this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Americans are joining the Chinese social media app en masse to protest an imminent TikTok ban.

  • American users have flocked to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu in defiance of security warnings.
  • Chinese and American users have engaged in surprisingly friendly conversations about each other’s lives.
  • The influx of American users could burden Xiaohongshu’s censorship mechanism, experts say.
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[–] surph_ninja 39 points 1 day ago (4 children)

You don’t lift 800+ million people out of poverty by concentrating all of the profits among a small few. And China has increasingly been prosecuting their wealthy.

Which is what they really don’t want us learning to do.

[–] drmoose 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

you don’t lift 800+ million people out of poverty by concentrating all of the profits among a small few.

This is false attribution.
There's no way to verify how other political system would have worked for China. Maybe it would have worked even better? Taiwan for one is richer, stronger and happier than China per capita so does that mean dictatoriship -> democracy is a better system? Do you see the flaw in this attribution logic now? So, unless you have a time machine...

[–] surph_ninja 1 points 9 hours ago

Actually it’s very easy to know. By design, capitalism concentrates most of the reward among a small number of privileged few.

And people with good sense judge a country by how well it’s working people are doing- not by how much more wealth a few people have been able to hoard.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Capitalists use the same exact argument for why outsourcing labor to the poorest countries is actually a good thing. For real, I’ve argued so many right wingers saying “searching for the cheapest labor actually helps the worlds economy because you’re lifting those poor people of _____ out of poverty! It doesn’t matter that it’s only pennies/day, because to them, that’s a lot of money!”

Pretty goddamn gross behavior.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Outsourcing is extracting wealth from another nation. How can you possibly compare that to lifting ones own citizens out of poverty?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Exchange isn't extraction. If you're buying raw materials from Africa, yes. If you're buying finished goods from China, no.

This is precisely why the US had a sudden about face about China. They were hoping their entryism with capitalist exchange would result in the fall of the communist party, who number one priority is preventing the plundering of resources through unequal exchange.

[–] Maggoty 5 points 1 day ago

You can't untangle the outsourcing of manufacturing to China from that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I wasn’t making a 1:1 comparison. I was saying that “but look how many people have been lifted out of poverty!” argument is a capitalist argument, because it completely ignores the reality of the situation. Have people been lifted out of poverty by outsourcing? Of course. But that doesn’t negate the core problem.

As the other person mentioned, outsourcing manufacturing TO china is largely responsible for the manufacturing boon there. And then rich Chinese capitalists (though they use the cover of not being called capitalists) became rich middlemen between “western” businesses and the cheap Chinese labor. So outsourcing has absolutely contributed to it. You and the American capitalists are looking at the same thing, one is crediting American executive innovation, the other is crediting the CCP.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You do it by exploiting the billions outside your borders from countries even more poor like mine where they sell their garbage low quality products that cant be repaired or recycled, from shitty earphones to bikes that start breaking down in a year, taking advantage of poor people who cant afford to buy anything of better quality. China isnt better than us when it comes to exploitation and inequality.

[–] surph_ninja 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

Hold up. You think the Chinese are the ones deciding to manufacture low quality products, and not the capitalists who are ordering them that way?

They are spreading their wealth to those in need. Not exploiting. They value mutually beneficial relationships.

https://x.com/Hammonda1/status/1787061224062013553?mx=2

[–] dirthawker0 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Chinese manufacturers build according to budget. They are perfectly capable of making high quality products, and do. The problem is a lot of companies (looking at you, Walmart) demand their Chinese manufacturers build products for a pittance -- the manufacturers won't say no, but they'll find a profit for themselves by using lower cost materials. (ETA: also less quality control and cheaper labor)

Ask yourself -- if you were a woodworker and someone offered you $250 to build a small stand out of wenge, you'll probably do a good job of it. If someone offered you $30 to build the same stand, and you really needed that $30, you'd make it with pine and just paint or stain it to look like wenge. Chinese manufacturers are no different.

[–] surph_ninja 2 points 9 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Bro, there's ALOT of Chinese capitalists.

Humans are humans.

[–] dukethorion 0 points 20 hours ago

They all work for the government.

[–] surph_ninja 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

What do you think “capitalist” means?

I don’t think you know, because by definition there cannot be “alot.” That’s the whole point of capitalism- to concentrate the means of production into the hands of a very few.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sure buddy, keep that head up your ass.

[–] surph_ninja 0 points 1 day ago

LoL. You really are just parroting propaganda, without any clue what the words you’re saying actually mean.

[–] PlantDadManGuy 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think the Chinese businessmen are exploiting slave laborers to produce cheap goods and export them to most of the world. Would you call that a mutually beneficial relationship?

[–] surph_ninja 2 points 1 day ago

I wouldn’t. Source?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Hold up. You think the Chinese are the ones deciding to manufacture low quality products, and not the capitalists who are ordering them that way?

Chinese brands owned by Chinese capitalists operating with consent from the chinese state.

spreading their wealth to those in need

Using planned obsolescence and taking advantage of poor consumer and environmental protection laws to sell garbage to people trapped in a cycle of poverty isn't exploitation? Also China 'invested' billions here too and we didnt get any hospitals. We got china flooding our markets with its shitty goods and chinese 'businessmen' running scam centers.

They value mutually beneficial relationships

they do have a mutually beneficial relationship with our dictators.

[–] surph_ninja 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I love that capitalists attacking communists always end up accidentally attacking capitalism. Classic.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

China is a capitalist country with aspects of socialism. it's not really communist anymore.

No one here is shitting on communists, were shitting on you for a thinking the Chinese are any different than us.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

China is a capitalist shithole but for some reason its biggest defenders are always self proclaimed western communists.

edit: we also have a few militant communists groups that like to blow up chinese nationals working for their govt every now and then.

[–] surph_ninja 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What exactly do you think “capitalist” means? Because it sounds like you think any participation in markets is capitalism.

[–] captainlezbian 4 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

I think dengist policy introduced a capital holding class to China and that the workers don't have democratic control of the workplace.

[–] surph_ninja 2 points 20 hours ago

Fair nuance there, but they seem to be taking reform seriously. But we’ll see if that keeps up.

[–] surph_ninja -2 points 1 day ago

What do you think “capitalist” means? It sounds like you think it’s just market participation.