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Comment by simorley | Hacker News Reader

> Zero interest in 'human rights and democracy', lots of interests in oilfields, pipelines, military sales contracts, etc.

Is this a shock to anyone? "Human rights and democracy" is the new imperial "white man's burden". We use it to justify invading, colonizing and stealing from others. When have we ever cared about human rights and democracy? I forget if it was chomsky or someone else who said that we've murdered more people, caused more human suffering and stolen more wealth in the name of "human rights and democracy" than nazi germany did in the name of nazism. Think about that.

I wish the non-western world would just collectively laugh at and mock any western leader when they talk about "human rights", "democracy", "western values", etc. How can they stand the hypocrisy? How can we?

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It's not a shock to me in Hong Kong. Been called a wumao by so many virtue signalers for just saying it's an illusion: we're less oppressed than they say we are, americans are less virtuous in their attempts to "free" us than they say they are.

Why do you think even the pro-democracy forces in China see the US's support of "democrats" as a farce? Why do you think the images in HK of protestors with the US flag were seen as nothing short of treason, even among the liberals of China? The hypocrisy is so obvious, and the naked self-interest too glaring.

The US's foreign policy has set back the cause of democracy and liberalization in China by decades with its underhanded shenanigans. To recieve their support, even moral support, is the kiss of death in China.

There are numerous countries in the world that have becomes democracies inspite of the blundering and corruption of the powers that be in the west. Dont use the US and its dysfunction as an excuse please.

When US dysfunction includes things like regime change and election tampering, it can definitely be used as an excuse.

Yes, some countries have independently produced pro-Western democracies, but if they have enough value and start electing anti-Western leaders their democracy will become a target of Western attack. See the ~2002 US backed coup attempt against Hugo Chavez, or the recent Morales elections.

Can you list some them? Bonus points if outside Western Europe.

Tunisia.

Not anymore unfortunately [0].

[0] https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/tunisians-protest-again...

See that's the thing, it's not that simple. The ruling party which controlled the parliament for a few years is corrupt. The president, who was democratically elected by the majority of the people, used the constitution to suspend said parliament, with the support of the people. It's definitely an unorthodox move but it relates to one of democracy's limitations; what could be done when an elected party represents its own interests and not the people's?

Lots of factors could be at play indeed. I'm certainly not an expert, but if I read correctly, the man has disbanded parliament and ruled by decree since two months, publicly announcing his disregard for the constitution. To me, that does not count as democratic anymore.

The former yugoslavia

Taiwan, South Korea, Japan.

I've never heard of those, but I've heard of the countries whose dictators we propped up and helped (often by literally sending lists of names) to exterminate their secular opposition. Then when they have a revolution because the degree of crushing desperation of the populace exceeded the strength of internal policing, the only leaders left are religious, thereby turning the country into a theocracy.

The propaganda works. Look how many victims claim that the release of this information endangered people. Well, no kidding, innocent lives are on the line. The best way to prevent further damage there should be consequences and reflection on government interventions.

I 100% agree with everything you're saying.

However, let's not forget that 50/80 years were dominated by a two-headed fight for world hegemony under the threat of nuclear war and potential apocalypse.

In this fight, while the US was far more evil than anyone cared to admit at the time, and the USSR far less than the US propaganda would have you believe, RELATIVELY speaking one side did offer more freedom, liberty, and prosperity than the other. And the primary counterargument from the Communists was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

This remains true today with China. CPC apologists are all too happy to point out (factually correct) gaps in US integrity and freedom. But in the grand scheme of things, relatively speaking, for all it's flaws, "The West" still has due process, doesn't ban religious expression, and doesn't put millions of citizens into force re-education camps.

The most recent Chinese return of the 2 incarcerated Canadians in return for the Huawei executive is the most blatant current example that China will do absolutely whatever it wants.

Whereas even in this news story - where you have government agents freely discussing assassinating Assange - there are others working against them, Lawyers using legal guidelines to flummox the plan, and ultimately it doesn't go forward.

