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I don’t really think a sanctioned entity is under obligation to argue “both sides”. I doubt Chinese companies under similar conditions will do so, or have done

I don’t really think a sanctioned entity is under obligation to argue “both sides”. I doubt Chinese companies under similar conditions will do so, or have done so in the past.

aurareturn 2y ago
Funny thing is, when I talk to Chinese people in China, nearly all of them understand why the US and China are fighting: economic reasons. There isn't the same level of hate/demonization of the US in China as there is the opposite in US. People in China seem to be able to separate the emotions from the situation and able to understand the circumstance logically. Meanwhile, in the US, it's become more of a hate thing through nonstop anti-China propaganda.
- lazyeye 2y ago
  Is this actually true? From what Ive seen and read, the US is constantly demonized in the Chinese media.
  - yieldcrv 2y ago
    Nobody relies on that in China
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    The fact that people actually ask this question, shows how people in the west (assuming you are from there) only see China through mainstream media. No offense to you in particular. In China, if you walk around the street in any city, you can see many American brands such as McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, Microsoft, Apple. American logos are proudly displayed. If you walk into a cafe, you will more often than not, hear American music. Chinese cinemas will show Hollywood movies. They have statues of Kobe Bryant and when the NBA plays there, they get hundreds of thousands of fans. This is all in 2024, by the way. Meanwhile, in America, everything Chinese will inevitably get the "China bad" treatment. Chinese companies doing business in America have to hide the fact that they're Chinese. Google "Is company..." and often the top autocomplete results includes something like "Is x company Chinese?". The level of propaganda is not nearly the same on both sides. Go to China and see for yourself. I just came back from Shenzhen. Absolutely stunning modern city that feels like it's 5 years ahead of anywhere I've been to. It's extremely safe for foreigners. Ridiculously safe actually. By my estimation, 80% of the cars on the road are EVs. Super clean air, cleaner than most American cities nowadays. You never hear about this stuff in western mainstream media.
    - Manuel_D 2y ago
      75% of Chinese report negative views of the US: https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/how-do-chinese-people-view-west-divergence-and-asymmetry-chinas-public-opinion-us-and https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/how-do-chinese-p... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-American_sentiment_in_mainland_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-American_sentiment_in_m... Apparently 60% responded that the killing of Bin Laden was a bad thing because he was an anti-american warrior.
      - aurareturn 2y ago
        >75% of Chinese report negative views of the US I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing the type of negative view and the degree.
    - pedroma 2y ago
      I was under the impression there was a large demographic of Chinese who would buy Huawei phones over iPhones because they were Chinese and not American, despite the chip being being a few generations behind an iPhone. Meaning, there are people in China who are nationalistic, as there are in America. And these have enough of a Chinese over American view they would purchase an arguably worse product for their views. As for cultural exports, I think America just dominates the world in that regard. If you want to use that as a comparison China would have to have equivalent cultural exports to be a fair point. And as far as I know most people have no qualms with eating Panda Express, PF Changs, or small Chinese takeouts, which is a Chinese cultural export. >Super clean air, cleaner than most American cities nowadays. I'm skeptical of that. I'd concede if you provided data but a quick Google search for AQI right now says the worst US city NYC is 54 AQI and Shenzhen is 56. Los Angeles is 33, SF is 19. (source IQAir)
      - aurareturn 2y ago
        Meaning, there are people in China who are nationalistic, as there are in America. And these have enough of a Chinese over American view they would purchase an arguably worse product for their views. Of course there are nationalists in China. I didn't argue against that. As for cultural exports, I think America just dominates the world in that regard. If you want to use that as a comparison China would have to have equivalent cultural exports to be a fair point. And as far as I know most people have no qualms with eating Panda Express, PF Changs, or small Chinese takeouts, which is a Chinese cultural export. I don't think a few Americanized Chinese restaurants with American owners compare to my examples? The cultural export power of America is precisely one of the main reasons why I sense that the level of anti-American sentiment in China is not nearly as bad as the anti-China sentiment in the US. I'm skeptical of that. I'd concede if you provided data but a quick Google search for AQI right now says the worst US city NYC is 54 AQI and Shenzhen is 56. Los Angeles is 33, SF is 19. (source IQAir) The data is just me walking on any street in Shenzhen and almost never smelling any gasoline or feel the heat from cars.
