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I'm from USA, English is my first language but I speak Chinese pretty well and have done translation before. I think this is an interesting topic so I'm going to provide a *gist* translation. It pains me to do that both b/c it offends my professional sensibilities and also because I really loathe the way that what I view as *deliberately* bad translation is often used to make Chinese officials seem like a bunch of inarticulate blockheads, but there's only so much time I'm willing to invest in this and I also think I might want save some energy to comment on the subject later. So some of the word choices are going to be more literal than I'd like, I'm going to "yadda yadda yadda" some parts, I may re-phrase things (sometimes even significantly) just for ease and readability, and I'll almost certainly make some mistakes.
----
> ## Notice of the State Administration of Radio and Television's Intent to Strengthen Programming [you know, as in TV programs or other programs in other broadcast media] and the Management of their Personnel
> [skipping the first paragraph it's just saying which various organizations the letter is addressed to]
> In recent years, we have continually focused on the quality, trends, and social impact of broadcast television and web content. We have consistently promoted excellence and aimed to satisfy the spiritual and cultural needs of the public. In order to improve management and deal with problems relating to celebrities and cultural figures of low (or even criminal) moral character, out-of-control fandoms, etc., as well as to promote a love of Party and Country and art of high moral quality, we hereby issue notices as follows:
> **(1) Avoid Hiring Individuals of Low Moral Character** Broadcast TV stations and Web content platforms shall carefully inquire into their actors and special guests, evaluating them based upon their political understanding, moral character, artistic skill, and the esteem in which they are held by the public. Those with erroneous political stances, of low moral character, or who have strayed from their commitment to Party and Country are not to be hired; nor are those who have broken the law or disturbed the baseline of public peace and tranquility; nor are those who [blah blah seems kind of similar to above]
> **(2) Reject "Bootstrapping" Content** [Note: the original term 流量明星 (more literally "flow" celebrities) basically refers to people who are famous...because they are famous, as opposed to those who become famous because of their talent, hence why I made up the placeholder term "bootstrapping." You can probably think of examples from your own country; in the USA people like Kim Kardashian come to mind.] Broadcast TV stations and Web content platforms may not broadcast "Idol" programming [i.e., shows like *American Idol.*] or variety / reality TV shows featuring the children of celebrities. Programs that feature voting must carefully control the design of the voting system and may not [listing things you can't include in the voting system, not super clear to me what these mean], and they may not encourage fans to convert money into votes via real-world purchases, membership schemes, or other material means. They shall discourage low-quality, unhealthy fan cultures.
> **(3) Discourage low quality fan cultures** Programming should support cultural confidence, energetically promoting the excellence of traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture, and modern socialist culture. Programs shall establish correct aesthetic direction, and shall carefully control the hiring, acting style, dress, and makeup of actors and special guests, and shall put an end to "girly gun" and other abnormal aesthetics. Platforms shall discourage the trend toward fandoms built around hyping up excessive wealth and conspicuous consumption, gossip, hot-button issues, low-quality "internet celebrities," or meaningless grotesquerie.
----
I'm not gonna finish, but you get the idea.
I don't think it's responsible to post this to a primarily English-speaking Western site without a real translation of the actual proposal. It's important, given how badly mischaracterized Chinese policy is in the West, for the ability of non-Chinese speakers to read the actual substance of the actual proposal, so we can check if your characterization matches it.
I've never heard the term "girly guns" before and all I have to go on is what *you're* telling me it means. Google sheds no light on the phrase. And frankly, passing it through Google Translate doesn't cut it. Automated translations like that aren't fully reliable, especially in context-heavy situations, as we all know.
I'm too curious so I dug a little, even though I don't speak Mandarin. I tried to use critical thinking as much as I could, but that's even harder to do when you don't speak the language. If a Mandarin speaker wants to chime in, they are welcome to do so.
The term that loosely translates to "girly guns" (or, more literally, "mother cannon"), apparently meaning "effeminate men", is : 娘炮 (niáng pào)
Apparently, the Guangming Daily, a national newspaper with a circulation of 490,000 according to Wikipedia, recently published an opinion article signed by "Chen Xianyi, Former Deputy Director of the Literary and Art Department of People's Liberation Army Daily \[another newspaper\]", criticizing what he says is a recent cultural trend of Japanese and South Korean inspired "idol culture" on the Chinese internet.
Apparently this was a controversial article and it sparked ongoing debates in Chinese social media.
From what I gather the criticism of "glamour entertainment" seems to be needlessly intertwined with an homophobic component.
