Is there any evidence for the scale of such operations being conducted domestically?

> Is there any evidence

A core part of any domestic intelligence service is having the means to discredit and publically ridicule anyone who has or claims to have such evidence. Asking for it in this context is noble, but should be viewed as fundamentally futile. Either you will not have it, or the people providing it will most likely be crackpots to your perception.

In this case the GCHQ isn't a domestic intelligence agency. In addition there usually is some slight evidence available for claims like these which would help support its existence. For example before the Snowden disclosures there were several other disclosures that demonstrated that mass surveillance was ongoing, for example with ECHELON and Room 641A.

> In 2011, the JTRIG conducted a denial-of-service attack (DoS) on the activist network Anonymous.[1] Other JTRIG targets have included the government of Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan.[2]

what exactly is the problem with this?

Might be more of an allergy to unbridled hypocrisy than simply negative mentions of China.

Like hearing oil companies complain about the damage to the environment being wreaked by coal companies.

Or hearing Chinese state media complain about American human rights abuses (which is an example in this article cited by the BBC).

no one assumed that? The point is everyone can say whatever that person wants, including ANY journalists. Being afraid of some "government policy" is a paranoia coming from countries where the first point does not apply, projecting their own fears to others

>Being afraid of some "government policy" is a paranoia coming from countries where the first point does not apply

So like a long tradition from Gary Webb to Assange, cancel culture, attacks on the integrity and reputation (and de-platforming) of people like Taibbi or Greenwald, and so on?

>cancel culture

Damn the uk gov sits on Twitter all day?

Maybe these people you bring up isn't as benevolent as you think they are?

Has there ever been a place or time when this wasn't true?

You broke the site guidelines badly here. Please don't do that on HN again. We have this rule for good, extremely well-supported-by-data reasons:

"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

You can read many years' worth of past explanations if you want to understand more:

https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

I recall the online version of our student newspaper once wrote an article with some fairly generic criticisms of China's government having a very interesting comments section that week (the guy who wrote the article went on to be a journalist for the FT)

Then I recall reading forums full of British supposedly mature adults reacting with similarly preposterous rage to a non-story about an Oxford college taking down a picture of the Queen, and I'm absolutely certain the Royal Family weren't paying them...

Pretty sure that China's actual paid propagandists are doing the difficult job of changing the focus of the attack when evidence of government shortcomings surfaces on Chinese message boards, not hanging around on niche English language forums which categorise politics as "off topic" in case California-based computer programmers' views of China aren't universally positive (or for that matter bombarding student publications of with the sort of outraged anonymous comments that look... actually pretty similar in tone to the letters to the editor by named undergraduates)

Why should Westerners care about a "sprawling network of more than 350 fake social media profiles" when our own governments have been lying to us and spewing propaganda about almost everything of importance for DECADES? See my comment about GCHQ's JTRIG unit elsewhere on this page.

Western propaganda campaigns are often a prelude to war. And they usually deploy several orders of magnitude more assets than "350 fake social media profiles." Remember WMDs in Iraq, Libya and Gaddafi, babies in incubators? I have no interest in unquestioningly accepting the BBC's version of what's important. If we let our psycho warmongers start another war based on lies, millions will die on both sides.

See Thucydides Trap: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides_Trap

Such an excellent example of whataboutism! You have no interest in accepting any BBC version of events because you prefer comfortable confirmation bias from blogs and the twitterati?

Its quite peculiar you only post on topics that are about China.

Since you seem like a peace loving person then what do you think about what is happening in Xinjiang?

Also to debunk your obvious whataboutism.

First of wmd in Iraq has been confirmed before the Iraq War even happen.

Baby in incubator was something kuwait said to the us not the other way around.

Lastly never heard about wmd in Libya since they scrap it in 2003.

> wmd in Iraq has been confirmed

They never existed and it would frankly be an enormous stretch of the imagination to think intelligence services are so earth-shatteringly incompetent that they would not be aware of this fact.

Not coming down on either side of this, bit Iraq's use of chemical weapons against their Kurdish population [0] is well documented.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_chemical_weapons_program

Yeah I remember I had a colleague, a Chinese student, very nice person, we were going along nicely, until one day I mentioned the Dalai Lama, and he exploded. It seems like the brainwashing was very successful - he believed that the DL was a monster, killer, some demonic being aiming at the destruction of China and so on. I couldn't believe my ears. This person seemed otherwise completely normal.

I don't think it's a Chinese-only thing.

I had a coworker from Spain, he was very "balanced" and reasonable on all things. One day, during the 2017 Catalan independence protests and referendum, we (non-Spanish people) tried to understand the different arguments and the current situation, and someone mentioned that IF (we didn't say it was the case, we said IF) one day the overwhelming majority of Catalonia wants to leave Spain for whatever reason, an option for "amicable" split would be preferable over a revolution.

He completely snapped, said all kinds of very mean things about Catalonia, that I don't want to repeat here, but my point is that it's very difficult to view these things from a different perspective and do not get emotional if all your life you heard only one perspective.

I noticed similar tendencies from people from every country that are in the news and are somewhat controversial (Israel, Palestine, Pakistan, US, Poland, Ireland just to name a few).

As someone who lives in Barcelona, it was a very strange time. The propaganda machine went into full swing, and they made the rest of the country hate everyone here. We heard rumours of higher up military generals suggesting that they send tanks to Barcelona to scare the people etc.

It still feels like it was just governments using it to split the people against each other instead of focusing on several political scandals that where going on.

I think the thing is, you associate yourself with a national indentity, almost every one does. And when you do, you treat attacks or seemingly-attacks on that nation as attacks on yourself, hence the anger.

Propaganda alone would never explain it, I think we tend to treat the problems of our nation as problems of our own. It is normal to get defensive on these things.

Nations engage in a lot of propaganda themselves to ensure their citizens feel that way, things like the pledge of allegiance every day in school, the way history is taught, the anthems before football games, national news and what is presented by journalists and politicians, etc.

I assume people would identify with more local groups, if left to their own devices. National politics usually seems to revolve around bigger is better, even if they have to force people to remain.

Twelve people were killed because of cartoons

I'm pretty sure this generation of Dalai Lama didn't kill anyone, he never had that kind of power, but it should be noted his previous generations have, and consistently did. It should be noted that DL was not just a religious leader, but also had the status of a king, with more power than your typical medieval dictator, who just treat people like trash, and kill, and torture, and rape whoever they want, which really shouldn't be surprising to anyone.

Although, the Catholic Church have also killed gigantic amount of people anyway, modern day priests seems to continue the habit of raping little boys regardless. Those organizations still exist, and will keep existing, so whatever, that's just this world. I'm forever a non-believer for instituionalized religion for those reasons alone.

(Also note DL never did reform Tibet to democratic society on his own, so regardless, I don't think he should be the symbol of Tibet, or as a leader. Afterall, the theme for these last centuries was that ALL despots must be abolished unless they made democratic reforms.)

I agree with all but the last point: the current DL never had a chance to change anything in Tibet as he was very young when the Chinese invaded, but he was bent on to doing this in spite of opposition[0]:

> In May 1990, as a result of His Holiness’s reforms the Tibetan administration in exile was fully democratized. The Tibetan Cabinet (Kashag), which until then had been appointed by His Holiness, was dissolved along with the Tenth Assembly of the Tibetan People's Deputies (the Tibetan parliament in exile). In the same year, exiled Tibetans living in India and more than 33 other countries elected 46 members to an expanded Eleventh Tibetan Assembly on a one-person one-vote basis. That Assembly then elected the members of a new cabinet.

