What makes anti China propaganda so effective is that people want to believe it.
Believing that western system is fundamentally better allows justifying all the horrors we see day to day by saying that the alternatives are even worse, and so we shouldn't even try to change anything.
Accepting that China managed to find a better path that the west is actively fighting against means having to accept that the west is on the wrong side of history. That's a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people.
I think I’m going to read this next. Do you have any other recommendations on Chinese history, the revolution, socialist development or honestly anything China related?
Well, tbh, this is a relatively new topic for me, so I don’t have a wide range of sources. I plan to slowly work through the sources cited in Boer’s book.
Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China is a good book about the start of the revolution. Snow was a US journalist but all things considered, he gives a fair account.
There are some good Chinese movies on YouTube. There’s an old thread about some on here. I’ll try to find it and share the link. It’s really strange to watch movies where US soldiers aren’t the heroes. You just get a completely different sense of perspective, which is required to fully understand China.
I think I’m going to read this next. Do you have any other recommendations on Chinese history, the revolution, socialist development or honestly anything China related?
Well, tbh, this is a relatively new topic for me, so I don’t have a wide range of sources. I plan to slowly work through the sources cited in Boer’s book.
Edgar Snow’s Red Star Over China is a good book about the start of the revolution. Snow was a US journalist but all things considered, he gives a fair account.
And I’ve read some of the link in Dessalines’ link-list, On Mao, Maoism, and Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, and the PRC.
And the Qiao Collective publishes some great videos: https://yewtu.be/channel/UCPi2i0AZTD2IkENqN3GAbsA. Their ‘China and the Left’ conference was especially enjoyable: https://yewtu.be/playlist?list=PLQFBO6UUfDCQoIxtdxX5dVRwl1kS9IhnV.
There’s also the works of Mao, Deng, and Xi.
CGTN has some good stuff but its a bit of a chore to find the documentaries, etc: https://yewtu.be/channel/UCgrNz-aDmcr2uuto8_DL2jg/playlists.
News with Jingjing has some good videos: https://yewtu.be/channel/UCPvWHbIwTHbXX9Jo_Vephdg.
There are some good Chinese movies on YouTube. There’s an old thread about some on here. I’ll try to find it and share the link. It’s really strange to watch movies where US soldiers aren’t the heroes. You just get a completely different sense of perspective, which is required to fully understand China.
Edit: I’m unsure how good this is just there’s a section of resources in China, here: https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/.
Would honestly recommend reading some of Deng’s works the most when it comes to learning about socialist development