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Here's another angle. The increasing censorship within China leaves less and less opportunity for the greater Chinese population to learn about the capabilities

Here's another angle. The increasing censorship within China leaves less and less opportunity for the greater Chinese population to learn about the capabilities of other countries. A few examples of excellence that are still available to Chinese citizens are the NBA, Apple products, US education and Tesla cars. Most nations export excellence of some type to China. Having these examples in their hands or on their screens likely initiates a mild cognitive dissonance: "The CCP news tells me how terrible the USA is, yet, these elements in my life are excellent beyond what is created by my own country." It's reminiscent of Russian defectors who couldn't rationalize the images they were shown of US poverty, illustrated by films from the Great Depression wherein the 1930s streets of New York were clogged with cars. Or, Boris Yeltzen visiting an American grocery store in 1989, and being overwhelmed at the variety of products and full shelves [0]. As the reins of censorship and propaganda tightens in China, there may be less and less of the world to pierce through and belie the narrative they are fed. Perhaps we should not abandon them any sooner than we must. With that said, if it's a deliberate approach, we need to get the messaging right. The NBA should stick to 'we are ambassadors for the USA to the world' and leave any politics at that. [0] https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When-Boris-Yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-Clear-5759129.php https://www.chron.com/neighborhood/bayarea/news/article/When...