[0] https://www.dalailama.com/the-dalai-lama/biography-and-daily...

Well, monarch are not just who they are, they are also what they represent. However, I agree the current DL likely never had the chance, but I don't support that he should be granted the chance. I suspect he will reform even as an adult, had he remained a monarch. All in all, he carries the lineage then he bears and sins and glories associated with it alike.

I feel that we all people educated in the West might not be able to fully understand the mentality of the whole society at question and the difficulty of the reform from the top. The efforts of the Bhutanese king are a good example. "Yes, we will become a democracy but only to fulfill your will, Your Majesty", "Yes, we will go to vote but only to make you happy, YM". They really think their king is excellent (I'm not saying he's not) and that whoever will be chosen will be inferior (we don't know, but we can't rule it out). Someone changing the very fabric of the society will always meet with an enormous amount of opposition, and will often fail.

If they were honest about being upset by past atrocities by past rulers of Tibet, then surely he’d be upset when mentioning Mao. I’m certain Mao in absolute numbers was responsible for vastly more deaths of his own people.

It's a wonder why Mao always get mentioned in those sort of things. Mao is a problematic leader by today's standard, but would be a saint in pre-modern history. What happened was horrible, but those aren't atrocities. Mao was certain he was doing the right thing, which is exactly the issue at that time. It's radically different from the nobilities who do things to others because they think they are born superior, Mao was obviously not that.

> DL was a monster, killer, some demonic being aiming at the destruction of China

Or he is a democratically elected peaceful spiritual leader (like a reincarnated pope) from an independent theocratic serfdom kingdom?

This is the general tone that China justifies the invasion: Tibet was feudal, people were slaves, we liberated them, now everybody is happy.

There had been many bad things going on in Tibet, but it does not mean you can just invade the country, destroy all forms of religion, put people in prisons, starve and kill your victims, grab the resources, make the life of Tibetans miserable, and pretend you are the great liberator - only because of superior military power.

Many witnesses of what happened in the 50s are till alive, some managed to escape to India. When you read their testimony[0] all arguments of China become bleak.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Tibetan-Monk-Palden-Gya...

> There had been many bad things going on in Tibet, but it does not mean you can just invade the country, destroy all forms of religion, put people in prisons, starve and kill your victims, grab the resources, make the life of Tibetans miserable, and pretend you are the great liberator - only because of superior military power.

Is it just me or the sentence also makes perfect sense if Tibet is replaced by Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya?

I agree, there is very little difference between these. The invasion on Afghanistan was one of the most senseless, impulsive actions on the part of the USA: Bush desperately wanted tho show a strong reaction to 9/11 but was too stupid to do something that would have some actual positive impact and in the end made the situation worse. Also, he hasn't managed to kill Bin Laden, Obama did.

Iraq seems even worse. They admitted they invaded it on false grounds and the supposed WMDs haven't been found to this day. And it was just the beginning, because the invasion created an even greater evil, ISIS.

As for Libya, it's true that many people hated Kadafi and he was a cruel man (just like Hussein, Bin Laden and the rest of the crew), but the final result for ordinary people was a disaster. So whenever someone proposes "let's kill a dictator and al problems will disappear" for me such a person is a lunatic.

ISIS, 9/11 and the invasions were planned you don't think people in high places are just some kids getting angry and acting on it, do you?

the dictators when you try to reasonate anything they're doing, you can see clearly they're working for someone, and you guess who might this one be.

because of course, destroying a whole country, violating human rights etc, isn't going to guarantee you a good long life for you and your family unless you have someone stronge enough to make you trust him tell you otherwise.

most dictators are against what the population believe and are enslaving people more or less. it's just the modern unseen slavery of the west.

By the way, USA made Al Qaueda and they were called the freedom fighters or something like that inb4.

What changed? the USSR ended and now they found another use for them, to stereotype the muslims and cause distress and push them off their religion to the new world-wide religion, humanity, ps. sugar-coated atheism.

This is a topic for a completely different discussion. In short, 9/11 happened much earlier than 9/11, in the sense that there were decades of anger and resentment on the part of - generally speaking - Middle-East Muslim community at the actions of Israel and the USA. When 9/11 happened some people were actually happy. I know this because I spoke to them personally. It's hard do believe but it shows how large the divide had become: you needed this kind of horror to make it a mainstream topic.

So what the American president is doing? Instead of finally starting to work hard on American-ME relations, he decided to invade another country. A country that had been unsuccessfully invaded in the past and has the worst natural conditions for invasion, with Taliban with bazookas hiding in caves and ordinary people living in villages, and the two freely mixing. What could possibly go wrong?

I'm not saying that peace in the ME is easy, it even became a kind of meme that it's impossible, but there is no hope if Israel doesn't consider some concessions. And year after year, decade after decade it becomes worse. Any American interventions, any casualty makes it much worse. But it seems we're to stupid to work on the causes and can only deal with the results. It just makes me sad as ordinary people can't do anything about it.

It makes perfect sense if op want a Balkanized Tibet

I think China would argue that it wasn't really an invasion, because Tibet had for a couple of hundred years kowtowed to the emperor, and was therefore really part of the empire.

Note that if you read the testimonies of those who escaped to India, it's hardly surprising that they are uniformly critical of the occupation. A more balanced history shows that prior to the occupation, peasants were generally the property of the landowner; a peasant needed the permission of his "owner" to get married, and that would not be granted if the intended was from another estate; and that many lives were objectively improved by the occupation.

I'm by no means a supporter of the occupation/invasion; it's been racist and kleptocratic since the beginning. But let's be clear: pre-occupation Tibet was no Shangri-La.

I cannot disagree. It was similar in Central Europe, for example in the Kingdom of Hungary the feudal system ended in 1931, some hundreds years later than in France.

On the other hand, I know several people whose lives are made worse by the occupation. There was a period of some limited freedom a few decades ago, now it seems worse. As a Westerner you can't just visit Tibet and go where you want. And when you go there, you can notice that apart from official and public situations, Tibetans will avoid any contact with you. Many of them are simply afraid of accusations of spying or collaborating with the enemy etc. They try to keep a low profile and be obedient to stay away from prison. They cannot possess objects like a picture of the DL and so on. So even though from a material point of view their lives might look better, when you talk to them, there is no happiness inside.

It was never a zoo. The lamas weren't keen on letting visitors in, and the Chinese continue this tradition, although they will kindly let you in a few known places if you agree to be under constant surveillance.

Chinas invasion brought with it all those horrors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution You would need lots of modernization and economic growth to offset this. Plus its hard to say where Tibet would be without chinese occupation.

Yup, and let's be even more clear about this.

This Chinese tone that "justifies" the invasion creates these kinds of side discussions, which serves the same purpose as Whataboutism, even if that isn't the intent of the speaker/writer.

A thought experiment: Assume that Tibet was actually some kind of horrific feudal empire that did whatever horrible things to its people you can imagine.

Even if that is some kind of justification for an invasion, e.g., the people had pleaded with the CCP to get freed - which they did not, it is CCP's actions ever since the invasion that betray's their intent.

If the goal had been to free the Tibetean people, they would have removed the leadership, which was done in days, and then freed the people. But CCP has done the opposite, consistently holding more tightly to the land, eliminating the Tibetian's culture and freedom, and claiming ownership.