For all of the US's evils, Russia and China would not have hesitated to kidnap or execute Assange in identical circumstances if he was hiding in an Ecuadorian embassy on their soil. He would have been disappeared a decade ago.

> However, let's not forget that 50/80 years were dominated by a two-headed fight for world hegemony under the threat of nuclear war and potential apocalypse.

Nuclear war? And in that 50/80 years, only one side has ever nuked a city full of civilians. Twice.

> This remains true today with China. CPC apologists are all too happy to point out (factually correct) gaps in US integrity and freedom.

"CPC apologists". Did we have any integrity and freedom when we were colonizing china? You do realize that we colonized china for nearly 100 years. It was the "CPC" and the communists who liberated china. You do realize that right?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_Patrol

How anyone can claim a nation brutally ( and partly motivated by racism ) colonizing another nation is the one with integrity and freedom is beyond me.

> And the primary counterargument from the Communists was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

"Whataboutism" is a well-worn social media propaganda term used a few years ago. Nobody uses it anymore because it exposes the person who uses it.

> The most recent Chinese return of the 2 incarcerated Canadians in return for the Huawei executive is the most blatant current example that China will do absolutely whatever it wants.

China arrested two canadian spies/operatives in retaliation for canada kidnapping one of their spies/operatives? Shocking. What do you expect. It's statecraft. Tit for tat. Like when we kick out chinese or russian diplomats. They do the same. Or are you still pretending china arbitrarily locked up two innocent canadian tourists?

Strangely you aren't worked up about canada kidnapping a chinese national. Kidnapping chinese is fine but kidnapping canadians is wrong?

> For all of the US's evils, Russia and China would not have hesitated to kidnap or execute Assange in identical circumstances if he was hiding in an Ecuadorian embassy on their soil. He would have been disappeared a decade ago.

But two canadian spies were arrested and not "disappeared". Using your logic, china should be shipping two body bags right? China hasn't disappeared the dalai lama. How many chinese traitors hiding all over the west has china "disappeared"? Absolutely none.

You are just stating the same propaganda we've heard over and over again. It gets stale and boring. China bad. Russia bad. US good. Right. At least you didn't bring up anything about genocide.

At the end of the day, everyone has done good and everyone has done bad. But one has done far more evil than good while hypocritely pretending to be the world's beacon of good. This hypocrite not only colonized one of the "bad", it also invaded the other "bad".

It's the hypocrisy that's just unbearable. I don't remember china claiming to be the world's beacon of good. Don't remember russia claiming to be the epitome of freedom and democracy.

>>>It was the "CPC" and the communists who liberated china. You do realize that right?

Depends on what you mean by "liberated". The bulk of the fighting against the Imperial Japanese military was done by the KMT Nationalists, under Chiang Kai-Shek. The KMT lost the civil war afterwards due to still being a shitty unpopular government, and then the CPC went on to "liberate" tens of millions of Chinese from their corporeal bodies during the Cultural Revolution.

>>>I don't remember china claiming to be the world's beacon of good.

The Chinese government is VERY good at information operations.[1] It is usually more subtle than America's ham-fisted chest-thumping. The CCP uses a lot of proxies to sing its praises, like this: [2]. But Xi Jinping is generally assertive in casting China as a model for the world. From [3]: "China will become more assertive on the world stage and believes its governance model is attractive to other countries will likely raise all sorts of alarms in Asian and Western capitals. Xi declared that China "has become a great power in the world" and "it is time for us to take center stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind".

[1] https://www.iri.org/sites/default/files/bridge-ii_fullreport...

[2] http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-05/31/c_139980463.htm

[3] https://sinocism.com/p/welcome-to-the-xi-era-sinocism-weekly...

both china and russia have ridiculous claims for every day of the week just as well.

at some level all political claims are ridiculous but all countries mentioned in your post are pathological liars, they just lie about different things in different ways.

You ignored that China limits religious expression and puts people in re-education camps. That’s not propaganda, that is the actual situation. They also make an enormous point of trying to portray themselves in the best possible light. That’s why their news media is extraordinarily censored. That’s why people trying to spread virus information by text had to use ridiculous circumlocutions to avoid the automatic banned-phrase detectors.

