“And anyway, you’re another” is not the best argument that a tyrant can make to justify himself.
The CCP says that it is doing things like subjecting champion of freedom and democracy Joshua Wong (shown above) to another ten years in prison for the sake of national security, rule of law, whatnot. Since the critics do the same kind of thing, they should shut up already.
There’s a problem with the logic. Even if the critics were doing the same indefensible things that the CCP does, and with the same frequency and to the same degree, how would this similarity prove that the treatment of Wong is justified or that his persecutors should be exempt from criticism?
The South China Morning Post reports that a CCP spokesman even says this: “There are numerous cases in the countries concerned where their own citizens as well as foreign nationals have been prosecuted on charges such as ‘foreign agent’ and ‘foreign interference’, not to mention instances of arbitrary arrest and malicious prosecution.”
No magic is required to make relevant details disappear, only unwavering dishonesty.
The intended thought may be that the CCP never makes arbitrary arrests or prosecutes anybody maliciously but that its critics among governments, those hypocritical critics, do engage in such conduct. Or the intended thought may be that “The CCP makes arbitrary arrests and prosecutes maliciously in the name of national security, but so what? So do our critics.” Neither represents impeccable moral reasoning.
Hypocrisy is a sign of a contradiction. The fact of hypocrisy doesn’t tell us how to resolve the contradiction. If PRC officials do unjust things and U.S. officials do unjust things, both should stop doing unjust things. Injustice is what should end; it’s not the noticing and criticizing of injustice which should end. The Party has no moral ground here. Just its own endless hypocrisies and brutalities.
