China’s web censors go into overdrive as President Xi Jinping consolidates power
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
In all seriousness, this is a black period for Chinese people and China's neighbors. The fledgling democracy in Hong Kong, and democratic nations around China's periphery including Taiwan, Japan, Nepal, and India should be very wary dealing with a strongman who will stop at nothing to further his power and nationalism-focused legacy.
Mao, Stalin, Chavez, Castro, Hitler, Mussolini, Chiang Kai-Shek ... a few of these strongmen presided over brief periods of spectacular economic growth, but always under unsustainable conditions. Many citizens (and the citizens of neighboring countries) paid a terrible price.
It's never spectacularly efficient, but the US' form of democracy is meant to be much lower variance. I think it's a good tradeoff.
citation needed
Didn't stop him from dismantling democratic institutions, eliminating all political rivals, invading his neighbors, and murdering millions of people.
Specifically, vote count manipulation, the Supreme Court refusing to allow opposition legislatures to be seated, the constitutional committee stripping the legislature of its power... that's dismantling democracy.
Eli5 Their economy was mostly oil, they seized assets of oil companies extracting it. People left then oil crashed and they had too many promises to pay for
How was all this inevitable? When a government doesn't like that private companies are making money, and steal their property then replace skilled managers with party cronies, maybe things aren't going to work out so well. Maybe other companies will be afraid to invest in the country. So yea, the country gets a short-term boost from acquiring billions of dollars of assets, then all the profits that used to go to the company go to the state. But then it doesn't grow or handle problems properly because no one has the same incentive to work hard and innovate.
If the price of toilet paper is high in America, there are dozens of companies that are going to compete to get that profit, supply will rise and the price will drop. In Chavez's Venezuala, the toilet paper companies get nationalized, and government bureaucrats do their best to make and distribute enough toilet paper. Or maybe they don't and just report that they are doing a good job.
Here's a short list from 2012 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nation... and you can be sure there were many companies that bent over backwards to comply with governmental demands to avoid being nationalized. It turns out the Venezuelan government, like most other governments, is not good at managing production and providing a prosperous economy without a free market. And when regulations mean a company (for example a toilet paper company) can't make a profit to create what they are selling, they can't make enough of it, and soon they won't be able to make any of it.
It's all about human nature and incentives, and yes most 5 year olds understand that.
A question would be eli5 lambda calculus. Actually if there is an eli5 for that it would be fun to read.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Venezuelan_oi...
The Chávez administration used high oil prices in the 2000s on his populist policies and to gain support from voters. The social works initiated by Chávez's government relied on oil products, the keystone of the Venezuelan economy, with Chávez's administration suffering from Dutch disease as a result.
When prices collapsed they had all eggs in one basket.
Now what was seized and not discussed in the wiki was oil platforms from foreign companies. Sometimes instead of Chavez paying a debt, he would seize the platform and "nationalize it" so this caused foreign companies to be wary of investing.
https://books.google.com/books?id=TFY_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA116&lpg=...
On to hyperinflation
To assuage the oil price decline which began back in June 2014 and continues through to today, President Maduro printed more currency,
Pretty sure we've watched that 'democratic' experiment fail spectacularly, at least what news I know of the economy and living conditions in general seem very poor at best. Failed state comes to mind.
Chavez was the previous ruler and hasn't been gone so long that the systems he set up have been washed away by time
I'm not a huge fan of authoritarian systems, but individual people are even more fallible. Laying decision-making power on one individual is a recipe for failure; they're going to be wrong eventually, and chances are people will be reluctant to speak out against their god-emperor when that happens in a system where power is so ridiculously centralized.
[1] https://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4553024/alesina_...
Absolutely. That is why the US, thanks to having a multi-party democracy, never got anywhere with the industrial revolution. And that is why Putin's Russia is leading the world in technological innovation and economic growth.
Of course, if when you say "political stability" you mean the absence of things like civil wars and coups, well yes, that really helps economic growth. But I don't think Xi is making himself dictator-for-life because China is on the verge of that sort of instability.
China has long-range nukes. Behind every treat is political resolve. Would America risk lighting its cities on fire to defend a country across the ocean? (I hope so. But I'm not sure.)
