[kitschshrine]

so China is

- lead by a billionnaire dictator and son of veteran communist party member, who has shown to purge his enemies, jail innocents/reporters without trial, disappear others. He oppresses the will of hong kongers to self govern, and acts like a crybaby whenever Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, does anything political

- controlled by a "congress" of billionnaires, who work together to exploit workers for pennies on the dollar, turn a blind eye to deadly air pollution/water pollution/poisonous food in favor of money, and when in danger, flees to Australia/Canada/US with billions

- member in WTO, but never abides by any of the rules. Foreign companies are forced to give up tech, partner with locals, suffer 30% import tax, and eventually, leave due to unfairness. And other countries loses factories/jobs/communities. Internet companies are sometimes banned outright.

Of course China needs to spend billions spreading its false/hateful messages via its 50cents army on reddit, facebook, etc. It has a cruel and evil authoritarian dictatorship, that if unchecked, will swallow the world

[dang]

Single-purpose accounts aren't allowed on HN. We've banned this one.

Using HN primarily for political and ideological battle is also not allowed here, nationalisms included.

[imjustsaying]

People who haven't lived in China have a hard time wrapping their heads around the grave implications of this.

There is no free press in China so you can only see a small fraction of the life-destroying problems that are pervasive throughout the country, let alone shine enough light on them to solve them.

An extended PR campaign such as this is only going to exacerbate the distortion of reality.

[kristianc]

As it stands, this doesn't sound dissimilar to America (which also spends billions on making the world love it in the name of soft power)

[dave_sullivan]

Boo. False equivalency. Can we acknowledge that this is the favored argument by authoritarian propaganda machines and it's a baseless distraction? It has no place here.

More: http://www.npr.org/2017/03/17/520435073/trump-embraces-one-o...

[kristianc]

The article explicitly cites Nye and how American concept of soft power is being adopted by authoritarian regimes.

[dave_sullivan]

Huh? Not sure how that's relevant to you trying to use a garbage argument in response to very valid criticisms of modern China. Everything PP said was accurate, US doesn't come close by comparison, your observation is manipulatively off base.

[caio1982]

Your argument has a name: tu quoque.

[kristianc]

Then that argument is true of the Economist's article too, which explicitly quotes Nye.

[throwayedidqo]

The US is also still largely a transparent democracy. By soft-power do you mean the only modern country so defined by its achievements that it's culture is emulated across the world?

In the former Soviet Union and even in modern China it's fashionable and a sign of wealth to have American technology and fashion. Among many trade barriers, China artificially limits the number of American movies allowed in theaters to a couple a year because they're so popular.

Even countries with extremely friendly relations to the US take some actions to limit the pervasiveness of US culture. In the case of Japan, limiting the number of US baseball players on Japanese teams comes to mind.

It's telling that even with the magnitude of recent intel leaks there has been nothing found to indicate the US uses government funded propaganda. They don't need to.

Not to go too off my chain too much on why US culture is looked up to, but we're talking about the country that invented the car,microchip, transistor, computer, atomic weapons, GPS, and the internet.

Most of the great inventions of modern history were created in the United States, some of them by the government itself. Silicon valley continues to pump out the most valuable companies in the world at an astounding rate to this day.

So what is soft power exactly? Is it bad that a lot of countries look up to the US model of society? Is that unfair? Your claim is baseless, American culture is popular simply because the US is so successful.

[kristianc]

And yet the US export of soft power to the Middle East largely ended in ignominious failure.

And there's plenty of intel out there in the open that the US funds propaganda abroad, such as Omidyar's co-funding of the Ukraine resistance (https://pando.com/2014/02/28/pierre-omidyar-co-funded-ukrain...).

Or in Chile, where the United States overthrew a democratically elected leader and installed a dictator who went on to commit over 300 human rights atrocities.

Indeed many of the technologies you cite as being invented by the US were invented within a military context! Atomic weapons were not, I'm sorry to say, America's wonderful altruistic gift to the world.

The US has certainly been successful projecting its power around the world - arguing that that has come from the sheer force of American global popularity is more of a stretch.

[throwayedidqo]

And here we go, meandering farther and farther from the point at hand. That article is not from a respectable news source and your claims, which have nothing to do with China, are not verifiable.

However, my arguments are easily verifiable and widely known. Why do other countries feel the need to block things like US movies and sports stars? Are your seriously suggesting that such things are secretly US govt propaganda?

The most reasonable explanation is that US movies and sports stars are known for their high quality and allowing the US to compete in those countries would totally wipe out local movies and sports stars. This would obviously contribute to the spread of US culture and continue propagating the believe that the US model of society produces superior products.

Countries like Russia and China depend on their propaganda machines to keep the population complacent. Allowing foreign competition to overtake local firms and show their superiority to the local populace would result in questions those governments don't want these citizens asking.

Foreign companies find little trouble competing in the US, because the US govt by large is not concerned with the influence of foreign culture. The government is slight corrupt but not to the point that it makes widespread lies necessary to maintain order. Many foreign companies have the US as their primary market, something China and other countries that depend on propaganda for peace would never allow.

[T-A]

> 30% import tax

Where did that number come from? Going by this,

http://www.china-briefing.com/news/2016/12/06/import-export-...

