侧的repositories中，那里不是应该只有自己的项目才会出现吗？有办法屏蔽它吗？还是github故意的？" explains why so many people come comment in the repository: it is because it appears on the "Explore repositories" repository suggestions which show on the side bar of your GitHub homepage, and on searches.
After further inspection, taught understood that repository descriptions given to GitHub can be really huge for SEO: they had pasted the entire 21st century text there. So Ciro attempted the same approach, and pasted all of link:21century.md[], link:wang-huning-three-dynasties.adoc[] and link:fifth-modernization.md[] in there on 2021-03-23, and the effect was dramatic: an immediate 4x more views on the following day according to https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/graphs/traffic[] (40 unique visitors to 100 on a Wednesday), and a few wumao comments. And a wumao soon confirmed that it was working directly: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/201[]. This can be automated with: link:description.sh[].
Further optimizations:
.... #!/usr/bin/env bash printf 英语词汇量小程序 printf 联级选择器 printf Bitcoin printf 区块链 cat README.md | grep -P '^|\d' | cut -d| -f4 | perl -CSDA -pe 'use utf8;s/:[a-zA-Z0-9]+/ /g' | perl -CSDA -pe 'use utf8;s/[、，,—【】。；（）！－>｜：《》「…￣ﾉ·‘’!@#$%^&*()_+-=/\;:[]{}.,`~'"'"'" \x{200D}\x{10000}-\x{1FFFF}\x{2B00}-\x{2BFF}\x{25A0}-\x{25FF}\x{2600}-\x{26FF}\x{2700}-\x{27BF}\x{1F300}-\x{1F5FF}]+/ /g' | perl -CSDA -pe 'use utf8;s/https? +//i' | perl -CSDA -pe 'use utf8;s/[a-zA-Z0-9 ]{32,}//g' | tr -d '\n' | head -c 64000 .... + Ciro started using that one instead to see if it was going to be more effective on 2021-03-28. First it hit a peak of 168 visitors on Monday 2021-03-29, and then fell back to 90 and 81 on the following days, so similar to the previous Chinese political input. It is very hard to understand why the first day was so different.
A large part of those projects falls in the following categories: + ** interview preparation. Competition is of course cutthroat with such a large population. ** collections of interesting things Chinese like repositories or blog posts
Furthermore, Ciro later noticed that under GitHub's settings, there is a "Preferred spoken language" box described as "We'll use this language preference to filter the trending repository lists on Explore and our Trending Repositories page." Therefore, the secret to get lots of hits is to add Chinese programming keywords to the repository description string.
New issues:
On top commented/liked issues:
The first is "21世纪新政宣言" (New System Declaration for the 21st Century).
It proposes a peaceful reunification of China with <> under their specified political system described in 12 paragraphs. This system is a reformed type of Western democracy, which the manifesto also criticize downsides of.
The manifesto is dated drafted 2019.8.6, and several versions have different update dates and revision numbers, e.g. our copy is dated 7th edition of 2020.6.19. TODO what is canonical?
The manifesto provides an email "wanghunn@gmx.com" for those who signed it to send the signed version to, and describes the author as male 70 years old Chinese person.
TODO what does: "起草人：赫连禾" mean?
The second is "三朝罪恶元凶王沪宁" (The Culprit of Three Dynasties Wang Huning).
The title presumably refers to:
Wikipedia mentions:
Wang is believed to have been one of the principal architects behind the official political ideologies of three paramount leaders: "Three Represents" by Jiang Zemin, the Scientific Development Concept by Hu Jintao, and the <<chinese-dream,Chinese Dream>> and <> of Xi Jinping.
so it must be about him.
The manifesto is divided into 23 numbered headers which appear to be independently published texts later collected. It is signed by 郝雪森 (Hao Xuesen) 2016-09-10. One of the sections gives the email: haoxuesen@gmx.com[].
====== Bot + issue mention attack
In March 2021, this repo had a traffic search spike for: "Search · 联级选择器"
This term refers to https://ant.design/components/cascader-cn/ which seems to be a CSS live selector
The related project: https://github.com/ant-design/ant-design-pro
Someone actually used wumao techniques mentioned at:
to attack that repo:
TODO which exact GitHub action did they rely on? That repo currently has a https://github.com/ant-design/ant-design-pro/actions/workflows/issue-open-check.yml Issue Open Check GitHub action sample run: https://github.com/ant-design/ant-design-pro/runs/2209272410?check_suite_focus=true we see the similarity issue analysis thing, but how could that have worked more precisely to link across repos? Asked at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/203
===== Gitee
For our mirror there, see: <>.
Linked to "Open Source China" (开源中国) according to TechCrunch:
The project will be carried out by a consortium led by Open Source China, the Shenzhen-based firm behind its namesake open-source community and Gitee.
At https://gitee.com/mirrors they mirrors 21 thousand repositories as of 2021, updating them daily, with the goal of having "higher download speeds" in mainland China. Not that their speed is shit because of censorships of course.
Mirrors containing Ciro's keywords or related interesting stuff:
||cirosantilli.com, which is a decoded version of the base-64 encoded <> normally used for <>. Lol.fclg into 法轮功 on tab complete. Nice.As of 2021, it requires login to see:
Lol.
News:
The name of that OS is pure gold considering the Chinese origin, since "to harmonize" is often used as a way to say "to censor negative CCP information". + That URL also likely highlights Huawei's intense influence on Gitee, the as the custom domain redirects to it: https://openharmony.gitee.com[], as opposed to what normal users can likely create https://gitee.com/openharmony[].
<> commented about his <> experiment there, it got 26 upvotes 13 downvotes, and as removed as "This post violated our policy.". There is no way to appeal that in that idiotic system. It is absed on: https://www.openweb.com/ It is also bugged as fuck. Sometimes says violates policy, then there's a JavaScript update andthe comment shows.
====== Gitee censorship
After posting our <> there, it was blocked in 12 hours:
{"status":404,"data":null,"message":"404 Not Found"}
{"status":403,"data":null,"message":"The user has been blocked"}
The block email is:
通知
仓库 cirosantilli/China Dictatorship 已被锁定
原因： 根据相关法律法规和政策，本仓库暂停访问。
[[zhihu]] ==== Zhihu 知乎
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhihu
The Chinese <<quora,Quora>> clone, but highly censored: <>.
Some interesting questions not related to <>. Ciro related questions at: <>.
.The Zhihu 404 page image. When they take the posts down as of 2020, it shows the 404 page which reads "你似乎来到了没有知识存在的荒原" (you seem to have come to a wasteland about which does does not exist any knowledge), and shows this symbol. https://web.archive.org/web/20200614114534/https://www.zhihu.com/topic/20080590/intro[Source]. i mage::https://web.archive.org/web/20200614114535im_/https://static.zhihu.com/heifetz/assets/liukanshan_wire.e7247fbf.svg[height=500]
==== Zhihu censorship
More general censorship discussion at: <>.
Examples of Zhihu censorship:
Other discussions:
[[zhihu-purge]] ===== Ciro Santilli's Zhihu purge 2019-11-03
On this day, not only the posts made by Ciro himself were deleted: he had never asked any questions or made any Zhuanlan posts himself, only replied to those. But that content made by other users was still removed. Therefore, this is not just a simple user ban, but active censorship.
Ciro received an email from account@mail.zhihu.com:
您好，Ciro Santilli，很抱歉您的回答受到了牵连，您回答过的问题「github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？」因「违反互联网相关法律法规」已被删除。
followed by Ciro's answer to <>. Ciro could not login anymore, the login screen showed:
帐号已停用，请联系：user@zhihu.com
So likely someone must have used the fact that this was an edgy personally information release subject issue, and then someone from Zhihu decided to purge Ciro and anyone posts that ever talked about him.
Ciro's blocked account:
Random unblocked control account: https://www.zhihu.com/people/lu-zhen-yu-96-65/activities (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103070652/https://www.zhihu.com/people/lu-zhen-yu-96-65/activities[archive]).
Furthermore, all questions related to Ciro, including the posts criticizing him such as https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/25600138[] (https://archive.is/DkooN[archive]), were taken down. This made Ciro laugh: in China, you can't even criticize that which is censored, or your post also gets taken down.
Ciro then created an anonymous Zhihu account after this event.
Interestingly however, the following answer came up later on: <> and stayed up for at least 5 months, which indicates that Zhihu did a one-off removal, and did not set up a filter for Ciro's name.
====== Ciro Santilli's Zhihu ban 2018-06-25
<> was banned from Zhihu on 2018-06-25 for "<>" content.
As a result, since that time I will be answering Zhihu questions as issues in this repo with the zhihu label: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Azhihu+
I have however never posted anything politically sensitive on Zhihu, unless my name and profile picture have reached that distinction, and therefore the ban is clearly an unfair per-person ban.
But of course, all is fair in love and war, and politics.
Posting any sensitive content on Chinese websites is a waste of time, since it only means that they will be removed and you will waste time creating a new account, I will never do that.
The only significant content I ever posted on Zhihu is the answer to: https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710/answer/122827944 which is purely technical, and trivial replies on threads that other people have started about me. Have those people been blocked like me?
My posts are still up and it does not appear to be possible for people to see that I have been banned, but whenever I try to take any action on the website a popup appears saying:
由于严重违反 知乎社区管理规定 ，该帐号已被永久禁言
This includes liking, commenting, answering, asking or trying to update my profile to say that I have been blocked.
This message also shows on my public page for everyone to see: https://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities but they use some JavaScript scheme complicated enough that archive.is cannot capture it.
I still get notifications however, but I am unable to reply to them, especially given that all Chinese accounts, unlike mine, have no personal identifiable information due to the understandable fear Chinese citizens have of their own government, even though such accounts might be illegal in theory: <>.
The only action that I can take now is to report abusive comments people make to me.
Obviously, the only effect of such ban is that I will create an <<anonymous-accounts-ban,anonymous account>> under Tor with a second cell phone if I wish to contribute in the future, and China will have less information about my political interests than before.
The private messages the website sends while banning you are:
知乎管理员 ：您好，根据用户举报，您的帐号发布了「<<politically-sensitive,政治敏感>>」内容，帐号已根据知乎社区规范被永久禁言。处理详情可查看社区服务中心。具体规范请查看知乎社区管理规定。 6月25日 16:37 回复 | 删除
知乎管理员 ：您好，根据用户举报，您的部分个人信息由于不符合知乎用户信息管理规范已被重置。用户名可以在设置页面中修改，修改后会自动进入审核等待通过；其他个人信息可以在个人主页中编辑。感谢您对知乎社区的理解和支持。 6月25日 16:37 回复 | 删除
Those messages contain links to: https://www.zhihu.com/terms2 | https://archive.is/wdXSz and https://www.zhihu.com/question/19551824 | https://archive.is/BrgV2
The ban came soon after I posted a link to my GitHub repo as a comment at: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/ice-employee-list-github-linkedin/ maybe they are related.
====== Who reported Ciro Santilli on Zhihu
At the same time the ban happened I received a public comment from user "Eureka" https://www.zhihu.com/people/crb912/activities | https://archive.is/1F3t6 on this thread: https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710 | https://archive.is/PVOLd saying:
你滥用了github， 也滥用了Stackover。这个一个纯粹计算机、编程和知识分享的地方，请不要带入政治性的色彩。请不要这么做， 维护社区的非政治性、中立和技术性纯粹，是每个热爱cs的人应尽的义务。
I am unable to get a URL that shows the comment on archive.is, so I have no proof of this claim. If you trust me, then here is a screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/YCiEEax
Since I expect the ban lists to be private, I find it extremely likely that this was the user who reported me, unless both were simultaneously triggered by a third event which I have not seen. So correct me if I'm wrong here.
Users with the same user id crb912, related "Eureka" username or same profile picture, can be found at:
By Googling the email found on the GitHub repos, we find: http://www.360doc.com/content/15/0809/11/25724933_490492490.shtml | https://archive.is/2UnGL which might, at last, contain a photo of my nemesis.
My public message to the reporter whomever he may be:
While you have also raised issues that were raised a thousand times before, and clearly answered in the FAQ, at least you were able to take some actual action leading to an actual ban, and I respect you for that.
I hope that one day you will redirect that cunning and initiative towards taking down the root cause of the problem, which are the Chinese communist Party and their Firewall themselves.
===== Zhihu questions related to Ciro Santilli
Parent section: <>
All Zhihu posts related to Ciro Santilli were deleted following <>. Some had been deleted before.
It just makes Ciro smile whenever he thinks that their post criticizing Ciro was deleted by the CCP, and they still might support the CCP, <<meant-to-be-used,Stockholm syndrome comes to mind>>. + As of 2020, that website generates a constant stream of incoming traffic to the issue it links to: https://github.com/cirosantilli/chat/issues/26[]. Unfortunately brglng was a coward and removed his comments leaving the conversation a bit broken, and this was before Ciro <<wayback-machine,web archived obsessively>>.
A random control question that shows that archive.org 404's are actually deleted questions: https://www.zhihu.com/question/316700165 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103065449/https://www.zhihu.com/question/316700165[archive]).
Mentions not yet deleted as of writing:
[[zhihu-ted-chiang-answer]] ====== Answer to the Zhihu question "How do you evaluate Ted Chiang's 'Evil Chinese Characters' essay?" "如何评价姜峯楠（Ted Chiang）在纽约客上的随笔《坏汉字》？"的回答
https://www.zhihu.com/question/47205991/answer/967940202 (http://web.archive.org/web/20200628101940/https://www.zhihu.com/question/47205991/answer/967940202[archive])
Contains reactions to the post: <>, and this answer says that even though Ciro Santilli is amazingly smart, he cannot be bothered to learn Chinese characters, quoting Ciro's comments from: <>.
This post was interesting because it happened after <>, which indicates that Zhihu did not setup an automated "Ciro Santilli" filter.
[[zhihu-46957710]] ====== github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？
https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710 (https://archive.is/PVOLd[archive before deletion], (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103065828/https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710[archive after deletion])).
Asked in 2016-09 after Ciro published: https://github.com/cirosantilli/all-github-commit-emails
Deleted after <>. Ciro's answer before deletion:
你用的git config user.email当然是公开的：谁都会git clone就知道了。
问题就是git repository很大，我们不会都clone.
但是github有一个API，收集很多信息，包括邮件。
然后，Google用了那个API给他们的https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/...信息。
BigQuery对程序员很容易提取信息，是我用的。
我发表邮件以后，两个东西变化了：
这就是我的木比：保护人们的隐私权
我的README.md更详细地解释。
==== Quora
https://www.quora.com/profile/Ciro-Santilli
Quora is https://cirosantilli.com/quora[a generally shitty website], with mechanisms that allow <<wumao,wumaos>> to quench freedom of speech.
Quora is a major platform for <>.
Ironically, as usual, is it also blocked in China:
Examples of activity related to Ciro Santilli:
Added my Noodle shop to maps: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Tiananmen+Square+Noodle+Shop/@60.6132538,15.6687509,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x94603408e3c63fb3!8m2!3d60.6132538!4d15.6687509 + Leach websites that picked it up: https://kvalster.se/Falu/Uthyres/Lagenheter/Gammelvagen_49_1417351
Quora is also shitty because wumaos can downvote your answer privately regardless of reputation and make it become collapsed as "Answer may need improvement", which means it goes to the bottom and readers have to click an "expand collapsed answers" button to see it, so that very few people will ever see it.
Then have to appeal and wait for moderators to evaluate it.
This happened for example at: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli (see also <>).
Ciro appealed in 2020-03-10 and the answer was reinstated on day later, but by then the question was already not being suggested as much to readers, and the other wumao answers (which criticize the USA rather than answering the question about China).
While there is some probability that the answers themselves are not wumaos, their upvoters almost certainly are and must be investigated.
Other shitty aspects of Quora include:
As a result, on the few occasions that Ciro posts on Quora, all content will also be mirrored here. Ciro's China Quora answers include:
Some <<wumao,wumaos>>:
Related posts:
[[ptt]] ==== PTT Bulletin Board System 批踢踢實業坊
Popular <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> forum system and server from 1995, pre HTML, works from telnet terminal, so likely very programmer heavy, and obviously anti-CCP, as of 2020 often shows <> ads.
<>'s appearances on PTT:
Archaic, fucking impossible to learn how to use. Ciro Santilli hasn't managed yet, so if you want a reply from him, open an issue on this repo instead. Some tips:
TODO: can anyone comment, without having a Taiwanese university address? This suggests no: https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/comments/1etbvb/anyone_on_pttcc_advice_suggestions/ Also asked at:
A source informed Ciro that now only https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Taiwan_University[NTU] alumni can have an account.
Maybe the email requirement is the only way to prevent <<wumao,wumaos>> from flooding the website.
Normal people see it on a web viewer hosted on: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/index.html
However it is fucking impossible to web archive that web interface because there is a cookie I'm 18-years-old confirmation before the first connection.
This shows how to connect for the first time: https://www.ptt.cc/index.firstbbs.html
One attempt is:
.... luit -encoding big5 telnet ptt.cc ....
But the main page says:
"本站目前暫停開放新帳號註冊。" "This site is currently suspended for new account registration."
And you try new it says: "目前無法註冊帳號![按任意鍵繼續]" "Account cannot be registered at this time."
OK, ptt2 went further:
.... luit -encoding big5 telnet ptt2.cc ....
Then there is a registration process that seem to require you to prove that you work at Taiwanese university, but not sure it is mandatory to post.
But I couldn't find Gossiping there either, which is the only board that matters, so not sure it is on this server.
[[lihkg]] ==== LIHKG (連登)
URL: https://lihkg.com
<> Reddit. Requires a Hong Kong IP or university address to login, a bit in the spirit of <> to avoid <>.
If it goes down, they created: https://www.reddit.com/r/LIHKG/ on <>.
TODO meaning of "LI"?
<> mentions:
[[google]] ==== Google 谷歌
Related subjects:
[[google-mirrors]] ===== Google mirrors 谷歌镜像
Do the names mean anything? Are they owned? The fact that they are Alexa top 1000 domains is just so funny, Google redirects for China.
Alexa top 1000 domains and blocked in China as per <>:
https://library.ac.cn/ large list of university Google/Google Scholar/Wikipedia/Twitter mirrors maintained by Chinese university students under an unified system. Each one asks for verification that you are from that university via some little known fact about the university:
Other mirrors:
No HTTPS?!?! Brains?!?!
Lists of mirrors:
[[christianity]] === Christianity (基督教)
The commies are not a fan. But as someone once told me: the commies are not a fan of a bunch of things!
As mentioned at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China there are only a few state approved churches under total CCP control, and the others are forbidden. For example one of them is called the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Patriotic_Catholic_Association[Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association]! God and CCP on the same sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII[Pope Pius XII] excommunicated people from that organization who were appointing new Bishops!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China–Holy_See_relations#September_2018_Holy_See–China_Agreement + .<> 2018-09 cartoon showing the Pope Francis with a Christian cross containing the Hammer and Sickle communist symbol, in reference to one of the accords that the Vatican struck with the Chinese government. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/vatican-china-cartoon-09282018102133.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pope_CCP_deal.jpeg[height=400]
.China's Golden Lampstand Church being demolished. https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-authorities-demolish-christian-mega-church-in-crackdown-2018-1[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Church_demolition.jpg[height=400]
.<> 2018-09 cartoon showing Jesus and the Apostles in the Last Supper being arrested by CCP guards. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/china-crackddown-Christianity-cartoon-09072018150421.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Last_Supper_arrest.jpeg[height=400]
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Hongtu[Zhang Hongtu] cartoon showing <<mao-zedong,Mao Zedong>> and other communist officials at the Last Supper instead of Jesus and the Apostles. https://musicandculture.blogspot.com/2010/03/massive-last-supper-parodies-post.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Last_Supper_Mao.jpg[height=400]
[[life-of-brian-nazi-jew]] .https://youtu.be/wthHB3iTC7M?t=556 Nazi Jew deleted scene from <>. If you want to stop <>, don't put them in jail like the <<dictatorship,dictators>>. Do it the same way you stop dictators: with <<funny,comedy>>. Otherwise, the dictators remain in power, and <<intolerance,next person in jail, will be you>>. <> is a good documentary about it. video::wthHB3iTC7M[youtube,width=600,height=400,start=556]
.https://youtu.be/tRr_1U9EvWI "How China uses intimidation, negotiation to bring Christians under its control" by CBC News: The National (2018). Talks about the Pope's deal with the CCP. Shows some good footage of a house church with a guard in front of the door. video::tRr_1U9EvWI[youtube,width=600,height=400,start=556]
[[eastern-lightning]] ==== Eastern Lightning 全能神教會 (1991-)
A persecuted Christian sect that believes that some Chinese woman is Jesus.
=== Kaifeng Jews
Even with such tiny community, the <> is still trying to pretende they never existed.
[[gay-rights]] === Gay rights LGBT权利
Yes, gay people are also <<evil-west,discriminated to different degrees in Western countries>>, and even legally prohibited notably in the Islamic world.
But <<intolerance,like all minorities>>, they are generally more fucked in <<dictatorship,dictatorships>>, since they can be easily crushed by majorities.
Therefore, all gay people must be against the CCP:
#iamgay and #iamgaynotapervert
** 2018-04-13 https://www.whatsonweibo.com/weibos-new-online-guidelines-no-homosexuality-allowed/.Widely distributed still from the Addicted 2016 series which was banned showing a presumably gay couple lying in bed. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/04/china-bans-gay-people-television-clampdown-xi-jinping-censorship[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Addicted_bed.jpg[height=400]
See also:
.Lesbian couple kissing in <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square>> with Mao's painting and confused/disgusted guards in the background who are likely about to call their superiors to ask what they should do. The photo likely surfaced in 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20200301224434/https://www.salon.com/2006/01/17/lesbians_china/[as mentioned] in link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(website)++[salon.com] which said it came form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing[Boing Boing]. It was not however picked up by any major website. Ciro actually thought this could have been ripped from some television series due to the amazing expression on the guards' faces. TODO: find the original Chinese source, translate the watermarks, and see if their identity is known. https://web.archive.org/web/20200301223317/http://www.chinatoday.com/entertain/tiananmen_kiss.htm[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tianmen_lesbian_kiss.jpg[height=500]
[[qing-gay-scroll]] .<<throne,Qing dynasty>> (18th–19th c.) panel from a scroll showing two men engaging in foreplay, apparently located in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Institute[Kinsey Institute] as of 2005. For an ancient depiction of heterosexual sexual activity, see <<jin-ping-mei,this image>>. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Love_play_in_China.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Qing_Dinasty_gay_foreplay.jpg[height=400]
[[metoo]] === MeToo
They seem to have had difficulty in expressing themselves due to <>, unsurprisingly.
https://github.com/sikaozhe1997/Xin-Yue on <> is an open letter by student activist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Xin_(activist)[Yue Xin] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/岳昕[岳昕]) about the events described at https://web.archive.org/web/20200104064812/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/world/asia/china-metoo-gao-yan.html["China's #MeToo: How a 20-Year-Old Rape Case Became a Rallying Cry"] she accuses professor Shen Yang of the Peking University Chinese literature of raping student Gao Yan, ultimately leading to her suicide in 1998:
This was one of the starting points of <>.
The letter was also apparently embedded into the <<bitcoin-blockchain,Ethereum blockchain>> according to https://theconversation.com/chinese-internet-users-turn-to-the-blockchain-to-fight-against-government-censorship-111795[].
Related:
[[russia]] == Russia (俄罗斯)
Russia is clearly the number 2 <> in the world by population / GDP and the link:https://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report[#1 nuclear arsenal], so here we go.
Ciro has always been curious about how Russia can be both oppressive and a appear democratic, unlike China which doesn't even try to pretend. This is what he gathers:
See also: <>
While we are at it, some interesting news:
The Russians have very different style to the Chinese, who are much more subtle, and just put people in jail or handicap them in several ways without killing them.
Other political murders or attempts:
Some other interesting political suppression lists:
Freedom of speech reports:
Other random stuff:
[[federal-list-of-extremist-materials]] === Federal List of Extremist Materials (Федеральный список экстремистских материалов)
<<censorship-monitoring,Unlike the Chinese>>, they have a public list, each entry had a numerical ID even. This is the best thing ever made! The dream for <<keyword-attack,keyword attackers>>!
Most of it appears to be anti/<>, and notably anti-anti-semitic but several items are purely political anti-freedoms.
One wonders if the majority of the items are just fillers to hide the really juicy anti-freedom ones.
We need to make a GitHub mirror of all of those some day!
The list: http://minjust.gov.ru/ru/extremist-materials[] Here's an archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20200817142035/http://minjust.gov.ru/ru/extremist-materials/export.csv?attach=page[]. The website has a CSV for download with all entries at the bottom. Enca says the encoding is "MS-Windows code page 1251", convert to UTF-8 with:
.... iconv -f WINDOWS-1251 -t UTF-8//IGNORE export.csv ....
//IGNORE is needed because their fucking CSV export has a bug and otherwise iconv stops at the first error.
From this we can grep, and then to overcome translation limits as there is no offline option yet: https://askubuntu.com/questions/380847/is-it-possible-to-translate-words-via-terminal[], dump your selection on a gist and use Google translate on the Gist.
A website "dedicated" to bypassing censorship of the list: http://zapretno.info/[]. TODO much of that website's content is not clearly marked as being on the list.
Some notable additions:
[[roskomnadzor]] ==== Roskomnadzor (Роскомнадзор)
The Russian censorship body under <>. The Russian <>.
They are the ones who make Russian takedowns on <>, e.g. https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/tree/master/Russia/2020
[[putin]] === Putin (Путин, 普京, 1999-2008, 2012-∞)
Coverage:
Notable dissidents:
https://youtu.be/fAoMzxKkH2M?t=3628 Can't Get You Out of My Head S01E06 "Are We Pigeon Or Are We Dancer" highlights the fact that Putin came to power without a vision, without ideals and without personality. He was clearly just put there by the corrupt oligarchs who controlled the media as an administrator who would favor corruption.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiI5UuCiEoU Russian Youtuber Bashir Dokhov puts Putin portrait in a lift as an opinion poll. TODO evidence that it was not staged, e.g. address, identities of people shown. But in any case, Ciro does feel that as of 2020 Putin's power is very precarious compared to <> for example. E.g., whenever Ciro spoke to Russians abroad, they were all able to criticize Putin. But about on third to half of the Chinese abroad were completely brainwahsed and thought China has the best government possible. Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeb3MMl3lB4[]. video::BiI5UuCiEoU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
==== Putin-sponsored poisonings
Russia apparently has a long list of poisoning political enemies: https://nypost.com/2018/06/23/inside-russias-long-history-of-poisoning-political-enemies/
News:
[[superputin]] ==== Superputin
Meme partially supported by Putin himself, showing how physically strong and <<gay-putin,manly>> the president is. A form of <<ccp-cult,personality cult>>.
Similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris_facts[Chuck Norris facts].
"Putin does manly things" photo galleries:
.Putin swims Butterfly stroke in a Siberian lake around August 2009. The Telegraph https://web.archive.org/web/20200412090316/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/6175324/Vladimir-Putin-gives-strong-signal-he-may-be-president-again.html[correctly interpreted this as a sign that he would be re-elected in 2012]. For reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal[Lake Baikal in Siberia has a maximum temperature of 14 °C in summer]. Other dictators have used similar swim tactics before, the most notable possibly being <>. https://web.archive.org/web/20200412090316/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/6175324/Vladimir-Putin-gives-strong-signal-he-may-be-president-again.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_swim.jpg[height=400]
.Putin riding a horse shirtless https://nypost.com/2014/08/29/putin-its-best-not-to-mess-with-us/[near Lake Seliger in August 2009]. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worl-photo-caption-contest-shirtless-putin_n_3263512[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_horse.jpg[height=500]
.Putin riding a bear. https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/469429961142687422/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_bear.jpg[height=400]
.Putin riding a shark. https://sharkdivers.blogspot.com/2011/05/russian-pm-putin-rides-great-white.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_shark.png[height=400]
.Putin riding a giant eagle. https://www.quora.com/Is-this-picture-of-Vladimir-Putin-riding-a-bear-fake-or-real[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_eagle.webp[height=400]
.Putin riding a meteor. https://www.quora.com/Is-this-picture-of-Vladimir-Putin-riding-a-bear-fake-or-real[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_meteor.webp[height=400]
.Putin riding a dinosaur in a Sci-Fi planet. https://9gag.com/gag/a5K5jLG[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_dinosaur.webp[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgGzAKP_HuM "RASPUTIN - Vladimir Putin - Love The Way You Move (Funk Overload) @slocband" by Pace Audio (2016). Somewhere in the 2010's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputin_(song)[Rasputin 1978 song] by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boney_M.[Boney M.] saw a https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ra-ra-rasputin[meme resurgence] by adapting the song to refer to Vladmir Putin instead of the original song's originally intended https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin[Grigori Rasputin]. This video adds amazing cute animations of Russian scientists trying to create the perfect funk dancing machine, and highlights the <> meme as Putin himself is the perfect dancing machine in the end. video::YgGzAKP_HuM[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[night-wolves]] ===== Night wolves (Ночные волки)
Russian ultra-nationalist and motorcycle group supported by Putin.
Notably, they have made large incredibly cheesy Putin supported music/theatrical/stunt shows to revive Russian nationalism.
Mentioned at https://youtu.be/9Q1hZmAcE08?t=4974 "Can't Get You Out of My Head - Part 6: Are We Pigeon? Or Are We Dancer?"
Sample show on <>: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDyk1Ajq8yE
[[gay-putin]] ==== Gay Putin (2017)
Added to the <>.
Coverage:
<<gay-rights,Homosexuality>> is not super popular in Russia in general:
.The possibly Gay Putin clown image banned in 2017. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/2085395/its-now-illegal-russia-share-image-putin-possibly-gay[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Gay_Putin.jpg[height=400]
[[putin-trump-kiss]] .Possibly Gay Putin kissing possibly Gay <<flg-trump,Trump>> mural entitled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Everything_Great_Again[Make Everything Great Again] painted in Lithuania in 2016 by by artists Dominykas Čečkauskas and Mindaugas Bonanu. It references the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections[Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections]. It was https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/12/vandals-censor-image-of-putin-snogging-trump-lithuania[later vandalized]. Now we just need a Putin <> kiss. Trump Xi kiss https://www.dw.com/en/sierens-china-survival-of-the-fittest/a-49498499[can be found here]. https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/opinion/putin-will-pay-a-high-price-for-trumps-friendship/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_Trump_kiss.jpg[height=400]
[[skripal]] ==== The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal Серге́й Ви́кторович Скрипáль (2018-03-04)
For more poisonings see: <>.
In 4 March 2018, the Russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent[Novichok agent] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Новичок_(отравляющие_вещества)[Новичо́к]), a Soviet-era nerve agent, which was likely put on their front door knob in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury[Salisbury, UK], exact address https://goo.gl/maps/oKASuLWpcSmLqL8F9[Christie Miller Road]! Straight out of a spy novel.
On 30 June 2018, the man of an unlucky drug addict couple found the counterfeit expensive looking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Ricci_(brand)[Nina Ricci] Premier Jour perfume bottle containing the poison, and gave it to the woman who died. How unlucky can you fucking be, as if heavy drug addiction weren't enough, you still have to deal with fucking Russian Novichok!
.The assassination suspects Alexander Mishkin (Алекса́ндр Евге́ньевич Ми́шкин, alias Alexander Petrov) and Anatoliy Chepiga (Анатолий Владимирович Чепига, alias Ruslan Boshirov) in a CCTV still at Salisbury Station on 3rd March 2018 the day before the assassination. Both GRU and Alexander being a doctor, which is consistent with a poisoning assassination attempt. They later explained on an RT interview that they were visiting the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_Cathedral[world renowned Salisbury Cathedral] in their 3 day trip to the UK, and that they <<gay-putin,were not gay>>. Some Western sources interpreted this as an intentional suggestion that they are gay, which for many Russians would imply that they cannot be FSB agents. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/05/planes-trains-and-fake-names-the-trail-left-by-skripal-suspects[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Skripal_assassins_station.jpg[height=400]
.Counterfeit Nina Ricci Premier Jour packet that contained the Novichok. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/05/644782096/u-k-charges-2-russians-suspected-of-poison-attack-on-skripals[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Skripal_perfume.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku8OQNyI2i0 "Full Skripal case interview with the UK's suspects (EXCLUSIVE)" by RT with Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Not gay moment at: https://youtu.be/Ku8OQNyI2i0?t=461[461s]. video::Ku8OQNyI2i0[youtube,height=400,width=600]
==== Electoral fraud in Russian elections
Besides barring opposition from participating such as <>, electoral fraud was off the charts:
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KQlCRLCw_I 2019-09-12 CCTV footage of Vasily Dyachenko (Василий Дьяченко), who had reported electoral fraud concerns regional 2019 elections, getting surprise punched in the stomach at the St. Petersburg polling station 1619, while the police who is right in front of it do nothing about it. English coverage: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-police-stand-idly-by-as-election-observer-sucker-punched/30160427.html video::-KQlCRLCw_I[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oSeRyaFllY 2018-03-18 alleged https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud#Ballot_stuffing[ballot stuffing electoral fraud] caught on CCTV in Lyubertsy, Moscow Oblast video::3oSeRyaFllY[youtube,height=400,width=600]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMEqv-NNLW4 Мусора избили ребёнка и наблюдателей на выборах TODO find English version
Related:
[[litvinenko]] ==== The murder of Alexander Litvinenko Литвиненко, Александр Вальтерович (2006)
Poisoned with polonium-210, for more poisonings see: <>:
His 2002 book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_Up_Russia[Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ФСБ_взрывает_Россию[ФСБ взрывает Россию: Федеральная служба безопасности — организатор террористических актов, похищений и убийств]) accuses the FSB of setting up false flag bombing operations, and figures on the <>.
.Litvinenko in his death bed. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Litvinenko_hospital_bed.webp[height=400]
[[russia-mandatory-registration-of-bloggers]] ==== Mandatory registration of bloggers (2014)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28583669
Bloggers with more than 3000 daily readers must register and cannot be anonymous.
The following Chinese policies come to mind:
=== Putin opposition
List:
==== NFKRZ
Real name: Roman Albertovich Abalin.
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC19xLluI7dG093Gmw57BhHw
More information: https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/NFKRZ
Interesting videos:
[[alexei-navalny]] ==== Alexei Navalny (Навальный, Алексей Анатольевич)
Casually barred from the 2018 presidential campaign:
His Wiki page does say one thing of interest though, he has right wing tendencies which scared off liberals:
The BBC noted in a profile of Navalny that his endorsement of a political campaign called "Stop feeding the Caucasus" and his willingness to speak at ultra-nationalist events "have caused concern among liberals".
This video of his https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQZr2NgKPiU might have been added to the <>, wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Deripaska#Navalny_video[], coverage: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-deripaska-prikhodko-rybka-nuland-yacht/29028148.html but I can't find where it is in the list exactly.
Related:
===== The poisoning of Alexei Navalny (2020)
For more poisonings see: <>.
The second one! The first one was in 2019, but this one is more serious, the German government said tests confirmed it unequivocally that it was Novichok, which was also recently used in <>.
President Donald Trump has refused to condemn Russia over the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, saying he has not seen proof.
He said the case was "tragic" but urged reporters to focus instead on China, which he said was a bigger threat to the world than Russia.
Even after Germany and NATO said it was Novichok for sure... He must be <<putin-trump-kiss,sucking Putin's cock>> to have more nukes pointed against China, or maybe with some cyberhacking for the reelection campaign. Perhaps not a bad strategy, but does completely disregard human rights. Do <<violence,the ends justify the means>>? + https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54097162 Pompeo then condemned. + 2020-09-14: laboratories in France and Sweden independently confirmed: https://www.dw.com/en/french-swedish-labs-confirm-navalny-poisoned-with-novichok/a-54918924
He was forcibly kept in Russia for a few days to make the poison effect undetectable before they allowed him to be flown to Berlin.
Several policemen prevented family access to him while in Russia.
First doctors told family he was poisoned, but then soon after they changed their minds to some random excuse.
Poison effects consistent with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholinesterase_inhibitor[cholinesterase inhibitors], but the exact substance was not identified in tests.
.Photo published on <<alexei-navalny,Navalny>>'s Twitter on 2020-09-15 of him sitting awake in a hospital bed in Germany with his family. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54163389[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Navalny_hospital_sitting.jpg[height=400]
[[khabarovsk-krai-protests-2020]] ==== 2020 Khabarovsk Krai protests (Протесты в Хабаровском крае)
In support to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Furgal[Sergei Furgal] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Фургал,_Сергей_Иванович[Фургал, Сергей Иванович]).
=== Russian state media
[[russia-today]] ==== Russia Today (RT, Russian state media)
=== Censorship of images in the Soviet Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union
.Before/after comparison of picture of Stalin with Nikolai Yezhov at the Moscow Canal. Nikolai was edited out form the second picture. (Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images & AFP/GettyImages) https://www.history.com/news/josef-stalin-great-purge-photo-retouching[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nikolai_Yezhov_Stalin_canal_edit.webp[height=400]
.A meeting of the St. Petersburg chapter of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class in February 1897, including Lenin and Alexander Malchenko. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Union-de-Lucha.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Malchenko.jpg[height=500]
.Same as above, but with Alexander Malchenko edited out. link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St_Petersburg_Union_of_Struggle_for_the_Liberation_of_the_Working_Class_-_Feb_1897_-_Altered.jpg++[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/No_Malchenko.jpg[height=500]
==== Soviet Union radio jamming stations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_in_the_Soviet_Union#Radio_jamming
Ah, the good old days <<gfw,before the TCP/IP>>, when you could just jam around a border ;-)
http://www.antentop.org/008/files/jamm008.pdf has good pics.
[[stalin]] === Stalin 斯大林 (1922-1952)
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Yagami[Light Yagami] from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Note[Death Note]: "I can kill anyone by simply writing his name here". Stalin: "Bitch please". https://ifunny.co/picture/1-can-kill-anyone-by-simply-writing-his-name-here-TjXCcyuM2[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Stalin_bitch_please.jpg[height=500]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT2z0nrsQ8o "Rasputin vs Stalin." Epic Rap Battles of History YouTube video. This is fire. https://epicrapbattlesofhistory.fandom.com/wiki/Rasputin_vs_Stalin/Rap_Meanings[Explanations]. video::ZT2z0nrsQ8o[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[russo-ukrainian-war]] === Russo-Ukrainian War (2014-)
[[mykola-semena]] ==== Mykola Semena (Семена Микола Михайлович)
Ukrainina, worked for <> previously, and published against the annexation of Ukraina territories.
https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/07/18/online-and-all-fronts/russias-assault-freedom-expression suggests that one of her articles was added to the <>, possibly "Blockade–the Necessary First Step for Liberation of Crimea", but I can't find the entry.
[[anti-russia-dictatorship-info-sources]] === Anti Russia dictatorship sources
[[rferl]] ==== Radio Free Europe (Радио_«Свобода»)
Website: https://www.rferl.org/
USA funded sister media of the <>.
=== Mini-Russias
==== Belarus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus
The dictator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko[Alexander Lukashenko]. Close ties to his buddy <>.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_protests[2020 Belarusian protests].
