To Many Chinese, America Was Like ‘Heaven.’ Now They’re Not So Sure

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/world/asia/china-america-trade.html

by cfarm • 7 years ago

68 63 7 years ago

siedes3• 7 years ago

Maybe it's a good thing. Moving away from seeing America as an economic goldrush where everyone can come and "get theirs", and more toward a place where people actually live in. This is my home, not an all you can eat buffet. If America cannot take care of its own poor and suffering, what are we doing trying to take care of the entire world?

intopieces• 7 years ago

Prosperity is not a zero-sum game whereby more Chinese success in America means less success for the native born. The is nativist/nationalist myopia.

A waning respect for America illustrates that America has failed to make the case for western values to the Chinese people — open democracy, religious and cultural tolerance, etc — and we risk losing ground in other areas of the world (The African continent, for example).

snaky• 7 years ago

Europeans, along with Canadians and Mexicans, are the most skeptical that the U.S. government respects Americans’ freedoms. Majorities in Spain, Mexico, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, France and Canada all say that the U.S. fails to respect the rights of its people.

https://www.pewglobal.org/2018/10/01/americas-international-...

whiddershins• 7 years ago

How can we possibly make the case for Western values credibly when so many people in high profile positions in Academia, Politics, and Media openly call for abolishing them?

Arbalest• 7 years ago

It isn't zero sum, technically. But in the world of investing, in order to get the gains that people are always gunning for, someone else has to lose. Otherwise no one could ever get more than however much the GDP grows at, assuming no population growth. I don't see how this is any different.

anthuman2• 7 years ago

Prosperity may not be a zero-sum game, but prosperity is a meaningless metric without understanding its association to power. Power is a zero sum game.

During the 1800s both britain and the US became very prosperous. Unfortunately, our prosperity outstripped britain's prosperity and that power differential ultimately spelled the end for the british empire.

Also, stop using "western values". It's an oft used propaganda nonsense hardly any intelligent person believes.

Since when are "open democracy", "religious and cultural tolerance", etc "western values"? What about racism, genocide, nuking cities full of civilians? Human experimentation, rape of the environment, gluttony?

Lets hope china doesn't adopt "western values" since the world doesn't need more of what happened to libya, iraq, syria, etc ( not to mention exterminating continents full of people ).

Nativist/nationalist myopia is certainly a bad thing. But so is the pathetic globalist hippie myopia.

As for the african continent, what they need is more nationalism. After all, nationalism is what made britain, france, US, germany, south korea, japan, china, etc wealthy and prosperous. What african countries need is are strong and stable governments willing to sacrifice for the good of their nations. Sadly, this means kicking out european parasites destabilizing their countries, it means getting rid of european bankers controlling their banking systems, it means taking control over their natural resources from european countries. Sadly, if any african country tried to take control over their destiny, europe would destroy the nation via sanctions, funding terrorists, etc.

deogeo• 7 years ago

Prosperity is not a zero-sum game

But in many cases it's close to it. A company that reduces its expenses by 5% will eventually bankrupt its competitor that wasn't able to do so (all else being equal). A 5% contribution to efficiency allows it to take over 100% of another company's market. The success of a company is in a very large part determined by its competition - more competition means starting a new company is harder.

gigatexal4• 7 years ago

In a few years hopefully we will have a different administration and will open our borders again to all especially those from countries where the regimes are oppressive like that of President Ping of China. I would welcome a liberal immigration policy. Talent is the next oil and America if it wants to stay vibrant and dominant in the world needs to be a place where the best of the best come — but not only the best, everyone else is welcome, too, because you never know what a good education and opportunity will do for an ambitious kid. Immigrants often start foundational companies that go on to employ you and me. But this administration is so xenophobic it is hurting America’s ability to be the melting pot of culture and ideas. Just as Facebook is having a hard time convincing top talent to join it I worry about America not being a place that the next Satya Nadella wants to immigrate to.

Fjolsvith• 7 years ago

America actually has a pretty liberal immigration policy. The crackdown is on people who do not use the immigration system.

phyrex• 7 years ago

It’s president Xi, my friend, the Chinese put the family name first and American media usually sticks with “Xi Jinping”.

gigatexal4• 7 years ago

Edit: President Xi.

closeparen• 7 years ago

Chinese immigrants are not coming here to live on welfare, but to participate in the economy. That increased economic activity creates wealth with which we can help our own poor.

peter303• 7 years ago

But they bring their parents which they often put on SSI ($800 a month) and other freebies. Trump immigration proposals would end this, but unlikely to pas.

fellellor• 7 years ago

You are not "taking care of the world".

These people are not going there to be taken care of. They are there to exploit economic opportunities, for which they also make their own substantial contribution.

