GOG is incredibly pro-consumer (to the point that any company that puts their games up there is basically asking for them to be pirated because of how the installers work) and their work on making (most) of these old games run on modern systems is exemplary compared to getting the same titles on Steam. Not to mention the ones that have been rescued from absolute obscurity you would only be able to play if you had a physical copy and a rig from the mid-90s. Nothing about Cyberpunk 2077 can erase what GOG has done for PC gaming, ESPECIALLY if you care about old RPGs.
The whole thing with red candle games is a mess, but do you risk losing all your funding from investors and a huge market to just sell one game? If they lose China, not only do they lose that market to sell games in, but investors see their sales number go down and stop giving them money. It's really a situation where there's no way to win.
To be brutally honestly? Yes. There is no way I would give sickening behavior such as this a free pass in favor for rose-tinted nostalgia. The good ol' times where CD Project Red (and GOG) was hailed as a "beacon of hope" in the PC gaming has nowadays been reduced to rubbles. If some gamers are able to avert their eyes on how much they have changed their business practices over the years, then so be it. But trust once lost is a very difficult thing to regain.
Not to mention, there are a lot of indie titles that would lose the opportunity to sell their game in that storefront to Chinese consumers if CDPR chose to keep the game on its storefront.
It's not a good situation, and I dont particularly love their approach, but I'm not convinced there isnt a larger material harm if they kept the game - both tot hem and others.
Read quite recently that they're releasing a new patch very soon. Should help AMD chipsets with fewer cores, and targets some bigger bugs in the main questline.
The whole thing with red candle games is a mess, but do you risk losing all your funding from investors and a huge market to just sell one game? If they lose China, not only do they lose that market to sell games in, but investors see their sales number go down and stop giving them money. It's really a situation where there's no way to win.
This is actually an extremely bad thing and I can't imagine anyone thinking it's good? Like sure, pragmatically speaking, they're going to bow to investor demands or the risk of losing a large market, but the fact that things can and do work that way and all of this over criticism of a world leader is actually extremely dystopian and honestly I don't see why anyone would defend it.
The whole thing with red candle games is a mess, but do you risk losing all your funding from investors and a huge market to just sell one game? If they lose China, not only do they lose that market to sell games in, but investors see their sales number go down and stop giving them money. It's really a situation where there's no way to win.
This is actually an extremely bad thing and I can't imagine anyone thinking it's good? Like sure, pragmatically speaking, they're going to bow to investor demands or the risk of losing a large market, but the fact that things can and do work that way and all of this over criticism of a world leader is actually extremely dystopian and honestly I don't see why anyone would defend it.
It's a terrible situation, I never said otherwise, but they really do not have any choice. People should be far more worried that companies like facebook have handed over data to companies like Huawei or Apple taking down apps used by protesters in Hong Kong. Or if you want something closer to home Amazon and Microsoft working with ICE. In the end, this is just a game, it's not the end of the world. While it sucks to have free expression trampled, there are far worse things going on than a game being banned and the alternatives to them bowing really outweigh not giving in in this case. There are a lot of other games they sell on GOG that encourage free thinking and antiauthoriatarinism and cutting these off from fans in China is just making the situation far worse than not selling that one game.
Not to mention, there are a lot of indie titles that would lose the opportunity to sell their game in that storefront to Chinese consumers if CDPR chose to keep the game on its storefront.
I'm not convinced by that; it should be sufficient to implement an IP block for the PRC. Giving in to these sort of outrageous demands creates a terrible precedent.
Honestly, the entire US economy is so dependent on cheaply manufactured Chinese goods (see everything sold at Wal-Mart for starters) that calling out video game companies specifically (Blizzard in particular last year) seems like nothing but a convenient target because of their flashy profile. Everyone is playing this game when they walk into a store, whether they know it or not.
Not to mention, there are a lot of indie titles that would lose the opportunity to sell their game in that storefront to Chinese consumers if CDPR chose to keep the game on its storefront.
I'm not convinced by that; it should be sufficient to implement an IP block for the PRC. Giving in to these sort of outrageous demands creates a terrible precedent.
Honestly, the entire US economy is so dependent on cheaply manufactured Chinese goods (see everything sold at Wal-Mart for starters) that calling out video game companies specifically (Blizzard in particular last year) seems like nothing but a convenient target because of their flashy profile. Everyone is playing this game when they walk into a store, whether they know it or not.
Not in the slightest.
