4 ms·

> the west's covert activities are not limited to benign surveillance. Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign. The example you gave, Merkel's phone, is a text

> the west's covert activities are not limited to benign surveillance. Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign. The example you gave, Merkel's phone, is a textbook example. Spy all you want, but we're not stealing IP or sabotaging power grids (to my knowledge). We're not interfering with other countries' covid response or possibly corrupting medical records. > why would the Chinese be interested in sabotage here? Presumably, because it gives China a geopolitical edge in the international sphere. Think about how damaging it would be to not only be the country where the virus started, but also not having a valid vaccine. By slowing down Western vaccine efforts and boosting their own, they can regain the upper hand and make China look strong. "Strong China" keeps those leaders in power, and they'll do whatever they can to project the feeling that they're in control and "better" than the West. Also, China is posturing itself to be a counterpoint to the West, but they need to show themselves as somehow a viable candidate for that. So a wide variety of reasons, but it's easy to see why they would do this.

free_rms 6y ago
> Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign It would take a book-length treatment to evaluate that sentence, but I don't think it's justified. We've been VERY active, around the whole world, since WWII. China's only started to look past their immediate neighbors recently. I guess 'benign' can do a lot of work for you if you think we're the protagonists of history.
- jorblumesea 6y ago
  I don't think anyone would ever argue that the West isn't active or that they've never done anything wrong. Obviously there are huge wikipedia articles and hundreds of books on the subject. But from what it seems of what little we know of that world, the US seems to have some kind of value system, and the CCP has almost none. Freedom of speech is a good example. If the US were to spy on a citizen, they wouldn't end up in a concentration camp. The US also encourages its allies, as much as it can, to promote "Western democratic values". For example, we were instrumental in turning South Korea into a democracy, from a dictatorship. So it's not as simple as "US bad china good" or "China bad, US good" but I think it's pretty clear China is a totalitarian system which has few scruples, if any. So that's what we mean by "benign". Some rough understanding of "the right thing". It's not that the US does everything great, forever, because clearly...
  - free_rms 6y ago
    Oof, Korea? Bad example. We spent 4 years fighting, with 3 million casualties, in order to leave the border between north/south in the same place we found it, and install an allied dictatorship for the following 30 years. I guess it worked out eventually, but that's to the credit of the Koreans, not us. We were fine with a capitalist dictatorship as long as the Cold War was on. Did you ever hear about this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Uprising Thousands of protestors killed, by US weapons, while our defense dept was kept in the loop. And I had never even heard of it until I went to fact-check myself about the length of the dictatorship there. Funny. I wonder why.
    - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
      Ok about korea, I'll look up the uprising. What about this bit he said "If the US were to spy on a citizen, they wouldn't end up in a concentration camp". Seems a valid point in general.
      - free_rms 6y ago
        I mean, I'm not trying to say "china always good, USA always bad", either. I'm just trying to add some perspective. If I were to take that on as some sort of debate challenge, I'd point out the mass incarceration and the fact that we still have a bigger chunk of people in jail despite being so much freer. Of course, that's a bit of a rhetorical gambit. As far as the characterization of china, it depends. Han Chinese don't go to prison just for criticizing the government, they just lose opportunities. Party membership is a big part of getting ahead there. They go to prison if they start getting organized, holding meetings, being an alternative political party. Xinjiang is a whole other can of worms.
        eric-hu 6y ago
        > Han Chinese don't go to prison just for criticizing the government, they just lose opportunities. This is verifiably false. Han vine Chinese book store owners in Hong Kong were kidnapped to mainland China, incarcerated and forced to sign confessions. Their ‘crime’ was selling books critical of the CCP.
rixed 6y ago
The power grid I don't know, but gaz pipeline apparently they did. See for instance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss
- jorblumesea 6y ago
  I mean, come on: > A report in the Moscow Times quoted KGB veteran Vasily Pchelintsev as saying that there was a natural gas pipeline explosion in 1982, but it was near Tobolsk on a pipeline connecting the Urengoy gas field to the city of Chelyabinsk, and it was caused by poor construction rather than sabotage; according to Pchelintsev's account, no one was killed in the explosion and the damage was repaired within one day.[2] Reed's account has also not been corroborated by intelligence agencies in the United States.[3] From that page.
- eloisius 6y ago
  Yeah and we also dropped potato beetles via parachutes over crops across Warsaw Pact countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_potato_beetle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_potato_beetle
  - SaintGhurka 6y ago
    Your link doesn't provide any evidence of this. "Communist propaganda of the time claimed that the insect was being dropped from parachutes and balloons"
    - eloisius 6y ago
      Poe's law strikes again
      - SaintGhurka 6y ago
        My mistake. We need a sarcasm font.
OBLIQUE_PILLAR 6y ago
"We're not interfering with other countries' covid response" - the US continues to freeze Iran out of the SWIFT system, which means Iran can't buy just about everything. Iranians will die because of this policy.
La1n 6y ago
>Spy all you want, but we're not stealing IP Provably untrue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#Industrial_espionage_as_part_of_US_foreign_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#Industria... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/30/airbus-could-sue-following-allegations-germany-spied-on-them-for-the-us https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/30/airbus-coul... https://www.bbc.com/news/25907502 https://www.bbc.com/news/25907502 https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150629/16134031494/nsa-despite-claiming-it-doesnt-engage-economic-espionage-engaged-economic-espionage.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150629/16134031494/nsa-d...

