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My international friend from school was lost as to why China is viewed unfavorably...and I didn't say a thing

KrigareN-

KrigareN-

Banned
Dec 13, 2017
2,156
This happened in late February, so the coronavirus situation was still developing and hadn't yet affected our lives. We were on break from our studies and it started with him sarcastically mocking China saying things like "China Bad, China Evil" and then expressed his confusion as to why China has the reputation it has in US. He didn't really ask me directly but expressed simply expressed frustration. I took it as him referring to the government itself and not the people in general...but I didn't respond and instead steered the conversation into a different direction. I was aware of the things the Chinese government is criticized for, but I don't know why I responded this way and I'm not sure if there could have been a better way to handle the situation. I guess I didn't want to potentially ruin whatever relationship we were forming because I had assumed that type of discussion could not have been given the time it deserved and thought that it would not end well regardless.

I've been thinking about it recently since the whole situation has gotten so much worse and has inspired more vocal criticism towards the Chinese government.

Should I have said anything?
 
Seductivpancakes

Seductivpancakes

user requested ban
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Oct 25, 2017
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Brooklyn
It's not gonna go well if you tell him the truth, so if you wanna maintain your friendship, you're better off just telling him sarcasm and jokes are what Americans love doing.
 
Dr. Feel Good

Dr. Feel Good

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,996
User warned: threadwhining
What is the point of this thread. You had a friend who isn't clear on how or why people have thoughts or feelings about a certain country or it's politics? Ok?
 
Charizard

Charizard

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,906
KrigareN- said:
Yes, quite a few of my friends in school are international Chinese students
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Yeeeeaaaaahhhh in that case I highly recommend not touching that subject until you've given enough thought to come up with a carefully crafted response.

"Your home country is ran by a bunch of cunts" can be a hard pill to swallow for a youngster IMO
 
Wereroku

Wereroku

Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,254
It's probably not worth it with most folks. Most of the Chinese grads/undergrads I have dealt with either already know everything you would tell them and don't think it's a big deal or also agree that the government has a lot of problems but are pretty quiet about it. They have it rough in a lot of ways so I just don't worry about it.
 
sphagnum

sphagnum

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
16,058
Tell him some bad things China has done and then counterbalance it with bad things the US has done to soften the blow. But you'd also have to explain how there's a particular drive toward anti-Chinese sentiment because of the underlying pressures to have a new Cold War.
 
Qvoth

Qvoth

Member
Oct 26, 2017
11,900
you have to realize that most mainlanders do not know much about their own country's history
 
Crimsonskies

Crimsonskies

Alt account
Banned
Nov 1, 2019
700
I think many mainland Chinese students are baffled by the negativity against their own government because those I went to college with usually only hung around with other Chinese students.

They mainly use their own social media apps such as Weibo (chinese facebook which is heavily censored) and those who create facebook account are shocked when they see unfiltered opinions and people being able to post whatever they want.

We had students from Hong Kong and Taiwan and they joined everybody else and became part of the student community but the mainlander students usually kept to themselves.

I think mainlander students are afraid to engage with other students and when politics come up or someone makes a joke about Xi Jin Ping which happened at my university many of them either get defensive or just walk away.

I noticed the tension during the Hong Kong protests especially it became Mainland chinese students vs everyone else on campus.

And if you critiize the chinese government in any away the whatbaoutism arguments will keep coming what about Trump what about what Norway did when they refused to sell salmon to China (we did not they refused to trade and broke off diplomatic bonds because we gave the Nobel peace prize to a pro democracy activist in China nobel comitte is not part of the government btw)
 

Deleted member 11413

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Oct 27, 2017
22,961
Probably for the best. I know a lot of international students from China, and they vary wildly on how much they like/dislike the government. Some are pro-government, some are critical of the government, most are neutral.

It's a documented thing that the Chinese government will spy on and have other students report on their peers studying in the US who are critical of the government, so pressing the issue might have put them in a bad situation. Best to just avoid the subject entirely for their safety.
 
Pwnz

Pwnz

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,279
Places
Silence is the best option. In high school a German exchange student made a big fuss about WW2 not being a big deal because it was so long ago and I was dumbstruck silent. I mean I'm sure a bunch of rednecks told the kid that we won WW2 unsolicited but not a big deal, yeah...
 
Hierophant

Hierophant

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,196
Sydney
AcademicSaucer said:
Also no, dont approach people just to tell them their country sucks, wtf
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This happens alot more than you'd think to Chinese international students, to the point where they'd rather huddle in and stay in their own groups because turns out when your entire worldview is insulted repeatedly by random white people, you'd huddle up and not want to engage either.
 
