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.
> 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:
"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.”
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.
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?
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
> 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?
> 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.
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.
"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.
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.
> 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.