[earlyam]

Some anecdata: I've seen a big increase in pro-Chinese commentors on the internet in the past year or so. HN especially. It keeps popping up in subtle ways. I'm not saying it's necessarily propaganda or psyops, but we'd be fools to believe China isn't doing that quite extensively. Hell, America does it; we just had a scandal where the military was doing that when they shouldn't have been.

[dang]

The site guidelines specifically ask you not to post like this because (a) internet users are notoriously prone to such perceptions, (b) such perceptions are notoriously unreliable, and (c) it invariably leads to low-quality, repetitive discussion and eventually nasty flamewar. Nasty nationalistic/ethnic flamewar is particularly unwelcome here.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

If anyone cares, one reason why such perceptions are notoriously unreliable is that people generalize based on what they notice, and what they notice is conditioned by what they agree/disagree with, like/dislike, and so on: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

The truth is that HN is divided on divisive topics the same way that society at large is divided (or rather, societies at large, because this is also a highly international site, although mostly Western). You can't take the appearance of opposing views as signalling anything other than that a topic is divisive. As for perceptions of "HN is more X" or "HN is less X" - in my experience over many years, they're mostly random.

[xboxnolifes]

Oddly, I've noticed the opposite. Since around 2015 or so, I noticed a very sharp increase of anti-Chinese rhetoric (or any rhetoric for that matter) on the internet and news. Not that it was positive before, but it was barely mentioned. Now it feels like Chinese this and Chinese that come up in every other political conversation.

Not that I was around for the Red Scare or Cold War, but China feels like it replaced Russia as the Boogieman.

[tatrajim]

Then, again, it might just be a logical reaction to the fundamental political changes that have occurred in the PRC since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, especially after he changed the constitution to remove term limits in 2018. Under his rule, private business has been increasingly marginalized, state security strengthened, public surveillance hugely magnified, and diplomacy changed from the prior Deng-era "taoguang yanghui" (keep a low profiles, bide your time) to the current "wolf-warrior" strategy. The result has been in countries such as South Korea a growing mistrust and disliked of China (now 80%+) compared to the Jiang Zemin - Hu Jintao eras.

The current "Two Assemblies" meetings in Beijing are likely only to exacerbate this trend, with, e,g. all control of the security agencies shifted away from the State Council to Xi Jinping himself.

[senttoschool]

No, I believe this was going to happen no matter what.

It happened with the Japanese in the 80s/90s as well where American media vilified Japan because it thinks Japan will become more powerful than the US.

China is trying to climb its way out of the "cheap labor" economy and into a developed economy. The US and the west are trying its hardest to prevent this from happening and this includes using every tactic possible including propaganda, sanctions, etc.

[senttoschool]

1985 article: THE DANGER FROM JAPAN https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/28/magazine/the-danger-from-...

[ZeroGravitas]

Or 1986 Ron Howard comedy film with a Chinese/American title but about Japanese car manufacturers in the US:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gung_Ho_(film)

[tatrajim]

Under Xi Jinping China launched a series of security initiatives targeting outsiders. An emblematic case was that of Apple, whereby the Apple Book Store and iTunes Movie Store were abruptly shut down after prior legal approval.

"Apple Services Shut Down in China in Startling About-Face"

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/technology/apple-no-longe...

So, too, Wolf Warrior tactics against South Korea over China's anger at U.S. THAAD system, including the destruction of Lotte's entire business in China.

"One company [Lotte] is bearing the brunt of China's anger over U.S. missile system"

https://money.cnn.com/2017/03/07/news/china-lotte-thaad-sout...

Ironically, China adopted Wolf Warrior tactics in large part because the claim you make about the perceived threat of the U.S. treating China like Japan in the 1980s is now a commonplace cliche all over China, used to justify a host of aggressive policies. This hostile posture, overseen by Xi Jinping, has helped achieve the near impossible: political unanimity in the U.S. Congress against China.

[senttoschool]

>HN especially.

That's probably only me. I've been more pro-China on HN because I believe western media is spreading way too much anti-China propaganda. I believe it needs better balance. The truth is always somewhere in between the propaganda on both sides.

[phiy]

The anti-china sentiment is completely over the top. Especially in the last couple months.

It is disinformation to say "both sides", but it is in some extent true. The real way to stop disinformation is teach information literacy, but that would stop propaganda being effective for everyone.

[senttoschool]

Propaganda is a powerful thing: https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/ame...

On both sides...

[lazyeye]

I've noticed this too. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if people in the West were able to participate in conversations inside China the way advocates for China can in other countries.

Whatever the topic, they don't have to be right. Just by obsfucating, delaying, misdirecting, going off on tangents, quoting dodgy research, burying the topic with downvotes whatever...the subject matter just gets turned into a muddy swamp with no clear conclusion and then everybody moves past it to the next new thing. Mission accomplished.

[corbulo]

Only in the last year?

It is important to remember the near-global admiration for China's lockdowns during the first year of the pandemic. Highly manufactured. Twitter was a huge incubator for it.

[the_doctah]

Look no further than Hollywood which for some reason keeps blatantly peddling pro-Communism

[Oxidation]

Not nearly blatant enough if you ask me. I'm still waiting for the Tom Cruise sequel Top Gun: Top Marx.

[pessimizer]

[flagged]

[ipv6ipv4]

Q.E.D

[olddustytrail]

Well yes, you're going to see anti-chinese sentiments when they're engaged in Uighur extermination.

What did you think would happen?

[thephyber]

This post isn’t excusing Chinese actions towards Uighurs, but is heavily critical of anti-Chinese criticisms of their Uighur policy.

Note that Uighurs are majority Muslim and they aren’t all being exterminated (certainly some are), but the primary efforts seem to be making that region and ethnicity much more similar in culture to Han-Chinese. It rings of the “white genocide” and “Jews will not replace us” slogans.

The Chinese government seems to use the 9/11 style “we are monitoring them so they don’t become radical Islamic terrorists”. The government efforts are to destroy practice of Islam, to restrict / deter the spread of Islam and criticisms of the government.

Interestingly the most anti-Chinese people in the US are the ones with the biggest intersection with these policies and claim the US is doing the exact same thing to them.American Christians who claim they aren’t able to practice their faith in the US, while simultaneously insisting that the US is a Christian nation, that Islam shouldn’t be practiced in the US, that Islam creates terrorism, that civil liberties should be rolled back in the efforts to reduce terrorism, and insist that Islamic Sharia law is endemic in the US.

American Anti-Chinese sentiment of the social type seems like a cry bully. There are some far more valid criticisms of the wider social controls and economic policy in China.

[corbulo]

>Note that Uighurs are majority Muslim and they aren’t all being exterminated (certainly some are), but the primary efforts seem to be making that region and ethnicity much more similar in culture to Han-Chinese. It rings of the “white genocide” and “Jews will not replace us” slogans.

This is quite the impressive paragraph. What are you even saying?

[thephyber]

The Chinese government is homogenizing most of the population, not exterminating it.

The same idiotic argument of “extermination” is used by some people in our society.

[deafpolygon]

In a couple of generations, there won't be a Uighur people. That's more or less extermination, isn't it?