13 ms·

The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control. The US has absolutely no "morals" so to

by snehk 4y ago

The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control. The US has absolutely no "morals" so to say and is allied with/provides literal military support to about 70% of dictatorships[1]. The US simply acts out of national interests, not morals. History proves this. I'm baffled by how many Americans repeat state propaganda points. [1] https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistance-to-73-percent-of-world-s-dictatorships/ https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistanc...

senttoschool 4y ago
I've been trying to preach this on HN for months. The American propaganda is blindingly strong. The US will work with one-party countries as long as they're not a threat economically. How else do you think that Americans cheer when factories get moved to Vietnam, which is significantly worse in human rights? Both of these things can't be true at the same time: 1. The US is concerned for Chinese citizens economically because there is only one government party in China. 2. The US thinks that CCP's policies are too effective economically that it might overtake the US as the #1 economy. The US and China have the same amount of morals. It's basic human instincts. What's at stake here is purely socioeconomics.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  What are you even talking about. China is regularly rated lower than Vietnam on human rights rankings and Vietnam is trending towards improvement. China is trending towards regression. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/vietnams-human-rights-record-is-poor-but-improving-hrmi-says-06232022235826.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/vietnams-human-righ...
  - senttoschool 4y ago
    Lived in China and Vietnam. There is no comparison. I don't care if Vietnam allows their citizens to use Facebook.
    - zarzavat 4y ago
      When did you live in China? China today is a different country to pre-Xi or even early-Xi China. Also China doesn’t let you go where the real human rights abuses are in Xinjiang.
    - anigbrowl 4y ago
      Please go into more detail, as there's a dearth of comparative information.
  - bakuninsbart 4y ago
    I thought this article did a quite good job at what is meant when people talk about the fight for democracy: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/03/31/what-biden-means-when-he-says-were-fighting-global-battle-for-democracy/ https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/03/31/what-biden-mean... Our morals in international politics are always just applied selectively, and there are few examples of where our best interest and moral considerations clash - because morality is immediately ignored or downplayed when interest is involved.
  - RedCondor 4y ago
    RFA? Come on. >Based on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, it was established by the US International Broadcasting Act of 1994 with the stated aim of "promoting democratic values and human rights", and countering the narrative of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as providing media reports about the North Korean government.[12] It is funded and supervised by the U.S. Agency for Global Media[13] (formerly Broadcasting Board of Governors), an independent agency of the United States government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- HeavenFox 4y ago
  To be fair, the theory that economic development leads to political liberalization isn't entirely fiction. Taiwan and South Korea both used to be de facto dictatorships.
  - vkou 4y ago
    Meanwhile, Russia's vastly more economically developed[1] than it was in the 90s, yet it went fully down the authoritarian slide over the past three decades. Also, it may be worth dropping by much of the Middle East to get another reality check on this question. The only thing economic development seems to consistently result in is a higher demand for imports. [1] Well, the nice parts of it are much wealthier than they used to be. The provincial towns are dying, and all the productive industries have been pushed out by oil and services.
    - dragonelite 4y ago
      Authoritarian slide is when those global south nations don't elect our puppets....
- herbst 4y ago
  This. And it's beyond sad that the majority of HN users blindly follows this more than obvious propaganda war.
- concordDance 4y ago
  > I've been trying to preach this on HN for months Please don't preach on hackernews. Instead try and communicate what you know and how you know it.
zpeti 4y ago
> The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control And? Do you want Xi Xinping in charge of global culture, security, finance? How is that working out for your average Chinese these days (and I’m not talking about the previous freeer era). You want social credit scores? One man basically in charge of the global military? You paint a picture of America as an evil empire, but what do the alternatives look like?
- aliyfarah 4y ago
  I'm not even sure how to make sense of what you wrote. How did you conclude everyone on the globe will get a Chinese social credit score if China becomes #1 economy in the world? Most people outside the West don't necessarily clamour for Chinese hegemony, but want to live in a multipolar world. Why should trade between non aligned countries have to be restricted when US decides to weaponize its currency?
- vasco 4y ago
  > You paint a picture of America as an evil empire, but what do the alternatives look like? The nice alternatives don't have big enough militaries to be considered seriously, one could point at some European nations for a more measured approach, but it's hard to do it seriously when we only exist because the US saved us and continues to do so, as Europe pretty much has no military power if push comes to shove.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    No military power is short selling Europe, just not as much as it probably should have, and that's because we figured war is no longer a viable option. Unfortunately recent events have shown this to be a fallacy.
- herbst 4y ago
  Do we want America as a world leader? Enforcing their dated moral views on us trough controlling money flow and social media? We do have accept violence but no nudity in our media when our society is the exact opposite? Yes that's whatabouttism but the world actually does suffer from the current state as well