CDPR chose the luxurious Chinese gaming market over their morals. They chose profits over principal, which is what a publicly traded business needs to do. That’s what living in a Capitalist Market gets you.
China can’t bully Walmart (or any other store) to carry merchandise made there. They can bully those that want to sell to the Chinese people however.
Buying Chinese products actually has an opposite effect. It empowers the working class. Winnie the Pooh memes happen in China because people have jobs and can afford computers to post them.
Not to mention, there are a lot of indie titles that would lose the opportunity to sell their game in that storefront to Chinese consumers if CDPR chose to keep the game on its storefront.
I'm not convinced by that; it should be sufficient to implement an IP block for the PRC. Giving in to these sort of outrageous demands creates a terrible precedent.
I'm not really trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm not taking a position on whether it was the right thing or wrong thing to do. My only position is that this issue isnt a "black and white" situation, and that there is potential for material harm in either scenario. Am I attributing purely altruistic motives to CDPR? Not in the slightest.
I dont know precisely what remedies are or are not available to China in this instance. It does seem reasonable to assume though that if all China had to do was block an IP and consider the situation settled, they would have done that from the get-go and it would be a non-issue. Instead, CDPR removed the game, implying a material harm at the least to CDPR and potentially beyond them. All I'm arguing here is that the potential exists for other indie studios to be damaged.
Not to mention, there are a lot of indie titles that would lose the opportunity to sell their game in that storefront to Chinese consumers if CDPR chose to keep the game on its storefront.
I'm not convinced by that; it should be sufficient to implement an IP block for the PRC. Giving in to these sort of outrageous demands creates a terrible precedent.
Honestly, the entire US economy is so dependent on cheaply manufactured Chinese goods (see everything sold at Wal-Mart for starters) that calling out video game companies specifically (Blizzard in particular last year) seems like nothing but a convenient target because of their flashy profile. Everyone is playing this game when they walk into a store, whether they know it or not.
Not me. I boycott CCP-made products at every turn, only buying them if there is no alternative and I absolutely cannot manage without that product.
The whole thing with red candle games is a mess, but do you risk losing all your funding from investors and a huge market to just sell one game? If they lose China, not only do they lose that market to sell games in, but investors see their sales number go down and stop giving them money. It's really a situation where there's no way to win.
This is actually an extremely bad thing and I can't imagine anyone thinking it's good? Like sure, pragmatically speaking, they're going to bow to investor demands or the risk of losing a large market, but the fact that things can and do work that way and all of this over criticism of a world leader is actually extremely dystopian and honestly I don't see why anyone would defend it.
It's a terrible situation, I never said otherwise, but they really do not have any choice. People should be far more worried that companies like facebook have handed over data to companies like Huawei or Apple taking down apps used by protesters in Hong Kong. Or if you want something closer to home Amazon and Microsoft working with ICE. In the end, this is just a game, it's not the end of the world. While it sucks to have free expression trampled, there are far worse things going on than a game being banned and the alternatives to them bowing really outweigh not giving in in this case. There are a lot of other games they sell on GOG that encourage free thinking and antiauthoriatarinism and cutting these off from fans in China is just making the situation far worse than not selling that one game.
This isn't really a persuasive argument that it's fine for a single nation to decide what merchants outside that nation are allowed to sell. Because it's not just that one game. Chinese media mandates impact what makes it into blockbuster films, for example.
Also the fallacy of relative privation isn't that great an argument. Something can still be bad, undesirable, and even dystopian while not being as bad as the other things you listed. I'd argue that taken as a whole, the environment that led to the removal of Red Candle Games' product from GOG is significantly worse than you're portraying, by dismissing it as "this is just a game" you're ignoring the fact that it is not actually "just a game." Further, by arguing GOG "really do not have any choice," you're just accepting that China - or really, any other economically powerful nation - should have the right to control media globally, and that's actually extremely bad.
Partly it depends on scale, and here I'm speaking more philosophically than specifically: If we're talking about somebody who will be personally bankrupt or struggle to make ends meet, I think we can say that a risk of losing money can be "not a choice." But for a company, even a small or struggling one, choosing the more profitable option is a choice, and when it comes to appeasing the Chinese government in order to make money in the Chinese market, I'm unsympathetic to that kinda choice. It's arguably understandable but nonetheless worthy of criticism.
