The tone is honestly understandable. It pains me to bring up this cliched point, but is the US media not constantly telling us that China is hostile, China is plotting? As someone with a foot in both worlds, US coverage of China is _at least_ equally warped. It's funny; to my parents and relatives in China I'm perceived as having a US bias, but everywhere else I get characterized as being too Chinese.

It's hard for me to emphasize enough how little typical Westerners understand about Asia. It goes both ways but I think they're doing a better job of it - at least in my opinion, China appreciates US culture much more than the US appreciates Chinese culture.

> It's hard for me to emphasize enough how little typical Westerners understand about Asia.

I bet the typical human knows very little about life and culture outside of their specific environment. A typical city-dweller knows little about rural life even in their own region, and vice-versa.

It's weird how easily we fall into a trap of saying "look how ignorant x people are". I mean, of course, it's a big world, and we're busy, so it's pretty hard to not be ignorant.

Maybe a bigger mistake is thinking that "Media" (news etc?) is an education system. It's not and maybe it's not supposed to be. We need to come up with a better system/expectation/culture around continuous education, but even in the best case that can only apply to the subset of the population that has the time and resources and interest to take part.

> I bet the typical human knows very little about life and culture outside of their specific environment. A typical city-dweller knows little about rural life even in their own region, and vice-versa.

I think this is certainly true, but at the same time, I've never met an American (even an otherwise 'uneducated' one), who was under the impression that London or Berlin are backwoods villages that struggle to keep the lights on, whereas I have certainly met people that think Hong Kong is. So then the question becomes "yes people are generally unaware, but what is it about Asia specifically that makes it seem like there is an even larger lack of awareness compared to somewhere like Europe?"

In regards to the rest of your comment: I wholeheartedly agree, but I don't think it comes down to "time or resources". Some of it does just come down to personal habits/preferences. Without passing any judgement, there are plenty of people who spend their evenings watching The Bachelorette when they could just as easily be using that time to watch The Travel Channel (or Discovery Channel if it was still actually educational), but they actively choose not to. I think that's a societal thing much more than it is a time or resources constraint.

Maybe it's because of historical ties to Europe, both a partially shared culture and history?

As for the asymmetry. The US has been considered one of two, then the only, global superpower for the last 70 years, inundating the whole world with their culture the whole time.

Reminds me of a course on models, where they talked about "celebrities". Those who are seen by and influence most people, but don't know and aren't influenced by most of said people (might need to clarify that)

When the US was a backwoods nation, London and Berlin were world capitals, and Hong Kong was a backwater fishing village, so American culture does not have the same ingrained respect for Hong Kong that it does for European cities. That being said, I don't know if you are using Hong Kong as a stand in for major Chinese cities, but Hong Kong emigres make up a disproportionate amount of ethnic Chinese American immigrants, and the way many of them talk about the mainland, one might think mainland China is having a problem with the keeping the lights one.

At the founding of the US, China was the #1 economy in the world. This view of the world among Europeans is partially based of racism and racist accounts of the world going unchecked.

The most investment-worthy economies on the planet have been in Asia for the past couple centuries (if you understand buying the dip), this fact is an economic threat to Europeans with a zero-sum view of global capitalism (has been for at least 2 centuries). The rest writes itself....

That is sort of the thing. It isn't so much that people don't know as that it doesn't register as important. Hans Rosling ended up devoting much of his life promoting a fact based view of the world after learning first hand that some of the absolute top students in Sweden had an obsolete world view. The West is used to being "the first world" were most important things happen. But increasingly we are the ones "on the other side". In most of the West large government programs aren't on the table, so that doesn't register as important to us. I am not even sure there is much that can be done about it. It is literally history in the making really.

> In most of the West large government programs aren't on the table, so that doesn't register as important to us. I am not even sure there is much that can be done about it. It is literally history in the making really.

