At the same time, China’s population growth and economy are slowing. “The current population growth couldn’t support economic growth,” explains Hongwei, meaning there has been a push to encourage heterosexual couples to have larger families to ensure an abundant future workforce.
Hence, the Chinese crackdown on LGBT+.
The ban on Grindr could be put down to China’s wider dislike of Western apps, which are often accused of being vehicles for foreign influence. But removing Blued and Finka, which were both developed in China, represents a “seismic change in government attitudes towards homegrown LGBT apps”, says Hongwei.
Before targeting Blued and Finka, the Chinese authorities led a campaign against authors of the “Boy’s Love”, or Danmei, same-sex romance stories, some of which feature explicit love scenes between men.
Several Danmei writers, most of whom are female, have reported being arrested and questioned by the authorities, and in recent months two major Danmei sites have either shut down, or drastically reduced and toned down their content.
Today, “officially, those Three No’s are still in place, but we are seeing evidence that the space for LGBT+ communities is starting to shrink”, says Marc Lanteigne, associate professor of political science at the Arctic University of Norway.
Shanghai Pride shut down in 2020, and one year later the government shut down student LGBT+ accounts for “violating internet regulations”. Grindr disappeared in 2022, and in 2023 the Beijing LGBT Centre closed its doors after 15 years.
In June 2024, the Roxie, Shanghai’s last officially lesbian bar, was forced to close “under pressure from the authorities".
“The authorities have been slowly chipping away at those spaces that were open previously,” says Hildebrandt.
With the closure of so many physical spaces, online networks had become “really the only places in which many members of the LGBT+ community could express their sexuality openly” he adds.
But in contemporary Chinese politics, “the Maoist principles about equality have more to do with uniformity,” says Hildebrandt. “You gain equality by being more like everybody else. You don’t gain equality by being diverse.”
In a bid to create greater conformity within the population, “there has been a push in China to reinforce traditional family values and, in some cases, traditional masculine values,” adds Lanteigne.
Since the Covid pandemic, “the Chinese government has endorsed nationalist discourse and LGBT culture is seen as very politicised siding with Western ideologies”, says Hongwei.
“There’s the impression that LGBTQ communities are by default connected to the West and could be seen as destabilising forces,” adds Lanteigne.
Broader political and social forces may be at work, but the result is a real loss of liberty for gay and queer people in China. Hildebrandt says: “There is a real sense that it’s become a more difficult environment to be openly gay."
Implies Capitalism is not at fault, proceeds to outline precisely why State Capitalism is melting down over declining birthrate. This comment is so ironic it cured my anemia.
If every economy is capitalist no matter degree of government planning, regulation, & control, then by your standard non-capitalist economies are a myth.
Demand for population growth is a general problem of economic growth rather than type of economic system.
Even before capitalism, subsistence farmers would bear more children for the additional labor.
Central planning economies can be as or more destructive than the more capitalist ones: type of economy seems to have little bearing there, too.
The USSR aggressively industrialized & would consistently pursue economic growth (to raise standards of living).
It comes up in the Soviet constitution of 1977:
labor, free from exploitation, as the source of growth
continuous improvement of their living standards (art. 39)
Total emissions in the USSR in 1988 were about 79% of the US total. Considering that the Soviet GNP was only some 54% of that of the USA, this means that the Soviet Union generated 1.5 times more pollution than the USA per unit of GNP.
unnecessary hindrance to economic development and industrialization
and
By the 1990s, 40% of Russia’s territory began demonstrating symptoms of significant ecological stress, largely due to a diverse number of environmental issues, including deforestation, energy irresponsibility, pollution, and nuclear waste.
And this generously glosses over the extent of water contamination, hazardous dumping of toxic & nuclear waste into oceans, etc.
The dependence on labor, capacity for environmental destruction, and demand for economic growth are not particular to any type of economy: they’re general.