[[moscow-minsk-friendship-mural]] .The Moscow-Minsk friendship mural in Minsk (capital of Belarus), originally meant to show the harmonious alliance between Belarus and Russia, was defaced in 2016 by adding barbed wire amidst the flowers held and worn by the boy and girl which represent Russia and Belarus respectively, which indicates that the friendship is actually a prison for Belarus. <> comes to mind. Photo by Aleh Larychau. Upload https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Mural_Minsk-Moscow_in_Minsk_1.jpg[on Wikimedia Commons] deleted because of the lack of https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama[Freedom of panorama in Belarus]. https://www.euronews.com/2020/12/21/how-the-crisis-in-belarus-is-politicising-a-new-wave-of-street-artists[]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Moscow-Minsk_friendship_mural_girl_with_barbed_wire.jpg[height=400]
==== Kazakhstan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB9O4PU5Nnk "How Much Do You Know About The Real Kazakhstan?" by Journeyman Pictures (2016) shows how Western leaders turn a blind eye to Kazakhstan's dictator at the time, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursultan_Nazarbayev[Nursultan Nazarbayev], because they have oil and are willing to cooperate with the West on the war in Afghanistan. In 2019 he was replaced by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassym-Jomart_Tokayev[Kassym-Jomart Tokayev], gotta learn more about the new one. Includes interviews with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_L._Spratlen[Pamela L. Spratlen], an US diplomat, where she diplomatically refuses to say anything meaningful. video::eB9O4PU5Nnk[youtube,height=400,width=600]
=== Dictatorships tend to work together
Dictatorships naturally become allies.
The thing a dictatorship is afraid more than anything is of their own citizens, and therefore that they might be influenced by democracies to rebel against the oppression.
For this reason, the world basically always tumbles into a dictatorship vs democracy global war.
Also, since dictatorships don't need to convince their people of anything, they tend to make such alliances much faster.
But this presents a serious dilemma to dictatorships, because you can't really trust the other dictator either, as they are just waiting to put a knife behind your back at all times.
This leads to constant tensions between allied dictatorships, e.g. <> vs China:
This creates one of the most serious strategic problems faced by dictatorships. It is similar situation with organized crime.
And of course, when a smaller dictatorship like <> makes an alliance with a larger dictatorship, they basically immediately become a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vassal_state[vassal state], see e.g. <>.
==== Anti-dictatorship alliances
[[ipac]] ===== Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (對華政策跨國議會聯盟, 2020)
[[thailand]] == Thailand (泰国)
It is a crime to criticize the royal family (Lèse majesté):
As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Gilliam[Terry Gilliam] brilliantly says in the <> https://youtu.be/hdU_6jUQI9s?t=492[]:
[[sacred-cows]]
I was always convinced that there is no where you should't go. There are no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_cow_(idiom)[sacred cows]. And if there are, if they are really sacred, let's see how much we puncture them and see if they still float.
Or in other words:
Vajiralongkorn, you little piece of shit, grow some balls and learn how to take an insult. A man who cannot take an insult is not a man, but a big pussy.
Everyone who has political power must know how to be laughed at criticized, otherwise <<dictatorship,dicatorship>> follows:
Dissidents:
[[thai-king-hamtaro]] .Side-by-side comparison between https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajiralongkorn[Thai King Vajiralongkorn] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamtaro[Hamtaro]. This is the Thai version of <>. It https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japanese-cartoon-Hamtaro-used-by-Thai-protesters-to-mock-government[has been used by protesters] as part of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Thai_protests[2020 Thai protests]. Left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Thai_protests[photo source]. image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Side_by_side_comparison_between_Thai_king_Vajiralongkorn_and_Hamtaro.jpg[height=400]
.Leading Thai politicians prostrate themselves before Vajiralongkorn in 2016, presumably during his ascension to the throne. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bbc-investigation-thailand-king-defamation-a7460046.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Thai_king_prostrated_officers.jpg[height=400]
.Suthida Tidjai, Vajiralongkorn's wife, prostrated before him during their marriage in 2016 before he officially ascended to the throne. Yes, prostration is a big thing in Thailand. An older king, Rama V, had apparently even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chulalongkorn#Abolition_of_prostration[abolished this practice in 1873]. Clearly, <> could learn a thing or two from a proper monarch like Vajiralongkorn. https://web.archive.org/web/20190723095722/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/03/thailand-coronation-king-maha-vajiralongkorn-rama-x[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Thai_king_prostrated_wife.jpg[height=400]
.Thai king Vajiralongkorn wearing a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_top[crop top] so tight that it could be called a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bra[bra], and accompanied by one of his many girlfriends, in a shopping center in Munich. He can wear whatever the fuck wants, but to both wear that and enforce Lèse majesté? That's the ultimate torture for the Thai people, how can you not make fun of him??? TODO date, exact location, original report. Here is one of the many reports, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3578661/from-fake-tattoos-and-crop-tops-to-making-a-poodle-air-force-chief-the-king-of-thailands-maddest-moments-revealed/[sample report from 2017 in a British tabloid]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Thai_king_crop_top.jpg[height=400]
== Iran
First, <> Now let's criticize the dictatorship.
[[iranian-coup-1953]] === 1953 Iranian coup d'état (TPAJAX Project, Operation Ajax, 1953年伊朗政變)
Yes, this was a <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect,a major fuck up of the West>>.
[[military-dictatorship-in-brazil]] == Military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dictatorship_in_Brazil
One of Ciro's favorite stories about the dictatorship is how cake recipes or classical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luís_de_Camões[Luís_de_Camões (1524-1580)] poetry were introduced in newspapers to replace news that had been <<censorship,censored>> in the last minute:
Who would have thought that even the limiting and ancient limitations of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagination[pagination] would have their usefulness!!! Today's Chinese censors have it easy, as they can just remove the stuff and that damned HTML reflow automatically to fit.
[[apesar-de-voce]] .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RhKTzVVDno Apesar de Você (In spite of you [the Dictatorship])] by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Buarque[Chico Buarque] (1970) with English and Spanish subtitles. That video unfortunately mixes anti-dictatorship and anti-Bolsonaro (2020) imagery. A video with better epoch image but no English subtitles can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33-bMTOlvx0[]. This is one of the many anti-Brazilian-dictatorship songs of the time, and Ciro really enjoys it. https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Chico-Buarque/Apesar-De-Voc%C3%AA/translation/english[Lyrics with translation]. Top quotes: "You [the dictatorship] who invented this State, who invented sin, forgot to invent forgiveness." and "Where will you hide, from the enormous euphoria [of a revolution]? How will you prohibit it when the rooster insists in singing?". Slideshows with that song have been made for several events, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOqaF3shq6o[the Syrian civil war], and Ciro would like to do a China-themed one as well one day. video::33-bMTOlvx0[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[os-problemas-da-imprensa-livre]] .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jornal_da_Tarde[Jornal da Tarde] (Afternoon Newspaper) issue entitled on top "Os problemas da imprensa livre nas Américas" (The problems of the Free Press), followed by small rectangles with coverage of several countries such as the USA, Cuba, and others, but not Brazil. The bottom half of the page however hilariously contains recipes for "Doces" (Sweets) and "Salgados" (Dishes), instead of the presumed coverage about Brazil. http://www.memorialdademocracia.com.br/card/noticia-censurada-da-lugar-a-camoes[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Os_problemas_da_imprensa_livre.jpg[height=600]
[[falun-gong]] == Falun Gong (法轮功)
<<flg-religion,Religion>> created in the '80s by a Chinese dude called <>.
With the support of the Communist Party to Qigong movements, it reached 70 million believers in 1999, at which point the commies decided they had to be shut down and banned the religion.
Li fled to the USA and lives near New York, where he continues to run the religion as of 2020.
.<> believer arrested by police in Beijing <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square>> in 2000-01-10. https://www.theepochtimes.com/spiritual-practice-continues-to-be-persecuted-in-china-amid-the-ccp-virus-pandemic_3296045.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_lady_silenced.jpg[height=600]
.Police steps over <> believer's face in 2000 at Tiananmen. This images was http://content.time.com/time/covers/asia/0,16641,20010702,00.html[on the cover of the July 2, 2001 cover of Time Magazine "Crushing Falun Gong"]. https://www.businessinsider.com/dragon-springs-falun-gong-upstate-new-york-compound-photos-2019-9?r=US&IR=T[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Police_steps_over_Falun_Gong_believer_s_face_in_2000_at_Tiananmen.jpg[height=600]
[[zone-theory]] .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClvX7ED8UUI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_%26_Eric[Tim and Eric]'s Zone Theory. If you want to stop <>, don't put them in jail like the <<dictatorship,dictators>>. Do it the same way you stop dictators: with <<funny,comedy>>. Otherwise, the dictators remain in power, and <<intolerance,next person in jail, will be you>>. video::ClvX7ED8UUI[youtube,width=600,height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYJ1dbyDcrI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_%26_Eric[Tim and Eric]'s The Universe. Basically the same as <> but from the believer's perspective. Source a popular mind blown meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/mind-blown video::FYJ1dbyDcrI[youtube,width=600,height=400]
[[aarvoll-shenyun]] .https://youtube.com/watch?v=IAQ14AnAsmU YouTubber under pseudonym "Aarvoll" (TODO full real name, face shown in channel all the time) tells about his experience playing trumpet for Shen Yun in 2013 as a non-believer and Falun Gong in general. Reading the sacred books and doing Falun Gong exercises were mandatory. He also talks about <>. Ciro agrees/finds what he says convincing. In one interesting anecdote, he tells how although Li Hongzhi claims to be a God, he looked like an average slightly overweight dude, and had a trumpet since he used to play it, but couldn't really play it because he hadn't practiced in so long. He also comments on the obvious fact that Li does not speak English very well, e.g. on the Shen Yun tour bus he was there one day answering questions, and a translator was needed. video::IAQ14AnAsmU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[christine-marie]] .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwoO7Nekmpw&t=445 Christine Marie, founder of http://voicesfordignity.com/[Voices for Dignity] which takes care of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-Day_Saints[FLDS] leaves, was interviewed in VICE documentary "Polygamist Mafia: Escaping The Kingston Clan". While Ciro does not believe Falun Gong is as extreme as FLDS, he does really like the things Christine says. E.g., she calls "cult leaders" with the neutral <<flg-religion,religious>> form "<<li-hongzhi,prophet>>", just like Ciro, and mentions the important fact that "And the another thing that the public doesn't realise, is that there are also beautiful thing within those communities". This is the mindset of <<intolerance,tolerance>> that the world needs. video::GwoO7Nekmpw[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=445]
[[flg-important]] === Why is it important to talk about Falun Gong?
The main reason <> emphasizes FLG is that it shows how the CCP can mercilessly crush a 70M strong group (according to CCPs own statistics) out of a population of 1.3B in 2000, i.e. 5% of the population, and of course not because of <>, since Ciro is completely and totally unbiased.
If that number is correct, Ciro wonders curious what you would consider an important movement? :-)
Anything much larger would take down the government and change China's history forever.
OK, maybe the fact that 69M of those were likely old ladies didn't help much either. Tip to next <<li-hongzhi,prophet>>: make something that appeals to aspiring military officers.
Let's try to gather some well sourced footage showing huge numbers of believers on the streets:
.Thousands of <> practitioners in Guangzhou, China, 1998. https://www.theepochtimes.com/finding-the-balance-between-ancient-and-modern_2248694.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_Ghuangzhou.jpg[height=600]
.Thousands of <> practitioners in Liaoning Industrial Exhibition, China, likely 1998. https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2016/5/21/157091.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_Liaoning.jpg[height=600]
.Hundreds of <> believers in Chengdu, China, 1998. https://faluninfo.net/falun-gong-the-practice/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_Chengdu.jpg[height=500]
[[does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong]] === Does Ciro Santilli believe in or practice Falun Gong? 三西猴相信法轮功吗？
No, Ciro is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism[agnostic] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/不可知论[不可知论]) and therefore believes that all the metaphysics that <> says is bullshit.
Here are some things that he doesn't like about Falun Gong for example: <>.
Ciro believes Falun Gong can be split into two parts, like any other <<flg-religion,religion>>:
Ciro thinks that FLG's self-help part could potentially be good for you, just like many other meditative practices such as Yoga, Buddhist meditation, Tai chi, deep Catholic prayer, etc. As far as he has heard, all of it sounded good standard religious self-help: be peaceful, be good to others, etc. Like any other well managed religion, FLG does have good things to offer, see also: <>.
However Ciro believes that the metaphysics is all complete and utter bullshit, child stories made up by Li Hongzhi, and just as real as Father Christmas or the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster[Flying Spaghetti Monster].
Also the "obligation to reach Salvation" is boring like for many other prophetic <<flg-religion,religion>>.
From a purely strategic point of view, the metaphysics is a trade-off:
It may be argued however that Li played this card beautifully: since all Chinese power is concentrated in the CCP, any non-CCP movement dies out, so he was better off long run playing the metaphysics game. The only other choice would have been joining the CCP.
To Ciro it is obvious that Falun Gong is just one of the many very similar movements that came out of the Qi Gong Boom, such as: <>. It just happens to be the one that survived due to better luck and strategy.
The absolute truth is already known by the <<li-hongzhi,prophet>>, although he does not want to give clear evidence for reasons: <>, and Ciro finds that utterly boring. There's no fun in living in a world where the absolute truth has been found.
For these reasons, Ciro cannot bother to read even into the self-help part: how can you read that when there is so much bullshit every other page?
Ciro would really like to know if <> really believes in FLG himself, or is just a complete manipulating charlatan, but unfortunately we will never know that. Just imagine if before he died he published a video saying: "it was a joke, gotcha!". Now that would be epic!
Since Ciro is good-natured, it's hard for him to believe that he doesn't believe in anything, how can anyone be that evil? Maybe he believes in part of it, but made up some stuff to sell it better, maybe with good intentions that selling the fake part would also lead more people to see the good part?
Like any other prophetic religion, FLG gives tiny evidence that you can directly feel through meditation. The energies, which Ciro believe are real feelings. And then using that entry point asks you to believe a whole lot more, that you can't feel: <>.
This becomes especially strong when a critical mass of believers is reached, and then they start interpreting all sorts of events as miracles, and you start to believe other believers without questioning them, and a circle is formed.
This post by a former believer gives what Ciro feels is a realistic account that matches Ciro's observations: <>.
And yet, all those who love freedom, must oppose FLG ban, or be themselves enslaved by tyrants themselves: <>.
In any case, at least FLG got one thing right: the commies are <<ccp-evil,evil>>, and we have to get rid of them.
See also: <>.
[[how-much-does-ciro-santilli-know-about-falun-gong]] ==== How much does Ciro Santilli know about Falun Gong? (三西猴对法轮功有多熟悉？)
He hasn't read their <<flg-canon,canon>> himself, no patience, but he has had <<flg-bias,constant contact with believers>> and so has an idea of its content.
Ciro has summarized his thoughts about <> at: <> and <>
[[flg-religion]] === Is Falun Gong a religion? 法轮功是一个宗教吗？
If asked if they follow a religion, most FLG believers will say "no", and <> explicitly says that in <>, e.g. https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/jjyz52.htm[]:
Falun Dafa is not a religion, but future generations will regard it as one.
E.g. they call themselves "practitioners" or "students" (学员) or "disciples of the Great Law" (大法弟子, or mare accurately, of <>'s Law) instead of "believers", and their peers "practitioner colleagues" (https://baike.baidu.com/item/同修[同修]).
And if you say you don't believe in their FLG metaphysics bullshit, they will often reply "he does not understand".
To them, it is not about belief, the truth is clear, and you just don't see it yet.
To this you should reply: "and you don't understand that <<li-hongzhi,Li Hongzhi>> is a master manipulator dude who deceived you and millions of others".
But <> strongly believes that this is just a language barrier/FLG propaganda question (see also "Different levels of truth" from <>), and that 99.9999% of people in the West would classify FLG as a religion just like <> if they are told about FLG's beliefs:
In both cases, some believers claim that sometimes even reading the same text again gives them new insight.
[[flg-supernatural-powers]]
What will one develop in the course of his cultivation? He will develop supernatural powers which are called supernormal capabilities for short.
Do you want to use them among ordinary people? You are absolutely not allowed to use them among ordinary people at will.
See also "You don't get the promised goodies" from <> ** other dimensions, which some select people with vision superpowers can see, this being one of the supernatural powers that may be developed, the "Celestial Eye" https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_21.htm[]: + [[flg-cross-dimensional-vision]]
A cultivator of a particular attainment level can only see the scenes on that level. He cannot see or believe the truth beyond that level. Therefore, he only believes what he has seen on his own level. When he has not gone up to such a high level of cultivation, he would think those things do not exist and are incredible.
and the "Supernormal Capability of Remote Sight" is a closely related ability: https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_22.htm: +
A supernormal capability directly connected with the Celestial Eye is called the Remote Sight. Someone says that he can see scenes in Beijing, in America or scenes on the other side of the earth while sitting here.
And finally there is also the past-future vision ability "Supernormal Capability of Total Recall" https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_23.htm[]: +
There is another supernormal capability which has a direct relation with the Celestial Eye. It is called Total Recall. Now there are six supernormal capabilities which are generally recognized in the world. They include the Celestial Eye, Remote Sight, and Total Recall. What is Total Recall? It is a supernormal capability with which one can know a person's future and past; if the ability is great, one can know the rise and decline of a society; if the ability is even greater, one can see the Law of the change of the whole celestial body.
Science, however, is not something gods imparted to humans. Instead, it was passed down to humans by alien beings inside the Three Realms, and for the purpose of controlling humankind. People's belief in it has surpassed everything. But I tell you that precisely because of its shallowness, this science has caused the degeneration of morality in human society.
Despite this however, Falun Gong benefits from information technology enormously. For example, many believers use the Internet daily to study the Fa, and to organize their <<falun-gong-media,media outlets>>.
As Jesus put it in Matthew 18:20: +
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them
which highlights the critical believer mass effect of reinforced beliefs.
Ciro predict that when <> dies, the claim will be that he went to another dimension so save us all, therefore putting this final judgment on hold, a bit like Jesus.
FLG has a specific terminology for non-believers, which is translated in English as https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_new_4.html["ordinary people"] (常人), as opposed to Falun Gong Believers, which Li calls Falun Gong disciples (大法弟子). + Non-FLG people should therefore logically call Falun Gong believers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abnormal_psychology[abnormal people] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/異常心理學[异常人]) in return, much like Ciro likes to call the Chinese who call him 老外 as "老内". + Like other aspects of FLG however, this appears in other religions, e.g. my mother mentioned the funny term used by her Protestant's group term but Ciro forgot it, and you can see it in Harry Potter as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muggle[The Muggles].
Notably, this also implies that the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution[theory of evolution] is wrong, since there existed modern humans hundred of millions of years ago (the current scientific estimates for anatomically modern humans is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_human[500,000 years]): https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_14.htm +
Archaeologists have found in the world a kind of organism called "three-leaves insect", which came into being between 600 million and 260 million years ago, and became extinct thereafter. An American scientist found a fossil of "three-leaves insect", on which there was also a human footprint, left by a shoe he was wearing, and clearly printed on the fossil. Aren't they joking with the historians? How could there possibly have been human beings 260 million years ago according to Darwin's theory of evolution?
From this, it is obvious that Falun Gong is just a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age[New Age] (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/新纪元运动[新纪元运动]) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism[syncretic] religion combining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong[Qigong], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism[Buddhism], some aspects of <>, and whatever other crazy things <> believes in.
Or you could call Falun Gong a <<flg-cult,cult>>, which is nothing but a new/small religion with negative connotation, and thus meaningless.
FLG is very similar to Scientology in Ciro's view: a new religion that mixes elements of both old and new. And just like any other religion, <<democracy-is-a-religion,their practice must be allowed>>.
But consider this: how to classify what a religion is?
Some would answer: science is what every one can perceive with their own senses.
But FLG followers claim to feel FLG energies when doing the exercises, and a few of them have the power of seeing the other dimensions.
On the other hand, how many of your friends have experienced the laws of quantum field theory or general relativity in a very direct way?
And aren't pro-democracy believers also taking actions based solely on a shared belief, possibly organized by a pro-democracy leader?
From a purely strategic point of view, the "religion" denomination would be:
Falun Gong's recruitment strategy is to focus on the exercises first, and in particular its <<flg-medication,health benefits>> and then as some people start to feel things, they start introducing the metaphysics.
See also: "Different levels of truth" from <>.
See also: <>.
==== Falun Gong believes that the CCP is literally a manifestation of real devils
Unlike <> which does <<is-chinese-politician-x-evil,not think most CCP politicians are actually evil>>, Falun Gong seems to believe that they literally as in they are representatives of, or evil supernatural beings themselves.
E.g. <> is actually an evil frog in some alternate dimension, literally, not just memecally.
And those devils they are literally responsible for example for creating <<corona,Covid-19>>, which is itself a magic force which tests the evil and good: <>.
And <<flg-trump,Trump>> likely represents a magical anti-devil force of the universe.
Some of the most direct <<flg-canon,canon>> suggestions we could find: https://en.falundafa.org/eng/HongYin5.htm[]:
The Red Devil uses lies and money to meddle with man
https://en.falundafa.org/eng/articles/20060209A.html[]:
All along, lowlife secret agents of the wicked CCP have been constantly gathering so-called "Falun Gong intelligence."
Falun Gong gives the CCP too much credit. The CCP are just a bunch of lazy and greedy people like you and me.
==== Falun Gong preaching
link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-air_preaching[Street preaching] is an important aspect of Falun Gong, using stands and leaflets on the streets much like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah's_Witnesses[Jehovah's Witnesses].
Jargon:
The Falun Gong organization also specifies guidelines on how to preach, although these might not be <<flg-canon,canon>>, even though if they are not, it is extremely likely that <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>> is directly involved in their specification
Falun Gong has also used <<flg-telemarketing,phone call preaching>>.
All of this is part of their effort to "save people (救人)", i.e. convert them to Falun Gong.
<> personally heavily emphasises the importance of preaching in <>.
.Falun Gong believers preaching on the street in London in 2016. This image taken from a believer website shows a typical local regular gathering of believers on weekends, or even week days if there are enough retired believers in the group. They will put on their exercise music, and do exercises to attract more followers. Someone will also stand on their stall giving out propaganda flyers, or asking people to sign petitions for Western governments to support Falun Gong, e.g. opposing their alleged <<flg-organ-harvesting,organ harvesting>>. In the case of touristic areas with Chinese people walking around, they will also ask the Chinese tourists to <<tuidang,quit the their CCP membership, possibly using a fake name>>. <> has to say: it is very amusing to see those Chinese people trying to pretend to ignore the censored religion, when some of them are clearly curious about it, especially the younger ones who didn't see it live. Some just get mad, and say how the CCP is so great to them. https://truthinchina.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/london-uk-practitioners-explain-the-facts-about-falun-gong-in-st-martins-place-photos/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_street_preaching_2016_London.jpg[height=400]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=315&v=nD6792YoOmY from <<nigel-ng,Mikey Chen>> shows a parade/preaching event in San Francisco.
[[flg-telemarketing]] ===== Some Falun Gong people make phone telemarketing
Ciro Santilli has seen Falun Gong people making phone calls to people in China with to explain why FLG is with his own eyes, and therefore is sure it has happened on some scale.
Particularly during <>, Falun Gong ramped up the telemarketing calls and some voluntary believers were making calls all day nonstop.
Ciro does not know how the called numbers were obtained and if callees voluntarily signed up for it, but that feels extremely unlikely.
Interestingly however, many of the callees seemed interesting in what they had to say, and they often had long chats, Ciro was surprised by that. Maybe they were just bored senseless due to the Corona lockdown. Or maybe <<most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship,many Chinese People actually don't like their Government>> and the CCP is fucked.
Also, of course, the callers received call scripts and guidelines to makes those calls, because obviously <>.
Ciro strongly disapproves of this, Just like for any product, visual ads on the street are impossible to prevent, but any kind of advertising that generates notifications on feeds, or takes people's time, is unacceptable.
As you can easily find on <>/<>, such calls may be reported in the <>.
Ciro has not however seen them talking about making automated phone calls.
https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1940394/how-rampant-phone-scams-highlight-chinas-need-tighter also mentions that Falun Gong makes telemarketing in passing without any reference.
[[flg-cult]] ==== Is Falun Gong a cult? 法轮功是邪教吗？
Does <> think Falun Gong a cult? Yes.
Is the CCP a cult? Yes: <>.
Is <> a cult? Yes.
Is democracy a cult? Yes: <>.
Is modern science a cult? Maybe.
Therefore, the only question that matters for all the above is the same: are they good or bad cults?
Falun Gong clearly share many many many characteristics with what many people classify as a "cult", see e.g.: <>.
However, <> strongly believes that so does any other existing religion e.g. Christianity, and that Falun Gong is not any worse or better than those other well known religions.
Ciro therefore believes that the only reasonable stances are to either:
but not "oppose Falun Gong" and support Christianity.
Some people will say: Falun Gong is a cult because it is too new and therefore obviously fake!
So, if I tell a lie today, will it become true in a thousand years? Or a truth today become a lie? The Romans called <> the "Cult of Jesus"!
Try sending an email to <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>> asking him to <<flg-verifiable,prove his powers to you>> :-)
Others will say: Falun Gong is a cult because its prophet is still alive!
But then, worry not, because Li Hongzhi was born in 1951, and therefore will almost certainly die by 2040, unless he truly is a living God as he claims.
Now, for the really important question of weather Falun Gong is a "good" or "bad" religion, <> has seen absolutely nothing in it that is worse than any <<flg-religion,other major religion>> say, e.g., <>.
Some possibly neutral Cult analysts analyzing if FLG is good or bad:
Against:
In the end however, since there is nothing obviously completely creepy about FLG, all such discussions are basically equivalent to <<democracy-is-a-religion,"is the Left better than the Right">>, and cannot be answered.
One interesting linguistic aspect is that "cult" normally translates in Chinese as "邪教" which means "Evil religion".
As mentioned before, Ciro does not believe that FLG is an "Evil Cult", just another "Acceptable Cult", and therefore would not use "邪教" to describe it.
Amusingly, <<li-hongzhi,Li>> calls the communists Communist Evil Party (中共邪党) in cannon, well played: https://gb.falundafa.org/chigb/jiangfa5_2.htm
The word "Cult" is much more ambiguous in English however, and does not necessarily imply "Evil" in certain contexts, just "worship".
For example, People from <>'s mother's Protestant Church in Brazil, all say that they are going "to the cult" when referring to when they are going to church to pray, sing and read the Bible together.
And obviously, the origin of the word "cult" is exactly the same as that of https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cultivate#Etymology["cultivate"] as in "cultivate the crops" (which is also how Falun Gong believers refer to practicing Falun Gong: "cultivation practice"). All of those come from the https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cult#Etymology[Latin "colō"], which means simply "to protect".
===== CCP cult
The CCP also has many cult-like characteristics, notably <<xi-jinping,"The Guru is always right">>, which is mentioned on <> itself under "The Guru is always right." (highlight by <<ciro-santilli,Ciro>>):
The Guru, his church, and his teachings are always right, and above criticism, and beyond reproach.
In some cults, the guru is dead, but the principle is the same. I use the word "guru" loosely here; in many cults the charismatic leader has the title of minister, priest, yogi, swami, prophet, or all-knowing wise man. Or even, "<<mao-zedong,Chairman Mao>>." In any case, the leader is always right.
And they also claim that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous[Alcoholics Anonymous] could be characterized as a cult. Very cool. What else could be powerful enough to get you off a physical addiction, than a mental addiction, right?
<<mao-zedong,Mao>> is the Father + <<xi-jinping,Xi>> is the Son + The CCP is the Holy Spirit
Both Mao and Xi have produced their own sacred books which must be revered, much like <>'s <>:
Furthermore, both of those books are based on speeches, just like just like Li Hongzhi's speeches become instant canon.
This devotion can also be seen in Xi's benevolent personification: <>.
See also:
[[xi-halo]] .Xi Jinping with a Halo to make <<ccp-cult,the obvious more obvious>>. Reads <<xi-jinping-thought,"习近平思想" (Xi Jinping Thought)>>. Watermark reads "Gucci Minh @Laborwave", so presumably from https://www.instagram.com/laborwavedesigns/[], but I didn't have the patience to find the picture, but it very likey comes from there, a ton of great communist memes in that account. https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/77vfi8/uphold_xi_jinping_thought/[Source]. image:https://web.archive.org/web/20200907151448/https://preview.redd.it/f2q3txu0i8tz.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=4edb61b3454487e43683c367ea014d9f2ec605e4[height=400]
===== Orange Papers
Amazing website talking about Cults and many other things!
https://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html
Down as of 2020-04 archive:
TODO who is the author? Copyright says by "A. Orange". Is it the real name, or just a pun for "I ate an orange"?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Orangepapers/comments/5sh7kg/any_info_on_what_happened_to_the_orange_papers/ mentions the creator's first name is "Terry", and that the website went down due to financial trouble.
Claimed interview with him on the 2013 SAFE RECOVERY podcast: https://podfanatic.com/podcast/safe-recovery/episode/orange-papers-founder-terry-talks-about-the-truth-about-aa-1
The website also offered compressed archives, but Ciro could not find any of those on the Wayback Machine, although it is hard to be sure because there are many different timestamps available, the section reads:
Get this entire web site in a set of compressed packages so that you can read it later offline (and burn CDs and give copies to friends).
Archives are available in both Unix/Linux tarred-gzipped format, or Micro$uck Windoze winzip format.
Current as of 2016-12-07 (yyyy-mm-dd).
Total Size = 900 MB compressed (1.7 GB uncompressed), but no file is larger than 14 MB, to prevent file size problems with some systems, like Comcast.
Get either set; you don't need both, as the files contained are identical.
File names are of form:
Orange_Papers-alpha-2016-12-07.tar.gzOrange_Papers-imgs000-2011-01-01.tar.gzA mirror with many broken links and images: http://aorange1.tripod.com/
And the website also has a Free Tibet flag at the bottom.
Many of the points highlighted at are very very interesting and Ciro feels that they apply strongly to <>:
Conversely, this also poses a risk for the Cult Leader, as new community ideas can spread very quickly, and if you try to fight them off, they might create a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism[Schism].
There are also however some points which Ciro feels don't apply, and Ciro praises Falun Gong for those:
And some points which Ciro feels apply which were mentioned in some other article, (or maybe in Orange Papers but he couldn't find them, TODO find reference?)
Why would a nation state attack a Cult? This could give the impression that it is because there is something powerful and true in the Cult, and actually menaces this nation state. + For example, Falun Gong puts huge emphasis on its persecution in China, much like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr[Martyrdom] of the Catholic Saints is highly emphasised.
This is especially interesting, because the website does not mention Falun Gong at all it seems: it really seems that all those cults are very similar.
It should also be mentioned though that these points extend to any type of human organization, e.g. <<flg-religion,other religions>>, <<democracy-is-a-religion,political parties>>, job associations, etc.
====== Careful control of your image
The cult leader is a master at controlling how people view him.
One aspect of that, is after reaching a certain critical mass of mindless followers, to limit your public appearances to situations in which you have the most control, and notably being surrounded only by your believers.
Because of course: you are human, not a God, and you are going to fuck up from time to time, so why take any risks?
<> does not announce where he is going for the most part, even though he is followed by millions: he just shows up unannounced, and local believers whisper to one another in short advance and come to see him when possible.
This reminded Ciro of the <> video he watched, in which VICE was allowed to visit and interview <<russia,Siberian>> prophet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vissarion[Vissarion] (real name Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop Серге́й Анато́льевич То́роп, AKA "The Russian Jesus"), and they note how well he controlled his appearance.
[[vissarion]] .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Cv5hZfOmk&t=1177 video::W2Cv5hZfOmk[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=1177]
[[flg-canon]] === What are the canonical Falun Gong texts?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachings_of_Falun_Gong
It appears that Falun Gong cannon is present at: https://falundafa.org/
The two main books are:
Falun Gong is an introductory book that discusses qigong, introduces the principles of the practice, and provides illustrations and explanations of the exercises.
The first edition contains one of http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=130###
According to Wikipedia: +
Zhuan Falun is the main teaching and the most comprehensive work; it is an edited version of Li's nine-lecture series, 54 of which he taught across China between 1992 and 1994.
Believers very often read from this text when they <<flg-religion,"study the Fa">> in their gatherings. They often read one chapter per session, and can often just say "we read the Nth teaching" (第N讲, so apparently each chapter corresponds to a separate talk). Just like <>!
The initial versions of both of those texts contained versions of <>.
It contains <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>>'s approved texts/speech transcriptions, which are sacred.
The only sacred version is Chinese which is a sacred language, and of which there is only one perfect revision. Islam also appears to place great importance on the sacredness of Arabic in which Mohamed first spoke, perhaps even more: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/plight-uyghurs-why-muslims-wont-speak-their-brethren-112466 Protestants and later the Catholic church, have moved away from such really bad strategy however, the accessibility of Christianity is seen on the entrance of many many churches which have a sign "ALL are welcome". Well played.
<> heard <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>> claims the specifically chose to reincarnate in China this last time.
The English translation is made by followers, and gets new revisions to reduce translation imperfections.
However, the Chinese language seems to be fundamentally sacred, and there might never be a sacred English version approved by LHZ.
LHZ is of course a de-facto God with superpowers, and can of course speak all languages, but https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=for%20reasons[for reasons] he didn't just write an English translation himself.
This is a reasonable command to download the English cannon for grepping:
.... wget -r -l inf --no-remove-listing --no-clobber --no-parent -w 2 https://en.falundafa.org/falun-dafa-books.html ....
TODO: need to find a way to wrap lines, otherwise grep might fail on sentences.
But funnily the Canon books appear to all be copyrighted, likely "to avoid other people from modifying his sacred text", which is funny since the dude's the voice of absolute truth of the universe, but you still gotta copyright that I guess.
Nothing else is canonical. LHZ seems to have said that there are enlightened followers, but has not specified who, so we can't derive canon from anyone else.
Notably, <<flg-organized,FLG media>> such as https://www.minghui.org/ is believer led and thus not canonical, even though believers have very high confidence in it, and LHZ <<flg-organized,directly supports it>>.
CCP <<ccp-cult,cult leaders>> such as <> and <> have also published their own canon books, e.g.:
.Front and back cover of <<flg-canon,Zhuan Falun>>, first edition (1994). It is said amongst believers that <<flg-verifiable,the Lotus flower on the back of these books have magically opened progressively as time passed>>. http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=165###[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Zhuan_Falun.jpg[height=400]
=== Does Ciro Santilli support FLG, or just use it because it is censored?
Ciro Santilli doesn't support FLG specifically, only freedom of religion. See of course: <>.
Ciro uses it in his usernames simply because it is the most banned and censored one in China today.
He believe that <<thoughtcrime,individuals should only be put in jail for what they do, not for what they believe>>.
He considers FLG <<flg-religion,a religion like any other>>, and he is against its ban, as that of all other religions.
He also believes that freedom of speech and democracy imply that FLG and other religions will exist. If you want freedom, you have to <<intolerance,accept other people's choices>>.
Otherwise, <<democracy-is-a-religion,democracy and communism can also be considered as religions>>, and banned.
See also: <>.
[[flg-daily]] === How is it like to live with Falun Gong believers?
This will obviously vary from believer to believer, but here is <>'s experience.
Like any other religion that is taken seriously, they spend several hours per week doing their standard religious activities: <>.
Ciro has never seen them, or anyone we know from FLG say or do something that he consider morally incorrect because of FLG.
This does not prevent <<wife,his wife>> from working normally.
Ciro's mother-in-law, who is retired, dedicates all her time to Falun Gong when she is not taking care of the house.
Ciro's mother is also religious (link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism[Protestant]), and he gets a very similar feeling about both groups.
Like other religions, Falun Gong gives them meaning in life, and Ciro admires that they pursue their belief energetically, just as he persues his beliefs energetically.
Ciro much prefers that Ciro's mother-in-law does Falun Gong, which is a noble meaningful goal, rather than watch stupid crap on television.
Also, although he is <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong,agnostic>>, Ciro also lives in a similar way.
Ciro's religion is that of science and technology, and he pursue it fervently by trying to learn and teach it and spend several hours a week doing that, even when it does not give him money immediately.
If Ciro pursue his meaning, why should he prevent anyone from pursuing theirs?
Previously, Ciro's wife and mother-in-law would sometimes try to persuade him to learn Falun Gong, which was annoying.
But every time he told them very clearly that he knows where to download the books if I want to, and that he may never want to read them, and that his wife must either accept this fact or leave him.
And they have accepted that: they think Ciro's a good person, and they can accept that you can also be a good person even without doing Falun Gong.
Ciro does feel Falun Gong makes Ciro's mother-in-law more reluctant to use or actively search for <<flg-medication,medication or treatment>>. But he thinks it is also linked to the fact that she didn't have a very good education or a good health system around. However, if Ciro and his wife give her something, she will take it. Ciro's wife does not have any resistance to medication.
One thing that does worry Ciro is that Ciro's mother in law sleeps too little every night, doing one of the Falun Gong meditations late in the evening, and then waking up very early to a long series of reading and exercise sessions. But it is hard to say if she would be any different without Falun Gong, it could just be her nature.
Bibliography:
=== In the Tweet about his mother in law, Ciro Santilli says "correctional facility", but reeducation through labour has been abolished
He was not very precise https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/579270450984984576[here], the precise term is "jail". He was not talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_through_labor Unfortunately it is not possible to edit a Tweet.
[[flg-changed]] === Falun Gong is completely different in the West than it was in China
I believe that it has changed.
But isn't that the case of every cultural religious movement that migrates to a completely new culture?
Main points which may have changed:
But why shouldn't they organize to defend themselves now that they have the chance without being put into prison? + The CCP is highly organized and has way more resources.
This may be because people in the "West" are: + ** are "scientific-educated" atheists who wouldn't go for a "religion" ** already have other religions, which would view FLG as a taboo
Also maybe only the richest and most educated believers managed to escape China, and thus the movement carried that bias outside China.
If you know more ways in which it may have changed, let me know.
But once again, we can know nothing for sure about the past in China because of censorship.
Even if you saw something yourself, how can you be sure that it is representative?
And if it has changed, now that it has changed, maybe China should unban it?
See also:
=== FLG has been funded by the US government at least once, therefore it is evil
1.5M USD in 2010 for a FLG controlled internet freedom group https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8678760.stm
But well, if you are going to do something anyway, and someone offers you money, why wouldn't you take it?
Taking the money does of course give a "bad impression" that someone is trying to buy influence, but does it in itself imply that you are doing something bad?
But do you really think that the US government paid that to buy influence in FLG? What would they force upon that FLG group that they didn't already want to do? Isn't it more likely that the US government wanted them to continue doing exactly what they were doing?
Every government funds groups it supports, it is an all out war I suppose. Compare that to the propaganda funds of the CCP.
What about the funding of political campaigns, which vastly outnumbers 1.5M USD every year?
[[follow-the-law]] === FLG is illegal in China, we must follow the law
This might be a bad law that should be changed.