The whole thing with red candle games is a mess, but do you risk losing all your funding from investors and a huge market to just sell one game? If they lose China, not only do they lose that market to sell games in, but investors see their sales number go down and stop giving them money. It's really a situation where there's no way to win.
This is actually an extremely bad thing and I can't imagine anyone thinking it's good? Like sure, pragmatically speaking, they're going to bow to investor demands or the risk of losing a large market, but the fact that things can and do work that way and all of this over criticism of a world leader is actually extremely dystopian and honestly I don't see why anyone would defend it.
It's a terrible situation, I never said otherwise, but they really do not have any choice. People should be far more worried that companies like facebook have handed over data to companies like Huawei or Apple taking down apps used by protesters in Hong Kong. Or if you want something closer to home Amazon and Microsoft working with ICE. In the end, this is just a game, it's not the end of the world. While it sucks to have free expression trampled, there are far worse things going on than a game being banned and the alternatives to them bowing really outweigh not giving in in this case. There are a lot of other games they sell on GOG that encourage free thinking and antiauthoriatarinism and cutting these off from fans in China is just making the situation far worse than not selling that one game.
This isn't really a persuasive argument that it's fine for a single nation to decide what merchants outside that nation are allowed to sell. Because it's not just that one game. Chinese media mandates impact what makes it into blockbuster films, for example.
Also the fallacy of relative privation isn't that great an argument. Something can still be bad, undesirable, and even dystopian while not being as bad as the other things you listed. I'd argue that taken as a whole, the environment that led to the removal of Red Candle Games' product from GOG is significantly worse than you're portraying, by dismissing it as "this is just a game" you're ignoring the fact that it is not actually "just a game." Further, by arguing GOG "really do not have any choice," you're just accepting that China - or really, any other economically powerful nation - should have the right to control media globally, and that's actually extremely bad.
I don't think it's right in the least, but if you have a facebook account, have bought anything on Amazon or that contains components that came from foxconn's factories or own any apple hardware (which is made by foxconn) it pales in comparison to buying something from GOG/CD Projekt. BTW, good luck buying any electronic device that doesn't contain something made by foxconn, they literally make everything, often with practically slave labor. What you're saying amounts to it being OK to completely cut out the Chinese fan base from all their games. In my opinion the fact that enough games that promote antiauthoritarian behavior slip under the radar makes it worth it. At least people in China have access to the other games that can make them think and question their government and corporations, Deus Ex and Cyberpunk being a couple of great examples. Apple cut off methods of private communications used by Hong Kong protesters that directly resulted in people being put into prisons and reeducation camps, no matter how you cut it, that's worse than not selling a game with a slightly deviant meme in it. If the creators of the game were picked up or singled out by the government, it would have happened whether GOG sold it either way. Like I've said before, it's a no win situation, all you can do is pick the option that causes the least amount of damage. I hate that it comes down to this, but the alternative of denying the Chinese fan base access outweighs not selling a single game. Putting up IP blocks works even more against us than for us, people would lack art and information from the outside that can make them think and question the regime.
Not to mention, there are a lot of indie titles that would lose the opportunity to sell their game in that storefront to Chinese consumers if CDPR chose to keep the game on its storefront.
I'm not convinced by that; it should be sufficient to implement an IP block for the PRC. Giving in to these sort of outrageous demands creates a terrible precedent.
Honestly, the entire US economy is so dependent on cheaply manufactured Chinese goods (see everything sold at Wal-Mart for starters) that calling out video game companies specifically (Blizzard in particular last year) seems like nothing but a convenient target because of their flashy profile. Everyone is playing this game when they walk into a store, whether they know it or not.
I'm well aware, and I'm not urging people to stop buying at GOG over this considering the alternatives are mostly worse, but there is still no harm in making our voices heard. And, by the way, I can't talk for the US, but here in the UK it is mostly possible for me as a private consumer to avoid goods "made in China" if I put my mind & wallet to it.
As for the IP block, this could have been implemented for this specific game, not all of gog. There is precedence of the PRC tacitly acquiescing to such an arrangement. My suspicion is that gog didn't negotiate tough enough, for fear of losing the market opportunities for good. This is exactly the general kind of craven political behaviour the PRC bully thrives off, mirrored in this microcosm .
Normally, I would advise myself to not participate in a thread like this one, but this time I'll make an exception. the reason being GoG is owned by CD Project and that fact makes the matter a bit closer to my heart than it is to most of you. Probably.
