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Without agreeing or disagreeing with them, we should accept that people have said exactly the same things about the USA, about the Soviet Union, about Russia, a

Without agreeing or disagreeing with them, we should accept that people have said exactly the same things about the USA, about the Soviet Union, about Russia, about Britain... And on and on. I am not trying to play “whatabout,” but I do ask: Is there anything different about China’s behaviour as a superpower? Or are we just seeing a shift in which superpowers have world influence? At the moment I write this, the front page of HN has an article about China and facial recognition... But also an article about US schools monitoring student emails. Which seems to me like training a generation of citizens to understand that they live in a prison without walls.

kiba 7y ago
US schools is about certain school districts, not national policies.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail. https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail...
  - corporate_shi11 7y ago
    You miss the point of the comment. Comparing the CCP federal structure to a local school district is a laughably inappropriate comparison.
corporate_shi11 7y ago
I think comparisons like this ignore something fundamental, which is the values that both countries champion. The USA is a democracy and has by and large championed democracy around the world. China is ruled by a 1974 style dictatorship, a country ruled by a single Party not the rule of law. Comparisons between the US and the CCP conveniently ignore this, yet it is what really matters. Law enforcement will always exist in a nation of laws, yet the simple fact that law enforcement exists both in a dictatorship and in a democracy does not lead us to conclude democracy and dictatorship exist on an equal moral footing. The underlying values matter.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  If you look at China's constitution they value the same stuff as the United States. They are a democracy by their values, just like the U.S. Words are meaningless if not backed up by action.
  - CharlesColeman 7y ago
    > If you look at China's constitution they value the same stuff as the United States. They are a democracy by their values, just like the U.S. > Words are meaningless if not backed up by action. Exactly: the PRC's constitution forbids gender discrimination, but even government job postings will frequently ask for men only. That shows how significant the words are, in this case.
  - readbeard 7y ago
    Interesting! As I was completely unfamiliar with China's constitution, I pulled up the Wikipedia article and the source document. Supporting your point, here is a particularly surprising (to me) article: > Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. [0] Also, from the introduction section of the Wikipedia article: > Though technically the "supreme legal authority" and "fundamental law of the state", the ruling Chinese Communist Party has a documented history of violating many of the constitution's provisions and censoring calls for greater adherence to it. Furthermore, claims of violations of constitutional rights cannot be used in Chinese courts, and the National People's Congress Constitution and Law Committee, the legislative committee responsible for constitutional review, has never ruled a law or regulation unconstitutional. [1] [0] http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s...
    - whoevercares 7y ago
      The Constitution of China changes every few years. There’s no enforcement or practical meaning at all
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>Is there anything different about China’s behaviour as a superpower? Yes! When Britain was colonizing the world it was not nearly universally agreed upon that colonialism was bad. Ditto for the USSR and US. China is trying to export a system of values that pretty much the entire developed world knows (and has plenty of examples to cite, some of them recent and close to home) lead to mass oppression and suffering.

kiba 7y ago

US schools is about certain school districts, not national policies.

braythwayt 7y ago
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail. https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail.pdf https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Letter_Birmingham_Jail...
- corporate_shi11 7y ago
  You miss the point of the comment. Comparing the CCP federal structure to a local school district is a laughably inappropriate comparison.

corporate_shi11 7y ago

I think comparisons like this ignore something fundamental, which is the values that both countries champion. The USA is a democracy and has by and large championed democracy around the world. China is ruled by a 1974 style dictatorship, a country ruled by a single Party not the rule of law. Comparisons between the US and the CCP conveniently ignore this, yet it is what really matters. Law enforcement will always exist in a nation of laws, yet the simple fact that law enforcement exists both in a dictatorship and in a democracy does not lead us to conclude democracy and dictatorship exist on an equal moral footing. The underlying values matter.

Miner49er 7y ago
If you look at China's constitution they value the same stuff as the United States. They are a democracy by their values, just like the U.S. Words are meaningless if not backed up by action.
- CharlesColeman 7y ago
  > If you look at China's constitution they value the same stuff as the United States. They are a democracy by their values, just like the U.S. > Words are meaningless if not backed up by action. Exactly: the PRC's constitution forbids gender discrimination, but even government job postings will frequently ask for men only. That shows how significant the words are, in this case.
- readbeard 7y ago
  Interesting! As I was completely unfamiliar with China's constitution, I pulled up the Wikipedia article and the source document. Supporting your point, here is a particularly surprising (to me) article: > Article 35. Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. [0] Also, from the introduction section of the Wikipedia article: > Though technically the "supreme legal authority" and "fundamental law of the state", the ruling Chinese Communist Party has a documented history of violating many of the constitution's provisions and censoring calls for greater adherence to it. Furthermore, claims of violations of constitutional rights cannot be used in Chinese courts, and the National People's Congress Constitution and Law Committee, the legislative committee responsible for constitutional review, has never ruled a law or regulation unconstitutional. [1] [0] http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html http://en.people.cn/constitution/constitution.html [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People%27s...
  - whoevercares 7y ago
    The Constitution of China changes every few years. There’s no enforcement or practical meaning at all

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

>Is there anything different about China’s behaviour as a superpower? Yes! When Britain was colonizing the world it was not nearly universally agreed upon that colonialism was bad. Ditto for the USSR and US. China is trying to export a system of values that pretty much the entire developed world knows (and has plenty of examples to cite, some of them recent and close to home) lead to mass oppression and suffering.