Well said....I'd agree that not much can be done based on the current nature of both political and public/personal discourse, but can the quality of this discourse not be improved? From where I sit, this is quite literally the biggest problem, and I see very little initiative from any camp to improve it. On the contrary, there are plenty of people who are in positions where they could make a difference, but seem to be completely unable to even consider the idea that there is even a problem in this area.

History in the making indeed!

> I'd agree that not much can be done based on the current nature of both political and public/personal discourse, but can the quality of this discourse not be improved?

Probably. But I also don't think the discourse matter as much as it used to. It used to be that to have a voice you had to build something. So the discourse was meaningful as in reflected what was going to happen. Today everyone has a voice and therefor the discourse more reflects whatever people want it to be but not necessarily what happens. That is why we can discuss things seemingly forever while they largely remain the same.

In that sense I think Rosling was right in refusing to be negative. Not, as some people think, because he thought everything was getting better but to show that they could better. When you provide your own signal with substance other people's promises or dismissals become less relevant.

The really hard part is that the West has increasingly lost the narrative. So now we have to translate what China does to our own environment. We want the long term thinking, investment and development but not the authoritarianism.

Which is what China did with the whole "Chinese capitalism". No longer did they have to come up with things from scratch in their own system, but could translate from the Western narrative by buying companies or technologies.

So you have to find a way to show people that it can be done in a way that fits into their narrative by taking their concerns seriously.

But honestly for some countries it might be too late. I believe in fairness as something to strive for, but from a greater perspective reality doesn't really care what people think or how things should be. Countries who can't provide things that matter are going to lose, unless they can come up with something else. Which would probably be war, so they still lose.

> Probably. But I also don't think the discourse matter as much as it used to. It used to be that to have a voice you had to build something. So the discourse was meaningful as in reflected what was going to happen. Today everyone has a voice and therefor the discourse more reflects whatever people want it to be but not necessarily what happens. That is why we can discuss things seemingly forever while they largely remain the same.

You're not wrong, but I tend to disagree. I would say because everyone now has a voice, the nature of discourse is more important than ever. And if you look carefully, it tends to be full of delusional thinking. Black and white thinking about things that are extremely nuanced. Opinions stated as facts. Mind reading.

I would say the reason we can never get things done is because almost no one realizes they don't actually know very well what they're talking about. Such people are incredibly easy to divide and conquer.

> The really hard part is that the West has increasingly lost the narrative. So now we have to translate what China does to our own environment. We want the long term thinking, investment and development but not the authoritarianism.

Agreed. We used to be capable of it though. It seems to me figuring out how to regain that capability is to start to look very carefully at exactly what's going on, perhaps assembling a list of commonly believed or published "facts", that aren't actually facts. "It Ain’t What You Don’t Know That Gets You Into Trouble. It’s What You Know for Sure That Just Ain’t So."

> reality doesn't really care what people think or how things should be

Getting people to realize fundamental truths like this would be a good place to start. I suspect before too long, large amounts of people would start to realize how delusional current Western beliefs are, and then maybe we could finally start to get some change. But as long as everyone is still asleep, I think it's status quo as far as the eye can see, until we are bypassed by the rest of the world, or as you say resort once again to our old standby: war.

I think there's reason for hope, but not until we realize the problem.

>It's funny; to my parents and relatives in China I'm perceived as having a US bias, but everywhere else I get characterized as being too Chinese.

Haha, I can relate. I'm as white as they come but I spent some time living in Singapore and traveling the rest of Asia. In Asia I was obviously "the American", but when I got home to the US I can remember a few distinct times where I was called a "wannabe asian" or something similar just because I was talking about how phenomenal public transit is in major Asian metros compared to the abysmal state of US public transit.

I am as "egg" as they come (white on the outside and yellow in the middle) but I am consistently abused by Chinese trolls. I love China but loathe the Chinese trolls.

I have known and worked with several mainland raised Chinese and there is no doubt that the schools in China teach anti-American propaganda. Whereas America does not teach any anti-Chinese propaganda in their schools.

