5 ms·

Western Ignorance: Failure to See China Beyond the Party

31 points by suraci 2y ago

aurareturn 2y ago
Take the rapid rise of China’s EV industry in recent years as an example. There is already a huge amount of commentary on this, but most discussions overemphasise the role of the Chinese government, attributing the industry’s success to factors such as government subsidies, market distortion [扭曲市场] and organised intellectual property theft. However, few mention the brutal, cut-throat competitiveness [九死一生的惨烈竞争] of the Chinese market, the vast supply chain network built by Chinese companies, Chinese engineers’ higher level of technical skills [更高的专业素质], or workers’ disciplined and tireless drive to work hard [勤奋忍耐的作风]. I agree. It happens very often on Hacker News as well where you'd think the average IQ is slightly higher than the public and can see through the propaganda. Most HN commentators on China always devolve into the same argument about how China's government subsidizes EVs and stolen IP. Meanwhile, every advantage China has in engineering prowess, supply chain management, decades planning ahead, and ruthless competition are completely ignored. I think people on Hacker News should go to Shenzen. Just visit once. It's not scary. It's 100x safer than any major American city - no matter if you're white/black/latin/asian. It's a city that is at least 10 years ahead of anything I've seen in the US. The west continue to turn a blind eye to what is really happening in China and march on with their anti-China propaganda in the media. I suppose the US billionaires need you to hate China so their businesses will have less competition.
- chneu 2y ago
  The phrase I come back to when I hear/see xenophobic stuff about China is: "China has more honor students than the US has total students." Also heavily agree that Americans need to travel more. Most Americans have absolutely no idea how far behind this country is in so many ways.
  - seec 2y ago
    Being open-minded and able to understand others' points of view and way of working doesn't correlate very well with traveling. In fact, if anything, in my experience it has the reverse effect because people who travel feel like they know shit after having been moderately in another culture and pretend as if they now understand profound things when it's hardly the case. Being able to travel is expensive and to get there you need to have some sort of compliance with the dominant ideology, so it's like asking people to let of what actually allowed them to do that in the first place. On top of that, we don't need more people burning fuel to travel for pleasure to satisfy their desire for new things and social status. It doesn't bring anything more than personal satisfaction; ideas can travel in plenty of ways...
- bsder 2y ago
  > Most HN commentators on China always devolve into the same argument about how China's government subsidizes EVs and stolen IP. Meanwhile, every advantage China has in engineering prowess, supply chain management, decades planning ahead, and ruthless competition are completely ignored. Those statements are not exclusive--they can all be true. At the same time, because HN IS better engaged with sort of thing, they can ALSO plainly see with their own two eyes when "The Party" yanks the chain on a Jack Ma or Naomi Wu. They are fully aware of incidents like Huawei stealing Cisco software to the point of duplicating bugs. They have worked with some brilliant Chinese engineers--but they have also seen how much many of those engineers wanted to get out from under that system. etc. etc. I can have conflicted feelings that I would dearly love to see BYD completely splatter the arrogant, complacent, ossified US carmakers while not being happy that the result would irretrievably destroy large chunks of US industrial production and engineering and benefit a governmental regime that I very much distrust. HN has its faults, but they are likely to be some of the best educated about China--both the good and bad points--from personal experience.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    Which is why I advocate that HN people go to Shenzen. If they truly think that China copies/steals their most important tech, they'll be in for a shock because China is ahead in many industries. China can't copy and lead at the same time.
    - yorwba 2y ago
      On the contrary, you cannot lead without copying advances others make in their quest to catch up with you, or you'll be stuck having to rediscover everything yourself. Of course you cannot lead without any advances of your own either, but successfully copying what's known to work is already half the battle.
      - aurareturn 2y ago
        I didn't say China didn't steal/copy. The US sent spies to Great Britain to try to steal their cotton machine designs during the industrial revolution. Europe copied China's paper making, book printing, gun powder, noodles, compass. Such is the cycle of civilization. Once advanced enough, China will have its own problem of other nations stealing their tech.
- piva00 2y ago
