5 ms·

Between what we hear out of the Western news agencies, various activist groups, hackers and whatnot, the more I hear about China, the more questions I have abou

Between what we hear out of the Western news agencies, various activist groups, hackers and whatnot, the more I hear about China, the more questions I have about what we (the Western public) know about China. Given China's behaviour towards Western corporations (Google et. al.) which was reported in such a way as can only be interpreted as antitrust, this does seem to be paradoxical. Though, the more I read about Chinese politics the less adds up, much like Western politics. It makes me wonder if everything we're taught about China is fabrication, propaganda, lies, half truths and spin - much the same as our own political system.

devy 10y ago
> Though, the more I read about Chinese politics the less adds up, much like Western politics. It makes me wonder if everything we're taught about China is fabrication, propaganda, lies, half truths and spin - much the same as our own political system. Bearing the risk the getting a lot of down votes, I can tell you that there is definitely truth in your statement. And from the comments I read here, I sense that generally HN has a out of proportionally negative attitude towards China related news (Not this story in particular though, WSJ has been fairly neutral. NYT, on the other hand, is the extreme of negativism towards China, for example). Disclaimer: I grew up in China the first half of my life and immigrated to the U.S. since college. And I read both Chinese/English news media equally and with healthy dose of skepticism.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  You can judge the authenticity of a news source by whether or not it is blocked by the GFW. In general, the chinese government doesn't block anything it doesn't feel threatened by, which means there are elements of dangerous truths in their reporting. So WSJ and NYT are both blocked, odd because WSJ at least is heavily pro China, but I guess they are reasonable news sources in China given government action. CNN and Fox News aren't blocked, so I would stay away from them.
  - devy 10y ago
    No, you simply cannot judge the "authenticity of a news source" by GFW blockage, because by that logic, you are entrusting GFW to be your meter of authenticity - which is absurd. In fact, GFW has been a lot more sophisticated than a black list of sites, it applies ML / traffic pattern analysis capabilities which makes it even less relevant of "authenticity of a news source". Do a Google search of GFW analysis you will get a lot of details on that. > odd because WSJ at least is heavily pro China Why do you think so?
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      Chinese gov blocks information it deems dangerous, like financial info via Bloomberg, this is useful information if you want to make wise rather than nationalistic investment decisions. So ya, what the GFW blocks is a useful guide in what you should read. WSJ is incredibly pro business and doesn't give much care about human rights. They take the capatalist pro business guys point of view in ignoring much of the bad about China to make money.
      - devy 10y ago
        Again, this goes back to the "fabrication, propaganda, lies, half truths and spin - much the same as our own political system." that I commented originally. You have almost 12k karma on HN so you are one of the experienced HN readers. I feel strongly that your tinted negatively biased China view has contributed greatly in HN community. Being living in both China and U.S., one thing I can tell you for sure is that U.S. (being the leader in the free world) is NOT on a moral high ground to criticize other countries given the recent events of racism and bigotry. My advise for you is that you should go out there, travel the world, living in a different country for many years and look back on your worldviews.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
        dmoy 10y ago
        I vaguely recognize the name sean, and I think he's actually in (or was in) China for an extended period of time.
seanmcdirmid 10y ago
The western media makes China out to be less crazy and dysfunctional than it actually is, probably because no one would actually believe them if they reported more on the truth. E.g. China's pollution is much worse than western news story would suggest, it literally is unimaginable to most westerners. If you want a real perspective on China, move there, or at least read Chinese propaganda directly (chinadaily, globaltimes). The latter is especially useful given how bad it is, and you quickly realize how much scarily closer China is teetering towards a DPRK-style dictatorship than would be apparent just by reading CNN.
- justicezyx 10y ago
  I moved from China to US, and I had the exactly same feeling: Chinese media portrait a much consistent image of US leaders, unanimously focus on their words and deeds that are concerned to China. They left the entire other aspects blank, leave me an impression that they probably did reasonable work in other areas. After moving, I see so many more facts from US media's portrait of US leaders. Actually, they did many many more questionable things other than those concerned China (questionable or not). I was deeply troubled by the fact that the intention to move to a free country to attain the transformation from a dictatorship regime to a free one, is more like a transformation from a worse one to a less worse one.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    There are no perfect countries, just less dysfunctional. If you move from DPRK to China, you'll be impressed with the freedom and open information you have. I think most of our beefs with China is that it was moving in a nice direction before 2008...it was becoming more open, more transparent, a nicer place to live and a nicer country to do business with. Then...after 2008...they seem to have thrown it all in the pooper. It really was heartbreaking.
- ced 10y ago
  I'm sure it's horrible in some cities, but I lived in a 4.5M-people city in the South (Kunming) for a year, and its air pollution level was entirely comparable to North American cities of the same size. What are you basing your opinion on? The standards of living of Chinese people are rapidly improving. I'm sure I would be horrified to see how the sausages are made, and I wouldn't bet on its long-term success, but I wouldn't call it dysfunctional. I agree with GP; the news media makes it sound like a horrible place, but living there felt like living in a developing east-European country. I'm much more worried about India.