It is as if the US had not only invaded Iraq to remove the dictator who annexed adjacent countries, but then claimed the land and oil as it's own, and also started systematically removing all mosques, moving US families into each town, and imposing American culture on Iraq.

China are illegitimate occupiers, and wrongfully claim stolen Tibetan territory as their own. Full Stop.

It's a bit more complicated than that. Tibet was internationally recognized as part of China - not as an independent country. After the Chinese revolution of 1911, China fell apart, and Tibet became de facto independent. But that occurred throughout China, as various warlords took control of different parts of the country. China was in turmoil (the Japanese invasion and near-constant civil war) until 1949. Once the country had a strong central government, that government immediately tried to reassert its authority over the territories that were de jure part of China, including Tibet. You can think of this what you want, but it's not at all similar to invading a country in the other side of the world.

Right, not at all similar - China is not only invading, it is claiming it for itself, purposefully erasing Tibetan culture and religion, and claiming the resources for itself, all against the will of the Tibetean people.

The fact that there was some prior recognition is quite irrelevant. Should the EU nations claim their pre 1911 boundaries against the will of the people living there, by force?

Should the Lenape Native Americans whose predecessors sold Manhattan to the Dutch be able to reclaim it by force? How about the Dutch?

Your argument is sophistry, and nothing but inane justification for an authoritarian and expansionist regime.

Moreover while that regime repeatedly proclaims that no one should interfere in the internal affairs of other nations, it feels completely free to interfere and claim other nations, including, Tibet, Taiwan, and Hong Kong (yes it was leased and returned, but they are already violating the terms of the return).

This is not a regime to defend.

This is the general tone that Lamas justifies the Buddhism invasion: Tibet was feudal, people were slaves, Lamas liberated them, now everybody is happy. One particular Lama even assassinated Langdarma, the last King of Tibet.

In fact as of today the 14th DL actively suppress native Tibetan religions like Dorje Shugden.

If you think Lamas were peaceful monks, check out how many "independent states" they have invaded in the 20th century

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48wkBskmYnE

> some managed to escape to India

More like India invaded those independent "princely states"

I don't think that any lama claims what you say. The assassination if Langdarma took place 1200 years ago.

But all this is not the point - it's obvious that there were many bad things going on before the Chinese invasion. The Chinese never address things like "you invaded a country, you were killing people, putting them in prison, starving to death". Instead, they turn to arguments like: "But lamas were very bad, they were abusing ordinary people".

Of course the past system was bad and abusive. The problem is, the current system is so much worse that ordinary people prefer to self-immolate than to live in it.

I don't think the current system is so much worse. It's just not possible. DL is an actual dictator in a world without news coverage, just imagine.

That's also not just the CCP's argument, it's the same argument for most modern day states that's desposed of monarch.

Self-immolate is an act of religious fervert, it would be out of the ordinary to reason with. Generally, I think most people simply don't kill themselves like that, unless they believe there is something to be gained after death. The same reason for suicidal bombing. For people who are generally not happy or find live unbearable, they wouldn't kill themselves using those kinds of excruciating and painful methods, unless of course, they were trying to achieve something, which are most likely religious or it just doesn't make sense.

"Privileged lamas"... Seems like they are not so privileged after all.

https://freetibet.org/about/self-immolation-protests

just search their name you'd see they were monks.

Tibetan/Mongoila monks were a grand scheme invented by the Chinese to sterialize tribes with their no-marriable policy, for a local family only 1 or 2 boys are allowed to breed and labor, rest of siblings were all destined to be Lamas in remote places. Tibetan and Mongolia's working & total population dropped dramatically after the school of Gelug took power and no longer pose a threat to east & central asia.

The title of Dalai & Panchen were invented and installed directly by the Qing rulers (Jampalyang) to manipulate the Gelug hierarchy. 14th DL is a guy gone rogue and sold Tibet to East India Company.

>brainwashing was very successful

TBH this is as much your brainwashing as your colleagues. 14th DL was part of CIA Tibetan program. You mentioned serf/feudalism, he was old enough to perpetuate before exile. Current Dalai Lama was literally a killer who tried to undermine PRC sovereignty. This is like when mainstream America suddenly found out Christopher Columbus was kind of a monster, because previously it was simply not taught / common knowledge.

Just like your claim in another comment that China said they would nuke Japan. Some random PRC netizen posted it and got popular, it's not an official CCP foreign policy position as misreported from many western media. Don't get me wrong, Chinese nationalists would LOVE to nuke Japan if they came to the defense of Taiwan, which to PRC = if a previous invader who committed horrible atrocities decides to meddle militarily in the ongoing Chinese civil war. It's completely expected nationalism based on historic grievances. CCP isn't fanning anti-Japanese flames this hard, frequently they have to rein nationalists in, especially when it comes to Japanese drama. BTW you'll find South Korean comments about nuking Japan as well. Except western propaganda doesn't deliberately conflate that with SK foreign policy.

>This person seemed otherwise completely normal.

This gets said so frequently, yet never with any self reflection. Maybe the Chinese colleague (and friend / girlfriend / wife), typically very educated, who likely speaks both languages, has lived in both cultures, and has dual perspectives, is not the one that experienced very successful brainwashing. Growing up in a society with free press doesn't automatically make one more informed. Almost always, it's not the Chinese person with information deficit. They're exposed to both sides of the story.

This, this, is what I was talking about. Aggressive blind defense of the party and dismissal of criticisms and almost certainly not a propaganda account. It reminds me of the reaction of my more rabidly religious relations :D

> agressive blind defense

You're confusing nuanced, informed, counter-argument compared to your agressive blind accusation. This is what PRC diaspora in the west has to deal with, brainwashed people who are signficantly less informed than them who accuse everyone of being shill / propaganda accounts. It's every bit as dogmatic as rabid religious folk, with even less self awareness.

Your comment is self-contradictory.

Yes, only Americans seem to have any degree of agency or capability of having unbiased discussions online.

I don't see comments that heavily support us gov and try to change topics like the chinese one do. So your sarcasm is false and let's not change the topic here again.

God no, we've got our own bizarre horrorshows.

But I don't think I've ever seen that political reflex as strongly in Americans nearly as much. It's like for some topics (Tibet, Human Rights, Tienanmen, etc) they're stuck at the height of the Freedom Fries / Dixie Chicks rage machine after 9/11.

Which comments specifically?

I've never seen anything that looks like wumao on HN. On reddit theyre usually pretty obvious.

You know, I was going to go and link the comments that made me post that in the first place but they seem to have been eaten or buried while I was asleep (or seemed worse because it was 3 in the morning)

But! For less extreme examples, check out the discussion of the occupation of Tibet that spontaneously generated under my first comment and:

> Meanwhile the BBC pushes anti-China propaganda in plain sight.

> I wonder how it stacks up to the fake network pushing anti-China propaganda.

> Brought to you by the 5 eyes propaganda machine: Bullshit Broadcasting Corporation

> I find using the term “concentration camp” for something that resembles a youth correctional facility somewhat dishonest.

We've banned this account for posting flamebait to HN and using the site for political battle. It's not what this site is for. Please stop creating accounts to break the rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...

Yes, and this is something to worry about, not some small network.

Recently China said they would nuke Japan time after time if they decide to protect Taiwan against Chinese invasion. I'm afraid many ordinary Chinese citizens would be in favor of this decision because they simply believe their government.