Russia has sham elections where Putin always gets 99% of the vote. It absolutely tries to pretend it’s a democracy.

There is an obvious moral appeal to democracy that is inherent to the idea. Likewise guarantees of human rights. China and Russia could embrace these ideals for real and have the same moral high ground, but that is obviously not the state of things, and the fact that they are both run by leaders not accountable to a real vote is why I they are unlikely to change soon. At least the US has means to course correct.

Essentially you're wrong because you're drawing a false equivalency between the US and CCP/Russia. Your argument is that because the US has done bad, made mistakes, etc... they are in the same grouping as CCP/Russia. Which is an un-nuanced argument that the OP explained was wrong.

Basically your argument is an un-nuanced "muh US is evil". Even though you can simply look at the countries aligned with the US and factually see that they are the freest, have the least corruption, and have the most open elections.

factually they are also the most violent and warmongering, and have caused the most global chaos, both in the past and the present.

the benefits of unrestricted freedoms and open elections have also never been as questionable as now, so you should not be surprised that others do not also believe that those are universally considered good.

Canada arrested a Chinese national under the court system on legitimate charges. China arrested random canadians on trumped up revenge charges.

Whataboutism is not a propaganda term from a few years ago. It's a decades-old term from the Soviet union using LEGITIMATE criticisms of the US (the US civil rights record should have been/was an international embarrassment for Americans and humanity) to deflect OTHER Legitimate criticism of the USSR's appalling human rights and civil liberties concerns that ultimately were worse than Americans. (e.g. the number of black americans lynched in the US was DWARVED by the number of soviet citizens killed by the system in the gulags, etc)

This remains the case today. Regardless of the US actions, any sensible impartial observer (from a non-US or even non-western perspective) can see that the PRC is far more of a reprehensible civil rights abuser than any country in The West. This is not up for debate.

When was the last time the Dalai Lama visited China? My point is that China and Russia would have treated Assange differently if his equivalent was on THEIR soil like Assange was on British. There would have been no respect of rule of law, or international sovereignty of diplomatic missions. He would have been gone.

Lastly, I'll give you some credit on one point. The US nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a reprehensible and unforgivable act by any ethical code. It was not needed to end the war. There is no defending it. That does not change the reality of the next 50 years of nuclear deterrent.

> At the end of the day, everyone has done good and everyone has done bad. But one has done far more evil than good while hypocritely pretending to be the world's beacon of good. This hypocrite not only colonized one of the "bad", it also invaded the other "bad".

> It's the hypocrisy that's just unbearable. I don't remember china claiming to be the world's beacon of good. Don't remember russia claiming to be the epitome of freedom and democracy.

Personally I don't care about hypocrisy, just objective actions - positive or negative. The US has done plenty bad, but overall has been a net good for the world - both for increasing the liberty/quality of life for their citizens, and for the rest of the world by establishing overall peace and prosperity through globalism (which improved the quality of life for Billions).

China has also done the same. But the costs to it's citizens seem higher.

> while the US was far more evil than anyone cared to admit at the time, and the USSR far less than the US propaganda would have you believe,

Have you not heard of Stalin? Many more murders than the fascists / Nazis / holocaust.

> Many more murders than the fascists / Nazis / holocaust.

Really can't believe I'm about to defend Stalin, but if you hold the Facists/Nazis responsible for all the deaths in WW2 (Which I think you have to), they were responsible for more deaths.

Purely direct victims in concentration/death camps, yes Stalin killed more people.

But let's not forget, that was all in the 30's. The Cold War started AFTER WW2, after Stalin's death, and the narrative of The Evil Empire vs The Land of The Free all occurred then.

Well put. This is the basic argument against these CCP and authoritarian apologists. Most likely they are going by "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" which is a simplistic thing to base your world view on.

Why can’t it be both? Since when are people or countries only motivated by one thing?

If you think the US went to war with Nazi Germany for purely altruistic reasons you’re sorely mistaken.

But at the same time an evil fascist dictatorship was defeated because the US got involved.

The world is a messy complicated space and human actions are messy and complicated.

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