It was perfectly legal for <<nazi,Nazis>> to kill Jews. Does it make that right?
But many times, the commies don't even bother passing a law, they just fuck people anyways without one: <>.
[[flg-fake]] === FLG is fake 法轮功是假的
The same can be argued about any other religion or political belief of type: it is better if we organize society in this or that way.
How can you disprove their belief, when as in any other religion, every affirmation made hinges on "miracles only happen around when true believers are around" or "only true believers can perceive evidence in their hearts / minds directly". He died of cancer or <>? Not a true believer, deep withing his heart, something was wrong.
Conversely, do you understand the full sequence of experiments that imply quantum field theory? Have you seen videos of those experiments? Have you attended live demonstrations? Do you understand the construction of the experimentation apparatus? Yet, why do you believe it?
More importantly: what do you propose that should be done about it? Should we kill followers? Or is jail enough?
Also do let me know when you have achieved irrefutable proof that democracy/freedom of speech are the optimal ways to organize the government: <>.
See also: <>
[[flg-verifiable]] ==== FLG never makes any predictions that can be reasonably verified by non-believers
Exactly, just like any other <>, this is why <> is <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong,agnostic>> and things Falun Gong metaphysics is bullshit.
Notably, <> explicitly forbids display of magical powers gained by believers to non-believers: <> for "reasons". What a convenient coincidence, that prevents any verifiability!
Just like in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter[Harry Potter], Falun Gong believers are part of the magical <<flg-religion,Hogwarts world which non-believers, The Muggles>>, cannot access.
The closest claims to observable Ciro has heard are:
[[flg-fungi]] .Image of the magic good small plants that grew on a <> believer's home. They took a photo and it published on <<falun-gong-media,Minghui>> as a 2018 Chinese New Year good wish page to <>. They seem to identify those fungi as mini-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udumbara_(Buddhism)[udumbaras], which is just a fancy name that Buddhism scriptures use to refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficus_racemosa[cluster fig flowers] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/聚果榕[优昙婆罗], amongst a billion other existing phonetic transliterations) emphacising their magic properties. Here's a 2007 from <>: https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/7/10/7/n1859364.htm[], and another one https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/9/5/3/n2514838.htm[], and another one from 2011: https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/11/11/25/n3440323.htm[]. Only the most relevant news on that newspaper. Ciro could not find <> mentions however. If any biologist reads this, for the love of God send me a Wikipedia page with the possible species. TODO transcribe the Chinese. https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2018/2/17/168396p.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_magic_fungi.jpg[height=400]
but Ciro suspects they are not even <<flg-canon,canon>>, just believer oral culture.
Of course, like every other religion, reality happens to be is constructed in a way that prevents non-believers to verify anything with their eyes in a reproducible way.
Or a Jesus put it in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+4&version=NIV[Luke 4]:
[[luke-4]]
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.
"If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
"'He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'"
Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Ah good old <<li-hongzhi,prophets>>, their tricks haven't changed a bit in 2 thousand years! This is why <> follows instead the religion of <<democracy-is-a-religion,science and freedom of speech>>, because those religions instead say:
Test your God. Test your God a billion times. And if your God proves wrong just once, disbelieve it.
The Pontius Pilate Scene from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(film)[The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)] comes to mind, quotes:
Pontius: It's also said that you do miracles? Is this good magic or bad magic? Can we have some sort of demonstration?
Jesus: No, I'm not a trained animal, I'm not a magician.
Pontius: Well, that's disappointing. This means that you are just another Jewish politician.
and:
Pontius: It's one way to change the way that people live, but you want to change the way that they think and that they feel.
Jesus: All I'm saying is the change will happen with love. Not with killing.
Pontius: Either way it's dangerous. It's against Rome. It's against the way the world is. In killing or loving, it's all the same. It simply doesn't matter how you want to change things, we don't want them changed.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pXGsio9H1xs The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) - Pontius Pilate Scene (5/10) | Movieclips. video::pXGsio9H1xs[youtube,height=400,width=600]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama[Futurama] also has an interesting take:
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObbVO3A3BvA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bender_(Futurama)[Bender] meets God in Futurama S03E20 "link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfellas[Godfellas]". In their talk, they comment on how "if as God you give them everything, they will grow dependent on you, and if you give them nothing, they will despise you". And so the best approach as a God might be "to influence things as if you weren't there". video::ObbVO3A3BvA[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[against-censorship-and-flg]] === Many people both are against censorship and FLG
Ciro know that, and that supporting FLG is "bad" for his public image with most Chinese, including those that are against censorship.
But <<dictator-needs-gfw,without censorship, there will be democracy>>, and with democracy FLG followers will have voting rights, and FLG will become legal.
Ciro thinks that the situation is very similar to <<flg-religion,Scientology>> in the USA today: most people dislike it, but believe that you can believe whatever you want.
Democracy and Communism <<democracy-is-a-religion,can also be considered as religions and persecuted>>.
Isn't it convenient when a dictatorship gets rid of those weirdos for you? But not so much when suddenly you or your family is the weirdo...
If you are not ready to accept the beliefs of others, dictatorship is the only choice for you.
It is also interesting to note how Falun Gong is a good source of <> material.
See also: <>
[[democracy-is-a-religion]] ==== Why does Ciro Santilli say that democracy is a religion just like Falun Gong?
Because it also specifies irrational and fundamental aspects of how one should live, notably voting and freedom of speech.
Just like the <> has one fundamental belief: <<stability,the Party is always right>>.
Ban <>, and you have banned democracy.
Accept democracy, and you will have <>.
There is no in-between.
[[flg-stability]] ==== Falun Gong had to be banned because it was a threat to the stability of the country
Then they link to the Taping Rebellion:
Of course FLG was a threat to the stability of the country.
It is, as <> has said, a highly organized political power: <>.
However, <<democracy-is-a-religion,democracy>> is a threat to the stability country in the exact same way:
Anything that goes against a dictatorship is a threat to the stability of the country.
Now read: <>
=== Many people say they do FLG only to get VISAs to the USA
<> heard this a few times, and I believe it has happened.
But I don't see how this is relevant at all to this discussion:
Sample news:
[[flg-witness]] === I have personally seen people do bad things because of Falun Gong
Either direct suicide or <<flg-medication,dying because of not taking medication>>.
First, I'm not saying I don't believe you, and I'm sorry about what happened.
But your testimony is worthless unless you give the following:
This is because the CCP has thousands of <<wumao,wumaos>> who could make fake reports. + There are basically two ways to do that: + . your testimony is done in video form on YouTube clearly showing your face as you make it . links between a notable social media presence that is hard to achieve, e.g. Twitter with many followers, Stack overflow with a lot of rep, and the account + Either of those must contain / link to information that uniquely identifies you. Generally, full name, city and date of birth is enough.
This is to: + ** make it easier to verify the truth of the event ** uniquely identify the event so we don't count a single event multiple times
If you do provide all of the above, I add your report to a list of reports that I will maintain. This list does not exist yet because there were no valid reports yet.
Next consider this:
Did someone from Falun Gong told the person to do it? + I bet that if you look into patients of psychiatrists, you will find more suicides than average. So should we ban psychiatry?
Branch Davidians were inspired by <>. So should we ban Christianity? What about the majority of Christians who have never done anything bad?
[[flg-persecution]] === FLG does not have proof of their persecution claims
How much proof do you think they would be able to get when there is no freedom of the press?
Do you think that forbidding a <<flg-important,70 million>> person religion could have gone smoothly?
Do you think the thousands of personal accounts of human rights violations that exist are all fake, and don't indicate that many, many more have taken place but fallen under censorship?
Conversely, there is no reliable proof that FLG is bad as claimed by CCP that has been verified by international media.
[[thoughtcrime]] === Someone from movement X did something bad, therefore the movement should be banned
By this logic, everyone should go to jail. The law should only punish individuals.
The communist party, which has had continuous power since 1949, killed millions during the <>. Surely they must be banned, no?
But the CCP has changed so much since those days, Ciro hears you say.
Ciro agrees. And <<flg-changed,so has Falun Gong>>.
See also: "thoughtcrime" from <>.
Or if you like shitty movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film)[Minority Report (2002)].
==== Movement X tells people to do something bad, therefore the movement should be banned
E.g. kill.
Yes, convincing someone to do something bad is as bad as doing it yourself of course, and must be forbidden.
Now proceed to prove that FLG made and will continue making people do bad things, going through:
[[tiananmen-square-self-immolation-incident]] ===== Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident (天安门自焚事件, 2001)
This has been one of the major anti-Falun Gong propaganda pieces by the CCP, and one of the most refuted by Falun Gong propaganda even as of 2020.
<> believes that:
Question: Some people can't give up Dafa, but also can't let go of their humanness. On the surface they are cultivating and doing some Fa-rectification things, but they are in fact stirring up trouble and creating disturbances, with some even committing suicide or being gay. What will become of these people? Will they go to the dimension of demons? And what will happen to those who stick up for them?
Teacher: I know about all of that. Unless I have absolutely no choice I don't want to expel them, so I'm observing and watching these things. It's best that these people, if they want to do themselves justice, wake up quickly--wake up quickly! If you're determined to do that, then tell Dafa disciples about the things you've done, and that could help. Time is running short. I'm really worried about you. Don't take Master's mercy so lightly. The Fa has standards.
and from 1998 canon https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19980329L.html +
Many people who are capable of cultivating get sucked into them, and some of them engage in suicide - it's a mess
====== Honour suicides in Chinese history
As https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suicide_in_China&oldid=992138770#History[mentioned on Wikipedia], China has a long history of suicide for altruistic/moral/honour reasons in Confucian tradition, some of which are still celebrated to this day.
The <> paragraph <<analects-translation-by-robert-eno-2015,15.9>> says:
The Master said, The gentleman who is resolute and ren does not seek to live on at the expense of ren, and there are times when he will sacrifice his life to complete ren.
<> paragraph <<mencius-translation-by-robert-eno-2016,paragraph 6A.10>> says:
I love to eat fish; I also love to eat bear paws. If I can't have both, I will forego the fish and eat the bear paws. I love life; I also love right. If I can't have both, I will forego life and choose to do right. Life is truly something I love, it is just that there is something else I love more, and so I can't hold on to life by devious means. And death is truly something I hate, it is just that there is something I hate more than death, and so there are dangers I will not avoid.
If a man loves nothing more than life, then won't he use whatever means are required to hold onto it? If a man hates nothing more than death, then won't he use whatever means are required to avoid danger? Yet there are things men won't do in order to avoid danger and live, and from this we know that there are things men love more than life and hate more than death. It is not just worthy men who have such feelings, all men have them; worthies are simply those who do not lose them.
Notable historical figures who committed suicides are are still celebrated to this day include:
He committed suicide by drowning himself in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miluo_River[Miluo River], modern Hubei Province, while holding a rock, after his country's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)[Chu] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/楚国[楚国])) capital was taken by the Qin enemies during the <>. + He is a symbol of patriotism respected to this day.
These sound exactly like examples that <> would want his army to keep in mind: ultimate sacrifice for the motherland.
[[flg-political]] === People from movement X are only in it for political power
For every desire of the masses, there will be amoral representatives that will step to use that power.
Still, those representatives cannot gain power if there is no backing desire from society.
The only advantage of <<richer,democracy>>, is that those representatives have to pretend harder to do things for that group to retain their power.
Falun Gong believers obviously have the right to do politics, just like any other person, and Ciro greatly encourages this.
But Ciro does not like that Falun Gong tends to not call itself a political force, when it clearly is. But full disclosure is not a legal obligation, and many many media outlets don't really disclose their obvious political connections. See also: <>.
Falun Gong directly contacts Government officials, http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/a25124-European-Falun-Gong-Practitioners-held-an-Anti-torture-Exhibition-during-the-European-Union-Meeting-in-France.html#.XyHSa2OYWV4[demonstrates in front of government buildings] and <<flg-trump,supports Trump>>, how can that not be politics?!?! Just call it for what it is, and no one will be able to criticize you for it!
<> directly says that FLG should not be involved in politics in <>, e.g. https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/jjyz52.htm[]:
Never get involved in politics, nor interfere with state affairs'.
But at the same, he also greatly encourages <>, which obviously a political influence method. As usual, everything in Falun Gong is explained in an indirect roundabout way.
Other related canon mentions https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2003/3/21/33575.html "Explaining the Fa During the 2003 Lantern Festival at the U.S. West Fa Conference":
Question: When elections were held in our district, there were people who went to help a few congressional candidates that supported Dafa. But some people thought we shouldn't get ourselves involved in politics, and that we shouldn't rely on ordinary people to do things for Dafa. Is that understanding correct?
Teacher: It's correct in principle, but for this specific matter you should look at it this way. If you say Dafa disciples can't get involved in ordinary society's politics, I wouldn't say that's 100% correct. What I told you was that Dafa doesn't get involved in politics. And a lot of our Dafa disciples work in politics, that's their job. So if there's a government election, should you take part in it? If you take part in it and cast your vote, well then you've gotten involved in politics. A Dafa disciple cultivating in the ordinary society means that you try your best to cultivate while conforming to the ordinary society, and then there won't be a problem. You, too, are a member of the ordinary society. And the existence of the ordinary society is necessary for Dafa, for the cosmos, and for sentient beings. We can only help maintain it and can't disrupt it. When you're supposed to vote, just go vote, that's not a problem. If you say that a certain Congressman is your personal friend, and you'd like to help him do something, then of course there might be things that involve elections and you'd be doing volunteer work—that doesn't matter. But our Dafa as a whole doesn't get involved in politics, and we can't do anything political in the name of Dafa. For Dafa disciples, validating the Fa should be the priority, though.
The last time there was an election in Taiwan, I had a veteran practitioner call the person in charge of the Taiwan Dafa Association and make it clear to the public that Dafa Associations take no stance on elections. If an individual practitioner wants to support someone, that's his personal business and it doesn't represent Dafa. There were Dafa disciples supporting both of the parties. The Falun Dafa Association has no political opinion regarding any party's election, and it doesn't get involved. As individual practitioners you can support whoever you'd like. That's how it works.
The last paragraph is really great, as it indicates how Li's communication works. His top tenants are known, and their word is as good as the master's.
https://en.falundafa.org/eng/lectures/20040412L.html[] also has some good quotes:
Question: During Taiwan's presidential election, some students' human attachments got stirred up. Was it a test arranged by the old forces? What's the right way for us to handle this?
Teacher: Even if the sky were to fall, a cultivator's righteous thoughts would stay unshaken--that is cultivation, and that is remarkable. (Applause) A cultivator is not attached to anything in this world. Dafa disciples' cultivation takes a different form today. In cultivation you do your best out in the world to conform to ordinary society, you have normal jobs in ordinary society, and you have your families, jobs, and all that--you are closely tied to society. With the Taiwan election, some students thought a certain person was pretty good and so they wanted to vote for him, while others thought a different person was pretty good and wanted to vote for that one. People have their own, different views, and there's nothing wrong with that. A person's own actions out in society don't represent Dafa. But you can't be attached to those things the way ordinary people are.
Whoever you vote for, I can't, as your Master, say that you're wrong, nor do I get involved in those things. That's because the path I ask you to take has you cultivate in ordinary society. Cultivators can only benefit a society. You cultivate in ordinary society but you don't steer human society in one direction or another.
So for each student, it's fine for you to vote as an individual for whomever you want. It's just that you can't be too attached. But through the persecution against Dafa disciples in Mainland China, Dafa disciples have seen through something, and so some are thinking, "Whoever is close to the evil that's persecuting us, I won't vote for him." (Applause) And as your Master I have no objection to that either. (Audience laughs, applauds) Those are the students' own thoughts, and as your Master I haven't told you who to vote for. Still less will I tell you to take any group action, and that's not allowed. (Audience laughs)
.https://youtu.be/ArfGyo6HQ_E?t=1175 Ciro really liked what https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/religious-studies/faculty/mathew-schmalz[Doctor Matthew N. Schmalz] said on this VICE documentary about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyung_Jin_Moon[Hyung Jin Moon]'s and his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_movement[Unification movement] ("the Moonies" split-off religion. "I think that any new religion needs a constituency. And especially for a group that is new, that is relatively small, making connections with other groups that might have similar commitments is something that can be quite productive if you are a leader of a new religion". As long as everyone plays the democracy game through democracy rules, peace tends to be maintained, and it is easier for multiple different beliefs to coexist. Falun Gong has obviously gone in this political direction, and that is a positive sign about the religion. video::ArfGyo6HQ_E[youtube,height=400,width=600,t=1175]
[[flg-trump]] ==== Falun Gong supports Donald (Trump, 法轮功支持特朗普)
<> believes without non-circumstantial evidence that the huge majority of Falun Gong believers strongly supports Trump.
Ciro feels that Falun Gong's support of Trump is a fundamental religious issue to the group.
Falun Gong seems to believe that Trump is perfect and that everything that he says is true and good. He is essentially a supernatural force of good, as well shown at: <>. And his opponents, e.g. Biden and the Left, are the opposite.
Like everything else concrete, it is not clear if <> has directly supported this or not.
Ciro feels without proof however that it is extremely likely that he has given very clear private directives to his top tenants to support Trump, notably to the heads of the key <> organizations.
And then this belief gets pumped endlessly through the Falun Gong media, which completely unilaterally praises and supports Trump and criticizes his opponents, so that all believers understand that this is Li Hongzhi's desire.
The most direct public suggestion that Li Hongzhi is directly involved of this was in 2020-11-08 https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/11/8/n12534746.htm when the <> published a poem by <> which Ciro believes is clearly directly supporting Trump, since it was released just after Trump was announced to have lost the presidential elections, amidst claims of electoral fraud under investigation, which Falun Gong media fully and completely supported. The official translation can be found in <> https://en.falundafa.org/eng/articles/20201108A.html[]:
On the General Election
In this majestic universe, the communist devil is making trouble + Fraud and corruption are harming a great nation + All the machinations make people only more despondent + When will justice be upheld and our conscience restored? +
Hongzhi Li + November 8, 2020
To be completely fair, Trump has been vocal about China's threat way before <<corona,COVID>>, and correctly so in Ciro's opinion, and therefore is a much needed ally of the Falun Gong movement, and to anyone that opposes China's threat, like Ciro does.
Furthermore, Ciro does believe that there might be a Democrat bias to media, and that certainly <<hate-speech,social media like Twitter should never ever censor any political statements as it has done for Trump>>.
And of course, so long as those pro-Trump campaigns respect the laws of the country, Falun Gong is free to do it and must not be interfered with. As if other major American media didn't have political agendas: <>.
This is exactly the same, in fact, as to how <<flg-religion,religious affiliation>> has a huge impact in how the average American votes: https://theconversation.com/how-strong-a-role-does-religion-play-in-us-elections-133224[].
It seems that Trump's immigration policies have turned Asian Americans towards the democrat opposition however as of 2019: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/13/18308137/asian-american-voters-immigration-democrats-donald-trump[].
One saving point of the republicans for Asians is the opposition to university quotas instance, which many Asians feel blocks their high performing kids from top schools for less deserving students. This is suggested for example at: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/yang-asian-americans-affirmative-action/605917/ "Opposition to affirmative action was pulling Asians toward the GOP. Then Yang's campaign began to gather momentum."
Examples:
While Ciro agrees that reporting such events impartially is important and has merit, the fact that so few medias took the lawsuits seriously at all is still indicative of their strong Trump support. + Ciro is also extremely opposed to censorship of such viewpoints, as done by YouTube, as mentioned at <>, when they started taking down any videos that upheld the electoral fraud viewpoint.
My social beliefs had transformed from those typical of a left-leaning family to take on a very conservative hue.
Other election/politics related <> mentions https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2019/6/2/177872.html[Fa Teaching at the 2019 New York Fa Conference]:
Question: Misleading news is everywhere in this Internet age, and it's often hard to tell real news from fake. In the upcoming Taiwan and U.S. general elections in 2020, will fake news cloud people's judgment?
Master: Degenerate things are common in this troubled world, and it's hard to accomplish good things. That's how things are in a troubled world. Many people didn't expect Trump to be elected in the last U.S. election, but he was. Some people believe that things are supposed to go a certain way, but then they turn out otherwise. I have always said that divine beings are in control of human affairs, and that it is they who have the say. But if I speak too much about it or get into the specifics, it might negatively impact our saving people, so I won't go into it.
As usual, Hongzhi beats round the bush, as per "Different Levels of Truth" of <>. Ciro feels it <<flg-transparent,would be better for Falun Gong if he just publicly said that believers must support Trump>>.
One wonders how Falun Gong views Trump's ideology of "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_Access_Hollywood_tape[grabbing them by the pussy]". But sure, that was in 2005, he must have converted to Good since.
Analysis of Trumps electoral fraud claims:
[[you-are-not-alone-by-tony-chen-music]] .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaWjFeo0BgU You Are Not Alone by Tony Chen Music (陳東音樂, 2020) is a timeless classic devotional Trump support song. by Tony who https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AZ-jCiXCpI[is a Falun Gong believer]. This is consistent with Ciro's understanding of FLG's view of the world, where <> ("I see the true light - You are the Chosen One to fight the Red Demon") and therefore Trump is the manifestation of a supernatural force oof Good. Chinese version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZrVbX8jV_o[], which contains perls such as (official translation) "I see hope - you are the Chosen One to save the world" and "Trump, Trump, you are not alone! Gods and Buddhas are here with you!". The extensive use of Trump's slogan "Make America great again" is also in line with Falun Gong's belief that the world was Good before, but has become Evil today. <> made a https://www.epochtimes.com/b5/18/2/1/n10105396.htm[profile of Tony in 2018]. video::WaWjFeo0BgU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
=== Western media has exaggerated reports on FLG for propaganda reasons
Possibly true, but which reports are you talking about specifically?
All that I care about is:
which I think are undeniable.
The only question that matters is: should it be banned or not?
=== Does Ciro Santilli believe in the allegations of human rights violations done to Falun Gong believers?
Besides the obvious prohibition of their most fundamental belief, so e.g. being tortured.
Let's just focus on the evidence:
[[flg-organ-harvesting]] ==== Does Ciro Santilli believe in the allegations of organ harvesting made by Falun Gong believers?
In short: Ciro believes that it has happened to many people.
Long version follows.
It is obviously very hard to prove and quantify it definitely, much like it was hard to prove the Holocaust: bodies were cremated, and bribes were paid.
Even if we had a video showing the whole process, showing the whole money flow from the donor to the prison guard, it would still be hard to quantify it, so I do have some room for doubt in this opinion.
But consider the following, which is based on what Ciro has heard.
Even Chinese officials have admitted that in the past, if the body of the executed person is not claimed by family, then the organs can be extracted even without the consent of the prisoner:
Perhaps now that they claim that there is a large voluntary organ donor database, then this has stopped or been reduced, but let's focus on that period when the extractions were widely done.
From this, even though China does not publish execution statistics, we can imagine that a large part of the organs come from prisoners sentenced to death.
Then, consider that a <<flg-important,70 million>> person religion was banned, leading to a huge influx of prisoners from that religion.
FLG followers are just de-facto criminals like any other, and so extracting their organs is also de-facto legal.
Also, people from that religion don't drink alcohol, smoke or take drugs, and their organs are of good quality.
Furthermore, FLG prisoners continue to not bow down to the government even in prison, e.g. by doing their <<flg-religion,Falun Gong meditation>>, which makes them clearly identifiable and dangerous to the system.
Finally, add to that mix the <<corruption,huge level of corruption found in dictatorships>>.
Don't you think, then, that it is extremely likely that it has happened many times that such people have been selected to be executed earlier than others on average, due to the monetary value of their organs?
Bibliography:
Related:
===== 2018 China Tribunal
2018 https://chinatribunal.com/
This is a mock tribunal, i.e. one without any power of law, and was of course initially lobbied/organized brought up by FLG: https://endtransplantabuse.org/
However, Ciro Santilli believes that none of the lawyers/jury members are Falun Gong believers, and that they are trying to honestly decide if there is enough evidence or not for organ harvesting in China.
They also have non-FLG witnesses.
Whether you believe in their partiality or not, I highly recommend watching some of what the witnesses, which I find very convincing and informative:
A notable precursor to mock tribunals is the link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal[Russel Tribunal].
Bibliography:
=== Things Ciro Santilli dislikes about Falun Gong
But also as explaining why I don't think it justifies the ban.
This section also gives me more credibility as a balanced critic >:-)
[[flg-organized]] ==== FLG downplays the fact that it is highly organized
Many FLG practitioners claim that they are not at all organized, or that they have no political interest, and I truly believe that they mean it.
But it is obvious from the size of the <>, namely:
that in practice they do have are a highly organized hierarchical structure, and very likely with <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>> at the very top, e.g.:
Furthermore, Falun Gong practitioners directly lobby foreign governments to take action against human rights abuses in China, e.g.:
Like any other religion, they have all the right to take those actions, and it is definitely in their best interest, and perhaps in the best interest of the whole world, that they do so.
The only thing that annoys me is their lack of self perception on this matter: the large majority of Western people would definitely classify them as an organized political force after having observed their activities. When they say otherwise, they are hurting their own credibility.
[[flg-transparent]] ===== FLG media is not transparent about its affiliation
Agreed, and it is a point that hurts more than helps their cause.
This is very clearly put as well at "Front groups" of the <>.
But the media is not legally obliged to state their affiliation.
And if that were the case, then we should force all newspapers to start taking polls of how many employees follow which religion and support which political party, and then put that in their print.
[[flg-intolerance]] ==== Falun Gong dislikes several other groups like homosexuals and some other religions
Like most <<flg-religion,old religions>>, related: <>.
<<flg-canon,Canon quote>> from https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19980904L.html[]:
Question: Why is homosexuality considered immoral?
Teacher: Think about it, everyone: Is homosexuality human behavior? Heaven created man and woman. What was the purpose? To procreate future generations. A man being with a man, or a woman with a woman - it doesn't take much thought to know whether that's right or wrong. When minor things are done incorrectly, a person is said to be wrong. When major things are done incorrectly, it's a case of people no longer having the moral code of human beings, and then they are unworthy of being human.
<> strongly disagrees with that view, because it is the type of thing that makes people feel bad for characteristics that they have, but cannot change.
Also, it is very hard to pass any kind of law that forces people not to be racist/discriminatory, because there is always the lingering question: what if they are right about a particular point?
Because clearly everyone has innate characteristics that make them better suited for certain activities than others, we when we select candidates for a job, we are basically discriminating amongst candidates.
Also any such law can have the opposite effect, acting as a justification for further hate.
You and I dislike certain personality traits without any logical reason.
Democracy dislikes dictators, and it is not necessarily rational.
See also:
===== Falun Gong on races
<> clearly classifies races as a metaphysical concept e.g. on <> https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19990502L.html[]:
Strictly speaking, Indians, Egyptians, Persians, the yellow race, the white race, and the black race are the six major races of the present Earth. All the other ones are mixed races.
Mixed race people seem to have some metaphysical defect/peculiarity, https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/1997L.html[]:
Question: What did you say last time that a person of mixed race has lost?
Teacher: He has lost the body that comes from the top down through to here. Let me put it this way: People of the yellow race have people of the yellow race up there, and people of the white race have people of the white race up there. He's lost this thread.
but they can still go to Heaven:
Question: Can a person of mixed race succeed in cultivation?
Teacher: Whether someone can cultivate and whether he can succeed in cultivation are all up to the person himself. If a person of mixed race can persist in cultivation, he can reach Consummation just the same. When he succeeds in cultivation his Primordial Spirit will return to wherever he came from.
[[flg-medication]] ==== FLG believers are less likely to take necessary medication
Based on what <> saw and heard, he does believe, without any clear statistical evidence, that it is very likely that it hs happened to in many cases that some Falun Gong believers refused to take modern medications and died of diseases that could be otherwise cured.
But consider the following:
As the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parks_and_Recreation[Parks and Recreation] caricaturally liberal character https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson[Ron Swanson] puts it https://youtu.be/_UlNnETAZeI?t=48[about the United States]: +
The whole point of this country is if you wanna eat garbage, balloon up to six hundred pounds and die of a heart attack at forty three, you can! You are free to do so. To me that's beautiful.
<> also comes to mind.
Forbidding them also has huge humanitarian costs (more expensive vehicles, creation of a black market, ...). So why not forbid them as well?
Especially In the beginning, Falun Gong did put a lot of emphasis on its health benefits, just <<zhong-gong,like all the other contemporaneous Qi Gong practices>>, and it is likely that especially many in the first generation of believers do believe it more than others.
For example, the main initial public announcement of Falun Gong was at a <<history-of-falun-gong,Health Exposition in Beijing>>.
In <> itself, this is not super explicit and emphasised as far as Ciro can see. Zhuan Falun https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_74.htm[] has a chapter entitled "On the Issue of Healing Illnesses", that contains:
Let us talk about the most common illnesses, like tumors, infections or osteoproliferation etc., found in the human body. In another space, a very deep space, there lies an evil intelligent entity.
and the general very beaty-around-the-bush suggestion that if you do master Falun Gong fully, you will be healthy. But with the usual disclaimer that "you have to become a master", and since "there are no graduates", no one is ever a master for sure, and as usual "you don't get the promised goodies", as as mentioned at: <>.
https://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/mgjf.htm contains some more direct quotes that suggest that you can take medicine, but you have to try and bear the pain first, and if you can't, it's a sign that you haven't practiced Falun Gong well enough:
So when you take medicine now you're killing this sickness or the virus at the surface. Medicine can truly kill viruses at the surface. Yet a practitioner's gong[7] is automatically destroying viruses and karma. But as soon as medicine kills the surface virus that has seeped over from other dimensions, the virus—karma—over on the other side will know, since everything is alive, and it will stop coming over. Then you feel that you've recovered because you took the medicine. But let me tell you that it nonetheless accumulates over there. Life after life human beings are accumulating this stuff. When the accumulation reaches a certain extent, the person becomes incurable and when he dies he's totally destroyed. He loses his life—forever loses his life. That's how horrifying it is. So here I've explained to you the relationship. It's not that people aren't allowed to take medicine. When an everyday person gets sick he definitely needs medical treatment.
But how do we cultivators deal with it? Aren't we purifying your body? Like the annual rings of a tree, there is karma at the very core, and at every layer, life after life, of your body. When you practice cultivation, I keep pushing this karma outward from the center; I push, and push, and push, and push until I completely push the karma out for you. And not all of this can go through the surface of our bodies. You wouldn't be able to bear it if all of it were to go through the surface of your body. Only a portion of it comes out through the surface. But you still feel that you're suddenly getting sick, you find it terribly uncomfortable and painful, can't bear it, regard yourself as an everyday person, and go take medicine. Then you can go ahead and take medicine, as we've never said that everyday people can't take medicine. We only say that your enlightenment quality isn't up to par and that you didn't pass this test well.
Ciro does however believe that newer generations believe in this much less, notably because the first believer generation is all basically old or dead, and soon will be entirely dead. This might also have been de-emphasised to reduce the bullshit aspects and help the international spread of Falun Gong. Not even Falun Gong believers are that blind. And this perfectly mimics the beginning of Christianism, where the first generations gave much more emphasis to miraculous cures.
<> has an anecdote on this, which Ciro feels sounds believable:
[[me-and-li-tumor]]
I think it was Lynn's* death that finally made me realise it was time to leave. I'd seen the writing on the wall about a year prior when I saw her at a yearly "Fa conference" for believers of Falun Gong, otherwise known as Falun Dafa, to exchange experiences and grow spiritually together. An executive assistant at a Queensland valuation firm, I'd gotten to know her over the years in various events as a warm and level-headed lady who had time for everyone. But I'd noticed she had developed a bulge on the side of her head and I was trying not to look at it when I talked to her. I saw, or at least I believed I saw, some pain in her smile. She was probably questioning herself over and over again what "attachments" she hadn't let go of that were causing this sickness to spread through her body and endanger her life. I wanted to tell her to just go to a hospital, although I wasn't at this stage resolute enough in my gradual return to logic. Another part of me feared that by looking at it I was acknowledging it — something you don't do with illnesses in Falun Gong because Master Li Hongzhi teaches that his pupils don't get illnesses. He can cure you but only if you don't have any loopholes in your belief in him and his teachings. Some people with solid beliefs can actually die due to others around them having flaws in their thinking, Li says. Just thinking the wrong way is perilous when you're a Falun Gong practitioner.
I later heard through the grapevine of Lynn's death. The cancer went into her brain and she passed away in extreme pain, probably believing to the end that it was her fault she was in this awful predicament. In a way, I guess it was.
and more interesting anecdotes follow, see source.
And Ciro has felt this first hand with his <<wife,mother-in-law>>. Whenever she has a health worry, first she tries to hide it. But then she casually mentions it without much thought because she speaks all the time the poor lady, may she be blessed. And then, when Ciro says: OK, let's try and treat it, even for trivial things that might have simple treatments, she immediately smiles a compassionate smile of "I'm a Falun Gong believer, I don't need that". This makes Ciro really mad. He tries to not show it, because he thinks people should be able to choose how they die. But Li promises the powers of <<flg-cross-dimensional-vision,remote, cross dimensional and past/future vision>> to some believers, and yet, blinds some of them to the obvious fact that they are aging, and, slowly but surely, their own bodies are starting to fail, like everyone else's will at one point.
It is also interesting to note how the Chinese government itself supported Falun Gong and <<zhong-gong,other Qi Gong practices>> for their health benefits, which is why they grew so large in the first place. <> was even <<history-of-falun-gong,awarded prizes and recognized as a Qi Gong master by state backed organizations in 1992 and 1993>>. And the CCP still has a tendency to support certain non-scientific traditional practices: <>.
[[freedom-with-a-capital-f]] .https://youtu.be/kIpaDW3RwtY?t=244 one random thing ex-KGB spy undercover in the USA Jack Barsky mentioned in this BuzzFeed Multiplayer interview stuck to his mind: "The one thing that you have here, that I believe cannot be found anywhere else in the world is called Freedom, with a capital F". If people want to die in a certain way, or believe that some bullshit will cure them, they should be allowed. Natural selection will take care of the rest. video::kIpaDW3RwtY[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=244]
See also: <>.
[[falun-gongs-view-of-epidemics]] ===== Falun Gong's view of epidemics
<> has said in <<flg-canon,canon>> things that lead certain believers (including e.g. <<wife,Ciro's mother in law>>) to believe that because they are good Falun Gong believers, that they are more safe from disease from evil people.
For example, in the 2003 "Fa conference" at the time of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome[SARS] he https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/20030420L.html[said]:
You must have seen the epidemic that's come along in China now, right? Hasn't a huge epidemic arrived? To put it in human terms, it's Heaven punishing people. What it's targeting, we Dafa disciples know full well: it's targeting those who don't deserve to be saved, who are impossible to save while Dafa disciples clarify the truth, and who aren't useful to the evil rotten spirits. This is the first round of cleansing. Heaven is punishing the evil, yet China is still lying to cover up the number of deaths, and I'll tell you, it's huge, and it hasn't peaked yet.
Such beliefs have of course carried over directly to <<corona,COVID-19>>.
An amazing quote from https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2020/3/20/183715.html[]:
Stay Rational
Pandemics and plagues are part of a divine plan and inevitable in the course of history.
Stay rational. Believe in God ;-)
Epidemics are also likely moments where religious grow due to more people being more desperate and looking for solace that cannot be found in this shitty world.
It is indeed tempting to believe that the virus magically kills only the Evil. What reality could be so fucked up where the innocent suffocate to their death? And yet, here we are.
[[li-hongzhi]] ==== Li Hongzhi (LHZ, 李洪志)
Li Hongzhi is the creator of <>: link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hongzhi[].
Falun Gong people call him "master" (师父), which is a common traditional term used to respectfully address experienced teachers in a disciple (弟子)/teacher relation, e.g. Kung Fu or other crafts.
However they also believe that he has many many God-like powers and is comparable figures such as Jesus and Buddha himself.
Notably they believe that he has superpowers, and that everything that he says is the absolute truth of the universe, see also: <>.
The term "master" is also used for example in the fictional film The Master (2012), which is likely inspired in <<flg-religion,Scientology>>.
<> however prefers to call him <<flg-religion,prophet>>, since he feels LHZ is indistinguishable from <<flg-religion,any other religion>>. Guru/<<flg-cult,cult leader>> could also apply.
It's funny that even though Falun Gong only came up recently in the 80's, we still know relatively little about Li. One is kind of reminded of Jesus! See also <> and <>.
One should note however that this is partly by design: at some point in the 90's, Li relatively stepped away from public view. This is because once you reach a critical mass of followers, it is better to let them to the preaching for you, while you hide your obvious human defects in a corner. See also comments at <>.
Li Hongzhi footage:
.<> is Falun Gong's prophet/cult leader/living God. He's a cute North-Westerner 东北人 like <<wife,Ciro's wife>>. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hongzhi[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi.jpg[height=400]
.<> practicing one of his exercises with one of his cute prophet outfits in an extremely nice Chinese <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,stone garden>>. TODO exact location and date. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Li_Hongzhi_Falun_Gong.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_stone_garden.jpg[height=600]
[[li-hongzhi-blue-halo]] .<<li-hongzhi,Li>> in front of a light blue background (similar to <<xi-jinping-portrait-blue,CCP official portraits>>) with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(religious_iconography)[halo] suggestion around his head. https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/11/5/12/n3254555.htm[Lower quality version] on <> itself. https://www.epochweekly.com/144/7046pg.htm[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_blue.jpg[height=400]
[[li-hongzhi-lotus]] .<<li-hongzhi,Li>> going https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Saiyan[Super Saiyan] while casually sitting on a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_lotus_in_religious_art[giant Lotus flower] with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(religious_iconography)[halo] on his head. https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/8022105562347289/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_lotus.jpg[height=600]
.<> really turning into a proper Buddha, including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_characteristics_of_the_Buddha[physical signs] such as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushnisha[Ushnisha] on the head and the https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Physical_characteristics_of_the_Buddha&oldid=972021136#The_80_secondary_characteristics["ears as longs as lotus petals"]. <> https://www.bannedbook.org/bnews/tculture/xiulian/20190123/1068931.html[source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_Buddha.jpg[height=400]
.Dubstep <<li-hongzhi,Li>> can <<flg-religion,liangong (练功)>> at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubstep[dubstep] speed. https://giphy.com/gifs/dubstep-gifs-dubstepgifs-xUOwFY1prqgUdPuFvW[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_dubstep.webp[height=400]
===== Xi Hongzhi and Li Jinping
In an alternate reality, Xi Hongzhi, not to be confused with <>, is an obscure peasant trying to save his kingdom from oppression.
And Li Jinping, not to be confused with <>, is an evil Qi Gong who uses his powers to rule over his kingdom ruthlessly, ridding it of non-believers.
This meme would be offensive to both <> and <> believers.
We are entering Encyclopedia Dramatica territory here.
===== FLG is dangerous because Li Hongzhi has too much power over followers
Ciro agrees that there is danger in every religion, and especially new religions.
However the same point can be made about political parties and in particular the CCP and its chairman.
Couldn't a charismatic leader chairman gain more and more power (like Xi seems to be doing), and eventually start a war and kill millions? Or just kill some minority who is not happy about the situation.