I don't care much about Devotion in particular. I barely heard of it. I just want to say that I more-or-less understand the reason why companies are pandering to China. The answer is simple, and it is profit from the Chinese market. The problem is it is motivated by a short-sighted profit rather than a long-term perspective. The very reason why, mostly but not exclusively America, became so dependent on China is short term profit from cheap manufacture. Now, that Western industry became so dependent on China, it cannot back away from it without significant losses.
Same for the entertainment industry now. Due to the perspective of easy, short-term profit and being blind to consequence. But this time around, the consequence is not only a dependency on China and its market. It is also about destroying the creative integrity of work of entertainment/art, but also from artists. You need to conform to "Chinese sensibilities". You need to be sure to censor yourself. You need to adjust your work and bow before the communist party.
Western entertainment already become worthless without it (since it is mostly about politics nowadays - most of the actual meaning, human values, escapism, artistic value, pure fun, integrity and quality is a second thought now) pandering to China. Now, it finds its way to become even less worthwhile. And I don't want Polish companies to be a part of that.
I am actually venting. I know that companies will not stop pandering to China, no matter how it does not deserve pandering. I wish they would stop, but I know that won't happen.
i don't see buying from gog meaning your supporting the stuff china is doing. that is just silly. like thaco said if your gonna boycott a company because they support china then you got to stop gaming/ using entertainment altogether.
It's a very problematic position for GoG...if they don't give in to Chinese demands, the Chinese are mad. If they do, the rest of the gaming world is offended. The Chinese market is not a short-sighted profit grab. They will be a large part of the global economy for a very long time. Removing support for a product because one country doesn't like it is a risk, though. Not only are they risking a loss of customers but also developers. Why work with them if they might just dump you on someone else's whim?
Not me. I boycott CCP-made products at every turn, only buying them if there is no alternative and I absolutely cannot manage without that product.
LMAO. The CCP is a political party, just like the Democrats and Republicans. To conflate a political party with an economy or people is just offensive and borderline racist.
Same for the entertainment industry now. Due to the perspective of easy, short-term profit and being blind to consequence. But this time around, the consequence is not only a dependency on China and its market. It is also about destroying the creative integrity of work of entertainment/art, but also from artists. You need to conform to "Chinese sensibilities". You need to be sure to censor yourself. You need to adjust your work and bow before the communist party.
Western entertainment already become worthless without it (since it is mostly about politics nowadays - most of the actual meaning, human values, escapism, artistic value, pure fun, integrity and quality is a second thought now) pandering to China. Now, it finds its way to become even less worthwhile. And I don't want Polish companies to be a part of that.
I am actually venting. I know that companies will not stop pandering to China, no matter how it does not deserve pandering. I wish they would stop, but I know that won't happen.
Try to market a product to Muslim countries by drawing a picture of Mohammad or burning the Koran and see how long you last. Or doing the same to Catholic countries by defacing a picture of the Pope. Hell, plenty of Americans get angry seeing their flags being burnt or even people refusing to stand for it. So why shouldn't some Chinese get angry over some stupid meme that equates Asians with a fictional yellow animal? The world doesn't revolve around Western sensibilities, and we are perfectly capable of personal agency.
And I see plenty of comments here and elsewhere that devolve into Yellow Peril stereotyping of the Chinese, as if we are incapable of independent thought and are simply peons of the government, and absolute ignorance of Chinese politics and economics as if the CCP directly micromanages everything. While Westerners are crying about the Chinese government supposedly controlling the economy, actual Chinese are getting assaulted in the streets, shouted down, being blamed for COVID, and treated as perpetual foreigners and potential spies, despite many of us never setting foot there. So forgive me if some of us don't take kindly to ridiculous memes from people whose knowledge of Chinese society are shallow at best, and jump into complicated disputes like Hong Kong as if it's a black and white issue with zero nuance.
Not me. I boycott CCP-made products at every turn, only buying them if there is no alternative and I absolutely cannot manage without that product.
LMAO. The CCP is a political party, just like the Democrats and Republicans. To conflate a political party with an economy or people is just offensive and borderline racist.
The Chinese regime, which is the CCP, owns and controls all of China's economy. Any Chinese-made product is made by a "corporation" that is wholly or majority owned by the regime or by regime officials. As such my statement was 100% factually accurate. What is laughable is to claim the CCP is a party just like any political party in a democracy.
As for the rest of your post, I leave it to the mods to handle.
