Here's a Harvard paper that covers this topic more in depth, though it's about domestic propaganda: https://gking.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/50c.pdf
Well, most people generally shouldn't be doing that in the first place (it's against the HN guidelines in particular and bad form in general, with the exception of blatant repeated bad-faith low-effort posts).
Even so, using "is this propaganda a distraction or direct engagement" as a heuristic for "is this post propaganda" is also not a great thing to do. Any large organization engaging in propaganda will have multiple large sub-orgs, stakeholders, and inconsistencies due to misaligned incentives, miscommunications, and the squishiness that comes along with propaganda.
I'm mostly reminding them for when they post on Reddit, where I occasionally get accused for taking a Realpolitik stance of China issues. Even here, someone mentioned the pervasiveness of the "50 cent meme" as evidence of China's state sponsored propaganda.
>Even so, using "is this propaganda a distraction or direct engagement" as a heuristic for "is this post propaganda" is also not a great thing to do.
I agree it's not a perfect heuristic, but I don't think it matters in practice. A spammer is a spammer regardless of whether they're working for the CCP, and should be treated as such. There's no need to make a spicier accusation that you have no evidence for.
For reference, the initial W doesn't represent a sound, so this would be "an wumao". (Same for Wuhan.)
Compare "han wudi de muzang" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9TeG6MdbmY#t=117
Or "wuhan de yi tian" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWw6emkxmos#t=82
Or "yi zuo shi da wuhan" here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWw6emkxmos#t=66 (same video as above, earlier timestamp)
Additionally, English spelling rules are complete insanity, and if an English speaker sees "uhan" they'd probably pronounce the 'u' as [ju:].
Pinyin w + ang is ∅ + uang. Either way there's a w sound in there.
Correct.
> Wuhan starts with the same (or at least something very similar and indistinguishable to me) semivowel as the English word west.
Nope. This one is ∅ + u.
You can listen to the name of Wuhan here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWw6emkxmos#t=82
No?
> Don't 我 and 武 start with the same sound?
You could make that argument. But 武 never transitions out of it. That transition is how you get a glide (or semivowel) as opposed to a vowel. 我 is /wo/, with a brief /w/. 武 is /u/, and that vowel persists through the entire syllable. If you wanted to call it /w/ instead of /u/, you'd have a syllable with an onset and no rime, and your /w/ would last much too long to be called a semivowel.
> Do 窝 and 喔 sound the same to you?
I can't really speak to this, but I'll assume by 喔 you mean something that is like 窝 without the w- onset. Something like 哦?
They don't sound the same. This actually raises an interesting question...
> I know how Wuhan sounds like and I clearly hear a w sound in there
Am I right that you're a native Mandarin speaker? Mandarin doesn't distinguish between /wu/ and /u/, or at least no minimal pair exists that would prove the distinction is drawn. (Granted, the sequence /wu/ is not at all common in English, but we do have a minimal pair -- woo / ooh -- as long as you're willing to accept "ooh" as a word.) The lack of a distinction in Mandarin leaves the judgment of a Mandarin speaker open to question.
seanmcdirmid mentioned 服务 - do you also clearly hear a W sound there?
No I'm not. Are you? I'm open to the idea that I'm mislead by pinyin, but I really cannot unhear the w sound there. How do you pronounce Wuhan? Do you start with you lips closed or can you do it with your mouth open?
> seanmcdirmid mentioned 服务 - do you also clearly hear a W sound there?
Not really, but syllables changing depending on what comes before (or after them) is fairly normal.
I don't understand this question. The only sounds you can make by closing your lips are P, B, and M.
The more I think about this, the less I understand what you were trying to say.
The first problem is of course that a(n) is an English word. But more than that, every sentence of English must apply the rules of English to every part of itself. If instead of "scare" we used the Chinese loanword xia, we would say things like "you xiaed me". We would not say "you xia me" with the past tense present but unmarked, nor would we say "you xiale me".
But it is undefined. English doesn't have strong dialects like Chinese does. Southerners are more likely not to pronounce the "w" in wu, so they might say "an wugui" (since they are more likely to say oogway like in Kungfu Panda) while a northerner will say "a wugui", since they are more familiar with saying the w sound. This is only if they are very familiar with English also, otherwise they will completely ignore the distinction between a and an.
So...dialects make the question hard to answer.
