As someone from (and who lives) in the developing + non-aligned part of the world, I'm always amazed at how ingrained hatred for anything western and non-democratic is for Americans.
Anything that isn't a so-called democracy with so-called western values (which change every 10 years) is patently evil.
Is this a relic of cold war propaganda? I hate to call it "brainwashing" because that's a very politically charged word but it's a belief that's so ubiquitous and immediate it surprises me. Especially for a culture with such anti-authoritarian cultural history.
Not defending CPP by any means just always find it funny from a vantage point of being surrounded on both sides by extremely large pot and kettle.
The American "democracy" also sucks. Just ask anyone in Latin America who had to live under US-backed dictatorships, or those in Middle Eastern countries that were destabilised or destroyed by American influence. Or the immigrants (or citizens that happen to look like immigrants) under siege in the country right now. I could go on for a long, long time.
"'ve also never done anything remotely as bad as the US did in Iraq."
Ask Tibetens about that. The US left Iraq but the CCP still controls Tibet and oppresss native Tibetans. Or the Uyghurs that the CCP are brutally persecuting. Or the Falun Gong. The CCP also is a strong ally of the despicable North Korean government and sends North Koreans in China back to North Korea to face long prison sentences or execution.
The CCP is very evil at violating individual human rights. And smart people defending their behavior is very odd
Nobody is defending their behavior. You're just proving the brainwashing point I made by instinctively going into attack dog mode making silly arguments.
And no, China's oppression of Tibet is nothing close to a million dead Iraqis and an ancient country turned into a failed state. The fact you'd even make such a goofy comparison shows how deep American indoctrination runs.
Your tax dollars are still torturing brown people without trial in Gitmo and genociding Palestinians btw.
Not sure how it’s rational if you don’t extend the same distaste to our authoritarian government. Concentration camps, genocide, suppressing free speech, suspending due process. That’s what it’s up to these days. To say nothing of the effectively dictatorial control the ultra wealthy have over public policy. Sinophobia is a distraction from our problems at home. That’s its purpose.
While I have my qualms with the activities of the US government (going back decades now), it is not a reasonable position to act as though we are anywhere near China in authoritarianism.
>Not sure how it’s rational if you don’t extend the same distaste to our authoritarian government. Concentration camps, genocide, suppressing free speech, suspending due process.
It can be perfectly rational since extending the same distaste towards the US government allows you to see that any of those things you listed is worse by orders of magnitude in China. To pretend otherwise is just whitewashing China.
You’re misunderstanding me. My point is if we were to have sincere solidarity with Chinese people against the international ruling class we would look at our domestic members of that class first. That is simply the practical approach to the problem.
The function of the administration’s demonization of China (it’s Sinophobia) is to 1) distract us from what our rulers have been doing to us domestically and 2) to inspire support for poorly thought out belligerence (war being a core tenet of our foreign policy).
> My point is if we were to have sincere solidarity with Chinese people against the international ruling class we would look at our domestic members of that class first.
I see your point, but disagree with it.
Having solidarity with the Chinese people is unrelated to criticizing their government. Bringing up sinophobia whenever criticism towards China is brought up, when the context is clearly the government and not its people, is distracting from discussing the problem itself.
The idea that one should first criticize their own government before another is the whataboutism.
Also, you're making some strong and unfounded claims about the motivations of the US government in this case. I'm an impartial observer with a distaste of both governments, but how do you distinguish "sinophobia" from genuine matters of national security? China is a political adversary of the US, so naturally we can expect propaganda from both sides, but considering the claims from your government as purely racism and propaganda seems like a dangerous mentality to have.
> Having solidarity with the Chinese people is unrelated to criticizing their government.
It’s not unrelated because the NIST demonization of China as a nation contributes to hostilities which have real impacts on the people of the US and China, not simply the governments.
> The idea that one should first criticize their own government before another is the whataboutism.
Again, that’s not my position. You present me as countering criticism by pointing at US faults. But I acknowledge the criticism. My point is that both have faults, both governments deserve our suspicions, and our actions, practically speaking, should be first directed at the dictators at home.
As for the supposed national security concerns - all LLMs are insecure and weaker ones are more susceptible to prompt injection attacks. The paper argues that
DeepSeek is a weaker model and more susceptible to these attacks. But if it’s a weaker model isn’t that to be expected? The report conflates this with a national security concern, but this insecurity is a characteristic of this class of software. This is pure propaganda. It’s even more insecure compared to the extremely insecure American models? Is that what passes for national security concerns these days?
Secondly the report documents how model shows bias, for example censoring discussion of Tiananmen Square. Yet that’s hardly a national security concern. Censorship in a foreign model is a national security concern? Again, calling this a national security concern is pure propaganda. And that’s why it’s accurately labeled as Sinophobia. It is not concerned about national security except insofar as it aims to incite hostilities.