bigpumpkin 6y ago
This claim is objectively false since Chinese people become more nationalistic after visiting western countries. The cognitive dissonance isn't that western countries are better than expected, it is that they are worse. Look no further than the political activities by Chinese students in western universities.
- bpodgursky 6y ago
  The Chinese students with the education and wealth to study abroad are already among the top 5% in China. Their families are wealthy and powerful to start with. It's not shocking that many of them see negatives to living in the west as compared to China (in the west, they are on a more level playing field with the "masses"). Their experience does not translate to the remaining 95% who work manual jobs, with highly filtered information coming in, with no real hope or means of ever traveling abroad.
  - whoevercares 6y ago
    For Urban Population I would argue the percentage is a bit higher. It’s not that uncommon for 3rd tier city children to go abroad nowadays. If you are talking about the billions of rural area population, it’s a hard problem and I think they wouldn’t have the spare time to learn or think about democracy values until their lives get better. Their dream is still “get out of my village and find a spot in Tier-3/2/1 city”. Its a bit “何不食肉糜” (let them eat cake) to Chinese people actually
  - chongli 6y ago
    From my experience there are two tiers of international student. There are the ones who emigrate in late middle school/early high school to get permanent residency before entering university (and thus paying domestic tuition) and those who come over right at the beginning of university. The latter category pay exorbitant tuition and, from what I’ve seen, drive fancy cars and wear luxury designer brands. These kids have more money than they know what to do with. Their parents are likely to be at least somewhat involved in the CCP and so it makes sense that they’d be unimpressed with their western peers.
robert_foss 6y ago
The US had an intentional policy of opening up China through economic means. Which has not since it's implementation.
whoevercares 6y ago
While I think your point is mostly valid and benign, Your impression of China seems outdated and tone might seem a bit arrogant to a native Chinese. Chinese people recognize the gap and appreciate the excellence in their daily life. The CCP rarely censored in the way you described(e.g. it never says China’s education/manufacturing is the best, instead they call out the remaining gap constantly). As a matter of fact, the biggest concern I have is the political climate in the US has done more harm than the CCP can even dream of with any propaganda. Overseas Chineses tell more and more story of how chaotic US is to their family in China and that spreads. Ten years ago it’s a no brainer to send you child to get US education but now many parents are reconsidering.
- bllguo 6y ago
  yes, seconded. China isn't North Korea or the USSR. Don't take for granted that the West is "better", at this point China is looking over and saying "prove it" Can you blame Chinese citizens for preferring the stability and prosperity of their own regime, when they have the current disarray of American democracy to compare to? Frankly I would argue that the Chinese have a much better understanding of the US than the other way around. They study English, they are exposed to Western cultural exports (we're in a thread about the NBA, for instance), heck the general populace looked up to the US for a long time (not anymore)
  - whoevercares 6y ago
    Probably still looking up in quite a few fields(technology, education), but on society/core value aspect it’s been shaky
    - bllguo 6y ago
      you're right. I should have said "less and less so". In any case it's definitely trending down
  - ptx 6y ago
    > preferring the stability and prosperity of their own regime That's a bit of an unwarranted assumption. Even hinting that you have a different preference or questioning the reports of stability and prosperity (even privately among friends on WeChat, which is monitored and censored) can get you invited for a nice cup of tea with the local police.
theseadroid 6y ago
>The increasing censorship within China leaves less and less opportunity for the greater Chinese population to learn about the capabilities of other countries. Most of my friends back in China, especially devs, use VPN daily. Many Chinese learn English via English media or TV shows. check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s... >The CCP news tells me how terrible the USA is, yet, these elements in my life are excellent beyond what is created by my own country. just not true. I was really shocked about the homeless situation in NA which was never really reported back in China. and also from u/bpodgursky >the Chinese students with the education and wealth to study abroad are already among the top 5% in China. Not the case for most graduate students. Especially the ones received scholarships (such as me). Please check your sources guys. Try learn a bit Mandarin if you could or at least talk to Chinese ppl living around you. China is sick yes. But imagine diagnosing the illness of a patient without looking or talking to them but only via a malicious translator.
- qbaqbaqba 6y ago
  A simple question: are you a party member?
  - jdm2212 6y ago
    The implication of this question is pretty rude, but also, CCP membership isn't terribly meaningful. See, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/us/politics/china-travel-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/us/politics/china-travel-...
    - theseadroid 6y ago
      not a party member btw. Am Chinese. I will follow up here on any questions you(qbaqbaqba or anyone else) have though. and if you are interested here's my thought on the whole topic in one piece: https://medium.com/@theseadroid/the-china-problem-ce0c1a0e579a https://medium.com/@theseadroid/the-china-problem-ce0c1a0e57...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaway2474 6y ago
Your comment is about 15 years out of date. There isn’t much that is “excellent beyond what is available” in China anymore. This type of thinking is why western foreign policy continues to get China totally wrong. Chinese people who study abroad are more often confused by the things missing in the west than they are liberated in the way you describe, in my experience.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  What is missing in the west?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - yumraj 6y ago
    Fear of being taken to a dark hole somewhere for making fun of the ruling junta, especially the top boss AKA the President/Chairman. /s
    - Taniwha 6y ago
      Pretty sure that fear is very much alive in Portland right now
      - yumraj 6y ago
        Sure, let’s point to a single, or two, case in one city in the US, in which case the DHS is being sued last I checked, to contrast a ground up system in the whole of China. Just today, or yesterday, a respected prof got fired from Tsinghua for being critical of CCP and Xi in particular.
      - CamperBob2 6y ago
        Pretty sure that's an outrageous exercise in false equivalence. What's happening in Portland isn't right, but it is an aberration, and it will be stopped. Nobody has "disappeared." What is the mechanism for redressing grievances like this in China, exactly?
fiblye 6y ago
> Having these examples in their hands or on their screens likely initiates a mild cognitive dissonance You’d be surprised, but no, it doesn’t. And from my experience, older people sometimes just kind of don’t like America, in the same way older Americans don’t like Cuba. Government says their government is bad, don’t really know the people but maybe they’re “brainwashed” unlike us, but the few I’ve met are okay so no reason to really do anything but ignore the country. Younger people I’ve talked to seem to know a considerable amount about America, and quite a lot of bad. The idea seems to be that companies build things in China because their country can’t and companies like the NBA and so on focus on them because they’re more important now. Which, well, isn’t clearly wrong. If all those American things up and vanished, it’d be a topic for a week and people would stop caring. It’s more normal for products and media to just vanish. The NBA isn’t an ambassador of anything. It’s a corporate sports team that knows China doesn’t really give a shit about them, but it’s a good chance to get money from what’s likely to be the largest economy in about a decade. That’s all any of these companies are doing, and their road of good intentions is just pumping money into China’s goal of being number 1. I think it’s entirely fine for the NBA to decide that they want to decide they want to be friendly towards the Chinese market. I also think it’s fine for America to drop the NBA for being the weak, hypocritically “woke” corporation that it is. Either drop politics altogether and be a regular soulless corporation, or actually stand up for what’s right but not only in specific, comfy locations and with safe political statements.
unityByFreedom 6y ago
> Perhaps we should not abandon them any sooner than we must. Who said anything about the NBA abandoning China? Their government is free to permit watching it or not. > The NBA should stick to 'we are ambassadors for the USA to the world' and leave any politics at that. Silence can also be a political viewpoint. If you don't stand up for what you believe in you may lose it. The NBA has done a balancing act for the Chinese government, and neither moneyed interests nor government politics dictates what will happen next.
ASalazarMX 6y ago
> A few examples of excellence that are still available to Chinese citizens are the NBA, Apple products, US education and Tesla cars. I disagree on NBA (sportsmen are not a sign of overall excellence in a country), and Apple (high-end Huawei phones are ridiculously more advanced than apple in hardware terms). USA Education still has a great reputation, and most Musk enterprises are awesome and inspiring.
- hatsunearu 6y ago
  >high-end Huawei phones are ridiculously more advanced than apple in hardware terms Source on this? Doesn't seem like it...
  - ASalazarMX 6y ago
    I had a Huawei Mate 20X, back when apple still did single-camera flagships. Compared to my wife's iPhone XS Max, it beat it in many hardware metrics: - Bigger screen - More RAM - 50% bigger battery - 3 high quality cameras, with night mode and macro zoom (2020 iPhone still can't do macro, and night mode is improvable) The iPhone still came ahead in overall performance, and the newer iPhones have addressed some of these disadvantages, at the cost of losing features like the fingerprint reader (Mate 20X had it in the back, very comfortable to use). Mate had face unlock, but it was 2D, not the more secure 3D map the iPhone does. Specs here: - https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_xs_max-9319.php https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_xs_max-9319.php - https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_x-9369.php https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_x-9369.php
amrx431 6y ago
Nope, this is wishful thinking along with the lines "that allowing China to flaunt WTO rules and prosper will help it to be democratic." Counter-points - China doesn't want to sensor innovation, but control it. - Chinese companies and people have access to the latest innovation in all fields as most of the stuff is assembled there. - China reverse-engineers these innovations of West and float the market with competition which are many a times subsidized by Communist Party. - Censorship of individuals does not matter as long as Chinese companies have access to latest innovation which they can reverse engineer.

