Recently started looking into actual decent hard-left content creators, discovered BadEmpanada. I could give more detail, but I’m more interested on any critiques from those who know him or his content better.
To western eyes, the old is swept away before the new and more powerful, this has always been the way, so why would it be different with the rise of China?
It is eminently believable that China would sweep away its ethnic minorities, that of course they want to do genocide, that sounds exactly like we did to the Native Americans.
What BE cannot conceive of is a govt that actually tries, with great earnestness, and mostly with success, to achieve a great national project in a way that helps the average person as much as possible.
So there are no statistics here about the elimination of poverty, about the movement from a largely illiterate population, particularly among the traditional culture of the Uyghurs, about the massive reduction in infant mortality that has come along with this,
and the prosperity enjoyed by millions more people as the pop has grown. These are in fact the effects of China’s policies in XJ.
No, we are supposed to always have the utmost respect for ‘traditional’ Uyghur culture instead; never is it mentioned that life was quite a bit worse in XJ just a few decades ago, that women had a very low rate of literacy and were trapped in childrearing & household labor roles,
having few other options, that all had fewer opportunities when the economy of XJ was just a small fraction of its current size. Is that the traditional Uyghur culture that must be respected at all costs? Yes, massive economic development combined with
massive investment in social spending at all levels, has changed traditional life, as it has in every single country that has industrialized
BE is basically like, “maybe the separatists have a point, if your govt was oppressing you, you’d hate that govt too”. But he starts from the wrong place, his causality is:
Govt -- does oppression, because all govts do -- causes people to dislike govt -- does more repression -- gets terrorism -- does more repression
We so hate govt, for the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie has done some evil, depraved things, that we cannot see what
humane economic development looks like. While it is unquestionable that China is pursuing nation-building and seeks to protect its territorial integrity and its sovereignty from the many kinds of attacks from the US and its allies, and indeed that in such an environment,
authority must be exercised. Every nation uses authority. The question is, to what end? BE does not evaluate the results of China’s policies in XJ, instead choosing to focus on his expertise, which is clearly analyzing video.
I respect the skill, but it does not provide evidence of any sort of cultural genocide to say that China has cracked down in XJ, or even to say that China seeks to control the PR narrative around this issue, or to say that China doesn’t provide unfettered access to its camps.
All this says, in a long, roundabout way, is “China is sus”. That rather conveniently overlooks the true magnitude of the propaganda war here, which is mostly an all-out assault by the US, but you’d never know it from BE’s presentation which is overwhelmingly focused
on ‘Chinese propaganda’. Overlooking and ignoring US propaganda isn’t being ‘principled’, it’s being naive
And saying China is being ‘repressive’ and ignoring the massive human-centered development of the region means you care only about peoples’ thinking, not the actual quality of their lives
P.S. I do see that BE has a pinned tweet that looks like this. So that’s good and I agree, but if that’s your view, why spend like 66 out of 75 min criticizing China while furthering US aims for separatism in the region?
Why aid the US by weakening resistance to the charge of genocide among at least some segment of the left?
Hey, if you’ve gotten this far, you might want to check out some of my other threads on XJ
I am not copying the tweets in question go look in the archive bye
