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Comment by entity345 | Hacker News Reader

That's simplistic.

People forget, or simply don't know, that Chinese are extremely patriotic and that they remember how "the foreign powers" treated them in the past.

Considering what's happening between the US and China, and about Huawei, we can't discard the possibility that Chinese consumers reacted by supporting their country.

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People also forget that they shouldn't speak for a billion odd people. It's a big country with a lot of diversity both culturally and socioeconomically.

The facts we do know are that (a) price affects sales, (b) China has a lot of well made, value focused phones and (c) Apple has already acknowledged their iPhones are expensive.

China is extremely homogeneous on the points I raised.

I did not claim that they were the cause of the drop but simply that these are factors that may also be at play.

North is much more patriotic and aligned with the nationalistic one China narrative than the South. If you have lived in the South, you can encounter more ambivalent view.

CPC puts huge effort to maintain the illusion of unity. The recent ramp up effort to suppress Cantonese is just one example. 80 million people (equal to the population of Germany) speaks Cantonese. Overall 400 million Chinese still can't speak Mandarin.

> that Chinese are extremely patriotic

Like in most countries where education is tightly controlled by the government, patriotism is a result of state propaganda.

> how "the foreign powers" treated them in the past.

The worst thing that happened to Chinese was not the way foreign powers treated them, but what came after under their own ruling party.

I don't know if you know the colonial history of China.

Let me share with you some interesting piece of history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

Wow, struggle sessions. Sounds like the management style at my employer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation#Implica...

Your comment sounds awfully like colonial revisionism

When did these foreign powers mistreat China? The 19th century? Most nationals cultural memories are not that long - specifically one that has been thru three major revolutions in a century.

Whatever the cause of lower iPhone sales, I'm skeptical it's what you claim - sunspots seem more likely to me.

The opium wars may have been in the 19th century but the WW1 reparations, Sino-Japanese wars, rape of Nanking, and general widespread attemps to carve territory from China, especially Western approval of the Sino-Japanese sphere of influence, were all 20th century. Western powers supporting the violent partioning of China was the norm even in the 20th century (look at Churchill's comments on the matter).

It's 20th century and we will never forget.

I agree that some leaders were stupid but we generally agree they are our own business. I'm not surprised that Xi may one day be overthrown. but with some new government, we are still patriotic. Basically it's because our thousands of years of history doesn't allow us from being discriminated by anyone, IMO.

For iPhones, I'd say they're just not sexy. The design and color are boring. Super expensive for the hardware you get. Also Apple's ecosystem doesn't really matter in China. WeChat and a few apps make iPhones and Android roughly same experience.

Regardless of what happened in history, people will only know about it if they are taught it. I assume that knowledge about the failings and oppression by the CCP is not taught in school. It’s also well known that the current Chinese government has the biggest censorship and propaganda system in the world. So the Chinese people’s opinion is relevant in that it is what they think, but it is also not necessarily a reflection of more than their government’s propaganda efforts.

> It's 20th century and we will never forget.

You mean Japanese in WW II? Bear in mind that generally, regardless of the country, being raised as overly patriotic equals to being brainwashed by educational system into lies and selective semi-truths about your history, the politics and what is actually happening in the world. Makes a good army of obedient robots, but not much more. In long term, it screws up given nation/group of people since reality will eventually bite back.

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