  > It's a city that is at least 10 years ahead of anything I've seen in the US. Being very honest, traveling in the USA feels like I'm traveling back to the late 90s/early 2000s, every city feels a bit tired. It's not the West, it's the US.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  The weird thing is, the market distortions and subsidies are in fact really good policy that many in the US are simply brainwashed against generally. You'll regularly see people put down Tesla because EVs got subsidies. The subsidies seem to have been less effective than the Chinese ones, but they're objecting to the very concept of subsidies. I agree also that there's racism and ignorance about the quality of the engineering, but to some degree you need to create the market to allow the engineers to build and learn what works in practice and to do value engineering on making things at scale cheaply. There's a reasonable amount of research on this for solar PV, how government support kicked the market off and then the mass production took over to drive prices down.
- jopsen 2y ago
  > It's 100x safer than any major American city Is it safe to hold up a blank sheet of paper?
- lordfrito 2y ago
  > Meanwhile, every advantage China has in engineering prowess, supply chain management, decades planning ahead, and ruthless competition are completely ignored. Don't forget to include their advantage in slave labor in that list. Wait, maybe that's included in the part of the ruthless competition.
  - Smoosh 2y ago
    Yes, it’s terrible when that happens. https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/ https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/
- ben_w 2y ago
  > I agree. It happens very often on Hacker News as well where you'd think the average IQ is slightly higher than the public and can see through the propaganda. IQ doesn't help people see through propaganda, it helps people justify propaganda. Being neurodivergent helps with seeing through propaganda, but tends to make one socially awkward, perhaps even outcast — think of kids in Catholic families sincerely asking if consuming the Eucharist makes them cannibals, basically every group has something like that where everyone just glosses over the gap without thinking about it. Former partner of mine was opposed to Musk before it was fashionable, simply because he actually made a success out of Tesla and was therefore rich (this was well before him libelling the cave diver). She supported the original founders over Musk while also opposing cars in general in favour of public transport, and was a green campaigner who supported the UK coal mining strikes. It happens to all of us. You can almost certainly find some example of that in me — I struggle to find it myself, but I have noticed it. Unfortunately I've also noticed that I keep forgetting the incidents…
- yubblegum 2y ago
  > average IQ is slightly higher than the public Many on HN are former or current MIC types. Ideological mindset is like a mental straight jacket. As long as the object under consideration fits within the ideological framework, the mind is free to do its bit. When it doesn't, IQ drops like a rock.
  - seec 2y ago
    Pardon my ignorance but what is a MIC type ?
    - yubblegum 2y ago
      military & intelligence services and related companies.
nicman23 2y ago
this is literally propaganda in the purest form.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  If you read this, and China in any US mainstream media, you'd have a more balanced view. Consuming propaganda on both sides will give you a greater understanding overall. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that 95% of anything China in western media is negative, 4% neutral, and 1% positive. So don't fret. You're not going to suddenly love China just by reading this one piece.
- r00fus 2y ago
  You can say that about most of the news in the US. At least this gives a different point of view.
  - nicman23 2y ago
    good thing i am not from the us
- Fricken 2y ago
  Don't read it or you'll turn into a pinko!
  - suraci 2y ago
    [flagged]
ashoeafoot 2y ago
this is a state controlled media outlet?
- suraci 2y ago
  [flagged]
- postepowanieadm 2y ago
  Is there any Chinese media outlet that's not party controlled?
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  No, HN is only loosely affiliated with the American oligarchs.
SebFender 2y ago
Human rights - none are ignorent.
cadamsdotcom 2y ago
This is a very good take on the situation and it’s clear the person being interviewed is walking fine lines trying not to offend. Speaking as an outsider looking in, the Chinese perspective in 2025 appears to be composed of pragmatism, heads-down understanding of each person’s (relative) insignificance and how it leads to a need to work hard; belief in the collective ability to win; and now they’re seeing some world leadership, some carefully managed pride. If reading this triggers you, have another read of https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe. The article isn’t propaganda. It’s an interview with a person who understands the fine lines that must be walked to get through to people in a politically charged space at a politically charged time. It’s a really insightful read.
- chrome111 2y ago
  It's refreshing to see a comment that is fair and not immediately West++ East-- on HN - thank you. Too bad it'll get suppressed with the article under the flags as usual...

