Hong Kong and Taiwan could be argued as internal affairs, honestly. No matter how much it would pain me that 2 developed and thriving democracies (maybe Macau, too, if you squint really hard at it) are very exposed to nasty regime abuses. "Cuius regio, eius religio" isn't a Chinese saying, it's a Latin one from the Western world. Can't have it both ways.
If you want to go into more unequivocally international affairs abuses, use examples more like the Spratly Islands or the Chinese fishing fleets in international waters.
And regarding IP, I'm kind of torn. China is genuinely developing and innovating and making amazing products for the rest of the world. The UK, the US did the same at the start, also through blatant disregard for IP. Maybe this kind of competition is ok. After all, "If we each trade one apples, at the end we each have one apple. If we each trade one idea, at the end we each have two ideas".
Most people using that phrase don't care much about that, it's about the Great Leap Forward. Plus you could argue that his intervention was legitimized by the North Korean government asking for it.
oblio is the one who brought up the Opium wars as a justification for China stealing IP. That is whataboutism. Responding to whataboutism with examples showing the original whataboutism as invalid is perfectly fine, IMO.
The thing is, that comment by GekkePrutser is not even showing my whataboutism as invalid.
Only wwtrv addressed by direct point and I can say that I only half-agree with him.
But GekkePrutser's reply is something like the OP saying the tram is going straight, me saying that it's going to the right pointing at a 15 degree angle and then GekkePrutser saying that there is no tram, it's a rocket instead and it's actually pointing down and to the left at a 30 degree angle, i.e., waaaaay off-mark.
Anyway, I'm probably breaking a chunk of HN rules continuing this discussion :-)
