It is a good thing that Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams are speaking up. The WTA has also shown impressive courage in dealing with the matter.
I am really encouraged by this. An organization as well as individual players risking millions on principle, which is very much unlike the NBA and even Apple Inc.
Unlike the WTA, ironically the IOC is silent, given that Zhang Gaoli (the ex-Vice Premier accused by Peng Shuai) has been working with the IOC and overseeing the preparation of the upcoming 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic for years [1].
So now that Biden is the laughingstock of the Right, I guess they have the establishment and the deep state on their side and that is why they are not exiled?
No, the right doesn't have much media power (only Fox News is of consequence), and it's quite weak politically until the midterms. Biden can largely ignore the right in that sense, he doesn't have to care if the political right mocks him. Mostly Biden has to pay attention to being his own worst enemy. The media protects Biden as much as possible, and the deep state tries to utilize him to get what they want (war, larger budgets, various globalist policies, war on domestic terrorism to set up a more advanced surveillance state).
Biden's biggest problem by a dramatic margin, is the political center, which he has almost entirely lost already.
If the right mocking Biden had any power behind it, he would have never won the election in the first place. It was close enough at the Electoral College that if the US media landscape were 50/50 left/right, Biden would not have prevailed.
Obviously most everyone here understands that despite the flaws of the US, it generally doesn't disappear or exile as China does. The super structures that the left controls, which the right does not, do have very substantial power however (social media, big tech, hollywood, old media & news, journalism, education, welfare state).
> The super structures that the left controls, which the right does not, do have very substantial power however (social media, big tech, hollywood, old media & news, journalism, education, welfare state).
This has become a political rallying cry, but is far from an objective truth. Just because "the left" is other to you, and those structures are other to you, does not imply that its sensible to say that those structures are controlled by "the left". Entrenched power structures are inherently conservative, with at most some feel-good progressive window dressing. That you judge them as being controlled by "the left" really just indicates how far "the right" has strayed from conservatism.
No, it's because there are no stakes. The right can laugh in their limited outlets, but can't mobilize all the "good people", media, state apparatus, three letter agencies, and so on.
Pretty huge stakes actually. If she is allowed to provide evidence, then the accusation will hang like the sword of Damocles - as soon as the accused loses favour even slightly, an opportunistic enemy can bring them back up and use them to send the accused to prison.
Therefore the stakes are very high for the accused to take her out before any proof or testimony can be put out.
Alternatively, if you were a political oponent of the accused, you would be concerned for the safety of Peng, which you would now consider an asset, and you would, if you could, put her into what amounts to protective custody ASAP so you could defeat your rival before he can preempt it
It's game of thrones shit. And by the way, it's like that in the US too - Epstein didn't kill himself.
Democracy comes with rights but also responsibilities.
The main responsibility is to follow the law. The other responsibility is to vote to select the correct laws to follow as a society.
Nobody knows what the correct set of laws for a society is. That is why we have regular elections to iterate upon them.
In very few cases you can see a clear cut and say definitely that a law is fair or unfair. Most of the laws lie on a spectrum, and I would argue that it is impossible to find a set of laws that are fair to all of the people, forever.
That is why dictatorships even if they start with start with good intentions (some did) they end up being oppressive regimes.
Edward Snowden ran afoul of the boundaries for freedom of speech in a first world country. If he did the same thing as a Chinese in China, they would have sent a squad to repatriate him long ago (being in Russia is just a minor inconvenience).
Just because the USA and China both have problems in this area doesn't make them anywhere near having the same scale and severity.
Agreed. If Snowden had been Chinese and had exposed Chinese secrets like that and he escaped to Russia, Russia would have found reasons to return him and then there would have been a quick farcical trial and he'd've been executed and the family billed as well as ostracized. Had he escaped to Canada or Australia, etc., they have found a way for an accident to happen to him. Russia, China, N Korea, KSA, Iran deal with dissidents quite harshly.
If he went to the USA and got governmental assistance he would be safe. In Russia he is definitely getting a lot of government protection otherwise he would have been "extraordinarily renditioned".
