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Instead you jumped straight to calling anyone who might disagree “uninformed”, a “shill”, and finally you admitted that you don’t understand how someone can hold a different view than you.
It doesn’t inspire confidence in your analytical ability.
There seems to be a certain subset of the HN population that thinks that "morality" is somehow a bad thing.
Morality may be subjective and not "analytical", but it's also completely unavoidable to being a human person, and debates about moral behaviour are absolutely integral to human societies.
They also don't let anyone disagree with them unpunished. That's not at all what the US does, you're talking about 20 years ago by now.
China has much more sensitive toes and issues coming up are every year.
https://harrisbricken.com/chinalawblog/china-joint-venture/#...
India, Taiwan, SK, Japan, Phillippines, Vietnam etc. All these countries can't be wrong and the last time I glanced at a world map, they weren't in the West.
> But Americans have drank so much anti-China propaganda that they consider anyone who isn't saying "China bad" is automatically a paid CCP shill
No, they don't. If you think US propaganda is bad, you haven't faced Chinese propaganda. Within China and its subjugated colonies (Tibet, HK, etc), it is so common you won't even notice it.
Like fish not noticing water in the ocean.
I don't think there are universally good and bad guys in this game. There are interests. If you live in the west your interest is for western economy to be the first which means for other economies to be, well, not first. If you live elsewhere the same applies.
As for me, I hate all of my overlords with passion. US EU Russia China, you are all the same to me. Not people, of course. Governments, armies and corporations. Well, almost the same. US and EU dropped bombs on me during my lifetime, Russia and China did not.
I literally had a list up there.
> India, Taiwan, SK, Japan, Phillippines, Vietnam etc
> As for me, I hate all of my overlords with passion. US EU Russia China
Of those overlords, the other two are much much much worse than the US.
> s. Well, almost the same. US and EU dropped bombs on me during my lifetime, Russia and China did not.
You do realize there are millions who will say the other way.
You comment on this issue a surprising amount, and clearly feel strongly about the US’ views on China. I’d be curious as to exactly how you feel China is being judged unfairly.
Would you rather be a citizen of China or USA?
So would Australias Witnesses J, K, L, M, N and O .. who have been disappeared into a military Star Court, for the sake of political dissidence.
Be very careful with your castigation of China. We have far, far more political dissidents in our prisons than you know about. And that is by design.
What I mean to emphasize is that net net, one expects more of the semblance of a rule of law in western jurisdictions. It's why cases like Julian Assange are as controversial as they are, with public organizations in USA willing to make the case to support him and inquire on his well-being.
Our media is controlled but there is semblance of free press. You don't have even that in China. If you're a dissident in China you'd be hard pressed garnering support from any org.
I don't presume to have a complete picture. Maybe if I did it may suggest USA is in reality more like China. But from all that I've seen, authoritarian governments like China continue to have serious shortcomings in the kinds of freedoms we take for granted in the West.
Censorship in China: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_China
Four Cardinal Principles (enshrined in the constitution): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Cardinal_Principles
Open Constitution Initiative (shut down by the government): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Constitution_Initiative
The issues are plain, endemic, and well-documented. It is not propaganda.
So, what's the truth? I guess whatever one chooses to believe. I like to create my truths from many different, contraversial or sometimes completely opposing sources on same topic. Your links are all in english language, in en. section of Wikipedia.
Feel free to read the yearly reports from the HRW:
https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/china
Random selection from the report:
> In May, a court in Hainan province sentenced former journalist Luo Changping to seven months in prison for a Weibo post that questioned China’s justification for its involvement in the Korean War.
Details on his case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo_Changping#Arrest
> Sanya Ji'an Police Bureau summoned Luo for investigation into his "illegal remarks" suspected of "insulting heroes and martyrs".
I don't think anyone is saying China has "more freedom". But that does not seem to automatically imply that's "worse", which seems to be your ground assumption!
If you believe more freedom is always better, do you agree that social media should have absolutely no moderation? If you don't, then it seems to me you concede that freedom is good, but up to a limit. Then the question become, does China have the right amount of freedom or the USA does? How about the EU, which is quite noticeably less free than the USA? I don't think the answer to these questions are nearly as obvious as you seem to believe by making such blank statements, which leads me to agree with the other person that this is something someone helplessly affected by good old propaganda would do without realizing it (good propaganda is like that, you have no idea you're affected, trying to recognize that is very important).
Instead, your post employs a series of rhetorical tactics aimed at stifling constructive dialogue:
First, you assert a false equivalency between China and the USA/EU by trivializing the qualitative difference in freedom levels, thereby attempting to normalize authoritarianism.
Second, you use a slippery slope argument about social media moderation to suggest that all limitations on freedom are essentially the same — equating limited, private content moderation with systemic human rights abuses by government.
Third, you engage in an ad hominem attack by accusing me of being influenced by propaganda without providing substantive counter-arguments.
Were I to adopt your approach, I could easily make similar sweeping ad hominem accusations based on your behavior here.
I did not assert any false equivalence, that's your mistaken interpretation. Given your poor reading skills, I agree there's no reason to continue a dialogue, actually.
This is misleading given the severe restrictions on human rights, freedom of speech, and rule of law in an authoritarian regime like China.
Your second false equivalence is in your equating of limited, private content moderation by a social network with systemic human rights abuses by government.
To credit the "a billion being lifted out of poverty" to "China" (remember in this context we're talking about the government) is just like saying "the US" invented PC, network, lightbulb and the other thousands of good stuff we rely on today.
No, some smart people in the US did that. But it can't be simply credited to "the US".
Chinese people worked hard to lift themselves out of poverty. Did some policies help? Absolutely. But it's not "China lifted them out of poverty".
If it's true, we can even say the US lifted them out of poverty, since the China economy boom came in place when it became the major trade partner of the US. See? The US' foreign policy helped!
On top of which, they did such a terrible job of lifting people out of poverty, they unnecessarily killed tens of millions in the deadliest famine in human history:
If you look at removal of poverty China is unquestionably better. There’s simply no unbiased way you could say China is better or worse overall. Any weights you apply to certain things are inherently biased.
1. False Equivalence: Suggesting that economic progress and freedom of speech are interchangeable or mutually exclusive is intentionally misleading.
2. Relativism: By stating there's "no objective way" to compare, you are deflecting any form of critical evaluation.
3. Unfalsifiability: Your assertion that any evaluation is "inherently biased" is an unfalsifiable claim meant to immunize your argument from critique.