The Chinese government deployed a similar tactic in Sri Lanka, building a sea part that is unnecessary, with easy loans, which Sri Lanka defaulted on, leading to China taking ownership. It then deployed a submarine to the port, alarming both Sri Lanka and India.
> leading to China taking ownership. It then deployed a submarine to the port, alarming both Sri Lanka and India.
"Bigger pile of money" diplomacy meets "bigger gun" diplomacy. It shoudn't be surprising. We did the same thing under the Monroe Doctrine. But it's been long enough that many in the West have forgotten about it.
With China, US taxpayer money is on line too. Take a closer look at Pakistan’s case. China promised $42B investments, Pakistan’s CAD widened. Pakistan seeks $15B bailout from IMF, which US has opposed as it will just go to Chinese. So a very tumultuous future ahead, this colonialism adventure of China will bring.
Severe pain for India, as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar have Chinese presence now, just a matter of time when the boots land. String of pearls, as it is called.
Part of the reasons why countries are wary is because the Chinese just doesn't play nice with the local: all the contractors are Chinese companies, the business is run by Chinese, the tourists use RMB and doesn't respect local culture etc... Maybe it will take them 10~20 years to learn the lesson.
Even in tiny Pacific nations such as Samoa, where the incompetent and corrupt government officials welcome such easy loans which the country can never pay back. Samoa is now on the hook for $US1b, for loans that cannot be traced to anything anywhere. The government has refused to publish accounts for almost a decade now so no one knows where the money has gone.
So Samoa will use their vote to support any Chinese motion no matter what.
Well if you have the source of power (money) you know you can do good and bad stuff. Malaysia did the right thing as being patriot and all. China like to do a "friendly war". They become good at first but you know there's a price of being good, and when you resist, you'll get bullied. "Communism" at it's finest. Look at what it did to Philippines. They know Philippines has no match on its firepower they created a military base within its territorial sea but in a brighter side, they give support aid to Philippines, attack and release.
While it has happened, the West's free trade and globalist policies are built on the belief that trade greatly reduces the odds of war. The WTO, the UN, the EU, etc. are all built on the idea that strong/fair economic ties reduce the risk of WWI/WWII type conflicts.
I would argue it's not colonialism, these countries can always say no, it just depends on political will and strength. That's not really China's fault or concern.
Again, the US has done similar things in the past, hence the numerous US air force bases scattered around the world. It's simply practical to gain soft power, and then convert that soft power into harder power.
> I would argue it's not colonialism, these countries can always say no, it just depends on political will and strength. That's not really China's fault or concern.
That is the US's rational for doing the same thing, yes.
It doesn't end well. It results in stuff like the Iranian revolution. Installing and/or supporting "friendly leaders" who then push deals that are against the local national interest results in a great deal of hostility in the long run.
The reason the US is hated isn't that the US is evil. It is the fact the US meddled in the affairs of others more than they should have and then leveraged concessions beyond what the native population wanted. China is repeating that mistake.
> Again, the US has done similar things in the past, hence the numerous US air force bases scattered around the world. It's simply practical to gain soft power, and then convert that soft power into harder power.
Practical? Yes. If you are expecting to go to war.
If no war materializes, you've destroyed any chance of popular support in that country indefinitely. China is burning bridges with the native populations in these countries that won't go away in 5 years.
Also resulted in the greatest era in human history in terms of peace and prosperity.
>It is the fact the US meddled in the affairs of others more than they should have and then leveraged concessions beyond what the native population wanted.
I think it's hard being at the top and maintaining global order. You get blamed for everything and you get credit for nothing.
> Also resulted in the greatest era in human history in terms of peace and prosperity.
You are confusing Capitalism with foreign policy.
> Why not?
Where do you think all this anti-US violence comes from?
Empires have never fared well once they fell from power with the exception of the British who were geographically isolated and had very powerful allies.
Simply because the bloodshed caused by US foreign policy mostly occurs on foreign soil doesn't mean it will stop just because the US is no longer an empire.
> I think it's hard being at the top and maintaining global order. You get blamed for everything and you get credit for nothing.
The US actively instigated violent revolutions, torture, and abuses in other countries. Pretending that is "part of maintaining global order" is absurd.
The pillars of what the US is credited for is something half the population actively rebels against (globalism, free trade) and were achieved in spite of the popular will domestically.