Assange even though isn't protected by the UK isn't getting extraordinarily renditioned. Yes, the UK has treated him badly and we know Hillary wished him dead via drone, but so far, that has not happened (either extraordinarily renditioned nor droned) though it may come to pass that he gets extradited someday.
Assange is currently in a maximum security prison. Beforethen he was in an embassy. It is physically impossible for him to be extraordinarily renditioned. Therefore it's not a signal any way or another.
I support Snowden, but "Every person deserves the freedom to criticize their leaders and to speak out against abuse" is not equal to "Every employee of secret government intelligence agencies deserves the freedom to steal thousands of government documents and release them to the press."
Peng Shuai's situation is so far from Snowden — if you're trying to point to a parallel between the US and China, it doesn't work. The US equivalent would be if the women who accused Trump, Kavanaugh, Cuomo, etc., of sexual harassment were kidnapped by the government.
Long list of people here saying Snowden deserves to rot in jail for revealing a massive, illegal domestic spy program. Even with his documents, no citizen has been able to challenge this in court because of secrecy rules. There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored. Are you all also in favour of prosecuting the journalists who publish this material?
> Long list of people here saying Snowden deserves to rot in jail for revealing a massive, illegal domestic spy program. Even with his documents, no citizen has been able to challenge this in court because of secrecy rules. There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored.
I'm in favor of prosecuting Snowden because he did substantial and potentially permanent damage to our intelligence gathering abroad.
> There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored.
He could have gathered information, contacted appropriate members of the Senate, and launched an investigation such as the Church committee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee).
> Are you all also in favour of prosecuting the journalists who publish this material?
I mean, if the worry is that the government disappeared her, the police would at best not be much help and at worst be the ones who kidnapped her in the first place. The police saying it wasn't reported doesn't necessarily mean that's true, and even if it is, it doesn't necessarily mean much.
In CCP land you don't report to the police crimes of top CCP officials. I'm sure they won't comment, but it's a major scandal involving the "vice president" equivalent in the CCP, I think any other administration anywhere would comment.
Indeed, why should the government comment on the disappearance of a public figure just after they stated that they were sexually assaulted by a major figure in that government?
reporting to police sounds ridiculous in Chinese context. I'm sure if Peng shuai is not an internationally renowned athlete, she'll be end up in a state run lunatic home, which is actually the best outcome for her.
Their Mao Tze Tung once raped a 14 year old. That little girl had worshiped Mao before the rape. She didn't want to be a young mistress like many others. She was not executed because her family hold high ranking positions in the party. So she ended up in those homes. China experts plz dont say this is a madeup story. Her name is huimin chen. The story is well known with the party and told to the public by Mao's long-time secretary. Actually they talk about raping young girls as anecdotes of powerful men.
Does it have to be the CCP that disappeared her? China still has all the hallmarks of a third-world country with things like corruption, and certainly life is just as cheap as a place like Russia. Interested parties could have just had her off’d, no ccp needed.
Say what you want about America, but we don’t ‘off’ our #metoo people. I’m actually laughing in a sad way at how humans literally have an ‘off’ button in these other countries that these societies just flick. There really is another version of cancel-culture out there.
> The 35-year-old former top-ranked player in women's doubles won titles at Wimbledon in 2013 and the French Open in 2014. Peng also participated in three Olympics
^^ That person had an off button in China, unbelievable. I grow disillusioned by the moment.
On 17 November, Chinese state media outlet China Global Television Network released an email allegedly written by Peng to chief executive of WTA Steve Simon, which stated that she was resting at home and that her allegation of sexual assault was not true, and that she was not missing. The email also criticized the WTA for releasing what it claimed was unverified information about Peng without her consent. The authenticity of the email was cast in doubt with many pointing out that a typing cursor appears to be visible on the screenshot of the email. Responding in regard to the email, Simon stated that it only raised his concerns as to her safety and whereabouts. He reiterated that Peng's sexual assault allegation must be investigated "with full transparency and without censorship".
