Zuckerberg is quite clearly being critical of the Chinese Communist Party, who by nature of being authoritarian, have no mandate from the people of the PRC. There is no bias against China as a country, or Chinese people. Zuck is merely judging an authoritarian government for it's own actions. Shame on those who would wish to conflate the two.
Even in america, if you have a conversation with a chinese person about the PRC or even just economic conditions in china, that person will in any case, always defend the PRC under any condition, no matter what the PRC has done, even if they themselves are against the PRC and agree with what your saying.
I have good mainland Chinese friends who are members of the CCP. They don't believe in communism, they're members of the CCP because 'it looks good to have the CCP on your CV'. They know the government killed people in Tiananmen square.
They do link the CCP to the fact they're richer than their parents (I see this as the US deciding to 'open China' back in the 70s). And they value stability more than the individual.
If mainland Chinese people are mindless drones incapable of independent thought, why does the PRC need to invest billions of dollars every year in monitoring and policing what people say and think?
> defend the PRC under any condition[...] even if they agree with what your saying.
Then your argument likely heavy-handed or misses the nuance of the situation. Using the USA as an example, the impression a foreigner gets from looking at gun statistics is completely different from reality. So if a person from Europe starts to lecture you on guns in the USA, you're going to get a little defensive at their incorrect assumptions, even if you agree with their stance in general.
It's like hearing a person complain about a movie they've never seen, but they read the Wikipedia entry on it. They may understand the major plot lines, but you're not going to have an engaging discussion with them about the acting or cinematics.
That is very much unlike, say, "defending all American gun laws to a T, without mentioning at all what you actually think, because they made you do it for being unfair or mistaken about something". And where that is the case, how you say things doesn't really matter, you won't get anyhwere either way. So you might as well be blunt, and if they want to correct something, let them. If they want to make excuses about being offended and not correct anything, it stands as is.
I know, because I get that all the time, when Americans say "Germany doesn't have freedom of speech" or such, because glorifying Nazism is illegal. I don't start pretending Germany is perfect in response to that, I quote them some basics about freedom of speech, stuff about American law and whatnot, and try to explain how there is no "totally unrestricted" free speech anywhere there is a listener. Then they always (no exceptions so far, probably because intelligent Americans don't even say "there is no freedom of speech in Germany" to begin with) drift off into nonsense or fall silent, because their brain seems to be unable to process what I'm telling them.
"People are tauhgt to think of themselves as completely the same as their government."
No seriously no. We aren't robots nor idiots.
"This of course allows the PRC to do whatever it wants without any complaints from the people because any thoughts against the PRC is tantamount to being anti-chinese. "
Even at the height of the Mao era there were still dissent even when it could cost you your life.
"Thus when chinese people see anything that goes against the PRC they take it as a personal insult to themselves."
It depends though, doesn't it? Are the charges being leveled fair within the context they're being viewed? Not everything in Western media is completely fair, reliable, etc. I mean, just read the articles written by the media when it comes to technology. They miss a lot of the nuances.
Is it really surprising that nationalism has an effect on people? You don't think Americans do that? Remember that fervent anti-French sentiment in some parts of the US when they criticized our invasion of Iraq? You don't think the fetishization of the military in US media is a form of propaganda? What about singing of the national anthem at NFL games? China does very similar things but perhaps more frequently. These pro-nationalist sentiments are fanned much more subtly than you've described it.
Is criticizing a government's actions tantamount to racism against the people under that government's rule, or is it not? Phrase the question around China or Israel, and you will get two different responses from many people.
how is it reasonable to take your anecdote as a decent reference point for somebody who has grown up in china, speaking mandarin, and learning about the world through CCP-funded public schooling?
I grew up in China, speak Mandarin and mostly learned about the world through CCP schools.
Most of the kids and their family (and even teachers) are critical of CCP.
Do people actually believe this? How could you possibly hope to put a billion people in such a tiny box?
If you have studied Chinese history you'd know the mandate does not come from it being democratically elected, but rather how good it's doing its job.
Democracy is not only a concept that's foreign to Chinese history, it's not even desired by that many people in China.
At some point you also have to make it about the people, too, after all the Chinese Communist Party is comprised of Chinese people.
It's hard to assume that the CCP doesn't have the mandate of the people. We just don't know one way or another since there are no free elections.
There is no evidence of Chinese people freely support CCP rule.
If you want to support an evidence gathering exercise, stand with Hong Kong.