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Comment by Cyberdog | Hacker News Reader

Australia has of late had its own issues involving accusations of Chinese espionage as well as good old-fashioned palm-greasing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Dastyari#Chinese_influence...

If the US starts clamping down on this sort of thing, expect China to accuse the US government of xenophobia, since of course "we'd like to stop so many Chinese agents and toadies from infiltrating our governmental and educational systems" translates to "we hate Chinese people" in Mandarin.

EDIT: To be clear to any Chinese agents reading this, my issue is not so much with the spying and soft power campaigns so much as it is the unfair accusations of racism.

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Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts of political interference and other meddling...

Alas, they cannot make such accusations. At most they can use "xenophobia".

> Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race". They'd be able to throw the racism card all over dems for having the temerity to accuse them of all sorts of political interference and other meddling...

I assume this is why everyone turns a blind eye to the elephant in the room when it comes to foreign influence of American affairs - Israel.

That one's a bit more complicated. Our interests intersect with theirs along many axes. And they have lots of lobbyists in DC and Americans of Israeli/Jewish heritage donate lots to DC politicians along Israeli policy lines. People of Russian heritage on the other hand typically have opposing views to that of Moscow in many areas, so they are not as aligned, if at all; in addition, many people of Russians descent have Jewish heritage as well... So you know, they doubly oppose Moscow.

this is a typical narrative of double standard.

> Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race".

> Alas, they cannot make such accusations.

Why not? Can you prove that Russians are "another race"?

Is there such thing as a scientific definition that states unambiguously where any one race ends and another begins? I don't doubt that populations of humans commonly share family lineage, phenotypes, and genotypes, but the concept of "race" escapes any sufficient definition or real world testability.

US state laws and culture had for a long time considered the "one-drop"[1] (of blood of a different race) a disqualifier for being considered a White American. The implication is that if you can't prove your pedigree back infinitely far, you are more likely that not to not be white.

In fact, using some inductive logic, it's almost perfectly likely that every person is "mixed-race" if you search back far enough.

This is all to say that "racism" is a description of how people see (and treat) other people. It's rarely been about actual pedigrees and almost entirely been about mental classification of others.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule

>Is there such thing as a scientific definition that states unambiguously where any one race ends and another begins"

No, that's why it's in scare quotes.

Fair point.

I think DJT has already desensitized me to details like capitalization and quoting.

I've seen people reach pretty hard to blame various things on Trump, but blaming him for your own lack of reading comprehension is a new one.

>Can you imagine if Russians were a another "race".

I was under the impression they are,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs

http://www.slovio.com/slavic-gene/index.html

They actually have a word for this, it's "Russophobia" [1]

And from reading left-leaning discussion forums (HN included) you'd think they have a point. Try mentioning anything about Russia and see how long it takes until someone suggests it's probably Putin's friends doing it (Telegram is a great recurring example here on HN [2]).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russophobia#United_States

[2] E.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16327159

Notice the downvotes?

New Zealand has had similar issues - https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/339335/national-mp-...

I find the thought of Chinese people complaining that Americans are racist to be very amusing. Doubly so if I imagine the American so accused to be black with epicanthic folds.

Did you know that a commercial once aired in China for Qiaobi detergent, where a black man is shoved into a washing machine, and when the cycle finishes, he comes out Chinese? It aired for months, and didn't get pulled until an English-language website made it go viral internationally. The US will always have its 1970s Calgon "ancient Chinese secret" advertisement, of course.

Might as well link to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Few8kJ0zfnY

I don't think it's intentionally racist as far as disparaging black people, but it does imply that black skin is "dirty" and wouldn't fly in, shall we say, less homogeneous cultures.

See also Darkie/Darlie toothpaste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darlie

Persecution complex, projection, feigning incredulity... Hypocracy is SOP for bullies.

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