= China Dictatorship 中国独裁统治
:china-dictatorship-media-base: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship-media/master
:cirosantilli-media-base: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cirosantilli/media/master
:idprefix:
:idseparator: -
:sectanchors:
:sectlinks:
:sectnumlevels: 6
:sectnums:
:toc: macro
:toclevels: 6
:toc-title:

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship[GitHub Pages] | https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[GitHub project] | https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/archive/gh-pages.zip[HTML download]

Chinese "Communist" <<dictatorship,"Dictatorship">> "facts". 中国《共产主义》<<dictatorship,《独裁统治》>>的《事实》。<<faq,FAQ>>, <<news,news compilation>> and <<restaurants,restaurant>> and <<music,music>> recommendations. <<faq,常见问答集>>，<<news,新闻集>>和<<restaurants,饭店>>和<<music,音乐>>建议。<<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,Heil Xi 卐>>. <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,习万岁>>。

This README is too large and so https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/1610[GitHub cuts it up] on https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[github.com]. You can view it fully at https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship[] or by downloading it locally as shown at: <<mirrors>>.

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_The_Governance_of_China_photo.jpg[height=600]

toc::[]

[[about]]
== About (关于)

This repo has the following goals:

* allow copy pasting links to answers to questions/comments that have been posted a million times before by <<wumao>>, mostly under: <<faq>>. This was the original goal.
* serve as a censorship bomb to block <<github>> in China: <<keyword-attack>> to destroy the <<gfw>> and <<dictator-needs-gfw,therefore the CCP>>. Or more realistically get added to the <<github-gov-takedowns>> hall of fame.
* be a fun and sometimes silly source of Chinese mostly anti-CCP culture like a better https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/China[Unencyclopedia] / https://web.archive.org/web/20191209021646/http://encyclopediadramatica.rs/China[Encyclopedia Dramatica] without the stupid stereotype jokes. Just quickly browse the pictures with Ctrl + F "Figure" and have fun.
* serve as a place where people can post interesting related stuff in the issues: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues see also: <<shitpost>>
* highlight positive about China's culture outside of its shitty government, such as <<the-best-chinese-supermarket-food-products,food>> and <<music>>. This has two goals:
** teach foreigners (maybe even Chinese people on certain points) about amazing Chinese things that they can consume
** show wumaos that <<ciro-santilli>> is not as clueless about China as they think

== Copypasta

Here's an image/sentence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copypasta[copypasta]/summary of key events for the <<keyword-attack>>.

Another advantage of this is that since it comes first in the repo, it ensures that key elements show up on github.com despite file size cutups: https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/1610[].

Each summary section contains a link to the main section, which contains sources and description of each image.

Text only:

* <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03>> (2018包子露宪)
* <<the-709-crackdown>>
* <<panama-papers>> (邓家贵)
* <<low-end-population>>
* <<tibetan-unrest-2008>>

Text and image:

**六四事件 Tiananmen square protests 1989**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#tiananmen

Music!

* https://youtu.be/-JTWXqUPQ7I[Joan Baez - China]
* https://youtu.be/6OOlXJs4I8k[Philip Morgan - Blood is on the square]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tiananmen_students_sitting.jpg[height=400]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tank_Man.jpg[height=400]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tianmen_crushed_dead.jpg[height=600]

**法轮功 Falun Gong 1999 70M believer religion banned**

https://cirosantilli.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship#falun-gong

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_Ghuangzhou.jpg[height=600]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_lady_silenced.jpg[height=600]

**新疆改造中心 Xinjiang re-education camps 2018**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#xinjiang

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_prisoners_sitting_identified.jpeg[height=400]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_prisoners_march.jpg[height=400]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uyghur_sale_website.jpg[height=500]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_camp_in_camp.jpg[height=600]

**小熊维尼 Winnie the Pooh 2018**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#winnie-the-pooh

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Pooh_Obama.webp[height=400]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Abe_Pooh.webp[height=400]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_heart.jpeg[height=400]

**郝海东 Hao Haidong Chinese soccer superstar turns against the CCP 2020**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#hao-haidong

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hao_Haidong_kick.jpg[height=500]

**冠状病毒审查 Censorship of the 2019 Corona Virus**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#corona

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Wenliang_covid.jpg[height=400]

**基督迫害 Christian persecution 2018**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#christianity

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Church_demolition.jpg[height=400]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Last_Supper_Mao.jpg[height=400]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pope_CCP_deal.jpeg[height=400]

**LGBT权利 The suppression of homosexuality**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#gay-rights

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tianmen_lesbian_kiss.jpg[height=500]

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Addicted_bed.jpg[height=400]

**996.ICU**

https://cirosantilli.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship#nine-nine-six-icu

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/996ICU.png[height=400]

**Gay Putin**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#gay-putin

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Gay_Putin.jpg[height=400]

**Vajiralongkorn Hamtaro**

https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship#thai-king-hamtaro

image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Side_by_side_comparison_between_Thai_king_Vajiralongkorn_and_Hamtaro.jpg[height=400]

[[mirrors]]
== Mirrors of this page 这个网页的镜像

You can download the webpage locally from GitHub at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/archive/gh-pages.zip

Media such as images are not stored in this repository, but rather at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship-media to keep the lightweight clone. The locally downloaded HTML will then read images from that repository. But we've learnt after creating that repository that the subdomain that serves the images is censored: <<github-censored-subdomains>>, so they might still be broken.

You can also clone locally with Git:

....
git clone https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
cd china-dictatorship
git checkout gh-pages
xdg-open README.html
....

or build it yourself:

....
bundle install
make
xdg-open README.html
....

You can also build with local images:

....
git clone https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
git clone https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship-media
cd china-dictatorship
make MEDIA=../china-dictatorship-media
....

Given <<github-censored-subdomains>>, this might be the only way to view the images from China.

The cool thing about Git is that we can maintain several mirrors on multiple websites very easily:

* https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship Canonical source and rendered output. If ever <<github-gov-takedowns>> we do this: <<strategy-if-this-repo-gets-added-to-github-gov-takedowns>>
* https://gitlab.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship Maybe some day https://gitlab.cn/ ? :-)
* https://bitbucket.org/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
* https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship on <<gitee>>, blocked after 12 hours: <<gitee-censorship>>

GitHub Pages: https://cirosantilli.com/china-dictatorship trade-offs with https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[]:

* pros
** cut up to 512KB of source, and therefor unacceptable as the only source: https://github.com/isaacs/github/issues/1610[]
** https://help.github.com/en/github/authenticating-to-github/about-anonymized-image-urls[GitHub's camo] keeps hiccuping and not showing images
** and YouTube videos show inline there
* cons
** domain will eventually get blocked in China. <<greatfire>> https://zh.greatfire.org/https/cirosantilli.com shows that in 2020-01-19 the domain was unblocked, but on the next text at 2020-05-23 it was "contractictory".
** Camo bypasses the need for VPN, since most images are served from <<wayback-machine>> which is <<censorship,blocked in China>>.

It is really interesting to see how many people star the GitHub repository, and then a few minutes later they think about how they might get put in jail, and then unstar it. Talk about <<chilling-effect>>!

GitHub Pages was first enabled in 2020-03-22 at https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/commit/0b362a83fb5dd55f67b9d351551d0c18e7f3229a[].

The perfect solution might be to download all images and upload them to https://github.com/cirosantilli/media since GitHub content does not go through Camo, we have to see if such images don't fail to load as often.

We also have a NPM Node.js package https://www.npmjs.com/package/china-dictatorship[]. After https://askubuntu.com/questions/594656/how-to-install-the-latest-versions-of-nodejs-and-npm/971612#971612[installing NPM], you can be use it as:

....
npm i -g china-dictatorship
china-dictatorship > README.html
....

This would force China to also block/curate package managers to block this repo. The package is already available in this Chinese Taobao mirror: https://registry.npm.taobao.org/china-dictatorship (https://web.archive.org/web/20200406081433/http://registry.npm.taobao.org/china-dictatorship[archive]).

We also managed to upload a Python PyPi package at: https://pypi.org/project/china-dictatorship/ Is as:

....
python3 -m pip install --user --upgrade china-dictatorship
china-dictatorship.py > README.html
....

We later found on Google by chance that libraries.io picked it up and rendered the README.adoc nicely as well: https://libraries.io/pypi/china-dictatorship (https://web.archive.org/web/20200318043050/https://libraries.io/pypi/china-dictatorship[archive]). This is why packaging is a good idea.

A programmatic inferface is also exposed on those packages, making it easy to quickly add a `--china` option to your project, e.g. from Python:

....
import china_dictatorship

print(china_dictatorship.get_data())
....

This outputs the rendered HTML, which end users should the pipe into a file:

....
./your-program --china > README.html
xdg-open README.html
....

Here's a concrete example: https://github.com/cirosantilli/linux-kernel-module-cheat/commit/082166a360c56990662c715196229016d8806ab3

TODO: create an Ubuntu PPA and Ruby gem as well.

Update all mirrors in one go with: link:push-mirrors[]:

....
./push-mirrors
....

In particular, that script calls link:push-gh-pages[]:

....
./push-gh-pages
....

which is more lightweight and pushes just to GH Pages, so we are going to be using that more often to avoid overloading package managers too much.

There is no need to update package versions or add git tags, all of that gets done automatically by the script!

[[faq]]
== FAQ 常见问答集

[[why-keyword-attack]]
=== Why attack websites with censored keywords? 用审查词攻击网站有什么用呢？

The attack: <<keyword-attack>>.

To <<effective,destroy the firewall>>.

This would then end <<censorship>>.

And then <<dictator-needs-gfw,Ciro believes>> that this would also <<why-end-dictatorship,end the dictatorship>>.

The keyword attacks increase the cost of censorship.

If commies censor things, they will get worse IT technology, and thus become <<richer,less rich>> and militarily powerful.

Since all they care about, like any other politicians, is power, the only way to make them stop censorship is to make the cost of censorship higher than not censoring.

Without the threat that China will be less technologically, and therefore militarily advanced, there is no incentive for the CCP to destroy the firewall.

The goal is to put them in a position where they have to choose between either:

* having military power
* remaining a <<dictatorship,dictatorship>>

but not both, since having both means that they will <<war,start WW3 and destroy humanity>>.

Closely related/identical ideas are <<cute-cat-theory-of-digital-activism>> and <<collateral-freedom>>.

Related attack: <<photobombing-like-attacks>>.

[[harm-programmers]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli want to harm the Chinese programmers? 三西猴想要伤害中国程序员吗？

No.

This is not revenge of any kind.

He knows he is harming you in the short term, and he doesn't like that.

But he believes that this harm is a necessary means to reach his real goal, which is to destroy the firewall, and the dictatorship.

Don't you think it is worth a try? Destroying the firewall, would <<why-end-dictatorship,enormously benefit>> not only Chinese programmers, but every single other Chinese person too.

Once the firewall is destroyed, which <<dictator-needs-gfw,may destroy the dictatorship>>, he want China to develop the best science and technology in the world, and <<would-ciro-santilli-like-to-live-in-china>>.

And by the way, with his https://github.com/cirosantilli[extensive contributions to open source software], Ciro is already helping China, and all underdeveloped countries, to become stronger. His hope is that if poor countries become richer and better educated, that they will be less likely to be influenced by the CCP's money, and therefore are more likely to be allies of democracy.

See also: <<disturbs>>.

[[harm-people]]
===== Does Ciro Santilli want to make the Chinese people people look bad?

No, the opposite.

Ciro only wants their <<dictatorship,dictatorial government>> to look bad to destroy it, and help China become <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,the most awesome country on Earth>>.

Even the Chinese that are against their own Government <<what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship,cannot do much about it openly>>, so it is not their fault.

And even those <<i-like-my-dictatorship,who supported their dictatorship>> must be respected, whoever <<stupid,stupid>> and <<brainwashed-by-usa,brainwashed>> you might think they are, <<democracy-is-a-religion,since it is impossible to prove who is right or wrong in politics>>.

See also: <<about>>.

[[stupid]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli think that the Chinese are stupid or brainwashed? 三西猴觉得中国人是啥子或被洗脑吗？

Obviously not, if you even thought about this, it is likely because of: <<evil-west>>.

Don't you see that this is just pure and simple politics? And likely ineffective one at that: <<effective>>.

* everyone is brainwashed by their environment: <<brainwashed-by-usa,brainwashed>>
* it is impossible to prove who is right or wrong in politics: <<democracy-is-a-religion>>
* not even the CCP is evil: <<ccp-evil>>

[[keyword-attack]]
==== Screen name keyword attack

Adding censored words to your username: https://stackoverflow.com/users/895245

This only works on websites that show usernames everywhere.

This then leads to your username appearing on thousands of pages, depending on how much you contribute to the website.

It is also possible to do it with images, although this is less effective in taking down websites since images are harder for the firewall to track automatically. But:

* they are more memorable than words
* they also work on websites like GitHub where your real name does not show on most pages, only slug

so maybe the most effective approach is to use both keywords and images to get the best of both worlds ;-)

.<<chrysanthemium-xi-jinping>> has been used by Ciro Santilli as a profile picture censored image attack
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Chrysanthemum_Xi_Jinping_with_black_red_liusi_added_by_Ciro_Santilli.jpg[height=400]

This type of attack is essentially an <<embargo>>.

See also: <<photobombing-like-attacks>>.

[[cute-cat-theory-of-digital-activism]]
==== Cute cat theory of digital activism (可爱猫理论)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cute_cat_theory_of_digital_activism
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/可愛貓理論

Someone told <<ciro-santilli>> a while after he had started doing his <<keyword-attack>> on <<stack-overflow>>, he didn't know about it before, but it is basically what he was doing.

You can never invent anything new anymore nowadays!

This is especially relevant to <<github>>! And GitHub's mascot is also a cat ;-) Some mentions of this:

* 2020-09-09 https://www.wired.com/story/china-github-free-speech-covid-information/
* 2020-09-09 https://www.xataka.com/servicios/github-inesperado-ultimo-reducto-libertad-expresion-gran-firewall-que-pone-jaque-intereses-china

Related:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_activism

===== Collateral Freedom

<<greatfire>> people called a <<cute-cat-theory-of-digital-activism>>-related project of theirs "Collateral Freedom" (a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_damage[collateral damage]), in which they seem to be trying to forward censored websites somehow through AWS to force the Chinese Government to block the entire AWS in China:

____
Collateral Freedom ties access to information to the Chinese economy. If [authorities] truly want to block access to this information, then they must give up certain access to economic freedoms.
____

2015 coverage: https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/30/greatfire/

There's an useless Wiki page for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collateral_freedom

https://www.theregister.com/2019/05/10/amazon_backtracks_on_s3/ clarifies that on Amazon S3 the question is about:

* `https://s3.amazonaws.com/<bucket_name>/<object_key_name>`
* `https://<bucket_name>.s3.amazonaws.com/<object_key_name>`

the second of which can be easily blocked by domain, but the first can't, and how amazon was planning on killing the first option.


[[meant-to-be-used]]
=== Politics should not be posted in technical websites such as GitHub or Stack Overflow 不应该在技术网站例如Stack Overflow和GitHub讨论政治

Is the Chinese government using the Internet the way it was meant to be used, by investing billions in <<censorship>>?

What about <<nine-nine-six-icu>>? Did you also complain about it, or did you just star it like 250k of your fellow programmers?

Any act of protest will use things in ways that it was not meant to be used.

For example, the street is not meant to showcase protest banners, it is meant to be a passageway for cars.

As engineers, we have a moral responsibility towards society. We should not blindly follow orders of those in power if it violates our principles, e.g. build weapons or censorship mechanisms. And we should freely express our principles and violation concerns.

Making a statement where no one will ever see it, like a personal website, is <<effective,sure to have no effect>>.

Much of the best art and technology is about using something in a way that it wasn't meant to be used.

Finally, the political powers of each website decide what is allowed or not on their website, and what is not allowed gets blocked. So far, Stack Overflow and GitHub's Terms of Service have said to go ahead:

* <<stack-overflow>>
* <<github>>

<<programthink>> has, of course, a beautiful reply to this at https://github.com/programthink/zhao/tree/e8eea46424549c11792dfe61cf9e7698bdbd7240#致反对此项目的墙内程序员[]:

[[programthink-meant-to-be-used]]
____
致"反对此项目的墙内程序员"

本项目上线第二天，就收获 363 个 star 兼 88 个 fork，甚至还挤进 GitHub 的"当日 Trending"——俺很荣幸，也很高兴有这么多人给俺捧场。

但是在本项目的 issue 列表中也看到好几个反对此项目的程序员（应该都来自墙内），他们担心这个项目导致 GitHub 被 GFW 封杀。

这几年来，类似的言论俺已经看了不少。就好比强盗拿刀杀人，围观者不但没有谴责强盗，反而去谴责卖刀的店家——这就是传说中的"link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/斯德哥爾摩症候群[斯德哥尔摩综合症]"。

有兴趣的同学，可以看俺之前的博文——《link:https://program-think.blogspot.com/2012/06/stockholm-syndrome.html[天朝民众的心理分析：斯德哥尔摩综合症]》
____

Translation:

____
In reply to: "Programmers behind the <<gfw,GFW>> who are against this project"

The second day after the project went online, it got 363 stars and 88 forks, and even squeezed into GitHub's "Trending repositories of the Day". I am honored and I am so happy that so many people gave me their support.

However, in the issue list of this project, I also saw several programmers who opposed this project (likely all from within the GFW), and they worried that this project would cause GitHub to be blocked by GFW.

Over the past few years, I have read a lot of similar comments. A good comparison would be if a robber were killing someone with a knife, and the onlookers not only did not condemn the robber, but instead condemned the shop that sold the knife. This is the legendary "link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome[Stockholm syndrome]".

Interested people can read my previous blog post: https://program-think.blogspot.com/2012/06/stockholm-syndrome.html["Psychological Analysis of the People of the Heavenly Dynasty: Stockholm Syndrome"].
____

Infinite duplicate pool:

* https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ameant-to-be-used+
* caffeine-overload/bandinchina#89

==== Is Ciro Santilli making programming contributions with the main intent of promoting his political agenda?

No, that is just a side effect.

For example, if that were the case, he would definitely target more widely used technologies, in particular Web and JavaScript, instead of obscure things like C and assembly in which I have spent tons of my time.

Also, <<effective,any attempt to influence a billin people is unlikely to have any effect>>. Much more likely to have any effect, would be for <<ciro-santilli>> to become rich and powerful first, and the best way to do that is to invest in whatever he thinks is most useful.

Actually, it can even be argued that Ciro's somewhat irrational, since he would be much more likely to become rich and powerful by bowing down to the CCP and trying to get their money instead.

On the other hand, becoming rich and powerful is also highly unlikely, so maybe it's justa matter of taking a low-risk low-reward path?

Ciro has have very little free time, and he will never do something for political reasons, only things that interest me technically.

Finally, do you really think he'd be able to do such awesome projects if he had primarily political considerations in mind? XD

===== Is Ciro Santilli making trivial edits on questions just to spam your name further?

No.

I just think that the website is great, and want to push it to perfection, in particular with better Google keyword hits, and uniform grammatically correct titles.

If you think that any of my edits were harmful, please ping me and open a meta thread to discuss specific edits, and I will comply with consensus.

[[why-end-dictatorship]]
=== Why would China be better without its Dictatorship?

Because it would make China, and the world:

* <<richer,richer>>
* less likely to get into <<war,WW3>>
* <<intolerance,safer for its own citizens>>

[[richer]]
==== Why would democracy and freedom of speech make China richer? 言论自由让中国比较富有

There is infinite debate about this out there, some examples:

* https://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/can-poor-countries-afford-democracy-becker.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20180923192824/https://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/can-poor-countries-afford-democracy-becker.html[archive])
* https://www.quora.com/Is-democracy-or-authoritarianism-better-for-developing-countries

For:

* dictatorships are more likely to start <<war>> or other <<policies,crazy policies>> like the <<great-leap-forward,Great Leap Forward>>, which completely destroy the economy in one go
* society becomes richer when people know that they can do their startups, get rich, and stay in the country without fear of being persecuted unfairly and losing everything instead of migrating to Canada, see also: <<rule-of-law>>
* it is much harder to fix problems if you can't talk about the. Any criticism of the government, even if constructive, <<censorship,is taken as menace to power, and more likely to be shut down>>, which makes the government and just becomes less efficient since there is less feedback.
+
This greatly increase the probability of dealing poorly with such problems, see e.g. all the global problems listed at: <<not-chinese>>.
* governments are monopolies, and the more powerful they are, the worst it is for competition an efficiency in general. E.g.: the startup with better government ties wins, instead of the most efficient one.
* people in dictatorships tend to <<real-username-law,hide their true identities online>> and in life in general. It is best not to stand out, because if you make any mistake, you are really fucked. As a result, for example, if you do something awesome like a creating an open source project, but do it anonymously, you won't get as much fame. And therefore everyone does less of such awesome things on average.

Against:

* presidents only care about the 4-8 year horizon, while dictators can make longer term decisions to maintain power forever, their power being limited only by "the people are happy enough to not start a revolution"
* dictatorships can make changes faster without the same amount of discussion that happens in democracies, where power is more spread out.
+
Killing a million people will make us richer? No problem, let's do it.
+
That is great when they make good decisions, but it sucks when they make <<war,bad ones>> more likely.

<<ciro-santilli>> really likes https://web.archive.org/web/20180923192824/https://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/can-poor-countries-afford-democracy-becker.html[Posners'] way of putting it:

[[dictatorship-variability]]
____
While average rate of growth do not appear to differ much between democracies and authoritarian regimes, the variability in performance does differ more among authoritarian governments. China has had remarkable growth since the 1980s, but the prolonged devastation and hardship produced by China's "<<great-leap-forward>>" (when millions of farmers starved to death) and its Cultural Revolution would unlikely have occurred in a democratic country like say India. Nor is it likely that say Cuba and many African nations would have suffered so long with such terrible economic policies if they had reasonably democratic institutions.
____

Maybe China was poor because of Mao's crazy communist regime. Similar regimes also made <<russia>> poor. And yes, before that exploitation by the West may have been a factor.

Definitely, the current regime is better than Mao's, but just imagine how rich China could be if it had more freedom and justice.

Imperial China lost the race for the Industrial Revolution. Will another dictatorship be able to stay on top of the next technological revolution?

.XKCD 937 "TornadoGuard" comes to mind in relationship to the <<dictatorship-variability,variable performance of dictatorships>>. https://xkcd.com/937/[Source].
image:https://web.archive.org/web/20200825230502im_/https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tornadoguard.png[height=600]

==== Censorship makes countries poorer

<<dictatorship,Dictatorships>> need <<censorship>> to survive, and they must control all information to make themselves always look good: <<dictator-needs-gfw>>.

As a result, knowledge of problems flows more slowly, and therefore they also take longer to solve.

Maybe this hurts the argument, but Hillary agrees: :-)

____
But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century
____

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccGzOJHE1rw&t=2110 "Secretary Clinton Speaks on Internet Freedom", U.S. Department of State, 2010-01-22
video::ccGzOJHE1rw[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=2110]

Also mentioned at: link:https://youtube.com/watch?v=d3dE_LDz_9E?t=1681[Google versus China - VPRO documentary - 2011]

This is also the basis of a <<keyword-attack>>.

This is also well illustrated in the link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)[HBO 2019 miniseries "Chernobyl"], which suggests that part of the reason why Chernobyl happened is because of the Soviet Union's obsession to save face.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocBVLMHK6c8 Chernobyl supercut scene where the reactor explodes, and a chief engineer "Comrade Dyatlov" accepts the 3.6 Roentgen measurement as "Not great, not terrible" and forwards it to his superiors who take actions based on that, even though the radiation measurement apparatus only goes up to 3.6 Roentgen. Needless to say, the actual radiation was much, much higher: when a proper measurement is made, the value is 15000 Roentgen! The URSS only admitted Chernobyl three days after when Swedish nuclear plant radiation detector alarms started going off. Notably, in order to keep it secret, they for example did not cancel the https://time.com/4313139/post-chernobyl-parade/[International Workers' Day parade in Kharkov, Ukraine which happened five days after the disaster].
video::ocBVLMHK6c8[youtube,height=400,width=600]

.Photo of a CDV-717 radioactivity meter that maxes out at 3.6 Roentgen like the one that would have been used in Chernobyl. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChernobylTV/comments/bnio6n/36_roentgen_on_a_cdv717/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/3_6_Roentgen.jpg[height=400]

This suggestion is even more explicit in the fictional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z[World War Z] 2006 novel by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brooks[Max Brooks] about a <<corona,virus>> outbreak in China. It was later adapted into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z_(film)[World War Z (2013)] movie by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Pictures[Paramount]:

* https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jun/04/brad-pitt-china-world-war-z[]: Paramount cowards tried to kowtow and remove references to China from the movie, but it failed
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/china-barred-my-dystopian-novel-about-how-its-system-enables-epidemics/2020/02/27/cc0446f0-58e5-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html[]: no Chinese publisher dared publish the book unless China references were removed, which the author declined, and so the book was not published in China

Or https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/[if you prefer]:

____
The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
____

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen[Amartya Sen] is another famous proponent of similar arguments in the area of hungers: https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/211/44284.html[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20170722090616/https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/211/44284.html[archive])

____
In democratic countries, even very poor ones, the survival of the ruling government would be threatened by famine, since elections are not easy to win after famines; nor is it easy to withstand criticism of opposition parties and newspapers. That is why famine does not occur in democratic countries. Unfortunately, there are a great many countries in the world which do not yet have democratic systems.
____

although like any other political argument, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/does-democracy-avert-famine.html[some disagree].

Virus outbreaks and other natural disasters also illustrate this well: <<corona>>.

===== Censorship makes no one trust your country

Who would trust a government that does not <<censorship,trust its own journalists and citizens>>?

Even democracies cannot be trusted, but dictatorships? No one ever believes what they say, even when it's true.

The boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf[just called wolf far too many times].

And as a result, this makes it very difficult to have allies.

Sure, other dictatorships will seem to become allies with your dictatorship and collaborate.

But deep down, you know that they are all just waiting patiently to put a knife in one other's backs.

Dictators will always live in fear.

[[corona]]
===== Censorship of the 2019 Corona Virus (2019冠状病毒病早期迹象审查)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019冠状病毒病

The Chinese Government censored the initial outbreak in January and did not inform Wuhan on January 8, which likely made the situation much worse than what it could have been.

Good timelines so without a fucking paywall:

* https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html "Timeline: The early days of China's coronavirus outbreak and cover-up"
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_in_November_2019_–_January_2020

Timeline:

* 2019-12-27 several genomics companies had sequenced the coronavirus and noticed the similarity to Sars. According to GeneBank, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MT019529[] the sample was collected on and 23-Dec-2019 and published on 04-FEB-2020
* 2020-01-03 findings were sent to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Center_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention[Centre for Disease Control] (CDC, https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国疾病预防控制中心[中国疾病预防控制中心]) in Beijing, but then the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Commission[Chinese National Health Commission] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华人民共和国国家卫生健康委员会[中华人民共和国国家卫生健康委员会]), China's top medical authority, issued orders to not talk about it and destroy samples
* 2020-01-08 CDC team went to Wuhan to see the situation, was not informed that contagiousness of the disease had been confirmed
* 2020-01-20 the findings were made public, in an interview with Zhong Nanshan. He later said in an interview that the local government should be blamed:
+
video::LK1Pz8FmryM[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=132]
* 2020-01-23 Wuhan begins lockdown
* 2020-01-24 to 30 Chinese New Year

News coverage:

* 2020-05-12: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-cia-believes-china-tried-stop-who-alarm-pandemic-1503565 CIA people said China stopped the WHO from sounding the alarm from January 24 to January 30, while at the same time stockpiling protection materials
* <<caixin>> article about how early Coronavirus signs were censored:
** https://china.caixin.com/2020-03-10/101526309.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20200317111527/http://china.caixin.com/2020-03-10/101526309.html[archive]) "李文亮所在医院为何医护人员伤亡惨重？" (Why did Li Wenliang's [李文亮] hospital suffer heavy casualties?)
** https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-signs-of-a-sars-like-virus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-101521745.html (paywall) "In Depth: How Early Signs of a SARS-Like Virus Were Spotted, Spread, and Throttled"
** https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-scientists-destroyed-proof-of-virus-in-december-rz055qjnj "Chinese scientists destroyed proof of virus in December". Paywall skip: https://archive.md/xOKiu Terrible copy paste of some Caixin article with no sources/precise names.
* https://www.businessinsider.com/china-information-crackdown-on-wuhan-coronavirus-2020-1 "China spent the crucial first days of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak arresting people who posted about it online and threatening journalists" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200124113400/https://www.businessinsider.com/china-information-crackdown-on-wuhan-coronavirus-2020-1?r=US&IR=T[archive])
* https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/g5xykx/you-can-now-go-to-jail-in-china-for-criticizing-beijings-coronavirus-response "You Can Now Go to Jail in China for Criticizing Beijing's Coronavirus Response"
* https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdn4d/doctors-in-wuhan-are-still-dying-and-beijing-is-still-trying-to-silence-them Ai Fen's (艾芬) report of how the situation was mishandling was censored
* 2020-04-13 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/12/asia/china-coronavirus-research-restrictions-intl-hnk/index.html "Beijing tightens grip over coronavirus research, amid US-China row on virus origin". The Government can now veto papers from being published on the subject of the origin of COVID-19.

Some believe that the Chinese government grossly under-reported death counts. Official figures were about only 3300 deaths, in the insanely densely populated Wuhan area, while Italy had reached 10000 deaths:

* 2020-04-19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr280LWjJT0&t=2198 Trump says on a White House briefing he does not believe China's case count
* 2020-04-01 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says CIA speaks
* 2020-03-29 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8165717/Locals-Wuhan-believe-42-000-people-died-coronavirus.html Reports of funerary urns sold

Maybe China is saying the truth this time. Maybe the rapid Dictatorship response worked. But maybe the most important lesson to take out of this is that https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/27/china-loses-trust-internationally-over-coronavirus-handling[no one] trusts <<censorship-makes-no-one-trust-your-country,in a Dictatorship], after an infinitely long history of lies and <<censorship,the lack of freedom of the press>>.

<<li-hongzhi>> of course doubts those number :-) <<falun-gongs-view-of-epidemics>>.

On the other hand, one may argue that the "city closure" measures were stronger/faster than in democracies.

Doctor Li Wenliang (李文亮) reported the virus, but was told by authorities to stay quiet, and later died from the virus, becoming somewhat of a martyr:

* https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801
* https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2020/02/【网络民议】你能做到吗？-你听明白了吗？/

The following excerpt from his forced confession trended:

____
你能做到吗？ +
你听明白了吗？
____

Translation:

____
Can you manage? +
Do you understand?
____

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblage_(art)[Assemblage] of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respirator[respirator mask] with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_(BDSM)[BDSM gag ball] attached to it, suggesting that citizen reports of COVID-19 in China have been censored. https://twitter.com/FakeNewsOfChina/status/1221396086033530880[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Covid_gag_mask.jpg[height=600]

.Selfie of Li Wenliang on his hospital bed before he died. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Wenliang_covid.jpg[height=400]

.Corona Xi mural of <<xi-jinping>> morphed into a Coronavirus by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lushsux[Lushux]. Fuller composition view: https://twitter.com/lushsux/status/1243830638966235136[]. Reddit called it https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fqku03/winnie_the_flu/[Winnie the Flu] in a reference to <<winnie-the-pooh>>. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fqku03/winnie_the_flu/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Covid_Xi.jpg[height=500]

====== nCovMemory

Popular GitHub repo documenting personal experiences and media reports:

* https://github.com/2019ncovmemory/nCovMemory "新冠肺炎记忆：报道、非虚构与个人叙述" 2020 New coronavirus pneumonia memories: reports, non-fictional and personal accounts.
* https://github.com/memoryhonest/nCovMemory-en translation project

Other interesting GitHub repositories: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

====== People arrested for reporting on the 2019 Corona Virus

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Qiushi[Chen Qiushi] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/陈秋实_(律师)[陈秋实])
** Twitter: https://twitter.com/chenqiushi404
** YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv361SF6FKznoGPKEFG9Yhw
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/09/asia/wuhan-citizen-journalist-intl-hnk/index.html "Chen Qiushi spoke out about the Wuhan virus. Now his family and friends fear he's been silenced"
** 2020-04-18 https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/epgek4/he-traveled-to-wuhan-to-report-on-coronavirus-and-hasnt-been-heard-from-since "He Traveled to Wuhan to Report on Coronavirus – and Hasn't Been Heard From Since"
** https://youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpr55PZEJ8 "Lawyer Chen Qiushi documenting coronavirus epicentre disappears" by <<scmp>>
+
video::Iwpr55PZEJ8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* Fang Bin (方斌)
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Bin
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方斌
** Twitter: https://twitter.com/GuqZJRTOvbqbGub
** YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRItarzSwqakT-EZkSvuy3A
*** The last YouTube video simply says:
+
____
全民反抗 +
https://zh.m.wiktionary.org/zh-hans/还政于民[还政于民] +
方斌书
____
+
which translates as:
+
____
All the people, revolt. +
Return the country (politics) to its people. +
Written (calligraphed) by Fang Bin.
____
+
video::_7VIG2qp0j4[youtube,height=400,width=600]
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUvBNpkxrJo "Fang Bin is second Chinese citizen journalist to vanish while reporting from coronavirus epicentre" by <<scmp>>
+
video::sUvBNpkxrJo[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Zehua[Li Zehua] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/李泽华_(记者)[李澤華])
** YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHUpBCNKrZwBhxfcIrP8Aw
** Twitter https://twitter.com/kcrissli
** 2020-02-28 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdejp/a-chinese-citizen-journalist-covering-coronavirus-just-live-streamed-his-own-arrest
* 2020-04-25: Chen Mei, Cai Wei and his girlfriend, who contributed to <<terminus2049>>
* 2020-04-14: Zhang Zhan (张展)
** https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsNKkvZGMURFmYkfhYa2HOQ
** https://www.scmp.com/video/coronavirus/3084983/coronavirus-chinese-citizen-journalist-detained-after-live-streaming
*** 2020-11-16 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/citizen-journalist-facing-jail-in-china-for-wuhan-covid-reporting-zhang-zhan[], finally accused of <<picking-quarrels>>

TODO maybe not arrested but relevant:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Fang[Fang Fang] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方方_(作家)[方方]) published in 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Diary[Wuhan Diary] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方方日記[方方日記], 方方日记)
+
Possible free Chinese version: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGF5YWJvb2suY29tfHd3d3xneDo3ZGUzZWZjZDgyZDkxNjc0 (http://web.archive.org/web/20200720084342/https://doc-10-bk-apps-viewer.googleusercontent.com/viewer/secure/pdf/3nb9bdfcv3e2h2k1cmql0ee9cvc5lole/0cr4s4veutmm50d7alffk68perm7us3s/1595234550000/lantern/%2A/ACFrOgDGbspvoNIJBVI1N2-EwaZHJPCTgPKmJeFaWgposQKpu5Eu0aqwA_CIZfLkobNVy1-xKcxKzw2CMAyxH4aUPjcHsp2w1JB2fwoX1g_39gVGh38SxfK-UrQyhy_3n19wbWhWErj_a41hMVR4?print=true[archive])

[[war]]
==== Why would democracy and freedom of speech make China less likely to start a war?

This has been discussed to death:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Peace:_A_Philosophical_Sketch

Some arguments include:

* the people who will actually fight and die on the front can't vote against it
* dictators have huge power, so if they put it in their heads that they want to start a war, it is much harder for sensible people to stop them
* dictators need <<evil-west,to keep the people in fear all the time to keep their power>>, and a war is a great way to achieve that

Of course China won't say that they are starting a war when they do.

They will of course start with territories which they claim as theirs, to add to <<separatism,other recent additions which were not theirs>> until the recent past, even though their inhabitants desperately want to leave China:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_China–India_skirmishes | https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/beijing-said-to-fund-separatist-india "Beijing Said to Fund Separatist India Movement"

Which reminds us of... <<nazi>>:

* 1939 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident[Gleiwitz incident], a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag[false flag attack]
* 1938 Annexation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland[Sudetenland] from Czechoslovakia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_II explains:
+
____
A decisive proximate event was the 1938 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement[Munich Conference], which formally approved Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Hitler promised it was his last territorial claim, but in early 1939 he became even more aggressive, and European governments finally realized that appeasement was not guaranteeing peace."
____
* 1935-1938 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Causes_of_World_War_II&oldid=968409781#Expansionism_and_militarism comments:
+
____
In Italy, Benito Mussolini sought to create a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Empire[New Roman Empire], based around the Mediterranean. It invaded Ethiopia as early as 1935, Albania in early 1938, and later Greece. That provoked angry words and an oil embargo from the League of Nations, which failed.
____
* 1931 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria[1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria], with one false flag event preceding it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident[Mikden Incident].

When China <<evil-west,calls the USA Imperialist>> (帝国主义), there is of course some truth to it, but it is also very ironic, because as https://youtu.be/GiVs05yq9-o?t=74[Lindybeige mentions], China is obviously the largest empire on Earth! Despite its <<xinjiang,uniformization>> efforts, China is highly diverse since it is obviously made up of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China[large stitched up carpet of nations that were conquered by a single empire]. E.g. <<xinjiang>> translates literally as "The New Frontier"! Not to mention obviously the Qin unification of the <<warring-states-period>>.

===== The United States has recently started several wars and killed millions!

Not even democracies can fully protect people from other countries, because they don't vote. Yes, congratulations, <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

But if the USA were a <<dictatorship,dictatorship like China>> it would kill way more, because it would censor every report against the war internally to its own people, and the wars would just go on like in <<nineteen-eighty-four-war-is-peace>>.

How many times do we have to bring <<nazi,Hitler>> up? 70-85 million deaths in one go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

The only reason China has not started wars is because it is a poor country, and it would lose them. If it were rich, it would have started more wars and killed 100 times more people.

Finally, some wars are good.

If a country is oppressed by a dictatorship, and most of its people want to be free, it might be right to help them be free.

If a country sponsors terrorism, it might be a good idea to take out their Government.

This has to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, and maybe a verdict will never be reached. But at least in a democracy the people can decide based on varied information. In a dictatorship, whatever the dictator decides happens.

Also, most of those small wars that he USA started end up being https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war[proxy wars] between the USA and <<russia>>/China, with the USA pushing for democracy, and Russia/China pushing for more dictatorships.

[[uneducated-masses]]
==== The Chinese masses are still uneducated, and not fit for free speech and democracy 中国大众愚昧，不能好好选领导

When will they be ready? Who decides? What if they think that they are <<tiananmen,ready now>>?

In George Bernard Shaw's "Maxims for Revolutionists" words:

____
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for <<corruption,appointment by the corrupt few>>.
____

Many democracy supporters jokingly recognize democracy's shortcomings.

A https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-141/red-herrings-famous-quotes-churchill-never-said/[fake Churchill quote]:

____
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
____

Art Spander:

____
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.
____

Laurence J Peter:

____

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
____

===== The Chinese masses are not interested in politics and therefore not ready to vote

But how would they be interested in politics or be able to discuss it, if it is <<dissidents,impossible to have a different view without going to jail>>?

What about the <<tiananmen,1 million people in Tiananmen>> and the 70 million <<falun-gong>> followers? Did they not care?

[[overlook-human-rights-for-profit]]
==== As long as China is developing economically, it is fine to violate the human rights of a few million people

This argument can be made, but it is a risky way to live: <<intolerance>> and borderline <<nazi>>.

Do the <<violence,ends always justify the means>>?

What is the point of having all that wealth, when you risk <<rule-of-law,being put into jail for unfair reasons>>?

<<ciro-santilli>> argues that China would be even richer if it weren't for the CCP: <<richer>>, and that the CCP only violates people's human rights as a tool to stay in power: <<ccp-evil>>.

.<<rebel-pepper>> cartoon about a pig who does not care about politics because it cannot be eaten. 民主又不能当饭吃 https://twitter.com/remonwangxt/status/1131398147253710850[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pig_politics_Chinese.jpg[height=600]

.Translation by Ciro Santilli of the Rebel Pepper cartoon about the pig who does not care about politics because it cannot be eaten.
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Rebel_pepper_pig_can%27t_eat_democracy_cartoon_translated_to_English_by_Ciro_Santilli.jpg[height=600]

.https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shut-up-and-take-my-money[Shut up and take my freedom] meme by <<ciro-santilli>>.
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Shut_up_and_take_my_freedom.jpg[height=400]

[[corruption]]
==== Democracies have less corruption than dictatorships

One of the key points of <<xi-jinping,Xi Jinping's>> governments has been to quench corruption. And use that as an excuse to get rid of rivals while at it.

However, there is one much better solution to that: democracy and freedom of speech.

The reason is obvious: with censorship, <<chinese-politicians-really-care-about-the-chinese-citizens,corrupt politicians>> can <<internal-censorship,censor>> anything bad that they did, and so it becomes much harder to destroy corruption.

In George Bernard Shaw's "Maxims for Revolutionists" words:

____
Democracy substitutes election <<uneducated-masses,by the incompetent many>> for appointment by the corrupt few.
____

Well known corruption cases:

* 2020 Ren Zhiqiang
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhiqiang
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/任志强
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/22/asia/china-ren-zhiqiang-xi-jinping-intl-hnk/index.html "Chinese tycoon who criticized Xi Jinping's handling of <<corona,coronavirus>> jailed for 18 years"
* 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ling_Jihua[Ling Jihua] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/令计划[令计划]): son died in Ferrari crash with two women on the car, which put the spotlight on him
* 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Xilai[Bo Xilai] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/薄熙来[薄熙来]): trigerred by the murder of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Heywood[Neil Heywood], of which Bo's wife was accused

Related events:

* <<panama-papers>>

===== Operation Fox Hunt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt

Trying to prevent corruption is fine, but violating the laws of other countries in doing so, or the <<rule-of-law>> of their family is not.

Publicized by China itself: <<china-daily>> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-11/05/content_22375920.htm

* 2020-10-28 "Eight Individuals Charged With Conspiring to Act as Illegal Agents of the People's Republic of China" https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/eight-individuals-charged-conspiring-act-illegal-agents-people-s-republic-china

[[liu-changming]]
====== The detention of Liu Changming's (刘昌明) family (2018)

China imposed an exit ban on the ex-official's family, who are also USA citizens:

* officer Liu Changming (刘昌明)
* wife Sandra Han
* children Victor Liu (born July 1999 in the USA) and Cynthia Liu (27 in 2019, born in China, but also American citizen)

China says that the children and wife do have valid Chinese documents, so maybe those idiots did not give up their Chinese citizenship and went to China. Why, why, why would you do that? Don't they know anything about China?

Cynthia claimed her father has left home a long time ago and that they are not in contact with their father.

Liu is a so called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_official[naked official] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/裸官[裸官]), who let his family go live outside of China to prevent such problems with the CCP.

The wiki page also explains that in 2014 rules were added to prevent promotion of officials whose spouses live abroad.

This reminds Ciro of a Mafia movie, maybe Godfather II, where the bad guy says he "likes doing business with a man that has a family, because he has more collateral".

Coverage:

* 2018-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/liu-changming-china-holds-officials-family-hostage-to-force-return-2018-11

.2019-05-09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2hBtXdaYsQ Cynthia Liu, daughter of Liu Changming (刘昌明) pleas freedom on YouTube. Commented upload by CBS, TODO can't find original video on YouTube, maybe they sent straight to CBS?
video::t2hBtXdaYsQ[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[effective]]
=== Will the keyword attacks really help to destroy the firewall?

It is both unlikely, and hard to be sure.

Just like it is unlikely that the activity of on individual can have a big influence in any group of 1 billion people.

Every action is statistical: I just push the balance a little bit towards freedom.

This FAQ and any talk is useless. You and I are wasting our time here.

The possibility of blocking Stack Overflow and GitHub is 1000x more useful than any talk, but it is still useless.

However, potentially blocking those websites takes <<better-to-do,0 of my time>>, I just leave the content there, so it is worth my time.

To have an idea, in 2015 there are about:

* 20M developers in the world
* 2M in China : https://www.quora.com/Approximately-how-many-programmers-are-there-in-the-world https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/there-are-185-million-software-developers-in-the-world-but-which-country-has-the-most/
* 5M Stack Overflow users https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/227868/select-count-from-users
* TODO I wonder what percentage of GDP those programmers control. I'll bet any programmer on Stack Overflow is at least 5x more powerful than the average Chinese.

And if we never start somewhere, nothing will ever happen.

Furthermore, even if the <<gfw,GFW>> falls, it is not clear that this will imply the end of the dictatorship: <<effective>>.

Even if it is not, it does not matter, since <<ciro-santilli>> spends so little time doing it: <<better-to-do>> and has fun in doing it.

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(American_TV_series)[House of Cards] S01E02 "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this." GIF. https://houseoflessons.tumblr.com/post/43967209684/on-protesters-nobody-can-hear-you-nobody-cares[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nobody_can_hear_you.gif[height=400]

[[embargo]]
==== Embargoes make dictatorships stronger (禁运使独裁更强大)

The <<keyword-attack,keyword attack>> is basically an embargo.

There is already a lot of literature about this, especially in the cases of Cuba and North Korea. It is basically a libertarian vs conservative/Cato vs Heritage thing in the US:

* https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/no-embargo-harms-cubans-gives-castro-excuse-policy-failures-regime
* https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/why-the-cuban-trade-embargo-should-be-maintained
* https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2006/08/thanks_for_the_sanctions.html

The key dilemma is:

* if we keep contact with the Dictatorship, maybe its people will see that democracy is better and start a liberating revolution
* if we keep giving technology to the Dictatorship and it does not become a democracy, we are making a Dictatorship more technologically advanced, and therefore <<war,dangerous>>

Some interesting aspects of the keyword attack embargo:

* it is immediately self-enforcing: we don't need politicians to decide and enforce the complex "if you do this, we punish you like that" question.
+
By political and technological information is together, and this immediately puts the dictatorship in a bad spot, without us having to decide anything.
* by affecting programmers in particular through Stack Overflow and GitHub, we make them more likely to develop better <<censorship-circumvention,Firewall climbing>> tools themselves

One point in favor of the embargo is that China has opened up since the '80s '90s, but did freedom improve at all? Under <<xi-jinping>>, it may be argued that it did not, and maybe that we should just stop feeding them technology and accept that they won't become free.

Trump's link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/02/trump-banning-huawei-beginning-of-biggest-trade-war-ever-united-states[2019 China trade war], and in particular the <<huawei>> ban, is an event that has brought this question to the spotlight once again.

===== Keyword attacks could be used by certain CCP political groups to justify blocking off the entire external Internet, and make the dictatorship even more pervasive

It is a risk, but it would make China drastically <<richer,less powerful>>, so at least they wouldn't be able to start or sustain <<war,WW3>>. So I don't think it will go that way.

[[so-block-cost]]
==== Stack Overflow and GitHub could be blocked at no cost by the Chinese government

Hitting the block button has, of course, no cost.

The cost of blocking Stack Overflow lies of course in the loss of information, and slower technological development, see also: <<why-keyword-attack>>

Remember that it is not possible for the Chinese government to block only certain pages of HTTPS websites due to encryption: either the entire IP/domain name is blocked, or nothing.

The 2019 <<nine-nine-six-icu>> event however brought to my attention that Chinese (usually WebKit-based) browsers are already censoring HTTPS websites selectively of course, see e.g.: https://github.com/996browser/996.BROWSER/tree/77f28a36a862e3cc4d238dc47c19872156096bc4

But Ciro doubt developers use those browsers, right? The only way would be for China to forbid foreign browsers entirely.

BTW, <<ensi>> brings a whole new dimension to HTTPS by encrypting the domain name as well!

===== Is Stack Overflow blocked in China?

There was no clear evidence of that as of April 2020: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267715/is-stack-overflow-accessible-in-china/288497#288497

It worth noting however that as mentioned at <<is-stack-overflow-blocked-in-china>> that websites can become non-functional if CDNs they rely on are taken down, instead of the website being taken down itself.

For example, Stack Overflow relied on Google for some of its JavaScript and on Imgur for images, both of which are blocked in China.

[[disturbs]]
==== Keyword attack profiles disturb me

But isn't it better to be annoyed than having <<war,war>>, <<richer,being poor>> or <<xinjiang,put into jail unfairly>>?

If the truth is too much for you to bear, worry not, you can use either:

* Greasyfork browser extensions
** https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/32236-stackoverflow净化器 "StackOverflow净化器" (Stack Overflow cleanup)
*** GitHub user with the same username: https://github.com/EternalPhane
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20181211094818/https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/32236-stackoverflow%E5%87%80%E5%8C%96%E5%99%A8
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20181211094917/https://greasyfork.org/en/forum/discussion/47981
** 2020-07-09 https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/406756-ciro-santilli "Ciro Santilli"
*** https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/406756-ciro-santilli/discussions/53697
*** Some possible authors (of course, with that name, there must be 10 thousand Chinese people at least):
**** https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/users/156741/li-xiaodong
**** https://github.com/DoyleLi from Intel
* a custom ad terminator expression shown at: cirosantilli#87 `stackoverflow.com##a[href="/users/895245/ciro-santilli-%e6%96%b0%e7%96%86%e6%94%b9%e9%80%a0%e4%b8%ad%e5%bf%83%e6%b3%95%e8%bd%ae%e5%8a%9f%e5%85%ad%e5%9b%9b%e4%ba%8b%e4%bb%b6"]`

Another good option is to use the trusty <<cac-report-website>>.

Installing any of those immediately give you <<social-credit-system,10 Sesame Points>>, <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,习万岁>>.

See also: <<harm-programmers>>.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwCyQINNXwE "What is more obscene: sex or war?" scene from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_vs._Larry_Flynt[The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)]. Ciro just can't stop thinking about that scene when someone tells him that <<disturbs,his profile disturbs them>>. What is more obscene? <<xi-jinping-memes>> or human rights violations?
video::SRPiE59e8NU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[not-chinese]]
=== Non-Chinese people should not interfere in Chinese politics (外国人不应该干预中国政治)

* For better or worse, China and other countries happen to be located in the same planet.
+
If China's <<richer,economy>> is bad, the economy gets worse in other countries.
+
If China's <<howey-ou,environment is bad>>, the environment gets worse in other countries.
+
If China <<war,starts a war>>, other countries will have to fight it.
+
If China <<corona,fails to control a viral outbreak>>, other countries might get infected.
* <<tiananmen,Millions of Chinese people>> disagree with their government, but can't say anything about it, otherwise <<t-shirt,they will go straight to jail>>. See also: xref:most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship[xrefstyle=full]
* The CCP would likely not be in power today if the Japanese hadn't weakened the Guomindang and the link:https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/how-stalin-elevated-the-chinese-communist-party-to-power-xinjiang-1949[Soviet Union helped out Mao]:
+
** https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-Japan-to-blame-for-the-KMT-losing-control-of-the-Chinese-mainland
** https://china-journal.org/2018/02/26/why-did-chiang-kai-shek-lose-china-the-guomindang-regime-and-the-victory-of-the-chinese-communist-party
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/毛泽东感谢日本争议
+
And China would be much much less technologically advanced had it come in contact with the West, from which it is still trying to learn/steal from: <<university-espionage>>.
+
Foreign influence can be both good or bad.
* Chinese people have been brainwashed by the <<evil-west,commies who say that all foreigners are bad>>, more than the West has been brainwashed to think that he CCP is bad: <<brainwashed-by-usa>>
* China would never ever try to influence foreign countries, would it? E.g. <<belt-and-road-initiative>>, <<confucius-institute>>, <<cgtn>>.
* If I <<wife,marry a Chinese woman>>, my <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother-in-law might be unfairly put in jail>> :-)
* You can't do anything about it.
+
In the end, this is what all politics comes down to: power.
+
In some sense, this may be similar to the CCP and any other political party.
+
But conversely: <<effective>>.
+
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(American_TV_series)[House of Cards] S01E02 "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this." GIF. https://houseoflessons.tumblr.com/post/43967209684/on-protesters-nobody-can-hear-you-nobody-cares[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nobody_can_hear_you.gif[height=400]
+
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=SRPiE59e8NU House of Cards S01E02 Officer: "Some guy was trying to get into the building, when we said "no" he started tearing his clothes off." Frank: "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this. Why don't you let these nice gentlemen take you home?" video clip. Interpretation: https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/94608/what-can-we-make-out-of-the-final-scene-from-house-of-cards-season-1-ep-2
video::SRPiE59e8NU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

Why don't you go instead <<shitpost,shitpost>> in one of the following repositories and which are written in Chinese by Chinese citizens, many of which have many times more stars than china-dictatorship, and therefore <<keyword-attack,are much more effective at taking down the GFW>>? <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

See also:

* <<is-ciro-santilli-chinese>>

Duplicate pool: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ayou-are-not-chinese-argument

[[brainwashed-by-usa]]
==== Non-Chinese people have been brainwashed by the USA know nothing about China

Everyone is "brainwashed" by their environment.