The second part is a more interesting claim. But broadly speaking, for any two Chinese dialects you could probably identify two languages, one being a variety of English, that stand at a similar distance from each other. The second language might or might not be called "English"; it might be called Scots, or Dutch.
Whether to pronounce a(n) with the /n/ realized is not undefined, but it is specific to the speaker. This is a case where variation within languages named "English" is more than enough to show disparities, as witness the confused Americans who copy the phrase "an historic occasion" from British usage.
I took the position, in my original comment, that I was responding to someone who didn't speak Chinese (and therefore didn't know how to pronounce "wumao") but did speak English (and therefore did know how to pronounce "an"). I didn't think I was speaking to someone who knew the pronunciation of "wumao" but wasn't sure how to use an article with it.
I don't think regional variation in pronunciation in China can explain an English speaker pronouncing wumao or Wuhan with an initial w-. The citation form of the syllable has no initial consonant, and all sources are explicit about this. Chinese broadcast media, in running speech, still doesn't produce anything an English speaker would recognize as an initial w-. (I'm having to rely, for this claim, on the television programs I found on youtube, linked elsewhere.) There just isn't a source that would provide an English speaker outside China with an example of using w-. So I assume what's happening is that people pronounce w- because they see the spelling.
(Also, I don't see many English speakers pronouncing it Taivan instead of Taiwan.)
I find it very plausible that regional variation exists, though, because I know the Shanghainese (吴 dialect) pronunciation of 勿 is -- using a pinyin-like spelling -- "ve" with an initial /v/-like sound.
> The form an is used before words starting with a vowel sound, regardless of whether the word begins with a vowel letter. This avoids the glottal stop (momentary silent pause) that would otherwise be required between a and a following vowel sound. Where the next word begins with a consonant sound, a is used. Examples: a box; an apple; an SSO (pronounced "es-es-oh"); an MP3 (pronounced "em-pee-three"); a HEPA filter (here, HEPA is an acronym, a series of letters pronounced as a word rather than as individual letters); an hour (the h is silent); a one-armed bandit (pronounced "won..."); an heir (pronounced "air"); an herb in American English (where the h is silent), but a herb in British English; "a unionized worker" but "an ionized particle".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_articles#Distinction_b...
For example, "womb" starts with the same sound as "wumao", but we say "a womb" instead of "an womb". For the same reason, we say "a wumao" instead of "an wumao".
Yes, that's what I'm saying.
> For example, "womb" starts with the same sound as "wumao"
No, it doesn't. "Oops" starts with the same sound as "wumao". "Womb" has a /w/ sound before that. There is no /w/ in 五毛.
What did you think I meant by saying "the initial W doesn't represent a sound"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eLP3FuuEVs
I think there is a lot of irony in this subthread, since it is responding to a comment about derailing the discussion by distracting from the main topic as a strategy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29655271. Intentional or not, this subthread shows just how effective this strategy can be.
Edit: another poster has some more examples of there not being a "w" sound at all in "wu": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29657822
Yes there is. You can argue it's not as strong as an English 'w', but it's there.
> This is a really common misconception/mispronunciation caused by pinyin as it needs the "w" for disambiguation purposes (see also the use of apostrophes, xian vs. xi'an).
That may have been the case in the past, but the 'w' is definitely pronounced now, just like all the other 'w' sounds in Pinyin.
Maybe some regional accents overemphasize a W sound? I've never heard one, though.
I think it does vary by region. At any rate, I don't think anybody is confused by it.
I'm curious how you think a video with an edited audio track could have any value as evidence. If you're willing to truncate and splice your recorded audio, you can easily transmute some sounds into other sounds.
> I think there is a lot of irony in this subthread
Yes, we talk about the things we think are interesting, often even when there are other people whose opinions differ.
- You cannot travel abroad (no passport for average citizens, except for those that study/work abroad)
- You cannot go beyond China's intranet
- You cannot transfer money out of country legally, pretty soon can't invest in other countries's stocks
- You cannot watch Spiderman, BTS, squid games, porn and many many more things legally
- You have very little rights as LGBT
- You have to work 9-9-6. Which is why many citizens are lying flat
- You are constantly watched, monitored, "invited" to police station for tea, banned for posts that contain any words that are on the growing banned list
- You should not get rich (1/3 of billionaires have died or disappeared)
- You have little recourse as a woman who is abused by men in power
- You are constantly subjugated to random mass testing
- Oh and there's the yearly flood + crashing economy + crashing real estate + aging workforce + factory jobs leaving + dictatorship
终究怀揣的不安，是愈来愈近的丧钟声
> - You cannot travel abroad (no passport for average citizens, except for those that study/work abroad)
This is of course because of China's CVOID policy, which is 0 tolerance. That's a rational decision of China's high-density population, and manufacturing-based economy. I do not think it's inherent anti-human-rights, as the death count is fractional to open-co-existence policy. Life itself is a human right, and probably the most precious one.
