[newen]

Most Americans are under the impression that Chinese citizens secretly hate their government but can’t speak up due to the authoritarian tendencies of the ruling CCP. Of course, any news that contradict this feeling can be ascribed to CCP propaganda. And of course, when asked to examine the source of this feeling, it can never be American propaganda but cold hard facts.

[actuator]

It doesn't have to be most actually, just the ability to let out what even few are thinking.

Look at what's happening in India. An elected government on a clear majority, passed new laws and some section of people which are not happy with it, have held the government to ransom through protests. There seems to be international civil society support for the protests as it seems like the powerless going against an all powerful government.

Without going into the merits of the protests in this particular example, just the fact that even a small section is able to express themselves is a good thing. One can always argue that this can become counter productive, but I guess that's better than people suffering silently.

Having said this, I don't doubt that the majority of people in PRC, at least Han Chinese are massively better off in the last 40 years.

[Udik]

I agree on the principle: being able to openly protest is better than not. Once this has been said, there is a big difference between a tyrannical government that keeps people in poverty and an authoritarian one that has brought many hundreds of millions to a western standard of life and made the country a credible competitor to the only other world super-power.

I perfectly understand a Chinese being proud of their country, their government and their CCP- as much as Americans are proud of their country despite their 2 million imprisoned people, dual-party system that allows no competition, police violence, decades of wars waged around the world and support for dictatorships and coups to overthrow democratically elected leaders. Things could certainly be even better and hopefully with time they will be- but this attitude of fixating on one aspect to justify a black-and-white view of the world- in which your side is the good one- is damn stupid.

[newen]

I’m just trying to explain the dynamics of typical HN comments regarding Chinese citizens, where the usually American commenter writes under the assumption that the Chinese citizen is held under this brutal dictatorship and must use any and all opportunity to speak up and/or oppose this brutal dictatorship. It’s a relatively recent phenomenon in American politics and it’s interesting to think about.

[free_rms]

What's happening in India is that farmers were/are going to be screwed, and they're really mad about it.

What has happened in China is that a billion farmers are massively, undescribably better off. You literally cannot describe it to the average American, their scale for lifestyle doesn't go that low.

[woshicoolbe]

I am a Chinese living in Europe. Almost all the articles in media I read in Western media on China are negative. They only talk about HK, Uyghurs. But China has many exciting things happening and very dynamic. But in another hand, I saw the western media just criticize everything, it's like the whole world only has negative things happening. I personally don't hate the Chinese government. The people's living standard is hugely improved these two decades, and my friends in China are mostly happy about their life.

[cromwellian]

The press isn’t just supposed to report government propaganda of how everything is going great because invariable while some people are benefitting, others are suffering.

Be it the civilians in Yemen being starved by a Saudi-led American backed proxy war, or the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Yes, China has raised a huge number of people out of poverty, mostly thanks to Deng inviting in foreign investment, but Xi is turning China into a surveillance state, using a few terrorist events to justify large scale oppression in Xinjiang, and the CCP is on balance, a corrupt inner circle of grifters getting rich off the economic rise. How does China’s parliament delegates have 100 billionaires in it?

Xi’s family net worth has widely been reported to be hundreds of millions. How did they earn it?

I’m not willing to give my own government a pass for the good things they’ve done (eg Obama on healthcare) and excuse the bad things they’ve done (extrajudicial drone killings)

And I don’t think giving a free pass on massive Corruption, an oppressive police state in Xinjiang, etc is justified because the economy is good.

So invariably someone’s going to claim I’m just getting my info from bias western media, but I’ll just tell you I have traveled all over Xinjiang and speak passable Mandarin, in addition to having lived in China for a while. You can quite clearly see the overwhelming security apparatus in Xinjiang on every street corner and road, and I don’t need CNN to tell what my eyes see.

Like White people dismissing the conditions of Black people in the US, it’s really easy for Han Chinese to think the Uyghur minority concerns are blown out of proportion. I had many Han friends tell me not to go to Xinjiang, that it was far too dangerous. The reality is, I never once felt threatened by Uyghurs, they were incredibly friendly and hospitable. I was more nervous from soldiers with rifles everywhere, and constant road checkpoints demanding my photo and passport every few kilometers.

If you live in a Tier-1/Tier-2/Tier-3 city, it's really easy to dismiss the complaints of minority provinces or rural poor, especially when the one view of what's happening you get comes from state media.

I love China, am hopeful by its steady rise, and the world will be a better place with another advanced wealthy civilization of a billion people, and hopefully the whole 7 billion people on the planet can be uplifted. But it is not going to be served by a corrupt authoritarian government of grifters getting more and more control and power over of a large fraction of the world's economy and people.

Are the foreign press wrong to worry about China building massive dams and threatening India's water supply for example? Pakistan, China, and India are involved in a 3 way war over fresh water that affects 2+ billion people, and all of them have nuclear weapons.

The press should be looking at things that are harmful, not just saying "Good job government". FDR did a lot of good things for the US, but he also locked up 100,000+ Japanese in camps. The founding fathers did a lot of good in writing the US Constitution, but they also owned slaves. Criticism of government is a good thing.

[cambalache]

You are correct but you are missing the key ingredient. Western media criticizes western and non-western governments all the same (to different degrees of course).But in other realms (things like cinema, sports, music,literature, videogames) the western people, their way of life, their worldview, and their history are lionized and romanticized while the non-western side of history is still presented as barbaric, brutish and retrograde. So not only Putin,Xi,Bolsonaro or Modi suck but the people "over there" are gangsters, killers, terrorists and the enemies to conquer and defeat. You need to be moved into tears by the story of a little kid from Kansas who went to Vietnam or Iraq though.