bigpumpkin 6y ago

This claim is objectively false since Chinese people become more nationalistic after visiting western countries. The cognitive dissonance isn't that western countries are better than expected, it is that they are worse. Look no further than the political activities by Chinese students in western universities.

bpodgursky 6y ago
The Chinese students with the education and wealth to study abroad are already among the top 5% in China. Their families are wealthy and powerful to start with. It's not shocking that many of them see negatives to living in the west as compared to China (in the west, they are on a more level playing field with the "masses"). Their experience does not translate to the remaining 95% who work manual jobs, with highly filtered information coming in, with no real hope or means of ever traveling abroad.
- whoevercares 6y ago
  For Urban Population I would argue the percentage is a bit higher. It’s not that uncommon for 3rd tier city children to go abroad nowadays. If you are talking about the billions of rural area population, it’s a hard problem and I think they wouldn’t have the spare time to learn or think about democracy values until their lives get better. Their dream is still “get out of my village and find a spot in Tier-3/2/1 city”. Its a bit “何不食肉糜” (let them eat cake) to Chinese people actually
- chongli 6y ago
  From my experience there are two tiers of international student. There are the ones who emigrate in late middle school/early high school to get permanent residency before entering university (and thus paying domestic tuition) and those who come over right at the beginning of university. The latter category pay exorbitant tuition and, from what I’ve seen, drive fancy cars and wear luxury designer brands. These kids have more money than they know what to do with. Their parents are likely to be at least somewhat involved in the CCP and so it makes sense that they’d be unimpressed with their western peers.

