All my adult life, China has given me cheap material goods. Whatever they do in their country is their own problem. They’ve never interfered in my politics or started any wars
But they have. I dont know what specific country you are referring to but China has interfered with US elections as well as Canada, Taiwan, and Australia in addition to many many others.
They’ve annexed Tibet (1950), fought India (1962) and Vietnam (1979) among others and more recently in 2020 a deadly skirmish with India. They’ve generally shifted their focus to cyber military actions but you’d have to be pretty naive they won’t start to exercise military control over Taiwan when/if they get a chance.
That's pre 1945 style thinking, which is coming back with a vengeance.
What about women too ? Especially in red states.
But I hate this talking point for one primary reason: almost nobody who brings it up actually cares about the Uyghurs. It's just a talkijng point.
How do I know this? Because of Palestine. If Benjamin Netanyahu turned around tomorrow and treated Palestinians as Uyghurs were and are treated and developed the region like China does today then he would win the Nobel Peace Prize and Palestinians would be unquestionably better off. It wouldn't be sufficient mind you.
Israel's crimes in Palestine are America's crimes because Israel could not exist without the economic and military support of the US, political cover in the UN and international community and the political will of Us domestically. It would collapse tomorrow if the US withdraw support.
So I don't want to hear a thing from China hawks and skeptics about Xinjiang unless they're louder what Israel is doing to the region.
Exactly, it's just people parroting psyop narrative talking points, Taiwan is another. Repeat something enough and people will eventually believe it.
There's a reason other nations are choosing China over the US/EU (including Muslim and Turkish ones) - there's no moralizing, political requirements, nor bombs.
> Operation Condor (Spanish: Operación Cóndor; Portuguese: Operação Condor) was a campaign of political repression by the right-wing dictatorships of the Southern Cone of South America, involving intelligence operations, coups, and assassinations of left-wing sympathizers in South America. Operation Condor formally existed from 1975 to 1983. Condor was formally created in November 1975, when Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's spy chief, Manuel Contreras, invited 50 intelligence officers from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay to the Army War Academy in Santiago, Chile. The operation was backed by the United States, which financed the covert operations. France is alleged to have collaborated but has denied involvement. The operation ended with the fall of the Argentine junta in 1983.
The claim is they don’t engage in warfare when they do, just exclusively in the digital domain for now. Believing it’ll stay there is naive.
Playing the moral superiority game is uninteresting in either direction. Games of power inherently are devoid of morality.
If someone is vocally complaining about country A doing some oppressive activity, while ignoring country B doing 100x the same activity, the comparison does not forgive or excuse country A, or make them right or admirable.
But it does allow us to conclude that the person complaining is biased. Either they don't care about the oppressive activity and want to attack country A for some other reason. Or they have a particular fondness for country B and will never accept that it does wrong. Or some variation on these.
> de minimis non curat praetor
Which basically means judges are not interested in minor disputes. When you add the USA to the mix, China's actions pale in comparison to the point of being negligible, no point in discussing them given the scale of USA's warmongering, overseas and local crimes. "They never interfered in [...]" is an exaggeration which shows the lack of importance of China's crimes when compared to the USA's, that's all.
The "whataboutism" here isn't a deflection strategy, it shows the hypocrisy and correctly minimises the scale of China's actions in comparison to the hypocrites'.
Come on, are you seriously equating hacking to literally bombing and killing people? That's just arguing in very bad faith.
Calling hacking "warfare" is just intellectually dishonest, if not downright disgusting toward the actual victims of American wars.
For Americans the answer is obvious since they are biased in this.
For everybody else, your question is valid.
the question is valid for anyone who cares for more than their own ass
All my life I heard American boasting their constitutions but now it's as worthy of my toilet papers.
this is a hilariously naive rewriting of history, the government was very reluctant to make those changes. It's thanks to popular movements that those changes were made.
Ok but when you said "There was a past American government that was strong enough to stamp out inequality" you did not make that distinction. The US government in 50s and 60s was not responsible for giving you civil rights, it was popular movements.
Wrongs don't negate each other.
But in general if you ask folks in south east Asia you will find they are likely to be more concerned with China than US except this maddening Oil Crisis.