Or the recent attack on foreign media in China: https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1229947.shtml

When NYT/WSJ/BBC etc weren't blocked in China, they had incredible high trust #'s. Now the government says they are bad (after blocking them), the public all falls in line with that opinion.

I worry about what the Chinese government will do when they know they can make or remake public opinion so easily and effectively.

NYT/SWJ/BBC used to have much more rounded coverage of China. Look at their China coverage before and after four years of Trump. The difference is stark. The entire political environment regarding China shifted drastically during the Trump administration, and that's reflected in both opinion polling and media coverage.

Again, if you were actually watching NYT/WSJ*/BBC, you'd know they were tougher on Trump in most cases than China 2016-20.

But I see you have a narrative that i'm not going to penetrate, so lets leave it here. Have a nice day.

>turn their guns outward

Different kinds of calibre guns, so far PRC has not brought out the big ones nor firing with intent to kill. PRC foreign propaganda is still overwhelmingly boring "tell china story well", distinctively different from Russian troll farms. They're fundamentally different attack vectors. Both also influence diaspora, as does every country. There's just more Chinese abroad with perspective of both systems, and frankly the western narrative is frequently blatantly misinformed that most don't see defending the homeland as promoting illiberalism. Most are shocked at how quickly liberal minds can be brainwashed despite free media. Still, actual current day analysis shows PRC is doing very little relative to other players contrary to these headlines. Maybe still developing capabilities, or keeping options in reserve.

>counter-measures

IMO this is just an asymmetry between liberal and illiberal systems that can't be bridged without the former adopting tools from the latter - which by all accounts is happening, i.e. the China Initiative is Mccarthyism / red scare redux. Kill chicken to scare monkey works everywhere. Manufactured consent like this article overblowing actual state of PRC influence ops which is continuation of coordinated anti-China reporting since Trump. As always fight propaganda with propaganda, but ultimately, diaspora / immigrants in western countries have freedom to root for their homeland. This includes pro-CCP PRC nationals, and even the ones who renounce PRC citizenship after naturalization.

>As far as coordinated pro-CCP behavior on HN

My general feeling of the "coordinated pro-CCP" phenomenon is that there are many pro-China diaspora in western platforms whose threshold for engaging anti-China pieces is to downvote and move on. Some spaces (like tech) have more Chinese than baseline, so you'd expect to see the effect multiplied. IMO most do it for themselves for tribalism, which is natural behaviour.

I don't subscribe that there's anything ironic about PRC nationalists hoping over GFC to "enjoy" free speech. VPN access is cheap, use not strictly enforced, accessing western internet is not some verboten activity like many westerners envisions it to be, it's entertainment. It's like using VPN to circumvent geofenced media, except for nationalists who like to troll. Reality is there's much more Chinese with English fluency and hopping the GFC is much easier than vice versa. The amount of westerners who have mandarin fluency and ability to comment on weibo is miniscule. And they don't need to since lots of pro-China diaspora / tankies on western platforms to troll, whereas Chinese nationals have to actively seek westerners over GFC to troll. VPN is just a premium subscription to participate in another cultural war. Culture wars are sad.

> There's just more Chinese abroad with perspective of both systems, and frankly the western narrative is frequently blatantly misinformed that most don't see defending the homeland as promoting illiberalism. Most are shocked at how quickly liberal minds can be brainwashed despite free media.

Yes, this is legitimately shocking. For anyone who has any experience/ knowledge of China, the image of the country that is relentlessly pushed in many mainstream outlets is totally unrecognizable. The reason they can get away with it is that most people in the West know next to nothing about China. It's not that China is some paradise - it's just that it's extremely different from how it's portrayed.

> Yes, this is legitimately shocking. For anyone who has any experience/ knowledge of China, the image of the country that is relentlessly pushed in many mainstream outlets is totally unrecognizable.

First off, there is no "relentlessly pushed image" in western media about China. That framing alone is a nationalist myth meant to put Chinese people in a siege mentality, against the west and in support of their government. Most reporting is sober analysis around horrifically depressing issues such as XJ. The idea that the government of 1.4b is irredeemably evil is not a good one, and people would largely deny such framing as the consequences are too dire to contemplate. The "bias" you claim towards painting the Chinese government as cartoonishly malevolent doesn't exist, if anything the opposite instinct to downplay the scale and inhumanity of it all is more powerful.

> The reason they can get away with it is that most people in the West know next to nothing about China.

Ironically, the west is allowed to know more about China than Chinese people are. Information about the first days of Covid19 was aggressively suppressed and doctors seeking to speak out harassed, even disappeared. Real discussion about XJ, Tibet, HK in domestic media? Forget it. Are we even sure how many Chinese ages 18-30 know about Tiananmen Square?

The Chinese government harnesses prevalent ethnonationalistic sentiment to deflect blame for their mistakes and crimes. "The west wants to contain you, they want to paint you as immoral." As long as Chinese citizens buy into this framing, their government will be more emboldened and less accountable.

This is what I fear, an authoritarian government with near complete control over their people, driven by grievance and insecurity. That won't make for a peaceful 21st century.

> That framing alone is a nationalist myth meant to put Chinese people in a siege mentality

Nobody put that "myth" in my mind. It's just something that's obvious to me as a regular consumer of major US and European news media, who also happens to know something about China.

> Ironically, the west is allowed to know more about China than Chinese people are.

This is the exact opposite of my experience. I find that Chinese people who are interested in politics tend to know far more information about many Chinese news stories than you can even find in foreign-language media. Western reporting on China is actually quite limited. If you want to know what's going on in the country, you pretty much have to learn the language, and relatively few people in the West know Chinese. The opposite isn't true - many Chinese people read English and read foreign media, so they have a pretty good idea about what's going on outside. This is not even to mention the influence of American pop culture in China, which is very significant.

> Are we even sure how many Chinese ages 18-30 know about Tiananmen Square?

I'm pretty certain that every single adult Chinese person I've ever talked to knows about Tiananmen Square (and the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward). This was a major event. Huge numbers of people were personally involved. Many more experienced it day-by-day as it happened. If you ask Chinese people about the events, you'll get a wide range of views.

> ethnonationalistic sentiment

All the government messaging I've ever seen on ethnic issues emphasizes the importance of China's ethnic diversity. "China has 56 ethnic groups" is a constant refrain. China is very nationalistic, but it's not ethnonationalist.

Just overall, I find the level of understanding of China in the West to be extremely low, and far from helping, most of the media is aggressively pushing an extremely narrow, distorted and negative narrative. I think this has to do with the geopolitical rivalry between the US and China.

> It's just something that's obvious to me as a regular consumer of major US and European news media, who also happens to know something about China.

As someone with the same exposure, my opinion is the exact opposite. Sure sensationalist reporting exists, but the vast majority (as said) is somber and resigned.

> Western reporting on China is actually quite limited.

Surely you aren't implying that Chinese domestic media is somehow less censored or less purposeful in their narratives than western media? They literally can't talk about anything negative, or if they do it's muted and loaded with xenophobia and nationalists tropes.

> If you want to know what's going on in the country, you pretty much have to learn the language, and relatively few people in the West know Chinese.

I don't know why this talking point comes up over and over. I don't need to speak uyghur to hear their testimonials. I didn't need to be alive during WW2 to know what happened. The idea that if you aren't "there" you cannot know helps propagandists who have only a single goal, obstruction of truth.

