Could you please not post flamewar comments to HN? Several (I'm not saying all of them) of your comments in this thread have been doing that. This is not what this site is for.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
China was organ harvesting in the early 00s. You didn't see anywhere near as many negative articles constantly about China, Chinese enroachment, etc. etc. then.
It is only now that we are afraid China will eclipse our spot on the global stage that anyone gives a crap about Chinese human rights abuses, because of coverage largely driven by the media.
We've also switched to spinning things that China does that we also do in a much more negative light, for instance, how the media discusses Chinese loan programs to Africa (compared to how IMF/World Bank programs are just not discussed) or Chinese attempts to build a military base on the Atlantic coast (compared to the dozens of military bases we have in the South China Sea area).
We also burned coal for decades before people stared learning about how bad it was for our planet. How does modern awareness change the ethics of a perpetual ethnic slaughter?
So your claim is that we weren't aware in the year 2003 that organ harvesting was wrong?
I'm not making any claim about ethics, merely that the perception that China is doing so many bad things all at once because they "want the rest of the world to hate them" is more likely driven by US media highlighting terrible things China does because we view them as a great power competitor now, and it is important that our populace is rallied against them.
And yet, we don’t do what is best practice for dealing with such an actor: disengage.
We (the US primarily, but also the rest of the developed world) have a tremendous opportunity with a still productive labor force and cheap capital to boot up manufacturing capacity we offshored to China, and we won’t have the chance again when China decides to act against other countries (economically or militarily).
It's not a bad trick. Lots of historical examples of an external enemy bringing internal stability. It often ends in genocide, sure, but it does seem to work!