31 points by suraci 2y ago

Take the rapid rise of China’s EV industry in recent years as an example. There is already a huge amount of commentary on this, but most discussions overemphasise the role of the Chinese government, attributing the industry’s success to factors such as government subsidies, market distortion [扭曲市场] and organised intellectual property theft. However, few mention the brutal, cut-throat competitiveness [九死一生的惨烈竞争] of the Chinese market, the vast supply chain network built by Chinese companies, Chinese engineers’ higher level of technical skills [更高的专业素质], or workers’ disciplined and tireless drive to work hard [勤奋忍耐的作风]. I agree. It happens very often on Hacker News as well where you'd think the average IQ is slightly higher than the public and can see through the propaganda. Most HN commentators on China always devolve into the same argument about how China's government subsidizes EVs and stolen IP. Meanwhile, every advantage China has in engineering prowess, supply chain management, decades planning ahead, and ruthless competition are completely ignored. I think people on Hacker News should go to Shenzen. Just visit once. It's not scary. It's 100x safer than any major American city - no matter if you're white/black/latin/asian. It's a city that is at least 10 years ahead of anything I've seen in the US. The west continue to turn a blind eye to what is really happening in China and march on with their anti-China propaganda in the media. I suppose the US billionaires need you to hate China so their businesses will have less competition.

chneu 2y ago
The phrase I come back to when I hear/see xenophobic stuff about China is: "China has more honor students than the US has total students." Also heavily agree that Americans need to travel more. Most Americans have absolutely no idea how far behind this country is in so many ways.
- seec 2y ago
  Being open-minded and able to understand others' points of view and way of working doesn't correlate very well with traveling. In fact, if anything, in my experience it has the reverse effect because people who travel feel like they know shit after having been moderately in another culture and pretend as if they now understand profound things when it's hardly the case. Being able to travel is expensive and to get there you need to have some sort of compliance with the dominant ideology, so it's like asking people to let of what actually allowed them to do that in the first place. On top of that, we don't need more people burning fuel to travel for pleasure to satisfy their desire for new things and social status. It doesn't bring anything more than personal satisfaction; ideas can travel in plenty of ways...
bsder 2y ago
> Most HN commentators on China always devolve into the same argument about how China's government subsidizes EVs and stolen IP. Meanwhile, every advantage China has in engineering prowess, supply chain management, decades planning ahead, and ruthless competition are completely ignored. Those statements are not exclusive--they can all be true. At the same time, because HN IS better engaged with sort of thing, they can ALSO plainly see with their own two eyes when "The Party" yanks the chain on a Jack Ma or Naomi Wu. They are fully aware of incidents like Huawei stealing Cisco software to the point of duplicating bugs. They have worked with some brilliant Chinese engineers--but they have also seen how much many of those engineers wanted to get out from under that system. etc. etc. I can have conflicted feelings that I would dearly love to see BYD completely splatter the arrogant, complacent, ossified US carmakers while not being happy that the result would irretrievably destroy large chunks of US industrial production and engineering and benefit a governmental regime that I very much distrust. HN has its faults, but they are likely to be some of the best educated about China--both the good and bad points--from personal experience.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  Which is why I advocate that HN people go to Shenzen. If they truly think that China copies/steals their most important tech, they'll be in for a shock because China is ahead in many industries. China can't copy and lead at the same time.
  - yorwba 2y ago
    On the contrary, you cannot lead without copying advances others make in their quest to catch up with you, or you'll be stuck having to rediscover everything yourself. Of course you cannot lead without any advances of your own either, but successfully copying what's known to work is already half the battle.
    - aurareturn 2y ago
      I didn't say China didn't steal/copy. The US sent spies to Great Britain to try to steal their cotton machine designs during the industrial revolution. Europe copied China's paper making, book printing, gun powder, noodles, compass. Such is the cycle of civilization. Once advanced enough, China will have its own problem of other nations stealing their tech.
piva00 2y ago
> It's a city that is at least 10 years ahead of anything I've seen in the US. Being very honest, traveling in the USA feels like I'm traveling back to the late 90s/early 2000s, every city feels a bit tired. It's not the West, it's the US.
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
The weird thing is, the market distortions and subsidies are in fact really good policy that many in the US are simply brainwashed against generally. You'll regularly see people put down Tesla because EVs got subsidies. The subsidies seem to have been less effective than the Chinese ones, but they're objecting to the very concept of subsidies. I agree also that there's racism and ignorance about the quality of the engineering, but to some degree you need to create the market to allow the engineers to build and learn what works in practice and to do value engineering on making things at scale cheaply. There's a reasonable amount of research on this for solar PV, how government support kicked the market off and then the mass production took over to drive prices down.
jopsen 2y ago
> It's 100x safer than any major American city Is it safe to hold up a blank sheet of paper?
lordfrito 2y ago
> Meanwhile, every advantage China has in engineering prowess, supply chain management, decades planning ahead, and ruthless competition are completely ignored. Don't forget to include their advantage in slave labor in that list. Wait, maybe that's included in the part of the ruthless competition.
- Smoosh 2y ago
  Yes, it’s terrible when that happens. https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/ https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/
ben_w 2y ago
> I agree. It happens very often on Hacker News as well where you'd think the average IQ is slightly higher than the public and can see through the propaganda. IQ doesn't help people see through propaganda, it helps people justify propaganda. Being neurodivergent helps with seeing through propaganda, but tends to make one socially awkward, perhaps even outcast — think of kids in Catholic families sincerely asking if consuming the Eucharist makes them cannibals, basically every group has something like that where everyone just glosses over the gap without thinking about it. Former partner of mine was opposed to Musk before it was fashionable, simply because he actually made a success out of Tesla and was therefore rich (this was well before him libelling the cave diver). She supported the original founders over Musk while also opposing cars in general in favour of public transport, and was a green campaigner who supported the UK coal mining strikes. It happens to all of us. You can almost certainly find some example of that in me — I struggle to find it myself, but I have noticed it. Unfortunately I've also noticed that I keep forgetting the incidents…
yubblegum 2y ago
> average IQ is slightly higher than the public Many on HN are former or current MIC types. Ideological mindset is like a mental straight jacket. As long as the object under consideration fits within the ideological framework, the mind is free to do its bit. When it doesn't, IQ drops like a rock.
- seec 2y ago
  Pardon my ignorance but what is a MIC type ?
  - yubblegum 2y ago
    military & intelligence services and related companies.