E.g. people in the West are brainwashed to believe in democracy, freedom of speech and human rights.

<<ciro-santilli>> doesn't doubt that Chinese people know more about China than him.

Saying that "someone is not Chinese, he does not understand China", is just an useless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem[ad hominem] argument and closely related to <<not-chinese>>.

Since you know so much about China, why  why don't you just actually prove your point by teaching Ciro one single interesting about China that Ciro didn't know about? He loves learning new things.

But please, link to reference material instead of just saying it, it will be much more convincing.

But if you are Chinese, also consider that you have been brainwashed by the commies, so likely much more than Ciro since you live in a dictatorship.

See also: <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

[[evil-west]]
==== The commies exaggerate the threat of the West to keep in power

First, obviously, <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

However, the CCP greatly exaggerates how evil the West is, because making your people constantly afraid is a classic strategy used by dictators to stay in power.

Or in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fable[fable] form:

____
Once upon a time, there was a farmer with a farm.

One day, the animals on the farm started feeling a bit trapped, and started bumping against the fence to get out.

The farmer, however, was smart, and told the animals:

_____
Careful! There is a wolf outside! If you go out, you will be eaten by the wolf!
_____

The animals, were not that smart, and listened to the farmer, they were afraid!

From time to time, one of the animals would disappear (and without their knowledge, reappear on the farmer's dinner table).

But the farmer kept giving the animals delicious food without them making any effort, so they decided to believe the farmer's explanation that animal had escaped and been eaten by the wolf.

Maybe, there was actually a wolf outside. But if they had escaped, only some of the animals would have been eaten by that wolf.

But by staying on the farm, all the animals were, sooner or later, eaten one by one.
____

TODO source.

This theme is also highlighted in many well known works/events.

North Korea for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_North_Korea[China's good and trusty friend], is just a caricatural level of this, since it manages to be more a <<dictatorship,dictatorship>> than even China itself!

In fiction, <<nineteen-eighty-four>> is undoubtedly the most prominent example, in which the Party constantly switches from being at <<war,war>> with one country to the other in a never ending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war[perpetual war] (exactly like North Korea vs South Korea, or China vs <<taiwan>>).

One of the best related quotes comes in Part Two, Chapter 9 when Winston reads Emmanuel Goldstein's subversive text, one of the chapters contains (emphasis by Ciro):

[[nineteen-eighty-four-war-is-peace]]
____
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. **War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair**. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This--although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense--is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.
____

This is also the first line of the party slogan, which perfectly resonates with the CCP:

____
WAR IS PEACE +
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY +
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
____

or in Part One, Chapter 3:

____
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. For several months during his childhood there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
____

The theme is also mentioned in <<v-for-vendetta>>, where a <<corona,viral outbreak>> is used by governments to increase their power over the people.

Duplicate pool: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Aevil-west+

Bibliography:

* https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md

[[henri-meyer]]
.French political cartoon from 1898 by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Meyer[Henri Meyer] showing leaders of Western powers, Russia and Japan splitting up China between them. The CCP would arguably <<not-chinese,not have raised to power if not due to Japanese interference>>. Maybe the West deserves the CCP they helped create. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:China_imperialism_cartoon.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/China_imperialism_cartoon.jpg[height=500]

[[bias]]
=== Ciro Santilli and this page are completely biased against the Chinese Government!

<<ciro-santilli>> prefers the term focused :-)

That being said, <<ciro-santilli>> takes the agenda of information sources very seriously.

E.g. he tries to clearly classify <<biased-media,Communist Party, Falun Gong, and Western government-linked information sources>>.

If we had more <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>> content, then maybe this repository would be considered a more reputable source by Chinese people.

However, there are a few practical problems to that:

* there is freedom of speech in the West and people can already see that information on newspapers who have a million times more viewers than this repo (and still obviously no conclusion was reached), there's no need to repeat that here
+
Conversely, bad China news are always OK because, because those are all censored in China and help Chinese people learn about it.
* flooding <<evil-west>> posts is a primary <<wumao>> tactic
* <<evil-west>> information is already abundantly accessible to Chinese people in Chinese via any CCP media: <<chinese-government-media>>.
* <<preconceived,people's minds cannot be changed>>, and notably <<effective,not in a language that most people of a country don't understand>>. This is why the primary goal of this repo is the <<keyword-attack>>: it does not require changing people's opinions.

For those reasons, we currently forbid, posting several evil-West news without explaining why dictatorships handle it better. It would just generates more noise than signal.

If you do explain however why dictatorships/China handle it better, then the post is welcome.

Any political material that is censored by any country besides China, will also be readily accepted.

Any evidence of positive political progress towards freedom will also be added to this repo, e.g. people openly discussing politics online, human rights activists doing political stuff and not being put into jail, etc.

See also:

* <<flg-bias>>
* <<radical>>

[[throne]]
==== Ciro Santilli's claim to the Qing Dynasty throne 三西猴清朝皇帝觊觎

Ciro Santilli's <<wife>>, her mother, and paternal cousin, believe that Ciro's wife is the descendant of the brother of a recent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty[Qing emperor] through her father's family.

Although they have not been able to produce concrete evidence, which could be explained by the endless political turmoils in 20th century China, Ciro decided that this would be a good bet to take, and married her anyway.

If anyone is able to provide further evidence of this relationship, please, please, please get in touch.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Qing dynasty, like the previous Ming dynasty, used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name[Generation names] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/行辈[行辈]), such that the first character of the given name is the same for all people in a given generation (counted directly from the first emperor that adopted the rule.

For example, this wiki page contains a good family tree of the most important Qing people: link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_tree_of_Chinese_monarchs_(late)#Qing_dynasty++[] and we see that many important people around 1861 were Zai 載something, e.g.: Zaichun, Zaiyi, Zaitian, etc.

The last emperor was Puyi, so Pu is the last well known mark. But there were others planned that never got used for after him as shown at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisin_Gioro#List_of_generation_prefixes[].

* Zai (before Pu)
* Pu (wife's great-grandfather)
* Yu (wife's grandfather)
* Heng (wife's father)
* Qi (wife)
* Dao (wife's children). At least one thing is decided from this: Ciro's children Chinese names will all be Ai Dao Something.

The family tree that Ciro has reconstructed orally from his mother-in-law is:

* Ciro's wife:
** Father: Ai Dayi (艾大义) born: 1932 in Shenyang
*** Father: Ai Xikang (艾锡康) So why did he not use Yu?
**** Father: Ai Pushan (艾溥?), so the Pu character is presumed from the generation name, to be the same generation as Puyi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaitao has a Pushen (溥伸), but he died at 13 years old in 1928, so its not the one.
**** Younger brother 2: Ai Xiyuan (艾锡?) Professor at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeastern_University_(China) Apparently had no Children.
**** Younger brother 3: Ai Xicong (艾锡?) Graduated in law in Japan in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waseda_University[Waseda University] Was the top official of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Police_Agency_(Japan) in China when it was occupied by Japan (警察廳长) Passed first by Taiwan.
**** Younger brother 4: Ai Xiying (艾锡?)
**** Younger brother 5: Ai Xifu (艾锡?) Together with Ai Xiying, they were went to the Republic of China Military Academy and were high ranking officials in the war against the Japanese in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War[] (八年抗战). Later was a congressman in Taiwan.
** Younger sister: Ai Shiping (艾世？)
** Older brother: Zhao Yingjie. Studied law in Japan also at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waseda_University[Waseda University].

Many of them have had different names in different places/countries, notably many used the name 肇(Zhao) rather than 艾.

Further anecdotal indicators follow.

Ciro's wife and family are clearly of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_people[Manchu ethnicity] just by looking at them, and they originally lived in the North East of China

His wife's family name is the very unusual 艾, pronounced "ai4", which she claims is a reference to the 愛(also pronounced ai4) in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisin_Gioro[愛新覺羅], which is the name of the Manchu ruling clan of the Qing dynasty.

Ciro's father-in-law, who he barely met, was very old when he had his daughter, and passed away before Ciro could talk a lot with him, which is consistent with the claims that he spent several years in jail during <<mao-zedong,Mao's>> purges, see also: <<wife>>.

Bibliography:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_of_the_House_of_Aisin_Gioro
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/34813921 现在清朝皇室的后代现状如何？ What is the current status of the descendants of the Qing royal family?
* https://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-descendants-of-the-Qing-Dynasty-left-currently
* https://arxiv.org/pdf/1412.6274.pdf "Y Chromosome of Aisin Gioro, the Imperial House of Qing Dynasty" unknown year. Unfortunately Ciro's wife does not have an Y chromosome like her father. This does however mention the book used as a genealogy reference: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/愛新覺羅宗譜.html?id=Pj4EAQAAIAAJ 愛新覺羅宗譜 On Douban: https://book.douban.com/subject/4162448/ gives ISBN 9787507713428 On Amazon unavailable: https://www.amazon.com/dp/7507713423

.Ciro Santilli's portrait as Qing emperor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:清_郎世宁绘《清高宗乾隆帝朝服像》.jpg[Original image].
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_portrait_as_Qing_emperor.jpg[height=600]

[[preconceived]]
==== Ciro Santilli has a preconceived opinion about China that cannot be changed 三西猴对中国成见很深，无法改变

<<ciro-santilli>> tries to justify why he think China would be <<richer,better with democracy>>, but I know that ultimately all of this is useless.

Everyone's opinions are all determined genetically and by <<brainwashed-by-usa,bring-up>>, and there is nothing he can do to change yours, or you change his.

From that point of view, all of this is just a cold blooded political game, in which Ciro tries to force the CCP to take down the Firewall: <<why-keyword-attack>>.

Ciro never gets mad about China, even if your opinion is contrary to his, and therefore wrong.

Using the <<reply-policy,reply policy>> is one of the reasons why Ciro never gets mad.

Ciro also has doubts about the efficiency of certain things I do as expressed throughout this FAQ, e.g. <<embargo>>.

Also, Ciro have never said that anyone else is wrong.

In the end, he just end up thinking about new replies to things people say to him, and add them to this FAQ so that future replies will be faster to copy paste. See also: <<better-to-do>>.

The real goal of any online discussion, is not to convince people, but rather to determine who is an ally and who is not, and get those allies together to defeat the commies.

[[flg-bias]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli support FLG just because his wife and mother-in-law do it?

Not consciously, Ciro thinks would likely support them even if I didn't have family ties to <<falun-gong>>.

Likely he wouldn't have started this campaign if he didn't know them of course.

But of course, this is impossible to answer objectively.

Wouldn't you be rather upset if your <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother in law were put into jail unfairly for 15 days>>?

But don't you think that <<flg-important,**70 million** people (6% of the total population in 2000!)>> getting completely squashed by the Party illustrates extremely well the dangers of the dictatorship?

Or if a <<nazi,Jew has escaped a concentration camp>> and told the world about its horrors, would you just dismiss their claims due to their biased opinion?

With that in mind, Ciro tries his best to give FLG only the right level of exposure I think it deserves relative to other events, according to these guidelines: <<keyword-choice>>.

If more recent events of mass human rights violations happen, especially affecting in the order of tens of million people, I will probably rank higher than Falun Gong, this was the case for <<xinjiang,Xinjiang in 2019>> for example, even though it only affected a measly million.

==== Why did Ciro Santilli start his keyword attack?

The last straw that led <<ciro-santilli>> to start the <<keyword-attack>> on <<stack-overflow>> was when on March 2015 his girlfriend's mother was arbitrarily kept 15 days in jail for doing <<falun-gong>>. He posted about this at:

* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/579270450984984576
* https://www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/952661734753174

He then continued because he hate political <<censorship,censorship>>, and because <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,I love China>>.

Every time Ciro thinks about this, he notices how stupid humans are. We see the forest fire smoke, and just never think that it will ever reach your home on the border of the forest.

Until it actually does, and then you are really fucked.

So in a sense it was a good thing that Ciro had this little backyard fire with this mother-in-law, as it woke him up further to how serious the CCP thread was, and led him to action.

Because before that, he was one of the majority who just constantly hears about the increasing mountain of evidence of human rights violations, and does nothing about it.

The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darkest_Hour_(film)[Darkest Hour (2017) film] comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA1Uz_TMzhs[]. The movie shows that Britain was truly hesitant whether to negotiate or fight Hitler, even after the Nazis had already started invading other European countries, and would clearly not stop. Luckily, we are not at a position of war yet, and might never be due to nuclear weapons. But still, a similar blindness applies. <<corona>> woke up many people, but even then some haven't faced it.

[[ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail]]
===== Ciro Santilli's post when his mother-in-law was put into jail

Maybe some people would be happy if their mother-in-law were put into jail. But unfortunately, this wasn't the case for <<ciro-santilli>>.

.<<ciro-santilli>> with his soon-to-be mother-in-law before his wedding in 2017. Annoying? Sometimes. But threat to the fucking Chinese State? How fucked does your political system have to be for the answer to be a "yes"?
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_with_his_mother_in_law_during_his_wedding_in_2017.jpg[height=600]

====== Jail post en

My girlfriend's mother, a 63 year old lady, was kept 15 days inside a Chinese "correctional facility" because she does Falun Gong.

She had to stay all the time in a small room with a bed and a toilet, under video surveillance, being fed three meager meals a day.

I see Falun Gong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong as just another <<flg-religion,moderate religion>> which causes no harm to its believers. The only reason that it is unofficially outlawed in China is because the communists fear it as a political competitor.

There was no trial and no explanation. She was going to take a train to visit her sister. But she didn't know that there was an important political event happening in the capital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress So the police at the station, who already knew she did Falun Gong, took her away.

When she came back home, the house had been searched and was all messed up. Her religious books and computer were missing.

I'm glad she was not physically harmed. I find it fascinating how even well educated Chinese support a government which simply does not represent some of its people. How will you feel <<intolerance,when something like that happens to your own family, and there is nothing you can do about it>>?

====== Jail post zh

Translation by <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,my wife>>:

我女朋友的母亲，一位63岁的女士被监禁在一个中国的"劳教所"，只因为她炼法轮功。

她被迫待在一个小屋子里面，只有一张床和一个排泄的地方，一直处在监视器下，每天两个窝头一碗只有几个白菜叶的汤。

我看过法轮功https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong 只是一个和平的信仰，对相信它的人没有任何坏处。它在中国被非官方的定为违法（其实没有一项明确法律禁止），唯一的原因就是工产党害怕它是一个政治竞争对手。

没有审讯没有任何解释。她正准备坐火车去看她的姐姐。但是她并不知道那个时候有重要的政治会议正在首都进行：https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress
所以那些知道她炼法轮功的铁路警察把她带走了。

当她回到家中时，房子被搜查过了，四处一切混乱。她的信仰书籍和电脑都没有了。

我很庆幸的是她身体并没有受到伤害。我觉得很意思的是一些受过良好教育的中国人怎么能够迫害一部分它的人民的政府呢？如果这样的事情发生在你的家庭，而你什么都不能做，你会怎么想？

====== Jail post pt

Translation by myself:

A mãe da minha namorada ficou 15 dias num "centro de correção" chines porque ela faz Falun Gong.

Ela ficou o tempo todo num quarto pequeno com uma cama e banheiro, sobe videovigilância, recebendo 3 refeições pequenas por dia.

Para mim, o Falun Gong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong é apenas mais uma religião moderada que não causa nenhum problema para seus crentes. A única razão pela qual ele é proibido na China é porque os comunistas tem medo dele como competidor politico.

Não houve julgamento nem explicação. Ela ia pegar um trem para ver sua irmã, mas ela não sabia que teria um evento político importante na capital: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12th_National_People's_Congress Então a polícia da estação, que já sabia que ela faz Falun Gong pegou ela.

Quando ela voltou pra casa, a casa tinha sido procurada pela polícia e estava uma bagunça. Os livros religiosos e seu computador foram confiscados.

Eu fico feliz apenas que ela não sofreu abuso físico. Eu acho fascinante como mesmo muitos chineses educados apoiam ainda um governo que não representa parte do povo. Como você vai se sentir quando algo do tipo acontecerá com a sua família, e você não pode fazer nada sobre isso?

===== Further details about Ciro Santilli's mother-in-law's persecution

March 2015: 15 days in jail for no reason: https://www.facebook.com/cirosantilli/posts/952661734753174

June 2017: 3 cops came to her house. She was there. They asked if she still did Falun Gong. She said yes. They took photos of her Falun Gong books / posters. They were polite.

October 2017: 7 - 8 cops came to her house _at 11PM_. They knocked the door strongly and made noise, and questioned neighbours of her whereabouts. Luckily she was not there.

=== China is fine as it is, stop making it worse

Welcome to the wonderful world of democracy, a world where people can have different political opinions than you :-)

If you are so fine, why are you reading this at all? Go back to being fine.

See also:

* <<why-end-dictatorship>>
* <<preconceived>>

[[i-like-my-dictatorship]]
==== I like my Dictatorship 我喜欢我的独裁统治

Ciro Santilli can understand that.

It must feel good to have <<li-hongzhi,absolute truth>> in the <<ccp-cult,Cult of Xi>>, and let the black police <<against-censorship-and-flg,get rid of weirdos for you>>.

But when the dictatorship turns again you our your family, will you fight, or will you just let them do whatever they want because they can never be wrong? See also: <<intolerance>>.

And when your son <<man-in-the-high-castle,betrays you or sacrifices himself for the Dictator>>, will you just smile and accept it?

See: <<seventeen-moments-of-spring>>

[[seventeen-moments-of-spring]]
===== Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeen_Moments_of_Spring
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Семнадцать_мгновений_весны_(телефильм)

<<russia,Soviet>> mini-series about about Stierlitz, who is an undercover Soviet spy acting as a Nazi officer in <<nazi,Nazi Germany during WW2>>.

As a fun note, it seems that <<putin>> is a Stierlitz fan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stierlitz#cite_note-Sakwa-5[], and Putin also served in Germany like Stierlitz, but in Dresden, which was in East Germany.

A scene from the awesome mini-series comes to mind when thinking about <<i-like-my-dictatorship>>.

In Episode 7, Stierlitz travels on a train with a Nazi officer.

The war is almost over, and the desolate officer tells Stierlitz:

____
I told my children: I hate any democracy!

No democracy in our Reich!

Any democracy in our country is doomed to end up with one thing: the dictatorship of small shopkeepers.

The more freedom we have, the sooner we want to be controlled by SS troops again.

And then we want our the secret police back, and concentration death camps again, and the universal fear everywhere! Only then we feel calm and secure.

No need to prove your point of view in defending the fate of the homeland.

No responsibility.

Just raise your hand in honor of him, <<xi-jinping,who will take care of everything for you>>,

Just shout out "Hail Hitler!" and everything will become understandable.

No more worries.
____

.https://youtu.be/pc6DP1jNEec?list=PLHiAMOiVIvsD2u8g0RLwvdRScEe9yiUr5&t=1527 Seventeen Moments of Spring (1973), Episode 7, general confession scene.
video::pc6DP1jNEec[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=2086]

It is amusing to see Soviet series criticizing dictatorships, given that the Soviet Union was itself a major dictatorship!

[[most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship]]
===== Most Chinese people like their dictatorship 中国大众支持他们的独裁

It is easy to reach an agreement, when everyone who disagrees goes to jail or gets killed for to <<inciting-subversion>> or <<picking-quarrels>>.

Also ask the millions of people who were affected by <<tiananmen>>, <<falun-gong>>, <<xinjiang>> or <<dissidents>>.

See also: <<seventeen-moments-of-spring>>.

One is reminded of the game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Happy_Few["We Happy Few" (2018)], which which people are forced to be happy. <<nineteen-eighty-four>> also comes to mind of course.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zndzntIDLFE IGN review of the "We Happy Few" (2018) game.
video::zndzntIDLFE[youtube,height=400,width=600]

.Westerner: "How is life in China?" Chinese: "Oh, we can't complain." Westerner: "That's awesome." Chinese: "No, seriously... we can't." is a word play between the more common "we can't complain because everything is great" and "we can't complain because <<xi-jinping,Xi>> will <<censorship,make us disappear>>". https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3933168[Source]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/We_cant_complain.jpg[height=600]

[[chilling-effect]]
====== Chilling effect (寒蝉效应)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/寒蟬效應_(法律)

It is really interesting to see how many people star the <<mirrors,GitHub repository>>, and then a few minutes later they think about how they might get put in jail, and then unstar it. <<ciro-santilli>> is able to see this because the star notification remains in the GitHub dashboard even after unstarring. This is very rare in his other repositories.

[[intolerance]]
===== Most Chinese people don't care about the minorities

How can you be that certain that your children won't have dissident ideas and be punished unfairly for them?

Intolerance is a risky way to live. Everyone is part of one minority in one way. If all minorities were oppressed, everyone would be oppressed.

Dictatorships crush minorities much more than democracies.

Do think the majority of the Chinese people would vote to put 50 year old <<falun-gong>> meditating <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,aunties in jail>>, if the CCP hadn't made a huge propaganda campaign and used an iron fist?

Are the Chinese really that selfish to vote for this oppression, even as the <<censorship,free media>> would show videos of meditating old ladies in jail on national television? <<ciro-santilli>> does not believe this.

Minorities are put in jail because the CCP fears them. Dictatorships can only survive if there is zero difference in opinion in the population.

The famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...[First they came ...] text comes to mind in which <<nazi,the priest Martin Niemöller regrets not having supported the rights of his opponents that were unfairly treated by the Nazi Government>>:

[[first-they-came]]
____
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out +
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out +
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out +
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me +
and there was no one left to speak for me.
____

See also:

* <<rule-of-law>>
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolerance_(film)[Intolerance (1916) film]

====== This is Ciro Santilli's personal problem, we have nothing to do with it, stop punishing us for it

We have to fight for justice for our fellows, or else when injustice happens to us, no one will fight for use either: <<intolerance>>.

Every form of protest incurs some damage. E.g., if we manifest on the street, it generates a traffic jam.

<<ciro-santilli>> doesn't like it, but he thinks it is worth it.

If you just work to make money and have a good life, without any plans to improve the government, you are just making the economy of the dictatorship stronger, then when they start a <<war,war>> or kill yet another minority, blood will also be on your hands. See also: <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china>>.

[[stability]]
====== If anyone disagrees with the government they must be punished to keep the stability of the country

Destroying diversity is the best way to reach a point where everyone can agree to start <<war,a new big war and destroy everything>>.

The CCP thrives on the excessive <<evil-west,fear it instigates into its own people>>.

How can society improve, if we are never allowed to try new things out?

Change in democracies does not require <<violence,violence>>. Violence happens because the government punishes any dissidence, even if pacific, to retain its own power.

In democracies, radical policy changes happen without dropping a single drop of blood. People vote, and policies change, end of the story. In https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy[JFK's] words:

____
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable
____

See also:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_revolution#As_it_relates_to_democracy
* https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Address_on_the_First_Anniversary_of_the_Alliance_for_Progress

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXRG7yiqR3I Passage of Kennedy's discourse that contains the quote "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable".
video::Iwpr55PZEJ8[youtube,height=400,width=600]

=== There are bad things happening all over the world, why doesn't Ciro Santilli fight for those causes as well/instead?

We have to choose the one we think is the worst, and focus on it.

What is worse is a subjective choice. For <<ciro-santilli>>:

* he <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,loves China and Ciro's Chinese wife>>, see also: <<bias>>, and doesn't want it to get fucked further by the CCP
* he hates dictatorships, and China is the largest one by population/GDP/link:https://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report[nuclear stockpile], and therefore <<war,the most dangerous>>

Ciro <<keyword-choice,SO username>> and <<better-to-do,protest time>> are not infinite.

However, it is good that different people have different interests, and someone will surely be fighting for whatever cause you care about.

See also:

* <<russia>>
* <<thailand>>
* <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>

[[western-democracies-are-not-perfect]]
==== Western democracies are not perfect 西方的民主有很多缺点

That is definitely true.

Nothing is perfect in this world.

<<ciro-santilli>> just believes that they are way better than a <<dictatorship>> like China, and that the Chinese government <<evil-west,brainwashes its people to think that the West is evil to stay in power>>.

As link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority[Churchill] once brilliantly link:https://richardlangworth.com/worst-form-of-government[put it]:

____
Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
____

However, this is all obviously subjective, and believing that dictatorship is a better form of government is also a valid belief.

If you find an event on a Western democracy that you would like to highlight, send a pull request.

We will not however include events that are not currently censored.

Every country did fucked-up things in the past, the question is if they currently allow discussion about it or not.

Posts that only mention <<evil-west,"evil West">> non-censored events without adding anything to the discussion will be marked as <<shitpost>> and treated as such, since spamming those is the primary <<wumao>> technique to stop intelligent discussion.

The reason why "Evil China" posts are not shitposts in general on the other hand, is that they have one specific purpose: <<why-keyword-attack, to destroy censorship>>.

This "Western censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copypasta[copypasta] string" https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/gct0ox/all_moderation_services_suspended_for_the_next_24/fpeends/[was posted automatically] by a bot during <<anti-ccp-info-sources,r/China>> purge day:

____
North Dakota Access Pipeline Protests 北达科他州接入管道抗议 +
Ferguson Riots 弗格森暴动 +
2017 St. Louis protests2017 年圣路易斯抗议活动 +
Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll 比基尼环礁的核试验 +
Unite the Right rally 团结右集会 +
Charlotte riots 夏洛特暴动 +
Attack on the Sui-ho Dam 袭击穗河水坝 +
Milwaukee riots 密尔沃基骚乱 +
Shooting of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile 奥尔顿·斯特林和菲兰多·卡斯蒂利亚的射击 +
Occupation of the Malheur NationalWildlife Refuge Malheur国家野生动物保护区的占领 +
death of Freddie Gray 弗雷迪·格雷的死 +
Shooting of Michael Brown迈克尔·布朗的拍摄 +
death of Eric Garner, Oakland California 奥克兰奥克兰市埃里克·加纳（Eric Garner）逝世 +
Operation Condor 神鹰行动 +
Occupy WallStreet 占领华尔街 +
My Lai Massacre 我的大屠杀 +
St. Petersburg, Florida 佛罗里达州圣彼得堡 +
Kandahar Massacre 坎大哈屠杀 +
1992 Washington Heights riots 1992年华盛顿高地暴动 +
No Gun Ri Massacre 无枪杀案 +
L.A. Rodney King riots 洛杉矶罗德尼·金暴动 +
1979 Greensboro Massacre 1979年格林斯伯勒大屠杀 +
Vietnam War 越南战争 +
Kent State shootings肯特州枪击案 +
Bombing of Tokyo 轰炸东京 +
San Francisco Police Department Park Station bombing 旧金山警察局公园站爆炸案 +
Assassination of MartinLuther King, Jr. 小马丁·路德·金遭暗杀。 +
Long Hot Summer of 1967 1967年炎热的夏天 +
Bagram 巴格拉姆 +
Selma to Montgomery marches 塞尔玛到蒙哥马利游行 +
Highway of Death 死亡之路 +
Ax Handle Saturday 星期六斧头 +
Battle of Evarts 埃瓦茨战役 +
Battle ofBlair Mountain 布莱尔山战役 +
McCarthyism 麦卡锡主义 +
Red Summer 红色夏天 +
Rock Springs massacre 岩泉大屠杀 +
Pottawatomie massacre 盆大屠杀 +
Jeju uprising 济州起义 +
Colfaxmassacre 科尔法克斯大屠杀 +
Reading Railroad massacre 阅读铁路大屠杀 +
Rock Springs massacre 岩泉大屠杀 +
Bay viewMassacre 湾景大屠杀 +
Lattimer massacre 拉蒂默大屠杀 +
Ludlow massacre 拉德洛屠杀 +
Everett massacre 埃弗里特屠杀Centralia Massacre 中部大屠杀 +
Ocoee massacre Ocoee大屠杀 +
Herrin Massacre 赫林大屠杀 +
Redwood Massacre红木大屠杀 +
Columbine Mine Massacre 哥伦拜恩矿难 +
Guantanamo Bay 关塔那摩湾 +
extraordinary rendition 非凡的演绎 +
Abu Ghraib torture and prison abuse 阿布格莱布的酷刑和监狱虐待 +
Henry Kissinger 亨利·基辛格
____

Some quick replies to the idiotic things wumaos like to post:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_George_Floyd[George Floyd] https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/乔治·弗洛伊德之死[乔治·弗洛伊德之死]: the murder video went viral and was not taken down (would have been in China), all four officers were charged, and the event sparked nation wide protests
+
And the Chinese are also obviously at least as racist, if not more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/25/coronavirus-exposed-china-history-racism-africans-guangzhou
+
Wumao example: https://web.archive.org/web/20200618071130/https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/112#issuecomment-645716105

See also:

* <<richer>>
* <<preconceived>>
* <<bias>>
* <<the-united-states-has-recently-started-several-wars-and-killed-millions>>

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signe_Wilkinson[Signe Wilkinson] 2017 Free Speech "Can you just move it so it doesn't cover them?" umbrella cartoon. Ciro once saw a <<wumao>> post this. It made him smile. If the cartoon were about <<dictatorship,dictatorships>>, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncle_Sam[Uncle Sam] would be instead <<intolerance,decapitating and raping the people on one half of the umbrella>>. Of course humans are <<flg-intolerance,shit in democracies as well>>, but at least that system makes it harder for them to oppress each other. http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=161799[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Free_speech_umbrella.jpg[height=400]

===== Western democracies have invaded other countries and crushed separatism

Yes, <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect,Western democracies are not perfect>>.

What matters is that citizens can disagree with those actions, publicly say it, vote accordingly, and not go to jail, so that policy will be changed if the majority so wants.

In China, the minority controls the majority, and the majority cannot say anything even if they disagree.

If the majority wants to do evil however, evil will get done, it is impossible to prevent that.

See also:

* <<separatism>>
* <<richer>>

[[hate-speech]]
===== Western democracies also censor subjects such as child porn and hate speech

First, child porn and hate speech are also banned in China, so shut up. <<china-has-more-freedom-of-speech-than-the-usa,every type of speech>> is less free in <<dictatorship>>.

Second, if you don't think child porn should be banned, there isn't much point in arguing with you.

Now, hate speech is a very complex subject. <<ciro-santilli>> does feel that we should be very careful when banning hate speech, and he is not sure if it should be banned at all, as perhaps it might just make matters worse.

But of course, there is also censorship in Western democracies, and there is a gray area between what should be censored or not.

<<ciro-santilli>> only argues that there is on type of speech that must never ever be <<censorship,censored>>: political speech.

This way, the majority can always discuss and vote to change what can be censored or not.

In China, however, trying to discuss such changes in laws <<internal-censorship,puts you in jail>>, so bad laws cannot be changed. This lack of freedom <<most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship,also gives the impression to many brainwashed Chinese>> that dicatorships are better because you see less conflict online. Which is great, until your human rights are violated, and you've got no one to talk to.

The lack of ability to discuss political problems leads to extremely serious problems:

* <<corruption>>: politicians can <<internal-censorship,censor>> anything bad that they did to stay in power
* <<war>>: if the CCP leaders decide that a war must be made, everyone who opposes it will go to jail, and the war will be made
* <<intolerance>>: if the CCP decides that <<xinjiang,some minority>> is <<falun-gong,a danger to their power>>, this minority gets fucked

Deciding on hate speech, means having to decide what level of hardcoreness we are willing to accept, and there is no clear right or wrong answer.

For example, which of the following do you think should be banned:

* This scientific study suggests that white people do less well in IQ tests.
* This scientific study suggests that black people do less well in IQ tests.
* I'm an idiotic irrational racist and I dislike white/black people. I won't kill them, but I dislike them, and I can't change that, I'm really sorry.
* Let's all gather together and kill our black/white/gay/straight/Muslim/Christian neighbours tomorrow.
* Let's all gather together and kill our oppressive dictator/president tomorrow.

Ciro believes that none of the above should ever be censored, because any form of "hate-speech censorship" immediately opens a precedent for political censorship.

If someone is idiotic enough to organize illegal acts like hurting someone publicly before doing it, it will just make it easier for them to get caught.

And if its just empty words, just block those idiots to not see their posts, or downvotes their posts to reduce their impact.

And if the majority supports idiotic acts like killing someone because of their race, it will get done in a democracy regardless, because that's what democracies do: they cater to what the majority wants.

There's not point in censoring them. Such censorship only makes things worse, as the perpetrators will use that as publicity for their cause.

Recent cases in which Ciro feel that Western countries have gotten it wrong:

* 2020-10-12 https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/12/facebook-in-a-reversal-will-now-ban-holocaust-denial-content-under-its-hate-speech-policy/
* 2020 https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewsolender/2020/06/20/trump-says-he-wants-to-punish-flag-burning-with-a-year-in-prison/#4d00781b3404 "Trump Says He Wants To Punish Flag Burning With A Year In Prison". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_desecration#United_States[]. If this were to pass, Ciro would be very temped to upload a GIF. Flag dessacration laws are bullshit.
* 2020-08 Kevin Cernekee fired from Google for conservative views
** 2020-08-27 https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/06/google-whistleblower-cernekee-pushed-alt-right-views-former-colleague.html "Internal Google memo claimed conservative whistleblower promoted alt-right views"
** It appears to be legal in the US for companies to fire employees based on political beliefs:
+
*** https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html
+
<<ciro-santilli>> however believes that discussing politics at work is not an efficient way to go about it, because you will be discussion amongst a small group of people since companies are opaque to the outside. Unless maybe if you feel that you employee is directly attempting to influence politics in a way that you feel is unfair.
+
Ciro believes without evidence that unfortunately anti-discrimination-hiring laws are likely inefficient, as it is too hard to convict anyone. And that providing equal education through scholarships to unprivileged groups and university entry selection where examiners cannot see the applicant's race is the only way.

See also:

* <<richer>>
* <<intolerance>>

===== Fake news

When a government controls all information to make it look good, and no one can challenge it, you cannot trust _any_ of the news produced by that country, as anything could be fake.

It is much better to have some fake news, but also few sources that are likely telling the truth.

<<ciro-santilli>> is also extremely critical of Western social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook which have censored "fake news" from real legitimate accounts or real people, which is a point that Trump has justly criticized in Ciro's opinion.

If it is from a Chinese/Russian botnet, sure, destroy those accounts.

But from legitimate accounts of citizens? The people have to decide for themselves what is fake or real, not you, Twitter and Facebook. If the majority is made of idiots who believe in fake news, then so be it, that's how democracy works.

Censoring any citizen, no matter how stupid you think they are, creates a precedent for dictatorship, and even an <<luxor,incentive to terrorism>>.

More interesting case is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_First_Amendment_Institute_v._Trump[]. Ciro feels strongly that people who try to have meaningful discussions on Twitter should automatically lose a lawsuit, and that people should be able to block whoever they want from their personal controlled accounts or forums. It is only the companies who provide the forum service that must be neutral.

Related news:

* YouTube
** 2020-12-09 https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/9/22165355/youtube-biden-election-victory-misinformation-rules-remove-content-oan "YouTube will now remove videos disputing Joe Biden's election victory". 
*** YouTube's announcement: https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/supporting-the-2020-us-election
** 2020-11-24 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/24/youtube-suspends-and-demonetizes-one-america-news-network-over-covid-19-video/ "YouTube suspends and demonetizes One America News Network over COVID-19 video"
* Facebook
** 2020-11-10 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/parler-app-store-facebook/ "'Free speech' social network Parler tops app store rankings following Biden's election win"
* Twitter
** 2020-10-06 https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-explained-trump-social-media-twitter-facebook "Section 230, the internet free speech law Trump wants to repeal, explained". While repealing the law entirely would be stupid, Trump is right that it has given platforms too much control over the media. <<mark-government-controlled-social-media,Except for dictatorial foreign governments>>, or explicitly illegal material, social media platforms should never remove or comment on any content.
** 2020-05-29 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52846679 Twitter "hides Trump tweet for 'glorifying violence'". The people elected that idiot, Twitter leftists have to swallow that.

[[life-of-brian-1979]]
===== Life of Brian (布莱恩的一生, 1979)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monty_Python%27s_Life_of_Brian
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/蒙提·派森之布莱恩的一生

This movie was almost banned in Britain at the time due to lobbying by Christian groups as shown in <<the-secret-life-of-brian-2007>>.

Key scenes:

* <<life-of-brian-nazi-jew>>

====== The secret Life of Brian (2007)

Documentary about <<life-of-brian-1979>>.

Key points:

* <<sacred-cows>>

video::hdU_6jUQI9s[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[snowden]]
===== Snowden (斯诺登)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/爱德华·斯诺登

Censoring anyone who says "my president is shit", which is what China does, is much, much more serious than censoring intelligence leaks.

The problem with dictatorships, is that they make _every_ information that makes them look bad a "state secret". Including any information that hundreds of thousands of people have witnessed, or economic performance metrics! See also: <<internal-censorship>>.

The level of unknown surveillance that Snowden uncovered is a bad thing about the US.

Snowden's prosecution was inevitable. Countries need secret services. Secret services need laws that prevent leaking classified information that was produced by government officials.

<<ciro-santilli>> has never and will never criticize China or any other country for spying or prosecuting spies.

If Snowden were Chinese, the Chinese government would ban talking about him or anything he uncovered. A <<keyword-attack,keyword attack>> with "Snowden" in the West has no effect.

It is obvious that the level of surveillance in any dictatorship will be infinitely higher, since the Government has much more power and no-one can criticize.

On the West however, the debate Snowden sparked cannot be censored, and has helped to control excessive and secret state power.

Ultimately, Ciro thinks camera surveillance is somewhat inevitable, because people will always want to fight crime and terrorism and surveillance technology keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.

He is however strictly against the ban of cryptography.

He also believes that a good solution to balance out government power is the second amendment. It is better to have more school shootings and less full-blown dictatorship led genocides / mass human rights violations.

In 2019 China amusingly censored passages Snowden's "Permanent Record" autobiography book, which Snowden then published on Twitter:

* https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1194092273170038784 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191112083232/https://twitter.com/snowden/status/1194092273170038784[archive])
* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dv5q8o/china_censors_edward_snowdens_new_book_he/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20191112083147/https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dv5q8o/china_censors_edward_snowdens_new_book_he/[archive]).

As a https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dv5q8o/china_censors_edward_snowdens_new_book_he/f7axckl/[Redditor put it]:

____
I don't think they understand that what Snowden stands for is completely the opposite of what the Chinese gov is lol
____

Snowden then later released the entire Chinese version of the book for free online with the censored parts underlined: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/10/snowden_china_censorship (https://web.archive.org/web/20200213001653/https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/10/snowden_china_censorship[archive]), link to the book: link:++https://a.temporaryrecord.com/Permanent_Record_-_CN_edition_with_underlined_redactions.pdf++[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20200212144108/https://a.temporaryrecord.com/Permanent_Record_-_CN_edition_with_underlined_redactions.pdf[archive]). One wonders why he didn't just do that in the first place for all versions, maybe he needed to pay the writer that helped him?

.Snowden highlighted defects on abuses of power in a Western democracy, and the discussion he sparked helped to control such abuses. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edward_Snowden-2.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Snowden.jpg[height=400]

===== Bad things have been done in the name of freedom

E.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks[September 11th].

Bad things have been done in the name of anything.

It's just that <<war,much>>, <<xinjiang,worse>> <<tiananmen,things>> are done without freedom than with it.

Democracies cannot necessarily protect weak countries from powerful ones either. No political system can do that, because humans are trash essentially.

What democracy do is to protect its own people against its own government. Because when the government turns against part of the population in a dictatorship, that part of the population gets crushed entirely, without any chance to fight, because they don't have an army or ally countries like other countries do.

Here are some images that <<wumao>>'s like to post:

* Left Right Slaughterhouse comic: https://9gag.com/gag/ayn7KmW?ref=fbp

[[ccp-evil]]
=== Is the Chinese government evil? 中国共产党是邪恶吗？

Obviously not, just <<richer,inefficient>> and <<war,dangerous>>.

It is just another non-democratic empire like the Qing Dynasty, we might as well cal it:

____
共产朝 +
The Communist Dynasty
____

Expression previously mentioned at: https://web.archive.org/web/20161025220242/http://tieba.baidu.com/p/752094668

Like any other organization and individual everywhere in the entire world, they are just doing everything that they can to maintain their own power.

It just happens that China's the current is political system allows the CCP to do really bad things.

And it should also be noted that <<henri-meyer,it is in part the West's fault>> that China currently has this shitty system.

<<falun-gong>> thinks otherwise of course, they think the CCP is actually made up of real actual devils in some dimension: <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong>>. E.g. on the https://endccp.com/ Falun Gong lead campaign:

____
The demon CCP has plundered the ancient land of China
____

==== Chinese politicians really care about the Chinese citizens

Sometimes people say Ciro Santilli is naive.

Politicians are the same all over the world.

Some might have good intentions, but don't give a shit about anyone else.

But all must play a careful political game, and sometimes betray their own beliefs to not lose power entirely.

China's problem is not its politicians.

It's the current shitty political organization, which allows/convinces those politicians to do really bad things: <<richer>>, <<war>> and <<corruption>>.

==== Is Chinese politician X evil?

The term evil does not make sense unless you are <<falun-gong,religious>>.

The best definition of evil is a psychopath with zero empathy for anyone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy although this can be better characterized as a disease or extreme personality trait.

The huge majority of those politicians are just regular dudes with a knack for politics but brought up in a fucked up political situation.

Just like you, Ciro Santilli and other politicians in any country.

See also: <<politicians>>.

[[nazi]]
=== Comparisons between the CCP and Nazi Germany 纳粹德国

Keywords:

* Xitler (习特勒). 习 "xi2" is very close in sound to the Chinese name of Hitler: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/阿道夫·希特勒[希特勒] (xi1 te4 le4)
* Chinazi (赤纳粹). TODO why 赤. Means Red, but where else is it used?
* link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum[Reductio ad Hitlerum]

The most notable aspect is the persecution of minorities of course, notably <<xinjiang>> and <<falun-gong>> which closely ressembles that of the Jews, see also: <<first-they-came>>.

See also: <<communist-youth-league>>.

Articles:

* http://yashalong.blog.caixin.com/archives/188877 这么好的人民，不倒点霉都对不起他们 "These are such good people, if they have a bit of bad luck, excuse them." article by yashalong 押沙龙 published on <<caixin>>. The article discusses how Nazi Germany propaganda worked, without mention to the CCP, but it was still apparently https://www.bannedbook.org/bnews/baitai/20190816/1175647.html[banned in China].

https://www.southbankresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/9/2020/01/ZHA-issue-2510-free.pdf has a good quote:
____
Would you have stood up to Hitler when he came to power? Or would you have been an appeaser, like Chamberlain? Or perhaps even a supporter of fascism, like the Daily Mail's owner at the time?

We all like to imagine we're courageous enough to stand up to tyranny and persecution. That we would have stood up to the villains of the past. Seen them for what they really were, even helped rescue their victims from danger. We certainly don't like to think we would have bought their goods or funded, invested in their economies...

Well today, you're going to find out what you're made of
____

.Photoshopped <<xi-jinping>> with raised fist with Nazi uniform and flag on the background. https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/cuf3p7/chinazi_xitler/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Nazi_war_flag.jpg[height=400]

.Likely original or similar image of <<xi-jinping>> with raised fist as he took oath when coming into or renewing office. http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2018-03/19/content_50723040.htm[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_raised_fist.jpg[height=400]

.German's 1938-1945 war flag called the "War Ensign of Germany" in English or "Reichskriegsflagge" in German. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskriegsflagge[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nazi_war_flag.png[height=400]

.Hitler has of course a few raised fists on Google Images, but they tend to be more aggressive, and less compatible with Xi's apathic poker face. https://bodylanguageproject.com/xarticles/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Hitler-4.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hitler_angry_rehearsal.jpg[height=400]

.Photoshopped cover of Mein Kampf with Xi's face on top of Hitler's and other modifications such as Mian instead of Mein, likely the same 面 (mian4, face) as the Chinese character at the bottom right. https://foreignerinformosa.typepad.com/the_foreigner_in_formosa/2017/07/president-xitler-of-china-murders-political-dissident-liu-xiaobo.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_mein_kampf.jpg[height=400]

.Original cover of Mein Kampf. link:++https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adolf_Hitler_-_Mein_Kampf_(855._Auflage,_1943).pdf++[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mein_kampf.jpg[height=400]

.Photoshopped photo of Hitler giving the Nazi salute from a car with Himmler on the background with Xi's face on top of Hitler's. https://chinhdangvu1.blogspot.com/2017/09/xitler-chinazism.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Nazi_car_salute_photoshop.jpg[height=400]

.Original photo of Hitler giving the Nazi salute from a car with Himmler on the background. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/heinrich-himmler-holocaust[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hitler_Himmler_salute.jpg[height=400]

.Chinazi flag by <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests,Hong Kong protesters>>. Seen https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2019/08/【盛世一景】赤纳粹旗（chinazi-flag）/[on streets]. https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/dbrken/google_bomb_china_flag_search_query_into_chinazi/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chinazi_flag.png[height=400]

[[xi-salute-young-pioneers-nazi]]
.Xi Jinping basically <<nazi,Nazi saluting>> kids from <<young-pioneers-of-china>> in Beijing, June 1, 2015. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[Source] (http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-06/01/c_138108706.htm[biased]).
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_scout_salute.jpg[height=500]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD53MEbLDIE <<serpentza-laowhy86,laowhy86>> video "Can We Compare China to Nazi Germany?" published on 2020-04-29. Good side-by-side video comparisons. Says that China is mor like Nazi than <<russia>>, but Ciro disagrees, all three are <<is-chinese-politician-x-evil,evil dictatorships>>.
video::wD53MEbLDIE[youtube,height=400,width=600]

=== Contributing guidelines

[[shitpost]]
==== I want to take my chances and make a shitpost in cirosantilli/china-dictatorship

So, have you reached the conclusion that your https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shitposting[shitpost] is link:CONTRIBUTING.md[worth the risk of getting blocked]?

Remember that shitposts can also be creative: if you are going to insult Ciro Santilli, at least do it in a creative way, or else you look like an even bigger idiot than you really are.

A collection of shitposts for you to take inspiration from can be found at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ashitpost+

Also, when opening a shitpost you may mark it clearly such with the shitpost issue template which automatically assigns the shitpost label. Doing so will make you look like less of an idiot.

While we require polite replies to polite posts, no matter what which side they are defending, if a post is marked as a shitpost, things are much more relaxed and fun, and you can generally get away with telling the OP to fuck themselves link:CONTRIBUTING.md[without getting blocked].

.Real shit photos may be posted in reply to shitposts. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Human_Feces_(cropped).jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Shit.jpg[height=400]

.Amazing shitposts may recieve a Golden Shit award. The image is from a Japanese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_no_unko[Kin no unko (金のうんこ)], which is likely inspired by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sycee[golden Sycees]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kin_no_unko.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Kin_no_unko.jpg[height=500]

.To censor or not to censor good shitposts: that is not the question, <<ciro-santilli>> will never censor them! https://imgur.com/gallery/rA0K90g[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Like_shitposts.jpg[height=600]

.The legendary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_Mud_Horse[Grass Mud Horse 草泥马 (caonima)] is also said to appear in shitposts from time to time.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Caonima.jpg[height=600]

==== I am going to write a huge wall of text to prove my point

Feel free to do that, but no one will ever read most of it.

If you want your comment to be read, choose your key point well, and deliver it.

It is a shame that most people who are ever able to do that are <<shitpost,shitposters>>, but credit where credit is due.

==== Can I contact Ciro Santilli in Chinese?

If you don't know English well enough, that's fine though, go for Chinese, Ciro Santilli will likely understand it: <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese>>.

But if you do, use English.

Ciro is not going to learn Chinese because of your message.

It is more productive for you to write in English, so that the rest of the West can also learn something new.

Especially since it seems that most Chinese already know what you are talking about, so you are better off teaching Western people about it.

[[slang]]
===== I am going to use a bunch of Chinese slangs because it makes me feel smart 我知道网络语言，我很聪明

Obviously, if you want to be understood, use simple and standard Chinese, since as Ciro has already stated clearly, his Chinese sucks: <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese>>.

Avoid slangs, otherwise Ciro might not have patience to Google your useless slangs down <<zhihu,Zhihu>> questions.

Of course, if you have to read this, you likely are not going to say anything useful in the first place, so not reading your post is likely fine, just make sure to mark it as a <<shitpost>> if you don't want Ciro to think you are a complete idiot.

Using slangs makes some people feel smart due their advanced knowledge of a specific subculture, or makes them feel part of that subculture to gather allies, or they just want to waste Ciro's time.

It mainly comes down to a way of avoiding any rational conversation about China's obvious problems by highlighting <<not-chinese>>.

Such idiots don't see however that every major slang is Googleable, and that every overly obscure slang is already not understandable by a large part of the Chinese population, and won't be understood by anybody in 5 years, so that you are wasting your time writing this gibberish. But since you are an idiot, it's not like you have anything better to do with your time, so maybe it doesn't matter.

If you want to efficiently prevent anyone from understanding your stuff, Ciro recommends that you just use SHA-256 instead:

....
$ printf 'heil xi' | sha256sum
286b183bf41d6c9de5315bbd64f1ca35a58157ae2e7f38086978c108e67c4882  -
....

A Chinese insult tip 101, avoid similar sound euphemisms. If you are going to say shit at least grow some balls or tits and use the proper characters, Ciro will respect you more for it:

* 屄 cunt, most often for https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/傻屄[傻屄]
** 逼
*** "sb"
*** "B": cirosantilli#105
* 肏 fuck: 操
* 傻 idiot: 沙
* 屌 dick: 雕

Places to try and decrypt Internet slang when you feel like wasting your time:

* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国大陆网络用语列表
** "网络用语" is the most common word for "Internet Slang", so also useful for Google searches
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Internet_slang

Random slangs of interest and related concepts:

* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/火星文[火星文] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martian_language[Martian language]). This figures for example in the language rules of the <<ptt>> joke board: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/joke/M.1602005687.A.E4D.html (禁止使用簡體字、注音文、火星文、外國語言或其他無法直觀理解之內容作為文章主體).

GitHub issue label: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ai-know-slangs-i-smart+

[[vagina]]
.A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vagina[Vagina] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/阴道[阴道]) also known as cunt (屄), is the female reproductive organ, including the naturally occurring black hole that appears in front of it whenever a picture is taken to prevent <<github>> from taking down this page. Even though <<porn,you've never seen one>>, there's no need to be afraid of it, and refer to it in euphemisms like "SB". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rugae_vaginales.jpg[Background source] and https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Hole_Milkyway.jpg[black hole source].
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Rugae_vaginales_with_black_hole.jpg[height=400]

[[internet-number-slang]]
====== Internet number slang (网络数字语言)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Internet_slang#Numeronyms
* https://baike.baidu.com/item/网络数字语言#2 on <<baidu>>
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeronym

https://newrepublic.com/article/117608/chinese-number-websites-secret-meaning-urls highlights how numeric emails and URLs are especially popular in China, in part due to the ASCII/West-centrism of web standards: https://www.quora.com/What-is-126-com-and-why-are-they-the-owner-of-millions-of-good-domain-names/answer/Ciro-Santilli

Examples in this page:

* <<nine-nine-six-icu>> is an example that is not phonetic, but just about meaning
* 六四 used to refer to <<tiananmen>>
* https://www.12321.cn/web and http://12377.cn from <<cac-report-website>> are likely examples where older well known official phone numbers were just directly converted to URLs

Bibliography:

* https://www.fluentu.com/blog/chinese/2017/10/16/chinese-number-slang/
* https://www.quora.com/What-does-126-and-163-mean-in-Chinese-language

=== Personal questions about Ciro Santilli

==== Has Ciro Santilli you ever lived in China?

