Chinese-British citizen posts detailed explanation of reasoning behind Chinese views on Hong Kong/China/Blizzard situation

If you are already angry reading the title and shout racist slurs or “get the fuck out 50cent army” then this post is not for you. I trust I should have some faith in the gaming community.

After seeing and hearing so much I think I have a say in this.

I am a Chinese British citizen, born and raised in China later immigrated to the UK, have spent over 15 years in both countries, well versed in social and political issues and themes in both cultures. And above all, a hardcore gamer. PC and console (PS2 in the past now Xbox), lost count of games I have played, probably well over 500 by now.

And of course I was a die-hard Blizzard fan. Started with Warcraft 3, Starcraft (fun memories of Chinese Internet cafes lol), Diablo 1,2, then WoW, then Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3 in the last few years etc…

Blizzard in the West

I said “was”, because I have seen the downfall of blizzard. Let me get this straight first, I really hate the Chinese influence of gaming in the West. Here, I mean gaming in general: micro-transactions, artistic direction (apparently some of the Hearthstone tuning of gore etc as of late). I, too, enjoyed the early days of PS2 story-driven, free unlockables, and limitless replayability without extra cost, no “early access”, “surprise mechanics”. It is absolutely disgraceful to see the likes of EA and Activation scamming young children and getting people addicted.

China has a lot to blame for this, because of its monetary influence in these Western publishers.

To me, and a lot of my gamer friends here in the UK, Blizzard have gone down hill since Diablo 3. They have become more money driven and egregious with their practices. With the merger of Activation and their public listing, I don’t need to say much more, I think we all know how to feel about the whole entity as a whole at present.

Blizzard in China

If you grew up in China in the 90’s like me, you will know how much influence Blizzard games had on our generation. Briefly mentioned above, Internet cafes used to be absolutely rampant in the country. If you know anything about China, in the 90s’, it was very poor (many are still today as well), even in big cities where Internet cafes were present. So IP wasn’t a thing. Millions of pirate copies of Starcraft and Warcraft 3 (among many other popular RTS and first person shooters) were what the owners depended their livelihood of. Now IP is much more strongly protected in entertainment industry as a whole, my generation feel the guilt towards Blizzard. Blizzard made their childhood memories but we all stole from them. So microtransactions in something like Hearthstone could make money off people so easily (as someone who never spends a penny on these I was absolutely gobsmacked to hear a Chinese friend of mine dropping the equivalent of $300 into Hearthstone to just to get in).

Mobile Gaming

Mobile gaming is so popular in China because of a number of reasons. To keep a simple: 1. They are not exposed to the “real gaming” we have the privilege to be. Like many in this community know, media control is ridiculous. Most of what you hear on the Internet about “Great Wall of China” is true, so I don’t need to elaborate; 2. Mobile cellular technology is more advanced in China, arguably more than the UK and US, even in the country side; 3. Lifestyle of people in cities are much more fast paced; 4. Most important, combined with number 1, no developer/publisher have the political or monetary power to compete with the giants such as Tencent and Netease. The likes of these most probably have a lot of say along with the official governmental bodies which give entertainment production the “go-ahead” to the marketplace. Yes, corruption can be involved. But maybe as a whole, the country may not be as corrupt as many may think (especially having seen how some gamers describe China since the incident).

Hong Kong is No Laughing Matter

If you are Chinese, AND British like me, you wouldn’t be very rushed to making a conclusion on making a stance.

But I think, we, in the gaming community can sometimes be slightly naïve about geo-politics. After all, we game to escape from the reality, I get it. But hear me out.

Many seem to be unaware, how HK was a colony of the British Empire in the first place. Put it simply, two Opium Wars. What are the Opium Wars? Quick links here: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars)

Basically the arrogant Qing Dynasty wouldn’t trade with any Western powers, so the empires sold the Chinese opium in order to open its gates. The Qing government tried to fight against them, but failed, signed the treaty and gave up Hong Kong. In the late Qing Dynasty, opium problem was epidemic in the country. All men smoked it and it fucked up the country. Government was corrupt, Chinese citizens were hopeless, if you are interested, just google “Century of Humiliation”.