Absolutely horrifying how people can just "off" there, like a button. Unlike in the USA, where a high profile, human trafficker with connection to former presidents and billionaires, mysteriously "popped off" in the daylight by surveillance cameras "unfortunately" malfunctioning and guards mysteriously not in their place.
Or some other guy, was he called Edward? That revealed that the government itself was breaking its own laws, sneaking and policing innocent citizen. Something proven even later by investigations by the government itself! and he still had to flee the country and can't come back!
And 330 Million people, without fear of censorship or anything just "meh"ed it off
Gee CCP have to step up their "off" game, truly horrifying that they still have to employ censorship and fear to do it!
As a Chinese I expect this: Peng Shuai is safe; Zhang is probably in investigation; investigation probably will last some time; Zhang is most likely over, if investigation finds evidence for anything else, he most likely will go to jail.
She is probably in custody. I am very anti-CCP, but I don’t believe they are that plain evil (or stupid) to simply kill someone - mafia style. Especially someone with such high profile.
Look at what happened to Jack Ma - he was also “disappeared”, but he showed couple of times since. Such a flamboyant persona like him to turn into a “monk” in just couple of months shows that CCP knows how to shut people up without harming them.
When they release her she will also be put on a short leash and try staying lower than grass.
Potentially you are talking about different things, the action and the organization.
I can read
> but I don’t believe they are that plain evil
so that the writer does not think the ccp is just evil, meaning they are more than just evil. So the writer might think the cpp does evil things probably including:
> disappearing someone in order to intimidate them into operating "on a short leash"
By "plain evil" I mean a cartoon-like villains that do things (and laugh) just for the sake of being evil. What CCP are doing is playing a game of chess where they are after some end goal, thinking multiple steps in advance. Killing someone this public will have too much bad consequences later.
To be clear: "safe" in this context generally implies more than merely "physically unharmed". It's quite clear that Jack Ma was coerced into giving up control of Alibaba. It seems likely that Peng Shuai is being similarly pressured.
Having authorities (for example) scream in your face about their ability to wreck your career and that of all your friends and family is not what most people would consider "safe".
Without leaving evidence of harm, maybe, but I wouldn't be so forthright as to claim that there is no harm. Torture tactics have become quite advanced and many leave invisible scars.
They most definitely threaten close and extended family members if they don’t comply. That’s the only reason I can see so many people buckling. It’s one thing if you shame/hurt me, but I’d rather shut up before you take it out on anyone close to me.
Peng Shuai can easily come over for Wimbledon or an Olympics and ask for amnesty and get it. But her family are at the CCPs mercy if she does that.
‘We’ll find everyone in your family, your family’s family, and so on, you will never be in peace’. There’s nothing more effective than that.
When somebody defected from the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, his/her relatives would be punished by being fired from good jobs and forbidden to take new ones; usually they had to do some harder and worse paid work. Unless they were members of the Party; in that case, their position was a bit shaken by a defection in family, but they usually could survive in place.
And yeah, their kids were either banned from studying interesting majors, or at least their education became more complicated.
This even concerned highly qualified people such as surgeons.
If CCP is as you described, and Peng Shuai worry about her family, she wouldn't speak in the first place. There was nothing happening for her before she made the post online.
Having come from such a regime, 'safe' can also mean 'forced slave labor', or just like the allegation, other forced actions that I would not call safe.
I don't think she would be under arrest. She is probably kept safe or was told to remain silent before the investigation is done. I know it is so kind of backward way of handling the issue. The case would be postponed by the general CCP meeting, and investigation only starts afterwards. She would be questioned maybe, but I am fairly certain she will not face any danger. She may be asked not to give any comment given the investigation. And investigation normally would take some time.
Safe, probably, but hopefully isn't going through what Ai Weiwei went through; 81 days in detention with two Chinese state military personnel looking over him 24 hours a day - while sleeping, going to the toilet... https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Expo_SACRED_Venice...
As a Chinese I expect this: Peng Shuai, much like Jack Ma, has been kidnapped by the CCP, and tortured and brainwashed until she becomes a harmless sheep, much like Jack Ma. Then she will be released to do CCP's bidding, kind of like Jack Ma right now traveling in EU, trying to get EU secrets on farming to increase food production.
