by imiric | 2025-10-06 10:13:30+00:00
> It’s not unrelated because the NIST demonization of China as a nation contributes to hostilities which have real impacts on the people of the US and China, not simply the governments.

I don't doubt that it has impacts, but you're characterizing this as "demonization". The current administration certainly engages in some harmful rhetoric, but then again, what is the "right" way to address a hostile political enemy?

> > The idea that one should first criticize their own government before another is the whataboutism.

> Again, that’s not my position. You present me as countering criticism by pointing at US faults.

I'm not presenting you this way. You brought up the faults of the US government at a comment pointing out a distaste for the Chinese government. This inevitably steers the conversation towards comparisons and arguments about which one is worse, which never goes anywhere, and always ends badly. Granted, the CCP comment wasn't going to spur thoughtful discussion anyway, but your comment assured it.

This is a common tactic used by Chinese agents and bots precisely because it muddies the conversation, and focuses it on the faults of some other government, typically of the US. I'm not suggesting you are one, but it's the same tactic.

> My point is that both have faults, both governments deserve our suspicions, and our actions, practically speaking, should be first directed at the dictators at home.

Again, this is what I disagree with. Making a topic relative to something else only serves to direct the focus away from the original topic. If I criticize the food of a restaurant, the response shouldn't be to bring up my own cooking, but about the restaurant itself.

As for this particular case, I haven't read the NIST report, nor plan to. I'm just saying that if both countries are at war with each other, as the US and China certainly are (an information war, if nothing else), then acts of war and war-related activities are to be expected from both sides. At what point would you trust your government to inform you when this is the case, instead of dismissing it as domestic propaganda and "demonization"?

The TikTok situation is a good example. It is undisputable that having US citizens using a social media platform controlled by the Chinese government is a matter of national security. A child could understand that. Yet attempts to ban TikTok in the US have been criticized as government overreach, an attack on free speech, with whataboutism towards domestic social media (which is also an issue, but, again, unrelated), and similar nonsense. Say what you will about the recent TikTok deal to keep it running in the US, and there's certainly plenty to criticize about it, but at the very least it should mitigate national security concerns.

It's the same with any Chinese-operated service, such as DeepSeek. I don't doubt that the NIST report makes nonsensical claims that technically shouldn't be a concern. But DeepSeek is also a hosted service, which is likely to be the primary interface for most users. Do you think that the information provided to it by millions of US citizens won't be used as leverage during times of war? Do you think that US citizens couldn't be manipulated by it, just like they are on TikTok and other social media, in ways that would benefit the Chinese government?

We barely understand the impacts of this technology, and most people are clueless about how it works, and what goes on behind the scenes. Do you really trust that a foreign hostile government would act in good faith? To me, as someone without a dog in this fight, the answer is obvious. It would be too naive to think otherwise.

This is why I'm surprised at how quick US citizens are to claim sinophobia, and to criticize their own government, when it's clear their nation is in a state of war, and has been in sociopolitical disarray for the past decade. Yet there's a large portion of the country that is seemingly oblivious to this, while their nation is crumbling around them. Ultimately, I think this is a result of information warfare and propaganda over decades, facilitated by the same tools built by the US. This strategy was clearly explained by an ex-KGB agent decades ago[1], which more people should understand.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5sTGxMUdo