The Brits ruled it for 156 years, introduced rule of law, capitalism. All good things of course, especially when China was controlled by the Communist Mao in the 20th century. But make no mistake, its prosperity is not because of its freedom, it’s because China was closed up (internal political turmoil etc.. more on this, search “Cultural Revolution”).

Since 1997 the handover, China joined the WTO, cities like Shen Zhen and Guang Zhou gradually took the economic position of HK. Why would a Western company go to HK when it could directly reach over 1 billion consumers, so HK gradually became less relevant.

For those of us that think HK was “free” under the UK rule, allow me to say you might be misled. A quick comparison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1967_leftist_riots, the HK police killed 51 people in the 1967 extreme leftist riot (or I could call “patriotic demonstration” if I was biased). And, most importantly, HK citizens never had universal suffrage under the British rule. The UK government thought they were “democratic”, because it was democratic in the British parliament, which directly appointed the Chief Executive of HK.

China has been gradually extending its “claws” into HK’s political and legislative system, I agree, hence I am supportive of the initial march by millions of citizens. But at the same time China is not as totalitarian as many make it out to be. I wish HK’s rule of law and relative freedom of speech never goes away, but I am also aware, Hong Kong (and especially Hong Kong) is and should always be China’s Hong Kong.

I am over simplifying here, it’s a gaming community after all. But more on this, feel free to challenge/provide your thoughts.

Western Reaction on the Matter

What happened, is a clash to cultures.

After watching the most vocal gaming YouTubers’ reaction on the matter, YongYea, The Quertering, AngryJoe, Jimquisition, Layman Gaming, HeelvsBabyface etc., it made me realise that the Western gaming community at large can be quite politically unaware.

All of these guys I absolute admire, I subscribe to them, voice of the community, absolutely. But I don’t agree with some of their direct/indirect encouragement of protesting for “freedom of HK”.

For some reason, the US and UK reaction of the HK matter has been the most one-sided story I have seen since my day one in UK. So to this degree, I don’t blame anyone’s responsive stance to stand for HK. But if you are really curious, I suggest you to google around, try to see the other side of the story on YouTube, see how other democratic Chinese spoken societies (Taiwan, Singapore) react to the whole thing, and what extreme violence has been committed lately, and also think, if the same thing happened here in the UK or US, what would the police do.

I think making fun of Blizzard and China’s Pooh can be fun, but I think this advocacy can be “cheap”, we have very little to lose, but if people get really misled politically, many could die (need I say more).

Note earlier I said “clash of cultures”. Believe me, a lot of reaction coming from mainland China towards NBA, South Park, Blizzard are not made by the government. Much of it is very negative, extreme even. I don’t agree the kind of rhetoric, but I can understand the rationale.

To most of Chinese people, family is the upmost political correctness, like the Freedom of Speech, or Race Equality. To many, the unity of the country and the culture is the bigger “family”. So separate a part from its land is a fantasy, just like genocide is unimaginable now in today’s UK or USA. China has been relatively “homogenous”. The Chinese don’t value the latter two as much, because it didn’t have race relation troubles in its history, at least in the last 200 years. But if Race Relations cannot be kept in the USA, the country would break apart. If you don’t believe me, ask a Singaporean Chinese, Malaysian Chinese, Taiwanese Chinese, or even a British/American born Chinese, how important the unity of culture and the unity of family is to them.

So for a foreign entity (like NBA or potentially Blizzard), who do not understand anything I have said above, to say stand with HK, is the greatest insult to the Chinese people. Hence the reaction or likely reaction in Blizzard’s case.