Not as of 2019, he has only visited once in 2012, and it was <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,amazingly beautiful>>.

.Ciro Santilli with a stone carved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budai[Budai (布袋和尚)] in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maitreya_and_disciples_carving_in_Feilai_Feng_Caves.jpg[Feilai Feng caves (飞来峰)] near the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingyin_Temple[Lingyin Temple (灵隐寺)] in Hangzhou taken during his legendary 2012 touristic trip to China. Will he ever be able to go to China again to re-experience such marvelous locations? If the CCP falls before he dies, and if the statue hasn't been destroyed by the commies, Ciro will return to that exact spot and take a second picture. How will he look like?
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli_with_a_stone_carved_Budai_in_the_Feilai_Feng_caves_near_the_Lingyin_Temple_in_Hangzhou_in_2012.jpg[height=500]

But he doesn't think it is a good idea for him to do that now, in case his Visa got accepted, because he is not interested in learning about the Chinese jail system! :-)

He knows that if you don't mind contributing to making <<war,WW3>> deadlier and shut up and obey the CCP, China is already a fine place to live as much as any other developing country.

===== Would Ciro Santilli like to live in China?

If the dictatorship ends, <<ciro-santilli>> would like to <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,migrate to China>> if given a decent job to help China develop and become awesomer.

Before the Dictatorship, Ciro likely won't be able to enter/it wouldn't be a good idea: <<would-ciro-santilli-be-able-to-visit-china-before-the-ccp-ends>>.

And it is immoral to help make dictatorships richer by working for their companies: <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china>>.

===== Would Ciro Santilli be able to visit China before the CCP ends?

It would be interesting to apply for a VISA to find out.

But Ciro won't do it because it is too risky that it would be a waste of Ciro's precious <<better-to-do,time and money>>.

Firstly, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45812399[Jamal Khashoggi] taught us that walking into enemy into consulates of enemy countries is a bad idea.

Then, even if the VISA were accepted, Ciro could still be turned back on entering the country, thus wasting the flight time and money. This could either be a genius plot to waste the money of enemies of the state, or due to a crappy divided IT system between the border control and the VISA people.

Finally, even after the border, there is still the possibility that Ciro could be stopped in the country half-way through the visit and sent back, or be interrogated for a few days, or less likely murdered with poison.

Therefore, if you think that living in China is fundamental to understand it, please just explain what you think one can learn from the experience instead. Do you really need to live there to see its censorship machine working? It would arguably be harder to see it from the inside.

See also: <<what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship>>.

Bibliography: cirosantilli#93

[[is-ciro-santilli-chinese]]
==== Is Ciro Santilli Chinese? 三西猴是中国人吗？

See: https://cirosantilli.com/#ciro-santilli

And it does not matter: <<not-chinese>>.

But <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,his wife is>>.

[[does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli speak Chinese? 三西猴会说中文吗？

As of 2019, oral enough for daily things, but not understand most natural casual dinner conversation or watch TV series, because they go too quickly into vocabulary subject areas that he doesn't know. And obviously, using <<slang,slangs>> just makes things really hard.

When it matters, and with some patience, he can make himself understood though with https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/[some analogies] (https://web.archive.org/web/20190908144612/https://xkcd.com/thing-explainer/[archive]) and a dictionary.

From the HSK vocabulary list, he estimates that he is definitely HSK 3, but not quite HSK 4. This would likely equate A2/B1 in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages[European system].

Phonetics wise, Ciro can't distinguish or produce a few sounds, notably `-ing` vs `-in` and his off-tone rate is high, but it tends to not matter at all compared to his lack of vocabulary. Except for his <<wife,mother-in-law>>, who sometimes does not understand it at all without correct tones!

Ciro reads with link:https://www.perapera.org/[Perapera] when he wants to learn new words/has patience/something is very important, and can basically understand everything in that way.

When he has no patience or for larger not very important chunks of text though, he reads with Google Translate as it tends to work, and then if there is an important sentence that was translated to garbage with Perapera.

Ciro writes with a mixture of link:https://www.pleco.com/[Pleco], Google translate and Googling to see if Chinese actually say the sentences that way, never Google translate alone as it would be too imprecise.

Ciro really wishes he could learn more Chinese. Ciro really loves the Chinese language. But he has other more important endeavors at the moment. There simply aren't enough hours in a day.

Spoken Chinese is in Ciro's opinion a relatively easy language to learn from scratch, because word formation is so often logical:, e.g.:

* volcano = fire + mountain: 火山(huo shan)
* train = fire + car: 火车 (huo che), a reference to old https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_locomotive[steam locomotives]

and there is no useless crap like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_conjugation[verb grammatical conjugation], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender[grammatical gender], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural[plural inflection], capitalization, etc. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latino_sine_flexione[latino sine flexione] anyone?)

Ciro <<characters,hasn't tried to learn characters>> because <<chinese-characters-are-insane,too much effort>>, but he did learn some of the most common ones without trying.

Ciro initially learnt from book that come with audio recordings in the first 6-months to 1 year in 2010, but that got impossibly boring afterward, so he later moved to just basically talking as much as possible non-important things to <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much,his wife in Chinese>>, and whenever he reaches one that he doesn't know that seems useful, he Plecos it up or just 怎么说 to his <<wife>> and then Pleco.

It should also be mentioned that Ciro also feels that it would be better if all countries more officially adopted English as an international language that everyone should learn for reasons explained at: https://cirosantilli.com/#having-more-than-one-natural-language-is-bad-for-the-world

[[chinese-characters-are-insane]]
===== Chinese characters are insane (汉字是疯狂的)

Maybe the commies for once <<richer,did something good>> by introducing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese_characters[simplified Chinese characters (简化字)]?

But they should have gone further and reduced it to pinyin like the Korean and Vietnamese did, this will make your culture much easier to export.

No foreign adult will every learn to read and write Chinese unless they are completely obsessed by the culture or need it as part of their jobs. And even then, they will avoid it at all costs, because life is just too short!

Japanese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furigana[furigana] also comes to mind. The characters are so insane that you need a well specified and widely used phonetic reading aid!

Yes, ideograms are:

* beautiful
* https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/2003/can-chinese-readers-scan-large-amounts-of-text-faster-more-accurately-than-their[maybe you can read faster]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizontal_and_vertical_writing_in_East_Asian_scripts[vertical text (纵排)] is awesome (but is it more efficient? https://www.zhihu.com/question/22104723[Zhihu], https://www.quora.com/Can-literate-Chinese-people-easily-read-vertical-writing[Quora]).
* more historically stable, and you can still read/learn more or less quickly to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Chinese_language[texts written more than two thousand years ago]
* single character emoticons like "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiong[囧]", before the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoticons_(Unicode_block)[Emoticons Unicode block]! Yes, when your language has a character so useless that it becomes an emoticon, maybe you should start to worry that something went wrong somewhere.

but they just take too much time for any sane person adult to learn, it's harder than {cpp}!

<<ciro-santilli>> smirked when he came across the character "蒄" in Pleco, and the translation was: "meaning unknown (herb mentioned in old books)". Yes, at the word level, the same like exists in phonetic systems, but that it takes up a modern dictionary and Unicode slot is still funny.

Posts that express similar ideas:

* <<evil-chinese-characters-by-ted-chiang>>

.The "fictional" Chinese character "Dou" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncyclopedia[Uncyclopedia] is roughly translated as "Impossibly complex pictogram-based writing system that takes a person a thousand thousand years to learn." and illustrates well why pictograms are a bad idea. https://uncyclopedia.ca/wiki/File:Chinese_character_extreme.svg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chinese_character_extreme.svg[height=400]

.The Sweet Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_Nobody_Got_Time_for_That[Ain't Nobody Got Time for That] meme (https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sweet-brown-aint-nobody-got-time-for-that[knowyourmeme]) fits perfectly into how Ciro feels about learning Chinese characters.
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Sweet_brown_chinese_characters_meme.jpg[height=500]

////
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_cbW5JK9WM "The most complex Chinese character" by Vladimir Skultety does a reasonable analysis of which Chinese character is the most complex
video::t_cbW5JK9WM[youtube,height=400,width=600]
////

[[evil-chinese-characters-by-ted-chiang]]
====== 坏汉字 by Ted Chiang

https://www.douban.com/group/topic/162835411/

Ciro's <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese>> was mentioned in a related Zhihu answer: <<zhihu-ted-chiang-answer>>.

[[radical]]
==== Is Ciro Santilli a radical?

Saying that someone is a radical is useless <<brainwashed-by-usa,ad hominem>>.

If you want to say something useful, give specific reasons why you think one specific thing that <<ciro-santilli>> said is incorrect.

Do you consider him a radical because it is unthinkable that China is not perfect?

Or just because he's trying to <<keyword-attack,take down>> some more websites that your dictatorship still does not dislike enough to block: <<china-is-fine-as-it-is-stop-making-it-worse>>?

Don't you think that it is much more radical to <<intolerance,be put in jail for your beliefs>> and <<censorship,silenced if you disagree with anything the government says>>?

Ciro doesn't think either China or West is perfect: <<western-media-has-exaggerated-reports-on-flg-for-propaganda-reasons>>.

He's just listing arguments why he thinks democracy is better, e.g.: <<richer>>, <<war>>.

See also:

* <<preconceived>>
* <<bias>>

And Ciro never gets mad. Only a slightly sad or annoyed sometimes.

But maybe no radical ever considers themselves a radical? Hmmm...

Or maybe: link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efHCdKb5UWc[The Dark Knight - Some Men Just Want To Watch The World Burn]?

==== Are you a SJW?

SJW: there is a seed of SJW in me.

One major difference between me and the stereotypical SJW is that I never engage in lengthy discussions.

I limit myself to listening as much as I can to learn new arguments.

So the rationale of my actions is _not_ to convince anyone, but rather:

* increase the monetary cost of censorship by binding politics to tech
* group up like-minded people who don't like censorship

See also: <<preconceived>>

[[does-ciro-santilli-hate-china]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli hate China? 三西猴讨厌中国吗？

On the contrary. China has his favorite:

* <<restaurants,food>>
* <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese,language>>
* <<music>>
* history
* nature
* culture, notably:
** intense respect for older people. Whenever Ciro was with his <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother-in-law>> and asked for help from young Chinese people, they were extremely nice.
+
It is hard to understand how the same people have not managed to speak up when <<flg-persecution,70 million old ladies were put into jail when Falun Gong was banned>>. Only the extreme fear of also going to jail could explain it. Living in China is living in constant fear if you can think for yourself.
** enormous importance given to education. One must not forget however: grades are useless, and all that matters is how much you improve society

And because of that: <<would-ciro-santilli-like-to-live-in-china>>.

As link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjarne_Stroustrup[Bjarne] said:

____
There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses
____

Ciro only focus here on negative things to provide content that will <<keyword-attack,activate the Great Firewall>>.

____
持华反党 +
爱国恨党
____

[[yuyuan-garden]]
.Round gate at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_Garden[Yu Garden 豫园] in Shanghai. link:++https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shanghai_-_YuYuan_Gardens_and_Old_Town_(584867794).jpg++[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Yuyuan_garden_door.jpg[height=600]

[[chinese-traditional-painting]]
===== Chinese traditional painting 中国传统绘画

See also: <<museum>>.

Some free online collections:

* Smithsonian collection at a search for Paintings before 1800. Drill down further by "topic" e.g. "Mountains" or "scholar"
** https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=&fq=online_visual_material%3Atrue&fq=online_media_type%3A%22Images%22&fq=culture%3A%22Chinese%22&fq=object_type%3A%22Paintings%22&view=list&date.slider=300s%2C1800s

."Plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum" (梅兰竹菊) painting by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_Xie[Zheng Xie (郑燮)] representing the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Gentlemen[four gentlemen (四君子)]. Ciro is a big fan of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird-and-flower_painting[traditional Chinese bird-and-flower painting (花鸟画)] like this. https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/315744623848820315/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Four_gentlemen.jpg[height=600]

===== Why does Ciro Santilli love China so much?

<<ciro-santilli>> does not <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong,believe in reincarnation>>, but sometimes he's tempted to.

It is interesting how different people get <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,different impressions>>!

Of course, the fact that his wife is Chinese and <<flg-bias,does Falun Gong>> may or may not have played a role in it :-)

It was like this: Ciro started getting interested in Chinese culture, then he started hanging out with Chinese people, and then he started hanging out with his wife!

So yes, it is a chicken and egg type of thing. The fact that she is one of the most intelligent, morally upright, cute, and "never give up" person I know may have helped me choose too.

[[selfish]]
==== Ciro Santilli's China freedom campaign is selfish

See also:

* <<flg-bias>>
* <<throne>>
* <<harm-programmers>>

[[famous]]
===== Ciro Santilli is doing his China freedom campaign to become famous

No, he am a selfless human being, only concerned with the greater well being of humankind.

More serious answer:

* he believes in this. As evidence, it has limiting effects on his technological career: <<does-your-employer-support-this>>, and he doesn't think he can/wants to become a politician in China if the CCP ever falls
* the more famous Ciro is, the more impact he will have in the future
* the more famous Ciro is, the more feedback he have that what he's been doing has been working

Keyword: attention whore.

Duplicate pool:

* cirosantilli#5

===== Ciro Santilli is doing his China freedom campaign because it makes him feel important

See: <<famous>>.

===== Ciro Santilli is doing his China freedom campaign to vent off his anger

No, he is not angry at all, see also: <<harm-programmers>>.

[[cia-funding]]
===== Is Ciro Santilli's china-dictatorship campaign funded or otherwise supported by some organization?

Sure, the CIA sends Ciro 10 thousand USD checks from time to time, but that doesn't change at all what he would be doing.

Just kidding.

A shady supporting organization might require that he does not disclose their support, so maybe the best answer is that you will never know for sure.

Of course, a hidden support would represent a reputation hit for both such organizations and for me, which makes it less likely that I would have accepted or had such an offer.

Also consider Ciro's motivation. If your <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother in law were put into jail unfairly for 15 days>>, for following the same religion that <<flg-bias,your wife follows>>, and if you had a social media presence, wouldn't you be tempted to do the same?

What about you, are you funded by the CCP?

See also: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/blob/48a95bf57a16b85619a6ae68702d18c9a5078797/FAQ.md#flg-has-been-funded-by-the-us-government-at-least-once-therefore-it-is-evil

==== Would Ciro Santilli be doing his China freedom campaign if he was in China?

Not with his real name attached to it, see also:

* <<what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship>>
* <<not-chinese>>

===== Does your employer support this?

My employer has nothing to do with this.

He doesn't approve or disapprove of the Chinese government or of my private actions.

The only thing that my employer _does_ believe in is that employees can have their own political opinions, and that this should not affect hiring decisions.

Obviously, this action limits my ability to lead high profile deals with China.

Also I'm quite curious if this would limit my ability to go to China for business, but I haven't applied for a visa since I've started this. It likely wouldn't be a good idea for me to go to China :-)

But my employer believes that inclusion and non-discrimination are more valuable.

I will always do my best to not let my personal opinions affect my professional decisions, as that would be unfair to my employer.

[[better-to-do]]
==== Doesn't Ciro Santilli have anything better to do than pissing off China?

In 1989, besides <<tiananmen>> and <<ciro-santilli>>'s birth, a beautiful thing called the World Wide Web was invented!

The Internet gives everyone the magic power of writing something, and having million people read it for free!

This is how much time Ciro spends on this project to give you an idea:

* every week or two, someone sends me a message, he reply with "read the FAQ", and usually update
* Ciro https://www.reddit.com/r/China amongst many other programming subs, and all major bad news show up there. See also: <<anti-ccp-info-sources>>
* when something bad enough comes up, Ciro go to https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/sensitive-words-series/ and update <<keyword-attack,his keyword attack>>. He's only been updating it on Stack Overflow and GitHub these days.

Then Ciro just contributes to programming websites exactly as he would if he weren't making this campaign, and voila.

Edit: to be fair, the end of 2019 and start of 2020 was such as hot year with <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>> and <<corona>> that Ciro might have spent a tiny little bit more ;-)

But Ciro did it only when his brain was too tired of technical stuff and unable to do more, or as a brain warm up routine in the morning.

Telling the CCP to fuck off is surprisingly relaxing, you should try it some time too. It uses a different part of your brain other than the programming one. It is, one could say, an art form.

=== People in China have already considered democracy, and rejected it

OK, shall we put that to an anonymous vote just to make sure?

Dear sir or madam: do you want more control over your government? y/n

Oops, I forgot that <<most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship,proposing such a vote would put in you jail>>, nevermind.

[[violence]]
=== Would it be right to use violence to overthrow the CCP?

In an ideal world, Ciro Santilli is of course "against violence".

But what if you could prevent a lot of future violence with some violence today?

Ah, the eternal question which only God can answer:

* https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-origin-of-the-quote-The-end-justifies-the-means "What is the origin of the quote 'The end justifies the means?'"
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism[Consequentialism]
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem[Trolley problem]
* link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance[Nonviolent-resistance]

Do you really think that the communists will step down if you ask them nicely enough? Even after <<tiananmen>>?

A quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film)[V for Vendetta (2005)] comes to mind:

____
Q: If they do, what do you think will happen [the people protest against their Government]?

A: What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people with guns.
____

[[v-for-vendetta]]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=TcoBv6ibh8M V for Vendetta (2005) "What you think will happen" scene.
video::TcoBv6ibh8M[youtube,height=400,width=600]

How do you think the CCP or any other party got into power and maintained that power in the first place? Obviously https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Revolution[through violence]. And likely due to earlier <<not-chinese,Japanese invasions which weakened the Guomindang>>.

And the CCP actually uses "the ends justify the means" as an argument to justify its own actions: <<overlook-human-rights-for-profit>>.

The question of if anything is morally right or wrong makes no sense. All that matters is: what is the government that maximizes the happines of its own people, and who has the power to do what? <<richer,Getting richer,>> is part of the equation, but so is <<rule-of-law,not being constantly affraid that you will be randomly put in jail for no good reason>>.

If you do decide to strike though, <<what-should-pro-democracy-chinese-living-in-china-do-about-the-dictatorship,stay safe, gather your forces on the Internet, and only strike when victory seems certain>>.

For "violence is illegal" arguments, see also: <<follow-the-law>>.

.One baby <<nazi,Hitler>> or 5 Million Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem[trolley problem] illustrates well the moral dillema of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consequentialism["the ends justify the means"].
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Baby_Hitler_vs_5_million_Jews_trolley_problem.jpg[height=400]

==== It is fine for the CCP to treat some of its citizens unfairly if the majority is better off

Basically same discussion as: <<violence>> but with the tables turned.

See also: <<uneducated-masses>>

[[dictatorship]]
=== Why does Ciro Santilli say that China is a dictatorship? 中国不是独裁！

Ciro is using the word in an slightly extended/joking sense.

Maybe "authoritarian" is a more precise term, but it is just too much of a mouthful.

In particular, dictatorships are harder to sustain than authoritarianism, since it generally implies even less freedom, and a single leader whose death can destabilize everything.

The CCP is more like a social class with a large number of members and various sub-layers, and it is therefore much harder to take down on the other hand.

Dictatorship is becoming link:https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-party-term-limit.html[more and more precise under Xi] however.

Even <<mao-zedong>> admits it and put it into the constitution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_democratic_dictatorship[People's democratic dictatorship 人民民主专政], so funny.

Well known <<evil-west,Evil Western media>> that also call China a dictatorship:

* 2020-01-29 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/29/opinion/coronavirus-china-government.html "Coronavirus Spreads, and the World Pays for China's Dictatorship"
* 2018-03-04 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/04/xi-jinping-from-president-to-china-new-dictator "Xi Jinping's power play: from president to China's new dictator?"
* 2017-10-11 https://www.ft.com/content/cb2c8578-adb4-11e7-aab9-abaa44b1e130 "Under Xi Jinping, China is turning back to dictatorship"

Further discussions about this useless terminology question:

* https://www.quora.com/Is-China-a-dictatorship

[[anti-ccp-info-sources]]
==== What are the best sources of anti-CCP news?

https://www.reddit.com/r/China[], see also: <<reddit>>

Catches all the important news.

A large part of the posts has controversial material.

Has some noise of course as well, but less than other media I find.

Highly worth your feed.

Reddit was banned in China in August 2018: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/965k4c/reddit_banned_in_china/

Tencent will invest 150 million on Reddit in 2019: https://gizmodo.com/reddit-banned-in-china-is-reportedly-set-to-land-150-1832375439 See also: <<biased-media>>.

===== Reddit

Subs with lots of anti-commie info:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/China is arguably the best as of 2020, see also: <<anti-ccp-info-sources>>
* https://www.reddit.com/r/fucktheccp/ small as of 2020 but promising
* https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong had 3x more users than r/china as of 2020 after <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>.
* https://www.reddit.com/r/CCP_virus/ for <<corona>>
* China Circle Jerk subs (CCJ). TODO: these appear to be politically incorrect subs, but they do seem to allow anti-commit info. As of 2020, they were either banned or private:
** https://www.reddit.com/r/CCJ
** https://www.reddit.com/r/CCJ2
* https://www.reddit.com/r/tibet/ 3k subs 2020

TODO review:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/China_Flu/

====== r/sino

https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/

Any comment critical of China and mods immediately ban you, e.g. on 2020-08-21 at https://www.reddit.com/r/Sino/comments/ie0mak/china_is_building_a_github_alternative_called/ which is related to <<gitee>>, <<ciro-santilli>> commented:

____
Let's see how long it takes them to block my repo/account: https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship | http://web.archive.org/web/20200821202450/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
____

The ban message is:

____
You have been permanently banned from participating in r/Sino. You can still view and subscribe to r/Sino, but you won't be able to post or comment.

Try https://www.reddit.com/r/westerner/[r/westerner] TRASH doesn't get by mods here. Tiananmen Square is vindicated by China's development. Anti terror system in Xinjiang is working. End result for HK is the same since 1997, regardless of rioters. Scientology-esque FLG/Shen Yun cult show has failed for decades, if you believe their claims, it's all of them losing badly.

Dec 31 China informed WHO about mysterious pneumonia. Jan 11 Chinese reveal virus genome Jan 23 Wuhan quarantine - businessinsider/sciencemag

You had the genome and saw the lengths China went to. Don't blame others for failing months later.

US accused of 'modern piracy' after diversion of masks meant for Europe - theguardian

Democracies Are Better at Fighting Outbreaks - theatlantic XD

The US leads in coronavirus cases, but not pandemic response - sciencemag XD

Beliefs of founder cultleader of Falun Gong from own lectures on official falundafa site https://redd.it/42wlvf
____

====== r/russia

Completely pro-Putin, e.g. removed https://www.reddit.com/r/russia/comments/kd21ck/cnnbellingcat_investigation_identifies_russian/ about <<the-poisoning-of-alexei-navalny-2020>>

===== Telegram

* https://t.me/anticcpbase
* https://t.me/ccp_unmasked see also: <<knowlesys>>

==== Where can I find good words for a keyword attack?

* List of blacklisted keywords in China
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_blacklisted_keywords_in_China
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华人民共和国网络审查
* https://github.com/jasonqng/chinese-keywords
* https://github.com/cirosantilli/media/raw/master/complete-gfw-rulebook-for-wikipedia-v3.0.pdf[Complete GFW Rulebook for Wikipedia v3.0]
* https://chinadigitaltimes.net This is was an amazing source, extremely comprehensive and up-to-date, but the series was stopped in September 2018:
** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/word-of-the-week/?view=all word of the week
** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/directives-from-the-ministry-of-truth/?view=all censorship directive reports
*** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/category/有关部门/真理部指令/?view=all chinese version
** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/space/Main_Page a wiki version of the censored word lists, the ,"<<shitpost,Grass-mud horse>> index" (cao3n2ma3 草泥马), with a censored term of the week section.
** https://chinadigitaltimes.net/china/sensitive-words-series/?view=all sensitive words list
** Fun 2015 ebook: https://github.com/cirosantilli/decoding-chinese-internet-pdf-download

See also:

* <<censorship-monitoring>>
* <<tiananmen-square-protests-keywords>>

[[keyword-choice]]
==== How do you choose keywords for the keyword attack?

I haven't counted, but the limit for Stack Overflow is quite low, and I'm always almost at the maximum, which is about "Ciro Santilli" + 3 3-4 Chinese character events with a separator.

These are some of my prioritization guidelines:

* recent cases receive a large prime over the raw death toll, because older cases can always be attributed to other people.
+
E.g., I've heard there is even some opening towards acknowledging the Great Famine, thus 烏坎事件 (and others from my previous profile names)
* words must refer to a precise event, and must be clearly summarizable in very few chars, for increased impact, and profile name length limitations.
+
E.g. "High <<corruption,corruption>> rates, high pollution", although very serious, feel too generic.
* events that relate directly to freedom of speech receive a prime, since they can only happen in China and very few other countries.
+
E.g.: <<falun-gong>>, <<tiananmen>>.
+
Non e.g.: corruption and pollution. Those are hard to quantify, and there is always an immediate reply: china GDP per capita is low, same happens in India, Brazil, etc.
+
Freedom of speech however, is immediately verifiable (e.g. "my Weibo was taken down"), and undeniably caused by the current central government.
* the more people affected, and the more deeply they have been affected, the more important obviously

I am currently trying to maintain in my Stack Overflow Location a ranking of events in a single string, so that it can be easily copy pasted around. The location appears on every page if you hover over my account name, so it is likely in the HTML at least.

If you think that this list can be improved, please open an issue explaining how and why.

==== Other notable keyword attacks

[[notepad]]
===== Notepad++

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad++
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notepad++

It might be a newbie text editors for newbie Windows users, but at least they use it to good use by doing keyword attacks:

* 2020-08: https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/17/notepad-plus-plus-blocked-in-china/ "Text editor Notepad{plus}{plus} banned in China after ‘Stand With Hong Kong' update" where "banned" means "the download page where they keywords are shown is now blocked in Chinese browsers". The rest of the website is still up. So no domain block due to HTTPS, browser only action for now.
* 2019-10: "In October 2019 Notepad{plus}{plus}'s GitHub issue tracker was flooded with pro-Chinese and anti-western messages after a version codenamed "Free Uyghur" (v7.8.1) was released"
** https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/31/notepad_china_spam/
** https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dp3icm/notepad_after_voicing_their_support_for_the/ "Notepad{plus}{plus}, after voicing their support for the Uyghurs, is now being bombarded by Chinese nationalists on Github." See e.g.: notepad-plus-plus/notepad-plus-plus#7489 and earlier issues
* 2008-03: "In March 2008 the "Boycott Beijing 2008" banner was placed on Notepad{plus}{plus}'s SourceForge.net homepage": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concerns_and_controversies_over_the_2008_Summer_Olympics#Boycotts

The creator appears to be a Vietnamese immigrant or descendant living in France. There are many such immigrants due to Vietnam being an ex-colony: https://github.com/donho Also he must have good reason to dislike the commies due to similar commit bullshit in Vietnam. He was at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Diderot_University[Paris Diderot] in 2000: https://donho.github.io/#education (https://web.archive.org/web/20190424004100/https://donho.github.io/#education[archive]).

[[separatism]]
=== Separatism 分离主义

If a large number of people in a given region want to leave an country strongly or have greater autonomy, <<ciro-santilli>> believes that they should be allowed to do so.

Rationale:

* if they don't feel they are getting a good deal out of your country, it is unfair to keep them in
* keeping them in the country forcibly implies large scale violation of human rights: mass incarceration and removing freedom of speech.
+
Which in turn implies terrorist backslash.
+
All of which are against <<ciro-santilli>>'s principles.
+
[[luxor]]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=eouBCMPtNDQ?t=1170 "It happened in ... Luxor" by Al Jazeera English (2011) is a short documentary about the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxor_massacre[Luxor massacre in Egypt (1997)]. At this timestamp, survivor https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_E._Müller[Felix Mueller] whose girlfriend was killed in the attack comments that it is when people don't have an official way to express their needs due to censorship that they are more likely to turn to terrorism to express themselves.
video::fASh2_RzMuE[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=1170]

What makes Ciro the maddest is the censorship. If you are going to put people in jail, write a clear law about it, and let international reporters come to see the situation.

But why do you do something and then hide it? Maybe because you are not doing the right thing?

Ciro also believes that although terrorists must be fought with all our strength, they must also be given some degree respect (interspersed simultaneously <<sacred-cows,with humour>>). He sometimes prefers the term "warriors" or "fighters", because their actions are largely indistinguishable from many ideological or purely greed based actions that larger nation states have done many times over and over. It is just a war, plain and simple.

The reason why they kill mostly civilians is that they don't have the means to kill the presidents those civilians elected. An amazing scene from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Battle_of_Algiers[The Battle of Algiers (1966)] comes to mind. After the head of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War[Algerian independence] movement and terrorist, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larbi_Ben_M%27hidi[Larbi Ben M'hidi] is arrested, the French military let him be interviewed by the press on 4 March 1967 https://youtu.be/uHWZkiBuKGY?t=5312 (TODO real words? Cannot find source):

Translation:

____
Journalist: Don't you think that it is cowardly to use the handbags and pushchairs of your women to transport your bombs? Those bombs that make so many innocent victims? [Earlier in the movie, we saw women carriying bombs into the French areas of Algiers through those means]

Larbi Ben M'hidi: And you, don't you think that it is much more cowardly to drop on defenseless villages your napalm bombs that kill thousands times more? Obviously, with airplanes, it would have been much more convenient for us. Give us your bombers, and we will give you the pushchairs.
____

Original text:

____
Journalist: Ne trouvez-vous pas plutôt lâche d'utiliser les sacs et les couffins de vos femmes pour transporter vos bombes? Ces bombes qui font tant de victimes innocentes?

Larbi Ben M'hidi: Et vous, ne vous semble t-il beacoup plus lache de larguer sur des vilages sans défence vos bombes au napalme qui tuent mille fois plus d'innocents? Évidement, avec des avions, ca aurait été beaucoup plus comode pour nous. Donnez vous vos bombardiers monsieur, et on vous donnera les couffins.
____

See also: <<western-democracies-have-invaded-other-countries-and-crushed-separatism>>.

[[taiwan]]
==== Taiwan 台湾 Republic of China 中華民國

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiwan
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华民国

If you are interested in Taiwan, one important programmer forum is: <<ptt>>.

Some interesting links:

* https://youtube.com/watch?v=6aZkM_ZLvjE?t=50 (zh) "【這就是科學｜柯文哲】EP3／從癌症治療看政治！除惡務盡→除惡「勿」盡？「與敵共存」才是生存之道！", 柯文哲, 2019-06-26. Ko Wen-je, the mayor of Taipei 台北 and a professor in medicine, applies the concept of isolation and mutation in evolution to Taiwan and China

[[one-china-policy]]
===== One China policy 一个中国

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-China_policy
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/一个中国

Taiwan is not a case of <<separatism>>.

Taiwan is a completely separate country split due to civil war, long ago.

Almost every country, and all reasonably powerful countries, have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. They just don't call them diplomatic relations to not piss off China so they can keep doing business.

The fact that most countries in the world does officially recognize Taiwan as a country is a joke, considering that the only thing keeping it afloat is the West's military threat.

<<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,The West must not>> let China advance and take more territories. The more they take, the more they will want.

The West must protect China's neighboring countries with military support and assurance.

The West must recognize Taiwan for what it is: a separate country, under threat of invasion, and in need of support.

If China's claim to Taiwan is valid, then Taiwan also has an equally valid claim on China.

If China's claim to Taiwan is valid, then so will its claim to any other country.

China, if you want to claim that Taiwan is a part of you, just grow some balls and invade them already. Or just stop this stupid joke.

Interesting quote from https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/taiwans-status-geopolitical-absurdity/593371/

____
Taiwan's Status Is a Geopolitical Absurdity
____

And https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/02/16/americas-affirmation-of-the-one-china-policy-pleased-taiwan-too calls the One China policy a:

____
polite fiction
____

https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/62447/how-can-a-citizen-of-mainland-china-visit-taiwan/62466#comment178495_62466 hi, I want a "not VISA" to Taiwan. Thanks.

A well educated Mainlander who lived outside of China once told Ciro:

____
Taiwan should not be considered a country by China, because then it would not join back to China when China becomes a democracy, and would be used by the USA to do evil things as they did in the Middle East
____

Ciro was shocked. He considered that person highly intelligent and not fully brainwashed! Reply:

____
China claiming that Taiwan is a part of them only drives Taiwan closer to the West! Who wants to be part of a dictatorship unless you have been brainwashed by one?
____

They truly believe in <<evil-west>>.

The US first caved in in 1972 with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Communiqué[Shanghai Communiqué].

News:

* https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/taiwan-finalises-62-billion-purchase-of-f-16-jets-lockheed-13023336 "Taiwan finalises purchase of F-16 jets from Lockheed Martin". 90 jets, 8 billion USD.
* 2020-05-26 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3940533 "Brazilian netizens fight back against CCP threats over Taiwan support"
** It should also be mentioned that this campaign could be being used/created by pro-Bolsanaro politicians as a way to detract focus from the COVID-19 epidemic that is reaching its deadliest phase in Brazil, e.g.: https://twitter.com/PauloMartins10/status/1265038976617984002
* 2020 <<corona>> and Taiwan:
** Taiwan was at a disadvantage during since it was not part of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization[World Health Organization] and therefore could not get information as fast and influence decisions
+
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=fASh2_RzMuE WHO officer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Aylward[Bruce Alyward] pretends not to hear question from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTHK[Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK)] about the possibility of Taiwan's membership in the WHO during a one-to-one Skype interview, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/senior-who-adviser-appears-to-dodge-question-on-taiwans-covid-19-response[reference].
video::fASh2_RzMuE[youtube,height=400,width=600]

* 2020-03-27 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-usa/u-s-increases-support-for-taiwan-in-recognition-battle-with-china-idUSKBN21E0B7 "U.S. President Donald Trump has signed into law an act that requires increased U.S. support for Taiwan internationally". But he didn't recognize it as a country. Semi bullshit.

.The flag of Taiwan. Like most modern countries, Taiwan has one. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Flag_of_the_Republic_of_China.svg[height=400]

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Office_Building[Presidential Office Building of Taiwan] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/總統府_(臺灣)[總統府_(臺灣) | 总统府 (台湾)]). What is that flag we see on top of the central government building of Taiwan? It appears to have a blue rectangle on the top left! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TaipeiROCPresidentialOfficeBuilding.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Taiwan_White_House.jpg[height=400]

.It is fun to see that some small random Latin American countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguay–Taiwan_relations[like Paraguay] recognize only Taiwan and not Mainland China. Brave warriors!!! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Two_Chinas.svg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Countries_that_recognize_Taiwan.jpg[height=400]

.Washington DC TECRO. Instead of "embassies", Taiwan has https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taipei_Economic_and_Cultural_Representative_Office["Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Offices" (TECROs)] https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/臺北經濟文化代表處[(台北经济文化代表处|臺北經濟文化代表處)] The just happen to issue VISAs and passports like embassies, but remember, they are not embassies. No flag you see? This is because idiotic countries don't allow TECROs to have the Taiwan flag. In 2019 Senator Ted Cruz planned on passing a law to allow that though: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3825086[]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Taipei_Economic_and_Cultural_Representative_Office_in_the_United_States_from_VOA_(1).jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/TECRO_Washington.jpg[height=400]

.2014 cartoon by D Nguyen summarizing the Taiwan China relationship in history. Featuring: fatter and fatter <<mao-zedong>> on first three cartoons to the left, likely <<deng-xiaoping>> to left on the last, and <<chiang-kai-shek>> to the right. TODO middle figure on last cartoon. TODO find proper attribution source, originally seen at: https://i.redd.it/xb5qr3asfns41.jpg[].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Taiwan_we_are_China_cartoon.jpg[height=600]

[[taiwan-number-one]]
===== Taiwan #1 (2915)

2015 meme started by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z1_Battle_Royale[H1Z1] streamer AngryPug, in which he repeatedly taunts the Chinese streamer Em0 by pretending to be Taiwanese.

* https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/taiwan-1
* https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/3tz3jq/what_is_the_point_of_the_taiwan_1_thing/

.https://youtube.com/watch?v=vTqZ9xrxhHk ANGRYPUG's official YouTube upload of the clip "Taiwan #1" meme.
video::vTqZ9xrxhHk[youtube,height=400,width=600]

See also: <<photobombing-like-attacks>>.

===== Internal politics of Taiwan

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_the_Republic_of_China
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中華民國政治

As of 2020, there are two relevant parties:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuomintang["Kuomintang"], which have become a bunch of pussies, and prefer to keep the ambiguous <<one-china-policy>> status quo, to not get bombed, and do some commerce with China. Those people make <<chiang-kai-shek>> turn in his grave of shame.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Progressive_Party[], which wants independence, and was winning as of 2020

[[chiang-kai-shek]]
===== Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石, 蔣中正)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/蔣中正

[[xinjiang]]
==== Xinjiang (新疆)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/新疆维吾尔自治区

Events:

* 2014 something very serious happened in Xinjiang.
** https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/4hmhzt/xinjiang_massacre_2014_resulted_in_30005000_deaths/
* 2010 Xinjiang 10 month Internet blackout
** https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8682145.stm
* 2009 Ürümqi riots
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_Ürümqi_riots
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/乌鲁木齐七五事件
** 2009 Shaoguan incident
*** https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaoguan_incident
*** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/旭日玩具厂群体斗殴事件

Terrorist attacks done by Xinjiang separatists:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chronology_of_major_events

Notable ones:

* 2014 Kunming attack
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Kunming_attack
** photo of 8 bodies lined up after the attack: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/world/asia/chinese-officials-seek-to-shift-attention-from-rampage.html
** Interestingly, https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2014/03/sensitive-words-attack-kunming/ points out that http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/845642.shtml#.UxYZgeddVRG said that:
+
____
The public must realize that a handful of extremists are far from qualified to represent tens of millions of local residents in Xinjiang. It is not only an irrational and biased mindset to put the blame on the entire Uyghur community or the Muslim world, but the idea will also abet and aid those separatists and terrorists who are desperate to take advantage of ethnic and religious conflicts.
____
+
and yet as of the <<xinjiang-re-education-camps>>, all Xinjiang Muslims were fucked. <<rule-of-law>> comes to mind.

.<<rebel-pepper,Rebel Pepper>> 2017-04 cartoon showing that Xinjiang is like a prison inside a greater prison, which is China itself. Chinese characters read: 新疆(Xinjiang) and 中国(China). TODO source.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_camp_in_camp.jpg[height=600]

[[xinjiang-re-education-camps]]
===== Xinjiang "re-education" camps (新疆再教育營, 2017-)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_re-education_camps
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/新疆再教育營

The keyword is <<rule-of-law>>: because of a few terrorists, every single Muslim was fucked even if they did not commit any crime.

Overview projects:

* 2020-12-14 reports that Uyghurs are being forced to work on the cotton industry emmerge:
** https://cgpolicy.org/briefs/coercive-labor-in-xinjiang-labor-transfer-and-the-mobilization-of-ethnic-minorities-to-pick-cotton/ "Coercive Labor in Xinjiang: Labor Transfer and the Mobilization of Ethnic Minorities to Pick Cotton"
** https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/nz0g306v8c/china-tainted-cotton "China's 'tainted' cotton"
* https://xjdp.aspi.org.au/ The Xinjiang Data Project by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Strategic_Policy_Institute[Australian Strategic Policy Institute]
+
Also includes the <<uyghurs-for-sale>> report.

News:

* 2020-10-28 <<global-times>> https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1203861.shtml in response to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Samuel_Paty[The Murder of Ssamuel Paty] clarifies that the best way to counter terrorism is preventive mass incarceration and brainwashing: "Eradicating extremism is a huge challenge of governance for all countries. China has proactively explored feasible ways in its Xinjiang governance and generated positive outcomes."
* 2020-10-17 (paywall) https://www.economist.com/china/2020/10/17/how-xinjiangs-gulag-tears-families-apart "How Xinjiang's gulag tears families apart". "So many parents have been locked up that officials struggle to cope with the left-behind children"
* 2020-09-19 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3101986/china-claims-vocational-training-given-nearly-13-million-people "Chinese authorities "indirectly" confirm the scale of the camps. China claims 1.3 million Xinjiang residents given 'vocational training' each year"
+
The document: http://www.scio.gov.cn/zfbps/32832/Document/1687588/1687588.htm also quoted on <<peoples-daily>>: http://politics.people.com.cn/n1/2020/0918/c1001-31865875.html
+
Official English translation: http://english.scio.gov.cn/whitepapers/2020-09/17/content_76712251.htm
+
Title: 新疆的劳动就业保障 (Employment and Labor Rights in Xinjiang)
+
Quote:
____
全疆年均培训城乡各类劳动者128.8万人次，其中，南疆地区年均培训45.14万人次。参训人员至少掌握1项就业技能，绝大多数取得了职业资格证书、职业技能等级证书或专项职业能力证书，实现稳定就业。
____
+
Google translation:
____
The average annual training for all kinds of workers in urban and rural areas in Xinjiang is 1.288 million, of which 451,400 are trained in southern Xinjiang. Participants have mastered at least one employment skill, and most of them have obtained vocational qualification certificates, vocational skill level certificates or special vocational ability certificates to achieve stable employment.
____
* 2020-08-27 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alison_killing/satellite-images-investigation-xinjiang-detention-camps "Blanked-Out Spots On China's Maps Helped Us Uncover Xinjiang's Camps". Good technique.
* 2020-06-29 https://apnews.com/269b3de1af34e17c1941a514f78d764c "China cuts Uighur births with IUDs, abortion, sterilization"
* 2020-06-17 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN23O3EW "Trump signs bill pressuring China over Uighur Muslim crackdown"
* 2019-12: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEkliuqQo-g "A Secret Look Inside a Chinese Labor Program for Uighurs | Visual Investigations" by "The New York Times" published on Dec 30, 2019. Description: "China is relocating Uighurs and other Muslim minorities to urban areas as part of a contentious labor program. The Times obtained rare footage taken inside one."
+
video::dEkliuqQo-g[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* 2919-12: Muslim German Turkish Arsenal player link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesut_%C3%96zil++[Mesut Özil] criticizes concentration camps on Twitter, and China stops broadcasting arsenal matches
** https://twitter.com/MesutOzil1088/status/1205439723302469632 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191214233550/https:/twitter.com/MesutOzil1088/status/1205439723302469632[archive])
** https://news.sky.com/story/chinas-state-tv-will-no-longer-show-arsenal-match-after-mesut-ozil-remarks-11887171
* 2019-11: "What happened to me" manga depicting Uighur torture hits 2.5m views
** https://wapipi.net/home/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/uy0830_en.pdf (https://web.archive.org/web/20191126162143/https://wapipi.net/home/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/uy0830_en.pdf[archive])
** https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/26/what-has-happened-to-me-manga-depicting-uighur-torture-hits-25m-views
* 2019-11 The Xinjiang Papers: leaked cables about Xinjiang internment camps policy, some reported by the New York Times and others by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, soure yet unknown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xinjiang_papers
** 2020-02-18 https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/02/20/more-evidence-chinas-horrific-abuses-xinjiang the "Karakax list" leaked spreadsheet contains detailed information on 331 citizens Karakax County in Xinjiang and sheds further insight on why certain people have been persecuted
*** https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/china-war-terror-uproots-uighur-families-leaked-data-shows-200218052952415.html
** https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/16/world/asia/china-xinjiang-documents.html
** https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-cables/exposed-chinas-operating-manuals-for-mass-internment-and-arrest-by-algorithm/
** 2020-02: more leaks containing detailed records of several citizens: https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2020/02/asia/xinjiang-china-karakax-document-intl-hnk/
* 2019-09-22 Drone footage of Xinjiang prisoner transfer uploaded to YouTube. TODO confirm the location and that these are political prisoners rather than "normal criminals".
** Upload sources
*** https://twitter.com/warcombatfear/status/1174031079432310785
*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGYoeJ5U7cQ
+
video::gGYoeJ5U7cQ[youtube,height=400,width=600]
** News coverage
*** https://news.sky.com/story/chinas-detention-of-uighurs-video-of-blindfolded-and-shackled-prisoners-authentic-11815401 Drone footage, video sources:
** Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/d78aog/chilling_video_of_chinese_police_transferring/
+
.Video still of 2019-10 drone footage of blindfolded Xinjiang prisoners being marched taken at time 00:30. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGYoeJ5U7cQ[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_prisoners_march.jpg[height=400]
* 2019-07-31 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/china-xinjiang.html "Doubt Greets China's Claim That Muslims Have Been Released From Camps"
* 2019-07-19 https://www.france24.com/en/20190712-37-countries-defend-china-over-xinjiang-un-letter "37 countries defend China over Xinjiang in UN letter"
* 2019-07-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-48825090 "China Muslims: Xinjiang schools used to separate children from families"
** https://www.hrw.org/news/2019/09/15/china-xinjiang-children-separated-families
* 2019-06-18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmId2ZP3h0c "Inside China's 'thought transformation' camps - BBC News" China gives BBC "access" to a chosen show camp where everyone claims they are happy and willing to stay. They are however clearly adults being treated like children, taking courses and even having to sing and dance for the camera. https://youtu.be/WmId2ZP3h0c?t=486[486s] is also golden, when the CCP officer Zhang Zhisheng explains how they are <<thoughtcrime,just preventing future crime from happening>>. How can they be so stupid? How can they not see that this is not what the West wants to hear? Amazing dark-comedy like stuff.
+
video::WmId2ZP3h0c[youtube,height=400,width=600]
+
.Propaganda picture where an adult man wearing traditional Xinjiang clothing and playing a traditional instrument inside a classroom setting inside a prison camp, as the CCP tries to show the world that they are happy and their culture is being respected, and only makes things worse. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-48700786[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uyghur_playing_guitar.jpg[height=400]
* 2019-05-07 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/07/revealed-new-evidence-of-chinas-mission-to-raze-the-mosques-of-xinjiang
* 2019-05-07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULaJVWOr4ko CNN does a few Xinjiang interviews and sends reporter to visit some of the concentration camps
+
video::ULaJVWOr4ko[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* 2019-02-24 https://fortune.com/2019/02/21/thermo-fisher-xinjiang-china-uighurs/
* 2019-02-17 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/2186547/china-data-leak-exposes-vast-hi-tech-surveillance-operation "China data leak exposes vast hi-tech surveillance operation in Xinjiang", leak by SenseNets Technology.
* https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/world/asia/china-xinjiang.html
* 2019-03 https://shahit.biz/eng/ database of Xinjiang victims, with precise names, location, date of birth and ID card number of victims and testimonies
* 2018-12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=8&v=dsd1NkCKaNg In full: 'I begged them to kill me' - ex-Xinjiang detainee Mihrigul Tursun gives testimony in the US. Observers however rightly brought up the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony[Nayirah testimony].
+
video::dsd1NkCKaNg[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* 2018-11 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-45812419 Xinjiang legalizes 're-education' camps
* 2018-08 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-rights-un/u-n-says-it-has-credible-reports-that-china-holds-million-uighurs-in-secret-camps-idUSKBN1KV1SU
* 2018-07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eak3WRtcdko Sairagul Sawytbai testifies to the existence of Chinese concentration camps in Xinjiang
+
video::Eak3WRtcdko[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* 2018-05 generic report https://jamestown.org/program/evidence-for-chinas-political-re-education-campaign-in-xinjiang/
* 2018-05 mapping internment camps with satellite imaging:
** https://www.albawaba.com/news/mapping-china’s-internment-camps-its-ethnic-minorities-1136100
** https://medium.com/@shawnwzhang/list-of-re-education-camps-in-xinjiang-新疆再教育集中营列表-99720372419c List of Re-education Camps in Xinjiang 新疆再教育集中营列表 Shawn Zhang https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/8mbhad/satellite_imagery_of_xinjiang_reeducation_camps/
* 2018-05 Omir Bekali's account of Xinjiang education camps:
** https://apnews.com/6e151296fb194f85ba69a8babd972e4b
** https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/former-inmates-of-chinas-muslim-re-education-camps-tell-of-brainwashing-torture/2018/05/16/32b330e8-5850-11e8-8b92-45fdd7aaef3c_story.html?utm_term=.df8ea170b18f
** https://uk.businessinsider.com/what-is-life-like-in-xinjiang-reeducation-camps-china-2018-5
* 2017-04 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/world/asia/china-xinjiang-ban-muslim-names-muhammad-jihad.html "China Bans 'Muhammad' and 'Jihad' as Baby Names in Heavily Muslim Region".
+
Note that Muhammad is incredibly popular in Islamic countries, and thought to be the most popular name in the world with 150m people sharing it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_(name)#Transliterations
+
It is so prevalent, that it is often shortened to just "Md." and people are just called by their second name to reduce ambiguity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabic_name#Ism
* 2017-04 https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/camp-photo-04262019171258.html
+
.Image of prisoners wearing blue sitting down in Xinjiang concentration camp, with some prisoners identified to indicate that they are not criminals but rather detained purely for political reasons. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/camp-photo-04262019171258.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_prisoners_sitting_identified.jpeg[height=400]

[[uyghurs-for-sale]]
.Advertisement published by Qingdao Decai Decoration Co. claiming to supply government-sponsored Uyghur workers from Xinjiang to other provinces. Source of translation: https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale["Uyghurs for sale" report]. Original website archive from  16 Jan 2020: http://archive.ph/r7T8r[]. The ad features a caricature of two dancing Uyghurs in traditional clothing. This is evidence of the CCP's mass forced eviction and slavery of Uyghurs.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uyghur_sale_website.jpg[height=500]

.Uyghur workers at Taekwang Shoe Manufacturing waving the Chinese flag, October 2019. Viewable on the pro-CCP China Ethnic Religion Net (中国民族宗教网) website: http://www.mzb.com.cn/html/report/191130765-1.htm[], and also shown in the https://www.aspi.org.au/report/uyghurs-sale["Uyghurs for sale" report].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Uyghur_workers_waving_China_flag.jpg[height=400]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx0JFgwATho&t=128 "New footage shows Uyghurs bussed across China for forced labour in factories". At the given timestamp, contains 30 seconds of footage extracted from 3 social media posts showing Uyghurs being sent in busses to work in far way regions.
video::M_aXcH1zDEE[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=128]

====== Merdan Ghappar's video (2020-08-05)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53650246

Self made video shows the ex-model chained to a bed in a camp. Text messages give further details.

Text messages and translation: https://medium.com/@millwarj/wear-your-mask-under-your-hood-an-account-of-prisoner-abuse-in-xinjiang-during-the-2020-3007a1f7437d

++++
<iframe loading="lazy" width="400" height="500" frameborder="0" src="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/embed/p08mr1tm/53650246"></iframe>
++++

[[other-islam-countries-speak-up-for-uyghur]]
====== Why don't many other Islamic countries speak up for the Uyghur persecution?

