China's government isn't compatible with (what we think) western democracy. Just this week a video was released (Manchester I think?) of China's Embassy guards trying to drag protestors inside the embassy while exerting violence (which they have no mandate to do) and if not for a British cop, the protestor would faced a worse fate.
There is documented instances of Chinese 'police stations' in various capital cities that exert pressure/violence in these cities at the whim of the ccp.
Industrial espionage is reported and just about expected from the Chinese companies/ccp here in Europe.
Pressure on politicians, public institutions, professors, etc for saying something that is sensitive to the ccp/Xi.
And these are just in our European soil (among many other things). If we go on about how China deals with Tibet/Taiwan, muslims, zero covid, etc etc, it is just a style of government that is in direct opposition with what we expect, and the fact they try to make us bend the knee of them, makes a lot of people not like any kind of Chinese influence in their turf.
Most people here don't have the backgrounds to have experienced any of these things first hand or to have the kinds of relationships that would inevitably bring complexity and nuance to their views. So we get a lot of cartoonish geopolitical flamewars, which the internet can produce endless amounts of, and which internet comments are obviously a terrible genre for discussing.
No need for this seemingly disingenuous and childish attempt at baiting people here by feigning ignorance.
It is hardly bizarre, unless you aim to convince the crowd here that, say, the Uygur situation in China is a complete fabrication. If that is your belief you might as well argue it, instead of going on this roundabout way of avoiding being downvoted.
Educated westerners are trained to be sensitive to how countries treat their own citizens. So countries that have imperial ambitions and treat their minority citizens (political and ethnic) like shit, do tend to trigger a negative visceral reaction from them.
Nothing to see here.
<<1) It's not a democracy. Since WWII the US has gotten along with democracies and fought with autocracies. See Western Europe and the USSR. (Only applies to major powers)
Saudi Arabia, Iraq and others being clear counter-examples to such democracies.
<< 2) The government is very willing to use their power to impact other countries. For example, forcing movie makers to adopt specific points of view to sell to Chinese citizens. They are the only non-US, non-EU country with much control over the US market, and all the EU seems to want to use that power for is GDPR popups and forcing Tesla/Apple to use industry standard chargers.
EU has made several attempts at establishing an actual army to back up its economic strength with some actual muscle, but those efforts were defeated each time. It is not a given that EU would behave the same way US and China does if it wielded more 'direct' power.
3-6
I have some problems with those ( including rant on casting living off of IP as anything other than rent seeking) , but nothing that would add more context to this conversation.
>> Saudi Arabia, Iraq and others being clear counter-examples to such democracies
I thought I was pretty clear. At best, those are regional powers. And clearly fell into the "subordinate dictator" mindset. When Iraq stopped being a proxy-war launching pad with USSR backed Iran, it quickly was removed from even being a major regional power.
Saudi Arabia has far more than regional economic power, but that fits more into "the royal family is a rich family" in the US than "Saudi Arabia as a country is powerful".
>> EU has made several attempts at establishing an actual army to back up its economic strength with some actual muscle
That point was about EU economic power. China has clearly influenced many economic activities. Look at the removal of Taiwan's flag in the new Top Gun or the way John Cena apologized in Chinese as examples of the movie industry being pushed around.
I could go further than movies easily. It's just that they are a really visible example by design. They are not the biggest worry.
The EU could pass laws that really mess with the US, but they don't seem to.
>> including rant on casting living off of IP as anything other than rent seeking
I actually cannot tell read whether you are opposed to or supportive of the framing that living off IP is rent seeking. I can tell you are strongly on one side, but the exact wording doesn't parse for me.
I accept the argument. I missed the "major power" part. SA is definitely a regional power. Sorry for the sloppy reading on my part.
<<That point was about EU economic power. China has clearly influenced many economic activities. Look at the removal of Taiwan's flag in the new Top Gun or the way John Cena apologized in Chinese as examples of the movie industry being pushed around.
Yes, but China does it ( not completely unlike US ) with the implied threats of a power that has an army at its disposal. If I were to compare the situation to anything it would be to of a local mafia soldier coming over for payment of protection money. He is not threatening you. He merely discusses economic impact that lack of protection would bring, but the owner knows full well that the conversation has more than one level. To its credit ( and supporting your point ), I am not aware of China overtly flaunting its military power.
<<The EU could pass laws that really mess with the US, but they don't seem to.
Globalism does cut both ways. My argument is that EU does not do it not because it is noble or right, but because it effectively cannot at this time. At certain point, economic arguments have to be supported by something.
<<I can tell you are strongly on one side,
No worries. It is not relevant here and I am sure this topic will pop up on HN soon enough though:)
Sorry for the tone in "I thought I was pretty clear". That entire sentence should have been omitted.
<< China does it ( not completely unlike US ) with the implied threats of a power that has an army at its disposal.
The military is really relevant when pressuring the US, especially US companies. They use access to 1.2 billion customers as the threat. The EU uses access to 0.4 billion customers with a larger total economy as a carrot (although I have no idea if Brexit will result in the order flipping).
I mean, look at how Google has a special Chinese version. Now imagine a smaller company that was told to access the Chinese market they needed to make that version worldwide.
<< I am not aware of China overtly flaunting its military power.
I mean, they built artificial islands in the South China Sea (in international waters) and put military bases on them and use them to extend the claims of their international waters. The US ignores that and sails ships/flies planes close to them to point out they refuse to recognize them. I'm not sure if non-superpowers are willing to do the same and risk a war.