I agree, that Chinese people are more sensitive on some issues than they should be, and not just boycott everything that touches their feelings. But again, you have to understand what it has been through in the last 200 years. And just a thought, how many countries have China invaded ever?

This is why the Chinese think we the West are the bully and downright ignorant, and why we in the West think the Chinese commies are the bully.

Blizzard’s Weibo Post

From the wording of the original post, in Chinese, I can see that it was probably written by a Chinese official. Mark Kern highlighted this in his live stream with The Quartering, and I think he might be right. The tone is very much a communist official’s tone, just like the kind you see on everyday media in China. But I think this is Blizzard using its “China knowledge”, because it understands the market (as per above), so doing the pre-damage controlling. I also think they should have just pulled him off behind the scene and warn him like many YouTubers suggested, instead of all guns-blazing using Weibo to please the Chinese gamers. Blizzard underestimated the power of internet and people’s willingness to research in general.

How We Should Move On

Finally, if you have been with me this far, I hope this gives you some insight. I am not telling you to not stand with HK, at the end of day that is your freedom. I am simply providing some insight and background to the whole story. I just think if you do, be aware of what you stand for, and why. Personally, both democracy and Freedom of Speech are relative. I enjoy voting for my government here in the UK, and I enjoy writing this post here on Reddit (probably not possible in China), but I also believe in reason, as well as the “overall positive attitude and hopefulness of the majority Chinese people under the regime”. Ask any foreign person who has been or lived in China.

As for the Western game developer/publishers, including Blizzard, I think they should focus on the games first, not country. This is why Blizzard got so big in the first place in China, because it made good games. The “Cyberpunks” of today are probably being pirated somewhere in the even less developed world (this is also why gaming studios go online more and more, the potential player base is unimaginably massive), but just know: if you make good games, they will be your loyal paying players one day.

China is no longer pirating games, but the gamers know when a good game is a good game. The mobile gamers of China, too, want the quality of games that we get to play. I think censoring is ok, and every country has its own censorship (even here in the West), but don’t forget, make a good game first. Make the Lich Kings, the Deckerd Cains of today first.

If you are from China over the wall reading this, I want you to know: just be more confident in the culture, have some faith in its gaming community in the long term. Don’t boycott everything, the general public of the West don’t want China to be demolished all the time!

And if you are Tencent or NetEase, instead of bribing the officials in letting your shitty mobile version of everything through the Chinese internet, why not grow some balls. Put money in the long term gaming industry in the country, let the work do the talk. Sell the country and the culture through good games.

I know all of this is a fantasy, but this is how I feel.

Hong Konger detailing protest events and why it all occurred

I am a Hong Konger. Very detailed post from gaming, China and Hong Kong background. I just want to leave some comments about the Hong Kong issue in case you guys understand the story in Hong Kong since June differently.

The chronological story is that the government proposes the extradition bill, Hk citizens are using the peaceful way by having marches to express their opinion. But the CE refuses to compromise so that on 12/6, a lot of citizens surrounded the legislative council without over violence (compared to what you see today), however, I personally think the police had used an unnecessary violence (https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/ASA1705762019ENGLISH.pdf). Therefore, after this first turning point, most of the protestors are focusing on five demands(withdraw extradition bill, withdraw the definition of riot, unconditional release of arrested protestors, set up independent enquiry of the incident, dual universal suffrage).

However, what I point out is we Hong Kongers do not show our hope to be independent. What frustrating is that most of the Chinese media uses “HK independence” to describe the objective of the movement in the HK. So I am also really confused when some of my Chinese friends asked whether we were trying to be independent in June to July. Therefore I guess all the media shown in Weibo and WeChat inform the Chinese citizen that we want to be independent, but the truth is not.

So what I am trying to say is I feel like all the clash between HKer and mainlander in oversea usually in school or protest, the reason for happening that is CCP tried to labelize HK with independence, so that mainlander would hate HKer, and HKer will also hate mainlander since they misunderstand us.