Although I think people now are very afraid/wary of both evils.
The US govt should think why people in all parts of the world including US itself feel just if not more threatened by them, than China and other evils we have floating around.
I would like to hope my American friends didn't vote for this madness or maybe they did I have read DHH's tweets.
Here's the dangerous thing about that: modern CCP China is a newly ascendant world power.
Say what you want about the US today, but when was it at isn't interventionist worst historically-speaking?
Countries don't go to war because their leaders take them to war: they go to war because a sufficient chunk of internal interests support war.
And China has a rather politically-powerful military. Although Xi's recent housecleaning substantially weakened that power.
If China goes to war, it's probably going to be because their economy is in tatters.
Well, they probably also have to factor in whether invading Taiwan is likely to improve that situation, and I would argue that it's not - China is currently exporting stuff all over the world, so economic sanctions would be very painful for them. And there are lots of countries who would like to have a slice of the manufacturing that China is currently hogging...
They go to war because a large chunk of their population is pissed off about the economy.
See also: US
There are some internal policy papers to that effect.
It can? Have you heard of the Great Leap Forward? The Cultural Revolution? Either of those damaged the metaphorical foot more than anything the US has ever done.
You are allowing them to define a ridiculous standard by agreeing with them that not only is it in fact “two evils” but what qualifies as evil. They’ll tell you…always only when called out, mind you…all and any meddling (also something they will then define with the same kind of falls equivalence loop) is evils, when that is simply not true, not is any kind of effort to influence the same thing as actual meddling, not us it always evil.
I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point, the narcissistic personality or their little zombies in most cases will constantly shift and change things all to avoid you from being able to get a clear focus on the truth, something their explosively allergic to.
As an American child of the Empire with global perspective and very high access perspective, there is no other entity besides the cabal that controls the USA and acts flying its banner; that is more deadly, more meddling, more conniving, more evil, more supremacist, and more vile.
I eagerly await for the USA citizens to downvote this in about 5 hours.
Yes we do. We should evaluate threats and choose our allies carefully.
All technology can be used for good or used for evil depending on who is using it and how. From fire to internal combustion engines to nuclear energy.
—- “But look at the United States! What about that?”
Is this not just whataboutism? It never adds much to the discussion.
In this case it's just pointing out the propaganda and the contradiction.
The 2020 skirmish was way smaller with single digit casualties. Again, almost no civilian casualties because it's a largely empty region in the first place
You really can't compare this to the kind of wars America has started. Casualties - both civilian and military - stood in the hundreds of thousands
America's wars have been in countries so far away that they could've never posed any threat whatsoever to America as a nation.
Really not the same thing
That’s fallacious reasoning that ignores how easy travel is and how cheap an attack can cause massive damage. 9/11 was massive attack from countries far away. We regularly see commercial drones being used in warfare causing huge damage and casualties. There was the 2012 terrorist attack on our CIA facilities in Benghazi.
Terrorism entrenched abroad impacts our security. Is the response we take incorrect and makes it worse / are there things we do to provoke this? Some things yes, other things are like having Israel as an ally which is a culturally, socially and economically aligned power in the region even though it’s hated in the region.
Also don’t forget the US is a major maritime power. China is trying to be, Russia is not. Maritime powers force project more broadly because a) is the nature of being a maritime power b) you have to protect shipping to make sure trade routes are uninmpeded. B is particularly important as it also helps explain the wars (eg the Iran war is about the strait and trade and who collects money, not really about nuclear capabilities).
Wow, that newest of Trump's distraction talking points made it surprisingly quickly to the uncontended (?) and commonly accepted facts in HN conversations.
You’re very misinformed if you think Trump’s latest blathering are completely wrong. I generally don’t pay attention to him so I don’t know exactly how he lied or exaggerated but I’m sure he did. It doesn’t negate the real and active influence operations China is engaged in
And this comment isn't about putting any good light on China. Lately US acts like they want to compensate for Russia fucking up less things around the world
north Americans must stay silent about interfering in other states internal issues.
Wow. I bet we'll soon be reading on HN that Biden stole the elections back in 2020.
No one who believed it definitely was not has changed their mind, they've just at most gotten quiet about it.
