[johnchristopher]

Why is this comment downvoted ?

In my country, Belgium, headlines were along the lines of "The real question now is: how patient is Beijing inclined to be ?".

[high_derivative]

There seems to be a lot of downvoting irrespective of post quality.

I wonder if this is i) thread-specific due to possible brigading, or ii) a more wider tribalistic phenomenon. I have perceived (lost my old account from years ago) that downvoting more and more is plain disagreement with the opinion, not whether a comment is substantive. Could be completely off and biased, but at least in this thread it seems to be the case.