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Security concerns you need to think about when visiting the US are absolutely no less than those when visiting China these days. Treat it like a totalitarian di
by mcv 2mo ago
Security concerns you need to think about when visiting the US are absolutely no less than those when visiting China these days. Treat it like a totalitarian dictatorship with more technological means.
- frgturpwd 2mo agoHonestly, I personally would be less nervous visiting China.
- VBprogrammer 2mo agoThis has become a running joke with a couple of the people in my office who have recently visited China (from the UK). The next 2 years will be interesting for democracy as a whole.
- expedition32 2mo agoChina actually wants people to visit them and spend money. And although I don't agree with the CCP ideology the Shanghai subway is ridiculously impressive.
- inigyou 2mo agoRemember most of the Chinese train infrastructure was built in the time since the Hyperloop.
- Ferret7446 2mo agoChinese train infrastructure also had a lot more casualties than any modern Western nation, even with a conservative estimate of the covered up ones. Building fast is a lot easier if you can break some eggs.
- don_esteban 2mo agoYou mean casualties among workers building it? Or casualties among the passengers traveling on it?
- Markoff 2mo agoI was not impressed when I was sent there on business trip, from what I remember their subways were not as big as in Beijing or other CN places and I hit there my head, obviously anything is better than HK/London. Normally I'm not claustrofobic, but in HK subway...
- InsideOutSanta 2mo agoI haven't been to the US since Trump first got elected, but even before that, immigration agents often seemed oddly adversarial, whereas immigration agents in China just don't really seem to give a shit.
- crossroadsguy 2mo agoFrom what I read about them (never had the honour and pleasure of interacting with one) it seems for some time they have had too much power with almost zero accountability and consequences.
- vintermann 2mo agoMaybe marginally, but I'm still not visiting any county where I would be in trouble if the government/police knew my opinions of them. That's not just the obvious ones like US, Russia and China, but also countries like Thailand, Egypt, UAE, Israel to name a few. I like seeing the world, but not that much.
- inigyou 2mo agoIn China I would expect to be kicked out for having the wrong opinion as long as I didn't cause a big fuss. In the US I'd worry about being imprisoned.
- mc32 2mo agoChina is known to hold Canadians on the excuse of being spies… spying for them is oftentimes filming without prior approval in non coastal but still civilian regions.
- jeromegv 2mo agoBut weren't they... spies? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Michael_Spavor_and_Michael_Kovrig#:~:text=In%20December%202018%2C%20Canadian%20nationals,in%20Canada%20on%20December%201. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_of_Michael_Spavor_an... > According to a report by The Globe and Mail in November 2023, Spavor sought a multimillion-dollar settlement against the federal government for involving him in espionage activities without his knowledge. Spavor alleged that he provided Michael Kovrig with intelligence on North Korea, which Kovrig then secretly gave to the Canadian government and its Five Eyes allies without Spavor's permission, leading to their arrest and detention
- fn-mote 2mo agoThe article clearly indicates the gray area. Your comment oversimplifies that dramatically.
- CWuestefeld 2mo ago
- RobotToaster 2mo agoAt this point I'd be less nervous about vising North Korea.
- MSFT_Edging 2mo agoSomething I think is funny is that a lot of Chinese police think of themselves as catching up to the US in terms of surveillance tech. Think about how many internal migrant workers China has coming to the cities for work then back out to the rural areas.
- inigyou 2mo agothis reminds me of the fact that Adolf Hitler learned his craft by trying to emulate how the USA treated native americans
- Markoff 2mo agoNobody in China cares about your phone/laptop.* *Unless you are (well) known dissident/journalisy/politician. US is much more totalitarian than China. Lived in China for years, had multiple times various visa/residence permit issues with police and guess what, nobody cared about my electronics or was sending me to any detention, all I've got were quie helpful officers trying to find workarounds for me to deal with the situation. Same thing on my last trin in summer 2025, we didn't stay in hotel, didn't go to register to police as you are supposed to and when crossing province border checkpoint guess what happened - they let us go to our tourist sight and told us to just register after weekend and as usual officers in police station couldn't care less, they just registered us without any issues. You can complain about plenty things in China, there sure is a lot of bureaucracy but when you actually have to deal with them, they are pretty laidback and trying to be helpful usually. By these standards and my experiences with registration in police stations in other two EU countries I can tell you China was the friendliest most laidback and convenient experience. People who claim China is totalitarian dictatorship clearly never been to China and should get off their high horse, China nowadays make less trouble for their own citizens than EU hating them trying to make lives of EU citizens as inconvenient and expensive as possible.
- curt15 2mo agoWere you a Caucasian in China? Foreigners, particularly those from powerful Western countries, tend to get much more deferential treatment than locals.
- Markoff 2mo agoObviously, if you do your research you will not go as black (partly also brown) person to China/Japan/East Asia unless you have any other option (though I guess students from poor African/*stan countries don't have many options). I would disagree with different treatment compared to locals vs whites. It's not like whites/foreigners have only benefits, good luck booking ANY hotel (I guess this improved since visa free policy) or renting an apartment as foreigner, which was a shit show or even good price in some markets in past (this was solved by online shopping). But you will get definitely different treatment as white foreigner vs "darker the skin worse the treatment" foreigner.