beebmam 4y ago
The US is a state entity where its representatives are elected, and those representatives make the policy decisions on what nations get financial support for their militaries. To claim that these representatives don't make their decisions based on morality, or any other value that individuals have, is strictly false. One might argue that only individuals who have opinions in line with national interests are electable, but that would be bullshit. If there's anything to truly be internalized about the elections of Barack Obama followed by Donald Trump, it's that individuals have a profound influence on American policy. If there were national interests that were solely responsible for US policy, they why was both foreign and domestic policy profoundly different across presidencies? I'm genuinely curious how your worldview has an answer to this.
- data-abuse 4y ago
  Different leaders have different policies thus the US is a true democracy and is moral? Just because the Overton Window[1] is large in the US doesn't mean that political dissenting opinions are not suppressed. Consider the Twitterfiles, the government is actively censoring speech critical of the FBI and politicians. Think of the Hunter Biden laptop story, do you think that if that speech was not censored that different policies would be supported by the masses and that they would elect different representatives? People need to know information to make good decisions. If they don't know the information, obviously, they won't consider that in the decision making process [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
  - beebmam 4y ago
    The original claim is that the US acts out of national interest only, and doesn't take actions based on morality or other values that individuals have. To oppose that claim, one simply needs to show that individual values have at least some influence on US policy, not that individual values drive ALL policy. I've shown that
- sirsinsalot 4y ago
  Incompetence, greed and moralistic propaganda sure can masquerade as a functioning democracy.
SkyMarshal 4y ago
> The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control. This comment gets thrown around a lot but oversimplifies things. First, in the 90s, 2000s, and some of the 2010s ‘the US’ was China’s biggest cheerleader, investor, and supporter. Most US elites knew China would eventually become a bigger economy due to their 4x larger population, and were ok with it as long as they got to share in the wealth creation. To the extent those folks were the decision makers and thus ‘the US’, they didn’t dislike the idea of being the #2 economy. Second, sure the US doesn’t want to lose control of the mostly peaceful, prosperous, and free rules-based order it created after the disastrous first half of the 20th century. And rightly so. There is zero chance that a cult of personality totalitarian dictator like Xi Jinping is ever going to make anything broadly better for the entire world than what the US created, despite its mistakes and flaws along the way. None. It’s completely legitimate for the US to not want to lose control of that, which would mean losing some or all of it to something worse. I don’t agree with everything the US govt does - Iraq was a travesty, and I have no idea what went on with Libya, or what is going on with Syria, for example. But there’s a 0% chance that a world dominated by Xi Jinping and the CCP would be better.
- senttoschool 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - concordDance 4y ago
    > The first instinct for the Chinese is to negotiate The difference in behaviour seems more like an "is all you have is a hammer" thing. The fact that China can't decide to randomly bomb Nigeria is a big factor in it not randomly bombing Nigeria and the fact that France could easily bomb Lybia is a big factor in it actually bombing Lybia.
  - rl3 4y ago
    >The first instinct for the Chinese is to negotiate. Perhaps you should ask the Uyghurs how their negotiations are going.
  - 4y ago
another_story 4y ago
I don't see anything in the post of the person you're responding to that has anything to do with morals, nor the US liking or disliking China. So what exactly are you responding to?
kelnos 4y ago
I don't care what "the US" is in this context. I care about myself and the people close to me. And I don't like what life might look like if China were to become #1 and be able to dictate even more about our lives than it already does. The US and other Western countries are far far far from perfect. They suck in many ways. But I much prefer the West's values over that of the Chinese government's, as flawed as they might be. Certainly another potential global hegemon could be better for the world than the US (or, perhaps, no hegemon at all). But IMO China ain't it.
- foverzar 4y ago
  > to dictate even more about our lives than it already does What exactly does China dictate about your lives? I see people treat this like a fact, but there doesn't seem to be an incentive for China to instill its "way of life" outside of it, does there? So far this seems like a totally western outlook on external politics.
  - whinenot 4y ago
    >What exactly does China dictate about your lives? Extra-territorial policing might be a good start to the list. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63671943 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63671943
  - lazyeye 4y ago
    Ask Hong Kongers
    - hnfong 4y ago
      Are you or the OP in or related to Hong Kong? Because I don’t see how that’s relevant. (Posted from Hong Kong)
refurb 4y ago
I agree with your point that the US has no "morals", but that's pretty much any country. It's almost 100% self-interest, hence the geopolitical theory of "realpolitik" - pragmatism over everything else. That said, I disagree the US doesn't like China because it will be the #2 economy. The US doesn't care about that. What it cares about is a potentially hostile power.
lazyeye 4y ago
I wonder what the long-term impact is going to be of allowing advocates for foreign powers to fully participate in Western conversations, whilst not even Chinese citizens (let alone foreigners) can advocate against their own govt in China.