The same could be said of China. Would it risk MAD by invading Japan? The US could be spurred to act due to the threat of eventual isolation and defeat after its allies are picked off. That fear is what fueled the regional wars like Vietnam fought during the Cold War.
In any case, it's estimated that Japan could develop its own indigenous nuclear capability very quickly if the need arose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_progra...
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/06/24/national/politi...
Examples abound - Poland and France both had mutual defense treaties with various allies that failed when Germany invaded. In Japan's backyard, the Philippines lost territory in the South China Sea to China after it decided to cut ties with the U.S. military. As soon as the U.S. pulled away, the Chinese PLA moved right in. An international tribunal in The Hague ruled China's actions were completely illegal, but China has since strengthened its hold by building landing strips and military fortifications on the reefs and small islets.
The Japan/U.S. alliance is strong, but relationships and power profiles can change. Xi's not going anywhere, and he can play the long game when it comes to the Diaoyutai and other territorial claims.
Such thinking was very common going into World War I. The mutual economic interests of all of the nations involved led many people to believe it would be over in a few months.
Pretty scary.
It will be interesting to see how the Chinese government reacts to globally available, unfiltered internet via satellite, like the one SpaceX is making https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink_(satellite_constellat...
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01J24C0TI
This is a telescreen.
China’s 2015 GDP Was Exaggerated By Fake Data, Analysis Shows (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/china-s-2...)
Another Chinese city admits 'fake' economic data (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-data/anothe...)
This Is How China's Regions Fare in the Fake GDP Data Stakes (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-19/this-is-h...)
They fake data to move gdp fractions of a percent.
Outright lying doesn't help further your argument. There's some excellent independent estimates of Chinas gdp out there.
I'm fine with societies experimenting with more surveillance with the aim of improving people's behavior. It just seems like the modern version of sitting around a fire face to face and not being an asshole.
If only that surveillance didn't open up avenues for exploitation, targeting, and suppression even more.
And I'm pretty sure we've got a little too much "cpmpliance" monitoring as we are right now... I'm ready for ALPRs, Stingrays, and a bunch of other LEO practices to get curtailed or even stopped outright.
The existence of a bad outcome is something to be avoided and guarded against, but I don't see why any possible tool which has a potential to be abused should be avoided.
It is true that societies are experimenting with policing what people say online; Germany's attempts to combat hate speech and fake news come to mind. But that is (hopefully) different from punishing political dissent.
Do you honestly believe that it is better for society if people can't openly say "I disagree with removing presidential term limits"?
A listening device in private homes is a genie that won't go back in its bottle. Are you willing to stand up and say, I trust every official, elected or otherwise, for the rest of my life, and the lives of any descendants I might have? Because you have just written a blank cheque that says exactly that.
Someone hasn't learned from history. The impulse you're feeling is tempting, but it never ends will.
Also, I think "anonymity paired with speech" is older than you think, and probably arose soon after the invention of the printing press. One notable instance of centuries-old anonymous speech are the Federalist Papers from 1787-88 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers#Authorsh...). Anonymous speech is also important for attacking oppressive regimes, even if it's more often used for far less lofty purposes.
Even good, trustworthy regimes go bad, and any surveillance system designed to be powerful enough to expose assholes can be perverted to serve oppressive ends. I'd rather those regimes have to build their surveillance from scratch rather than finding them ready-made.
The Wired article is a little more exaggerating (https://www.wired.com/story/age-of-social-credit/) but here is the rough breakdown of your score according to https://www.zhihu.com/question/27844479
1. Identity Characteristics (15%) Public Security Real Name Authentication Identity Information Information Stability ... 2. Credit History (35%) Credit Card Repayment History Micronesia Repayment Record Utilities Fee Ticket ... 3. Compliance Capability (20%) Payment Account balance balance balance balance car information real estate information ...... 4. Personal connections (5%) relationship circle circle of friends credit level of social influence ... ... 5. behavior preferences (25%) account activity level consumer level payment level consumer preferences ...