Either because those countries:

* are also dictatorships and completely corrupt to the brim
* or because Muslim schisms make them hate split groups even more than they hate other religions doe to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley[uncanny valley effect]

Analyses:

* https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2020-09-10/long-shadow-xinjiang "The Long Shadow of Xinjiang"
* https://nationalinterest.org/feature/plight-uyghurs-why-muslims-wont-speak-their-brethren-112466

Related:

* 2020-11-23 "Uighur scholar arrested in Saudi Arabia at risk of deportation to China", "Activists and human rights advocates have raised concerns that Aimadoula Waili may be tortured in a ‘re-education' camp if sent back to China"
* 2020-10-01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9CIZ9x3pIs "Uighurs in Exile: Arrested and deported back to China – BBC Newsnight", "Newsnight has found that Uighur people in the Middle East have been targeted by nations including Saudi Arabia"
* 2020-07-11: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/world/asia/china-iran-trade-military-deal.html "Defying U.S., China and Iran Near Trade and Military Partnership"
* 2018: vice-president https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jusuf_Kalla[Jusuf Kalla] said "we don't want to intervene in the domestic affairs of another country": https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-12-23/muslim-governments-stayed-silent-on-chinese-minority-uyghur/10630822
* https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/uk-muslim-activist-praises-jewish-community-for-speaking-out-for-uyghurs-635626 even the Jews are speaking lowder in some cases

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2019-07 cartoon showing <<xi-jinping>> claiming to have won the global opinion on the Xinjiang re-education camps because all other dictatorships support him, including <<other-islam-countries-speak-up-for-uyghur,Islamic dictatorships>>. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/XiJinping-uyghur-camp-cartoon-07162019155441.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xinjiang_I_won.jpeg[height=400]

[[inner-mongolia]]
==== Inner mongolia (内蒙古)

* 2020-08-31 https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/language-08242020101614.html "China 'Will End' Mongolian-Language Education Starting This Semester: Reports"
** 2020-09-04 https://www.smhric.org/news_681.htm "Southern Mongolia turns to police state as full-blown cultural genocide unfolds" contains images of arrest orders and the like
* 2011 Inner Mongolia unrest
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Inner_Mongolia_unrest
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011年内蒙古抗议示威事件

[[tibet]]
==== Tibet (西藏)

Events linked to reducing the teaching of the Tibetan language in schools and replacing it with Mandarin:

* 2020-04 https://www.languagemagazine.com/2020/04/23/tibetan-language-phased-out-as-schools-switch-to-mandarin/
* 2010 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Tibetan_language_protest

[[tibetan-unrest-2008]]
===== 2008 Tibetan unrest (2008年西藏骚乱)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Tibetan_unrest
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008年西藏骚乱

Good gory photos from the event: https://file.wikileaks.org/file/tibet-protest-photos/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20200410200709/https://file.wikileaks.org/file/tibet-protest-photos/[archive])

.https://youtube.com/watch?v=B-tEi4uLM_E "Hundreds of Tibetan protesters clash with police after anti-China protest" published by AP Archive.
video::B-tEi4uLM_E[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[tibetan-unrest-1987-1989]]
===== 1987-1989 Tibetan unrest (1989年拉萨骚乱)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987–1989_Tibetan_unrest
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989年拉萨骚乱

.https://youtube.com/watch?v=qMZgoRuPJBg "Troops stormed the Tibetan holy site the Jokhang Temple and beat monks"
video::qMZgoRuPJBg[youtube,height=400,width=600]

.https://youtube.com/watch?v=3uQcGcGGepw "Latest Spate Of Violent Unrest In Lhasa And The Imposition Of Martial Law" by AP Archive
video::3uQcGcGGepw[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[hong-kong]]
==== Hong Kong (香港)

News source: https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/ Became larger than `r/china` during the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>.

There is only one solution to Hong Kong's problem:

* give inhabitants people easy VISAs to leave China, with priority to the rich/educated ones. Give them free language courses on the country of arrival, and help them find jobs
* treat Hong Kong exactly like any other part of China, removing any special commercial treaty with the reagion, which it has enjoyed for many years

These have started happening seriously in response to the <<hong-kong-national-security-law>>.

Hong Kong related posts at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ahong-kong+

Related:

* <<hong-kong-dissidents>>
* <<lihkg>>

===== Hong Kong 97 SNES video game

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_97_(video_game)
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/香港97_(遊戲)

1995 video game realistically depicts the fight of Hong Kong against the Communist Party predicted to happen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handover_of_Hong_Kong[at the handover], featuring Bruce Lee (often represented as <<entertainers-who-support-the-ccp,Jackie Chan>>) who returned from the grave to join the fight and kick <<jiang-zemin,Jiang Zemin's>> ass.

The dead body from the game over screen was taken from a still from a video of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War[1992 Bosnian War]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCDWyzZyNdw

The track is a sample of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_Beijing_Tiananmen["I Love Beijing Tiananmen" (我爱北京天安门)] Cultural Revolution song that was popular before <<tiananmen>> and later became an ironic protest song:

____
我爱北京天安门 +
天安门上太阳升
____

which means:

____
I love Beijing Tiananmen Square +
The sun rises over the Tiananmen
____

Full song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Is_Z2K7guKs

.Cover of the Hong Kong 97. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hong_Kong_97_cover.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Hong_Kong_97_cover.jpg[height=400]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_aXcH1zDEE The venerable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angry_Video_Game_Nerd[Angry Video Game Nerd] made a review of Hong Kong 97.
video::M_aXcH1zDEE[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[hong-kong-national-security-law]]
===== Hong Kong National Security Law (香港国安法, 2020)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_national_security_law
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中華人民共和國香港特別行政區維護國家安全法

News:

* 2020-11-12 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-54899171 "Hong Kong pro-democracy lawmakers resign after China ruling"
* 2020-08-30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWxuzuBXh1U "Chinese Police Arrest Hong Kong Activist Andy Li (李宇轩), 11 Others, for Attempting to Flee to Taiwan"
* 2020-08-22 https://hk.appledaily.com/us/20200822/QS26FF4DBFE7PG2LJJEO4NSQTQ/ they are already trying to remove sensitive materials from history textbooks
** 2020-08-21 https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/trad/chinese-news-53846482 "香港通識科課本大幅度修改涉政治取向內容引發爭議" appears to give more concrete details. An English infographic at: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ig9xca/some_censorship_examples_of_the_latest_changes/
* 2020-08-10 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-10/hong-kong-media-tycoon-jimmy-lai-arrested-apple-daily-reports[] "Hong Kong Media Tycoon Arrested in Latest Blow to Democracy Camp"
+
<<jimmy-lai>> is the founder of <<apple-daily>>, the flagship newspaper under Next Digital and the biggest pro-democracy paper in Hong Kong, reported that nearly 200 officers were entering their offices. 
+
Other notable arrests:
** <<agnes-chow>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2020/08/10/who-are-jimmy-lai-agnes-chow-two-hong-kong-democracy-advocates-arrested-monday/
+
The CCP is not even pretending anymore.
+
2020-08-12: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/08/hong-kong-media-tycoon-lai-released-bail-arrest-200811173810887.html[]: they were released on bail
* 2020-08-30 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/29/asia/hong-kong-security-law-election-intl-hnk/index.html "Four Hong Kong student activists arrested for 'secession' over social media posts": the arrests against online freedom of speech begin https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-53616583 gives the names, all are abroad it seems:
+
____
Police in Hong Kong are seeking the arrest of six pro-democracy activists living in exile in Western countries, including the UK, media reports say.

The group reportedly includes former UK consulate worker Simon Cheng, well-known activist Nathan Law and US citizen Samuel Chu.
____
* 2020-07-08 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests-china-security/china-converts-hong-kong-hotel-into-new-national-security-office-idUSKBN24903Z "China converts Hong Kong hotel into new national security office"
+
The name of the hotel is Metropark Hotel (維景酒店), address: 148 Tung Lo Wan Rd, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong: https://goo.gl/maps/1uR4RntpLMFaCYpq6
+
Using hotels as a base of operations is of coures common in occupied regions, see e.g.:
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peninsula_Paris[The Peninsula Paris] (previously Hotel Majestique), which was used by the <<nazi,Gestapo>> and figures in the movie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_Shadows[Army of the Shadows (1969)]. An important quote from that movie when a prisoner of the Nazis dies, his friend says:
+
____
All debts will be paid. +
Toutes les dettes se paieront.
____
* 2020-06-29 https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/06/statement-us-secretary-commerce-wilbur-ross-revocation-hong-kong "Statement from U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross on Revocation of Hong Kong Special Status"
+
____
With the Chinese Communist Party's imposition of new security measures on Hong Kong, the risk that sensitive U.S. technology will be diverted to the People's Liberation Army or <<ministry-of-state-security,Ministry of State Security>> has increased, all while undermining the territory's autonomy. Those are risks the U.S. refuses to accept and have resulted in the revocation of Hong Kong's special status.
____
* 2020-06-03 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/britain-could-change-immigration-rules-for-hong-kong-citizens "Boris Johnson lays out visa offer to nearly 3m Hong Kong citizens"
* 2020-05-29 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52842303 "UK could offer 'path to citizenship' for Hong Kong's British passport holders"
* 2020-05-24 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/24/beijing-to-impose-hong-kong-security-laws-without-delay

.Over 100 police officers raid the Apple Daily Hong Kong newspaper soon after the <<hong-kong-national-security-law>> started. https://hongkongfp.com/2020/08/10/scores-of-police-raid-office-of-hong-kong-pro-democracy-newspaper-apple-daily/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Apple_Daily_raid.webp[height=600]

====== Hong kong national security department hotline

2020-11-06 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-54835955 "Hong Kong: Snitch hotline gets more than 1,000 calls"

An official source: https://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/03_police_message/nsdrh.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20201106164104/https://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/03_police_message/nsdrh.html[archive]).

The contacts:

* Wechat id: NSD62717171
* SMS: 62717171
* Email: [email protected]

Related: <<cac-report-website>>

Discussion:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/jp3s8a/hong_kong_snitch_hotline_to_report_people/ on <<reddit>>
* https://lihkg.com/thread/2272029/page/1 on <<lihkg>>

===== 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Hong_Kong_anti-extradition_bill_protests
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEvalUQuClE "Last Hong Kong governor Chris Patten: Gov't defense of extradition bill 'absolute nonsense'", Hong Kong Free Press
** 2019-10 https://twitter.com/Slasher/status/1181442535962632193 Blizzard bans top Hearthstone esports player Blitzchung (Ng Wai Chung) for pro Hong Kong message in interview
+
Wiki page of the event: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy

Songs:

* Glory to Hong Kong
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glory_to_Hong_Kong
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/願榮光歸香港

.https://youtube.com/watch?v=YhN6jipSHFI Hong Kong Yoga - Sammy J S2 (ep31) published by ABC Comedy on 2019-09-19. Very good.
video::YhN6jipSHFI[youtube,height=400,width=600]

====== LeBron James opposes Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests (2019)

NBA is huge in China.

On 2019-10-05 (Friday) 7:41PM Daryl Morey, NBA's Houston Rockets manager sent a tweet with an image that read:

____
Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.
____

Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20191005025317if_/https://twitter.com/dmorey/status/1180312072027947008

Then Daryl was a coward, removed this tweet, and apologized on 2019-10-07 (Monday) 1:18 AM  https://twitter.com/dmorey/status/1181000808399114240 (https://archive.is/6Sdpn[archive]), so by then it was already deleted.

____
I did not intend my tweet to cause any offense to Rockets fans and friends of mine in China
____

Then TODO date the uberstar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeBron_James[LeBron James] (not a Houston Rockets player), a big supporter of black rights in the US, criticized this.

https://apnews.com/article/dd96d002394f45a6859c280c889afcb7[LeBron's words]:

____
I don't want to get into a word or sentence feud with Daryl Morey, but I believe he wasn't educated on the situation
____

Related video of LeBron saying similar things on interview (TODO same?): 2019-10-15 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjM43blzaRc "LeBron addresses Daryl Morey's tweet and Lakers' trip to China | NBA on ESPN"

Led to: <<sport-event-live-broadcast-image-attacks>>.

* 2019-10-15 https://apnews.com/article/dd96d002394f45a6859c280c889afcb7 "LeBron: Rockets' Morey 'wasn't educated' on China tweet"
* 2019-10-07 (Monday) "Rockets' general manager's Hong Kong comments anger China"
* 2019-10-07 Lakers vs. Heat NBA Tencent Live Stream cancelled due to fan wearing the <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> flag
+
.Fan wearing Taiwan flag in 2019-10-07 Lakers vs. Heat showing fan and text (TODO from Tencent?) saying that the match will be cancelled. https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/dtrx4b/tencent_nba_live_broadcast_got_cancelled_because[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/NBA_Taiwan_flag.jpg[height=600]
** https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-49956385
** https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/07/business/houston-rockets-nba-china-daryl-morey/index.html

Some good LeBron cartoons:

* https://twitter.com/Christi71386739/status/1312730174497058816/photo/1 <<rebel-pepper>> 2019-10-15 "You are the king"
* https://twitter.com/Christi71386739/status/1312730174497058816/photo/2 Adam Zyglis "Kneeling", NFL vs NBA

.In 2020-10-04 American billboard company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfront_Media[Outfront Media] refused to post this ad by the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Legal_and_Policy_Center[NLPC conservative think tank] critical of LeBron James' stand on Hong Kong. The ad shows the NBA superstar with a Chinese flag covering his mouth and the message "Silence is Violence." and URL http://freedom4china.com/[]. https://www.foxnews.com/sports/billboard-company-refuses-to-post-ad-critical-of-lebron-james-stand-on-china[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Silence_is_violence.jpg[height=400]

=== What should all pro-democracy people do about China?

A propaganda slogan from a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Resistance[French Resistance] flyer (see also <<nazi>>):

____
To obey is to betray. +
To disobey is to serve.

Obéir c'est trahir. +
Désobéir c'est servir.
____

."Obéir c'est trahir. Désobéir c'est servir." flyer featuring the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Lorraine[cross of Lorraine] https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/images/Obéir_cest_trahir_Désobéir_cest_servir/1314227[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/To_obey_is_to_betray.jpg[height=400]

==== Photobombing-like attacks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photobombing

In online video games:

* 2020-04-08 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-08/nintendo-s-animal-crossing-becomes-new-hong-kong-protest-ground Animal Crossing
* <<taiwan-number-one>>

Explicitly forbidden in China by the law: <<real-username-law>>.

See also: <<keyword-attack>>.

===== Appropriation attack

An appropriation attack is one where the attackers attempt to associate an existing symbol to their cause.

For example during the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>> attackers attempted to use this technique to associate a generic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chun-Li[Chinese Chun-Li-like] character Mei from Blizzard's link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overwatch_(video_game)++[Overwatch game] to try and get it blocked in China after the gaming company punished a pro gamer for defending the Hong Kong protests. Coverage https://www.businessinsider.com/blizzard-fans-overwatch-mei-hong-kong-protests-memes-2019-10 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191012094950/https://www.businessinsider.com/blizzard-fans-overwatch-mei-hong-kong-protests-memes-2019-10[archive]).

.Mei from Blizzard's Overwatch was used in an attempted <<appropriation-attack>> during the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>. https://twitter.com/marnofavonlea/status/1182557311539150849[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mei_with_Hong_kong.jpg[height=600]

===== Sport event live broadcast image attacks

NBA in particular is super popular in China, and people sitting at the front row can easily bomb emissions due to the small court size:

* China's Tencent halts NBA live broadcast over <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> flag
* https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3813842

Started in particular due to the <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>

==== What should Western countries do about China?

Force all their Western servers to accept <<ensi>> connections only: <<ensi>>.

Western governments must reciprocate unfair Chinese practices: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/18508/why-dont-western-countries-penalize-chinese-companies-in-the-same-way-that-chin

Companies only care about money and have no long term view, the following must be imposed by governments on Western companies.

Serious sanctions must be pot on companies that sell sensitive things to dictatorships:

* <<western-companies-that-sell-censorship-technology-to-dictatorships,censorship or anti-privacy software>>

Related approaches taken by the CCP that should also be stopped dead by strict enforcement of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Agents_Registration_Act[Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)]:

* <<chinese-interference-in-western-media>>, notably <<china-watch>>, must 
* <<ccp-apologists>>

Physical presence influence must be completely blocked, e.g. cultural centers that report directly to the CCP such as <<confucius-institute>> and <<cssa>> must be banned.

News about Chinese state media using Western social media:

* 2016 https://qz.com/671211/chinas-propaganda-outlets-have-leaped-the-top-of-facebook-even-though-it-banned-at-home/ "China's propaganda news outlets are absolutely crushing it on Facebook"

Accounts that are not labelled as being from the Chinese government, but which support the CCP, must be investigated to determine if they are actually funded by the Chinese government.

TODO what to do with websites of: <<chinese-government-media>>? Blocking them has the downsides that:

* it would be harder to monitor what crazy shit the commies are doing
* those censorship mechanisms could be reused to block good websites by Western governments that are becoming Evil

Let's just leave them up to start with, who gives a fuck about them? :-) If they are getting too many page views, we can make search engines add the disclaimer too.

Chinese social media such as WeChat and <<tiktok>> must be banned. This is less serious than regular websites, because you can always repost on Western social media but without getting spied on:

* 2020-08-07 https://www.engadget.com/tiktok-wechat-executive-order-014615752.html "Trump executive order seeks to ban <<tiktok,TikTok>>, WeChat 'transactions' in 45 days"

Whenever China kicks out a western journalist who is in China and reports there, the Western country must do the same and kick out a Chinese journalists for a Chinese media.

An upside of restricting Chinese servies is that it would hugely bolster <<censorship-circumvention>> technologies, as every Chinese expat would need to buy a VPN.

* https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/18508/why-dont-western-countries-penalize-chinese-companies-in-the-same-way-that-chin

Western governments must identify raw material dependencies on China, and reduce them, while at the same time forbidding technology transfer to China. China has been trading cheap resources for technology, and we must stop that now.

Unfair Chinese commercial practices must be reciprocated. Chinese companies should be forced to open joint ventures to operate outside of China, which is a trick China uses to control profits and more easily steal IP from Western companies:

* https://www.msn.com/zh-hk/news/other/us-entrepreneurs-make-a-choice-rewards-of-doing-business-in-china-often-outweigh-risks-of-losing-trade-secrets/ar-BBSPC69 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190905071456/https://www.msn.com/zh-hk/news/other/us-entrepreneurs-make-a-choice-rewards-of-doing-business-in-china-often-outweigh-risks-of-losing-trade-secrets/ar-BBSPC69:[archive])
* https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/02/china-joint-ventures-the-long-version.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20190905071738/https://www.chinalawblog.com/2019/02/china-joint-ventures-the-long-version.html:[archive])

Sanctions must be imposed directly on Chinese officials. They must not be allowed to "escape to a better life or have investments in the West":

* 2020-08-08 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53699084 "Hong Kong: US imposes sanctions on chief executive Carrie Lam"

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2016-09-07 cartoon entitled "宽衣<<xi-jinping-memes,撒币>>" depicting <<xi-jinping>> as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pole_dance[pole dancer] and throwing money at other world leaders during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_G20_Hangzhou_summit[2016 G20 Hangzhou summit] is a reference to how China buys political influence in other countries by promising profitable trade deals with those countries. https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/biantailajiaomanhua/biantailajiaomanhua-09072016131637.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_pole.jpg[height=400]

===== Mark government controlled social media

All posts of all state-sponsored social media accounts must be clearly marked as such.

This should be done not only for China, but of all countries, including Western democracies.

Even better, they should add funny censored images on top of those that are from dictatorship countries.

Furthermore, marked media from dictatorships must be forbidden to both monetize and pay to promote its content.

Any outlets that do not announce themselves as state sponsored but are, must be banned forever when they are found out.

What to do about personal accounts is much harder to decide however, and especially so in the case of <<ccp-apologists>>, where they might really not be state sponsored, and the creator's nationality won't help make the decision either.

Some websites have started marking such accounts, which is a great start.

* YouTube in 2018: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/2/16964190/youtube-state-funded-broadcasters
* Facebook in 2020: https://techcrunch.com/2020/06/04/facebook-adds-labels-identifying-state-controlled-media/
* Twitter in 2020:
** report https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3096380/twitter-begin-labelling-state-affiliated-media
** example from https://twitter.com/PDChina <<peoples-daily>> marked as "China state-affiliated media" and links to https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated-china

Reports of Chinese influence on social media:

* 2020-06 Twitter has also implicated in receiving advertising money from <<china-daily>>, see also: <<china-watch>>
** 2020-06-12 https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/information-operations-june-2020.html
** 2020-06-12 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/12/twitter-deletes-170000-accounts-linked-to-china-influence-campaign "Twitter deletes 170,000 accounts linked to China influence campaign"
** The Chinese government later contested this decision: https://variety.com/2020/digital/asia/china-victim-wants-twitter-to-delete-attackers-1234633860/
* 2020-04-07 https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/9397v8/chinas-been-flooding-facebook-with-shady-ads-blaming-trump-for-the-coronavirus-crisis "China's Been Flooding Facebook With Shady Ads Blaming Trump for the Coronavirus Crisis"

[[spy]]
===== China spy stories

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_intelligence_activity_abroad

Do not underestimate the CCP and its control over every Chinese companies and people. Every Chinese company and person is a potential spy.

This is <<evil-west,true for all countries however>>, and <<ciro-santilli>> does not not reproach China specifically for its secret service, e.g. <<snowden>> used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden#NSA_sub-contractee_as_an_employee_for_Dell[Dell] as an NSA front-end.

The point is just that the West should not underestimate this menace that comes from a <<dictatorship>>.

For university espionage in particular see: <<university-espionage>>.

Some Chinese spy stories:

* 2020-12-09 Christine Fang https://www.axios.com/china-spy-california-politicians-9d2dfb99-f839-4e00-8bd8-59dec0daf589.html "Exclusive: Suspected Chinese spy targeted California politicians". In 2015, she was fucking some politicians and infiltrating parties, but as suspicions arose, Beijing likely called her back.
* 2020-09-21 Baimadajie Angwang
** https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/09/21/nypd-cop-charged-with-acting-as-china-agent.html "New York City police officer spied on fellow Tibetans for China, prosecutors charge"
* 2019-01-15 Kevin Mallory
** 2019-01-15 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-46557096 "Kevin Mallory: The churchgoing patriot who spied for China"
+
Good profile. He was first approached via LinkedIn. As a related case, Jun Wei Yeo was arrested as LinkedIn spy recruiter in 2020: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-53544505
+
And those stupid Chines handlers gave him a phone that was supposed to be encrypted, but it crashed and then rebooted unencrypted, right when the FBI agents were around.
+
____
But after the 2008 real estate crash, his fortunes changed. His house plummeted in value, and later he lost his job.
____
** 2019-04-04 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/how-230-000-debt-linkedin-message-led-ex-cia-officer-n990691 "How a $230,000 debt and a LinkedIn message led an ex-CIA officer to spy for China"
+
Good profile, gives important points: he was 230k in debt, and "Mallory began reaching out to former CIA colleagues in an apparent effort to pump them for information. The ex-colleagues grew suspicious and contacted the CIA, prosecutors say."
** 2019-05-18 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-48319058 "Kevin Mallory: Ex-CIA agent jailed for spying for China".
+
The article also contains a good summary section "CIA spy operation in China: Key dates".
* 2019-11: Wang Liqiang spy defection to Australia
** https://www.smh.com.au/national/defecting-chinese-spy-offers-information-trove-to-australian-government-20191122-p53d1l.html
* 2019-11: Jerry Chun Shing Lee, naturalized American, convicted for being double agent while working at CIA after being in custody for 2 years
** https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/former-cia-officer-sentenced-19-years-conspiring-chinese-spies-n1089341
* 2018-06-05 Ron Rockwell Hansen
** https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44364437
* 2010-2012 about 20 CIA spies in China were killed. One was shot right in the courtyard of a government building as a message to others.
** https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-espionage-idUSKCN18G0UM "China killed CIA sources, hobbled U.S. spying from 2010 to 2012: NYT"

[[ministry-of-state-security]]
====== Ministry of State Security (MSS, Guoanbu, 国安部)

* link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_State_Security_(China)++
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华人民共和国国家安全部

The Chinese <<snowden,counterintelligence>> organ.

Report website launched in 2018 https://www.12339.gov.cn/[], some coverage:

* https://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/2141910/china-launches-website-report-foreign-spies-corrupt

[[pla]]
====== People's Liberation Army (PLA, 中国人民解放军)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Liberation_Army
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国人民解放军

The Chinese army, and also one of the central intelligence agencies, notably on cyberattacks.

===== The West must ban the Chinese telecommunications software and hardware

They are an entry point to spying, censorship and fake news.

* 2020-02 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-media/u-s-imposes-new-rules-on-state-owned-chinese-media-over-propaganda-concerns-idUSKBN20C2G1 U.S. imposes new rules on state-owned Chinese media over propaganda concerns, the companies are: Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, China Radio International, China Daily Distribution Corp. and Hai Tian Development USA, Inc. See also: <<chinese-government-media>>.
** 2020-04-03 https://theintercept.com/2020/04/03/zooms-encryption-is-not-suited-for-secrets-and-has-surprising-links-to-china-researchers-discover/ 'Zoom's encryption is "not suited for secrets" and has surprising links to china, researchers discover"

====== Zoom

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom_Video_Communications
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoom

American company, with Chinese-born now American Citizen CEO https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Yuan[Eric Yuan] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/袁征[袁征]), migrated to the US around 1997), and development teams largely China-based to reduce costs.

News:

* 2020-06-10 <<zhou-fengsuo>>'s account as blocked after a celebration of <<tiananmen>>, which was attended by many people from China. The account was later reinstated, Zoom said it acted on a CCP request on error, and it won't do this for users outside of China anymore:
** https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zoom-video-commn-privacy/zoom-says-china-demanded-shutting-activists-accounts-over-tiananmen-event-idUSKBN23I3GP "U.S. lawmakers ask Zoom to clarify China ties after it suspends accounts"
** https://www.axios.com/zoom-closes-chinese-user-account-tiananmen-square-f218fed1-69af-4bdd-aac4-7eaf67f34084.html "Zoom closed account of U.S.-based Chinese activist 'to comply with local law'".
** https://docs.google.com/document/d/12DM3ccTe70yzqCDPu9uXlCD7WmfJq-yzvKdKBH0oppc/edit

.2020-03-27 photo showing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Johnson[UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson] using Zoom on a Cabinet meeting (a high level Government meeting) during <<corona>>. If you don't properly ban risky dictatorship-linked software, it will get used at the highest levels of Government by clueless people. https://news.sky.com/story/coronairus-cabinet-talks-held-on-zoom-days-after-software-was-banned-by-ministry-of-defence-11963889[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Zoom_Boris.jpg[height=400]

[[huawei]]
====== Huawei (华为)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huawei
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/华为

Just look at the Chinese name of the company:

* 华 (China)
* 为 (to do something for)

How can the West not see this?

No proof is needed. They belong to a <<dictatorship>>, and therefore must not be trusted. Doing so is always a risk which we should not take.

Also have a look at their Wikipedia page:

____
Ren sought to reverse engineer foreign technologies with local researchers. At a time when all of China's telecommunications technology was imported from abroad, Ren hoped to build a domestic Chinese telecommunication company that could compete with, and ultimately replace, foreign competitors.

During its first several years the company's business model consisted mainly of reselling private branch exchange (PBX) switches imported from Hong Kong. Meanwhile, it was reverse-engineering imported switches and investing heavily in research and development to manufacture its own technologies. By 1990 the company had approximately 600 R&D staff and began its own independent commercialization of PBX switches targeting hotels and small enterprises.

The company's first major breakthrough came in 1993 when it launched its C&C08 program controlled telephone switch. It was by far the most powerful switch available in China at the time. By initially deploying in small cities and rural areas and placing emphasis on service and customizability, the company gained market share and made its way into the mainstream market.

Huawei also won a key contract to build the first national telecommunications network for the People's Liberation Army, a deal one employee described as "small in terms of our overall business, but large in terms of our relationships". In 1994, founder Ren Zhengfei had a meeting with Party general secretary Jiang Zemin, telling him that "switching equipment technology was related to national security, and that a nation that did not have its own switching equipment was like one that lacked its own military." Jiang reportedly agreed with this assessment.

Another major turning point for the company came in 1996 when the government in Beijing adopted an explicit policy of supporting domestic telecommunications manufacturers and restricting access to foreign competitors. Huawei was promoted by both the government and the military as a national champion, and established new research and development offices.
____

At any point the Chinese government could make a request that they cannot deny.

Some news:

* 5G 2019-2020
** in 2020 the UK was trying hard to get kicked out of the 5 eyes in 2020 by using 5G equipment from Huawei
** 2020-06-25 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-53178998 "Huawei's £1bn research centre near Cambridge approved" so despite all the 5G stuff, the UK still allows them to create a new research center in the UK... are they blind?
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/28/tech/huawei-5g-uk/index.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20200129023355/https://edition.cnn.com/2020/01/28/tech/huawei-5g-uk/index.html[archive]) "UK will allow Huawei to help build its 5G network despite US pressure"
** 2020-04-17 only after more than 10 thousand people died in the country during <<corona>> did the brits finally change their minds: https://nypost.com/2020/04/17/uk-moves-to-drop-huawei-as-5g-vendor-citing-china-coronavirus-transparency/ "UK moves to drop Huawei as 5G vendor, citing China coronavirus transparency"
* 2018-12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Wanzhou[Meng Wanzhou] (孟晚舟), daughter of Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei (任正非) and Huawei CFO as of 2018, was arrested in Canada because the US accused her of breaking Iran sanctions
** https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-michael-kovrig-michael-spavor-canadian-detainees-china-explainer/ "Why are Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor still detained in China?" in apparent retaliation, under accusation of espionage.
** 2020-05-27 https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/27/canada-court-finds-against-huawei-cfo-meng-wanzhou-on-double-criminality-extradition-trial-to-continue/ "Canada court finds against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on double criminality; extradition trial to continue"
* 2019-11 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/11/29/has-huaweis-darkest-secret-just-been-exposed-by-this-new-report/#7896db9d4061 "Has Huawei's Darkest Secret Just Been Exposed By This New Surveillance Report?" Xinjiang Papers reveal the extent of Huawei's involvement in <<xinjiang>>

."When you send a good joke from your Huawei phone", <<xi-jinping>> is also listening and laughing with you, girls. https://i.redd.it/nodgcqmwtcg31.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/When_you_send_a_good_joke_from_your_Huawei_phone.jpg[height=600]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2018-12-10 "Why does the whole world hate me" Huawei cartoon, where Huawei's shadow shows the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hammer_and_sickle[hammer and sickle] to suggest that Huawei is controlled by the CCP. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/Huawei-cartoon-12102018152050.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Huawei_why_does_the_whole_world_hate_me.jpeg[height=400]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2019-03-08 showing Huawei slapping the Statue of Liberty with "The Constitution of the United States" when Huawei sued the US Government for violating the Constitution when it banned government agencies from buying Huawei equipment. This illustrates the usual dilemma where <<what-should-western-countries-do-about-china,China uses Western freedom of speech as a weapon against the West itself>>. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/chinashuawei-03082019162541.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Huawei_Statue_of_Liberty.jpeg[height=400]

.Cartoon showing a huge China flag branded USB sucking up Western personal and military information like a vacuum cleaner in 2019-04-29 article entitled "Britain will regret doing business with Huawei". TODO cartoon author. https://retro-blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/04/britain-will-regret-doing-business-with-huawei/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/China_USB_theft.jpg[height=400]

.Cartoon suggesting that Huawei's 5G is a like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Horse[Trojan Horse] being gifted to Europe. TODO: source of original non-China generic Trojan Horse background image that was edited and repurposed. https://twitter.com/DaichiWatanbe/status/1231189285325475840[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Huawei_5G_Trojan.jpg[height=400]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2019-06-22 cartoon depicting Germany, Hungary and the United Kingdom as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gollum[Gollum]s from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings[The Lord of The Rings] and China as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sauron[Sauron] offering a ring which reads "5G to rule them" and "Huawei" to the Gollums who are eager to obtain it. This is a reference to The Lord of the Rings backstory in which Sauron bribed and controlled the rulers of the world by giving them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Power[rings of power]. Now that Ciro thinks about it, maybe this was actually Tolkien making a reference to the political situation of his time. https://twitter.com/RadioFreeAsia/status/1100504518142365698[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Huawei_5G_my_precious.jpg[height=400]

[[tiktok]]
====== TikTok (Douyin, 抖音)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/抖音

News:

* 2020-11-05  https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-censor-china-critical-content-uighur-uighurs-2020-11?r=US&IR=T "A senior TikTok executive admitted the company used to censor content critical of China, 'specifically with regard to the Uighur situation'", related to: <<xinjiang-re-education-camps>>
* 2020-07 https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/23/tiktok-creator-fund-200-million-us/ "TikTok unveils $200 million fund for U.S. creators": TikTok is trying to buy their stay in the West.
* 2020-07 https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/06/26/warning-apple-suddenly-catches-tiktok-secretly-spying-on-millions-of-iphone-users/#5265c8d734ef "pple Suddenly Catches TikTok Secretly Spying On Millions Of iPhone Users" by reading from the clipboard
* 2020-06 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53225720 India bans TikTok after Ladakh border tensions
* 2020-05 <<liu-keqing-singer>>
* 2019-11-28 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/28/tiktok-says-sorry-to-us-teenager-blocked-after-sharing-xinjiang-videos[]: "TikTok sorry for blocking teenager who disguised Xinjiang video as make-up tutorial". Subtitle: "Chinese-owned video sharing platform blocked Feroza Aziz after she posted film disguised as makeup tutorial"
* 2019-11 https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2019/11/25/20976964/chinese-americans-censorship-wechat-hong-kong-elections-tiktok

Reports:

* 2020-08 https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/3982027 photo of ByteDance top brass with CCP members in Beijing and description of their meeting. Because obviously they have strong ties with the CCP like any other Chinese company.
* 2020-03 https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/fug8i1/the_chinese_tiktok_just_began_an_uninterrupted/ "The Chinese Tik-Tok just began an uninterrupted propaganda stream." during <<corona>>
* https://twitter.com/JoshuaDummer/status/1280877750245453828 "Wife trying livestreaming on Douyin. Comes over to me in the middle of a stream and puts me on camera. After about a minute, notice pops up saying that foreigners are not allowed to appear on livestreams 'without permission'."
** https://twitter.com/JoshuaDummer/status/1280881420047511552/photo/1
** https://twitter.com/JoshuaDummer/status/1280882119913291776/photo/1

Douyin does not seem to have a web interface: https://www.zhihu.com/question/269102675 "有没有抖音网页版或者抖音电脑版？"

[[baidu]]
====== Baidu (百度)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu

The "Google of China":

* Search engine: original business and still served at the toplevel domain
** https://www.baidu.com/
** Autocomplete suggestion for "Ciro Santilli": "cirosantilli的妻子" (Ciro Santilli's wife and Children)
** Clearly and obviously censors pages with <<keyword-attack,keywords>>, e.g.:
*** https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=Ciro%20Santilli%20Stack%20Overflow["Ciro Santilli Stack Overflow"] hits https://stackoverflow.com/users/9160762/ciro-santilli and not https://stackoverflow.com/users/895245/ciro-santilli-郝海东冠状病六四事件法轮功 which has way greater reputation (https://web.archive.org/web/20200807071610/https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=Ciro%20Santilli%20Stack%20Overflow[archive]). For example, a much smaller account with a much more common name hits: https://stackoverflow.com/users/763246/james-hill | https://web.archive.org/web/20200807072446/https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=james%20hill%20stack%20overflow
*** https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=cirosantilli%20github["cirosantilli github"] does not hit https://github.com/cirosantilli (https://web.archive.org/web/20200807071807/https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=cirosantilli%20github[archive])
*** but there does appear to be a manual aspect to the block possibly. For example, Ciro's top answer does hit, even though he has keywords in the page: https://www.baidu.com/s?&wd=dependencies%20devDependencies%20peerDependencies to https://stackoverflow.com/questions/18875674/whats-the-difference-between-dependencies-devdependencies-and-peerdependencies (https://web.archive.org/web/20200807072151/https://www.baidu.com/s?&wd=dependencies%20devDependencies%20peerDependencies[archive])
*** Pages censored in China do hit outside of China at least however, e.g.: https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=twitter first hits https://twitter.com (https://web.archive.org/web/20200807071312/https://www.baidu.com/s?wd=twitter[archive])
* Tieba blogging
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_Tieba
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/百度贴吧
** https://tieba.baidu.com
* Maps
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_Maps
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/百度地图
** Google Maps is not allowed to film in China for Streetview, so Baidu has its own
* Analytics
** https://tongji.baidu.com/web/help/article?id=174
** 百度统计代码介绍
** the <<cac>> uses their analytics as of 2020
* Baike wiki
** https://baike.baidu.com/
** The leading Chinese Wikipedia
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baidu_Baike
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/百度百科
** obviously completely censored, e.g.: <<baidu-baike-censorship-of-hao-haidong>>
** seems to not have edit history. That would be bad for censorship :-)

===== What should Western media do about China?

When you report something about a person, for fuck's sake include the person's name in the title of the article, at the very least the pinyin.

Then, in the body, also add the corresponding Chinese characters on the first mention. This is how you do it: "San Xihou (三西猴)"

Yes, Chinese people also have names. And yes, pinyin has infinitely more homonyms than characters.

In the body of the article, notably in photos, include the exact location of the event if applicable.

City at the very least, but if recognizable, where withing the city.

Yes, China is big! There are many different places in China.

==== Western companies that comply with Chinese censorship requests

Western governments should prevent companies from complying to Chinese censorship requests, or at least impose fines and sanctions on them.

Citizens should boycott such companies and require them to be punished.

See also: <<western-companies-that-sell-censorship-technology-to-dictatorships>>

Some hell known companies and events:

* 2020 Outfront Media, see: <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>>
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC[HSBC]
** 2020-06 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Support_for_China's_Security_Law_for_Hong_Kong_(2020)[Support for China's Security Law for Hong Kong (2020)]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_L.P.[Bloomberg L.P.]
** 2020-02 https://theintercept.com/2020/02/18/mike-bloomberg-lp-nda-china/ "When Bloomberg News's Reporting on China Was Challenged, Bloomberg Tried to Ruin Me for Speaking Out"
* 2019-12 Shutterstock implements censorship for searches from China https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/08/in-wake-of-shutterstocks-chinese-censorship-american-companies-need-to-relearn-american-values/
* LinkedIn
** 2019-01-04 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/2180620/linkedin-adhering-beijings-rules-censors-chinese-profile-page-us-based "LinkedIn reverses course after censoring Chinese profile page of US-based human rights activist Zhou Fengsuo", see also: <<zhou-fengsuo>>
** 2014-06-04 https://money.cnn.com/2014/06/04/technology/linkedin-china-censorship/ "LinkedIn draws fire for China censorship" mentions: "Some LinkedIn (LNKD) users have received emails from the company in recent days informing them that their posts will not be shown in mainland China."
* Apple
** https://applecensorship.com App Store monitoring by <<greatfire>>, source: https://github.com/greatfire/applecensorship
** 2020-03-01 https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/01/china-roundup-apple-closes-app-store-loophole/ "China Roundup: Apple closes a 4-year-old App Store loophole"
** 2020-02-25 https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/25/apple-censorship-requests-china-shareholder-groups-proposal
** 2019-04-12 https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/12/18305087/congress-apple-criticism-china-communist-tiananmen-pro-democracy "Lawmakers lash out at Apple for censoring a song about <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square protests>>"
+
.Chinese flag with Apple characteristics. https://techcrunch.com/2015/08/11/apple-shares-tumble-5-amidst-china-concerns/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Apple_China_flag.png[height=400]
* JPMorgan
** 2016-11 "Sons and Daughters" corruption hiring program for chidren of government officials: https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoinegara/2016/11/17/jpmorgan-agrees-to-pay-264-million-fine-for-sons-and-daughters-hiring-program-in-china/#46746e305688

.2019 summary of companies that kowtow to China. https://twitter.com/hoho90272496/status/1182669015937966080[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Brand_censorship_chart.jpg[height=600]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2019-10 carton showing several brands kowtowing to <<xi-jinping>>, while South Park alone gives the middle finger. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/china-hongkong-us-10102019153228.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_bat.jpg[height=400]

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2017-07 showing <<xi-jinping>> eating an Apple Inc. logo referring to the many events where Apple gave in to Chinese demands to have access to the Chinese market. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/China-Apple-cartoon-08242017103540.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Apple.jpg[height=400]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4WBsahU3X4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Colbert[Stephen Colbert] comments in 2015 on how American films make a good image of China to be allowed in China by censors to increase sales.
video::V4WBsahU3X4[youtube,height=400,width=600]

===== Chinese interference in Western media

This lists links between owners of several US media outlets and China: https://thefederalist.com/2020/05/04/has-china-compromised-every-major-mainstream-media-entity/[]. No direct evidence that this has affected the news however.

[[china-watch]]
====== China watch (2011-)

Campaign by <<china-daily>> to add paid articles/ads that read like news in/distributed with Western newspapers. They appeared to be marked as China watch ads, but still, they should be crushed.

* 2020-06: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post[Washington Post], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal[Wall Street Journal] and others figure on official fillings of newspapers paid by China Daily: https://efile.fara.gov/docs/3457-Amendment-20200601-2.pdf[].
+
https://www.opindia.com/2020/06/china-propaganda-daily-washington-post-new-york-times-wall-street-journal-millions-dollars-justice-department-newspapers-paid-content/ summarizes:
+
____
As per the documents filed by China Daily with the Justice Department, the Communist party mouthpiece had paid over $6 million to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), $4.6 million to the Washington Post, $2,40,000 to Foreign Policy, $50,000 to the New York Times, $34,600 to The Des Moines Register and $76,000 to CQ-Roll Call.

Besides, spending $11 million in advertising on prominent US papers, China Daily shelled out an additional $7.6 million to The Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, The Seattle Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Houston Chronicle, and The Boston Globe for printing copies of its own paper. For instance, the Los Angeles Times reportedly received $657,523 for printing services. The Communist party-mouthpiece had also spent $2,65,822 on advertising on Twitter.
____
+
The Washington Post is the one that had received the most attention earlier on since 2011:
+
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Post#China_Daily_advertising_supplements
** https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/02/official-chinese-propaganda-now-online-from-the-wapo/70690/ "Official Chinese Propaganda: Now Online from the WaPo!"
+
They even had online distribution channel: http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/ It is https://web.archive.org/web/20200708133054/http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/[dead as of 2020-07], but https://web.archive.org/web/20180330150602/http://chinawatch.washingtonpost.com/[was alive in 2018]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Telegraph[Daily Telegraph]: UK Daily Telegraph stops publishing section paid for by China[piece of shit] tabloid, it comes as no surprise that they would sell out to any dictatorship
+
2020-04-14 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/apr/14/daily-telegraph-stops-publishing-section-paid-for-by-china "Daily Telegraph stops publishing section paid for by China"

China Daily itself claims certain partnerships: <<china-daily>> https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/static_e/global.html[]:

____
China Daily has also developed diversified cooperation with over 40 media organizations around the world, including The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, etc.
____

===== bandinchina GitHub repository

https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina

Contains a "List of companies who have apologized to the Chinese government and implemented censorship requests".

It only lists companies that implemented censorship outside of China however (with Hong Kong, <<taiwan,Taiwan>> and Macau defined as outside of China), therefore it is basically a Taiwan flag takedown + Hong Kong / Taiwan censorship list:

* caffeine-overload/bandinchina#56 (comment)
* caffeine-overload/bandinchina#84

Other interesting GitHub repositories: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

===== Entertainers who support the CCP

Boycott those:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Chan#Political_views_and_controversy[Jackie Chan 陳港生] even though he is born in Hong Kong
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3T_Dd3O1UM spoke against the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>
** https://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/fc/21/216376/Police-chief-says-Jackie-Chan-made-him
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Yifei#Controversy[Liu Yifei 刘亦菲] who starred in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulan_(2020_film)[Mulan 2020] Disney movie. To make matters more fun, some scenes were shot in <<xinjiang>>: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4004891
** https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/disneys-mulan-star-sparks-call-for-boycott-with-hong-kong-stance opposed the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>>, notably saying "What a shame for Hong Kong". The <<chinese-government-media,People's Daily>> later quoted her: https://web.archive.org/web/20190816162331/http://en.people.cn/n3/2019/0816/c90000-9606859.html[]

=== Chinese Interference in the Western education systems

Related about university interference:

* 2020-12-05 https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN28F05U "U.S. ends exchange programs with China, calling them 'propaganda'". Only five of the programs were terminated:
** Policymakers Educational China Trip Program
** U.S.-China Friendship Program
** U.S.-China Leadership Exchange Program
** U.S.-China Transpacific Exchange Program
** Hong Kong Educational and Cultural Program
* 2020-06-17 https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Technology/US-blacklists-China-s-MIT-as-tech-war-enters-new-phase Harbin Institute of Technology denied MATLAB support for being in the entity list, apparenty since may: https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2020/05/commerce-department-add-two-dozen-chinese-companies-ties-wmd-and
* 2020-05-28 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/motion-backing-hong-kong-blocked-after-campaign-by-chinese-students-at-warwick-fsdfphr26 "Motion backing Hong Kong blocked after campaign by Chinese students at Warwick". The article mentions that "Just under 1,000 students voted in favour of the motion. Turnout was three times higher than other votes and officials said that it was a new record for participation."
* 2020-08 https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/craven-cowardice-unsw-condemned-for-deleting-posts-critical-of-beijing-20200803-p55hy5.html "'Craven cowardice': UNSW condemned for deleting posts critical of Beijing" University of New South Wales
* 2020-05 Drew Pavlou 柏乐志
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Queensland[University of Queensland], Australia, was trying to get rid of him for anti-CCP campaign
** https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/24/how-a-20-year-old-student-put-the-spotlight-on-australian-universities-cosy-relationship-with-china
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o1sZefER0E <<china-uncensored,China Unscripted>> interview

[[confucius-institute]]
==== Confucius institute (孔子学院)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/孔子学院

News and reports:

* 2019-09 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49511231 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191013185933/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-49511231[archive]) "Confucius Institutes: The growth of China's controversial cultural branch"
* 2019-01 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/11/u-s-universities-have-shut-down-confucius-institutes-heres-what-you-need-to-know/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20190616134959/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2019/01/11/u-s-universities-have-shut-down-confucius-institutes-heres-what-you-need-to-know/[archive]) "Why U.S. universities are shutting down China-funded Confucius Institutes"

==== University espionage

Lists:

* 2020-06-12 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/fifty-four-scientists-have-lost-their-jobs-result-nih-probe-foreign-ties "Fifty-four scientists have lost their jobs as a result of NIH probe into foreign ties" and "In 93% of those cases, the hidden funding came from a Chinese institution." and "In the vast majority of cases, Lauer reported, the person being investigated has been an Asian man in his 50s."
* https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1262441045197049856.html List of professors around America caught selling secret research to the Chinese Communist Regime

People:

* 2020-11-17 Song Guo Zheng, Ohio State University
** https://www.linkedin.com/in/song-guo-zheng-md-phd-48893641/
** https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MhjbiKIAAAAJ&hl=en
* 2020-09 Haizhou Hu from University of Virginia: https://www.cbs19news.com/story/42560934/uva-researcher-arrested-on-federal-charges
* 2020-07 Houston consulate closed due to alllegations of facilitating intellectual property theft without public proof
** https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53497193
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/us-chinese-diplomat-restrictions/index.html "US imposes new restrictions on Chinese diplomats" has been another direct effect of this most likely
* 2020-07 Juan Tang
** https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/23/chinese-researcher-wanted-by-fbi-flees-to-san-francisco-consulate-as-us-china-row-deepens "Chinese researcher wanted by FBI flees to San Francisco consulate as US-China row deepens"
** https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3094511/us-charges-four-scientists-hiding-ties-chinese-government has her PLA photos
* 2020 Hao Zhang: https://www.voanews.com/usa/chinese-professor-convicted-stealing-trade-secrets-china from Avago and Skyworks
* 2020 Charles Lieber
** https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00291-2
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_M._Lieber he had won a Wolf Prize in Chemistry
* 2019 Shih Yi-chi from UCLA
** https://www.linkedin.com/in/yi-chi-shih-9884bb20/
** https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3017017/us-federal-court-finds-chinese-american-engineer-shih-yi-chi-guilty

==== German high school coordinator 2020

YET UNCONFIRMED VIDEO, we have to find who that person is exactly.

The video shows what seems to be Chinese a high school dorm coordinator saying that their Chinese exchange students must staty away from ideas democracy and freedom.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOArB434ykU
video::aOArB434ykU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

First ripped from uploader's <<tiktok,Douyin>> account named Michael_c118, who also appears to be the person on the video.

Original proeminent report on the West: 2020-10-04 https://twitter.com/SDeutschlands/status/1312682617888796673 by "Voice From Germany 德國之音"

https://m.yorkbbs.ca/forum/chat/5228712.aspx contains reported screenshots of the Douyin profile (no web interface it seems), include a clear face shot.

Video also commented at:

* 2020-10-31 https://forum.gamer.com.tw/C.php?bsn=60076&snA=5984833 from our friends from <<taiwan>>
* 2020-10-25 https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/jhx2mc/chinese_student_coordinator_in_germany_talking_to/ on <<reddit>>
* 2020-19-04 https://twitter.com/HKokbore/status/1312802503956848641

Key markings:

* "德国学校开班会4"
* "This man is a coordinator of Chinese high school students who study in Germany"
* "We have to say there's some problems in our dorm right now"

https://twitter.com/Hujo_DR/status/1312793758203748357/photo/1 is a screenshot of the Douyin profile showing a phone number, which looks like a Chinese number due to prefix 139: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_China#Mobile_phones

The screnshots posted on yorkbbs link him to "北京智享德意国际教育" (Beijing Zhixiang German/Italian International Education).

Googling "北京智享德意国际教育 linkedin" leads to UNCONFIRMED a Yun Xiao https://www.linkedin.com/in/xiaoyun79/ | https://archive.vn/CzZft which is not marked as working in the above organization, but could be the person in the video based on the profile picture (uncertain), and also works with education, thus the Google hit at his current organization (北京智晗未来教育咨询有限公司).

Searching for Google exact hits to "北京智享德意国际教育" leads to https://www.tianyancha.com/company/3283146644 which rejects foreign visits as of 2020-10-26, shows up on Google cache at https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:AihPPyAAZr8J:https://www.tianyancha.com/company/3283146644+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk&client=ubuntu[on 2020-10-21] (https://archive.vn/xCfBQ[archive]).

[[thousand-talents-program]]
==== Thousand Talents Program (千人计划)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thousand_Talents_Plan
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/海外高层次人才引进计划

<<ciro-santilli>> believes that this is exactly the type of thing that poor countries need to do to get richer: https://cirosantilli.com/#what-poor-countries-have-to-do-to-get-richer[].

But we can't allow China to do it because China is a <<dictatorship,dictatorship>>.

[[cssa]]
==== Chinese Students and Scholars Association (CSSA, 中国学生学者联合会)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Students_and_Scholars_Association

Abbreviation: CSSA.

News and reports:

* 2019-10-13 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-13/cssa-influence-australian-universities-documents-revealed/11587454 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191014032348/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-13/cssa-influence-australian-universities-documents-revealed/11587454[archive]) "Chinese Students and Scholars Association's deep links to the embassy revealed" in Australia.
* 2018-03-07 https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20191012103953/https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/07/chinas-long-arm-reaches-into-american-campuses-chinese-students-scholars-association-university-communist-party/[archive])

[[ufwd]]
====  United Front Work Department (UFWD, 中共中央统一战线工作部)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Front_Work_Department
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中共中央统一战线工作部

China's "Diaspora management" organ.

The likely organizers behind <<confucius-institute>> and <<cssa>>.

=== What should pro-democracy Chinese living in China do about the dictatorship?

First of all, hide and stay safe, unless you can deal the final blow. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_at_War[World at war, 1973], ep. 16:

____
A dictatorship is like a snake. If you put your foot on its tail as you do it, it will just bite you and nobody will be helped. You have to strike the head.
____

Once that is taken care of, a few good options are:

* hide your thoughts, manipulate your enemies, infiltrate the corporate, political and military power circles, and go up the ladder
* if you are an technological innovator, leave China and come work for the West. Don't strengthen commie power.

If you don't manage to do either of the above, don't do any technological work. Go work on the fields or washing dishes. Working well for Chinese companies makes the Chinese <<dictatorship,Dictatorship>> stronger and <<war,more deadly>>. See also: <<embargo>>.

And regardless: remember your kids that the commies are bastards every day.

[[reply-policy]]
=== Ciro Santilli's reply policy (三西猴的回答政策)

People get kind of passionate sometimes about politics. And some of them might also be just malicious <<wumao,wumaos>>, although it is generally not possible to distinguish between them.

If you are not a wumao, consider this:

* Ciro Santilli is one, and antagonists are millions. It is therefore not possible to reply to all antagonists.
* Ciro has in the past tried to be nice to stupid people, and they gave nasty replies
* all discussion is useless, <<effective,only the keyword attack has any chance of having any effect, and even that is slim>>

In order to not waste too much time on those, Ciro Santilli uses the following strategy.

If the original thread post is not very interesting, try to parse it quickly and reply once, always <<better-to-do,linking to the FAQ>>, and then unfollow the thread. This shows that you're still alive, and takes little effort.

Then do your best never to read the inevitable reply again, and above all, never ever reply. An interesting reply never follows from a non-interesting original post. It is hard at first, but you will eventually get the hang of it.

If the user keeps generating notifications, block them as per link:CONTRIBUTING.md[], replying to a single person multiple times is useless.

Never block users for an initial <<shitpost,shitposts>>, just reply with a stupid joke instead. This approach creates more uncertainty and makes you look cooler. Only block if the user is generating multiple notifications.

