@Fredthefishlord@lemmy.blahaj.zone

From your comment one can easily infer that you didn’t even click the link.

This is the first part, as the article says.

How do you differentiate whataboutism from highlighting the antichinese hypocrisy?

This is quite obvious.

Chinese cities are - by far - leading the questionable ranking of the world’s cities with the most CCTV cameras per capita. It doesn’t help to say that Europe, the U.S., others will be gaining ground. We must stand up against this development instead of downplaying it.

But the saddest thing is that this whataboutism goes only into one direction. If you read negative news about surveillance of Western technology - and there are a lot of such news that is absolutely justifiable -, there are no comments like, “But China …” The 50 cent warriors are working for China, and that’s a bit annoying.

The degree of whataboutism is astonishing, once again.

Among the cities with the highest numbers of surveillance cameras per capita, almost all are Chinese. China is a single-party dictatorship that is far ahead in building an Orwellian nightmare. (But tankies will find something on the web that shows that the West isn’t better, I’m sure.)

It’s not only about control but also a big threat for democracy and a stable society as a whole. Last year, for example, Chinese state-backed hacking group Salt Typhoon breached the U.S. telecom networks’ wiretap system (a backdoor legally required for law enforcement to access people’s private communication), forcing the authorities to urge U.S. citizens using encrypted messaging. So there is no such thing as a backdoor only for the good guys.

Breaking encryption opens the door not just for control but also for malign actors within the borders and from abroad. Where such democratic decline ends can be seen in China, for example, where total control and surveillance is suppressing any form of dissent.

(There is a very good documentary about the devastating consequences of surveillance for those interested: https://total-trust.org/.)

[Edit typo.]

The Chinese government will certainly understand the Dutch move as they eliminate all Western technology firms such as Nokia and Ericsson from its domestic networks. So what’s the issue?