[legofr]

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see, like VICE did in Xinjiang: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7AYyUqrMuQ

That being said, if you go then please try to walk into a random hotel/apartment you see on the street to try to book a room.. then you'll discover that 9/10 hotels/apartments won't allow foreigners to live there. I lived in China for more than a year before I realized this was the case, and I have on multiple occasions even been kicked out of friends/partners apartment because someone told the landlord there was a foreigner in the building (or maybe they saw through the surveillance camera).

[chrischen]

I’m ethnically Chinese. While I speak a little I am still mistaken for a foreigner since I often hire a translator and I traveled extensively through China throughout the last 2 decades to many places both remote and urban on a US passport. Never had a problem with hotels (though mostly booked online) nor staying at relatives/friends houses, nor anything blatantly authoritarian besides my internet bring blocked (which I got around using a SOCKS proxy).

I was also part of an Obama administration sponsored group of Americans sent to China for an entrepreneurship exchange trip and I think more Americans should be sent to China to learn about it rather than reading biased second hand accounts over the internet. While it was a guided and escorted tour, we were also allowed to freely wander the cities in some of the evenings. It would go a long way to ease tensions and reduce enmity between the two nations if there was more genuine cultural interaction instead of spooky observations from afar. People tend to exaggerate and boogeyman what they don’t know and understand.

[legofr]

The reason it took more than a year for me to realize this phenomenon is because when I first visited the country then I relied on travel agencies, international hotel booking apps, and had accommodation provided for me. It's certainly possible to live in China for even a decade without realizing the reality of the situation if you exclusively stay at 4-5 star hotels, or only book hotels through international hotel booking apps, or rely on agencies to help you find apartment and other type of accommodation since they have a list of the ones that accept foreigners.

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/china/starrated-hotel-operation/... claim there are 10 million hotels in China - what percentage do you reckon are included in the international hotel booking apps? My guess would be less than 0.5%. That's why you need to walk into the random hotels/apartments you see on the street if you want to verify the reality of the situation. For you specifically then it might be difficult since you're ethnically Chinese, so while you might encounter some discrimination and exclusion from society (if you don't have a national id card) then it certainly won't be comparable to what white and especially black people experience while living in China. In my experience then the 9/10 number is not an exaggeration at all but if you asked other westerners who visited China then they will likely give different numbers based on their price range, location, booking method, etc.

I also think you greatly exaggerate how much you actually learn about another country by going there for a short trip. Even the most brutal regimes can look like a wonderful paradise, e.g. see the national day celebration in 1959 which took place at a time where tens of millions of people were dying of starvation (https://youtu.be/M-XQSffVpfY?t=43).

[unityByFreedom]

Yup, only certain hotels are allowed to book foreigners. I tried to buy my way in once, along with some local friends' help, and we couldn't do it. I got the impression the government would shut them down if they accepted foreigners. The staff seemed friendly and understanding, and there was this "nothing I can do" attitude about it. After walking to multiple hotels in the area we gave up and slept on a friend's floor. I forget exactly where we were. It wasn't a well know city, yet it wasn't small either. I was quite surprised at the time that even with my passport in hand I wasn't allowed to stay anywhere there.

[chrischen]

I traveled frequently, for short and longer trips (months at a time), as well as having lived there (albeit not on a foreign passport when I lived there).

Most 4-5 star hotels are still dirt cheap in China. We’ve stayed in budget hotels (by Chinese standards) in non first-tier cities with no problem.

I’d say if you got turned away it’d be some combination of obviously looking like a foreigner (in which you could get them reported for some infractions) and not being licensed to accept foreigners.

[itsagavin]

The reality is every step you took was observed and I would assume even where you slept both video and audio were recorded.

[chrischen]

You can assume anything. Doesn't mean it's true. The reality is that your perception of China is highly fantasized and part of a crafted narrative. It's dangerous if you continue to contribute to this propaganda without care as to whether you've verified anything you've heard yourself. Maybe it's true, maybe not, but I doubt you'd know. I mean, it's certainly possible our rooms were bugged, but to what end? To fulfill the dreams of conspiracy theorists? I guess it's equally likely the US embedded a CIA agent in our group as well so maybe bugging us would be justified.

[bamboozled]

Business people go missing, women who speak our are silenced, climate change is of no concern, concentration camps are real.

We’ve seen enough already.

[GauntletWizard]

Your naivete is unsurprising; it was one of the traits you were selected for in trip planning.

Countries spy on foreign visitors. Friendship trips are carefully planned to show none of the underside of a society. China is one of the most oppressive regimes out there - see the detention of Jack Ma, who was five years ago one of their most celebrated businessmen.

[chrischen]

Well, must be Obama’s conspiracy because the US side selected the participants. You speak as if you have indisputable proof of some conspiracy.