> - You cannot go beyond China's intranet
VPNs are legal in China. You just need to be technically-sophisticated enough to find the correct VPNs, and make sure it falls in the boundary of Chinese law.
> - You cannot transfer money out of country legally, pretty soon can't invest in other countries's stocks
This is just not true... You can use various services to transfer money out. The only issue is that they are subject to certain limitations, which are far more restrictive than US. But again, US dominates world financial system, there is a view that financial imperialism is a key part of US capitalist exploiting Chinese workers. Thus the financial limitation. I doubt that anyone other than the rob-barrons are affected by this. I personally know a lot of Crypto super riches, trust me, they are absolutely a net negative force in society.
> - You cannot watch Spiderman, BTS, squid games, porn and many many more things legally
You can. VPN to netflix. And a lot of pirated content. They were just not allowed to go through the official channel. Of course, CCP is wrong here. But let's not paint a picture that Chinese people are sheeps.
> - You have very little rights as LGBT
Not sure what you are talking about. LGBT is not discriminated officially in any form in the CHinese society. Society still holds stigma over these people. One primary reason is that these groups are associated with higher chance of sexually-transmitted diseases.
And dont assume me a CCP associate, I have a good friend who is gay. He is my college friend. He is pretty happy.
> - You have to work 9-9-6. Which is why many citizens are lying flat
This is probably what forced upon by the private firms. These are punished heavily by CCP recently. Jack Ma and Alibaba are the defender of 996...
> - You are constantly watched, monitored, "invited" to police station for tea, banned for posts that contain any words that are on the growing banned list
This is not true. I have several wechat groups discussing serious political issues in China. None of the 50 people ever had any sign of being bothered. I mean, there is no way that one is constantly watched in China. If that's true, China either already have an AGI, or what we bought everyone are not actually made in China, because there are simply not enough cheap labor to produce them in the first place, and most of them are employed in watching others.
> - You should not get rich (1/3 of billionaires have died or disappeared)
1/3 of billionaires have died or disappeared...
First, the number of billionaires are unknown. Chinese society had a tradition of the rich become victims during the terminal phase of the dynasty. So the rich is very well aware of this fact, and they hide. Do you know that Mr. Deng Xiaoping's son is astronomically rich, but you'll never see anywhere his net worth is published?
Second, please give a citation... To engage this discussion is putting legitimacy on this ridiculous claim...
> - You have little recourse as a woman who is abused by men in power
Come on... This becomes ridiculous... Gender equality in China is pretty high. Ranked 38th out of 157 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_inequality_in_China I mean it's not spectacular, but your statement is just outlandish...
> - You are constantly subjugated to idiotic mass testing/lockdown
What do you mean? I said a lot of bad words about CCP. I was not distant by my family or friends...
> - Oh and there's the yearly flood + crashing economy + crashing real estate + aging workforce + factory jobs leaving + dictatorship
If you read western media, then these are what they said. But these are not true according to what I hear from my friends and family.
You can only go so far down the rabbit hole of research before you're wasting time. It's a lot like signal detection theory: Where do you strike the balance between effort and accuracy in research?
Maybe you do, but do you discuss how millions of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province were (are?) detained in concentration camps [0] and forced to provide quarter to government agents in their own homes under a dehumanizing “big brother” program [1]? Or how the CCP forced Uighurs to surgically implant IUDs and undergo forced abortion and sterilization procedures [2]? That would probably get you on the CCP’s radar.
Don’t pretend like there’s any semblance of open discussion about truly controversial issues.
> I mean, there is no way that one is constantly watched in China.
The “constantly watched” bit is a total strawman. Nobody is implying that all Chinese citizens are constantly watched by CCP thugs. All that is needed is a search engine on top of indexed WeChat message contents to help direct a limited number of investigations against political dissidents who may threaten the CCP’s grip on power - or as they refer to it, “stability”.
