First of all, I want to say that it’s wonderful to see all of you here, and your critical support of the nation I proudly call home. But more and more recently, especially reading through Chinese internet too, there has been a sense of overconfidence and overglorification of China. It is honestly a little worrying at times for me, because as much as I love my homeland and is proud of what we are doing, I know full and well that we are still a long way to go. I see this sentiment of China being the glorious land far away as a bastion and utopia against Western Imperialism and while there’s a lot of truth behind that sentiment, and I definitely understand why one not living in China would choose to believe this (I live in the US now and I understand your pain, fellow US comrades). I just want to remind everyone to exercise dialectal materialism on this subject and try to look at China in a less idealised way. We cannot grow to be better without recognising our mistakes. Anyways that is my little message to you all. Have a nice day!
There is a tendency to deem revolution as impossible in the West, and rest all hope for the future on China. Regardless of whether China is blazing the trail towards Communism or not, this is an excuse for apathy and inaction. It is a form of de-politicization.
we should do our part and not expect China to do everything itself
Exactly.
Thanks for saying this, I totally agree though it’s a bit harder for me to have such a strong stance on the topic because I don’t research China nor do I live there so my knowledge is just from visiting there often the past few decades
Can I ask what you see that’s over-glorifying or over-idealising?
For me, I see people way overestimating the quality of life in China overall, underestimating how poor the rural regions are, and underestimate how good the West has it in many areas (work/career life for highly educated/skilled workers, cost/availability of many goods and services, etc.)
In many provinces of China there are a lot of farmers and small lands so that many farmers must come to cities to hunt for job. I mean…… China can’t be compared with the western, China is still a developing country. The Communist Party of China believes that the main contradiction in Chinese society is the contradiction between the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development. The revolution has not yet succeeded, and comrades still need to work hard - Sun Yat-sen
Nicely explained, I just realized everything I said was just describing that China is still a developing country lol… Wish I could’ve remembered that term
I think it depends on your audience. I live in the USA (😔) and a vast majority of people here do nothing but parrot outrageous lies about China.
Your average American views Chinese citizens as subhuman, so I basically just keep my mouth shut about any valid criticism of China.
Yes, it’s hard to give valid criticism when all you’re constantly bombarded with China bad propaganda.
why weren’t you more specific about the ways that china is imperfect? i agree, of course, but one can be a strong supporter of something without needing to glorify it.
One major existing problem is the labour rights of Mingong (migrant workers). I would like the explain but it has such a complicated history background as well as a changing development in recent years, it will probably take me a few hours to type a reasonably comprehensive review of it. (Let alone looking for the Eng translation for the tons of Chinese jargons involved.) The English wiki article on it is precise but way too short to gain a dialectical understanding of it.
The difficulties for foreigner to understand the downsides of Chinese development is that there are not many English articles written about them from a dialectical perspective. These issues are either unknown to the West or very often written by ill-intended liberal journalists who refuse to explain to the readers neither the historical causes of the problem nor the step-by-step reform that has been taking place.
As a Chinese myself I find it quite ironic that many foreigners in GZD have an even higher opinion of China than Chinese themselves. The average Chinese worker is likely to work more hours per week, receive a smaller wage and benefits, and have a standard of living lower than that of a similar worker in Denmark or Sweden. CPC has been very clear about improving the lives of common people but there still exists three major contradictions it has to struggle against: 1) the materially inevitable need to exploiting surplus value in order to achieve rapid capital accumulation; 2) the fact that China is situated in a capitalist world economy and it has to compete with other countries in a capitalist market; 3) the internal resistance from local vested interests, bureaucrats, the bourgeoisie, and sometimes the middle class, against properly implementing the reform directed by the central government. China is very far from a “totalitarian” monolith where everything Xi says goes. That’s why it always take time for improvement and the road is not always smooth.
Nonetheless most Chinese are hopeful about their country not because we’re already the best country in the world, but that they believe, justifiably, China will develop into a better country than any of the Western ones. In China, having a developmental, dialectical perspective makes you a leftist; believing in making static comparison with Western countries makes you a self-hating liberal. In general I just hope Westerners who over-romanticise China don’t just one day get “disillusioned” and turn their love into hate overnight like how many Western leftists did in the 60s with Soviet Union.
Nonetheless most Chinese are hopeful about their country not because we’re already the best country in the world, but that they believe, justifiably, China will develop into a better country than any of the Western ones.