Similarly, any charismatic leader of a pro-democracy movement could become the leader of a terrorist organization.
If you ever want democracy, you will have to learn to accept the beliefs of others, and only punish them when they actually break a law.
Finally, LHZ was born in 1951, so he will die in 20 years, unless FLG is true and a miracle happens, and then this argument will become invalid.
From what Ciro hears, LHZ has always maintained that he is the only source of truth on FLG (see also "The Guru is always right"), and therefore, so his death will very likely remove any danger once and for all.
Furthermore, it also seems to Ciro that FLG is clearly anti-violence and self-harm, so Ciro wonder how many would follow a contradictory order such as killing or suicide? We have had no hint of any incitation to violence so far.
It is also interesting to look into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown case. When the suicide order came, most people wanted out! Without physically controlling the followers, I don't think you can make them do much.
===== Li Hongzhi's hagiography
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hongzhi mentions that there are two versions of the biography:
The full text appears to be at available at: http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=130### (God bless <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> piracy, link:++https://web.archive.org/web/20200805093333/http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=130###++[archive]) + <> gives the full title of the section + a translation (originally in pinyin, but why?!?! :-)): +
法輪旋轉新天地-記李洪志先生和他創立的法輪功 + "The wheel of the law revolves the new cosmos - on Li Hongzhi and the Falun Gong he founded".
It is shorter than the first, and is marked as authored by the "Falun Dafa Research Society's President" (法轮功研究会会长). + The Wiki quotes <>. + Penny says that it was removed in 1999 (presumably to remove some more glaring magical bullshit help with internationalization). + A possible Chinese copy might be found at: http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=165### inside a 1994 version of Zhuan Falun. + The section is entitled "中国法轮功创始人、法轮功研究会会长 李洪志先生小传", so literally tranlated as a "profile" (小传) rather than a full biography. The index marks it as 附 (addendum), and it comes at the end of the book.
===== Let's make a mini series about Li Hongzhi's life
Ciro can't help but to imagine how Falun Gong came about in detail.
Someone should write a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(novel)["The Last Temptation of Christ"].
This deserves an American miniseries like Chernobyl.
It would manage to piss off both FLG and the CCP, which would be amazing. It is a shame that it is so difficult to find good historical information between the infinite barrages of CCP and FLG propaganda.
It could show how:
Episodes could be split along:
Or maybe, never mind that boring post 1992 stuff which is already highly public, instead we could focus only on the more interesting pre-1992 events, and finish in 1992.
So per-early FLG up to 1992, with childhood flashbacks.
The tone should of course be a mixture of:
Parts of the series could be filmed in <> maybe?
Source material: <>.
Related videos:
But who knows. Episode 3 shows how Rajneesh implemented <>: Sheela was the front-person, and had meetings with him every evening.
[[li-hongzhis-family]] ===== Li Hongzhi's family (李洪志的家庭)
Jesus appeared to value chastity. He was born from a virgin. No sex around him at all.
But Li doesn't need that. He's a God, right, he can both be an Enlightened God part time and still have a normal family part time.
Once thing Ciro approves about Li's approach to his family is that he seems to have stated (TODO source) that none of them are Gods like him.
Wife's name: Li Rui (李瑞 according to CCP). Report saying that a follower bought a house and registered it on Li Rui's name as a gift, but Li later returned the gift back: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB94140245836194819 TODO house address.
The book also claims that they had two children Sun Baoyuan (孙宝圆) and Sun Baoman (孙宝满), which Li later managed to rename Li Baoyuan (李宝圆) and Li Baoman (李宝满). + <> had dancers called with those exact same Chinese character names between 2009 and 2020, so it is very likely that it is them: + **** Li Baoyuan: https://zh-cn.shenyunperformingarts.org/artists/view/article/e/tQIEajYbB_s/李宝圆.html **** Li Baoman: https://zh-cn.shenyunperformingarts.org/artists/view/article/e/Aw5bu_PdeNI/李宝满.html ** Li Hui (AKA Li Donghui) younger brother
There are also claims that Li's birth name was Li Lai (李來).
Sources:
.Li Hongzhi with his wife Li Rui and daughter Li Meige presumably in the late 80's with fishing ships in a shipyard in the background. TODO location. Likely from CCP sources, in many places with <<chinese-government-media,kaiwnd>> watermarks. http://www.toppk.net/art/2016/3/9/art_7328_304365.html[Anti-FLG source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_with_wife_and_daughter.jpg[height=400]
.Photo of Christina Li from Shen Yun, which the CCP claims to be Li Meige, daughter of Li Hongzhi. That page also claims that she was awarded Bronze in the 2009 and 2010 NDT Chinese Dance Competition. https://web.archive.org/web/20121211022246/zh-cn.shenyunperformingarts.org/artists/biography/view/WG3gbBQudOg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Meige_Shenyun.jpg[height=400]
[[diary-s-of-being-in-thailand-with-li-hongzhi-s-family]] ===== Diary's of being in Thailand with Li Hongzhi's family (我与李洪志一家在泰国的日子——法轮功教主妹夫的自述)
An alleged account of Li Hongzhi's family in the 1980's written by his brother-in-law Sun Senlun (Natawut Smittipong, 孙森伦), who married Li Ping.
ISBN 9789996590252: https://www.cp1897.com.hk/product_info.php?BookId=9789996590252[]
This is reproduced likely without copyright on many CCP sources, e.g.: http://lihongzhidaqidi.blogspot.com/2013_09_27_archive.html which links to <>'s HTML reproduction.
The <> links are all dead now, but they are all still visible under: https://web.archive.org/web/20191230124120/http://lihongzhidaqidi.blogspot.com/2013_09_27_archive.html
It is a good reading if you take everything with a grain of salt, does sound quite believable.
https://web.archive.org/web/20191230151939/http://news.kaiwind.com/features/s/201309/27/t20130927_1121750.shtml claims that Li lived in Sun's house in Thailand from May 1991 to March 1992. And that he was baffled when Li started telling the miraculous events of his <<li-hongzhis-hagiography,hagiography>> in the 1992 public talks, how could his wife never told him about any of those amazingly important life events before that point?
TODO find original publishing location.
This appears to be an interview with Sun Senlun about the book: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js0OyNwYw5A (watermarked <> on top)
Semi weirdly though, https://www.cesnur.org/2001/falun_jan10.htm claims that Senlun was a coordinator of Falun Gong in Thailand as of 2001.
https://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2020/1/16/原北京师大研究生陶渊在浙江第四监狱遭受的迫害-399012.html[] from 2020 by <> claims the book slanders Li Hongzhi's family, and that the CCP forced prisoners to read it.
[[dragon-springs]] ===== Dragon Springs (龙泉)
Li Hongzhi's Falun Gong complex in New York state countryside, where he lives, and organizes <>.
https://goo.gl/maps/4bqt18CSBmFSekw89
Started in the 2000's in New York State with money donated by believers.
<> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hqzx/2012-10/17/content_15825454.htm claims that <>'s appartment in 2012 was the number 136-08 on 59th avenue, Flushing, NY. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/seeking-master-li-1.221547 confirms Flushing. Also mentions key 1999 lieutenant Erping Zhang, https://www.c-span.org/person/?erpingzhang[] confirms with photo.
[[zhong-gong]] === Zhong Gong (中功,中华养生益智功)
A very similar religion to <>, that also emerged during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong_fever[Qigong fever] (气功热) of the '80s and '90s.
Zhong Gong was the second most sucessful Qigong Boom religion after Falun Gong.
The similarity of their imagery as seen from propaganda videos is striking. To <>, this makes Zhong Gong a perfect example of why <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong,FLG metaphysics is bullshit>>: it is obvious that both Zhong Gong and Falun Gong and many others were just random dudes who took advantage of the Qigong fever to create their religions.
Their prophet is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Hongbao[Zhang Hongbao] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/张宏堡[张宏堡]).
Interestingly, like <>, Hongbao is also from the Northeast of China (Heilongjiang), there must be a reason why those Qi Gong movements come from that region.
Unlike Falun Gong however, Zhong Gong failed to branch the franchise out of China, and basically died out. Hongbao also died in a car crash in 2006 which didn't help. Li Hongzhi however played smarter, and started branching abroad full force in 1996, he likely predicted that the crackdown was inevitale.
Wikipedia says it reached 34 million followers in China.
Hongbao also has a more spicy history it seems, with sexual allegations and open political goals <<flg-political,unlike Li Hongzhi, who hid his goals better>>. Well played, Li, well played.
<> maintains in <<flg-canon,canon>> that Falun Gong is of course extremely different from all of those other extremely similar Qi Gong religions. Zhong Gong is likely not mentioned by name, but it is also likely one of the main targets. E.g. in 1998 <<flg-canon,canon>> https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19980329L.html[]:
Dafa can't be obtained lightly. For example, the diversity of cults and the number of false qigongs are large these days, and they lead people astray. Many people who are capable of cultivating get sucked into them, and some of them engage in suicide - it's a mess.
Zhong Gong videos:
The embassy spokesman says Chinese officials have ample evidence of sect leader Zhang Hongbao's involvement in crimes such as rape and murder.
.Zhang Honbao on a giant flying lotus reaching Enlightenment with a halo. It looks <<li-hongzhi-lotus,exactly like Falun Gong imagery>>. But of course, Zhong Gong is just a "completely unrelated and inferior sect" according to <>. https://blog.boxun.com/hero/201102/tianhuaren/1_1.shtml[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Zhong_Gong_lotus.jpg[height=400]
[[zhong-gong-blue]] .The blue background, the halos, the praying hands, the master Zhang Hongbao flying above. It is just exactly like <<flg-blue,Falun Gong imagery>>. https://www.chinacourt.org/article/detail/2018/08/id/3475129.shtml[Source] (<>) image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Zhong_gong_blue.jpg[height=400]
[[flg-blue]] .Hungarian <> propaganda image with woman meditating in with blue sky background for comparison with <<zhong-gong-blue,similar Zhong Gong imagery>>. https://hu.faluninfo.eu/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_sky_advertisement.jpg[height=400]
[[qigong-fever]] ==== Qigong fever Boom 气功热 (1980's)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong_fever
AKA Qigong Boom.
=== Falun Gong bibliography
[[me-and-li-by-ben-hurley-2017]] ==== Me and Li by Ben Hurley (2017)
https://medium.com/@Ben_D_Hurley/-10677166298b "Me and Li" by Ben Hurley published on October 23, 2017.
This post by a former believer gives what <> feels is a realistic account that matches Ciro's observations.
Interesting quotes:
The following echoes "Different levels of truth" from <>:
Most would find they had little in common with non-practitioners ("ordinary people" in Falun Gong parlance) but would maintain cordial relations with friends and family nonetheless, and think of various ways to explain the edge off some of Falun Gong's less palatable teachings about aliens, how heaven views gay people, the inferiority of other religions and Master Li's role in saving the universe.
[[history-of-falun-gong]] ==== History of Falun Gong 法轮功历史
A few non-religious non-CCP resources can be found at:
but those are very rare, because where else would the information come form, right?
Some key events:
TODO what did he talk about on that Beijing day. This day still celebrated in 2020 as https://en.minghui.org/cc/36/["Falun Dafa Day"], in which the major international "<<orange-papers,Experience Sharing>> Conference" happens in New York. + He apparently also taught at Chaoyang Park in Changchun: https://goo.gl/maps/BFwKs2xr48AMUAbx8
[[benjamin-penny-the-life-and-times-of-li-hongzhi-2003]] ===== The Life and times of Li Hongzhi by Benjamin Penny (2003)
Free to read at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20059033
[[benjamin-penny-the-religion-of-falun-gong-2012]] ===== The Religion of Falun Gong by Benjamin Penny (2012)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0226655016
A freely downloadable paper with a subset of the book: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20059033.pdf
The author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Penny is an Australian researcher, https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/penny-bdc
[[politicians]] == Chinese politicians 中国政治家
[[xi-jinping]] === Xi Jinping (习近平, 2012-∞, Heil卐!)
[[xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03]] ==== Xi abolishes term limits (习近平取消席连任不得超过两届的限制规则, 2018-03)
.<> cartoon showing Xi Jinping preparing to sleep in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_Mao_Zedong[Mao Zedong's tomb], meaning that Xi also wants to reach Mao's "eternal ruler" status when he abolished term limits in 2018. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/XiJinping-Eternity-cartoon-02282018104813.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_sleep_Mao.jpg[height=400]
.1977 photo showing Mao's actual glass tomb during his funeral, with famous politicians in the background. It is interesting to see that Mao https://mummipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Mao_Zedong[features on the "Fandom Mummipedia Wiki"]. https://apnews.com/a94a0d7a824b474fb11545e8c4481c21[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mao_coffin.jpeg[height=400]
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist[The Economist] "Let's party like it's 1793" cover from May 4th – 10th 2013 depicting a painting of Xi Jinping dressed as emperor of China. The famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Empero[Qianlong Emperor] was in power at that time. The title is likely a joke based on the more well known https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/party-like-its-1969-woodstock-forty-years-on-1722695.html["Let's party like it's 1969"] due to the legendary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock[Woodstock festival]. Party is also a play on words between the Communist Party and a night party. TODO why 1793 specifically. https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/329929668155293696[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Lets_party_like_its_1793.jpg[height=600]
[[panama-papers]] ==== Panama papers (巴拿马文件, 2016)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/巴拿馬文件
Leak of financial data implicating <<corruption,many corruption scandals>>.
Mentions <>'s brother-in-law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Jiagui[Deng Jiagui] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/邓家贵[邓家贵]).
See also <>'s answer to https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-net-worth-of-Xi-Jinping/answer/Ciro-Santilli[What is the net worth of Xi Jinping?] answer on <>.
===== Foreign citizenship of Xi Jinping's family
<<li-hongzhi,Cult leaders>> hate having <<li-hongzhis-family,their families examined>>. So let's do it.
TODO confirm: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/c20xf3/almost_every_members_in_president_xis_family/ from <>.
====== Xi Mingze (Xi Jinping's daughter, 习明泽)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Mingze https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/习明泽
Went to Harvard from 2010 to 2014 under pseudonym, apparently Xiao Muzi (小木子).
The news was apparently broken in 2012 by the UK tabloid Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2234651/Xi-Jinping-Chinas-new-Princess--daughter-Communist-president-studying-quietly-Harvard.html
https://www.businessinsider.com/xi-mingze-harvard-article-goes-viral-2012-11 mentions:
The Chinese elite is no doubt keen to avoid questions about how exactly Xi Jinping can afford his daughters fees. Officially, his salary is less than $13,000 a year, and Xi's circle has been remarkably cagey about reports of his family's true wealth before.
plus 24-hour bodyguards. <> comes to mind.
https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/xi-mingze-16091.php says birthday June 27, 1992.
https://answersafrica.com/meet-xi-mingze-xi-jinpings-daughter-is-she-married-where-is-she-now.html gives some public appearances, e.g. in New York in 2018.
[[xi-jinping-memes]] ==== Xi Jinping memes 习近平模因
Xi Jinping got his nickname as "Xi baozi 習包子" ("<<buns,steamed stuffed bun Xi>>") due to the much publicized visit he made to the famous Qìngfēng bāozi pù 庆丰包子铺 ("Qingfeng baozi shop") in Beijing. During and after his visit to the shop, media swarmed over the place and were eager to portray an image of Xi as being down to earth and close to the people. Those who dislike Xi use this nickname sarcastically against him for being a hick and for hypocritically "putting on a show" (zuòxiù 作秀).
See also: <>.
It can be translated as "big spender," a play on the literal translation of the words sā bì 撒币 "throw money" and "stupid cunt" (shǎ bī 傻逼). The nickname takes aim at the economic aid Xi has promised to foreign countries; the moniker is so widely used on Chinese social media that the censors' repressive measures only draw more attention to it, and to the criticism embedded within it.
See also: <>.
.<> photoshopped as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joker_(character)[The Joker] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/小丑_(角色)[小丑]). Would have been perfect with https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/22/ren-zhiqiang-who-called-chinese-president-a-clown-jailed-for-18-years[2020-09-22 Ren Zhiqiang - who called Chinese president a 'clown' - jailed for 18 years], see also: <>. https://www.reddit.com/r/chonglangTV/comments/m04q0p/乌合麒麟新作一尊小丑/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_photoshopped_as_The_Joker.jpg[height=400]
[[xi-jinping-lookalikes]] ===== Xi Jinping lookalikes (习近平撞脸)
.2019-05-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadomasochism[Sadomasochist] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM[BDSM] (SM) Xi Jinping lookalike or photoshop in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondage_suit[bondage suit] (gimp suit, fetish gear) at a cosplay fair. TODO: is this a Photoshop and if yes what's the original pic, publish dates, location/event. <> googled a lot for it, but it was beyond his skills :-( Earliest post found so far: 2019-05-21 08:49:20 GMT+1 (Imgur timestamp) going wild on <>: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/joke/M.1558454171.A.5C9.html[] entitled "這位coser是誰啊？好眼熟。" (Who is this Cosplayer? He looks familiar.) by user "a15568". Watermark reads "I am Dasen 郭", where "郭" is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo[a common Chinese surname]. Notable discussion threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ckgs5l/xi_jinping_took_to_the_streets_to_demonstrate_his/[r/China 2019-08-01], https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ke4hde/nice_pic_i_found/[r/China 2020-12-16], https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/ckjf65/gee_i_am_sure_chairman_xi_will_really_appreciate/[2019-08-01] image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_sadomasochist.jpg[height=500]
.2020-01-01 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shengjian_mantou[Pan-fried dumpling] Xi Jinping lookalike 生煎包习近平撞脸. Furthermore, this reminded people of <<xi-jinping-memes,習包子>>. A <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> report from 2020-01-01: https://news.tvbs.com.tw/world/1257030 TODO name, location. One of the many videos of him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTt8Sjer6cc[] image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mantou_Xi_lookalike.jpg[height=400]
[[liu-keqing-singer]] .2020-05-12 Liu Keqing (刘克清) is an opera singer who had his personal videos on <> taken down from time to time because he looks too much like <<xi-jinping,The One>>. https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2020/05/【立此存照】只因太像习近平？歌唱家刘克清形/[China Digital Times report]. One of his personal vlogs reuploaded to YouTube where he shared singing techniques and thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPFKUhJdqzk[]. A video of him performing professionally in a chamber concert: 2018-11-02 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z98-Mqci4ag[]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Liu_Keqing_singer_Xi_lookalike.jpeg[height=400]
Less good ones:
[[winnie-the-pooh]] ===== Comparisons between Xi Jinping and Winnie-the-Pooh 小熊維尼 (2017)
Got censored due to comparisons between Xi Jinping and Winnie in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh#Censorship_in_China
Thailand has their own version: <>.
In <> we see that a <> video actually interviews someone who mentions that, so the meme has had a positive connotation at least some point in the past.
Some good photoshops:
.Comparison image between Xi Jinping waking with then USA president https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama[Barack Obama] with a Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon still of Winnie walking with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigger[Tigger, the tiger]. The original photo is from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-09/obama2c-xi-forge-rapport-in-debut-summit/4742616[Xi's 2013 visit to the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, California]. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/17/oh-bother-chinese-censors-block-winnie-pooh-meme-comparing-xi/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Pooh_Obama.webp[height=400]
.Comparison image between Xi Jinping shaking hands with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinzo_Abe[the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe] and a Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon still of Winnie shaking hands with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeyore[Eeyore, the donkey]. The original photo is from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/world/asia/leaders-of-china-and-japan-hold-long-awaited-meeting.html[Abe's lacklustre 2014 visit to Beijing]. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Abe_Pooh.webp[height=400]
.Comparison image between Xi Jinping on a car in a 2015 military parade and a toy Winnie-the-Pooh on a car. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Pooh_car.jpg[height=400]
[[xi-pooh-photoshop]] .Real photo of Xi Jinping edited to look like Winnie the Pooh. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/dcabzh/this_image_of_xi_jiping_as_winnie_the_pooh_is/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Pooh_Photoshop.webp[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHmLUYCUYT0 "Xi Jinping as Winnie the Pooh Dancing to Bat Out of Hell by Meatloaf" by TheFakening (2020). Deep fake of several girls wearing Winnie the Pooh clothes with a Xi Jinping face. The song choice "Bat Out of Hell" is a reference to <<corona,COVID> because one of the theories is that the disease started in bats. video::y-JPLzj2poY[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=57]
[[xi-dada]] ====== Xi Dada (习大大, 2015)
Benevolent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personification[personification] of <>. Part of the <>.
2015-09-23 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-34338832 "Who is Xi Dada"?
That article comments on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnRo9AMT8FI "Who is Xi Dada?" by <> (2015-09-23) in which several foreign students in China praise <> in English. https://youtu.be/PnRo9AMT8FI?t=47 notably states: "They also refer to him as <<winnie-the-pooh,Winnie-the-Pooh>>". Priceless.
What does dada mean: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Xí-Jìnpíng-called-Xí-Dàdà
Some other sources:
.Golden heart shaped souvenir with a picture of Xi Jinping that was sold in <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square>> in 2018. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/26/endowing-role-endless-rule-shows-xis-imperial-ambitions/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_heart.jpeg[height=400]
.Xi Jinping in 2019 wearing his cute compassionate face. Do you think that such a cute cute North-Westerner 东北人 would ever to terrible things like <<xinjiang,commiting cultural genocide of a million people>> or <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,trying to become ruler for life>>? Impossible, it must be <<evil-west,American lies>>. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_dada.jpg[height=400]
[[chrysanthemium-xi-jinping]] ===== Chrysanthemium Xi Jinping (菊花习近平, 2015)
Got creator Dai Jianyong (戴建勇) arrested in 2015:
.Chrysanthemum Xi Jinping with <<tiananmen,六四>> spice added by Ciro Santilli image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Chrysanthemum_Xi_Jinping_with_black_red_liusi_added_by_Ciro_Santilli.jpg[height=400]
.Original Chrysanthemum Xi Jinping by Dai Jianyong published in 2015. https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/artist-detained-after-posting-humorous-photo-of-xi-jinping/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chrysanthemum_Xi.jpeg[height=400]
[[xi-jinping-portrait-blue]] .Possible original Xi Jinping photo used for Chrysanthemum Xi, possibly from 2012. The light blue gradient background was used for the official photos of many Communist officials of the era. https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_2112111,00.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_portrait_2012.jpg[height=400]
[[xi-jinping-thought]] ==== Xi Jinping Thought (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想, 2017)
Added to the Constitution in preparation for <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,eternal rule>>.
<>'s <>. But since it is the 21st century, there's an app for it instead called "Study (for a) Strong Country" designed by <>:
TODO what does this repo do: https://github.com/fuck-xuexiqiangguo/Fuck-XueXiQiangGuo[]? And there there's an anti-repo for wumaos: https://github.com/boycott-fuck-xuexiqiangguo/Boycott-Fuck-XueXiQiangGuo
Online video version courtesy of <>: http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/xjpsxkj/index.html[]. Contains <<ccp-cult,devotional>> videos, not text: http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/xjpsxkj/1.html
Notably, it consists of 14 chapters, which are called "talks" (讲), e.g. the first talk (第一讲) etc. This is exactly like <>'s <<flg-canon,Zhuan Falun>> (and likely like other ancient Chinese religious texts).
.<<ccp-cult,Devotional>> image of <> on the cover of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Governance_of_China[The Governance of China] (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/习近平谈治国理政[习近平谈治国理政], 2020) book which is part of <>. The similarity to <> devotional images <<li-hongzhi-lotus,is striking>>. Related: <>. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Governance-China-Xi-Jinping/dp/1602204098[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_The_Governance_of_China.jpg[height=400]
[[chinese-dream]] ===== Chinese dream (中国梦, 4000 BC -)
==== Xi Jinping Thought (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想, 2017)
[[two-safegards]] ===== Two safegards (两个维护, 2018)
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/兩個維護
Part of <<newspeak,Xi-speak>>.
[[jiang-zemin]] === Jiang Zemin (江泽民, 1989-2002)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Zemin | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/江泽民
<<dictatorship,Dictator>> from 1989 to 2002.
Jiang is often compared to a toad in a meme what is referred to as toad worship (膜蛤), further keywords: 蛤蟆
The Chinese also love Jiang's quote in English during an interview with Hong Kong press:
Too young, too simple, sometimes naive.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=y-JPLzj2poY Jiang Zemin saying "Too simple, sometimes naive." video::y-JPLzj2poY[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=57]
Jiang also has an amazing array of meme-ready funny expressions.
.Comparison between Jiang Zemin and a 72-feet-tall inflatable toad in a Beijing park seen in 2014 made the rounds on Weibo and led to some <<censorship,censorship>>. https://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/01/world/asia/toad-jiang-zemin/index.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jiang_Zemin_frog.jpg[height=400]
.Jiang picking his nose. https://pieceofmindful.com/2013/12/12/chinese-exceptionalism/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jiang_Zemin_nose_picking.jpg[height=400]
.Jiang reading through comically large magnifying glass during the opening ceremony of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China[19th Party Congress] in 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/18/back-from-the-dead-chinas-internet-goes-wild-over-youthful-jiang-zemin[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jaign_zemin_magnify.jpg[height=400]
.More Jiang funny expressions and Photoshops from a Research Gate page! https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Jiang-as-emoticons-often-used-in-chats_fig4_325864518[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jiang_Zemin_emoticons_montage.png[height=400]
[[deng-xiaoping]] === Deng Xiaoping (邓小平, 1982-1987)
Although his reign officially ended in 1987/1989, he remained extremely influential until his death, and was a major figure in <> most likely.
[[xidan-democracy-wall]] ==== Xidan Democracy Wall (西单民主墙, 1978-1979)
https://youtu.be/846AtqraCYg?t=799 suggests that <> initially encouraged it after during/after killing the Gang of Four.
But then, obviously, people started denouncing corruption in his goverment, and so Deng made it stop.
The documentary also mentions <> who was a notorious contributor who asked for democracy.
.Xidan democracy wall. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xidan_Wall,_May_1979.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xidan_Wall.jpg[height=400]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=40PxfKWgBmY China: Democracy Wall Beijing Dec 1978 video only. This is one of the many footage available of the wall. video::40PxfKWgBmY[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[wei-jingsheng]] ===== Wei Jingsheng (魏京生)
Key figure on the <>, notable for writting <>.
我们要自己掌握自己的命运， 不要神仙和皇帝不要相信有什么救世主， 我们要做天下的主人， 我们不要作独裁统治者扩张 野心的现代化工具， 我们要人民生活得现代化， 人民的民主、自由与幸福， 是我们实现现代化的唯一目的， 没有这第五个现代化， 一切现代化不过是一 个新的诺言。
We need no Gods or emperors and we don't believe in saviors of any kind... we do not want to serve as mere tools of dictators with personal ambitions for carrying out modernization. We want to modernize the lives of the people. Democracy, freedom, and happiness for all are our sole objectives.
[[the-fifth-modernization]] ====== The Fifth Modernization (第五个现代化, 1978)
Not to be confused with the one of the same title made by the CCP in 2013: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/第五个现代化_(中国共产党)
Full text on Jingsheng's apparently official website: https://weijingsheng.org/doc/cn/46.htm
Most notable quote:
我们要自己掌握自己的命运，不要神仙和皇帝 + 不要相信有什么救世主，我们要做天下的主人，我们不要作独裁统治者扩张 + 野心的现代化工具，我们要人民生活得现代化，人民的民主、自由与幸福 +
We want to be the masters of our own destiny. We need no gods or emperors and we don't believe in saviors of any kind + we do not want to serve as mere tools of dictators with personal ambitions for carrying out modernization. + We want to modernize the lives of the people. Democracy, freedom, and happiness for all are our sole objectives
Full text: link:fifth-modernization.md[].
[[mao-zedong]] === Mao Zedong (毛泽东, 1954–1976)
What could be a better reminder that <<xi-jinping,dictatorships are dangerous>> than the catastrophes that Mao created such as the <> and <>?
https://youtu.be/MHFrhIAj0ME?t=926 "The camp was an intense and exciting place, and many of the guerrilla fighters had affairs. Sex was called undisciplined guerilla warfare". TODO Chinese.
.Mao Zedong in Yan'an in the 1930's thinking deeply. This funny looking picture is meme ready and https://uncyclopedia.ca/wiki/Chairman_Mao[much loved by Uncyclopedia]. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mao_Zedong_in_Yan%27an.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mao_Zedong_in_Yanan.jpg[height=400]
[[little-red-book]] ==== Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Little Red Book, 毛主席语录, 1976)
<>'s <>. Like <>'s, also extracted from talks, see also:
[[hundred-flowers-campaign]] ==== Hundred Flowers Campaign 百花齐放 (1956-1957)
Some possible quotes from Mao saying that people should be able to protest, original share: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/i2z5ss/maos_propaganda_poster_saying_protest_and_strike/
允许群众示威。 + Citizens should be allowed to protest.
claims from from some 毛泽东选集第五卷 (selected works from Mao Zedong) in speech from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_Central_Committee_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China[8th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China]. https://twitter.com/shijianxingzou/status/1158421996755128323 mentions the anthology was published in 1977.
Even <<pro-chinese-government-media,kknews>> confirms: https://kknews.cc/zh-my/news/ql9k4ag.html
<> also comes to mind.
[[great-leap-forward]] ==== Great Leap Forward 大跃进 (1958-1960)
.A high tower of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_gourd[winter gourds] "冬瓜上高楼" propaganda poster for the Great Leap Forward by https://chineseposters.net/artists/jinmeisheng.php[Jin Meisheng] published in 1959. <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect,Even in democracies>>, politicians promise the fat gourds. But when there is <<censorship,no free media to control their>> lies, things can get really out of hand. http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/chairman/chn11.php[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Winter_gourd.jpg[height=600]
.Communist Children Catch Pokemon: the true meaning of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union[CCCP]. Edited from the original poster with a <> instead of Pokeball and no "CCCP" shown at <<https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/360428776411504491/ By Volaran Cadires. https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/405253666454984678/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Communist_children_catch_pokemon.jpg[height=600]
[[cultural-revolution]] ==== Cultural Revolution 文化大革命 (1966-1976)
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=kXByOrRrO7c Vox 6 minute explanation with some good footage for impatient Millennials, published on Feb 14, 2020. video::kXByOrRrO7c[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[mao-swim]] ===== Mao swim across the Yangtze river (毛主席畅游长江, 1966-07-16)
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/毛主席畅游长江
Good <> article: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/1999098/chairman-maos-historic-swim-glorified-china
Mao claimed to have set a swimming record by swimming 15km in 65 minutes at the age of 72 at the Yangtze in Wuhan, or an average of 13.8 km/h.
As a comparison, the Olympic swimmers of 2016 covered the lesser distance of 10 km in 113 minutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2016_Summer_Olympics_–_Men%27s_marathon_10_kilometre for an average of 5.3 km/h.
According to https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311977913_Analysis_of_the_characteristics_of_offshore_currents_in_the_Changjiang_Yangtze_River_estuarine_waters_based_on_buoy_observations[this article], the maximum current speed of the Yantze is 128.5 cm/s or 4.62 km/h so even if he were swimming with the current, Mao was faster.
Dictatorships would never lie about obviously verifiable facts, would they?
And idiots today still celebrate this event that preceded the <> which put China's economy in shambles.
<> learnt from this and also showed off his swimming skills in 2009.
.https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1966-10_1966年毛泽东游长江2.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mao_swim_wave.jpg[height=400]
[[news]] == News 新闻
Trying to keep only "neutral" sources here, let me know if you spot something too biased: <>.
How I find them: <>.
=== News 2020
=== News 2019
=== News 2018
[[changsheng-bio-technology-vaccine-data-falsification-incident-2018]] ==== Changsheng Bio-Technology vaccine data falsification incident (长生生物, 2018)
https://github.com/fuckcqcs/fuckcqcs on <> contains data from the website of Changsheng Bio-Technology relating to the incident. English readme: https://github.com/fuckcqcs/fuckcqcs/blob/master/README_EN.md[]
2019-02-25 https://theconversation.com/chinese-internet-users-turn-to-the-blockchain-to-fight-against-government-censorship-111795 mentions that censored information about the incident was also inserted into the <<bitcoin-blockchain,Ethereum blockchain>>.
=== News 2017
[[low-end-population]] ==== Low-end population (低端人口, 2017)
=== News 2016
=== News 2015
Taiwan ROC' sash to Chinese Taipei' https://shanghaiist.com/2015/11/23/miss-earth-ting-wen-yin.php[[the-709-crackdown]] ==== 709 crackdown 中國709維權律師大抓捕事件 (2015)
Hundreds of human rights activists put into jail in quick succession. Short forms:
709 refers to the date when the arrests started: 09 July 2015. There were about 200 arrests.
News coverage:
Se also: <>
.<> cartoon of about 40 of the arrested lawyers. TODO full name list. https://twitter.com/badiucao/status/884005207830544385[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/709_lawyers.jpg[height=400]
=== News pre-2015
[[tiananmen]] ==== Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 (六四事件)
Good photo selections:
AP footage is pretty good, just do a search on the archive:
Soldiers who spoke up:
Other interesting links:
.Sea of protesters (广场人潮涌) in Tiananmen Square on 2019-05-04. No, not even that many people can influence dictatorships if they don't have weapons. https://abcnews.go.com/International/tiananmen-square-29th-anniversary-crackdown/story?id=55564966[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tianmen_sea.jpg[height=600]
[[pu-zhiqiang-shirt]] .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pu_Zhiqiang[Pu Zhiqiang (浦志强)] was student demonstrator during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. His shirt reads: "Freedom of the press, freedom of association, support the 'link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Economic_Herald[World Economic Herald] (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/世界经济导报[世界经济导报])', and support just journalists." (辦報自由 結社自由 聲援世经导报 支持正义记者, fully quoted https://cinacn.blogspot.com/2001/07/28.html[here]) Date: 1989-05-10. Pu remained in China as a human rights layer, and https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-35157525[was arrested in 2014] for attending a private meeting commemorating the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen. https://allthatsinteresting.com/tiananmen-square-massacre[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pu_Zhiqiang_tshirt.jpg[height=500]
.Students from Beijing University stage a huge demonstration in Tiananmen Square as they start an unlimited hunger strike as the part of mass pro-democracy protest against the Chinese government. Photo taken on 1989-05-18 by Catherine Henriette/AFP/Getty Images. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos/100751/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_students_sitting.jpg[height=400]
.Who said there weren't some cute girls amongst the protesters? Photo taken on 1989-05-19 by AP Photo/Sadayuki Mikami. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos/100751/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_cute_girls.jpg[height=500]
.Happy protesters surround army convoy of 4,000 not so happy soldiers on 1989-05-20. Ciro can't help but to think the <<politically-incorrect,politically incorrect>> idea that the military <<uneducated-masses,look considerably younger and poorer/less uneducated than the Beijing masses>>. https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-06-04/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_troop_truck_night.jpg[height=500]
.A young woman is caught between civilians and Chinese soldiers, who were trying to remove her from an assembly near the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on 1989-06-03. AP Photo/Jeff Widener. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos/100751/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_girl_strife.jpg[height=400]
.A student from an art institute plasters the neck of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_of_Democracy["Goddess of Democracy"] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国国际广播电台[中国国际广播电台]) statue on 1989-05-30. Replicas have of course been erected elsewhere, and when the CCP falls one day, this will be rebuilt, obviously. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos/100751/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_sculpt_goddess.webp[height=600]
.An old lady tells those rowdy overpriviledged students that they were complaining for no reason, and that in the <<cultural-revolution,good old Mao days you would be lucky to get any food at all>>, and that they should just go the fuck home on 1989-05-31 (Ciro might or might not have made up the exact content of the conversation). https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos/100751/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_old_lady.webp[height=500]
.A dissident student asks masses of sitting soldiers to go back home on 1989-06-03. Great shot composition by AP Photo/Jeff Widener. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos/100751/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_announce_soldiers.webp[height=500]
.Godzilla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Peng[Li Peng (李鹏)] crushing the Tiananmen Square protests with his green eye laser beams. https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/File:Li_at_Tiananmen_Eyebeams.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_at_Tiananmen_Eyebeams.jpg[height=400]
.Protester covered in blood while holding an army helmet on 1989-06-04. There is also footage of that moment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=63&v=lXJ6gHFME0w[] which explains that the man claims his face was cut by a soldir by using the edge of the helmet. https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-06-04/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_helmet.jpg[height=500]
[[liubukou]] .Bodies run over by tanks by the road in after the Tiananmen Square Protests were crushed in the morning of 1989-06-05. The source website is by French journalist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Gauthier[Ursula Gauthier], who explains how those photos were taken by one of the students of the group, who later asked her to take the photos abroad to publish them. The students were some of the last to leave after the crackdown, and they were trying to escape through a small street that leads into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang%27an_Avenue[Chang'an Avenue] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/长安街[长安街]) when the tanks came at high speed near Liubukou crossroads (TODO Chinese name) half mile West of Tiananmen square, and not all students were able evade the tanks. https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/jun/01/china.johngittings2 mentions that some bodies had to be scrapped-off the street. Ursula was later kicked out of China in 2015 after commenting that the CCP had ulterior motives for giving their condolences to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks[November 2015 Paris attacks]. Interesting fact: Ciro was actually less than 1km away from one of the Paris attacks on that night, at his home, and first learnt about what had happened when people started calling to see if he was fine. http://www.ursulagauthier.fr/tiananmen-15-minutes-dapocalypse/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tianmen_crushed_dead.jpg[height=600]
.Bodies with gun wounds at the mortuary at Shuili Hospital (水利医院, Hospital of the Ministry of Water Resources of China, https://goo.gl/maps/xAy55T3sydW8X81M6[Google maps], https://bkso.baidu.com/item/水利医院[Baidu], https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20190531/tiananmen-square-protest-photos/[New York Times Chinese report]), about 8km West of Tiananmen Square. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/30/world/asia/tiananmen-square-protest-photos.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_Shuili_Hospital_dead.jpg[height=500]
.A Chinese couple on a bicycle take cover beneath an underpass as tanks deploy overhead in eastern Beijing on 1989-06-05 by AP Photo/Liu Heung Shing. This photo one is almost poetic. https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2014/06/1989-tiananmen-square-protests-photos/100751/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_bicycle_bridge.jpg[height=400]
.Family members try to comfort a mother who has just learned of her son's death after he was killed by soldiers at Tiananmen Square, June 4. TODO what's her name? An association https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Mothers[Tiananmen Mothers] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/天安门母亲运动[天安门母亲运动]) was created after the events. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/pictures-tiananmen-square-anniversary[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_crying_mother.webp[height=500]
.The morning after the military crackdown of the pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square, workers clean their posters from bulletin boards. Resume <> as usual. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/gabrielsanchez/pictures-tiananmen-square-anniversary[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_message_board_cleanup.webp[height=500]
[[tiananmen-songs]] ===== Tiananmen Square Protests songs 六四事件歌曲
English:
video::-JTWXqUPQ7I[youtube,height=400,width=600]
video::6OOlXJs4I8k[youtube,height=400,width=600]
Chinese:
[[nothing-to-my-name]] video::m7uk0-vlpP0[youtube,height=400,width=600]
video::F8lWiWaSTtg[youtube,height=400,width=600]
Cantonese
video::9L_qz7LuqVU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
Other good lists:
For non-Tiananmen songs see: <>.
