[confusedhnguy2]

Westerners act like they really care about us and we are some kids who refuse to take their meds.

Some of you genuinely care about us and I can appreciate that, but as a whole, I find the Westerners' altitude towards us disturbing.

Reasons:

1. Knows very little about China except from cherry-picked news by Western media, but pretending to know everything about us, better than us. This makes many of your arguments baseless and extremely annoying to the eyes.

- How many of you have lived in China for more than 1 year and know the language and the culture? I have been in the US for 9 years, by your logic I am so qualified for the next POTUS.

- When was the last time you saw bad news about Taiwan on your media? Does this mean Taiwan is heaven on earth?

- Have you read Henry Kissinger's On China? Do you know who Edgar Snow is? Have you heard of the 1938 Yellow River flood and know its cause? If you answer no for all three questions, it is unlikely that your opinion about China worth a read.

- I saw one HNer wondered if any of us mainlanders know what's happening in HK. Excuse me? HK is physically connected to other parts of mainland China, Luohu port alone served 83.2 million passengers in 2015.

2. Double standard in just about everything.

- Terrorist attack in Paris, everybody mourns; terrorist attack in Kunming, freedom fighters!

- US fights with {UK, USSR, North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, China, whoever-it-is-this-week}, we are just spreading freedom; China fights with the US (with no blood shed), you are just hiding your own problems.

- Care to explain why are Francis Cabot Lowell and Samuel Slater your hero if you care so much about intellectual property and fair trade?

- I see at least one post about HK on HN every single day, since June. So either the people from Kashmir don't deserve your attention, or being your ally means one can get away with this.

3. General arrogance towards us.

- For you internal affair, clearly there are always multiple parties involved, people should make observations from different perspectives and critical thinking is required. When it comes to us, well, you Chinese are all borgs that think and act alike. Apparently all the 90 million members of the CCP share the same brain, there cannot possibly be any conflict inside the party which affects its actions.

- I have witnessed multiple times, on HN, where people say that they can't wait to see a revolution happen in China or a joint military action that overthrows our government. Yes, millions of Chinese are more than welcome to die ASAP just so you can be more confident about Western values.

- When it comes to battling the climate change. The US citizens should do nothing and keep their current life style. How dare the Chinese want to eat beef like we do, owning big houses and lawns like we do, and drive pick-ups like we do. Per capita carbon emission and meat consumption is the wrong metric to use!!!!!!1111 You Chinese should just stick with bicycles and eat more rice.

(HN is especially bad in these regards. Seriously, even the 4chan folks are much more adorable than HNers, at least they know they are shit talking.)

The CCP treats us like shit. But when I see Westerners have discussions about China, I don't feel like you want to help us because your discussions are almost always filled with Western propaganda, misinformation, and utter ignorance. All I see is a massive circlejerk based on half-truth, half-misunderstanding. I know some of you fantasize that if more and more Chinese come to the West or see online discussions like this one, they will accept Western value and the CCP will collapse in no time. But the reality is, based on the reasons above, you only humiliate yourself and push us further away from you. Feel free to deny all your faults and blame the CCP for brain-washing us into disagreeing with you (as you have always did), but more and more mainlanders are agreeing with me.

Yes I registered to post this, yes I am a Chinese, yes I am saying something bad about you Westerners. I know some HNer can't wait to point these out and accusing me of being a wumao, sorry I took you chance :P

You may down vote me now.

[zarro]

This is the best response that I have gotten which I think a majority of Chinese people agree with and epitomizes my exact point that it is counterproductive to villainize one another.

Instead of letting contention escalate to coercion and violence we should focus on setting mutually agreeable rules of economic competition, and let whichever system is more successful in producing value succeed.

Important side point regarding intellectual property - our system here is also messed up and copyright/IP laws will no doubt be changed soon. The important part regarding that is setting common rules of engagement, and allowing those that are responsible for development of new methods and ideas to capture some part of the value that they created, without enforcing through the coercion of law an arbitrary monopoly. Such rules are in both of our interests, as Chinese people should also be able to capture the value that they create through innovation - perhaps why some think the innovation curve is so low in China is because there is not enough incentive for there to be more (There would be if we formed some kind of rules for innovators to be allowed to capture some value from the product/services they create).

