I'd make a wild guess that when parent is talking about 'control', they mean that if a miner is located within China, the Chinese government has the ability to put a gun to that miners head and tell them what to do.
Neither mining pools (who practically have the actual power over transaction inclusion an ordering) nor the miners are cooperating. I'm also certain the CCP wouldn't be practically able to locate and control all of them that easily.
The gun in the head strategy works best when you're only asking your populace to do simple things. For complex, technical tasks, the usual response is "Oops, I can't concentrate while you've got a gun against my head", and then you can shoot them but that's not going to help your task get accomplished any quicker. (This is also why working conditions at say Google or Apple tend to be pretty good, and why Soviet scientists were treated relatively well even if the rest of the population wasn't.)
GP is ipso facto calling out lazy casual racism, but framed constructively because they’re better at it than me.
In any case, you can follow it like this:
* Nations desire to control strategic resources
* Bitcoin is one such strategic resource
* To control Bitcoin, you need more than 50% of the network
* China has 65% of the network
* China can control Bitcoin
However, if Xi Jinping decided to crush Bitcoin for whatever reason large scale mining in China, which is well past 50%, would quickly do what he wanted. As such he has de facto control over Bitcoin, though I personally doubt it’s something he would do.
the idea that every miner in china will jump when xi says is pure fantasy.
yall act like china is populated entirely by robots. it's a complex society just like anywhere else.
(ok this is the stuff of conspiracy theories but it's still a possibility, isn't it?)
It seems to me if Bitcoin got to be of huge strategic importance to global finance, countries like the US would start to build out that power. The idea that the economy of say the US was at the mercy of other foreign governments would probably not sit well.
This applies to all large powers just using the US as an example.
The Chinese government has 100% power to do whatever they want. If they want to kill you on an invented charge and send the bill for the bullets to your parents, they can do so (and have done so).
Yes Western governments can use force to intervene with private companies and have done so in the past, but it's unusual for them to do that because people and companies have rights and they can contest the action in court. That's nothing compared to what China can do with no recourse, see Alibaba or the Canadian Michael's for a recent example.
You cannot pretend that the two are similar situations, and doing so is whataboutism. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with the difference between a free country and a totalitarian country.
Having a go at authoritarian demagoguery and secret police is one thing, have at it.
But doubling down on the casual false equivalence between a people, a country, a government, and a person, just reinforces the point.
Oh, and when you find a free country, do let me know. I haven’t seen one yet. So far, from Australia to Zimbabwe, all governments coerce and murder their citizens.
In this context IMHO the choice of words matters quite a bit. I do my best to never write “China” if I’m in fact referring to the entity commonly identified as “CCP”.
(I understood OP’s point though, probably because I used to make the same mistake—perhaps still inadvertently do with some other countries.)
On the other hand, calling racism "nonsense", in any context, that's some Oswald Mosley shit.
See also:
Using "China" but assuming .hk and .mo are included
Using "China" but assuming .hk and .mo are excluded
Using "China" to mean the area administered by the ROC
Using "China" to mean the area administered by the PRC
Using "China" to mean the area claimed by the ROC
Using "China" to mean the area claimed by the PRC
Using "China" to mean any area historically associated with the rule or influence of the Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Xin, Wei, Shu, Wu, Jin (1st/2nd), Sui, Tang, Wu Zhou, Liao, Song, Yuan, Ming, or Qing dynasties and their associated interregna and feudal periods.
Using "Chinese government" to mean the CCP, but not the State Council, the NPC, or the PLA
Using "Chinese government" to mean the CCP, the State Council, the NPC, and the PLA
Using "Chinese government" to mean Xi Jinping.
Using "Chinese government" to mean the KMT or DPP.
Using "Chinese government" to mean any and all the above, except the KMT, DPP, or PFP.
Using "mainland China" to try to be more specific (it still isn't, and now you've started a war)
Using "Greater China" to name your regional offices. Looking at you, Apple. (no such thing, it's a western fabrication, like General Zuo's chicken)
Referring to the Chinese language (which one?)
Referring to Chinese characters (hanzi? kanji? jiantizi? hanja??)
Referring to "Chinese food" (this is like categorizing haggis with paella)
Referring to "Chinese people" as though it's one ethnic group
Calling anyone who you think looks Chinese, Chinese.
It's just as farfetched and unlikely, but anti-Bitcoiners just keep theorizing about a hostile China takeover crashing BTC price as if it's feasible, without considering the inverse.