[mindfulhack]

> and then heaping shit all over their country's achievements the rest of the time.

I didn't say that anywhere. China's achieved a lot, in amazing ways. My comment said nothing about that.

> Do people who say this think they understand China or Chinese people even a little bit?

- Have you been to China, invited by their government in an official delegation and seen first-hand the mob-like lack of distinction between business and government, the nepotism, and the opaque vista of corruption, like I have?

- Have you had more than one Chinese national as a romantic partner, like I have?

- Have you worked and studied extra-curricularly with Chinese people for much of of your life, like I have?

- Have you learned Mandarin at age 18, like I have?

I think I "understand China or Chinese people" more than the average non-Chinese person.

But even that I think doesn't count for much. Chinese people don't share their real cultural opinions with people in the West much, including my ex-partners.

I still have lots more to learn about the very contrasting popular opinions there and slowly understand some of it. I respectfully listen to pro-government Chinese people who occasionally appear on HN, and engage with them with an open mind, though with no concession granted in regards to expectation of intellectual honesty. Recently in my comment history, there's one such conversation. I gave a very unforgiving rebuttal to their comment, but I respected them by not just downvoting, but engaging. We really should talk more.

It appears you're a non-Chinese person who's been triggered by my comment based on other experiences. I really invite you to not 'other' individual people like me as faceless "people" like you just did. In contrast, it would have been great to hear from a thoughtful Chinese person.

[phre4k]

I think you misunderstood.

You're racist because a racist said so. We're all equal.

https://youtu.be/5qArvBdHkJA

[browsergap]

Triggered sounds like irrational and unhinged so...if it's what you need to say about other people's views to (in your mind) censor them and protect your own views, I get it, but I'm afraid it makes you a less trustworthy assessor!

It sounds like you've confused "identity" with opinion. I wasn't saying, "you are bullshit", and I'm sorry that you seem to have taken it like that. I was saying "I think that (view you write) is bullshit". I wasn't trying to offend you.

But also, to assume that had I had the experiences you list, I would arrive at your conclusion is incredibly narrow minded (and, to be honest, arrogant), and makes me trust even less that you would be able to see beyond the nose of your existing biases and consider others with different views... Because it's a big world out there, plenty of room for differences of opinion and experience.

The false dichotomy between "the Chinese state/government and the Chinese people" is a common Western propaganda tactic I've noticed to, exactly as I said, seem like you're not being racist when you are. And, unfortunately for you, god bless you, you've done exactly as I predicted, "I'm not racist because look at all the connections I have"

You didn't go on to criticize anything beside saying you don't "trust" the government, but I'm great at reading between the lines, and reading people and I know the type of argument you're hinting at and where it goes.

It reminds me that people don't hold these anti-China views from ignorance, simply because they've carried a Western-propaganda mindset into their own affairs. It seems like in your jaunts you forgot to check your pre-existing biases at the door/luggage-check counter.

Which, so far, has meant, not that you don't have enough experiences to think about and understand China, but only that you've so far failed to properly think about them, being blinded by your biases. So far, you've wasted those experiences you have by not yet thinking clearly about them. I'm not sure where you're from (and I don't care here because it doesn't matter, like it doesn't matter where I'm from or who I am, what matters is the quality of my thought and my ability to think clearly, critically and for myself, as I hope you can too), but here's a video of a white dude saying something that is mostly correct. I don't know him nor anything else about him but this is about right:

https://twitter.com/chinascio/status/1299172383027200001

[browsergap]

Now to everyone else, because it sounds like you will find this very hard to listen to right now, I think a good antidote to the fake narrative that "the Chinese government does not represent the Chinese people" is history. China in 20C had the bloodiest most awfully brutal civil war for the last 400 years. It was a popular revolution overthrowing a corrupt, lazy, anachronistic, incompetent dynasty (and then republic) and basically stretched from 1911 to the end of the cultural revolution. Then, the governing system they created out of this, has gone about in the last 70 years lifting more people out of poverty than anywhere else, and building something truly amazing. I hope you'll, you know, give the Chinese and their system some credit. Anyway...my point is, that if the Chinese people are not happy with their government, there's no other place on earth where the government would be more afraid of their people's wrath than China. Just look at the history. Look at the hunger they have for creating a better life. Look at how the government is forced to deliver. And look at the complacent stagnation and lazy woolly propagandist rest-on-yer-laurels thinking that has metastasized in most of the Western world.

So, contrary to the popular, but incorrect anti-China notion that you can't trust the Chinese government, I think you can trust them more than any other place on Earth right now to deliver as they say, and to deliver results for their citizens. Simple as that, really. And I think most Chinese are proud and happy to have such a system.

This shrieking Western hysteria smacks (to me, anyway) of bitter nostalgia for imperial glory-days where we could pull off stunts like "the treaty of Nanking" and "the Opium War", the "United East India Company" and wiping out native populations of N and S American, and Australian aborigines.

I'm not anti-West. I'm just balanced between both places. And speaking up against the river of fake and negative opinion, which, in my view, only serves to hasten the West's demise by blinding them to what they could learn, and giving them the fake pay off of feeling good by (doing that old colonial thing) of putting other people down and pretending they're better.

But to bring it back to you finally... if you want to make it about identity, then sure, I'm just more cosmopolitan than you are. In your future jaunts, I hope you're able to see beyond the veil and check those implanted biases with other stuff you don't need. So you can finally see clearly. Best of luck! :P ;) xx