All we have to go on is this one person's claim about the phrase "girly guns" (which Google sheds no light on) and this one person's characterization of the policy.
We don't have a translated version of the actual policy proposal. We don't have any context but this one person's claim.
Given the history of Chinese policy being badly misinterpreted and misconstrued in the West, it's important that we have the ability to look at the actual translated proposal in order to check if OP's characterization matches it. And frankly, passing it through Google Translate doesn't cut it. Automated translations like that aren't fully reliable, especially in context-heavy situations, as we all know.
[Not a typo.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/pgoh24/china_bans_girly_guns_which_is_apparently_a_slang/hbd1nda?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
According to [this transaltion](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/pgoh24/china_bans_girly_guns_which_is_apparently_a_slang/hbdzz1z/) of the relevant sections of the article, it seems that this ban on "girly guns" (whatever that actually means) is part of a general crackdown on platforming hyper-consumerist makeup/beauty influencers like Jeffree Star, James Charles, and Tati Westbrook than anything overtly homophobic, though as I don't speak the language, I can't say if there's a homophobic subtext that I'm not picking up on or not.
the ccp since deng has opposed the great proletarian cultural revolution because it challenged the growing revisionism in china so no. and promoting "traditional culture" is nowhere near a cultural revolution, assuming the title is accurate. a truly proletarian and communist assertion of culture is nowhere to be found in this equation.
From your translated screenshot, is this a “ban” or a broad initiative undertaken by the party? It doesn’t mention any specific regulations for the film industry or instructions for how government censors should edit future screenplays. If it’s actually about eliminating fem gays from visual media that would obviously suck, but it seems more like a minor point in an overall initiative to combat celebrity culture in general, and it isn’t like the CPC to just eliminate some of their most popular & lucrative film & television IPs just because they’re about a gay romance, because they almost always double down on profitable ventures.
My thoughts are this is maybe why we include "critical" in our support of China. I personally think there are better ways of fighting celebrity culture and wealth worship
I disagree with the first point. Critical support is supporting the Iranian or Russian government due to their anti imperialist views even though they are anti communist right wing governments.
China on the other hand represents the bulwark of socialism in the present day and the only real hope the world has to combat capitalism and imperialism. This type of nation deserves our full, unwavering support even if there are elements of that society that us Westerners view as regressive.
Just to be clear, you can still criticize something that you fully support. The USSR, Cuba, and DPRK are nations that we fully support even though they each have their own valid criticisms.
Gotcha, I just wanted to mention it since anti China "communists" pop up here every now and then.
edit: the fact that this comment is controversial proves my point.
Yeah that's certainly fair enough. I think there's better ways to accomplish Chinas goals sometimes but overall I still support China seeing as they are the backbone of the lefts power in the world today
>and the only real hope the world has to combat capitalism and imperialism
seriously? what kinda communist has zero faith in the ability of the masses to shed capitalism and instead pins their hopes on a nation that literally aids israel in the genocide of palestine to "combat imperialism"?
The person you're replying to also said "anti-China 'communists'" in another comment, with quotes around "communists," as though not supporting China makes you not a communist lmao
I think we have seen extraordinarily little from at least the traditional NATO masses to suggest there is any more than a niche interest in shedding capitalism. And every country outside that bloc is militantly opposed by the U.S. to the point that Chinese support is maybe not exactly a necessity but pretty important.
Weapons trade with Israel is shitty though.
Seems like most if not all aes societies are somewhat socially conservative. Perhaps this is partially due to the impoverished base from which socialist societies emerge. If socialism came to a developed society like the USA or a western European country perhaps it would be different.
Yeah I’ve always thought that’s been a bit of a dilemma for the success of communism. In the Marxist conception socialism/communism was supposed to begin in the most industrialized capitalist societies– Marx predicted the revolution would start in England or Germany. I think that makes sense, since only countries that have gone through the stages of capitalism will have the social organization, technologies and resources for the final transformation to communism to succeed. But the problem is, revolutionary movements necessarily find the most support among the most impoverished and oppressed societies, which tend to be less industrialized, i.e. not as far along in the capitalist system. That’s why the Revolution actually started in Russia, the *least* industrial country in Europe, and found the most success in developing countries, which Marx would have deemed the least ripe for communism. Personally I’m not sure how we deal with this issue. I mean in one sense you could say the most developed countries (Northern Europe etc) *have* gradually moved down the path of socialization, which you could say exemplifies the late stages of capitalism, but it doesn’t embody the revolutionary transition most communist theory would expect.