[[tank-man]] ===== Tank Man (坦克人)
Good list of all known photos: https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/30/the-other-tank-man-photographs/
A list of Tank Man parodies can be found at: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/tank-man
TODO: can't find a Tank Man ASCII art! How is that possible? Behold!
/||
|--|
o||0
||
/
....
https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/l2wqbg/ascii_art_of_tank_man_%E5%9D%A6%E5%85%8B%E4%BA%BA_from_tiananmen_square/gkdbe5d suggested a simpler one that has been in use with Chinese characters:
[[tank-man-emoticon]] .... 占占点人 ....
where:
So once a gain, <>.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrbwFxd1c-I Michal Jackson's Tank man performance in Munich (1997) The Cirque du Soliel "accidentally" showed Tank Man imagery for 4 seconds in a Beijing theater on a related 2013 act "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour": https://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/15/world/asia/tank-man-cirque-soleil/index.html but it was removed on future performances.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeFzeNAHEhU CNN video of Tank Man: but not showing removal, ridiculous, is there a full raw footage somewhere? Subset uploaded to GitHub: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/168[]. video::YeFzeNAHEhU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSbx352cn8A Several quick cuts by CBS news that give a good overview of the incident, including him being pushed away by other protesters at the end. video::YeFzeNAHEhU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.Arthur Tsang's photo of Tank Man. https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/30/the-other-tank-man-photographs/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man.jpg[height=400]
.Stuart Franklin's wider view photo of Tank Man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tankman_new_longshot_StuartFranklin.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man_new_longshot_Stuart_Franklin.jpg[height=600]
.Terril Jones photo taken at ground level with Tank Man on background and men running away on the foreground. The photo was only published in 2009. https://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014/05/30/the-other-tank-man-photographs/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man_ground_level.jpg[height=600]
.Photoshop of Arthur Tsang's photo of Tank Man with huge rubber ducks replacing the tanks. Inspired by a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSo5MqQVwCY[huge inflatable rubber duck sculpture floating in Hong Kong in 2013]. https://petapixel.com/2013/06/05/yellow-duck-version-of-tank-man-photo-goes-viral-amidst-chinese-censorship[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man_ducks.jpg[height=600]
[[lego-tank-man]] .Rough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lego[Lego] model of the Tank Man scene. https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1499216-tank-man[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Lego_Tank_Man.png[height=400]
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VI[Final Fantasy 6] battle screen style depiction of tank man by Cody Walton by it8Bit. https://www.it8bit.com/post/25860395424/unknown-rebel[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man_FF6.jpg[height=600]
.Tank man drawing by Ciro Santilli. The only CC BY-SA 4.0 representaion of Tank Man found on the web? And the prettiest. Created manually with GIMP. This can be very useful e.g. if you are posting <> answers about image processing, e.g.: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/20737061/merge-images-side-by-sidehorizontally/63575228#63575228 image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man_drawing_by_Ciro_Santilli_CC_BY_SA.png[height=500]
[[tank-man-song]] ====== Tank man song by Xu Lin (坦克人，作曲家：徐琳)
This song is amazing!!!
Video uploaded to GitHub: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/185
Official tablature on Xu Lin's blog: http://xulin1523.blogspot.com/2016/01/blog-post_26.html
https://www.nchrd.org/2018/10/xu-lin/ on <> says he was arrested in 2017 for <>, and released on September 2020 at the completion of his sentence. This dude was actaully China, what a hero. https://chinachange.org/2018/07/28/guangdong-activist-xu-lin-tried-on-charges-of-stirring-up-trouble-for-writing-songs/ talks about his trial in 2018.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym88UOz5ZC8 Video on Xu Lin's official YouTube channel video::ym88UOz5ZC8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
我是坦克人 + I am Tank Man +
站在天安门 + I stand at Tiananmen +
面对坦克车队 + I face the tank column +
从容挺出身 + I calmly come and stand (? confirm) +
广场人潮涌 + A tide of people has rushed the square +
群情正沸腾 + The feelings of the people are boiling right now (正 == short of 正在?) +
发出正义呼声 + The voice of justice is calling +
结束一党专政 + To finish the One Party Dictatorship +
国家人人有份 + Everyone has a share of the country +
岂容他们独吞 + How can we put up with them taking more than their fair share? (岂容) +
自由天赋权利 + Free natural rights +
岂可葬于铁轮 + How can they be buried under the Iron Wheel? (TODO why Iron Wheel? https://cd.hwxnet.com/view/fkkhdjaknlgbnolg.html mentions possibly Buddhist metaphor "Cast iron wheels. According to the Buddhist legend, the torture instrument used to squeeze evil spirits in hell.") +
谁挡了谁的路 + Who is standing on whose way? +
谁是谁的敌人 + Who is whose enemy? +
谁是正义一方 + Who is on the side of the righteous? +
谁是历史罪人 + And who are the enemies of History? +
你们的枪炮是人民造 + Your guns were made by the People +
你们的俸禄是民脂民膏 + Your salaries were paid by the people's taxes (民脂民膏 is a poetic way of putting it that references historical events apparently) +
为什么枪口对着人民 + So why are the guns being pointed at the people? +
犯下这罪恶天理难饶 + Those who commit this crime, can hardly be forgiven by the Heavenly Principles (天理 is a concept from Song Dynasty Confucianism, "heavenly principles", a type of "feudal ethics" according to Pleco and 1 +
民主是世界的必行之道 + Democracy is a necessary Path of the world +
实行了民主大家都好 + Once democracy is implemented, everyone will be better off +
不要做独裁的镇压工具 + Don't be a tool of suppression of the Dictatorship +
还不快停车把头调 + Quickly stop the tanks, and correct your point of view +
===== Tiananmen Square Protests keywords
Words:
Lists:
[[tianmen-leaders]] ===== Tianmen square protest student leaders (六四学运学生领袖)
Lists: https://qz.com/1618805/the-1989-tiananmen-student-leaders-on-chinas-most-wanted-list/
[[zhou-fengsuo]] ====== Zhou Fengsuo (周锋锁)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Fengsuo | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/周锋锁
After <> started his campaign for freedom of speech in china in 2015, Zhou Fengsuo published on Twitter in 2015-05-30 when he had 36K followers at the time: https://twitter.com/ZhouFengSuo/status/604461488716144640 (https://archive.is/8d2lt[archive]) linking to Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow account:
The commies have messed with the wrong guy's <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother-in-law.>>"
一个程序员在专业网站上发布六四和法轮功的消息，目的是触怒中共，封杀网站，从而激起程序员的反抗。因为岳母被抓半个月。
[[chai-ling]] ====== Chai Ling (柴玲)
She was cute and energetic! :-)
Famous anti-<> speech:
人民日报，胡说八道！ + 欺骗人民，良心何在！ + 不是不报，时候不到！ +
People's Daily, + Full of nonsense + Lying to the people, + Where's your conscience? + You may think you're safe, + But your time will come. +
Also transcripted at: http://www.tsquare.tv/chinese/film/ghp04.html from <>.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRAmL1D8R-4 Chai Ling People's Daily speech in Tiananmen Square protests (柴玲—六四学运—国民日报，胡说八道！). On <>: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/197 video::gRAmL1D8R-4[youtube,height=400,width=600]
===== Tianmen square protest documentaries
====== The Gate of Heavenly Peace (1995)
Chinese transcript: http://www.tsquare.tv/chinese/film/ghp00.html
[[chinese-student-demonstrations-1986]] ===== 1986 Chinese student demonstrations 八六学潮
The prelude to <>.
For example, Cui Jian (崔健) <<nothing-to-my-name,"Nothing to My Name (一無所有)">> song was composed in 1986, and later became a <<tiananmen-songs,major Tiananmen Hymn>>.
[[dissidents]] == Dissidents 持不同政见者
Related sections:
=== Chinese dissidents
Other sections:
Other dissidents:
Retired teacher at <> living in the USA. + ** 2020-06-12 https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2020/06/translation-former-party-professor-calls-ccp-a-political-zombie/ "TRANSLATION: FORMER PARTY PROFESSOR CALLS CCP A 'POLITICAL ZOMBIE'" + She criticized Xi Jinping in private online meeting, and the audio was leaked: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEBHVsHlPeI ** 2020-08-21 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3992140 she was expelled from from the CCP, and she said she was happy.
Not sure if these are dissidents or not:
but that is really poorly stated and links to her blog as reference: https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-part-3-defunding-deplatforming-and-detention-140fed4b9554[]. There she says she says the video was used without out of context without her permission, and that she always tries to avoid sensitive topics. + But in any case, she walks the line. ** https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1281934477430681601 "Naomi on a Saturday night, complaining about the lack of available FOSS anti-censorship options to help her fellow Chinese access the global Internet. FML I should pack some snacks to take with me..." It's hard to understand what she means. ** https://twitter.com/RealSexyCyborg/status/1340495054733905922 "I'm Cantonese, I've been in countless private WhatsApp and Telegram groups where these issues were openly discussed in our dialect, and countless Mainland WeChat groups with that perspective- trust me, I know quite a lot more about this than some illiterate randos from the US." ** So either she is anti-CCP, or she is part of the most advanced <> program ever made
==== Lists of Chinese dissidents
Other lists:
Coverage: 2021-02-26 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/26/business/china-online-censorship.html
[[chinese-human-rights-defenders]] ===== Chinese Human Rights Defenders (中国人权捍卫者)
Website: https://www.nchrd.org/
TODO funding.
Based on Washington DC.
===== Front Line Defenders
Website: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/location/china
Based on Ireland.
[[ai-weiwei]] ==== Ai Weiwei (艾未未)
[[xu-xiaodong]] ==== Xu Xiaodong (Mad Dog, 徐晓冬)
MMA fighter who beat up some kung-fu masters to prove that MMA is more effective than their traditional styles.
As of 2019, he had 14 Weibo accounts blocked (created one, got blocked, created another, got blocked, etc.). Source: https://www.inkstonenews.com/society/chinas-mma-fighter-xu-xiaodong-fight-survival/article/3047417
Profiles and news:
Related:
.Uphold science, eradicate superstition "崇尚科学 破除迷信" 1999 poster by the CCP created as an <<falun-gong,anti-Falun Gong>> propaganda likely based on a http://www.people.com.cn/GB/channel1/10/20000710/137317.html[more widely widespread slogan] (https://web.archive.org/web/20090428155413/http://www.people.com.cn/GB/channel1/10/20000710/137317.html[archive]). So why is Xiaodong not being supported by the CCP now that he is beating superstition back into its place? Once again, <>. The poster features images related to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_space_program[Chinese space program 中华人民共和国航天], which is a major undertaking of the CCP and widely used propaganda point. https://chineseposters.net/themes/falun-gong.php[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uphold_science.jpg[height=600]
.1962 propaganda poster for the Chinese Space program. "Uphold science, eradicate superstition"? Nah, the moon is obviously populated by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang'e[Chang'e (嫦娥)], the Chinese Goddess of the moon, which is one of the names for the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Lunar_Exploration_Program[Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (中国探月工程,嫦娥工程)]. Other good https://chineseposters.net/themes/space-program.php[Chinese space program posters]. Also note the emphasis on making babies, the <> comes to mind. https://chineseposters.net/posters/e15-824.php[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Space_program_Change.jpg[height=500]
.2017 Xu Xiaodong (MMA) Vs. Wei Lei (Tai Chi) summary GIF. https://www.inkstonenews.com/society/chinas-mma-fighter-xu-xiaodong-fight-survival/article/3047417[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xu_Xiaodong_taichi.gif[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XwXaCbfIGw 2017 Xu Xiaodong (MMA) Vs. Wei Lei (Tai Chi) full fight. video::0XwXaCbfIGw[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[programthink]] ==== Programthink (编程随想)
Very popular Chinese language anonymous blogger that publishes software programming tutorials and political content since 2009, often negative about the CCP, in particular <<censorship,anti-censorship>> and <<brainwashed-by-usa,anti-CCP-brainwashing>>.
<>: 2020-09-30 https://github.com/programthink/zhao/issues/38 | https://archive.vn/QKCMi + The full project name is: 太子党关系网络 (network of relations of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princelings[CCP princelings]). + The project is also known as "zhao" which is another <<slang,slang>> reference to "太子党": "赵家人" (zhaojiaren == zhao family): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_family | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/趙家人zh, which is in turn a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_(state) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Zhao[].
Mentions in other sections:
.Programthink uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thinker[Rodin's The Thinker sculpture] as its avatar, to encourage people to think for themselves rather than <<censorship,blindly believe the Party>>. https://github.com/programthink/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Programthink.jpg[height=400]
[[liu-xiaobo]] ==== Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波, 1955-2017)
He was abroad in the 80' as a scholar, and then he came back to china in 1989 to support <>, then he was in and out of jail until he died in 2017.
2020-06 https://baike.baidu.com/item/刘晓波/14900221 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200627130112/https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%88%98%E6%99%93%E6%B3%A2/14900221[]) casually forgot to mention that he might have won the fucking 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, but he seems to be too big to delete the entire page?
It is interesting how <> was fully deleted, the page was only locked. It also does not mention all the times he was in jail, notably after Tiananmen, only some of them.
2017-11 Baidu did mention the Nobel prize however: https://web.archive.org/web/20171114165644/https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%88%98%E6%99%93%E6%B3%A2/14900221 it was edited out later.
The article also makes it very clear that his 2009 sentence was "a fair one", and that the organization he worked for in the 90', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federation_for_a_Democratic_China[Federation fora Democratic China] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/民主中国阵线[民主中国阵线]) was funded by the CIA. Wikipedia does not mention that however, and of course, Baidu content does not need citations.
[[guo-wengui]] ==== Guo Wengui (郭文贵)
Social media:
Profiles:
[[hao-haidong]] ===== Hao Haidong (郝海东, 2020)
Hao is widely considered one of the best Chinese soccer players of all time, and he was the top scorer for the Chinese national team of all time as of 2020, and one of the only two Chinese to show on https://iffhs.de/showLegends/men[IFFHS Legends] page which as of 2020 contains only 52 players including the likes of Pelé and Maradona.
He participated in the 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup[FIFA World Cup] (世界杯) qualifiers, and therefore also at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_FIFA_World_Cup[2002 FIFA World Cup proper] held in South Korea and Japan, which is the only World Cup China classified for as of 2020, and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_at_the_FIFA_World_Cup[in which it failed to score a single goal].
On 2020-06-03, one day before <> anniversary, Hao appeared with his wife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ye_Zhaoying[Ye Zhaoying] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/叶钊颖[叶钊颖], married 2019), who was also a badmington star, on <>'s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4aN5h0RqD8&t=4496[], and spoke up against the CCP:
As a result, his son https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runze_Hao[Hao Runze] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/郝潤澤[郝润泽], from a previous marriage) who is also a soccer player and had nothing to do with it was also sacked from the Serbian club https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FK_Radnički_Niš[Radnicki Nis] in which he played one week later due to pressure from China: https://www.scmp.com/sport/football/article/3088385/hao-haidongs-son-sacked-serbian-club-radnicki-nis-after-pressure The wiki page says that https://www.b92.net/sport/fudbal/vesti.php?yyyy=2020&mm=06&dd=09&nav_id=1693254 says the team says it was just a coincidence and that his contract had ended.
The most interesting thing about all of this, is how Hao's name was completely <<internal-censorship,nuked form the Chinese Internet>>, making this a fantastic opportunity to unambiguously document a censorship event. One is reminded of:
The keyword is clear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iconoclasm[iconoclasm] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/破坏偶像主义[破坏偶像主义])
Some examples:
Online reactions:
Listings of the 2002 squad:
Google bomb at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/111
.Hao Haidong (in white) playing for the China national team against the Hong Kong's national team in a World Cup Asian zone qualifying match at Siu Sai Wan Sports Ground in 2004. Request for https://twitter.com/fjamie013[James Fridman] to remove Haidong from the picture in reference to <>: https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1308670186640289792[]. Photo by: <>. https://www.scmp.com/sport/china/article/3087684/chinese-sports-couple-hao-haidong-and-ye-zhaoying-face-being-wiped[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hao_Haidong_kick.jpg[height=500]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgSwRwFBNFA Hao Haidong's top 10 goals, all with CCTV 5 watermark :-) video::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgSwRwFBNFA[youtube,height=400,width=600]
====== Zhihu censorship of Hao Haidong
<> (and the rest of the Chinese Internet) basically nuked a gazillion articles that mentioned him, including old ones that had nothing to do with his political views.
Ciro estimates that very likely thousands of Zhihu posts have been removed, as of 2020-06-14 the Google query "郝海东 site:zhihu.com" had 3,970 results, and every single on Ciro clicked had been taken down.
Not nuked yet as of 2020-06, but nuked after, with before-after archives:
Older archives that were nuked before Ciro managed to archive them on 2020-06-06:
Nuked as per Ciro's eyewitness on 2020-06-06 without web archive, but could be found either on Google search or Zhihu search before those engines had properly cleared, taking Google caches and web archiving them + web archiving 404's as of 2020-06-14:
Nuked answers:
Ye also nuked:
====== Baidu Baike censorship of Hao Haidong
This served as good evidence of the obvious fact that <> is highly censored.
Hao Haidong's page https://baike.baidu.com/item/郝海东/357512[]:
Article about the Chinese national soccer team https://baike.baidu.com/item/中国国家男子足球队[]:
The article used to mention Hao extensively. He was:
Ye Zhaoying's page https://baike.baidu.com/item/叶钊颖[]:
Ye won the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BWF_World_Championships[BWF World Championships] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/世界羽毛球锦标赛[世界羽毛球锦标赛]), a biannual tournament that is likely the most prestigious in the world twice in 1995 and 1997, and her name had to be removed from the list of winners in Baidu https://baike.baidu.com/item/世界羽毛球锦标赛[]:
The fact that badminton is a single player sport is great in this case, as it just puts more emphasis on her name as opposed to Hao's multiplayer soccer game:
Hunan website about Gong Zhichao confirming that: https://web.archive.org/web/20200618174728/http://www.enghunan.gov.cn/hneng/AboutHunan/HistoryCulture/Celebrities/201508/t20150807_1816328.html
Hao Runze's page https://baike.baidu.com/item/郝润泽
[[howey-ou]] ==== Howey Ou (欧泓奕, 2019)
The Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg[Great Thunberg]. Environment activist. She speakes English too.
Mandatory <> question: https://www.zhihu.com/question/354163461 "如何看待中国首位气候活动家欧泓奕?"
Social media:
News coverage:
.Howey Ou skipped classes for a week to protest about climate change in front of the local government office in Guilin in 2019. https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3094873/howey-ou-chinas-version-greta-thunberg-pays-price-climate[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Howey_Ou_2019.jpg[height=400]
==== University student dissidents abroad
[[opengl106]] ===== Ji Ziyue 季子越 (2020-06, opengl106, 神楽坂梓月)
Aliases: opengl106 神楽坂梓月
Accounts:
Media coverage:
Reactions:
[[tian-jialiang]] ===== Tian Jialiang (田佳良, 2018)
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/田佳良事件
Alias: 洁洁良
=== Hong Kong dissidents
Related: <>.
[[joshua-wong]] ==== Joshua Wong (黄之锋)
Social media:
News coverage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMl1jDjptDk Lessons in Dissent: How One Hong Kong Schoolboy Started A Revolution by Journeyman Pictures (2019) video::kMl1jDjptDk[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[agnes-chow]] ==== Agnes Chow (周庭)
Social media:
[[jimmy-lai]] ==== Jimmy Lai (黎智英)
Founder of <>.
=== Western dissidents
[[serpentza-laowhy86]] ==== Winston Sterzel (SerpentZA) and Matthew Tye (laowhy86)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Sterzel
The biggest China expat YouTube channels, and the also collaborated together a lot.
As of 2019, they seem to have moved to the USA because they can't stand harassment by the Chinese government.
Due to their balanced opinions, fluent Chinese, not being <>, and having lived in China for such a long time, the offer what is arguably the one of best CCP criticisms.
SerpentZA YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl7mAGnY4jh4Ps8rhhh8XZg
laowhy86 YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChvithwOECK5g_19TjldMKw
ADVChina joint YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNPa8fSXzzAZuT9859GVhg
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDV4s9c9sfQ "How I Got my Family Out of China" published by laowhy86 on 2020-07-08. video::kDV4s9c9sfQ[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7CPqROtanA "How I Escaped From China - The Untold Story" published by laowhy86 on 2020-07-01. video::kDV4s9c9sfQ[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDV4s9c9sfQ "#65 China Is Getting Worse | Laowhy86 and SerpentZA" published on 2020-04-05. SerpentZA and laowhy86 interview on "China Unscripted", a sister channel of <>. This marks them clearly on the side of "openly criticizing the Chinese government". video::kDV4s9c9sfQ[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6PI91n2f9o "China Expels Foreign Press to Protect Its Lies" published on 2020-03-23 during/just after <>. video::b6PI91n2f9o[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXpPpFzLcZg "China's Winnie The Pooh BAN Explained" published on 2019-10-28 discusses <>. video::NXpPpFzLcZg[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[aaron-dewitt]] ==== Aaron DeWitt (The Chinese Tea)
Online presence:
Deleted some of his videos, so likely either legal or intelligence trouble.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3hwdsbh6-M "I worked for the Chinese State Department – 中公教育党委 – offcn CCP Committee" (2020-08-21), previously titled "Working for the Chinese State Department" is the most eyepopping video based on its description from http://web.archive.org/web/20201102122911if_/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3hwdsbh6-M&feature=youtu.be[archive] (video not visible, only description, likely CIA deletion request):
Interviewing potential spies for for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China, on behalf of 中公教育 (offcn) - a $30B+ company, funded and managed by the Chinese Communist Party. I worked there from 2019 to 2020. I have lived in China from 2014 - 2020, speak Mandarin Chinese, and am now blacklisted by the Chinese government - a badge of honor.
so holy fuck, Ciro actually feels this one could honestly be a <<spy,CIA deletion request>>.
offcn is the short name for the company 中公教育党委 which literally means "Chinese Public Education Party". TODO what do they do exactly? They seem to have strong CCP party links: http://edu.people.com.cn/n1/2018/0510/c1006-29977260.html[], maybe they are a "corporate training" company for the CCP itself.
Discussions threads:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFOh9AoAv2U "TikTok Hired Me in China: Exposing their Lies, Insider Leaks" is not archived at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6uFGGunRxc "Naming the Racist Companies that Don't Hire Black People". According to https://web.archive.org/web/20201007015433if_/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6uFGGunRxc&feature=youtu.be (viewable 2020-12-31) the original title was "Spilling the Chinese Tea" and the description is:
Discussing companies that operate in America and refuse to hire black people. These companies avoid following U.S. EEO laws because they're headquartered in mainland China, a country that does not protect people of color from racial discrimination.
The video shows a call with a black man (TODO who is that) where he talks about anti-black racism on employment in China. Nothing eye-popping, mostly references <>. Mentions he is under NDA and cannot reveal the name of the company.
== Media (媒体)
Sources of information pertinent to this repository.
=== Commentary media
The following offer interesting commentary, but not to be used as primary sources:
[[biased-media]] === Biased media (偏见媒体)
I consider the media in this section biased, and never cite it for fact-checking.
[[chinese-government-media]] ==== Chinese government media (中国政府媒体)
[[xinhua]] ==== Xinhua News Agency (新华社, CCP media)
Links:
[[internal-media-of-china]] ===== Internal media of China (内参)
At https://youtu.be/846AtqraCYg?t=615 the BBC mini-documentary series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can%27t_Get_You_Out_of_My_Head_(TV_series)[Can't Get You Out of My Head (2021)] Episode 04 "But What If the People are Stupid" comments that Xinhua had 3 levels of priviledged real news for people higher and higher up in the party hierarchy, and that the top one had extra large letters so that the old men who were in that category could read it.
The name for this top document is the "Big Reference" (大参考), since the 70s down to today in the 2020s.
TODO: there must be websites hosting some level of those, right?
[[cctv]] ===== China Central Television (CCTV, 中国中央电视台, CCP media)
Reports:
[[cgtn]] ====== China Global Television Network (CGTN, 中国环球电视网, CCP media)
CCTV's international branch in English, China's <>.
[[peoples-daily]] ===== People's Daily (人民日报, CCP media)
Website: http://people.cn/
The website has per-language and per province subdomains, e.g.:
As of 2020, some deleted articles show the home page instead of the article, without redirection. Some examples can be seen at: <>.
But older pages just show 404.
[[global-times]] ===== Global Times (环球时报, CCP media)
Accounts:
[[china-daily]] ===== China Daily (中国日报, CCP media)
English-language propaganda newspaper.
Responsible for <>.
[[china-radio-international]] ===== China Radio International (CRI, 中国国际广播电台, CCP media)
Websites:
Operates for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WCRW which is mentioned at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46557096 from <>. WTF, you have to obviously block them!
[[pro-chinese-government-media]] ===== Pro-Chinese government media (pro-CCP media)
These might be independent, but they are clearly pro CCP and thus cannot be trusted:
[[guancha]] ====== Guancha News (观察者网)
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/观察者网
Website: https://www.guancha.cn/
YouTube channel, mostly Chinese commentary videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJncdiH3BQUBgCroBmhsUhQ
Ideology:
[[kaiwind]] ====== Kaiwind (pro-CCP media)
Anti-religion, and notably, anti-<> website in Chinese.
It must be said however that they do contain at least some information that seems to be true/interesting.
Including open secrets that every Falun Gong believer knows about but does discuss much publicly, e.g. details of <>, and Sun Senjun's account.
Ciro has no proof that this is linked to the government, but it is very likely, even the Chinese embassy website links to it:
[[falun-gong-media]] ==== Falun Gong media (法轮功媒体)
A great example of how <> is <<flg-organized,highly organized>>.
Likely highly de-facto controlled by <>, and extremely <<flg-transparent,lacking clear full disclosure of their affiliation>>.
For example, Li refers to Falun Gong media as "our media" in <>, e.g.: https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/20090606L.html[].
It could be argued that those media are not "directly" controlled by Li Hongzhi, and Ciro does believe that they were created independently of him initially.
But without doubt they are controlled by his devout followers, and if Li Hongzhi ever gave directions, which Ciro has no proof he has ever done, then those media would follow.
Ciro believes without evidence that Li Hongzhi gives specific directives to the top tenants of those organizations from time to time when important issues arise. Ciro believes that one of such issues is the support of Donald Trump: <>.
Furthermore, Li appears to directly cite some of the main media in Canon or talk at their conferences as Canon.
One thing must be said in their favour however: they are incorruptible in their fight against the CCP.
Bibliography:
List of smaller ones that didn't deserve a section:
[[epoch-times]] ===== The Epoch Times (明慧网, Falun Gong media)
Falun Gong's newspaper with news for "general public consumption" an no clear affiliation indication.
In <<flg-canon,canon>>: https://gb.falundafa.org/chigb/jiangfa10_3.htm or https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/20091017L.html "Fa Teaching Given at the Epoch Times Meeting" from 2009-10-17:
There are so many things you have to do. You have to do your ordinary job and do it well, you have to manage your family's affairs, and as Dafa disciples you need to make time for Fa-study and exercises; you also need to clarify the truth, as well as participate in Dafa projects, such as The Epoch Times.
In 2020-11-08 https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/11/8/n12534746.htm the Epoch Times published a poem by Li Hongzhi, just after Trump was announced to lose the presidential elections, see also: <>.
Related:
[[ntdtv]] ===== New Tang Dynasty Television (NTD, NTDTV, 新唐人電視台, Falun Gong media)
Falun Gong's newspaper with news for "general public consumption" an no clear affiliation indication.
Li speaking to New Tang conference in <<flg-canon,canon>>: https://big5.falundafa.org/chibig5/jiangfa9_3.htm 在新唐人電視討論會上的講法 or https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/jjyz3_73.htm "Fa Teaching Given at the NTDTV Meeting" from 2009-06-06:
Things are changing rapidly as the Fa-rectification forges ahead and as Dafa disciples' righteous thoughts grow stronger. The energy emitted by NTDTV is very strong
"Fa-rectification", amazing jargon, see also "Cult-speak" from <>.
Related shows:
[[china-uncensored]] ====== China Uncensored (pro-Falun Gong media)
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgFP46yVT-GG4o1TgXn-04Q
Hosted by Chris Chappell.
Syster interview podcast channel: China Unscripted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o1sZefER0E The three makers of China Uncesored appear on the videos.
Older shows had an "ndt.tv" water mark on top right, e.g. a 2013 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmMvS3lgJBs
The video description also links to http://e.ntd.tv/NTDChinaUncensored which is now down, but has archives such as https://web.archive.org/web/20130321071835/http://e.ntd.tv/NTDChinaUncensored which suggest a redirect back to the YouTube channel:
Redirecting to...
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZZhVHPaO1ziCc9dRPrgbz2KU0aZF7CJ-
TODO why did newer videos remove the water mark and clear link? Did they break links, or just to hide Falun Gong influence?
Home page gives extremely unusual importance to Falun Gong resources, e.g.:
Website credits as of 2020:
Related:
[[minghui]] ===== Minghui (明慧网, Falun Gong media)
Falun Gong's primary "social network"/"Falun Gong"-only news/propaganda website. More Falun Gong specific than <>.
Literally: clear (明) wisdom (慧) network (网)
Li speaking to Minghui conference in <<flg-canon,canon>>: https://big5.falundafa.org/chibig5/jiangfa10_1.htm
TODO how https://www.clearwisdom.net/ compares?
[[shen-yun]] ===== Shen Yun Performing Arts (神韵艺术团, Falun Gong media)
A good testimony from an ordinary employee from 2013: <<aarvoll-shenyun,Aarvoll's account>>.
Openly directly controlled by <>. He features as director on librettos, e.g. the 2013 one (credited "D. F." (Da Fa) and with his photo).
Shen Yun's headquarters are also located in/near <>.
Li mentions Shen Yun in <<flg-canon,canon>>: https://gb.falundafa.org/chigb/jiangfa11_2.htm
On thing Ciro couldn't help but notice is that the "CCP guards beating up Falun Gong people" scenes felt a lot like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_opera[Revolutinary operas] of the <> period in their aesthetics. Maybe this is an intentional reference.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mQ8plzWl9g "They tried to get me to post Chinese propaganda" by J.J. McCullough (2019) talks about Shen Yun and Falun Gong in general, and how he was offered to post anti-Shen Yun propaganda for 500 dollars. video::2mQ8plzWl9g[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[jennifer-zeng]] ===== Jennifer Zeng (曾錚, pro-Falun Gong media)
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd
2005 book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Witnessing-History-Womans-Fight-Freedom/dp/1741144000
[[bannedbook]] ===== bannedbook.org (禁闻网, pro-Falun Gong media)
The main Chinese name is 禁闻网 which stands for "banned news network", and is more accurate than the domain name "bannedbook" since the majority of material published appears to be recent banned articles.
Classifying this as Falun Gong media because most or possibly all of the sidebar recommended websites 推荐网站 are also Falun Gong media e.g. as of 2020-04: https://web.archive.org/web/20200427221744/https://www.bannedbook.org/[] includes <> and https://hongzhi.li/[], so yeah, not much doubt.
From this we deduce that the "banned book" in the domain name originally likely referred more specifically to the banned Falun Gong sacred books: <>.
Once again, <> is in need.
TODO who is behind this website? They store full text copies of banned articles, e.g. https://www.bannedbook.org/bnews/baitai/20190816/1175647.html is a full text copy of http://yashalong.blog.caixin.com/archives/188877 which is mentioned at: <>.
[[tuidang]] ===== Tuidang movement (退党, Falun Gong media)
Falun Gong campaign asking Chinese people to revoke their CCP membership.
Extremelly common when <> on the streets in touristic areas where Chinese tourists will be present. Fake names will be accepted, so it is obviously just a symbolic act.
A bit less than 10% of the Chinese population are registered CCP members: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Party[]. So it is not obligatory, and there likely restrictions. But there must also be some kind of benefits involved. See also: https://daily.jstor.org/communist-party-of-china/
[[usa-government-media]] ==== USA government media (美国政府媒体)
** https://www.voa.com/ ** https://www.voachinese.com/ ** https://www.voacantonese.com/
Partial support:
[[ned]] ===== National Endowment for Democracy
[[boxun]] ====== Boxun (博讯, USA government media)
[[jamestown-foundation]] ===== Jamestown Foundation (USA government media)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown_Foundation
==== USA-based media bias
2018 graph that everyone needs to see: https://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2018/02/28/Photos/NS/MW-GE557_MediaB_20180228115701_NS.jpg
[[voa]] ===== Voice of america (VOA, 美国之音, USA government media)
[[rfa]] ===== Radio Free Asia (RFA) (自由亚洲电台, USA government media)
Website: https://www.rfa.org
Just because they are/were funded/founded by the CIA, it doesn't mean that we can't use their xref:rebel-pepper[amazing satirical cartoons] to fight xref:dictatorship[], right?
[[hong-kong-media]] === Hong kong media (香港媒体)
[[scmp]] ==== South China Morning Post (南华早报)
<> based, but bought by <> in 2016, but it still continued to publish censored stuff widely, e.g.:
[[apple-daily]] ==== Apple Daily (蘋果日報)
Website: https://hk.appledaily.com/
Founded by <>.
Pro-democracy. Raided soon after <> started.
[[hkfp]] ==== Hong Kong Free Press
Website: https://hongkongfp.com/
=== Media that we are not sure is biased or not
[[caixin]] ==== Caixin (财新传媒)
Beijing based, but does publish stuff that seems to be very sensitive:
[[videos]] == Videos (视频)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcZOZrP1P_V5d7RMOKXF1PT70fcfYJpgY[]: <>'s "China Politics" playlist. It is a collection of all sensitive videos he has ever found on YouTube. Ping him if you find any he hasn't included.
Interesting videos that were deleted/made private since he added them:
[[funny]] == Funny (搞笑)
Humour is the greatest weapon against <<dictatorship,dictators>>:
See also:
.Weibo logo vs Sauron's eye 微博标志vs索倫魔眼 by Ciro Santilli. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Weibo_Sauron.jpg[height=400]
=== Cartoonists (漫画家)
Reasonable lists:
Other cartoonists/illustrators:
[[rebel-pepper]] ==== Rebel Pepper 变态辣椒
Real name: Wang Liming (王立铭)
Personal media:
Without a doubt, the greatest anti-Communist joke cartoonist of the 2010s.
As of 2019 he does work for xref:rfa[], so a possible list of all cartoons of this era can be found at: https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/story_archive
His best work can be found scattered throughout this document in the relevant sections.
.Rebel Pepper's self portrait as a perverted pepper (the literal translation of his Chinese name "变态辣椒") used in his Sina and Tencent accounts before those got deleted https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/china_watch/2014/08/140827_china_cartoonist[according to the BBC]. https://ecdm.fandom.com/zh/wiki/变态辣椒[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Rebel_pepper.jpg[height=400]
==== Paresh Nath
Not China only like <>, but does have some good China ones.
[[badiucao]] ==== Baidiucao 巴丢草
Has a more artistic red-black-white-yellow style.
[[matsuyama-miyabi]] ==== Matsuyama Miyabi (松山雅)
Does he have anything besides the sexy BDSM gag ball 和諧/阿中哥哥 girl from February 2020 <<corona,COVID19>> time?
[[falun-sweden]] === Falun, Sweden 法轮，瑞典
A Swedish University town called "Falun", with the same "Falun" Chinese characters as those in <>, which got the town blocked by the <<internal-censorship,GFW>> on some websites, mentioned at:
Known primarily for its mine, which was one of the oldest operating companies in the world: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Mine
[[art]] == Art (艺术)
=== Dictatorships are bad for the arts
Ermm, fear of going to jail for not kissing up to dictators well enough? Part of <>.
.https://youtu.be/MCxzMYVvHBg?t=227 Shostakovich - How to Compose Music Despite [ R E D A C T E D ] by Tantacrul (2019) highlights how the famous Russian composer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Shostakovich[Dimitri Shostakovich] had to continually work around the <<russia,Soviet Union>>'s censorship in his compositions. video::MCxzMYVvHBg[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=227]
[[porn]] ==== Pornography ban (色情禁令)
This will be the fall of China:
And yet, every single Chinese teenager knows very well the meaning of "AV": Adult Video, the term https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_adult_videos_in_Japan[originating notably from Japan] (the Chinese really), which is one of the most common ways of referring to vide pornography.
Curious, right?
The <> quote "The sex instinct will be eradicated." comes to mind, see that section for fuller context.
Some news coverage:
[[intercourse]] .Human https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_penis[penis] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/人類陰莖[陰莖]) penetrating a human <<vagina,vagina>> while wearing a condom during https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_intercourse[human sexual intercourse] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/性交[性交]), showing the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_birds_and_the_bees[naturally occuring bees] that automatically appear during the event to obscure the view and prevent <> from taking down this page. This is also basically what all porn looks like (sometimes without the bees), and it is very, very boring to watch. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coitus20092.JPG[Background source] and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Delivery_Bee.png[bee source]. image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Coitus_with_bees.jpg[height=400]
[[jin-ping-mei]] .Ming-era dynasty illustration of a scene from the novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jin_Ping_Mei[Jin Ping Mei] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/金瓶梅[金瓶梅]) where Qing Ximen (西門) and Golden Lotus (潘金蓮) are engaging in foreplay in a <<yuyuan-garden,beautiful ancient Chinese house>>. For an old depiction of homosexual male sexual activity, see: <<qing-gay-scroll,this image>>. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:金瓶梅格子门插图2.JPG[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jin_ping_mei.jpg[height=600]
[[tattoo]] ==== Tattoo television ban 刺青电视禁令 (2018)
https://www.forbes.com/sites/augustrick/2018/03/27/china-just-banned-tattoos-on-its-soccer-players-and-it-could-cost-them/#1ff82fa07db2 notably shows soccer players covering up their tattoos. <> must have loved this!
And more generally, anything "cringey" was also banned from television in 2018-2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/business/china-war-on-fun-earrings-tattoos.html[]:
Men's earrings aren't the only objectionable material that China's censors are blurring, covering up or cutting out. Soccer players wear long sleeves to cover their tattoos. Women in costumes at a racy video game convention have been told to raise their necklines. Rappers can rhyme only about peace and harmony.
No wonder that China basically unable to produce a lot of worthwhile art with such restrictions.
===== Live streaming
Fun is forbidden in China, all people must be good <> loving <<ccp-cult,Zealots>>, or else:
2018 coverage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-45859650 * https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/杨凯莉 + Clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LKONlosqFM It was just a very small section, as part of the stream opening.
[[flag-desecration]] ====== Flag desecration (亵渎旗帜)
Fuck countries, long live humanity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlKbg-1_7Bk "Chinese National Anthem" (2017) This crazy dud plays several tunes on trumpet on one hand, while using a handgun for the beat on the other hand.
[[books]] == Books (书籍)
Either banned, or relevant.
For other censored material types, see: <>.
