US President Joe Biden said Wednesday he still believes Chinese President Xi Jinping is a dictator, even as the two leaders made progress in their relationship during a meeting outside San Francisco.
“Well, look, he’s a dictator in the sense that he is a guy who runs a country that is a communist country that’s based on a form of government totally different than ours,” Biden told CNN’s MJ Lee. “Anyway, we made progress.”
When asked about Biden’s latest comment at a Chinese Foreign Ministry briefing on Thursday, a spokesperson called it “extremely erroneous” and an “irresponsible political maneuver, which China firmly opposes.”
If I go in a public square and liken Xi to Winnie the Pooh for several hours, will I be returning home untouched by the government and continue to live without government reprisal?
I think we could learn a lot from their more restrained capitalism system. But that doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the authoritarian dictatorship.
There’s an old Soviet Russia joke that applies here. They had freedom of speech too – in the US you can rant about Reagan all day and the government won’t do any reprisal, and in the USSR you can also rant about Reagan without any reprisal!
Recently in the UK, we had a lot of “not my king” protests where people were arrested for blank signs after people had signs mentioning Prince Andrew’s misdeeds.
That’s just the British
I get where you’re coming from but that’s not an argument about the defining characteristics of dictatorships, that’s an argument about the existence or lack thereof of free speech.
In my opinion a better argument would be that China has 1 leader at the top of the ladder with near unquestionable power over government precedings who will remain in that position until he either dies or chooses to step down. That already would make him something analogous to a monarch, but add the regular use of military strength in forcing compliance from the masses and now we have a dictator.
Try saying From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! In Berlin. Or the many US states were boycotting Israel is illegal.
You can say that in any us state?
“As of 2021, 35 states have passed bills and executive orders designed to discourage boycotts of Israel.[4] Many of them have been passed with broad bipartisan support.[5] Most anti-BDS laws have taken one of two forms: contract-focused laws requiring government contractors to promise that they are not boycotting Israel; and investment-focused laws, mandating public investment funds to avoid entities boycotting Israel.”
Not as bad as I remembered. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-BDS_laws
Seems a bit disingenuous to use a phrase co-opted by antisemites as your example here. I don’t believe most people say it with that intent, but that doesn’t change that Hamas and company use it to refer to ethnic cleansing.
Wikipedia has a pretty good page that discusses the history of it. My perception is that it was used by proponents for a one state solution, but the opposition to it very purposely boosted the violent groups who used it. It’s like if I talk about the blood and soil in Israel or Palestine or work in the number 88. There are clear antisemitic connotations to those. It’s fairly idiotic to use any phrases like that if your goal is to keep antisemitism completely separate from criticism of Israel.
Anyway, assuming you’re in the US, you did just say it without reprisal too. This is one of those cases where providing an example immediately disproves it, because clearly, you’re allowed to say it.
That isn’t to say that some people haven’t tried to criminalize or have successfully criminalized similar sentiments. But the difference is that if I post about Xi being Winnie the Pooh on Chinese social media, I’m going to see reprisal from the government no matter where in the country I post it from. There are shades of authoritarian disallowance of criticism, and the US certainly has some of that. China is just considerably more.
Edit: I’m thinking of the original charter. The most recent version actually makes it clear that it isn’t directed towards all Jewish people.
Hamas specifically notes in their charter that they do not call for genocide against Jewish people. They specifically note that they do not have a problem with Judaism, and that their fight is only with Zionism, AND they specifically note that “From the river to the sea” is a call for a one state solution, not genocide.
That’s the most recent revision. The original document didn’t make those distinctions, and it’s what people think of.
So what you mean to say is that Hamas doesn’t use it to call for genocide of Jewish peoples, and that you were spreading misinformation in your previous comment.
I should edit it to be past tense, fair does.
It remains true however that they said it in their original charter. My point is just that people are (erroneously) thinking of that previous charter when it comes to this. I’m no longer passing any value judgment. The association is valid, but it’s based on an old revision and new revision doesn’t have that association.
And in the 80s it was illegal to be openly homosexual in most of the US. We don’t judge people based on decades old statements, we interact with them in the real world, now. You are passing judgment, by implying modern Hamas use of an explicitly liberatory phrase (that predates Hamas by at least 20 years) means that they are in support of genocide. Something which “from the river to the sea” has never once in its history represented. It has always been a cry for one party solution, and it will always be so.
I don’t disagree with your first point. The second I still have to disagree – it’s a fraught term. If a substantial group of people find the word to be antisemitic, even if their reasoning is flawed it’s best to just not use it. In most circumstances it isn’t being used in a hateful way, but the connotation still exists.
Look at it this way. You and I may understand the historical context, but the average person doesn’t. They’re going to see it called antisemitic, and believe it too since it is in the original charter. If we’re protesting and demonstrating to the average person, why use the phrase? We need to separate criticism of Israel from antisemitism, and using a term considered antisemitic by many is completely counterproductive to that.
The last point doesn’t count, we’re talking about Free Speech.
For the first one, it’s understandable why the Krauts have to be on the side of Israel hardcore due to their, uh, “history” with the Jews. Sucks but hey, that’s life.