AcademicSaucer

AcademicSaucer

Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,687
Hierophant said:
This happens alot more than you'd think to Chinese international students, to the point where they'd rather huddle in and stay in their own groups because turns out when your entire worldview is insulted repeatedly by random white people, you'd huddle up and not want to engage either.
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So the race of the people approaching them is the problem? Then maybe I will fare better.
 
Crimsonskies

Crimsonskies

Alt account
Banned
Nov 1, 2019
700
Hierophant said:
This happens alot more than you'd think to Chinese international students, to the point where they'd rather huddle in and stay in their own groups because turns out when your entire worldview is insulted repeatedly by random white people, you'd huddle up and not want to engage either.
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Our student community was pretty international the biggest conflict I was between students from Taiwan, Hong Kong vs mainland chinese students.

However the support for the protestors was quite large on our campus and then we had had mainland students waving the chinese flag vs everybody else on campus and this happened at several campuses around the world btw.

The one in Australia became chaotic it was not just white people vs chinese students many students from other parts of Asia also supported the protestors in Hong Kong.

I am not white and fully supported the protests since I have lived in Hong Kong and have friends of mine that I am concerned for.

I was called the n-word by a mainland chinese student (i am half hispanic).
 
SmokeMaxX

SmokeMaxX

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,336
It's... complicated. You aren't responsible for having that conversation with them, though. From my understanding, growing up in China, you can't criticize the CCP. Like, that's not even an option. The ability to do so is removed from you (or you are removed from the population). So, you have to think of their POV in that context. More broadly, an international student might ask what right the US has for criticizing ANY other country as if our history hasn't been riddled with atrocities. Further, although the CCP is bad and has committed a multitude of unspeakable, heinous acts, many Americans use that as an excuse to be racist. There's an argument that the same number of people wouldn't feel the exact same emotions for what the CCP is doing if it were a random European country. But, the "other-ing" of China makes it easier to hate.
 
Achire

Achire

Member
Oct 27, 2017
456
Lord of Ostia said:
Probably for the best. I know a lot of international students from China, and they vary wildly on how much they like/dislike the government. Some are pro-government, some are critical of the government, most are neutral.

It's a documented thing that the Chinese government will spy on and have other students report on their peers studying in the US who are critical of the government, so pressing the issue might have put them in a bad situation. Best to just avoid the subject entirely for their safety.
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This 100%. Do not discuss politics with students from mainland China. Nothing good is going to come out of it.
 

sapien85

Banned
Nov 8, 2017
5,427
Hierophant said:
I remember doing an American history class and the Americans in the class getting really mad when I brought up the atrocities of US soldiers in the Vietnam war during a presentation on their war crimes.
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In America you can burn the flag and call the president a mentally defective traitor in public. You can't do that in China.
 

Deleted member 11413

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Crimsonskies said:
Our student community was pretty international the biggest conflict I was between students from Taiwan, Hong Kong vs mainland chinese students.

However the support for the protestors was quite large on our campus and then we had had mainland students waving the chinese flag vs everybody else on campus and this happened at several campuses around the world btw.

The one in Australia became chaotic it was not just white people vs chinese students many students from other parts of Asia also supported the protestors in Hong Kong.

I am not white and fully supported the protests since I have lived in Hong Kong and have friends of mine that I am concerned for.

I was called the n-word by a mainland chinese student (i am half hispanic).
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Racism is a huge problem both here in the US and in mainland China. White people going up to Chinese students and being fucking racist and attacking them for their country as if they have any responsibility for their government's transgressions is fucking disgusting. That said, a black person going up to a Chinese student and telling them their government sucks is not going to go well either.

Better to just avoid this situation altogether. It's not like China has a democratic system of governance either so there really isn't a chance that they are indirectly responsible for the government's actions. They are just people trying to get an education, leave them the fuck alone.

Good for you for supporting the protests, I would too. But the mainland Chinese students aren't operating under the same conditions as those of us not from mainland China, I find it hard to judge them when the alternative is risk of backlash from an authoritarian state.
 

Deleted member 2761

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Ya'll are just so caught up in the narrative that you're good people that you just can't resist preaching, can you?
 

Deleted member 11413

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Lesath said:
Ya'll are just so caught up in the narrative that you're good people that you just can't resist preaching, can you?
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To be fair to OP, they did resist preaching to their friend.
Hierophant said:
Going to go to the Southern United states and burning both a confederate flag and American flag in public while yelling about how bad Trump is.
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Yeah that will go extremely poorly. Sure, the courts will rule that it is within your First Amendment rights to have done so, but that will help you little after the white supremacist already put a bullet in your brain (this is slightly hyperbolic but doing what is described here would put you in danger).
 