I think this is really the main reason western leftists like myself look at China as a source of inspiration. Of course, as it currently stands the average person may be better off in certain western countries in terms of wages/work culture/etc. However, when looking decades into the future it seems like China is going to continue to improve while western countries decline.
While watching Up and Out of Poverty, I was constantly struck by how something like that could never occur in my country (USA). Even if there was political support behind poverty elimination (which there really isn’t), the government is simply not built to prioritize the interests of the poor over those of capital. Similarly, China was able to build tens of thousands of kilometers of high speed rail over the past decade while the USA failed to pass an infrastructure bill without severely gutting it.
It is obviously foolish to pin all hope on China, that’s not their responsibility nor should it be. However, as capitalism’s contradictions continue to sharpen, having China as an example that decline is not an inevitability is a much-needed source of hope. 中国加油！
As a person from the Global South, I think your arguments, while entirely correct, as not as potent as they are when talking to, say, an American or European: countries like Denmark or Sweden have a standard of living so much higher than the average Brazilian’s that the comparison just doesn’t really matter, getting to China’s level would already be a huge achievement. Personally, I don’t want my country to follow the same path to socialism China is on (after all, the material conditions here are entirely different, it would be foolish to try to apply the Chinese experience 1:1), but seeing how much progress you guys have made in such a short time stupefies me. I also really admire China’s enforcement of its national sovereignty. Our government here is completely unable to stand up to meddling by foreign powers (mostly, but not only, the U.S.). Dilma’s impeachment, while not entirely an American initiative, came through their material support, and subsequent governments brought us back under the U.S. tutelage. China is in no way perfect and it still has a long way to go in to fully realise socialism with Chinese characteristics, but I do think there’s a lot Western socialists have to learn from the Chinese experience. It’s why I’m studying the Chinese language and hope to move there soon, to learn more about the Chinese material conditions and what the successes and failures of the CCP.
Thank you for the explanations. Truly there are a lot of issues within China that has such a complex background that it’s hard to explain to a western audience how it exactly got to this point. You did a great job, thank you.
Valid point, OP. What worries me about overglorification of any specific country is that it verges into nationalism which isn’t very ML.
Depends on the nationalism, really. The IRA fighting for sovereignty is based, but Hong Kong pleading to get recolonized by Britain is cringe.
I think mild nationalism is acceptable. Anyway Mao took nationalism to set up new China.You can also find some extreme nationalits in Chinese internet but they can not represent the whole China. China has 1.4 billion people you can find different kinds of people. China even has a big group of reverse nationalists whice think it’s a shame to be Chinese, they call other Chinese 支那人, which can be regarded as ChingChong
I do not glorify China, but I’m sure it comes across that way when I am defending China and their successes against a lib. There’s just so much shit and propaganda to overcome. Of course China has its flaws, and that’s why people full all across China participate in the CPC.
Exactly. Good faith and nuanced conversation can only be had between comrades and sane people.
I have no problem acting like China is utopia (and similar topics) against deranged libs and haters, because their game is pretending like China is total hell. There is no good faith convo to be had with them, give in an inch and you will “lose”. Xi can save 99% of humanity and the moment you admit yes 1% was left out, you just gave control of the narrative to these bad faith actors who will continue to focus on the 1% as they blind everyone from the 99%, fk that.
Plus when the overall atmosphere is so skewed, you are kind of forced to choose between going extreme or be useless and not getting through to bystanders.
I have a sly approach. I follow the conversation and interject leftist related stuff (but they don’t know it) and before long I get them agreeing. Sometimes it backfires with reactionaries.
This. There’s so much anti-China rhetoric that you wouldn’t be able to counter that without appearing a bit like glorifying it (and I guess it’s easy to get carried away as well).
We honestly need more criticism of China. China does a lot of things right, but simply handwaving the unsavory things about the Chinese government doesn’t make us better. In fact, in a few cases it makes us hypocrites (e.g. selling arms to Israel and Saudi Arabia).
And before anyone comes for me, criticism isn’t chauvanism. We can understand why China does something from their point of view and still acknowledge the harm it does.
If you aren’t Chinese, we don’t need your criticism actually.
There are things that China does that affect the entire working class worldwide. If you are a conscious member of the working class who stands for its interests, that is if you are a communist, you have every right to criticize China.
Ok. Just preface your criticism with your nationality so I don’t waste too much time reading.
Liberal IDPol on Lemmygrad. Neat!
