I'm not from China and I disagree with the action of the China's government you listed above. However I wonder why this kind of opinion (aka the Chinese should be responsible for their government) is not commonly held against the USA?
The USA had invaded countries based on false pretext, toppling legitimate governments, and supported dictators all around the world. Why then, this "the Chinese are responsible for their authoritarian government" argument was not commonly held against the citizens of the USA, who supposedly live in democracy and therefore better equipped to actually change the situation?
The current Presidency has put some of these issues in sharper contrast, but the Iraq war was a total failure of the US media to do their job (IMO).
Why do you think it isn't?
Nationalists of all stripes get very angry when you point out their nation's crimes. Poland made outright illegal to point out that there were in fact Polish collaborators in the Holocaust for instance. It is true that the country was overwhelmingly the victim and Nazis were responsible but cutting off this self reflection only looks sinister. When 'face' culture is involved it seems to be further. Numerous sister city relationships were ended unilaterally by Japan for acknowledging the "comfort women" - ironically losing far more face internationally. Add in outright totalitarianism under a dictator and criticism is seen as an outright threat.
He's more likely to talk about camps in China than he is about the homeless in Los Angeles. One is a problem completely out of his control, another is one he could easily mitigate. You wonder why that is?
Myself, I do criticise my own government, protest on the streets, and also donate money to causes that work in opposition, mostly, to the current government. I've also made business decisions that involve much less interaction with mainland Chinese businesses and customers precisely because I disagree with the mainland Chinese governments way of doing things. Maybe it's cost me some money, but I sleep better at night.
As a Westerner, while its important to understand about the nasty side of China is somewhat pointless to endlessly focus on it because its not a problem we have the capacity to solve.
There are issues that we can obtain Chinese buy-in on like climate-change (we all live on this planet) so we should focus on things like this where we can work together so we can forge better ties instead of focusing on what we don't like about each other. Lets not do evil-empire all over again.
Whether some of the view points are valid in the first place (at least the second or third one) is deeply contested to Chinese. If you're just parroting Western media view points without showing at least some understanding of Chinese view points, you will likely not get any genuine answers.
But, yes, of course the point is that the poster likely isn't doing anything as they are partially funded by the Chinese government, and also are benefiting from all the aggressive actions their government is taking inside and outside of China.
More generally, what's the point of raising these accusations? When you speak to an American, do you demand that they apologize for their government's illegal invasion of Iraq (and the ensuing hundreds of thousands of deaths) or support for Sunni radicals in Syria?
As for what China is actively doing to assert these claims, I suggest you look at a map of which countries occupy which islands in the South China Sea. The PRC is not the worst offender there, by a long shot. Nobody's hands are clean in the matter.
Let's compare island occupation to island-building, island militarization and bullying tactics with vessels. Whatever combination of ways different parties are jostling over trying to de facto claim parts of the Sea, a pretty thorny root of the problem is one actor trying to claim all the marbles.
Like sailing warships or flying military aircraft next to islands that a foreign country claims as its own? US military actions is the South China Sea could be viewed as highly provocative. I can see why China would respond by putting anti-aircraft batteries on the islands.
> Self-interested motivations (TW)
Everyone's motivations are self-interested. Virtually all countries bordering the South China Sea stake wide-ranging claims.
> "We're big and we want it really bad" is not a justifiable standard of resolving resource and territory disputes.
Of course, that's not how China makes its case. It claims that the islands have belonged to China for hundreds of years, and points to various old maps, historical use by Chinese fishermen, mentions in various treaties, and so on. I don't know how strong these claims are, but I try not to get worked up about tiny uninhabited islands. I mostly hope that the situation doesn't escalate, but many sides are capable of escalation - the US, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and others.
> a pretty thorny root of the problem is one actor trying to claim all the marbles.
Two actors "claim all the marbles" (the ROC and PRC), Vietnam and the Philippines each claim 80% of the marbles, and Malaysia claims 30% of the marbles.
My original question was why any of this is relevant. If we're going to be raising random accusations against various governments, I can think of much more serious issues than some uninhabited islands and rocks, like the illegal invasion of Iraq or the overthrow of the Libyan government.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/world/asia/south-china-se... "... the tribunal rejected China’s argument that it enjoys historic rights over most of the South China Sea. "
> I mostly hope that the situation doesn't escalate, but many sides are capable of escalation - the US, China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and others.
Only one of those countries has been building / extending artificially reefs / islands in this area.
Xi lost face over this decision, and just said "tough, we aren't going to abide by it anyway". Hardly the actions of a reasonable government as good world citizens.
> I can think of much more serious issues than some uninhabited islands and rocks
China has deemed it very, very important to seize this area. It's pretty clear why to most people.
