[yifanlu]

Jeez as a Chinese person who lives in USA I find this comment very condescending and offensive.

> But China, while increasingly mature economically, has not developed proper civil society, human rights, freedom of expression, democracy, and so on.

I don’t want to get into a whataboutism debate about all the human rights violations the USA has engaged in (yes Trump but Obama as well and W before him and etc). But really I’ll just focus on “proper civil society”. Jfc is the sinophobia getting overt around here.

Even if I take the good faith argument that “it’s commentary about CCP not Chinese people” as I often hear after racist remarks, I’ll just point out I’ve been hearing comments like this all my life in all sorts condescending ways. Most of the time in bad faith. So I don’t give a shit about how you “intend” it to be.

[_zamorano_]

Hypocrisy.

Looks good to exibit tolerancy between like minded friends about accepted topics, abortion, sexual orientation, skin color and the like... But about a different political system other than western liberal democracy? No way!

And it's not like Chinas Communist Party (from Deng Xiaopin on) has not good credentials. It might be the more succesfull regime in the history of humanity if we talk about taking people out of poverty. Which system has improved the life of millions like the party?

But it doesn't matter. The aglosphere keeps with its cultural war against the new enemy. What are the signs that the Chinese want to export their way of life? Any recent war launched by China? Any attempt to force a Western goverment to accept their condicions? They are not the ones messing with other countries democracies.

Anyway, there are plenty of things not to like about the Communist Party, but seriously, the propaganda is out of control.

[chillacy]

> What are the signs that the Chinese want to export their way of life? Any recent war launched by China? Any attempt to force a Western goverment to accept their condicions?

There are two distinct reasons I see:

1. Some people read recent actions like "investing in a deepwater navy", "setting up economic relations with Africa", and "forcing trading partners to not recognize Taiwan" as doing exactly those things.

2. Even if you ignore those things, if you believe the western powers have done these things already in the 20th century like "investing in a huge carrier fleet and naval bases around the world", "setting up colonies and promoting democracy around the world, sometimes through force", and "forcing trading partners into labor standards including pay and hours, bundled into a package we call human rights", then it's probably easier to assume others are capable of doing similar.

At that point it's a clash of values.

[vinay427]

1. I agree that "proper civil society" is rather questionable as criticism of China goes, but do the others not apply? I think they clearly seem to be points of commentary on the Chinese political system, which isn't a reflection of a race/ethnicity. I have no trouble believing that comments that you have received throughout your life were in bad faith. I've heard similar (at least in sentiment) comments about the society in my parents' country of origin. However, I think the majority of those comments (as with the ones in question here) fit into the bucket of clearly criticizing a social structure that applies to but does not immutably define the people living in it, and certainly doesn't apply to you if you live outside of it.

2. On a slightly different note, I think that while whataboutism is generally neither productive nor relevant, in this case a small amount could be relevant because the implication is that some other countries have developed to a state of "proper civil society, [...] democracy, and so on" while China has not. If the claim relates China to some base standard in the author's mind, then pointing out failings in those places seems like an attack on the point itself, but I don't know whether the US was at the top of their mind when crafting that sentence.

[mlindner]

It's not sinophobia. I've got _zero_ issue with Chinese Americans as long as their English is good enough that their primary news sources still don't still sit in China (for example second generation or greater Chinese Americans). It's the legitimate concern about China pushing remote spying into its software and hardware that is sold overseas as well as the manipulation of people through companies like TikTok aka ByteDance.

[chrischen]

There’s no way defend against your accusations. It essentially boils down to “you’ve been brainwashed.” You’ve already decided your viewpoint is right and anything against it has read too much Chinese language news (whether true or not).

The “manipulation” you speak of is more hypothetical. If anything Facebook has done more manipulative harm thus far.

One way to think about this is what exactly would TikTok have to do to satisfy your accusations of them “manipulating” people? How does Huawei stop spying on Americans? If there is no answer then you can see not only how it is pointless to argue, but that your primary motivation is actually to prevent the shift of power, rather than based on any actual infractions by Huawei or TikTok. So should the Chinese just sit out of global economics because they could threaten US dominance and potentially spy on or manipulate US people? The current dialogue is centers on future power, not on any actual abuse of power by these companies. Not like the US actually spying on Angela Merkel.

[mlindner]

> One way to think about this is what exactly would TikTok have to do to satisfy your accusations of them “manipulating” people?

Set up a subsidiary that's subject to US law and rather than Chinese law and also has majority ownership in America. It's what the China enforces on foreign companies, so fair is fair.

> So should the Chinese just sit out of global economics because they could threaten US dominance and potentially spy on or manipulate US people?

I have no problem with Chinese companies participating in global economics as long as they're not based on stolen technology. Also it's not "potential", this has already happened extensively. China rose to prominence by extensive state funded industrial espionage and US companies were too blinded by greed to counter it. The US needs more laws in place to prevent this type of behavior and more retaliatory action when it's committed.

So many Chinese people I see online seem to think that the US is scared of China becoming more powerful economical or some other nonsense. The US created current Chinese economic prosperity through extensive work by Nixon and others in that era. That was all a massive mistake based on the mistaken idea that if China became more economically powerful they would become more democratic and more freedom oriented. That has failed to be the case and it's time to rethink how the US has handled China historically.

[jialutu]

Chinese Americans are cool because they can read English, which is real news. I won't bother reading anything in Chinese or learn Chinese values, but I can judge them according to my beliefs because the English one is far superior.

Sounds kinda sinophobia to me.

[mlindner]

English is the lingua franca of the world and is the basis for the most accurate information in the world.