  - petre 2y ago
    I sonetimes come across Global Times articles which are subtly nuanced, not by demonizing the US but by promoting the Chinese narrative instead instead.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  I mostly see that too, but I do want to point out some genuine patriotism within China. In the US, it seems like any conversation about China is derailed into something unrelated that the party in China does, which is confounded by the inability to separate a private sector in China from the party. Its just not a 1-to-1 mapping to our system, alongside an unwillingness to see it any other way. In reality, people in China are just trying to live their lives, and do. They know how to navigate the rules of their system and the day to day is fine.
  - vlovich123 2y ago
    > They know how to navigate the rules of their system and the day to day is fine. You could make the same argument of Soviet Russia and other despotic regimes (like today’s Russia). Does it provide any special insight? The majority of people are not involved in the power system of governments. Having government be intimately intertwined the way China does makes the economy makes the playing field unfair. China basically locked out a lot of US companies from the market and forced a tech and knowledge transfer instead and the US leaders let that happen. The US is starting to finally try to adjust its markets to reflect that and it’s sticking with free markets for now (módulo stuff like TikTok). Another issue for China domestically is that the entertaining or economy and politics means that there’s an even strong danger of corruption than even the US with all its problems.
- coliveira 2y ago
  Of course, if you analyze things logically you'll conclude that the dispute is merely economic, because the US was buying everything from China until a few months ago.
- cooper_ganglia 2y ago
  People in the US can recognize that the fighting is caused by economic reasons, and surely the average American citizen and the average Chinese citizen don't hold animosity towards each other on a personal level. I think manufacturing jobs moving to China hurt the middle class in the US, and that's caused a disdain for China (and US politicians who push for things like that). But otherwise, I don't think the China rhetoric is too out of touch with reality. It would be very interesting to talk to someone in China and directly compare perspectives.
  - aurareturn 2y ago
    I'm going to disagree on this one. It's not based on my personal observation. I recently read a comment on HN on why this is. The main point of that comment suggested that in a democracy, the government has to convince the public (voters) to hate something before they can justify the action. In China, they don't have do such thing obviously. Therefore, the level of propaganda is not nearly the same.
    - kortilla 2y ago
      That’s a false premise. The government in the US does not need popular approval to do things. There isn’t direct voting on any of these actions and pressure on politicians is indirect and very slow for all but extremely egregious actions.
      - aurareturn 2y ago
        >That’s a false premise. The government in the US does not need popular approval to do things. Are you sure about that? Every US history class I've ever taken growing up told me about some form of propaganda usage by the US government prior to some action. WWI, WWII, Cold War, Vietnam War, Iraq War etc.
        mlsu 2y ago
        Propaganda is as much about convincing "the people" as it is convincing the "internal apparatus". Of course, for something like WWI, you have to have propaganda because the effort required is too large -- you can't do WWI or WWII with the apparatus alone. But it's very important, even for the people "on the inside", to believe that they are fighting for the right cause, to be able to rationalize their actions. If you need something morally fraught to be done (like fight a war), the people doing it, regardless of who they work for on paper, are much more effective if they believe in their hearts that it's the right thing to do. Propaganda isn't really about convincing people do to things, it's about giving them the emotional toolkit to justify doing things with purpose and pride.
- stefan_ 2y ago
  Yes, when you don't have access to independent reporting, you miss China building hundreds of landing and invasion vessels, ramming and threatening neighbors over absurd territorial claims, and you could ignorantly conclude there must be "economic reasons" behind the US and China fighting. I'm here to tell you that the economic conflict is merely an immediate and necessary consequence from the realization that when war happens, the US is too reliant on Chinese manufacturing - and so it is being aggressively decoupled.
  - coliveira 2y ago
    Is China threatening any American owned territory? If not, why do you conclude that the US needs to go to war?
    - Sabinus 2y ago
      Because the US is the primary enforcer of the world order that mandates, broadly, that everyone can trade with no fear of attacks on their shipping, and that we don't steal each other's land any more. When the US gives up on that role, the world is going to change drastically, and not for the better.
      - coliveira 2y ago
        > the US is the primary enforcer of the world order Nobody gave the US this legal power. It has no credibility there. > everyone can trade with no fear of attacks on their shipping Right now this is false around the area controlled by the Houthis. > we don't steal each other's land any more Israelis are stealing land with US support.