I hope you realize, I am NOT anti-china, I am anti-Totalitarianism, because I think its not in both of our long term best interests. But I also think that if some are happy to live under what I would call "totalitarianism" I am 100% okay with that as long as I am allowed the same prerogative to chose what system I want to live with.

[confusedhnguy2]

The beauty about villainize one another is that it is simple. No need to think or do research, just fallback to knee-jerk reactions. And it makes one feel superior when they think they are the good people that fights the evil.

It's human nature and nothing you or me can do will change it. (I mean, the need for antagonists is embedded into our brains, just look at the popular movies)

Yes, I totally agree that some of us did stole your stuff, and the fact that you also did it in the past doesn't justify our actions. Lack of innovation is indeed a big problem in China and it absolutely should not be mitigated by stealing others' innovations. Healthy, fair competition is what moves things forward and creates value. But many Westerners are acting like they have the moral high ground. Don't you love your bible? How about that story about throwing stones at some poor girl?

Like I said, I know many of you have good intentions (except the ones who want to see a war in China). But the gap between our cultures is way too big, misunderstandings are inevitable and you can't expect the average person to learn all the differences.

You say our government is totalitarianism and it's bad. I say we treat the government as our parents and it's part of our multi-thousand year culture.

You say democracy is the only right choice. I say not everyone has enough knowledge to make informed decisions and that's why you have a madman president.

You say the CCP is an evil dictatorship that uses the book 1984 as a manual. I say I am very thankful for their tremendous efforts in maintaining a stable, independent country, even if we are surrounded by hostile countries (Yes, Russia is a potential enemy and we all know it. No, North Korea is not our puppet state.)

Very few of us can stay calm and agree to disagree, the rest writes the history.

[zarro]

To be an anti-totalitarianist is to acknowledge that even parents sometimes make mistakes, not to say that what the majority says is true is right.

When people say something is “evil” what they mean is they don’t believe it’s in our long term best interest. Meaning even though paternalism got you to where you are today, doesn’t mean it will get you where you want to be in the future.

Finally you imply that those that stay calm and agree to disagree won’t write the future, while I won’t disagree, I would caution that if you let disagreement evolve into coercion and conflict without a channel for resolution besides violence, there will not be a future for someone to “write”.

[Jommi]

Who exactly are you responding to? It seems like most of your statements are just further molding the issue as China vs West, when the whole point of the person you are responding to is that this is a huge fallacy. The real problem here should be more clear cut on the relevant parties e.g. CCP instead of China as a whole.

You are purporting a collection of statements from just one side of the argument, seemingly on purpose.

I am asking you, if you truly want this issue to progress to a healthier path, do not continue to push adversarial position, even though many in the west might do so.

[PavlovsCat]

You're equating Americans with all Westerners, claim nobody criticized the US wars of aggression, and so on. In the end, you claim being pushed closer towards the CCP by what random people say on the interwebs, really?

Do you have the faintest idea how many European countries talk shit about Germany and Germans 24/7? Only German Neo-Nazis pay close attention to any of that, nobody else would use it as excuse to vote for the extreme right-wing. Reason is not suffering from an inferiority complex, other than said right-wingers.

And trust me, as a German there's a lot to feel shit about, and not much to be proud of. But I still can laugh when people trash talk Germany, and nothing a foreigner says about Germany could make me angry, so I don't have to invent things about them, either. If you want to see me angry, have a German deny the Holocaust, or say that might is right, I'll be teetering on the edge of what is legal to say in no time, certainly on the edge of what the rules of any online forum would allow.

> I know some of you fantasize that if more and more Chinese come to the West or see online discussions like this one, they will accept Western value and the CCP will collapse in no time

With those cherry picked straw men about all Westerner you haven't even scratched the surface. As has been written decades ago, totalitarian revisionism requires control of the whole planet. The CCP is demonstrating it really wants to try going for that. It doesn't want just to bullshit you and leave us alone, it wants to silence us, as well, so we'd rather fight back.

We care about our own freedom, from that follows solidarity of all people who want to be free, too, but our own is the bedrock driving force here, and I don't think you fully grasp it, it's not merely buzz words because you've seen a bunch of hypocrites or people paying mere lip service. And the main question isn't so much how the CCP treats obedient or harmless citizens, anyway, but rather how it treats dissidents. One innocent person who gets tortured outweighs even a thousand billion people who look the other way. Until that is clear to you as well, you have understood little about the lessons of the 20th century from the perspective of serious Westerners. No words can change anything. Not even military force could. You can kill us, but not change this.

