throwSZ99

Why should Westerners care about a "sprawling network of more than 350 fake social media profiles" when our own governments have been lying to us and spewing propaganda about almost everything of importance for DECADES? See my comment about GCHQ's JTRIG unit elsewhere on this page.

Western propaganda campaigns are often a prelude to war. And they usually deploy several orders of magnitude more assets than "350 fake social media profiles." Remember WMDs in Iraq, Libya and Gaddafi, babies in incubators? I have no interest in unquestioningly accepting the BBC's version of what's important. If we let our psycho warmongers start another war based on lies, millions will die on both sides.

See Thucydides Trap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap

> allergic to negative mentions of china

Not exactly. Some of us would rather first and primarily focus on the disinfo artists who are destroying Western democracies than point the finger at a country that doesn't claim to be free and fair and open.

Pot, meet kettle: from the Wikipedia entry on Britain's GCHQ JTRIG unit: 'The scope of the JTRIG's mission includes using "dirty tricks" to "destroy, deny, degrade [and] disrupt" enemies by "discrediting" them, planting misinformation and shutting down their communications.'

And: 'In 2011, the JTRIG conducted a denial-of-service attack (DoS) on the activist network Anonymous.[1] Other JTRIG targets have included the government of Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan.[2]

Campaigns operated by JTRIG have broadly fallen into two categories; cyber attacks and propaganda efforts.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Threat_Research_Intellig...

Edit: See also https://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/how-to-spot-and-defe...

I think that the 996 work culture will be the next domino to fall. Many ambitious Chinese "work" from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. It's "work" in the sense that 996 is well-padded with unproductive face time and phone time. Office buildings stay lit well into the night and young office workers barely have time to date let alone form families.

In the last two years, the popularity of foxi (buddha-like apathy) and more recently, tangping (lying flat and abandoning the rat race), show the degree of stress young people are under. Stressed out people are less likely to form families and have children. China needs more children.

Here's a video that discusses the rat race and potential effects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDc8-lNSFR0

I'm American. I live in China. I am pro freedom, individual rights, etc. He/She is right.

There's a huge disconnect between Westerners who have lived in China and speak some Chinese and Westerners who have never been to China and rely on our mainstream media to paint an accurate picture of the goings on in Mainland China and Hong Kong.

For an alternative view, search for Daniel Dumbrill and Nathan Rich on YouTube. They both speak Chinese and have lived here long enough to have a clue.

There was a recent BBC hit piece that targeted westerners who have been attacking the usual anti-China narratives. The BBC article was an obvious hit piece to most who have live in Mainland China.