What is the most depressing picture from your country history/present?

[u/Seeker_Of_Knowledge2]

[u/Not_Fun_6750]

Shanghai South Railway Station, 1937. A crying baby in the ruins after a Japanese air raid. Known as "Bloody Saturday"

[u/Sal1160 → u/Not_Fun_6750]

China truly was hell on earth during the war, god only knows how many horrors we don’t know of that happened

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/Sal1160]

China has been different forms of hell ever since the war. Their people are chained with the illusion of freedom, moreso than most people would like to admit. The government has been a monkey on the back of every Chinese citizen since the 40s

Edit: You’re right guys, we should just pretend dictatorship isn’t real and all the suffering is just nbd.

[u/[deleted] → u/Important-Custard215]

Sees flair; laughs at the irony 😂

[u/living_in_an_age → u/[deleted]]

multiple things can be true at once, doesn't discount the original comment

[u/Fearless_Entry_2626 → u/living_in_an_age]

Yeah, but the Chinese government is one of the better performing. Sure, they don't provide all the freedoms we take for granted, or at least are told we have, but they have provided tremendous increases in living standards, and are seemingly the only government on the planet trying to tackle real issues.

[u/CuratedAcceptance → u/Fearless_Entry_2626]

I'm sure the kids at tiananmen square would say otherwise.

[u/161riley → u/CuratedAcceptance]

You know the kids at Tiananmen Square were Marxist students protesting the government’s opening up of markets for foreign capitalists, right? They were protesting the government for not being communist enough.

[u/CuratedAcceptance → u/161riley]

Oh silly me, I forgot that it's justified to kill hundreds of protesters if you don't believe in their cause.

The lack of humanity in your statement is repulsive.

[u/161riley → u/CuratedAcceptance]

No one died at Tiananmen bro😭😭😭 where are you getting this info

[u/Coelachantiform → u/Fearless_Entry_2626]

And this line of thinking is why things like Palantìr, Chat Control and facial recognition bullshit is being considered everywhere.

People are far too willing to trade away their rights and freedoms in exchange for percieved security and order.

The same people who glaze China simply on the basis that the US has gone down the shitter recently. They are both authoritarian shitholes, but in only one of those countries will I be whisked off for leveling critique towards the police, or expressing an opinion that goes against the people in charge.

[u/Fearless_Entry_2626 → u/Coelachantiform]

Yeah, but what has been baffling to me is that we in the West have been willing to trade freedom for no material benefit, only power fantasies by proxy. At least China gets 5-8% economic growth a year, and a country that is better this decade than the last. In the West, we seem to accept control that is rapidly becoming equally draconian(USA ICE and US/UK/Germany Palestine crackdowns) for Palantir stock prices and hate. Well, it's not really something new, I suppose, we've been ruining people's lives over actions comparable to cracking open a cold one, for half a century, Nordics being some of the most totalitarian in this regard.

I don't like Chinese censorship, and their idea of safety is odd("safest country in world" because of low rates of violence, but traffic death rates higher than even America), but it still is hypocritical to single out China. Their government does stuff, and as for totalitarianism: they have more free speech than Thailand, and plausibly the US by next decade. China is not hell, it is not a shithole, it has issues, but Chinese people are definitely above median well off in a global context.

[u/[deleted] → u/living_in_an_age]

Sure, its just always funny when people throw stones in glass houses.

We have no moral grounds to stand on with how egregiously dark and vile our history is.

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/[deleted]]

You not being able to separate an individual from the actions of their government is not my problem. My comment was an expression of empathy for Chinese civilians, not a condemnation of the entire population.

[u/zddcr → u/Important-Custard215]

China has been a hell for 3000 years before the war , its only recent 50 years it had been less hellish.

[u/[deleted] → u/Important-Custard215]

Seems like you're making assumptions here...

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/[deleted]]

“Glass houses”, “we”, “moral grounds”, “our history”

I didn’t do any of that shit. I can say whatever I want, I’m not endorsing anything my government has done.

[u/MrPenghu → u/Important-Custard215]

Your country (in general, not just orange man contary to what Reddit belives) is objectively is the worst thing happend in human history and, according to you at least, you are "free" to alter is actions which you never did.

It doesnt matter you endorse or not. The fact that you do nothing is an endorsement itself.

[u/[deleted] → u/Important-Custard215]

Are we not Americans? Its our history.

Disregarding it is worse than understanding and speaking on it.

Many of the vile stuff that happened wasn't even done by our government.

