[ASlave2Gravity]

I'm gonna get a lot of flak for this, but I think there's a massive anti-China narrative on HN. I see so much talk that's based off of people's view from an entirely Western media-centred POV. There's so much more to what's going on. There's a lot of pot calling the kettle black too. There's a lot of good stuff in the TLS from a few weeks back.

Han is the cultural race/ethnicity in mainland China. [0] It's about 92% of the population. So that's a lot of people. Is China trying to sure up its borders? Yes. Is China out for world domination, I really don't think so. Every single one of my Chinese friends is about as sweet as they come. China is the new mystery to the West, and I don't think people in the West really understand them. The amount of growth in China is outrageous. We've outsourced so much there, and then have a go at them for stuff we don't really understand.

I think GP is right in ways. I think there are some nefarious actors in China running the same plays from the playbook written by the Anglosphere war powers, but to lump it all in a say 'China bad' is, in my very under-read / under-experienced, opinion, a terrible thing.

他们很好 - Hope I've got my characters right! Tāmen hěn hǎo

Even the language isn't like ours. It's more direct and blunt.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese

[pistoriusp]

Anti-China (The government) is not Anti-Chinese (The people).

I'm South African. I grew up in Apartheid and I'm white. It ended when I was 10.

Am I a bad person? No. Are my parent's bad people? No. Were my Grandparent's bad people? No.

The Apartheid Government of South Africa was terrible. Especially to black people, but also to white people who didn't toe the line.

Sanctions were very effective.

[powerapple]

The problem is most Chinese approves Chinese government, and why people from outside keep shouting 'you are not happy' to them.

[oxymoran]

How could you possibly know the feelings of most Chinese citizens when they aren’t allowed to express them?

[powerapple]

That's the problem. You refuse to listen to my words. If nothing is expressed, why do you assume the opposite? In reality, most common people are happily to be there, silently, without expressing their happiness in words. People will express anger more often. The same reason that an average person living a normal life won't make into the news.

You got me there :) I guess You can always travel. It is a very different place, noisy, crowded, but you can learn about it first hand.

[ASlave2Gravity]

Ah, thanks for sharing.

Yes, I'd agree on all counts. As I said in another comment, we need to be so careful with what we are saying. I just get really upset when the anti-China-goverment narrative spills into an anti-China-people one.

[throwaway_pdp09]

> when the anti-China-goverment narrative spills into an anti-China-people one

other than sloppy posting I don't think I've ever seen that (that I can remember). Whereas I've seen a fair number of pro china posts that freely talk about 'westerners' instead of western governments. They tend to get killed pretty fast though.

[tombh]

> China running the same plays from the playbook written by the Anglosphere war powers

Absolutely. All the comments like yours are downvoted. The West doesn't need autocracy to maintain its propaganda, its own citizens do it for them.

China is not innocent. But on what basis does the West have any moral authority to judge China's emulation of Western colonialism. I would argue very little. The West has made its bed and now it must sleep in it.

[onetimemanytime]

>>But on what basis does the West have any moral authority to judge China's emulation of Western colonialism.

Our great-great grandfathers beat their wives, thus no one should be able to judge me for doing the same today. Is this your argument?

[tombh]

It was profoundly more than beating wives. The entire foundation of the West is based on genocides and mass theft that make the Uyghur crisis seem small. My argument is more along the lines of: our emotional reaction to Chinese colonial projects is a subconscious projection of our own unresolved acknowledgement of the price we paid for modernity.

[ASlave2Gravity]

I'd agree here for sure. I'm not sure how we even go about dealing with it as every converstation seems to spiral into madness

[DFHippie]

> on what basis does the West have any moral authority to judge China's emulation of Western colonialism

This is a counsel of despair and it is pure tribalism. No one in the West can condemn the actions of China the nation because the West has done analogous things in the past. So everyone in the West is guilty for everything anyone in the West has ever done. By this logic there is no basis for moral judgment ever and every group is free to dominate any other group. Might makes right. It's lovely in this scenario to claim membership in a powerful group that can take everyone else's marbles.

No one believes this about their own group. "I can't judge my neighbor for murder because we're both white. His crime is my crime." People frequently believe this about other groups. "My Chinese neighbor is a horrible person because they are Han and the Han-dominated government in China is doing horrible things to Uighurs." This is obvious nonsense. Wrong is wrong whoever the judge. It isn't the West judging China but individual Westerners. Also individual Han Chinese. Maybe even individual Han Chinese responsible for abusing the Uighurs.

[tombh]

> So everyone in the West is guilty for everything anyone in the West has ever done

Of course that's nonsensical and I agree with it. But I wonder what you think when it's positively framed?

So everyone in the west can _benefit_ from everything anyone in the West has ever done?