by snehk 4y ago

senttoschool 4y ago

I've been trying to preach this on HN for months. The American propaganda is blindingly strong. The US will work with one-party countries as long as they're not a threat economically. How else do you think that Americans cheer when factories get moved to Vietnam, which is significantly worse in human rights? Both of these things can't be true at the same time: 1. The US is concerned for Chinese citizens economically because there is only one government party in China. 2. The US thinks that CCP's policies are too effective economically that it might overtake the US as the #1 economy. The US and China have the same amount of morals. It's basic human instincts. What's at stake here is purely socioeconomics.

throwawaymaths 4y ago
What are you even talking about. China is regularly rated lower than Vietnam on human rights rankings and Vietnam is trending towards improvement. China is trending towards regression. https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/vietnams-human-rights-record-is-poor-but-improving-hrmi-says-06232022235826.html https://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam/vietnams-human-righ...
- senttoschool 4y ago
  Lived in China and Vietnam. There is no comparison. I don't care if Vietnam allows their citizens to use Facebook.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    When did you live in China? China today is a different country to pre-Xi or even early-Xi China. Also China doesn’t let you go where the real human rights abuses are in Xinjiang.
  - anigbrowl 4y ago
    Please go into more detail, as there's a dearth of comparative information.
- bakuninsbart 4y ago
  I thought this article did a quite good job at what is meant when people talk about the fight for democracy: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/03/31/what-biden-means-when-he-says-were-fighting-global-battle-for-democracy/ https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2023/03/31/what-biden-mean... Our morals in international politics are always just applied selectively, and there are few examples of where our best interest and moral considerations clash - because morality is immediately ignored or downplayed when interest is involved.
- RedCondor 4y ago
  RFA? Come on. >Based on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, it was established by the US International Broadcasting Act of 1994 with the stated aim of "promoting democratic values and human rights", and countering the narrative of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as providing media reports about the North Korean government.[12] It is funded and supervised by the U.S. Agency for Global Media[13] (formerly Broadcasting Board of Governors), an independent agency of the United States government. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Asia
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
HeavenFox 4y ago
To be fair, the theory that economic development leads to political liberalization isn't entirely fiction. Taiwan and South Korea both used to be de facto dictatorships.
- vkou 4y ago
  Meanwhile, Russia's vastly more economically developed[1] than it was in the 90s, yet it went fully down the authoritarian slide over the past three decades. Also, it may be worth dropping by much of the Middle East to get another reality check on this question. The only thing economic development seems to consistently result in is a higher demand for imports. [1] Well, the nice parts of it are much wealthier than they used to be. The provincial towns are dying, and all the productive industries have been pushed out by oil and services.
  - dragonelite 4y ago
    Authoritarian slide is when those global south nations don't elect our puppets....
herbst 4y ago
This. And it's beyond sad that the majority of HN users blindly follows this more than obvious propaganda war.
concordDance 4y ago
> I've been trying to preach this on HN for months Please don't preach on hackernews. Instead try and communicate what you know and how you know it.

zpeti 4y ago

> The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control And? Do you want Xi Xinping in charge of global culture, security, finance? How is that working out for your average Chinese these days (and I’m not talking about the previous freeer era). You want social credit scores? One man basically in charge of the global military? You paint a picture of America as an evil empire, but what do the alternatives look like?

aliyfarah 4y ago
I'm not even sure how to make sense of what you wrote. How did you conclude everyone on the globe will get a Chinese social credit score if China becomes #1 economy in the world? Most people outside the West don't necessarily clamour for Chinese hegemony, but want to live in a multipolar world. Why should trade between non aligned countries have to be restricted when US decides to weaponize its currency?
vasco 4y ago
> You paint a picture of America as an evil empire, but what do the alternatives look like? The nice alternatives don't have big enough militaries to be considered seriously, one could point at some European nations for a more measured approach, but it's hard to do it seriously when we only exist because the US saved us and continues to do so, as Europe pretty much has no military power if push comes to shove.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  No military power is short selling Europe, just not as much as it probably should have, and that's because we figured war is no longer a viable option. Unfortunately recent events have shown this to be a fallacy.
herbst 4y ago
Do we want America as a world leader? Enforcing their dated moral views on us trough controlling money flow and social media? We do have accept violence but no nudity in our media when our society is the exact opposite? Yes that's whatabouttism but the world actually does suffer from the current state as well

beebmam 4y ago

The US is a state entity where its representatives are elected, and those representatives make the policy decisions on what nations get financial support for their militaries. To claim that these representatives don't make their decisions based on morality, or any other value that individuals have, is strictly false. One might argue that only individuals who have opinions in line with national interests are electable, but that would be bullshit. If there's anything to truly be internalized about the elections of Barack Obama followed by Donald Trump, it's that individuals have a profound influence on American policy. If there were national interests that were solely responsible for US policy, they why was both foreign and domestic policy profoundly different across presidencies? I'm genuinely curious how your worldview has an answer to this.