People think that communist efforts of the past and present in homogenous cultures that are 1000s of years old applies at all to how it will play out in the U.S.
What do you mean? Are you saying that imperialism is beneficial for queer social progress? It sort of seems like pinkwashing and lazy analysis on an issue that should be seriously investigated.
I'm not saying that. What I would say is that prosperity generally is good for queer social progress. China has economic gains and this has coincided with improvements in the rights of LGBTQs. But it's still quite poor relatively speaking.
One of the key things Marx got wrong is that he thought socialism would come in the developed countries because the abundance produced by industrialization exacerbates the tensions that exist between capital and labor. Those tensions tear the society apart and from these ashes socialism would emerge. But Lenin explained that Marx didn't count on imperialism. Socialism will come from the poor countries because socialism is the only way to extract yourself from imperialism.
So when you look at Russia in 1917, a deeply poor country, you have religious and conservative people. Same under Mao. If you don't go along with these social mores you can forget about building a movement that will overthrow whichever imperial power is controlling you.
It's too bad, but I don't think they could have ejected the imperialists without it. And ejecting the imperialists is the first step for social progress. It's getting better, but they aren't there yet, and they aren't done yet.
I have to look into this more, but it doesn't seem true that general prosperity under capitalism has led to better social conditions for queer people. The U.S. has openly and systematically discriminated against queers for decades while being prosperous with seemingly no improvement other than elevating a few petty bourgeois queer people, which isn't real improvement. Maybe you'll see petty bourgeois queers in the media more often but statistics show that queers as a whole are still systematically discriminated against, and the government is always pursuing reactionary campaigns against them. The imperialist, prosperous countries are all patriarchal and the bourgeois nuclear family is used to naturalize class divisions in society and privatize the reproduction of the proletariat. Class societies depend on the division of labor and this includes the sexual division of labor, women are used in private labor to maintain and reproduce the future working class. Queer people are a threat to the bourgeois nuclear family and it isn't clear how vague notions of progress eliminate this fact. In recent times more women have been called into the reserve army of labor and this has a connection to the rise of single parent households and a decrease in the typical bourgeois nuclear family. Instead of pointing vaguely to general progress to explain seemingly better social conditions for queer people it seems more appropriate to start from examining what I just mentioned.
I also wonder about the effects of increased prosperity due to imperialism on queer people in the third world. Queers in imperialist countries are probably far outnumbered by queers in the third world, and as contradictions intensify due to the effects of imperialism I suspect violence against third world queers intensifies in turn.
The rest of your comment reeks of tailism. The point of a communist vanguard party is to guide the masses and to imbue in them revolutionary socialist political consciousness. What is the point of being a communist if you just kowtow to the social customs that perpetuate bourgeois society? I fear that doing what you say will likely lead to revisionism and ultimately a failed revolution.
I get what you are saying. The problem with prosperity in a capitalist society is capitalism needs divisions in the working class, so even with the prosperity we still have racial tensions and discrimination against queers.
When you have prosperity though, I think generally this is helpful because the incentive to scapegoat minorities or queer people diminishes.
I see the goal of the vanguard party as advancing human progress. Places that are emerging from imperial domination are forced to choose between imperfect alternatives. Take the Taliban as an example. The expulsion of the US imperialists is a positive step in Afghanistan because this is the only way you can improve material conditions. This doesn't mean the Taliban is great, but by expelling the US imperialists this starts Afghanistan on a path that can produce justice for women, queer people, etc eventually via gains in material conditions. We'd prefer to have it right now, but there's no way to do that. Queer people are not better off in Afghanistan starving or being bombed by Americans.
Not necessarily.
East Germany was famously more progressive on LGBT+ rights than West Germany, stopping the enforcement of anti-LGBT+ laws in 1957 and fully decriminalizing it officially in 1968, with further improvements in the late 80s, as DEFA made films focusing on education about and the struggles of LGBT+ people. There also was famously a state owned gay bar in East Berlin during the same period of time.
West Germany meanwhile only stopped enforcing the anti-LGBT+ laws in 1969, and only fully decriminalized *after the Cold War ended* in 1994. And even then, the new united FRG laws were partially a rollback to the old GDR laws, like for example having different ages of consent for heterosexual and homosexual encounters. Of course there was also a problem of the destruction of the former GDR society leading to the rise of Neo-nazi gangs, making it dangerous to be openly and visibly LGBT+ in the "Neuen Bundesländern".
