I for one feel that these leftist academics, even as they try, sadly fail at drawing the line against pro-CCP leftist warmongering and genocide propaganda. By stopping short of condemning it, they leave it hanging, including all those Codepinkers, simply left unexplained — almost as if they and the troll armies were a natural, legitimate weather pattern. Thus the writers fail to truly disentangle the issues and make their position clear.
Many things could be said about this, but for one thing, they fail to make the key distinction between China the country and the (unfortunately) ruling Chinese Communist Party. But it is precisely the blurring of this distinction in the public sphere, that enables the Codepinkers and other paid propagandists to paint those condemning CCP atrocities as anti-Chinese, and beat the drum about racism.
This point will become ever more important, as the CCP propagandists are currently mounting new campaigns to try to force anyone Chinese outside China to choose their side and speak their lie — or, lose contact with their families, etc back in China — it’s the classic Chinese Communist weapon against dissidents, successfully used on a huge scale in the massive genocide to frighten the Uyghur diaspora into silence, — and now to be wielded worldwide to force obedience from anyone with relatives there.
This will force Chinese people abroad, whether in CCP-policed South Africa or in would-be CCP-policed New York, before an unwanted choice: join the fifth columns of the CCP (go out deny the CCP genocide, take part in CCP warmongering on Taiwan, etc. etc.), — or, maintain my integrity, at the price of losing contact with my family which They control.
It has been one of the main failings of China academics, news media people, and others, not to scream out this distinction at every turn, to prevent people falling for it and end up promoting racist nonsense about how Chinese people who fled China are responsible for the heinous acts of the CCP. Like when we hear about “China doing this and China doing that.” No! It is the CCP, an organization of gangsters, kidnappers, and genocidaires, who are doing those things, force-recruiting Chinese people to sink into such acts, — but Chinese people have a right to refuse loyalty with such a “black-hand-gang.”
There is a China other than the CCP, and there is hope — despite the ongoing chorus in the West, of academics and newsmen asking for “understanding” for “China” (played up by the Codepink slogans which basically say this and nothing else, always seeking to conflate the Chinese with the CCP, on instructions from the CCP propaganda conductors).
We should remember that many Chinese immigrants actually left their country in disgust at the brutal arrogance and authoritarianism of the CCP. The recent Pew poll showing that most Chinese-Americans do not like the CCP (labelled “China” in the poll because even those Pew pollsters know not what they do), is a welcome reminder that people can think for themselves despite the confusion whipped up on this issue, in the US public sphere.
Let’s go all out to clarify at least this point: China is not the CCP/CPC — it’s the Chinese Communist Party that is genociding its people, not some abstract ‘China’ that you then conflate with your neighbor in Chinatown. No: The CCP is the enemy, not the country “China.” Don’t conflate the two, and always remember that many of the Chinese you meet in America or elsewhere actually fled to be free, and they don’t need you to join the Communists’ race-baiting which is now using all those dirty tricks to try to force them back into the arms of the fascist regime at home.
Never forget: Millions in China too, would agree — if they were allowed to speak.
Magnus Fiskesjö <nf42@cornell.edu>