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This is the sort of thougt-terminating cliche that western Sinophobia enables. If you simultaneously believe that Chinese people are just as capable of critical

This is the sort of thougt-terminating cliche that western Sinophobia enables. If you simultaneously believe that Chinese people are just as capable of critical thought as Americans and that they often support their government, then you need to engage with that support in good faith and try to figure out why it'd be the case. Instead, I think we often look at this as 'if p and q then X; certainly not X; probably q; therefore not p; QED' For a nation that is overwhelmingly okay with (often vocally supportive of) our own actual concentration camps, we're weirdly obsessed with the faraway 're-education' camps of our main economic and socio-political rival. (I do want to say that I think China is, really, objectively worse when it comes to human rights violations than the US itself is. I just find the unanimity of our criticism vs that of ourselves or, say, Saudi Arabia, Chile, Brazil, or other US-aligned states to leave a sour taste in my mouth.) Edit: I forgot to tie this back in to the originally linked article. Basically, when we engage in criticism, we should in turn be critical of the interests of those whom that criticism serves. Zuckerberg wants us to believe in a Fifth Estate, of, for, and by the masses. We all probably know that this is double-speak aimed at protecting his own personal power and bottom line, but that narrative enables and supports external criticism, focused on his rivals the scary Chinese, rather than the already vast power that Facebook wields over us.

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
Americans are pretty unanimous in criticizing Saudi Arabia. The government often ends up on their side for geopolitical reasons, but the vast majority of American citizens and American media agree Saudi Arabia is a bad country doing terrible things.
- WaxProlix 7y ago
  I think you're right about SA actually. While we all sort of forgot about it quickly afterwards, nobody was really in favor of what happened to Jamal Kashoggi, for instance. There are better examples I could have used there, especially if I were to go back into recent history.
TurkishPoptart 7y ago
Thank you for saying this. Scholars are still trying to untangle the complex socio-cultural factors that kept the Soviet regime in power. Some of the newer theories concern language and value when trying to understand the relationships between Soviet citizens and the state itself, Soviet citizens among each other, as well as one's inner perception of themselves within the context of the system and the people within it. It's even harder when we don't have the benefit of hindsight when we have to analyze the present. >For a nation that is overwhelmingly okay with (often vocally supportive of) our own actual concentration camps, we're weirdly obsessed with the faraway 're-education' camps of our main economic and socio-political rival. This is the only point I think I disagree with. I haven't met any Americans in favor of the detention camps at the border. The big difference is that, in the Xinjiang province, the Uighur population is being detained and "re-educated" due to their ethnic and religious identity, which to Americans, sounds barbaric and Nazi-like.
- WaxProlix 7y ago
  I don't know about that. There are plenty of people within the Trump base that are pro-detention centers; I don't expect you'd run into a lot of them in day to day life if you're an HN frequenter but not all of them advertise with crazy bumper sticker fiestas. I think I saw a ~41% approval in a WaPo article once, for instance. I've got some family in rural areas and their communities hold very different values to mine (and, by extension, maybe yours). As to the detention centers, they almost exclusively target the Hispanic (okay, and sometimes middle eastern) populations in areas; or do we think that the percentage of white Europeans in those centers is reflective of the number of invalid- or expired-visa, or otherwise illegitimately in-country European people?
- proc0 7y ago
  > I haven't met any Americans in favor of the detention camps at the border. What is the alternative? It's not like I'm in favor of keeping people locked up, but what is the actual alternative? People are voluntarily and illegally coming to this country when there is a giant line of people waiting to enter legally. I've also lived in several parts of latin america, and can say with confidence the majority of illegal immigrants aren't in any kind of danger where they're from. They really just want a better life, but in my opinion the legal immigrants are in line for this and it makes no sense to allow them to cut in line. So then what alternative is there but to detain them and then send them back?
proc0 7y ago
I understand it's more complicated than that, however you are just saying "what about the US?", "what about Saudi Arabia". Sure we can have conversations on all of those issues as well, however, China is, imho, on a different level. There are billions of mainland Chinese, and somehow they are ok with how they are being treated. Compare and contrast to almost any other country that has human right violations... with exception of some Muslim countries (which keep their citizens in fear like China), you can clearly see citizens fighting for more rights. Brazil has civil unrests all the time. China somehow, even after thousands of years, has managed to keep a government that basically owns their people. Most other modern countries have had their people's revolution, especially in the west. I think this is what it boils down to. Chinese don't see their government as an institution as much as an extension of their own identity it seems.
- WaxProlix 7y ago
  > Chinese don't see their government as an institution as much as an extension of their own identity An interesting hypothesis, specific to a group of states under the China umbrella. It'd be worth exploring more, maybe. Of course what you actually said was "brainless sheeple asian values", which is very different in ways that I'm not particularly keen to get into.
  - proc0 7y ago
    Sure, that's not the best wording and was borderline trolling to make a caricature to keep it short. Didn't mean any offense to anyone as I'm not thinking of any particular people, but rather whatever behavior that is going on in mainland China that allows the government to do anything they want. So it seems this behavior is condoned by the people somehow. If this is completely voluntary, then those people are as bad as the government, and if it isn't then I can only conclude they turn a blind eye to avoid punishment. It's just hard not to also blame the people here, and somehow just blame the government... after all they are the ones to make this equivalence of how the government of China IS the people. If they blur this line, then why would we re-draw it?