So that’s the story between June to August. In September to October, a lot of issue happens internationally. Perhaps some people are really thinking about HK independence, but that’s not the majority. I personally focus on five demands because it reflects all the fault the CE had done which leads HK to become a police state today.

Also, if you try to think that if a city want to be independent, there must be army, but HK does not have any. Are we that stupid to claim independence without army? I still trust the one country two systems because it can most beneficial to Hk and China, hk still belongs to China, as long as China stop putting their “claw” on Hong Kong because a lot of HKer feels like it is no longer “two systems”. However, it depends on what president Xi is thinking.

Feel free to leave you comment. I also appreciate your understanding to Hong Kong history!

Australian working on jurisprudence essay regarding HK situation explains reasons for Western views of China as totalitarian to OP

Hey man, I just did a good chunk of a Jurisprudence essay on the situation in HK. I really do appreciate the effort in your post and I'm actually a little hesitant to reply due to having drastically different views from you and not wanting to let my emotions bring down a high effort post.

If you would like to see why a lot of us have an incredibly hard time crediting any pro PRC stance feel free to have a look at some of the sources below:

Human Rights Watch, “China - Events of 2018” (Human Rights Watch, 2018)

Amnesty International, “The State of the World’s Human Rights: China 2018/2019” (Amnesty International, 2019)

I do have a bunch more but those are extremely detailed and high-quality reports. Another source I would like to include due to the good analysis contained within is:

U.S Embassy & Consulates in China, “China 2018 Human Right Report”, (2018, United States Department of State)

Of course, I understand that due to the publishing source you may have your own doubts on that last one. Just to calarify I am an Australian and pretty anti-American right now as I have family who fought with the Kurds in Syria, Im no uncle sam fan.

If you would like to understand why this has provoked such an intense reaction from westerners it may help to be aware of a western idea called "the tolerance paradox", which on a basic level suggests that:

The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly paradoxical idea that, "In order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance."

Many people see this as the beginning of China starting to flex its muscle on the world stage through media influence which is one of the recognised signs that a dictatorship is worsening (Source: Sohail Khalid, “Prophets of Violence - Prophets of Peace” (White Knight Publishing, 2005))

Here is a quick thing I personally find removes any defence you might be able to make of this being a debate where both sides shopuld be assumed to be acting in good faith. How can we trust the PRC to engage in any kind of compromise when they promote things like this"

With particular concern being directed at the establishment of the National Supervisory Commission within the People’s Republic of China in 2018, an office “which is empowered to detain incommunicado anyone exercising public authority for up to six months without fair trial procedures in a system called ‘liuzhi’”.

Further explanation of Chinese feelings regarding family/unity

To most of Chinese people, family is the upmost political correctness, like the Freedom of Speech, or Race Equality. To many, the unity of the country and the culture is the bigger “family”. So separate a part from its land is a fantasy, just like genocide is unimaginable now in today’s UK or USA. China has been relatively “homogenous”. The Chinese don’t value the latter two as much, because it didn’t have race relation troubles in its history, at least in the last 200 years. But if Race Relations cannot be kept in the USA, the country would break apart. If you don’t believe me, ask a Singaporean Chinese, Malaysian Chinese, Taiwanese Chinese, or even a British/American born Chinese, how important the unity of culture and the unity of family is to them.

I gotta quote this part for truth. Too many Westerners simply do not understand how much a Mainland Chinese value this.

There's also the debate of Liberty vs Prosperity, a Mainland Chinese will choose Prosperity 99% of the time, simply because in the past few decades, life in Mainland China geniunely sucked and CCP really did improve the life of majority of Chinese a lot (They screwed up big with The Great Leap Forward, no argument about that) so why wouldn't they support CCP? To modern Westerners, Freedom is a basic human right, but to Mainland Chinese, it's a privilege that comes AFTER you're well off. Cultural differences aside, Western and Japanese invasions of China such as Opium War*, Eight-Nation Alliance, First & Second Sino-Japanese War were taught in every Chinese school, and all of them managed to sent the same message: "If you're powerless, you have no right."（弱國無外交/弱国无外交）【Yes I understand 外交 is suppose to mean Diplomacy, but that really doesn't fit the context】

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Fun fact: In Mandarin Chinese, Power （权力/權力） and Right （权利/權利）are pronounced exactly the same. Given how languages reflect thought and culture, it should tell you a little about Chinese culture...