Crimsonskies

Crimsonskies

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Lord of Ostia said:
Racism is a huge problem both here in the US and in mainland China. White people going up to Chinese students and being fucking racist and attacking them for their country as if they have any responsibility for their government's transgressions is fucking disgusting. That said, a black person going up to a Chinese student and telling them their government sucks is not going to go well either.

Better to just avoid this situation altogether. It's not like China has a democratic system of governance either so there really isn't a chance that they are indirectly responsible for the government's actions. They are just people trying to get an education, leave them the fuck alone.

Good for you for supporting the protests, I would too. But the mainland Chinese students aren't operating under the same conditions as those of us not from mainland China, I find it hard to judge them when the alternative is risk of backlash from an authoritarian state.
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Sure but that goes both ways we had an event were we had solidarity with the protestors in Hong Kong and mainland students crashed it they were the ones that came in wawing Chinese flags and called us out for how wrong we were, and they instigated the name calling not us.

So they also like to engage it's not like I walk up to a chinese mainland student and go hey your government sucks, so I don't judge them for not engaging but when they activly try to silence other students from speaking out that is where the tension starts.

In Canada a Tibetan student who supported the free tibet movement was elected to the student body and the mainland students went after her in a way that was disgusting she was treated like absolute crap this is also not acceptable.
 

Deleted member 2761

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Lord of Ostia said:
To be fair to OP, they did resist preaching to their friend.

Yeah that will go extremely poorly. Sure, the courts will rule that it is within your First Amendment rights to have done so, but that will help you little after the white supremacist already put a bullet in your brain (this is slightly hyperbolic but doing what is described here would put you in danger).
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You're right. Sorry OP.
 

sapien85

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Nov 8, 2017
5,427
Pwnz said:
Sure, but it is true that Americans, especially in certain areas, white wash the fuck and often are completely unaware of war crimes committed by the US
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That happens in most countries from what I've seen. Not uniquely American. Look at the people being elected right now in Brazil, eastern Europe, Japan, Russia, Israel.
 

Deleted member 11413

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Crimsonskies said:
Sure but that goes both ways we had an event were we had solidarity with the protestors in Hong Kong and mainland students crashed it they were the ones that came in wawing Chinese flags and called us out for how wrong we were, and they instigated the name calling not us.

So they also like to engage it's not like I walk up to a chinese mainland student and go hey your government sucks.
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Sure, though the protest is a different context than just randomly on campus or on the street.

Like I said, those mainland students are under different pressures than those of us who don't live under authoritarian regimes. I'm sure some of them are true believers, and some are doing what they have to do to be able to go home and live their lives peacefully. Since you have no idea who is who, best to leave them alone and just treat them like human beings.

Except for the person calling you the n-word, then you have every right to get in their face. Fuck that shit.
 
Hierophant

Hierophant

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Oct 25, 2017
2,196
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Speevy said:
The government won't disappear you no matter how many American flags you burn.
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en.wikipedia.org

COINTELPRO - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

COINTELPRO (syllabic abbreviation derived from COunter INTELligence PROgram) (1956–1971) was a series of covert and illegal[1][2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations.[3][4] FBI records show that COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals that the FBI deemed subversive,[5] including feminist organizations,[6] the Communist Party USA,[7] anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists of the civil rights movement or Black Power movement (e.g. Martin Luther King Jr., the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party), environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), independence movements (such as Puerto Rican independence groups like the Young Lords), and a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left.
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Beginning in 1969, leaders of the Black Panther Party were targeted by the COINTELPRO and "neutralized" by being assassinated, imprisoned, publicly humiliated or falsely charged with crimes. Some of the Black Panthers affected included Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Zayd Shakur, Geronimo Pratt, Mumia Abu-Jamal,[18] and Marshall Conway. Common tactics used by COINTELPRO were perjury, witness harassment, witness intimidation, and withholding of evidence.[19][20][21]
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Deleted member 11413

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Speevy said:
The government won't disappear you no matter how many American flags you burn.
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They will assassinate you if you are a black activist though! Edit: Ah, Heirophant beat me to it.
sapien85 said:
That happens in most countries from what I've seen. Not uniquely American. Look at the people being elected right now in Brazil, eastern Europe, Japan, Russia, Israel.
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No one said it was uniquely American.
 
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