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Comment by boterock | Hacker News Reader

I always feel amused at these takes from north american citizens.

From a latin american POV, it is same-ish as USA manufacturers, they're also tracking everything we do to sell us more unneeded stuff.

The difference is that chinese government is just trying to sell stuff, while USA government is trying to convert all the southern continent into a colony to impose governments and suck up minerals in the meantime. If you ask me if I trust more China or USA, at least China's intentions are clear and direct.

Of course, you people will always have the argument of "national interest" which for us (at least tech-literate people) that's no argument, but still you will find some bootlickers in the mobs.

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>chinese government is just trying to sell stuff, while USA government is trying to convert all the southern continent into a colony to impose governments and suck up minerals in the meantime.

Are you sure the Chinese government is choosing not to pursue these $evil_intentions[] you ascribe to the US, or are they simply yet unable to?

Well, they have their shady stuff, and they are also selling cheap stuff and killing local markets. And on their end of the world they are an empire like US is at this side.

Still, china are not the ones poisoning people criteria with AI ads and overtaking governments to sell entire countries to US funds.

Not talking about good or bad. I just say south people should defend south's national interest, which is not US interests as it has been demonstrated over the years.

The problem with whataboutism is the same as it always has been, which is that the critique skips the step of checking whether the person who is concerned about Chinese privacy compromises hinges that position on the innocence of Western companies.

That part is assumed, and the whole argument unravels once its established that the assumption doesn't hold. And then either the tankies show up, or everyone forgets about it until the next thread where the process plays out again.

Same. It's really a no-brainer for non-Americans. To the question who would you rather have spy on you, US or China, China wins every time. And you don't even have to bring up a US history of clandestine, direct, proxy, whatever wars.

You’re not wrong about the US but let’s not pretend China is just “trying to sell stuff”. They’ve got their own genocide going on with the Uyghurs and are famous for espionage

I'm not sure how much the genocide there is real or made up by our propaganda.

I have friends who have travelled in the region and described it as a regular place, with muslims just existing there.

Oh boy you should read about US participation in south america dictatorships and genocides. In colombia we have a century of war fueled by US, check banana massacre to begin with. And each country has its own series.

If we're talking about national interest, it's easy to tell which countries espionage affects us the most.

> The difference is that chinese government is just trying to sell stuff, while USA government is trying to convert all the southern continent into a colony to impose governments and suck up minerals in the meantime.

Fascinating. The propaganda I've been fed is that China is the one hoovering up all the minerals so that they have control over the global supply chain for eg cobalt.

If anything, I think it would be ok to sell minerals to the best paying buyer.

US strategy is to pick up a fool with good marketing, inject a lot of money, win an election and rig the law so no contest happens.

So long for the "competitive capitalism" they so much preach about. You know how your politicians work in the inside, what makes you think they are less abusive with people they have no concern about.

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