Let us look at a specific example. A claim like “[Free Tibet]” is simply unreal to most Westerners, close to pure gibberish. The words really refer to existing entities and geographies, but Westerners aren’t familiar with them. The actual content of the utterance as it spills out is no more complex or nuanced than “China Bad,” and the elementary mistakes people make when they write out statements of “solidarity” make that much clear. This is not a complaint that these people have not studied China enough — there’s no reason to expect them to study China, and retrospectively I think to some extent it was a mistake to personally have spent so much time trying to teach them. It’s instead an acknowledgment that they are eagerly wielding the accusation like a club, that they are in reality unconcerned with its truth-content, because it serves a social purpose.
What is this social purpose? Westerners want to believe that other places are worse off,
quick, focus more on your fantasies of Chinese dystopia to soothe your anxiety about western imperial decline.
when the cops beat the shit out of American college students protesting a livestreamed genocide and the capitalist press completely suppressed their statements I'm sure you were screaming about fReE sPeEcH
causality/agency feels a little complicated because the US has been pushing Banderite ideology in Ukraine since 1953 via CIA's Operation Aerodynamic, and executed a coup against the country in 2014. Victoria Nuland specified who she wanted in each government position on a leaked phone call. iirc during Maidan they had coup snipers shooting people dead at protests for chaos value and provocation
Mir Aimal Kansi is scoffing at this loser