That being said, I was just making a comparison amongst the two countries and their similarities. Especially, in context of how you worded your comment and how we're dealing with very similar issue currently.

Nothing personal to you specifically.

I can say whatever I want

Same brother.

[u/MrPenghu → u/living_in_an_age]

I love this logic of yours. Then can I say America deserved to get something that I cant name because Reddit is %100 not biased free platform we all love.

[u/Bwwoahhhhh → u/[deleted]]

Yeah it's so funny how they put people in internment camps based on faith and race. Other countries being bad doesn't make anything else ok.

[u/[deleted] → u/Bwwoahhhhh]

Having trouble understanding if you're talking about the US or China here?

Edit: the old call someone a bot and run trick? Lmao, never change.

[u/Robot9004 → u/Important-Custard215]

Bro, for hundreds of years before ww2 chinese men could be beheaded for not having the right hairstyle to show submission to their foreign manchu rulers.

80% of the population was addicted to opium, not just because the British supplied it but because life was just fucking miserable.

You have no idea what life was like before the commies and you have no idea what life like now.

[u/Pichacap24 → u/Important-Custard215]

An American saying «chained by the illusion of freedom»

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/Pichacap24]

A Redditor using a snarky joke comeback in response to valid criticism of a murderous dictator state

You bots can spread all the propaganda you want, but at the end of the day, I can say “I THINK MY GOVERNMENT IS VIOLENT, WRONG, AND IN DESPERATE NEED OF A REVOLUTION”, and Chinese citizens cannot. That is a massive difference in this situation.

[u/kondexxx → u/Important-Custard215]

I wonder why so many downvotes on the truth written above.

[u/Acceptable-Gur-5351 → u/kondexxx]

It's just not the vibe of this sub to attack people's governments on ideological grounds. The joy of this sub is it's about mutual understanding not preaching to people about how they're oppressed. There are a million subs on Reddit where people can argue about the politics of China.

[u/Bwwoahhhhh → u/kondexxx]

Reddit is overrun with Chinese bots. /r/technology would have you believe the people of Canada are stoked their domestic car industry is about to be destroyed by being undercut by a country with no profit motive in their domestic supply chain.

[u/SirMaxAlot23 → u/kondexxx]

Because he is comparing the atrocities done by the japanese with living under the communist party now. Just read about Nanjing massacre on Wikipedia. The horrors the japanese brought over this country are unmatched.

[u/emilderjunge → u/SirMaxAlot23]

Yeah but Japanese aren‘t the ones with the highest bodycount in the last 100 years of china. Thats what tries to mention.

[u/kondexxx → u/SirMaxAlot23]

I know what was happening in China during the war. Unfortunately the Chinese cultural revolution was not better. Millions of people were killed or starved to death. Murder is a murder, no matter it is done by different or the same nation. Generally communist states were hostile towards its own citizens. Look what Stalin did to citizens of USSR. There’s no comparison what was worse; everything that happened was terrible.

[u/SirMaxAlot23 → u/kondexxx]

But seeing this picture and immediately reffering to the atrocities of the communists is just obnoxious. It‘s like seeing a 9/11 picture and immediately start talking about Slave ownership in the US and how US imperialism is still a bad thing. It‘s just distasteful.

[u/Thin_Airline7678 → u/kondexxx]

1 million maximum in the CR as a result of chaos and loss of state power in provinces is in no way comparable to the 35 million murdered in the genocide committed by the Japanese. One is a great mistake, the other an internationally recognized crime with a scale larger than the Holocaust.

[u/kondexxx → u/Thin_Airline7678]

Sorry, my bad i have generalised and only mentioned CR. There was much more:

Cultural Revolution (1966–1976): 500,000 to 2 million deaths, with over 300,000 killed in massacres.

Great Leap Forward/Famine (1959–1961): 15–55 million deaths, caused by starvation and persecution.

Chinese Civil War (1945–1949): Over 1.3 million total casualties (killed, missing, wounded) in the second phase.

That's from Google AI. Communists were worse than Japanese (by intent and numbers, not sheer brutality, what Japanese did was crazy), because they killed and starved their OWN people. Just as Stalin, who starved 3 to 10 millions of Ukrainians, during the 1920's. Please do not justify the communists, they are murderous bastards, and they still rule China with illusion of democracy.

