Comment on China says US broke international law by seizing oil tankers off Venezuela
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 1 day agoThat’s a whole lot of whataboutism to deflect from the point I was making.
To be clear…as I said previously…I’m not defending the US.
I’m just pointing out how ridiculous it is that China is calling them out. The fact that Russia is saying it too, is equally hilarious. It’s like watching a bunch of career criminals all calling each other crooks. It’s about as disingenuous as it gets.
Oh, now they suddenly care about international law?
This is your original comment. The point you were making is LITERALLY whataboutism.
The US is factually violating international law. China called them out. You said “but what about China violating international law”.
It doesn’t get much more whataboutism than that. So let me continue you the trend here.
You think the commenter you were replying to is doing a whataboutism? What about your whataboutism?!
I don’t think you know what “whataboutism” means, then. It’s when you deflect to something unrelated, instead of focusing on the topic in question. In this case, the topic in question was LITERALLY China accusing the US of violating international law, specifically in regards to maritime law.
There is no better irony, than China…who is currently violating international law, specifically in regards to maritime law…criticizing the US for doing exactly the same thing. See, how I didn’t change the subject? It was LITERALLY the subject already.
Pointing out someone’s hypocrisy isn’t whataboutism, if the subject is the same. Otherwise the entire concept of calling out hypocrisy would be considered a logical fallacy. It’s only whataboutism, if you are bringing up unrelated topics in order to change the subject.
The topic was actually the US violating international law. Your comment was, paraphrased “but what about China violating international law?!”, which is literally exactly the context under which the word whataboutism was coined - when the US accused the USSR of doing bad things and the USSR called out the hypocrisy of the US, the anglosphere coined the term whataboutism.
It’s literally the definition.
There are much better ironies than China causing the US of violating international law, chief among them is the US accusing China of violating international law, because the US has been doing for far longer and in far more brutal ways than China ever has.
Yes, pointing out hypocrisy is literally whataboutism when you are using is to distract from the crimes of the empire. The reality is that everyone, including countries that have violated international law, should be condemning the US for what it’s doing and whether or not the condemners have violated international law is irrelevant and serves to minimize the topic at hand, which is the US seizing oil, and to advance sinophobic narratives, and to draw false equivalencies between horrible acts of murder, war crimes, piracy on the one hand and mild harassment on the other.
Ultimately, the greatest irony here is Westoids like you believing your opinions are well informed and not subject to foreign manipulation while being the most propagandized people in the planet.
mrdown@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
It’s not whataboutism . You said China is worse than the usa is not respecting international laws and maritime laws. I gave you all the evidence of why I think the usa ia worth.
Yes it is hilarious when China and Russia claim to care about inteenational laws but it is even more hilarious when the USA and it’s ally claim it. Like canada claiming to want a two state solution in Gaza at the same time allowing selling of occupied land in Synaguoges and allowing an IDF soldier to talk in an University
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 13 hours ago
I never said China was worse…only that they’re also violating the very same laws they’re criticizing the US for violating. If the hypocrisy wasn’t so on-the-nose, I wouldn’t have said anything…but this is just laughable.
mrdown@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
No, your argument was more than just China being hypocritical which i agree with you on that. You said China is the last country who should talk about international and maritine laws. I think the usa is the last since they are worse than China but doesn’t makes China better
Shouldn’t the worse be the last to talk about it?
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 12 hours ago
“The worst” is the subject of their criticism. Are you expecting them to criticize themselves? Because if they did, that would be a rare example of self-awareness on their part…not an act of hypocrisy.
But considering China has been blatantly and willfully violating the neutrality of international waters for years now, it is surprising they don’t see their own hypocrisy here. A fitting analogy would be Russia criticizing Israel for stealing land from Palestinians. Sure, you can make some arguments about the scale of the comparison…but it’s basically a “pot calling the kettle black” scenario, all the same.