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Comment by bllguo | Hacker News Reader

yes, seconded. China isn't North Korea or the USSR. Don't take for granted that the West is "better", at this point China is looking over and saying "prove it"

Can you blame Chinese citizens for preferring the stability and prosperity of their own regime, when they have the current disarray of American democracy to compare to?

Frankly I would argue that the Chinese have a much better understanding of the US than the other way around. They study English, they are exposed to Western cultural exports (we're in a thread about the NBA, for instance), heck the general populace looked up to the US for a long time (not anymore)

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> Can you blame Chinese citizens for preferring the stability and prosperity of their own regime, when they have the current disarray of American democracy to compare to?

Let's ask the Chinese citizens in Hong Kong how they feel about the stability and prosperity of their regime, shall we?

Great idea. Let’s ask the business owners and working class citizens. They don’t want the freedoms “mobs” for sure

and to back you up:

>A strike was intended to open a new arena of resistance, but organizers said only 8,943 union members participated in a city-wide poll, falling short of the 60,000 threshold to go ahead, even as 95% of the votes were in favor. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests/hong-ko...

HK protestors have failed to organize any long term strike for a while now. If the majority of HKers strike, that will deal a real blow to the government.

You say this like it's supposed to be some kind of clever gotcha. Yes, the discontent there is real. But even if 100% of HKers are dissatisfied with the regime (which is not the case), they are a tiny fraction of the total population. Overall, I stand by my statement.

> preferring the stability and prosperity of their own regime

That's a bit of an unwarranted assumption. Even hinting that you have a different preference or questioning the reports of stability and prosperity (even privately among friends on WeChat, which is monitored and censored) can get you invited for a nice cup of tea with the local police.

Reports? They literally are experiencing stability and prosperity. People went from rural villages without electricity to towering megacities in a generation. Honestly I find it rather insulting that you'd rather believe they're all hiding their true preferences than try to see their perspective.

The point is that we don't know the degree of stability, prosperity and preference for the CCP because any data that contradicts this narrative is suppressed.

Probably still looking up in quite a few fields(technology, education), but on society/core value aspect it’s been shaky

you're right. I should have said "less and less so". In any case it's definitely trending down

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