ConfoundedClassisist

What I have said to convince some people was just to ask them to think. I am "western" educated but ethnically + culturally Chinese, which may be why they were more inclined to listen to me, since I'm coming from the Chinese perspective and not a evil "western" media propaganda perspective. Chinese people aren't dumb, if you lead them to the rational end of an argument they can see the answers for themselves. Basically I asked them questions like: why certain people would want to join terrorist groups, what they imagine the daily life of a Uyghur to be like, how difficult do they think it is to live with almost nothing and have the government constantly on your ass, etc. Soon enough they all got the idea that, actually, government persecution and oppression pushes people towards extremism.

I do think it's quite difficult to do this if you're, for a lack of a better word, white. I think that there's a lack of mutual understanding between China and the occident which has only been exacerbated by the recent news reel. More often than not, people who make a beeline towards a Chinese person and straightaway starts asking political questions is not going to illicit any kind of discussion. I'm more inclined to discuss politics with people who have shown at least an interest in China as a whole (i.e. culture, history, language, etc) than someone who only wants to talk about politics. After all, politics don't exist in a vacuum, and if you don't understand the culture/history surrounding the current political state then the conversation can't go very far.

Hope this helped!

Out of curiosity, what do you think about Carrie Lam saying that she wants to resign but she can’t because the CCP won’t let her? Also thank you so much for what you do, I can’t even imagine how difficult it is out there for you all right now. Stay safe!

Yikes. Generally there’s lots of stories about brainwashed Chinese on reddit so I try to provide a different side to the story, but in my experience it’s been pretty different. My mainlander classmates support HK and generally are open to discussions about the CCP. To be fair, some of them aren’t open to it, but LOADS are. And I guess I feel that pushing the narrative “Chinese people are all brainwashed” just doesn’t do us any good, ya know? It’s starting to feel like a dismissal of China as a whole rather than just the CCP, and personally I think that can be dangerous.

This is a really big problem in China as of right now. Since the majority of Chinese citizens only have access to Chinese media, there's a lot of propaganda being spread about the "evils" of Islam which is A) pure bullshit because, like above posters say, there are loads of Hui people (ethnically Chinese Muslims) who are not being persecuted and B) as we all know marginalized people commit more crimes, and the CCP massively marginalizing the Uyghurs. Not only have they been rounded up into concentration camps, but the CCP actively forbids activities which specifically target the Uyghur populace that are harmless - like praying in public areas. Essentially, Uyghurs are not allowed to live life at all. Yet, in Chinese media, they are depicted as terrorists. What I want to know is, u/uyghurrallynyc, can Chinese people do anything about this? Do you know of any safe ways in which Chinese citizens can join your cause?

Oh I know. I’ve gotten some comments which are literally “why are Chinese people so barbaric? Why do you kill babies and eat dogs? Don’t you people have any morals?” And to that I just say 🤦🏻‍♀️