Not long ago, Angelica suddenly shifted her public opinions. She also got a new YouTube channel full of interviews of CCP stooges.
Now she's a full CCP genocide denier.
Angelica, I wonder:
Do you have a soul?
How much did you sell it for?
Was that the right price?
Jeremiah, I believed the Uyghur genocide thing during COVID too. And that the CCP is terrible an the Chinese people are all oppressed etc etc.
But the year is 2026 and Xinjiang has been open for tourism for years. Adrian Zenz is somehow the most authoritative source. I don’t think he’s even been to Xinjiang. His ideological bias is clear. He works for a group that’s anti communism. Would you like it if the world took the word of a Russian person working at an anti-American organization as the Chief Expert for how terrible America is?
Gaza is what a genocide looks like and despite the fact that Gaza is the size of Las Vegas and under Israeli lockdown we have a never ending stream of horrors from there on our timelines. What about Xinjiang, an area 1/6 of China total and crawling with tourists and good internet? Zenz and friends are still waving around those COVID era satellite images.
There is a terrible bug with liberalism. By assuming that your values are universal, you assume everybody who disagrees with you must be evil instead of just have different beliefs or priorities or maybe just because they know different things. You stop looking for pragmatic solutions, compromises, diplomacy and mutual understanding. You don’t even try to see the other persons point of view.
We’ve met each other. I’ve been on your podcast. I’m just the same Angelica you’ve had beers with in DC and Taipei. Then and now, I’ve always just wanted to make the world a better place. Isn’t it interesting how your instinct isn’t to be curious about why I changed my mind…it is to declare me beyond the pale? Aren’t you at all puzzled that a woman you previously thought so highly of your organization flew me out to DC to attend your conference suddenly decided to be a handmaiden to genocide?
No country or system is perfect and I’m no longer a naive believer in one-size-fits all. I hope that somehow you can get some objectivity about the Chinese system. I can’t think of another political party anywhere in the world that is as meritocratic, nor one that has consistently delivered such improvements in life for the last 3-4 decades to its people. Moreover I believe that Xi Jinping actually cares a lot more about the people of China than Donald Trump about ordinary Americans.
Just one more thing I want you to think about…I would almost certainly not have the beliefs I have today if not for living in Taiwan, talking to local Taiwanese, listening to their pundits and influencers. Like it or not, the Taiwanese are not all plucky-little China-hating boba-libs. If you really respect Taiwanese voices, you shouldn’t just cherry pick those who agree with you while dismissing everyone else as propaganda.