If a shitpost is made on most other social media except GitHub issues in this repository, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, immediately block the user on that website if you have the permission to do that, with a canned reply:

____
Hi <idiot's name>, I don't reply to China issues here, please open an issue at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues instead, cheers.
____

Note however that this is not possible on idiotic websites like <<quora>> where such comments may be deleted, possibly automatically, who the fuck knows, e.g. as done at: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli/comment/143227962 In that case just link to sections of the FAQ, or mute people, or maybe just block all comments on the post to not waste time with new useless notifications.

This is because it is not worth answering anywhere else where the information will be scattered and impossible to find later on, and especially on websites that are already blocked in China. Shitposts on Stack Overflow and other non-blocked websites are encouraged however, as they further help to get the website blocked in China.

For outbursts of activity from Chinese websites, usually programming (<<backlinks,v2ex, hacpai, pincong>>), only post the following canned answer and nothing else, because cowards/people who don't know English from the website might delete your posts, so you shouldn't waste time there with that shit:

____
大家你好

在我的GitHub中国FAQ repository我已经回答了好几个关于我常见的问题。

你们要是在那儿找不到一个回答，请在那个repository开一个issue，我马上就回答。

我不要再在这个网页评论。
____

Finally, don't forget the golden rule from https://biblehub.com/proverbs/26-4.htm[Proverbs 26:4]:

____
Don't answer the foolish arguments of fools, or you will become as foolish as they are.
____

which is now usually seen in the form https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/66460/origin-of-do-not-argue-with-idiots[of unclear attribution]:

____
Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.
____

Where basically idiot == someone who creates posts that obviously aren't teaching you any new useful thing, or that not praising you :-)

Alternatively, there is also the Chinese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] version:

____
对牛弹琴
____

which means:

____
Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow.
____

which means to talk to someone who does not have intellectual conditions of understanding what you are trying to say, bibliography:

* https://www.theepochtimes.com/chinese-idiom-playing-the-qin-to-a-cow_766205.html
* https://baike.baidu.com/item/对牛弹琴/3490

More <<wumao,wumao>> focused strategies at: <<how-to-deal-with-wumaos>>.

.Cartoon depiction of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengyu[chengyu] "Playing the <<music,qin>> to a cow" 《对牛弹琴》. https://zhidao.baidu.com/question/438181067.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Play_qin_to_cow.png[height=600]

.XKCD 386 "Duty Calls" and the famous "Someone is wrong on the Internet" quote. It is a waste of time to be like that. https://xkcd.com/386/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Someone_is_wrong_on_the_Internet.png[height=400]

=== Who is behind this amazing FAQ?

[[ciro-santilli]]
==== Ciro Santilli (三西猴)

Original creator of https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship[]: https://cirosantilli.com/

.Ciro testing his webcam for https://askubuntu.com/questions/348838/how-to-check-available-webcams-from-the-command-line/848390#848390[an Ask Ubuntu answer].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Ciro_Santilli.png[height=400]

[[wife]]
===== Ciro Santilli's wife (三西猴的老婆)

Born and raised in China: <<why-does-ciro-santilli-love-china-so-much>>.

She and her mother do <<falun-gong>>, see also: <<flg-bias>>.

Believes to be descendant of the brother of a recent Qing emperor, see also: <<throne>>.

For this same reason, her father, who Ciro's wife worships, spent around 10 years in the 50's for being branded a counter revolutionary rightist (右派) during one of <<mao-zedong,Mao's>> purges, possibly:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_to_Suppress_Counterrevolutionaries https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/镇压反革命运动
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Rightist_Campaign https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/反右运动

It is also for this reason that many Manchu changed their names to hide their Manchu origins, which makes reconstructing their family tree much harder, as mentioned at: https://www.scmp.com/article/982136/proud-manchu-reclaims-his-rich-heritage for the purposes of <<throne>>.

Ciro's wife:

* studied in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Science_and_Technology_of_China[one of the best universities of China]
* met Ciro his wife when they were in possibly the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_Polytechnique[best engineering university in France] after she had refused opportunities to go to the USA
* obtained a PhD in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_theory[number theory] in one of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_and_Marie_Curie_University[best mathematics universities in the world]

and is way smarter than Ciro.

<<wumao,Wumaos>> can say many things about her, but claiming that she is not intelligent or has no culture or would have any difficulty in obtaining a qualified worker VISA without a marriage, is a lost argument from the start, she would likely kick your butt in a raw intelligence competition.

Ciro is actually the lucky one for having found her!

The fake "the woman makes the man" Obama story comes to mind https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spousal-success-story/[] (Obama would never say that in public):

____

One night President Obama and his wife Michelle decided to do something out of routine and go for a casual dinner at a restaurant that wasn't too luxurious. When they were seated, the owner of the restaurant asked the President's Secret Service if he could please speak to the First Lady in private. They obliged and Michelle had a conversation with the owner.

Following this conversation President Obama asked Michelle, "Why was he so interested in talking to you?" She mentioned that in her teenage years, he had been madly in love with her. President Obama then said, "So if you had married him, you would now be the owner of this lovely restaurant," to which Michelle responded, "No. If I had married him, he would now be the President."
____

=== How do different websites view Ciro Santilli's profile?

<<meant-to-be-used>> contains a more general overview. This contains website specifics.

==== Stack Overflow

This is where <<ciro-santilli>> started his <<keyword-attack>> originally in 2015 as explained at: <<why-did-ciro-santilli-start-his-keyword-attack>>.

The current consensus says that keyword attacks are allowed:

* https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/286082/does-the-be-nice-policy-require-se-users-to-be-nice-to-people-who-are-not-se-u
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267368/are-political-avatars-and-profiles-ok
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/299882/can-a-username-be-considered-spam
* https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/349131/users-political-display-name-triggering-government-action-against-users-who-vie

The Chinese law doesn't unfortunately: <<real-username-law>>

Since you will fail through Stack Overflow moderation, please consider instead making a report on the <<cac-report-website>>.

===== Other openly dissident users on Stack Overflow

For non-Stack Overflow specific ones see: <<chinese-dissidents>>

Query to find them: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/312860/chinese-dissidents-by-keyword-aboutme-or-displayname

Notable ones only here (high rep or innovative criticism):

* "GNUSupporter 8964民主女神 地下教會"
** Real name: Vincent Tam from social media links.
** https://math.stackexchange.com/users/290189/gnusupporter-8964民主女神-地下教會#
** https://web.archive.org/web/20191209202831/https://math.stackexchange.com/users/290189/gnusupporter-8964%E6%B0%91%E4%B8%BB%E5%A5%B3%E7%A5%9E-%E5%9C%B0%E4%B8%8B%E6%95%99%E6%9C%83
** Keyword attack inspired by me
* Yu Hao
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1009479/yu-hao
** https://archive.is/76FCb
** "<<gfw,GFW (Great Firewall of China)>> is one of the most notorious inventions in the history of Internet. Anyone working for it should be ashamed."
* gotqn
** "Free Tibet From China Domination"
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1080354/gotqn
** https://web.archive.org/web/20190821105901/https://stackoverflow.com/users/1080354/gotqn
* Scott 混合理论
+
https://stackoverflow.com/users/1230329/scott-混合理论
+
The same message as Yu Hao, I wonder if it is an external thing or direct copy of Yu, but no Google hits besides them.
* Terry Wang
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/1801697/terry-wang
** https://archive.is/V0aSK
** Lego recreation of Tankman on the profile picture: <<lego-tank-man>>

Users who had <<gfw,GFW>> references but removed it:

* https://stackoverflow.com/users/4594532/gnimuc-key
** https://web.archive.org/web/20170331144256/https://stackoverflow.com/users/4594532/gnimuc
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/651907/jclin
** https://web.archive.org/web/20160516065151/https://stackoverflow.com/users/651907/jclin

Misc interesting stuff:

* <location>火车站酒店小姐 (about 20 accounts with that pattern)
** https://stackoverflow.com/users/7040504/莆田火车站酒店小姐
** https://web.archive.org/web/20190428090348/https://stackoverflow.com/users/7040504/%E8%8E%86%E7%94%B0%E7%81%AB%E8%BD%A6%E7%AB%99%E9%85%92%E5%BA%97%E5%B0%8F%E5%A7%90
** Interesting list of prostitution spam/sockpuppets? All have the exact same profile information.
** Hitting query due to "审查", but the usage is unrelated to the Firewall.

Query to find them: https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/312863/mentioned-ciro-santilli-on-aboutme-or-displayname

====== Stack Overflow anti-dissident users

* https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408
** https://web.archive.org/web/20170602054631/https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408/%E8%AF%B7%E5%B0%81%E6%8E%89ciro-santilli-%E4%B8%AD%E5%9B%BD%E5%85%B1%E4%BA%A7%E5%85%9A%E4%B8%87%E5%B2%81
*** username: "请封掉Ciro Santilli 中国共产党万岁"
*** profile: "中国万岁！ 中国共产党万岁！ 法轮功，民运，台独在中国共产党的铁蹄下不过是螳臂当车！"
** https://web.archive.org/web/20200830192811/https://stackoverflow.com/users/815408/lookintoeast became a coward, renamed to "LookIntoEast"
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20200910172706/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63464732/how-to-set-a-custom-image-height-for-an-image-in-asciidoctor more shitcomments "可惜啊中国一天比一天强大繁荣，中国的实力碾压你们轮子跟捏死一只蚂蚁那么简单。哈哈哈哈", Yes, the CCP is very good at <<intolerance,putting old ladies in jail>>. A great thing to be proud of.
** mentioned at https://v2ex.com/t/378274 from <<v2ex>>
** a questions only account, not many intelligent CCP supporters out there of course. 2020 edit mentions: https://web.archive.org/web/20200910173714/https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7152762/how-to-redirect-print-output-to-a-file-using-python mentions "How time flies. Almost 10 years ago I started to work on bioinformatics without any coding skills. Then I gave up my PhD and previous career and becomes a pure software engineer."
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161
** https://web.archive.org/save/https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161/ciro-santilli-%E7%9A%84%E9%80%A0%E8%B0%A3%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%AF%E8%80%BB%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%BA
** username: "Ciro Santilli 的造谣是可耻行为" https://web.archive.org/save/https://stackoverflow.com/users/9393161/ciro-santilli-%E7%9A%84%E9%80%A0%E8%B0%A3%E6%98%AF%E5%8F%AF%E8%80%BB%E8%A1%8C%E4%B8%BA
* https://stackoverflow.com/users/8454187
** username: "Snowden Assange Wounded Knee"
** profile: "燃(ri)烧(si)您(ni)的(de)梦(ma)，Ciro Santilli. StackOverflow上的一个用户. The Oliver Stone Experience"
** explanation:
*** "燃烧您的梦": http://www.nq6.com/dj/1674.html
*** "Wounded Knee": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre

==== GitHub

GitHub's site policy can be seen at: https://help.github.com/en/github/site-policy

If you believe this page violates those policies, you can click the report abuse button on https://github.com/cirosantilli[Ciro's profile], which links to: https://github.com/contact/report-abuse?report=cirosantilli+%28user%29 or you can just contacat [email protected]

If you do so, please feel free to also open an issue on this repository saying why you believe the site policy has been violated.

Those issues will be marked with: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Aabuse-report+

It will be fun to watch you try, and fail.

This is because you do not understand how important the concept of <<richer,freedom of speech is>> in the West, and how amazing it feels when you are right, and it protects you.

The only thing that would work is if the Chinese government makes a gov-takedown on this repo: <<github-gov-takedowns>>, in which case: <<strategy-if-this-repo-gets-added-to-github-gov-takedowns>>.

In order to get this repository in gov-takedown, your best bet is to use the <<cac-report-website>>.

China's GitHub censorship history is documented at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_GitHub#China[], some events:

* 2019-07-29 https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/29/github-ban-sanctioned-countries/ "GitHub confirms it has blocked developers in Iran, Syria and Crimea". "As part of the push, Friedman said GitHub has enforced new restrictions to prevent users in sanctioned countries from accessing private repositories and GitHub Marketplace, as well as maintaining private paid organization accounts"
** https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us protest repo against the sanctions, archived as of 2020-08
** 1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us#1010 "Use gitee from china" recommending <<gitee>>

Related:

* <<cute-cat-theory-of-digital-activism>>
* https://techcrunch.com/2020/09/07/scratch-ban-in-china/ Scratch visual programming language for children website blocked
* https://www.quora.com/Is-GitHub-com-allowed-in-China/answer/Ciro-Santilli

===== GitHub censored subdomains

It appears according to <<greatfire>> however that there are some important GitHub censored subdomains, notably:

* https://raw.githubusercontent.com[], from which images and other downloads are served. Therefore all images served from GitHub should be broken in China
* https://gist.github.com[], https://en.greatfire.org/https/gist.github.com[]: meh, that's useless, just create a github.com/notes repo and dump your stuff there

However, at least for raw, <<geoscreenshot>> disagrees:

* 2020-09-30 https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship | http://web.archive.org/web/20200930075102/https://s3.amazonaws.com/geoscreenshot-static/d3fdb97d-2ac3-4f57-a737-6fab2997fb1a.html
* 2020-09-30 https://gist.github.com/ | https://archive.vn/wip/VUNU4

More information:

* https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/146517/how-it-is-possible-that-some-pages-of-an-https-website-like-github-are-marked-as
* https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/1310461733325148160

===== GitHub gov-takedowns

https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns

GitHub has absolute transparency on Government takedowns, which is awesome: https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/tree/master/China

This makes that repo into a list of fun things.

As of 2019-05 there had only been only two takedowns by China however, compared to dozens by <<russia>>. The Chinese commies are not big fans of transparency it seems.

As of 2020-03, besides the <<programthink,Zhao>> takedown, all other takedowns happened in 2019, and most seem to be <<falun-gong>>/<<epoch-times>> sponsored ways to <<censorship-circumvention,climb the wall>>.

The message GitHub shows on the blocked countries is:

____
Repository unavailable in your location

This repository is currently disabled in your location. For more details please see the takedown notice.
____

Here are some examples of people reacting to the blocking of programthink/zhao#38 as per https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/78775b09e64d85f08547287cab204b48b2491192/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md from China (and likely on the entire repository, which appears to be the block granularity implemented):

* programthink/books#31 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191023093618/https://github.com/programthink/books/issues/31[archive])
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/284445884/ corresponding Google bomb at: cirosantilli#71
* https://program-think.blogspot.com/2018/04/Zhao-at-GitHub.html?comment=1524671692761#1524671692761

See also: <<programthink>>

To check China only takedowns such as this, we cannot use <<censorship-monitoring,Great Fire Analyzer>>, which reports the page as accessible: the only tool <<ciro-santilli>> could find so far to capture a page from China a bit like Web Archive was: <<geoscreenshot>>

.<<geoscreenshot>> of programthink/zhao#38 from <<programthink>> taken on 2020-09-31 from China. The "Repository unavailable in your location" message shows, since https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md[this repository is in gov-takedowns/china].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/GitHub_Programthink_Zhao_issue_38_China_geoscreenshot_2020_09_31.png[height=400]

====== Strategy if this repo gets added to GitHub gov-takedowns

If this happens, we well proceed to create alternative repos `china-dictatorship-2`, `china-dictatorship-3`, etc. and it would be fun to see how that gets handled.

Can they add an entire user to gov-takedowns?

But remember that we also have: <<mirrors>>, and that this can be easily rendered as a single HTML page and uploaded to any static website host.

[[gov-takedowns-china]]
====== gov-takedowns/China

Skipping all <<falun-gong>>/<<epoch-times>> repos with very few stars, mostly some <<gfw>> skip methods, those are noise, and possibly added only to dilute the real deal.

* 2016
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/caef002cb19309c318ea01afb4d3cec98bcd4042/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md[] https://github.com/programthink/zhao[]. <<programthink,Zhao>>
* 2019
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2019/2019-11-06-MPS.md
*** https://github.com/greatfire/wiki Wiki of <<greatfire>>. <<censorship-circumvention>>. Precise issue: https://github.com/greatfire/wiki/issues/166[] (no archives). 
** https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/master/China/2019/2019-12-12-MPS.md
*** https://github.com/gfw-breaker[], see also: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>

===== GitHub repositories with censored information

For lists of censored information outside of GitHub see: <<lists-of-material-censored-in-china>>.

Content outside of GitHub: <<lists-of-material-censored-in-china>>.

* taibangle (太棒了)
** https://github.com/taibangle/awesome-china
** https://github.com/taibangle/lennon-wall
* https://github.com/sikaozhe1997/Xin-Yue
** Open letter by student activist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yue_Xin_(activist)[Yue Xin] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/岳昕[岳昕]) about the events described at https://web.archive.org/web/20200104064812/https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/09/world/asia/china-metoo-gao-yan.html["China's #MeToo: How a 20-Year-Old Rape Case Became a Rallying Cry"]
** https://github.com/sikaozhe1997/Xin-Yue/blob/master/letter.md in-tree translation
** 2018-04 https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/04/translation-open-letter-on-peking-university-metoo-case/ "TRANSLATION: OPEN LETTER ON PKU #METOO CASE"
* https://github.com/Project-Gutenberg/Pincong see also <<pincong>>

Mentioned in other sections:

* <<nine-nine-six-icu>>
* <<nCovMemory>>
* <<bandinchina-github-repository>>
* https://github.com/jasonqng/chinese-keywords mentioned at <<where-can-i-find-good-words-for-a-keyword-attack>>
* https://github.com/programthink/zhao from <<programthink>>
* <<censorship-monitoring-tools-on-github>>

Interesting users:

* https://github.com/gfw-breaker
** appears to give a lot of focus to <<falun-gong>>, e.g.:
*** https://github.com/gfw-breaker/truth Falun Gong information repository
*** https://github.com/gfw-breaker/banned-news1 automatic scraper of news from banned websites into the repository, with top sites being <<falun-gong-media>>
** present in <<gov-takedowns-china>>
* https://github.com/bannedbook
** https://github.com/bannedbook/fanqiang is the main repository, TODO what it contains exactly? Code, or just documentation of existing methods?

Non-information but also interesting:

* https://github.com/lurongkai/anti-baidu

[[terminus2049]]
====== Terminus2049 端点星计划

* https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io
* https://terminus2049.github.io/
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/端点星事件

Jekyl GitHub Pages repository that saves full text copies of censored articles:

____
本仓库存放被删文章

This repository stores deleted articles.
____

Also accompanies a dynamic forum https://2049bbs.xyz/ which appears to be where content for the static pages gets discussed and brought up. But it possible that the website has been compromised and is leaking identity of users.

The "Terminus" in the repo name seems to be a reference to Isaac Asimov's fictional https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Terminus[Terminus planet] which is called https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/端点星[端点星] in Chinese, but it is not clear where the 2049 comes from in that context. Forgetting the Chinese name, Terminus2049 could be a reference to the fictional https://bladerunner.fandom.com/wiki/World_War_Terminus["World War Terminus"] from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner_2049[Blade Runner 2049 (2019)] movie, which also explains the 2049.

First commint on 2018-04-27, GitHub pages domain blocked in China at least since 2019-03 according to <<greatfire>>: https://zh.greatfire.org/search/all/https%3A//terminus2049.github.io but not in <<github-gov-takedowns>> as of 2020-04.

The full post list can be seen most conveniently at: https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/tree/master/_posts The number of articles is insane, usually several every day.

Most articles appear to be taken from recent news at the time of writting, although there are a few from before the repo started. As of 2020-04, the oldest article was from 2016 Metoo events reported by Yue Xin (岳昕), some other topics include:

* <<gay-rights>> https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2018-04-14-LGBTRights-advocacy-china.md
* <<nine-nine-six-icu>> https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2019-04-04-996-ICU.md
* <<lebron-james-opposes-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests-2019>> https://github.com/Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2019-10-11-NBA.md

They use Jekyll tags a lot, which makes for a good grouping of the topics.

In 2020-04-25, it was reported that three Beijing-based contributors were arrested during <<corona>>:

* https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3081569/chinese-activists-detained-after-sharing-censored-coronavirus
* https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/7-04252020144555.html Chinese article, gives the Chinese names, and some background on the arrested people
* https://qz.com/1846277/china-arrests-users-behind-github-coronavirus-memories-page/

People:

* Chen Mei (陈玫)
** https://www.linkedin.com/in/玫-陈-1607b735/ a LinkedIn account with matching photo and name
* Cai Wei (蔡伟)
* Xiao Tang (小唐), who is also Cai Wei's girlfriend

In 2020-06-12 their families received calls saying that they had been charged with <<picking-quarrels>>:

* https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3089002/coronavirus-chinese-activists-held-posting-censored-articles
* https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/10-06122020154234.html

Ciro's petition to free them: https://github.com/cirosantilli/chen-mei-cai-wei-ziyou

TODO what are their GitHub accounts? Contributions appear to be anonymized behind: https://github.com/TerminusBot That appears to be just a shared account though, not an actual bot. So how did the police find their true identities? Terminus2049/Terminus2049.github.io#598

.Side-by-side photos of Chen Mei (陈玫) and Cai Wei (蔡伟). https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/Xinwen/7-04252020144555.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chenmei_Caowei.png[height=400]

====== chinatimeline

https://github.com/chinatimeline/chinatimeline.github.io

Explores several sentitive topics through interesting timelines with many pictures, for example:

* <<tiananmen>>: https://chinatimeline.github.io/tiananmen/
* <<corona>>: https://chinatimeline.github.io/wuhan-coronavirus/
* religious persecution, including <<falun-gong>>: https://chinatimeline.github.io/religion_tl1/

===== Gitee

For our mirror there, see: <<mirrors>>.

Linked to "Open Source China" (开源中国) according to TechCrunch:

____
The project will be carried out by a consortium led by Open Source China, the Shenzhen-based firm behind its namesake open-source community and Gitee.
____

* https://github.com/oschina GitHub OAuth goes through that organization
* https://www.oschina.net/ their website

News:

* 2020-11-10 https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/10/gitee_linux_foundation_china_mirror/ "China's government-anointed Git operator says it will become a Linux Foundation mirror"
* <<huawei>> open sourced is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmony_OS[Harmony OS] "IoT operating system" in Gitee: https://openharmony.gitee.com/openharmony
+
The name of that OS is pure gold considering the Chinese origin, since "to harmonize" is often used as a way to say "to censor negative CCP information".
+
That URL also likely highlights Huawei's intense influence on Gitee, the as the custom domain redirects to it: https://openharmony.gitee.com[], as opposed to what normal users can likely create https://gitee.com/openharmony[].
* 2020-08-21 https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/21/china-is-building-its-github-alternative-gitee/ "China is building a GitHub alternative called Gitee"
+
<<ciro-santilli>> commented about his <<gitee-censorship>> experiment there, it got 26 upvotes 13 downvotes, and as removed as "This post violated our policy.". There is no way to appeal that in that idiotic system. It is absed on: https://www.openweb.com/ It is also bugged as fuck. Sometimes says violates policy, then there's a JavaScript update andthe comment shows.

====== Gitee censorship

After posting our <<mirrors>> there, it was blocked in 12 hours:

* https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
** archive immediately after creation: https://web.archive.org/web/20200821202450if_/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
** blocked archive 12 hours later: https://web.archive.org/web/20200822111436/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship
+
____
{"status":404,"data":null,"message":"404 Not Found"}
____
* https://gitee.com/cirosantilli
** archive immediately after: https://web.archive.org/web/20200821202055/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli
** archive 12 hours later: https://web.archive.org/web/20200822111721/https://gitee.com/cirosantilli
+
____
{"status":403,"data":null,"message":"The user has been blocked"}
____

The block email is:

____
通知

仓库 cirosantilli/China Dictatorship 已被锁定

原因： 根据相关法律法规和政策，本仓库暂停访问。
____

[[zhihu]]
==== Zhihu 知乎

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhihu

The Chinese <<quora,Quora>> clone, but highly censored: <<zhihu-censorship>>.

Some interesting questions not related to <<ciro-santilli>>. Ciro related questions at: <<zhihu-questions-related-to-ciro-santilli>>.

* <<censorship>>
** https://www.zhihu.com/question/29279520/answer/110611566 "为什么有人一边支持审查制度一边还喜欢看美剧、日漫？" "Why are some people in favor of censorship, but at the same time still like to watch American series?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200429091047/https://www.zhihu.com/question/29279520/answer/110611566[archive])
** Censorship in Zhihu
*** https://www.zhihu.com/question/23376181 "你对知乎的审查系统有何意见？" "What is your view of Zhihu's censorship system?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200329115919/https://www.zhihu.com/question/23376181[archive]) "由于众所周知的原因，知乎上的文章和答案一旦涉及某些字眼，就会触发审查，其方式是让你的文字暂时仅自己可见"
*** https://www.zhihu.com/question/21099730 从知乎建站以来被封禁的用户都有哪些？Since Zhihu's founding, which accounts have been blocked on the website? (https://web.archive.org/web/20200112103049/https://www.zhihu.com/question/21099730[archive]) (https://archive.is/dH9pK[archive]). The top answer contains a list, and a brief explanation of why some of them were banned:
**** Ciro Santilli: S/O 红人 (fStack Overflow celebrity)
**** "ww" in explanations means "big laugh" according to: https://hinative.com/zh-CN/questions/8349706 because a single "w" means a small laugh
**** several accounts are linked to one specific answer or comment
**** other accounts are classified as often commenting on <<politically-sensitive>> material
* <<falun-gong>>
** <<flg-daily>>
*** https://www.zhihu.com/question/27659795 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200429084153/https://www.zhihu.com/signin?next=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zhihu.com%2Fquestion%2F27659795[blocked as of 2020-04], https://web.archive.org/web/20150603025013/http://www.zhihu.com/question/27659795[archive from 2015]) 家里有人练法轮功是一种怎样的体验？ How is it like to live with Falun Gong believers?
** <<flg-changed>>
*** https://www.zhihu.com/question/23988890 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200429084640/https://www.zhihu.com/signin?next=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.zhihu.com%2Fquestion%2F23988890[blocked as of 2020-04], https://web.archive.org/web/20160311140407/https://www.zhihu.com/question/23988890[2016-03 archive]) "全能神教在境外，法轮功也在境外，为什么他们不祸害境外人民、偏偏只祸害大陆人？"<<eastern-lightning,Eastern Lightning>> exists outside of the country [China], Falun Gong exists outside of the country, so why is is that they don't harm people in those countries, but only harm people in Mainland China?"
* <<gay-rights>>
** https://www.zhihu.com/question/370080866/answer/1046195468 "为什么中国影视作品不允许LGBT的出现？" "Why is it not allowed to show LGBT content in Chinese film and television?" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200429091622/https://www.zhihu.com/question/370080866/answer/1046195468[archive])
* <<zhihu-censorship-of-hao-haidong>>

.The Zhihu 404 page image. When they take the posts down as of 2020, it shows the 404 page which reads "你似乎来到了没有知识存在的荒原" (you seem to have come to a wasteland about which does does not exist any knowledge), and shows this symbol. https://web.archive.org/web/20200614114534/https://www.zhihu.com/topic/20080590/intro[Source].
i mage::https://web.archive.org/web/20200614114535im_/https://static.zhihu.com/heifetz/assets/liukanshan_wire.e7247fbf.svg[height=500]

==== Zhihu censorship

More general censorship discussion at: <<censorship>>.

Examples of Zhihu censorship:

* <<zhihu-purge>>
* <<zhihu-censorship-of-hao-haidong>>

Other discussions:

* https://www.quora.com/How-strict-is-Zhihus-content-censorship

[[zhihu-purge]]
===== Ciro Santilli's Zhihu purge 2019-11-03

On this day, not only the posts made by Ciro himself were deleted: he had never asked any questions or made any Zhuanlan posts himself, only replied to those. But that content made by other users was still removed. Therefore, this is not just a simple user ban, but active censorship.

Ciro received an email from [email protected]:

____
您好，Ciro Santilli，很抱歉您的回答受到了牵连，您回答过的问题「github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？」因「违反互联网相关法律法规」已被删除。
____

followed by Ciro's answer to <<zhihu-46957710>>. Ciro could not login anymore, the login screen showed:

____
帐号已停用，请联系：[email protected]
____

So likely someone must have used the fact that this was an edgy personally information release subject issue, and then someone from Zhihu decided to purge Ciro and anyone posts that ever talked about him.

Ciro's blocked account:

* before deletion: https://web.archive.org/web/20190821075907/https://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities
* after deletion (redirects to login page): https://web.archive.org/web/20191103071033/https://www.zhihu.com/signin?next=http://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities

Random unblocked control account: https://www.zhihu.com/people/lu-zhen-yu-96-65/activities (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103070652/https://www.zhihu.com/people/lu-zhen-yu-96-65/activities[archive]).

Furthermore, all questions related to Ciro, including the posts criticizing him such as https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/25600138[] (https://archive.is/DkooN[archive]), were taken down. This made Ciro laugh: in China, you can't even criticize that which is censored, or your post also gets taken down.

Ciro then created an anonymous Zhihu account after this event.

Interestingly however, the following answer came up later on: <<zhihu-ted-chiang-answer>> and stayed up for at least 5 months, which indicates that Zhihu did a one-off removal, and did not set up a filter for Ciro's name.

====== Ciro Santilli's Zhihu ban 2018-06-25

<<ciro-santilli>> was banned from Zhihu on 2018-06-25 for "<<politically-sensitive>>" content.

As a result, since that time I will be answering Zhihu questions as issues in this repo with the `zhihu` label: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Azhihu+

I have however never posted anything politically sensitive on Zhihu, unless my name and profile picture have reached that distinction, and therefore the ban is clearly an unfair per-person ban.

But of course, all is fair in love and war, and politics.

Posting any sensitive content on Chinese websites is a waste of time, since it only means that they will be removed and you will waste time creating a new account, I will never do that.

The only significant content I ever posted on Zhihu is the answer to: https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710/answer/122827944 which is purely technical, and trivial replies on threads that other people have started about me. Have those people been blocked like me?

My posts are still up and it does not appear to be possible for people to see that I have been banned, but whenever I try to take any action on the website a popup appears saying:

____
由于严重违反 知乎社区管理规定 ，该帐号已被永久禁言
____

This includes liking, commenting, answering, asking or trying to update my profile to say that I have been blocked.

This message also shows on my public page for everyone to see: https://www.zhihu.com/people/cirosantilli/activities but they use some JavaScript scheme complicated enough that archive.is cannot capture it.

I still get notifications however, but I am unable to reply to them, especially given that all Chinese accounts, unlike mine, have no personal identifiable information due to the understandable fear Chinese citizens have of their own government, even though such accounts might be illegal in theory: <<anonymous-accounts-ban>>.

The only action that I can take now is to report abusive comments people make to me.

Obviously, the only effect of such ban is that I will create an <<anonymous-accounts-ban,anonymous account>> under Tor with a second cell phone if I wish to contribute in the future, and China will have less information about my political interests than before.

The private messages the website sends while banning you are:

____
知乎管理员 ：您好，根据用户举报，您的帐号发布了「<<politically-sensitive,政治敏感>>」内容，帐号已根据知乎社区规范被永久禁言。处理详情可查看社区服务中心。具体规范请查看知乎社区管理规定。 6月25日 16:37 回复 | 删除

知乎管理员 ：您好，根据用户举报，您的部分个人信息由于不符合知乎用户信息管理规范已被重置。用户名可以在设置页面中修改，修改后会自动进入审核等待通过；其他个人信息可以在个人主页中编辑。感谢您对知乎社区的理解和支持。 6月25日 16:37 回复 | 删除
____

Those messages contain links to: https://www.zhihu.com/terms2 | https://archive.is/wdXSz and https://www.zhihu.com/question/19551824 | https://archive.is/BrgV2

The ban came soon after I posted a link to my GitHub repo as a comment at: https://techcrunch.com/2018/06/21/ice-employee-list-github-linkedin/ maybe they are related.

====== Who reported Ciro Santilli on Zhihu

At the same time the ban happened I received a public comment from user "Eureka" https://www.zhihu.com/people/crb912/activities | https://archive.is/1F3t6 on this thread: https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710 | https://archive.is/PVOLd saying:

____
你滥用了github， 也滥用了Stackover。这个一个纯粹计算机、编程和知识分享的地方，请不要带入政治性的色彩。请不要这么做， 维护社区的非政治性、中立和技术性纯粹，是每个热爱cs的人应尽的义务。
____

I am unable to get a URL that shows the comment on archive.is, so I have no proof of this claim. If you trust me, then here is a screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/YCiEEax

Since I expect the ban lists to be private, I find it extremely likely that this was the user who reported me, unless both were simultaneously triggered by a third event which I have not seen. So correct me if I'm wrong here.

Users with the same user id `crb912`, related "Eureka" username or same profile picture, can be found at:

* https://www.weibo.com/crb912 (unable to archive)
* https://github.com/crb912 | https://archive.is/heGfd which suggests a possible real name

By Googling the email found on the GitHub repos, we find: http://www.360doc.com/content/15/0809/11/25724933_490492490.shtml | https://archive.is/2UnGL which might, at last, contain a photo of my nemesis.

My public message to the reporter whomever he may be:

____
While you have also raised issues that were raised a thousand times before, and clearly answered in the FAQ, at least you were able to take some actual action leading to an actual ban, and I respect you for that.

I hope that one day you will redirect that cunning and initiative towards taking down the root cause of the problem, which are the Chinese communist Party and their Firewall themselves.
____

===== Zhihu questions related to Ciro Santilli

Parent section: <<backlinks>>

All Zhihu posts related to Ciro Santilli were deleted following <<zhihu-purge>>. Some had been deleted before.

* 2019-06-12: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/68869259 (https://web.archive.org/web/20190905071450/https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/68869259[archive before deletion], (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103072349/https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/68869259[archive after deletion])) "德国极端分子黑我们大中国！犯我中华者，虽远必诛！！". Ciro wonders why the poster thought Ciro was German.
* 2019-03: https://www.zhihu.com/question/316700162 (https://archive.is/ewxqb[archive before deletion], (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103065512/https://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://www.zhihu.com/question/316700162[archive after deletion])) "如何看待Github Trending上Ciro Santilli的众多开源项目？". Due to: https://github.com/cirosantilli/x86-bare-metal-examples being featured on Hacker News: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19428700
* 2018-11: https://www.zhihu.com/question/302738350 (https://archive.is/lkQxS[archive before deletion], (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103065759/https://www.zhihu.com/question/302738350[archive after deletion])) "如何评价Ciro Santilli对Stack Overflow和GitHub的扰乱？"
* 2017-03-07: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/25600138 (https://archive.is/DkooN[archive before deletion], (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103065808/https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/25600138[archive after deletion])) "StackOverflow 上的一个智障用户"
** 2017-03 https://sololand.moe/2017/03/06/brain-fucked-user-on-stackoverflow (https://web.archive.org/save/https://sololand.moe/2017/03/06/brain-fucked-user-on-stackoverflow/[archive]) by https://github.com/brglng/ (https://web.archive.org/web/20180802090918/https://github.com/brglng/[archive]) "StackOverflow 上的一个智障用户" contains a copy of the post by the same author.
+
It just makes Ciro smile whenever he thinks that their post criticizing Ciro was deleted by the CCP, and they still might support the CCP, <<meant-to-be-used,Stockholm syndrome comes to mind>>.
+
As of 2020, that website generates a constant stream of incoming traffic to the issue it links to: https://github.com/cirosantilli/chat/issues/26[]. Unfortunately brglng was a coward and removed his comments leaving the conversation a bit broken, and this was before Ciro <<wayback-machine,web archived obsessively>>.
* 2015-08-18: https://www.zhihu.com/question/34775392 (https://web.archive.org/web/20160219094646/https://www.zhihu.com/question/34775392[archive before deletion], (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103065816/https://www.zhihu.com/question/34775392[archive after deletion])) "你们怎么看stackoverflow上某人故意屏蔽中国访问的事件？"

A random control question that shows that archive.org 404's are actually deleted questions: https://www.zhihu.com/question/316700165 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103065449/https://www.zhihu.com/question/316700165[archive]).

Mentions not yet deleted as of writing:

* https://www.zhihu.com/question/21099730 at <<zhihu>>

[[zhihu-ted-chiang-answer]]
====== Answer to the Zhihu question "How do you evaluate Ted Chiang's 'Evil Chinese Characters' essay?" "如何评价姜峯楠（Ted Chiang）在纽约客上的随笔《坏汉字》？"的回答

https://www.zhihu.com/question/47205991/answer/967940202 (http://web.archive.org/web/20200628101940/https://www.zhihu.com/question/47205991/answer/967940202[archive])

Contains reactions to the post: <<evil-chinese-characters-by-ted-chiang>>, and this answer says that even though Ciro Santilli is amazingly smart, he cannot be bothered to learn Chinese characters, quoting Ciro's comments from: <<does-ciro-santilli-speak-chinese>>.

This post was interesting because it happened after <<zhihu-purge>>, which indicates that Zhihu did not setup an automated "Ciro Santilli" filter.

[[zhihu-46957710]]
====== github.com@cirosantilli 是谁维护的，为什么会收集邮箱地址？

https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710 (https://archive.is/PVOLd[archive before deletion], (https://web.archive.org/web/20191103065828/https://www.zhihu.com/question/46957710[archive after deletion])).

Asked in 2016-09 after Ciro published: https://github.com/cirosantilli/all-github-commit-emails

Deleted after <<zhihu-purge>>. Ciro's answer before deletion:

____
你用的git config user.email当然是公开的：谁都会git clone就知道了。

问题就是git repository很大，我们不会都clone.

但是github有一个API，收集很多信息，包括邮件。

然后，Google用了那个API给他们的https://cloud.google.com/bigquery/...信息。

BigQuery对程序员很容易提取信息，是我用的。

我发表邮件以后，两个东西变化了：

1. Google 把邮件从BigQuery删除
2. GitHub 更新他们的隐私声明GitHub Privacy Statement

这就是我的木比：保护人们的隐私权

我的README.md更详细地解释。
____

==== Quora

https://www.quora.com/profile/Ciro-Santilli

Quora is a generally shitty website, with mechanisms that allow <<wumao,wumaos>> to quench freedom of speech.

Ironically, as usual, is it also blocked in China:

* according to <<greatfire>>: https://en.greatfire.org/https/www.quora.com
* 2018-03 news coverage https://www.businessinsider.com/china-banned-zhihu-over-censorship-2018-3?r=US&IR=T

Examples of activity related to Ciro Santilli:

* 2016 Ciro Santilli's profile was blocked because it had Chinese keywords on both my username and credentials. Justification: "non-English".
+
* 2017 created one in English: Cook <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square>> Noodle Shop, from <<falun-sweden>>
+
Added my Noodle shop to maps: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Tiananmen+Square+Noodle+Shop/@60.6132538,15.6687509,15z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x94603408e3c63fb3!8m2!3d60.6132538!4d15.6687509
+
Leach websites that picked it up: https://kvalster.se/Falu/Uthyres/Lagenheter/Gammelvagen_49_1417351

Quora is also shitty because wumaos can downvote your answer privately regardless of reputation and make it become collapsed as "Answer may need improvement", which means it goes to the bottom and readers have to click an "expand collapsed answers" button to see it, so that very few people will ever see it.

Then have to appeal and wait for moderators to evaluate it.

This happened for example at: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli (see also <<t-shirt>>).

Ciro appealed in 2020-03-10 and the answer was reinstated on day later, but by then the question was already not being suggested as much to readers, and the other wumao answers (which criticize the USA rather than answering the question about China).

While there is some probability that the answers themselves are not wumaos, their upvoters almost certainly are and must be investigated.

Other shitty aspects of Quora include:

* block <<wayback-machine>> archives with their robots.txt, gotta use <<archive-today>>
* automatically add random topics that you don't care about to your suggestions, with no easy way to prevent that.
* questions cannot have more than one sentence. There used to be a question body, but it was replaced with a "link for context". Ridiculous.

As a result, on the few occasions that Ciro posts on Quora, all content will also be mirrored here. Ciro's China Quora answers include:

* https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-I-walked-around-Beijing-with-a-t-shirt-that-said-freedom-of-speech-is-pretty-great/answer/Ciro-Santilli[What would happen if I walked around Beijing with a t-shirt that said "freedom of speech is pretty great"?] (https://archive.is/PxjJA[archive]) see also: <<t-shirt>>
* https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-net-worth-of-Xi-Jinping/answer/Ciro-Santilli[What is the net worth of Xi Jinping?] see also: <<panama-papers>>

Some <<wumao,wumaos>>:

* http://archive.is/WzIcg[]: a Han supremacist!

[[ptt]]
==== PTT Bulletin Board System 批踢踢實業坊

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/批踢踢

Popular <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> forum system and server from 1995, pre HTML, works from telnet terminal, so likely very programmer heavy, and obviously anti-CCP, as of 2020 often shows <<falun-gong>> ads.

<<ciro-santilli>>'s appearances on PTT:

* 2020-10-09: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/joke/M.1602211516.A.3FB.html 如何一秒惹怒中國人 (how to provoke a Chinese person in one second) by https://pttweb.tw/user/abc60575986/[abc60575986] saying "台灣是一個國家" (Taiwan is a country). Then https://pttweb.tw/user/kugwa/[kugwa] linked to <<keyword-attack,Ciro Santilli's Stack Overflow profile>>
* 2020-01-31: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Gossiping/M.1580484253.A.37A.html "stackoverflow菁英卻痛恨中國" by https://pttweb.tw/user/Eric0605/["Eric0605 (我還有點餓)"] on the Gossiping board
* 2017-06-19 https://pttweb.tw/s/2K9zV "Ciro Santilli <<the-709-crackdown,709大抓捕>> 六四事件 法轮" on the Gossiping board
* 2016-10-03 https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/Soft_Job/M.1478104872.A.916.html "Github也出現網軍了嗎?" (Is there an emerging wumao army on GitHub?) by gocreating on the Soft_Job board

Archaic, fucking impossible to learn how to use. Ciro Santilli hasn't managed yet, so if you want a reply from him, open an issue on this repo instead. Some tips:

* on the web UI rendering replies can be either likes (推 as in 推荐), dislikes (噓, hush!) or neutral (right arrow)
* per-page threads are basically flat. You can however reply to another post with a "Re:" post. One application of this seems to be to post images which might only be allowed on the thread starters, e.g.: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/joke/M.1602324724.A.CA0.html is a "Re:" to https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/joke/M.1602211516.A.3FB.html It is not clear if Re: and original posts are interlinked in any way.

TODO: can anyone comment, without having a Taiwanese university address? This suggests no: https://www.reddit.com/r/taiwan/comments/1etbvb/anyone_on_pttcc_advice_suggestions/ Also asked at:

* https://www.quora.com/unanswered/Can-you-comment-on-the-PTT-Bulletin-Board-System-at-ptt-cc-from-Taiwan-without-working-or-studying-at-a-Taiwanese-university
* cirosantilli#92

A source informed Ciro that now only https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Taiwan_University[NTU] alumni can have an account.

Maybe the email requirement is the only way to prevent <<wumao,wumaos>> from flooding the website.

Normal people see it on a web viewer hosted on: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/index.html

However it is fucking impossible to web archive that web interface because there is a cookie I'm 18-years-old confirmation before the first connection.

This shows how to connect for the first time: https://www.ptt.cc/index.firstbbs.html

One attempt is:

....
luit -encoding big5 telnet ptt.cc
....

But the main page says:

"本站目前暫停開放新帳號註冊。" "This site is currently suspended for new account registration."

And you try `new` it says: "目前無法註冊帳號![按任意鍵繼續]" "Account cannot be registered at this time."

OK, ptt2 went further:

....
luit -encoding big5 telnet ptt2.cc
....

Then there is a registration process that seem to require you to prove that you work at Taiwanese university, but not sure it is mandatory to post.

But I couldn't find Gossiping there either, which is the only board that matters, so not sure it is on this server.

[[lihkg]]
==== LIHKG (連登)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIHKG
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/LIHKG討論區

URL: https://lihkg.com

<<hong-kong>> Reddit. Requires a Hong Kong IP or university address to login, a bit in the spirit of <<ptt>> to avoid <<wumao>>.

TODO meaning of "LI"?

<<ciro-santilli>> mentions:

* 2020-08-24 https://lihkg.com/thread/2171918/page/1 "工信部培植代碼平台取代GitHub" (The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology cultivates a code platform to replace GitHub) linking to: https://hk.appledaily.com/china/20200823/AOAQRQURIRCT3D2DNPLMXUVC2M/ Then 菱川六花 linked to this page on a comment. Too young, too naive, they did not know about the more specific and interesting https://gitee.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship from <<gitee-censorship>>
* 2019-10-31 https://lihkg.com/thread/1685513/page/3 "Notepad{plus}{plus}新版代號「自由維吾爾」，GitHub網頁被灌爆，網站遭DDoS" about <<notepad>> "Free Uyghur" version. On page 3 comment links to Ciro's <<stack-overflow>> account. Big thread with 500+ likes.
* 2019-10-05 https://lihkg.com/thread/1625310/page/1 "聽講GitHub好好用" (Attending lectures on GitHub is very useful.). But likely some <<slang,slang>> for politics, because on first comment "可以好好上去發表下愛國論". Then someone links to <<nine-nine-six-icu>>, then to the GitHub <<mirrors,mirror of this page>>, and then to <<gitee>>.
* 2018-07-31 https://lihkg.com/thread/762440/page/1 https://archive.is/7REOi. Title: "依條友都幾屈機, 係Stack overflow撚共匪". I'm unable to understand the first sentence, but the end is something along "to play tricks on the commies". First comment (likely by OP): "佢個個人home page好多5毛留言, 唔知會唔會搞到block堆stackoverflow". The entire thread is about Ciro's <<stack-overflow>>.

[[google]]
==== Google 谷歌

Related subjects:

* <<google-china>>
* <<google-cache>>

[[google-mirrors]]
===== Google mirrors 谷歌镜像

Do the names mean anything? Are they owned? The fact that they are Alexa top 1000 domains is just so funny, Google redirects for China.

Alexa top 1000 domains and blocked in China as per <<greatfire>>:

* https://gdl5vtbbv0lj.com
* https://au79nt5wic4x.com

https://library.ac.cn/ large list of university Google/Google Scholar/Wikipedia/Twitter mirrors maintained by Chinese university students under an unified system. Each one asks for verification that you are from that university via some little known fact about the university:

* https://g.luciaz.me from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhejiang_University[Zhejiang University] "需要验证您是否来自浙江大学". Question: "请问浙江大学内网最大的论坛中, 每天发帖量最大的版块是哪个?" (Ask your colleagues on the internal forum, what is the most popular section of the forum every day?)
* https://g0.njuu.cf/ from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_University[Nanjing University] "需要验证您是否来自南京大学" Question: "西大楼是哪个系的?" (Which department is in the big Western building?)
* https://g0.library.edu.eu.org/

Other mirrors:

* https://chacha.design/
* https://g0.nuaa.cf/
* https://g1.liuxiongb.in/
* https://google.zenith.workers.dev/
* https://proxy.juchiahau.com/
* https://seeres.com 闭站维护中
* https://www.muzhiso.net/
* https://www.sanzhima.com/

No HTTPS?!?! Brains?!?!

* http://g.histsci.org/
* http://o.poetpalace.org/

Lists of mirrors:

* https://cjh0613.github.io/blog/GoogleMirror.html

[[christianity]]
=== Christianity (基督教)

The commies are not a fan. But as someone once told me: the commies are not a fan of a bunch of things!

As mentioned at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_China there are only a few state approved churches under total CCP control, and the others are forbidden. For example one of them is called the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Patriotic_Catholic_Association[Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association]! God and CCP on the same sentence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII[Pope Pius XII] excommunicated people from that organization who were appointing new Bishops!

* 2020-11-24 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/24/pope-says-for-first-time-that-chinas-uighurs-are-persecuted "Pope says for first time that China's Uighurs are 'persecuted'"
* 2018-12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzWApdCNdik "100 Christians detained in China crackdown" published by CNN
* 2018-09 Vatican Christian pope makes deal with China
+
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China–Holy_See_relations#September_2018_Holy_See–China_Agreement
+
.<<rebel-pepper>> 2018-09 cartoon showing the Pope Francis with a Christian cross containing the Hammer and Sickle communist symbol, in reference to one of the accords that the Vatican struck with the Chinese government. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/vatican-china-cartoon-09282018102133.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pope_CCP_deal.jpeg[height=400]
* 2018-01 Chinese authorities demolish Christian mega-church "Golden Lampstand" sparking fears of religious persecution
** https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-authorities-demolish-christian-mega-church-in-crackdown-2018-1
+
.China's Golden Lampstand Church being demolished. https://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-authorities-demolish-christian-mega-church-in-crackdown-2018-1[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Church_demolition.jpg[height=400]
* 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/27/world/asia/china-zhejiang-christians-pastor-crosses.html pastor 14 years jail
* 2015 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/christians-in-china-feel-full-force-of-authorities-repression/2015/12/23/7dd0ec5a-a736-11e5-b596-113f59ee069a_story.html

.<<rebel-pepper>> 2018-09 cartoon showing Jesus and the Apostles in the Last Supper being arrested by CCP guards. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/china-crackddown-Christianity-cartoon-09072018150421.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Last_Supper_arrest.jpeg[height=400]

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Hongtu[Zhang Hongtu] cartoon showing <<mao-zedong,Mao Zedong>> and other communist officials at the Last Supper instead of Jesus and the Apostles. https://musicandculture.blogspot.com/2010/03/massive-last-supper-parodies-post.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Last_Supper_Mao.jpg[height=400]

[[life-of-brian-nazi-jew]]
.https://youtu.be/wthHB3iTC7M?t=556 Nazi Jew deleted scene from <<life-of-brian-1979>>. If you want to stop <<christianity>>, don't put them in jail like the <<dictatorship,dictators>>. Do it the same way you stop dictators: with <<funny,comedy>>. Otherwise, the dictators remain in power, and <<intolerance,next person in jail, will be you>>. <<the-secret-life-of-brian-2007>> is a good documentary about it.
video::wthHB3iTC7M[youtube,width=600,height=400,start=556]

.https://youtu.be/tRr_1U9EvWI "How China uses intimidation, negotiation to bring Christians under its control" by CBC News: The National (2018). Talks about the Pope's deal with the CCP. Shows some good footage of a house church with a guard in front of the door.
video::tRr_1U9EvWI[youtube,width=600,height=400,start=556]

[[eastern-lightning]]
==== Eastern Lightning 全能神教會 (1991-)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Lightning
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/全能神教會

A persecuted Christian sect that believes that some Chinese woman is Jesus.

=== Kaifeng Jews

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaifeng_Jews#Recent_repression
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/开封犹太人

Even with such tiny community, the <<ccp>> is still trying to pretende they never existed.

[[gay-rights]]
=== Gay rights LGBT权利

Yes, gay people are also <<evil-west,discriminated to different degrees in Western countries>>, and even legally prohibited notably in the Islamic world.

But <<intolerance,like all minorities>>, they are generally more fucked in <<dictatorship,dictatorships>>, since they can be easily crushed by majorities.

