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Letters | China more pluralistic than the US? Not with its silencing of dissent and violent Xinjiang clampdown
- Communist China’s suppression of dissent is real and worrying, and a stark contrast to America’s peaceful accommodation of religious and political diversity
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I read with some puzzlement Peter T.C. Chang’s conclusion that the communist regime in Beijing is more “pluralistic” than the United States (“How Christianity and Confucianism can explain US-China rivalry”, February 9). Mr Chang acknowledges that selling the Communist Party’s “pluralistic world order” is difficult due to “state suppression of dissent, and a violent clampdown in restive Xinjiang”. These aren’t merely caveats; they demonstrate that his initial premise is false.
Most countries that Mr Chang would call Christian peacefully accommodate people of many religions and ideologies, even outspoken critics of their governments. This tolerance of religious and political diversity is not in evidence in the purported Confucian paradise that Mr Chang imagines to exist in communist China.
The “communists are more open-minded” premise does not hold with respect to international relations, either. The United States aligns itself, according to its interests, with regimes ranging from liberal democracies to mildly repressive dictatorships, while communist China has historically reserved its deepest relationships for only the most oppressive regimes. If one government is more inclined to pluralism than the other, it’s certainly not the one in Beijing.
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Frank Trampe, Missouri
US double standards exposed in Huawei attacks
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