You aren’t entitled to my attention. If you want to criticize an AES from the imperial core to me, a westerner attempting to push back against imperialism here in the United States, sorry, I don’t have time for your criticism. I’ll save my time for reading people who have the perspective needed. Westerner chauvistic moralizing about “critical support” is pointless and a waste of time. Not everything is a debate and I don’t need to feel bad about ignoring your uninformed opinion when it suits me. Got better things to do.
why are you on lemmy then?
To get away from westerners talking shit about China.
As a Westerner, I think a lot of this sentiment comes from how far advanced China is in comparison to our own societies. I am forced to essentially step over homeless people on my way to class while China has eliminated absolute poverty. I am ostracized for studying principles of Marxist economics while China has built the most successful economy of the century based upon them. When pressed, I always acknowledge that China has a long way to go. I don’t think the work culture is sustainable, I don’t always agree with their foreign policy, and social dynamics can be reactionary. However, I would never lead with those criticisms because I’m not Chinese and I live in the most corrupt, capitalist country on earth. It’s much more important for my own community to be exposed to the juxtaposition between active Capitalism and Socialism, and for me that involves sharing China’s successes without constantly qualifying that my support is critical.
As another Chinese expat thank you so much for this message! This has always been something that bothered me about Western leftist discussion boards.
Aye, over the top glorification has been a problem for a while domestically with phrases such as 厉害了我的国 quite common on social media. There is still a long way to go and one can’t afford to be overconfident with powerful enemies still trying to destroy them.
What does that phrase mean? Googling it suggests a movie of some sort
It roughly translations to “so amazing, my nation” which (prior to the 2018 documentary naming) had been a common phrase online used to celebrate the many achievements of the nation (e.g. J-20, 055 destroyer and aircraft carriers being built).
That in itself isn’t a bad thing, but many ended up posting overly confident content as if they were at the stage where they wouldn’t have to worry about anything coming from the west or the US.
Trump being elected and the further rabid wave of Sinophobia that swept through ever since has to a degree alerted and woke many up from this overconfidence.
Thank you for the explanation. In the same vein, do you think it could be a sign of nationalist tendencies?
It could be likely in some of the more extreme cases when hearing phrases such as “only a nation/peoples such as ours could accomplish this feat”.
Fortunately in terms of ethnic nationalism, the PRC is not a ‘Han nationalist ethnostate’ that liberals would bullshit about to paint them in an extremely negatively light. The PRC’s constitution states that “to maintain unity amongst the people, nationalism, especially Han nationalism and local nationalism must be opposed”.
tl;dr: don’t become the soulsborne community that suck off miyazaki so much that he just keeps making the same game but worse each time.
Shut up. He doesn’t and its only the last bastion of games where the boss design and level design evolves after every release and each games alway have different approach to level design. Miyazaki is one of the best game director to ever exist despite leaving in shitty country like japan.
boss design is deteoriating with each release. Instead of the old fair and rhythmic bosses, elden ring bosses are basically "wait for this boss to do its anime bullshit combo now with dark souls 2 180 degree pivots mid slashes added, dodge at the right time, and get a couple hits in.
Every boss has its own list of bullshit delay timings that you need to learn that don’t make you a better player, it just makes you better at that specific boss. But this point is neither here or there, it could be good or bad depending on your perspective on game design.
I won’t even get into how their npc quests are still garbage, “i need your help, i’ll give you zero clues about what you actually need to do to help me, now fuck off as I teleport to literally any location in this BOTW sized map bye removed, oh and I’ll probably die at the end no matter what you do, now this is deep writing”.
Speaking of, soulsborne story are all basically “let me copy paste from this book into the item description, this is truly the peak of storytelling.” It was cute in Demons and Dark Souls 1, but at this point I’m completely over it since it’s just not knowing how to tell a story.
You’re in my post and you don’t know it. Soulsborne need to go back to basics and remember what made them good and unique, tight levels, dangerous trash mobs, unique bosses that follow the same rules that you do, great telegraphs, no input reading which elden ring does and abuses. These games were never about being hArD, it was always about being a fair trade and rewarding good play. Not “let the boss spam attacks for 20 seconds then get a hit in, repeat.”
Monster Hunter gameplay shits on soulsborne gameplay. Weapon variety, movesets, all with the same fair trade style gameplay that the original Demons aped. In Monster Hunter, good positioning also matter, you can stand in a specific spot and lol as the monster whiffs you, in souls it used to be like that, now after DKS2 all bosses get some drone laser guidance mid swing so they can defy the laws of physics to either 360 no scope you on the last 5 or 6 frames of their fully committed swing.
