I lived in China for many years.
(Edit: I didn't mean that they should be treated better because they live in the West. Obviously they should be treated better regardless of where they live. I mentioned HN's Chinese users who live in the West because they're an important part of China-related threads, which is not widely understood. Routinely they get accused of being communist shills, etc., when what they're actually doing is trying to bridge the gap between two worlds—an unenviable position as the gap grows. No one is required to agree with their views, but they absolutely should not be abused for this, and the HN users who do abuse them are behaving shamefully.)
However hard we try, it seems impossible to get a large segment of the community to behave any better, and the slurs are getting worse as the geopolitical trend (and associated things like media coverage) continues.
No, I'm not a secret communist supporter or any of the other silly things people come up with about this. Nor do I agree with the GP commenter; I've barely skimmed their posts. I simply want HN users to follow the site guidelines, give each other the benefit of the doubt, and not form xenophobic mobs.
People have literally been hounded off this site by comments like these. Is that the kind of community you all want to be part of? I can't believe it is. It's the default collective outcome, though—not that any of you want that outcome, but it's the group ugliness that posts like this add up to.
Denouncing people who provide that other half as "suspect" is itself an attempt to ensure only one half of the picture is heard/accepted.
Freedom of speech affects freedom of thought. If you can't say something then nobody else will hear it. And if you can't hear a certain viewpoint then you are less likely to consider it.
So you have to imagine the missing comments from China, firstly the person who wanted to criticise the government but was too afraid to say it, and secondly the person who never had a chance to consider criticising the government because they live in a place where that criticism is taboo.
Only with enough publicity. For now, in order to summon something which can threaten your real life, you have to at least post the criticism on Twitter, and have several people "reporting" it by making it go viral. Posting on HN is far more below than that bar, yet people imagine this is what's happening in a "reversed FUD" way.
> And if you can't hear a certain viewpoint then you are less likely to consider it.
True, but mind you HN is blocked by GFW. So if a Chinese citizen appears here, it means he can read whatever he want, sans the language barrier. Surely he can't have high profile public debate with his peers, but I've seen really healthy talks about these topics on "underground" communities, usually on blocked messenger services e.g. Telegram.
> So you have to imagine the missing comments from China
There are real reasons why people may not prioritize freedom (not saying that I agree with this) and are happy to accept an alternative narrative about China. OP talked about his own observations of whats happening on their state-owned media, and the general reception of these contents, then made his prediction on what would happen if the U.S. ban TikTok, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me and pointed out a potential weakness of the CCP narrative. It is usually a mistake to dismiss these words and fill the blanks with your imagination.
>The government can mandate spy code be inserted and any data they want.
Essentially true for US government with US companies too
In fact it's more about ensuring that data is living inside their legislative boundaries.
The servers are not owned by China/EU/US states; they're still owned by the companies that operate them, just the data isn't exfiltrated to be outside the reach of the police.
Jumping from authoritarian state, to "all companies are subject to secrete control by the state", that is already a quantum leap. If you believe what Soviet Union's state controlled economy collapsed, because it's impossible for state to control that much of details of the economy, then you must be having a great faith in Mr. Xijinping being a literal Super human, who can control "all companies".
Then to "branches of the military"?! Now you are saying that Mr. Xi Jingping is just a puppet of the military?! And Chinese military is so brilliant that they not even developed a powerful military force second only to US & Russian, and meanwhile, they actually runs "all companies"?!
I just cannot see any logic in this short statement...
Edit:
Note that CCP does ensure private firms provide support for employees who are also party member to organize relevant activity.
State-owned company obviously has party committee, and except great control on personnel, like kind of a board.
China has discarded many of the Communist philosophies which held the USSR back. It is somewhat difficult to organize an economy when you intend to abolish money. And even harder when you refuse to optimize for profit! The PLA is under no such restrictions.
> And Chinese military is so brilliant that they not even developed a powerful military force second only to US & Russian, and meanwhile, they actually runs "all companies"?!
Then you haven't been paying attention, because yes, the People's Liberation Army owns and runs many businesses, with active duty officers serving as executives. State-owned enterprise is basically the only part of the whole Communism thing left.
I don't think anyone said Xi Jingping was a puppet other than you, but he remains president in part because the military supports the idea. Selling off their toys and firing officers from their side gigs risks losing that support.
And to be precise, "People's Liberation Army owns and runs many businesses" this is almost certainly a misunderstanding of the organizing structure.
Mr Deng Xiaoping deliberately not disallowing military involving business activities [1], in part it's because the military is starved from support and resources, and they need some form of self-sustaining to maintain the basic infrastructure, especially ensure the continuation of the talent development relevant to high-end military capability.
That was banned in Jiang Zeming's rule [2]. In part, just like the purge done by Xi, was because military with its own finanical sources will become a plitical risk to the party head.
Today, there isn't any military owned business, officially. There are state-owned military equipment companies and research institutes. But their relationship with military is not too different from Locke-martin & US government & US military. (I mean, US system works better, right? Then CCP will happy to copy...)
Of course, there could be grey areas, and exceptions. But it should be common sense, here I repeat, military personnel cannot have financial support in their own control, that threatens the political leaders' authority.
If you can name one "active duty officers serving as executives", I'll be very surprised...
[1] http://congressionalresearch.com/98-197/document.php?study=c... [2] http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/981596.shtml [3] https://www.businessinsider.com/xi-tells-chinas-military-to-...
You're well intended here, but ignorant of how China operates. There is literally no way to enforce what you suggest.