China

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by The Atheist

Utter nonsense not supported by any evidence.

Not so. This is obvious fact.

While travel from Wuhan to other parts of China was prohibited in order to try to contain the spread of COVID, China continued to allow travel from Wuhan to other countries. At the same time, they were also denying that the virus could be spread person to person. They were also on a global buying spree to grab up as much PPE as they could from other countries. Why would they do all this? It was obvious what the results would be. The only logical answer is that they wanted to spread it globally so that other countries would be hit as hard as they were. They didn't want to be the only country to suffer negative effects from COVID, that would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

No. They are currently invading other countries in the South China Sea.

Proof?

Quote:

Taiwan is everyone's problem. I'm sure you've heard about all the problems the current microchip shortage has caused, right? That's nothing compared to what would happen if China invaded Taiwan. The economic impact on the global economy would be devastating. We very much have a stake in what happens to Taiwan, whether we want it or not.

You really want war because of a possible microchip shortage?

Quote:

Yeah, no. The equivalent is not Texas but the Philippines. It was once US territory, but hasn't been for decades now. We would be wrong to assert a claim, and other countries would be right to back Philippine independence against our claim.

The ROC and CCP fought a civil war and the CCP won, forming the PRC. Instead of accepting their loss and surrendering, the ROC fled to Taiwan and set up shop there, telling everyone else that they are the legitimate government. They aren't.

It would be like if Jefferson Davis fled to Texas and kept the CSA in power and was telling everybody the Confederacy was still in charge.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

I would argue that Covid hit China harder that most societies, politically, as it continues to be an indication that Xi doesn't have as much of a Mandate of Heaven as he wants the citizens to believe he does.

Probably. But what China really didn't want is to be the only country hit by COVID. If they were going to suffer, then by God so was everyone else. Hence, international travel out of Wuhan was fine, even while domestic travel was prohibited.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

You really want war because of a possible microchip shortage?

No. I repeatedly told you I don't want war. The best way to avoid war is to support Taiwan and make it clear that any attempt by China to invade would fail, and be devastating to them. And really, it doesn't take that much to send that message.

Quote:

The ROC and CCP fought a civil war and the CCP won, forming the PRC. Instead of accepting their loss and surrendering, the ROC fled to Taiwan and set up shop there, telling everyone else that they are the legitimate government. They aren't.

It would be like if Jefferson Davis fled to Texas and kept the CSA in power and was telling everybody the Confederacy was still in charge.

You really are shilling for the CCP. Taiwan's government is far more legitimate than the CCP is.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Probably. But what China really didn't want is to be the only country hit by COVID. If they were going to suffer, then by God so was everyone else. Hence, international travel out of Wuhan was fine, even while domestic travel was prohibited.

This is a damn fine cup of paranoia you have here.

You have no proof for any of these conspiracy theories. None of you do.

All you people can do is keep calling it the "China Virus" or "Wuhan Flu" or whatever other name you want to give it to increase animosity between our two countries. Not to mention the increased bigotry and discrimination against Asian-Americans here as a result of this talk.

Trump would be proud.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

No. I repeatedly told you I don't want war. The best way to avoid war is to support Taiwan and make it clear that any attempt by China to invade would fail, and be devastating to them. And really, it doesn't take that much to send that message.

What you say you support, and the consequences of your actions, are two different things. If we continue to antagonize them on Taiwan, it will lead to war.

Quote:

You really are shilling for the CCP. Taiwan's government is far more legitimate than the CCP is.

The ROC lost the war and Taiwan doesn't exist as a recognized nation. Only 14 countries recognize Taiwan as an independent and sovereign nation, and the United States is not one of them. Guatemala has the largest population at 18 million, but most are under 1 million.

Yep, Taiwan has a ton of support for their claim...

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

I would argue that Covid hit China harder that most societies, politically, as it continues to be an indication that Xi doesn't have as much of a Mandate of Heaven as he wants the citizens to believe he does.

My impression has been that people here are pretty happy with the way that Covid has been handled by the government.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

My impression has been that people here are pretty happy with the way that Covid has been handled by the government.

