Detached Politicism

[Sara Newman]

The contrast in messaging from China's Xinhua news publications and the other publications focusing more on Taiwan and Hong Kong are quite astounding. The calm, seemingly innocuous statement from Chinese President Xi Jinping explaining his desire "to build China into a modern socialist country that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious" sounds fair enough until you consider how totaliarian governments from the past century have similarly framed their goals and plans. It was frightening to hear how China's attempts to pacify the Hong Kong protests invovle using British emergency regulations ordinances that hadn't been employed in over 50 years. Similarly, the great emphasis on unificiation in President Xi's speeches make me wonder how China could possibly use peaceful methods to reabsorb Taiwan when the Taiwanese president is so committed to defending "the democratic system that the people of Taiwan have established together." It just seems the like repressive, simplifying policies of the Chinese are so at odds with these two other entities that it's hard to imagine what the future holds.