*Personally, I think Qing Dynasty brought the Opium War upon itself with its foreign policies and deserves the humiliating beatdown, but that's not the main point here and good luck explaining this to average Mainland Chinese.

Hey all,

First of all, thanks for reading the long post, it is a long one after all.

As a first timer, to see all of these responses is absolutely overwhelming, I never normally post things publicly on Internet, but thought I'd share a different perspective on this particular topic because of my personal circumstances. I simply wanted to shed some light on the other side of the coin, in my own opinion I didn't choose side, but many thought I defend tyranny. I don't wish to change people's mind over night, I simply wanted to show one Chinese person's interpretation based on his life experiences. After all, I don't trust any non-Chinese here speaks fluent Chinese and would have gone to the other side and research for him/herself?

It's impossible to reply to every one of you, so I will make a universal reply, hopefully elaborating some of the biggest issues you have brought to my attention. This will be the closure from my side. I have a life to live and many games to play lol.

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The biggest viewpoint is that China is totalitarian, and many provided detailed response, evidence etc. I think a lot of it is very new to me as well, again impossible to read everything now but I will when I can. And I can understand sentiment why China is so evil from your view.

To those of you who are genuinely keen in learning "why China isn't as totalitarian as many make it out to be", here is a few brief points, again, all personal, take it as you will:

1. The West still have the dominance in the world media, and I do tend to see the one-sidedness when it comes to international geo-politics (unlike the domestic politics - right and left arguments are obviously very transparent and can be polarising). So I do wish to see other countries reporting on the Xinjiang issue as well, and not just the typical "Western big economies", perhaps they do, just I am not exposed to them.
2. China is vast, if you live in Europe, the population is almost 3 times the EU's, if USA 4 times. So a lot of things happen there everyday. It is always unfair that individuals suffer mistreatment, but it happens everywhere in the world (I know the lightness of this sentence for such a serious notion, but I am not an academic in the field, afraid that's all I have time for now).
3. People can live a normal life in China, they have the right for education, choose the partner, employer, buy and sell, go abroad for holiday, enjoy entertainment etc... you can work hard, achieve more. Shelter, food, transportation, family and friends.... Many of these things weren't even possible a few decades ago (and yes I know, CCP partly to blame)
4. People do talk and joke about the government and the affairs, in public and private. Many also "disseminate". You could probably get banned for "disseminate" on Internet (i.e. account suspended etc), but it's far away from being jailed. For the years I lived there (and today through friends and families), I do not know anyone who has been jailed because of their voice, nor have I heard from anyone who knows such a person.
5. If the country is so tyrannical and oppressive, why would the tourists and international students not flee. Ask them what they think of the country and the government. And similarly, more foreign and first world people study and work there than before.

I do want to make it clear though, if the Uyghurs really suffer as badly as what these medias say, I think it's wrong, and I hope things can improve in the future.

And also, I haven't said China's government is perfect, or even good. They should be more democratic, and I think they will, gradually in the future. I just think there could be a slightly different story than what people had in mind. But it seems that most people here already have very sound understanding of it all anyway.

If I offended you as a overseas Chinese by over-generalising, then my apologies. One person's experiences can be limiting. But to me there seems to be more intimacy and closeness between two follow Chinese men than that of two British men. Just pure observation and travel and other people's personal experiences

Finally if you really think I am a pawn of the CCP, I would be really worried if I were you, because this kind of propaganda is a whole new level don't you think lol