I've noticed that too. While there are legitimate criticisms of Chinese surveillance over Chinese social media (just like there are legitimate criticisms of American surveillance over American social media), I can't help by worry about something else: that this is how it begins. I worry that people who look like me will be deemed suspicious and discriminated against.

I worry when the FBI Director claims all Chinese student organizations are under suspicion because they have evidence that one university student club accepted donations from an embassy in order to fund a Chinese New Year party. Can you imagine if a student organization supporting American students studying abroad was deemed suspicious because the US Embassy bought them a turkey or two at Thanksgiving?

> I've noticed that too. While there are legitimate criticisms of Chinese surveillance over Chinese social media (just like there are legitimate criticisms of American surveillance over American social media), I can't help by worry about something else: that this is how it begins. I worry that people who look like me will be deemed suspicious and discriminated against.

Let's not draw a moral equivalence between US surveillance and Chinese surveillance. Chinese surveillance is explicit, and profoundly more invasive and pervasive than the US's. It's also explicitly used as a political tool - to enforce the will of the party, not the state. These are extremely critical differences that it is irresponsible not to continually and stridently point out. What China is doing to its citizens is infinitely more frightening than anything the NSA has ever done.

I'm not drawing a moral equivalence.

As someone who grew up in the US and has experienced racism, I fear where this campaign could lead. Here, we have an article about a Singaporean company trying to take over a US company. And the entire narrative is about China.

You're not going to find any empathy here on HN. Given your experiences you should already know this. In the long run the only reliable way to avoid racism in the US is to avoid the US. The fact that you have to worry about potential racism already shows that you already know that it's an untenable position associate with US.

>Can you imagine if a student organization supporting American students studying abroad was deemed suspicious because the US Embassy bought them a turkey or two at Thanksgiving?

no imagination needed. In Russia the organizations accepting foreign resources (private or public doesn't matter) must register as "foreign agents".

That's more like a common practice of all western media, and it's not just the past few months. I'm glad you noticed.

＞There's been an interesting trend over at least the last several months where NYTimes has been promoting fears about China

10+ years. NYT is at the frontier of American propaganda, as we saw with their Iraq lies following 9/11