Simply because I believe a certain technique should be verboten doesn't mean I ignored credit for the US's successes.
> I think it's hard being at the top and maintaining global order. You get blamed for everything and you get credit for nothing.
Being at the top (say, a superpower in today's world) means you enjoy at least an order of magnitude advantage over any other country in the majority of interactions you might have with them.
If you think of maintaining global order as helping to maintain that lead, then not getting credit for anything really doesn't factor into any of the decision-making calculus.
>If you think of maintaining global order as helping to maintain that lead
Except I wouldn't think of it that way. I don't think that's the correct interpretation. I think maintaining global order means you live in the world you want to live in. Americans wanted to spread American ideals of Democracy, free speech and free enterprise. Soviet Union wanted to spread Soviet ideals. I think that's as simple as that.
>You are confusing Capitalism with foreign policy.
Do you think it's a coincidence the world adopted the economic and political system of the world's superpower? When there two superpowers, the world was neatly divided by the economic and political system of those respective of superpowers. Another coincidence?
Before WW2 and America's official accession to a superpower status, even Europe didn't really embrace democracy (outside of Britain and France), with fascism and communism taking hold of much of the continent.
>Empires have never fared well once they fell from power
I'm not even sure how to contextualize that statement. Empires have always fared well but you're right they don't last, and when they fall, it leads to anarchy, misery and war... until the next Empire. So I wouldn't be so quick to celebrate America's decline as the maintainer of present global order.
>The US actively instigated violent revolutions, torture, and abuses in other countries.
Forest for the trees. I'm sure you can pick out many individual cases where you think America didn't live up to your ideals ... but it's a big world, and lots of things happen and this sort of selective focus on negatives is easily done and gives a warped perspective.
Look at the big picture. We live in the most peaceful and prosperous time in the human history. Things like that don't happen by happenstance.
>The reason the US is hated isn't that the US is evil.
If toppling democratically elected governments for financial gain, sanctioning genocides and arming their perpetrators, installing brutal dictatorships, all in name of making a quick buck, if that isn't evil I don't know what is.
Individual actions by individual actors in the US political system were evil. That does not mean US as a whole is evil. Merely that evil people got into power for periods of time.
A country cannot be judged as if it acted with one mind, one body, and one will.
The people consented, and benefited from, that state of affairs. In a democracy, that means the people can answer for the actions of their leaders. Although I concede reality is far from being as simple as this, to some extent at least we must hold the electorate of the US responsible for the actions of the government of the US, no?
Can you please stop using HN primarily for political battle? That's a violation of the site guidelines and the spirit of intellectual curiosity that, against the odds, we're trying to keep up here.
Please keep nationalistic and ideological flamewar, and internet gunslinging generally, off HN. Regardless of how right you are, they're not what this site is for.
The US is nearly universally accused of having a global oppressive empire precisely due to those military bases. When you point out to skeptics that the host countries can ask the US to leave at any time, you get the predictable responses. So even if you're correct and the host is making a volitional choice, that's not how it's going to be perceived as time goes on and China's military and economy continues to increase in size and reach.
The difference between the US and China is the US makes the bases to cement alliances (well mostly), which is why the US is wanted in those countries. China is doing it to cement their hegemony, which the populous of host countries are not too impressed with.
The US system is definitely more clever than the Chinese or Russian imperial systems. I mean, some people even believed the Ukrainian coup wasn't done by the US.
There's this great documentary called "Germany after the war" which bears attention to people who wish to understand how the world works. West Germany ... pretty much as overt a satrapy as East Germany was.
Basically, China is the jailhouse thug that enslaves you for a carton of smokes you borrowed. The US is the Hollywood producer who achieves the same ends through more subtle means.
Why is it "HN logic" if one guy said it? Look at the thread and you will see general sentiment is precisely the opposite. Hate these kinds of comments.
> Again, the US has done similar things in the past, hence the numerous US air force bases scattered around the world. It's simply practical to gain soft power, and then convert that soft power into harder power.
And this is why that strategy is called American Imperialism, also called "a kind of low-grade colonialism"
Tongue in cheek response: Why be an old-school colonialist while taking on all that political, societal, and economic overhead when you can be a modern-day neocolonialist and get most of the upside with much less of the downside?
Why does astroturfing need to come from a large organization? A bunch of like-minded users could be enough depending on the volume of commenting or voting. They also don't need to be paid and even have centralized management.