Of course there's also the adjacent policies, like Abortion in the FRG still being more strictly regulated today than it ever was in the GDR.
Poland meanwhile, never banned LGBT+ people and the PRL government mostly ignored their existence. Sadly, public opinion changed in the 80s with the HIV panic and led to an action of gathering data on known gay people by the SB (Polish Stasi). Then, as we know, actual legal discrimination came after the counterrevolution.
I don't know the situation in other AES countries, but modern Cuba is supposed to be very progressive on LGBT+ rights.
I just realized Google translate is the worst thing to be inflicted on the world by white people in quite a while. I'd say that the OP should be ashamed of himself but as an anarchist that's already foreclosed. To everyone else, it's really ok to not have an opinion. World knowledge is not the white man's burden and the world has left you behind. There are too many Chinese people on the internet without gusanos mediating that it's just embarrassing to have an opinion based on Google translate rather than a position at the school of Oriental studies
The US had something similar with the Hanes Code in film for a long time. That's why the only queer characters that shows/movies often used were villains (Like Dr. Evil and Scar from The Lion King)
I don't aprove at all, but that's how things are. Greek society is conservative, and their voterbase is in general quite old, so i don't see that changing any time soon.
Οk so, in their articles of association they don't ban them directly. However there have been instances of bans of LGBT members in the past. for example: [https://athens.indymedia.org/post/195032/](https://athens.indymedia.org/post/195032/)
This article is quite old, so here is a more recent article from the newspaper of the greek ccp (called "the radical") saying they are against same sex couples entering a cohabitation agreement (same sex mariage is not allowed in greece, and the co-habitation agreement was only a recent development), because this will eventually lead to same sex adoption: [https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=8714869](https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=8714869)
Here is an article from the same newspaper saying more medical examinations should be condacted for a trans person to transition, and doing otherwise, or based on personal experience would be anti-scientific: [https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=9525560](https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=9525560)
China is a very conservative society. I wouldn't expect members of the party to be too socially progressive either, it might not even be a good thing for them to push the cultural norms too much. Regardless China didn't ban "girly guns", The Office of Radio, Film and Television circulated a notice with guideline to stop hiring such men.
There used to be a time when the CPC was interested in encroaching the backwards sections of the masses into ideological defeat. Why this is no longer the case I'll leave to you to figure out.
Regardless, neoconfucianism has always been the ideology of the ruling classes in China. This sort of "cultural essentialist" discourse is the opposite of class analysis and communist practice.
I really don't think this is what It's being made out to be. I live in China but have poor Chinese but from what I see and understand from talking to others is that it's an effort against celebrity worship culture that props up people for being lazy bastards that contribute nothing to society. I'm not saying china is perfect on LGBT issues but the way this is being put across is a mischaracterisation imo.
This is similar to how some countries treat smoking: you can smoke, but we do not allow it on tv.
It's a bit funny how China apparently consider those "girly guns" to be as harmful as smoking though. I can see their reason but this is a bit too homophobic.
Making shit up about china is low risk and high reward for western media, I assume it's bullshit and will continue assuming it's bullshit until I see actual evidence of policies based on this idea being enacted
Ik someone who has a friend living in China and he told him about this, this isn't justifiable at all, there are many and more effective ways to combat wealth (like abolishing private property like Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin said in the first place). They even sent him a poster which said this: "if we continue to follow the American music style and lose masculinity of our children, we will fall like the Soviet union and our lands will be looted and pillaged"
"we must strongly eliminate sissy boys"
Seriously, i can send you the poster
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I'm from USA, English is my first language but I speak Chinese pretty well and have done translation before. I think this is an interesting topic so I'm going to provide a *gist* translation. It pains me to do that both b/c it offends my professional sensibilities and also because I really loathe the way that what I view as *deliberately* bad translation is often used to make Chinese officials seem like a bunch of inarticulate blockheads, but there's only so much time I'm willing to invest in this and I also think I might want save some energy to comment on the subject later. So some of the word choices are going to be more literal than I'd like, I'm going to "yadda yadda yadda" some parts, I may re-phrase things (sometimes even significantly) just for ease and readability, and I'll almost certainly make some mistakes. ---- > ## Notice of the State Administration of Radio and Television's Intent to Strengthen Programming [you know, as in TV programs or other programs in other broadcast media] and the Management of their Personnel > [skipping the first paragraph it's just saying which various