Comment by anthuman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by anthuman | Hacker News Reader

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You can't sanction major economies without hurting yourself. It's why sanctions are used on nations with weak economies. Systematically important economies like the US, EU, China, Japan, etc are "unsanctionable".

Sanctioning china for "values" is as absurd as china sanctioning the US for "values". How would everyone react to china sanctioning the US or Europe for invading much of the middle east and north africa. Everyone would laugh.

Also, sanctions are acts of war at best and war crimes at worst. Economic sanctions exist to starve and hurt the population to punish the government. By any objective measure, it is a war crime and crime against humanity. "Luckily", rules and laws don't apply those with the greatest weapons.

Also, I highly doubt most of china's people would side with the US against their own government. No more than we'd side with China over the US government. That's not how people work. Especially if foreign government are attacking your own government.

Either we go to war with them or we decide to live with them. China has 1.4 billion people. The idea that we'd pressure them to act a certain way is ludicrous. More than anything, it'd probably have the opposite effect.

> I highly doubt most of china's people would side with the US against their own government.

Every week there's another article about a new way Chinese citizens are circumventing their government's censorship. Nobody likes being kept under heel. And I seriously doubt the concentration camps would have widespread support - most likely their existence is censored from the rest of the population altogether.

They wouldn't be siding against their own government, they'd be siding against the authoritarian communist party. They'd be choosing things they really want (economic growth) in exchange for the ending of actions they either don't care about or dislike. The CP is already in a precarious balance, trying to maintain strength without turning the general population against them. Some in China already wish it would bend to the sanctions. The above kind of deal would raise the pressure on the party, weakening the tumor sitting on top of a major new contributor to the world economy.

Really? Censorship? And here in the US, people are trying to circumvent censorship too. So what? Doesn't mean we are going to side with china over the US. Also, there have been articles of china's demise for decades now. If you enjoy cringe, look up gordon chang and read some of his stuff.

But I agree with you about nobody wanting to be kept under anyone's heel. Do you know any chinese history? Do you know whose heel's they think they've been under for 200 years? The west's heel. Nationalism and economic growth is how the chinese government maintains power and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

As for the "concentration camps", I'm guessing the support depends on how it is framed. If the chinese government frames it as punishing separatist terrorists, I'm betting it will have as much support as japanese internment had in the US.

Also, the authoritarian communist party is their government whether you like it or not. Considering the economic growth that china has experienced, I'm betting the party and the government has enormous support amongst the population. And in any confrontation with a foreign government, the people almost always rally around their government - authoritarian or not.

Finally, "some" in china might want their government to "bend to the sanctions", but I'm guessing the vast majority of chinese don't. Also, historically, governments tend to fall when they appear weak, especially in relation to a foreign power. Also, you are conveniently ignoring the fact that there are "some" in the US who think we should "bend to their sanctions".

If you think that chinese people are going to side with a foreign government against their own ( authoritarian or not ), then you really don't know history or human nature.

> And here in the US, people are trying to circumvent censorship too.

I don't know what you're talking about; the US is the least-censored country on earth. You can't even pull provable, inflammatory falsehoods off of Facebook without people crying censorship here (which is its own problem).

> there have been articles of china's demise for decades now

I'm not talking about its demise. Quite the opposite. I'm talking about its people being smarter and more worldly than they get credit for, despite president Xi's very best efforts to the contrary. It has academics who are regularly imprisoned for criticizing the government and advocating for personal liberty. Scores of people cheat around the latest propaganda app (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinpi...). People use GitHub, for lack of better options, to exercise some small amount of free speech (https://www.npr.org/2019/04/10/709490855/github-has-become-a...).

There's a will. Chinese people don't want this kind of country. Many of them have just given up fighting it. We could help.

> I'm betting it will have as much support as japanese internment had in the US

Japanese internment has been looked back upon as one of the greatest human rights transgressions the U.S. has ever committed. It wasn't at the time, of course, but that can't be helped. It's also beside the point. I'm not saying "America is good and China is bad". I'm only saying, Xi's ruling party is bad. America has done some bad things too. It's still doing some bad things, like what's happening at the southern border.

Maybe what you don't grasp is that Americans are free to criticize their own government. We can have our own sets of values. I have a pretty low view of my own country right now. That doesn't mean I can't also point out China's problems and America's opportunity to do something about them. Of course, I also have very little faith in my government to take that kind of opportunity right now.

I didn't say the US is the most censored country. I just said we have to deal with censorship here too.

Once again, you harp on censorship. I'm against it too. But what does that have to do with what we are talking about? I don't like censorship in the US but that doesn't mean I'm going to support the chinese government over the US government. For some strange reason, you seem to believe that just because people don't like their own government, they'll support foreign governments. That's not how life works. Every citizen in every country has gripes against their government, but that doesn't mean they would welcome foreign intervention in their own country.

And if the chinese people don't like their government then let them deal with it. Not sure who you are or what your agenda is that you think "we could help". Who are "we" that we have to interfere in other countries?

I'm american. I complain about the government, the establishment press and censorship all the time. What are you? You seem to claim to be american but want to "help" the chinese people overthrow their government. And for someone who claims to be american, you seem to claim to know how the chinese think and want. I suspect chinese people know what chinese people think and want. It's as strange as a chinese person saying they know what americans think and want. How would they know?

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