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Comment by olalonde | Hacker News Reader

Even China doesn't do this. I've crossed the border hundreds of times and was never asked to hand over electronic devices - in fact, they barely asked any questions at all. In contrast, my few experiences crossing the U.S. and Canadian borders were much more invasive (I'm Canadian).

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Yeah. They basically just ask if you're a journalist when applying for a visa there, and if you're not, they don't care. You're basically auto-approved so long as you pay the fee.

I shittalked the government for a long time and got caught up in the various memes against the country before I decided to visit. I was afraid I'd be rejected (or worse, approved and arrested) and upon googling for similar experiences saw countless people freaking out about the same thing before going there.

Turns out they either don't check at all, or do check but aren't nearly as stringent as the US.

This ignores edge cases of popular Youtubers who lived there for years, made a career out of complaining, then were surprised when the government asked them to leave. Which still beats an El Salvador prison.

Winston Sterzel, who is probably one of the "edge cases of popular Youtubers who lived there for years" you refer to, has a deep love for China and the Chinese people. He does not say that much, but I think I can see it in his videos, e.g., of daily life on the Chinese street.

He learned the language, bought a house there, got married, and did not want to leave.

And his videos are also the most transparently fake to a hilarious degree. He found a way to make money with fake outrage and ran with it.

he didn't really start heavily pushing the outrage angle until after he had left China though?

Possibly because they don't need to ask.

I am from Australia where China has flexed its trade leverage on a pretty much yearly basis against us as a collective, and has often tried to use our University systems supposed reliance on Chinese students to try and affect discourse in our Universities.

But even then, China doesn't stoop to the pathetic level of expending thus kind of soft-power on defending some third power that has managed to get it by the balls.

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