I am pointing out the whole ‘losing face’ thing exists in the west too.
If you cause certain people to lose face, you will get China-like response.
In fact it’s a core conservative value and you can observe it in interactions with police - if a victim embarrasses the police they will prosecute the victim instead of the perpetrator
> I am pointing out the whole ‘losing face’ thing exists in the west too.
Yes, in the sense that a bicycle and a Formula F1 are both wheeled modes of transportation.
I never said that western cultures don't have the concept of pride - just that it's categorically different in eastern cultures.
This is both extremely well academically supported[1] and immediately obvious to anyone who has nontrivial exposure to most eastern cultures (including, specifically, Chinese culture).
Furthermore, the punishment of Chelsea manning is clearly irrelevant for multiple different reasons:
1. Specific instances are not reflective of a general pattern
2. Manning and Assange were instances of leakers of classified information, which is a separate category from merely "losing face"
3. There's a consistent pattern of the US government prosecuting leakers of classified information[2] even when there's zero media exposure, which conclusively disproves the "its just saving face" theory