I've seen a couple of userames popping on these threads all the time. And China related threads have an odd number of new accounts posting comments in them.
It can be people that have to live anonymously lest they have to deal with dictatorships or it can also be the same group of people posting the same opinions all over again.
As for names, there is two users in this thread that are posting in almost every China-related thread for at least a month or so. I won't particularly point to them, since I'm not sure it goes well with the guidelines
Though it didn't happen on HN, the unidan case on reddit is a good example. The guy basically manipulated voting in a large subreddit on his own by using a number of alternative accounts to upvote his own comments.
Anyway, if that is the direction HN is headed and this is regarded as acceptable, then I'm leaving.
I don't tolerate propaganda or people spreading it. This is on the guidelines: "Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle." A bunch of users forget about that and I won't be around a website that goes into it.
Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data.
The guidelines also ask you not to insinuate astroturfing or shillage without evidence. People having opposing views is not evidence of anything other than that a topic is divisive. Mixing in accusations of astroturfing is like adding saltpeter to a fire. It's a toxic internet move, so please refrain from it here.
Every single day, sometimes multiple times a day, there are posts on HN pushing one anti-China narrative or another. Every single day there is a barrage of anti-China armchair experts all too happy to wax poetic about the evils of communism, the CPC and authoritarianism. I have to say, it's becoming more and more of an /r/Worldnews-esque, politically polarised echo-chamber in here and it's a huge turn-off.
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way and I can only imagine the great expert commenters this board is losing because of this.
Or maybe China is just really horrible about human rights and there are a lot of articles about it because that is good journalism? This is a NY Times article about an important subject published today, why should this not be on HN?
I'm not the authority on what should or should not be posted on HN.
What I can say is that I preferred the version of HN where the eclectic and mind-opening topics would get voted to the top and thought provoking debate from domain experts would be left in the comments.
Increasingly it's posts directly from main-stream media pushing the main-stream media narrative, and the comments serve little to no value other than providing a place to declare one's political ideologies.
If I wanted to read main-stream media I would be reading it.
The US is arguably a worse abuser of human rights, internationally if not domestically, and yet every story about the US doesn't devolve into a big discussion about US's human rights abuses. Imagine if every article about the US talked about our hundreds of military bases, the millions dead in the middle east due to US war, the current war in Yemen, and all the dictatorships the US has installed over the years.
I'm not sure who's worse but the case can definitely be made. There's the direct killings from questionable wars like Iraq and Guantanamo Bay but usually the US will prop up some dictator (again like Iraq) to do their dirty work for them.
Yes. Read my comment again. I include both domestic and foreign abuse. People seem to irrationally only pay attention to domestic abuse when discussing human rights violations.
If you count death tolls in the Korean war, Vietnam war, and the middle eastern excursions in the last 25 years, you are in the same order of magnitude.
I saw many anti-America news on HN as well. I would say if you care, you notice it everywhere, if you don't care, you simply ignore that.
(I am also a Chinese)
Based on your previous comments you seem to be pro china and seem to carry long list of bad things about US, which is fine. But you will find very little support for any country which doesn't tolerate free speech. It's surprising that you don't want to see world news on HN, but your HN comments about US human rights issues are straight straight out of mainstream liberal news network.
Incorrect. I am neither pro nor anti-China. I am neither pro nor anti-US. I simply felt that a counter-narrative was necessary to break up the incessant pounding China has taken in the past few months and weeks. And every time someone tries to even out the discussion, it's met with the stonewall of "well that's whataboutism". Perhaps a little whataboutism is warranted at times for the sake of perspective.
However, I do disagree that free speech should be the end-all-be-all, ultimate supreme virtue to strive towards. That's such a naive and childish notion and I don't understand why it has become such a meme. Yes it's up there, yes it should be implemented in due time and is suitable for economically and politically stable nations but how can any rational person advocate it for all nations in all states of development?
I'm sure the vast majority of citizens in those states where freedom of speech is most advocated for would prefer censorship over living in a destabilised nation mired in endless conflict and divisive free speech.
>I'm sure the vast majority of citizens in those states where freedom of speech is most advocated for would prefer censorship over living in a destabilised nation mired in endless conflict and divisive free speech.
The US seemed to be just fine with free speech as a tenant.