> If you ask Chinese people about the events, you'll get a wide range of views.

Can this conversation take place in public? On social media (surely no). Can such conversation be done without threat (implied or actual)? If no, then we aren't talking about real knowledge. Knowledge that is implied but not spoken of isn't a reality, it's a myth.

> "China has 56 ethnic groups" is a constant refrain

I know, and they are actively trying to destroy several of those groups via political reeducation camps. The idea that China can claims to be a bastion of cultural diversity while actively trying to eliminate undesirable, non-Han cultures/languages/traditions is beyond orwellian.

> most of the media is aggressively pushing an extremely narrow, distorted and negative narrative.

Again, maybe on the outrage-centered social media feeds and via Chinese media itself (which promotes such ideas). If you actually read the mainstream coverage, it's methodical, thoughtful, and as said, deeply saddened by the apparent crimes against humanity they cover. No one is joyfully discussing XJ, and if they are they aren't worthy of your attention.

> I don't need to speak uyghur to hear their testimonials. I didn't need to be alive during WW2 to know what happened.

I find these comparisons extremely disrespectful to the memory of the Holocaust. The Third Reich systematically murdered millions of people.

> If you actually read the mainstream coverage, it's methodical, thoughtful

I read / listen to the mainstream news, both American and European, in a few different languages. I don't see how their coverage of China could possibly be considered "thoughtful" or "methodical." The major issues in China are barely covered. Western media tends to zero in on a few topics, to focus intensely on the negative aspects of those stories, to rely heavily on tenuous sourcing, and to ignore most of the background and context.

Just as a recent example from the New York Times: "They Relied on Chinese Vaccines. Now They’re Battling Outbreaks."[1]

The article is full of anecdotes like this:

> One month after receiving his second dose of Sinopharm, Otgonjargal Baatar fell ill and tested positive for Covid-19. Mr. Otgonjargal, a 31-year-old miner, spent nine days in a hospital in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. He said he was now questioning the usefulness of the shot.

You have to scroll most of the way through the article to find the first mention of the fact that scientific studies by public health authorities in these countries have shown that the Chinese vaccines in question have high real-world effectiveness, and are performing as expected:

> Data from Mongolia showed that the Sinopharm vaccine was actually more protective than the doses developed by AstraZeneca and Sputnik, a Russian vaccine, according to the Health Ministry.

After reading this line, I wonder, "Why did they even write this article?" If they wanted to write an article about vaccine effectiveness, they should have led with the scientific studies. Instead, they led with a litany of anecdotes meant to imply the vaccines didn't work, they wrote a title implying the vaccines don't work, and they buried what should be the main point (the vaccines work as expected) deep in the article.

This borders on anti-vax propaganda, but it's about Chinese vaccines, so it gets a pass. Try to imagine the NY Times setting out to undermine the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines in this way. I can't. It would be a scandal.

I could give examples like this from every day of the week. The news media don't really try to inform when it comes to China. As a consequence, most people in the US and Europe have a seriously distorted picture of the country - one which does not at all resemble reality.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/22/business/economy/china-va...

> I find these comparisons extremely disrespectful to the memory of the Holocaust. The Third Reich systematically murdered millions of people.

I wasn't making a direct comparison, and instead of addressing what I said you got on a high horse about being offended. Disappointing.

> You have to scroll most of the way through the article to find the first mention of the fact that scientific studies by public health authorities in these countries have shown that the Chinese vaccines in question have high real-world effectiveness

This is a good example of what I consider to be maddening. You claim Vaccine disinfo by the NYTs. You point out that actually, Chinese vaccines are as good if not better than the other, worst performing vaccines (Russian, etc.). You do not compare them to the highest performing ones, I can only assume you've done this on purpose. Chinese vaccine makers specifically refuse to release their user data proving efficacy (unlike western vaccines that continually do so) so we are left to guess how effective they are. Some countries refuse to use them based on this alone (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/china-coro...) As to how effective they are? The evidence isn't good.

Several countries are seeking western booster shots when the initial Sinovac vaccines haven't proven effective enough:

Turkey: https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-offers-covid-19-booster-...

UAE: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-a-e-giving-third-shot-of-sino...

Bahrain: https://www.wsj.com/articles/bahrain-facing-a-covid-surge-st...

Vietnam: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/commentary-vietna...

Chinese companies themselves: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-04-28/...

And scientists:

"But the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said at a conference Saturday their efficacy rates needed improving.

“We will solve the issue that current vaccines don’t have very high protection rates,” Gao said in a presentation on Chinese COVID-19 vaccines and immunization strategies at a conference in the southwestern city of Chengdu. “It’s now under consideration whether we should use different vaccines from different technical lines for the immunization process.”

https://apnews.com/article/china-gao-fu-vaccines-offer-low-p...

I know you might be tempted to blame the messenger as most do and call all that "fake news", but the data is there.

This isn't the NYTs pushing this narrative, it is widely accepted that the Chinese vaccines lose a lot of their potency only a few months after they are given. China has all but shut down their country because they have no confidence their vaccines work against Delta.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-high-alert-delta-va...

I'm thoroughly unimpressed by your only example of this claimed bias. Usually when I get into these discusses on Twitter it ends in XJ denialism, which i'm glad we aren't doing. But it's clear you have made up your mind which "side" you are on in all this. For my own curiosity, what is your connection to China? Does your livelihood depend on them in any way?

> I wasn't making a direct comparison

You were quite obviously comparing Xinjiang to the Holocaust. If you're backing off from that offensive comment, then that's good, but you did indeed draw the connection.

> You claim Vaccine disinfo by the NYTs. You point out that actually, Chinese vaccines are as good if not better than the other, worst performing vaccines (Russian, etc.).

The Russian Sputnik-V vaccine is actually one of the most effective vaccines. Based on phase-III trial data, it's similar to Moderna and BioNTech/Pfizer. The Mongolian Health Ministry found not only that Sinopharm performed better than the Russian vaccine, but that it also performed better than the British AstraZeneca vaccine, which is one of the most widely used vaccines in the West.

> Chinese vaccine makers specifically refuse to release their user data proving efficacy (unlike western vaccines that continually do so) so we are left to guess how effective they are.

This is simply not true. There are multiple peer-reviewed papers reporting on the results of phase-III trials of the Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines (e.g., [1,2]). This is in addition to several reports by national health agencies from across the world about the efficacy of these vaccines (e.g., [3]). There is a lot of data in the public domain, and the efficacy of these vaccines is well understood.

> But the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said at a conference Saturday their efficacy rates needed improving.

Gao Fu was widely misquoted in the Western press. He made some general comments about how to improve efficacy of vaccines, and proposed very similar ideas as are being considered in the West with AstraZeneca and J&J. That was then spun as an "admission" that Chinese vaccines don't work. Gao Fu even publicly complained about how his words were being misrepresented, but that didn't stop various irresponsible newspapers from continuing to misrepresent his statements.

> China has all but shut down their country because they have no confidence their vaccines work against Delta.

China is reacting strongly to the latest outbreak because China has a zero-tolerance strategy. Even if they were using the Moderna or BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine, they would follow the exact same policy. After all, SARS-CoV-2 still continues to spread in countries that have more than 50% vaccination rates with mRNA vaccines, and that's completely unacceptable to Chinese society. They are set of getting back to zero incidence.