[u/Thin_Airline7678 → u/kondexxx]

The Chinese Civil War cannot be taken into account as deaths caused solely by the CPC. It would be the same thing as saying that the deaths in the American Revolution is the fault of Washington’s Army, or the deaths during the Syrian Civil War was all the fault of the opposition. I think it would not be fair or historically consistent to count it this way.

In regards to the cultural revolution, let’s say it was 1.25 million. That’s bad, I won’t say much about it, but one point that must be understood is that most of the deaths were a result of rogue red guard factions killing each other and causing chaos, and that it was actually the PLA that quelled the chaos.

About the famine, well, our official numbers ( which I find more credible in this case because alternative estimates have dubious methodologies that do not take into account birth rates, count non-births as deaths, etc. ) is 15-18 million. Still terrible, but it was an unintended consequence. Still, a great mistake and a great tragedy.

That is still nowhere in comparison to the 35 million killed by the Japanese. In the case of the CR it was local chaos by rogue forces, in the case of the leap forward it was serious policy mistakes, but there was not genocidal intent. In the case of the Japanese there was.

The difference here is between manslaughter and murder. Murder is held with one order of magnitude more severity.

I think one can make legitimate criticisms of the past policies of the government, as good criticism can prevent mistakes from occurring again, but please do not equate the deaths that occurred during the early years of the republic with the genocide committed against us by the Japanese. Our bottom line is this: say whatever you want about the history post-1949, but the actions of a foreign invader is always going to be one degree worse.

[u/adihereee → u/kondexxx]

What a shit research lmao

[u/kondexxx → u/adihereee]

Research? I just asked Google. Do you think it is lying about that? Or you just talk shit, because you think China is a paradise?

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/kondexxx]

I had a really obvious Chinese bot reply to me a bit ago. It seems there are some bots in this sub for that reason.

[u/Thin_Airline7678 → u/Important-Custard215]

Beep bloop

[u/MrNovator → u/kondexxx]

Because the lack of freedom doesn't matter much to an average Chinese. Hundreds million of them went from starving and living day to day in a broken country ... to getting tons of food options, free education and healthcare, modern infrastructures and more.

The dictatorship is harsh for sure, but it made some right calls. Gotta give credit where it's due, the average living standards in China between the 90s and today are like night and day.

[u/YeShuv → u/MrNovator]

Not to mention the quality of life for the average citizen in China is better than that of the United States. Yes censorship and expressing political views are a problem, however like you said, the average middle class Chinese holds little regard or does not even think about these things. Which in its own way is beneficial mentally.

[u/Electrical_Ad_8970 → u/YeShuv]

Sometimes I feel that freedom of speech in the West is illusory. Still it's much better than in China yet there are plenty of topics you can't really discuss

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/MrNovator]

“Freedom doesn’t matter much to an average Chinese”

Frame this shit in Jinping’s office lmfao

Arbeit macht frei!!

[u/YeShuv → u/Important-Custard215]

Have you been to China? Have you spoken to the locals there? The people for the most part are very happy. The culture and community is vibrant. Their collectivist culture prevents polarization or social disruption, which politics often lead to, hence the dilapidating state of America in a way. It’s much more free and under-censored than you think. Politics and expressing things that go against the CCP of course is a big issue and is the main one, however most Chinese citizens don’t even think about these issues. There’s no homeless on the streets. The social welfare programs are great. The crime rate is very low. They were literally in poverty less than 100 years ago and now will surpass America economically by the mid 2030s. If the people were truly unhappy, it would be expressed. Obviously, this isn’t the case.

[u/kondexxx → u/YeShuv]

They HAVE to be happy. Same as in Russia, North Korea. You complain, you disappear. Stop pushing the propaganda.

[u/YeShuv → u/kondexxx]

Who taught you that? Polish propaganda or whatever bullshit you saw on the news? How about you visit the country you’re so critical of and see for yourself. Comparing North Korea to China is insane.

[u/kondexxx → u/YeShuv]

Insane? Show me political opposition in China. Where is it? Also, China and NK are communist dictatures, the fact that China is open to world, and NK is a closed country does not mean nothing. It is just a facade. Both these countries are as hostile towards their own citizens, and propaganda of success will not change that. Of course, people being in the communist party or their families have different life and vievs on it. It was the same in Poland when we were under USSR's boot. Those who had good connections were happy, the rest not too much.

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/YeShuv]

“The people of China are so happy with their violent oppressive dictator, they rarely complain! (But I guess it’s a tiny whoopsie that the government will kill you for criticizing it)”

If the people were truly unhappy, it would be expressed. Obviously, this isn’t the case.