According to the article, this has already happened: Over on WeChat’s top messaging service, there were reports that some users had been banned or restricted based on the content they had shared. WeChat owner Tencent has disputed claims that it stores or reads chat logs, but — regardless — the app includes a social media-like feed where users can share public messages with friends.
They probably already have. I think their customs forms have a checkbox to declare radios and telecommunications equipment, sort of like the US has for agricultural products. My guess is you'll get extra scrutiny, at a minimum, if you check the box.
This is perhaps because of several things:
1) That's the way "the rest of the world's" governments and corporate interests want their own countries to go, and have been pushing towards since decades. The rest of the world's leaders (most of them) could not care less for the lip service they pay to "freedom" et al.
2) A superpower gets to do whatever it likes "without much stir from the rest of the world". Heck, France and Britain had 1/3rd of the world, outside or their national borders, enslaved "without much stir from the rest of the world" until well after WWII. And suddenly the "rest of the world" will care for what China does to its own citizens?
3) It's nobody's business really what China does to its own citizens. There are other countries with the worlds largest prison population and most police shootings (by crazy amounts, like having 25% of the worlds prisoners for 4% of the worlds population), and they continue in that path "without much stir among the rest of the world". Why would it be different here?
It amounts to "put on blinders and follow your side when it accuses the other, and never see things in perspective".
It generally means that only one side has the right to criticize (if the other side answers back, it's "whataboutism") -- and that third parties shouldn't call bot the pot and kettle black (it's whataboutism to even mention the pot), and instead should listen to the pot accusing the kettle of blackness.
Even worse when it's not bloody business of the pot what the kettle does -- but they want to make it so anyway, because they like to boss other kitchen implements around.
I’m one of the first ones to criticize the USA, there is plenty that is wrong to talk about! But open up a thread that is critical of the USA and you’ll rarely see Americans bringing up problems in China, yet discussions about China almost always lead back to discussions about the USA! When china is ready to talk about its problems without referring to the USA, well, it will be ready to become a superpower. Right now they just come off as insecure.
It's not "don't go after those guys", but "take care of our own problems first". This way, when offering solutions to other oppressive countries we wouldn't look like hypocrites.
Would you believe a massively obese and sickly person telling you the importance of diet and exercise?
Yes, they would be the ideal person to give that advice.
I get that 'what-aboutism' is a logical fallacy in general, and it can prevent beneficial action from taking place. Isn't it a special case when the 'other party' is yourself? (obviously this is a US centric comment).
Bruce Lee was right in this regard, take what works from wherever you can. Worrying about the messenger being biased can ignore a really good tree in an overall forest.
The reality for the US is if it tries to take action to improve perceived injustices in the world, it is being hypocritical and "imperialist". If it does nothing, it is selfish and heartless, having the power to help but doing nothing. As far as the US goes, we are screwed either way.
Regardless, I think I can look at what is happening in China, not like it, and feel foreboding about the future. This isn't some small country somewhere. This is the most populous country in the world and I empathize with the people who live there. And frankly, China is the heir apparent to the US as the global super power. This concerns us all.
You shouldn't try to help people in other countries, period. Who appointed you world cop? Besides, it always ends up in tears (besides it being hypocritical help with strategic ambitions attached from the establishment side, even if ordinary people mean it sincerely).
>Or are you making the argument that the US government is in fact more oppressive than the Chinese government?
Internally, not. Globally, surely yes.
So when oppressed people inside an imperfect country are pleading for help from another imperfect country which is capable of helping,
The country being begged to help should go “sorry, we’re imperfect, can’t help. Besides, even though you’re asking for our help and we can certainly help, we’re not the global police, so we can’t help you.”
Side note, being democratically elected does not mean your country is a democracy. Hitler was democratically elected. Doesn’t change the fact that he consolidated power after the fact.
And interestingly enough China, the topic of this thread, is consolidating power. This week their administration has announced their plans to abolish presidential term limits, clearing way for their president to remain in power indefinitely.
Actually the argument is more like: bad guys shouldn't go after bad guys. It's hypocritical, self-serving in the name of some "cause", and creates worse outcomes.