robert_foss 6y ago

The US had an intentional policy of opening up China through economic means. Which has not since it's implementation.

whoevercares 6y ago

While I think your point is mostly valid and benign, Your impression of China seems outdated and tone might seem a bit arrogant to a native Chinese. Chinese people recognize the gap and appreciate the excellence in their daily life. The CCP rarely censored in the way you described(e.g. it never says China’s education/manufacturing is the best, instead they call out the remaining gap constantly). As a matter of fact, the biggest concern I have is the political climate in the US has done more harm than the CCP can even dream of with any propaganda. Overseas Chineses tell more and more story of how chaotic US is to their family in China and that spreads. Ten years ago it’s a no brainer to send you child to get US education but now many parents are reconsidering.

bllguo 6y ago
yes, seconded. China isn't North Korea or the USSR. Don't take for granted that the West is "better", at this point China is looking over and saying "prove it" Can you blame Chinese citizens for preferring the stability and prosperity of their own regime, when they have the current disarray of American democracy to compare to? Frankly I would argue that the Chinese have a much better understanding of the US than the other way around. They study English, they are exposed to Western cultural exports (we're in a thread about the NBA, for instance), heck the general populace looked up to the US for a long time (not anymore)
- whoevercares 6y ago
  Probably still looking up in quite a few fields(technology, education), but on society/core value aspect it’s been shaky
  - bllguo 6y ago
    you're right. I should have said "less and less so". In any case it's definitely trending down
- ptx 6y ago
  > preferring the stability and prosperity of their own regime That's a bit of an unwarranted assumption. Even hinting that you have a different preference or questioning the reports of stability and prosperity (even privately among friends on WeChat, which is monitored and censored) can get you invited for a nice cup of tea with the local police.

theseadroid 6y ago

>The increasing censorship within China leaves less and less opportunity for the greater Chinese population to learn about the capabilities of other countries. Most of my friends back in China, especially devs, use VPN daily. Many Chinese learn English via English media or TV shows. check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s... >The CCP news tells me how terrible the USA is, yet, these elements in my life are excellent beyond what is created by my own country. just not true. I was really shocked about the homeless situation in NA which was never really reported back in China. and also from u/bpodgursky >the Chinese students with the education and wealth to study abroad are already among the top 5% in China. Not the case for most graduate students. Especially the ones received scholarships (such as me). Please check your sources guys. Try learn a bit Mandarin if you could or at least talk to Chinese ppl living around you. China is sick yes. But imagine diagnosing the illness of a patient without looking or talking to them but only via a malicious translator.

qbaqbaqba 6y ago
A simple question: are you a party member?
- jdm2212 6y ago
  The implication of this question is pretty rude, but also, CCP membership isn't terribly meaningful. See, e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/us/politics/china-travel-ban.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/us/politics/china-travel-...
  - theseadroid 6y ago
    not a party member btw. Am Chinese. I will follow up here on any questions you(qbaqbaqba or anyone else) have though. and if you are interested here's my thought on the whole topic in one piece: https://medium.com/@theseadroid/the-china-problem-ce0c1a0e579a https://medium.com/@theseadroid/the-china-problem-ce0c1a0e57...

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

throwaway2474 6y ago

Your comment is about 15 years out of date. There isn’t much that is “excellent beyond what is available” in China anymore. This type of thinking is why western foreign policy continues to get China totally wrong. Chinese people who study abroad are more often confused by the things missing in the west than they are liberated in the way you describe, in my experience.