Zhang, because he is part of the Jiang Zemin faction, which is against Xi Jing Ping action, will be dealt like most of Xi Jing Ping's opponent - crushed.
Everyone should realize that basically, CCP is a gang. The biggest evil group of gangsters the world has ever seen. Selling body parts of concentration camp prisoners might just be the surface. It's hilarious that some people actually believe if US and the world somehow lost to CCP, we would be ok under CCP's rule.
There are no EU secrets on farming. You can just ask any farmer how they do it. The actual gap in farming efficiency between China and the EU is fairly low for most basic crops, see: https://ourworldindata.org/crop-yields and compare crop yield gaps.
It's very unlikely Jack Ma is trying to exfiltrate "secrets" of agricultural production from poor European farmers. You can just go and ask them. There are not really any secrets.
I grew up in China. As someone who has personal experience of growing up there, I would really like foreigners and foreign countries to stop concern trolling and telling us what to do. This is no longer the 19th century and white men no longer own Asia. Chinese values are different from Western values and I expect people on the other side of the world to respect and understand that. One of our most important values is internal stability, and the Peng Shuai situation reflects that.
Let me tell you as a white man that does not own anything but his laptop and a few clothes: crushing individuals in the name of Greater Good always backfired on us and it will backfire on you, too.
I am not even sure if we learnt this lesson yet here in the West - power is corrosive to human rights - but your answers seems to be radically rejecting its validity altogether.
Several empires disintegrated after treating their own people badly.
The Chinese civilization has at least 2000 (the commonly given 5000 is way too generous) years of experience with statecraft. I think at this point they know what will or will not backfire on them.
So does the Western civilization, our roots are in deep Antiquity and a lot of Greek philosophy and Roman law still forms a base of our contemporary institutions.
But we still repeated the same mistakes on different occasions. It often happens that when someone gets all the power, he (usually he) deems himself better at statecraft than those backward ancestors.
The government was completely overthrown three times in the 20th century, and the prior centuries saw immense turmoil as well.
Do Italians have inherently good government skills due to Ancient Rome?
Edit: oops overthrown two or three times depending on whether the Japanese take over of major cities counts. But anyway what I really mean is it had three distinct and extremely different governments. Transfer of skills seems questionable, to understate it.
>>Chinese values are different from Western values and I expect people on the other side of the world to respect and understand that.
The ability to criticise public officials and politicians without fear of being "disappeared" should surely be a globally shared aspiration, regardless of cultural differences.
As you say, this is no longer the 19th century. Societies evolve and leave behind unfair practices previously regarded as cultural norms.
You really have no idea about chinese real politik. CCP is just group of competing gangs. "Disappeared" in western sense does not make a sense, there is no central authority, just some mobster who ordered it.
Politician who caused this mess is done, he may disappear latter when things are quiet.
I made fun of President Trump on a daily basis. I do the same currently for President Biden despite of voting for him. Being a contrarian to me is absolutely fundamental and political satire is the best thing ever.
Thankfully, it is remarkably easy to do in USA despite of far-right and far-left extremism. We ought to watch out though - this is not a permanent liberty.
This kind of situation is sadly usual in China and the World tends to turn a blind eye, like with the 'Uyghurs situation' so I hope WTA keeps the pressure.
Coincidentally I'm reading Red Roulette by Desmond Shum. His wife is in a similar state than Peng Shuai.
This kind of situation is usual full stop. In the vast majority of the world if you threaten the carreers of very powerful people, very bad things may happen to you.
I dont understand how with 1.4 billion people there is absolutely no sign of opposition. Whats the lower bound on how many people you have jail or kill to domesticate the whole herd? It has to be an insanely large number.
China has a massive surveillance apparatus. If opposition is visible to us, it’s visible to the Chinese government and can be snuffed out. It’s possible that many people there disagree with the government’s actions, though.