> I'm thoroughly unimpressed by your only example of this claimed bias

I raised one example, just to illustrate the problem. The example I raised was one of the most respected newspapers in the US promoting unscientific anti-vax narratives. That's pretty bad. In your response, you delivered a second example of bad reporting on China: Gao Fu's misconstrued comments.

I don't mean to be impolite, but in your comments here, you've very confidently repeated a number of false claims about Chinese vaccines that are very widely believed in the West, largely because of the low quality and nationalistic bent of reporting on China.

> But it's clear you have made up your mind which "side" you are on in all this.

I'm on the "side" that says we should have an accurate picture of China. I don't want a glowing picture of the country. I just object to the extremely distorted, narrow image that's become widespread in the US and Europe over the last few years. As I said at the outset, for people who are at all familiar with China, the "China" that you read about in the news is totally unrecognizable. I don't think demonizing a major country that most people know next to nothing about is a good idea.

> Does your livelihood depend on them in any way?

Please read HN's rules about these sorts of accusations.

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34037666/

2. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34246358/

3. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107715

> You were quite obviously comparing Xinjiang to the Holocaust. If you're backing off from that offensive comment, then that's good, but you did indeed draw the connection.

Don't put words in other people's mouths, your assumptions haven't been right so far. I was making the argument that you don't need to physically be somewhere to understand what is happening there, a point you still haven't addressed. And no, XJ isn't the holocaust. There aren't ovens and people aren't shoved in them. But the holocaust started out as forced work camps with elements of torture as well. Trying to downplay that very real atrocity as "yes but it wasn't the holocaust" is pretty cynical.

> The Russian Sputnik-V vaccine is actually one of the most effective vaccines

I'm sorry is that your opinion? In this world, we work in data. And Russia, like China, have done all they can to obscure standardized third-party testing of their vaccines (because they are worried that less efficacy is a political loss). They limit the data, then turn on their propaganda machines to try and convince people they are the best. Apparently, it works.

https://www.reuters.com/world/the-great-reboot/exclusive-eur...

Early "tests" done on the Russian vaccine were done by the government, with 0 oversight or transparency. Later Phase 3 trial data was made available, but there's still lots of evidence of political influence on the trails and data itself.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/11/russia-s-claim-succe...

> There are multiple peer-reviewed papers reporting on the results of phase-III trials

Results of trials. Results of data handed to them as a honeypot. The first rule of data analysis is you collect your own data, otherwise you could be setup. And China specifically forbid the release of the raw patient data, as I already mentioned.

Honestly, I don't feel like continuing this. This is increasingly bad faith, you feel attacked and continue to double down on literal state propaganda.

> you've very confidently repeated a number of false claims about Chinese vaccines

Up is down, left is right, war is peace. Gao Fu said what he said, it was translated directly. He walked it back (of course) because his political masters saw it as embarrassing.

Chinese officials TO THIS DAY publicly claim they need to make their vaccines more efficient.

https://twitter.com/StuartKLau/status/1423679708248555521

You are arguing a position not even the CCP maintains. The whole world knows their vaccines aren't good enough, but here we are.

> I'm on the "side" that says we should have an accurate picture of China.

>As I said at the outset, for people who are at all familiar with China, the "China" that you read about in the news is totally unrecognizable.

Isn't that the point? China shapes their domestic narrative to the point where most Han Chinese think the millions of people locked away in XJ are all "terrorists". They don't get to see the footage and testimonials from the camps. They couldn't speak out against them even if they wanted to. All you have to say is "China is misrepresented" - then tell me, how are we supposed to discuss an authoritarian country with prison camps and expansionist military and imperialist ambitions? More footage of Panda bears playing in zoos? If we can't honestly discuss what is happening, what's the point?

According to conversations i've had with Chinese nationalists, their argument boil down to "you all did colonialism and expansionism before and now it's our turn". Which I obviously disagree with, do you?

I'll leave the issue of the comparisons you're drawing, though I'll note that you've drawn them yet again.

> I'm sorry is that your opinion?

It's the result of a peer-reviewed study conducted by the Gamelaya Institute and published in the prestigious journal The Lancet.[1]

> And Russia, like China, have done all they can to obscure standardized third-party testing of their vaccines (because they are worried that less efficacy is a political loss). They limit the data, then turn on their propaganda machines to try and convince people they are the best. Apparently, it works.

> ...

> Results of data handed to them as a honeypot. The first rule of data analysis is you collect your own data, otherwise you could be setup. And China specifically forbid the release of the raw patient data, as I already mentioned.

The phase-III trials weren't even conducted in China. They were conducted by institutes that have nothing to do with the Chinese government in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Turkey, Brazil and other countries. The data is all public and published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals. The WHO and various national drug regulators around the world have evaluated the data and approved the vaccines. The vaccines' real-world effectiveness has since been evaluated by various national health agencies, and the Chilean Health Ministry has published a detailed analysis in a peer-reviewed journal.

I linked to some of these papers in my previous comment, so I don't know where you're getting the idea that the data is secret, or that it hasn't been evaluated by independent third parties. What you're saying here is just factually wrong.

> Gao Fu said what he said, it was translated directly

Again, this is not the case. Gao Fu's statements were not published, even in Chinese. One of the slides from his talk was photographed and posted online. It speaks very generally about vaccines (not even Chinese vaccines in particular), and discusses ways to improve their efficacy. The suggestions are identical to suggestions being made at the time for improving the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Someone from a US think tank then claimed that Gao Fu was saying Chinese vaccines were substandard, and that spread in the press. Gao Fu then gave an interview in which he said that he was being misrepresented, but that was just written off by Western news media.

> He walked it back (of course) because his political masters saw it as embarrassing.

Or because his statements were actually misrepresented. If you look at the slide that this is all based on, it doesn't even mention Chinese vaccines. It's very general/vague.

But there's actually hard data on the efficacy of the Chinese vaccines, collected outside of China and published in solid journals outside China, so we don't have to parse the words of a Chinese health official.

> Chinese officials TO THIS DAY publicly claim they need to make their vaccines more efficient.

You linked to a statement by the Chinese Ambassador to the US, who says that in light of the surge in cases in the United States and the outbreak in China, both countries should work together to improve vaccines. It looks to me like a jab at the US for not having the virus under control, concealed behind a supposedly friendly message. As I said before, there's hard data on the efficacy of Chinese vaccines, so we don't have to go parsing Tweets by Chinese diplomats.

To me, the vaccine issue is a pretty good illustration of the problems with reporting on China. A lot of people have the same general sense that you've expressed that there's no data Chinese vaccines, or that the data's being concealed, despite the fact that this is quite provably not the case. This impression is widespread because of really terrible reporting like the NY Times article I linked earlier. If the NY Times were to sow FUD about the Moderna vaccine in the same way, there would be an uproar, and rightly so.

1. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

The sole study you quote:

> Funding - Moscow City Health Department, Russian Direct Investment Fund, and Sberbank.

I seriously can't tell if you are trolling at this point.

> The phase-III trials weren't even conducted in China.

You are confusing the Russia Trial with the Chinese one. I'm sure both have studies that were paid for by the state, analyzing data GIVEN TO THEM by the state. Both the Chinese and Russian vaccines refuse to release raw patient data. They think this shell game with the Lancet and others will fool people...maybe they are right. Maybe it will.

> Gao Fu's statements were not published, even in Chinese.

He said exactly what the Ambassador continues to say, the vaccines need to be made more efficient.

As I proved, the entire world knows this to be true. As said, you are arguing a point the Chinese government themselves are no longer arguing, which is that their vaccine is as effective as western alternatives.