[[nineteen-eighty-four]] === Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel (AKA "1984") 乔治·奥威尔 一九八四 (1949)
Read for free from Project Gutenberg:
Programthink also has a literary critique article about it: https://program-think.blogspot.com/2009/06/book-review-1984.html "书评：《一九八四》——反乌托邦的代表作" (Book commentary: "1984". A representative work about dystopia.) by <>
This book is very fun to read, and it is not very long.
1984 has coined some amazing terms which perfectly describe aspects of dictatorships:
Quotes present in other sections:
In Part Three, Chapter 3, O'Brien explains the end goal of their evil government system to Winston:
In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy--everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always--do not forget this, Winston--always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever.'
On Part Two, Chapter 5, Winston explains the <<censorship,erasing of the past>> to Julia:
Do you realize that the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished? If it survives anywhere, it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them, like that lump of glass there. Already we know almost literally nothing about the Revolution and the years before the Revolution. Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don't know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories.
See also:
With the advent of the Internet and <>, this has become a bit harder though :-)
There is also a decent movie made released in the year, you guessed, 1984: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four_(1984_film) starring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hurt[John Hurt].
On Part Three, Chapter 4, The Law of Gravity quote perfectly illustrates the CCPs approach to lying:
Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. 'If I wished,' O'Brien had said, 'I could float off this floor like a soap bubble.' Winston worked it out. 'If he THINKS he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously THINK I see him do it, then the thing happens.' Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: 'It doesn't really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.' He pushed the thought under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a 'real' world where 'real' things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=flhggnpCeHw Gravity scene from the 1984 movie. video::flhggnpCeHw[youtube,height=400,width=600]
Related:
==== Newspeak
See also "Cult-speak" from <>, related <>.
[[brave-new-world]] === Brave New World 美丽新世界 (1932)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brave_New_World
This is basically a less good <>, but the following passage https://archive.org/stream/ost-english-brave_new_world_aldous_huxley/Brave_New_World_Aldous_Huxley_djvu.txt[from Chapter 17] rocks:
The Controller, meanwhile, had crossed to the other side of the room and was unlocking a large safe set into the wall between the book- shelves. The heavy door swung open. Rummaging in the darkness within, "It's a subject," he said, "that has always had a great interest for me." He pulled out a thick black volume. "You've never read this, for example."
The Savage took it. "The Holy Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments" he read aloud from the title-page.
"Nor this." It was a small book and had lost its cover.
"The Imitation of Christ"
"Nor this." He handed out another volume.
"The Varieties of Religious Experience. By William James."
"And I've got plenty more," Mustapha Mond continued, resuming his seat. "A whole collection of pornographic old books. God in the safe and Ford on the shelves." He pointed with a laugh to his avowed library to the shelves of books, the rack full of reading-machine bobbins and soundtrack rolls.
"But if you know about God, why don't you tell them?"
=== Classical Chinese Books
Interesting websites:
[[confucianism]] ==== Confucianism (儒家)
[[analects]] ===== Analects (论语, c. 475-200 BC)
Made of 20 books, with each paragraph numbered. So e.g. 15.9 means "Boodk 15, paragraph 9".
====== Analects translation by Robert Eno (2015)
https://chinatxt.sitehost.iu.edu/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf
Includes commentary.
License: non-commercial only.
[[mencius-book]] ===== Mencius (book, 孟子 (书), c. 300 BC)
====== Mencius translation by Robert Eno (2016)
https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/23421/Mengzi.pdf
Includes commentary.
License: non-commercial only.
[[taoism]] ==== Taoism (道教)
[[zhuangzi]] ===== Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu, 庄子, c. 300 BC)
33 chapters. The first 7 are likely by Zhuang Zhou himself, and the rest a mishmash.
Translations:
[[ccp]] == Chinese Communist Party (CCP, 中国共产党, 1949-)
=== CCP Shanghai member data leak (2020)
Public news: 2020-12-13. Date of extraction: 2016.
After authenticating the material, with the help of data security analysts Internet 2.0, IPAC passed the database to four media organisations around the world, including The Mail on Sunday.
Security sources believe the initial data leak came from a dissident who targeted an outwardly unremarkable office block in Shanghai which housed the records.
Despite the near certainty of being executed for treason if caught, he or she probably accessed it via a server before downloading it on to a laptop and releasing it on Telegram where it was found by <<ipac,IPAC>>.
The database was originally leaked on Telegram, the encrypted instant messaging app, and passed in September by a Chinese dissident to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC), which comprises more than 150 legislators around the world who are concerned by the influence and activities of the Chinese government.
https://www.skynews.com.au/details/_6215946537001
Ms Markson [a journalist from The Daily Telegraph] said the data was extracted from a Shanghai server by Chinese dissidents, whistleblowers, in April 2016, who have been using it for counter-intelligence purposes.
This had likely been mentioned by <> on 2020-08-19 with a half censored and out of focus Microfot Excel screenshot: https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/8/18/n12340991.htm translation:
On the same day, the news that the personal information of 1.95 million party members in Shanghai had been leaked was suddenly widely discussed in major overseas forums. Many comments pointed out that the relevant list appeared to be authentic.
Epoch Times reporters downloaded two Excel files containing information about CCP members of Shanghai governments, institutions, and enterprises according to the relevant links.
This list appeared on the Internet as early as a month ago. On July 21, a person named "Chief Referee" (总裁判) broke the news on Overseas Chinese Network (海外中文网爆料) that "the register of all party members in Shanghai was leaked."
http://z1.d0ea258blal.pw/pw/simple/index.php?t4922065.html has a link to https://mega.nz/folder/hJIGhCra#EUmGEZ7RDbcvTncWCPb03w which is down, but has a web archive https://archive.vn/euhjl[] with filenames:
<> was able to find convincing downloads with the following SHAs:
An upload was apparently available at: https://gitlab.com/shanghai-ccp-member-db/shanghai-ccp-member-db but it got nuked soon after 2020-12-13 brought more visibility to it.
[[policies]] == Policies (政策)
[[censorship]] === Censorship (审查)
Related:
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Drooker[Eric Drooker]'s "Censorship" (TODO year) has become one of the most recognizable censorship symbols as of 2020. https://www.drooker.com/illustrations[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Eric_Drooker_censorship.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vpPqYYyUdU[] Inside a Chinese internet censorship centre by <> (2019) Interview with Zhi Heng from the censorship department of the live streaming company Inke (映客), "China's largest live-streaming app" at the time according to SCMP. https://www.inke.cn[company website]. Heng proudly shows how they use machine learning to help their censoring efforts, and how the managed to block live streaming based on GPS location around a manifestation once. Pure gold. That company has close CCP ties as can be seen on <> https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/tech/2017-02/17/content_28239744.htm[] "Inke hires 1000 supervisors to clean up live-streaming content" (2017). video::4vpPqYYyUdU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[internal-censorship]] ==== Internal censorship is necessary to prevent fake USA accounts from creating harmful propaganda
The USA cannot create enough fake accounts to overwhelm real 1.5 billion Chinese accounts, especially considering things like forcing mobile number account verification.
Chinese politicians are just using this fear as an excuse to stay in power: <>.
What if a Chinese person who really loves China and wants to improve the country disagrees with the Government?
What if this person is right, and wants to express this publicly to get support and make change happen?
Should this person just be put into jail as is done currently? Do you really think that the CCP can never do anything seriously wrong? <>?
When citizens stop trying to contribute due to fear, this is known as the <>.
What if a <<is-chinese-politician-x-evil,politician>> does something bad, and <<corruption,suppresses the news to protect themselves>>?
Without freedom of speech, who will watch over the actions of those in power? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F[Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?]
I hear always the admonishment of my friends:
"Bolt her in, constrain her!"
But who will guard the guardians? The wife plans ahead and begins with them.
With internal censorship, leaders inevitably become <<xi-jinping,Gods>>, and soon zealous sons betray their fathers and brothers in loyalty to the leader and their fake ideal. See for example: <>.
[[man-in-the-high-castle]] .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SymuEg6NRp0 Scene from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle_(TV_series)[The Man in the High Castle] S04E06 in which the devoted young Thomas Smith hands himself in to be killed by the Nazis whom he worships after discovering that he has a disease, which is not acceptable in <<nazi,Nazi>> America. video::SymuEg6NRp0[youtube,height=400,width=600]
The famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Heine[Heinrich Heine] (German but from the 19th century, before the Nazis) saying also comes to mind:
Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.
Do you not think that this translates well to the modern version:
Where they have deleted online posts, they will end in deleting human beings.
The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burning_of_books_and_burying_of_scholars[Burning of books and burying of scholars] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/焚书坑儒[焚书坑儒], 212 BC) also comes to mind.
It is actually easier for the USA to manipulate a dictatorship than a democracy, because then all you have to do is buy/blackmail a few key corrupt politicians instead of manipulating millions of people's feeds.
.Internal censorship is so strong, that many Chinese people who leave China to live abroad continue to believe that the CCP is always right, despite having access evidence that suggests otherwise. This <> 2019-08 cartoon shows frogs coming out of a big well still remain inside their own small wells made up of Chinese media such as <<zhihu-purge,Zhihu>> and CCTV. It is a reference to the Chinese proverb https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/井底之蛙[井底之蛙] which means that a frog in the bottom of the well can only see a very limited portion of the sky. https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/biantailajiaomanhua/lj-08302019111414.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Frog_in_well.jpeg[height=500]
.<<nazi,Nazis>> burning books in Berlin in 1933. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_book_burnings[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nazi_book_burning.jpg[height=400]
.<> books being destroyed with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_roller[road roller] in 1999 in China in an extremely low quality early Internet still of a video TODO Ciro saw a 3s sequence in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cz4Tkbwy8[], find timestamp again. How far do you think mass jailings and torture would be? One wonders why they didn't burn the books though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Destruction_d'ouvrages_du_Falun_Gong_lors_de_la_répression_de_1999_en_Chine.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_road_roller_book_destruction.jpg[height=400]
==== China has more freedom of speech than the USA!
When you hear that online, it really makes you wonder if those people believe it or are paid to say it.
Luckily, this is easy to verify: just create an online account on a Chinese website, and start posting about censored political subjects, and wait for your account to get banned.
Then create an account on an American website, and start posting about censored political subjects. The first good question is: what will you post about since no political subject is censored?
Here is one concrete and well documented example: <>.
Or maybe why not <<t-shirt,go out on the street in China with a T-shirt with censored words and share some photos online>>?
[[video-bbc-local-election-interview-block-2016]] .https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1HdCIW2Xtk 2016-10-18 BBC reporter stopped from visiting China local election independent candidate Liu Huizhen (刘惠珍) by local thugs who block him physically from nocking the door. Funny/scary stuff. The BBC returned a few days later when the thugs weren't there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eroTCMRn2yQ[]. Accompaging article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-37997706[] "China elections: Independent candidates fight for the ballot". video::c1HdCIW2Xtk[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[t-shirt]] ===== What happens if you wear a T-shirt with censored words in China?
See also <>'s answer to https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli[What would happen if I walked around Beijing with a t-shirt that said "freedom of speech is pretty great"?] on <>.
Some cases where that didn't end well for them:
Related:
为了一句公道话， + 法轮大法是正法， + 为此坐牢八个月， + 历经艰险讨公道， + 头可断，血可流， + 浩气丹心留狱中， + 中国镇压法轮功， + 将成为千古罪人。
translated as: +
Because of the truth I said + Falun Dafa is righteous + I was imprisoned for 8 months + I went through the hardship just to attain the justice + I am not afraid of bleeding or other sacrifice + My righteous mind was shown in the prison + China suppresses Falun Gong + Which is unforgivable
.In 2016 activist Quan Ping (Kwon Pyong,权平,https://twitter.com/kwonpyong[BraveJohnny]) was sent to jail for wearing a <<nazi,Xitler>>/<<xi-jinping-memes,習包子/大撒币>> t-shirt in public and posting selfies online. This photo is in front of a Government building (TODO exact location, reports say he is from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jilin_City[Jilin City 吉林] transcription of the sign on top of building: 诚信立市 https://baike.baidu.com/item/工业强市[工业强市] 依法治...) https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/16/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-xitler-tshirt-kwon-pyong.html[New York Times coverage]. He was later sentenced and served 18 months in prison because of this: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/kwon-pyong on <>. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/xi-jinping-tshirt-activist-confirmed-held-in-northeast-china-detention-center-12082016110338.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Quan_Ping_tshirt.jpg[height=400]
[[liu-shihui-one-party-rule]] .In 2009 activist Liu Shihui (刘士辉) was arrested for wearing a t-shirt saying "One-party rule is a disaster" (一党独裁，遍地是灾) in 2009 in Guangzhou. This is a quote from a <<chinese-government-media,Xinhua News>> editorial https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/1946/03/【历史的先声】一党独裁，遍地是灾/[from the 1940s]. On the back was another quote by former president https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Shaoqi[Liu Shaoqi (刘少奇)] "The CP [Communist Party] opposes the Kuomintang's one-party dictatorship, but the CP will not establish a one-party dictatorship". This interesting <> page has many other similar quotes BTW: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/59503784[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20200331202252/https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/59503784[archive]). He was later assaulted, spent 108 days in jail without a trial, and was forcefully sent back to his home town in Inner Mongolia: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/case-history-liu-shihui on <>. Quotes from the <> also come to mind. https://observers.france24.com/en/20090522-arrested-subversive-shirt[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Liu_Shihui_tshirt.jpg[height=500]
[[gfw]] ==== Great Firewall (GFW, 防火长城)
Golden Shield Project:
And so, the spirit of Internet freedom that the Chinese themselves had at the start, was crushed :
越过长城 走向世界
Across the Great Wall, we can reach every corner in the world.
https://gist.github.com/yefuchs/4648713 "GFW Contributers" has a list of people that contributed to the GFW.
Source: the first International email sent from China in 1987 by https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/王运丰[Wang Yunfeng (王运丰)] in the Beijing-based Institute for Computer Application (ICA) of the China Ordnance Industry Corporation under the https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华人民共和国机械电子工业部[Ministry of Machinery and Electronics of the People's Republic of China (中华人民共和国机械电子工业部)] to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Zorn[Werner Zorn] from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karlsruhe_Institute_of_Technology[Karlsruhe Institute of Technology] see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_in_China[].
[[dictator-needs-gfw]] ===== Would ending the Great Firewall truly end the dictatorship?
Not 100% sure.
In <>, for example, the Internet is relatively free, but the government controls most professional media, which is what most people end up seeing, by suing dissidents media out of business.
But on the other hand Russia is already much freer than China.
Although I don't like them, I can't deny one thing: the commies are smart, and when they do something (e.g. censorship), it tends to keep them in power.
===== The Great Firewall is necessary to protect China from harmful USA propaganda and data collection
<> doesn't think this is below the USA, but:
<> notably had this ideology, even though he explicitly recognizes that there are also <<censorship-makes-countries-poorer,benefits to not having online censorship>>:
打开窗户，新鲜空气和苍蝇就会一起进来。
which translates as:
If you open the window, both fresh air and flies will enter.
[[google-china]] ====== Google China 谷歌中国
.Faithful Google China users/employees made a funeral-like flower tribute on the company's entry sign in Beijing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuspark[Tsinghua Science Park] when the company was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Aurora[kicked/hacked out of China in the 2010 Operation Aurora]. This was one example of the unfair <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,joint venture technique imposed on foreign companies>> by China. https://qz.com/1352137/why-internet-users-chose-baidu-over-google-when-it-was-in-china/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Google_funeral.webp[height=400]
[[jingjing-chacha]] ===== Jingjing and Chacha 警警察察
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingjing_and_Chacha
Friendly looking mascots of Internet Censorship in China created by the Shenzhen Government in 2006.
https://youtu.be/ZB8ODpw_om8?t=583 "Roger Dingledine - The Tor Censorship Arms Race The Next Chapter - DEF CON 27 Conference" mentions that choosing friendly looking mascots for internet censorship is a comon practice in several dictatorships, so to suggest that they are just <<evil-west,protecting citizens>>, These show the cute UAE censorship page for example:
The images were https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jingjing_and_Chacha&oldid=917408711[removed from Wikipedia] presumably due to fair use concerns, so Ciro asked how to check that at: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/137977/how-to-check-why-a-fair-use-image-was-removed-from-wikipedia After understanding the case, Ciro https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jingjing_and_Chacha&oldid=936842199[reuploaded the images], hopefully for good.
.Jinjing (警警) is the male cop. https://web.archive.org/web/20070825092952/http://www.e-gov.org.cn/Article/news003/2006-01-02/15229.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jingjing.jpg[height=400]
.Chacha (警警) is the female cop. https://web.archive.org/web/20070825092952/http://www.e-gov.org.cn/Article/news003/2006-01-02/15229.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chacha.jpg[height=400]
.Jingjing and Chacha picture shown on the street, presumably in China. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bnvy38/jingjing-and-chacha[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jingjing_Chacha_street.jpeg[height=400]
.Image with Jingjing and Chacha together and explanations (深圳网络警察,Shenzhen Network Police), good for copy pasting. TODO a bit small. https://www.reddit.com/r/Cyberpunk/comments/84vbut/cute_official_mascot_design_of_chinese_internet/[Source].. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jingjing_Chacha_Shenzhen_police.jpg[height=400]
.Beijing version of the Shenzhen-created Jingjing and Chacha. TODO what does it say on the images? On car "XX网络110" (XX Internet 110) so it must be the phone number of the Internet police department. At bottom right something like (联合新作, joint XX), so likely means it is a joint action between two departments. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/20477258/ns/technology_and_science-internet/t/beijing-police-launch-virtual-web-patrol/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jingjing_Chacha_Beijing.jpg[height=400]
.Angry Chinese cop cartoons extracted from https://web.archive.org/web/20191209021646/http://encyclopediadramatica.rs/China[Encyclopedia Dramatica] with the racist subtitles removed. It is hard to be sure what is the original image that they were Photoshopped from, but they are very similar to the Beijing Jingjing and Chacha although this is not a direct copy paste of the above since several details differ. The image was uploaded in 2011 to ED. https://web.archive.org/web/20170525180028/https://encyclopediadramatica.rs/File:Preasetoshowpapers.jpg[Source]. image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Jingjing_Chacha_angry.jpg[height=400]
.The Qatar friendly censorship page likely from around 2011 sowing that China is not alone in this "cute censorship mascots" technique. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qatar_filtering_message._Qtel_network.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Qatar_web_censorship_page.jpg[height=600]
===== Western companies that sell censorship technology to dictatorships
To China:
To other dictatorships:
In 2019, the European Union was considering making stricter laws about cyber surveillance exports, to include more <>, so <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,kudos to them>>:
See also: <>.
.Cartoon showing how Amesys systems are used to suppress citizens in Egypt. Do you want the logo of your company to figure there instead? https://www.fidh.org/en/region/north-africa-middle-east/egypt/sale-of-surveillance-equipment-to-egypt-by-french-company-amesys[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Amesys.jpg[height=400]
===== Censorship monitoring
Projects that attempt to understand how the Great Firewall works and what it blocks:
It is also worth noting that as mentioned at <> that websites can become non-functional if CDNs they rely on are taken down, instead of the website being taken down itself.
News:
====== Censorship monitoring tools on GitHub
More interesting GitHub repositories: <>
[[greatfire]] ====== GreatFire (自由微博)
A group that produces tools and websites against censorship in China, central website: https://greatfire.org/
Backed by <> and therefore USA Government.
The GreatFire Analyzer is their most important tool, it checks if websites are blocked or not in China:
It also keeps a calendar of previous checks so you can see when a website started getting blocked.
One of the highlighted collections is the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexa_Internet[Alexa] Top 1000 domain block analysis: https://en.greatfire.org/search/alexa-top-1000-domains
Quite a few amazingly named porn ones, how could you live without them? <>
And some interesting random stuff that is hard to understand why its blocked, some of them appear to be pure protectionism:
Other tools and projects:
Their repo https://github.com/greatfire/wiki has been added to <>.
Who is behind them:
[[wayback-machine]] ====== Wayback Machine (网站时光机)
Their Wayback Machine tool archive snapshots of webpages and allows youto browse the history of all archives:
By the Internet Archive organization:
This Chrome extension helps to quickly archive pages: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/wayback-machine/fpnmgdkabkmnadcjpehmlllkndpkmiak
But remember that if you archive too many in a very quick succession before the previous ones have been archived, even if manually through that plugin, your account/IP might get blocked, so just give a few seconds for the current archive to terminate before starting new ones.
This happened to Ciro in 2020-06-14, but then he emailed the admins as mentioned at: https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360016379432-Accounts-Tips-Troubleshooting- and they re-enabled it.
It is possible to request social media pages you own to be removed from the archive in some circumstances: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/143529/is-it-possible-to-request-to-remove-page-snapshots-from-a-personal-social-media
Some website specific techniques:
How to search by prefix/pattern: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/146661/how-to-search-the-internet-archives-wayback-machine-by-url-prefix-or-pattern
[[archive-today]] ====== archive.today
Like <> by unknown shady individuals, so less trustworthy.
CrunchBase claims without source New York based: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/145817/on-which-country-are-the-creators-and-servers-of-archive-today-archive-is-base
Does not care about robots.txt, so it sometimes works where Wayback Machine fails, so its better than nothing when it does. E.g. it is a good option for <>.
And no, you can't Wayback Machine archive an archive.is, they blocked the domain.
Has specific LinkedIn handling as it has a logged scrape account, e.g.: https://archive.vn/EPaEH[]. TODO find account URL.
Also has specific GitHub handling, e.g. as seen at: https://github.com/TinkoffCreditSystems/invest-openapi/issues/278 TODO what for?
Their github account was: https://github.com/volth an archive https://archive.vn/kqftP The account was completely deleted presumaly after GitHub noticed the anti-ToS usage: all their issues created have been deleted, not converted to ghost as happens with account deletion, and non-owners cannot delete their issues, only comments. Since he was such a large NixOS contributor, this was notice by other contributors: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/how-was-this-treewide-pr-performed/11174/15 | https://twitter.com/grhmc/status/1334138105738256389
From the non-trivial contributions, they were a big NixOS contributor, and are clearly fluent Russian:
By cloning NixOS NixOS/nixpkgs we obtain an email, it uses custom domain http://volth.com/ as of 2021-02-04 has a copy of the Google 404: https://web.archive.org/web/20190913083033/http://volth.com/ This is the case since 2013. In 2011 it was some other random company.
Google photo matches exactly this "Masha Rabinovich" https://www.linkedin.com/in/masha-rabinovich-52aa3a197/[], or is just some image of a well known person? Account marked as "Bachelor of Engineering" at the Humboldt University of Berlin.
The same photo seems to be used for all fetches: https://archive.vn/IPEEd[].
Googling name leads to an YouTube account whose only video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1bp1VxMwP4 | https://archive.vn/9Xq6w "How to make an archive.is link with selection hashtag", so yes, the relation is almost certain.
https://www.northkoreatech.org/2016/09/21/north-koreas-dns-files-reveal-internet-websites/ has an archive.is related comment by an user of the same name Masha Rabinovich: September 22, 2016 at 17:55 "There are some more websites in .kp: http://archive.is/*.kp"
In 2008 they had some interest in compilers: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/tinycc-devel/2008-11/msg00015.html The obvious gmail email can be obtained from there. The only hit is in this creepy email list: https://api.intelx.io/file/read?type=1&systemid=989faa9e-46a1-440f-87fa-2a98b616c66d&k=7b256c65-6ebf-4bb8-a301-070bce8dec01
Removing the space leads to more matches:
Your website http://browsingprotection.f-secure.com/swp/result?x=5Jg2kWKC8d86b4F-H5cdoS8dyu04vtzGtEXhQL6COLIX0k4wrv-N*w shows that someone in your company "found evidence of harmful behaviour" on my website http://archive.is/
Wikipedia suggests that the name Masha Rabinovich is likely of Russian Ashkenazi Jewish origin:
so if the LinkedIn information is real, maybe they just went to study in Germany, or their ancestors migrated there.
The name in Cyrillic would be "Маша рабинович", but we couldn't find any information of interest by searching for that.
[[google-cache]] ====== Google Cache
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1687222?hl=en
Google caches every indexed page that shows up on the search, you just have to click on the arrow and select "Cache" to see it.
The advantage over <> is that Google crawls many more pages than the Wayback Machine.
How to get the Google cache for a given URL: https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/15633/how-to-modify-a-url-to-get-a-google-cached-version-of-page
It is not possible however to see old caches, therefore you have to archive the Google caches with <> if you find anything interesting in them to not lose it:
The Google cache also has a text-only mode which is great for more complex webpages like those on <>, which due to JavaScript madness keep showing and disappearing.
====== geoscreenshot
Takes screenshots of the websites much like <>, but you can select the location.
Once the screenshot is made, you can "view the HTML", and that gives an Amazon AWS link, and warns that JavaScript and CSS might/will be disabled. The screenshot does not state what the origin URL/data is, so it cannot be used as a proof. But we can <> archive it to make sure it remains visible. E.g.:
The free trial is very limited, and you can't share the screenshots on a public URL. See also: <>.
===== Lists of material censored in China
For materials hosted on GitHub, see: <>.
For books, see: <>
Websites:
===== gfwlist
https://github.com/gfwlist/gfwlist
Chinese people widely use this website list with browser extensions, so as to only use more expensive and risky <> traffic when accessing certain webpages.
The result is a well maintained list of interesting websites. About half of which is porn.
Get the full list with:
.... base64 -d gfwlist.txt ....
See also:
[[censorship-circumvention]] ===== Censorship circumvention (翻墙)
Lists:
It is interesting to note how <> is a good source of censorship-circumvention material, see e.g.: <>.
Projects:
More info:
====== Hide destination IP until it leave the country
TODO is there any way to do use this to overcome IP blocks? You would wait until the packet leaves the country to reveal the final destination IP:
[[ensi]] ====== TLS 1.3 ENSI
This amazing standardized feature encrypts the domain as well as the URL.
This means that censors are unable to block only certain websites via DNS blocks, which is one of the main techniques used. But they can still block by IP, no?
In 2020-08, it was reported that the firewall was already blocking it: https://www.zdnet.com/article/china-is-now-blocking-all-encrypted-https-traffic-using-tls-1-3-and-esni/
Therefore, <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,all the West has to do>> is to force all of its websites to serve ENSI-only!
====== ShadowSocks
Two days ago the police came to me and wanted me to stop working on this. Today they asked me to delete all the code from GitHub. I have no choice but to obey.
I hope one day I'll live in a country where I have freedom to write any code I like without fearing.
TODO vs VPN:
====== SOCKS
TODO vs VPN
[[icp-license]] ===== ICP license 非经营性网站备案 (2000)
Part of the <<internal-censorship,Internet censorship machine>>, although it predates the GFW proper.
It can be seen at the bottom of many many many websites, it is likely mandatory to display it.
If you see one of those, you already know hat it cannot be trusted for politics.
For example, https://archive.is/ePBM9[as of April 2020], the <> sidebar shows:
京 ICP 备 13052560 号 - 1
where "京" indicates that the certificate was issued by the Beijing Provincial level city.
In 2014, almost 15 years later, <> finally caught up, what a relief: <>.
====== Social media license
Ahh, this is a perfect excuse to delete all <> comments!
[[anonymous-accounts-ban]] ===== Anonymous accounts ban (2017)
Related:
[[cac]] ===== Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC, 国家互联网信息办公室)
This is where the Internet censors work.
[[cac-report-website]] ====== CAC report website (中央网信办举报网站)
Summary:
Reports such as https://www.theage.com.au/world/asia/china-exporting-ccp-speech-controls-to-australia-as-second-university-caught-in-row-20200805-p55irf.html highlighted that these websites has a "report harmful or garbage information" entry, which can notably be used by Chinese expats to report people who badmouth the CCP, and in particular other Chinese nationals.
Typing "国家互联网信息办公室" on Google autocompleted to "国家互联网信息办公室举报" (举报 == report), and finds http://www.cac.gov.cn/hdzx/jbzx/A091102index_1.htm[].
This is clearly an official government website due to the gov.cn URL, and it also has an <>.
One of the categories of report on that page is: "网络不良与垃圾信息举报受理中心" (center for reporting harmful or garbage information, https://web.archive.org/web/20200704135840/http://www.cac.gov.cn/hdzx/jbzx/A091102index_1.htm[archive]).
Notably, there is one separate entry for illegal activity as well (网络违法犯罪举报网站) and another one for <<porn,pornography (中国扫黄打非网)>>, so it is interesting to see that there is one specifically for "misinformation".
The harmful information page redirects to: https://www.12321.cn/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20200907150310/https://www.12321.cn/[archive]) which has further categories.
The "report website" (举报不良网站) category links to https://www.12321.cn/web (https://web.archive.org/web/20200807060758/https://www.12321.cn/web[archive]) and then has a "link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactionary[reactonary] and <<politically-sensitive,politically sensitive>>" (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/反动[反动]及<<politically-sensitive,政治敏感>>) checkbox.
After you submit, it leads you to: https://www.12321.cn/suc (https://web.archive.org/web/20200807063330/https://www.12321.cn/suc[archive]) in which you can optionally provide further contact details: https://www.12321.cn/reg[]. This appears to be no link with the previous page, so they might just do it via IP. Registration requires both a cell phone and an email.
From the website source code (very simple, hand written, we see that it uses <<baidu,Baidu Analytics>>. The CCP obviously trusts Baidu a lot :-)
On 2020-09-07, <<mirrors,cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship>>'s Google Analytics had a hit coming from http://jbcz.12377.cn/report/center/web.index[] ("This site can't be reached" on Chrome). This was soon after <> mentioned <> at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/149#issuecomment-688084645[]. This is presumably the censor's web UI to review reports. "jb" from jbcz presumably means Ju Bao (举报), the CZ Ciro couldn't guess. 2020-10-14 had another hit from: http://jbcz.12377.cn/report/load/operate.index[].
The toplevel http://12377.cn (https://web.archive.org/web/20200907235842/https://www.12377.cn/[archive]) is entitled "中央网信办（国家互联网信息办公室）违法和不良信息举报中心" and is another report website. It is also linked to from http://www.cac.gov.cn/hdzx/jbzx/A091102index_1.htm under different categories, so it is also official.
The first category in that page is "政治类" (political category). From there we have some awesome information.
First it links to the report guidelines (举报指南) https://www.12377.cn/jbzn.html?tab=4 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200902094911/https://www.12377.cn/jbzn.html?tab=4[archive])
涉攻击党和国家制度及重大方针政策，攻击"<<two-safegards,two safeguards,两个维护>>"，危害国家安全、泄露国家秘密，破坏国家统一和领土完整，损害国家形象荣誉利益，破坏国家民族宗教政策、宣扬邪教，诋毁英雄烈士等内容的互联网违法和不良信息，请在此举报。
which states:
Involved in attacking the party and state system and major policies, attacking the "<<two-safegards,two safeguards>>", endangering national security, leaking state secrets, undermining national unity and territorial integrity, damaging national image, honor and interests, undermining national and religious policies, promoting cults, and vilifying heroes. Please report illegal and harmful information on the Internet of martyrs and other content.
so yes, attacking the party and major policies is illegal in China, big news, right? "Involved in attacking the party and state system and major policies" is then one of the categories in the report page.
Soon after the previous events in 2020-09-08, anaytics got a hit from http://openurls.com.cn/ to https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship[]. The only function of that website appears to be to open a newline separated list of websites into separate tabs. Maybe a censor bulk quickly having a look at several tasks. It is basically a clone of https://www.openallurls.com/[] but with an <> :-) The 2020-10-14 hit from http://jbcz.12377.cn was followed by another hit from http://openurls.com.cn/[], further reinforcing that this is part of their review procedure. 3 more hits on / and /ciro-santilli on 2020-02-22 after pinging a few people on https://github.com/zaohmeing/21- issues. Another hit 2021-03-19 to https://cirosantilli.com[], unknown cause.
Other report websites:
[[wumao]] ==== Wumao (五毛)
50 Cent Party, 五毛党, Wumao Dang:
They can be classified as a form of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_warfare[information warfare] (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/信息战[信息战]).
A wise person once said:
It is impossible to distinguish wumaos, <<little-pink,idiots>> and <<not-chinese,brain washed>> people. So we just call all of them wumaos.
But of course, the <<ccp-cult,CCP is a cult>> (and <<democracy-is-a-religion,democracy, a religion>>), and therefore <<preconceived,any discussion is also pointless>> in general.
To a large extent, wumao's goals are to dilute useful conversation with shit, normally <> and <>.
This leads to endless idiotic conversions of type:
You: Chinese friend, your house is on fire, let's try to put the fire out!
Wumao: I don't care, your house is also on fire!
You: that's true, that fire is also very serious, and I'm trying to put it out!
Wumao: look everyone, his house is on fire! Mine isn't!
Therefore, it is crucial to have a working algorithmic policy to handle them: <>.
Notable wumaos <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,should be investigated by intelligence agencies>>.
If it is determined that they are knowingly funded by China, they should be put into jail as foreign agents.
There is a tradeoff between privacy rights and snuffing out wumaos, and it is hard to decide where to set the line. But snuffing out wumaos is important, and must be done.
If we were to give up on privacy completely, one possible rule would be: block anyone that lives in China and whose revenue therefore cannot be investigated properly by your government to determine if they are funded by the CCP.
Here are some people completely against blocking wumaos. Those silly Democrats never prepare well enough for war:
The <> definition of wumao https://baike.baidu.com/item/五毛/24163406[] (https://archive.vn/mADIL[archive])) is priceless:
五毛，网络流行语，指收钱为某单位在网络上说好话的人
Fifty cents, an internet buzzword, refers to people who collect money for a certain unit to say good things on the Internet
"Good". And not mention of the CCP in the article, of course.
Other names:
Bibliography:
毛 (mao2) is a colloquial form of 角 (jiao3) both meaning "one-tenth". Coins actually use 角. See also:
.50-cent coin (五角) from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_series_of_the_renminbi[fourth series of renminbi] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/第四套人民币[第四套人民币], 1987-1997). This image is going to be very useful. Note the beautiful plum blossom drawings reminiscent of <> which <> loves. Note how it uses 角 (jiao3) instead of 毛 (mao2). http://www.bjzxcp.com/article-41679.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Wujiao.png[height=400]
[[little-pink]] ===== Little pink (小粉紅, 小紅粉)
<<slang,slang>> name for <<stupid,brainwashed>> <<ccp,CCP>> supporters who are not necessarily paid professional <<wumao,wumaos>>".
Bibliography:
[[that-rabbit]] ====== That Rabbit (那兔)
<<little-pink,Little pinks>> are often symbolized by a rabbit.
The origin of this appears to be the 2011 webcomic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Hare_Affair[Year Hare Affair] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/那年那兔那些事兒[那年那兔那些事], literally "That year, That rabbit, Those events), where different animals represent different countries, and the rabbit represented China.
The little pink rabbit is generally called simply "那兔" (That Rabbit) derived from the Chinese title.
Bibliography:
.As of 2020, a particularly popular representation is this cute one wearing a <>-hat and with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_star[red star] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/紅星[红星]) on the chest, but in the original cartoon That Rabbit appeared to be more aggressive. https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/757167756087837907/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/That_Rabbit_cute.jpg[height=400]
.<> told him that <> reminded her of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashimaro[Mashimaro] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/流氓兔[流氓兔]), a cute Korean cartoon she used to watch when she was small. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mashimaro_-_01.png[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mashimaro.png[height=400]
[[how-to-deal-with-wumaos]] ===== How to deal with wumaos (如何应对五毛)
Above all, never reply intelligently to wumaos. Ignore all their notifications, and ignore their profile wherever possible. And if they start generating too many notifications, block them.
為什麼我不刪五毛的回應反而要刪你的回應? 因為你只能跟人類講道理， 沒辦法跟原始物種講道理啊!
Why I delete your posts, but I don't delete wumao's posts? Because it is only possible to reason with humans, it is not possible to reason with primitive animals!
===== Where to find wumaos
Wumaos are particularly easy to spot on <<censorship-monitoring,Western websites banned in China>> and when written in English, since there is no way that strong pro-CCP opinions would get any support in such circumstances:
When they write in Chinese, it is much harder to know if they are paid or not, most are just <<stupid,brainwashed>>, some places to find them:
[[ccp-apologists]] ===== CCP apologists (中共辩护士)
If it is ever proven that those people are directly supported by the Chinese government, their nationalities should be revoked, it is very simple.
<> feels that it is unlikely however that the CCP directly pays those apologists, as that would be too risky for both parties.
Rather, Ciro believes that they are either:
Then, when they reach a certain size, the CCP can support them indirectly, notably by featuring them in <> such as <>, e.g. as happened <> at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRK1XDlZkng[], in order to boost their views and ad revenue.
For this reason, it is very hard to stop them without quenching freedom of expression.
Ciro's currenty recommended approach is the following: if a proeminent pro-CCP YouTubber never ever criticized the CCP, and it gets featured in CCP media, treat that channel exactly as you should treat CCP media, which is by adding a notice at the bottom along the lines of:
This account supports the Chinese Government, which is a fucking murderous dictatorship.
followed by a funny meme image that is forbidden in China, e.g. <>.
It would be amazing if we could demonetize the apologist channels only for views coming from Chinese citizens, but that seems hard without completely destroying privacy?
Related discussion at: <>.
It is also interesting to note that many of them don't speak a word of Chinese, or very basic Chinese. It is fine when you say "the CCP is great" as a foreigner, but if you say "the CCP is bad", then <>.
Video by <<western-dissidents,Lele Farley>> making fun of him and <>: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSM2_HgXKsM + It does not feel like he is paid by the Chinese government, but rather that he is just trying to get some views. + https://www.zhihu.com/question/334923127 如何评价俄罗斯籍中国网红伏拉夫？ on <> with 17k likes as of 2020-06.
<>-related people that come to mind:
William Brooke Joyce (24 April 1906 – 3 January 1946), nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw, was an American-born British fascist politician and Nazi propaganda broadcaster to the United Kingdom during World War II. He took German citizenship in 1940.
Joyce was convicted of one count of high treason in 1945 and sentenced to death, with the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords both upholding his conviction. He was hanged on 3 January 1946, making him the last person to be executed for treason in the United Kingdom.
TODO decide:
Bibliography:
<> threads:
[[nathan-rich]] ====== Nathan Rich (Hotpot King, 火锅大王)
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaSlyjhR4WC7QhYuaivxb6g/videos
As mentioned at: https://medium.com/swlh/how-china-is-influencing-youtubers-into-posting-state-propaganda-db72acf18dfa[]:
His vlogging career is inexplicably successful. He has 385,000 subscribers on his channel, a huge amount for someone with so little time and so few videos on the platform.".
https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/au8az3/exscientologist_nathan_rich_is_a_convicted_felon/ mentions another interesting very strong circumstantial evidence:
His videos feature perfect Chinese in the subtitles along with Chinese video titles, meaning that he is almost certainly having these videos produced by someone else/and or a group of people. I can guarantee that based on his pronunciation of the few Chinese words he says in the video, his Chinese ability should not be anywhere close to fluent.