What our government should be doing internationally is trying to de-escalate hostility but since Obama it has been moving further in the opposite direction. With Trump this has only intensified. Goading foreign countries and manufacturing enemies serves the defense lobby in the one hand and the chauvanist oligarchs on the other. Really, it serves the opposite of national security.
> It’s not unrelated because the NIST demonization of China as a nation contributes to hostilities which have real impacts on the people of the US and China, not simply the governments.
I don't doubt that it has impacts, but you're characterizing this as "demonization". The current administration certainly engages in some harmful rhetoric, but then again, what is the "right" way to address a hostile political enemy?
> > The idea that one should first criticize their own government before another is the whataboutism.
> Again, that’s not my position. You present me as countering criticism by pointing at US faults.
I'm not presenting you this way. You brought up the faults of the US government at a comment pointing out a distaste for the Chinese government. This inevitably steers the conversation towards comparisons and arguments about which one is worse, which never goes anywhere, and always ends badly. Granted, the CCP comment wasn't going to spur thoughtful discussion anyway, but your comment assured it.
This is a common tactic used by Chinese agents and bots precisely because it muddies the conversation, and focuses it on the faults of some other government, typically of the US. I'm not suggesting you are one, but it's the same tactic.
> My point is that both have faults, both governments deserve our suspicions, and our actions, practically speaking, should be first directed at the dictators at home.
Again, this is what I disagree with. Making a topic relative to something else only serves to direct the focus away from the original topic. If I criticize the food of a restaurant, the response shouldn't be to bring up my own cooking, but about the restaurant itself.
As for this particular case, I haven't read the NIST report, nor plan to. I'm just saying that if both countries are at war with each other, as the US and China certainly are (an information war, if nothing else), then acts of war and war-related activities are to be expected from both sides. At what point would you trust your government to inform you when this is the case, instead of dismissing it as domestic propaganda and "demonization"?
The TikTok situation is a good example. It is undisputable that having US citizens using a social media platform controlled by the Chinese government is a matter of national security. A child could understand that. Yet attempts to ban TikTok in the US have been criticized as government overreach, an attack on free speech, with whataboutism towards domestic social media (which is also an issue, but, again, unrelated), and similar nonsense. Say what you will about the recent TikTok deal to keep it running in the US, and there's certainly plenty to criticize about it, but at the very least it should mitigate national security concerns.
It's the same with any Chinese-operated service, such as DeepSeek. I don't doubt that the NIST report makes nonsensical claims that technically shouldn't be a concern. But DeepSeek is also a hosted service, which is likely to be the primary interface for most users. Do you think that the information provided to it by millions of US citizens won't be used as leverage during times of war? Do you think that US citizens couldn't be manipulated by it, just like they are on TikTok and other social media, in ways that would benefit the Chinese government?
We barely understand the impacts of this technology, and most people are clueless about how it works, and what goes on behind the scenes. Do you really trust that a foreign hostile government would act in good faith? To me, as someone without a dog in this fight, the answer is obvious. It would be too naive to think otherwise.
This is why I'm surprised at how quick US citizens are to claim sinophobia, and to criticize their own government, when it's clear their nation is in a state of war, and has been in sociopolitical disarray for the past decade. Yet there's a large portion of the country that is seemingly oblivious to this, while their nation is crumbling around them. Ultimately, I think this is a result of information warfare and propaganda over decades, facilitated by the same tools built by the US. This strategy was clearly explained by an ex-KGB agent decades ago[1], which more people should understand.
> distract us from what our rulers have been doing to us domestically
America doesn’t have rulers. It has democratically elected politicians. China doesn’t have democracy, however.
> if we were to have sincere solidarity with Chinese people against the international ruling class
There is also no “international ruling class”. In part because there are no international rulers. Speak in more specifics if you want to stick to this claim.
> Concentration camps, genocide, suppressing free speech, suspending due process
I’m not sure what country you are talking about, but America definitely doesn’t fit any of these things that you claim. Obviously there is no free speech in China. And obviously there is no due process if the government can disappear people like Jack Ma for years or punish free expression through social credit scores. And for examples of literal concentration camps or genocide, you can look at Xinjiang or Tibet.
I’m not excusing China’s government but criticizing our own. The wealthy control our political process. Money buys politicians, elections, laws, media companies. It’s money and those who have it who govern our political process. Do you really think your vote carries equal weight as Elon Musk’s billions? And with Trump even the veneer of democracy is being cast aside.
In every case where we see a company trade hands to US ownership it becomes more controlled and anti consumer then before