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Not sure why people need to chose between the US or China, and especially why you started thinking about this when someone seems to just want to share their feeling that they've lost their trust in their government. So what if they trust China more/less, what is that supposed to mean with their relationship with US government? Suddenly they shouldn't actually have a lost it, because some people prefer US over China?
I just don't understand this train of thought, and how it's even relevant here.
?? I interfered it as someone outside the USA.
Why? Because I hear that sentiment a lot here. USA bad. Okay, now what. They are the most important trade and resource partner.
oh no the feelings
Do something.
Solve something.
Realpolitik.
>Not sure why people need to chose between the US or China
Because the EU needs outside trade partners.
In practice .. for a lot of people, including a lot of Americans, the Chinese surveillance threat is a lot less immediate and a lot less likely to result in negative consequences for them personally than the US one. (Important exception: overseas Chinese! The extraterritorial police stations are really quite alarming)
If the war with Denmark goes hot, then the US companies become an extreme national security threat very quickly.
I then find myself speculating (probably wrongly) about the intentions behind writing such an article. This has raised doubts and left me with an uncomfortable feeling, as if I were drifting toward conspiracy-theory thinking. All of this stems from reading that article.
Still, it would make sense to disrupt communications (and collect large amounts of data) prior to invading a country. Ultimately, for me, the core issue is the illegality of such actions when they are carried out by the most influential and powerful country in the world: a country that, increasingly, no one can fully trust anymore.
I am sorry for letting my emotions flow like that. It may not be the adequate spot to do so, but let me be clear: this Cloudflare article smells badly.
If the US government had enough access to try to intentionally do this, they had enough access to snoop on traffic with methods that would not be visible to the outside world, and they would work more reliably than these BGP shenanigans. So I’d suggest you are right about the lack of trust, even if this particular event is probably not supporting evidence. I’d also agree with other posters that any such trust was misplaced in the first place.
They're going to soon find out their stash of dollars is toilet paper, but that won't make too much of a difference with such an advanced economy of their own - the USA will surely have yuan reserves in 30 years.
In what way do you think the USA is currently doing better than China? Yes you can talk about Tiananmen Square, obviously, but there are other things you can't talk about.
Of course some speech, association and rule of law (as opposed to rule by law) is enjoyed by most people. But it is indisputable that China restricts speech and association severely, and silences "troublemakers" arbitrarily.
Let me preempt the inevitable replies: this comment is about China and China alone. It it factual irrespective of what freedoms may or may not be enjoyed anywhere else including the US.
PS: I'm Brazilian btw with no Chinese heritage, I do like the Chinese history and every country/population has it's own paradoxical times and events.
As for concrete examples:
#1: Freedom of speech -- one may not advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, criticize the ruling party, advocate for a change of government or political system in China, state that Taiwan is an independent nation, argue in favor of free and open elections in Hong Kong, advocate for workers' rights, talk about Tiananmen Square, talk about human rights abuses in Xinjiang, talk about human rights abuses in China at all... and the list goes on. Someone might manage to do so, sneaking past the firewall, but they are liable to be slammed with #3 below.
#2: Freedom of association -- contrary to what one might expect in a country with "Socialism with Chinese characteristics", one may not unionize. In fact one may not set up any civil society group outside the approval of the CPC. I could editorialize on the reasons for this but I'll refrain in the interest of brevity.
#3: Freedom from arbitrary detention -- China has a specific category of criminal offense just for this: being able to detain anyone at any time for any reason. The crime is "Picking quarrels and provoking trouble", and is used liberally on anyone who speaks out against the government and manages to catch their attention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picking_quarrels_and_provoking...
Now, Chinese people, and others, will argue that there's this reasona and that reason why it's good to restrict freedoms in this way. I obviously disagree. But what shouldn't be in dispute is the fact that these freedoms are very much restricted in China.
I believe I answered that question exactly.
Even Google and other big techs did a gigantic lobby against it in Brazil[1].