Sample videos:
Reception:
2020-06-01 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3941420 "China propagandist Nathan Rich's criminal record revealed" contains an outline of Richs criminal records, with including mugshots. Most of this was already likely known, but it gives good detail. In particular, it comments on the fact that in 2013 Beijing started to more strictly do criminal background checks for VISA applicants: https://www.china-briefing.com/news/non-criminal-record-certificate-required-for-employment-license-application-in-beijing/[], and that Rich managed to get the VISA two years later nonetheless, notably including a drug trafficking charge.
白https://secure.avaaz.org/community_petitions/en/youtubers_social_commentators_anybody_interested_i_remove_youtube_user_nathan_rich_from_google_services/ characterises him as "左五无毛". While this does not seems like a specific expression, and maybe is not even accurate, learning the meaning of "左五" is of interest:
====== Barrett Channel
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1XG7bJnYqta_ezr12WZp7w
2021-09-21 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/beijing-funds-british-youtubers-to-further-its-propaganda-war-x5gqp5fg0 (on <>: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/kto2vj/beijing_funds_british_youtubers_to_further_its/[]) claims that:
The Times has found that some of their videos were funded by <<china-radio-international,Chinese Radio International>>, a media organisation that has been exposed as the secret owner of an international network of propaganda radio stations.
...
In November they visited the Shaanxi district of China with several other foreign YouTubers who live in China and make videos supporting the government.
The trip was organised and funded by the Chinese Radio International and an official press release described the visit as "International Internet Celebrities Witnessing the Happiness of Shaanxi People".
In a candid video about the visit that was subsequently removed, Lee admitted that a trip to a mountain was cancelled so they could witness "propaganda" regarding the area's prosperity.
He said: "It wasn't until the second day they started talking about cutting the trip short by a day, and there was no real reason given for that." A fellow YouTuber Jayoe Nation said: "They had to fit in more propaganda."
Lee replied: "They didn't say that, did they, but that's what happened."
Various videos from the trip show the YouTubers visiting locations in the district including a farm where Oli performed a farcical dance while holding vegetables.
Father and son British expats: Lee Barrett, the father, and Oli Barrett, the son.
100k subs one year after. Don't speak a word of Chinese it seems, but all videos have full bilingual translation.
Their tone is natural unlike others more exaggerated like <>, so maybe they believe in the shit they say? Either that, or they are a good fake by the CCP.
Sample videos:
====== Daniel Dumbrill
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6Bl8MTbW9M9MQoPhxbarpw
Daniel's family name is telling: "<<ciro-santilli-is-stupid,DUMB>> rill", so don't be too hard on him.
Featured on <>:
Sample content form his channel:
At 2021-03-29 https://pincong.rocks/question/37519 (https://pincong.rocks/question/37519[archive]) from <> people are saying that they even if the USA is evil, the CCP is more, one commenter quoted Churchill:
If <<nazi,Hitler>> invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.
[[nigel-ng]] ====== Nigel Ng (ungle-roger, mrnigelng, 罗杰叔叔)
2021-01-12:
Nigel had published a collaboration video called "Uncle Roger Review UGLIEST DUMPLING EVER" with another YouTuber called https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjkGXhZsu5H64fWuNQNf1Xw[Mikey Chen], who unknown to Nigel, is a somewhat discreet <> believer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=315&v=nD6792YoOmY[source])
The video then removed solely because of Mikey's believes expressed elsewhere. The apology on Weibo: https://weibo.com/7231497816/JCQPH5vzK[] Excerpt:
During the process of working with the content-creator, I wasn't aware of his political thoughts and his past incorrect remarks about China. This is my negligence, and I will be more careful when I make content in the future.
This is the original video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_wKd5UUg4 according to this reaction video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsatmCWeVb8 No archives of the original were made unfortunately.
Nigel had 125k Weibo followers at that point, and reuploads every YouTube video he posts over there with Chinese subtitles: https://weibo.com/u/7231497816[], extremely likely done by paid professionals.
Saying hi: https://github.com/nigeljyng/dotfiles/issues/4
[[real-username-law]] ==== Real username law (2015)
And guess which idiotic Western website requires real usernames and no privacy? <>, of course: https://techcrunch.com/2011/02/14/quora-to-oddly-named-users-papers-please/
==== Journalism
===== Western journalists in China
[[social-credit-system]] === Social Credit System 社会信用体系
Coverage:
video::Dkw15LkZ_Kw[youtube,height=400,width=600]
=== Chinese foreign interference campaigns
See also:
[[belt-and-road-initiative]] ==== Belt and Road Initiative (一带一路)
Related:
[[communist-youth-league]] === Communist Youth League of China 中国共产主义青年团
Had a membership of 109 million (by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/17th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China[17th National Congress]).
Such state sponsored youth organizations are a hallmark of <<dictatorship,dictatorships>>, and serve both as an indoctrination device, and as a selection tool for future politicians:
One may argue that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scout_Association[the scouts] are https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/creator-of-taggart-reveals-the-human-stories-behind-an-unlikely-and-unsettling-alliance-on-the-eve-of-wartherell-be-no-more-murders-tv-sleuth-writer-rules-out-comeback/[a similar organization in the West], but one notable difference is the scale of such dictatorship-led youth organizations.
Related news:
[[young-pioneers-of-china]] ==== Young Pioneers of China 中国少年先锋队
<<brainwashed-by-usa,Brainwashing>> for kids younger than the <>.
[[xi-salute-young-pioneers]] .Xi Jinping basically <<nazi,Nazi saluting>> representatives attending the 7th National Congress of the Chinese Young Pioneers in Beijing, June 1, 2015. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[Source] (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[biased]). image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_scout_salute.jpg[height=500]
.<> giving the <<nazi,Nazi salute to Hitler>>. https://www.thoughtco.com/hitler-youth-and-indoctrination-1221066[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hitler_youth_salute.webp[height=500]
==== Hitler Youth
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth was the <<nazi,Nazi Germany>> youth organization.
[[one-child-policy]] === One-child policy (一孩政策, 1979–2015)
http://ftp.iza.org/dp3214.pdf suggests that a 1% increase in the male/female sex ratio raised violent and property crime rates by some 3%, mentioned with percentage error at https://youtu.be/DytBlcScGNk?t=1304
[[rule-of-law]] === Rule of law (法治)
The commies keep saying over and over that rule of law is always observed.
Of course, some times shitty laws are passed, and we must fight those as well: <>. But many times, the commies don't even bother setting up a bad law, they just fuck a million people and that's it.
But in reality they punish anyone who poses a political threat, even if they did nothing wrong themselves, some cases that come to mind:
.On 2021-03-31, a uniformed Chinese cop called Qelbinur Sedik, who was a teacher in the <> who https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/confessions-of-a-xinjiang-camp-teacher/[fled China and spoke to the media what she saw], to menace her through her sister, who is still in China. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-56563449[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Qelbinur_Sedik_call_with_cop.jpg[height=400]
[[picking-quarrels]] ==== Picking quarrels and provoking trouble (寻衅滋事罪)
[[inciting-subversion]] ===== Inciting subversion of state power (煽动颠覆国家政权罪)
Also known in the West as <<richer,voting>>.
[[hurt-the-feelings-of-the-chinese-people]] ===== Hurt the feelings of the Chinese people (伤害中国人民的感情)
[[politically-sensitive]] ===== Politically sensitive (政治敏感)
That's how the censors refer to stuff <<censorship,censored>> for political reasons, e.g.:
See also:
This stuff could have come directly out of <>'s "thoughcrime" references. + On the website of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hainan_Medical_University[Medical University], the CCP is infiltrated everywhere. + Related: <>.
Typing that on Google also suggested "People also searched for: 网络审查利弊" (What are the pros and cons of censorship?) Priceless. Bomb at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/150[]. <> comes to mind.
[[residential-surveillance]] ===== Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (指定居所监视居住)
More accurately: in prison at a secret location, and without the rights to see who you wish, not even a lawyer.
=== Support for non-scientific traditional practices
This is especially interesting given that one of the main propaganda reasons for banning <> was <>:
[[drink-tea]] === Police invite to drink tea (被请喝茶)
[[central-party-school]] === Central Party School of the Communist Party of China (Central Party School, 中共中央党校, 中央党校))
University to train the next dictators
Website: http://www.ccps.gov.cn/ (Central Committee Party School).
== Chinese companies
=== Zoom
American company, with Chinese-born now American Citizen CEO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Yuan[Eric Yuan] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/袁征[袁征]), migrated to the US around 1997), and development teams largely China-based to reduce costs.
News:
Zoom statement: +
"We learned during the course of our investigation that the China-based former employee charged today violated Zoom's policies by, among other things, attempting to circumvent certain internal access controls," it said.
It added that the employee "took actions resulting in the termination of several meetings in remembrance of Tiananmen Square and meetings involving religious and/or political activities" and "also shared or directed the sharing of a limited amount of individual user data with Chinese authorities".
** https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/counterintelligence/xinjiang-jin ** (possible uncofirmed linkedin) https://www.linkedin.com/in/julien-jin-953615175/[]: Zhejiang University, (ex?) CISCO Webex. Work start date of 1981 could be birth date to enlarge work experience, and that would reach the correct age of 39.
.2020-03-27 photo showing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson[UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson] using Zoom on a Cabinet meeting (a high level Government meeting) during <>. If you don't properly ban risky dictatorship-linked software, it will get used at the highest levels of Government by clueless people. https://news.sky.com/story/coronairus-cabinet-talks-held-on-zoom-days-after-software-was-banned-by-ministry-of-defence-11963889[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Zoom_Boris.jpg[height=400]
[[huawei]] === Huawei (华为)
Just look at the Chinese name of the company:
How can the West not see this?
No proof is needed. They belong to a <>, and therefore must not be trusted. Doing so is always a risk which we should not take.
Also have a look at their Wikipedia page:
Ren sought to reverse engineer foreign technologies with local researchers. At a time when all of China's telecommunications technology was imported from abroad, Ren hoped to build a domestic Chinese telecommunication company that could compete with, and ultimately replace, foreign competitors.
During its first several years the company's business model consisted mainly of reselling private branch exchange (PBX) switches imported from Hong Kong. Meanwhile, it was reverse-engineering imported switches and investing heavily in research and development to manufacture its own technologies. By 1990 the company had approximately 600 R&D staff and began its own independent commercialization of PBX switches targeting hotels and small enterprises.
The company's first major breakthrough came in 1993 when it launched its C&C08 program controlled telephone switch. It was by far the most powerful switch available in China at the time. By initially deploying in small cities and rural areas and placing emphasis on service and customizability, the company gained market share and made its way into the mainstream market.
Huawei also won a key contract to build the first national telecommunications network for the People's Liberation Army, a deal one employee described as "small in terms of our overall business, but large in terms of our relationships". In 1994, founder Ren Zhengfei had a meeting with Party general secretary Jiang Zemin, telling him that "switching equipment technology was related to national security, and that a nation that did not have its own switching equipment was like one that lacked its own military." Jiang reportedly agreed with this assessment.
Another major turning point for the company came in 1996 when the government in Beijing adopted an explicit policy of supporting domestic telecommunications manufacturers and restricting access to foreign competitors. Huawei was promoted by both the government and the military as a national champion, and established new research and development offices.
At any point the Chinese government could make a request that they cannot deny.
List of bad things Huawei has done: https://github.com/evil-huawei/evil-huawei Mostly not political.
List of Huawei joke:s https://github.com/HuaweiJoke/Huawei-Joke "This project is collecting jokes about Huawei company that are deleted due to censorship. You are welcome to contribute."
Some news:
."When you send a good joke from your Huawei phone", <> is also listening and laughing with you, girls. https://i.redd.it/nodgcqmwtcg31.jpg[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/When_you_send_a_good_joke_from_your_Huawei_phone.jpg[height=600]
.<> 2018-12-10 "Why does the whole world hate me" Huawei cartoon, where Huawei's shadow shows the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_and_sickle[hammer and sickle] to suggest that Huawei is controlled by the CCP. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/Huawei-cartoon-12102018152050.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Huawei_why_does_the_whole_world_hate_me.jpeg[height=400]
.<> 2019-03-08 showing Huawei slapping the Statue of Liberty with "The Constitution of the United States" when Huawei sued the US Government for violating the Constitution when it banned government agencies from buying Huawei equipment. This illustrates the usual dilemma where <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,China uses Western freedom of speech as a weapon against the West itself>>. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/chinashuawei-03082019162541.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Huawei_Statue_of_Liberty.jpeg[height=400]
.Cartoon showing a huge China flag branded USB sucking up Western personal and military information like a vacuum cleaner in 2019-04-29 article entitled "Britain will regret doing business with Huawei". TODO cartoon author. https://retro-blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/britain-will-regret-doing-business-with-huawei/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/China_USB_theft.jpg[height=400]
.Cartoon suggesting that Huawei's 5G is a like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Horse[Trojan Horse] being gifted to Europe. TODO: source of original non-China generic Trojan Horse background image that was edited and repurposed. https://twitter.com/DaichiWatanbe/status/1231189285325475840[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Huawei_5G_Trojan.jpg[height=400]
.<> 2019-06-22 cartoon depicting Germany, Hungary and the United Kingdom as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gollum[Gollum]s from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings[The Lord of The Rings] and China as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron[Sauron] offering a ring which reads "5G to rule them" and "Huawei" to the Gollums who are eager to obtain it. This is a reference to The Lord of the Rings backstory in which Sauron bribed and controlled the rulers of the world by giving them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Power[rings of power]. Now that Ciro thinks about it, maybe this was actually Tolkien making a reference to the political situation of his time. https://twitter.com/RadioFreeAsia/status/1100504518142365698[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Huawei_5G_my_precious.jpg[height=400]
[[tiktok]] === TikTok (Douyin, 抖音)
News:
Reports:
Douyin does not seem to have a web interface: https://www.zhihu.com/question/269102675 "有没有抖音网页版或者抖音电脑版？"
[[baidu]] === Baidu (百度)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu
The "Google of China":
[[baidu-baike]] ==== Baidu Baike (Chinese censored Wikipedia clone)
The leading Chinese Wikipedia clone by <>.
<<censorship,Censored to the brim>> needless to say, see e.g. <>.
Website: https://baike.baidu.com/[].
Seems to not have edit history. <<wayback-machine,History >> is bad for censorship, because you never know when you might need to rewrite it ;-) See also: <>.
[[alibaba]] === Alibaba (阿里巴巴)
==== Jack Ma's disappearance (2021)
Got https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bitch%20slapped[bitchslapped] by <>, 3 months disappearance:
.Cartoon of Jack Ma, <> (representing <>) and <> (representing the Chinese people) splitting cookies. Winnie has a huge pile, Jack has a medium pile, and That Rabbit has a tiny pile. Winnie is saying "那个资本家夺走了你的饼干！" (That capitalist stole your cookies!). The cartoon suggests that the Chinese state has a lot of money and power, extremely successful entrepreneurs have a medium power, and the common people, who are manipulated by the CCP, have basically nothing. https://www.reddit.com/r/chonglangTV/comments/lyxlf9/不_言_而_喻一_目_了_然/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jack_Ma_Winnie_the_Pooh_and_That_Rabbit_splitting_cookies.jpg[height=400]
[[jack-ma]] ==== Jack Ma (马云)
[[xiaomi]] === Xiaomi (小米)
News:
When he looked around the Web on the device’s default Xiaomi browser, it recorded all the websites he visited, including search engine queries whether with Google or the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo, and every item viewed on a news feed feature of the Xiaomi software. That tracking appeared to be happening even if he used the supposedly private “incognito” mode.
"It’s a backdoor with phone functionality," quips Gabi Cirlig about his new Xiaomi phone. He's only half-joking.
== Chinese censorship companies
[[dahua-technology]] === Dahua Technology (大华股份)
Facial recognition, used in <>.
==== EM_NATION_TYPE_UYGUR (2020)
https://twitter.com/q3k/status/1322943395497680897 highlighted a snippet of code:
.... //民族 public static class EM_NATION_TYPE extends MyStructure { public static final int EM_NATION_TYPE_UNKNOWN = 0; // 未知 public static final int EM_NATION_TYPE_UYGUR = 1; // 维族(新疆) public static final int EM_NATION_TYPE_OTHER = 2; // 其他 public static final int EM_NATION_TYPE_UNIDENTIFIED = 3; // 设备未识别 } ....
indicating that <<xinjiang,Uyghurs>> are particularly targeted for facial recognition by Dahua.
The code is present in official downloads from:
which was visible from: https://www.dahuasecurity.com/support/downloadCenter/softwares?child=3&page=2 under download name "General_NetSDK_ChnEng_JAVA_Linux64_IS_V3.052.0000001.0.R.200407" before being taken down after the reports:
The code was spotted mirrored on GitHub, likely unofficially, but it was soon taken down, archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20201102065525/https://raw.githubusercontent.com/gaomingbo/dahua-netsdk/master/src/main/java/com/dahua/lib/NetSDKLib.java
<> downloaded it from the official website and verified that the code in question was there.
Discussions:
On 2020-11-20, Dahua DMCAed https://github.com/cirosantilli/epps-service at https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2020/11/2020-11-25-Dahua.md which had been forked https://github.com/gaomingbo/epps-service from https://web.archive.org/web/20201102170146/https://github.com/cirosantilli/epps-service but Ciro is not sure it contains anything of particular interest, he had just forked all repos from gaomingbo. That one appeared to be just a car plate recognition sytem.
Related:
=== Knowlesys
.Slide from a presentation of the Knowlesys Hong Kong social media censorship/misinformation company with words "Social Media as Weapons", "Your Enemy", leaked by the CCP_Unmasked hacker group on 2020/08/20, possible <> account: https://t.me/ccp_unmasked[]. The leaks also contained data on Yunrun Big Data Service, a company based in Guangzhou, and OneSight, based in Beijing. From this hack they apparently also managed obtained passwords used by those companies to manage CCP social media, and they posted some messages about their efforst through those accounts. Western countries have also used terrorism as an excuse way to reduce privacy/start wars, but of course, things are much worse in dictatorships where there is no freedom of speech, related <>. https://www.vice.com/en_in/article/dyzewz/hackers-leak-alleged-internal-files-of-chinese-social-media-monitoring-firmscv[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Social_Media_as_Weapons.webp[height=400]
[[zhenhua-data-leak]] === Zhenhua Data leak (深圳振华数据信息技术有限公司, 2020)
[[backlinks]] == Backlinks to this page (连接到这个网页的网页)
Or to Ciro's other online presences, due to China activity.
For Zhihu backlinks, see: <>.
For lower profile links, see: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/wiki
?spm=.14275010.0.0.60be9dc4PsRmA and ?spm=a2c6h.14275010.0.0.60be9dc4vwIZTP. The source domain is visible publicly and entitled 开发者社区 (Developer community) for Aliyun. Who knows, maybe Jack Ma's people are starting a full out revolt after he was put in jail! :) These tracking queries are added to every single one of their links, including outlinks, as can be seen at: https://developer.aliyun.com/article/616542 for example. Edit: noticed https://developer.aliyun.com/mirror/npm/package/china-dictatorship was removed, so that was it.while true; do git checkout HEAD~; if ! base64 -d gfwlist.txt | grep -q cirosan; then break; fi; done and found that I was added in 24a6f6f29e24d1d7eb27946bf51d7a072ddb3e6d Tue Apr 24 2018. That is input data for https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/autoproxy/ which turns on a proxy only for certain websites. Therefore that is a definitive list of interesting stuff. I wonder how it is curated.Someone subscribed me to a hundred GovDelivery mailing lists. This bullshit is also mentioned at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:GovLoop[]. This is the URL you can use to subscribe someone to dozens and dozens of emails by clicking checkboxes: https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/USEERE/subscriber/new[] without email verification, those idiots. I have to say, this was a good attack. I just mark everything from them as spam nowadays, and only get a few every other month.
=== V2EX
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2EX
Website: https://v2ex.com/
Although this website appears to have some degree of freedom of speech, as of 2020, if you post something that is "unwelcome" an unclear definition or unwelcome, your IP gets immediately blocked and trying to even access the site redirects to a "403 Forbidden nginx" page.
It is therefore impossible to have any political talk on that website, and they should not be trusted.
This happened when Ciro tried to reply to https://v2ex.com/t/378274[] around 2020-07-23 with:
他放弃了https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408 | https://web.archive.org/web/20170602054631/https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408/%E8%AF%B7%E5%B0%81%E6%8E%89ciro-santilli-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%85%B1%E4%BA%A7%E5%85%9A%E4%B8%87%E5%B2%81
参看我的china repository fb6c69cfec0d4e9008730c0c1a9c42c2d851e678#stack-overflow-anti-dissident-users
and it doesn't seem like there's anything super sensitive in that comment.
They then tell you to contact them if you want to be restored:
请不要发布在V2EX不被欢迎的内容，如果你觉得这是规则误判请邮件联系hello@v2ex.com
but Ciro did that and there was no reply.
Later on Ciro noticed that his account was giving 400:
The forum is largely programmer dominated.
It had an <> in 2016, but lost it in 2019 to move servers back to USA, which is extremelly shady. https://zh.greatfire.org/v2ex.com[Blocked in China as of 2020-06] according to <>.
When Ciro later checked the above threads on 2020-12-20, he noticed that all of them had been made restricted to logged in members only, while previously only one of them had been.
[[pincong]] === Pincong (品葱)
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/品葱
Website: https://pincong.rocks/
Uses a virtual currency system (游戏币): https://pincong.rocks/currency/rule/ Posting articles costs 20 points, and doing stuff like replying gives you a few points.
<>'s account: https://pincong.rocks/people/cirosantilli
This website might not censor stuff, e.g.: people are using <> avatars: https://www.pincong.rocks/people/bushiwumao (https://web.archive.org/web/20200418194038/https://www.pincong.rocks/people/bushiwumao[archive])
TODO is it blocked by <> or not? <> just hangs forever on it, e.g.:
<> mirror of selected threads: https://github.com/Project-Gutenberg/Pincong
[[mohu]] ==== Mohu (膜乎)
Website openly anti-CCP, e.g. the signup page has <> jokes. Very similar appearance to <>, likely same engine. https://pincong.rocks/question/24489 asks what is their relationship "请问一下品葱和膜乎之间是什么关系？"
Backlinks to this page:
== Forums with anti-CCP information in Chinese
In other sections:
[[esu-wiki]] === Esu Wiki (惡俗維基)
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/惡俗維基
Anti-<>, doxxing friendly wiki.
https://esu.dog/ is the mirror working as of March 2021.
http://y2wam5fshij3arfjuxirusomu73b2joql524zpre3dhvxmlqw4srcuad.onion/ is a Tor Hidden service version of it working as of March 2021. It is linked to from: ttps://esu.dog/恶俗维基:透明度报告[].
At some point they forbade discussion of politics there, likely due to some prosecution case, and officially forked into <>, where politics is encouraged, presumably under better opsec.
[[zhina-wiki]] ==== Zhina Wiki (支纳维基)
Apparently addresses were:
but both down as of March 2021.
支纳 (zhina) is likely just another variant of: <>.
Dissidents, you have to learn to use Tor Onion Services!!! Doxing, even of evil people, is still normally taken down on the West, so there is no other choice!
<> has excluded both of the websites for some reason:
but <> hasn't:
== Other sections
TODO migrate all into this README.
. link:censorship.md[Censorship] . link:media.md[Media] . link:dissidents.md[Dissidents] . link:movements.md[Movements against the Dictatorship] . link:images/[Images] . link:policies.md[Policies] . link:stack-overflow.md[Stack Overflow] . link:stack-overflow-profile.md[Stack Overflow profile] . Personal .. link:communities-that-censor-politics.md[Communities that censor politics]
[[anti-dictatorship-songs]] == Anti-dictatorship songs 反对独裁的首歌
Not necessarily in Chinese or about China specifically.
For Tiananmen songs, see: <>.
Brazil had a <<military-dictatorship-in-brazil,dictatorship from 1964 to 1985>>, and some amazing songs were made in Portuguese in that era. <>, who is Brazilian, just cannot stop thinking about some of them in relation to China, notably: <<apesar-de-voce,Apesar de você>>.
[[do-you-hear-the-people-sing]] === Do you hear the people sing (Les Miserables (musical), 1980)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Hear_the_People_Sing%3F | https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/À_la_volonté_du_peuple | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_You_Hear_the_People_Sing%3F
Cantonese version used in <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests,Hong Kong>>: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/問誰未發聲
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojoC-Kbzpo8 English version taken from a scene of the link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Misérables_(2012_film)++[Les Misérables (2012)] film. video::ojoC-Kbzpo8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAxDKhH1iU8 Original French version, overlayed on top of scenes from the miniseries https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Hugo,_ennemi_d%27État["Victor Hugo, ennemi d'État 2018"]. video::dAxDKhH1iU8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=It3Ny7IY7jA Thousands sing 問誰未發聲 in 26th June 2019 in Hong Kong as a protest song. video::It3Ny7IY7jA[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[music]] == The best Chinese traditional instrumental music albums 中国传统器乐音乐
Much like <<restaurants,real Chinese food>>, your mind will be blown.
The best approach is to start with the largest multi-artist anthologies available to get a general overview of what is there.
Then, you can start Googling by instrument. The main four instruments are undoubtedly:
but there is also amazing content on others including:
and there is of course the infinite Wikipedia instrument list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_musical_instruments
Quality indicators:
They usually have some cute landscape scenes or overly produced good looking women as the thumbnail. + Good video covers will show the musicians with their instruments, or Chinese traditional painting.
Due to the language and political barrier, Chinese traditional music distribution is unfortunately atrocious, so learn what an https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Standard_Recording_Code[ISRC] is and don't use BitTorrent which the Chinese call "BT".
If you find album cover pictures on Google images, the ISRC should be somewhere on the back.
Other good lists:
[[music-free]] === Free music 免费音乐
Here are the few best I've seen. Not enough to replace the non-free, but pretty good.
wget -r -np -l 1 -A mp3 http://www.silkqin.com/06hear.htm. Contacted John by email in 2019 telling him to put his stuff on YouTube and offering help.
** John focuses on playing the tunes in a "historically informed performance", in particular using silk strings rather than metal ones which are used by most modern artists: http://www.silkqin.com/08anal/hip.htm[[music-not-free]] === Non-free music
[[master-of-chinese-traditional-music]] ==== Master of Chinese Traditional Music 中国民族音乐大师系列
20-CD anthology.
ISRC of CD 1: CN-E01-04-450-00 / A.J6
Amazon link of CD 1: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QZSWQS (https://web.archive.org/web/20190817223837/https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QZSWQS[archive])
Publisher: <>.
Chinese information: https://web.archive.org/web/20190816092018/http://www.gyhj.org/read/179301/1/1
English information with Google Translate: https://web.archive.org/web/20190816090447/https://1337x.unblockninja.info/torrent/1254538/Master-of-Chinese-Traditional-Music-Complete-Series-20-CDs-ABEE/
English song names properly copied from images: https://web.archive.org/web/20190816092313/http://muzz.pro/chinese_instrumental_traditional_music_master_of_chinese_traditional_music_20_albums_2005_mp3_tracks_320_kbps-1625006.html
A search on Amazon leads many of their albums in loose form: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=master+of+chinese+traditional+music&i=digital-music and you can patch together most of them by looking at the following two cover art styles:
TODO golden cover vs gray cover: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QZUFQI (https://web.archive.org/web/20190816082640/https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000QZUFQI[archive]), TODO find the precise list.
[[masters-of-chinese-traditional-music-solo-appreciation]] ==== Masters of Chinese Traditional Music Solo Appreciation 中国民乐大师纯独奏鉴赏
14-CD anthology.
ISRC: CN-A50-06-389-00 / A.J6 (seems to be for the whole anthology)
Chinese information: https://web.archive.org/web/20190817072026/http://keai99.com/thread-435767-1-1.html
Chinese name: 中国民乐大师纯独奏鉴赏
Publisher: Chinese Musicians' Association | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国音乐家协会
[[chinese-ancient-music]] ==== Chinese Ancient Music 中国古乐
ISRC of CD 1: CN-F13-03-435-00 / A.J6
Publisher: <>.
Amazon link of CD 1: https://www.amazon.com/Zhong-Guo-Gu-Chinese-Primitive/dp/B000S996JO (https://web.archive.org/web/20190817224121/http://www.amazon.com/Zhong-Guo-Gu-Chinese-Primitive/dp/B000S996JO[archive]).
English tracklist and front covers: https://web.archive.org/web/20190817221426/https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1298954
==== Not-free TODO evaluate
=== Music publishers
[[china-record-corporation]] ==== China Record Corporation 中国唱片总公司
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Record_Corporation | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国唱片总公司
The most important publisher, AKA "CRC Jianian".
<<ccp-evil,Government-owned unfortunately>>, their website takes forever to load: http://www.china-crc.com.cn/[], and features mostly Communist shit, and I can't find the decent traditional music listed there.
One thing to try is an Amazon advanced search by label "China Record Co": https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-music&rh=p_33%3AChina+Record+Co&s=relevancerank&Adv-Srch-MP3-Submit.x=42&Adv-Srch-MP3-Submit.y=4&unfiltered=1&ref=sr_adv_m_digital
== Chinese festivals
[[dragon-boat-festival]] === Dragon Boat Festival (端午节)
The third most important festival in China, after the Chinese New Year and Mid-Autumn Festival.
== Chinese history
[[spring-and-autumn-period]] === Spring and Autumn period (春秋时代, 771-476 BC)
[[warring-states-period]] === Warring States period (战国时期, 475-221)
[[the-best-chinese-supermarket-food-products]] == The best Chinese supermarket food products (中国超市食物)
For more daily needs, when you don't want to spend more money and time at a restaurant, here are a few nice things you can get from your local Chinese supermarket and quickly make something good to eat.
[[dumplings]] === Dumplings 饺子 (jiao3 zi)
A staple food of North-east China.
You can buy them frozen on bags with about 20 for about 4 dollars.
Just boil 10-15 for 10 minutes and you have a decent ready-made meal!
The perfect cooking technique includes:
The best way to eat them is to pour some vinegar and ready-to-eat spicy preparations like <> or Ciro's favorite, <> in the bowl, and then dip them one by one.
You can also drink the soup, or for cold days, actually eat the jiaozi with their soup. Ciro likes to add soy sauce and more of the above mentioned spices.
Can also be made by hand if you have the patience.
<> could basically eat those every 3-4 days and not get tired.
.Fresh Asia Brand (香源) product line "hand crafted water dumplings" (手工水餃) is a good brand to buy if you can get it. https://www.orientalmart.co.uk/fresh-asia-brand-dumplings-pork-and-chinese-leaf-[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jiaozi.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQkXA1xglU8 How to Cook Frozen Dumplings (Boil) by "Yongle Kitchen" shows the cool water pouring process. video::YQkXA1xglU8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[buns]] === Chinese buns 包子 (bao1 zi)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baozi | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/包子
You can buy them frozen on bags with about 4 for about 4 dollars.
The best way to heat them up by far is to steam.
If you don't have a steaming pot, you can also put them on a bowl inside a regular pot with some water at the bottom, and close the lid.
See also: <<xi-jinping-memes,習包子>>.
[[zongzi]] === Zongzi 粽子 (zong4 zi)
Eaten during <>, but can be bought year round.
Buy frozen. Pick the ones with meat and eggs!!! Boil.
Cost about 4 dollars for 2.
You can't eat them every day because too heavy, but they are so amazingly tasty!!!
[[sunflower-seeds]] === Sunflower seeds 瓜子 (gua1 zi)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guazi | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/瓜子
They are roasted and prepared with some flavoring, often green tea.
They are different from most Western ones you can find, because they tend to be harder, the seeds are not open.
This is good because it makes you feel the flavour that was added to the skin.
You have to learn how to open them with your front teeth.
Once you do that, you start eating them nonstop like a machine until the bag is empty.
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zh0TiEd63k Chinese dude eating sunflower seeds for 9 hours non-stop. That's a good brand to get BTW: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/洽洽食品[Chacha Food (洽洽食品)]. video::4Zh0TiEd63k[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[broad-beans]] === Dried broad bean snack 干蚕豆 (gan1 can2 dou4)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vicia_faba | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/蚕豆
The name of broad bean in Chinese is interesting: it literally means "silkworm bean", because the shape of the bean looks a bit like that of a silkworm cocoon.
.https://sixfortune.com/en/[Six Fortune (六福)] is a good brand. https://www.tradewindsorientalshop.co.uk/acatalog/Six-Fortune-Prepared-Broad-Bean---170g.html[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Six_Fortune_broad_bean.jpg[height=400]
[[laoganma]] === Lao Gan Ma crispy chilly oil 老干妈 (lao3 gan1 ma1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao_Gan_Ma | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/老干妈
You can basically add it to any stir fried dish ever if it is too bland.
The one with peanuts or black beans is also good.
Just stay away from the Chicken flavoured one. https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=eww[Eww].
.You can even buy Laoganma on Amazon! https://www.amazon.com/Laoganma-Crispy-Chilli-Oil-Grams/dp/B003WC0RME[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Laoganma.jpg[height=400]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkTQTS2RSCU "What is Lao Gan Ma, and can you make it at home?" by "Chinese Cooking Demystified" published on Nov 19, 2019. Explains how it comes from Guizhou province cuisine (neighbours Sichuan). video::nkTQTS2RSCU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[fansaoguang-wild-brake-pickles]] === Fansaoguang Wild Brake Pickles 饭扫光野蕨菜
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead_fern | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pteridium_aquilinum | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/蕨菜
This is the best thing to eat with <> ever!!!
Some other flavours of the same brand are also very much worth trying, e.g. the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enokitake[Enokitake] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/金針菇[金针菇]) one. Others are a bit boring.
Oily, spicy and sour.
.Photo of the Fansaoguang Wild Brake Pickles jar. https://52piepie.com/products/饭扫光野蕨菜-fsg-wild-brake-pickles[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Fan_sao_guang.jpg[height=400]
[[hot-pot]] === Hot pot 火锅 (huo3 guo1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_pot
You just have to buy:
Put the electric rice cooker or a regular pot with a portable electric heater on the dining table.
Boil the water with the soup, start with the harder to cook meaty things, and eat/add more as they become ready!
Great fun to do in winter with family and friends!
There are also dedicated hot pot restaurants, but <> is not a fun, since it feels much better to do it in the privacy of your home.
YouTube explains it pretty well, no need for their fancy ying yang pans though, a rice cooker will do just fine:
video::UQZcPyn-cDU[youtube,height=400,width=600]
video::Fqv9hNoiQEs[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[congee]] === Congee 粥 (zhou1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congee#China | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/粥
A thick rice/cereal/bean porridge. Amazing for breakfast.
You can buy them as dry air tight uncooked cereal/bean mixtures, and there are different types.
You can also buy the ingredients separately of course, but it requires more effort.
If you get the air-tight bag, you can also buy some extra missing ingredients to taste, notably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jujube[jujubes] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/枣[枣]).
Then you just boil them in a rice cooker for a few hours.
It is also possible to buy them ready-to-eat in cans, but those are nowhere near as good.
One particular type which is very good is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laba_congee[Laba congee] (eight treasure congee, 八宝粥).
Then, to eat it, you will want to add salty side dishes, all of which can be bought from the Chinese supermarket, since the congee itself is just mildly sweet and not salty at all:
.The HONOR brand (康樂, full name: Honor Products, 康樂產品) Eight treasure congee (八寶粥) is a good brand to buy if you can find it. https://www.hiyou.co/product/honor-eight-treasure-porridge/[Source]. image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Eight_treasture_congee.jpg[height=500]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIxbJxNRpX0 Video showing how to make eight treasure congee from scratch by "Asian garden 2 table" published on Feb 2, 2020. video::DIxbJxNRpX0[youtube,height=400,width=600]
[[restaurants]] == The best Chinese restaurants outside of China 中国以外最好的中国饭店
Google Maps list: https://goo.gl/maps/zBkmPaU1wLP2
[[resturants--introduction]] === Introduction
Most Western people do not know what real Chinese food is.
When you first see it, your mind is completely blown: there it was, one of the best foods in the world by far, and you had never tried it: only a completely watered down boring version that you get when you are not guided by Chinese people.
We must put a stop to this madness.
After you see the light and eat the real version of a dish, then when you go to a not-real restaurant you start to think: "hey, I know what dish this was supposed to be. But it could be so much more awesome!" This makes non-real restaurants twice as bad. So beware, there is no turning back.
Maybe we should institute a Foodie Dictatorship (美食家独裁) that prevents such fake restaurants from hiding real Chinese food???
[[resturants--rating-system]] ==== Rating system
[[resturants--how-to-find-good-restaurants]] ==== How to find good restaurants
Big Western sites like Google Maps reviews and TripAdvisor are completely and utterly useless for this and will recommend places in which poor non-Chinese which don't know what real Chinese food is like.
If you go out on the street by yourself, you are very unlikely to find really good Chinese food since the enormous majority of Chinese restaurants are not real Chinese food.
If there are only Chinese clients inside the restaurant, it is a good indicator that it might be good. If all clients people are Western, run away.
Western people don't know what good Chinese food is, so if you are not in a place that has a very large Chinese population, real Chinese food restaurants cannot survive, and won't exist. This usually implies being in large cities of rich countries.
Beware of restaurant owner changes: if the menu looks a bit different, it has likely happened.
This is <<politically-incorrect,politically incorrect>>, but here goes: if the place looks as if it is maintained by more recent immigrants, and looks more modern, it is more likely to be good. There are however some venerable older uncles who have cooked well their entire lives and are still fine. Things tend to water down across generations, and there was likely not enough real Chinese clientele for them to serve real Chinese food and survive in the past.
If a restaurant advertises itself as "Asian", it is less likely to be very good.
Conversely, restaurants that specialize in a single region of China are more likely to be good (bot not certainly good).
It is already difficult to do the cuisine for one part of China well, imagine for multiple countries.
Just beware of "Sichuan" restaurants: their cuisine is so well known even in the West that I've seen many not so good restaurants that describe themselves like that, even if the owners are from another region. But there are many good ones which really are from there as well.
[[resturants--similar-lists]] ==== Similar lists
[[resturants--how-to-order]] ==== How to order
For all restaurants, ask the waiter for suggestions. Tell him that you:
The spice level you generally want is "zhong1 la4" (medium spicy) + If you can't eat spicy, either learn or stop reading now and accept the fact that you will never eat good Chinese food.
I was once <> (super popular dish everywhere in China which I buy frozen and eat every 3 days) in a Tibetan restaurant... Yes, I do believe Tibetans also eat jiaozi! :-)
Only order dishes with meat. Those without are not worth the money/time. Aubergine is the exception.
[[restaurants--france]] === France 法国
Traiteurs are simpler restaurants that let you see pre-made foods in a glass showcase for you to choose how big your portions will be.
They are the best way to eat a cheap and balanced meal in Paris, but I have never found one that serves exceptional Chinese food, so beware.
[[restaurants--france--paris]] ==== Paris 巴黎
Paris has one of the largest Chinese communities outside of China in the whole world centered in the 14eme arrondissement, plus a lot of Chinese students with money around.
As a result, you can find some of the best Chinese food in the world outside of China!