data-abuse 4y ago
Different leaders have different policies thus the US is a true democracy and is moral? Just because the Overton Window[1] is large in the US doesn't mean that political dissenting opinions are not suppressed. Consider the Twitterfiles, the government is actively censoring speech critical of the FBI and politicians. Think of the Hunter Biden laptop story, do you think that if that speech was not censored that different policies would be supported by the masses and that they would elect different representatives? People need to know information to make good decisions. If they don't know the information, obviously, they won't consider that in the decision making process [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
- beebmam 4y ago
  The original claim is that the US acts out of national interest only, and doesn't take actions based on morality or other values that individuals have. To oppose that claim, one simply needs to show that individual values have at least some influence on US policy, not that individual values drive ALL policy. I've shown that
sirsinsalot 4y ago
Incompetence, greed and moralistic propaganda sure can masquerade as a functioning democracy.

SkyMarshal 4y ago

> The reason why the US doesn't like China is because the US dislikes the idea of being the #2 economy and losing control. This comment gets thrown around a lot but oversimplifies things. First, in the 90s, 2000s, and some of the 2010s ‘the US’ was China’s biggest cheerleader, investor, and supporter. Most US elites knew China would eventually become a bigger economy due to their 4x larger population, and were ok with it as long as they got to share in the wealth creation. To the extent those folks were the decision makers and thus ‘the US’, they didn’t dislike the idea of being the #2 economy. Second, sure the US doesn’t want to lose control of the mostly peaceful, prosperous, and free rules-based order it created after the disastrous first half of the 20th century. And rightly so. There is zero chance that a cult of personality totalitarian dictator like Xi Jinping is ever going to make anything broadly better for the entire world than what the US created, despite its mistakes and flaws along the way. None. It’s completely legitimate for the US to not want to lose control of that, which would mean losing some or all of it to something worse. I don’t agree with everything the US govt does - Iraq was a travesty, and I have no idea what went on with Libya, or what is going on with Syria, for example. But there’s a 0% chance that a world dominated by Xi Jinping and the CCP would be better.

senttoschool 4y ago
[flagged]
- concordDance 4y ago
  > The first instinct for the Chinese is to negotiate The difference in behaviour seems more like an "is all you have is a hammer" thing. The fact that China can't decide to randomly bomb Nigeria is a big factor in it not randomly bombing Nigeria and the fact that France could easily bomb Lybia is a big factor in it actually bombing Lybia.
- rl3 4y ago
  >The first instinct for the Chinese is to negotiate. Perhaps you should ask the Uyghurs how their negotiations are going.
- 4y ago

another_story 4y ago

I don't see anything in the post of the person you're responding to that has anything to do with morals, nor the US liking or disliking China. So what exactly are you responding to?

kelnos 4y ago

I don't care what "the US" is in this context. I care about myself and the people close to me. And I don't like what life might look like if China were to become #1 and be able to dictate even more about our lives than it already does. The US and other Western countries are far far far from perfect. They suck in many ways. But I much prefer the West's values over that of the Chinese government's, as flawed as they might be. Certainly another potential global hegemon could be better for the world than the US (or, perhaps, no hegemon at all). But IMO China ain't it.

foverzar 4y ago
> to dictate even more about our lives than it already does What exactly does China dictate about your lives? I see people treat this like a fact, but there doesn't seem to be an incentive for China to instill its "way of life" outside of it, does there? So far this seems like a totally western outlook on external politics.
- whinenot 4y ago
  >What exactly does China dictate about your lives? Extra-territorial policing might be a good start to the list. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63671943 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63671943
- lazyeye 4y ago
  Ask Hong Kongers
  - hnfong 4y ago
    Are you or the OP in or related to Hong Kong? Because I don’t see how that’s relevant. (Posted from Hong Kong)

refurb 4y ago

I agree with your point that the US has no "morals", but that's pretty much any country. It's almost 100% self-interest, hence the geopolitical theory of "realpolitik" - pragmatism over everything else. That said, I disagree the US doesn't like China because it will be the #2 economy. The US doesn't care about that. What it cares about is a potentially hostile power.

lazyeye 4y ago

I wonder what the long-term impact is going to be of allowing advocates for foreign powers to fully participate in Western conversations, whilst not even Chinese citizens (let alone foreigners) can advocate against their own govt in China.