The appointed lawyer by Twitter, in 2023, even said in a meeting with the Brazil Minister of Justice: “That the Brazilian laws did not follow their Terms of Use”[2]. In the previous week there was a massacre at childcare which killed 4 children[3].
What the government asked at that time was to delete/suspend related accounts that promoted this type of crime.
0. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/are-tariffs-big-techs-new...
1. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/09/us-tec...
2. https://oglobo.globo.com/politica/noticia/2023/05/nao-estou-...
it's too easy to assassinate world leaders for a state sponsored government so you have to beg the question: why has nobody done it? the relative peace we have is built on top of mutual destruction and realistically US won't fall without taking most of the world with it.
the reason I believe it's easy because US SS seemingly lost their edge as there haven't been many real threats against the president to begin with. I just can't imagine that there is much any government could do against a 400-500km/h drone specialized for a 20 second mission from being to accomplish the goal, the world leader would be dead by the time anyone even registered that there is a threat.
We're already seeing that. You probably live in a coastal city, and so might be unaware of how just undeveloped so much of the country is. Look at things like literacy levels and political unrest as well.
The US is absolutely falling, it can be saved but not with the way half the country seems to vote.
but to get to the actual point: US is big, like very big and dominated by the strongest propaganda machine in the world: https://youtu.be/BY9uuxC_YAQ
You really don't think the US has had a steep decline over the last 2 decades in quality of life for most people? I'm not talking about people with six figure tech jobs in big cities.
I can't really speak for decades, none of us have been alive that long to live that difference - people generally live wealthier lives than 2 decades ago, at the cost of losing the ability to repair your own shit, being locked into buying new things when old ones work fine. but that's the failure of capitalism and legislation to subdue these issues.
What I am really trying to say is that I believe in time everything will be okay as long as we manage to survive the hardest challenge we have right now: AI causing major distruption in every single business causing further imbalance between people and coorperations.
People don't necessarily notice gradual changes. We have objective measures to show things have changed.
> I can't really speak for decades, none of us have been alive that long to live that difference
There's plenty of 50 and 60, even 70 year olds on this site...
> people generally live wealthier lives than 2 decades ago
Some people do. One of the biggest changes has been the continued erosion of the middle class.
> What I am really trying to say is that I believe in time everything will be okay as long as we manage to survive the hardest challenge we have right now: AI causing major distruption in every single business causing further imbalance between people and coorperations.
AI is nothing but a distraction. The problem is the ignorance of half the voting population who continually votes against their own interests out fear fueled by misinformation.
Are they? Please don't forget at least 50M Chinese in abject poverty and a demographic crisis barreling towards them that is not avoidable unless they develop cloning vats that can rapidly age a clone to productive adulthood in a compressed timeframe.
the governments have grown too powerful to be overthrown by people, and yes I do realize that the military itself is made out of people (for now), but in a way they are brainwashed? to follow orders from above.
Are you serious? You cannot be. A poor person in the USA has way more money than EU or China. They just love to complain on Reddit.
The rest of your post is delusion. What is your nationality?
On average, the USA is significantly richer than China and most EU countries, and this shows up in macro indicators such as GDP per capita, median income, and average wealth per adult. Even people at the lower end of the income distribution in the US often have higher nominal incomes than poor people in China, and sometimes higher than in poorer EU countries. Compared to China in particular, a poor person in the US usually has access to far more money and material goods.
However, Europe is not a single comparison point. In many Western European countries (France, Germany, Scandinavia), poor people often have similar or even better effective living standards than poor Americans once public services are included. Free or heavily subsidized healthcare, education, housing support, and transport can compensate for lower cash income and raise real living conditions. Finally, inequality matters. The US has much higher income inequality and weaker social safety nets than most of Europe. This means that while the country is richer overall, being poor in the US can be harsher than being poor in many EU countries, especially when accounting for healthcare costs and financial risk.
So the claim is broadly true when comparing the US to China, but not universally true when comparing the US to Europe, and it oversimplifies what “having more money” actually means.
ps: I live in Switzerland and it is a whole different story.
BUT I would rather be poor in the USA than poor in China.
This was the point.
EU is best ofc.