devy 10y ago

> Though, the more I read about Chinese politics the less adds up, much like Western politics. It makes me wonder if everything we're taught about China is fabrication, propaganda, lies, half truths and spin - much the same as our own political system. Bearing the risk the getting a lot of down votes, I can tell you that there is definitely truth in your statement. And from the comments I read here, I sense that generally HN has a out of proportionally negative attitude towards China related news (Not this story in particular though, WSJ has been fairly neutral. NYT, on the other hand, is the extreme of negativism towards China, for example). Disclaimer: I grew up in China the first half of my life and immigrated to the U.S. since college. And I read both Chinese/English news media equally and with healthy dose of skepticism.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago
You can judge the authenticity of a news source by whether or not it is blocked by the GFW. In general, the chinese government doesn't block anything it doesn't feel threatened by, which means there are elements of dangerous truths in their reporting. So WSJ and NYT are both blocked, odd because WSJ at least is heavily pro China, but I guess they are reasonable news sources in China given government action. CNN and Fox News aren't blocked, so I would stay away from them.
- devy 10y ago
  No, you simply cannot judge the "authenticity of a news source" by GFW blockage, because by that logic, you are entrusting GFW to be your meter of authenticity - which is absurd. In fact, GFW has been a lot more sophisticated than a black list of sites, it applies ML / traffic pattern analysis capabilities which makes it even less relevant of "authenticity of a news source". Do a Google search of GFW analysis you will get a lot of details on that. > odd because WSJ at least is heavily pro China Why do you think so?
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Chinese gov blocks information it deems dangerous, like financial info via Bloomberg, this is useful information if you want to make wise rather than nationalistic investment decisions. So ya, what the GFW blocks is a useful guide in what you should read. WSJ is incredibly pro business and doesn't give much care about human rights. They take the capatalist pro business guys point of view in ignoring much of the bad about China to make money.
    - devy 10y ago
      Again, this goes back to the "fabrication, propaganda, lies, half truths and spin - much the same as our own political system." that I commented originally. You have almost 12k karma on HN so you are one of the experienced HN readers. I feel strongly that your tinted negatively biased China view has contributed greatly in HN community. Being living in both China and U.S., one thing I can tell you for sure is that U.S. (being the leader in the free world) is NOT on a moral high ground to criticize other countries given the recent events of racism and bigotry. My advise for you is that you should go out there, travel the world, living in a different country for many years and look back on your worldviews.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
      - dmoy 10y ago
        I vaguely recognize the name sean, and I think he's actually in (or was in) China for an extended period of time.

seanmcdirmid 10y ago

The western media makes China out to be less crazy and dysfunctional than it actually is, probably because no one would actually believe them if they reported more on the truth. E.g. China's pollution is much worse than western news story would suggest, it literally is unimaginable to most westerners. If you want a real perspective on China, move there, or at least read Chinese propaganda directly (chinadaily, globaltimes). The latter is especially useful given how bad it is, and you quickly realize how much scarily closer China is teetering towards a DPRK-style dictatorship than would be apparent just by reading CNN.

justicezyx 10y ago
I moved from China to US, and I had the exactly same feeling: Chinese media portrait a much consistent image of US leaders, unanimously focus on their words and deeds that are concerned to China. They left the entire other aspects blank, leave me an impression that they probably did reasonable work in other areas. After moving, I see so many more facts from US media's portrait of US leaders. Actually, they did many many more questionable things other than those concerned China (questionable or not). I was deeply troubled by the fact that the intention to move to a free country to attain the transformation from a dictatorship regime to a free one, is more like a transformation from a worse one to a less worse one.
- seanmcdirmid 10y ago
  There are no perfect countries, just less dysfunctional. If you move from DPRK to China, you'll be impressed with the freedom and open information you have. I think most of our beefs with China is that it was moving in a nice direction before 2008...it was becoming more open, more transparent, a nicer place to live and a nicer country to do business with. Then...after 2008...they seem to have thrown it all in the pooper. It really was heartbreaking.
ced 10y ago
I'm sure it's horrible in some cities, but I lived in a 4.5M-people city in the South (Kunming) for a year, and its air pollution level was entirely comparable to North American cities of the same size. What are you basing your opinion on? The standards of living of Chinese people are rapidly improving. I'm sure I would be horrified to see how the sausages are made, and I wouldn't bet on its long-term success, but I wouldn't call it dysfunctional. I agree with GP; the news media makes it sound like a horrible place, but living there felt like living in a developing east-European country. I'm much more worried about India.