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Comment by mytailorisrich | Hacker News Reader

This does not really dispel the whiff of racism that undoubtedly exists, does it?

So if a Taiwanese dislikes the Chinese (government policy) or does not trust software "Made in China" she or he is racist?

Chinese or Chinese government policy? That's not the same. Also there is no need to try to come up with contrived examples or straw man arguments.

Claiming that "it's not against the Chinese but against their government" is also sometimes a convenient and not completely honest way to deflect claims of racism. The same happens with Israel and it can be quite insiduous.

When people have to notice and discuss the Chinese origin of everything, all the time, "but just because of the Chinese government's policies" in my view they complain too much...

And when it's not the government, it's pollution, or IP theft, or because they eat dogs (in some part of the country), or whatnot.

If the people of Hong Kong don't want to be extradicted to China is that racist?

> a convenient but not completely honest way to deflect claims of racism

And sometimes claims of racism can be a convenient but not quite honest way to deflect criticism of policy.

> If the people of Hong Kong don't want to be extradicted to China is that racist?

Could we avoid straw man arguments?

There is an element of racism on issues related to China. There is no point denying it.

There is certainly less of it (or at least it is much less obvious) than during the anti-China campaign in the West/US during the 50s and 60s but it is still there.

As I wrote, some people just complain too much... It's quite obvious in this thread.

> Could we avoid straw man arguments?

We can - but that wasn't a straw-man argument.

> There is an element of racism on issues regarding China.

I agree. There is also an element of "that's racist" being used to deflect criticism.

I'm fairly sure the racism argument was the first strawman in this thread. Chinese software has some real trust issues, given the political climate in that country. Open source does not automatically mean it's safe.

You've ignored what I wrote in my comments and just replied beside the point by repeating the usual FUD instead.

A comment with similar contents as yours but "pro-China" would immediately be labelled as coming from a 'bot' or someone paid by the Chinese government.

I find this fascinating. The current climate regarding China is fantastic book material for Noam Chomsky.

Could we avoid misusing the term straw man argument? That seemed like a good faith hypothetical question that could help further illuminate your own position, not some false posturing of your ideas.

It must be nice to live in a world where geopolitical issues don't exist. The threat of the Chinese government is very real, and their influence and power over every Chinese citizen and company makes any Chinese actor suspect, yes. It has nothing to do with disliking Chinese, and everything to do with the CCP using its power to influence and control everything in their reach.

Edit: I'd like to add. There are so many conflicts and animosities and distrust that have zero to do with racism. Our troubles with Russia are entirely ideological, for example. And especially in geopolitics, the issues that cause conflict usually revolve around pragmatic things like resources, economic/military power, spheres of influence, etc.

Taiwanese and Singapore are the same race as Chinese. So being fine with their product and not Chinese products is about as unracist as you can get.

As I said, I don't see any racism here. Being suspicious towards people of Chinese origin, culture, language, looks etc. is clearly racist. Being suspicious to the citizens of People's Republic of China is only political.

> Being suspicious to the citizens of People's Republic of China

Being negative about people simply based on their nationality is racist.

When people insult Americans are they being racist?

Shouldn't that be "nationalist" or "jingoist"? Chinese citizens aren't all one race (though the official Party line seems to suggest they should be, and policies like they're unleashing in Xinjiang and Tibet seem to be trying to achieve that by force).

It's racist.

Those attempts at denying that because a country or a people are not "a race" is ludicrous.

If I say that I don't like Mexicans that's racist, for example. If I try to deny it because that's not "a race" I will only ridiculise myself even more.

Sure, I understand what you're saying (and racism and jingoism are pretty hard to separate in practice). Clearly most private citizens anywhere in the world (outside of China...) don't have much to worry about using Huawei hardware, and if these laptops run Deepin they could easily have any other distro installed instead, if people are worried about the software.

So do you want to say that when some countries impose sanctions on, say, Iran, it's racist because there are nice people in Iran, and sanctions affect them as well?

Or it is not racists when governments do it, but is racists when individuals/companies do it?

Where someone was born is not a political choice. Maybe you meant members of the Chinese Community Part, not citizens of the PRC?

I didn't say it's _fair_, I just said it's not racist.

It's probably too much to put ordinary people under suspicion right away, but for for legal bodies it's totally reasonable if you ask me. To assume that you can run business in an authoritarian country and be totally independent from the government is plainly naive. Even if you are not formally a member of the ruling party.

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