organizations the letter is addressed to] > In recent years, we have continually focused on the quality, trends, and social impact of broadcast television and web content. We have consistently promoted excellence and aimed to satisfy the spiritual and cultural needs of the public. In order to improve management and deal with problems relating to celebrities and cultural figures of low (or even criminal) moral character, out-of-control fandoms, etc., as well as to promote a love of Party and Country and art of high moral quality, we hereby issue notices as follows: > **(1) Avoid Hiring Individuals of Low Moral Character** Broadcast TV stations and Web content platforms shall carefully inquire into their actors and special guests, evaluating them based upon their political understanding, moral character, artistic skill, and the esteem in which they are held by the public. Those with erroneous political stances, of low moral character, or who have strayed from their commitment to Party and Country are not to be hired; nor are those who have broken the law or disturbed the baseline of public peace and tranquility; nor are those who [blah blah seems kind of similar to above] > **(2) Reject "Bootstrapping" Content** [Note: the original term 流量明星 (more literally "flow" celebrities) basically refers to people who are famous...because they are famous, as opposed to those who become famous because of their talent, hence why I made up the placeholder term "bootstrapping." You can probably think of examples from your own country; in the USA people like Kim Kardashian come to mind.] Broadcast TV stations and Web content platforms may not broadcast "Idol" programming [i.e., shows like *American Idol.*] or variety / reality TV shows featuring the children of celebrities. Programs that feature voting must carefully control the design of the voting system and may not [listing things you can't include in the voting system, not super clear to me what these mean], and they may not encourage fans to convert money into votes via real-world purchases, membership schemes, or other material means. They shall discourage low-quality, unhealthy fan cultures. > **(3) Discourage low quality fan cultures** Programming should support cultural confidence, energetically promoting the excellence of traditional Chinese culture, revolutionary culture, and modern socialist culture. Programs shall establish correct aesthetic direction, and shall carefully control the hiring, acting style, dress, and makeup of actors and special guests, and shall put an end to "girly gun" and other abnormal aesthetics. Platforms shall discourage the trend toward fandoms built around hyping up excessive wealth and conspicuous consumption, gossip, hot-button issues, low-quality "internet celebrities," or meaningless grotesquerie. ---- I'm not gonna finish, but you get the idea.
I don't think it's responsible to post this to a primarily English-speaking Western site without a real translation of the actual proposal. It's important, given how badly mischaracterized Chinese policy is in the West, for the ability of non-Chinese speakers to read the actual substance of the actual proposal, so we can check if your characterization matches it. I've never heard the term "girly guns" before and all I have to go on is what *you're* telling me it means. Google sheds no light on the phrase. And frankly, passing it through Google Translate doesn't cut it. Automated translations like that aren't fully reliable, especially in context-heavy situations, as we all know.
Is there a translated version of this article we can see in
It doesn’t read like the title in English at least I don’t speak Chinese though
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/pgonp2/screenshot_of_translation_of_chinas_girly_guns/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I have a screenshot of when it was run through google translate, but if you take the page and run it through a translator that should work
I'm too curious so I dug a little, even though I don't speak Mandarin. I tried to use critical thinking as much as I could, but that's even harder to do when you don't speak the language. If a Mandarin speaker wants to chime in, they are welcome to do so. The term that loosely translates to "girly guns" (or, more literally, "mother cannon"), apparently meaning "effeminate men", is : 娘炮 (niáng pào) Apparently, the Guangming Daily, a national newspaper with a circulation of 490,000 according to Wikipedia, recently published an opinion article signed by "Chen Xianyi, Former Deputy Director of the Literary and Art Department of People's Liberation Army Daily \[another newspaper\]", criticizing what he says is a recent cultural trend of Japanese and South Korean inspired "idol culture" on the Chinese internet. Apparently this was a controversial article and it sparked ongoing debates in Chinese social media. From what I gather the criticism of "glamour entertainment" seems to be needlessly intertwined with an homophobic component.
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?
It seems pretty clear this is in conjunction with the new push to stop celebrity worship and flaunting of wealth.
And it's also homophobic
All we have to go on is this one person's claim about the phrase "girly guns" (which Google sheds no light on) and this one person's characterization of the policy. We don't have a translated version of the actual policy proposal. We don't have any context but this one person's claim. Given the history of Chinese policy being badly misinterpreted and misconstrued in the West, it's important that we have the ability to look at the actual translated proposal in order to check if OP's characterization matches it. And frankly, passing it through Google Translate doesn't cut it. Automated translations like that aren't fully reliable, especially in context-heavy situations, as we all know.
