Xi Jinping heralds 'new era' of Chinese power at Communist party congress

[amw]

Xi Jinping has heralded the dawn of a “new era” of Chinese politics and power at the start of a historic Communist party congress celebrating the end of his first term in office.

Speaking in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, at the start of the week-long 19th party congress, Xi told delegates that thanks to decades of “tireless struggle” China

Comments

[mhfromnh]

a related article I read yesterday
https://www.buzzfeed.com/meghara/the-police-state-of-the-future-is-already-here
them and Tibet, just give them their own shit already.

[amw]

I think i mentioned this on the Catalonia posts either here or on werebel, but i am reluctant to come out too strongly as pro-independence on a lot of this stuff because a lot of the subtleties may not be clear from the outside. For example, before i came here, the western press had me believing that the Hong Kong democracy movement was some huge Arab Spring like revolution that was violently crushed by the mainland, but in reality plenty of Hongkongers are thoroughly uninterested in and even annoyed by the campaign

[mhfromnh]

yeah, those tied up with Daesh aren't terribly sympathetic. just kinda wonder why the hell some regions (Xinjiang, Tibet) are even part of China. I always laugh at Beijing trying to act like Tibet didn't have it's own empire.

[amw]

This is one aspect of China i don't really understand - why they care about keeping their flag raised over the empty deserts on their borders. That said, having spent a bit more time here has opened my eyes to how linguistically and culturally diverse the country is, even within the Han ethnic group. Compared to India, Indonesia or many African nations it's not a particularly diverse country, but I do think it is far more diverse than many European states. So, Tibet and Xinjiang being a part of China shouldn't seem any more odd than Inner Mongolia or Hong Kong or even Shanghai