This is really kind of weird since it was the Americans who provided the Burma-to-China airlift during WWII that allowed China to expel the Japanese from China. Furthermore, if you look at world trade balances since 1978 it is America, and only America, that has carried the burden of an imbalanced trade relationship with China of billions of dollars per year; year after year.

I'm not anti-Chinese in any way, I've traveled through the country three times, but the facts are the facts.

If I could I'd upvote this 100 times, it's funny to see people thinking their side is the "one true side of the story", be it the US or China. If you haven't lived in both worlds and understand values and cultures of both, don't be so quick on your feet to think your existing beliefs are the entire truth.

Didn't you here? American capitalism/democracy won history and now it's over.

This. So much this.

I've spent all my adult life bouncing between the US and China. It's fascinating to see the biases from both sides. In some cases, it's outright propaganda, but most of it is just plain, simple lack of familiarity further fueled by otherwise benign nationalism.

What are the biggest misunderstandings of Chinese culture you encounter from Westerners?

Americans are way more defensive in preserving their perception of China whereas Chinese are removed from the political machinations and marginally curious about US culture at best

In other parts of “the west” nobody is deathly afraid of being disappeared by the Chinese government and just raves about how energetic Shanghai is

I think Americans are the outliers here, over emphasizing the darkest parts of China and should consider re-evaluating.

I found that comment a bit bizarre, too, as an American.

Many (most?) people in America simply don’t care about this or have any general curiosity about the world outside of them. America is the land of fast food and unsustainable cheap beef; we have a president that denies climate change, so it’s no wonder that there is simply no interest in understanding sustainable fishing by a large portion of the population, regardless of which country is succeeding at it.

That is much different than some kind of conspiracy like that post implied. I think it’s actually worse than a conspiracy because it shows widespread ignorance and no desire to seek out the information or analyze the food we eat and it’s impact on the environment. America doesn’t need a conspiracy to hide this, they won’t seek it out anyway.

Steve Jobs once said that when he was young, he was convinced that most TV was a conspiracy to make people stupid; but when he got older, he realized the truth was much worse: TV is just giving people what they want.

China today is in many ways very much like the U.S. in the middle of the 20th Century. New technologies and markets are creating rapid, wide-spread growth in living standards. At the same time, government and media encourage a culture of national pride bordering on paranoia, combined with intense pressure to conform. The U.S. grew out of it and I hope China does too.

Of course Americans aren't in general interested in fish farms. Most Chinese are equally unlikely to know anything about their country's aquaculture development (not to mention sustainable ones). I don't believe the sarcasm is literally aimed at people's ignorance, but more at prevailing general notions (and closed-mindedness) about anything China related. The writer has a Ph.D. from University of Cambridge and still lives in Cambridge. He is entitled to his opinion of what he thinks as biases in the Western media. To me the "biases" much more reflect what the media think that their readers would like to read and believe than a conspiracy to "mislead" their readers.

Americans work longer hours and save less than most other developed nations. Plus they don’t have extensive social safety nets. If you’re struggling to get by it’s hard to be curious about the world. Also the country is ginormous.

This seems like a ridiculous hypothesis.

America works longer hours, but not the most. Canadians save even less than Americans and have more debt.

And the US has one of the highest median incomes in the world (with a few exceptions).

For income, one interesting metric would be the distribution. How much do most people make?

Because the US is also a developed country where 15$ an hour with pretty much no coverage is considered "good" in some parts (ie good enough to work as a Facebook content moderator rather than making Big Macs at the local McDonald's)

Edit: I might be a bit rusty on US social safety net & health benefits

It seems there's a lot of blame put on "the media" because there is a common mindset that someone else ("the media") is responsible for informing everyone, rather than anyone taking on any kind of personal responsibility of informing themselves. This manifests a lot in regards to Asian countries where many westerners (specifically Americans, possibly others idk) get the impression that China/Asia is nothing but a bunch of uncivilized villages, and they never learn otherwise (because they never educate themselves and/or "the media" never educates them).