Now that increased competition may create scarcity for natives, so you want to skew the market to favor yourself.

Now I'm not saying that is wrong, but the absence of laws favoring native citizens shouldn't be framed as some great philanthropic sacrifice either.

VvR-Ox• 7 years ago

This is a typical hypothesis of the nazis in germany.

The truth is somewhat more complex because it's our own governments who don't take care about their people despite having the money and the power.

E.g. in germany the taxes for the richest got cut more and more over the last decade or so until there are some of those who don't pay anything at all.

There is companies like Google, Facebook, Starbucks, Ikea etc. who nearly don't pay any taxes in countries like germany.

On the other hand the citizens are forced to do labor without meaning and/or without enough wages to survive old age. If you have to retire in germany you are screwed if you had the wrong job nowadays - you see the retired collecting bottles and waste in the streets because they don't have enough for a good life anymore.

If our governments would take care of the people which they definitely could we'd have more than enough to share with the people who have to flee our guns and bombs we sold to their enemies before (to give the earnings to the richest again).

arcticbull• 7 years ago

Sorry, America doesn’t want to take care of its own. There’s more than enough money around, more than enough space, more than enough resources. There’s no will. Not collectively, anyways. That’s got nothing to do with immigrants.

Me first, mine second, community last, “the other” coming to treat America as an all you can eat buffet of social services is the enemy. Which is crazy because America doesn’t really, uh, have social services. Which I think was the point of your post.

AFascistWorld3• 7 years ago

The officials and rich are always the smarter and informed ones, just look at where they put their families and wealth at, watch what they do rather than what they say.

wrong_variable• 7 years ago

Agreed, but having been to America - I think the assumptions made are slowly collapsing.

The main assumption being that USA will protect your wealth much more than then the Chinese state, but I think that is changing ( for the better ).

If suddenly Chinese HNWI are forced to redistribute their wealth among americans, they might realize its better to just have stayed in China.

AFascistWorld3• 7 years ago

Chinese HNWI are forced to redistribute their wealth among americans

I don't see that happen, but I'm seeing average minds are controlled more and more thoroughly with the assistance of modern tech, while the "woke" ones are rushing to America to give birth even if border officers told them they can no longer obtain US citizenship coz Trump said this or that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2hBtXdaYsQ

alaskamiller• 7 years ago

Vancouver, Melbourne, Silicon Valley

elevenoh• 7 years ago

smarter? no
politically informed? yes. Many - guised in pretence - are playing a political/regulatory/economic zero-sum navigation game.

;)

siedes3• 7 years ago

I respectfully disagree that waning respect for America in this context illustrates what you say it does. Chinese culture is fundamentally opposed to American culture, and those things you mention, open democracy, religious and cultural tolerance, etc. are expressions of American culture. What nations like China and various others respect about America is money, and how to make a lot of it even at the expense of American people and industry, all while laughing at how we live our lives and making a mockery of us. As a person of Asian descent and having lived amongst other non-American groups, I can say most do not want to live like Americans at all and often spit on "western values". They love our money but they don't give a damn about our democracy and cultural tolerance. Hate to say it, but it's for the most part accurate.

homarp• 7 years ago

but isn't that the first generation only ?

mycall• 7 years ago

If they spit on our western values, what do they love and embrace instead (aside from money)? I would think there are many universal values shared which is why our peoples are quite compatible.

sho• 7 years ago

Hate to say it, but it's for the most part accurate

I hate to say it too, but statements such as yours, filled with sweeping generalisations, oversimplifications and us-vs-them outgroup nonsense like they want to "spit on our values" usually turn out to be very very far from accurate, and indeed say more about the speaker than the subject at hand. Chip on your shoulder much?

I'd like to think - and have generally observed - that 99% of people from anywhere are not in fact greedy sociopaths, but instead decent people trying to live good lives inside their own cultural and economic context.

siedes3• 7 years ago

For the good of the world, I hope you are right. I admit I did get a bit too passioniate in the earlier post.

ardit33• 7 years ago

I disagree with you. Having some really close friends (either first gen, or second/gen, born here), i'd say their values are pretty western overall, with a dose of 'immigrant mentality', which honestly is not much different than immigrants from poorer European nations. Sure, they go back home to visit, and they don't want to go back and live in China.

On the other hand, I have met few folks that defend the Communist party, and the values of an autocratic government, and these people were almost all late comer (they came in the US for masters, or later in life), and still on some kind of visa.

So, given enough time, and a green card the overall attitude changes a lot, and makes folks value the US lifestyle more.

