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Comment by oxymoran | Hacker News Reader

The brainwashing must be strong for students thousands of miles away from China in the middle of nowhere Indiana for them to feel the need to snitch on dissenters. Or, more likely, they were threatened before they left China that they would be watched while abroad.

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This is the tried-and-tested Stasi technique.

You don't need to be brainwashed, you just need to be afraid.

Afraid of being reported yourself, if you don't report others. You never know, if the "other" was just a false flag to test your reporting. You never know if your best friend, who also witnessed the same thing, reported. He doesn't know if you reported. Reverse prisoner's dilemma.

> You never know, if the "other" was just a false flag to test your reporting. You never know if your best friend, who also witnessed the same thing, reported. He doesn't know if you reported.

I am worried about the authoritarian turn my country (not China) is taking. But reading and contemplating these words sent a shiver down my spine.

Students, privileged ones at least, are still living in a fairly black and white life and have not seen that the world is many colours of truth. So defending one broad ideology is pretty easy for them, until they live a little longer and experience that we are more greys than hard edges.

I don't know, I remember a naturalized college classmate of mine who came to the US permanently in elementary school (from China) going on off the cuff rants about the Dalai Lama poisoning people.

I think they do a really good job at creating a narrative of victimhood and inculcating a sort of unhinged teenage belligerence. Not that threats don't have their role, or that they aren't keeping folks under observation, but they get a lot of mileage without those tools.

I get leery of claiming "brainwashing" because I know some people in the US who would probably do the same thing... no threats or direct government intervention necessary. For some people it seems our natural predilection for tribalism only needs a little push to get there.

They ARE being watched abroad, if I'm not mistaken. They keep using WeChat to communicate with family/friends so...

The network effect is even worse when consider a lot of the alternative are banned in china. This makes it difficult basically impossible for Chinese abroad to communicate with their friends and family back in mainland using some alternative service.

Even imagining this is suffocating for someone who hasn't grown up in such a system.

Ha! What do you think whatsapp is?

I get it. But atleast I'm not living in fear of my family being put in jail due to some offhand remark on a WhatsApp group (not saying that is not a possibility in future due to how things are turning around the world).

The narrative of Chinese international students being brainwashed CCP militants or terrified informants is miles away from every interaction I've actually had with Chinese international students. Even when 'sensitive topics' are brought up.

I think there are some bad trends and some very vocal and nationalistic exceptions that make for some sensational news stories. Like most college students, everyone is mostly just concerned with homework and getting along with their roommates.

> thousands of miles away from China

Does this really matter in the age of the internet?

Since it makes immediate physical repercussion, like detention or torture, by the Chinese state less feasible, it is remarkable.

I've heard it from another Chinese student that a lot of Chinese students come from families that are blessed by CCP. So naturally they are very loyal to CCP. Very few students/people in general can make it outside of China without being blessed by CCP. Hence very high loyalty to CCP among international Chinese students.

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