        Sabinus 2y ago
        [flagged]
        aguaviva 2y ago
        Plus that conflict is quite complicated, predates WW2 and the imposition of this system, and the US does not support the settlers. It's not that complicated, actually. The US is technically not a fan of the settlements, but its criticisms have been muted to the point of silence for several years now. Meanwhile, what matters is what happens on the ground. As long as Israel keeps doing the settlements dance, and US military aid keeps flowing with no restrictions, and it does not take aggressive action against the settlers' base of support within the US itself, then de facto "the US supports the settlements", and that's pretty much all there is to it. On top of this, other extremely regrettable actions it has taken (such as endorsing move of the capital to Jerusalem) signal tacit support of the Greater Israel project generally (which the settlements are the primary vanguard of). That's not an invasion in the classic nation-state sense since the Palestinians have never had a country. What matters is that it's both theft and plunder on a grand scale, and ethnic cleansing in the classic mold. Mincing words does not change this fact.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- more_corn 2y ago
  The people don’t fight. The governments do. War is the racket where the government convinces the people to die for them. Nobody dislikes the Chinese people . But we also recognize that China has ambitions to expand its territory and we assume that the us government will oppose that.
- AStonesThrow 2y ago
  Nah it's more than that. China is different. Really different. Our old adversaries the Russians/Soviets are like brotherly chums compared to the Chinese. China has always had a separate sphere of influence, distinct language, culture, religions, geography. It's way out there. Look at all the conflicts the West has had with Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Those were not merely economic wars. There was ideology involved at every step. Go back thousands of years, and see the Assyrians evangelizing China (not so effective or memorable.) See the Jesuits and other missionaries landing in Asia and making some inroads, then getting expelled, persecuted, martyred. The big trouble is, with China, Americans have freely entangled ourselves economically with them for a long, long time. And this made for a tacit friendship, while we were fundamentally opposed in other aspects. But China patiently manufactured luxurious silk, delicious opium, cheap toys, and worthless crap to send us, and they Hoovered up all our debt, and our garbage and "recycling", and they bought controlling interests in businesses such as banks and whatnot. But an economic relationship is not a friendship, it's transactional, and hopefully it's equalizing, and our economic agreements have been stable enough, but they're not strong enough to overcome ideologies. So now you can see, perhaps, why Americans are scared and looking to extricate ourselves. I wouldn't say it's about "protectionism" because that has some negative or extreme connotations. I'd just say we're trying to be not so globalist, because the globalism eventually comes back to haunt us.

I don’t really think a sanctioned entity is under obligation to argue “both sides”. I doubt Chinese companies under similar conditions will do so, or have done so in the past.

aurareturn 2y ago

Funny thing is, when I talk to Chinese people in China, nearly all of them understand why the US and China are fighting: economic reasons. There isn't the same level of hate/demonization of the US in China as there is the opposite in US. People in China seem to be able to separate the emotions from the situation and able to understand the circumstance logically. Meanwhile, in the US, it's become more of a hate thing through nonstop anti-China propaganda.

lazyeye 2y ago
Is this actually true? From what Ive seen and read, the US is constantly demonized in the Chinese media.
- yieldcrv 2y ago
  Nobody relies on that in China
- aurareturn 2y ago
  The fact that people actually ask this question, shows how people in the west (assuming you are from there) only see China through mainstream media. No offense to you in particular. In China, if you walk around the street in any city, you can see many American brands such as McDonalds, KFC, Starbucks, Microsoft, Apple. American logos are proudly displayed. If you walk into a cafe, you will more often than not, hear American music. Chinese cinemas will show Hollywood movies. They have statues of Kobe Bryant and when the NBA plays there, they get hundreds of thousands of fans. This is all in 2024, by the way. Meanwhile, in America, everything Chinese will inevitably get the "China bad" treatment. Chinese companies doing business in America have to hide the fact that they're Chinese. Google "Is company..." and often the top autocomplete results includes something like "Is x company Chinese?". The level of propaganda is not nearly the same on both sides. Go to China and see for yourself. I just came back from Shenzhen. Absolutely stunning modern city that feels like it's 5 years ahead of anywhere I've been to. It's extremely safe for foreigners. Ridiculously safe actually. By my estimation, 80% of the cars on the road are EVs. Super clean air, cleaner than most American cities nowadays. You never hear about this stuff in western mainstream media.
  - Manuel_D 2y ago
    75% of Chinese report negative views of the US: https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/how-do-chinese-people-view-west-divergence-and-asymmetry-chinas-public-opinion-us-and https://sccei.fsi.stanford.edu/china-briefs/how-do-chinese-p... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-American_sentiment_in_mainland_China https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-American_sentiment_in_m... Apparently 60% responded that the killing of Bin Laden was a bad thing because he was an anti-american warrior.