SpicyLemonZest 7y ago

Americans are pretty unanimous in criticizing Saudi Arabia. The government often ends up on their side for geopolitical reasons, but the vast majority of American citizens and American media agree Saudi Arabia is a bad country doing terrible things.

WaxProlix 7y ago
I think you're right about SA actually. While we all sort of forgot about it quickly afterwards, nobody was really in favor of what happened to Jamal Kashoggi, for instance. There are better examples I could have used there, especially if I were to go back into recent history.

TurkishPoptart 7y ago

Thank you for saying this. Scholars are still trying to untangle the complex socio-cultural factors that kept the Soviet regime in power. Some of the newer theories concern language and value when trying to understand the relationships between Soviet citizens and the state itself, Soviet citizens among each other, as well as one's inner perception of themselves within the context of the system and the people within it. It's even harder when we don't have the benefit of hindsight when we have to analyze the present. >For a nation that is overwhelmingly okay with (often vocally supportive of) our own actual concentration camps, we're weirdly obsessed with the faraway 're-education' camps of our main economic and socio-political rival. This is the only point I think I disagree with. I haven't met any Americans in favor of the detention camps at the border. The big difference is that, in the Xinjiang province, the Uighur population is being detained and "re-educated" due to their ethnic and religious identity, which to Americans, sounds barbaric and Nazi-like.

WaxProlix 7y ago
I don't know about that. There are plenty of people within the Trump base that are pro-detention centers; I don't expect you'd run into a lot of them in day to day life if you're an HN frequenter but not all of them advertise with crazy bumper sticker fiestas. I think I saw a ~41% approval in a WaPo article once, for instance. I've got some family in rural areas and their communities hold very different values to mine (and, by extension, maybe yours). As to the detention centers, they almost exclusively target the Hispanic (okay, and sometimes middle eastern) populations in areas; or do we think that the percentage of white Europeans in those centers is reflective of the number of invalid- or expired-visa, or otherwise illegitimately in-country European people?
proc0 7y ago
> I haven't met any Americans in favor of the detention camps at the border. What is the alternative? It's not like I'm in favor of keeping people locked up, but what is the actual alternative? People are voluntarily and illegally coming to this country when there is a giant line of people waiting to enter legally. I've also lived in several parts of latin america, and can say with confidence the majority of illegal immigrants aren't in any kind of danger where they're from. They really just want a better life, but in my opinion the legal immigrants are in line for this and it makes no sense to allow them to cut in line. So then what alternative is there but to detain them and then send them back?

proc0 7y ago

I understand it's more complicated than that, however you are just saying "what about the US?", "what about Saudi Arabia". Sure we can have conversations on all of those issues as well, however, China is, imho, on a different level. There are billions of mainland Chinese, and somehow they are ok with how they are being treated. Compare and contrast to almost any other country that has human right violations... with exception of some Muslim countries (which keep their citizens in fear like China), you can clearly see citizens fighting for more rights. Brazil has civil unrests all the time. China somehow, even after thousands of years, has managed to keep a government that basically owns their people. Most other modern countries have had their people's revolution, especially in the west. I think this is what it boils down to. Chinese don't see their government as an institution as much as an extension of their own identity it seems.

WaxProlix 7y ago
> Chinese don't see their government as an institution as much as an extension of their own identity An interesting hypothesis, specific to a group of states under the China umbrella. It'd be worth exploring more, maybe. Of course what you actually said was "brainless sheeple asian values", which is very different in ways that I'm not particularly keen to get into.
- proc0 7y ago
  Sure, that's not the best wording and was borderline trolling to make a caricature to keep it short. Didn't mean any offense to anyone as I'm not thinking of any particular people, but rather whatever behavior that is going on in mainland China that allows the government to do anything they want. So it seems this behavior is condoned by the people somehow. If this is completely voluntary, then those people are as bad as the government, and if it isn't then I can only conclude they turn a blind eye to avoid punishment. It's just hard not to also blame the people here, and somehow just blame the government... after all they are the ones to make this equivalence of how the government of China IS the people. If they blur this line, then why would we re-draw it?