Disappeared critic abroad emerges in Chinese detention center ( safeguarddefenders.com )

On 24 August, James Lin, a human rights activist in the Netherlands, posted a notification of arrest issued on 7 July by the affiliated sub-bureau directly under the Hengyang Public Security Bureau. It states that Yang has been arrested on charges of “inciting subversion of the state power” and is currently detained at the Hengyang Youth Detention Center. It shows that the Laos government had allowed the arrest to take place, as outlined in Safeguard Defenders’ more detailed post on his arrest in the Laotian capital by both Chinese and Laotian police officers.

The CCP’s involuntary returns operations on foreign soil directly threaten the safety of Chinese activists living in exile and host countries’ national and judicial sovereignty. Victims of China’s involuntary returns will not be given a fair trial, human rights activists say.

raccoona_nongrata ,
@raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org avatar

What an absolute nightmare not just for James Lin, but his family who can do nothing real to petition on his behalf without risking also being labeled criminals. They literally have to issue statements essentially apologizing on his behalf rather than fighting for his freedom.

I’ve run across people who have tried to convince me that China has a normal government, or that places like the US are “just as bad so it’s ok” but this highlights pretty clearly how it is not the same. The Chinese government is not a normal government, it is still the same government that crushed its own people with tanks, and we should never allow this kind of treatment of people be normalized.

InvertedParallax ,

It’s astroturfing, coupled with some extreme leftist groups (tankies) who actually believe because they’ve never been there.

raccoona_nongrata ,
@raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org avatar

I wouldn’t even consider tankies extreme left, they’re more or less identical to right-wing authoritarians in terms of the reality of what they’re defending.

The two groups use different labels and superficially different rhetoric but the political solutions they advocate are very much the same (authority through violence, the abolishing of human rights, silencing of speech etc.) You can’t really be to the left and advocate those kinds of things, they’re antithetical.

InvertedParallax ,

I’ve seriously never seen anything like them, I thought they didn’t exist except in the sexual snuff fantasies of hardcore preppers.

I thought the guys on reddit were exaggerating to an insane degree, never imagined they were underselling them.

The literal worst of both worlds.

raccoona_nongrata ,
@raccoona_nongrata@beehaw.org avatar

If you think about it it kinds of makes sense, they’re essentially the MAGA of China. It would be more strange if such an authoritarian nation like China that is hyper-focused on monitoring speech and manipulating public narrative *didn’t * have some kind of deluded super-nationalistic demographic.

I think the skepticism of their prevalence from the outside is understandable and happens because A) hardcore prepper types do tend to be melodramatic, often mixing in racism and applying terms like tankie in bad faith and B) the tankie’s themselves can often operate in a lowkey way in english-speaking communities. They can’t go into a community and immediately start advocating bloody dismantling of democracy, so it’s not immediately apparent how extreme they are until confronted with something that criticizes or contradicts the Chinese government and the like. Like Russian trolls, I don’t get the impression that they really have any issues pretending to be someone else to stir up chaos.

InvertedParallax ,

Yeah, you’re on it, I’m just amazed how blatantly mask-off they are when comfortable, this is sobering as hell.

liv ,

they’re essentially the MAGA of China

Demographically a lot of them are teenage girls and women in their 20s. The “Little Pink Army”. So it’s like if MAGA was fuelled by the same passion, energy and stamina that fuels a lot of pop star fandom.

renard_roux ,

The scale goes from left to right, but most people don’t realize the ends join to form a circle.

jarfil ,

The “left…right” is just not a good scale, it only refers to where people sit. In reality there are several orthogonal scales, like:

  • Conservative — Progressive
  • Totalitarian — Anarchist
  • Nationalist — Internationalist
  • Capitalist — Communist
  • Autocrat — Democrat
  • Monarchist — Republican
  • Bigoted — Egalitarian
  • …and some more.

That means there can be “Conservative Anarchist Bigots”, and “Progressive Capitalist Bigots”, and “Progressive Anarchist Internationalist Communist Democratic Republican Egalitarians” (sometimes called “hippies”), or “Monarchic Democratic Internationalists” (we have some of those in Spain). The scales don’t really influence each other (“Autocratic Monarchist Anarchists” are rare nowadays, but they do exist and have a precedent in Aristotle’s “one good ruler” idea, or the “Benevolent dictator for life” in FOSS).

China right now, is a “Conservative Totalitarian Nationalist Capitalist Autocratic Bigoted Republic”, they only keep “Communist” in the name for historical reasons, and to prevent anyone from trying to push for actual communism. To their credit, they’re still “Popular” (Nationalist) and a “Republic”… yet it’s still anyone’s guess when they might become a “Hereditary Autocracy” (aka: Autocratic Monarchy) like North Korea.

What I find the funniest though, is US’s “Democrats vs. Republicans”… they’re not even on the same scale! While the country is already both, a “Democratic Republic”, the parties are named less like what they might defend, and more like an insult to each other: “you’re a monarchist!” vs. “you’re an autocrat!”. And look at that, a Republican wannabe-Autocrat is getting indicted right now… but might still win the Democratic elections 🤦

renard_roux ,

Thank you, this was super insightful!

And don’t forget about the Anarcho-Syndicalists! 😁

millie ,

I honestly think both of these categories are largely astroturfing. The way they attack queer people who are actually concerned about their rights precludes their even being half-assed allies. It doesn’t really matter how much they claim otherwise, their actions speak louder than their protests.

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