The naïveté is not understanding that China’s problems is not so much they are evil masterminds rather than just incompetent bureaucrats. The takeaway from the trip is that 90% of what they expose to the outside world is a facade to save face for their own politicians, not that they are competent super spies.

They may have spied on us, but we’d have not much value being spied upon. If spying is somehow the benchmark of authoritarian regimes then the US and Israel probably lead the pack of these types of regimes.

Secondly, just because you disagree with government policies doesn’t make it some evil regime. You cited Jack Ma but he is still out and about.

[design-material]

The fact that there's an actual genocide taking place in the country is all we need to know - all the other so-called "assumptions" pale in comparison to that reality

[bigmanwalter]

I backpacked through China and stayed in youth hostels. Highly doubt they were bugged. They didn’t even have heating (we used electric blankets)

[chrischen]

I think part of that is that a lot of infrastructure is missing, but also culturally less wasteful than American lifestyles. For example I stayed in my Japanese friend's house in Tokyo and he doesn't heat the entire place even though it's a pretty small apartment. My room just had a heated blanket as well.

But I agree, for any random foreigner the government is not competent enough to surveil him/her and much less motivated to do so. The fact is any given foreigner is not actually that important...

[seanmcdirmid]

The problem is that China doesn’t allow for central heating south of the Yangtze. So my coldest winter ever was spent in a small town in south Hunan, where it was above freezing but the lack of indoor heating really beats you down, kotatsus not withstanding. A friend of mine has parents who migrate to “northern” China in the winter so they don’t freeze to death.

Japan had a similar problem being previously not very rich (they invented kotatsu for that reason).

[hker]

Let me add some nuances to this claim.

Even if “every step is observed” is exaggerated, the surveillance system in China is pretty extensive: it can target journalists and international students among other “suspicious people”, and can compile individual files on such persons using 3,000 facial recognition cameras (in a single province) that connect to various national and regional databases. [1]

And this surveillance system is part of the bigger tracking program, which the Chinese authority has used to harass and intimidate journalists [2] (see this comment for more [3]).

And according to the memoir “A Promised Land”, even Obama and his staff were worried about Chinese surveillance during their stay at the Beijing hotel (see this review [4] or this summary [5]):

    “To make calls involving national security matters from the hotel, I had to go to a suite down the hall fitted with a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF) — a big blue tent plopped down in the middle of the room that hummed with an eerie, psychedelic buzz designed to block any nearby listening devices. Some members of our team dressed and even showered in the dark to avoid the hidden cameras we could assume had been strategically placed in every room. (Marvin, on the other hand, said he made a point of walking around his room naked and with the lights on — whether out of pride or in protest wasn’t entirely clear.)” [4]

And I agree with other commenters [6] that the situation worsened significantly after 2018 as Xi was consolidating power, so experiences before 2016 or so may not be representative of the current trend (when Xi may get more terms).

[1]: https://www.reuters.com/technology/exclusive-chinese-provinc... "EXCLUSIVE Chinese province targets journalists, foreign students with planned new surveillance system"

[2]: https://www.newsweek.com/china-harassing-intimidating-journa... "China Harassing, Intimidating Journalists With Surveillance Built to Curb COVID-19"

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29685703

[4]: https://georgetoparis.medium.com/obamas-a-promised-land-on-c... "Obama’s “A Promised Land”, on China"

[5]: https://www.bannedbook.org/en/bnews/baitai/20201121/1434392.... "Obama recalls his first visit to China and was under surveillance"

[6]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29684626

[powerapple]

It is true. The reason is that only hotels with passport verification system can accept foreign guests (all hotels have a system connected to police department to verify national id), most hotels only have a small national id verification system (because it was cheaper I guess), only some 4 star and 5 star hotels have these. I had once tried to use my passport to stay in a hotel, they didn't allow me then I learnt about this.

[rvba]

Probably only the bigger hotels have an agent of ministry of state security on premises.

You should assume that you get a bugged room too.

Russians did it in the 80s, even easier now.

[seanmcdirmid]

All hotels have to report their guests to the local PSB, but some smaller hotels don’t (rules aren’t that enforced in China), but will avoid foreign guests because they easily bring attention from authorities. You can get away without reporting to the PSB in some way out places (like a hostel in the middle of nowhere I stayed in that lacked electricity beyond a simply hydro wheel), but those are rare, and not in big cities.

The rooms aren’t bugged. Most foreigners aren’t that special. Maybe they will big some special hotel that gets lots of diplomats? But most of us won’t stay in those.

[powerapple]

China only start to recognize passport as identification a few years ago, previously a Chinese citizen can only use national id. It was just a lot extra work for the hotel if they don't have this system. No, you can get bugged, but by the state, maybe by some creeps.