I would expect the usual 10% for WTO members without other trade agreements. If you add the higher 17% VAT rate to that and round up, I guess you can sort of justify "30%", but that's misleading, since VAT applies to domestic companies too.

[user982]

Your HN account is singularly focused on demonizing China along every axis.

[yomly]

Let's take a look at America:

They spy on you, regardless of if you live in the country or not, committing global espionage[0][1]

They do not observe human rights when imprisoning you [2][3]

They are happy to bomb civilians using automated robots in the name of freedom and enlisting you to their brand of freedom[4]

They are happy to arm terrorists then assassinate them when they are no longer relevant to their cause[5]

They will wage illegal wars when it is convenient for them[6]

They were happy to obliterate people's homes to conduct nuclear tests in the name of freedom[7]

They institutionally protect the interests of the people with the most access to wealth[8]

They have elected a narcissistic nepotistic sexist bigot for their president, and do not have free healthcare [no citations necessary]

I'm not here to spark a tally of which country has committed more atrocities or which country is better - the world is simply a dirty place, and to this day, humans are still as capable of committing human on human sin.

China is no doubt guilty of many crimes too but I find China bashing by other countries reeking of hypocrisy and evidence that our own nations' propaganda machines are well oiled and in full-throttle.

The victor writes history.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/wikile...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/08/wikile...

[2] http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2013/10/23/marion_prison_lo...

[3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/guantanamo-...

[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/03/the-oba...

[5]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_CIA_assistance_...

[6]http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/chilcot-report...

[7]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/oct/06/marshall-islan...

[8]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925858

EDIT: added an additional point

[product50]

At least there are articles/opinions written down for what is happening in US which you can quote. For China, in many cases, you can't even do that given press/govt restrictions.

Also, to say that China has better human rights record vs. US is almost blasphemy. Why even quote that?

For the last point, what are you trying to say? Democracy doesn't work - lets all most to the communist model!? I know you are trying to be a the devils advocate, but using one off examples (while ignoring everything that China represents) to justify your points seems wrong.

[dilemma]

>At least there are articles/opinions written down for what is happening in US which you can quote. For China, in many cases, you can't even do that given press/govt restrictions.

Which Chinese news publications do you read?

[product50]

Doesn't matter. Read this: http://time.com/4310607/china-press-freedom-media-xi-jinping...

Also, are you really trying to say that press in China has unfettered rights to publish anything? This is a country which has a giant firewall to prevent users from reading news/articles critical of it published outside China.

[dilemma]

So you can't read Chinese and have never read a Chinese newspaper.

[jldugger]

We can (and should) complain about this, but the sins of another do not dismiss your own.

[yomly]

Yeah - as I said, I'm not saying China is without sin. I just find China bashing to really be nothing more than an exercise of "pulling the ladder up". Europe was perfectly happy colonising the world in its heyday, as was America in the past. Now that they've entrenched their position in the world, suddenly it's not ok when other people are trying to climb the ladder.

[jahnu]

You are implying that China _must_ behave this way in order to become a developed country and then they can adjust to modern standards. Seems silly to me.

[kitschshrine]

uh, this is 2017, not 1930s. let's judge China by today's standard. You can't absolve a sin from someone today because someone else "used to do it" 100 years ago

[imjustsaying]

>They ...do not have free healthcare [no citations necessary]

When I lived and worked in China, for a government entity, the insurance didn't cover anything I ever needed it for and I had to pay out of pocket 100% of the time for all costs. The private healthcare industry is exploding in China right now because the public healthcare system is inadequate.

There is no such thing as free healthcare. Even if you install single payer and ration health supplies to the extent more people die on waiting lists like in Canada, the government will still be paying for the little care that remains through your own taxes or debt obligations.

More enlightenment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peVLkW7uirI

[sosborn]

> people die on waiting lists like in Canada

People die on waiting lists in America too, so if you are going to make this argument, be specific. How many people, what are they on the waiting list for, and how is it worse than what we have in America?

[imjustsaying]

The answer is in just one word to the left of that quote: "_more_ people die on waiting lists like in Canada."

It's not that the free market provides a panacea utopia, it's that it's empirically better than everything else. The government system in Canada predictably and steadily broke down as efficiency left due to the lack of a free market.

>The study, an annual survey of physicians from across Canada, reports a median wait time of 20 weeks [in 2016] —the longest ever recorded—and more than double the 9.3 weeks Canadians waited in 1993 [when single-payer began], when the Fraser Institute began tracking wait times for medically necessary elective treatments.

http://canadafreepress.com/article/canadas-health-care-wait-...

[sosborn]

Ok, but you still haven't shown any numbers regarding deaths and how they compare to America.

[imjustsaying]

In China, you would be sent to the gulags or disappeared for making this kind of post.

[mazerackham]

don't forget America's president is also a billionaire!

[michaelgrosner2]

* probably

[kitschshrine]

i was wondering when a 'whataboutism' person was gonna show up. why don't we stay on topic and talk about China. Btw, I'm not American

"I'm not here to spark a tally of which country has committed more atrocities" lol you just did.

[mazerackham]

lol, such brainwashing