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Comment by Phileosopher | Hacker News Reader

This is difficult to parse in my Western mind.

I've grown up with a constant understanding of implicit liberties, so much so that I have the freedom to openly _discuss_ my general distrust of the government. The events that float by in HN are outliers: threats of more risk, but statistically unusual enough that they're stories of interest.

This means that living and acting in a country where your very _thoughts_ are monitored is practically an alien concept for me. How do you live and decide with a government over you that can grab control at any time they wish?

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Remember that nobody was threatened or, as a result, morally offended by China until the last few years when we figured out we couldn't keep them at the bottom of the value chain forever.

How do we live in a society where we can just be aimed at a new foreign enemy and all of our free, enlightened citizens go along every time? Russia (support afghanistan), Iran (support Iraq), Iraq (support gulf emirates), Al Qaeda, Afghanistan, Iraq again, now China! It seems so normal to us, because that's all we know.

They're not perfect, we're not perfect, and both states are feeding off of national rivalry to legitimize themselves because that's what states do.

Disagree. Not only have Americans pointed out their disagreement with Chinese government for as long as I’m aware, one of our core foreign policy concepts was that doing commerce with China would push them to liberalize and adopt more Western values in their government.

As another commenter noted, what’s happened so far is that the quality of life has improved for so many Chinese that they seem willing to accept this system despite its problems. This may indicate American foreign policy was wrong-headed, but it’s still too early to tell. A middle class represents a large power base, and especially as second generation middle class Chinese come to adulthood, they may no longer see this model of government as acceptable. But: who knows? Nobody has a crystal ball.

American foreign policy was wrong-headed because it envisioned China happily assimilating into a world order which recognized US as rightful hegemon of all oceans and most land. This was more of an unspoken assumption, the spoken version had all the stuff you said.

Why would they accept that? There's a billion and a half of them and they work harder. They're going to have regional hegemony over their area as a matter of arithmetic.

It was wrong headed because it gave a lifeline to an immoral authoritarian government. Without being allowed to participate in the WTO and the west's world order CCP would have collapsed by the end of the 90s. Once a democratic rule of law government took over then they could have become just as prosperous but without the evil power structure that keeps is here to stay. It would be more like Taiwan or South Korea or Hong Kong pre-National Security Law, prosperous and free.

Their way is _working_. No, Taiwan and South Korea and Hong Kong are not proof that democratic methods work. Calling Hong Kong under Britain democratic is wildly disingenuous. Taiwan and South Korea are only _very_ recently democratic. Arguably the bulk of their ascendance occurred under authoritarian rule.

You also don't get to point only at successes. They looked at Singapore and sought to emulate that model, who are you to dictate that this is not acceptable? They looked at India and saw failure, what's your rebuttal?

Their way isnt their way through. They just regiment society and produce technology and goods designed elsewhere. Without technology transfers 'their way' would be living in poverty pretending everything was fine because their society is so terrified of criticism..

Honesltly, more developed nations paid for cheap labour in China and hoped they would adopt more libertarian views (as the technology which pulled them out of poverty was created in freer nations), instead they are amassing power and think they can suddenly supercede the current world order. They are so xenophobic that it will never happen, not until their values change and they accept foreigners like the US, at which point there is little difference anyway

> Remember that nobody was threatened or, as a result, morally offended by China until the last few years when we figured out we couldn't keep them at the bottom of the value chain forever.

I was helping companies figure out how to isolate IP from their Chinese branches 10+ years ago. This is not new, and definitely not “the last few years”.

Maybe I'm biased somewhat as Australia has a history of being threatened by an aggressor taking over the Pacific in the past, but I don't think the situation with Xi Jinping is as simple as "national rivalry" or "a new foreign enemy".

Xi is reinstating policies that have not existed in China since the days of Mao: lifelong leadership terms, extreme cults of personality, a fostered sense of nationalistic violence, the beginnings of territorial expansion and mass incarceration and repression of an entire ethnic group.

There are very real fears that he could become the next Hitler and violently subjugate the entire Asia-Pacific region to his rule.

That is not true. There have been many reports concerned with China's aggressive efforts at stealing IP for at least 10 years that I'm aware of, probably more like 20.

> There have been many reports concerned with China's aggressive efforts at stealing IP for at least 10 years that I'm aware of, probably more like 20.

Over 20 sounds about right. Definitely since Clinton was in office. The number of times that satellite designs were ripped off was memorable.

There's still various articles that haven't been lost to bitrot.

https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/98-485.html

This was hilarious because Congress was asking if the US military was straight up sharing. The reported US designs ending up in Chinese hands was of notable concern to draw a few inquiries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/missi... et al

If you want to know what caused the entire western media to change their tune and become anti-China. This here is what triggered it:

https://www.businessinsider.com.au/george-soros-davos-2019-c...

> Remember that nobody was threatened or, as a result, morally offended by China until the last few years when we figured out we couldn't keep them at the bottom of the value chain forever.

No. Not really. Just stating things doesn't make them true.

You should ask China's neighbors (esp. India) whether they felt threatened before.

Also read this:

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

Why do you think emperor for life Xi Jinping is going to be more fair than his more "democratic" predecessors?

It's not hard when if you go back more than 40 years (so parents) knew first hand living in substandard housing, in huts and muddy fields, bunking two families to a flat and one "mao coat" per person in their wardrobe. Eking out a living. When you propel a billion (now 1.4) into the middle class, they will forgive a lot.

> This is difficult to parse in my Western mind.

>How do you live and decide with a government over you that can grab control at any time they wish?

You don't. That's why chinese millionaires/billionaires are parking (at least some of) their wealth outside of china so it's safe from expropriation by the chinese government. Also, this isn't limit to china. It's the default state of affairs when rule of law and property rights isn't respected (ie. most developing countries).

I know that businesses in China are tied to the CCP in inextricable ways, but this take on the story doesn't make sense to me. This article was about a private takeover of a semiconductor business, what does it have to do with free speech, surveillance, or the government taking over anything?

The fact that the court system and government is not respecting property rights. It's not a private takeover. It's theft. And the Chinese government is allowing it because it serves their purposes.

> This means that living and acting in a country where your very _thoughts_ are monitored is practically an alien concept for me. How do you live and decide with a government over you that can grab control at any time they wish?

SOOOOO NO. In this case, ARM China has one oddball dude who is playing Robinhood to the World Order Intellectual Property Policing Regime that has been absolute & tyrannical. No country in the world DARES tries to do a single thing on their own.

We're just getting wind that 10 years ago, Microsoft and IBM showed up and told New Zealand, who was dangerously considering thinking for themselves, that they had to fall in line, and sure enough, they bought the influence they needed[1].

Your wind up is 100% about fear, about a country where liberties are constrained, data monitored & controlled. And yet this story is something utterly different. This occurrence is different. It's not about your personal liberties being stepped on. This is where a person within a nation finds a way to use that nation to seize control of that arm of the business. But what's wild here to me is: that person is going to act like Robinhood. They've stolen intellectual property, freed it from the shackles & chains the rest of the world says it has on it. The rest of the world restricted the liberty of this information, the rest of the world prevented discussion of this information, the rest of the world monitored how it was used. The rest of the world backed ARM Holding LTD's exclusive right to determine the fate of the chips used almost everywhere on the planet, at all manners of scale, and no one absolutely no one had a single say about that. That's what Intellectual Property meant to the world.

This sounds like a total nutjob episode, aboslutely wacked out single-actor hijinks. But holy shit, this is about freeing something that has been locked up for a long time, and it's fucking epic.

[1] https://wiki.endsoftwarepatents.org/wiki/IBM_and_MS_deciding...

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