> What is the "different side to the story" of involuntary organ harvesting of political and religious prisoners?

It's about the accuracy of the claim that there's involuntary harvesting going on: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/09/30/reports-china-organ-harve...

There was harvesting going on of prisoners that have already been executed. China admitted as much: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbxvZ2lIR08
This practice has stopped since 2015.

> Anyway, I don't get my news from Twitter.

Unfortunately, there's not much I can do about the fact that most media outlets don't publish videos like these. But the video footage speak for themselves. Here's evidence of rioters setting a man on fire for disagreeing with them: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gblPwStlsQs

If you are interested in a more long-form discussion about what's going on in Hong Kong, check out Daniel Dumbrill, a Canadian who lived in Hong Kong and now lives in Shenzhen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQx5NKAfueg

> I'll read that article, FWIW. Cheers.

Thanks. I'm already plenty glad that you're at least willing to take a look, even if you disagree.

> But I can tell you what I mean when I say that.

All right, point taken.

For the sake of discussion, I'll limit my scope here to mainlanders, not the diaspora.

I'll also tell you my point of view. I was born in the mainland, I now live in the Netherlands. My wife is a mainlander too. You're right that China as a culture and civilization is older than the CPP. Having said that, having studied China's history, I do think the CCP is the legitimate government of the mainland.

> You cannot possibly know that with any certainty in a regime that punishes criticism!

The claim that it's a "regime that punishes criticism" is overblown. There's a core of truth, but overblown. Things haven't been that extreme since the 70s. Nowadays there are many people who do in fact criticize the government.

For some perspective, try this video. This is an interview between an American and a Canadian, who both live in China. They discuss their experience with Chinese society, and things (including things about the government) are different from what they thought it is based on western views: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufxfSJgQuSI

It also kinda depends on what you mean by criticize. If you try to incite riots or government overthrow, or if you work with foreign agencies -- yeah they REALLY don't like that sort of stuff, and you'll get into a lot of trouble. But for more perspective, try this example:

In 2019 there were protests in Guangdong about the building of a crematorium. https://mothership.sg/2019/12/news-china-protests-wenlou-hua...
The government did not arrest the peaceful protesters. They did arrest the violent ones, but even those were released later. Eventually, the government gave the protesters what they wanted.

> People lie when you've got a big stick in your hand to beat them with if you don't like what you hear, eh?

The people I talked to are on a VPN, operating on western websites, talking to me in private. The Chinese government is not monitoring those conversations.

Having lived in the west for so long, I also studied China for quite a while. The more I study, the more I realize that the western view of CCP is... not exactly wrong, but very very problematic.