If you don't want solidarity, that's fine, but you can't give it back on behalf of others. Those dissidents still have it, and we will speak freely.

> blame the CCP for brain-washing us into disagreeing with you (as you have always did)

What precisely are you even disagreeing with? You agree the CCP treats you like shit, but you haven't said whether you agree with supporting resistance against being treated like shit. Being offended so deeply seems to override everything else, but that is essentially blackmail, not an argument.

[confusedhnguy2]

I don't care how you, as an individual, think. Collectively, Westerners make themselves repulsive to the Chinese people. This isn't about some crazy people's online comments, it's how your mainstream media and your governments have represented you. A Chinese living in the US doesn't need to read HN to learn that the US is hostile towards China and the Europeans are nodding in the back seat. HN is suppose to be filled with educated people but the number of questionable comments about China is still through the roof, you can imagine how twitter is welcoming the eager, curious Chinese who have just learned how to use VPN and want some fresh air.

> ... equating Americans with all Westerners

In the context of China-related issues, I don't see the problem. The Europe usually just repeats what the US says, or stays quiet. You should be thankful that the US drew most of the fire, and most Chinese still have very good impressions about Germany.

> ... nobody criticized the US wars of aggression

I didn't say that, don't put words in my mouth. Also, a few people criticizing them for a while is far from enough. The US even made movies to whine about how invading other countries and killing those people makes their soldiers mentally sick, and I didn't see many Westerners boycotting these movies.

> ... talk shit about Germany and Germans ... nothing a foreigner says about Germany

Oh, so the West has never done any actions that upset us, in our face? The trade war is just a hallucination. The US has never bombed our embassy in Belgrade, send their aircraft carriers roaming around China and deploy missiles around China that aim at us. Do I really need to give more examples of these actions? Can you still stay so calm if China does these to Germany? Also, I still remember vividly how you Germans welcomed and supported Rebiya Kadeer. Imagine if China did the same to Osama bin Laden.

Even if I take a step back and only talk about what you say about us, you privileged Westerners can never imagine how we feel when all the mainstream media go against you, and how upset it is when it's perfectly OK to keep making jokes about how we have tiny penises even in the PC culture. Speaking of PC culture, I thought you agree that words hurt? Either that's a lie, or it's acceptable to hurt the Chinese using words.

> ... control of the whole planet

Bourgeoisies will lick anyone's butthole, as long as this person or entity is powerful and rich. I thought you are proud of your superior capitalism? Also, it is hilarious that a Westerner is accusing China for wanting to control the planet, could you please remind me how many oversea military bases does the US and China each have?

> ... I don't think you fully grasp it

I don't think you fully grasp how much we fear about your "freedom" either. I mean hey, the best CCP propaganda in what the West has done to the Middle East, your governments are all secretly pro-CCP ;)

> One innocent person who gets tortured outweighs even a thousand billion people who look the other way.

Well said! Now tell me what sanctions will the EU implement against the US for all the innocent people tortured by the US? I must remind you that I didn't say what the CCP did are fine, I just hate your double standard.

> ... perspective of serious Westerners

If you really are serious, you would have tried to learn more about China and made a lot fewer questionable actions. I mean, you put yourself in the position of a doctor, so it's your responsibility to get to know the patient.

> What precisely are you even disagreeing with?

I was referring to the fact that whenever I say anything good about the CCP or something that contradicts with what the Western mainstream media claims to be true, someone will jump out and say I have been brainwashed and I know less about China than they do. For what I am disagreeing with, if the three reasons I listed above still doesn't sum it up, let me give you a metaphor:

Say your friend is sick, this person is sneezing, has a running nose and is unhappy. You are worried about this but you have a solution: whenever you are unhappy, you play some video games and it cheers you up. So you skipped the first two symptoms and start to tie your friend's hands to a video game controller using duct tape. Your friend isn't denying the illness but is probably disagreeing with your solution.

[PavlovsCat]

> I thought you are proud of your superior capitalism?

You're just talking to yourself, this is a complete waste of time.