We’ve cancelled 20 percent of humanity

I’ve been regularly discussing the topic of China on various social media platforms for a couple years now. I’ve seen the same interactions play out time and time again — the same reactions, the same arguments, the same excuses, logical fallacies, and rhetorical devices — all serving the same purpose: to delegitimize the views and opinions of the Chinese population.

For me, it’s very obvious why this is the case: there is no critical thinking around these issues; there are only prescribed views. Because of the social humiliation that inevitably occurs when views to the contrary are expressed, Americans have unquestioningly accepted the mainstream narrative as gospel, rather than putting any effort into understanding the issues on their own. This has become so deep-rooted in our society that it’s almost unthinkable that anyone would have any difference of opinion on China. The result of this is that, not only do we criticize people who speak positively (in reality, it’s simply rationality which only looks like positivity), we invalidate their views. A non-hateful opinion on China is not a counter-argument, it’s a non-argument, dismissed into thin air without a second thought.

American popular consciousness is as if a survey was given with the question, “How much do you hate China, on a scale from one to ten” and from the results of that survey concluding that 100% of Americans who responded hate China. The option to not hate China is not a valid option.

Any Chinese person who says something good about their country is brainwashed, or a bot.

Any non-Chinese person who says something good about China is being paid by the Chinese government.

Meanwhile, every single aspect of Chinese society is seen, not as a point of curiosity, but immediately demonized and skewed into something much more sinister and ill-intended than it actually is, not with evidence, but with pure presumption, built on top of the never ending list of evils we have previously attributed to them, all without evidence and with pure presumption. Then, we use these arguments as further support that Chinese people are oppressed and brainwashed.

And when they tell us they aren’t, we say, “how can I trust you? You’re Chinese.”

Those of us in the West would rather trust the words of a person who has never been to China, and who does not speak Chinese, about what life is like in China, rather than a Chinese person.

Chinese people have been CANCELLED.