If you want a great example of a nation that has eliminated conflict by suppressing all of that pesky free speech, look no further than North Korea.
You've presented a silly false dichotomy between free speech and a stable nation when it's government censorship and oppression that eventually leads to a breaking point and genocides/revolutions.
There are hundreds of other countries around the world. People call you out for whataboutism for complaining about the US on articles about China because the article is not about the US. Why don't you say "what about Somalia" or "what about Russia"? Is it because that would seem like an distraction from the topic under discussion?
This article is not comparing China to the US, Somalia, Russia, etc.
> The US seemed to be just fine with free speech as a tenant.
I was actually referring to China in that sentence. Freedom of speech is taken for granted in the US and rarely needs to be advocated for.
> You've presented a silly false dichotomy between free speech and a stable nation when it's government censorship and oppression that eventually leads to a breaking point and genocides/revolutions.
In my opinion it is neither silly nor a false dichotomy. As much as censorship and oppression has contributed to genocides/revolutions in history, so has factious and reckless speech leading to the rise of populist demagogues and cults of personality.
Freedom of speech and the right to express all of one's most basest thoughts and impulses has never gone down well in nations where the populace is too ill educated to fully comprehend what is being said. The same goes for the infallible and shining doctrine of democracy -appropriate for an informed populace that actually knows what it is they are voting for. Inappropriate for places two decades removed from abject poverty and 3rd world status.
Freedom of speech is not a meme. It's something people have given their life for, and nations have been founded on this theme.
"I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It" is a cornerstone of democracies - though of course most fall short of the ideal, but it is still an ideal to strive for.
Those who prefer censorship usually prefer it for other people, not themselves.
The people whose feelings are on the opposite side say exactly the opposite about HN: that it's a hotbed of pro-China shills and whatnot. This, unfortunately for us, is how perceptions work when feelings are strong. There's actually a name for it, and associated research; it's called the Hostile Media Effect:
Thanks for posting this; I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person who sees it. More likely, most people see it but are just not the ones who feel motivated to comment—for the same reason as the original phenomenon.
This polarization has always showed up here but in the last year or so it seems to be upticking around nationalistic questions. We may be in for rougher waters.
Thanks for the links. I suppose the appropriate action would have been to not perpetuate/exacerbate the cycle of negative selective recall and perception.
Although it did make for some good faith debating, I'll refrain from doing so in the future... for as long as I can, at least :)
the missing context is that the previous PM greenlighted projects from China that were v likely greenlighted because of kickbacks to him and his retinue rather than because of the merit and profitability to the country. china, among other things, was simply one of many bogeymen attacked in the election campaign leading up to BN's defeat. mahathir knows better than to turn down good investment money, but the general view of the previous adminstration was that a lot of money was invested in malaysia only to exclusively benefit the chinese.
80 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 100 ms ] threadSource: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-lank...
"Bigger pile of money" diplomacy meets "bigger gun" diplomacy. It shoudn't be surprising. We did the same thing under the Monroe Doctrine. But it's been long enough that many in the West have forgotten about it.
Severe pain for India, as Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar have Chinese presence now, just a matter of time when the boots land. String of pearls, as it is called.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/jul/31/no-cambodia-l...
https://laotiantimes.com/2017/05/16/chinas-investments-costi...
Part of the reasons why countries are wary is because the Chinese just doesn't play nice with the local: all the contractors are Chinese companies, the business is run by Chinese, the tourists use RMB and doesn't respect local culture etc... Maybe it will take them 10~20 years to learn the lesson.
So Samoa will use their vote to support any Chinese motion no matter what.
With sanctions and protectionism, I wonder if the barriers to war are actually reduced.
Again, the US has done similar things in the past, hence the numerous US air force bases scattered around the world. It's simply practical to gain soft power, and then convert that soft power into harder power.
That is the US's rational for doing the same thing, yes.
It doesn't end well. It results in stuff like the Iranian revolution. Installing and/or supporting "friendly leaders" who then push deals that are against the local national interest results in a great deal of hostility in the long run.
The reason the US is hated isn't that the US is evil. It is the fact the US meddled in the affairs of others more than they should have and then leveraged concessions beyond what the native population wanted. China is repeating that mistake.
> Again, the US has done similar things in the past, hence the numerous US air force bases scattered around the world. It's simply practical to gain soft power, and then convert that soft power into harder power.
