[imiric]

> 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.

[grafmax]

> 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.

[imiric]

> 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.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5sTGxMUdo

[grafmax]

Maybe the disconnect in our perspectives comes from your belief that the issue is China vs the US. So when I criticize the US government in response to your criticism of CCP, you interpret that as a contest between two authoritarian powers.

But my point is that the underlying rivalry is between the international ruling class and their people. When I criticize the US, my intention is to broaden the picture so we can identify the actual conflict and see how the NIST propaganda works contrary the national security interests of US and Chinese people.

Actual whataboutism would be arguing that US authoritarianism justifies Chinese authoritarianism. My argument is the opposite: it’s consistently anti-authoritarian in that it rejects both the NIST propaganda and Chinese censorship.

> As for this particular case, I haven’t read the NIST report, nor plan to.

Ugh - at least read the first page of what you’re defending. It summarizes the entire document.

> But DeepSeek is also a hosted service.

Which you can also run it yourself. That’s precisely its appeal, given that ALL major companies vacuum our data. How many people actually rely on the DeepSeek service when, as the NIST report itself notes, there are so many cheaper and better alternatives?

And if your concern truly is data collection by cloud capitalists, how can you frame this as China vs the US? Do you not acknowledge the role of US companies in the electronic surveillance state? The real issue is our shared subjection to ALL the cloud capitalists.

The antidote to cloud capitalism is to socialize social networks and mandate open interop (which would be contrary to the interests of the oligarchs). The antidote to data-hoarding AI providers is open research and open weights. (And that is precisely what makes Chinese models appealing.)

Thankfully, we are not yet at war with China. That would be disastrous as we are both nuclear powers! War and rivalry are only inevitable if we accept the shallow framing put out in propaganda like the NIST report. Our rulers should be de-escalating tensions, but they risk all our safety in their reckless brinkmanship.

Now, you are right that’s it’s wise to acquaint oneself with propaganda like the NIST report - which is why I did. But taking propaganda at face value - blithely ignoring the way that chauvanism serves the ruling class - that is foolish to the point of being dangerous.