[RealityVoid]

I am surprised at what you say regarding the hosting of foreigners. My girlfriend was there for a couple of months and she didn't notice any such thing, and she actually rented a place with a couple of friends, also foreigners. Is this what you describe because of racism or because of government?

[alisonatwork]

Both. I have been refused access to a place because the landlord was openly racist and didn't want to rent to me after she found out I was a foreigner. There is pretty much no recourse for foreigners who are victims of racism in China, it's an extremely racist country. When you're a foreigner you just kinda have to accept that there are people who will cross the street or shield their kids when they see you, loudly complain when you sit next to them on the bus, refuse to do business with you, etc etc. Of course in rich areas of tier one cities where the government has an image to uphold, this will happen much less frequently.

That said, definitely in the case of hotels there are loads of hotels it seems there is a legal aspect as well. If you lived in China you might be familiar with the long and boring process of registration with the police every time you move house. Sometimes you even have to register at more than one place because you moved into a different urban area. According to the law, all foreigners must do this everywhere they go in China, including tourists who are on holiday. It wouldn't be very efficient to make tourists spend a couple hours at the police station every time they checked into a hotel, so some hotels have some arrangement with the local police to do this on their guests' behalf behind the scenes. Most tourists nowadays don't even know that they have been registered with the police everywhere they travel. But smaller hotels don't provide that service. I have successfully blagged my way into staying at one smaller hotel by assuring them i would visit the local police myself to register, but a lot of them don't want the hassle or (perhaps) attention from the local authorities, so they just ban foreigners.

When I left China it was during the pandemic, and pretty much no hotels at all would allow foreigners to stay. This was xenophobia, pure and simple. There were a few times I had to first visit the police station and ask the police where I could stay, because hotel after hotel after hotel refused me, despite my green health code, valid visa and so on.

[arbuge]

This is weird. Definitely not my experience at all. I visited Shanghai, Beijing, and Chengdu in China in 2012 and I felt extremely welcome wherever I went. I might also add that in Chengdu, a city which sees considerably less foreigners than the other two, I felt like I was being treated like somewhat of a celebrity, with people smiling at me everywhere, and random passer-bys on the street trying to impress me with their renditions of "Good Morning" or "How are you?". Once I had a visibly excited team of students randomly stop me on the street to do an interview with me for their class project, and on another occasion a large group of young people all wanted to take a picture with me one by one.

Needless to say, I loved it.

[alisonatwork]

2012 is a very long time ago by Chinese standards. Xi only became the general secretary in November of that year and the president in 2013. Most of his authoritarian and nationalist policies have only really kicked into a higher gear from 2018. The xenophobia got even worse after the coronavirus hit, and I can't imagine it has improved much since I left in 2020.

Also, I don't know what makes you think that Chengdu is off the beaten path - it's a massive tourist destination, in particular because of its panda reserve, presumed proximity to Tibet and the global renown of Sichuan cuisine (home of mapo tofu, hotpot etc).

Thirdly, this coddling of foreigners is exactly the kind of racist behavior that I find to be degrading. It might feel superficially nice to be treated like you are special or unique, but really it means you are not being treated with respect. They are treating you like a child, or a curiosity. If you visit some of the indigenous communities of China then you will often see the Han majority treat the ethnic minorities in the same way, as if they are just props for photos or some kind of weird creatures to be gawked at. It's gross, imo.

[seattle_spring]

Thank you. I had the same experience as GP in 2010 except I absolutely hated it. Can you imagine if people in the US treated Chinese tourists like that?

[nowherebeen]

I never saw it that way. Your comment definitely opened my eyes.

[byw]

Some things to keep in mind:

Familiarity breeds contempt.

Western expats in East Asia tend to be quite polarized about their country of residence, and expats in poorer countries even more so. Over time, the tint of novelty wears off and the warts begin to stand out. Poorer countries have more warts.

For folks like myself who are extra sensitive, the negatives get an outsized representation, while the positives and neutrals get filtered out. It took me years of to develop the habits to compensate. I'm far from where I'd like to be, but I'm learning to accept that as well.

This is especially true in places of higher density. If you encounter 1 bad apple in a place of 100 people, vs 10 bad apples of 1000 people, the ratio is the same, but subjectively the latter feels ten times worse. It’s the price you pay for living the city life.

And when you have an under-stimulated career, the idle mind becomes the devil's playground.

We let collective narratives plays a greater role in colouring our opinions (as opposite to direct experience) than we'd like to admit. In this day and age, I don't think it's especially controversial to say that we get more dopamine hits from internet discussions than having a stroll down the street. Ultimately, unless we consciously intervene, the chemicals get to decide what we let ruminate in the back of our minds.

The idiosyncrasies you used to brush off or find amusing are now small but cumulative signs of impending doom. What we get right in direction we get wrong in magnitude. The sprinkles of verifiable truth can often as easily fuel our biases as they moderate them.

