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cio of chen weihua fanclub 👺 she/they tme

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Joined 4 months ago
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Cake day: October 31st, 2024

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  • Don’t know if we’ll be seeing chinese scientists in US under house arrest or worse again (hopefully not) but, for those unfamiliar: 钱学森 Qian Xuesen co-founded NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (1940s), later got the attention of McCarthy-ites and his family was subject to basically house arrest and surveillance for 5 years (deferred deportation), went back to China and led a bunch of programs and never looked back, became known as the “Father of Chinese Rocketry”.

    the US attracted brain drain candidates for decades now, but would soon rather let anticommunism and racism get the better of them again and repeat the same “mistakes” and shoot themselves in the foot… honestly better for the Chinese people who can and did return as sinophobia ramps up (and probably will continue apace again in Trump’s 2nd term, not that the western media didn’t try to elevate sinophobia during Biden’s term between Pelosi’s flight to Taiwan, weather balloon, accusing zoo of fielding a man in a suit as a sunbear, etc). Space Race then, chips/AI now (article mentions Mr Sun returned during Trump’s first term, motivated by the racist ‘China Initiative’)


  • fuller nuance (love to see libs beat the shit out of that word) perspective from someone who is black and of black culture who i think has better angles on all points than I could - tumblr post. excerpts:

    The Super Bowl will always be a bread and circus event that lines the pockets of white shareholders. The fact that they allowed Black people to perform is simply to give the appearance of empowerment and progress, thus assuaging our appetite for real revolution by letting spectators woop and cheer and have the feeling that something happened.

    context: US flag and americana imagery:

    At the end of the above, all African Americans should be wary of narratives that corral them securely within the frame of the United States. This is an intentional set of blinders that keeps you seeing yourself as belonging to this outsized plantation. We made connection to this land, but we were brought here in chains.


  • in essence I agree it’s resistance liberal politics

    so, with the whole drake thing, it’s larger and not specific to drake himself but what he “symbolizes” which is why the line "you’re not a colleague you’re a colonizer“ comes into play regarding black culture/outsiders who would discard the people of the culture he used and wrung out like a wet rag once he’s ready to move onto the next thing/larger more mainstream stage

    edit: I guess my thesis here is, people are lauding kendrick for championing black culture, for defending rap and black culture from select so-called colonizers but I question what that means when kendrick lamar is put on the superbowl stage

    and idk if I “get” to say anything on the matter since I’m not black, and also only have surface familiarity with lamar’s work (of which I thought replacing the white with black in the US flags in squabble up music video was 💯). Original intentions when running drake-as-“colonizer”-phenomenon through the gamut of the rap scene is one thing, but it feels past expiry and possibly into hypocrite territory when kendrick himself is platformed up to the superbowl stage: the Peak Echelon of music celebrity in the US of A. Yes, twist the knife on the drakes (who just happens to be canadian and biracial) out there, but no hate for beyonce (or colin powell or kamala harris. obama even) you know what I mean?

    like, that’s what the whole US-flag imagery during the half-time show reads to me, it just folds back into american chauvinism, a reminder to the audience that black american culture is an american culture first and foremost, “america was built on the backs of black people” but that means black people deserve to be the bannermen and flagbearers, a righteous and honorable position in the empire citizenry (my understanding of liberals’ position is, get rid of racism and cops killing black people and problem solved, more black people in power means problem solved, the whole idpol representation thing, a very idealistic conception of “how to dismantle the empire” etc), black exceptionalism as aspirational when it’s done by the right type of black person in the right way, etc

    / I think the whole superbowl thing makes it feel more assimilationist and unchallenging rather than liberatory or empowering. im not sure if kendrick was fully ironic or what when incorporating “the revolution will not be televised” while he’s being played on America’s most watched televised event.

    maybe im too harsh. maybe im importing too much frustration from assimilationist tendencies from my own background (chinese americans/canadians) into this situation (wherein a certain YA novel author is my own “drake”). idk






  • 2 things: 1. coming “to the defense” would be crossing a line on that country’s own sovereignty, or its own development/buildup of sovereignty. (China’s not interested in the soviet model, and I think this has merit because we saw how areas propped up by soviets fell as the ussr waned and then collapsed.) building infrastructure doesnt mean unilateral alliance, it’s a business transaction, albeit one that meaningfully materially strengthens the beneficiary country’s ability towards economic development and sovereignty.

    2/ someone come correct me if I’ve got my understanding of how bonds work/macroeconomics/monetary policy/forex backwards but China owns a lot of US debt, and is actively shedding it. Used to be #1 foreign holder of US treasuries, now it’s #2 (#1 currently Japan). In the past China bought US bonds using its trade surplus in dollars, which would basically recycle $ to continue to develop its own manufacturing and towards growing its own middle class+its own domestic market. Now that China’s developed a pretty robust domestic market (eg doesnt need to rely on US to consume those produced goods and fuel economy), China doesn’t need to put dollars back into that machine, but it still has a trade surplus in dollars. So financing other projects like those on BRI or among BRICS with those dollars is a solution to that problem (holding onto that surplus isn’t economically sound…), and bonus points for building material foundations for dedollarization.

    someone else’s analysis that’s similar to my second point, and probably has a better understanding of that economics stuff: How China recycles its huge trade surplus with EU, US into BRICS infrastructure projects, risk-free



  • but she’s “already aware they are terrible people (except Sanders and AOC) but at least they are trying.”

    oof. Those two might be left of dems but their track record speaks for itself… :/

    I haven’t read the Ghodsee book, but wouldn’t be too surprised if it was eurocom.