Practical? Yes. If you are expecting to go to war.
If no war materializes, you've destroyed any chance of popular support in that country indefinitely. China is burning bridges with the native populations in these countries that won't go away in 5 years.
Why not?
>It results in stuff like the Iranian revolution.
Also resulted in the greatest era in human history in terms of peace and prosperity.
>It is the fact the US meddled in the affairs of others more than they should have and then leveraged concessions beyond what the native population wanted.
I think it's hard being at the top and maintaining global order. You get blamed for everything and you get credit for nothing.
You are confusing Capitalism with foreign policy.
> Why not?
Where do you think all this anti-US violence comes from?
Empires have never fared well once they fell from power with the exception of the British who were geographically isolated and had very powerful allies.
Simply because the bloodshed caused by US foreign policy mostly occurs on foreign soil doesn't mean it will stop just because the US is no longer an empire.
> I think it's hard being at the top and maintaining global order. You get blamed for everything and you get credit for nothing.
The US actively instigated violent revolutions, torture, and abuses in other countries. Pretending that is "part of maintaining global order" is absurd.
The pillars of what the US is credited for is something half the population actively rebels against (globalism, free trade) and were achieved in spite of the popular will domestically.
Simply because I believe a certain technique should be verboten doesn't mean I ignored credit for the US's successes.
Being at the top (say, a superpower in today's world) means you enjoy at least an order of magnitude advantage over any other country in the majority of interactions you might have with them.
If you think of maintaining global order as helping to maintain that lead, then not getting credit for anything really doesn't factor into any of the decision-making calculus.
Except I wouldn't think of it that way. I don't think that's the correct interpretation. I think maintaining global order means you live in the world you want to live in. Americans wanted to spread American ideals of Democracy, free speech and free enterprise. Soviet Union wanted to spread Soviet ideals. I think that's as simple as that.
Do you think it's a coincidence the world adopted the economic and political system of the world's superpower? When there two superpowers, the world was neatly divided by the economic and political system of those respective of superpowers. Another coincidence?
Before WW2 and America's official accession to a superpower status, even Europe didn't really embrace democracy (outside of Britain and France), with fascism and communism taking hold of much of the continent.
>Empires have never fared well once they fell from power
I'm not even sure how to contextualize that statement. Empires have always fared well but you're right they don't last, and when they fall, it leads to anarchy, misery and war... until the next Empire. So I wouldn't be so quick to celebrate America's decline as the maintainer of present global order.
>The US actively instigated violent revolutions, torture, and abuses in other countries.
Forest for the trees. I'm sure you can pick out many individual cases where you think America didn't live up to your ideals ... but it's a big world, and lots of things happen and this sort of selective focus on negatives is easily done and gives a warped perspective.
Look at the big picture. We live in the most peaceful and prosperous time in the human history. Things like that don't happen by happenstance.
For some.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If toppling democratically elected governments for financial gain, sanctioning genocides and arming their perpetrators, installing brutal dictatorships, all in name of making a quick buck, if that isn't evil I don't know what is.
A country cannot be judged as if it acted with one mind, one body, and one will.
Do you feel I should be held responsible for the actions of Trump given:
A) I didn't vote for him.
B) I didn't really want to vote for Clinton, but I did.
C) I didn't have a third option with a realistic chance of winning the presidency.
D) The "lesser evil" voting strategy has been my life since I turned 18 and I can't really stand either party.
If you answered "No", you just admitted there is no true majority in the US since this is how a third of the electorate votes.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I've written many explanations of why we do it this way, if you or anyone is interested: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
I'm happy to absolutely no contact with HN/YCombinator/related companies if they do the same. :)
https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
There's this great documentary called "Germany after the war" which bears attention to people who wish to understand how the world works. West Germany ... pretty much as overt a satrapy as East Germany was.
Basically, China is the jailhouse thug that enslaves you for a carton of smokes you borrowed. The US is the Hollywood producer who achieves the same ends through more subtle means.
Isn’t it only Russians who think that the Ukrainian coup was done by the US?
China is spending trillions building infrastructure across the planet.
The US is spending trillions bombing its enemies across the planet.
Both policies are arguably wasteful and misguided, but I'm pretty sure China will be left with the longer standing positive impact and goodwill.