Not me. I boycott CCP-made products at every turn, only buying them if there is no alternative and I absolutely cannot manage without that product.
LMAO. The CCP is a political party, just like the Democrats and Republicans. To conflate a political party with an economy or people is just offensive and borderline racist.
Suuuure, because there are totally free elections and competitive other parties in the PRC. And SOEs are totally not run by the party, no. And civil servants are totally selected independently of party rank.
You know what is borderline racist? The Western Liberal's affection for "other cultures" whose fascist governments "need to be understood" rather than seeing them for what they are. Cultural relativism = racism of low expectations.
By the way, the CCP has nothing to do with Chinese civilisation & tradition. They love to pretend to these days, while sanctifying the man who pretty much single-handedly undertook to erase it.
Comments
It's not a good situation, and I dont particularly love their approach, but I'm not convinced there isnt a larger material harm if they kept the game - both tot hem and others.
Read quite recently that they're releasing a new patch very soon. Should help AMD chipsets with fewer cores, and targets some bigger bugs in the main questline.
This is actually an extremely bad thing and I can't imagine anyone thinking it's good? Like sure, pragmatically speaking, they're going to bow to investor demands or the risk of losing a large market, but the fact that things can and do work that way and all of this over criticism of a world leader is actually extremely dystopian and honestly I don't see why anyone would defend it.
It's a terrible situation, I never said otherwise, but they really do not have any choice. People should be far more worried that companies like facebook have handed over data to companies like Huawei or Apple taking down apps used by protesters in Hong Kong. Or if you want something closer to home Amazon and Microsoft working with ICE. In the end, this is just a game, it's not the end of the world. While it sucks to have free expression trampled, there are far worse things going on than a game being banned and the alternatives to them bowing really outweigh not giving in in this case. There are a lot of other games they sell on GOG that encourage free thinking and antiauthoriatarinism and cutting these off from fans in China is just making the situation far worse than not selling that one game.
Honestly, the entire US economy is so dependent on cheaply manufactured Chinese goods (see everything sold at Wal-Mart for starters) that calling out video game companies specifically (Blizzard in particular last year) seems like nothing but a convenient target because of their flashy profile. Everyone is playing this game when they walk into a store, whether they know it or not.
Not in the slightest.
CDPR chose the luxurious Chinese gaming market over their morals. They chose profits over principal, which is what a publicly traded business needs to do. That’s what living in a Capitalist Market gets you.
China can’t bully Walmart (or any other store) to carry merchandise made there. They can bully those that want to sell to the Chinese people however.
Buying Chinese products actually has an opposite effect. It empowers the working class. Winnie the Pooh memes happen in China because people have jobs and can afford computers to post them.
I'm not really trying to convince anyone of anything. I'm not taking a position on whether it was the right thing or wrong thing to do. My only position is that this issue isnt a "black and white" situation, and that there is potential for material harm in either scenario. Am I attributing purely altruistic motives to CDPR? Not in the slightest.
I dont know precisely what remedies are or are not available to China in this instance. It does seem reasonable to assume though that if all China had to do was block an IP and consider the situation settled, they would have done that from the get-go and it would be a non-issue. Instead, CDPR removed the game, implying a material harm at the least to CDPR and potentially beyond them. All I'm arguing here is that the potential exists for other indie studios to be damaged.
It was removed and China still blacklisted it.
This isn't really a persuasive argument that it's fine for a single nation to decide what merchants outside that nation are allowed to sell. Because it's not just that one game. Chinese media mandates impact what makes it into blockbuster films, for example.
Also the fallacy of relative privation isn't that great an argument. Something can still be bad, undesirable, and even dystopian while not being as bad as the other things you listed. I'd argue that taken as a whole, the environment that led to the removal of Red Candle Games' product from GOG is significantly worse than you're portraying, by dismissing it as "this is just a game" you're ignoring the fact that it is not actually "just a game." Further, by arguing GOG "really do not have any choice," you're just accepting that China - or really, any other economically powerful nation - should have the right to control media globally, and that's actually extremely bad.