Therefore, all gay people must be against the CCP:

* 2020-08-14 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3097377/shanghai-pride-cancelled-after-11-years-blow-lgbt-community "Shanghai Pride cancelled after 11 years in blow to China's LGBT community". "
Organisers are 'taking a break from scheduling any future events', they say in social media message".
** the Tweet: https://twitter.com/ShanghaiPride/status/1293897794919510016 "上海骄傲节终止所有活动" (Shanhai Pride will be stopping all activities)
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Pride
* 2020-01-07 https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/why-china-raising-prospect-same-sex-marriage-n1109471 "Why is China raising the prospect of same-sex marriage?"
* 2018 Weibo temporary homosexual ban:
** 2018-04-16 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/china-weibo-bans-homosexual-content-protest "China's Weibo reverses ban on 'homosexual' content after outcry", hashtags `#iamgay` and `#iamgaynotapervert`
** 2018-04-13 https://www.whatsonweibo.com/weibos-new-online-guidelines-no-homosexuality-allowed/
* 2017-07-16 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40610679 "Chinese gay video ban sparks online backlash"
** 2017-06-30 https://www.whatsonweibo.com/new-rules-online-videos-china-no-displays-homosexuality/ "New Rules for Online Videos in China: "No Displays of Homosexuality""
* 2016-03-04 https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/04/china-bans-gay-people-television-clampdown-xi-jinping-censorship "China bans depictions of gay people on television". One of the most prominent series banned was link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addicted_(web_series)++[Addicted (2016, 上瘾)].
+
.Widely distributed still from the Addicted 2016 series which was banned showing a presumably gay couple lying in bed. https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/04/china-bans-gay-people-television-clampdown-xi-jinping-censorship[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Addicted_bed.jpg[height=400]

See also:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_China | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国同性恋史
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_by_country_or_territory | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/各地LGBT权利
* <<gay-putin>>
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/370080866/answer/1046195468 at <<zhihu>>

.Lesbian couple kissing in <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square>> with Mao's painting and confused/disgusted guards in the background who are likely about to call their superiors to ask what they should do. The photo likely surfaced in 2006 https://web.archive.org/web/20200301224434/https://www.salon.com/2006/01/17/lesbians_china/[as mentioned] in link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salon_(website)++[salon.com] which said it came form https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boing_Boing[Boing Boing]. It was not however picked up by any major website. Ciro actually thought this could have been ripped from some television series due to the amazing expression on the guards' faces. TODO: find the original Chinese source, translate the watermarks, and see if their identity is known. https://web.archive.org/web/20200301223317/http://www.chinatoday.com/entertain/tiananmen_kiss.htm[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Tianmen_lesbian_kiss.jpg[height=500]

[[qing-gay-scroll]]
.<<throne,Qing dynasty>> (18th–19th c.) panel from a scroll showing two men engaging in foreplay, apparently located in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinsey_Institute[Kinsey Institute] as of 2005. For an ancient depiction of heterosexual sexual activity, see <<jin-ping-mei,this image>>. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Love_play_in_China.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Qing_Dinasty_gay_foreplay.jpg[height=400]

[[russia]]
== Russia 俄罗斯

Russia is clearly the number 2 <<dictatorship>> in the world by population / GDP and the link:https://www.ploughshares.org/world-nuclear-stockpile-report[#1 nuclear arsenal], so here we go.

Ciro has always been curious about how Russia can be both oppressive and a appear democratic, unlike China which doesn't even try to pretend. This is what he gathers:

* the government controls all major media. If any media says bad things against them, the government finds pretexts to create lawsuits or increase taxes against such companies. Therefore all people end up thinking that the government is good.
* just like China, <<evil-west,they emphasize the threat of the foreign countries>>, especially the US, as a justification for having an oppressive power.
* the government puts pressure on any significant opposition candidate. One technique is to find some reason to put them in jail for two months, which by Russian law forbids them from participating in further elections. Only candidates that don't really stand a chance are left as a fake opposition. But if you reach some prominence, you start taking the same risks as politicians, although you are more likely to face more brutal illegal gangster violence threats as you are less visible

See also: <<communist-youth-league>>

While we are at it, some interesting news:

* 2019-12-14 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-50902496 "Russia 'successfully tests' its unplugged internet". Russia's <<gfw>> is ready?
* 2018-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43752337 "Russia to block Telegram app over encryption"
* 2017 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40635267 Russia Jehovah's Witnesses banned after they lose appeal
* 2017 https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/2085395/its-now-illegal-russia-share-image-putin-possibly-gay
* 2016 https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/kzgkv3/russians-now-need-a-passport-to-watch-pornhub
* 1995 Vladislav Listyev
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladislav_Listyev
** https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Листьев,_Владислав_Николаевич

The Russians have very different style to the Chinese, who are much more subtle, and just put people in jail or handicap them in several ways without killing them.

Other political murders or attempts:

* 2015 Boris Nemtsov Немцов, Борис Ефимович https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Nemtsov | https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Немцов,_Борис_Ефимович

Some other interesting political suppression lists:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_Russia[list of journalists killed in Russia] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Список_журналистов,_убитых_в_России[Список журналистов, убитых в России]).
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Soviet_and_Russian_assassinations[List of Soviet and Russian assassinations]
* 2017 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/03/23/here-are-ten-critics-of-vladimir-putin-who-died-violently-or-in-suspicious-ways/ "Here are 10 critics of Vladimir Putin who died violently or in suspicious ways"

Freedom of speech reports:

* 2017-07-18 https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/07/18/online-and-all-fronts/russias-assault-freedom-expression "Online and On All Fronts Russia's Assault on Freedom of Expression"

Other random stuff:

* <<seventeen-moments-of-spring>>

[[federal-list-of-extremist-materials]]
=== Federal List of Extremist Materials (Федеральный список экстремистских материалов)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_List_of_Extremist_Materials
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Федеральный_список_экстремистских_материалов

<<censorship-monitoring,Unlike the Chinese>>, they have a public list, each entry had a numerical ID even. This is the best thing ever made! The dream for <<keyword-attack,keyword attackers>>!

Most of it appears to be anti/<<nazi>>, and notably anti-anti-semitic but several items are purely political anti-freedoms.

One wonders if the majority of the items are just fillers to hide the really juicy anti-freedom ones.

We need to make a GitHub mirror of all of those some day!

The list: http://minjust.gov.ru/ru/extremist-materials[] Here's an archive: http://web.archive.org/web/20200817142035/http://minjust.gov.ru/ru/extremist-materials/export.csv?attach=page[]. The website has a CSV for download with all entries at the bottom. Enca says the encoding is "MS-Windows code page 1251", convert to UTF-8 with:

....
iconv -f WINDOWS-1251 -t UTF-8//IGNORE export.csv
....

`//IGNORE` is needed because their fucking CSV export has a bug and otherwise `iconv` stops at the first error.

Result at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/media/blob/039ed572f61866655fc6ea3333b199527df4f3eb/russian-federal-list-of-extremist-materials-utf8-2020-08-17.csv

From this we can grep, and then to overcome translation limits as there is no offline option yet: https://askubuntu.com/questions/380847/is-it-possible-to-translate-words-via-terminal[], dump your selection on a gist and use Google translate on the Gist.

A website "dedicated" to bypassing censorship of the list: http://zapretno.info/[]. TODO much of that website's content is not clearly marked as being on the list.

Some notable additions:

* 2791: "Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within" by <<litvinenko>>
* Religion
** 1171, 1172, 1173: "What is Scientology", which likely refers to this L. Ron Hubbard book. https://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Scientology-L-Ron-Hubbard/dp/1573181226[] and two other books. Coverage: https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-officially-bans-scientology-books-brands-them-extremist-2012-3?r=US&IR=T
** 2904: Jehovah's Witnesses website https://www.jw.org/en/[]. Coverage: https://www.state.gov/reports/2017-report-on-international-religious-freedom/russia/
* Ukraine due to <<russo-ukrainian-war>>
** 2596: A. M. Byvshev's poem "Ukrainian patriots", where he disagreed with Russian intervention in Donbass and supported military resistance by Ukrainians.
** searching for "суда" (Crimea) has dozens of hits
* Anti-Putin and apparently non hate-crime:
** 1000:
*** Leaflets with the following content: "Down with the power of the Cheka-nuty Putin and Medvedev", "Down with the power of the Cheka-nuty Putin"
*** Листовки следующего содержания: «Долой власть ЧК-нутых Путина и Медведева», «Долой власть ЧК-нутого Путина»
** 4071: <<gay-putin>>
** 4914:
*** The book "Where did Mr. Putin take Russia?" author Yu.E. Kozenkov (M., 2005 - 208 p.)
*** "Книга «Куда завел Россию мистер Путин?» автор Ю.Е. Козенков (М., 2005 – 208 с.)

[[roskomnadzor]]
==== Roskomnadzor (Роскомнадзор)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Service_for_Supervision_of_Communications,_Information_Technology_and_Mass_Media
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Роскомнадзор

The Russian censorship body under <<putin>>. The Russian <<cac>>.

They are the ones who make Russian takedowns on <<github-gov-takedowns>>, e.g. https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/tree/master/Russia/2020

[[putin]]
=== Putin (Путин, 普京, 1999-2008, 2012-∞)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Putin
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Путин,_Владимир_Владимирович

Coverage:

* 2019-12-19: Putin proposes abolishing term limits. <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,Learnt from Xi>>:
** https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/putin-presidential-term-limit-russia-moscow-conference-today-a9253156.html
** https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-russia-putin-constitution/putin-says-hes-open-to-tweaking-presidential-term-limits-idUKKBN1YN1JO
** 2020-03-25 vote delayed due to <<corona>>
* 2014 Putin khuylo!
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putin_khuylo!
** https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Путин_—_хуйло!

==== Putin-sponsored poisonings

Russia apparently has a long list of poisoning political enemies: https://nypost.com/2018/06/23/inside-russias-long-history-of-poisoning-political-enemies/

* 2020 <<the-poisoning-of-alexei-navalny-2020>>
* 2018 <<skripal>>
* 2012 Alexander Perepilichny Перепеличный, Александр Юрьевич https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Perepilichny | https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Перепеличный,_Александр_Юрьевич
* 2006 <<litvinenko>>
* 2004 Anna Politkovskaya Анна Политковская https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya | https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Политковская,_Анна_Степановна
* 2004 Viktor Yushchenko Ющенко, Виктор Андреевич https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Yushchenko | https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ющенко,_Виктор_Андреевич

News:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poison_laboratory_of_the_Soviet_secret_services[Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services] (link:++https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Токсикологическая_лаборатория_НКВД_—_НКГБ_—_МГБ++[Токсикологическая лаборатория НКВД — НКГБ — МГБ])

[[superputin]]
==== Superputin

Meme partially supported by Putin himself, showing how physically strong and <<gay-putin,manly>> the president is. A form of <<ccp-cult,personality cult>>.

Similar to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris_facts[Chuck Norris facts].

"Putin does manly things" photo galleries:

* 2017-06-07 https://mashable.com/2017/08/07/the-swaggering-masculinity-of-vladimir-putin/?europe=true (https://web.archive.org/web/20200412092201/https://mashable.com/2017/08/07/the-swaggering-masculinity-of-vladimir-putin/?europe=true[archive])
* https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/vladimir-putin-doing-manly-things/

.Putin swims Butterfly stroke in a Siberian lake around August 2009. The Telegraph https://web.archive.org/web/20200412090316/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/6175324/Vladimir-Putin-gives-strong-signal-he-may-be-president-again.html[correctly interpreted this as a sign that he would be re-elected in 2012]. For reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Baikal[Lake Baikal in Siberia has a maximum temperature of 14 °C in summer]. Other dictators have used similar swim tactics before, the most notable possibly being <<mao-swim>>. https://web.archive.org/web/20200412090316/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/6175324/Vladimir-Putin-gives-strong-signal-he-may-be-president-again.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_swim.jpg[height=400]

.Putin riding a horse shirtless https://nypost.com/2014/08/29/putin-its-best-not-to-mess-with-us/[near Lake Seliger in August 2009]. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/worl-photo-caption-contest-shirtless-putin_n_3263512[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_horse.jpg[height=500]

.Putin riding a bear. https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/469429961142687422/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_bear.jpg[height=400]

.Putin riding a shark. https://sharkdivers.blogspot.com/2011/05/russian-pm-putin-rides-great-white.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_shark.png[height=400]

.Putin riding a giant eagle. https://www.quora.com/Is-this-picture-of-Vladimir-Putin-riding-a-bear-fake-or-real[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_eagle.webp[height=400]

.Putin riding a meteor. https://www.quora.com/Is-this-picture-of-Vladimir-Putin-riding-a-bear-fake-or-real[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_meteor.webp[height=400]

.Putin riding a dinosaur in a Sci-Fi planet. https://9gag.com/gag/a5K5jLG[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_dinosaur.webp[height=400]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgGzAKP_HuM "RASPUTIN - Vladimir Putin - Love The Way You Move (Funk Overload) @slocband" by Pace Audio (2016). Somewhere in the 2010's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rasputin_(song)[Rasputin 1978 song] by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boney_M.[Boney M.] saw a https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ra-ra-rasputin[meme resurgence] by adapting the song to refer to Vladmir Putin instead of the original song's originally intended https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Rasputin[Grigori Rasputin]. This video adds amazing cute animations of Russian scientists trying to create the perfect funk dancing machine, and highlights the <<superputin>> meme as Putin himself is the perfect dancing machine in the end.
video::YgGzAKP_HuM[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[gay-putin]]
==== Gay Putin (2017)

Added to the <<federal-list-of-extremist-materials>>.

Coverage:

* https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-putin-gay-clown-memes-internet-extremism-opposition-president-kremlin-a7669486.html

<<gay-rights,Homosexuality>> is not super popular in Russia in general:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Russia
* 2013 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_gay_propaganda_law Russian gay propaganda law (2013) forbids the favorable depiction of homosexuality to minors

.The possibly Gay Putin clown image banned in 2017. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/russia-central-asia/article/2085395/its-now-illegal-russia-share-image-putin-possibly-gay[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Gay_Putin.jpg[height=400]

[[putin-trump-kiss]]
.Possibly Gay Putin kissing possibly Gay <<flg-trump,Trump>> mural entitled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Make_Everything_Great_Again[Make Everything Great Again] painted in Lithuania in 2016 by by artists Dominykas Čečkauskas and Mindaugas Bonanu. It references the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections[Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections]. It was https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/12/vandals-censor-image-of-putin-snogging-trump-lithuania[later vandalized]. Now we just need a Putin <<xi-jinping>> kiss. Trump Xi kiss https://www.dw.com/en/sierens-china-survival-of-the-fittest/a-49498499[can be found here]. https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/opinion/putin-will-pay-a-high-price-for-trumps-friendship/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Putin_Trump_kiss.jpg[height=400]

[[skripal]]
==== The poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal Серге́й Ви́кторович Скрипáль (2018-03-04)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Sergei_and_Yulia_Skripal
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Отравление_Сергея_и_Юлии_Скрипаль

For more poisonings see: <<putin-sponsored-poisonings>>.

In 4 March 2018, the Russian double agent and his daughter were poisoned with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novichok_agent[Novichok agent] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Новичок_(отравляющие_вещества)[Новичо́к]), a Soviet-era nerve agent, which was likely put on their front door knob in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury[Salisbury, UK], exact address https://goo.gl/maps/oKASuLWpcSmLqL8F9[Christie Miller Road]! Straight out of a spy novel.

On 30 June 2018, the man of an unlucky drug addict couple found the counterfeit expensive looking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Ricci_(brand)[Nina Ricci] Premier Jour perfume bottle containing the poison, and gave it to the woman who died. How unlucky can you fucking be, as if heavy drug addiction weren't enough, you still have to deal with fucking Russian Novichok!

.The assassination suspects Alexander Mishkin (Алекса́ндр Евге́ньевич Ми́шкин, alias Alexander Petrov) and Anatoliy Chepiga (Анатолий Владимирович Чепига, alias Ruslan Boshirov) in a CCTV still at Salisbury Station on 3rd March 2018 the day before the assassination. Both GRU and Alexander being a doctor, which is consistent with a poisoning assassination attempt. They later explained on an RT interview that they were visiting the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salisbury_Cathedral[world renowned Salisbury Cathedral] in their 3 day trip to the UK, and that they <<gay-putin,were not gay>>. Some Western sources interpreted this as an intentional suggestion that they are gay, which for many Russians would imply that they cannot be FSB agents. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/05/planes-trains-and-fake-names-the-trail-left-by-skripal-suspects[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Skripal_assassins_station.jpg[height=400]

.Counterfeit Nina Ricci Premier Jour packet that contained the Novichok. https://www.npr.org/2018/09/05/644782096/u-k-charges-2-russians-suspected-of-poison-attack-on-skripals[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Skripal_perfume.jpg[height=400]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ku8OQNyI2i0 "Full Skripal case interview with the UK's suspects (EXCLUSIVE)" by RT with Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Not gay moment at: https://youtu.be/Ku8OQNyI2i0?t=461[461s].
video::Ku8OQNyI2i0[youtube,height=400,width=600]

==== Electoral fraud in Russian elections

Besides barring opposition from participating such as <<alexei-navalny>>, electoral fraud was off the charts:

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KQlCRLCw_I 2019-09-12 CCTV footage of Vasily Dyachenko (Василий Дьяченко), who had reported electoral fraud concerns regional 2019 elections, getting surprise punched in the stomach at the St. Petersburg polling station 1619, while the police who is right in front of it do nothing about it. English coverage: https://www.rferl.org/a/russian-police-stand-idly-by-as-election-observer-sucker-punched/30160427.html
video::-KQlCRLCw_I[youtube,height=400,width=600]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oSeRyaFllY 2018-03-18 alleged https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_fraud#Ballot_stuffing[ballot stuffing electoral fraud] caught on CCTV in Lyubertsy, Moscow Oblast
video::3oSeRyaFllY[youtube,height=400,width=600]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMEqv-NNLW4 Мусора избили ребёнка и наблюдателей на выборах TODO find English version

Related:

* Golos (Голос) is the main independent election monitor organization in Russia:
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golos_(election_monitor)
** https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Голос_(мониторинг_выборов)

[[litvinenko]]
==== The murder of Alexander Litvinenko Литвиненко, Александр Вальтерович (2006)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Litvinenko
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Литвиненко,_Александр_Вальтерович

Poisoned with polonium-210, for more poisonings see: <<putin-sponsored-poisonings>>:

* 2006-10-29
** meets with two former FSB agents Dmitry Kovtun and Andrey Lugovoy at Millenium Hotel London TODO exact address
** eats with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Scaramella[Mario Scaramella] at an Itsu in London TODO exact address. <<ciro-santilli>> believes the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itsu[Itsu] food to be the real cause of death.
* 2006-11-01 falls ill
* 2006-11-03 admitted into hospital
* 2006-11-23 dies
* 2007-01-26 UK police says they had found a teapot at Millenium Hotel containing extremely high Poloninum-210 traces
* 2010-12 US leaked cables show that Dmitry Kovtun left "positive traces" of radioactive polonium-210 in Germany before departing for Britain https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/11/wilileaks-cables-litvinenko-murder

His 2002 book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blowing_Up_Russia[Blowing up Russia: Terror from Within] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/ФСБ_взрывает_Россию[ФСБ взрывает Россию: Федеральная служба безопасности — организатор террористических актов, похищений и убийств]) accuses the FSB of setting up false flag bombing operations, and figures on the <<federal-list-of-extremist-materials>>.

.Litvinenko in his death bed.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Litvinenko_hospital_bed.webp[height=400]

[[russia-mandatory-registration-of-bloggers]]
==== Mandatory registration of bloggers (2014)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28583669

Bloggers with more than 3000 daily readers must register and cannot be anonymous.

The following Chinese policies come to mind:

* <<icp-license>>
* <<anonymous-accounts-ban>>

=== Putin opposition

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opposition_to_Vladimir_Putin_in_Russia
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Политическая_оппозиция_в_Российской_Федерации

List:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yegor_Zhukov[Yegor Zhukov]: 2020-08-31 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53972592 "Yegor Zhukov: Leading Russian opposition blogger beaten up", good photo of swallen face

[[alexei-navalny]]
==== Alexei Navalny (Навальный, Алексей Анатольевич)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Навальный,_Алексей_Анатольевич

Casually barred from the 2018 presidential campaign:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Alexei_Navalny_presidential_campaign
* https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42479909
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Навальный,_Алексей_Анатольевич#Президентские_выборы_2018_года

His Wiki page does say one thing of interest though, he has right wing tendencies which scared off liberals:

____
The BBC noted in a profile of Navalny that his endorsement of a political campaign called "Stop feeding the Caucasus" and his willingness to speak at ultra-nationalist events "have caused concern among liberals".
____

This video of his https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQZr2NgKPiU might have been added to the <<federal-list-of-extremist-materials>>, wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Deripaska#Navalny_video[], coverage: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-deripaska-prikhodko-rybka-nuland-yacht/29028148.html but I can't find where it is in the list exactly.

Related:

* https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-navalny-nationalist-fears/25059277.html
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVNJiO10SWw

===== The poisoning of Alexei Navalny (2020)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_of_Alexei_Navalny_(2020)
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Отравление_Алексея_Навального

For more poisonings see: <<putin-sponsored-poisonings>>.

The second one! The first one was in 2019, but this one is more serious, the German government said tests confirmed it unequivocally that it was Novichok, which was also recently used in <<skripal>>.

* 2020-12-13 more news are coming:
** https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2020/12/14/fsb-team-of-chemical-weapon-experts-implicated-in-alexey-navalny-novichok-poisoning/ indicates the names of 8 suspects. They had phone metadata for them including geolocation. How did they get that data???
** https://www.dw.com/en/navalny-poisoning-russia-made-second-assassination-attempt-report/a-55921189 "Navalny poisoning: Russia made second assassination attempt - report". Says British intelligence told that to The Times, paywall https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/revealed-kremlin-made-a-second-attempt-to-poison-alexei-navalny-in-botched-assassination-nh32x737j "Revealed: Kremlin made a second attempt to poison Alexei Navalny in botched assassination". TODO any further evidence? WTF they reveal to a paywall newspaper?
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smhi6jts97I Navalny's video accusing people who he belieaves poisoned him
* 2020-10-18 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/alexey-navalny-poisoning-putin-russia-60-minutes-2020-10-18/ 60 Minutes interview, they flew over to Germany to interview him. He looks normal.
* 2020-09-05 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54039710 "Alexei Navalny: Trump refuses to condemn Russia over poisoning"
+
____
President Donald Trump has refused to condemn Russia over the poisoning of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, saying he has not seen proof.

He said the case was "tragic" but urged reporters to focus instead on China, which he said was a bigger threat to the world than Russia.
____
+
Even after Germany and NATO said it was Novichok for sure... He must be <<putin-trump-kiss,sucking Putin's cock>> to have more nukes pointed against China, or maybe with some cyberhacking for the reelection campaign. Perhaps not a bad strategy, but does completely disregard human rights. Do <<violence,the ends justify the means>>?
+
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54097162 Pompeo then condemned.
+
2020-09-14: laboratories in France and Sweden independently confirmed: https://www.dw.com/en/french-swedish-labs-confirm-navalny-poisoned-with-novichok/a-54918924
* 2020-09-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54012278 good timeline of events so far
* 2020-09-02 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/world/europe/navalny-poison-novichok.html "Aleksei Navalny Was Poisoned With Novichok, Germany Says". Tests done on a military weapons facility, which the German government said was based on "unequivocal evidence".
* 2020-08-24 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-53892900 "Alexei Navalny: Putin critic 'probably poisoned' - doctors"

He was forcibly kept in Russia for a few days to make the poison effect undetectable before they allowed him to be flown to Berlin.

Several policemen prevented family access to him while in Russia.

First doctors told family he was poisoned, but then soon after they changed their minds to some random excuse.

Poison effects consistent with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholinesterase_inhibitor[cholinesterase inhibitors], but the exact substance was not identified in tests.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-russia-politics-navalny-probe/russian-prosecutors-say-no-need-for-criminal-investigation-in-navalny-affair-idUKKBN25N14A

.Photo published on <<alexei-navalny,Navalny>>'s Twitter on 2020-09-15 of him sitting awake in a hospital bed in Germany with his family. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-54163389[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Navalny_hospital_sitting.jpg[height=400]

[[khabarovsk-krai-protests-2020]]
==== 2020 Khabarovsk Krai protests (Протесты в Хабаровском крае)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Khabarovsk_Krai_protests
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Протесты_в_Хабаровском_крае

In support to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Furgal[Sergei Furgal] (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Фургал,_Сергей_Иванович[Фургал, Сергей Иванович]).

=== Censorship of images in the Soviet Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_images_in_the_Soviet_Union

.Before/after comparison of picture of Stalin with Nikolai Yezhov at the Moscow Canal. Nikolai was edited out form the second picture. (Credit: Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images & AFP/GettyImages) https://www.history.com/news/josef-stalin-great-purge-photo-retouching[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nikolai_Yezhov_Stalin_canal_edit.webp[height=400]

.A meeting of the St. Petersburg chapter of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class in February 1897, including Lenin and Alexander Malchenko. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Union-de-Lucha.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Malchenko.jpg[height=500]

.Same as above, but with Alexander Malchenko edited out. link:++https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:St_Petersburg_Union_of_Struggle_for_the_Liberation_of_the_Working_Class_-_Feb_1897_-_Altered.jpg++[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/No_Malchenko.jpg[height=500]

[[stalin]]
=== Stalin 斯大林 (1922-1952)

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_Yagami[Light Yagami] from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Note[Death Note]: "I can kill anyone by simply writing his name here". Stalin: "Bitch please". https://ifunny.co/picture/1-can-kill-anyone-by-simply-writing-his-name-here-TjXCcyuM2[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Stalin_bitch_please.jpg[height=500]

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT2z0nrsQ8o "Rasputin vs Stalin." Epic Rap Battles of History YouTube video. This is fire. https://epicrapbattlesofhistory.fandom.com/wiki/Rasputin_vs_Stalin/Rap_Meanings[Explanations].
video::ZT2z0nrsQ8o[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[russo-ukrainian-war]]
=== Russo-Ukrainian War (2014-)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Ukrainian_War
* link:++https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Російсько-українська_війна_(з_2014)++[]

[[mykola-semena]]
==== Mykola Semena (Семена Микола Михайлович)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykola_Semena
* https://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Семена_Микола_Михайлович

Ukrainina, worked for <<rferl>> previously, and published against the annexation of Ukraina territories.

https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/07/18/online-and-all-fronts/russias-assault-freedom-expression suggests that one of her articles was added to the <<federal-list-of-extremist-materials>>, possibly "Blockade–the Necessary First Step for Liberation of Crimea", but I can't find the entry.

[[anti-russia-dictatorship-info-sources]]
=== Anti Russia dictatorship sources

* https://meduza.io/en

[[rferl]]
==== Radio Free Europe (Радио_«Свобода»)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Liberty
* https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Радио_«Свобода»

Website: https://www.rferl.org/

USA funded sister media of the <<rfa>>.

=== Mini-Russias

==== Belarus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belarus

The dictator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Lukashenko[Alexander Lukashenko]. Close ties to his buddy <<putin>>.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Belarusian_protests[2020 Belarusian protests].

==== Kazakhstan

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakhstan

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB9O4PU5Nnk "How Much Do You Know About The Real Kazakhstan?" by Journeyman Pictures (2016) shows how Western leaders turn a blind eye to Kazakhstan's dictator at the time, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nursultan_Nazarbayev[Nursultan Nazarbayev], because they have oil and are willing to cooperate with the West on the war in Afghanistan. In 2019 he was replaced by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kassym-Jomart_Tokayev[Kassym-Jomart Tokayev], gotta learn more about the new one. Includes interviews with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_L._Spratlen[Pamela L. Spratlen], an US diplomat, where she diplomatically refuses to say anything meaningful.
video::eB9O4PU5Nnk[youtube,height=400,width=600]

=== Dictatorships tend to work together

Dictatorships naturally become allies.

The thing a dictatorship is afraid more than anything is of its citizens, and therefore that they might be influenced by democracies to rebel against the oppression.

For this reason, the world basically always tumbles into a dictatorship vs democracy global war.

Also, since dictatorships don't need to convince their people of anything, they tend to make such alliances much faster.

Of course, smaller countries sometimes forget that there is only one end to being allied to a dictatorship: domination.

==== Anti-dictatorship alliances

[[ipac]]
===== Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (對華政策跨國議會聯盟, 2020)

* https://ipac.global/
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Parliamentary_Alliance_on_China
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/對華政策跨國議會聯盟

[[thailand]]
== Thailand (泰国)

It is a crime to criticize the royal family (Lèse majesté):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lèse_majesté_in_Thailand
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lèse-majesté

As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Gilliam[Terry Gilliam] brilliantly says in the <<the-secret-life-of-brian-2007>> https://youtu.be/hdU_6jUQI9s?t=492[]:

[[sacred-cows]]
____
I was always convinced that there is no where you should't go. There are no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_cow_(idiom)[sacred cows]. And if there are, if they are really sacred, let's see how much we puncture them and see if they still float.
____

Or in other words:

___
Vajiralongkorn, you little piece of shit, grow some balls and learn how to take an insult. A man who cannot take an insult is not a man, but a big pussy.
___

Everyone who has political power must know how to be laughed at criticized, otherwise <<dictatorship,dicatorship>> follows:

* 2020-08-24 https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/24/after-restricting-a-group-critical-of-thailands-monarchy-facebook-says-it-will-take-legal-action-against-the-government/ "After restricting a group critical of Thailand's monarchy, Facebook says it will take legal action against the government"
* 2017-05-17 https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3578661/from-fake-tattoos-and-crop-tops-to-making-a-poodle-air-force-chief-the-king-of-thailands-maddest-moments-revealed/ "As  Thai monarch Maha Vajiralongkorn attempts to sue Facebook over photos posted online, we look at the wacky royal's bizarre life" TODO real? Erm, video by 60-minutes Australia: https://youtu.be/HfF3CGVwrs4?t=84
** 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fufu_(dog).
** Topless wife birthday celebration video: https://youtu.be/HfF3CGVwrs4?t=311

Dissidents:

* Rap Against Dictatorship
** https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCukIPSb0N6_vRVD_5VlzqQg
** https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/8/20/rap-against-dictatorship-artist-arrested-in-thailand "‘Rap Against Dictatorship' artist arrested in Thailand", artist Dechathorn Bamrungmuang arrested
** https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/16/rap-against-dictatorship-protests-thailand/

[[thai-king-hamtaro]]
.Side-by-side comparison between https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajiralongkorn[Thai King Vajiralongkorn] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamtaro[Hamtaro]. This is the Thai version of <<winnie-the-pooh>>. It https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Japanese-cartoon-Hamtaro-used-by-Thai-protesters-to-mock-government[has been used by protesters] as part of the  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Thai_protests[2020 Thai protests]. Left https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Thai_protests[photo source].
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Side_by_side_comparison_between_Thai_king_Vajiralongkorn_and_Hamtaro.jpg[height=400]

.Leading Thai politicians prostrate themselves before Vajiralongkorn in 2016, presumably during his ascention to the throne. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/bbc-investigation-thailand-king-defamation-a7460046.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Thai_king_prostrated_officers.jpg[height=400]

.Suthida Tidjai, Vajiralongkorn's wife, prostrated before him during their marriage in 2016 before he officially ascended to the throne. Yes, prostration is a big thing in Thailand. An older king, Rama V, had apparently even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chulalongkorn#Abolition_of_prostration[abolished this practice in 1873]. Clearly, <<xi-jinping>> could learn a thing or two from a proper monarch like Vajiralongkorn. https://web.archive.org/web/20190723095722/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/03/thailand-coronation-king-maha-vajiralongkorn-rama-x[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Thai_king_prostrated_wife.jpg[height=400]

.Thai king Vajiralongkorn wearing a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crop_top[crop top] so tight that it could be called a bra, and accompanied by one of his girlfriends, in a shopping center in Munich. He can wear whatever he wants, but to both wear that and enforce Lèse majesté? That's the ultimate torture for the Thai people. TODO date, exact location, original report. Here is one of the many reports,  https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3578661/from-fake-tattoos-and-crop-tops-to-making-a-poodle-air-force-chief-the-king-of-thailands-maddest-moments-revealed/[sample report from 2017 in a British tabloid].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Thai_king_crop_top.jpg[height=400]

[[military-dictatorship-in-brazil]]
== Military dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_dictatorship_in_Brazil

One of Ciro's favorite stories about the dictatorship is how cake recipes or classical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luís_de_Camões[Luís_de_Camões (1524-1580)] poetry were introduced in newspapers to replace news that had been <<censorship,censored>> in the last minute:

* https://www.vice.com/en/article/j57exd/how-cake-became-a-form-of-resistance-under-brazils-military-dictatorship
* (pt) http://www.memorialdademocracia.com.br/card/noticia-censurada-da-lugar-a-camoes

Who would have thought that even the limiting and ancient limitations of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagination[pagination] would have their usefulness!!! Today's Chinese censors have it easy, as they can just remove the stuff and that damned HTML reflow automatically to fit.

[[apesar-de-voce]]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33-bMTOlvx0 Apesar de Você (In spite of you [the Dictatorship])] by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chico_Buarque[Chico Buarque] (1970). This is one of the many anti-Brazilian-dictatorship songs of the time, and Ciro really enjoys it. https://www.musixmatch.com/lyrics/Chico-Buarque/Apesar-De-Voc%C3%AA/translation/english[Lyrics with translation]. Top quotes: "You [the dictatorship] who invented this State, who invented sin, forgot to invent forgiveness." and "Where will you hide, from the enormous euphoria [of a revolution]? How will you prohibit it when the rooster insists in singing?". Slideshows with that song have been made for several events, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOqaF3shq6o[the Syrian civil war], and Ciro would like to do a China-themed one as well one day.
video::33-bMTOlvx0[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[os-problemas-da-imprensa-livre]]
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jornal_da_Tarde[Jornal da Tarde] (Afternoon Newspaper) issue entitled on top "Os problemas da imprensa livre nas Américas" (The problems of the Free Press), followed by small rectangles with coverage of several countries such as the USA, Cuba, and others, but not Brazil. The bottom half of the page however hilariously contains recipes for "Doces" (Sweets) and "Salgados" (Dishes), instead of the presumed coverage about Brazil. http://www.memorialdademocracia.com.br/card/noticia-censurada-da-lugar-a-camoes[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Os_problemas_da_imprensa_livre.jpg[height=600]

[[falun-gong]]
== Falun Gong (法轮功)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/法轮功
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Falun_Gong
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/610_Office

<<flg-religion,Religion>> created in the '80s by a Chinese dude called <<li-hongzhi>>.

With the support of the Communist Party to Qigong movements, it reached 70 million believers in 1999, at which point the commies decided they had to be shut down and banned the religion.

Li fled to the USA and lives near New York, where he continues to run the religion as of 2020.

.<<falun-gong>> believer arrested by police in Beijing <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square>> in 2000-01-10. https://www.theepochtimes.com/spiritual-practice-continues-to-be-persecuted-in-china-amid-the-ccp-virus-pandemic_3296045.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_lady_silenced.jpg[height=600]

[[zone-theory]]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClvX7ED8UUI Tim and Eric's Zone Theory. If you want to stop <<falun-gong>>, don't put them in jail like the <<dictatorship,dictators>>. Do it the same way you stop dictators: with <<funny,comedy>>. Otherwise, the dictators remain in power, and <<intolerance,next person in jail, will be you>>.
video::ClvX7ED8UUI[youtube,width=600,height=400]

[[aarvoll-shenyun]]
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=IAQ14AnAsmU YouTubber under pseudonym "Aarvoll" (TODO full real name, face shown in channel all the time) tells about his experience playing trumpet for Shen Yun in 2013 as a non-believer and Falun Gong in general. Reading the sacred books and doing Falun Gong exercises were mandatory. He also talks about <<flg-organized>>. Ciro agrees/finds what he says convincing. In one interesting anecdote, he tells how although Li Hongzhi claims to be a God, he looked like an average slightly overweight dude, and had a trumpet since he used to play it, but couldn't really play it because he hadn't practiced in so long. He also comments on the obvious fact that Li does not speak English very well, e.g. on the Shen Yun tour bus he was there one day answering questions, and a translator was needed.
video::IAQ14AnAsmU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[christine-marie]]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwoO7Nekmpw&t=445 Christine Marie, founder of http://voicesfordignity.com/[Voices for Dignity] which takes care of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-Day_Saints[FLDS] leaves, was interviewed in VICE documentary "Polygamist Mafia: Escaping The Kingston Clan". While Ciro does not believe Falun Gong is as extreme as FLDS, he does really like the things Christine says. E.g., she calls "cult leaders" with the neutral <<flg-religion,religious>> form "<<li-hongzhi,prophet>>", just like Ciro, and mentions the important fact that "And the another thing that the public doesn't realise, is that there are also beautiful thing within those communities". This is the mindset of <<intolerance,tolerance>> that the world needs.
video::GwoO7Nekmpw[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=445]

[[flg-important]]
=== Why is it important to talk about Falun Gong?

The main reason <<ciro-santilli>> emphasizes FLG is that it shows how the CCP can mercilessly crush a 70M strong group (according to CCPs own statistics) out of a population of 1.3B in 2000, i.e. 5% of the population, and of course not because of <<flg-bias>>, since Ciro is completely and totally unbiased.

If that number is correct, Ciro wonders curious what you would consider an important movement? :-)

Anything much larger would take down the government and change China's history forever.

OK, maybe the fact that 69M of those were likely old ladies didn't help much either. Tip to next <<li-hongzhi,prophet>>: make something that appeals to aspiring military officers.

Let's try to gather some well sourced footage showing huge numbers of believers on the streets:

* https://www.aparchive.com/search?query=falun%20gong&from=1&orderBy=OldestFirst#7e34a6 AP Archive: could not find a good one there
* rehashes of Falun Gong propaganda videos with good footage:
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7cz4Tkbwy8 contains old good footage
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDRUp50XkSs Chinese with English subs, above is rehashed from this one most likely

.Thousands of <<falun-gong>> practitioners in Guangzhou, China, 1998. https://www.theepochtimes.com/finding-the-balance-between-ancient-and-modern_2248694.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_Ghuangzhou.jpg[height=600]

.Thousands of <<falun-gong>> practitioners in Liaoning Industrial Exhibition, China, likely 1998. https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2016/5/21/157091.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_Liaoning.jpg[height=600]

.Hundreds of <<falun-gong>> believers in Chengdu, China, 1998. https://faluninfo.net/falun-gong-the-practice/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_Chengdu.jpg[height=500]

[[does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong]]
=== Does Ciro Santilli believe in or practice Falun Gong? 三西猴相信法轮功吗？

No, Ciro is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism[agnostic] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/不可知论[不可知论]) and therefore believes that all the metaphysics that <<li-hongzhi>> says is bullshit.

Here are some things that he doesn't like about Falun Gong for example: <<things-ciro-santilli-dislikes-about-falun-gong>>.

Ciro believes Falun Gong can be split into two parts, like any other <<flg-religion,religion>>:

* the "self-help" "how to live well" part, including the physical exercises and meditation, which cannot be proven or disproven, like any other self-help and <<democracy-is-a-religion,political opinion>>
* the metaphysics, most notably, Li Hongzhi is a living God, and all other non verifiable things he claims like aliens, alternate dimensions, etc., see:
** <<flg-religion>>
** <<flg-verifiable>>

Ciro thinks that FLG's self-help part could potentially be good for you, just like many other meditative practices such as Yoga, Buddhist meditation, Tai chi, deep Catholic prayer, etc. As far as he has heard, all of it sounded good standard religious self-help: be peaceful, be good to others, etc. Like any other well managed religion, FLG does have good things to offer, see also: <<christine-marie>>.

However Ciro believes that the metaphysics is all complete and utter bullshit, child stories made up by Li Hongzhi, and just as real as Father Christmas or the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster[Flying Spaghetti Monster].

Also the "obligation to reach Salvation" is boring like for many other prophetic <<flg-religion,religion>>.

From a purely strategic point of view, the metaphysics is a trade-off:

* some people will believe you are a freaking living God
* others will laugh at you and say you are a charlatan

It may be argued however that Li played this card beautifully: since all Chinese power is concentrated in the CCP, any non-CCP movement dies out, so he was better off long run playing the metaphysics game. The only other choice would have been joining the CCP.

To Ciro it is obvious that Falun Gong is just one of the many very similar movements that came out of the Qi Gong Boom, such as: <<zhong-gong>>. It just happens to be the one that survived due to better luck and strategy.

The absolute truth is already known by the <<li-hongzhi,prophet>>, although he does not want to give clear evidence for reasons: <<flg-verifiable>>, and Ciro finds that utterly boring. There's no fun in living in a world where the absolute truth has been found.

For these reasons, Ciro cannot bother to read even into the self-help part: how can you read that when there is so much bullshit every other page?

Ciro would really like to know if <<li-hongzhi>> really believes in FLG himself, or is just a complete manipulating charlatan, but unfortunately we will never know that. Just imagine if before he died he published a video saying: "it was a joke, gotcha!". Now that would be **epic**!

Since Ciro is good-natured, it's hard for him to believe that he doesn't believe in anything, how can anyone be that evil? Maybe he believes in part of it, but made up some stuff to sell it better, maybe with good intentions that selling the fake part would also lead more people to see the good part?

Like any other prophetic religion, FLG gives tiny evidence that you can directly feel through meditation. The energies, which Ciro believe are real feelings. And then using that entry point asks you to believe a whole lot more, that you can't feel: <<flg-verifiable>>.

This becomes especially strong when a critical mass of believers is reached, and then they start interpreting all sorts of events as miracles, and you start to believe other believers without questioning them, and a circle is formed.

This post by a former believer gives what Ciro feels is a realistic account that matches Ciro's observations: <<me-and-li-by-ben-hurley-2017>>.

And yet, all those who love freedom, must oppose FLG ban, or be themselves enslaved by tyrants themselves: <<democracy-is-a-religion>>.

In any case, at least FLG got one thing right: the commies are <<ccp-evil,evil>>, and we have to get rid of them.

See also: <<flg-fake>>.

[[how-much-does-ciro-santilli-know-about-falun-gong]]
==== How much does Ciro Santilli know about Falun Gong? (三西猴对法轮功有多熟悉？)

He hasn't read their <<flg-canon,canon>> himself, no patience, but he has had <<flg-bias,constant contact with believers>> and so has an idea of its content.

Ciro has summarized his thoughts about <<falun-gong>> at: <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong>> and <<flg-religion>>

[[flg-religion]]
=== Is Falun Gong a religion? 法轮功是一个宗教吗？

If asked if they follow a religion, most FLG believers will say "no", and <<li-hongzhi>> explicitly says that in <<flg-canon>>, e.g. https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/jjyz52.htm[]:

____
Falun Dafa is not a religion, but future generations will regard it as one.
____

E.g. they call themselves "practitioners" or "students" (学员) or "disciples of the Great Law" (大法弟子, or mare accurately, of <<li-hongzhi>>'s Law) instead of "believers", and their peers "practitioner colleagues" (https://baike.baidu.com/item/同修[同修]).

And if you say you don't believe in their FLG metaphysics bullshit, they will often reply "he does not understand".

To them, it is not about belief, the truth is clear, and you just don't see it yet.

To this you should reply: "and you don't understand that <<li-hongzhi,Li Hongzhi>> is a master manipulator dude who deceived you and millions of others".

But <<ciro-santilli>> strongly believes that this is just a language barrier/FLG propaganda question (see also "Different levels of truth" from <<orange-papers>>), and that 99.9999% of people in the West would classify FLG as a religion just like <<christianity>> if they are told about FLG's beliefs:

* absolute truth comes from an enlightened <<li-hongzhi,prophet>>, who is perfect and has superhuman abilities
* weekly in-person meetings (学法 "study the Fa", or more verbosely "study the law (of the universe (of <<li-hongzhi>>))"）or daily online meetings where they read from a <<flg-canon,sacred book>>, either written by the prophet, or transcribed from his presentations to disciples, including the disciples questions, much like traditional Chinese texts like link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analects[The Analects of Confucius], just like Christians read from the Bible over and over again.
+
In both cases, some believers claim that sometimes even reading the same text again gives them new insight.
* prescribed daily meditation exercise hours, somewhat like Muslim https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salah[Salah] prayers which they call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fazhengnian[发正念 (fa1 zheng4 nian4)], which means "send righteous thoughts". They seem to believe that this meditation helps external good magic things happen, so it is half meditation half prayer.
* longer "less mandatory" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong[Qigong-like] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/气功[气功]) exercises (lian4 gong1, 练功) followed by a meditation (打坐) and which they collectively call https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/修道_(道教)[修炼] "practice austerities". note that this term is borrowed from Taoism but possibly with different precise meaning. There are exactly 5 exercises (meditation being the fifth) some with a fun supernatural name, on <<flg-canon>> https://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/flg_2006_4.htm[] "The Falun Gong Practice System":
** Buddha Stretching a Thousand Arms
** Falun Standing Stance
** Penetrating the Cosmic Extremes
** Falun Cosmic Orbit
* higher intelligent beings
* some believers who practice really well can also get some "supernatural powers" (功能), but not everyone develops them (luckily only so many people are that manipulable!), and you are <<flg-verifiable,not allowed to show your poweres to "ordinary people">> of course, from <<flg-canon>> https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_34.htm[]:
+
[[flg-supernatural-powers]]
____
What will one develop in the course of his cultivation? He will develop supernatural powers which are called supernormal capabilities for short.

Do you want to use them among ordinary people? You are absolutely not allowed to use them among ordinary people at will.
____
+
See also "You don't get the promised goodies" from <<orange-papers>>
** other dimensions, which some select people with vision superpowers can see, this being one of the supernatural powers that may be developed, the "Celestial Eye" https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_21.htm[]:
+
[[flg-cross-dimensional-vision]]
____
A cultivator of a particular attainment level can only see the scenes on that level. He cannot see or believe the truth beyond that level. Therefore, he only believes what he has seen on his own level. When he has not gone up to such a high level of cultivation, he would think those things do not exist and are incredible.
____
+
and the "Supernormal Capability of Remote Sight" is a closely related ability: https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_22.htm:
+
____
A supernormal capability directly connected with the Celestial Eye is called the Remote Sight. Someone says that he can see scenes in Beijing, in America or scenes on the other side of the earth while sitting here.
____
+
And finally there is also the past-future vision ability "Supernormal Capability of Total Recall" https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_23.htm[]:
+
____
 There is another supernormal capability which has a direct relation with the Celestial Eye. It is called Total Recall. Now there are six supernormal capabilities which are generally recognized in the world. They include the Celestial Eye, Remote Sight, and Total Recall. What is Total Recall? It is a supernormal capability with which one can know a person's future and past; if the ability is great, one can know the rise and decline of a society; if the ability is even greater, one can see the Law of the change of the whole celestial body.
____
* aliens that look like humans are amongst us, they gave us part of our modern technology, some are evil, others not so evil. E.g. https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19980530L.html[]:
+
____
Science, however, is not something gods imparted to humans. Instead, it was passed down to humans by alien beings inside the Three Realms, and for the purpose of controlling humankind. People's belief in it has surpassed everything. But I tell you that precisely because of its shallowness, this science has caused the degeneration of morality in human society.
____
+
Despite this however, Falun Gong benefits from information technology enormously. For example, many believers use the Internet daily to study the Fa, and to organize their <<falun-gong-media,media outlets>>.
* meetings in which people tell their religious testimonies ("experience sharing" TODO Chinese name, possibly just "分享修炼的美好", e.g. https://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2015/9/29/分享修炼的美好-印尼召开修炼心得交流会（图）-316838.html[source]): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Testimony#Religion
+
As Jesus put it in Matthew 18:20:
+
____
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them
____
+
which highlights the critical believer mass effect of reinforced beliefs.
* an impending link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Judgment[final judgment]-like event, which will happen "very soon" (<<flg-verifiable,unspecified date>>), and in which the just will be rewarded
+
Ciro predict that when <<li-hongzhi>> dies, the claim will be that he went to another dimension so save us all, therefore putting this final judgment on hold, a bit like Jesus.
* non-believers are fundamentally different from believers. Although non-followers who do good things are actually doing FLG without knowing it.
+
FLG has a specific terminology for non-believers, which is translated in English as https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_new_4.html["ordinary people"] (常人), as opposed to Falun Gong Believers, which Li calls Falun Gong disciples (大法弟子).
+
Non-FLG people should therefore logically call Falun Gong believers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abnormal_psychology[abnormal people] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/異常心理學[异常人]) in return, much like Ciro likes to call the Chinese who call him 老外 as "老内".
+
Like other aspects of FLG however, this appears in other religions, e.g. my mother mentioned the funny term used by her Protestant's group term but Ciro forgot it, and you can see it in Harry Potter as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muggle[The Muggles].
* xref:flg-organized[You can support FLG by doing X and Y, it is not mandatory, but why wouldn't you since you are saving other people?]. Explaining that Falun Gong is good contrary to CCP propaganda also known as "Fa-rectification" in the English translation jargon.
* alternate dimensions
* pre-civilization: civilization is actually much older than what we believe, and was supe radvanced, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse[societal collapse] events led us to forget about it, a bit like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis[atlantis].
+
Notably, this also implies that the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution[theory of evolution] is wrong, since there existed modern humans hundred of millions of years ago (the current scientific estimates for anatomically modern humans is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_modern_human[500,000 years]): https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_14.htm
+
____
Archaeologists have found in the world a kind of organism called "three-leaves insect", which came into being between 600 million and 260 million years ago, and became extinct thereafter. An American scientist found a fossil of "three-leaves insect", on which there was also a human footprint, left by a shoe he was wearing, and clearly printed on the fossil. Aren't they joking with the historians? How could there possibly have been human beings 260 million years ago according to Darwin's theory of evolution?
____
* xref:flg-medication[Maybe FLG will make you healthier, but no promises, but it will make you a better person, and that's why you should do it, but if you really really believe, you get healthier]. But people who seemed to be believers also die, because deep within their hearts, there was a belief problem.
* <<is-chinese-politician-x-evil,the CCP is evil>>, not figuratively, but literally as in they are representatives of, or evil supernatural beings themselves. E.g. <<jiang-zemin>> is actually an evil frog in some alternate dimension, literally, not just memecally. The Chinese Government is literally responsible for creating <<corona,Covid-19>>. They give the CCP too much credit. The CCP are just a bunch of lazy and greedy people like you and me.

From this, it is obvious that Falun Gong is just a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age[New Age] (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/新纪元运动[新纪元运动]) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncretism[syncretic] religion combining https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong[Qigong], https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism[Buddhism], some aspects of <<christianity>>, and whatever other crazy things <<li-hongzhi>> believes in.

Or you could call Falun Gong a <<flg-cult,cult>>, which is nothing but a new/small religion with negative connotation, and thus meaningless.

FLG is very similar to Scientology in Ciro's view: a new religion that mixes elements of both old and new. And just like any other religion, <<democracy-is-a-religion,their practice must be allowed>>.

But consider this: how to classify what a religion is?

Some would answer: science is what every one can perceive with their own senses.

But FLG followers claim to feel FLG energies when doing the exercises, and a few of them have the power of seeing the other dimensions.

On the other hand, how many of your friends have experienced the laws of quantum field theory or general relativity in a very direct way?

And aren't pro-democracy believers also taking actions based solely on a shared belief, possibly organized by a pro-democracy leader?

From a purely strategic point of view, the "religion" denomination would be:

* good to FLG because the concept of freedom of religion carries considerable weight in the West
* bad for FLG because people who already have a religion would be less likely to try it out and start believing
+
Falun Gong's recruitment strategy is to focus on the exercises first, and in particular its <<flg-medication,health benefits>> and then as some people start to feel things, they start introducing the metaphysics.

See also: "Different levels of truth" from <<orange-papers>>.

See also: <<flg-daily>>.

==== Falun Gong preaching

link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-air_preaching[Street preaching] is an important aspect of Falun Gong, using stands and leaflets on the streets much like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehovah's_Witnesses[Jehovah's Witnesses].

Jargon:

* http://www.minghui.org/mh/glossary.html[讲真相]: "truth-telling"
* hongfa (TODO characters?)

The Falun Gong organization also specifies guidelines on how to preach, although these might not be <<flg-canon,canon>>, even though if they are not, it is extremely likely that <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>> is directly involved in their specification

Falun Gong has also used <<flg-telemarketing,phone call preaching>>.

All of this is part of their effort to "save people (救人)", i.e. convert them to Falun Gong.

<<li-hongzhi>> personally heavily emphasices the importance of preaching in <<flg-canon>>.

.Falun Gong believers preaching on the street in London in 2016. This image taken from a believer website shows a typical local regular gathering of believers on weekends, or even week days if there are enough retired believers in the group. They will put on their exercise music, and do exercises to attract more followers. Someone will also stand on their stall giving out propaganda flyers, or asking people to sign petitions for Western governemnts to support Falun Gong, e.g. opposing their alledged <<flg-organ-harvesting,organ harvesting>>. In the case of touristic areas with Chinese people walking around, they will also ask the Chinese tourists to <<tuidang,quit the their CCP membership, possibly using a fake name>>. <<ciro-santilli>> has to say: it is very amuzing to see those Chinese pepole trying to pretend to ignore the censored religion, when some of them are clearly curious about it, especially the younger ones who didn't see it live. Some just get mad, and say how the CCP is so great to them. https://truthinchina.wordpress.com/2012/06/16/london-uk-practitioners-explain-the-facts-about-falun-gong-in-st-martins-place-photos/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_street_preaching_2016_London.jpg[height=400]

[[flg-telemarketing]]
===== Some Falun Gong people make phone telemarketing

Ciro Santilli has seen Falun Gong people making phone calls to people in China with to explain why FLG is with his own eyes, and therefore is sure it has happened on some scale.