Artorias is rolling in his grave, he’s never seen bullshit like melania or *every boss having some kind of “me spam wind around me lololololl fuck you” type mechanic to do nothing other than “haArD”."
I actually dislike the controls and game of monster hunter world. Playing feels off and the controls aren’t tight. I dislike that games approach to gameplay loop with chasing a monster for 20 plus minute with chunky health bar. I prefer more of a duel type fights that doesn’t last long. Demon’s souls and dark souls boss design were lacking and are too basic. Many off them are way too passive and too much health with boring move set. Ds1 dlc actually fixed this issue with the boss design. I like ds1 interconnected world but the levels themselves are just tight corridors with weak enemies. I personally enjoy the dynamic bosses from ds2 dlc and ds3 bosses. Gael and soul of cider from ds3 are peak boss design in gaming where the insane amount of movesets and variations of attack are just too enjoyable for me. But that’s just me. Everyone just different taste. I love talking about game design since I want to form indie studio after finishing university.
Ds1 dlc actually fixed this issue with the boss design.
This I agree, Artorias is still the greatest game boss ever. Some weapons in monster hunter are definitely loose feeling like you said, but go try lance, charge blade, great sword, gunlance, those all have insane tightness that puts Souls gameplay to shame. Souls gameplay also feel loose af until you get it.
I think relying on anime combo bullshit like in elden rings is taking a step lack. It should always be a trade of 1:1 even if the boss is being fast af, Artorias achieved this, even before his triple flips, you could still get a hit in with good timing.
The issue with Elden Ring bosses to me is that they don’t feel like duels. They feel like "look at me danceee, okay now you have one chance to at… PSYCH LOOK AT ME DANCE. You can literally feel how obnoxious their input reading BS is too where the mobs do literally nothing for up to 30 seconds and then stab you at the precise moment you press a key, like any shield spear soldier.
Half these bosses feel like they’re straight up cheating. Carian Knight before renalla is another example of the most obnoxious input reading possible. Dude has no recovery frames from being staggered either, you stagger em, and he can instantly parry within 10 frames of being staggered.
tl;dr: a lot of bosses don’t feel like duels, and souls games always feel like a downgrade in gameplay from the side games like bloodborne and sekiro.
The only thing is that he focused too much in imitating Monster Hunter for a Dungeon Crawler and should have also copied the organic combat of Ocarina/Majora’s and not only the platform design of Dark/Demon. But yeah on the rest.
Wtf? If anything it’s the same game with a lot less of FromSoft bullshit
ER 100% exacerbated many souls bullshit.
ie.
“everything sucks gais” so much that we forgot to make a meaningful open world, instead here’s just the same post apocalypse area reskinned 100 times. Every town, mansion, castle, settlement are all just a delivery vehicle for more zombies.
“NPCs will give you literally no information, aren’t we quirky gais?” so much that they still give you no clear instructions, drop a bullshit name you have no clue about, and telefuckoff to their next quest location across the map and hours of gameplay away and you’ll probably never find them again unless you read a guide.
In terms of tone, storytelling, world design, ER highlights why the way From does these things is god awful.
I won’t even get into the de-evolution of boss design
Since when has the storytelling in FromSoft been good? I mean, the lore is usual really good and all, but I have never seen the resources well done in this issues. I mean, until Sekiro, FromSoft hasn’t made a really acceptable controller mapping, and yeah, bosses seem a little bullshit, but they are more Sekiro than DS if anything, while also have a lot more of ground to grind up to beat them up.
Gotta say, I find my standard to be Zelda64 in therms of environment and combat control to be a good game, even if today those N64 games are stiffy and without a second stick to control the camera beyond Z-target system, but it works way better than what FromSoft has been doing for a Dungeon Crawler. Have you played those Zeldas? Can you imagine playing them successfully with a control simmilar to DS-like series or a Classic Monster Hunter?
Yep, which is my point that people cope themselves into thinking Fromsoft can do no wrong when they actually do a lot of wrongs and they’re right out in the open, people just refuse to acknowledge them.
I mean, I recognize the first, but maybe because I am an spoiled Zelda enjoyer/conneseur snob, and oh boy it’s hard to get back to 3D Third Person semi-platformer Dungeon Crawlers once you have know what intuitive gameplay is. And trust me that FromSoft has take a lot from Ocarina of Time at 50/50 as from Monster Hunter… With Berserk a e s t h e t i c 。
China does indeed do things for which it deserves criticism, for instance not going far enough with its climate goals, failing to completely bust the trafficking of endangered animals and plants, allowing 996 schemes to exists, and continuing to cooperate with rogue governments like the USA, Brazil, or Israel. It is by no means a perfect country, and though its current economic situation explains some of these unsavory policies, other problems still may be caused by neglect or blatant corruption. We do need to criticise China.