That is also my impression. Some months ago, I saw a short video on Twitter showing how incomprehensible apparently normal Chinese found the response of most Western countries to the pandemic. Apart from the very beginning, which was a disaster, of course, China's pandemic strategy has been a huge success - also in terms of ideology:

Quote:

The West’s inhumane approach of allowing infections to result in numerous deaths is something Chinese society cannot accept. And the economic costs of China’s policy are lower than the West’s hands-off approach toward the pandemic.
The costs of China’s policy are lower than the West’s hands-off approach toward the pandemic (GlobalTimes, Sep 14, 2021)

There is also this:
Fig. 2: Change in the prevalence of major depressive disorder after adjustment for (ie, during) the COVID−19 pandemic, 2020
Notice the color of China, Vietnam, Thailand and New Zealand!
From this article: Global prevalence and burden of depressive and anxiety disorders in 204 countries and territories in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic (The Lancet, Oct 8, 2021)

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

What you say you support, and the consequences of your actions, are two different things. If we continue to antagonize them on Taiwan, it will lead to war.

You have that exactly backwards. Our support for Taiwan is what has prevented war for decades now.

Quote:

The ROC lost the war and Taiwan doesn't exist as a recognized nation.

You say that as if it's more important than the reality on the ground. It isn't.

And this is also a rather stunning turnaround from your position regarding Palestine. You're a hypocrite.

Quote:

Yep, Taiwan has a ton of support for their claim...

They have a functioning, stable government and a prosperous economy. That is, in fact, a ton of support for their claim. And unlike the CCP, they don't have to repress their own population.

Why is it, despite being nominally progressive, you always seem to side with regressive governments abroad?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by dann

Apart from the very beginning, which was a disaster, of course, China's pandemic strategy has been a huge success

How would you know? None of the numbers coming out of China are reliable. Not death tolls, not infection rates, not economic numbers, none of it.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

You have that exactly backwards. Our support for Taiwan is what has prevented war for decades now.



You say that as if it's more important than the reality on the ground. It isn't.

And this is also a rather stunning turnaround from your position regarding Palestine. You're a hypocrite.



They have a functioning, stable government and a prosperous economy. That is, in fact, a ton of support for their claim. And unlike the CCP, they don't have to repress their own population.

Why is it, despite being nominally progressive, you always seem to side with regressive governments abroad?

The difference is the Palestinian people are the native inhabitants of the land who then had their land stolen by a nation that was artificially created by the western powers after WWII. The Taiwanese people are Chinese people who lost a civil war and refuse to give the island back to China. Not remotely similar.

And my support or non-support of countries doesn't depend on whether or not I agree with their government. Only whether they are justified in their actions or not.

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

The difference is the Palestinian people are the native inhabitants of the land who then had their land stolen by a nation that was artificially created by the western powers after WWII. The Taiwanese people are Chinese people who lost a civil war and refuse to give the island back to China. Not remotely similar.

And my support or non-support of countries doesn't depend on whether or not I agree with their government. Only whether they are justified in their actions or not.

That is a bit one sided.

Taiwan actually has a native population. It's just that after the civil war was lost the Nationalist Chinese took over the island and set up a dictatorship, which eventually developed into the democracy it is today where the non-Chinese population has equal rights.
It could have become an independent nation if it weren't for cold war politics whereby the US and allies kept considering it the 'real' China to keep communist China from the UN security council seat, so both sides kept claiming to be the same country and everyone agreed, even when the UN seat switched.
And that's backfiring badly now.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

How would you know? None of the numbers coming out of China are reliable. Not death tolls, not infection rates, not economic numbers, none of it.

You could honestly say the same thing about Florida and DeSantis.

They've been caught manipulating their numbers multiple times, yet I hear no outrage on the right over that.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Lukraak_Sisser

That is a bit one sided.

Taiwan actually has a native population. It's just that after the civil war was lost the Nationalist Chinese took over the island and set up a dictatorship, which eventually developed into the democracy it is today where the non-Chinese population has equal rights.
It could have become an independent nation if it weren't for cold war politics whereby the US and allies kept considering it the 'real' China to keep communist China from the UN security council seat, so both sides kept claiming to be the same country and everyone agreed, even when the UN seat switched.
And that's backfiring badly now.

Is there an independence movement among the native population of Taiwan?

Otherwise I still can't see how there is any similarity. And Chinese rule of the island began all the way back in the 17th century during the Qing dynasty.

So Chinese ownership of Taiwan actually predates even the founding of the United States!

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

Is there an independence movement among the native population of Taiwan?

