China's brightest children are being recruited to weaponize AI

This is a good point which seems to hold for now, at least with regard to exertion of military force. It’s mostly defensive although there is disagreement about the boundaries of what is to be defended.

Longer term though there are concerning matters like the extension of predatory loans to African governments in exchange for mineral and other development rights. Ironically similar to some of the abuses China suffered in its past.

that is just a cheap excuse repeatedly used in almost all high tech areas -

1. because the Chinese government is bad, China is not allowed to join projects like the international space station.

2. because the Chinese government is bad, allowing China to have access to any semiconductor techs from the west is not acceptable.

3. because the Chinese government is bad, exporting nuclear power station tech to China is now banned.

4. because the Chinese government is bad, Huawei's phones are banned, ZTE was not allowed to buy any US made parts.

5. because the Chinese government is bad, Alipay's acquisition of MoneyGram was banned.

6. because the Chinese government is bad, Chinese universities working on China's weapon programs are banned from buying DELL desktop computers.

when US banned exporting any high tech product to China, what to do when there is a trade imbalance? get Trump into the whitehouse, cry hard for the unfairness in trade!

give me a break, please come back with some better excuses.

> China has cultivated in its people a very troubling mental complex centered on national pride and driven by the Century of Humiliation.

I’d say this is correct to a small extent — the history lessons in particular, took that stance when it’s covering contents about Chinese history from late Qing dynasty to the end of WW2. But the education also renders China as a peaceful nation, and the rise of China would benefit the entire world, which majority of the Chinese population agrees.

> To say they are fervent about righting the wrongs and perceived wrongs of the past is an understatement

It would be a correct statement if “righting the wrong” simply means “making China a great country again” so that “centuries of humiliation would never happen again”. Yes majority of Chinese citizens do have national pride, not unlike people any other country I’ve seen. Except maybe some extreme nationalists, most Chinese citizens would love to see China becoming stronger peacefully and be helpful to under-developed parts of the world.

> But I think our more diverse (talking about points of view, not race here) and more activist anti-racism voices are a tempering force that China lacks.

There are very little discussion about racism in China compared to US, simply because it’s less relevant. - Most Chinese don’t ever interact with a different race. But diversity in oppinions in other topics are very common. I’d say it’s virtually impossible to keep a billion citizens on the same page.

Just as an example, at the core of China’s “nationalism education” (don’t know what should I call it) is the anti-Japanese war which was part of WW2. Like South Korea, plenty of Chinese hate Japan for not acknowledging the war crimes they’ve done and trying to erase those facts from their history books. There had been several movement to boycott Japanese products in the past two decades. At the same time, Japanese culture actually have a huge influence in China, especially among young people. Japan is also one of the most popular foreign destinations Chinese people would love to travel to.