[mads]

All the cities you mention are tier one Potemkin cities.

Try go to the country side to see the real China.

For the racism part, I wouldn't say that signs with "no foreigners" in shops are common, but I have seen them a couple of times during my 5 year stay in China.

[physicles]

As someone who’s lived in China since 2012 up until the present day, things have changed markedly in the last few years, and especially since ~April of last year once it became clear that China was handling the pandemic better than the rest of the world.

Most people are still ok, but some fraction of the population has a mixture of fear and hatred of foreigners. They think foreigners are dangerous because we bring the virus. Far fewer places accept foreigners than before.

I love my life and my friends here, but walking down the street in a village and having a guy wearing an official-looking coat scream at you to “fuck off” has a way of souring one’s mood.

[monocasa]

China has changed an awful lot even since 2012.

[brokenodometer]

Can you imagine saying “ni hao” and asking for selfies with random Asian people on the street in whatever western country? It would be racist and demeaning as hell. That’s what they subjected you to, and you felt “special.”

[physicles]

I mostly give them a pass because they weren’t being malicious, just curious. I’ve spoken with plenty of people who literally had never talked to a foreigner before. Perhaps half the country has still never even seen a foreigner.

It’s definitely taken too far sometimes though.

[_tik_]

I experienced this a lot in India, some part of eastern Europe and Balkan. Most of them asked nicely. Told me that they come from a very small town there is not much chances to meet foreigner. And I usually ok with it. Don't find it is racist. It is just curiosity of other culture.

[seanmcdirmid]

It really depends on your race as a foreigner. Black and Indian foreigners will be treated worse than white foreigners. Asian foreigners…it really depends how Chinese they look.

It seems to get worse every year also. My first visit in 1999, foreigners were quite welcomed. Then it simply got more mundane from there. My visit twas chengdu in 2006 was fairly like you stated though.

[carlmr]

I've had smaller hotels tell me they can't host foreigners due to some law that you need to have a star rating which they didn't. The only time I had problems booking a hotel was in Shanghai and Beijing though, in other cities there was never an issue.

Also I was always greeted with utter friendliness, so I don't get the everybody's xenophobic aspect. I do speak some (very basic) Mandarin though so maybe that helps with how you're treated.

[alisonatwork]

Not speaking Chinese is probably a benefit, because what you don't know can't hurt you. I speak fairly fluent Mandarin, and have overheard a lot of very open racist and xenophobic sentiments expressed in conversations around me when the people presumably assumed i couldn't understand what they were saying.

It is true that people in China tend to be fairly polite, although when it blows up it tends to go straight to 11. (I saw a lot of this happening between police and residents during the coronavirus lockdowns.) But just because people are polite, don't assume that means they're not bigots. In some parts of the country, particularly amongst more affluent people, there is a sort of attitude that foreigners should be treated with kid gloves, which is thoroughly degrading.

[lincw]

As a Chinese who grew up in a very small city in the west, I think you are completely right. The more developed areas is, the more open they are. And so on to the teenagers compare elders. At least in the surface. However, as the government turns to be more close(I don’t know how to describe it more correct but i believe you know) when Xi gets the power, even the teenagers become more racist and xenophobic while I am an undergraduate seen. IMO, probably that’s because most of them could only receive the Internet in China(which we always consider it as a LAN): everything in the world has a “Chinese special edition”. After all, IMO, it’s able to come to China in some big cities with a VPN or something across the firewall since nobody can stay away to internet these days. Thus you will get a experience not too bad, and China is like most any other countries. But just stay in the urban area. What’s more, you know it’s not a good time to visit during pandemic, and i think racist and xenophobic been much more during these time. I don’t know what the china being tomorrow, but i’m pessimistic. Sorry for my bad english.

[demonshreder]

Facing discrimination when you are foreigner is pretty common in most countries. I think if you are from the white diaspora you wouldn't have noticed in the western countries but every time a friend (I am from India) goes to countries in NA & EU, there is almost always some form of discrimination preventing access to service or being overcharged without legal intervention.

[xerxesaa]

I've been to many hotels across the United States and Europe over a number of years in cities of all sizes and can honestly say have never even felt the remote possibility of being denied a room. Also Indian/Pakistani.

Edit: to be clear, I'm not trying to deny your own experience or making any accusations here. I'm just presenting the other side and clarifying that I don't feel it's a universal experience.

[chrischen]

America has its own class of problems that get exaggerated or overblown, such as how dangerous it is.

[chancho]

"White diaspora" is blowing my mind a bit. I think I would have been slapped by my social studies teachers if I ever used that phrase to describe colonialism. (I'm white, US)

[Veen]

Visiting or living in foreign countries for business or tourism is not "colonialism".