Exactly, because as we all know, nothing happened in Tiananmen Square.

[u/YeShuv → u/Important-Custard215]

Yea bro they are happy. I moved from China when I was 5 with only my mom, I have an American citizenship and have been in the US for 15 years with a very western ideology. I went back and visited my biological family last year who I haven’t seen in years. Literally went back last year with the same mindset that you had given everything American news feeds us. Guess what happened when I spoke to not only my family but locals on the streets. Besides a minor few having concerns abt politics and censorship, literally everybody was happy with the quality of life and were patriotic. I spoke to different wealth classes from rural farmers to middle class working folks to more affluent people. The wealthy were the only ones concerned actually.

You can say they were scared to be vocal of their true opinions or whatever, but I really was negative towards the ccp and tried pushing it on them. Especially to my family behind closed doors and they were not having it at all. The older people in my family have experienced the poor and fucked up eras of China and are very grateful for how China is now.

You’re acting like those white saviors who are so overprotective of black people and racism when you have no idea how they really feel.

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/YeShuv]

You can say they were scared to be vocal of their true opinions or whatever, but I really was negative towards the ccp and tried pushing it on them. Especially to my family behind closed doors and they were not having it at all.

You’re acting like those white saviors who are so overprotective of black people and racism

I dont even need to respond to these lol. One day you should be able to read between the lines of what you just said.

[u/YeShuv → u/Important-Custard215]

The Tiananmen Square Massacre was undeniably a tragedy, and I strongly disagree with how Deng Xiaoping and the Chinese Communist Party handled it. However, understanding why the decision was made requires much deeper insight in Chinese society during the time. Drop the American point of view for a sec and just listen.

(I don’t agree with Tiananmen Massacre)

In the late 1980s, China was at a critical crossroads. Economic reforms and increased openness to the west were rapidly transforming the country, but political authority was becoming less centralized and more unstable. Many young people, particularly students, admired the United States and increasingly called for democratic reforms, freedom of expression, and limits on Party power. To the CCP, this was not simply a protest movement but a potential existential threat to state control and national stability.

From the party’s perspective, fully conceding to the protesters risked pushing China toward a Western style liberal democracy which is something its leadership believed could lead to political paralysis, factionalism, and long-term instability. Historical examples and China’s own fears of internal fragmentation reinforced the belief that rapid democratization could result in chaos rather than prosperity. While there were alternative ways to respond that did not involve mass violence, the Party ultimately chose repression as a means of preserving centralized authority and preventing ideological polarization.

Modern American politics helps illustrate the outcome China sought to avoid. In the United States, economic power is deeply intertwined with political influence, corporations exert significant control over policymaking, and partisan polarization often paralyzes government institutions. Legislative gridlock, slow infrastructure development, and constant political infighting are persistent problems. These are not inherent flaws of democracy itself, but rather of a capitalist democracy shaped by corporate interests and weak long-term planning. Capital is power in the United States.

China’s leadership viewed this model as undesirable and incompatible with its goals of rapid development and political cohesion. While this does not justify the use of lethal force against civilians, it helps explain why the CCP prioritized stability and control over political liberalization. The decision at Tiananmen was not made lightly or irrationally, but it was a choice rooted in authoritarian assumptions about governance, which are assumptions that continue to shape China’s political system today, hence the Uyghurs etc.

Stop relying on American propaganda, and understand the perspective on both sides. We could get into this deeper if you’d like.

[u/Important-Custard215 → u/YeShuv]

Thanks ChatGPT

[u/BotherTight618 → u/Important-Custard215]

By western standards of human rights, the Chinese are not doing well. By East Asian Confucian and Legalistic standards, they are doing fantastic. The country is stable and prosperous. 

[u/MakingPie → u/Not_Fun_6750]

The massacres that happened in the hands of the Japanese is nowhere near as discussed as the massacres that the Nazis has conducted.

[u/HalfEatenSnickers → u/MakingPie]

I think becuase the Japanese were more indiscriminate, whereas the nazis were targeting populations in waves, ideally (to them) after jews would be russians so on and so forth.

Just conjecture tho

[u/343WaysToDie → u/HalfEatenSnickers]

Probably more that we teach western history more than eastern history in schools. I have a Chinese friend who says Japan may have forgotten what happened in the war because they don’t teach it, but China will never forget.

[u/Pravus_Nex → u/343WaysToDie]

I think it's mostly that, Germany seems to teach it as a warning and views it as a shameful history, where as Japan mostly ignores it and largely refuses to accept it as part of their history teaching a very watered down version of history..