> But there's actually hard data on the efficacy of the Chinese vaccines, collected outside of China and published in solid journals outside China, so we don't have to parse the words of a Chinese health official.

You are right:

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107715

> China’s CoronaVac was 66% effective in preventing Covid among fully vaccinated adults, compared with 93% or the jab made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech SE.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-08/china-mad...

But China's internal numbers were > 90%.

> A lot of people have the same general sense that you've expressed that there's no data Chinese vaccines, or that the data's being concealed, despite the fact that this is quite provably not the case

Well, lol. So all the people in SE Asia, the Middle East, South America, etc. that are tracking down western shots as boosters, they are all misguided? This is part of some worldwide conspiracy to "discredit" China? They are all confused? Keep in mind we are left to speculate about this only because we don't actually have raw data to either prove or disprove efficacy. What we do have is example after example of countries that either have Chinese vaccine and don't use it, or are tracking down alternatives after getting destroyed by variants only 6 months later.

> This impression is widespread because of really terrible reporting like the NY Times article I linked earlier.

You actually never refuted anything about any of the articles I posted, you just causally refer to them as bad. I guess this works in some circles, not here.

And you never answer my question. Your name is Greek, China invests a lot in Greece. Are you employed either directly or indirectly by the Chinese government?

That's not an accusation btw (kinda gives the game away that you took it as such), i'm just trying to figure out why someone would spend so much time defending authoritarian regimes.

> I'm sure both have studies that were paid for by the state, analyzing data GIVEN TO THEM by the state.

How many times do I have to repeat that the Sinovac and Sinopharm phase-III trials were conducted outside of China, by institutions that are unrelated to the Chinese government? It's not even possible to conduct a phase-III SARS-CoV-2 vaccine trial in China, because there is basically zero community spread. If the virus isn't spreading naturally, the only way to conduct a trial is to do a challenge study, and that's widely considered unethical.

> Both the Chinese and Russian vaccines refuse to release raw patient data. They think this shell game with the Lancet and others will fool people...maybe they are right.

Are you accusing the various institutes around the world that conducted studies on the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines from withholding data? What are you basing these allegations on?

> But China's internal numbers were > 90%.

I don't know what you're trying to refer to here.

This is what the Chilean Health Ministry found for the Sinovac vaccine:[1]

> In the fully immunized group, the estimated adjusted vaccine effectiveness was 65.9% (95% CI, 65.2 to 66.6) for the prevention of Covid-19 and 87.5% (95% CI, 86.7 to 88.2) for the prevention of hospitalization, 90.3% (95% CI, 89.1 to 91.4) for the prevention of ICU admission, and 86.3% (95% CI, 84.5 to 87.9) for the prevention of Covid-19–related death

A vaccine that reduces chance of hospitalization or death by a factor of 10 is a Godsend. This is the vaccine that the NY Times was attacking in the article I linked earlier.

> Keep in mind we are left to speculate about this only because we don't actually have raw data to either prove or disprove efficacy.

We do. It's right there in the Chilean study, in addition to several other peer-reviewed studies published in prestigious medical journals. I don't know what more you want. Do you want to know the names of the patients who enrolled in the studies?

> So all the people in SE Asia, the Middle East, South America, etc. that are tracking down western shots as boosters, they are all misguided?

By "Western shots," you mean two specific vaccines using mRNA technology, which everyone acknowledges have the highest efficacy. You're not referring to the other widely used "Western vaccines," developed by AstraZeneca and J&J, which have similar efficacy to the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines. Yes, most people in the world, if they had a choice, would pick whichever vaccine had the highest efficacy. That's not the world we live in, unfortunately. The mRNA vaccines are currently almost impossible to obtain outside of the developed world. Sinovac and Sinopharm have already exported hundreds of millions of doses around the world.

> What we do have is example after example of countries that either have Chinese vaccine and don't use it, or are tracking down alternatives after getting destroyed by variants only 6 months later.

The US is battling a horrifying surge in cases and deaths. I don't expect to see a NY Times article titled, "They Relied on American Vaccines. Now They're Battling Outbreaks." Imagine an article with that title, which led with a bunch of anecdotes about breakthrough infections and deaths, and which only mentioned near the end that actual scientific studies show that the vaccines are highly effective. I think whatever editor approved such an article about the US would get fired within short order for pushing anti-vax propaganda.

> Your name is Greek, China invests a lot in Greece. Are you employed either directly or indirectly by the Chinese government?

I live in a barrel in the Athenian marketplace.

1. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107715

> How many times do I have to repeat that the Sinovac and Sinopharm phase-III

You keep interchanging the Russian and Chinese trials, perhaps on purpose. The only study you quoted was a Russian government funded study, with incomplete data and heavily criticized conditions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccin...

> Are you accusing the various institutes

You aren't following. Without raw patient data, you can only study:

1. The data given to you by a government 2. The affects of the vaccine in real life trails, which has so many variables that it cannot alone tell you anything concrete about vaccine effectiveness.

The ONLY set of data that matter is the initial patient data the developers of a vaccine measured. Western vaccines released this data openly, Russian and China refused. And it's obvious why.

> A vaccine that reduces chance of hospitalization or death

50-60% is better than nothing, which is a separate argument that I agree with. Getting Chinese and Russian vaccine to the third world now is better than western vaccines a year from now. But that's not what is being discussed here.

> We do. It's right there in the Chilean study

Again, measuring a vaccine's effectiveness by giving it out and measuring outcome has so many variables it's almost useless. The only standard that would apply is a study controlling for variables, done by its manufacturers. Which, for the millionth time, authoritarian countries won't share.

https://www.statnews.com/2021/05/26/data-needed-know-if-sput...

> That's not the world we live in, unfortunately.

"Of course western vaccines have higher efficacy". There's moving the goalposts, then there's whatever you just did there. Weird for you to argue for 3-4 posts that Chinese vaccines are just as effective then just flat out say they aren't.

> The US is battling a horrifying surge in cases and deaths. I don't expect to see a NY Times article titled, "They Relied on American Vaccines. Now They're Battling Outbreaks."

This is officially a bad faith interaction. You don't seem like an idiot. You surely must know that the surge in the US is due to UNVACCINATED individuals, which has absolutely fuck all to do with the discussion we are having about vaccines. Yet you bring it up with the smugness of having uncovered some Trump card.

We're done here.

> You still haven't answered my question

So why do you spend you days defending authoritarian governments on western news sites? I think I guessed correctly the first time, but i'm curious if you'll come clean.

> You aren't following. Without raw patient data, you can only study: 1. The data given to you by a government

Again, the phase-III trials for the Chinese vaccines were not done by the Chinese government. They were done in other countries, by various institutes. In Brazil, for example, the Sinovac study was conducted by the Butantan Institute, which has a very good reputation. Are you accusing the Butantan Institute of hiding data?

> Again, measuring a vaccine's effectiveness by giving it out and measuring outcome has so many variables it's almost useless.

Many countries carefully monitor real-world effectiveness of vaccines. This is incredibly informative data, and in the case of the Sinovac and Sinopharm vaccines, real-world data is matching the clinical study data.

> The only standard that would apply is a study controlling for variables, done by its manufacturers. Which, for the millionth time, authoritarian countries won't share.

China has no control over the phase-III data for Chinese vaccines developers. The studies were all done internationally. And once the vaccine is out there and is being widely administered, national health agencies can do their own studies, completely beyond China's control.

