For you younger readers, Zaid Jilani’s rather fanciful tweet here is part of a neoconservative tradition that was inescapable for at least a decade

Please Don't Let Political Contrarianism Turn You Into a Lunatic

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2021-07-23 18:30:09

For you younger readers, Zaid Jilani’s rather fanciful tweet here is part of a neoconservative tradition that was inescapable for at least a decade after 9/11. In this particular little political meme, every year is 1938, every political leader is Neville Chamberlain, and every enemy is the Nazis. Jilani is complaining about “appeasement,” which is a bit of ideology that is predicated on the idea that bad actors do bad acts in the world not because this is an inherent element of history and humanity but because great powers - excuse me, “the West” - decide to allow them to. Jilani thinks that like the Nazis and, uh, the USSR before them, the Chinese government are being appeased by the United States/NATO/the UN/the aforementioned “West” rather than confronted for their bad deeds.

As Jilani’s tweet almost acknowledges, comparing 2021 China to the Nazi regime is, well, the kind of juvenile attention-seeking that I generally associate with the social liberals Jilani has such little respect for. China has some expansionistic tendencies, particularly in the South China Sea, and they explicitly have designs on Hong Kong and Taiwan. A country that rules both Maine and Guam has limited credibility in regards to opposing expansionism, but I agree that the people of Hong Kong and Taiwan seem to oppose Chinese domination and I support their democratic preferences. The true reality of Chinese crimes against the Uyghurs is almost impossible to understand from within Western media - there’s no doubt that the situation is a horrible crime against humanity, and also no doubt that essentially all Western media is dedicated to exaggerating anything bad done by America’s antagonists, so it’s hard to say. But sure, there are huge human rights violations in China. But at one point the Nazis literally militarily occupied territory from Scandinavia to the northernmost tips of sub-Saharan Africa, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Black Sea. Discuss the Axis Powers collectively and we’re talking from the Marshall Islands to Brest. Not only has China not accomplished any such thing, there probably isn’t a single figure in CCP leadership so deluded as to desire such a thing.