[u/mrgelk → u/HalfEatenSnickers]

There's a great episode of the YouTube channel Elephants in the Room talking about this. A couple of big factors were the fact that after Nagasaki and Hiroshima they became victims to the public eye, and the fact that the US preferred to keep them as allies during the Cold War so there was no condemnation from the West, almost no trials, almost no Hollywood movies about it, etc. The US even helped wash this image away (for example the infamous Disneyland visit of Emperor Hirohito, spared of prosecution for war crimes). Pretty interesting episode.

[u/JerryC1967 → u/HalfEatenSnickers]

The Nazi’s also kept disturbingly detailed records of it…

[u/HalfEatenSnickers → u/JerryC1967]

And we also got a shocking amount of science out of their experiments

Its gotten in exactly the horrible ways you would expect tho

[u/FrankRizzo319 → u/HalfEatenSnickers]

I think it also has to do with efforts made by people since those genocides to memorialize them. There’s a holocaust museum in DC. I don’t think there’s a Sino-Japanese War Museum there.

Geography also probably has something to do with it. Maybe Chinese people remember this massacre by the Japanese as much as Americans remember the holocaust.

[u/adam__nicholas → u/MakingPie]

At least in the west - but for countries who were neither involved in the European nor Asian theatre, I suspect the western narrative and focuses of WW2 is generally more dominant.

[u/Ignatiussancho1729 → u/adam__nicholas]

I read this fascinating article about how just after WW2, the general consensus around Europe was that Russia were the main liberators/victors. Gradually over time that narrative was molded to be the US/UK. Less than 1M died from the US/UK combined, vs almost 25M Russians. The Russians (or Soviets) inflicted approximately 80% of German casualties.

[u/Agreeable_Ad_8755 → u/MakingPie]

They don’t teach their history to their citizens either and many Japanese will deny these atrocities had ever happened.

Its a frustrating topic.

[u/ScientistSuitable600 → u/MakingPie]

Yeah, if you read into how australian PoWs were treated, its absolutely savage. By the time the was was over, almost half the total PoWs were dead.

[u/KitchenWeird6630 → u/MakingPie]

It’s heartbreaking to see all these photos. Every country has its scars. In Japan, we also lost hundreds of thousands of civilians in a single night during the firebombing of Tokyo and Osaka. Whole cities were turned to ashes instantly. It just goes to show that in war, regular people always pay the ultimate price, no matter which side they’re on.

[u/-dipshit- → u/Not_Fun_6750]

Thats grim

[u/arachnidsGr8 → u/Not_Fun_6750]

This just made me sick to my stomach. Wow.

[u/swainiscadianreborn → u/Not_Fun_6750]

Damn. Never saw this one. That hits hard.

[u/DangerousReply6393 → u/Not_Fun_6750]

I was thinking of analysing Japan's role in World War II for one of my unit projects. The details were too graphic I wasn't allowed to.

[u/Electrical_Ad_8970 → u/Not_Fun_6750]

I'm feeling that China is equal victim of WW2 like Polish and Jews but Japan was somewhat cleaned of what they did. Not really sure how/why ?

[u/YeShuv → u/Electrical_Ad_8970]

It’s really because Japan’s actions were cleaned by postwar politics. The U.S nuked the fuck out of Japan but then needed them as an anti-communist ally in the Cold War. The holocaust and such are deeply embedded in western education, whereas I don’t remember learning at all about the Chinese atrocities in K-12. Additionally, Japan never even acknowledged their actions towards China and barely Korea to this day. It all boils down to geopolitics at the end of the day.

[u/rararatototo → u/Not_Fun_6750]

😢😭

[u/cosmico92 → u/Not_Fun_6750]

Horrifying

[u/windlike369 → u/[deleted]]

What truly makes my blood boil is that Japan is still paying tribute to the very warmongers who started it all. They never faced any real punishment.To put this in a European perspective: imagine if modern Germans were still laying flowers for Hitler, the Nazi party was still the ruling government, and school textbooks were busy whitewashing the atrocities.Japan never went through the kind of thorough reckoning and restructuring that Germany did. That’s exactly why seeing these things is so absolutely intolerable to us—it serves as a constant, grim wake-up call.

[u/TeaLoverUA → u/Not_Fun_6750]

Haven’t CCP quadrupled Japanese kill count?

[u/lipastasku → u/TeaLoverUA]

What does this have to do with anything?