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by krapp 2803 days ago
>Let's call it as it is: HN is a political instrument for anglocentric views. Not a particularly strong one, since topics are usually not about politics, but biased nontheless.

...but most of this thread is "bashing" the US and EU.

The best you could say about HN is that it hosts a pro-China contingent and an anti-China contingent, each of which believes the site is biased towards the other. But the site itself and the userbase is too diverse to be accurately labeled one or the other.

3 comments

Why should opinions be divided between 'pro' and 'anti'?

The issue is that China tends to be an emotive topic for some reason, and calm and factual analysis too rare.

It is possible to discuss China by recognising that it is a country that has been through a long period of decline and that is simply trying to re-assert itself on the world stage.

> The best you could say about HN is that it hosts a pro-China contingent and an anti-China contingent, each of which believes the site is biased towards the other. But the site itself and the userbase is too diverse to be accurately labeled one or the other.

I would argue that your pro-China camp does not exist. Those who criticize the US (myself included) are perfectly aware that China is not a role model.

We simply refuse to accept the view good (US) vs bad (China / Russia, depending on the weather). And we argue that the US has a much bigger footprint on geopolitics. both good and bad. And we criticize the bad parts, of which there are plenty.

> we argue that the US has a much bigger footprint on geopolitics

and by reducing that footprint (which is the main purpose of the critique) who do you think is in the best position to fill the vacuum? and what is the net effect of such change (good vs bad)?

> And we criticize the bad parts, of which there are plenty.

so you won't start criticizing China until US becomes the perfect utopia? how convenient..

Maybe, but the article setting the tone of the discussion, the one with (currently) 70 points, is bashing China.

A similar US-bashing political article would never get that much upvoted. Methinks.

I wouldn't assume that upvotes for the article correlate to an implicit agreement with it. If that were the case the tone of the thread overall would probably be different.

Also, I see criticism of China in this article, but I don't see anything I would interpret as "bashing" China. For that matter I also see criticism of the US and EU in the article as well.