[selfhoster11]

Nice of you to assume that all white people had a chance to colonise (rather than be colonised and conquered by neighbouring nations on a regular basis). I'm not carrying the sins of the English-speaking (or otherwise formerly colonising) nations, so could the whites == colonialism assumption stay wherever other such weird assumptions belong.

[User23]

European diaspora is an accepted term[1]. Yes there's a redirect, but the word "diaspora" is used in the very first paragraph. It's ok, Europeans are people too. There's nothing offensive about the term. Plenty of "colonials" were sentenced to transportation, they didn't choose it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_diaspora

[thoms_a]

You can take solace in the fact that "whites" will never again command such societies in the future. The exaggerated "colonialism" narrative comes off as pining for a long-lost era of dominance, but in a socially acceptable way.

The era of Northern Europeans ("whites") dominating the globe is over forever, so no need to beat yourself up about it. Just letting you know that this extreme narrative is quite bizarre to non-Americans.

[powerapple]

Yes, foreigners need to register their address. I did that in UK every time I move when I was under student visa. If you fail to register within 7 days or so, you will be hit with a fine and other consequences. I also need to fill in my address in US every time I visit US. I assume it is normal for people traveling to westerns, but not very normal for westerners themselves. Most tourism countries, hotels do registration for you, sometimes you fill an extra form when you check in.

[arvigeus]

Depends on where she lived. Beijing, Shanghai and other first tier cities are ok for foreigners. The further away you get, the more blurry situation gets.

[gavinray]

Hey what sort of bullshit is this HN?

I was reading a reply by a guy who counter-commented on this, a bunch of links of people on YouTube walking around this same area and not seeing anything like this.

Then went to comment, and it says "flagged" and was deleted, in under 10 minutes.

I don't really care about politics or China at all, but that is some spooky-tier censorship here on HN. Wtf is going on here?

Here's one of the links I followed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wENwvxsfVM8

[wegrwerg]

If that link is the best representation of the lot, then yeah, they deserved to be deleted. Walking around a neighborhood with a high density of a given ethnicity, showing them managing to enjoy the life they have does nothing to discredit the idea that the same ethnicity is oppressed and heavily targeted.

Or to put it another way with a much more mild example, you can make a video full of happy black folks in some of the most backwards racist oppressive parts of the US. The existence of happy people does not negate the oppression they continue to endure.

[gavinray]

I'm not intending/trying to start any sort of argument about how things actually are.

I have no idea. I've never been to China. It could be really bad, exactly the way the video makes it out to be. The video could be dramatized, and not representative of the situation as a whole.

I'm not sure I would believe things that China told me about the US

By the same logic, I'm not sure I believe all the things that US/US-allied media tell me about China

Without access to verifiably unbiased information (which is difficult in an age where nations have entire agencies dedicated to misinformation for political purposes) it's something that's hard for me to form an objective opinion on. And I'm not that invested in it to want to form an opinion.

I just wanted to point out this odd behavior that I've not seen much of on here.

[andrewxdiamond]

I encourage you to apply occam's razor here. I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN.

[gavinray]

Here is the post that has vanished:

https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=29684814

  > I don’t think any political entity has any interest in controlling what individuals post on a tiny website like HN.

I wish I could pull a cached view of the comment up (I tried), there wasn't anything I would interpret as being inflammatory in there.

The comment boiled down to:

  "VICE isn't what I'd call the most reputable/unbiased source. I'd encourage everyone to do their own research/make their own decision. Here are a bunch of links of people walking around the same area, and it looks nothing like what is cut together from that VICE episode."

The speed at which it was flagged and removed was shocking. Like I said, (maybe I am a bad person for this), I don't really care that much about China or politics in general. There are a lot of other things I'd rather spend my energy caring about, that directly impact me.

I just wanted to call out this very odd behavior. I don't see HN as a place where people who speak objectively + respectfully get silenced, generally.

[andrewxdiamond]

As for the flagging, I believe HN auto-flags comments from new accounts that receive a large number of downvotes as an anti-spam feature.

[andrewxdiamond]

If you enable showdead on your profile, you’ll see that this comment is denying the well documented genocide that is occurring in these regions. That will rightfully annoy many people here, hence the downvotes.

So using the razor, I think we can conclude what happened.

User makes a new throwaway account to spread easily disproved information

Other users downvote the misinformation

HN autoflags the comment to protect against preceived-spam.

Although you are right to question what you see. It is never wrong to take a second to ask “what’s going on here?”

[monort]

Enable showdead in settings to view flagged comments.

[themitigating]

There are other rules that are unrelated to being objective or respectful

[hulitu]

There are a lot of people "with an agenda" here, to say the least. And unlike Slashdot you cannot reply to flagged or dead comments which benefits those people.