And this is why that strategy is called American Imperialism, also called "a kind of low-grade colonialism"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_imperialism#Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocolonialism
"Doors Slam Shut for China Deals Around the World"
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-08-20/doors-sla...
With both the whatabowtists and the anti-China hawks trying to outplay each other in the moral outrage game.
There are plenty of subreddits for those who like to astroturf about China ranging from anti-China hawks to pro-Beijing trolls.
Sorry for the cynicism, but I really dislike astroturfers.
I've seen a couple of userames popping on these threads all the time. And China related threads have an odd number of new accounts posting comments in them.
It can be people that have to live anonymously lest they have to deal with dictatorships or it can also be the same group of people posting the same opinions all over again.
As for names, there is two users in this thread that are posting in almost every China-related thread for at least a month or so. I won't particularly point to them, since I'm not sure it goes well with the guidelines
Though it didn't happen on HN, the unidan case on reddit is a good example. The guy basically manipulated voting in a large subreddit on his own by using a number of alternative accounts to upvote his own comments.
Anyway, if that is the direction HN is headed and this is regarded as acceptable, then I'm leaving.
I don't tolerate propaganda or people spreading it. This is on the guidelines: "Please don't use Hacker News primarily for political or ideological battle." A bunch of users forget about that and I won't be around a website that goes into it.
We have an actual word for this: grassroots.
Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. That degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
I know I'm not the only one who feels this way and I can only imagine the great expert commenters this board is losing because of this.
The rest are shitpost clickbaiting and comment circlejerking
What I can say is that I preferred the version of HN where the eclectic and mind-opening topics would get voted to the top and thought provoking debate from domain experts would be left in the comments.
Increasingly it's posts directly from main-stream media pushing the main-stream media narrative, and the comments serve little to no value other than providing a place to declare one's political ideologies.
If I wanted to read main-stream media I would be reading it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution#Death_toll
How is defending South Korea a human rights violation? All those deaths are on NK and China.
However, I do disagree that free speech should be the end-all-be-all, ultimate supreme virtue to strive towards. That's such a naive and childish notion and I don't understand why it has become such a meme. Yes it's up there, yes it should be implemented in due time and is suitable for economically and politically stable nations but how can any rational person advocate it for all nations in all states of development?
I'm sure the vast majority of citizens in those states where freedom of speech is most advocated for would prefer censorship over living in a destabilised nation mired in endless conflict and divisive free speech.
The US seemed to be just fine with free speech as a tenant.
If you want a great example of a nation that has eliminated conflict by suppressing all of that pesky free speech, look no further than North Korea.
You've presented a silly false dichotomy between free speech and a stable nation when it's government censorship and oppression that eventually leads to a breaking point and genocides/revolutions.
There are hundreds of other countries around the world. People call you out for whataboutism for complaining about the US on articles about China because the article is not about the US. Why don't you say "what about Somalia" or "what about Russia"? Is it because that would seem like an distraction from the topic under discussion?
This article is not comparing China to the US, Somalia, Russia, etc.
I was actually referring to China in that sentence. Freedom of speech is taken for granted in the US and rarely needs to be advocated for.
> You've presented a silly false dichotomy between free speech and a stable nation when it's government censorship and oppression that eventually leads to a breaking point and genocides/revolutions.
In my opinion it is neither silly nor a false dichotomy. As much as censorship and oppression has contributed to genocides/revolutions in history, so has factious and reckless speech leading to the rise of populist demagogues and cults of personality.
Freedom of speech and the right to express all of one's most basest thoughts and impulses has never gone down well in nations where the populace is too ill educated to fully comprehend what is being said. The same goes for the infallible and shining doctrine of democracy -appropriate for an informed populace that actually knows what it is they are voting for. Inappropriate for places two decades removed from abject poverty and 3rd world status.
"I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It" is a cornerstone of democracies - though of course most fall short of the ideal, but it is still an ideal to strive for.
Those who prefer censorship usually prefer it for other people, not themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22hostile%20media%20effect%22...
Anti/pro Americanism is mostly the same. Worse even...
This polarization has always showed up here but in the last year or so it seems to be upticking around nationalistic questions. We may be in for rougher waters.
Although it did make for some good faith debating, I'll refrain from doing so in the future... for as long as I can, at least :)
A country as wealthy as China can quickly take over most of the assets in Malaysia, which is another form of colonialization.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/20/asia/china-malaysia-mahathir-...