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Comment by dpau | Hacker News Reader

I'm against this tendency to alienate the Chinese as some unknowable "other". Yes, the culture is quite different than in the West, but we share vastly more through the common experience of being human. There are a lot of well-educated middle class Chinese who would hope for a more transparent and democratic system. But it is a complex and difficult issue. There are many of us in the US who hope for a similar change in our own country, and yet there doesn't seem like there's much we can do. Except vote, of course.

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I agree with you, we have much more in common than the current online zeitgeist would lead you to believe. Many of my Chinese friends are genuinely lovely people just trying to do what's best for them and their families. Just like the rest of the world.

Unfortunately a lot of this attitude comes from the Chinese themselves when we see the knee-jerk reaction to any criticism of China with "you just don't understand China". Maybe so, but this attitude is not helpful. Though I definitely understand that reaction when I think about how I would feel if some foreigners started criticising my country.

I think there are 2 important things I'd like people to take away.

1) You are not your government, especially when they are not elected. Criticism of a country's government != criticism of that country's people.

2) The people doing the criticising should take more care to specify the target of the criticism, and to understand the collateral damage it may have.

eh. And there are many more well-educated middle class Chinese who generally believe in the ideas behind the CCP. Maybe not the implementation details - this policy, for example, is boneheaded and will disproportionately affect the middle class. But I've spoken to many who will acknowledge the benefits of democracy while simultaneously claiming that their system is the only system suited for China. (In fact I think this is an area Chinese people do much better in - they know much more about the West than we do about the East)

I'm against this tendency of implicitly assuming democracy to be undeniably good; you risk assuming bad faith from people who genuinely believe otherwise. It is also kind of off-putting to assume a superior default position by virtue of having a democratic system. Especially now, when it invites so many easy attacks - the quality of western leadership, the handling of covid-19, etc.

You're projecting, I think. Sure, there are many millions of "well-educated middle class Chinese who would hope for a more transparent and democratic system". But they're irrelevant. Another Cultural Revolution, and they'd all be dead or in reeducation camps.

And just to be clear, I'm not judging who's better or worse.

> Except vote, of course.

Or leave for somewhere else more amenable to ones quality of life on the ground and/or wait for things to deteriorate sufficiently enough such that people want to change things. Or a host of other things people could do in any given environment besides voting.

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