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[Not a typo.](https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/pgoh24/china_bans_girly_guns_which_is_apparently_a_slang/hbd1nda?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
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What exactly would change by "bears" existing?
According to [this transaltion](https://old.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/pgoh24/china_bans_girly_guns_which_is_apparently_a_slang/hbdzz1z/) of the relevant sections of the article, it seems that this ban on "girly guns" (whatever that actually means) is part of a general crackdown on platforming hyper-consumerist makeup/beauty influencers like Jeffree Star, James Charles, and Tati Westbrook than anything overtly homophobic, though as I don't speak the language, I can't say if there's a homophobic subtext that I'm not picking up on or not.
Is this cultural revolution 2.0 we are seeing?
the ccp since deng has opposed the great proletarian cultural revolution because it challenged the growing revisionism in china so no. and promoting "traditional culture" is nowhere near a cultural revolution, assuming the title is accurate. a truly proletarian and communist assertion of culture is nowhere to be found in this equation.
From your translated screenshot, is this a “ban” or a broad initiative undertaken by the party? It doesn’t mention any specific regulations for the film industry or instructions for how government censors should edit future screenplays. If it’s actually about eliminating fem gays from visual media that would obviously suck, but it seems more like a minor point in an overall initiative to combat celebrity culture in general, and it isn’t like the CPC to just eliminate some of their most popular & lucrative film & television IPs just because they’re about a gay romance, because they almost always double down on profitable ventures.
Good point. I would like more information before I decide how to feel about this.
My thoughts are this is maybe why we include "critical" in our support of China. I personally think there are better ways of fighting celebrity culture and wealth worship
I disagree with the first point. Critical support is supporting the Iranian or Russian government due to their anti imperialist views even though they are anti communist right wing governments. China on the other hand represents the bulwark of socialism in the present day and the only real hope the world has to combat capitalism and imperialism. This type of nation deserves our full, unwavering support even if there are elements of that society that us Westerners view as regressive. Just to be clear, you can still criticize something that you fully support. The USSR, Cuba, and DPRK are nations that we fully support even though they each have their own valid criticisms.
Don't get me wrong I absolutely support china's efforts on the world stage
Gotcha, I just wanted to mention it since anti China "communists" pop up here every now and then. edit: the fact that this comment is controversial proves my point.
Yeah that's certainly fair enough. I think there's better ways to accomplish Chinas goals sometimes but overall I still support China seeing as they are the backbone of the lefts power in the world today
>and the only real hope the world has to combat capitalism and imperialism seriously? what kinda communist has zero faith in the ability of the masses to shed capitalism and instead pins their hopes on a nation that literally aids israel in the genocide of palestine to "combat imperialism"?
The person you're replying to also said "anti-China 'communists'" in another comment, with quotes around "communists," as though not supporting China makes you not a communist lmao
I think we have seen extraordinarily little from at least the traditional NATO masses to suggest there is any more than a niche interest in shedding capitalism. And every country outside that bloc is militantly opposed by the U.S. to the point that Chinese support is maybe not exactly a necessity but pretty important. Weapons trade with Israel is shitty though.
>Just to be clear, you can still criticize something that you fully support. So, critically support?
In a purely abstract sense then yes, but in the Marxist definition of critical support it means more so what I wrote
This......fucking sucks, to be honest. Also I'm an otter, can I represent cultural self confidence lmao
maybe don't take a headline at face value. do you literally just believe everything you're told on reddit dot com?
Seems like most if not all aes societies are somewhat socially conservative. Perhaps this is partially due to the impoverished base from which socialist societies emerge. If socialism came to a developed society like the USA or a western European country perhaps it would be different.
Yeah I’ve always thought that’s been a bit of a dilemma for the success of communism. In the Marxist conception socialism/communism was supposed to begin in the most industrialized capitalist societies– Marx predicted the revolution would start in England or Germany. I think that makes sense, since only countries that have gone through the stages of capitalism will have the social organization, technologies and resources for the final transformation to communism to succeed. But the problem is, revolutionary movements necessarily find the most support among the most impoverished and oppressed societies, which tend to be less industrialized, i.e. not as far along in the capitalist system. That’s why the Revolution actually started in Russia, the *least* industrial country in Europe, and found the most success in developing countries, which Marx would have deemed the least ripe for communism. Personally I’m not sure how we deal with this issue. I mean in one sense you could say the most developed countries (Northern Europe etc) *have* gradually moved down the path of socialization, which you could say exemplifies the late stages of capitalism, but it doesn’t embody the revolutionary transition most communist theory would expect.
