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I haven't been at Google in 5 years but I worked with a lot of Chinese coworkers from all three of mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong when I was there (as well as ABCs of those descents). Honestly, I never saw a Chinese employee get into a political argument. Mostly they were just happy to be in the U.S. and draw a Google-level salary. ABCs (including myself) would, but usually about American politics, not Chinese.

I think most Americans underestimate the extent to which most Chinese are apolitical and pragmatic. Chinese culture doesn't have the tradition of civic engagement and vigorous debate that Anglo-American culture does, and skews more towards Exit than Voice. A typical Chinese response to a looming civil war is more akin to "Well shit. Better emigrate (if I can) or pay off the right soldiers and officials (if I can't) so this doesn't harm my family" than to demonstrate in the streets and call for the ouster of the leaders in question. This is a double-edged sword: it's how the CCP maintains social controls that would be unacceptable violations of civil liberties in Western democracies, it's also behind the "model minority" image of Asian-Americans, but it also means that you don't get a lot of disruptive political talk in groups with Asian immigrants.




ABCs? I don't understand. What does that mean?


American Born Chinese


American Born Chinese


American Born Chinese


Similar but unrelated to ABCDs

American-Born Confused Desi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American-Born_Confused_Desi


Public actions like the ones in the story linked below make me think different.

https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3020639/c...


The action in question involved 3 mainland students and one Hong Kong student.

How many people live in mainland China? 1.3B. How many people live in Hong Kong? 7.4M. How many overseas Chinese are there? 50M. How many overseas Hongkongers? About 1.5M.

You can bet that if there is any one such incident happening in the globe, the press will seize on it, because it fits the current media narrative and gets clicks. By the numbers, though, you're looking at 1 in a million.


It may not represent the majority of overseas Chinese or even many but it is the view I get from media.


That should tell you a lot about the media.


I heard from some friends in NYC that there was drama over the lego flag sculptures, where the Taiwanese lego flag was mysteriously smashed several times and the rebuilt flag hidden behind a larger PRC lego flag.




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