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China had a mature domestic conversation about it and decided that the proper course was to refrain from taking a side.

The Pope also made a thoughtful contribution, acknowledging that the matter is far more complicated than western media suggests, while decrying the bloodshed and calling for diplomacy.

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China’s domestic conversation is limited to what The Party will permit. Calling it “mature” is…misleading at best, because it’s an incomplete, sanitized discourse under the threat of retribution for expressing the wrong sentiment.

Everybody in America who doesn't have the state department's line on the war is subject to censorship and retribution. They're just less honest about it here.

This is misleading if not outright false. Roughly half the country doesn’t have the state department’s line on war and regularly voices opinions as such. They do so without any state backed retribution or widespread media cancellation. What we do have is a strongly access-based media propaganda machine that tries very hard to push the narrative. But comparing what goes on in the US to what the conditions are in China is just invalid in almost every way.

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