It's a very Western thing to assume that Chinese don't like their government or the actions they take. I would say overall their approval rating is pretty high. I haven't been back to China since the pandemic started though so things may have changed some but I don't think a whole lot. I think if you speak to some mainlanders you will come to realise they consider their government to simply be a different set of tradeoffs vs what is common in the West. Specifically favouring stability and social unity at the cost of individual freedom of expression, most consider it to be a reasonable sacrifice to achieve great things on a large scale. Similar views are commonly held here in Thailand too but less so by the younger generation.
It's not my cup of tea but I have long since stopped assuming they are oppressed or have an issue with how things are being done.
this is so not true.
it's not that majority Chinese people don't like their government. They hate it.
But I get it how you come to that. The chinese people you come across are by the chinese standard rich, super rich and hyper rich. Although to you they may seem just middle class ish. They are winners of the chinese game, large in number but still quite smaller in proportion to the chinese population. They are the people who benefit from and enjoy the servitude suffered by other Chinese people. If you're a governmental official or tech manager in a big Chinese city, you make money as on par with your counterpart in U.S. or even higher while enjoying 15 mins food delivery to your doorstep at cost of less than 1 U.S. dollar. Why is this possible? because local economy is destroyed in China and if you want to survive you have to go big cities accepting whatever meagerly paid job you could find. There is plenty of land you say. How about being a farmer? No, crop prices are mandated by state and selling to anyone else other than the state is a crime. So, suppose you are the "middle-class" people in China, how could you not love Chinese government? Chinese government creates so many slaves at your service. In the same light, how could any American people not love Chinese government? You enjoy super cheap stuff thanks to the Chinese slaves.
Well Chinese people who are de-facto slaves in the country and who are the majority, would they love their government? Yes. Chinese people are different. They think differently. They have a different culture. They love hellish living conditions and working 12hrs day 30 days a month for something like 500-700 usd wihtout any benefit and security whatsoever while watching their government officials and government affiliated people splashing their wealth on a world stage and feel happy. Sophisticated experts on China like you tell us so.
I got tons of downvotes for a china comment a year ago. I'd love to see the crowd here to downvote me again by something like, lets say China is evil, but the whole world (especially U.S.) is just as evil. Here are examples, see? So China does not do anything wrong. You are are spreading false information and hatred. Justice will not be done if you are not muted(downvoted)
I'm not spreading false information, this is my first hand account of spending time in China, both for business and personal reasons over the last ~8 years. If you disagree fine, but this is purely my experience not a statement of fact.
It is not they can’t speak but the consequences. Need the keyword protection. Or Liberty.
Look at Hong Kong just 30k police plus one law, you can transform a liberal state to a silent whisper world. It is free to criticise gov. And there is not much if any news on her.
CCP is just a big mafia gang now. And XI Jinping the head of this mafia gang. And as with any mafia gang grown too big, it should be destroyed. And the head of it be killed or sentenced to life-long prison.
And yea the IOC... shame on them. They have now found a new term for their silence on this. They call it "Quiet Democracy". When in reality what it is is licking CCP's ass.
I don't understand.... why the world not get together and just destroy CCP and kill Xi jinping once and for all? It has already crossed all limits of forgiveness.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 161 ms ] thread[1]: https://olympics.com/en/news/beijing-2022-unveils-official-e...
This is a shame.
Snowden while having noble intentions he broke the law and he should face the consequences of his actions.
If I kill the guard to break into the CIA HQ and expose a massive scandal do I deserve jail time or a Medal of Honor? I would argue both.
If the whole establishment and the deep state was similarly with you, you could do that in China too.
Biden's biggest problem by a dramatic margin, is the political center, which he has almost entirely lost already.
If the right mocking Biden had any power behind it, he would have never won the election in the first place. It was close enough at the Electoral College that if the US media landscape were 50/50 left/right, Biden would not have prevailed.
Obviously most everyone here understands that despite the flaws of the US, it generally doesn't disappear or exile as China does. The super structures that the left controls, which the right does not, do have very substantial power however (social media, big tech, hollywood, old media & news, journalism, education, welfare state).
This has become a political rallying cry, but is far from an objective truth. Just because "the left" is other to you, and those structures are other to you, does not imply that its sensible to say that those structures are controlled by "the left". Entrenched power structures are inherently conservative, with at most some feel-good progressive window dressing. That you judge them as being controlled by "the left" really just indicates how far "the right" has strayed from conservatism.