Otherwise I still can't see how there is any similarity. And Chinese rule of the island began all the way back in the 17th century during the Qing dynasty.

So Chinese ownership of Taiwan actually predates even the founding of the United States!

Yes, if it were not for laws forbidding the political movement and threats from China, Taiwan would have declared itself independent somewhere in the 90's already.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

How would you know? None of the numbers coming out of China are reliable. Not death tolls, not infection rates, not economic numbers, none of it.

It is an argument from ignorance. If you don't trust any Chinese numbers, you could ask The Chicago Council of Global Affairs, for instance:

Quote:

The results show an overall satisfaction score of 39.2 out of 50, which again suggests that Chinese citizens’ satisfaction with the government’s response to the pandemic is very high.
What the survey also shows is that citizens’ satisfaction increases with the level of government they are asked to evaluate. While 67 percent of respondents give a score of 4 or 5 (“satisfied” and “very satisfied”) for information dissemination by the community or village level of government, the number rises to 70 percent for the county level of government, 74 percent for the city level, 77 percent for the provincial government, and a remarkable 89 percent for the national government.
What Do the Chinese Think about Their Government's Response to COVID-19? (The Chicago Council of Global Affairs, March 26, 2021)

You seem to forget that it matters if people have actual reason to be satisfied with the pandemic response of their government. It is a pattern that you see all over the world. Look at New Zealand or Iceland, for instance. Of course, it helps that neither of those countries seems to have a pandemic death cult akin to the Republicans in the USA.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Lukraak_Sisser

Yes, if it were not for laws forbidding the political movement and threats from China, Taiwan would have declared itself independent somewhere in the 90's already.

No, I meant is there an independence movement among the 'native' population, meaning its indigenous inhabitants prior to the Chinese.

Taiwanese indigenous peoples

They would be the equivalent of the Palestinians in this scenario. But I'm not the one trying to compare them in the first place.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by dann

It is an argument from ignorance. If you don't trust any Chinese numbers, you could ask The Chicago Council of Global Affairs, for instance:

You misunderstand. I'm not saying the polling numbers about people's opinions are wrong. I'm saying that the numbers which people (both within China and here) are using to evaluate whether or not the CCP did a good job are not reliable. Sure, they're satisfied. But why are they satisfied? Because the CCP tells them that the death toll is low? Because the CCP tells them that the economy took a small hit? These are the things which aren't reliable.

Quote:

You seem to forget that it matters if people have actual reason to be satisfied with the pandemic response of their government.

I haven't forgotten that. Rather, you have failed to realize that this is necessarily comparative. People evaluate what's going on compared to what they think either could have gone on, or to what's going on elsewhere. But if your sources of information are corrupted, that's going to corrupt your evaluation of the pandemic response.

And for most Chinese, their impression of how their government responded is going to be largely dictated by what that same government tells them about that response. Do you really not see why that basically invalidates public opinion as an accurate gauge of that response?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

You could honestly say the same thing about Florida and DeSantis.

They've been caught manipulating their numbers multiple times, yet I hear no outrage on the right over that.

No, you cannot say that about DeSantis. If you're referring to Rebekah Jones, she's a delusional fraud. You should have made that claim about New York and Cuomo, you would have had a better argument there.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

The difference is the Palestinian people are the native inhabitants of the land

Most people living in Taiwan today were born there. They do not want to be part of the PRC. Yet you want them to be. It's quite peculiar, this simping for dictators.

Quote:

And my support or non-support of countries doesn't depend on whether or not I agree with their government.

Of course not. It only depends on whether or not they're antagonistic to the US. If they are, they've got your support.

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

No, you cannot say that about DeSantis. If you're referring to Rebekah Jones, she's a delusional fraud. You should have made that claim about New York and Cuomo, you would have had a better argument there.

"Better" in one sense, but worse in another.

It doesn't really matter to her argument whether Florida's government really is a miserable pile of deplorables who are mishandling Covid and lying about it to their own citizens and the rest of the world. Her point is, she could say the same thing about China.

Her comparison might nettle someone who's stanning for Florida, but it certainly doesn't help anyone who's stanning for China. And to the degree that it's intended to rebut your criticism of China, it depends on the application of an ignorant and hateful stereotype. She's attempting to address the arguer rather than the argument. "You're criticizing China? Well, I bet you like Florida, so there!"