As for second and third gen, the well educated ones are all very Americanized.

east2west2• 7 years ago

[flagged]

dang2• 7 years ago

Please do not engage in nationalistic flamewar here even if another comment went there first. Having this site not burn in flames requires users to resist being provoked and stay within the site guidelines themselves.

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

equalunique• 7 years ago

My family includes Indonesian, Philippine, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Cantonese folks. Prosperity is the core reason they are interested in the United States, and to that reason those "western values" are just ancillary.

dang2• 7 years ago

Sorry, but you can't use HN for nationalistic flamewar, and statements like these are way over the line:

Chinese culture is fundamentally opposed to American culture

laughing at how we live our lives and making a mockery of us

spit on "western values"

I appreciate that your background and personal experiences may give you a special perspective on China-related topics, but you need to share that with others in a much more neutral way if you want to post about this here.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19951595 and marked it off-topic.

ETHisso2017• 7 years ago

The love-hate relationship illustrated in the article has been around since at least 1999, when the US bombed the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia.

Scoundreller• 7 years ago

Just to be clear for everyone, you mean the one in Serbia. The former Yugoslavia footprint has several Chinese embassies.

Mediterraneo10• 7 years ago

In 1999, there was only one Yugoslavia around: after the departure of the other republics, Serbia and Montenegro maintained the name "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" for their country. The OP was correct in saying that the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia was bombed. (Only later did they change the name to "Serbia and Montenegro", and it was only then that the name "Yugoslavia" disappeared.)

onetimemanytime2• 7 years ago

One of Clinton's advisers (name escapes me) has written that from their basement the Serbian army was receiving instructions. When presented the evidence, China kinda shut up. maybe they didn't want to have their involvement be known or whatever.

I don't think US bombed it by mistake

anthuman2• 7 years ago

It started much earlier than that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yangtze_Patrol

And people forget that some of the largest mass lynchings were against the chinese.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_massacre_of_1871

And the only anti-immigration bill to target a specific ethnic group was once again directed against the chinese.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

ydb• 7 years ago

As an individual in a society, I am no more than an ant who serves her queen. Yet, each ant has a purpose, however small, to maintain the health and well-being of the colony. An ant lost is a tragedy, a colony lost is another step towards extinction.

This is not the reality we live in. We are less than proverbial ants, we are grains of sand beat back ceaselessly into the past. We disintegrate, we stagnate; but for every tiny piece of sand extinguished, thousands more are borne out of the granite slabs of time.

I admire the Chinese for awaking to the artificial construction of American exceptionalism. I only wish each nation's citizenry could use that same looking glass to peer within.

namelosw4• 7 years ago

Personally, I want to keep myself neutral as a Chinese. But I think I can provide some interesting perspective from China, according to the order of timeline. I'm by no mean historian so errors and non-seriousness are expected, you can think of this as an OverSimplified[0] cartoon on Youtube:

0. China was a 3rd world communist country after WW2.

1. The Korean war broke out, USSR ordered China to strike back to maintain the iron curtain. China also worried about the border so it joined the war. The result of the war is basically a draw, but the border and iron curtain was 'saved'.

2. After the Korean war, China's self-confident increased, and sort of complaining USSR's control. Then these two countries start to hate each other.

3. Vietnam war, China also joined because of the alliance relationship. This time the North won.

4. Meanwhile, Nixon visited China. Since China was one of the promising countries could weaken the iron curtain.

5. 'Reform and Opening' started in China.

6. After the Vietnam war, Vietnam became very powerful. There was quite a risk Vietnam could unify the Indochina. China was in the middle of the USSR and Vietnam. This became embarrassing after China and USSR hated each other, and the USSR was keeping investing in Vietnam. Then there was another war broke out between China and Vietnam. Both of the countries claimed they were self-defending. There was also no winner, but Vietnam seems less dangerous in China's perspective.

7. Japan grows really fast in the 80s. China was just started to grow after the opening policy and found the importance of the economy growing.

8. After that, the US feels threatened, there were some economic sanctions going on. There was an essay 'The Japan That Can Say No' from Sony co-founder. But eventually, it seems Japan said yes for most of the time.

9. The Gulf War. The US almost beat Iraq in no time, and Iraq was actually pretty powerful at that time. According to the rumor, this made the Chinese military pretty shocked. After the Korean and Vietnam war, China was kind of self-overrated and reduced a lot of military margin in order to grow the economy.

10. According to 8 and 9, the US shaped a very powerful image to China, and China also realized it's not wise to like Japan which always be the 'yes man' or omitting the military advancement.

So the competing mindset was already formed pretty early. But there was also "闷声发大财" according to the president Jiang at that time, which basically means don't let other people notice you while you are growing fast.