You know, like a bad guy going in to bring "democracy" (assert control for strategic interests and/or ensure cheap oil and favorable currency use) and ends up in chaos, civil war, fundamentalism, and refugee waves. Time and again.
But I guess hypocrisy never dies. Even with all of its blatant fallacy. It will persist until the end of time. And solve nothing.
As for good guys, they can go after the bad guys all they want, and we'll even cheer for them.
Bad guys can go after bad guys. Good guys can still go after the remaining bad guys.
If we sit around waiting for he without sin to cast the stones, if on the off-chance that such a rare soul exists, then that small army-of-one will be outnumbered and overpowered and neutralized.
Where you are wrong is the suggestion that this isn't entirely different. People bitch about US policy all the time. 50% of the political discussion on HN is bitching about US policy. I can't blame anyone for that (especially because it affects so many), but HN is a site based in the US, started by a VC firm based in the US, etc. It's super annoying when people from other countries who have never lived for any length of time in the US and act like their country is heaven on earth complain, but you get to complain, nobody stops you, you'll often get upvoted.
That doesn't happen in China. If the government (the party), which has been in power for 80 years, decides you don't get a voice, you don't get a voice. Given enough time, because we allow criticism and discussion, US policy will probably change as it has many times over the centuries. What's gonna happen in China? Nobody knows.
If it scares people that we now have strongmen dictators in Russia, the Philippines, Turkey, etc, and we've now got that in China, a nation with a small cadre of party leaders ruling over 1 billion people that have no real outlet to disagree, and which only gains more and more power, you really can't blame them. And if you're being honest with yourself, you can't really act like those systems are really the same thing.
The Chinese government is effectively the one described in 1984. If we're not that far gone in the West, it's because we allow things like free media and the publication of stuff like 1984. You can't really say they are the same thing.
Hey, gotta enhance shareholder value, man.. Fiduciary responsibility and all that.
> Whataboutism (also known as whataboutery) is a variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy that attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument, which is particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda. When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union, the Soviet response would be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism)
If they choose, these ultimately government controlled companies can easily make it so you can't buy things anymore, you are not trusted anywhere
Also, you can still buy things with cash. In China they use these apps to pay for things, you can't buy some things with cash.
The only time there have been angry crusades against a given dictatorship (NAZIs, Soviets, etc) is when a given group of nations view these dictatorships as enemies. Which isn't to say these areas weren't dictatorships but that it's always taken more than dictatorship to get the ire of even those nations claiming to care most about democracy and human rights.
This actually happened to me on a small scale with a legitimate US company, as a US citizen placing a legitimate order. The company deals in high-fraud-risk physical goods, their system decided that I was a high fraud risk, and outright banned me for life. I would have been happy to provide any kind of ID, sent them cash in the mail, whatever. But nope, banned for life, end of story. Truly a bizarre, bizarre experience.
After their support line was no help, I emailed their CEO with no response so far. Their investors are up next.
Google Translate of the site: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&...
>The Chinese government has long been suspected of hiring as many as 2,000,000 people to surreptitiously insert huge numbers of pseudonymous and other deceptive writings into the stream of real social media posts, as if they were the genuine opinions of ordinary people. Many academics, and most journalists and activists, claim that these so-called “50c party” posts vociferously argue for the government’s side in political and policy debates. As we show, this is also true of the vast majority of posts openly accused on social media of being 50c. Yet, almost no systematic empirical evidence exists for this claim, or, more importantly, for the Chinese regime’s strategic objective in pursuing this activity. In the first large scale empirical analysis of this operation, we show how to identify the secretive authors of these posts, the posts written by them, and their content. We estimate that the government fabricates and posts about 448 million social media comments a year. In contrast to prior claims, we show that the Chinese regime’s strategy is to avoid arguing with skeptics of the party and the government, and to not even discuss controversial issues. We show that the goal of this massive secretive operation is instead to distract the public and change the subject, as most of the these posts involve cheerleading for China, the revolutionary history of the Communist Party, or other symbols of the regime. We discuss how these results fit with what is known about the Chinese censorship program, and suggest how they may change our broader theoretical understanding of “common knowledge” and information control in authoritarian regimes.
Can you explain which values you're referring to and why you don't agree with them?
