I didn't downvote you, but often people get downvoted because they take the discussion off-topic.
It's interesting to you that what the PRC is doing today reminds you of something the FBI did last century. But the discussion is still about the PRC, not the FBI.
As you can see, your comment that is benign on the surface started a whole thread of off-topic comments, which bogs down the overall discussion and generates more heat than light.
Or maybe people read what you wrote as yet another "what about..." comment, the likes of which always pop up like mushrooms after a rain in discussions about China's current-day misdeeds.
The commenter was responding to someone talking about spy work in East Germany, a post that, despite being about something that also happened 50 years ago and a continent away, is the top comment under an article about China. Is you think one is relevant and not the other you're deeply blind to some ideology underlying your assumptions.
At this point we can't even talk conspiracy theories without someone bringing up the meta conspiracy theories, like the Chinese saboteurs sowing division in this comment section...
> which bogs down the overall discussion and generates more heat than light.
An argument can also be made how it adds context, to properly frame these actions in the reality we live in.
Insisting on looking at this in total isolation, like it's this thing that only happens in that one particular place, completely belittles how and why these practices become established and normalized in the first place.
Because state organized suppression of perceived political dissidence is not unique to China, it has a long history all over the globe and takes many different forms to this day [0].
Recognizing and acknowledging that is a much more fitting approach to Hacker News than going; "This is a submission about China, only talking badly about China allowed in here!", which only results in the same kind of "circle jerk" discussions that already dominate too much of Reddit.
I think this is still very relevant to the discussion. Because spying is a profession in which behavior tends to degrade to the lowest common denominator, it makes criticism of such actions very hard if your own domestic agencies engage in similar behavior. The domestic populance can only influence domestic policies, so it would be even more prudent to set criticism in that direction.
Spying was excused as a necessity, so how would I condemn these actions in the first place? "Whataboutism" is an ethical argument but we are not talking about ethics in the context of spying at all.
downvoters - why are you downvoting this? Do you think it's false? Or just don't like hearing about it?