[0]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1270014
Selected quote: “Every former camp detainee Amnesty interviewed in the report recounted cruel and degrading treatment, including torture. The report, released Thursday, is based on interviews with 108 people, including 55 camp survivors and several government cadres who worked in the camps.”
Yes, it happened. Your most recent comment as of right now attempts to cast doubt on this fact.
[1]: https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/05/08/asia/china-xinjiang-ethni...
Selected quote: “Her four "guests" are Chinese government cadres who lived in her home for 10 days every month for two years before her family fled, she said.”
Think about what that would be like. It’s as horrible as it is effective, and it’s partly why the Third Amendment to the US Constitution exists.
[2]: https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-international-news-we...
Selected quote: “But while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show.”
Think about what it would be like for your government to show up at your door, handcuff you, take you to a hospital, anesthetize you, and surgically remove your ability to procreate. That’s what the CCP does to its own people.
We discuss that. That was viewed as a western media propaganda. I.e., no hard proof from any reputable organizations (UN for example).
> All that is needed is a search engine on top of indexed WeChat message
I know far worse things the local government did using their information monopoly. You don't need to educate me on that.
What I replied is that the OP wanted to paint a picture of a dystopian monitoring in China, that's not what happens.
> Your most recent comment as of right now attempts to cast doubt on this fact.
These are reports, not facts. I dont believe these reports, because these media shows some incredible buntant manipulation. I simply cannot trust people like these. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS8EceIa1MQ&t=115s
> Her four "guests" are Chinese government cadres who lived in her home for 10 days every month for two years before her family fled, she said.
Well, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS8EceIa1MQ&t=115s, this certainly could be true, but I just cannot fully trust media photoshops trees to extend a narrative.\
> But while equal on paper, in practice Han Chinese are largely spared the abortions, sterilizations, IUD insertions and detentions for having too many children that are forced on Xinjiang’s other ethnicities, interviews and data show.
LMAO
My mother, a Han people, was subject to forced abortion. I was born in a different city than my hometown to evade that.
Stop painting racial conflicts, when there is none.
The lies can go on for a while, but they cannot last forever...
United Nations statement titled "China: UN experts deeply concerned by alleged detention, forced labour of Uyghurs" https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?N...
Statement from 43 countries presented at UN "Joint statement on human rights situation in Xinjiang at 47th Session of UN Human Rights Council" https://www.international.gc.ca/world-monde/international_re...
Amnesty International says "China: Draconian repression of Muslims in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity" https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/06/china-draconi...
Human Rights Watch article "China’s Weak Excuse to Block Investigations in Xinjiang" https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/25/chinas-weak-excuse-block...
Another report titled "First independent report into Xinjiang genocide allegations claims evidence of Beijing's 'intent to destroy' Uyghur people" https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/asia/china-uyghurs-xinjiang-g...
>The lies can go on for a while, but they cannot last forever...
Indeed.
>We discuss that. That was viewed as a western media propaganda. I.e., no hard proof from any reputable organizations (UN for example).
In response to that comment, I linked reports from the United Nations, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Those are 3 of the most reputable organizations in the world in the field of human rights (the links also point out that it's impossible to investigate thoroughly because the Chinese Government won't allow access).
I'm supposed to believe some random Youtuber over them? That's what you're telling me? That's especially hilarious because the very article we're discussing is about manipulating social media, including creating videos specifically for youtube.
Or are you nitpicking the 1M number? If it's 10,000 or 1 million it's still a gross violation of human rights.
Everything so far regarding Xinjiang are all one-sided news rehashing from a few individuals, while the US intelligence with its cutting-edge spy satellites, field agents, cannot find any concrete evidences. Just coincidence?
You don’t get to pick and choose the evidence that is presented against you. Evidence that you have failed to explain beyond claiming a grand “media conspiracy”. This is textbook misdirection.
No, the original evidences from Adrian and some Australian reports were througly debunked by normal youtuber like Daniel Dumbril
> Life itself is a human right, and probably the most precious one.
How can welding front gates shut be protecting human life? How can anyone survive after being cut off from food, medicine, supplies, contact, income? Don't pretend zero-tolerance policy is about protecting people, it is to protect Xi JingPing who has staked his personal political standing on the zero tolerance policy[1].
Some regions have been under continual lock-down for the better part of this year. Do you know how many people have died from lock-down? Does anyone know? Does CCP permit anyone to count? For that matter, how many people died in Wuhan two years ago? Why is CCP killing a citizen journalist for writing about Wuhan outbreak[2]? Is her life not human?