I can imagine that personal property rights and freedom of speech are not included in that list of disagreeable values.
Sure, a revolution that ends in democracy would be extremely dangerous right now (the aftermath of Arab Spring comes to mind).
But if Xi's CCP keeps repeating that the Chinese should feel deeply humiliated by the West, and that conquering Taiwan (and the South China Sea, etc...) is the only way out, then the situation will become increasingly dangerous no matter the form of government.
It's fine if Chinese culture values stability, the problem is that ignoring politics leads to anything but.
NPC has thousands of members, and I'd expect them to be much more educated and rational than general public overall (again, if the system actually works). They could be elected for various reasons and do not need majority vote of the entire population to become a member of NPC. Their opinions would be a lot more diverse.
However, if that actually work as designed, it's not entirely non-democratic, and it's a form I think would be a better fit for China at least in foreseeable future.
The vulnerability of a democracy to a demagogue who would do things like run on a platform of "elect me and we'll take Taiwan back by force", has been known since the Ancient Greeks. At least in the American system, the solution has been to "separate" those powers so no one individual or small group can exercise them, forcing a consensus. You see this still working even today, with Trump, whose the most demagogue-like president in memory. He's mostly foolish talk, since most of his actions have been held in check by the courts or his inability to get legislation passed.
A tendency towards deadlock has been the major failing and problem of American democracy (at least in recent memory), as I see it. I don't really see a good democratic solution to it either, besides reversing course back towards a more decentralized republic with a weaker central government.
We also don't want anything like the deadlocks in American government for sure.
I think the real problem in America is too much centralization. If more policy was made locally, it could be adapted to match diverse local conditions and attitudes, and the preferences of other regions wouldn't be as threatening. Unfortunately the winner-take-all aspect of centralized politics makes the sides more entrenched.
Do you think the current Chinese government is helping or hurting with the attitudes that lead to the appeal of "elect me and we'll take Taiwan back by force"? Seems to me there's some danger of things going badly if they don't prep the ground for democracy and lose control somehow.
This is definitely the way things are moving towards in the US. We had gotten accustomed to a strong federal government during the 20th century as it had necessarily become extremely built up from world wars, massive infrastructure works, the cold war, etc. But as that whole world has faded away in the 21st century, we are seeing states assert their rights again. I'm talking specifically of California, where elected officials are openly defying federal authorities on certain issues like immigration and drug enforcement. The feds seem powerless to do anything since their is such overwhelming local support for these policies, and California is an economic powerhouse.
There is no people or culture on Earth that stands to gain from oligarchy.
Though it's probably also true that tons of people are shocked by the news
Our cultures are incredibly different. At the same time our cultures are both unusually strong. And for some reason, part of American culture seems to be assuming everyone in the world is just like us, just in different circumstances. This is extremely foolish.
It took me quite a while to be able to understand some things about my Chinese friends that really confused and sometimes frustrated me. A big part of it is the American concept of freedom and personal independence is practically part of our DNA, while it is not valued very highly by many Chinese. Stability, peace and order are highly valued. Of course it would be nice to be able to do whatever you want, but it is much more important that the government is strong. Period. And you get away with what you can as an individual (I've noticed much less respect for the rule of law, much greater respect for personal relationships). And of course many (not all) are highly patriotic, as a great culture with a great history that has been under great pressure for generations, and feels that the rest of the world doesn't respect them like they should or wants to see them fail.
I guess I'd sum it up, that it seems to me an unusual amount of mainland Chinese would choose strength over freedom, and almost all mainland Chinese see themselves as part of a bigger society and a somewhat oppressive government is inevitable and it is futile to resist.
In America, we would prefer to free 10 guilty people than unjustly imprison 1 innocent person. In China, the concept is reversed, it is better to imprison 10 innocent people than let 1 guilty person go free. I actually heard someone say that. Think about it.
Xi is the last vestige of Maoism, the last president who grew up under Mao’s shadow. The next generation of leadership is surely going to be much more modern than any before it. That they are delaying it for something in china’s past is a travesty.
No, he did not "participate" as a Red Guard, he and his family were persecuted by them.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/asia/xi-jinping-car...