<< No worries
I'm not too concerned, but you should know that your phrasing was ambiguous. If you care about an issue, and I cannot tell which side you're on even when you're trying to tell me, I thought you should know.
At the risk of sounding xenophobic myself, I'd like to push back on this often mentioned excuse whenever "China" is criticized.
I really think there are major issues with Chinese culture, which of course implies its people. Whether this comes from decades of brainwashing by their government, lack of education, or something else, I can't say, but we must be able to criticize "wrong" actions by people, without dumping it all on the government (which has issues of its own, and is likely responsible for most issues the country is currently facing), or fearing to be labeled xenophobic.
Are there good people in China? Absolutely. But there's a widespread culture of xenophobia, abuse of the environment, and disregard for animal, plant and human life that just shouldn't go unnoticed. China is an enormous country, so I can't say whether this comes from a majority or not, but it absolutely exists in many places.
I do concede the possibility that I've been brainwashed myself by western media, so I'm open to counterpoints to anything I've said.
Again, all of this with a grain of salt, I just read about this stuff and watch youtube videos.
We've been told that "Western" norms-- particularly individual rights, democracy, and market economics-- are sacred and superior. Not only are they expected to win, they must win at any cost.
Before 1991, we had the USSR as the strawman counterexample. We could point at them and say "well, they got people into space, became a superpower in 40 years... but the people had to wait eight years for a car." Clearly it's the lack of Western Style Freedom (tm).
China has proven that you can deliver both politically (they're clearly a significant global power) and economically (rapidly rising standards of living and enough exports to become the world's factory). It starts to ask the question: are our holy values an end in and of themselves, or just a means to deliver economic and social development?
We can't possibly consider that alternative, so we've got to smear every step of progress they make. "But the Falun Gong!" "But the Uiguyhrs!" "But Tibet!" In the end, the results stand for themselves. I suppose the real challenge is the next generation or two-- meeting and lapping Western economic performance, with a population of 1.4 billion, in a period where a lot of the easy natural resources are claimed, may well be a challenge, for any system.
And how's that doing under Xi Jinping, specifically, especially after he started his Zero COVID policies of putting cities of tens of millions under continuous lockdown?
What China proved that is that an authoritarian regime can smother economic progress for decades, and then can stop making those mistakes for a period. China's per-capita GDP is still only about 1/3 of Korea's and 1/4 of Japan's, and that difference is largely due to past failures by its governing elite. The question is whether China's system will be able to optimize for similar mistake-free periods in the future or if it will experience similar failure modes.
Those three are... not the same thing, and it's dangerous to lump them together.
In fact, market economics are anti-democratic (replaces 1 person = 1 vote with $1 = 1 vote) and anti-human rights (see: wage slavery).
The last 75 years of foreign policy show that it's easier to coexist with the West as a tyranny that won't be an impediment to business, than a democracy that comes to any other conclusions. But at the same time, they'll never say outright "we couped/invaded to make a world safe for Coca-Cola/United Fruit/Disney" when they can make some blather about democracy or rights.
There was this book called The Communist Manifesto. The government of China doesn't look very much like the book. So, not communist.
But China is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party. So yes, communist, at least by their own declaration.
(You see this same thing in the US, where the Republicans and Democrats get the other side shoving in their face every statement made by every nutcase who manages to win a primary.)
I would say that the problem comes from them being a one-party dictatorship, with the explicit intention of never giving that up. That doesn't lead to a government that is accountable to the people; it's a government that is trying very hard to avoid being accountable to the people.
I would also say that Xi is making them more genuinely communist than they were 15 years ago.
Actually, no. The CCP is communist only by name. From the Chinese constitution[1]:
> The People's Republic of China is a socialist state under the people's democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants.
The second part of this sentence is arguably false, but they define themselves as strictly socialist.
In the same document, we see:
> Citizens' lawful private property is inviolable.
> The State, in accordance with law, protects the rights of citizens to private property and to its inheritance.
So the abolition of private property, one of the core tenets of communism, doesn't exist in China.
Economically, modern China is built on a capitalistic system, where private companies compete on an open stock market.
The only traces of communism in China is an autocratic government, and some limited benefits for citizens like free basic healthcare and primary education.
Bear in mind, I'm not an expert in politics, nor in Chinese related matters, but if we're looking for a label to use to define their system, communist wouldn't be one of them.
[1]: https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/China_2004.pd...
Propaganda is strong and useful idiots are numerous on both sides of the wall.
Sitong being amplified hard by western PRC watchers and media, booted out of mainland with nothing better to do but fill column inches to wishcast crack in Xi's power leading up to Party Congress. The expected hopium before Xi did a full sweep stack of the PSC with loyalist. In reality a small group (~10,000 last I checked) mostly of HK activists + dissident diaspora + few mainlanders coordinating by voiceofcn, a shitposting cope haven, where memes get more eyeballs than protest. Also see Xi getting disappeared/couped fake news, "courtly" drama over Hu Jintao in the last 30 days. CCP internal dynamics being opaque + western media/experts being booted out of country + 100s of millions funding to antiPRC propaganda + too much game of thrones and house of cards (mildly serious) is making the entire ecosystem of manufacturing consent around PRC increasingly irrational, which gets filtered down to online spaces, including HN. "Once you hate someone, everything they do is offensive."