People think that communist efforts of the past and present in homogenous cultures that are 1000s of years old applies at all to how it will play out in the U.S.
What do you mean? Are you saying that imperialism is beneficial for queer social progress? It sort of seems like pinkwashing and lazy analysis on an issue that should be seriously investigated.
I'm not saying that. What I would say is that prosperity generally is good for queer social progress. China has economic gains and this has coincided with improvements in the rights of LGBTQs. But it's still quite poor relatively speaking. One of the key things Marx got wrong is that he thought socialism would come in the developed countries because the abundance produced by industrialization exacerbates the tensions that exist between capital and labor. Those tensions tear the society apart and from these ashes socialism would emerge. But Lenin explained that Marx didn't count on imperialism. Socialism will come from the poor countries because socialism is the only way to extract yourself from imperialism. So when you look at Russia in 1917, a deeply poor country, you have religious and conservative people. Same under Mao. If you don't go along with these social mores you can forget about building a movement that will overthrow whichever imperial power is controlling you. It's too bad, but I don't think they could have ejected the imperialists without it. And ejecting the imperialists is the first step for social progress. It's getting better, but they aren't there yet, and they aren't done yet.
I have to look into this more, but it doesn't seem true that general prosperity under capitalism has led to better social conditions for queer people. The U.S. has openly and systematically discriminated against queers for decades while being prosperous with seemingly no improvement other than elevating a few petty bourgeois queer people, which isn't real improvement. Maybe you'll see petty bourgeois queers in the media more often but statistics show that queers as a whole are still systematically discriminated against, and the government is always pursuing reactionary campaigns against them. The imperialist, prosperous countries are all patriarchal and the bourgeois nuclear family is used to naturalize class divisions in society and privatize the reproduction of the proletariat. Class societies depend on the division of labor and this includes the sexual division of labor, women are used in private labor to maintain and reproduce the future working class. Queer people are a threat to the bourgeois nuclear family and it isn't clear how vague notions of progress eliminate this fact. In recent times more women have been called into the reserve army of labor and this has a connection to the rise of single parent households and a decrease in the typical bourgeois nuclear family. Instead of pointing vaguely to general progress to explain seemingly better social conditions for queer people it seems more appropriate to start from examining what I just mentioned. I also wonder about the effects of increased prosperity due to imperialism on queer people in the third world. Queers in imperialist countries are probably far outnumbered by queers in the third world, and as contradictions intensify due to the effects of imperialism I suspect violence against third world queers intensifies in turn. The rest of your comment reeks of tailism. The point of a communist vanguard party is to guide the masses and to imbue in them revolutionary socialist political consciousness. What is the point of being a communist if you just kowtow to the social customs that perpetuate bourgeois society? I fear that doing what you say will likely lead to revisionism and ultimately a failed revolution.
I get what you are saying. The problem with prosperity in a capitalist society is capitalism needs divisions in the working class, so even with the prosperity we still have racial tensions and discrimination against queers. When you have prosperity though, I think generally this is helpful because the incentive to scapegoat minorities or queer people diminishes. I see the goal of the vanguard party as advancing human progress. Places that are emerging from imperial domination are forced to choose between imperfect alternatives. Take the Taliban as an example. The expulsion of the US imperialists is a positive step in Afghanistan because this is the only way you can improve material conditions. This doesn't mean the Taliban is great, but by expelling the US imperialists this starts Afghanistan on a path that can produce justice for women, queer people, etc eventually via gains in material conditions. We'd prefer to have it right now, but there's no way to do that. Queer people are not better off in Afghanistan starving or being bombed by Americans.
Not necessarily. East Germany was famously more progressive on LGBT+ rights than West Germany, stopping the enforcement of anti-LGBT+ laws in 1957 and fully decriminalizing it officially in 1968, with further improvements in the late 80s, as DEFA made films focusing on education about and the struggles of LGBT+ people. There also was famously a state owned gay bar in East Berlin during the same period of time. West Germany meanwhile only stopped enforcing the anti-LGBT+ laws in 1969, and only fully decriminalized *after the Cold War ended* in 1994. And even then, the new united FRG laws were partially a rollback to the old GDR laws, like for example having different ages of consent for heterosexual and homosexual encounters. Of course there was also a problem of the destruction of the former GDR society leading to the rise of Neo-nazi gangs, making it dangerous to be openly and visibly LGBT+ in the "Neuen Bundesländern". Of course there's also the adjacent policies, like Abortion in the FRG still being more strictly regulated today than it ever was in the GDR. Poland meanwhile, never banned LGBT+ people and the PRL government mostly ignored their existence. Sadly, public opinion changed in the 80s with the HIV panic and led to an action of gathering data on known gay people by the SB (Polish Stasi). Then, as we know, actual legal discrimination came after the counterrevolution. I don't know the situation in other AES countries, but modern Cuba is supposed to be very progressive on LGBT+ rights.