    Hang in there. I don’t really know what to classify my own partner politically but I at least know theyre somewhere on the left and think liberals suck. And they don’t take the other side when I push back against our more liberal friends when they speak ill of China. Deconstructing atrocity propaganda is an arduous uphill battle, even more so when it’s some else, but you’re right, framing it in condescending or ad hominem/they’re just liars (even if true) rhetoric isn’t very effective.

    It’s very frustrating when liberals blame the very small sliver of non-republican opposition as the reason their campaigns failed, because it’s clearly just trying to find scapegoats instead of critically reflecting on why their campaigns were really unpopular, they have proven track records of repeated and repeated failed promises while shaking hands under the table with corporations to pass horrendous stuff… why when Ds are in power they make very minute gestures towards progressive policies and make a fuss that their hands are tied against making anything more concrete like roe v wade, and always make the biggest fuss when Rs actually pass policies that they promised – and this is somehow our fault when we point it out. The cherry on top of this shitty cake is their audience believes in this scapegoating.




  • further discourse for people interested: Can the Chinese Diaspora Speak?

    linked article goes more into specifically chinese americans but I believe analysis should be applicable to other groups of imperial core diaspora. The article is already long, but I think more complete analysis would include mention more recent history & developments, such as dissident industrial complex [related to 6-4 and operation yellowbird, but also beyond], and prominence of FLG cult and integration with US right wing, as well as discussion of religion (per my own experience “church asians” are much more vehemently anti-China, and community or lack thereof is also related to recent decades shuttering of Chinese cultural centers while Chinese language churches have taken up their emptied niche as social centers)


  • finished the video and was a little bit annoyed because it focused on anecdotal rather than analytical, which the title suggested it would do. Please I know there’s a lot of content featuring domestic conditions in China, it’s good. But with that kind of title, I thought it would go more into the manufacture of sinophobia, how the sausage is made… because frankly, diaspora who hold the sinophobia torch in the west are under-discussed. From Ai Weiwei and Chai Ling to falun gong media empire (hi David Zhang) and certain YA novel authors, news reporters with a Chinese face spreading sinophobic tropes… I recognize that these individuals or groups have amassed credence and power in the west, but ! oh my god. Oh my god it is everywhere.


  • my observation as ABC is that most of my peers (other ABCs) can’t read Chinese and have fossilized speaking/listening skills, if they retain much at all. There is some “blame” on parents pushing kids to focus on English, or the education system or other society things, but the fact of the matter is at least for me anecdotally, Chinese language weekend schools (designed for native speakers) I attended start off with a lot of kids in the beginner/lower levels (30+) but very few sticks with it all that long. Grade 11/12 and HSK class we only had 7 people iirc, and this was more than 10 years ago. I didn’t even want to attend, being Chinese and doing culturally Chinese things were uncool and made it really awkward to try to make friends in white society, as well as took time away from socializing as a teen. I’m glad I stuck with it, however I will say that efforts towards Chinese literacy was more due to efforts I made as an adult, but I’m very grateful that my parents tried and it gave me a decent foundation.

    Another thing is, even as recently as 10-15 years ago, China was still very much developing country, homeless could still be seen begging on the streets and income inequality especially with lots of migrant workers from rural areas - surface level observations but very visually prominent, which could lead someone to think that China is backwards or communism is a fraud or failure. Additionally during that era my relatives were abuzz about corruption in government officials and my understanding from them was that moving up in society was about who you knew 关系. So these things reinforced my left-liberal position for a long time, didn’t start shaking it off until the pro-dem HK situation in 2019 and atrocity fabrication in XUAR.



  • gonna obscure context regarding material/historical conditions on purpose for meme reasons but: tiktok has got nothing on those guys out there writing zines and successfully sparking momentum for a mass movement (new culture movement tho. mad respect that stuff was necessary for laying ground for revolution & marxism in china)

    also something I noticed is that people are CONSTANTLY snacking. within reason, like things people would have actually snacked on at the time period - peanuts, sunflower seeds. Mao tho, bro loves chowing on raw chili peppers lol

    edit: also leftist infighting book club


  • hm, I generally try to avoid blanket adjectives like “bad” for entire movements or events. at least for those with targets that aren’t obvious “we’re setting out to exploit people”

    western propaganda likes to overexaggerate famine (yay atrocity propaganda), while one of the main concerns of GLF was land reform-agricultural reform (speaking of agricultural reform and development - i remember reading about xi jinping’s background/starting from the bottom of bureaucracy: he had a hand in agricultural reforms for his municipality that boosted yield.). Without hitting the books at this very moment, I’ve also heard the famine situation reframed as residual of the pattern of famines that were already starting to phase out as stability returned to china (coming out of a century of strife, occupation, and wars–conditions that prevent a largely agrarian society from being able to focus on tending crops) + agricultural developments were works in progress to deal with naturally occurring cycles of drought years and flood years. regarding agriculture x climate, the biggest progress is towards drought and disease resistance in crops, but afaik that’s closer to contemporary era than GLF

    of course there were errors or mistakes made in GLF (also discussed by internal critiques and taught to future generations) but the gist and spirit of “we need to industrialize and catch up” was not considered an error. off the top of my head as an example, low quality iron produced in rural centers obviously short of goals towards quality steel production