[hker]

> a bunch of links of people on YouTube walking around this same area and not seeing anything like this.

There is heavy tracking and surveillance in China [1], especially in Xinjiang [2][3].

Hence any reporting of Xinjiang, including the YouTube links you mentioned and posted, have selection bias.

That is, unfavorable reports or videos are censored, while favorable videos are selected, if not outright sponsored as part of large-scale online disinformation campaigns [5][6].

=====

The tracking and surveillance of reporters in Xinjiang, where journalists are tracked and have photos deleted for no reasons [2]:

    I was in Kashgar to report on how the Chinese authorities had turned to technology to cement their control of the Xinjiang territory, a region in the west of the country. Foreign journalists who travel there are tracked. I became one of the watched.

    [...snipped...]

    Another time, a police officer stopped us close to our hotel. Inspecting Chris’s photos, he deleted a shot of a camel. When Chris asked why that photo was deleted, the man turned to Chris and said, “In China, there are no whys.”.

=====

The tracking and surveillance of reporters in general, using the pandemic as an excuse and using visas for control [3]:

    Several foreign and domestic journalists were forced to abandon stories after being told "to leave or be quarantined on the spot," the report highlighted. Press credentials were commonly canceled by Beijing officials and embassies were routinely tasked with trying to renew revoked visas from journalists. The report said foreign journalists were used as "pawns" in China's international diplomatic disputes.

=====

The sponsorship of favorable YouTube and other social media videos, also covering ethnic mintorities [5]:

     The Barretts are part of a crop of new social media personalities who paint cheery portraits of life as foreigners in China — and also hit back at criticisms of Beijing’s authoritarian governance, its policies toward ethnic minorities and its handling of the coronavirus. 

    [...snipped...]

     State-run news outlets and local governments have organized and funded pro-Beijing influencers’ travel, according to government documents and the creators themselves. They have paid or offered to pay the creators. They have generated lucrative traffic for the influencers by sharing videos with millions of followers on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. 

    [...snipped...]

     His videos do not mention the internal government documents, firsthand testimonials and visits by journalists that indicate that the Chinese authorities have held hundreds of thousands of Xinjiang’s Muslims in re-education camps.

    They also do not mention his and his family’s business ties to the Chinese state.

=====

> Hey what sort of bullshit is this HN?

This sort of bullshit (sponsored videos) should not be promoted on HN, which may fuel the disinformation campaigns [5][6].

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/29/china-province... "Chinese province targets journalists and students in planned surveillance system"

[2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/insider/china-xinjiang-re... "Being Tracked While Reporting in China, Where ‘There Are No Whys’"

[3]: https://www.newsweek.com/china-harassing-intimidating-journa... "China Harassing, Intimidating Journalists With Surveillance Built to Curb COVID-19"

[4]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/12/13/technology/ch... "How Beijing Influences the Influencers"

[5]: https://web.archive.org/web/20211224143113/https://www.nytim... "How Beijing Influences the Influencers"

[6]: https://miburo.substack.com/p/cotton-the-act "Cotton the Act: Large-Scale Network of CCP-aligned Facebook Accounts Deny Mass Atrocity in China's Xinjiang Province"

Edits: added more links.

[gavinray]

  > This sort of bullshit (sponsored videos) should not be promoted on HN.

Promoted or not, this is generally a community for having level-headed discussions about things.

The original commenter says "China is X way".

Someone responds and says "China is Y way."

Everyone ought to be able to upvote/downvote, and argue + discuss to their hearts content.

I have no horse in this race, but I would have expected the person to just get downvoted into oblivion or responded to with posts like yours, containing responding counter-arguments/links, if the majority of people disagree with or hold contrary evidence to.

My reaction was less to do it about it being anything specifically related to China, and more about the principle/premise of the matter.

It could equally have been "Person 1 says eggs are bad for you, Person 2 says eggs are good for you." and I would have had the same reaction.

[dillondoyle]

There is a big difference between real debate on real issues - the example egg nutrition lol. Versus trying to refute or distract with a 'debate' on reality & facts.

Some things shouldn't be up for debate and calling doubt on reality is a weapon used by those who have political stakes.

China is a tough one too because as we saw on a top HN post from a few days ago we know the CCP has a large, active operation to comment and engage in online forums to sway opinion.

Article gave examples of typical straw man, whataboutism, handy wavy redirection.

The kind of comments exactly like what got flagged.

[hker]

This HN post?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29661475 "Spamouflage: CCP-Aligned Disinformation Campaign on Facebook Twitter YouTube"

[dillondoyle]

I think same news source! but this was the big thread https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29654137

There have been a few over the years. One I remember talked about a gamified app which is like so innovative and sad at the same time

[hulitu]

> I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as China and North Korea, to 'see for yourself', especially when you don't know the language, when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see

I'm personally opposed to the idea of visiting certain countries, such as USA since they searched phones at the border and you could be treated like a criminal based on who knows what.