[theprestige]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

And my support or non-support of countries doesn't depend on whether or not I agree with their government. Only whether they are justified in their actions or not.

I support Fascist Italy not because I agree with their government but because they're justified in getting the trains to run on time.

[The Atheist]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

No. They are currently invading other countries in the South China Sea.

Uninhabited reefs are not countries.

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Not so. This is obvious fact.

Nope, it should be in the CT section. Allegations unsupported by facts, other than the PPE.

[Boudicca90]

I will say that I'm more worried about the reefs than I am any geopolitical jockeying going on between China and the other countries in the region.

Keeping their ships stationary and dumping their poop and other waste directly onto the reefs is causing an ecological disaster and we need to put pressure on China on that front.

[Roboramma]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

How would you know? None of the numbers coming out of China are reliable. Not death tolls, not infection rates, not economic numbers, none of it.

Sure, you can't be completely confident about the numbers. But it's not like they could hide a pandemic from the public. I know literally no one who has had covid here, neither friends or friends of friends. But from my smaller circle of friends/family abroad (I've been here a long time...) I know people who had covid, and among friends of friends I know of people who died.

My experience shouldn't convince anyone, but there are limits to the spread of the pandemic here where people would actually believe the low numbers.

The economic numbers are similar. I run a yoga studio in Shanghai as well as traveling around the country doing seminars. I know how much money I made last year. I also know how crowded the restaurants I eat at, etc. are. I know how many people I see on the airplanes with me when I travel. I have friends doing business around china and know what their experiences are. My girlfriend has a clothing brand and I know how much money she's been making this year. Everyone I know has had a pretty good year, with a few bumps here and there.

My experience and that of people I'm close to isn't conclusive of any particularly precise numbers, but it's not consistent with the economy falling apart. We all experienced problems when covid first hit and had a couple of bad months. There have been a few ups and downs when a case or two is reported in a particular place and suddenly people stop going out for a couple of weeks, or can't travel (I had to postpone a trip to Chengdu earlier this year for the reason), but again the negative bumps all seem to be correlated with the news of what's happening, so no real disconnect there.

When it comes to vaccination, again, everyone I know has been vaccinated. Even when I went to Qinghai, a very rural place and one of the poorest parts of China, earlier this year my guides had both been vaccinated, and this wasn't long after vaccination had begun.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Roboramma

Sure, you can't be completely confident about the numbers. But it's not like they could hide a pandemic from the public. I know literally no one who has had covid here, neither friends or friends of friends. But from my smaller circle of friends/family abroad (I've been here a long time...) I know people who had covid, and among friends of friends I know of people who died.

My experience shouldn't convince anyone, but there are limits to the spread of the pandemic here where people would actually believe the low numbers.

The economic numbers are similar. I run a yoga studio in Shanghai as well as traveling around the country doing seminars. I know how much money I made last year. I also know how crowded the restaurants I eat at, etc. are. I know how many people I see on the airplanes with me when I travel. I have friends doing business around china and know what their experiences are. My girlfriend has a clothing brand and I know how much money she's been making this year. Everyone I know has had a pretty good year, with a few bumps here and there.

My experience and that of people I'm close to isn't conclusive of any particularly precise numbers, but it's not consistent with the economy falling apart. We all experienced problems when covid first hit and had a couple of bad months. There have been a few ups and downs when a case or two is reported in a particular place and suddenly people stop going out for a couple of weeks, or can't travel (I had to postpone a trip to Chengdu earlier this year for the reason), but again the negative bumps all seem to be correlated with the news of what's happening, so no real disconnect there.

When it comes to vaccination, again, everyone I know has been vaccinated. Even when I went to Qinghai, a very rural place and one of the poorest parts of China, earlier this year my guides had both been vaccinated, and this wasn't long after vaccination had begun.

Clearly you can't be trusted. According to Ziggurat, everything and everyone is suspect over there!

It's good to hear the experiences of someone who lives there and not just what right-wing propaganda tells us what they imagine is happening.

[Orphia Nay]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

It's good to hear the experiences of someone who lives there and not just what right-wing propaganda tells us what they imagine is happening.

Before Covid I had a long talk with some friends who work in China (one is Chinese, one is Australian).

They think it's hilarious the stories they hear right-wingers and even left-wingers say about China.