China isn’t a communist country really. A state capitalist country would be better way to describe it, maybe. They participate in the markets and allow private ownership of companies. For instance BYD the fast coming EV manufacturer isn’t majority owned by their federal government, but is subsidized by it.
People can argue if it is or isn’t capitalism, but in the end that doesn’t say communism. I’m no expert but I’d say maybe a social programs injected into a authoritarian capitalistic state.
Ehh, the capitalist class doesn’t call the shots in China though, the party does. And their private corporations don’t simply have shareholders, it has party representation embedded in the control structure making “ownership” moot because ultimately the party can veto or seize production at moments notice.
That being said, when Xi starts claiming socialism is inevitable, he does so to delay it’s implementation.
That just sounds like a reframing of “the party are the capitalist class” though.
If the party either controls the corporations or has the ability to seize control if their priorities aren’t met, where does one group begin and the other end?
Wouldn’t that have made the USSR capitalist as well? I think a key distinction is how authority within a party is established. If authority is derived from ownership then that is clearly capitalist. If authority is derived from the party itself, then that is something else.
Yeah companies like BYD have investors like Berkshire and Blackrock but the key is Wang Chuanfu who is in the party, and is the CEO and largest owner apparently. So he gets a lot of say in making himself richer apparently. Sounds like what Musk would have wanted for Tesla if he could have got MAGA off the EV hate
Weird issue to pin on capitalism: seems more of an economic growth issue regardless of type. From Bars, Pride and dating apps: How China is closing down its LGBT+ spaces
Hence, the Chinese crackdown on LGBT+.
older discussion
China is a capitalist society lmfao
Implies Capitalism is not at fault, proceeds to outline precisely why State Capitalism is melting down over declining birthrate. This comment is so ironic it cured my anemia.
If every economy is capitalist no matter degree of government planning, regulation, & control, then by your standard non-capitalist economies are a myth.
Demand for population growth is a general problem of economic growth rather than type of economic system. Even before capitalism, subsistence farmers would bear more children for the additional labor.
Central planning economies can be as or more destructive than the more capitalist ones: type of economy seems to have little bearing there, too. The USSR aggressively industrialized & would consistently pursue economic growth (to raise standards of living). It comes up in the Soviet constitution of 1977:
Despite their command economy, their pollution was proportionately worse than the US’s
Their planners considered pollution control
and
And this generously glosses over the extent of water contamination, hazardous dumping of toxic & nuclear waste into oceans, etc.
The dependence on labor, capacity for environmental destruction, and demand for economic growth are not particular to any type of economy: they’re general.
China isn’t a communist country really. A state capitalist country would be better way to describe it, maybe. They participate in the markets and allow private ownership of companies. For instance BYD the fast coming EV manufacturer isn’t majority owned by their federal government, but is subsidized by it.
People can argue if it is or isn’t capitalism, but in the end that doesn’t say communism. I’m no expert but I’d say maybe a social programs injected into a authoritarian capitalistic state.
Ehh, the capitalist class doesn’t call the shots in China though, the party does. And their private corporations don’t simply have shareholders, it has party representation embedded in the control structure making “ownership” moot because ultimately the party can veto or seize production at moments notice.
That being said, when Xi starts claiming socialism is inevitable, he does so to delay it’s implementation.
That just sounds like a reframing of “the party are the capitalist class” though.
If the party either controls the corporations or has the ability to seize control if their priorities aren’t met, where does one group begin and the other end?
Wouldn’t that have made the USSR capitalist as well? I think a key distinction is how authority within a party is established. If authority is derived from ownership then that is clearly capitalist. If authority is derived from the party itself, then that is something else.
Yeah companies like BYD have investors like Berkshire and Blackrock but the key is Wang Chuanfu who is in the party, and is the CEO and largest owner apparently. So he gets a lot of say in making himself richer apparently. Sounds like what Musk would have wanted for Tesla if he could have got MAGA off the EV hate