I don't think it's right in the least, but if you have a facebook account, have bought anything on Amazon or that contains components that came from foxconn's factories or own any apple hardware (which is made by foxconn) it pales in comparison to buying something from GOG/CD Projekt. BTW, good luck buying any electronic device that doesn't contain something made by foxconn, they literally make everything, often with practically slave labor. What you're saying amounts to it being OK to completely cut out the Chinese fan base from all their games. In my opinion the fact that enough games that promote antiauthoritarian behavior slip under the radar makes it worth it. At least people in China have access to the other games that can make them think and question their government and corporations, Deus Ex and Cyberpunk being a couple of great examples. Apple cut off methods of private communications used by Hong Kong protesters that directly resulted in people being put into prisons and reeducation camps, no matter how you cut it, that's worse than not selling a game with a slightly deviant meme in it. If the creators of the game were picked up or singled out by the government, it would have happened whether GOG sold it either way. Like I've said before, it's a no win situation, all you can do is pick the option that causes the least amount of damage. I hate that it comes down to this, but the alternative of denying the Chinese fan base access outweighs not selling a single game. Putting up IP blocks works even more against us than for us, people would lack art and information from the outside that can make them think and question the regime.
I'm well aware, and I'm not urging people to stop buying at GOG over this considering the alternatives are mostly worse, but there is still no harm in making our voices heard. And, by the way, I can't talk for the US, but here in the UK it is mostly possible for me as a private consumer to avoid goods "made in China" if I put my mind & wallet to it.
As for the IP block, this could have been implemented for this specific game, not all of gog. There is precedence of the PRC tacitly acquiescing to such an arrangement. My suspicion is that gog didn't negotiate tough enough, for fear of losing the market opportunities for good. This is exactly the general kind of craven political behaviour the PRC bully thrives off, mirrored in this microcosm .
I don't care much about Devotion in particular. I barely heard of it. I just want to say that I more-or-less understand the reason why companies are pandering to China. The answer is simple, and it is profit from the Chinese market. The problem is it is motivated by a short-sighted profit rather than a long-term perspective. The very reason why, mostly but not exclusively America, became so dependent on China is short term profit from cheap manufacture. Now, that Western industry became so dependent on China, it cannot back away from it without significant losses.
Same for the entertainment industry now. Due to the perspective of easy, short-term profit and being blind to consequence. But this time around, the consequence is not only a dependency on China and its market. It is also about destroying the creative integrity of work of entertainment/art, but also from artists. You need to conform to "Chinese sensibilities". You need to be sure to censor yourself. You need to adjust your work and bow before the communist party.
Western entertainment already become worthless without it (since it is mostly about politics nowadays - most of the actual meaning, human values, escapism, artistic value, pure fun, integrity and quality is a second thought now) pandering to China. Now, it finds its way to become even less worthwhile. And I don't want Polish companies to be a part of that.
I am actually venting. I know that companies will not stop pandering to China, no matter how it does not deserve pandering. I wish they would stop, but I know that won't happen.
LMAO. The CCP is a political party, just like the Democrats and Republicans. To conflate a political party with an economy or people is just offensive and borderline racist.
Try to market a product to Muslim countries by drawing a picture of Mohammad or burning the Koran and see how long you last. Or doing the same to Catholic countries by defacing a picture of the Pope. Hell, plenty of Americans get angry seeing their flags being burnt or even people refusing to stand for it. So why shouldn't some Chinese get angry over some stupid meme that equates Asians with a fictional yellow animal? The world doesn't revolve around Western sensibilities, and we are perfectly capable of personal agency.
And I see plenty of comments here and elsewhere that devolve into Yellow Peril stereotyping of the Chinese, as if we are incapable of independent thought and are simply peons of the government, and absolute ignorance of Chinese politics and economics as if the CCP directly micromanages everything. While Westerners are crying about the Chinese government supposedly controlling the economy, actual Chinese are getting assaulted in the streets, shouted down, being blamed for COVID, and treated as perpetual foreigners and potential spies, despite many of us never setting foot there. So forgive me if some of us don't take kindly to ridiculous memes from people whose knowledge of Chinese society are shallow at best, and jump into complicated disputes like Hong Kong as if it's a black and white issue with zero nuance.
As for the rest of your post, I leave it to the mods to handle.
Suuuure, because there are totally free elections and competitive other parties in the PRC. And SOEs are totally not run by the party, no. And civil servants are totally selected independently of party rank.
You know what is borderline racist? The Western Liberal's affection for "other cultures" whose fascist governments "need to be understood" rather than seeing them for what they are. Cultural relativism = racism of low expectations.
By the way, the CCP has nothing to do with Chinese civilisation & tradition. They love to pretend to these days, while sanctifying the man who pretty much single-handedly undertook to erase it.