Particularly during <<corona>>, Falun Gong ramped up the telemarketing calls and some voluntary believers were making calls all day nonstop.

Ciro does not know how the called numbers were obtained and if callees voluntarily signed up for it, but that feels extremely unlikely.

Interestingly however, many of the callees seemed interesting in what they had to say, and they often had long chats, Ciro was surprised by that. Maybe they were just bored senseless due to the Corona lockdown. Or maybe <<most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship,many Chinese People actually don't like their Government>> and the CCP is fucked.

Also, of course, the callers received call scripts and guidelines to makes those calls, because obviously <<flg-organized>>.

Ciro strongly disapproves of this, Just like for any product, visual ads on the street are impossible to prevent, but any kind of advertising that generates notifications on feeds, or takes people's time, is unacceptable.

As you can easily find on <<google>>/<<baidu>>, such calls may be reported in the <<cac-report-website>>.

Ciro has not however seen them talking about making automated phone calls.

https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1940394/how-rampant-phone-scams-highlight-chinas-need-tighter also mentions that Falun Gong makes telemarketing in passing without any reference.

[[flg-cult]]
==== Is Falun Gong a cult? 法轮功是邪教吗？

Falun Gong does share many many many characteristics with what many people classify as a "cult", see e.g.: <<orange-papers>>, so "yes" could be a reasonably answer.

However, <<ciro-santilli>> strongly believes that so does any other existing religion e.g. <<christianity>>, and that Falun Gong is not any worse or better than those other well known religions.

Ciro therefore believes that the only reasonable stances are to either:

* be against all religions (including Christianity and Falun Gong), and classify all of them as Cults
* allow both Christianity and Falun Gong to exist, and support religious freedom

but not "oppose Falun Gong" and support Christianity.

Some people will say: Falun Gong is a cult because it is too new and therefore obviously fake!

So, if I tell a lie today, will it become true in a thousand years? Or a truth today become a lie? The Romans called <<christianity>> the "Cult of Jesus"!

Try sending an email to <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>> asking him to <<flg-verifiable,prove his powers to you>> :-)

Others will say: Falun Gong is a cult because its prophet is still alive!

But then, worry not, because Li Hongzhi was born in 1951, and therefore will almost certainly die by 2040, unless he truly is a living God as he claims.

Now, for the really important question of weather Falun Gong is a "good" or "bad" religion, <<ciro-santilli>> has seen absolutely nothing in it that is worse than any <<flg-religion,other major religion>> say, e.g., <<christianity>>.

Some possibly neutral Cult analysts analyzing if FLG is good or bad:

* https://www.icsahome.com/articles/the-prc-and-falun-gong-langone

Against:

* https://www.culteducation.com/group/1254-falun-gong.html

In the end however, since there is nothing obviously completely creepy about FLG, all such discussions are basically equivalent to <<democracy-is-a-religion,"is the Left better than the Right">>, and cannot be answered.

One interesting linguistic aspect is that "cult" normally translates in Chinese as "邪教" which means "Evil religion".

As mentioned before, Ciro does not believe that FLG is an "Evil Cult", just another "Acceptable Cult", and therefore would not use "邪教" to describe it.

Amusingly, <<li-hongzhi,Li>> calls the communists Communist Evil Party (中共邪党) in cannon, well played: https://gb.falundafa.org/chigb/jiangfa5_2.htm

The word "Cult" is much more ambiguous in the West however, and does not necessarily imply "Evil" in certain contexts, just "worship".

For example, People from <<ciro-santilli>>'s mother's Protestant Church in Brazil, all say that they are going "to the cult" when referring to when they are going to church to pray, sing and read the Bible together.

And obviously, the origin of the word "cult" is exactly the same as that of https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cultivate#Etymology["cultivate"] as in "cultivate the crops" (which is also how Falun Gong believers refer to practicing Falun Gong: "cultivation practice"). All of those come from the https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cult#Etymology[Latin "colō"], which means simply "to protect".

===== CCP cult

The CCP also has many cult-like characteristics, notably <<xi-jinping,"The Guru is always right">>, which is mentioned on <<orange-papers>> itself under "The Guru is always right." (highlight by <<ciro-santilli,Ciro>>):

____
The Guru, his church, and his teachings are always right, and above criticism, and beyond reproach.

In some cults, the guru is dead, but the principle is the same. I use the word "guru" loosely here; in many cults the charismatic leader has the title of minister, priest, yogi, swami, prophet, or all-knowing wise man. **Or even, "<<mao-zedong,Chairman Mao>>."** In any case, the leader is always right.
____

And they also claim that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous[Alcoholics Anonymous] could be characterized as a cult. Very cool. What else could be powerful enough to get you off a physical addiction, than a mental addiction, right?

____
<<mao-zedong,Mao>> is the Father +
<<xi-jinping,Xi>> is the Son +
The CCP is the Holy Spirit
____

Both Mao and Xi have produced their own sacred books which must be revered, much like <<li-hongzhi>>'s <<flg-canon>>:

* Xi's: <<xi-jinping-thought>>
* Mao's: <<little-red-book>>

Furthermore, both of those books are based on speeches, just like just like Li Hongzhi's speeches become instant canon.

This devotion can also be seen in Xi's benevoltent personification: <<xi-dada>>.

See also:

* <<democracy-is-a-religion>>

[[xi-halo]]
.Xi Jinping with a Halo to make <<ccp-cult,the obvious more obvious>>. Reads <<xi-jinping-thought,"习近平思想" (Xi Jinping Thought)>>. Watermark reads "Gucci Minh @Laborwave", so presumably from https://www.instagram.com/laborwavedesigns/[], but I didn't have the patience to find the picture, but it very likey comes from there, a ton of great communist memes in that account. https://www.reddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/77vfi8/uphold_xi_jinping_thought/[Source].
image:https://web.archive.org/web/20200907151448/https://preview.redd.it/f2q3txu0i8tz.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=4edb61b3454487e43683c367ea014d9f2ec605e4[height=400]

===== Orange Papers

Amazing website talking about Cults and many other things!

https://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html

Down as of 2020-04 archive:

* 2016 archive of the Cult Test, which is the key page of the website:https://web.archive.org/web/20160205090248/https://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html
* latest working homepage archive from 2017: http://web.archive.org/web/20170121225657/https://www.orange-papers.org/

TODO who is the author? Copyright says by "A. Orange". Is it the real name, or just a pun for "I ate an orange"?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Orangepapers/comments/5sh7kg/any_info_on_what_happened_to_the_orange_papers/ mentions the creator's first name is "Terry", and that the website went down due to financial trouble.

Claimed interview with him on the 2013 SAFE RECOVERY podcast: https://podfanatic.com/podcast/safe-recovery/episode/orange-papers-founder-terry-talks-about-the-truth-about-aa-1

The website also offered compressed archives, but those were not on Wayback Machine (it is harder because there are many different timestamps available):

____
Get this entire web site in a set of compressed packages so that you can read it later offline (and burn CDs and give copies to friends).

Archives are available in both Unix/Linux tarred-gzipped format, or Micro$uck Windoze winzip format.

Current as of 2016-12-07 (yyyy-mm-dd).

Total Size = 900 MB compressed (1.7 GB uncompressed), but no file is larger than 14 MB, to prevent file size problems with some systems, like Comcast.

Get either set; you don't need both, as the files contained are identical.
____

File names are of form:

* `Orange_Papers-alpha-2016-12-07.tar.gz`
* `Orange_Papers-imgs000-2011-01-01.tar.gz`

A mirror with many broken links and images: http://aorange1.tripod.com/

And the website also has a Free Tibet flag at the bottom.

Many of the points highlighted at are very very interesting and Ciro feels that they apply strongly to <<falun-gong>>:

* "Instant Community" and "Instant intimacy": you instantly join the cult family, and are very very likely to believe or at least consider anything anyone else in the cult says about their religious experiences, no matter how far-fetched, even though it is not <<flg-canon,canon>>
+
Conversely, this also poses a risk for the Cult Leader, as new community ideas can spread very quickly, and if you try to fight them off, they might create a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schism[Schism].
* "Cult-speak": see also "Newspeak" from <<nineteen-eighty-four>> and some common Falun Gong Cult-speak see: <<flg-religion>>
* "Denigration of competing sects, cults, religions, groups, or organizations": yes, <<li-hongzhi>> does this all the time, see: <<zhong-gong>>
* "Personal testimonies of earlier converts": see "experience sharing" at <<flg-religion>>
* "The group and its members are special", "Enemy-making and Devaluing the Outsider": see: "ordinary people (常人)" at <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong>>
* "Making cult members work long hours for free": yes, many FLG members work long long hours for free. Why wouldn't you if you are saving people's souls?
* "No Humor": see also <<funny>>
* "Different Levels of Truth", "Deceptive Recruiting": Falun Gong people don't talk freely about their funny beliefs like <<flg-religion,aliens are amongst us>> to outsiders. Rather, they lure you in with the exercises first. Ciro has personally heard the following said many times: "you should not tell this to non-believers, they are not ready for this truth yet".
* "Front groups, masquerading recruiters, hidden promoters, and disguised propagandists": <<falun-gong-media>>
* "Promised Powers or Knowledge" and "It's a con. You don't get the promised goodies": they seem to believe in a <<flg-religion,Judgement Day like event>> and <<flg-medication,health benefits>>
* "The Guru is always right", "You are always wrong", "No Graduates", "The Guru Is Extra-Special", "Everybody else needs the guru to boss him around, but nobody bosses the guru around", "The guru criticizes everybody else, but nobody criticizes the guru.": obviously: <<li-hongzhi>>
** "Group-think, Suppression of Dissent, and Enforced Conformity in Thinking"

There are also however some points which Ciro feels don't apply, and Ciro praises Falun Gong for those:

* "Dual Purposes": not much of that, most of their propaganda is "we are persecuted unfairly by China", not "let's help the poor"
* "The End Justifies The Means": Li has made it clear that believers must follow the laws of their countries. Cults that violate this tend to not last as long, this is the smart move for cult leaders.

And some points which Ciro feels apply which were mentioned in some other article, (or maybe in Orange Papers but he couldn't find them, TODO find reference?)

* "No time for fun": how could you possibly spend leisure time watching television, etc. when you could be saving the world instead?
* "Focus on the persecution of the Cult": while obviously people who have been persecuted have the right, and almost an obligation, to look for help and share their stories, it is also clear that this is a selling point for the Cult.
+
Why would a nation state attack a Cult? This could give the impression that it is because there is something powerful and true in the Cult, and actually menaces this nation state.
+
For example, Falun Gong puts huge emphasis on its persecution in China, much like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martyr[Martyrdom] of the Catholic Saints is highly emphasised.
* "Careful control of your imsage": the cult leader is a master at controlling how people view him.
+
One aspect of that, is to limit your public appearances to situations in which you have the most control, and notably being surrounded by your believers.
+
Li does not announce where he is going, even though he is followed by millions: he just shows up, and local believers whisper to one another and come to see him.
+
This reminded Ciro of the following 2012 video he watched, in which VICE was allowed to visit and interview <<russia,Siberian>> prophet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vissarion[Vissarion] (real name Sergey Anatolyevitch Torop Серге́й Анато́льевич То́роп, AKA "The Russian Jesus"), and they note how well he controlled his appearance.
+
[[vissarion]]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Cv5hZfOmk&t=1177
video::W2Cv5hZfOmk[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=1177]

This is especially interesting, because the website does not mention Falun Gong at all it seems: it really seems that all those cults are very similar.

It should also be mentioned though that these points extend to any type of human organization, e.g. <<flg-religion,other religions>>, <<democracy-is-a-religion,political parties>>, job associations, etc.

[[flg-canon]]
=== What are the canonical Falun Gong texts?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachings_of_Falun_Gong

It appears that Falun Gong cannon is present at: https://falundafa.org/

The two main books are:

* "China Falun Gong" (中国法轮功) AKA just "Falun Gong" published in April 1993. 2006 English translation https://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/flg_2006.htm[]. Wikipedia comments:
+
____
Falun Gong is an introductory book that discusses qigong, introduces the principles of the practice, and provides illustrations and explanations of the exercises.
____
+
The first edition contains one of http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=130###
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teachings_of_Falun_Gong#Zhuan_Falun,_the_main_book[Zhuan Falun] (转法轮), published in January 1995. 1998 English version: https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_01.htm[]:
+
According to Wikipedia:
+
____
Zhuan Falun is the main teaching and the most comprehensive work; it is an edited version of Li's nine-lecture series, 54 of which he taught across China between 1992 and 1994.
____
+
Believers very often read from this text when they <<flg-religion,"study the Fa">> in their gatherings. They often read one chapter per session, and can often just say "we read the Nth teaching" (第N讲, so apparently each chapter corresponds to a separate talk). Just like <<xi-jinping-thought>>!

The initial versions of both of those texts contained versions of <<li-hongzhis-hagiography>>.

It contains <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>>'s approved texts/speech transcriptions, which are sacred.

The only sacred version is Chinese which is a sacred language, and of which there is only one perfect revision. Islam also appears to place great importance on the sacredness of Arabic in which Mohamed first spoke, perhaps even more: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/plight-uyghurs-why-muslims-wont-speak-their-brethren-112466 Protestants and later the Catholic church, have moved away from such really bad strategy however, the accessibility of Christianity is seen on the entrance of many many churches which have a sign "ALL are welcome". Well played.

<<ciro-santilli>> heard <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>> claims the specifically chose to reincarnate in China this last time.

The English translation is made by followers, and gets new revisions to reduce translation imperfections.

However, the Chinese language seems to be fundamentally sacred, and there might never be a sacred English version approved by LHZ.

LHZ is of course a de-facto God with superpowers, and can of course speak all languages, but https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=for%20reasons[for reasons] he didn't just write an English translation himself.

This is a reasonable command to download the English cannon for grepping:

....
wget -r -l inf --no-remove-listing --no-clobber --no-parent -w 2 https://en.falundafa.org/falun-dafa-books.html
....

TODO: need to find a way to wrap lines, otherwise grep might fail on sentences.

But funnily the Canon books appear to all be copyrighted, likely "to avoid other people from modifying his sacred text", which is funny since the dude's the voice of absolute truth of the universe, but you still gotta copyright that I guess.

Nothing else is canonical. LHZ seems to have said that there are enlightened followers, but has not specified who, so we can't derive canon from anyone else.

Notably, <<flg-organized,FLG media>> such as https://www.minghui.org/ is believer led and thus not canonical, even though believers have very high confidence in it, and LHZ <<flg-organized,directly supports it>>.

CCP <<ccp-cult,cult leaders>> such as <<xi-jinping>> and <<mao-zedong>> have also published their own canon books, e.g.:

* Xi's: <<xi-jinping-thought>>
* Mao's: <<little-red-book>>

.Front and back cover of <<flg-canon,Zhuan Falun>>, first edition (1994). It is said amongst believers that <<flg-verifiable,the Lotus flower on the back of these books have magically opened progressively as time passed>>. http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=165###[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Zhuan_Falun.jpg[height=400]

=== Does Ciro Santilli support FLG, or just use it because it is censored?

Ciro Santilli doesn't support FLG specifically, only freedom of religion. See of course: <<flg-bias>>.

Ciro uses it in his usernames simply because it is the most banned and censored one in China today.

He believe that <<thoughtcrime,individuals should only be put in jail for what they do, not for what they believe>>.

He considers FLG <<flg-religion,a religion like any other>>, and he is against its ban, as that of all other religions.

He also believes that freedom of speech and democracy imply that FLG and other religions will exist. If you want freedom, you have to <<intolerance,accept other people's choices>>.

Otherwise, <<democracy-is-a-religion,democracy and communism can also be considered as religions>>, and banned.

See also: <<flg-verifiable>>.

[[flg-daily]]
=== How is it like to live with Falun Gong believers?

This will obviously vary from believer to believer, but here is <<ciro-santilli>>'s experience.

Like any other religion that is taken seriously, they spend several hours per week doing their standard religious activities: <<flg-religion>>.

Ciro has never seen them, or anyone we know from FLG say or do something that he consider morally incorrect because of FLG.

This does not prevent <<wife,his wife>> from working normally.

Ciro's mother-in-law, who is retired, dedicates all her time to Falun Gong when she is not taking care of the house.

Ciro's mother is also religious (link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protestantism[Protestant]), and he gets a very similar feeling about both groups.

Like other religions, Falun Gong gives them meaning in life, and Ciro admires that they pursue their belief energetically, just as he persues his beliefs energetically.

Ciro much prefers that Ciro's mother-in-law does Falun Gong, which is a noble meaningful goal, rather than watch stupid crap on television.

Also, although he is <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong,agnostic>>, Ciro also lives in a similar way.

Ciro's religion is that of science and technology, and he pursue it fervently by trying to learn and teach it and spend several hours a week doing that, even when it does not give him money immediately.

If Ciro pursue his meaning, why should he prevent anyone from pursuing theirs?

Previously, Ciro's wife and mother-in-law would sometimes try to persuade him to learn Falun Gong, which was annoying.

But every time he told them very clearly that he knows where to download the books if I want to, and that he may never want to read them, and that his wife must either accept this fact or leave him.

And they have accepted that: they think Ciro's a good person, and they can accept that you can also be a good person even without doing Falun Gong.

Ciro does feel Falun Gong makes Ciro's mother-in-law more reluctant to use or actively search for <<flg-medication,medication or treatment>>. But he thinks it is also linked to the fact that she didn't have a very good education or a good health system around. However, if Ciro and his wife give her something, she will take it. Ciro's wife does not have any resistance to medication.

One thing that does worry Ciro is that Ciro's mother in law sleeps too little every night, doing one of the Falun Gong meditations late in the evening, and then waking up very early to a long series of reading and exercise sessions. But it is hard to say if she would be any different without Falun Gong, it could just be her nature.

Bibliography:

* https://www.zhihu.com/question/27659795 at <<zhihu>>

=== In the Tweet about his mother in law, Ciro Santilli says "correctional facility", but reeducation through labour has been abolished

He was not very precise https://twitter.com/cirosantilli/status/579270450984984576[here], the precise term is "jail". He was _not_ talking about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re-education_through_labor Unfortunately it is not possible to edit a Tweet.

[[flg-changed]]
=== Falun Gong is completely different in the West than it was in China

I believe that it has changed.

But isn't that the case of every cultural religious movement that migrates to a completely new culture?

Main points which may have changed:

* It has become more organized.
+
But why shouldn't they organize to defend themselves now that they have the chance without being put into prison?
+
The CCP is highly organized and has way more resources.
* Less emphasis is given to the religious/mystical aspect, and more to the corporal exercises, and health aspect.
+
This may be because people in the "West" are:
+
** are "scientific-educated" atheists who wouldn't go for a "religion"
** already have other religions, which would view FLG as a taboo

Also maybe only the richest and most educated believers managed to escape China, and thus the movement carried that bias outside China.

If you know more ways in which it may have changed, let me know.

But once again, we can know nothing for sure about the past in China because of censorship.

Even if you saw something yourself, how can you be sure that it is representative?

And if it has changed, now that it has changed, maybe China should unban it?

See also:

* https://www.zhihu.com/question/23988890 at <<zhihu>>

=== FLG has been funded by the US government at least once, therefore it is evil

1.5M USD in 2010 for a FLG controlled internet freedom group https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8678760.stm

But well, if you are going to do something anyway, and someone offers you money, why wouldn't you take it?

Taking the money does of course give a "bad impression" that someone is trying to buy influence, but does it in itself imply that you are doing something bad?

But do you really think that the US government paid that to buy influence in FLG? What would they force upon that FLG group that they didn't already want to do? Isn't it more likely that the US government wanted them to continue doing exactly what they were doing?

Every government funds groups it supports, it is an all out war I suppose. Compare that to the propaganda funds of the CCP.

What about the funding of political campaigns, which vastly outnumbers 1.5M USD every year?

[[follow-the-law]]
=== FLG is illegal in China, we must follow the law

This might be a bad law that should be changed.

It was perfectly legal for <<nazi,Nazis>> to kill Jews. Does it make that right?

But many times, the commies don't even bother passing a law, they just fuck people anyways without one: <<rule-of-law>>.

[[flg-fake]]
=== FLG is fake 法轮功是假的

The same can be argued about any other religion or political belief of type: it is better if we organize society in this or that way.

How can you disprove their belief, when as in any other religion, every affirmation made hinges on "miracles only happen around when true believers are around" or "only true believers can perceive evidence in their hearts / minds directly". He died of cancer or <<corona>>? Not a true believer, deep withing his heart, something was wrong.

Conversely, do you understand the full sequence of experiments that imply quantum field theory? Have you seen videos of those experiments? Have you attended live demonstrations? Do you understand the construction of the experimentation apparatus? Yet, why do you believe it?

More importantly: what do you propose that should be done about it? Should we kill followers? Or is jail enough?

Also do let me know when you have achieved irrefutable proof that democracy/freedom of speech are the optimal ways to organize the government: <<democracy-is-a-religion>>.

See also: <<flg-religion>>

[[flg-verifiable]]
==== FLG never makes any predictions that can be reasonably verified by non-believers

Exactly, just like any other <<flg-religion>>, this is why <<ciro-santilli>> is <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong,agnostic>> and things Falun Gong metaphysics is bullshit.

Notably, <<li-hongzhi>> explicitly forbids display of magical powers gained by believers to non-believers: <<flg-supernatural-powers>> for "reasons". What a convenient coincidence, that prevents any verifiability!

The closest claims to observable Ciro has heard are:

* when pictures are taken in sacred events, notably <<shen-yun>>, sometimes you can see magic Falun energy wheels in the pictures
* in the homes of some followers, small magic good plants-like fungi-like things have grown
+
[[flg-fungi]]
.Image of the magic good small plants that grew on a <<falun-gong>> believer's home. They took a photo and it published on <<falun-gong-media,Minghui>> as a 2018 Chinese New Year good wish page to <<li-hongzhi>>. If any biologist reads this, for the love of God send me a Wikipedia page with the possible species. TODO transcribe the Chinese. https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2018/2/17/168396p.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_magic_fungi.jpg[height=400]
* the <<flg-canon,sacred books>> of some believers had a closed lotus flower when they were bought, and after several years, the flower opened

but Ciro suspects they are not even <<flg-canon,canon>>, just believer oral culture.

Of course, like every other religion, reality happens to be is constructed in a way that prevents non-believers to verify anything with their eyes in a reproducible way.

Or a Jesus put it in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+4&version=NIV[Luke 4]:

[[luke-4]]
____
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.

"If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:

"'He will command his angels concerning you,

and they will lift you up in their hands,

so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.'"

Jesus answered him, "It is also written: 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
____

Ah good old <<li-hongzhi,prophets>>, their tricks haven't changed a bit in 2 thousand years! This is why <<ciro-santilli>> follows instead the religion of <<democracy-is-a-religion,science and freedom of speech>>, because those religions instead say:

____
Test your God. Test your God a billion times. And if your God proves wrong just once, disbelieve it.
____

The Pontius Pilate Scene from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(film)[The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)] comes to mind, quotes:

____
Pontius: It's also said that you do miracles? Is this good magic or bad magic? Can we have some sort of demonstration?

Jesus: No, I'm not a trained animal, I'm not a magician.

Pontius: Well, that's disappointing. This means that you are just another Jewish politician.
____

and:

____
Pontius: It's one way to change the way that people live, but you want to change the way that they think and that they feel.

Jesus: All I'm saying is the change will happen with love. Not with killing.

Pontius: Either way it's dangerous. It's against Rome. It's against the way the world is. In killing or loving, it's all the same. It simply doesn't matter how you want to change things, we don't want them changed.
____

.https://youtube.com/watch?v=pXGsio9H1xs The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) - Pontius Pilate Scene (5/10) | Movieclips.
video::pXGsio9H1xs[youtube,height=400,width=600]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurama[Futurama] also has an interesting take:

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObbVO3A3BvA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bender_(Futurama)[Bender] meets God in Futurama S03E20 "link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godfellas[Godfellas]". In their talk, they comment on how "if as God you give them everything, they will grow dependent on you, and if you give them nothing, they will despise you". And so the best approach as a God might be "to influence things as if you weren't there".
video::ObbVO3A3BvA[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[against-censorship-and-flg]]
=== Many people both are against censorship and FLG

Ciro know that, and that supporting FLG is "bad" for his public image with most Chinese, including those that are against censorship.

But <<dictator-needs-gfw,without censorship, there will be democracy>>, and with democracy FLG followers will have voting rights, and FLG will become legal.

Ciro thinks that the situation is very similar to <<flg-religion,Scientology>> in the USA today: most people dislike it, but believe that you can believe whatever you want.

Democracy and Communism <<democracy-is-a-religion,can also be considered as religions and persecuted>>.

Isn't it convenient when a dictatorship gets rid of those weirdos for you? But not so much when suddenly you or your family is the weirdo...

If you are not ready to accept the beliefs of others, dictatorship is the only choice for you.

It is also interesting to note how Falun Gong is a good source of <<censorship-circumvention>> material.

See also: <<flg-bias>>

[[democracy-is-a-religion]]
==== Why does Ciro Santilli say that democracy is a religion just like Falun Gong?

Because it also specifies irrational and fundamental aspects of how one should live, notably voting and freedom of speech.

Just like the <<ccp-cult>> has one fundamental belief: <<stability,the Party is always right>>.

Ban <<falun-gong>>, and you have banned democracy.

Accept democracy, and you will have <<falun-gong>>.

There is no in-between.

[[flg-stability]]
==== Falun Gong had to be banned because it was a threat to the stability of the country

Then they link to the Taping Rebellion:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Rebellion
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiping_Heavenly_Kingdom

Of course FLG was a threat to the stability of the country.

It is, as <<ciro-santilli>> has said, a highly organized political power: <<flg-political>>.

However, <<democracy-is-a-religion,democracy>> is a threat to the stability country in the exact same way:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolution

Anything that goes against a dictatorship is a threat to the stability of the country.

Now read: <<stability>>

=== Many people say they do FLG only to get VISAs to the USA

<<ciro-santilli>> heard this a few times, and I believe it has happened.

But I don't see how this is relevant at all to this discussion:

* if they are not really FLG believers, they should be prosecuted, but this says nothing about the real FLG believers,
* if they are, then why wouldn't they seek a VISA, since they are in constant threat of going to jail or worse in China, and the USA law gives them that right?

Sample news:

* https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/09/28/652218318/thousands-could-be-deported-as-government-targets-asylum-mills-clients

[[flg-witness]]
=== I have personally seen people do bad things because of Falun Gong

Either direct suicide or <<flg-medication,dying because of not taking medication>>.

First, I'm not saying I don't believe you, and I'm sorry about what happened.

But your testimony is worthless unless you give the following:

* clear unique personal identification
+
This is because the CCP has thousands of <<wumao,wumaos>> who could make fake reports.
+
There are basically two ways to do that:
+
. your testimony is done in video form on YouTube clearly showing your face as you make it
. links between a notable social media presence that is hard to achieve, e.g. Twitter with many followers, Stack overflow with a lot of rep, and the account
+
Either of those must contain / link to information that uniquely identifies you. Generally, full name, city and date of birth is enough.
* a precise testimony that states exactly what you saw happen with your own eyes, or heard from people that are very close to you.
+
The testimony must include:
+
--
** when the events happened
** where they happened, in which city at the very least
** the full names of who did what
--
+
This is to:
+
** make it easier to verify the truth of the event
** uniquely identify the event so we don't count a single event multiple times

If you do provide all of the above, I add your report to a list of reports that I will maintain. This list does not exist yet because there were no valid reports yet.

Next consider this:

* are you sure that Falun Gong made the person do the bad thing, and that the person wouldn't have done it anyway?
+
Did someone from Falun Gong told the person to do it?
+
I bet that if you look into patients of psychiatrists, you will find more suicides than average. So should we ban psychiatry?
* are you sure that the order came from <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>>, and that it was not just some disgruntled local leader using Falun Gong for his personal madness and doing things he did not approve?
+
Branch Davidians were inspired by <<christianity>>. So should we ban Christianity? What about the majority of Christians who have never done anything bad?
* only statistics have any meaning, and it would require a very large number of reports to make up statistics, so you will likely be wasting your time. I will do my part and maintain a list however.
* if we ask for FLG believers to compile a list of horrors they have suffered, which they have already been doing since the start of the persecution, I bet that their list will be much longer than yours, because they are so <<flg-organized,well organized>>

[[flg-persecution]]
=== FLG does not have proof of their persecution claims

How much proof do you think they would be able to get when there is no freedom of the press?

Do you think that forbidding a <<flg-important,70 million>> person religion could have gone smoothly?

Do you think the thousands of personal accounts of human rights violations that exist are all fake, and don't indicate that many, many more have taken place but fallen under censorship?

Conversely, there is no reliable proof that FLG is bad as claimed by CCP that has been verified by international media.

[[thoughtcrime]]
=== Someone from movement X did something bad, therefore the movement should be banned

By this logic, everyone should go to jail. The law should only punish individuals.

The communist party, which has had continuous power since 1949, killed millions during the <<cultural-revolution>>. Surely they must be banned, no?

But the CCP has changed so much since those days, Ciro hears you say.

Ciro agrees. And <<flg-changed,so has Falun Gong>>.

See also: "thoughtcrime" from <<nineteen-eighty-four>>.

Or if you like shitty movies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_Report_(film)[Minority Report (2002)].

==== Movement X tells people to do something bad, therefore the movement should be banned

E.g. kill.

Yes, convincing someone to do something bad is as bad as doing it yourself of course, and must be forbidden.

Now proceed to prove that FLG made and will continue making people do bad things, going through:

* <<flg-witness>>
* <<flg-changed>>

[[tiananmen-square-self-immolation-incident]]
===== Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident (天安门自焚事件, 2001)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_Square_self-immolation_incident
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/天安门自焚事件

This has been one of the major anti-Falun Gong propaganda pieces by the CCP, and one of the most refuted by Falun Gong propaganda even as of 2020.

<<ciro-santilli>> believes that:

* as usual from the pre-Internet age, we will never know the truth for sure, because China has <<censorship,no freedom of the press>>, and <<censorship-makes-no-one-trust-your-country,no one believes anything that the Chinese government says>>
* it is possible that they were Falun Gong believers. What would expect from <<flg-important,banning a 70 million person religion>>?
* it is very unlikely that they had approval or instructions from <<li-hongzhi>>. Li Hongzhi's literature maintains that suicide is very bad for you, e.g.: from 2003 <<flg-canon,canon>> https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/20030420L.html
+
____
Question: Some people can't give up Dafa, but also can't let go of their humanness. On the surface they are cultivating and doing some Fa-rectification things, but they are in fact stirring up trouble and creating disturbances, with some even committing suicide or being gay. What will become of these people? Will they go to the dimension of demons? And what will happen to those who stick up for them?

Teacher: I know about all of that. Unless I have absolutely no choice I don't want to expel them, so I'm observing and watching these things. It's best that these people, if they want to do themselves justice, wake up quickly--wake up quickly! If you're determined to do that, then tell Dafa disciples about the things you've done, and that could help. Time is running short. I'm really worried about you. Don't take Master's mercy so lightly. The Fa has standards.
____
+
and from 1998 canon https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19980329L.html
+
____
Many people who are capable of cultivating get sucked into them, and some of them engage in suicide - it's a mess
____
* maybe people should be allowed to choose how they want to die, see also:
** <<flg-medication>>
** <<honour-suicides-in-chinese-history>>

====== Honour suicides in Chinese history

As https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Suicide_in_China&oldid=992138770#History[mentioned on Wikipedia], China has a long history of suicide for altruistic/moral/honour reasons in Confucian tradition, some of which are still celebrated to this day.

The <<analects>> paragraph <<analects-translation-by-robert-eno-2015,15.9>> says:

____
The Master said, The gentleman who is resolute and ren does not seek to live on at the expense of ren, and there are times when he will sacrifice his life to complete ren.
____

<<mencius-book>> paragraph <<mencius-translation-by-robert-eno-2016,paragraph 6A.10>> says:

____
I love to eat fish; I also love to eat bear paws. If I can't have both, I will forego the fish and eat the bear paws. I love life; I also love right. If I can't have both, I will forego life and choose to do right. Life is truly something I love, it is just that there is something else I love more, and so I can't hold on to life by devious means. And death is truly something I hate, it is just that there is something I hate more than death, and so there are dangers I will not avoid.

If a man loves nothing more than life, then won't he use whatever means are required to hold onto it? If a man hates nothing more than death, then won't he use whatever means are required to avoid danger? Yet there are things men won't do in order to avoid danger and live, and from this we know that there are things men love more than life and hate more than death. It is not just worthy men who have such feelings, all men have them; worthies are simply those who do not lose them.
____

Notable historical figures who committed suicides are are still celebrated to this day include:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qu_Yuan[Qu Yuan] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/屈原[屈原], 340-278 BC), is celebrated in the <<dragon-boat-festival>>, the third most important festival in modern China.
+
He committed suicide by drowning himself in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miluo_River[Miluo River], modern Hubei Province, while holding a rock, after his country's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_(state)[Chu] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/楚国[楚国])) capital was taken by the Qin enemies during the <<warring-states-period>>.
+
He is a symbol of patriotism respected to this day.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Zixu[Wu Zixu] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/伍子胥[伍子胥], ???-484 BC)

These sound exactly like examples that <<xi-dada>> would want his army to keep in mind: ultimate sacrifice for the motherland.

[[flg-political]]
=== People from movement X are only in it for political power

For every desire of the masses, there will be amoral representatives that will step to use that power.

Still, those representatives cannot gain power if there is no backing desire from society.

The only advantage of <<richer,democracy>>, is that those representatives have to pretend harder to do things for that group to retain their power.

Falun Gong believers obviously have the right to do politics, just like any other person, and Ciro greatly encourages this.

But Ciro does not like that Falun Gong tends to not call itself a political force, when it clearly is. But full disclosure is not a legal obligation, and many many media outlets don't really disclose their obvious political connections. See also: <<flg-organized>>.

Falun Gong directly contacts Government officials, http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/a25124-European-Falun-Gong-Practitioners-held-an-Anti-torture-Exhibition-during-the-European-Union-Meeting-in-France.html#.XyHSa2OYWV4[demonstrates in front of government buildings] and <<flg-trump,supports Trump>>, how can that not be politics?!?! Just call it for what it is, and no one will be able to criticize you for it!

<<li-hongzhi>> directly says that FLG should not be involved in politics in <<flg-canon>>, e.g. https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/jjyz52.htm[]:

____
Never get involved in politics, nor interfere with state affairs.
____

But at the same, he also greatly encourages <<falun-gong-media>>, which obviously a political influence method.

.https://youtu.be/ArfGyo6HQ_E?t=1175 Ciro really liked what https://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/religious-studies/faculty/mathew-schmalz[Doctor Matthew N. Schmalz] said on this VICE documentary about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyung_Jin_Moon[Hyung Jin Moon]'s and his https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_movement[Unification movement] ("the Moonies" split-off religion. "I think that any new religion needs a constituency. And especially for a group that is new, that is relatively small, making connections with other groups that might have similar commitments is something that can be quite productive if you are a leader of a new religion". As long as everyone plays the democracy game through democracy rules, peace tends to be maintained, and it is easier for multiple different beliefs to coexist. Falun Gong has obviously gone in this political direction, and that is a positive sign about the religion.
video::ArfGyo6HQ_E[youtube,height=400,width=600,t=1175]

[[flg-trump]]
==== Falun Gong supports Donald (Trump, 法轮功支持特朗普)

<<ciro-santilli>> believes without non-circumstantial evidence that the huge majority of Falun Gong believers strongly supports Trump.

Like everything else concrete, it is not clear if Li Hongzhi has directly supported this or not.

Ciro feels without proof however that it is very likely that he has given such directives to his top tenants, which then flows through the rest of the media.

Trump has been vocal about China's threat, and correctly so in Ciro's opinion, and therefore is a much needed ally of the Falun Gong movement.

And they have always undoubtedly been very favorable to Trump in their news coverage.

Of course, so long as those campaigns respect the laws of the country, they are free to do it and must not be interfered. As if other major American media didn't have political agendas: <<usa-based-media-bias>>.

This is exactly the same, in fact, as to how <<flg-religion,religious affiliation>> has a huge impact in how the average American votes: https://theconversation.com/how-strong-a-role-does-religion-play-in-us-elections-133224[].

Trump's immigration policies have turned Asian Americans towards the democrat opposition however as of 2019: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/13/18308137/asian-american-voters-immigration-democrats-donald-trump

One saving point of the republicans for Asians is the opposition to university quotas instance, which many Asians feel blocks their high performing kids from top schools for less deserving students. This is suggested for example at: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/02/yang-asian-americans-affirmative-action/605917/ "Opposition to affirmative action was pulling Asians toward the GOP. Then Yang's campaign began to gather momentum."

Examples:

* NBC News claims that the <<epoch-times>> has donated to Trump propaganda: $1.5 million https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-qanon-impending-judgment-day-behind-facebook-fueled-rise-epoch-n1044121
* after the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election[2020 United States presidential election], <<falun-gong-media>> such as <<epoch-times>> was one of the very few medias to not immediately dismiss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-election_lawsuits_related_to_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election[Trump's accusations of electoral fraud], as baseless e.g. on 2020-12-12 https://web.archive.org/web/20201212014230/https://www.theepochtimes.com/ the front page read "Election outcome unclear amid legal challenges", at which point most had been shot down. And earlier their editorial had clarified https://web.archive.org/web/20201107223813/https://www.theepochtimes.com/[] "Why The Epoch Times Won't Call the Presidential Race Until All Challenges Are Resolved".
** 2020-12-16 consider this sample <<ntdtv>> screenshot of the latest videos published at the time: https://archive.vn/Sxn8m[], where it can be seen that about 80-90% of the videos are supporting Trump's electoral fraud claims
** 2020-11-08 https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/20/11/8/n12534746.htm the <<epoch-times>> published a poem by <<li-hongzhi>> which Ciro believes has undertones of political support for Trump by, just after Trump was announced to have lost the presidential elections, amidst claims of electoral fraud under investigation.
+
While Ciro agrees that reporting such events impartially is important and has merit, the fact that so few medias took the lawsuits seriously at all is still indicative of their strong Trump support.
+
Ciro is also extremely opposed to censorship of such viewpoints, as done by YouTube, as mentioned at <<fake-news>>, when they started taking down any videos that upheld the electoral fraud viewpoint.
* <<me-and-li-by-ben-hurley-2017>> says how after his conversion to Falun Gong:
+
____
My social beliefs had transformed from those typical of a left-leaning family to take on a very conservative hue. 
____

=== Western media has exaggerated reports on FLG for propaganda reasons

Possibly true, but which reports are you talking about specifically?

All that I care about is:

* it is censored today
* if you do it you go to jail
* there were tens of millions of followers at the time of the ban

which I think are undeniable.

The only question that matters is: should it be banned or not?

=== Does Ciro Santilli believe in the allegations of human rights violations done to Falun Gong believers?

Besides the obvious prohibition of their most fundamental belief, so e.g. being tortured.

Let's just focus on the evidence:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CedVnJOgwg4 "Undercover video reveals brutal treatment of Falun Gong prisoners inside Chinese labor camps" by "FOX 11 Los Angeles" published May 21, 2019. Names mentioned: Fuquan Yin,

[[flg-organ-harvesting]]
==== Does Ciro Santilli believe in the allegations of organ harvesting made by Falun Gong believers?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Gong_practitioners_in_China
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/對中國共產黨摘取法輪功學員及良心犯器官的指控

In short: Ciro believes that it has happened to many people.

Long version follows.

It is obviously very hard to prove and quantify it definitely, much like it was hard to prove the Holocaust: bodies were cremated, and bribes were paid.

Even if we had a video showing the whole process, showing the whole money flow from the donor to the prison guard, it would still be hard to quantify it, so I do have some room for doubt in this opinion.

But consider the following, which is based on what Ciro has heard.

Even Chinese officials have admitted that in the past, if the body of the executed person is not claimed by family, then the organs can be extracted even without the consent of the prisoner:

* 2014-12-04 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-30324440 "China to stop harvesting executed prisoners' organs"
* https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/07/china-still-using-executed-prisoners-organs-transplants-vatican
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-the-face-of-criticism-china-has-been-cleaning-up-its-organ-transplant-industry/2017/09/14/d689444e-e1a2-11e6-a419-eefe8eff0835_story.html

Perhaps now that they claim that there is a large voluntary organ donor database, then this has stopped or been reduced, but let's focus on that period when the extractions were widely done.

From this, even though China does not publish execution statistics, we can imagine that a large part of the organs come from prisoners sentenced to death.

Then, consider that a <<flg-important,70 million>> person religion was banned, leading to a huge influx of prisoners from that religion.

FLG followers are just de-facto criminals like any other, and so extracting their organs is also de-facto legal.

Also, people from that religion don't drink alcohol, smoke or take drugs, and their organs are of good quality.

Furthermore, FLG prisoners continue to not bow down to the government even in prison, e.g. by doing their <<flg-religion,Falun Gong meditation>>, which makes them clearly identifiable and dangerous to the system.

Finally, add to that mix the <<corruption,huge level of corruption found in dictatorships>>.

Don't you think, then, that it is extremely likely that it has happened many times that such people have been selected to be executed earlier than others on average, due to the monetary value of their organs?

Bibliography:

* https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-019-0406-6 (https://web.archive.org/web/20191118135832/https://bmcmedethics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12910-019-0406-6[archive]) "Analysis of official deceased organ donation data casts doubt on the credibility of China's organ transplant reform" by Matthew P. Robertson, Raymond L. Hinde and Jacob Lavee published at "BMC Medical Ethics" which is part of Springer Nature in 14 November 2019
* The Slaughter: Mass Killings, Organ Harvesting, and China's Secret Solution to Its Dissident Problem, by Ethan Gutmann, 2014
** <https://www.amazon.com/Slaughter-Killings-Harvesting-Solution-Dissident/dp/161614940X>
** <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethan_Gutmann#The_Slaughter:_Mass_Killings,_Organ_Harvesting,_and_China's_Secret_Solution_to_Its_Dissident_Problem>

Related:

* 2020-11-29 (not of prisoners) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-55097424 "Chinese doctors jailed for illegal organ harvesting"

===== 2018 China Tribunal

2018 https://chinatribunal.com/

This is a mock tribunal, i.e. one without any power of law, and was of course initially lobbied/organized brought up by FLG: https://endtransplantabuse.org/

However, Ciro Santilli believes that none of the lawyers / jury members are FLG believers, and that they are trying to honestly decide if there is enough evidence or not for organ harvesting in China.

They also have non-FLG witnesses.

Whether you believe in their partiality or not, I highly recommend watching some of what the witnesses, which I find very convincing and informative:

* https://youtu.be/oW3IaaXWE8s?t=7225 Swedish man who spent several years in prison in China

A notable precursor to mock tribunals is the link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Tribunal[Russel Tribunal].

Bibliography:

* Dr. Enver Tothi, has spoken openly about his organ harvesting activities in the 1990s in several tribunals in Europe
** 2020 https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/surgeon-who-harvested-organs-slaughtered-21040274 "Surgeon who harvested organs of slaughtered dissident now London Uber driver"
** 2019 in EU parliament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n-9n897jIo
** 2017 Him speaking in : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoXKMw4slHY at Ireland's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoXKMw4slHY[House of the Oireachtas]

=== Things Ciro Santilli dislikes about Falun Gong

But also as explaining why I don't think it justifies the ban.

This section also gives me more credibility as a balanced critic >:-)

* <<flg-religion,Falun Gong downplays the fact that they are a religion>>

[[flg-organized]]
==== FLG downplays the fact that it is highly organized

Many FLG practitioners claim that they are not at all organized, or that they have no political interest, and I truly believe that they mean it.

But it is obvious from the size of the <<falun-gong-media>>, namely:

* <<ntdtv>>
* <<epoch-times>> newspaper
* <<shen-yun>> dance troupe

that in practice they do have are a highly organized hierarchical structure, and very likely with <<li-hongzhi,LHZ>> at the very top, e.g.:

* Shen Yun's 2018 libretto says that their Artistic Director and founder is "D.F." (likely an abbreviation for Da Fa, which is an abbreviation for Falun Gong Dafa, which is a full name of Falun Gong), with a picture of LHZ on top. It also amusingly says that D.F. is a "Distinguished Professor of Music and Dance at Fei Tian College in New York", which is likely where many of Shen Yun's dancers are trained, and therefore controlled by himself to a large extent. It's Falun Gong's dance-only-for-now https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigham_Young_University[BYU].
* LHZ mentions NDTV, Epoch Times and Shen Yun extensively on his <<flg-canon>>. TODO link to source, this based on unintentionally overhearing to my family members reading it.

Furthermore, Falun Gong practitioners directly lobby foreign governments to take action against human rights abuses in China, e.g.:

* https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+MOTION+P7-RC-2013-0562+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN
* https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-court-cisco-must-be-held-accountable-aiding-chinas-human-rights-abuses

Like any other religion, they have all the right to take those actions, and it is definitely in their best interest, and perhaps in the best interest of the whole world, that they do so.

The only thing that annoys me is their lack of self perception on this matter: the large majority of Western people would definitely classify them as an organized political force after having observed their activities. When they say otherwise, they are hurting their own credibility.

[[flg-transparent]]
===== FLG media is not transparent about its affiliation

Agreed, and it is a point that hurts more than helps their cause.

But the media is not legally obliged to state their affiliation.

And if that were the case, then we should force _all_ newspapers to start taking polls of how many employees follow which religion and support which political party, and then put that in their print.

[[flg-intolerance]]
==== Falun Gong dislikes several other groups like homosexuals and some other religions

Like most <<flg-religion,old religions>>, related: <<hate-speech>>.

<<flg-canon,Canon quote>> from https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19980904L.html[]:

____
Question: Why is homosexuality considered immoral?

Teacher: Think about it, everyone: Is homosexuality human behavior? Heaven created man and woman. What was the purpose? To procreate future generations. A man being with a man, or a woman with a woman - it doesn't take much thought to know whether that's right or wrong. When minor things are done incorrectly, a person is said to be wrong. When major things are done incorrectly, it's a case of people no longer having the moral code of human beings, and then they are unworthy of being human.
____

Democracy dislikes dictators.

You and I dislike certain personality traits without any logical reason.

What matters is that we treat everyone with respect and without bias at work, even if we don't like them.

But the law can't force you to like everyone.

If one specific FLG member breaks a law by discriminating against someone, they should be punished just like anyone else.

See also:

* <<intolerance>>
* <<gay-rights>>

===== Falun Gong on races

<<li-hongzhi>> clearly classifies races as a metaphysical concept e.g. on <<flg-canon>> https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19990502L.html[]:

____
Strictly speaking, Indians, Egyptians, Persians, the yellow race, the white race, and the black race are the six major races of the present Earth. All the other ones are mixed races.
____

Mixed race people seem to have some metaphysical defect/peculiarity, https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/1997L.html[]:

___
Question: What did you say last time that a person of mixed race has lost?

Teacher: He has lost the body that comes from the top down through to here. Let me put it this way: People of the yellow race have people of the yellow race up there, and people of the white race have people of the white race up there. He's lost this thread.
___

but they can still go to Heaven:

____
Question: Can a person of mixed race succeed in cultivation?

Teacher: Whether someone can cultivate and whether he can succeed in cultivation are all up to the person himself. If a person of mixed race can persist in cultivation, he can reach Consummation just the same. When he succeeds in cultivation his Primordial Spirit will return to wherever he came from.
____

[[flg-medication]]
==== FLG believers are less likely to take necessary medication

Based on what <<ciro-santilli>> saw and heard, he does believe, without any clear statistical evidence, that it is very likely that it hs happened to in many cases that some Falun Gong believers refused to take modern medications and died of diseases that could be otherwise cured.

But consider the following:

* what matters are statistics. Maybe FLG people live longer than non FLG in average. But we will never have statistics because of censorship: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/27529/have-many-falun-gong-practitioners-forgone-medical-treatment-and-died-of-treatab
* maybe people should be link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_legislation[allowed to choose how they want to die], and not to take medication if they don't want to
+
As the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parks_and_Recreation[Parks and Recreation] caricaturally liberal character https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Swanson[Ron Swanson] puts it https://youtu.be/_UlNnETAZeI?t=48[about the United States]:
+
____
The whole point of this country is if you wanna eat garbage, balloon up to six hundred pounds and die of a heart attack at forty three, you can! You are free to do so. To me that's beautiful.
____
+
<<freedom-with-a-capital-f>> also comes to mind.
* maybe the number of people killed during persecution vastly outnumbers those who died because they would not take medication
* several <<flg-religion,religions>>, including <<christianity>> have miraculous cure claims. My impression is that claims were mostly notable in the old times apparently, likely because people noticed that Christians were still dying of all kinds of diseases like everyone else, no matter how devout!
* maybe the main reason why communists banned Falun Gong is the political threat it posed, but that a ban was unjustified given the situation. Christian crosses are being taken down as of 2016, have they stopped taking their medications as well? See also <<rule-of-law>>.
* maybe many of those people would also have died soon even if they had taken medication
* maybe not all Falun Gong believers thought that it was wise to stop taking medication. But their religion was banned anyway. Who can agree and follow all the innumerable prescriptions of any religious or legal system? See also: <<thoughtcrime>>.
* all the following also reduce people's lifespan:
+
--
** riding motorcycles vs. cars/buses
** smoking
** moving to a poor country to do charity there
** eating fast food
--
+
Forbidding them also has huge humanitarian costs (more expensive vehicles, creation of a black market, ...). So why not forbid them as well?

Especially In the beginning, Falun Gong did put a lot of emphasis on its health benefits, just <<zhong-gong,like all the other contemporaneous Qi Gong practices>>, and it is likely that especially many in the first generation of believers do believe it more than others.

For example, the main initial public announcement of Falun Gong was at a <<history-of-falun-gong,Health Exposition in Beijing>>.

In <<flg-canon>> itself, this is not super explicit and emphasised as far as Ciro can see. Zhuan Falun https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/zfl_74.htm[] has a chapter entitled "On the Issue of Healing Illnesses", that contains:

____
 Let us talk about the most common illnesses, like tumors, infections or osteoproliferation etc., found in the human body. In another space, a very deep space, there lies an evil intelligent entity.
____

and the general very beaty-around-the-bush suggestion that if you do master Falun Gong fully, you will be healthy. But with the usual disclaimer that "you have to become a master", and since "there are no graduates", no one is ever a master for sure, and as usual "you don't get the promised goodies", as as mentioned at: <<orange-papers>>.

https://www.falundafa.org/book/eng/mgjf.htm contains some more direct quotes that suggest that you can take medicine, but you have to try and bear the pain first, and if you can't, it's a sign that you haven't practiced Falun Gong well enough:

____
So when you take medicine now you're killing this sickness or the virus at the surface. Medicine can truly kill viruses at the surface. Yet a practitioner's gong[7] is automatically destroying viruses and karma. But as soon as medicine kills the surface virus that has seeped over from other dimensions, the virus—karma—over on the other side will know, since everything is alive, and it will stop coming over. Then you feel that you've recovered because you took the medicine. But let me tell you that it nonetheless accumulates over there. Life after life human beings are accumulating this stuff. When the accumulation reaches a certain extent, the person becomes incurable and when he dies he's totally destroyed. He loses his life—forever loses his life. That's how horrifying it is. So here I've explained to you the relationship. It's not that people aren't allowed to take medicine. When an everyday person gets sick he definitely needs medical treatment.

But how do we cultivators deal with it? Aren't we purifying your body? Like the annual rings of a tree, there is karma at the very core, and at every layer, life after life, of your body. When you practice cultivation, I keep pushing this karma outward from the center; I push, and push, and push, and push until I completely push the karma out for you. And not all of this can go through the surface of our bodies. You wouldn't be able to bear it if all of it were to go through the surface of your body. Only a portion of it comes out through the surface. But you still feel that you're suddenly getting sick, you find it terribly uncomfortable and painful, can't bear it, regard yourself as an everyday person, and go take medicine. Then you can go ahead and take medicine, as we've never said that everyday people can't take medicine. We only say that your enlightenment quality isn't up to par and that you didn't pass this test well.
____

Ciro does however believe that newer generations believe in this much less, notably because the first believer generation is all basically old or dead, and soon will be entirely dead. This might also have been de-emphasised to reduce the bullshit aspects and help the international spread of Falun Gong. Not even Falun Gong believers are that blind. And this perfectly mimics the beginning of Christianism, where the first generations gave much more emphasis to miraculous cures.