And I don't think it is just astroturfers, either. Given the above paragraph, I think it's understandable that many Chinese become quite defensive about the fact that they/their countrymen aren't, in fact, savages. I spent some time living in Asia, and even just from that (without any stronger roots like growing up there or having a culture based there), even I personally became quite frustrated and 'defensive' when having to constantly inform my American friends that yes, they do have electricity and running water in Singapore. I can imagine that someone actually from those places would be even more defensive.

> having to constantly inform my American friends that yes, they do have electricity and running water in Singapore

I’m afraid to ask where in America is that common sentiment about Singapore. The only misconception I’ve ever heard about Singapore is being executed for possessing chewing gum.

I used to work at a very large (and reasonably well-educated) company that had coworkers from everywhere (LA, SF, Seattle, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, NYC, etc) and it was quite a common misconception amongst almost all of them (and to be fair, I also met a handful of Europeans who thought the same). Also very common was the belief that Singapore is a city in China.

> Also very common was the belief that Singapore is a city in China.

Yeah, that does not surprise me. Americans are not always that great at global geography.

I'm not sure why that is. Of course the country is huge, and American culture is such a dominant force that it is not so hard to live your entire life and never learn much (anything?) about a relatively small city-state far away in Asia. If you've never met anyone from Singapore, this doesn't surprise me at all.

It still feels like something that the US should be better at as a nation, though.

I don’t think you would ever hear something like that in Seattle. I’m guessing deep south somewhere?

One of my Seattle coworkers was one of the specific people who I was thinking of when writing the above comment, actually.

I think it's less common now due to stuff like pictures of Marina Bay Sands going viral over the past several years, as well as movies like Crazy Rich Asians "educating" people that Singapore is a modern city. But around ~2010, not so much.

I’m still not seeing it. A lot of my generations introduction to Singapore was via articles like wired’s Disney Land with the Death Penalty (still banned in Singapore to this very day). The Singapore being apart of China is even weirder for someone who knew nothing about Singapore (why would they even know it was populated by mostly ethnic Chinese?).

You're citing a piece of literature that famously contrasts Kowloon Walled City [1] as preferable to Singapore, and yet you are confused why people are misinformed and uneducated about it?

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kowloon_Walled_City

I think you are making the classic nerd mistake of assuming the average person has done as much self educating as you have.

I heard they don't even have internet in the deep south.

Pretty sure that was true when I was living there (unless 300 bps model dual up counts).

I grew up in China and had all my education in China up until my undergrad. I got my PhD in a top US school. I consider myself highly educated even in US standards. When I was in China, I was very concerned about my country and my government. I was worried and feeling hopeless of my country. Man, was I young and naive. I have since lived in the US for almost ten years. Five years for my PhD and almost five years for a high tech job. Throughout the years, I have learnt what's called bias, political games, double standards and western media hypocrisy. I can browse a free internet as opposed to a "censored" internet in the China. However, instead of hating my government more, I start to appreciate my government deeply. I have seen changes of my country in the past thirty years. Without the leadership of my government and the CCP, none of these would be possible. These comments are from a highly educated person who has deep and extensive experience of both countries, can and is capable of thinking independently. And these are not only my opinion, these are consensus of all my educated generation working in the US. If this is something bewildering to you who only consume information from western media, I don't blame you. I encourage you to visit and see for yourself.

I can appreciate your point, but I think it'd be good to say why. I'm European, so for example I found the GFW to be a refreshing and ultimately beneficial contribution to the world, simply because it maintains diversity - a global monoculture would cause serious problems. This isn't to say that Chinese policies are right, but rather that going against the West does not automatically signify malign intent. Indeed it is perfectly reasonable to be skeptical of the West, it has so many problems. But what exactly is China's context for so confidently treading it's own path? Is it not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the West? How exactly can that be achieved? I think that is part of the PRC's direction, but not entirely. What are the nuances?