[xinniethepooh]

The difference is that in the USA the media is allowed, and does cover this. In China, there is absolute suppression of free speech/media/religion, and the active internment of people who dissent.

You can't even compare the USA and China; China is objectively less free and more repressive.

[imbnwa]

On a lower frequency, this similar to why I'm not interested in tourism as "self-discovery", "new experience", or some shit, like the rest of the world is just stage and props for my existential theatre. I'm not gonna change as a human unless I actually move there to live permanently. Even worse, the middle-class trend to make the number of distinct places you've visited some form of social currency ("how many stamps are in your passport?").

I remember this sales guy who always made it a point to tell every woman he talked to that he did Peace Corps in Africa and how it changed him working with Africans. Like, you could've just volunteered somewhere on the south side of the city if you really wanted to help some African folk.

[rajin444]

Are you saying Africans and (black, which I assume you mean but I’m trying to be charitable) people in your city are basically the same? I imagine the lives and cultures in Africa are vastly different than whatever city you’re in.

[martin_a]

I think OP is talking about some kind of "charity tourism" that's happening. I think Europe has some effects like this, too, where people prefer to go to Africa to "help some children" while they could be "doing good" by getting active in local organisations. No need to travel some thousand kilometres for that.

[pessimizer]

You're also assuming that their town doesn't have a lot of African immigrants living on its south side, and that the speaker wasn't (very questionably) saying that their experience with Africans affected the way they interacted with local black people.

[rajin444]

That’s why I mentioned lives and cultures in Africa. African immigrant lives in x city are gonna be different than in Africa.

[imbnwa]

If the only way for you to deal with Black skin charitably be that they be some exotic Other "over there", that're 'different', who 'actually have it bad', and that you don't need to ever run into again, then you're part of a problem and don't know why.

Africa won't want for charitable aid labor in spite of this sentiment, it just can field those grunt work jobs from people who're, you know, from the area itself rather than Western tourists looking for a story to tell or a CV to pad.

[ubercow13]

Do you really think you can't learn anything as a tourist?

[MomoXenosaga]

Most people can't learn anything and they don't want to. It is impossible to explain what living in a slum is like to a middle class woke guy.

[ubercow13]

Well if you're being that reductionist, what's the point in doing or learning anything? Why is tourism any more useless than any other pointless attempt for a woke guy to learn something?

[imbnwa]

Learn anything? Certainly you can realize the true scale of Angkor Wat.

[Levitz]

> I'm not gonna change as a human unless I actually move there to live permanently.

This, in my experience, is simply not true.

There is a value in going to different places, changing every variable there is to your life except yourself.

When you are somewhere you've never been to, where you know nobody, where the food, language and customs are all different, then you can find out which parts of yourself stay, who you are and what you are capable of. That has value.

[musingsole]

Maybe, but too many think that visiting a resort town in a far flung country has given them a meaningful experience of "otherness" as if those same resorts weren't purpose built to coddle to foreigners being out of their element.

And even if you do fall through the tourism system and find yourself elbow to elbow with a native, the thought that you as a foreigner will unlock their culture in handful of days when most natural born members of a group will be learning their own eccentricities to the day they die is one of the more disgusting flavors of arrogance.

[kibwen]

There are plenty of pitfalls to the attitude that tourism will grant enlightenment, but I agree that some amount travel is crucial. Experiencing a different society (the everyday bits, not just the facade shown to tourists), even for a short amount of time, helps to humanize the people living in that society (or really, any society other than your own). Never straying from one place for your entire life is a great way to cultivate the attitude that the only "real" culture is the one that you're familiar with. In a connected world, empathy for people outside your own immediate sphere is important, and even a small amount of travel to a small number of places will generally suffice to begin developing this sort of empathy.

[imbnwa]

It's just, you don't need a plane ticket and a passport to satisfy these goals

[rootsudo]

This is mostly because they don't know how to register foreign passports. If you show them how to do it and present your passport, it is not an issue.

https://www.lostlaowai.com/blog/china-stuff/china-travel/for...

So many foreigners/laowai spread the same misinformation. You can stay, if you have sufficient Chinese/Mandarin, you can explain the above and it works. If you have a good friend explain, it also works. Most say the same thing as you "kicked out" "not allowed" or "rascism".

Not true at all, - at some hotels where I stayed I was really the first foreigner to ever pass through. (I wasn't staying in typical Shanghai places for example, more north and more west.)

Not an issue at all, explained, showed, registered, done.

[legofr]

In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done.

