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The China Cultural Clash

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191–200 of 379 posts

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#191
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese consulate in Houston put out a statement condemning the tweet. You have a track record of China using the heavy hand to dictate the messaging of corporations and individual citizens. No coordinated message in China goes through without the explicit or implicit consent of the government, even if it starts "from the people". It's not hard to make the connection here.

> The Chinese consulate in Houston put out a statement condemning the tweet. Okay, perhaps. But that could also be them jumping on a popular bandwagon. I'm just raising this doubt because I've seen, many times on sites like this, enormous panics over supposed Chinese government actions, which actually boil down to totally innocuous actions from individuals. The most common cognitive bias when the West discusses the E…

> Okay, perhaps. But that could also be them jumping on a popular bandwagon.

How could there be a bandwagon when twitter is banned in China (so no one could have ever seen the tweet), and immediately after the tween all Chinese social media blocked any posts related to the Houston Rockets? There was zero way for anyone in China to even know it was a thing or to be angry.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tim only stands up to leaders and governments who cannot cause him physical of financial harm. Pretty much par for the course for many American CEOs but he stands out because how much he touts Apple's stance for rights.

Even if it means bad press for saying nothing?

There would be no bad press for saying nothing. There seems to be some debate whether public CEOs have the right to freely express their personal opinions on certain political issues, with a bunch of high profile cases that would be distracting here; but there's certainly no argument that public CEOs have the duty to express (or even hold) any opinions whatsoever on things that are major political events abroad; Cook responding to all Hong Kong related matters (as far as they don't directly concern specific actions that directly affect Apple) with "no comment" would not get any significant bad press as that's not breaking any taboos or even conventions.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#193
post #95
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly my point. You, an American citizen, call it "economic power being concentrated by foreign states". But Chinese citizens call it "ordinary people boycotting offensive speech". It's the NFL kneeling protests and boycotts again, except divided by country rather than by red/blue within the US. It's annoying to have people you don't know come in and tell you your speech is offensive, and if you want that t…

Nobody, including Chinese citizens thinks this is "ordinary people boycotting offensive speech", this is government action.

Have you been on any Chinese social media?

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#194

Anti-China propaganda machinery is in full force today. So many anti-China propaganda articles in a technical news site. This isn't what I was expecting when I joined Hacker News. I was expecting to see Hacker news, not this rubbish that has littered the front page today. I am even ready to be removed from this site today. I am not even Chinese. I have never visited China but I am able to see anti-China bullshit that…

How is this anti China propaganda? These are legitimate complaints that haven't been properly addressed nor called out for years.

One-sided complaints? When we point out millions of people which were murdered by US, we are downvoted and suppressed because we are a minority on this US-dominated website. I am seriously fed-up with the bullshit spread on this site. You can remove some of us and continue to discuss rubbish pro-US drivel. If there is a way to report users, please do me a favour by reporting my account. I want to get out of this rubbish website today.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#195
post #41

I see lots of Anti-China sentiment. I would be very careful here into not falling into their deliberate trap of making "The West" China's "Enemy". China in its current totalitarian form needs an "Enemy" to survive, without it, it has to deal with difficult internal questions which will force it to adapt and change - and this what scares them. Totalitarian governments rely on distraction and misdirection of the popula…

Westerners act like they really care about us and we are some kids who refuse to take their meds.

Some of you genuinely care about us and I can appreciate that, but as a whole, I find the Westerners' altitude towards us disturbing.

Reasons:

1. Knows very little about China except from cherry-picked news by Western media, but pretending to know everything about us, better than us. This makes many of your arguments baseless and extremely annoying to the eyes.

- How many of you have lived in China for more than 1 year and know the language and the culture? I have been in the US for 9 years, by your logic I am so qualified for the next POTUS.

- When was the last time you saw bad news about Taiwan on your media? Does this mean Taiwan is heaven on earth?

- Have you read Henry Kissinger's On China? Do you know who Edgar Snow is? Have you heard of the 1938 Yellow River flood and know its cause? If you answer no for all three questions, it is unlikely that your opinion about China worth a read.

- I saw one HNer wondered if any of us mainlanders know what's happening in HK. Excuse me? HK is physically connected to other parts of mainland China, Luohu port alone served 83.2 million passengers in 2015.

2. Double standard in just about everything.

- Terrorist attack in Paris, everybody mourns; terrorist attack in Kunming, freedom fighters!

- US fights with {UK, USSR, North Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Libya, China, whoever-it-is-this-week}, we are just spreading freedom; China fights with the US (with no blood shed), you are just hiding your own problems.

- Care to explain why are Francis Cabot Lowell and Samuel Slater your hero if you care so much about intellectual property and fair trade?

- I see at least one post about HK on HN every single day, since June. So either the people from Kashmir don't deserve your attention, or being your ally means one can get away with this.

3. General arrogance towards us.

- For you internal affair, clearly there are always multiple parties involved, people should make observations from different perspectives and critical thinking is required. When it comes to us, well, you Chinese are all borgs that think and act alike. Apparently all the 90 million members of the CCP share the same brain, there cannot possibly be any conflict inside the party which affects its actions.