Another interesting thing is about cultural defense. Korean TV series and K-pop was very popular in China, but the first Korean TV series was introduced by official TV Channel. There was some theory believe the US and Japan culture are very influential and hard to replace, so China tried to guide people to consume Korean (and also Thailand, etc, since Asian culture are easy to introduce) culture instead of from the US and Japan. And then in recent years, Korean TW series and K-pop is largely replaced by Chinese own products, which seems pretty similar.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/user/Webzwithaz

chewz2• 7 years ago

The Korean war broke out, USSR ordered China to strike back to maintain the iron curtain.

On the contrary. It was Mao who had been pushing for the extension of Korean conflict in order to force Stalin's hand and get more and more aid and weapon technologies from USSR.

namelosw4• 7 years ago

Thank you for pointing out. This makes more sense because it's Chinese border.

east2west2• 7 years ago

I recognize some missing pieces, which I believe you will find interesting.

1. The Soviet union did not order China to attack UN troops. The Soviets were never powerful enough to order something like this, right after the conclusion of a civil war and brutal Japanese invasion. If they were, there would not have been a break-up shortly afterward.

2. I don't think the Soviet being a control freak is the reason for Sino-Soviet rupture. Even after public denunciation, the Soviets still delivered prototypes and all the blueprints of Mig-21. Your impression of overbearing Soviets might come from Communist propaganda about "three-year natural disaster." That was purely to cover up Mao's catastrophic "Great leap forward," a complete man-made disaster that the Chinese Communist party refuses to allow a full investigation to this day.

6. The Sino-Vietnam border war was China's admission ticket to Western block. Normalization of relation with US followed immediately and arms sales were permitted again. As for the military winner, Vietnam, I would say. Chinese army suffered heavy causalities with little to show for. Chinese officers were shown to be incompetent, and the Air force, despite deploying hundred of fighters, did not carry out one sortie against enemy forces. Another infamous incident is when China imported two sets of military radar for counter-battery targeting and one set sent to the front (the other was sent to Beijing for cloning), it was effective enough that Vietnamese sent in special forces and destroyed it. Afterward, only a lowly company commander was court marshaled.

I have found that Communist propaganda is most effective in willful neglect and ignorance rather than outright lies. Lies can be pierced more or less readily, but ignorance hardened into opinions are much harder to change.

namelosw4• 7 years ago

Thank you for pointing out all of these.

Lies can be pierced more or less readily, but ignorance hardened into opinions are much harder to change.

This is gold. I found it's hard to not be biased in the environment.

I also found all of the Sino-Soviet and Sino-Vietnam stories I know were just too sketchy. And the 'three year natural disasters' you have pointed out is also fair enough, as Soviet always someone to blame in propaganda in those period. A popular saying is China needs to pay the debt during those three years, which also sounds sketchy.

sanxiyn2• 7 years ago

This is great. America never was a heaven. Before, people had false belief. Now, they have true belief. That is to be celebrated.

chii• 7 years ago

The Chinese word for America is "Měiguó", or literally "the beautiful country".

To the common immigrant, it was sold as a country of opportunity and wealth.

luckylion• 7 years ago

Is that beautiful as in "the landscape is beautiful" or as in "your life there will be beautiful"?

robjan• 7 years ago

It's just a shortened version of the transliteration 亚美利加 (Yàměilìjiā) to 美國（Měiguó）

namelosw4• 7 years ago

But I think this translation is similar to the first few translated country names, which just grab the pronunciation into a single good character:

US: 美国 MeiGuo -- 'Country of beauty' UK/England: 英国 YingGuo -- 'Country of heroic/brave' Germany: 德国 DeGuo -- 'Country of virtue/moral' France: 法国 FaGuo -- 'Country of law'

But there are so many countries so it's so hard to have one for each, so countries like Austria, Italy and Spain don't have meaning for their translations.

onetimemanytime2• 7 years ago

For most Chinese, as long as they have their needs met, probably their system of government is fine. Some may know no better (historically the world wasn't democratic) and others might rationalize with "just don't insult the leaders /state and you're fine. Small price to pay"

ycombonator• 7 years ago

Another Chinese Regime sponsored psyop article.

zeristor• 7 years ago

Doesn’t this boil down to China having developing country status, being allowed to block imports?

The issue being with China being so large, there are millions of people still quite, poor despite China being such a large industrial power, so there is some justification to it still being a developing country. I imagine the rules were written for smaller homogenous countries.

Things work best when trade goes both ways.

baybal2• 7 years ago

It is a very interesting article to discuss, yet it sunk to page 3 so fast...

To Many Chinese, America Was Like ‘Heaven.’ Now They’re Not So Sure

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