In China you either need to go through an agency that have something similar to "The Negro Motorist Green Book" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book), or you need to speak Chinese, convince the reception that they don't need a certificate they believe they're legally required to have, convince the reception to call the owner who will no doubt repeat a foreigner is not allowed, then you need to contact the police to convince the owner, if the police agree that a certificate is required then you need to convince the police that they don't know their own laws, convince them to call the Provincial Foreign Affairs Bureau.. that's what the person in your blogpost has been doing. She even told the police to give her their badge numbers so she could file an official complaint. That person is certainly living on the edge.

Even if it's technically legal, then surely the end result will be the same - 9/10 hotels and apartments will refuse foreigners (for the apartments I rented then everything was done on paper, I doubt they have the booking system mentioned in the blogpost - not sure if all hotels use the same since I have never walked behind the desk and looked at their computer.. and they probably wouldn't allow it if I asked) because who in their right mind want to spend several hours and likely get the police involved just so they can rent a room for 200rmb.

[rootsudo]

It's the same in China for most hotels that know what they're doing. " In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done.".

If you go off the beaten path or less than 4 stars hotels, then that.

And not unique just in China, Japan will do it too with some places - granted mostly it's love hotels which is ironic cause they're not supposed to know whose checking in, no passport is required, but many a foreigner can't read Kanji or talk.

[freeflight]

> In every other country you show them your passport, you write your signature and you pay a deposit - done.

There are nearly 200 countries on this planet, in that context your claim sounds more like quite the generalization, on your part, rather than an actual fact.

edit; Wow, never would have thought that stating a simple fact could be controversial on HN.

What is going on in these comments? People acting like everybody is American/Canadian, and as if the whole world is all the same, but only China is some weird outlier, smh

[freeflight]

Reminds me of this channel 4 [0] interview with writer Benjamin Zephaniah. Tbh I find his reasoning, go there and see for yourself, much more convincing than your reasoning.

Particularly this;

> when you're not willing to risk your life to understand and uncover the parts the government doesn't want you to see

Just reads like FUD, it's not China that locks up people at the highest rate on the planet. That "feat" is reserved to a country were nobody would say "don't visit there you might die!" even tho the chance for that to happen there is much more likely than in China or NK, where most police don't even carry guns.

[0] https://youtu.be/zowOkv0Cuhk

[belval]

Considering the locked up two Canadians in retaliation for Canada arresting Meng Wanghzu. I just don't see how I could go there and not have anxiety for the whole trip.

It's a shame though, I always wanted to see China.

[alisonatwork]

I have Canadian citizenship and lived in China when the two Michaels were locked up. In reality, even if the worst fears are true and every foreigner is explicitly tracked and constantly monitored by the local police department, it still wouldn't really be worth the government's effort to "disappear" the average foreigner, or even "invite them to tea". Most of us simply aren't that influential or important.

Of course, it does feel a bit suspicious when you say something mildly critical of the government online or during a meal with friends and then "mysteriously" the next day your VPN stops working, but it's just as likely that it could be coincidence and you're reading too much into it. But that's exactly how things are supposed to work in an authoritarian regime. Most of the time the government isn't explicitly watching over everyone, but because the legal system is deliberately opaque, everyone maintains a tiny bit of fear inside them that maybe they could be being watched, or that there might be a secret police just around the corner, so they self-censor and limit their behaviors just in case.

So, you're right that you might have anxiety the whole trip, but arguably that means you're getting to experience the "real China". Living under a constant chilling effect[0] is probably worse for locals than foreigners. At least as a foreigner you can leave when the pressure gets too much. Most locals don't have that privilege.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

[freeflight]

> I have Canadian citizenship and lived in China when the two Michaels were locked up.

Who were only locked up after Canada locked up a Chinese citizen at the request of the US.

Weirdly enough, that is framed in a completely different context than China's response to it.

[alisonatwork]

A very prominent businessperson being held for allowing her company to commit fraud and violate US sanctions in a country that has an extradition treaty with the US is not the same thing as a country "suddenly" detaining two expats, in an immediate and obvious response to the previous lawful detention. The two Michaels weren't even charged with anything after they had been detained, imprisoned and interrogated for 5+ months! Meanwhile Meng Wanzhou was able to continue living a relatively comfortable life under home arrest. It's not fair to suggest that the average person - Chinese or not - will just randomly be arrested and imprisoned for months in Canada, with no charges filed whatsoever. The same thing happens frequently in China.

[freeflight]

> Considering the locked up two Canadians in retaliation for Canada arresting Meng Wanghzu.

So let's just ignore the context of why and how that happened, or what kind of anxiety that translates to for Chinese people visiting countries like Canada or the US?

I mean, who there started arresting other nations nationals as geopolitical gambling chips? It wasn't China, it was Canada at the command of the US.

> I just don't see how I could go there and not have anxiety for the whole trip.

As a German national, I don't see how or why that should affect me. Can you please expand on your reasoning there?