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It's not like mainlanders every really had a choice. Their own protests were crushed with tanks in 1989 and they've been relentlessly propagandized on everything from the papers to the schools to social media since then. I have zero doubts such strong propaganda efforts over decades would yield similar results on the vast majority Americans had it happened here.

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Writing off the surrender of mainlanders of all their rights to "effective propaganda" is undercutting the very real sense of grievance and fear/hatred of foreigners already present.

But much of the canonical mainland political belief system is incompatible with rational thought and generally shared moral principles. And mainlanders are obviously not any less rational or moral on most topics.

Mainlanders may not like it to hear it, and I'll even go as far as to say the best strategy for discussing politics with mainlanders is to not directly tell them this, but their political canon is anomalously full of holes that are exposed when explored in any significant depth (yes I've been through this process with mainlanders).

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