Edit: I feel obliged to point out that supporting the GFW is not that same as supporting Tiananmen Square. In the same way I'm sure supporting Google/Facebook etc does not imply support for the Opium Wars.

The major powers attempting to put roadblocks in the way of China's ascent were quite instrumental in aiding China's decline over the past couple centuries.

I think the trust deficit coming from the East towards the West is more warranted than many in the west like to admit.

Chinese propaganda is definitely part of reason Chinese people online are unusually defensive. However, it doesn't help that a lot of "facts" about China that circulate on the internet are completely false. "Facts" like this one:

> Plus there is a large group of astroturfers constantly scanning the web for mentions of China (aka “50 cent army”).

The 50 cent army is really a China-only thing. I highly doubt that China thinks that the most effective use of their limited number of fluent English speakers is argue with people on Reddit and HackerNews.

They’re running concentration camps for a million people, on the grounds that some small number of them might end up being Islamic terrorists in the future. I don’t think paying a few people to sow discord on Reddit would be the most absurd use of resources they have.

Uyghurs who are devout Muslims impede development and are generally hostile to the Han Chinese. Redditors in America, on the other hand, literally have zero effect on China, so the party doesn't care what they think. Sowing discord might make sense, but it definitely wouldn't come in the form of defending China on internet forums.

> Uyghurs who are devout Muslims impede development and are generally hostile to the Han Chinese

i really want to know if there's any legitimate reason why the uyghurs are being imprisoned and "re-educated". Do they actually post a threat? Media coming out of both sides (US and china) are untrustworthy. The US media paints it as a nazi concentration camps. China calls it reeducation because they want more conformity and prevent civil unrest (and that sounds pretty reasonable, if the uyrghurs are really plotting etc).

Thanks! That was quite enlightening. I barely heard any western media coverage of this riot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_Ürümqi_riots

They’re pretty unambiguously concentration camps. The Uyghurs aren’t getting gassed yet, and maybe China never plans to go that far, but if you watch the BBC’s footage from inside, the sanitized version China wants to show the world is still very bad. They don’t even bother pretending that everyone in the camps has done something wrong.

(But that doesn’t mean China fabricated the underlying issue; they really do face a large problem with Uyghur terrorism, with many attacks having multiple casualties in the past decade.)

I got downvoted here on HN for saying things like "living in China isn't so bad. " A huge number of people on this site think it's something akin to North Korea.

"The Chinese media is constantly telling their people that the US is plotting against China and is hostile to them"

But the US is openly hostile towards China (and not just president Trump) - you don't need the Chinese media to notice that. Also, if you follow US media a bit carefully, you'll notice things like the "Pivot to Asia" (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/03/14/pers-m14.html), the layout of US military bases around China and so on - which, well, kind of constitutes plotting.

Chinese domestic media threatens to nuke US just any godly day, but saying that, you should also know that quite a number of Chinese media personas were sacked for wrong gestures towards the West in their English language medias, and their military bamboozlers were few times sent to jail over unauthorised threats to USA made in small, nobody known military newspapers.

I heard once that 50 centers were at some point prohibited to do anything English language, to avoid Western ire.

Though, it seems to become much less of a case today.

Chinese domestic media is for the most part trash and it's well understood that it conveys the views of the ruling political class. It has never even pretended to be an unbiased source of information.

As far as the Chinese domestic media threatening to nuke US just any godly day, I highly doubt it and I've never seen this. Their domestic media is much more focused on internal development and accomplishments. It serves the purpose of reminding the people how great the Central Government is, which is the CCP's primary objective. International affairs (even with the U.S) are an afterthought. You won't find nearly the amount of vitriol directed towards the U.S that the U.S media directs towards China.

The US media is also trash. It's a different sort of bias. A bias towards big business.

Show us the links for those things in your comments. I don’t see any of these