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Comment by zeth___ | Hacker News Reader

>To be a great, rather than just a big power, China needs the world’s acceptance. More open domestic markets, fewer hidden subsidies and less dumping, less industrial espionage and less aggression in the South China Sea would all help.

Why? The US posturing and genocide in South America for 200 years did not stop it from being a great power, that the pacific rim will now see the same from a yellow and not white face doesn't change much.

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Many would argue your example supports the author’s point. US meddling in South and Central America significantly tarnished the US reputation. Further, destabilzed govts led to underperforming economies that could be great alternative trade partners. Instead, those countries are now vulnerable to Chinese influence in return for investment captial.

While you may have wished to divert attention from China or simply return to your favorite whipping boy, you also highlight the need to conform with Western ideals.

If the US reputation was tarnished so much list all the countries where US backed invasions or coups killed more than 100,000 people in the 20th century.

And please call it what it is: genocide.

I do enjoy a bit of whataboutism in the morning, the need to not murder millions is not a western ideal, the First, Second, Korean, Vietnam and Iraq wars all show how little value democracies place on the lives of non-citizens.

Nor does the US democracy place value on the lives of citizens in oppressed nationality groups; the so-called "prison system" of the US is a veiled concentration camp archipelago, the largest ever in human history.

It's funny how pundits from countries that have (and are still doing) all those things, point the finger at other countries for doing the same (and, internationally, far less).

"aggression in the South China Sea"? The US has invaded 3+ countries in the last 20 years producing as much failed states. Is it just a "big" and not a "great" power?

Pundits are more than happy to criticize their own countries or (in this case) their allies. You won’t find many Economist articles going easy on the UK or USA.

They are just giving China equal treatment, and it is only Chinese insecurity that must bring up the USA in any talk about it (in contrast, you won’t find people talking about China when reviewing articles about US aggression).

>You won’t find many Economist articles going easy on the UK or USA.

On the contrary, I find Economist playing the anglosaxon party line in almost any international issue.

Do you read the economist often? If you go to the current issue, how many negative articles about the USA and UK can you count? It ain’t zero, heck, just by the counts alone it is easy to argue that the economist is softer on China than it is on the UK and USA.

>If you go to the current issue, how many negative articles about the USA and UK can you count?

Many, that criticize those countries from the perspective of what the power elites of those same countries want them to do.

Ah, then what is your point if they call out American aggression anyways because that aligns with the power elite interest (as they did during the Iraq war)?

The power elite has competing fractions, which are aligned for the most part (e.g. in economic policy), but have different (and often merely token) differences in other areas, like when to use the carrot and when the stick in foreign policy matters.

That other countries are their subjects upon which to use carrots and sticks, however, they agree perfectly.

You aren’t exactly wrong, but I disagree that some cabal of unified elites actually controls papers like the economist, but the same biases would arise because of their readership st any rate, which is true for any publication.

It isn’t as bad as The People’s Daily, for example.

You should read Pravda. It criticized the USSR quite often too.

Yes, and so does Xinhua and China daily...kind of.

Note: The Economist is British.

UK itself has for 5+ decades been deeply tied to the power across the Atlantic, so?

So was Thatcher, but you could find no one better cheerleader for the Neo-liberal policies of the US than her.

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