The president of the US could easily make an annoying opposing journalist disappear. But they don’t.
That is what makes America a functioning democracy and China an authoritarian regime.
Therefore the stakes are very high for the accused to take her out before any proof or testimony can be put out.
Alternatively, if you were a political oponent of the accused, you would be concerned for the safety of Peng, which you would now consider an asset, and you would, if you could, put her into what amounts to protective custody ASAP so you could defeat your rival before he can preempt it
It's game of thrones shit. And by the way, it's like that in the US too - Epstein didn't kill himself.
Saying he broke the law is pointless, when the law is designed to be broken by dissidents.
The main responsibility is to follow the law. The other responsibility is to vote to select the correct laws to follow as a society.
Nobody knows what the correct set of laws for a society is. That is why we have regular elections to iterate upon them.
In very few cases you can see a clear cut and say definitely that a law is fair or unfair. Most of the laws lie on a spectrum, and I would argue that it is impossible to find a set of laws that are fair to all of the people, forever.
That is why dictatorships even if they start with start with good intentions (some did) they end up being oppressive regimes.
Edward Snowden ran afoul of the boundaries for freedom of speech in a first world country. If he did the same thing as a Chinese in China, they would have sent a squad to repatriate him long ago (being in Russia is just a minor inconvenience).
Just because the USA and China both have problems in this area doesn't make them anywhere near having the same scale and severity.
Peng Shuai's situation is so far from Snowden — if you're trying to point to a parallel between the US and China, it doesn't work. The US equivalent would be if the women who accused Trump, Kavanaugh, Cuomo, etc., of sexual harassment were kidnapped by the government.
I'm in favor of prosecuting Snowden because he did substantial and potentially permanent damage to our intelligence gathering abroad.
> There’s no such thing as a whistleblower without evidence, that’s called a parish who gets ignored.
He could have gathered information, contacted appropriate members of the Senate, and launched an investigation such as the Church committee (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee).
> Are you all also in favour of prosecuting the journalists who publish this material?
That depends on what they publish and whether it's determined to be illegal. Hopefully the courts would allow publication as in the Pentagon Papers case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers#The_Supreme_Co...).
What possible reason could there be?
Maybe she would have, but it's difficult to report something when you've been disappeared.
Their Mao Tze Tung once raped a 14 year old. That little girl had worshiped Mao before the rape. She didn't want to be a young mistress like many others. She was not executed because her family hold high ranking positions in the party. So she ended up in those homes. China experts plz dont say this is a madeup story. Her name is huimin chen. The story is well known with the party and told to the public by Mao's long-time secretary. Actually they talk about raping young girls as anecdotes of powerful men.
Say what you want about America, but we don’t ‘off’ our #metoo people. I’m actually laughing in a sad way at how humans literally have an ‘off’ button in these other countries that these societies just flick. There really is another version of cancel-culture out there.
> The 35-year-old former top-ranked player in women's doubles won titles at Wimbledon in 2013 and the French Open in 2014. Peng also participated in three Olympics
^^ That person had an off button in China, unbelievable. I grow disillusioned by the moment.
On 17 November, Chinese state media outlet China Global Television Network released an email allegedly written by Peng to chief executive of WTA Steve Simon, which stated that she was resting at home and that her allegation of sexual assault was not true, and that she was not missing. The email also criticized the WTA for releasing what it claimed was unverified information about Peng without her consent. The authenticity of the email was cast in doubt with many pointing out that a typing cursor appears to be visible on the screenshot of the email. Responding in regard to the email, Simon stated that it only raised his concerns as to her safety and whereabouts. He reiterated that Peng's sexual assault allegation must be investigated "with full transparency and without censorship".
CCP is insane.
Or some other guy, was he called Edward? That revealed that the government itself was breaking its own laws, sneaking and policing innocent citizen. Something proven even later by investigations by the government itself! and he still had to flee the country and can't come back!