That statement seems much closer to being universally accepted. Our rights to benefit from the fruits of Western "progress"; medicine, civil rights, social security, peace, etc. Yet these things are fundamentally dependent on the historical and contemporary colonial and neo-colonial "heist" upon the rest of the world. How can we simultaneously distance ourselves from the crimes of the West and benefit from it? Actions have consequences. Yes, neither I nor my immediate ancestors (and I'm as British as can be) took part in any colonial crimes, but I sure as hell take advantage of my Western privileges. If I don't have any personal responsibility for my culture's crimes then how do I justify personally benefiting from those crimes?

[DFHippie]

Yes, I thought about that. "My neighbor of the same religion and complexion won a Nobel! I'm so smart!" Everyone is happy to put a finger on the scale for their own benefit. But this is different from everyone in the West benefitting from the telephone or whatever. They do! So does everyone in Japan. As for compound interest on historical plunder, that's another matter. I'm as American as can be (and as British in ancestry as you, I am sure). I do not believe I am responsible for the original crime. I am responsible for not acknowledging it or giving it back. But to a large extent that egg cannot be unscrambled.

[tombh]

> But to a large extent that egg cannot be unscrambled

Well yes, that's exactly it! If we can't unscramble our eggs how can we can unscramble China's eggs?

[DFHippie]

We don't need to unscramble China's eggs. We need to get them to stop scrambling. The people are still alive, most of them, that are being wronged. We're not talking about 1492.

[PostOnce]

The existence of Taiwan and the lack of any of the criticism you mention applying to it seem to be a good counterpoint to what you imply is anti-Han-Chinese sentiment. Rather, it's anti-CCP sentiment that is broad and deep in the West.

[ASlave2Gravity]

Yes - I bring up Taiwan a lot and I think Taiwan should be it's own thing. Same with HK. My cloest friend often has to deal with Han peeps hating on Hong Kongers - dinners can be quite hard sometimes. We're all trying to make peace and make bridges, not walls.

And yes, a very good point. It's imporant to split the govemerment from the people. I need to be more careful :)

[Nevaeh]

History has shown that the CCP will oppress the Han chinese if they do not bow down to their ideology.

"approximately 65,000 Falun Gong practitioners had been killed for their organs between 2000 and 2008" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_from_Falun_Go...

[ASlave2Gravity]

Have you ever met a Falun Gong practitioner?

[throwaway_pdp09]

How is that relevant? If you have or haven't how would that change the murder statistics?

[darkerside]

Have you ever met a Holocaust survivor?

[ASlave2Gravity]

Nope - good point!

I suppouse I want to see more UN involvement with the Organ Harvesting. It's insanely barbaric and shouldn't be happerning. But I think people like Alex Jones have given it more credit. I don't have enough data to make valid conclusion about it. But the Falun Gong practitioners I have met scared the crap out of me. It felt a lot like Scientology vibes. Does that mean we should harvest their organs? No, clearly. That's insane to like the nth-degree.

e: also, as the wiki states, Ethan Gutmann's investigations are pretty striking. Same as the China Tribunal in London. This has moved on a lot since I last read up on it. Christ.

[wyuenho]

You don't know them well enough. A random poll of any mainland Chinese population short of those on the periphery currently being persecuted, I guarantee you they either support what the Chinese gov is doing to the Uyghurs or pretend they don't know what's happening. China is the new Nazi Germany.

[peteretep]

> Is China out for world domination, I really don't think so. Every single one of my Chinese friends is about as sweet as they come.

... is this satire?

Edit: or do you believe there’s some kind of correlation between some individual Chinese you know and the CPCs plans?

[ASlave2Gravity]

This isn't satire. I knew I was gonna get a lot of flak. I'm sorry to have so many dissagree with me :(. I have no idea what the CPCs plans are. Much like I have no idea what my own goverments (UK) plans are. But what I do see is this kinda news creates a hatered, and that hatered finds it's ways into the culture at large, and I don't think that's a good thing.

e: and yes, I honestly belive that in China things work so diffrently to the West, that a sample of the people can actually give you a good read on what the powers are thinking / doing. Maybe cos they are all brain-washed ;) who really knows. All I'm saying is, let's try and be civil!

[newen]

To give you some context, there is a massive government sponsored anti-China propaganda campaign going on in the US in order to give pretext to a Cold War style ramping up of tensions, economic conflicts, military conflicts etc. because America sees China as an economic competitor now like it did the USSR. This article and the sentiments of so many in HN are simply the result of that campaign.

Edit: It’s not a conspiracy theory when almost every China bad news story can be sourced to organizations sponsored by the CIA.

[oxymoran]

Conspiracy theory

[NamTaf]

Just to be clear, 'Han Chinese' is a group whose definition has gradually broadened over the long history of China to include more and more formerly distinct ethnic groups within it. A cynic would claim that this was a deliberate decision in order to create a much more robust, ethnically homogenous state that can more easily play up the 'us vs them' division.

You're also confusing "China" the CCP governmental apparatus, with "Chinese citizens" as individual people. When people criticise "China", it is the former they are criticising. Confusing the two only serves to further play into the 'us vs them' divide.

Both of these factors are commonly used by the Chinese state to frame anti-China sentiment as anti-Chinese sentiment - a very important difference.