free_rms 6y ago

> Compared to the CCP, it's fairly benign It would take a book-length treatment to evaluate that sentence, but I don't think it's justified. We've been VERY active, around the whole world, since WWII. China's only started to look past their immediate neighbors recently. I guess 'benign' can do a lot of work for you if you think we're the protagonists of history.

jorblumesea 6y ago
I don't think anyone would ever argue that the West isn't active or that they've never done anything wrong. Obviously there are huge wikipedia articles and hundreds of books on the subject. But from what it seems of what little we know of that world, the US seems to have some kind of value system, and the CCP has almost none. Freedom of speech is a good example. If the US were to spy on a citizen, they wouldn't end up in a concentration camp. The US also encourages its allies, as much as it can, to promote "Western democratic values". For example, we were instrumental in turning South Korea into a democracy, from a dictatorship. So it's not as simple as "US bad china good" or "China bad, US good" but I think it's pretty clear China is a totalitarian system which has few scruples, if any. So that's what we mean by "benign". Some rough understanding of "the right thing". It's not that the US does everything great, forever, because clearly...
- free_rms 6y ago
  Oof, Korea? Bad example. We spent 4 years fighting, with 3 million casualties, in order to leave the border between north/south in the same place we found it, and install an allied dictatorship for the following 30 years. I guess it worked out eventually, but that's to the credit of the Koreans, not us. We were fine with a capitalist dictatorship as long as the Cold War was on. Did you ever hear about this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwangju_Uprising Thousands of protestors killed, by US weapons, while our defense dept was kept in the loop. And I had never even heard of it until I went to fact-check myself about the length of the dictatorship there. Funny. I wonder why.
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    Ok about korea, I'll look up the uprising. What about this bit he said "If the US were to spy on a citizen, they wouldn't end up in a concentration camp". Seems a valid point in general.
    - free_rms 6y ago
      I mean, I'm not trying to say "china always good, USA always bad", either. I'm just trying to add some perspective. If I were to take that on as some sort of debate challenge, I'd point out the mass incarceration and the fact that we still have a bigger chunk of people in jail despite being so much freer. Of course, that's a bit of a rhetorical gambit. As far as the characterization of china, it depends. Han Chinese don't go to prison just for criticizing the government, they just lose opportunities. Party membership is a big part of getting ahead there. They go to prison if they start getting organized, holding meetings, being an alternative political party. Xinjiang is a whole other can of worms.
      - eric-hu 6y ago
        > Han Chinese don't go to prison just for criticizing the government, they just lose opportunities. This is verifiably false. Han vine Chinese book store owners in Hong Kong were kidnapped to mainland China, incarcerated and forced to sign confessions. Their ‘crime’ was selling books critical of the CCP.

rixed 6y ago

The power grid I don't know, but gaz pipeline apparently they did. See for instance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Abyss

jorblumesea 6y ago
I mean, come on: > A report in the Moscow Times quoted KGB veteran Vasily Pchelintsev as saying that there was a natural gas pipeline explosion in 1982, but it was near Tobolsk on a pipeline connecting the Urengoy gas field to the city of Chelyabinsk, and it was caused by poor construction rather than sabotage; according to Pchelintsev's account, no one was killed in the explosion and the damage was repaired within one day.[2] Reed's account has also not been corroborated by intelligence agencies in the United States.[3] From that page.
eloisius 6y ago
Yeah and we also dropped potato beetles via parachutes over crops across Warsaw Pact countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_potato_beetle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_against_the_potato_beetle
- SaintGhurka 6y ago
  Your link doesn't provide any evidence of this. "Communist propaganda of the time claimed that the insect was being dropped from parachutes and balloons"
  - eloisius 6y ago
    Poe's law strikes again
    - SaintGhurka 6y ago
      My mistake. We need a sarcasm font.

OBLIQUE_PILLAR 6y ago

"We're not interfering with other countries' covid response" - the US continues to freeze Iran out of the SWIFT system, which means Iran can't buy just about everything. Iranians will die because of this policy.

La1n 6y ago

>Spy all you want, but we're not stealing IP Provably untrue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#Industrial_espionage_as_part_of_US_foreign_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#Industria... https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/30/airbus-could-sue-following-allegations-germany-spied-on-them-for-the-us https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/apr/30/airbus-coul... https://www.bbc.com/news/25907502 https://www.bbc.com/news/25907502 https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150629/16134031494/nsa-despite-claiming-it-doesnt-engage-economic-espionage-engaged-economic-espionage.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150629/16134031494/nsa-d...