> You surely must know that the surge in the US is due to UNVACCINATED individuals, which has absolutely fuck all to do with the discussion we are having about vaccines.

In Chile and Mongolia, the epidemics were also heavily concentrated among the unvaccinated population. We know that because of the solid follow-up work that those countries' health agencies have done on the vaccines.

When it comes to US vaccines, you get it. All I have to do is change "Chinese" to "American," and you instantly recognize how outrageous the NY Times' headline is. The NY Times should not be using anecdotes about breakthrough infections to sow doubts about vaccines, regardless of whether the vaccines were developed in the US or China.

I'm not okay with anti-vax propaganda, regardless of which countries' vaccines it targets. It's upsetting that the NY Times will publish anti-vax propaganda for nationalistic reasons. That should upset you too.

> Again, the phase-III trials

The only citation you ever provided was to a Russia study, paid for by the Russia government.

> Many countries carefully monitor real-world effectiveness of vaccines. This is incredibly informative data

Yes they do, it's a very helpful supplement to clinical data. What it isn't meant to do is stand by itself, and in the case of Russian and Chinese vaccines third parties are left to scramble to determine efficacy because, again, raw patient data isn't released and gov-run studies are not to be trusted, ever.

You managed to not respond to a single thing I said and not give anything of substance in response. I'm not going to spend any more time trying to figure out why you are arguing against open and transparent vaccine development and in favor of dictatorships hiding/obscuring and lying about their products.

My guess is you sold your soul for a job and now you have to convince others (and yourself) that it was worth it, that the authoritarians really aren't that bad. Maybe this is all ideological and you never got over your Uni communist phase. Maybe you married in, idk.

In any case, good luck with that.

> The only citation you ever provided was to a Russia study, paid for by the Russia government.

I also linked to phase-III studies carried out for Sinovac and Sinopharm (both conducted by institutions outside China), as well as a real-world study on the effectiveness of the Sinovac vaccine carried out by the Chilean Health Ministry.

> What it isn't meant to do is stand by itself, and in the case of Russian and Chinese vaccines third parties are left to scramble to determine efficacy because, again, raw patient data isn't released and gov-run studies are not to be trusted, ever.

I'm really puzzled. I've pointed out over and over again that the phase-III trials of the various Chinese vaccines were carried out outside of China, by institutions that have nothing to do with the Chinese government. Yet you keep saying that the Chinese government ran these studies and refuses to release the data. Am I not writing English?

> I'm not going to spend any more time trying to figure out why you are arguing against open and transparent vaccine development and in favor of dictatorships hiding/obscuring and lying about their products.

I'm pointing out that you don't understand how the trials were conducted. I haven't argued against transparent vaccine development. I've tried to explain to you that your belief that the vaccines we're discussing were not transparently developed is provably wrong. Just open up the papers I've linked and take note of which institutes carried out the Sinovac and Sinopharm studies, and where those institutes are located. That's already enough to show that your claims that the Chinese government won't release trial data make no sense.

> Different kinds of calibre guns

I'm sorry but you aren't paying attention to recent developments. Chinese trolls are attaching themselves to wedge issues in the US culture war (guns, BLM, etc.) in the same way Russia did, as a strategy of general harm. Also vaccine related disinfo isn't general/vague or long term in it's harm, it's doing real damage today.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-china-trolls-dubbed-spamou...

> My general feeling of the "coordinated pro-CCP" phenomenon is that there are many pro-China diaspora in western platforms whose threshold for engaging anti-China pieces is to downvote and move on.

The more that China diaspora see any criticism of the Chinese Government as criticism of themselves, the wider and more difficult to bridge the gap becomes.

> IMO most do it for themselves for tribalism, which is natural behaviour.

That was my point, everyone has a bit of nationalist in them. But the behavior i've observed from Chinese nationalists far out paces anything else i've seen. I fear the consequences of this trend, as if the Chinese government decides to start making more overt their current campaign of covert aggression, most Chinese will simple fall in line as they've been conditioned to do for the past decade.

> accessing western internet is not some verboten activity like many westerners envisions it to be, it's entertainment.

As long as your don't say the wrong thing, of course.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-is-now-sending-twitter-us...

I've seen a lot of westerners in HK, China, etc. take a blasé attitude towards crackdowns because they are convinced they are safe (which is mostly accurate). You do not and should not speak for natives in this regard.

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3143207/...

Re: VPNS, according to my friends in the mainland VPN's are becoming more and more unreliable. This is purposeful.

>paying attention to recent developments

I follow the subject closely. The "no intent to kill" pertains to scope of Chinese influence operations, in terms of harm they're minimal relative to other actors. IRC the dailybeast link was about PRC trolls mocking lockdown skepticism, listening to them would have helped not harmed. These events do not occuring in void, PRC/US responds to each other's disinformation efforts. And will continue to, that's expected, what's unexpected IMO is PRC isn't pushing propaganda nearly that hard according to recent analysis.

>bridge the gap becomes

No one's figured out a solution to tribalism. Much of the "blame CCP but not Chinese people '' narrative out there does not feel genuine, doubting western criticisms is not misplaced. Which overlooks the point that the propaganda environment with competing antithetical claims is designed to fracture. The more absurd narrative west feeds their populus, which diaspora sees through, the more the gap continues to widen.

>should not speak for natives in this regard

...

>VPN's are becoming more and more unreliable

Why not? I follow developments in PRC cyber policy and deal with it myself back and forth. I didn't claim it was safe to conduct anti-state activities, even nationalists get punished for using VPN occasionally. Overall it's fine, like torrenting. Sometimes copyright letters get sent out to unsuspecting victims, but most people slide by. VPN more unreliable, especially leading up to CCP centennial, but seems like there's more Chinese nationalists trolling abroad than ever, and since current analysis suggest CCP coordinated disinfo is not large, it's fair to presume whatever VPN and cyber policies changes, it hasn't substantially impeded PRC ability to interact with abroad.

To circle back on topic, the condition is such that lots of genuine PRC voices are making it’s way over the GFC, but not vice versa. That’s just unfortunate asymmetry between open and close internet, and it’s a problem west needs to deal with, so far strategy seems to be maligning PRC voices as inauthentic shills / 50c with the aim of discrediting pro-China or anti-west opinions. Narrative has been manufactured to the point where PRC discussions in many spaces online are saturated with useful idiots calling for bans of pro-China opinions because it must be state funded 50c activity. Like why even highlight the two anti-BBC replies above, lots of people, especially diaspora from the global south, do not trust the FVEY media machine, it's staple compaint in variety of reporting on IR news.

I've been having trouble passing those Google captcha tests lately. I conclude that I too must be a pro-China robot

Are they passable on certain networks? I can't pass them when using Tor.

I haven't used the Tor browser lately, but doesn't it automatically block some amount of JavaScript? Though it also wouldn't surprise me if the Tor associated IP addresses were so abused google did block them.

The captcha loads. You just can't seem to get a sufficient score to prove that you are human.

Yes, I think that the associated IP addresses are banned for abuse.

Loading doesn't mean it loads the necessary JavaScript, I'm pretty sure I need to accept script from Google or I also get stuck in an endless failure loop.

Are you suggesting click-bait headlines are equivalent to out right disinformation?

Certainly not "equivalent", but they are indeed a form of disinformation.

Reminder that the CCP is a communist dictatorship.