The stories about surveillance and military hawkism, for example.

They are free to talk and move about.

They compare these stories to the stories some Chinese tell about the USA being a military complex and cruel to its people.

[Roger Ramjets]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Not so. This is obvious fact.

While travel from Wuhan to other parts of China was prohibited in order to try to contain the spread of COVID, China continued to allow travel from Wuhan to other countries. At the same time, they were also denying that the virus could be spread person to person. They were also on a global buying spree to grab up as much PPE as they could from other countries. Why would they do all this? It was obvious what the results would be. The only logical answer is that they wanted to spread it globally so that other countries would be hit as hard as they were. They didn't want to be the only country to suffer negative effects from COVID, that would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

****, he's onto us!

Since you've figured that out already it won't be long before you guess the rest, so I might as well tell you now. You see, China and some people in the US (OK, all democrats) conspired to create a virus that would preferentially target republican voters - because we knew they would rather die than give up their freedoms.

But producing a virus with just the right combination of infectiousness and deadliness is tricky. Our first attempt wasn't quite right, but we released it anyway in the hope that if enough people got infected a more virulent strain would appear. So we spread it all around the World to get the best possible chance, and sure enough a few months later Delta popped up. Meanwhile we deliberately spread misinformation suggesting the original strain was more deadly than it is, to trick moderate republicans into taking the vaccine.

But why would we do this if we wanted them dead? We are not the heartless bastards you imagine. Our goal isn't to kill republicans, but to eliminate them - by whatever method works best. So we didn't put microchips or viruses in the vaccine, we put hormones in it that attack various parts of the republican brain. One awakens dormant empathy, that debilitating mental state that many democrats suffer from. Another suppresses their natural skepticism, making them lose interest in conspiracy theories and believe the lies that scientists and other communists democrats tell them.

The stroke of genius here is that democrats can take exactly the same vaccine and it won't affect them at all, so when masses of republicans suddenly start voting Democrat nobody will suspect the real cause!

[dann]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

You misunderstand. I'm not saying the polling numbers about people's opinions are wrong. I'm saying that the numbers which people (both within China and here) are using to evaluate whether or not the CCP did a good job are not reliable. Sure, they're satisfied. But why are they satisfied? Because the CCP tells them that the death toll is low? Because the CCP tells them that the economy took a small hit? These are the things which aren't reliable.


I haven't forgotten that. Rather, you have failed to realize that this is necessarily comparative. People evaluate what's going on compared to what they think either could have gone on, or to what's going on elsewhere. But if your sources of information are corrupted, that's going to corrupt your evaluation of the pandemic response.

And for most Chinese, their impression of how their government responded is going to be largely dictated by what that same government tells them about that response. Do you really not see why that basically invalidates public opinion as an accurate gauge of that response?

For some reason, you seem to think that the Chinese are as dumb and gullible as Trump Republicans. The ones I've met aren't, and they seem to be pretty well informed about the rest of the world, in particular about the pandemic response in the rest of the world, and especially about the pandemic response in the USA. The latter, probably because the truth makes the USA look bloody awful in comparison to China.

Read some more reports from Western journalists in China about the country's pandemic strategy since you don't believe anything from the Chinese authorities. You could learn something that you could then tell your fellow conservatives.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by dann

For some reason, you seem to think that the Chinese are as dumb and gullible as Trump Republicans. The ones I've met aren't, and they seem to be pretty well informed about the rest of the world, in particular about the pandemic response in the rest of the world, and especially about the pandemic response in the USA. The latter, probably because the truth makes the USA look bloody awful in comparison to China.

Read some more reports from Western journalists in China about the country's pandemic strategy since you don't believe anything from the Chinese authorities. You could learn something that you could then tell your fellow conservatives.

Western journalist reporting on Covid in the US isn't actually good. Why do you think it's any better in China?

Do you suffer from Gell-Mann amnesia?

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Western journalist reporting on Covid in the US isn't actually good. Why do you think it's any better in China?

Do you suffer from Gell-Mann amnesia?

So now no sources are good enough for you.

This attitude reminds me of how some Marxist-Leninists I know will try to shut down any criticism of Xi. "You can't trust western sources when it comes to China!"

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

So now no sources are good enough for you.