nicman23 2y ago

this is literally propaganda in the purest form.

aurareturn 2y ago
If you read this, and China in any US mainstream media, you'd have a more balanced view. Consuming propaganda on both sides will give you a greater understanding overall. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that 95% of anything China in western media is negative, 4% neutral, and 1% positive. So don't fret. You're not going to suddenly love China just by reading this one piece.
r00fus 2y ago
You can say that about most of the news in the US. At least this gives a different point of view.
- nicman23 2y ago
  good thing i am not from the us
Fricken 2y ago
Don't read it or you'll turn into a pinko!
- suraci 2y ago
  [flagged]

ashoeafoot 2y ago

this is a state controlled media outlet?

suraci 2y ago
[flagged]
postepowanieadm 2y ago
Is there any Chinese media outlet that's not party controlled?
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
No, HN is only loosely affiliated with the American oligarchs.

SebFender 2y ago

Human rights - none are ignorent.

cadamsdotcom 2y ago

This is a very good take on the situation and it’s clear the person being interviewed is walking fine lines trying not to offend. Speaking as an outsider looking in, the Chinese perspective in 2025 appears to be composed of pragmatism, heads-down understanding of each person’s (relative) insignificance and how it leads to a need to work hard; belief in the collective ability to win; and now they’re seeing some world leadership, some carefully managed pride. If reading this triggers you, have another read of https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe. The article isn’t propaganda. It’s an interview with a person who understands the fine lines that must be walked to get through to people in a politically charged space at a politically charged time. It’s a really insightful read.

chrome111 2y ago
It's refreshing to see a comment that is fair and not immediately West++ East-- on HN - thank you. Too bad it'll get suppressed with the article under the flags as usual...