Symbiote 6y ago
What is missing in the west?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- yumraj 6y ago
  Fear of being taken to a dark hole somewhere for making fun of the ruling junta, especially the top boss AKA the President/Chairman. /s
  - Taniwha 6y ago
    Pretty sure that fear is very much alive in Portland right now
    - yumraj 6y ago
      Sure, let’s point to a single, or two, case in one city in the US, in which case the DHS is being sued last I checked, to contrast a ground up system in the whole of China. Just today, or yesterday, a respected prof got fired from Tsinghua for being critical of CCP and Xi in particular.
    - CamperBob2 6y ago
      Pretty sure that's an outrageous exercise in false equivalence. What's happening in Portland isn't right, but it is an aberration, and it will be stopped. Nobody has "disappeared." What is the mechanism for redressing grievances like this in China, exactly?

fiblye 6y ago

> Having these examples in their hands or on their screens likely initiates a mild cognitive dissonance You’d be surprised, but no, it doesn’t. And from my experience, older people sometimes just kind of don’t like America, in the same way older Americans don’t like Cuba. Government says their government is bad, don’t really know the people but maybe they’re “brainwashed” unlike us, but the few I’ve met are okay so no reason to really do anything but ignore the country. Younger people I’ve talked to seem to know a considerable amount about America, and quite a lot of bad. The idea seems to be that companies build things in China because their country can’t and companies like the NBA and so on focus on them because they’re more important now. Which, well, isn’t clearly wrong. If all those American things up and vanished, it’d be a topic for a week and people would stop caring. It’s more normal for products and media to just vanish. The NBA isn’t an ambassador of anything. It’s a corporate sports team that knows China doesn’t really give a shit about them, but it’s a good chance to get money from what’s likely to be the largest economy in about a decade. That’s all any of these companies are doing, and their road of good intentions is just pumping money into China’s goal of being number 1. I think it’s entirely fine for the NBA to decide that they want to decide they want to be friendly towards the Chinese market. I also think it’s fine for America to drop the NBA for being the weak, hypocritically “woke” corporation that it is. Either drop politics altogether and be a regular soulless corporation, or actually stand up for what’s right but not only in specific, comfy locations and with safe political statements.

unityByFreedom 6y ago

> Perhaps we should not abandon them any sooner than we must. Who said anything about the NBA abandoning China? Their government is free to permit watching it or not. > The NBA should stick to 'we are ambassadors for the USA to the world' and leave any politics at that. Silence can also be a political viewpoint. If you don't stand up for what you believe in you may lose it. The NBA has done a balancing act for the Chinese government, and neither moneyed interests nor government politics dictates what will happen next.

ASalazarMX 6y ago

> A few examples of excellence that are still available to Chinese citizens are the NBA, Apple products, US education and Tesla cars. I disagree on NBA (sportsmen are not a sign of overall excellence in a country), and Apple (high-end Huawei phones are ridiculously more advanced than apple in hardware terms). USA Education still has a great reputation, and most Musk enterprises are awesome and inspiring.

hatsunearu 6y ago
>high-end Huawei phones are ridiculously more advanced than apple in hardware terms Source on this? Doesn't seem like it...
- ASalazarMX 6y ago
  I had a Huawei Mate 20X, back when apple still did single-camera flagships. Compared to my wife's iPhone XS Max, it beat it in many hardware metrics: - Bigger screen - More RAM - 50% bigger battery - 3 high quality cameras, with night mode and macro zoom (2020 iPhone still can't do macro, and night mode is improvable) The iPhone still came ahead in overall performance, and the newer iPhones have addressed some of these disadvantages, at the cost of losing features like the fingerprint reader (Mate 20X had it in the back, very comfortable to use). Mate had face unlock, but it was 2D, not the more secure 3D map the iPhone does. Specs here: - https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_xs_max-9319.php https://www.gsmarena.com/apple_iphone_xs_max-9319.php - https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_x-9369.php https://www.gsmarena.com/huawei_mate_20_x-9369.php

amrx431 6y ago

Nope, this is wishful thinking along with the lines "that allowing China to flaunt WTO rules and prosper will help it to be democratic." Counter-points - China doesn't want to sensor innovation, but control it. - Chinese companies and people have access to the latest innovation in all fields as most of the stuff is assembled there. - China reverse-engineers these innovations of West and float the market with competition which are many a times subsidized by Communist Party. - Censorship of individuals does not matter as long as Chinese companies have access to latest innovation which they can reverse engineer.