>VPNs are legal in China. You just need to be technically-sophisticated enough to find the correct VPNs, and make sure it falls in the boundary of Chinese law.
Pray tell which VPNs are legal in China? Which one can I use to visit HN legally in China? What is stopping an enterprising person to make your "correct" VPNs user friendly to the mass? I will you, because it does not exist!
> I have several wechat groups discussing serious political issues in China.
Why don't you post to your WeChat groups "佟丽娅嫁给中宣部副部长," reputed marriage of an actress to the vice minister of Propaganda Ministry and take a screenshot? You cannot even search it in Baidu, and you have the gall to say the Internet in China is constantly watched.
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/xi-jinpings-leadership-style-mi... [2] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/reporter-zhang-zhan-riske...
No this is not.
But it's neither protecting human life by calling "Chiense virus" "Kunflu". Enough said.
> VPN
> Why don't you post to your WeChat groups "佟丽娅嫁给中宣部副部长," reputed marriage of an actress to the vice minister of Propaganda Ministry and take a screenshot? You cannot even search it in Baidu, and you have the gall to say the Internet in China is constantly watched.
Dude, what is this thing? I have no idea what's going on with this "佟丽娅嫁给中宣部副部长,"?
You say you are born in China, so presumably you can read Chinese. Then you can head over to [1] and read all about oversea Chinese making fun of CCP censoring salacious rumors about an actress and vice minister of Propaganda. The most powerful police apparatus and most sprawling internet censorship machinery working in overdrive to suppress tabloid, not because the rumor may or may not be false but because the Party knows the people believe it true in their heart.
[1] https://forums.huaren.us/showtopic.html?topicid=2761503&fid=...
But I suppose it's OK to respect people's privacy?
Things like banning porn simply don't work unless substituted. People have already turned to amateur recordings instead. That's things the elderly rulers don't want to or can't understand. Ultimate control is not possible with human beings, especially in the 21st century.
How did that happen? Iirc, according to Hurun Report 10 years ago, some 80% of the upper class Chinese had an escape plan ready. You'd think, as a billionaire they have a plane waiting for them 24/7 to get out of the country.
> You cannot travel abroad
In the border with Vietnam, at night you can cross the border for 5 yuan on one of the smuggler boats.
> You have little recourse as a woman who is abused by men in power
Only country in the world with more female suicides than male suicides.
Also, no recourse if CCP thugs steal your stuff. Guy I knew had his Ferrari stolen. Couldn't do anything because the thief was a local party functionary's son.
I guess disappeared could mean they are on a beach somewhere under an alias, but I don't think we can assume that for all of them
Really? What accounts for all the Chinese tourists visiting Europe/UK/USA? I have a friend who runs a hostel in Edinburgh and the majority of her guests are Chinese so much so that they have had to print signs in Mandarin asking people to abide by certain rules.
>You cannot transfer money out of country legally, pretty soon can't invest in other countries's stocks
This must not be enforced that severely given how much capital has flowed into other countries real estate market. In fact this is a common loophole used to get US citizenship. (invest 500k and you can get a green card).
This has been masked over the last 2 years by the pandemic, but it started a few years before.
https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3012312/c...
1. China requires extremely long quarantines when entering the country. 14 days in a quarantine hotel + 7 days at home is standard. Some jurisdictions go as high as 28 + 28.
2. China has recently restricted issuances of new and renewed passports. This is being done locally, so enforcement is inconsistent, but generally one needs a strong reason ("studying abroad", "international business") to get a passport issued now.
China allows transfer out of the country for the purpose of buying homes, but cash transfers are restricted to a certain annual limit. The restrictions on transferring currency out of China and on exchanging currency are a huge problem for expats leaving the country. Until this year, the recommendation for expats leaving the country was to use bitcoin.
> You should not get rich (1/3 of billionaires have died or disappeared) Also not true. FuErDais are praise on TV, movies, etc... Crazy Rich Asians , the movie , was a huge hit in China for example, etc... Money and superficiality have always being huge in China (even to get married, you need to buy a house , a car, and give the girl's family money (CaiLi)). > You have to work 9-9-6. Which is why many citizens are lying flat Highly depends on where you work. But is not standarized, and there have been recently a huge push back from the goverment about this. > You cannot go beyond China's intranet Literally that's what VPNs are for, many chinese companies offer VPN services to mainland users, etc.