<<me-and-li-by-ben-hurley-2017>> has an anecdote on this, which Ciro feels sounds believable:

[[me-and-li-tumor]]
____
I think it was Lynn's* death that finally made me realise it was time to leave. I'd seen the writing on the wall about a year prior when I saw her at a yearly "Fa conference" for believers of Falun Gong, otherwise known as Falun Dafa, to exchange experiences and grow spiritually together. An executive assistant at a Queensland valuation firm, I'd gotten to know her over the years in various events as a warm and level-headed lady who had time for everyone. But I'd noticed she had developed a bulge on the side of her head and I was trying not to look at it when I talked to her. I saw, or at least I believed I saw, some pain in her smile. She was probably questioning herself over and over again what "attachments" she hadn't let go of that were causing this sickness to spread through her body and endanger her life. I wanted to tell her to just go to a hospital, although I wasn't at this stage resolute enough in my gradual return to logic. Another part of me feared that by looking at it I was acknowledging it — something you don't do with illnesses in Falun Gong because Master Li Hongzhi teaches that his pupils don't get illnesses. He can cure you but only if you don't have any loopholes in your belief in him and his teachings. Some people with solid beliefs can actually die due to others around them having flaws in their thinking, Li says. Just thinking the wrong way is perilous when you're a Falun Gong practitioner.

I later heard through the grapevine of Lynn's death. The cancer went into her brain and she passed away in extreme pain, probably believing to the end that it was her fault she was in this awful predicament. In a way, I guess it was.
____

and more interesting anecdotes follow, see source.

And Ciro has felt this first hand with his <<wife,mother-in-law>>. Whenever she has a health worry, first she tries to hide it. But then she casually mentions it without much thought because she speaks all the time the poor lady, may she be blessed. And then, when Ciro says: OK, let's try and treat it, even for trivial things that might have simple treatments, she immediately smiles a compassionate smile of "I'm a Falun Gong believer, I don't need that". This makes Ciro really mad. He tries to not show it, because he thinks people should be able to choose how they die. But Li promises the powers of <<flg-cross-dimensional-vision,remote, cross dimensional and past/future vision>>. to some believers, and yet, blinds some of them to the obvious fact that they are aging, and, slowly but surely, their own bodies are starting to fail, like everyone else's will at one point.

It is also interesting to note how the Chinese government itself supported Falun Gong and <<zhong-gong,other Qi Gong practices>> for their health benefits, which is why they grew so large in the first place. <<li-hongzhi>> was even <<history-of-falun-gong,awarded prizes and recognized as a Qi Gong master by state backed organizations in 1992 and 1993>>. And the CCP still has a tendency to support certain non-scientific traditional practices: <<support-for-non-scientific-traditional-practices>>.

[[freedom-with-a-capital-f]]
.https://youtu.be/kIpaDW3RwtY?t=244 one random thing ex-KGB spy undercover in the USA Jack Barsky mentioned in this BuzzFeed Multiplayer interview stuck to his mind: "The one thing that you have here, that I believe cannot be found anywhere else in the world is called Freedom, with a capital F". If people want to die in a certain way, or believe that some bullshit will cure them, they should be allowed. Natural selection will take care of the rest.
video::kIpaDW3RwtY[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=244]

See also: <<honour-suicides-in-chinese-history>>.

===== Falun Gong's view of epidemics

<<li-hongzhi>> has said in <<flg-canon,canon>> things that lead certain believers (including e.g. <<wife,Ciro's mother in law>>) to believe that because they are good Falun Gong believers, that they are more safe from disease from evil people.

For example, in the 2003 "Fa conference" at the time of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome[SARS] he https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/20030420L.html[said]:

____
You must have seen the epidemic that's come along in China now, right? Hasn't a huge epidemic arrived? To put it in human terms, it's Heaven punishing people. What it's targeting, we Dafa disciples know full well: it's targeting those who don't deserve to be saved, who are impossible to save while Dafa disciples clarify the truth, and who aren't useful to the evil rotten spirits. This is the first round of cleansing. Heaven is punishing the evil, yet China is still lying to cover up the number of deaths, and I'll tell you, it's huge, and it hasn't peaked yet. 
____

Such beliefs have of course carried over directly to <<corona,COVID-19>>.

Epidemics are also likely moments where religious grow due to more people being more desperate and looking for solace that cannot be found in this shitty world.

It is indeed tempting to believe that the virus magically kills only the Evil. What reality could be so fucked up where the innocent suffocate to their death? And yet, here we are.

[[li-hongzhi]]
==== Li Hongzhi (LHZ, 李洪志)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hongzhi
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/李洪志

Li Hongzhi (LHZ, 李洪志) is the creator of FLG: link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hongzhi[].

Falun Gong people call him "master" (师父), which is a common traditional term used to respectfully address experienced teachers in a disciple (弟子)/teacher relation, e.g. Kung Fu or other crafts.

However they also believe that he has many many God-like powers and is comparable figures such as Jesus and Buddha himself.

Notably they believe that he has superpowers, and that everything that he says is the absolute truth of the universe, see also: <<flg-religion>>.

The term "master" is also used for example in the fictional film The Master (2012), which is likely inspired in <<flg-religion,Scientology>>.

<<ciro-santilli>> however prefers to call him <<flg-religion,prophet>>, since he feels LHZ is indistinguishable from <<flg-religion,any other religion>>. Guru/<<flg-cult,cult leader>> could also apply.

It's funny that even though Falun Gong only came up recently in the 80's, we still know relatively little about Li. One is kind of reminded of Jesus! See also <<li-hongzhis-family>> and <<li-hongzhis-hagiography>>.

One should note however that this is partly by design: at some point in the 90's, Li relatively stepped away from public view. This is because once you reach a critical mass of followers, it is better to let them to the preaching for you, while you hide your obvious human defects in a corner. See also comments at <<vissarion>>.

Li Hongzhi footage:

* 1999-06-12 AP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_onSZlvWSQ USA: "CHINA: FALUN DAFA CULT POSES NO THREAT CLAIMS FOUNDER" Li Hongzhi talks to media in New York

.<<li-hongzhi>> is Falun Gong's prophet/cult leader/living God. He's a cute North-Westerner 东北人 like <<wife,Ciro's wife>>. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hongzhi[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi.jpg[height=400]

.<<li-hongzhi>> practicing one of his exercises with one of his cute prophet outfits in an extremely nice Chinese <<does-ciro-santilli-hate-china,stone garden>>. TODO exact location and date. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Li_Hongzhi_Falun_Gong.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_stone_garden.jpg[height=600]

[[li-hongzhi-blue-halo]]
.<<li-hongzhi,Li>> in front of a light blue background (similar to <<xi-jinping-portrait-blue,CCP official portraits>>) with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(religious_iconography)[halo] suggestion around his head. https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/11/5/12/n3254555.htm[Lower quality version] on <<epoch-times>> itself. https://www.epochweekly.com/144/7046pg.htm[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_blue.jpg[height=400]

[[li-hongzhi-lotus]]
.<<li-hongzhi,Li>> going https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Saiyan[Super Saiyan] while casually sitting on a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_lotus_in_religious_art[giant Lotus flower] with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_(religious_iconography)[halo] on his head. https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/8022105562347289/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_lotus.jpg[height=600]

.<<li-hongzhi>> really turning into a proper Buddha, including https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_characteristics_of_the_Buddha[physical signs] such as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ushnisha[Ushnisha] on the head and the https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Physical_characteristics_of_the_Buddha&oldid=972021136#The_80_secondary_characteristics["ears as longs as lotus petals"]. <<bannedbook>> https://www.bannedbook.org/bnews/tculture/xiulian/20190123/1068931.html[source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_Buddha.jpg[height=400]

.Dubstep <<li-hongzhi,Li>> can <<flg-religion,liangong (练功)>> at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubstep[dubstep] speed. https://giphy.com/gifs/dubstep-gifs-dubstepgifs-xUOwFY1prqgUdPuFvW[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_dubstep.webp[height=400]

===== FLG is dangerous because Li Hongzhi has too much power over followers

Ciro agrees that there is danger in every religion, and especially new religions.

However the same point can be made about political parties and in particular the CCP and its chairman.

Couldn't a charismatic leader chairman gain more and more power (like Xi seems to be doing), and eventually start a war and kill millions? Or just kill some minority who is not happy about the situation.

Similarly, any charismatic leader of a pro-democracy movement could become the leader of a terrorist organization.

If you ever want democracy, you will have to learn to accept the beliefs of others, and only punish them when they actually break a law.

Finally, LHZ was born in 1951, so he will die in 20 years, unless FLG is true and a miracle happens, and then this argument will become invalid.

From what Ciro hears, LHZ has always maintained that he is the only source of truth on FLG (see also "The Guru is always right"), and therefore, so his death will very likely remove any danger once and for all.

Furthermore, it also seems to Ciro that FLG is clearly anti-violence and self-harm, so Ciro wonder how many would follow a contradictory order such as killing or suicide? We have had no hint of any incitation to violence so far.

It is also interesting to look into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown case. When the suicide order came, most people wanted out! Without physically controlling the followers, I don't think you can make them do much.

===== Li Hongzhi's hagiography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Hongzhi mentions that there are two versions of the biography:

* An unofficial biography appeared in the first of Li's major publications, <<flg-canon,Zhongguo Falun Gong>>, supposedly authored by journalist Zhu Huiguang (朱慧光).
+
The full text appears to be at available at: http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=130### (God bless <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> piracy, link:++https://web.archive.org/web/20200805093333/http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=130###++[archive])
+
<<benjamin-penny-the-life-and-times-of-li-hongzhi-2003>> gives the full title of the section + a translation (originally in pinyin, but why?!?! :-)):
+
____
法輪旋轉新天地-記李洪志先生和他創立的法輪功 +
"The wheel of the law revolves the new cosmos - on Li Hongzhi and the Falun Gong he founded".
____
* A second, official spiritual biography appeared in early editions of <<flg-canon,Falun Gong's primary text, Zhuan Falun>>.
+
It is shorter than the first, and is marked as authored by the "Falun Dafa Research Society's President" (法轮功研究会会长).
+
The Wiki quotes <<benjamin-penny-the-religion-of-falun-gong-2012>>.
+
Penny says that it was removed in 1999 (presumably to remove some more glaring magical bullshit help with internationalization).
+
A possible Chinese copy might be found at: http://qingqing.freebbs.tw/viewthread.php?tid=165### inside a 1994 version of Zhuan Falun.
+
The section is entitled "中国法轮功创始人、法轮功研究会会长 李洪志先生小传", so literally tranlated as a "profile" (小传) rather than a full biography. The index marks it as 附 (addendum), and it comes at the end of the book.

===== Let's make a mini series about Li Hongzhi's life

Ciro can't help but to imagine how Falun Gong came about in detail.

Someone should write a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Temptation_of_Christ_(novel)["The Last Temptation of Christ"].

This deserves an American miniseries like Chernobyl.

It would manage to piss off both FLG and the CCP, which would be amazing. It is a shame that it is so difficult to find good historical information between the infinite barrages of CCP and FLG propaganda.

It could show how:

* Li was an ordinary dude who could liked to play the trumpet, which partially explains his focus on <<falun-gong-media,Shen Yun>> and Falun Gong musical street parades
* Li first heard about Qi Gong, and went to practice it under some dude. Then how he saw other people were so into it, and decided to take this opportunity to make a career out of it during the 80's
* how he met his wife and had a daughter
* how he started to notice how people were feeling things during the exercise classes, and started suggesting more and more metaphysics to these first disciples
* Li could also have some metaphysical moment, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PW20LbwAmng but at the same time, he must tell his followers some lies which he does not believe
* how followers started telling others things and "experience sharing" where the cycle of belief stats to take off
* a clear demonstration of how "A group of early adopters in Changchun became disenchanted after Li forbade his followers from charging fees for the practice at the end of 1994" showing dissent within the cult
* and finally, the immigration and crackdown, and how he put his fingers on those things, and the creation of media, this could be the last episode

Episodes could be split along:

* Episode 1: pre Qi Gong, shows Childhood, workplaces, early motivations. Ends with first contact with a Qi Gong lesson
* Episode 2: early Falun Gong. Opens an academy. Starts without metaphysics, but grows into it. Show him knowingly lying, but also seething magic things. The first followers, and top lieutenants. Makes some management mistake, but escapes. Could end in a metaphysical scene, or 13 May 1992 initial public lesson. Maybe a scene of Li's visit to <<thailand>> in 1983 (photo from CCP media found on Google).
* Episode 3: later Falun Gong in China. It grows, show in Chinese news. Power struggles, problems with early lieutenants, and new lieutenants come up. Many people practice on streets. Battle against <<zhong-gong>>. Near 1996, something tips Li off to the fact that the CCP is going to crack down on them, and so he announces that he will be spreading abroad full time. Check out if this was before or after the first Anti FLG newspaper article in 1996-06-17.
* Episode 4: preaching outside of China and emigration. American permanent residence in 1998. Watches crackdown on television. International Falun Gong media. Show him at Falun Gong New York <<dragon-springs,"Dragon Springs">> complex

Parts of the series could be filmed in <<taiwan>> maybe?

Source material: <<history-of-falun-gong>>.

[[li-hongzhis-family]]
===== Li Hongzhi's family 李洪志的家庭

At least Jesus appeared to value chastity. He was even born from a virgin right? No sex around him at all.

But Li doesn't need that. He's a God right, he can both be an Enlightened God part time and still have a normal family part time.

Once thing Ciro approves about Li's approach to his family is that he seems to have stated (TODO source) that none of them are Gods like him.

Wife's name: Li Rui (李瑞 according to CCP). Report saying that a follower bought a house and registered it on Li Rui's name as a gift, but Li later returned the gift back: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB94140245836194819 TODO house address.

<<benjamin-penny-the-religion-of-falun-gong-2012>> gives further family members (some of them are based only on CCP sources however):

* daughter: Li Meige (李美歌) claims born 1982-06 on <<kaiwind>> http://www.kaiwind.com/anticult/kfgc/201311/05/t20131105_1188845.shtml says that she performs in <<shen-yun>> under the name "Christina Li" and even won awards. This Falun Gong sources confirm that a "Christina Li" was a Shen Yun lead dancer as of 2011, but does not confirm that she is the daughter of Li Hongzhi: https://www.theepochtimes.com/where-are-the-ancient-arts-of-china-part-4_1491935.html If this is true, talk about <<orange-papers,"different levels of truth">>! The article also claims that she has had other pseudonyms, including: "Annie Li" and "Li Jingjing" (李晶晶). Here are web archives of the now broken of course Shen Yun pages Kaiwand links to as evidence of her constant name changing (but no mention of her father):
** https://web.archive.org/web/20140727034323/http://dance.ntdtv.com/ct/archive/
** https://web.archive.org/web/20121211022246/zh-cn.shenyunperformingarts.org/artists/biography/view/WG3gbBQudOg
** possibly CCP sources report that Meige married in 2017, likely near the Falun Gong Day (13th May): e.g. http://www.saibeifeng.com/kfyd/201705/16/t20170516_5219554.shtml says many felicitation posts were posted on <<falun-gong-media,minghui>>, so this is likely widely known within the Falun Gong community, but the idiots who wrote that page don't know how to link to sources. Ciro could not find the groom's name.
* brothers and sisters, all younger:
** Li Jun (李君) older younger sister
** Li Ping (李平) younger younger sister
*** Notably, Li Ping's alleged husband Sun Senjun (孙森伦) is a Chinese-Thai, and allegedly wrote an account of Li Hongzhi's family in the 1980's "我与李洪志一家在泰国的日子——法轮功教主妹夫的自述" ("Diary's of being in <<thailand>> with Li Hongzhi's family") https://www.cp1897.com.hk/product_info.php?BookId=9789996590252[ISBN 9789996590252] This is reproduced on many CCP sources, e.g.: http://lihongzhidaqidi.blogspot.com/2013_09_27_archive.html but it is good reading if you take everything with a grain of salt, does sound believable. TODO find original publishing location. This appears to be an interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js0OyNwYw5A (watermarked <<kaiwind>> on top)
** Li Hui (AKA Li Donghui) younger brother
* father: Li Dan
* mother: Lu Shuzhen

There are also claims that Li's birth name was Li Lai (李來).

This claims to contain the biography of Li Hongzhi's family (likely all according to CCP sources), including several good pictures: https://kknews.cc/zh-hk/news/bbmz49.html The photo given there for Li Jun appears on this apparently FLG source without mention of the name: https://www.epochweekly.com/b5/103/5805.htm

.Li Hongzhi with his wife Li Rui and daughter Li Meige presumably in the late 80's with fishing ships in a shipyard in the background. TODO location. Likely from CCP sources, in many places with <<chinese-government-media,kaiwnd>> watermarks. http://www.toppk.net/art/2016/3/9/art_7328_304365.html[Anti-FLG source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Hongzhi_with_wife_and_daughter.jpg[height=400]

.Photo of Christina Li from Shen Yun, which the CCP claims to be Li Meige, daughter of Li Hongzhi. That page also claims that she was awarded Bronze in the 2009 and 2010 NDT Chinese Dance Competition. https://web.archive.org/web/20121211022246/zh-cn.shenyunperformingarts.org/artists/biography/view/WG3gbBQudOg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Meige_Shenyun.jpg[height=400]

[[dragon-springs]]
===== Dragon Springs (龙泉)

Li Hongzhi's Falun Gong complex in New York state countryside, where he lives, and organizes <<shen-yun>>.

https://goo.gl/maps/4bqt18CSBmFSekw89

Started in the 2000's in New York State with money donated by believers.

* http://www.dragonsprings.org/
* https://www.businessinsider.com/dragon-springs-falun-gong-upstate-new-york-compound-photos-2019-9
* 1999 https://apnews.com/420a741ec19c4db3993d408747874b2d "Falun Gong US compound's neighbors fret over expansion plans"

[[zhong-gong]]
=== Zhong Gong (中功,中华养生益智功)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhong_Gong
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华养生益智功

A very similar religion to <<falun-gong>>, that also emerged during the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong_fever[Qigong fever] (气功热) of the '80s and '90s.

Zhong Gong was the second most sucessful Qigong Boom religion after Falun Gong.

The similarity of their imagery as seen from propaganda videos is striking. To <<ciro-santilli>>, this makes Zhong Gong a perfect example of why <<does-ciro-santilli-believe-in-or-practice-falun-gong,FLG metaphysics is bullshit>>: it is obvious that both Zhong Gong and Falun Gong and many others were just random dudes who took advantage of the Qigong fever to create their religions.

Their prophet is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Hongbao[Zhang Hongbao] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/张宏堡[张宏堡]).

Interestingly, like <<li-hongzhi>>, Hongbao is also from the Northeast of China (Heilongjiang), there must be a reason why those Qi Gong movements come from that region.

Unlike Falun Gong however, Zhong Gong failed to branch the franchise out of China, and basically died out. Hongbao also died in a car crash in 2006 which didn't help. Li Hongzhi however played smarter, and started branching abroad full force in 1996, he likely predicted that the crackdown was inevitale.

Wikipedia says it reached 34 million followers in China.

Hongbao also has a more spicy history it seems, with sexual allegations and open political goals <<flg-political,unlike Li Hongzhi, who hid his goals better>>. Well played, Li, well played.

<<li-hongzhi>> maintains in <<flg-canon,canon>> that Falun Gong is of course extremely different from all of those other extremely similar Qi Gong religions. Zhong Gong is likely not mentioned by name, but it is also likely one of the main targets. E.g. in 1998 <<flg-canon,canon>> https://falundafa.org/eng/eng/lectures/19980329L.html[]:

____
Dafa can't be obtained lightly. For example, the diversity of cults and the number of false qigongs are large these days, and they lead people astray. Many people who are capable of cultivating get sucked into them, and some of them engage in suicide - it's a mess.
____

Zhong Gong videos:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX72zfEP_zs googd Zhong Gong playlist
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYH8Y_1UmrY&t=1445 Zhong Gong people "experience sharing". It truly is exactly like Falun Gong.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2GxSJK9c-A this appears to be positive mainstream media coverage of Zhong Gong
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ziluy_AlEI video of Hongbao giving a lecture dated 1994 and commented "Qiling kylin Tianhua culture"
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQKCtPSfdR4 video dated January 21st, 2007 of Monks praying after his death
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvJSzeY7Chw contains a bunch of what appear to be extremely low quality Zhong Gong propaganda videos. It is very similar to Falun Gong's of course.

The embassy spokesman says Chinese officials have ample evidence of sect leader Zhang Hongbao's involvement in crimes such as rape and murder.

.Zhang Honbao on a giant flying lotus reaching Enlightenment with a halo. It looks <<li-hongzhi-lotus,exactly like Falun Gong imagery>>. But of course, Zhong Gong is just a "completely unrelated and inferior sect" according to <<li-hongzhi>>. https://blog.boxun.com/hero/201102/tianhuaren/1_1.shtml[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Zhong_Gong_lotus.jpg[height=400]

[[zhong-gong-blue]]
.The blue background, the halos, the praying hands, the master Zhang Hongbao flying above. It is just exactly like <<flg-blue,Falun Gong imagery>>. https://www.chinacourt.org/article/detail/2018/08/id/3475129.shtml[Source] (<<chinese-government-media>>)
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Zhong_gong_blue.jpg[height=400]

[[flg-blue]]
.Hungarian <<falun-gong>> propaganda image with woman meditating in with blue sky background for comparison with <<zhong-gong-blue,similar Zhong Gong imagery>>. https://hu.faluninfo.eu/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Falun_Gong_sky_advertisement.jpg[height=400]

[[qigong-fever]]
==== Qigong fever Boom 气功热 (1980's)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qigong_fever

AKA Qigong Boom.

* https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/26268612 特异功能、法功灭火、铝锅传功……80年代的气功热究竟有多疯狂？ How crazy was the Qi Gong boom after all?

=== Falun Gong bibliography

* https://www.quora.com/Why-is-the-Chinese-government-against-Falun-Gong
* https://www.zhihu.com/question/23988890 at <<zhihu>>
* https://www.orange-papers further developed at: <<flg-cult>>

[[me-and-li-by-ben-hurley-2017]]
==== Me and Li by Ben Hurley (2017)

https://medium.com/@Ben_D_Hurley/-10677166298b "Me and Li" by Ben Hurley published on October 23, 2017.

This post by a former believer gives what <<ciro-santilli>> feels is a realistic account that matches Ciro's observations.

Interesting quotes:

* <<me-and-li-tumor>>

The following echoes "Different levels of truth" from <<orange-papers>>:

____
Most would find they had little in common with non-practitioners (“ordinary people” in Falun Gong parlance) but would maintain cordial relations with friends and family nonetheless, and think of various ways to explain the edge off some of Falun Gong’s less palatable teachings about aliens, how heaven views gay people, the inferiority of other religions and Master Li’s role in saving the universe.
____

[[history-of-falun-gong]]
==== History of Falun Gong 法轮功历史

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Falun_Gong
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/法輪功歷史

A few non-religious non-CCP resources can be found at:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Falun_Gong
* Sun Senjun's accounts from the 1980's, see: <<li-hongzhis-family>>

but those are very rare, because where else would the information come form, right?

Some key events:

* 1989: initial private beta courses. TODO key interesting moment.
* 1992-05-13: initial public lecture at the 1992 International Health Exposition in Beijing, and opening main academy on No. 5 Middle School in Changchun, Jilin Province (capital.
+
TODO what did he talk about on that Beijing day. This day still celebrated in 2020 as https://en.minghui.org/cc/36/["Falun Dafa Day"], in which the major international "<<orange-papers,Experience Sharing>> Conference" happens in New York.
+
He apparently also taught at Chaoyang Park in Changchun: https://goo.gl/maps/BFwKs2xr48AMUAbx8

[[benjamin-penny-the-life-and-times-of-li-hongzhi-2003]]
===== The Life and times of Li Hongzhi by Benjamin Penny (2003)

Free to read at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20059033

[[benjamin-penny-the-religion-of-falun-gong-2012]]
===== The Religion of Falun Gong by Benjamin Penny (2012)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0226655016

A freely downloadable paper with a subset of the book: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20059033.pdf

The author: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Penny is an Australian researcher, https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/penny-bdc

[[politicians]]
== Chinese politicians 中国政治家

[[xi-jinping]]
=== Xi Jinping (习近平, 2012-∞, Heil卐!)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/习近平

[[xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03]]
==== Xi abolishes term limits (习近平取消席连任不得超过两届的限制规则, 2018-03)

* 包子露宪 https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/03/phrase-week-steamed-bun-betrays-constitution
* https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-term-limit-explainer.html

.<<rebel-pepper>> cartoon showing Xi Jinping preparing to sleep in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mausoleum_of_Mao_Zedong[Mao Zedong's tomb], meaning that Xi also wants to reach Mao's "eternal ruler" status when he abolished term limits in 2018. https://www.rfa.org/english/cartoons/XiJinping-Eternity-cartoon-02282018104813.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_sleep_Mao.jpg[height=400]

.1977 photo showing Mao's actual glass tomb during his funeral, with famous politicians in the background. It is interesting to see that Mao https://mummipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Mao_Zedong[features on the "Fandom Mummipedia Wiki"]. https://apnews.com/a94a0d7a824b474fb11545e8c4481c21[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mao_coffin.jpeg[height=400]

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist[The Economist] "Let's party like it's 1793" cover from May 4th – 10th 2013 depicting a painting of Xi Jinping dressed as emperor of China. The famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Empero[Qianlong Emperor] was in power at that time. The title is likely a joke based on the more well known https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/party-like-its-1969-woodstock-forty-years-on-1722695.html["Let's party like it's 1969"] due to the legendary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock[Woodstock festival]. Party is also a play on words between the Communist Party and a night party. TODO why 1793 specifically. https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/329929668155293696[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Lets_party_like_its_1793.jpg[height=600]

[[panama-papers]]
==== Panama papers (巴拿马文件, 2016)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/巴拿馬文件

Leak of financial data implicating <<corruption,many corruption scandals>>.

Mentions <<xi-jinping>>'s brother-in-law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Jiagui[Deng Jiagui] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/邓家贵[邓家贵]).

See also <<ciro-santilli>>'s answer to https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-net-worth-of-Xi-Jinping/answer/Ciro-Santilli[What is the net worth of Xi Jinping?] answer on <<quora>>.

[[xi-jinping-memes]]
==== Xi Jinping memes 习近平模因

* 習包子: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=29230 says:
+
____
Xi Jinping got his nickname as "Xi baozi 習包子" ("<<buns,steamed stuffed bun Xi>>") due to the much publicized visit he made to the famous Qìngfēng bāozi pù 庆丰包子铺 ("Qingfeng baozi shop") in Beijing. During and after his visit to the shop, media swarmed over the place and were eager to portray an image of Xi as being down to earth and close to the people. Those who dislike Xi use this nickname sarcastically against him for being a hick and for hypocritically "putting on a show" (zuòxiù 作秀).
____
+
See also: <<buns>>.
* 大撒币: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=29230 says:
+
____
It can be translated as "big spender," a play on the literal translation of the words sā bì 撒币 "throw money" and "stupid cunt" (shǎ bī 傻逼). The nickname takes aim at the economic aid Xi has promised to foreign countries; the moniker is so widely used on Chinese social media that the censors' repressive measures only draw more attention to it, and to the criticism embedded within it.
____
+
See also: <<shitpost>>.

[[xi-jinping-lookalikes]]
===== Xi Jinping Lookalikes 习近平撞脸

.2019-05-21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadomasochism[Sadomasochist] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BDSM[BDSM] (SM) Xi Jinping lookalike or photoshop in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondage_suit[bondage suit] (gimp suit, fetish gear) at a cosplay fair. TODO: is this a Photoshop and if yes what's the original pic, publish dates, location/event. Earliest post found so far: 2019-05-21 08:49:20 GMT+1 (Imgur timestamp) going wild on <<ptt>>: https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/joke/M.1558454171.A.5C9.html[] entitled "這位coser是誰啊？好眼熟。" (Who is this Cosplayer? He looks familiar.) by user "a15568". Watermark reads "I am Dasen 郭". Notable discussion threads: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ckgs5l/xi_jinping_took_to_the_streets_to_demonstrate_his/[r/China 2019-08-01], https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ke4hde/nice_pic_i_found/[r/China 2020-12-16], https://www.reddit.com/r/HongKong/comments/ckjf65/gee_i_am_sure_chairman_xi_will_really_appreciate/[2019-08-01]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_sadomasochist.jpg[height=500]

.2020-01-01 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shengjian_mantou[Pan-fried dumpling] Xi Jinping lookalike 生煎包习近平撞脸. Furthermore, this reminded people of <<xi-jinping-memes,習包子>>. A <<taiwan,Taiwanese>> report from 2020-01-01: https://news.tvbs.com.tw/world/1257030 TODO name, location. One of the many videos of him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTt8Sjer6cc[]
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mantou_Xi_lookalike.jpg[height=400]

[[liu-keqing-singer]]
.2020-05-12 Liu Keqing (刘克清) is an opera singer who had his personal videos on <<tiktok>> taken down from time to time because he looks too much like <<xi-jinping,The One>>. https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2020/05/【立此存照】只因太像习近平？歌唱家刘克清形/[China Digital Times report]. One of his personal vlogs reuploaded to YouTube where he shared singing techniques and thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPFKUhJdqzk[]. A video of him performing professionally in a chamber concert: 2018-11-02 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z98-Mqci4ag[].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Liu_Keqing_singer_Xi_lookalike.jpeg[height=400]

Less good ones:

* 2014-06-23 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-27926747/meet-the-chinese-presidential-pancake-seller "Shao Jianhua" TODO Chinese name, name of dish he sells. Too young and not fat enough.

[[winnie-the-pooh]]
===== Comparisons between Xi Jinping and Winnie-the-Pooh 小熊維尼 (2017)

Got censored due to comparisons between Xi Jinping and Winnie in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh#Censorship_in_China

Thailand has their own version: <<thai-king-hamtaro>>.

In <<xi-dada>> we see that a <<peoples-daily>> video actually interviews someone who mentions that, so the meme has had a positive connotation at least some point in the past.

Some good photoshops:

.Comparison image between Xi Jinping waking with then USA president https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama[Barack Obama] with a Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon still of Winnie walking with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigger[Tigger, the tiger]. The original photo is from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-09/obama2c-xi-forge-rapport-in-debut-summit/4742616[Xi's 2013 visit to the Annenberg Retreat at Sunnylands, California]. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/17/oh-bother-chinese-censors-block-winnie-pooh-meme-comparing-xi/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Pooh_Obama.webp[height=400]

.Comparison image between Xi Jinping shaking hands with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinzo_Abe[the Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe] and a Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon still of Winnie shaking hands with the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eeyore[Eeyore, the donkey]. The original photo is from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/11/world/asia/leaders-of-china-and-japan-hold-long-awaited-meeting.html[Abe's lacklustre 2014 visit to Beijing]. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Abe_Pooh.webp[height=400]

.Comparison image between Xi Jinping on a car in a 2015 military parade and a toy Winnie-the-Pooh on a car. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-40627855[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Pooh_car.jpg[height=400]

.Real photo of Xi Jinping edited to look like Winnie the Pooh. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/dcabzh/this_image_of_xi_jiping_as_winnie_the_pooh_is/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Pooh_Photoshop.webp[height=400]

[[xi-dada]]
====== Xi Dada (习大大, 2015)

Benevolent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personification[personification] of <<xi-jinping>>. Part of the <<ccp-cult>>.

2015-09-23 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-china-blog-34338832 "Who is Xi Dada"?

That article comments on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnRo9AMT8FI "Who is Xi Dada?" by <<peoples-daily>> (2015-09-23) in which several foreign students in China praise <<xi-jinping>> in English. https://youtu.be/PnRo9AMT8FI?t=47 notably states: "They also refer to him as <<winnie-the-pooh,Winnie-the-Pooh>>". Priceless.

What does dada mean: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-Xí-Jìnpíng-called-Xí-Dàdà

Some other sources:

* 2015-03-08 https://cn.nytimes.com/china/20150308/c08xi/ ""习大大"再次燃起中国人的领袖崇拜之情" (Xi Dada reignties Chinese Leader's cult once again)

.Golden heart shaped souvenir with a picture of Xi Jinping that was sold in <<tiananmen,Tiananmen Square>> in 2018. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/26/endowing-role-endless-rule-shows-xis-imperial-ambitions/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_heart.jpeg[height=400]

.Xi Jinping in 2019 wearing his cute compassionate face. Do you think that such a cute cute North-Westerner 东北人 would ever to terrible things like <<xinjiang,commiting cultural genocide of a million people>> or <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,trying to become ruler for life>>? Impossible, it must be <<evil-west,American lies>>.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_dada.jpg[height=400]

[[chrysanthemium-xi-jinping]]
===== Chrysanthemium Xi Jinping (菊花习近平, 2015)

Got creator Dai Jianyong (戴建勇) arrested in 2015:

* https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/chinese-artist-who-posted-funny-image-of-president-xi-jinping-facing-five-years-in-prison-as-10282630.html
* https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/artist-detained-after-posting-humorous-photo-of-xi-jinping/

.Chrysanthemum Xi Jinping with <<tiananmen,六四>> spice added by Ciro Santilli
image::{cirosantilli-media-base}/Chrysanthemum_Xi_Jinping_with_black_red_liusi_added_by_Ciro_Santilli.jpg[height=400]

.Original Chrysanthemum Xi Jinping by Dai Jianyong published in 2015. https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2015/05/artist-detained-after-posting-humorous-photo-of-xi-jinping/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Chrysanthemum_Xi.jpeg[height=400]

[[xi-jinping-portrait-blue]]
.Possible original Xi Jinping photo used for Chrysanthemum Xi, possibly from 2012. The light blue gradient background was used for the official photos of many Communist officials of the era. https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_2112111,00.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_portrait_2012.jpg[height=400]

[[xi-jinping-thought]]
==== Xi Jinping Thought (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想, 2017)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping_Thought
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想

Added to the Constitution in preparation for <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,eternal rule>>.

<<xi-jinping>>'s <<little-red-book>>.

Online video version courtesy of <<xinhua>>: http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/xjpsxkj/index.html[]. Contains <<ccp-cult,devotional>> videos, not text: http://www.xinhuanet.com/politics/xjpsxkj/1.html

Notably, it consists of 14 chapters, which are called "talks" (讲), e.g. the first talk (第一讲) etc. This is exactly like <<li-hongzhi>>'s <<flg-canon,Zhuan Falun>> (and likely like other ancient Chinese religious texts).

.<<ccp-cult,Devotional>> image of <<xi-jinping>> on the cover of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Governance_of_China[The Governance of China] (link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/习近平谈治国理政[习近平谈治国理政], 2020) book which is part of <<xi-jinping-thought>>. The similarity to <<li-hongzhi>> devotional images <<li-hongzhi-lotus,is striking>>. Related: <<xi-halo>>. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Governance-China-Xi-Jinping/dp/1602204098[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Xi_Jinping_The_Governance_of_China.jpg[height=400]

[[two-safegards]]
===== Two safegards (两个维护, 2018)

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/兩個維護

Part of <<newspeak,Xi-speak>>.

[[jiang-zemin]]
=== Jiang Zemin (江泽民, 1989-2002)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Zemin | https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/江泽民

<<dictatorship,Dictator>> from 1989 to 2002.

Jiang is often compared to a toad in a meme what is referred to as toad worship (膜蛤), further keywords: 蛤蟆

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toad_worship
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/膜蛤文化

The Chinese also love Jiang's quote in English during an interview with Hong Kong press:

____
Too young, too simple, sometimes naive.
____

.https://youtube.com/watch?v=y-JPLzj2poY Jiang Zemin saying "Too simple, sometimes naive."
video::y-JPLzj2poY[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=57]

Jiang also has an amazing array of meme-ready funny expressions.

.Comparison between Jiang Zemin and a 72-feet-tall inflatable toad in a Beijing park seen in 2014 made the rounds on Weibo and led to some <<censorship,censorship>>. https://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/01/world/asia/toad-jiang-zemin/index.html[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jiang_Zemin_frog.jpg[height=400]

.Jiang picking his nose. https://pieceofmindful.com/2013/12/12/chinese-exceptionalism/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jiang_Zemin_nose_picking.jpg[height=400]

.Jiang reading through comically large magnifying glass during the opening ceremony of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_National_Congress_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China[19th Party Congress] in 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/18/back-from-the-dead-chinas-internet-goes-wild-over-youthful-jiang-zemin[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jaign_zemin_magnify.jpg[height=400]

.More Jiang funny expressions and Photoshops from a Research Gate page! https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Jiang-as-emoticons-often-used-in-chats_fig4_325864518[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Jiang_Zemin_emoticons_montage.png[height=400]

[[deng-xiaoping]]
=== Deng Xiaoping 邓小平 (1982-1987)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deng_Xiaoping
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/邓小平

[[mao-zedong]]
=== Mao Zedong 毛泽东 (1954–1976)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/毛泽东

What could be a better reminder that <<xi-jinping,dictatorships are dangerous>> than the catastrophes that Mao created such as the <<great-leap-forward>> and <<cultural-revolution>>?

.Mao Zedong in Yan'an in the 1930's thinking deeply. This funny looking picture is meme ready and https://uncyclopedia.ca/wiki/Chairman_Mao[much loved by Uncyclopedia]. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mao_Zedong_in_Yan%27an.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mao_Zedong_in_Yanan.jpg[height=400]

[[little-red-book]]
==== Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Little Red Book, 毛主席语录, 1976)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_Tse-tung
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/毛主席语录

<<mao-zedong>>'s <<flg-canon>>. Like <<li-hongzhi>>'s, also extracted from talks, see also: <<ccp-cult>>.

[[hundred-flowers-campaign]]
==== Hundred Flowers Campaign 百花齐放 (1956-1957)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Flowers_Campaign
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/百花齐放、百家争鸣

Some possible quotes from Mao saying that people should be able to protest, original share: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/i2z5ss/maos_propaganda_poster_saying_protest_and_strike/

____
允许群众示威。 +
Citizens should be allowed to protest.
____

claims from from some 毛泽东选集第五卷 (selected works from Mao Zedong) in speech from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8th_Central_Committee_of_the_Communist_Party_of_China[8th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China]. https://twitter.com/shijianxingzou/status/1158421996755128323 mentions the anthology was published in 1977.

Even <<pro-chinese-government-media,kknews>> confirms: https://kknews.cc/zh-my/news/ql9k4ag.html

<<liu-shihui-one-party-rule>> also comes to mind.

[[great-leap-forward]]
==== Great Leap Forward 大跃进 (1958-1960)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/大跃进

.A high tower of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wax_gourd[winter gourds] "冬瓜上高楼" propaganda poster for the Great Leap Forward by https://chineseposters.net/artists/jinmeisheng.php[Jin Meisheng] published in 1959. <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect,Even in democracies>>, politicians promise the fat gourds. But when there is <<censorship,no free media to control their>> lies, things can get really out of hand. http://www.iisg.nl/exhibitions/chairman/chn11.php[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Winter_gourd.jpg[height=600]

.Communist Children Catch Pokemon: the true meaning of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union[CCCP]. Edited from the original poster with a <<little-red-book>> instead of Pokeball and no "CCCP" shown at <<https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/360428776411504491/ By Volaran Cadires. https://www.pinterest.fr/pin/405253666454984678/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Communist_children_catch_pokemon.jpg[height=600]

[[cultural-revolution]]
==== Cultural Revolution 文化大革命 (1966-1976)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/文化大革命

.https://youtube.com/watch?v=kXByOrRrO7c Vox 6 minute explanation with some good footage for impatient Millennials, published on Feb 14, 2020.
video::kXByOrRrO7c[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[mao-swim]]
===== Mao swim across the Yangtze river (毛主席畅游长江, 1966-07-16)

https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/毛主席畅游长江

Good <<scmp>> article: https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/1999098/chairman-maos-historic-swim-glorified-china

Mao claimed to have set a swimming record by swimming 15km in 65 minutes at the age of 72 at the Yangtze in Wuhan, or an average of 13.8 km/h.

As a comparison, the Olympic swimmers of 2016 covered the lesser distance of 10 km in 113 minutes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimming_at_the_2016_Summer_Olympics_–_Men%27s_marathon_10_kilometre for an average of 5.3 km/h.

According to https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311977913_Analysis_of_the_characteristics_of_offshore_currents_in_the_Changjiang_Yangtze_River_estuarine_waters_based_on_buoy_observations[this article], the maximum current speed of the Yantze is 128.5 cm/s or 4.62 km/h so even if he were swimming with the current, Mao was faster.

Dictatorships would never lie about obviously verifiable facts, would they?

And idiots today still celebrate this event that preceded the <<cultural-revolution>> which put China's economy in shambles.

<<superputin>> learnt from this and also showed off his swimming skills in 2009.

.https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1966-10_1966年毛泽东游长江2.jpg[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Mao_swim_wave.jpg[height=400]

[[news]]
== News 新闻

Trying to keep only "neutral" sources here, let me know if you spot something too biased: <<biased-media>>.

How I find them: <<anti-ccp-info-sources>>.

=== News 2020

* 2020-01 https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3045657/china-human-rights-activist-ding-jiaxi-under-investigation one more human rights person Ding Jiaxi. The list is endless, should we care?

=== News 2019

* 2019-12-18 Fudan University in China removes "freedom of thought" from university charters, students protes
* 2019-10-16 https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/10/16/gitlab_employees_gagged/ GitLab prevents employees from discussing politics at work, and will not veto clients. This is not confirmed, but I guess it is very likely in reply to the <<2019-hong-kong-anti-extradition-bill-protests>> given the timing. The https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/30656[merge request] (https://web.archive.org/web/20191017080216/https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/merge_requests/30656[archive]).
* Twitter to block operations by oppressive foreign state media
** https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/information_operations_directed_at_Hong_Kong.html Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/csodbt/twitter_suspends_nearly_1000_accounts_connected/
** https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/advertising_policies_on_state_media.html Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/csnsyn/twitter_policy_change_we_will_not_accept/
* 2019-07-12 https://www.apnews.com/a2584de07c014e4786a21bcf9f446a40 "37 countries rally around China at top UN human rights body"
** <<biased-media,(biased)>> http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/15/c_138229200.htm
** the full scanned letter: https://twitter.com/KevinPinner/status/1151868854781526016
* 2019-07-02 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/02/chinese-border-guards-surveillance-app-tourists-phones "Chinese border guards put secret surveillance app on tourists' phones"
* 2019-04-28 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-48084019 Hong Kong: Thousands protest against China extradition law
** https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/auqkdl/biotech_giant_thermo_fisher_stops_selling_dna/
* 2019-01 https://www.apnews.com/40f7cf4c0c6e43f18121af93f1e418f7 Microsoft Bing https://www.bing.com/ search engine blocked in China
* 2019-01 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/business/china-internet-censor.html interview with Beyondsoft, a company that offers censorship services

[[nine-nine-six-icu]]
==== 996.ICU

https://github.com/996icu/996.ICU

Repository published in 2019-04 protesting against excessive work hours by Chinese programmers.

The name refers to:

* "996": work from 9AM to 9PM 6 days a week. This is part of a wider tendency of Chinese netizens to use <<internet-number-slang>>
* "ICU": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intensive_care_unit[Intensive Care Unit]

Reached 180k stars in a week, and was the second most starred repository as of 2019-10 https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E100&s=stars&type=Repositories[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20191023084929/https://github.com/search?q=stars%3A%3E100&s=stars&type=Repositories[archive])!!!

This is therefore the best example for Chinese tech workers that <<richer,freedom of speech is a good thing>>.

Coverage:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/b927sk/tencent_xiaomi_and_others_block_github_page/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/b8t8cc/overworked_chinese_developers_gather_on_github_to/

Other interesting GitHub repositories: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

.996.ICU logo. https://github.com/996icu[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/996ICU.png[height=400]

=== News 2018

* 2018-08 https://theintercept.com/2018/08/08/google-censorship-china-blacklist/
* 2018-06 https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/06/china-bans-online-mention-of-john-oliver-after-he-mocks-chinas-president/ https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6m5b3o
* 2018-05 https://www.whatsonweibo.com/public-shaming-of-drug-users-in-guangdong-drug-related-crimes-in-family-painted-on-houses/
* 2018-04 https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-china-lawmaking/china-makes-defaming-revolutionary-heroes-punishable-by-law-idUKKBN1HY16C
* 2018-04 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/congressional-leaders-urge-us-to-press-china-over-reports-of-mass-uighur-detentions/2018/04/05/9bd17c90-38b3-11e8-b57c-9445cc4dfa5e_story.html
* 2018-03 https://supchina.com/2018/03/29/no-tattoos-at-the-2018-strawberry-music-festival-in-hangzhou/ Funny pics at: https://app.myzaker.com/news/article.php?f=xiongzhang&pk=5ac0eb1877ac6465da676481
* 2018-02 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/25/world/asia/china-xi-jinping.html
* 2018-02 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/25/at-least-120000-muslim-uighurs-held-in-chinese-re-education-camps-report
* 2018-01 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/19/outspoken-chinese-human-rights-lawyer-yu-wensheng-arrested
* 2018-01 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-politics/hong-kong-activist-banned-from-by-election-in-what-pro-democracy-party-calls-payback-idUSKBN1FG06P
* 2018-01 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/world/asia/china-church-dynamite.html
* 2018-01 https://uk.businessinsider.com/china-marriott-tweets-censorship-2018-1?r=US&IR=T Marriott lists <<taiwan,Taiwan>> as country on the website
* 2018-01 http://chuangcn.org/2018/01/the-mastermind/
* 2018-01 https://time.com/5112061/china-hip-hop-ban-tattoos-television/

=== News 2017

* 2017-12 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/25/world/asia/china-wu-gan-sentence.html
* 2017-11 https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/7a7hf9/the_worlds_largest_academic_publisher_blocks/ Springer nature pulls sensitive articles. TODO article list.
* 2017-09 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/business/china-whatsapp-blocked.html
* 2017-08 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-muslim-minority-school-language-ban-han-xinjiang-uyghur-hotan-hetian-government-communist-a7873446.html
* 2017-07 https://qz.com/1056938/cambridge-university-press-china-quarterly-complies-with-censorship-removes-300-articles-on-topics-like-tiananmen-and-tibet-in-china/ Book list: https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/file/59970028145fd05f66868bf5?utm_content=bufferb652b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20170905214500/https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-file-manager/file/59970028145fd05f66868bf5?utm_content=bufferb652b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
* 2017-07 https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/29/apple-removes-vpn-apps-from-the-app-store-in-china/
* 2017-07 https://shanghaiist.com/2017/07/26/liu-xia-home-visit.php
* 2017-06 https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/ordered-05092017155554.html Uyghurs studying abroad ordered to return to China
* 2017-06 httsp://mashable.com/2017/06/23/china-bans-livestreaming/#FJ4h.sLYQqq9
* 2017-05 https://qz.com/989454/a-chinese-students-commencement-speech-at-the-university-of-maryland-praising-fresh-air-and-democracy-is-riling-chinas-internet/
* 2017-05 https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1000233/at-wedding-market%2C-mothers-of-gays-and-lesbians-face-resistance
* 2017-05 https://ktar.com/story/1564381/ap-exclusive-china-lawyers-family-says-us-helped-them-flee
* 2017-04 https://chinachange.org/2017/05/03/breaking-lawyer-chen-jiangang-with-family-and-two-friends-seized-by-armed-police-in-yunnan/
* 2017-03 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-39137293 "China congress: BBC team forced to sign confession"

[[low-end-population]]
==== Low-end population (低端人口, 2017)

* https://qz.com/1138395/low-end-population-what-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-crackdown-on-migrant-workers/

=== News 2016

* 2016-11 https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/5ai1s6/chinese_citizen_arrested_after_wearing_xitler/ https://wqw2010.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/101.html Possible Twitter: https://twitter.com/kwonpyong
* 2016-09: https://qz.com/783026/china-censorship-chinese-citizens-are-being-arrested-for-sharing-news-about-the-wukan-village-rebellion-online/ https://qz.com/781989/foreign-journalists-are-wanted-for-3000-by-chinese-authorities-for-inciting-unrest-in-a-village/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wukan_protests
* 2016-06 https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jun/28/china-lady-gaga-ban-list-hostile-foreign-forces-meeting-dalai-lama
* 2016-06 https://github.com/github/gov-takedowns/blob/78775b09e64d85f08547287cab204b48b2491192/China/2016/2016-06-08-programthink-zhao.md first GitHub takedown, see also: <<programthink>>
* 2016 https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/world/asia/china-britain-queen-xi-jinping.html?_r=0 "Queen Elizabeth II Says Chinese Officials Were 'Very Rude' on State Visit"
* 2016 https://shanghaiist.com/2016/05/06/dont_eat_that_banana.php Sexy banana eating forbidden
* 2016-04 https://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2016/01/26/china-threatens-sanctions-against-u-s-companies-is-this-the-future/ China economic sanctions companies that sell weapons to <<taiwan,Taiwan>> (some of those companies also sell civilian products to China)
* 2016-04 https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-demands-shutdown-disneylife-service-887599 Disney Life blocked
* 2016-04 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-demands-shutdown-apples-film-886831 Apple iTunes and iBooks blocked
* 2016 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-35968855 China's '<<gfw,Great Firewall>>' blocks its creator
* 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/mar/04/china-bans-gay-people-television-clampdown-xi-jinping-censorship gay depiction banned on television
* 2016 https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-35496562 Armani Communist - https://www.ibtimes.com/xi-jinping-wants-overhaul-image-chinas-rich-kids-1961207 - first section of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKQ5ijFZ_j8
* 2016 https://freebeacon.com/national-security/chinese-defector-reveals-beijings-secrets/ Ling Wancheng defects
* 2016 https://chinachange.org/2016/01/21/activist-in-xinjiang-sentenced-to-19-years-for-online-writings-and-rights-activities/ Zhang Haitao (张海涛) faces 19 years in jail for his blog posts
* 2016 https://money.cnn.com/2016/01/20/technology/facebook-android-tor/ Facebook Android app implements Tor option
* 2016 https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/41y6ig/hong_kong_movie_predicts_dark_future_for_city/ Honk Kong (2016) movie

=== News 2015

* 2015-11 https://technode.com/2015/11/24/surge-advanced-proxy-tool-ios-pulled-app-store/
* 2015-09 https://www.hongkongfp.com/2015/09/03/in-pictures-censored-memes-search-terms-and-images-from-chinas-wwii-parade/
* 2015 https://news.vice.com/article/the-missing-hong-kong-booksellers-family-isnt-buying-his-televised-confession Gui Minhai, 51, from publisher Mighty Current who was going to publish a book about <<xi-jinping>>'s love life.
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gui_Minhai
** 2020: stenced to 10 years https://www.hongkongfp.com/2020/02/25/bookseller-gui-minhai-jailed-10-years-china-illegally-providing-intelligence-overseas-parties
** Lam Wing-kee (林榮基) is another one of the detained booksellers of the Causeway Bay Books group
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lam_Wing-kee
*** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHq0f_eGLhE 2016 interview in freedom
*** https://china-journal.org/2019/04/27/abducted-hong-kong-bookseller-has-fled-to-taiwan-to-avoid-extradition-to-china/
* <<taiwan-number-one>>
* 2015 Taiwanese beauty queen kicked out of Miss Earth pageant for refusing to change `Taiwan ROC' sash to `Chinese Taipei' https://shanghaiist.com/2015/11/23/miss-earth-ting-wen-yin.php
* 2015 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/speech-enables-speech-china-takes-aim-its-coders https://github.com/shadowsocks/shadowsocks shadowsocks creator threatened
* 2015 https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34630829 Lego refuses to sell to Ai Weiwei
* 2015 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/world/asia/china-bao-zhuoxuan-son-wang-yu-rights-lawyer-house-arrest.html Bao Zhuoxuan 16-year old son of human rights layer in house arrest

[[the-709-crackdown]]
==== 709 crackdown 中國709維權律師大抓捕事件 (2015)

* https://en.wi