Hacker News Reader

Comment by myrandomcomment | Hacker News Reader

How do you know I am not Chinese or my wife is not? Or my best friend? Or someone in my family?

I wish the best for China and the Chinese people. I hope for a peaceful and prosperous future. That however does not involve the threat to take Taiwan by force or claiming all of the South China Sea as theirs.

What I was trying to say is that my opinion is not informed based on what I have read in the press but based on the fact that I have spent time in the country and have read the local press, and spoken with the local people. The humiliation faced by the Chinese at the hand of the western powers is a common theme of books and movies and TV shows in China.

View on HN

Well, for one, I am Chinese. My parents are Chinese, so are my grandparents, and their grandparents.

I've listened to my grandmother talk about her grandparents, who are from the 1800's.

Of course we're drawn to movies and books and TV shows from that era. Same reason why teenagers in Europe are interested in Medieval stuff and Roman empire stuff. It's part of their history.

Is China taking Taiwan by force? Taiwan has been developing peacefully for almost 70 years since the civil war, I don't see any violence over there.

..."claiming all of the South China Sea as theirs"

Lots of governments do lots of crap, does that mean we can say the whole country and all its people want it?

And what does U.S. has anything to do with any of this stuff, anyway. Sure I understand if China was doing things in Mexico or the Caribbean, but I don't understand why they want to meddle in Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan, and South China Sea, and then call Russia, Iran, China as agitators.

Do I think that's what the U.S. public support? Meddle in countries half way around the world? No!

And thanks for your best wishes.

The claim of the South China Sea is a violation of International Law and the Convention of the Sea.

China has publicly acknowledged they are pointing DF-16 missiles at Taiwan.

China has publicly stated they will use force to prevent an independent Taiwan, despite the fact that Taiwan is a functioning democracy, unlike China.

China arrest and brutalized dissidents.

The rule of law in China is what ever the current leader says it is - Where is 吳小暉 (Wu Xiaohui)?

China kidnapped booksellers from Hong Kong in violation of the treaty that governs Hong Kong because of their political views.

I could make a list a mile long.

I stand by my statement that China's rise to power is scary because the motivations of the government of China are not driven by democratic principles that provides for checks on power.

The USA could have had an empire after WW2 and there was NO ONE IN THE WORLD that could have stopped them. Instead the USA paid even more of their money to re-built the world and help the countries which they fought.

The USA makes stupid mistakes sometimes, but they alway eventually sort it and sort it on the right side of history even if it takes time.

None of that has anything to do with "Pay back for humiliation in the 1800's". What you've described is actions of the Chinese government, I don't believe for one second Chinese people support all these actions - I do not, my parents do not, and my grandparents do not, therefore it's not true. Do my grandparents want "payback" on the Japanese for her suffering in world war 2? If she does I won't begrudge her for that. But you cannot claim I do.

When describing the broad beliefs of a group of people, there is general agreement that the beliefs are not held universally. I would think we can all agree on that; therefore your mention of your family (which is itself necessarily highly correlated and less representative) is of suspect value.

Can you point to any links that shows the chinese people protest on streets about their Govt's stance on south china sea, Tibet and Taiwan? If they don't, does that not mean they agree 100% with their Govt?

'The Chinese people agree their government's stance on south china sea, Tibet and Taiwan' doesn't mean 'they agree everything with their government'.

> The USA makes stupid mistakes sometimes, but they alway eventually sort it and sort it on the right side of history even if it takes time.

There are several areas where the US has not yet done so (including some that are older than the US, like treatment of Native Americans, and including some where it's heading in the opposite direction of the right side), so the idea that the US always does so is empty nationalistic sloganeering.

Yeah, myrandomcomment makes some excellent points, but the U.S. has plenty of unresolved wrongs. Compared to most aggressor countries, it is possible that the U.S. has the best ratio of reparations to destruction, but that doesn't mean it is blameless.

A non-exhaustive list of the countries the U.S. owes in terms of reparations for wrongdoing:

1. Iran

2. Nicaragua

3. Dominican Republic

4. Haiti

5. Cuba

> Lots of governments do lots of crap,

> And what does U.S. has anything to do with any of this stuff, anyway

This is whataboutism and has far less relevance in foreign affairs than in interpersonal ones.

The U.S. Government has incentives to keeping the South China Sea's international boundaries in line with the U.N. treaties. Much of, if not most, of the world's trade passes through there. Since the U.S. economy depends on this trade, it is considered to be one of the most important things to protect.

The U.S., just like every country, is primarily self-interested. It makes sense for the U.S. to want to contain what it perceives as aggressive moves to claim what have previously been considered international waters.

In the spirit of fairness, the Russian Federation considers NATO enrollments of neighboring countries to be aggressive behavior on the part of the U.S. The U.S. isn't the only country threatened by apparently threatening behavior.

The U.S. would defend its involvement in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and in Pacific Rim countries in terms of its self-interest for stability in those reasons, stability being a euphemism for unrestricted trade.

> Ukraine

I'm not familiar with U.S. involvement in Ukraine; it's not a NATO member and the U.S. hasn't (publicly) committed forces there.

US meddles in Ukraine? Last time I've checked, it wasn't US who invaded Crimea.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com