    - aurareturn 2y ago
      >75% of Chinese report negative views of the US I'm not arguing that. I'm arguing the type of negative view and the degree.
  - pedroma 2y ago
    I was under the impression there was a large demographic of Chinese who would buy Huawei phones over iPhones because they were Chinese and not American, despite the chip being being a few generations behind an iPhone. Meaning, there are people in China who are nationalistic, as there are in America. And these have enough of a Chinese over American view they would purchase an arguably worse product for their views. As for cultural exports, I think America just dominates the world in that regard. If you want to use that as a comparison China would have to have equivalent cultural exports to be a fair point. And as far as I know most people have no qualms with eating Panda Express, PF Changs, or small Chinese takeouts, which is a Chinese cultural export. >Super clean air, cleaner than most American cities nowadays. I'm skeptical of that. I'd concede if you provided data but a quick Google search for AQI right now says the worst US city NYC is 54 AQI and Shenzhen is 56. Los Angeles is 33, SF is 19. (source IQAir)
    - aurareturn 2y ago
      Meaning, there are people in China who are nationalistic, as there are in America. And these have enough of a Chinese over American view they would purchase an arguably worse product for their views. Of course there are nationalists in China. I didn't argue against that. As for cultural exports, I think America just dominates the world in that regard. If you want to use that as a comparison China would have to have equivalent cultural exports to be a fair point. And as far as I know most people have no qualms with eating Panda Express, PF Changs, or small Chinese takeouts, which is a Chinese cultural export. I don't think a few Americanized Chinese restaurants with American owners compare to my examples? The cultural export power of America is precisely one of the main reasons why I sense that the level of anti-American sentiment in China is not nearly as bad as the anti-China sentiment in the US. I'm skeptical of that. I'd concede if you provided data but a quick Google search for AQI right now says the worst US city NYC is 54 AQI and Shenzhen is 56. Los Angeles is 33, SF is 19. (source IQAir) The data is just me walking on any street in Shenzhen and almost never smelling any gasoline or feel the heat from cars.
- petre 2y ago
  I sonetimes come across Global Times articles which are subtly nuanced, not by demonizing the US but by promoting the Chinese narrative instead instead.
yieldcrv 2y ago
I mostly see that too, but I do want to point out some genuine patriotism within China. In the US, it seems like any conversation about China is derailed into something unrelated that the party in China does, which is confounded by the inability to separate a private sector in China from the party. Its just not a 1-to-1 mapping to our system, alongside an unwillingness to see it any other way. In reality, people in China are just trying to live their lives, and do. They know how to navigate the rules of their system and the day to day is fine.
- vlovich123 2y ago
  > They know how to navigate the rules of their system and the day to day is fine. You could make the same argument of Soviet Russia and other despotic regimes (like today’s Russia). Does it provide any special insight? The majority of people are not involved in the power system of governments. Having government be intimately intertwined the way China does makes the economy makes the playing field unfair. China basically locked out a lot of US companies from the market and forced a tech and knowledge transfer instead and the US leaders let that happen. The US is starting to finally try to adjust its markets to reflect that and it’s sticking with free markets for now (módulo stuff like TikTok). Another issue for China domestically is that the entertaining or economy and politics means that there’s an even strong danger of corruption than even the US with all its problems.
coliveira 2y ago
Of course, if you analyze things logically you'll conclude that the dispute is merely economic, because the US was buying everything from China until a few months ago.
cooper_ganglia 2y ago
People in the US can recognize that the fighting is caused by economic reasons, and surely the average American citizen and the average Chinese citizen don't hold animosity towards each other on a personal level. I think manufacturing jobs moving to China hurt the middle class in the US, and that's caused a disdain for China (and US politicians who push for things like that). But otherwise, I don't think the China rhetoric is too out of touch with reality. It would be very interesting to talk to someone in China and directly compare perspectives.
- aurareturn 2y ago
  I'm going to disagree on this one. It's not based on my personal observation. I recently read a comment on HN on why this is. The main point of that comment suggested that in a democracy, the government has to convince the public (voters) to hate something before they can justify the action. In China, they don't have do such thing obviously. Therefore, the level of propaganda is not nearly the same.
  - kortilla 2y ago
    That’s a false premise. The government in the US does not need popular approval to do things. There isn’t direct voting on any of these actions and pressure on politicians is indirect and very slow for all but extremely egregious actions.