No one who believed it could have been but that the claim has not been proven have changed our minds, we've just decided that there's no way to know what actually happened.
Vietnam is usually recognised as a low point in Chinese history.
There's been an ongoing border dispute between China and India for over 100 years, thanks to some questionable line drawing by the British.
Also, referring to the parent comment, of these only the border skirmish with India was within my lifetime.
Tibet specifically is funny because one of the things China did was end slavery in Tibet [2]. A large percentage of the population were "serfs" but that was a generous translation because these "serfs" could be traded. You know, like property. Like slaves.
And Vietnam? They had a small border dispute. What did the US do to Vietnam? And Cambodia? And Laos?
But the funniest claim of all here is election interference. The foreign interference in US elections conversation begins and ends with Israel with an honorable mention to Russia for running some Facebook ads. Just last night we had a debate in the Democratic primary for Senate in Michigan, a race that AIPAC proxies (eg UDP) have spent upwards of $60 million. On a primary.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet_serfdom_controversy
There's a qualitative difference between interference and outright annexation, with borders redrawn and cultures violently assimilated.
This event was followed by the longest honeymoon period in Sino-US relations, which eventually lead to China's rise.
Idk to me it feels like human compassion and ethics dictates that you at least have to care a bit even about the things in other countries. Otherwise all sorts of horrible domestic policies would be justifiable.
For example Lithuania has been punished for letting Taiwan opening an embassy (in Lithuania). So China cares what other countries do in their country. Without EU support Lithuania could have faced very harsh consequences. That's just an example. Another example is the "secret police" stations undeclared overseas police stations operated by China in various countries (i.e. U.S for example). China gave you cheap material goods because that was its business but you have to keep in mind it's an authoritarian, communist regime. It carries an extra risk on top of the potential economic coercion if you give it too power. At least you know that U.S is only after the money and does not want to turn your country in a communist "utopia".
That being said this does not mean we should ban Chinese AI models because China didn't cross any red lines(yet) compared with Russia for example.
Not mutually exclusive, just take a look at Venezuela.
Don't be naive or I might even think you're working for the Chinese :-)
China is becoming an intellectual powerhouse in addition to a manufacturing powerhouse and runs huge spyware and propaganda campaigns.
Read up about T95, MBOX, TVBOX, or other Android TV Boxes advertised as generic TV streaming devices advertised as "unlocked" or capable of accessing free content. They're loaded with spyware/malware, typically BADBOX. Some of them will record audio and record your network traffic and send it to China.
I'm also convinced that the anti-education thread winding its way through US culture is being amplified by China. They likely didn't start it, as it's been growing for decades, but China will happily keep it going.
They actively back russia and deliver them weapons and support them with their attempted Genocide in Ukraine. They also actively threaten Taiwan.
Not to mention them claiming almost the entire South China Sea even though this being against international law and threatening smaller nations into submitting to them
Unless you're trying to imply that China engineered the whole thing - extraordinary claim that will require extraordinary evidence
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_misinformation_by_Chi...
We've got a fair idea where SARS-CoV-2 originated (horseshoe bats). It's the early path it took that's muddy.
> after 6 years we have just claims of where it came from. Isn't that suspicious enough?
No it is not suspicious, because most zoonotic pandemics have murky origins - spillover events are rarely identified at anything better than the species level. For evidence I point to everything on this list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics_and_pandemic... (starting with the bottom of the list, in case you come back with irrelevant comments about Roman technological progress).
Never turned on and probably never will.
I only see conservative (putting it very very mildly) in your comments.
You're at least an American. That checks out.
China was the first victim of the Russian virus.
https://law.stanford.edu/press/state-department-lawyers-conc...
That whole thing was a very successful propaganda campaign, making people believing China has been mass murdering Uyghurs.
The U.S. State Department’s Office of the Legal Advisor concluded earlier this year that China’s mass imprisonment and forced labor of ethnic Uighurs in Xinjiang amounts to crimes against humanity—but there was insufficient evidence to prove genocide, placing the United States’ top diplomatic lawyers at odds with both the Trump and Biden administrations, according to three former and current U.S. officials.