And 330 Million people, without fear of censorship or anything just "meh"ed it off
Gee CCP have to step up their "off" game, truly horrifying that they still have to employ censorship and fear to do it!
Jeffrey Epstein was a suicide for sure.
Look at what happened to Jack Ma - he was also “disappeared”, but he showed couple of times since. Such a flamboyant persona like him to turn into a “monk” in just couple of months shows that CCP knows how to shut people up without harming them.
When they release her she will also be put on a short leash and try staying lower than grass.
I can read
> but I don’t believe they are that plain evil
so that the writer does not think the ccp is just evil, meaning they are more than just evil. So the writer might think the cpp does evil things probably including:
> disappearing someone in order to intimidate them into operating "on a short leash"
but without making the cpp just or only evil.
Having authorities (for example) scream in your face about their ability to wreck your career and that of all your friends and family is not what most people would consider "safe".
Without leaving evidence of harm, maybe, but I wouldn't be so forthright as to claim that there is no harm. Torture tactics have become quite advanced and many leave invisible scars.
Peng Shuai can easily come over for Wimbledon or an Olympics and ask for amnesty and get it. But her family are at the CCPs mercy if she does that.
‘We’ll find everyone in your family, your family’s family, and so on, you will never be in peace’. There’s nothing more effective than that.
And yeah, their kids were either banned from studying interesting majors, or at least their education became more complicated.
This even concerned highly qualified people such as surgeons.
Zhang, because he is part of the Jiang Zemin faction, which is against Xi Jing Ping action, will be dealt like most of Xi Jing Ping's opponent - crushed.
Everyone should realize that basically, CCP is a gang. The biggest evil group of gangsters the world has ever seen. Selling body parts of concentration camp prisoners might just be the surface. It's hilarious that some people actually believe if US and the world somehow lost to CCP, we would be ok under CCP's rule.
傻逼他妈给傻逼开门真是傻逼到家了
It's very unlikely Jack Ma is trying to exfiltrate "secrets" of agricultural production from poor European farmers. You can just go and ask them. There are not really any secrets.
And as you would expect of gangsters, to get leverage on someone they go after the person's family (e.g. https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgxdv7/chinese-police-are-vi...)
I am not even sure if we learnt this lesson yet here in the West - power is corrosive to human rights - but your answers seems to be radically rejecting its validity altogether.
Several empires disintegrated after treating their own people badly.
But we still repeated the same mistakes on different occasions. It often happens that when someone gets all the power, he (usually he) deems himself better at statecraft than those backward ancestors.
Do Italians have inherently good government skills due to Ancient Rome?
Edit: oops overthrown two or three times depending on whether the Japanese take over of major cities counts. But anyway what I really mean is it had three distinct and extremely different governments. Transfer of skills seems questionable, to understate it.
The ability to criticise public officials and politicians without fear of being "disappeared" should surely be a globally shared aspiration, regardless of cultural differences.
As you say, this is no longer the 19th century. Societies evolve and leave behind unfair practices previously regarded as cultural norms.
Politician who caused this mess is done, he may disappear latter when things are quiet.
Thankfully, it is remarkably easy to do in USA despite of far-right and far-left extremism. We ought to watch out though - this is not a permanent liberty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuFayKQ3CTA
Coincidentally I'm reading Red Roulette by Desmond Shum. His wife is in a similar state than Peng Shuai.
It's not my cup of tea but I have long since stopped assuming they are oppressed or have an issue with how things are being done.
Look at Hong Kong just 30k police plus one law, you can transform a liberal state to a silent whisper world. It is free to criticise gov. And there is not much if any news on her.
Like most people in the midst of a media storm, the two ex-lovers will keep their heads down and go quiet till the storm blows over.
You're saying a women's report of rape === ex-lovers on the run eloping?
That's fucked and disgusting.
And yea the IOC... shame on them. They have now found a new term for their silence on this. They call it "Quiet Democracy". When in reality what it is is licking CCP's ass.
I don't understand.... why the world not get together and just destroy CCP and kill Xi jinping once and for all? It has already crossed all limits of forgiveness.
It must be out of fear of retaliation if the power structure is offended, but I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around it.