Well put. It's true a lot of the negative stuff here isn't technically incorrect, but the hyperbole certainly has a distorting effect on the conversation. Clearly, discovering negative aspects about China serves some kind of convenient narrative. I suspect it's something to do with China's growing power, which is threatening to the hegemony the so-called West has exploited for the last few centuries. Reading between the lines the story is something like, "yeah China is growing but it's not real because pollution, human rights, surveillance, etc - anybody could grow like that if they took shortcuts like them". Which I suppose ultimately is a subconscious projection of the guilt the West feels about the shortcuts it took.
> It's true a lot of the negative stuff here isn't technically incorrect
Then it's correct, yes?
> China serves some kind of convenient narrative
I have to agree. If china were an economically unimportant tiddler or have lotsa oil, the west wouldn't care nearly as much.
> the so-called West has exploited for the last few centuries
And china had a pretty repressive feudal government for a very long time. That is, the pyramid's peak freely and often brutally exploited the pyramid's broad base. For a very long time. And Uighurs - like to comment on them? Perhaps you'd like to list some chinese atrocities here?
Seriously, list some.
I'm aware and not proud of the opium wars. That shit should be taught in school, as well as the way brits treated the irish, the welsh, the scottish... Not as a guilt thing but as a way of saying, let this not happen again.