All other points are more or less right. Also, p*rn is illegal in most places. I wouldn't live there, but posting lies here wont help anyone.
Still, that map lends credence to my initial gut feeling, that defending China’s porn ban to someone with a seemingly Western perspective by saying it’s banned in a lot of other places too probably isn’t very effective - they most likely feel the same about these laws where they exist in the rest of Asia, Eastern Europe and in Africa, too. Presumably they’re comparing China to Western Europe and the US here.
True. It used to be 50k limit per year. Now because many bureaucratic procedures by banks, it might as well as be zero since you have go to the bank 10+ times. You're talking from a view of a foreigner. I'm talking from a view of native citizen.
> Money and superficiality have always being huge in China
Not so right now which is what I mentioned.
China bars celebrities from showing off wealth and 'extravagant pleasure' on social media
https://www.businessinsider.com/china-bans-celebs-from-showi...
> there have been recently a huge push back from the goverment about this.
Doesn't mean anything has changed. Just lip service.
> You cannot go beyond China's intranet
Of course I know about VPN. However, The official stance of the Chinese government is that the use of VPNs is prohibited except in strictly defined cases. https://review42.com/resources/are-vpns-legal-in-china/
Not true, I (and my wife) use our personal accounts to send money back and forth almost every week, so the thousands of chinese students, workers, etc...
Then I had a flight transfer through China and decided to take a couple days there just to see how bad it was. Ended up realizing most internet comments and news articles are posted by people who are absolutely obsessed with China and only get their information through seventh-hand sources--it's that insanely distorted.
Left loving the country because everything was so contrary to my conditioned expectations and went back for a few more trips.
Pushing a super hard anti-anything narrative in this age is bound to backfire, because finding information contrary to it isn't hard.
You visited a few times huh? I was born and lived there for 30 years.
But good luck with that issue, dude. Maybe you should try visiting countries sometime. Anyone can claim to have lived in a country for 30 years. :)
Maybe you should visit the country. Anyone can make a claim they stayed there for a few days and only visited the elite, rich parts of the country.
But people on the internet are way too into the Red Scare Part II and think literally anything against their personal opinion is someone paid by a state actor specifically to attack them on the internet. It's, quite frankly, nuts, and an unhealthy way of looking at the world and seeding visible increases in racism.
You can flourish there, relatively, if you follow the rules. But if you get on the government's bad side you will be quashed.
Right because a couple of days (I'll presume in a city) would also give you a real insight to how things really are.
It's weird how people come out and complain about this with only one specific country. Nobody gets angry when they say a trip to somewhere else was enough to make them enjoy a place.
A few days seeing the sights is pretty irrelevant at best in this context.
The country has problems. But it's not a prison camp of 1.4 billion like the internet would make you think. Most people are pretty happy living there, even people who've been to other countries.
It's definitely not a good place to be a political or religious activist. Most countries outside of the EU aren't and China is definitely on the worse end when it comes to that issue, but it's pretty nice for most people.
I've actually worked with some Chinese for years and it wasn't until I went out on a dinner that some really ugly stuff about why Han people in the past have been treated badly and that being the justification for the treatment of Uighur people, then I listened to an hour about why Muslim people are a problem and all the horror stories they'd read about them in the paper (it was clearly propaganda). Scarier for me one of their best friends at the time, who just missed the dinner, was Muslim. That wouldn't be an isolated case I'm sure.
This is not to single out Chinese by the way, I'm just reinforcing my point that it seems naive to just say, "I stopped by, looked pretty good, I'd go back, seems like a good place."
I've also dealt with countless people who've said "You've been to China? Oh, let me tell you how they justify racism" and seeing zero irony in their statement.
Bizarre. Seriously
And people somehow take any claim of saying "China is decent" to mean it's flawless and attack it. People don't do this with any countries unless they're East Asian, and they specifically get angry about China these days. You can't even mention enjoying Japan without someone online saying "oh they're all racist. I would know because I had dinner with a Japanese man." It's tiring.
However: you seem to be telling a native Chinese person that they’re wrong about their impressions of their own country. Do you want to maybe add some nuance to that?
I don't read forgotmyoldname's comment as telling chunghuaming that they are wrong about their impressions of China. It's more about forgotmyoldname's own impressions, and his/her assessment of people in general who comment online about China.
In follow up comments, forgotmyoldname also provides first and second hand supporting experiences. Do you have any of yours that would contradict theirs?
That happened to a lot of people.