- I have witnessed multiple times, on HN, where people say that they can't wait to see a revolution happen in China or a joint military action that overthrows our government. Yes, millions of Chinese are more than welcome to die ASAP just so you can be more confident about Western values.

- When it comes to battling the climate change. The US citizens should do nothing and keep their current life style. How dare the Chinese want to eat beef like we do, owning big houses and lawns like we do, and drive pick-ups like we do. Per capita carbon emission and meat consumption is the wrong metric to use!!!!!!1111 You Chinese should just stick with bicycles and eat more rice.

(HN is especially bad in these regards. Seriously, even the 4chan folks are much more adorable than HNers, at least they know they are shit talking.)

The CCP treats us like shit. But when I see Westerners have discussions about China, I don't feel like you want to help us because your discussions are almost always filled with Western propaganda, misinformation, and utter ignorance. All I see is a massive circlejerk based on half-truth, half-misunderstanding. I know some of you fantasize that if more and more Chinese come to the West or see online discussions like this one, they will accept Western value and the CCP will collapse in no time. But the reality is, based on the reasons above, you only humiliate yourself and push us further away from you. Feel free to deny all your faults and blame the CCP for brain-washing us into disagreeing with you (as you have always did), but more and more mainlanders are agreeing with me.

Yes I registered to post this, yes I am a Chinese, yes I am saying something bad about you Westerners. I know some HNer can't wait to point these out and accusing me of being a wumao, sorry I took you chance :P

You may down vote me now.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#197
post #35
post #4

This article frames this as the US vs China, but it's really been the "Western world" vs China. And the western world has been incredibly naive and uncoordinated when it comes to dealing with China. We've all accepted the incredibly one-sided deal, in some kind of idealistic hope that the Chinese would latch on to "western" values of democracy etc just by trading with us. Edit: World -> Western world.

The US is still special in this context where free speech is really taken to heart and extends to not only dissent against the government but even vile extremely unpopular political opinions are protected ...which is something you don't always find in every western country. For example, in Charlottesville 2017 [1] the local government tried to prevent Neo-nazis from using a park for a protest but ACLU sued the gov an…

> “We are strongly dissatisfied and we oppose Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right of free expression. We believe that any speech that challenges national sovereignty and social stability is not within the scope of freedom of speech,” CCTV said in its statement in Chinese, which was translated by CNBC.

I normally find the "hate speech is free speech" argument to be pretty tiring, but it's also true that once you start carving exemptions to free speech you can easily carve one out that says "criticizing the government is like hate speech", and then you can justify anything.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#198
post #172
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Chinese consulate in Houston put out a statement condemning the tweet. Okay, perhaps. But that could also be them jumping on a popular bandwagon. I'm just raising this doubt because I've seen, many times on sites like this, enormous panics over supposed Chinese government actions, which actually boil down to totally innocuous actions from individuals. The most common cognitive bias when the West discusses the E…

Here, the action was fast in a way that speaks of external coordination. If someone in the US makes politically questionable speech, the fallout is stretched over days, and generally products aren't pulled immediately from retailers, etc. Here, we had many commercial actors respond at once (Alibaba, Tencent, Li Ning, China Basketball Association, etc.). It reeks of state coordination and pressure, especially when Chi…

try non-PC speeches in US, race, LGBT or gun related speeches you'll see

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#199
post #79
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people want a Great Firewall. I just don't want economic power being concentrated by foreign states to suppress political speech here.

This is exactly my point. You, an American citizen, call it "economic power being concentrated by foreign states". But Chinese citizens call it "ordinary people boycotting offensive speech". It's the NFL kneeling protests and boycotts again, except divided by country rather than by red/blue within the US. It's annoying to have people you don't know come in and tell you your speech is offensive, and if you want that t…

Ordinary people boycotting offensive speech would manifest as people choosing to not watch NBA games because of this - which would be entirely within their rights if that's how they choose. However, if NBA is simply removed from the market, that's not a boycott by ordinary people, that's government sanctions.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#200
post #184
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always bemused to have to say this, but: nobody likes censorship because they enjoy "falling in line". People everywhere support censorship exactly to the degree that they agree with the censors. You probably didn't shed a tear when Alex Jones was deplatformed, because he's a scoundrel, and if this really did escalate to a full block of the NBA (which seems unlikely), by that point many Chinese citizens would pro…

This. So much this. Deplatforming is deplatforming. If one supported the deplatforming of Alex Jones, and doesn't also support China on this, then they are a hypocrite engaging in severe cognitive dissonance. Freedom of speech is not some "loophole" that allows people to say nasty things. It's a bulwark against authoritarianism. The ones who forget that need to study world history when it comes to freedom of speech a…

Twitter, Facebook, and any other entity that deplatformed Alex Jones are private companies and can deplatform whoever they want. In fact that is part of their freedom of speech. This is different from government-enforced silencing of speech, which is what is happening in China right now.

I feel no cognitive dissonance, but maybe you can explain more why I should.

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