China's imperialism and domestic repression

["Alan G. Isaac" <aisaac@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Come clean Henry.  When I note how you defend China's hegemonic
and imperialistic tendencies, you (just as I predicted) try to
play fast and lose with notions of nationhood.  When you try
the Orwellian double-speak of describing the entry of the
People's Liberation Army as ``liberating'' Hong Kong,
I gave you a direct challenge. I said:
>> This is the perversion of language in the service of ideology.
>> The day I hear you offer a serious critism of China political
>> repressions, including the recent slaughter of thousands of
>> citizens who dared to suggest that China is ready for greater
>> individual liberties, I will start to believe otherwise.

On Fri, 20 Apr 2001, Henry C.K. Liu wrote in response:
> Your definition of political oppression is a mere bias of Western liberalism, of
> which ironically you are not even sympathetic, being the resident libertarian
> fanatic on pkt that you are.   China has raised the standard of living of its
> people at a rate unprecedented in modern history. I indeed have criticized the
> Chinese government on many issues including the disparity of income distribution
> in the past two decade and excessive move toward market capitalism, but not on
> this list since this is not a China list and not along the line Alan does for
> obvious reasons.

This of course ducks the question.  Come clean.  Either be an
unembarrassed apologist for political repression, or accept
that Western liberalism *expresses* values shared across
cultures.  Your effort to *equate* these values to Western
liberalism is nothing more than apologetics for oppression.
The Tiananmen Square protests made this very clear.
Please stop this dervish dance of pretending to
respond while never condemning what any reasonable person
recognizes as atrocious.

> Western liberalism came out of the unique tradition of European enlightenment.
> It is neither universal truth or universally desirable.  The use of Western
> notions of "democracy" and "freedom" as tools of imperialist oppression is
> indeed obscene.

What is obscene, Henry, is the pretense that notions of
``democracy'' and ``freedom'' are nothing more than tools
of imperialist oppression.

Alan