This essay is bs, and deceptive bs. But it's in plenty of company, and likely serves the market hungry for "China bad" tales.

Trigger warning: facts ahead. The lead image is a woman executed for "intentional homicide" (that's what the sign says, "intentional homicide - her name")

The article makes a handful of irresponsible accusations. It claims China is executing "probably many more via militarized kangaroo courts," insinuates China is doing "“social cleansing” of undesireables like petty drug abusers, liquidation of badly-behaved members of minority groups, or outright political murders of people within the CCP hierarchy", and mislabels China's legal system as "state terror", getting almost poetic with its description of how it imagines this operates: "Effective systems of state terror rely on a dance between the known and the unknown in the mind of the public," which seems like the opposite of the very obvious "known" of a public execution where the criminal carries sign expressing their bona fides, and flies in the face of the author's own description of "Regular judicial personnel handle identity confirmation and terminal legal dispositions".

So where could this invention of "state terror" and all these imagined tentacular bogeymen of "state terror" come from? Perhaps from the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, which the author neglects to mention. Or perhaps from the period of Japanese occupation and the mass killings and disappearances of ordinary folk that the author again neglects to mention. Where does the author get his (or her, it's hard to tell if it's a pseudonym or not) picture of China? One possibility is biased Western media which for the last few years has worked its readership into a frothy fervor of China hatred, mostly based on such misrepresentations and lazy accusations. Which if the author has his (or her) biased view of China from the media he consumes, presents a further interesting possibility.

It seems that a "dance between the known and the unknown in the mind of the public" would pretty well describe the constant state of confusion and conflict instigated and inflamed by the media apparatus of certain unnamed "free" countries. Perhaps the author is projecting his experience of such "state terror" onto a place he doesn't know about (but feels justified to misrepresent and smear), in some sort of "fantasy idyll dystopia" that lets him feel he has it lucky to be where he is?

The essay also expends a paragraph on Nazis and Soviets, and spends quite a bit of time imagining the dastardly inner workings of the state he fabricates, and how the dogma of spreading responsibility for illegitimate killings onto as many people as possible ensures their coercibility. Hmm, sounds like the typical blackmail-type coercion engaged in by state security and intelligence organizations, and their proxy sex crime rings, in many unnamed "free" countries. Again, possibly the author is projecting his own experience of this kind of "coercive covert control".

Especially likely given the vast majority of Chinese see their state's legitimacy as totally solid and, if anything, complain of the forgivingness of their punitive systems, rather than their harshness. To the reader unacquainted with Chinese history beyond the ancient anodyne depictions of flowery courts, silk-clad concubines, and scurrying sneaky eunuchs....this bloodlust (or "Justice boner"?) might seem unaccountable and odd. But a closer look at Chinese history (even 20C Chinese history) will quickly correct such ahistorical readers of their delusions. They gave the world the 20C's bloodiest revolution. And it was a popular revolution, not a "illegitimate tyrannical crackdown", so the people are pretty accustomed to using blood and death to reshape things how they want.

I know it's a compelling and soothing fantasy to try to, in one's mind, delegitimize the Chinese state, and pretend a "kinship" with all the "oppressed Chinese masses", and feel like your own country is so much better, but honestly, you'd all be better off fixing the problems in your own countries, and looking to China as a source of strength, inspiration and partnership, rather than persisting in these "feel-good" fantasies (which frankly reek of being demented and intoxicating swansongs to a dying "Era of Western dominance"). Even if your goal is to complete with and beat China, you'd be better served by being able to see it clearly, which these feelgood Western fantasies of "China bad", only cloud. Honestly if you want to make yourself as "the enemy of the Chinese state" you'd be far better served by seeing it clearly first, as these sort of self-deluding fantasies (which are, incidentally, embarrassingly racist and blind to such in their snooty fake-righteous didactic criticism), only play into the hands of those you want to define as your enemies.

The uncomfortable truth that the country that is soon to be seen as (or in fact already) the largest economy, with all its foreignness to Western minds, to have that suddenly thrust upon the world stage in first place, is understandable very hard for many people in other countries to accept. It's hard, and not helped that your native medias have gone into a "2 minutes China hate" overdrive. That they resort to these sort of made-up but soothing fantasies is understandable, as it both plays into the hands of your domestic politics always hungry for the next weapon of mass distraction, and somebody to blame. But you shouldn't show "contempt before investigation" you should keep your mind open, and be vigilant against such implanted fears and fabrications, lest you become instruments of the will of power brokers the intentions of which you do not understand. You have much to learn from, and much the benefit from China, if you'll only keep an open mind, instead of engaging in, quite frankly, this tired mental masturbation that is all these sort of lazy accusatory fake narratives amount to.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...but it's not going to help you and it's not going to make it easier to deal with the facts. And it really doesn't have to be that hard. Just keep an open mind, start with a neutral (not "we are better" or "we are worse" mindset) and think for yourselves. You can't travel right now, so at least, travel in your mind, and adopt the same open-minded curiosity you employ when traveling physically. Look for the good, and be on the look out for dangers, but don't go hiding in a cave of your own fear and invention because somebody pointed to a geopolitical map and told you, "there be dragons."