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Comment by unified101 | Hacker News Reader

It isn't.

Except for where Western governments pearl clutch about freedom and how free and open they are unlike big, bad China and all that.

> Western governments pearl clutch about freedom and how free and open they are

That's not how to use "pearl clutch". And the UK doesn't do that, and it isn't very free or open, except in the deranged mind of Kier Starmer[0]. Classic liberalism in the UK has long given way to regulation of speech, proud conformity, state dependency, and all the other things that are hallmarks of people who treat the state as a surrogate parent.

[0] https://uk.news.yahoo.com/starmer-defends-uk-commitment-free...

Remember that North Koreans genuinely believe they are living in the most free country on earth.

Two questions: * How many North Koreans do you know to make such a statement? And what do you personally know about North Korea? * Do you think you are living on the most free country on earth (regardless of where you live)?

Don't fall into the trap of putting our governments on the same level as China, despite the tremendous flaws and the very dangerous backsliding we still enjoy many freedoms that their citizens do not have.

The CCP would like nothing more than everyone living in a democracy saying they're just as oppressed as those living in China. Then their own citizens might abandon such foolish notions as human rights.

We should point out the hypocrisy of our governments but not by using that hypocrisy to minimize China's human rights abuses.

Multiple things can be true at the same time, there's more repression in China still than in the West at the moment, yes. At the same time it's all rather vague. There's more state control there and more corporate control here. So naturally there's more state repression there. There's also things that China does better than we do. It's not as clear cut as it should be.

If you look at the treatment of pro-Palestine movements in the West, Flock cameras, Palantir contracts, age verification mandates, encryption 'front door' requests, clamping down on whistleblowers etc. then it seems to me that we're heading where China is pretty fast and that the West definitely wants to be where China is, just without the high speed trains.

What I am dismayed by in discussions like this is how simplistic they are i.e. China bad, West good so don't compare.

The collective West just assisted a genocide of an occupied population of people, so when is it going to be 'as bad'? My guess is never because people here want to feel superior over China without actually doing anything for it.

I wouldn't be surprised if you tried to come up with all sorts of excuses why the West is not responsible for Israeli actions in Gaza, it's not a genocide etc. without pausing for a second to realize the Chinese also have plenty to say about what you object to them doing not being authoritarian.

I think state control is felt fundamentally differently in practice if this state control actually serves the people unlike in the west where it serves exclusively capital interests.

> What I am dismayed by in discussions like this is how simplistic they are

Once you really notice the anti-china framing literally everywhere in media, it is really hard for it all not to become meaningless propaganda. It's itself no different from state control just because it's private media because that private controls the state. We aren't allowed a clear eyed view of china, only a carefully curated antagonistic one. But they aren't our enemies at all, it's absurd how obvious that is, the west is the aggressor, not china.

The state is capital in China. Oppression in China serves Capital and the State because they are the same entity.

In the west capital in the hands of unaccountable individuals acting in their own interests and the state acting in the interests of those with private capital. Capital in the hands of the chinese state is different because it serves the interests of everyone collectively. Including things the west describes as oppression, but that is a matter of perspective, it's things like this why you are conditioned to hate china:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houses_are_for_living,_not_for...

> Capital in the hands of the chinese state is different because it serves the interests of everyone collectively

Even the Uyghurs?

> they are the same entity

I am not aware of a country where that's not true to some extent. But I can't see i.e. [1] happening in the West.

1 - https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/china-tax-crackd...

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