    - aurareturn 2y ago
      >That’s a false premise. The government in the US does not need popular approval to do things. Are you sure about that? Every US history class I've ever taken growing up told me about some form of propaganda usage by the US government prior to some action. WWI, WWII, Cold War, Vietnam War, Iraq War etc.
      - mlsu 2y ago
        Propaganda is as much about convincing "the people" as it is convincing the "internal apparatus". Of course, for something like WWI, you have to have propaganda because the effort required is too large -- you can't do WWI or WWII with the apparatus alone. But it's very important, even for the people "on the inside", to believe that they are fighting for the right cause, to be able to rationalize their actions. If you need something morally fraught to be done (like fight a war), the people doing it, regardless of who they work for on paper, are much more effective if they believe in their hearts that it's the right thing to do. Propaganda isn't really about convincing people do to things, it's about giving them the emotional toolkit to justify doing things with purpose and pride.
stefan_ 2y ago
Yes, when you don't have access to independent reporting, you miss China building hundreds of landing and invasion vessels, ramming and threatening neighbors over absurd territorial claims, and you could ignorantly conclude there must be "economic reasons" behind the US and China fighting. I'm here to tell you that the economic conflict is merely an immediate and necessary consequence from the realization that when war happens, the US is too reliant on Chinese manufacturing - and so it is being aggressively decoupled.
- coliveira 2y ago
  Is China threatening any American owned territory? If not, why do you conclude that the US needs to go to war?
  - Sabinus 2y ago
    Because the US is the primary enforcer of the world order that mandates, broadly, that everyone can trade with no fear of attacks on their shipping, and that we don't steal each other's land any more. When the US gives up on that role, the world is going to change drastically, and not for the better.
    - coliveira 2y ago
      > the US is the primary enforcer of the world order Nobody gave the US this legal power. It has no credibility there. > everyone can trade with no fear of attacks on their shipping Right now this is false around the area controlled by the Houthis. > we don't steal each other's land any more Israelis are stealing land with US support.
      - Sabinus 2y ago
        [flagged]
        aguaviva 2y ago
        Plus that conflict is quite complicated, predates WW2 and the imposition of this system, and the US does not support the settlers. It's not that complicated, actually. The US is technically not a fan of the settlements, but its criticisms have been muted to the point of silence for several years now. Meanwhile, what matters is what happens on the ground. As long as Israel keeps doing the settlements dance, and US military aid keeps flowing with no restrictions, and it does not take aggressive action against the settlers' base of support within the US itself, then de facto "the US supports the settlements", and that's pretty much all there is to it. On top of this, other extremely regrettable actions it has taken (such as endorsing move of the capital to Jerusalem) signal tacit support of the Greater Israel project generally (which the settlements are the primary vanguard of). That's not an invasion in the classic nation-state sense since the Palestinians have never had a country. What matters is that it's both theft and plunder on a grand scale, and ethnic cleansing in the classic mold. Mincing words does not change this fact.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
more_corn 2y ago
The people don’t fight. The governments do. War is the racket where the government convinces the people to die for them. Nobody dislikes the Chinese people . But we also recognize that China has ambitions to expand its territory and we assume that the us government will oppose that.
AStonesThrow 2y ago
Nah it's more than that. China is different. Really different. Our old adversaries the Russians/Soviets are like brotherly chums compared to the Chinese. China has always had a separate sphere of influence, distinct language, culture, religions, geography. It's way out there. Look at all the conflicts the West has had with Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Those were not merely economic wars. There was ideology involved at every step. Go back thousands of years, and see the Assyrians evangelizing China (not so effective or memorable.) See the Jesuits and other missionaries landing in Asia and making some inroads, then getting expelled, persecuted, martyred. The big trouble is, with China, Americans have freely entangled ourselves economically with them for a long, long time. And this made for a tacit friendship, while we were fundamentally opposed in other aspects. But China patiently manufactured luxurious silk, delicious opium, cheap toys, and worthless crap to send us, and they Hoovered up all our debt, and our garbage and "recycling", and they bought controlling interests in businesses such as banks and whatnot. But an economic relationship is not a friendship, it's transactional, and hopefully it's equalizing, and our economic agreements have been stable enough, but they're not strong enough to overcome ideologies. So now you can see, perhaps, why Americans are scared and looking to extricate ourselves. I wouldn't say it's about "protectionism" because that has some negative or extreme connotations. I'd just say we're trying to be not so globalist, because the globalism eventually comes back to haunt us.