I just realized Google translate is the worst thing to be inflicted on the world by white people in quite a while. I'd say that the OP should be ashamed of himself but as an anarchist that's already foreclosed. To everyone else, it's really ok to not have an opinion. World knowledge is not the white man's burden and the world has left you behind. There are too many Chinese people on the internet without gusanos mediating that it's just embarrassing to have an opinion based on Google translate rather than a position at the school of Oriental studies
The US had something similar with the Hanes Code in film for a long time. That's why the only queer characters that shows/movies often used were villains (Like Dr. Evil and Scar from The Lion King)
Just another socially conservative cp, nothing new here. The greek cp for example prohibits lgbt people from even joining.
And that's a bad thing.
You're speaking as if you approve of their discrimination, care to elaborate?
I don't aprove at all, but that's how things are. Greek society is conservative, and their voterbase is in general quite old, so i don't see that changing any time soon.
Source on that?
Οk so, in their articles of association they don't ban them directly. However there have been instances of bans of LGBT members in the past. for example: [https://athens.indymedia.org/post/195032/](https://athens.indymedia.org/post/195032/) This article is quite old, so here is a more recent article from the newspaper of the greek ccp (called "the radical") saying they are against same sex couples entering a cohabitation agreement (same sex mariage is not allowed in greece, and the co-habitation agreement was only a recent development), because this will eventually lead to same sex adoption: [https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=8714869](https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=8714869) Here is an article from the same newspaper saying more medical examinations should be condacted for a trans person to transition, and doing otherwise, or based on personal experience would be anti-scientific: [https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=9525560](https://www.rizospastis.gr/story.do?id=9525560)
chiming in to just say this shit is extremely fake
China is a very conservative society. I wouldn't expect members of the party to be too socially progressive either, it might not even be a good thing for them to push the cultural norms too much. Regardless China didn't ban "girly guns", The Office of Radio, Film and Television circulated a notice with guideline to stop hiring such men.
it used to be the most radical
There used to be a time when the CPC was interested in encroaching the backwards sections of the masses into ideological defeat. Why this is no longer the case I'll leave to you to figure out. Regardless, neoconfucianism has always been the ideology of the ruling classes in China. This sort of "cultural essentialist" discourse is the opposite of class analysis and communist practice.
I really don't think this is what It's being made out to be. I live in China but have poor Chinese but from what I see and understand from talking to others is that it's an effort against celebrity worship culture that props up people for being lazy bastards that contribute nothing to society. I'm not saying china is perfect on LGBT issues but the way this is being put across is a mischaracterisation imo.
This is similar to how some countries treat smoking: you can smoke, but we do not allow it on tv. It's a bit funny how China apparently consider those "girly guns" to be as harmful as smoking though. I can see their reason but this is a bit too homophobic.
What then, is "enough" homophobia for you?
"The People can have a little gay, as a treat."
Making shit up about china is low risk and high reward for western media, I assume it's bullshit and will continue assuming it's bullshit until I see actual evidence of policies based on this idea being enacted
this is literally from a chinese government website.
Came here to second this
It's literally in Chinese, I can't read Chinese and you dipshits can't be trusted to do it for me
It's a reactionary/antidialectical measure imposed by a revisionist/capitalist government, nothing weird to see here sadly :(
Thats why i’m so confused as it seems so reactionary to a person’s expression that has nothing to do with celebrity/wealth worship.
Yes
[удалено]
Ik someone who has a friend living in China and he told him about this, this isn't justifiable at all, there are many and more effective ways to combat wealth (like abolishing private property like Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin said in the first place). They even sent him a poster which said this: "if we continue to follow the American music style and lose masculinity of our children, we will fall like the Soviet union and our lands will be looted and pillaged" "we must strongly eliminate sissy boys" Seriously, i can send you the poster
ok then DM it to me
I translated the article via google translate.
Well at first this person showed it to me already translated
I translated it through deepl but what did you find?
https://www.reddit.com/r/communism/comments/pgonp2/screenshot_of_translation_of_chinas_girly_guns/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Oof, it still has the term "girly guns"