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Comment by NotPaidToPost | Hacker News Reader

You obviously haven't read the article of this thread and do not know about the so-called Unequal Treaties China was subjected to in the 19th and early 20th century...

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Because the U.S. doesn't have a similar history with the British Empire?

No... That isn't even remotely similar. That's also completely irrelevant here.

Are people really that clueless about history? Or is it just bad faith?

Please point out the provisions of the Treaty of Nanking [0] that are materially worse than terms the U.S. colonies were subject to [1]?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Nanking [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonial_history_of_the_United...

China had it so easy under that treaty. If the US colonies had been given terms like that we'd probably still be British subjects.

How is this relevant?

US colonies were a product of the British Empire, populated by British subjects.

China was an independent country with people who were not British subjects.

Like China, the U.S. has a history of being victims of "unequal treaties" imposed by the British Empire. In fact, the Treaty of Nanking had a provision to ban Americans from the opium trade, which China helped the British to enforce.

Absolutely. This is obvious but...

I'd say neither. Americans just want to put America first.

It's not bad faith to want that. If that means something that looks like Unequal Treaties, so what? Americans have no reason to care. China can be bitter about that forever, or forget it, or decide that Unequal Treaties are awesome. It really doesn't matter to the USA.

It is clear that the Chinese want to put China first. That is their right, and is to be expected. Americans putting America first is no different.

Please don't post name-calling or flamewar comments to HN. If other people are ignorant, and you know more, the thing to do is to teach them, so we can all learn something. Lashing out with labels only makes this place worse, as well as making your own position seem weaker.

I completely understand how frustrating these discussions can be and how posting a reply like that gives a certain temporary relief, but it's not worth the damage it causes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You seem to also be skirting over the latter 20th and 21st centuries where China has been stealing ip and violating human rights.

==violating human rights==

Kind of hard to take this stance when we are palling around with Saudi Arabia and Israel and potentially committing our own abuses at the southern border (and definitely droning civilians in other countries).

...yeah those places need work too. Idk what abuses we have at the southern border. People illegally cross and they are detained. This is very typical border policy.

Taking children who are apprehended with their parents and then separating them for detention isn’t typical and hasn’t been done by other administrations.

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