However, if you live or work in China, then it is your duty to do so, much more than it is ours. It is both a lot easier and more meaningful to call the kettle black if you don’t live in the pot.
Is 996 still a thing in China? It’s my understanding that it was never legal and that businesses that do this get prosecuted. But I’m not Chinese so idk
Banning 996 completely or not is a problem. According to the law, the salary of working twelve hours a day is twice that of working eight hours a day, last year in a region in Beijing local government completely banned 996, then its government received a lot of complaints. Many people 996 everyday to support their high consumptions but now they couldnt. But if voluntaral 996 is allowed, you know that China’s competition is fierce, so in fact there must be some people forced to 996 or they will be fired. When thinking of a problem we need to see the both sides.
I didn’t know that 12 hour days were allowed. Is that different from overtime?
Yep 12hours is overtime
Sheesh… Chinese workers better stand up for themselves before they become Japan 2
996 schemes do still exist in China, where they are employed by at least 40 companies. Numerous scientists have denounced it as modern slavery and the People’s Court has declared it illegal in 2021, but as far as I know the government only has actually cracked down on a few cases, most notably fines against the Alibaba group in general and Jack Ma specifically.
Banning 996 completely or not is a problem. According to the law, the salary of working twelve hours a day is twice that of working eight hours a day, last year in a region in Beijing local government completely banned 996, then its government received a lot of complaints. Many people 996 everyday to support their high consumptions but now they couldnt. But if voluntaral 996 is allowed, you know that China’s competition is fierce, so in fact there must be some people forced to 996 or they will be fired. When thinking of a problem we need to see the both sides.
Checking out Wikipedia’s Chinese sources, I see that they’re pretty unanimous in condemning the practice. Are there any Chinese comrades here that can speak about this? I have 0 trust in western media’s reports on this topic.
Banning 996 completely or not is a problem. According to the law, the salary of working twelve hours a day is twice that of working eight hours a day, last year in a region in Beijing local government completely banned 996, then its government received a lot of complaints. Many people 996 everyday to support their high consumptions but now they couldnt. But if voluntaral 996 is allowed, you know that China’s competition is fierce, so in fact there must be some people forced to 996 or they will be fired. When thinking of a problem we need to see the both sides.
Banning 996 completely or not is a problem. According to the law, the salary of working twelve hours a day is twice that of working eight hours a day, last year in a region in Beijing local government completely banned 996, then its government received a lot of complaints. Many people 996 everyday to support their high consumptions but now they couldnt. But if voluntaral 996 is allowed, you know that China’s competition is fierce, so in fact there must be some people forced to 996 or they will be fired. When thinking of a problem we need to see the both sides.
Excuse me? Rogue governments?
When you have 20% of humanity to provide for you can’t just ignore huge masses of land, some of the largest food producers(USA and Brasil), for any reason whatsoever. Especially Brazil, China buys millions and millions of tons of food from us every year, do you propose both them and us to starve and get fucked just because our current president is shit? Do you support unilateral sanctions? Because that’s what they do.
We’re seeing it with Russia - you can’t just ignore a continent-size country. Regardless of regardless.
I’m not talking sanctions, I’m talking about simply not doing horrid shit like trading arms with the IDF or supporting Bolsonaro’s quest to eliminate the rainforest
You are right.Although China is developing fast China still has problems
I agree… Westerners can’t put all our eggs in the China basket. We are not Chinese, we don’t control China. But we are westerners who do have the potential to influence our own countries. So we should support China but make it so that they are not the only hope. We should also have hope in our own revolutions so China isn’t alone taking on the capitalist hegemonic world.
We should also have hope in our own revolutions
I think we can do one better than that.
It’s imperative that we build parties, movements, and organizations that provide the people of the world not only with hope but also with inspiration. It has always been the imperative.
“Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”
— Gramsci
This is key. We can’t passively expect capitalism to collapse and socialist governments to follow; if anything, fascism will probably take place if we don’t seize the chance to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat when the capitalist state is at its most de-legitimized. If we don’t do massive amounts of agitprop and organize right now, it’s not gonna get any better soon.
This. We should critically support China agaisnt Western Imperialism and aknowledge their good deeds, but we shouldn’t glorify it, or make it the center of our movement. We should focus on developing Socialism around the world and not just hope that China will do it for us.