> US military actions is the South China Sea could be viewed as highly provocative. I can see why China would respond by putting anti-aircraft batteries on the islands.
You think it's reasonable to respond to freedom of navigation operations (also conducted by other countries than the USA) by militarising islands that aren't even theirs?
China doesn't recognize the tribunal's jurisdiction in this case, since China previously opted out of binding arbitration on territorial issues, as allowed by UNCLOS.
> Only one of those countries has been building / extending artificially reefs / islands in this area.
At the same time, the US has been conducting provocative military maneuvers in the South China Sea. These days, China and the Philippines are cooperating to some extent in the South China Sea. The US has been prodding the Philippines to take a more confrontational approach.
> China has deemed it very, very important to seize this area.
I think there are two issues. They view the sea as strategically important, and don't want to be at the mercy of the US Navy, which could shut down a lot of Chinese trade in the event of a conflict. They also don't want to lose face, and giving in to US demands that they drop China's traditional territorial claims would not go over well among the Chinese population.
> You think it's reasonable to respond to freedom of navigation operations (also conducted by other countries than the USA) by militarising islands that aren't even theirs?
"Freedom of navigation operations" is a propagandistic name given by the US Navy to very provocative military maneuvers in what China views as its territorial waters. I think it's entirely understandable that China puts defensive weaponry on islands it considers its own, in response to perceived violations of its sovereignty by a hostile military.
> One can only speculate as to why that is.
Calling people shills is against the rules here. That's why you're not coming out and saying it, but rather trying to imply it.
Those who aren't outright dissidents seem to have an exceptionalism complex where Chinese X is different so no criticism can apply - combined with Not Invented Here syndrome. From what I have heard from those through VPN tunnels they are accutely aware that they aren't anything special.
When people criticize China, they are almost universally criticizing the Chinese government, because of their double standards, shady practices, lack of respect for individual privacy/sovereignty, ethnic cleansing in xinjiang.
I love the Chinese people, whereas I hate the Chinese government.
I’d also suggest there’s a difference between acceptance of bad government action, even if you don’t or can’t actively oppose it, and active defense of such action.
- Joining/founding an underground resistance group
- Distributing anti-government propaganda
- Rising through the ranks of the party until you're influential.
- Emigrating (This won't directly influence your government. But losing skilled workers (I assume you are one) harms the economy, making a revolution more likely.
- If that is not possible, being as unproductive as you can get away with.
- Becoming friends with high-ranking officials, then influence them.
- Protesting. You can technically make sure you won't get punished by setting yourself on fire.
> And you people being racist pos because there is nothing I can do about my gov. Wtf do you want?
No one's being racist here. The entity people don't trust is the Chinese government. Governments act through the people they govern so that distrust extends to your potentially involuntary actions (but not to your character). Note that Gitlab doesn't trust employees living in China independently of their ethnicity.
Criticizing a government apparatus isn’t racist. I don’t know why every single time a westerner criticizes the PRC, they act like we hate all Chinese people.
Nobody here has a problem with Chinese people in general. Hopefully all of us can separate a nation’s people from their government... The problem is with the PRC’s government.
The link this whole discussion is about is about banning Chinese people. Not the government, not even people that work for the government, just "Chinese people in general"
This whole discussion is because of the PRC, and having ties to family members living under the PRC.
The ticket raised on gitlab is specifically about Chinese and Russian nationals, but this would also apply to Australians (they can be compelled, legally, to build backdoors upon request of the government). If I were in charge of a non-trivial company I certainly would not hire an australian national.
This same exact argument would apply for a white person from China who has family or other assets in China, and thus has leverage that can be used against them by the current totalitarian regime.
If the US government enacted a law similar to Australia where we could be compelled to build secret backdoors, then foreign companies probably wouldn't hire an American either.
This really has little to do with race, and everything to do with risk and governments. We would still be discussing a ban on hiring Chinese nationals even if China -weren't- almost completely homogeneous in race; it's basically irrelevant.
That right there is exactly the response your government would want you to have. You already 'hate the west', and now even more because of what I wrote? That seems unreasonable to me, and there was not one racist mention in my comment either.
If 'my' government (in Australia) were pulling these kind of stunts in 'my' name, damn right I would be doing something about it. In fact, I already do something about my community's shabby treatment of the First Australians (financially and lobbying wise).
I feel we, the people, have a responsibility to ourselves and other humans, irrespective of country of origin, culture or background, to resist and oppose transgressions by the governments who represent us.
Then you should be more pissed off at your own government and screwed up system than the people who are pointing how that the system you live under is screwed up.
In what way was the parent comment racist?
The Chinese government is, IMO, massively over sensitive to any outside commentary or criticism, eg: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-31/china-warns-australia...