No actual sources have even been presented. The point about most sources being bad (and most are) is that public opinion is not a reliable metric of how well a government is actually performing. The US is not immune to this either, just look at all the glowing press treatment of Cuomo until they turned on him.

China invests heavily in propaganda and information control. Are you claiming that they're wasting their money? That it doesn't have any effect?

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

No actual sources have even been presented. The point about most sources being bad (and most are) is that public opinion is not a reliable metric of how well a government is actually performing. The US is not immune to this either, just look at all the glowing press treatment of Cuomo until they turned on him.

China invests heavily in propaganda and information control. Are you claiming that they're wasting their money? That it doesn't have any effect?

No, it can definitely have an effect, we can certainly see that here in our country. But I don't believe the Chinese people are nearly as gullible and stupid as Fox News, Newsmax, or OAN viewers.

Just because China uses propaganda, doesn't mean the Chinese people can't still see through that propaganda and still like their country based on their own subjective feelings.

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

No, it can definitely have an effect, we can certainly see that here in our country. But I don't believe the Chinese people are nearly as gullible and stupid as Fox News, Newsmax, or OAN viewers.

Oikophobia strikes again.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Boudicca90

So now no sources are good enough for you.

This attitude reminds me of how some Marxist-Leninists I know will try to shut down any criticism of Xi. "You can't trust western sources when it comes to China!"

I am a Marxist and don't take any sources for granted, Western or Chinese. But I do remember the first three or four months of reporting from China when their very effective pandemic strategy was described as inhumane and dictatorial by almost all Western media. Even though I should have known better, I tended to believe those stories until I saw a report from a Danish camera crew going through actual quarantine and isolation when entering China. That was an eye-opener! 'Oh, so that's what it is! Pretty rational pandemic measures all the way through.'

Until then, people trying to break Chinese quarantine rules were invariably portrayed as heroic freedom fighters, kind of like how American anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers see themselves nowadays.

[dann]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Oikophobia strikes again.

You consider Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN to be your home?!

[BobTheCoward]

Originally Posted by Orphia Nay

Before Covid I had a long talk with some friends who work in China (one is Chinese, one is Australian).

They think it's hilarious the stories they hear right-wingers and even left-wingers say about China.

The stories about surveillance and military hawkism, for example.

They are free to talk and move about.

They compare these stories to the stories some Chinese tell about the USA being a military complex and cruel to its people.

free to move about? Did they scrap hukou?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by dann

You consider Fox News, Newsmax, and OAN to be your home?!

Yeah, no. The USA is my home. Those are just news sources, and not even ones I pay much attention to. The point was about stereotyping of populations. Boudicca90 has a negative stereotype of Americans, and a positive stereotype about Chinese. Why? Oikophobia. It's quite common among progressives.

[The Great Zaganza]

There is a difference between having a negative view and seeing room for improvement.
The "America is no.1" mantra makes it impossible to learn from other countries that have come up with solutions to the same problems American currently has.

[Boudicca90]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Oikophobia strikes again.

After 4 years of Trump and the rise of fascism and white supremacism in this country, and the rise in bigotry that followed, yeah, I have become afraid of my country. That doesn't mean I would rather live in China, since I feel I have an obligation to continue serving my country, as stupid as that feeling is.

And my way of serving my country now is to oppose the rise of the far right and make the government subservient to the people for once instead of corporations.

74 million people saw what Trump did to this country for 4 years and decided "Yep! I want more of that!" And that is absolutely frightening.

Originally Posted by dann

I am a Marxist and don't take any sources for granted, Western or Chinese. But I do remember the first three or four months of reporting from China when their very effective pandemic strategy was described as inhumane and dictatorial by almost all Western media. Even though I should have known better, I tended to believe those stories until I saw a report from a Danish camera crew going through actual quarantine and isolation when entering China. That was an eye-opener! 'Oh, so that's what it is! Pretty rational pandemic measures all the way through.'

Until then, people trying to break Chinese quarantine rules were invariably portrayed as heroic freedom fighters, kind of like how American anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers see themselves nowadays.

Same here, I try to look at every source independently. I even read right wing sites that I feel are more trustworthy, like National Review.

Unfortunately the biggest problem with our mainstream media isn't really political lean, but sensationalism. They are all desperate for ratings and will take any side on any issue that gets them the most attention from viewers.

And occasionally I fall into that trap too, that's why it's always good to have a critical eye.