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The perilous shift in U.S. weapons sales to Taiwan - US selling weapons that threaten mainland (mronline.org)

submitted 5 days ago by frisbird@lemmy.ml to c/china@sopuli.xyz

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[–] Hotznplotzn@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, the 95% approval rating is a famous study. Sure, what else would Chinese people express other than approval of their government if and when asked? Everyone who even slightly criticizes the Chinese Communist Party would forcibly disappear.

However, when Chinese citizens are surveyed anonymously, support for party and government plummets.

Chinese citizens who rarely voice open criticism of their government reveal stronger negative views when they can answer questions anonymously, according to a new study published in The China Quarterly.

The study by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences shows an enormous drop in citizen support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and government policies when citizens are surveyed using a method that hides their identities and makes them feel more anonymous than a typical survey.

[–] frisbird@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago

Again. Living in a fantasy world. People in China criticize the party all the time. There are protests all over the country. Hell, there are protests in Xinjiang. And they're live streamed, recorded and posted, and no one is being disappeared for that.

Reading this report from Cambridge is very much like reading clear popaganda. It claims to be an impartial journal, but the first thing it does is it uses the incorrect name of the party. The party's official name is the Communist Party of China, which follows a long tradition of communist party naming convention. The journal uses the Chinese Communist Party, which is not the name of the party.

Then it says that the Harvard study "routinely appears in Chinese propaganda", as though a 15 year study conducted by one of the most prestigious universities in the world is somehow to be doubted as Chinese propaganda. This is not missed.

It then uses the phrase "tendency for citizens in an autocracy to conceal political opinions". Again, not missed. China is not an autocracy. It is a bureaucracy. A vast bureaucracy. Xi does not wield absolute power. He was elected in parliamentary process. Hu was not an autocrat. Jiang was not an autocrat. Xi didn't abolish the bureaucracy. Xi didn't abolish local governments. The idea that China is an autocracy makes me think these authors have no integrity whatsoever.

Further, the list experiments in this report conflate willingness to protest with non-support of the party. I think it's obvious that this is a contrived conclusion. There are protests all over the world by people who support their government.

"the survey as administered through the internet" and "recruited approximately 2000 people".

The Harvard study included face to face interviews and covered more than 31k people in both urban and rural settings.

This report you've linked certainly requires follow up but it absolutely does not invalidate the work of the Ash Center.