Bibliography:
http://cnkick.net/2013/09/10/les-meilleurs-restaurants-chinois-de-paris-le-guide-cn-kick/
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-Chinese-restaurants-in-Paris
https://www.newsavour.com/restaurants/ Chinese only, Paris, website subsidiary of some larger Chinese group.
Restaurant Sichuan (川里川外)
17 Rue le Peletier, 75009 Paris + Xianglaxie. + Last checked: 2017/06
42, rue de la Colonie, 75013 Paris + ** shui zhu niu rou ** dishes with intestines
163 rue Saint-Denis, 75002 Paris + ** Spicy soup with Chinese charcuteries. Ma la tang. ** Large dry and thin bread. Jing dong da bing. 京东大饼. http://www.nipic.com/show/1/55/7885c266f22649ae.html[Picture].
8 Rue de la Tacherie, 75004 Paris
Hunan style. + 25 euros / person.
57 Rue du Faubourg Montmartre, 75009 Paris + Last checked: 2016/04
55 Boulevard Saint-Marcel, 75013 Paris + +33 9 81 49 68 06 + https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g187147-d6984996-Reviews-0_d_Attente-Paris_Ile_de_France.html + Like style of chairs and cutlery. + Ironically, the service was not particularly fast as the name indicates. Normal, but not ultra-fast as I imagined :-) + lotus with rice (Nuo mi tang ou) and boeuf sechee (guo xian sheng ...) not very good, but baked fish and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigan_cai kaorou were great. + Last checked: 2016/02
http://www.autourduyangtse.com/
Address: 33 Rue Saint-Sébastien, 75011 Paris + Sichuan style.
88 Boulevard de l'Hôpital, 75013 Paris
3 Rue Voltaire, 75011 Paris + Food from the Hakka people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people + Most dishes are like other good Chinese restaurants in Paris, but there were a few different ones.
36 Rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris + Last checked: 2017/04
8 Rue du Bel-Air, 75012 Paris + ** Galettes croustillantes au canard. Shi zi tou. ** Sweet fish （Song shu gui yu 松鼠桂鱼)
15 Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, 75009 + Great food, but we had a bad service experience: got kicked out too early, even with a reservation.
14, rue Bichat, 75010 Paris + Vegetarian food: most dishes are an imitation of a dish with meat. + Not as good as the original meat for me, but very interesting and good for a change. + Chinese vegetarians are rare. In theory, the origin of the food in this restaurant is Hong Kong Buddhism (Buddhist monks cannot eat meat, while other believers can.)
39 Avenue de Choisy, 75013 Paris + https://www.facebook.com/LIKAFO-利口福酒家-139814799396/ + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meigan_cai[Meigan cai] roast pork (梅菜扣肉) https://img.epochtimes.com/i6/901120923161469.jpg
31-33 Rue Descartes, 75005 Paris + Perfect Fuqi feipian. + Huiguorou is good not my style, I prefer with leek. + Last checked: 2017/04
[[resturants--france--paris--tier-2]] ===== Paris tier 2
Cheaper / simpler restaurants that are really worth it if you want not to be hungry, but not worth it if you want eat exceptional food:
58 Rue Sainte-Anne, 75002 Paris + Korean takeaway traiteur. Very good. Try calamar. + Last checked: 2017/06
108 Rue Olivier de Serres, 75015 Paris + Jiaozi and accompanying small dishes are great. + Last checked: 2016/03
5 Rue d'Arras, 75005 Paris + M10: Cardinal Lemoine + Liang ban mian, but do ask "wei la, they are strong.
31 Rue nationale, 75013 Paris, France
39 Rue au Maire, 75003 Paris, France
40 Rue Sainte-Anne, 75002 Paris + Order the big portion at your own risk. :-) + Last checked: 2017/04
18 Rue du Grenier-Saint-Lazare, 75003 Paris, + Last checked: 2017/06
[[resturants--france--marseille]] ==== Marseille 马赛
14 Cours Jean Ballard, 13001 Marseille, France
[[restaurants--uk]] === United Kingdom 英国
Bibilography:
[[restaurants--uk--london]] ==== London 伦敦
[[restaurants--uk--london--little-wooden-hut]] ===== Little Wooden Hut 小木屋
Address:
.... Little Newport Street WC2H 7JJ ....
Last checked: 2016/08
Not yet on Google maps so I don't know the number, but the street is very small so should be easy to find.
Chinese review: http://www.ukchinese.com/News/2016-05-07/15299.html
[[resturants--uk--london--murger-han]] ===== Murger Han
Address:
.... 8A Sackville St Mayfair, London W1S 3EZ ....
Website: https://www.murgerhan.com/
Last checked: 2019/01
Cuisine: Xi'an
Biangbiang noodles with all extras zhongla are amazing!!! Niuroupaomo OK, but not exciting. Roujiamo not very interesting, too bland for my taste.
[[resturants--uk--london--tier-2]] ===== London tier 2
[[restaurants--uk--london--chinese-tapas-house-london]] ====== Chinese Tapas House
Address:
.... Little Newport Street WC2H 7JJ ....
Not yet on Google maps so I don't know the number, but the street is very small so should be easy to find.
Jianbing guozi, interesting spicy fast food.
[[restaurants--uk--london--rice-coming-restaurant]] ====== Rice Coming Restaurant 米齐临
Rice noodles are good, and small dishes authentic.
Address: 10A Coptic St, Holborn, London WC1A 1NH
Last checked: 2019-04
Website: https://ricecoming.business.site/
[[restaurants--uk--cambridge]] ==== Cambridge 剑桥
[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--spring-restaurant]] ===== Spring Restaurant 春天
Address:
.... 66 Mill Rd CB1 2AS ....
Last checked: 2017/08
Spicy chicken with pasta and potatoes.
[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--seven-days]] ===== Seven Days 天天美食剑桥
Address:
.... 66 Regent St CB2 1DP ....
[[resturants--uk--cambridge--72-china]] ===== @72 China
Address:
.... 72 Regent St CB2 1DP ....
Douhuaniurou 豆花牛肉, kaoyu.
[[resturants--uk--cambridge--golden-house]] ===== Golden House
Address:
.... 12 Lensfield Rd CB2 1EG ....
Meicaikourou, luobo bing.
[[restaurants--uk--cambridge--1-1-rougamo]] ===== 1 + 1 Rougamo
Tier: 2
Address:
.... 84 Regent St CB2 1DP ....
Last checked: 2019/05
Roujiamo very good. Also good: broad noodles, 凉皮.
[[restaurants--uk--oxford]] ==== Oxford 牛津
[[restaurants--uk--oxford--a-taste-of-china]] ===== A Taste Of China 三秦百味
Tier: 2
https://goo.gl/maps/oERKCv6Q8a32
Last checked: 2019/03
Redamian good, Biangbiangmian not as interesting. Nice people working there. Two two seat tables only, mostly takeaway. Fair price.
[[restaurants--uk--oxford--xi-an]] ===== Xi'an
Tier: 3
https://goo.gl/maps/DrDCPKWnG2M2
Last checked: 2019/03
Not real Chinese food I'm afraid. Songshuyu was not cut correctly into stripes and too much liquid sauce. Sijidou beans not dry enough, maybe need more frying. Early immigration (1968, mentioned on menu), almost no Chinese clients. Nice decoration and environment.
[[restaurants--uk--sheffield]] ==== Sheffield 谢菲尔德
3 Rockingham Gate, Sheffield S1 4JD, United Kingdom + Last checked: 2016/06, shuizhuyu.
[[restaurants--brazil]] === Brazil 巴西
[[restaurants--brazil--sao-paulo]] ==== Sao Paulo 圣保罗
\R. Barão de Iguape, 47 - Liberdade, São Paulo - SP + Eat the big fish dishes, they are worth it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuqi_feipian was not very good. + Free tea was good. + Rice could be better. + Owners are actually from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianjin , not Sichuan, as implied by the 川 in the name of the restaurant. GF told me that those big fish dishes are typical from there. + Last checked: 2016/01/09
[[restaurants--canada]] === Canada 加拿大
[[restaurants--canada--montreal]] ==== Montreal 加拿大蒙特利尔，
Last checked: 2016/01
2350 Rue Guy, Montréal, QC H3H 2M2, Canada
1110 Rue Clark, Montréal, QC H2Z 1K3, Canada Good
1858 Rue Ste-Catherine O, Montréal, QC H3H 1M1
Not worth it:
1050B rue Clark
[[museum]] == The best East Asian museums outside of China 中国以外最好的东亚博物馆
<> liked these in order of best first. Keep in mind that he is especially interested in <>:
[[television-series]] == Chinese television series 中国电视剧
Modern themed television series are generally crap due to <>, but this leads to a big focus on ancient stuff, and some of it is amazing.
A good place to start are the canonical TV adaptations of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_Chinese_Novels[Four Great Classic Novels] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/四大名著[四大名著])
There must be other good adaptations for other classics mentioned at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_literature[], gotta find them.
[[learn-chinese]] == Tips to learn Chinese 学习中文方法建议
To read on the net, https://www.perapera.org/[Perapera] obviously, see also: <>.
To overhear people and learn characters/new words Pleco: https://www.pleco.com/
It really hurts that there is no online Pleco, you have to go back and forth from cell phone to computer, is there anything as good online?
Maybe some day something will be extracted from: https://github.com/skishore/makemeahanzi which jas a huge JSON of character data.
When you want to learn "how to say something in Chinese", the only valid routes are:
If it is a common word, it will give useless dictionary results, so search instead with site:bbc.com or site:zhihu.com.
+
Then find a sentence that contains the word written by a native Chinese, and understand the full sentence to confirm that it means what you want it to mean in a similar context.
+
Just using the Google translate directly will lead 70% to a weird/wrong/incomprehensible translation that no Chinese person would ever say.
Good Chinese content to consume to learn:
Some have Chinese subtitles, e.g.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFSMvtS6SYQ and it is great content to learn from, because it is someone telling a not too boring story in a natural and clear way, with supporting images to help with context.
=== Chinese character sentence component mnemonic systems
Associate one word to each character/character component.
One good way to find mnemonics is to just Google for whatever random words you want to fit into a sentence. You end up learning fun things this way, and those make the best mnemonics.
Then to learn a new character, break it down into components, and create a sentence or short story that includes all the component words.
Japanese Kanji:
=== Lists of the most common characters and words
This is a good approach to tick off high frequency stuff you don't know you don't know:
== Chinese cheat
Single author open source Pleco + "Remembering Simplified Hanzi" in a single .adoc file? Let's go.
We'd use https://rtega.be/chmn/ as basis if it weren't for the NO in CC-BY-NO-SA? But that NO is evil, what the heck does it even mean to gain money from something? Too restrictive.
Format will be very constant, database like. Would therefore be cool to parse it from the Asciidoctor into a proper database as a way to verify and allow third party usage.
Base mnemonic components can come more or less directly from the 214 Kangxi radicals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kangxi_radical
One key principle is that characters and words often don't have a well translatable meaning: the minimal always translatable unit is a sentence: <>!
You can't fully learn a language by learning words and characters alone, you must learn sentences.
=== Characters
Format:
.... [[]] === (, )
Short forms: <>, <>
Mnemonic: <>.
Words:
Characters:
Translations:
Sentences:
Notes: <>
Notes:
Notes:
Translations is only used when it is a single character word, if it goes inside a word, only the word will contain the sentence[[top-part-of-每]] ==== Top part of 每 (, pistol)
Mnemonic: Can't find the freaking Unicode. It looks like a pistol.
Characters:
[[top-part-of-存]] ==== Top part of 存 (, market stall)
Mnemonic: looks like one.
Characters:
[[龶]] ==== 龶 (-, crown)
Mnemonic: the dot indicates something that stays on top of the head of a king (<<王>>)
Characters:
Notes: there is no "proper" Chinese name for this, it is just known as "the top part of <<青>>" (青字頭) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/龶
[[巴]] ==== 巴 (ba1, Brazil)
Mnemonic: the first character of <<巴西>>
Characters:
Words:
[[八]] ==== 八 (ba1, eight)
Short forms: 丷
Characters:
[[白]] ==== 白 (bai2, white)
Mnemonic: the sun (<<日>>) is so bright on that one (<<一>>) day, that it was almost white
Characters:
[[榜]] ==== 榜 (bang3)
[[勹]] ==== 勹 (bao1, plastic wrap)
Mnemonic: Kangxi 20 is "wrap". So we choose plastic wrap as a specific type of wrapping that will give good mnemonics.
Characters:
[[本]] ==== 本 (ben3, potato)
Mnemonic: one (<<一>>) thing is always beloow a tree (<<本>>): potato roots
Characters:
[[匕]] ==== 匕 (bi3, spoon)
Mnemonic: an ancient spoon, looks like this: https://read01.com/aAEn50x.html#.XnfZDN_niV4 "古人吃饭最早不用筷子，用的是"匕"，那"匕"是什么？
[[表]] ==== 表 (biao3, watch [device])
Mnemonic: imagine a soldier wearing green (<<龶>>) camouflage clothes (<<衣>>), and checking his watch to know if it is time to attack
Words:
[[卜]] ==== 卜 (bu3, magic wand)
Mnemonic: the kangxi description is "divination". Since this is completely unrelated to common contexts of modern people, we select a wand use a magic-related object that can be easily put into fun stories: a magic wand.
Characters:
[[不]] ==== 不 (bu4, not)
Mnemonic: unclear, possibly magic wand <<卜>>
Words:
[[查]] ==== 查 (cha2, check)
Mnemonic: every dawn <<旦>>, men have to check if their penises are hard as wood <<木>>, and if so they have to stay in bed for a while longer because it is too embarrassing to walk out like that, see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning_wood
Words:
[[车]] ==== 车 (che1, car)
Characters:
[[臣]] ==== 臣 (chen2, minister)
Characters:
[[彳]] ==== 彳 (chi4, step)
Mnemonic: Kangxi 60.
Characters:
[[辵]] ==== 辵 (chuo4, walk)
Short forms: ⻌,⻍,⻎
Characters:
[[存]] ==== 存 (cun2, survive)
Mnemonic: the Jewish child (<<子>>) survived from the Nazis by hiding under a market stall (<<top-part-of-存>>)
Words:
[[寸]] ==== 寸 (cun4, inch)
Characters:
[[大]] ==== 大 (da4, big)
Characters:
[[歹]] ==== 歹 (dai3, supervillain)
Mnemonic: that evening (<<夕>>), one (<<一>>) supervillain attacked us!
Characters:
Words:
[[单]] ==== 单 (dan1, bill)
Mnemonic: that lunch bill cost as much as buying eighty (<<十>> <<八>>) rice fields (<<田>>)!
Words:
[[旦]] ==== 旦 (dan4, dawn)
Mnemonic: dawn is when the sun (<<日>>) is raising over the horizon (<<一>>)
Characters:
Words:
[[但]] ==== 但 (dan4, but)
Mnemonic: I saw a person (<<人>>) walking at dawn (<<旦>>). It was beautiful, but why wouldn't they be sleeping instead?
[[刀]] ==== 刀 (dao1, knife)
Short forms: 刂,⺈
Characters:
[[的]] ==== 的 (de, my)
Mnemonic: my penis looks like a white (<<白>>) wrap sandwitch (<<勺>>)
[[等]] ==== 等 (deng3, etcetera)
Mnemonic: TODO
Words: <<等等>>
[[动]] ==== 动 (dong4, move)
Mnemonic: his superpower (<<力>>) is to move fart clouds (<<云>>) with his mind
Words:
[[对]] ==== 对 (dui4, correct)
Mnemonic: to progress slowly, adding inch (<<寸>>) by inch, again (<<又>>) and again, is the correct way to progress
Characters:
[[多]] ==== 多 (duo1, many)
Mnemonic: one wrap sandwitch (<<勺>>) is fine for lunch, but two on too many
[[儿]] ==== 儿 (er2, son)
Characters:
[[尔]] ==== 尔 (er3, you)
Mnemonic: I'll stab you with a small (<<小>>) knife (<<刀>>)
Characters:
[[二]] ==== 二 (er4, two)
Characters:
[[肺]] ==== 肺 (fei4, lungs)
Mnemonic: he didn't have two lungs, but rather one moon (<<月>>) and one lung (<<巿>>)
Words:
[[巿]] ==== 巿 (fu2, lung)
Mnemonic: due to an infection, doctors had to dry up one (<<一>>) of his lung with a towel (<<巾>>)
Characters:
[[干]] ==== 干 (gan1, dry)
Characters:
Sentences:
[[该]] ==== 该 (gai1, dry)
Mnemonic: TODO speak (<<言>>)
Translations:
[[根]] ==== 根 (gen1, roots)
Mnemonic: roots one root (<<艮>>) plus one root and lots of wood (<<木>>)
[[艮]] ==== 艮 (gen4, root)
Mnemonic: radical of roots (<<根>>)
Notes: this is a Kangxi radical, but its English name "stopping" is just too close to the more important "stop" <<止>> and would cause confusion. So we just use the common phonetic compound roots (<<根>>) as the mnemonic. It was tempting to leave "root" for <<本>>, which looks perfectly like a root, but we did character first, and "potato" makes for even better mnemonics.
Characters:
[[冠]] ==== 冠 (guan1, corona)
Mnemonic: when Queen Elizabeth was crowned, the first (<<元>>) thing they put a one inch (<<寸>>) hajib <<冖>> on her head, and then the corona of a Christian saint saint appeared on her head
Notes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corona
[[禾]] ==== 禾 (he2, grain)
Mnemonic: imagine one <<一>> grain of rice coming out of wood (<<木>>)
Characters:
[[和]] ==== 和 (he2, harmonious)
Mnemonic: nothing is more harmonious than putting some grains <<禾>> in your mouth <<口>>
Characters:
[[很]] ==== 很 (hen3, very)
Mnemonic: stepping (<<彳>>) on a tree root (<<艮>>) is a very bad idea, it might be a tree spirit that gets angry and eats you!
[[火]] ==== 火 (huo3, fire)
Short forms: 灬
Characters:
[[几]] ==== 几 (ji3, side table)
Characters:
[[交]] ==== 交 (jiao1, exchange student)
Mnemonic: we measured six <<六>> American exchange students <<交>> on a balance <<乂>> to see which one was heaviest. Idea comes from 交流 (exchange student).
Words:
[[巾]] ==== 巾 (jin1, towel)
Mnemonic: person carrying bath towel over shoulders.
Characters:
<<巿>>
<<禁>>
[[禁]] ==== 禁 (jin4, forbid)
Mnemonic: the spirit <<示>> of the woods <<林>> forbids <<禁>> burning trees!
Words:
[[口]] ==== 口 (kou3, mouth)
Chars:
[[里]] ==== 里 (li3, mile)
Mnemonic: his field (<<田>>) streched over one mile (<<里>>), but it consisted of barren soil (<<土>>) without any plants
Characters:
[[理]] ==== 理 (li3, science)
Mnemonic: the king (<<王>>) Louis XIV was a big patron of the mectric system, which intends to improve science by removing useless units like the mile (<<里>>)
Words:
[[力]] ==== 力 (li4, superpower)
Characters:
[[列]] ==== 列 (lie4, list)
Mnemonic: there must exist a list of supervillains (<<歹>>) with knives (<<刀>>) on the web? A knife-yielding supervillain list! https://techland.time.com/2010/09/03/top-ten-heroes-and-villians-with-big-knives/
Words:
[[林]] ==== 林 (lin2, woods)
Mnemonic: there are lots of trees <<木>> in the woods <<林>>
Characters:
[[临]] ==== 临 (lin2, temporary)
Mnemonic: the simplified character was completely mutilated into a bunch of senseless traces unmemorizable traces. The traditional 臨 can be broken into: the Prime minister (<<臣>>) temporarily decided to increase production of an important product (<<品>>): pistols (<<top-part-of-每>>), until the zombie apocalypse would be over.
Words:
[[仑]] ==== 仑 (lun2, logic)
Mnemonic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory[spoon theory] is very logical and explains how using spoons (<<匕>>) is a good metaphor for a person's (<<人>>) energy consumption
Characters:
[[论]] ==== 论 (lun4, rationale)
Mnemonic: "rationale" the fancy way that engineers say (<<言>>) "logic" (<<仑>>)
Words:
[[轮]] ==== 轮 (lun4, wheel)
Mnemonic: it is pretty logical (<<仑>>) that a car (<<车>>) needs wheels
Words:
[[没]] ==== 没 (mei2, not have)
Mnemonic: if you do not have any water (<<水>>) for your coffee (<<殳>>), it won't be very good
[[冖]] ==== 冖 (mi4, hajib [Muslim female head scarf])
Notes: the Wikipedia Kangxi is "cloth cover". Ciro guesses this was originally something to do with food covering. But let's just go with hajib which will allow for easy <<politically-incorrect,politically incorrect>> mnemonics. "Crown" from <<冠>> would also be another good one, but we had already used crown for <<龶>>.
Characters:
[[宀]] ==== 宀 (mian2, roof)
Characters:
[[木]] ==== 木 (mu4, wood, tree)
Characters:
Words:
[[疒]] ==== 疒 (ne4, sick)
Mnemonic: Kangxi 104.
Characters:
[[你]] ==== 你 (ni3, thou)
Mnemonic: person (<<人>>) you (<<尔>>)
[[牛]] ==== 牛 (niu2, cow)
Short forms: 牜,⺧
Characters:
[[爬]] ==== 爬 (pa2, climb)
Mnemonic: you need claws (<<爪>>) to climb (爬) Brazil's (<<巴>>) tallest mountain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico_da_Neblina[Pico da Neblina]
Words:
[[品]] ==== 品 (pin3, product)
Mnemonic: you need a lot of food products to feed the three mouths (<<口>>) of three children!
Words:
Characters:
[[攴]] ==== 攴 (pu1, to tap)
Short forms: 攵
Mnemonic: to transform a frog into a princess, you have to tap your magic wand (<<卜>>) again and again (<<又>>) on it
Characters:
[[千]] ==== 千 (qian2, thousand)
Mnemonic: a super powerful <<十>> with an extra trace
Notes: careful to not confuse with <<干>> which has a straight top.
Characters:
[[丬]] ==== 丬 (qiang2, split wood)
Characters: <<状>>
[[青]] ==== 青 (qing1, blue)
Mnemonic: the crown (<<龶>>) of the king was blue and moon-shaped (<<月>>)
Notes: it is more like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyan[green-blue/Cyan], see also https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/青色 but let's call it blue because it will be used in many constructs.
Characters:
Words:
[[清]] ==== 清 (qing1, clear)
Mnemonic: imagine a Caribbean sea water (<<水>>) was is blue (<<青>>) and clear
Notes: clear in the sense of "not dirty" and "a clear explanation". "Clear colors" use TODO 浅 as in 浅蓝.
Words:
[[情]] ==== 情 (qing2, lust)
Mnemonic: in his heart (<<心>>), the greatest lust was that of blue (<<青>>) underwear
Words:
[[犬]] ==== 犬 (quan3, dog)
Mnemonic: imagine one big (<<大>>) dog wagging its tail, the extra dot is the tail
Short forms: 犭
Characters:
[[人]] ==== 人 (ren2, person)
Short forms: 亻
Characters:
Words:
Sentences:
[[日]] ==== 日 (ri4, sun)
Characters:
[[肉]] ==== 肉 (rou4, meat)
[[勺]] ==== 勺 (shao2, wrap sandwitch)
Mnemonic: it is something that you would put inside plastic wrap (<<勹>>)
Notes: this is one of the main words for spoon, but that mnemonic is already taken by the Kangxi <<匕>>, so we had to go for something else.
Characters:
[[申]] ==== 申 (shen1, God)
Mnemonic: TODO
Characters:
[[神]] ==== 神 (shen2, The Greek Gods)
Mnemonic: God <<申>> spirit (<<示>>)
[[审]] ==== 审 (shen3, inspect)
Mnemonic: if you are going to inspect what's making those noises on the roof (<<宀>>), you will certainly find that it was God (<<申>>)
[[生]] ==== 生 (sheng1, be born, birth)
Mnemonic: as soon as the prince was born <<生>>, only one (<<一>>) crown <<龶>> was put on his head, not two as expected since he was the child of the rulers of kingdoms
Words:
[[十]] ==== 十 (shi2, ten)
Characters:
[[时]] ==== 时 (shi2, time)
Mnemonic: if the sun (<<日>>) moves an inch (<<寸>>) in the sky, then that means that 1 minute of time has passed
Words:
[[使]] ==== 使 (shi3, TODO)
Mnemonic: TODO <<人>> 吏
Translations:
[[示]] ==== 示 (shi4, spirit)
Short forms: 礻
Mnemonic: imagine two <<二>> small <<小>> child spirits playing with one another, maybe they died during a nuclear explosion and never noticed what happened
Characters:
[[水]] ==== 水 (shui3, water)
Short forms: 氵,氺
Chars:
[[厶]] ==== 厶 (si1, private)
Chars:
[[私]] ==== 私 (si1, privacy)
Mnemonic: privacy is all about storing your precious grain (<<禾>>) in a private (<<厶>>) location
[[殳]] ==== 殳 (shu1, coffee)
Mnemonic: his coffee keeps falling from the side table (<<几>>) on the floor again (<<又>>) and again
Characters:
Note: this shows what a 殳 weapon actually was: http://wenzhengwenhua.com/article-2023-1.html
Sentences:
[[树]] ==== 树 (shu4, trees)
Mnemonic: it is correct (<<对>>) to say that trees (树) are made out of of wood (<<木>>)
[[讨]] ==== 讨 (tao3, discuss)
Mnemonic: in their discussions (<<讨论>>), they always talked (<<言>>) about how his penis was only one inch <<寸>> long
Words:
[[台]] ==== 台 (tai2, platform)
Mnemonic: he was doing something private (<<厶>>) to her with his mouth (<<口>>) on the train platform
Characters:
Words:
[[田]] ==== 田 (tian1, field)
Characters:
[[体]] ==== 体 (ti3, body)
Mnemonic: the Irish people <<人>> eat so much potato (<<本>>) that 90% of their bodies are made out of potato molecules
Words:
[[土]] ==== 土 (tu3, soil)
Notes: the normal Kangxi translation is "earth", but we are afraid that this could be ambiguous with the "Planet Earth", so choosing soil instead
Characters:
[[亠]] ==== 亠 (tou2, pan lid)
Characters:
[[王]] ==== 王 (wang2, king)
Characters:
[[勿]] ==== 勿 (wu4, atom)
Mnemonic: atoms are part of matter <<物>>
[[物]] ==== 物 (wu4, matter [Physics])
Mnemonic: cows (<<牛>>) are made of atoms (<<勿>>), both of which are made of matter
Words:
[[夕]] ==== 夕 (xi1, evening)
[[小]] ==== 小 (xiao3, small)
Short forms: ⺌,⺍
Characters:
[[心]] ==== 心 (xin1, heart)
Short forms: 忄,⺗
Mnemonic: Kangxi 42.
Characters:
[[幸]] ==== 幸 (xing4, luck)
Mnemonic: you will have much better luck cycling when the soil (<<土>>) is dry (<<干>>)
Words:
[[性]] ==== 性 (xing4, sex)
Mnemonic: to give birth <<生>> to a person <<人>> you must first have sex <<性>>
Words:
Translations:
[[言]] ==== 言 (yan2, speak, say)
Short forms: 讠
Mnemonic: imagine two (<<二>>) flying mouths (<<口>>) trying to speak, but they can't because a plastic lid (<<亠>>) has been placed on them
[[炎]] ==== 炎 (yan2, inflammation)
Mnemonic: getting burnt by two fires (<<火>>) tends to cause skin inflammation
Words:
[[一]] ==== 一 (yi1, one)
Characters:
[[衣]] ==== 衣 (yi1, clothes)
Short forms: ⻂
Words: <<衣服>>
Characters: <<表>>
[[乂]] ==== 乂 (yi4, balance)
Mnemonic: balance. Looks like a balance, and it is the symbol of justice <<义>>
Characters:
[[义]] ==== 义 (yi4, justice)
Mnemonic: a balance <<乂>> is the symbol of justice <<义>>
[[疫]] ==== 疫 (yi4, epidemic)
Mnemonic: the world's greatest epidemic which is making people sick (<<疒>>) is coffee (<<殳>>) drinking
Words:
[[又]] ==== 又 (you4, again)
Characters:
[[元]] ==== 元 (yuan2, first)
Mnemonic: my first son (<<儿>>) had two (<<二>>) legs, but the second one had three!
[[月]] ==== 月 (yue4, moon)
Characters:
[[云]] ==== 云 (yun2, cloud)
Mnemonic: she made two (<<二>>) private (<<厶>>) farts in her home, but that produced a fart cloud that surrounded her for the rest of the week
Characters:
[[运]] ==== 运 (yun4, sports)
Notes: the most watched sport in heaven is that cloud (<<云>>) speed walking (<<辵>>)
Words:
[[爪]] ==== 爪 (zhao3, claws)
Short forms: 爫
Characters:
[[政]] ==== 政 (zheng4, politics)
Mnemonic: to do politics in China, you have to tap (<<攴>>) those <<xinjiang,Uyghurs>> on the shoulder and tell them to straighten (<<正>>) their backs
Words:
[[正]] ==== 正 (zheng4, straighten)
Mnemonic: one (<<一>>) stop (<<止>>) at the bone doctor is all it takes to straighten up your hurting back
Characters:
[[之]] ==== 之 (zhi1)
Translations:
Notes: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/の[の] (no) in Japanese, as can be seen from <>'s Japanese nickname "民主の女神".
[[止]] ==== 止 (zhi3, stop)
Characters:
Words:
[[治]] ==== 治 (zhi4, cure)
Mnemonic: she cured him from his heat stroke with water water (<<水>>) right on the train platform (<<台>>)
Words:
[[重]] ==== 重 (zhong4, dumbbell)
Mnemonic: the best exercise to get fit is to carry one thousand (<<千>>) dumbells over one thousand miles (<<里>>)
Words:
[[状]] ==== 状 (zhuang4, shape)
Mnemonic: imagine a dog (<<犬>>) model shaped from split wood pieces (<<丬>>)
Words:
[[子]] ==== 子 (zi, child)
Mnemonic: Kangxi 39.
Characters:
=== English words
Format:
.... [[<>]] ==== <> (<>, <>)
This section exists mostly to disambiguate the multiple possible Chinese translations of a given English word.
[[close]] ==== Close (关, 合)
[[list]] ==== List (清单, 列表)
[[for-example]] ==== For example (例如)
[[survive]] ==== Survive (幸存, 生存)
[[unlucky]] ==== Unlucky (不幸)
=== Chinese words
Format:
.... [[]] === (, )
Characters:
Words:
Subwords:
Translations:
Sentences:
Notes:
Notes:
main-translation[[巴西]] ==== 巴西 (ba1 xi1, Brazil)
Characters:
[[不幸]] ==== 不幸 (bu4 xing4, unlucky)
Characters:
Sentences:
[[歹人]] ==== 歹人 (dai3 ren2, villain)
Characters:
[[等等]] ==== 等等 (deng3 deng3, etcetera)
Characters:
Sentences:
[[肺炎]] ==== 肺炎 (fei4 yan2, pneumonia)
Characters:
Sentences:
[[冠状病毒]] ==== 冠状病毒 (guan1 zhuang4 bing4 du2, Corona virus)
Characters:
[[购物清单]] ==== 购物清单 (gou4 wu4 qing1 dan1, shopping list)
Subwords:
Sentences:
[[禁止]] ==== 禁止 (jin4 zhi3, forbidden)
Characters:
[[禁运]] ==== 禁运 (jin4 yun4, embargo)
Characters:
[[理论]] ==== 理论 (li3 lun4, logic)
Characters:
[[临时]] ==== 临时 (lin2 shi2, temporary)
Characters:
Words:
Sentences:
[[临时工]] ==== 临时 (lin2 shi2 gong1, temporary work, day labour)
Subwords:
Notes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day_labor
[[列表]] ==== 列表 (lie4 biao3, list)
Translations:
Characters:
Sentences:
[[例如]] ==== 例如 (li4 ru2, for example)
Translations:
Characters:
Notes:
[[六]] ==== 六 (liu4, six)
Mnemonic: we had eight <<八>> pan lids <<亠>>, but two broke, so we have six <<六>> left
Characters:
[[木头]] ==== 木头 (mu4 tou, wood, timber or log)
Characters:
[[爬行]] ==== 爬行 (pa2 xing2, crawl)
Translations:
Characters:
[[清单]] ==== 清单 (qing1 dan1, list)
Characters:
Translations:
Words:
[[青铜]] ==== 青铜 (qing1 tong2, bronze)
Characters:
Sentences:
[[审查]] ==== 审查 (shen3 cha2, censor)
Characters:
[[生存]] ==== 生存 (sheng1 cun2, survive)
Translations: <>
Characters:
Words:
Sentences:
[[生存游戏]] ==== 生存游戏 (sheng1 cun2 you2 xi4, survival game)
Subwords:
Sentences:
[[台湾]] ==== 台湾 (tai2 wan1, Taiwan)
Mnemonic: <<台>> 湾 TODO
[[讨论]] ==== 讨论 (tao3 luan4, discuss)
Characters:
[[体重]] ==== 体重 (ti3 zhong4, body weight)
Characters:
Sentences:
[[物理]] ==== 物理 (wu4 li3, Physics)
Characters:
[[幸存]] ==== 幸运 (xing4 cun2, survive)
Translations: <>
Characters:
Sentences:
[[幸运]] ==== 幸运 (xing4 yun4, lucky)
Characters:
Sentences:
[[性交]] ==== 性交 (xing4 jiao1, sexual intercourse)
Characters:
[[衣服]] ==== 衣服 (yi1 fu, clothes)
Characters:
[[疫情]] ==== 疫情 (yi4 qing2, epidemic situation)
Characters:
Sentences:
[[元旦]] ==== 元旦 (yuan2 dan4, (Chinese) New Year's day)
Characters:
[[运动]] ==== 运动 (yun4 dong4, sports)
Characters:
[[政治]] ==== 政治 (zheng4 zhi4, politics)
Characters:
[[治愈]] ==== 治愈 (zhi4 yu4, recover from a disease, be cured from a disease)
Characters:
=== Chinese sentences
Format:
.... [[]] ==== (<>)
Source: <> (<>)
Context: <>
Words: <>
Sentences: <>
Translations:
Notes
Sentences: is mostly for when you have a smaller colloquial phrase that feels too generic for a "word", but which can also go inside a larger "super-sentence"[[测量体重]] ==== 测量体重 (Measure body weight, to weight oneself)
Source: https://www.zhihu.com/question/30477989
Words:
Sentences:
[[大多数宝宝在6-10个月之间学会爬行]] ==== 大多数宝宝在6-10个月之间学会爬行 (Most babies learn to crawl between 6 and 10 months)
Source: https://baike.pcbaby.com.cn/qzbd/13387.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20180213164914/https://baike.pcbaby.com.cn/qzbd/13387.html[archive])
Words: 大多数宝宝在6-10个月之间学会<<爬行>>
[[肺炎疫情下的武汉幸存者我是不幸之中幸运的人]] ==== 肺炎疫情下的武汉幸存者："我是不幸之中幸运的人" (Wuhan survivor after the pneumonia epidemic: "I am a lucky one amongst the unlucky")
Source: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-51527843
Context: The article is about a man who survived because he asked for help online, and netizens helped him out and he survived.
Words: <<肺炎>><<疫情>>下<<的>>武汉<<幸存>>者："我是<<不幸>>之中<<幸运>><<的>><<人>>"
[[购物清单APP即使你是购物狂也不用再担心了]] ==== 购物清单APP，即使你是购物狂也不用再担心了 (gou4 wu4, With a shopping list APP, even if you are crazy about shopping you don't need to worry anymore)
Source: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/27498655
Words: <<购物清单>>APP，即使<<你>>是购物狂也不用再担心了
[[海外生存之惑]] ==== 海外生存之惑 (hai3 wai4, The puzzle of surviving abroad (of China))
Words: 海外生存<<之>>惑
Notes: this is the name of a 2013 series of lifestyle articles by BBC Chinese for Chinese living abroad (in the UK)
[[目前该网站也和国内外很多大学的图书馆有合作例如武汉大学南京大学等等]] ==== 目前该网站也和国内外很多大学的图书馆有合作，例如武汉大学、南京大学等等 (mu4 qian2, At present, that website also cooperates with the libraries of universities in China and abroad such as Wuhan University, Nanjing University, etc.)
Source: https://www.zhihu.com/question/35931336/answer/228278520 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200502080357/https://www.zhihu.com/question/35931336[archive])
Words: 目前该网站也和国内外很多大学的图书馆有合作，<<例如>>武汉大学、南京大学<<等等>>
[[青铜兵器之殳简介]] ==== 青铜兵器之"殳"简介 (qing1 tong2, An introduction to the bronze weapon "shu" (殳))
Source: http://wenzhengwenhua.com/article-2023-1.html
Words: <<青铜>>兵器<<之>>"殳"简介
[[任何不能杀死你的都会使你更强大]] ==== 任何不能杀死你的，都会使你更强大 (ren4 he2, What doesn't kill me makes me stronger)
Source: https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/242761276.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20200525084055/https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/242761276.html[archive])
Words:
[[现有王位觊觎者列表]] ==== 现有王位觊觎者列表 (xian4 you3, List of current throne pretenders)
Source: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/現有王位覬覦者列表
Words: 现有王位觊觎者<<列表>>
[[有多少人像我一样已经积极囤积生存物资几个月了]] ==== 有多少人像我一样已经积极囤积生存物资几个月了？ (you3 duo1, How many people are like me and have been actively hoarding survival supplies for several months?)
Source: https://pincong.rocks/question/22965 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200525111018/https://pincong.rocks/question/22965[archive])
Words: 有多少人像我一样已经积极囤积<<生存>>物资几个月了
Notes: posted in the context of <>
[[中梵达成主教任命临时协议的背后盘算]] ==== 中梵达成主教任命临时协议的背后盘算 (zhong1 fan4, The backstory behind the temporary Bishop appointment agreement reached between China and the Vatican)
Source: https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-45655881 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190615000612/https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-45655881[archive])
Words:
Notes: <>
[[中国大陆网络用语列表]] ==== 中国大陆网络用语列表 (zhog4 guo2, List of Mainland China Internet vocabulary)
Source: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国大陆网络用语列表
Words: 现有王位觊觎者<<列表>>
[[临时性团队的组建和管理]] ==== 临时性团队的组建和管理 (lin2 shi2, Forming and managing a temporary team)
Source: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/81708802 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200525113721/https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/81708802[archive])
Words: <<临时>><<性>>团队的组建和管理
=== English sentences
[[what-doesn-t-kill-me-makes-me-stronger]] ==== What doesn't kill me makes me stronger
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_does_not_kill_me_makes_me_stronger
Translations:
FAQs
2018新疆改造中心，1989六四事件，1999法轮功 ，2019 996.ICU, 2018包子露宪，2015 710律师劫，2015巴拿马文件 邓家贵，2017低端人口，2008西藏骚乱
The npm package china-dictatorship receives a total of 111 weekly downloads. As such, china-dictatorship popularity was classified as not popular.
We found that china-dictatorship demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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