Czech President Petr Pavel on Thursday signed an amendment to the country’s criminal code that criminalises the promotion of communist ideology, placing it on the same footing as Nazi propaganda.
The revised legislation introduces prison sentences of up to five years for anyone who “establishes, supports or promotes Nazi, communist, or other movements which demonstrably aim to suppress human rights and freedoms or incite racial, ethnic, national, religious or class-based hatred.”
The change follows calls from Czech historical institutions, including the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, to correct what they viewed as a legal imbalance.
[…]
I don’t know what Chinese hybrid warfare you are talking about. Any articles I’ve found with these keywords always seem to lump China with Russia, which I find just sensationalist. China is one of our biggest trading partners and I don’t see any reason why Europe cannot find a live and let live modus vivendi with them. I mean if we can stomach the Palestinian genocide at our doorstep without a fucking peep, the Uighurs are far enough…
The illegal police issue is nowhere near an existentially serious problem that affects the viability of European democratic institutions.
And the danger of the far right has nothing to do with China.
China is an authoritarian state, yes, but it’s one that for 3 decades at least has played nice with us. They are far less disruptive and threatening than the Trumpist Americans are. If Europe can find a way to work with Trumpist USA, why not with China too?
I friggin linked you articles. Also are you for real? You are just going to downplay serious stuff as basically “it’s not as bad as what others are doing”? Also just because the US and Russia are problems, doesn’t mean China isn’t. Most of your counterarguments are whataboutisms and deflections so far.
You edited your article afterwards, I responded to your post when it was just the first line.
I didn’t change any wording. I only added something long before you replied.
I did not say you changed wording. I am saying I started replying when your comment only contained the line “Yes through hybrid warfare and illegal police. Also our extreme right is oddly pro-China.” and did not see what you added until after. You can either accept that asynchronous communications sometimes has this issue or you can believe that I’m an evil manipulative person whose trying to win internet points. 🤷
Now that I took a peek at the articles you posted, here is my sense (and it’s just a sense): none of these things are existential. They are all problems, but they do are not at the level of needing to start clamping down freedom of extreme speech in Europe, the way the Czech law does. The same cannot be said for the very real and existential threat to democracy that the resurgence and mainstream-ization of far right extremism is a threat. Meloni, Orban, Lepen, Wiilders, these kind of fascist assholes are much more of a threat to European democracy than Xi is at the moment.
China is friends with Russia. Yes, so are the rest of BRICS: India, Brazil, South Africa. How high do you want to build the wall?
This is not “whataboutism” by the way. It is looking for the balance. Liberal democracy is striking a balance and that means managing the “about these” and “about those”. In this balancing act, the kind of no holds barred demonizing of China that I think you’re pushing for is NOT where European democracy needs to be.
It is a whataboutism. When a problem was brought up, you turned to other problems stating they were bigger. That is what whataboutism is.
If you are not interested in being honest, why do you bother replying?
Disengaging, this is not a good faith discussion. Cheers.
Nice to see you being honest about yourself.
Also you can fight both the far-right and authcoms at the same time. It’s called anti-authoritarianism.
“And the danger of the far right has nothing to do with China.”
Oh really?
https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/afd-spionageaffaere-russland-und-china-im-fokus-neue-enthuellungen-belasten-die-partei-1714480876-a-a1c05e64-b6bc-4c6b-844e-a78a32ec4f91