I was coming at it more from the standpoint that undercutting the US by taking its IP (i.e. not actually impoverishing members of the general population) is a good thing for the world, but your point is also fair.

I do agree there is a common sentiment that Chinese products are inferior to their American counterparts

Which products? China has made serious strides in manufacturing quality over the last few decades. But they do produce most of the cheaper products as well. I'm not disagreeing with you that is the sentiment in the USA.

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. Yes, every country spies to the best of their capacity, that's the nature of the game. While no sane person believes that China is the only one doing this, we constantly get media stories framed that way and there are a lot of mouth breathers running around screeching that China steals western tech. I think the only actual issue is the existence of copyrights and intellectual property. These stand directly in the way of human advancement and should be abolished.

The reason you're getting downvoted is probably more of a reflex than anything else. We get a lot of concern trolls here who love to sealion and generally be obnoxious and annoying.

Just be sure to actually listen to what we have to say (you don't need to change you mind though) and respond appropriately and you'll be fine. If you just talk past us and accuse us of things we don't actually believe, yeah, you're going to get downvotes, same as if you tried that on any social media platform.

I understand that the pro China sentiments are strong here and I’m going to be downvoted

Hexbear doesn't have downvotes, so you'll just get a bit of flak from the much less active lemmygrad (no shade to them)

I'm sure the lobbyists and congresscritters in DC have a more realist view in private. Doesn't really change what sort of sentiment they push to the masses.