It's interesting that to note that Xi Jinping is from that exact same generation, and both he and his family were persecuted during the Cultural Revolution:
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/25/world/asia/xi-jinping-chi...:
> When the pandemonium of the Cultural Revolution erupted, he was a slight, softly spoken 13-year-old who loved classical Chinese poetry. Two years later, adrift in a city torn apart by warring Red Guards, Xi Jinping had hardened into a combative street survivor.
> His father, a senior Communist Party official who had been purged a few years earlier, was seized and repeatedly beaten. Student militants ransacked his family’s home, forcing the family to flee, and one of his sisters died in the mayhem. Paraded before a crowd as an enemy of the revolution and denounced by his own mother, the future president of China was on the edge of being thrown into a prison for delinquent children of the party elite.
> ...
> Unlike some youths from elite backgrounds, Mr. Xi did not turn against the party or Mao, but learned to revere strict order and abhor challenges to hierarchy, said Yongyi Song, a historian and librarian in Los Angeles who has long studied the Cultural Revolution.
> “He suffered much under Mao,” Mr. Song said, “but I think that actually increased his belief that those who are ‘born red,’ those children of the party elite, earned the right to inherit Mao’s place at the center.”
Here's a short biography of Xi by the NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/world/asia/xi-jinping-car...
> Xi is the last vestige of Maoism, the last president who grew up under Mao’s shadow. The next generation of leadership is surely going to be much more modern than any before it.
Experts were saying that China was slowly but steadily marching on the path to liberalization, but now we have Xi and that that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I fear those predictions, like yours, are fallacious and overoptimistic.
People immigrated out before 90s tends to be more pro-democracy. (At least from my impression)
"I don't know" is the real answer, but here is my guess.
My Chinese friends are incredibly social, incredibly loyal (to each other), trustworthy (to each other) to a fault. They may be ready to submit to an irresistible power, but if they feel they could resist, and somehow benefit their group, they might resist. They love China, they know a strong government is a necessity, they might not particularly care who that government is run by, and might be happy to help replace one dictator with another.
I think the social nature of the culture is the key here. Americans often try to stand out and be independent. Chinese seem to see themselves as part of a group, and they are very good at self-organizing even large groups of people. While the government is in power, that is their government. If it seems like the tide of the opinion of your group is we need a new government, maybe they'll take the streets en masse (like tiananmen square). So maybe the culture means that 99% of the time everyone is peaceful and cooperative, and then that 1% of the time everyone is in the streets burning down the governors house. I don't think anyone would enjoy mob rule, so maybe even the mob would tend to replace a strong ruler with another strong ruler.
These are just my thoughts based on the people I know.
But I think the Chinese government has always lived in fear of the mob. Their biggest threat has never been an outside power, but their own people. There are an incredible number of people living in a small area. This explains the one-child policy in my mind, too many people == not enough food == mobs in the street. So, perhaps as simply self-preservation, the government has 1) limited their population 2) ensured constant economic growth 3) limited the ability for a mob to form at all by controlling communication 4) tried to instill national pride and patriotism whenever possible.
China's touchiness on these matters reveals the Communist Party's insecurity.
Even the most powerful emperors in Chinese history (who would have nothing to be afraid of) still executes those who talked ill of them
In the US, the current party in power is always on the verge of instituting totalitarianism. My plan is to start worrying about it when people face systematic government consequences for actually mouthing off about the ruling party. Right now, to a first approximation, nobody has in a long time. Any examples that anxious partisans will rush to contradict me will simply further demonstrate my point with how minor and unsystematic they are in the US.
(If anything gets you in trouble in 2018, it's not mouthing off about the ruling party, it's pissing off the social media mob. That may yet be something we have to culturally reckon with, but it remains the case that it's not the government doing it.)
> In the US, the current party in power is always on the verge of instituting totalitarianism.
And I'm pretty sure that you didn't mean it like people are taking it. Let's start with, I don't know, FDR. He was on the verge of implementing totalitarianism. Really! Just ask the Republicans of 1933! Clinton was. So was Bush. So was Obama. So is Trump. Or so some vocal minority says.
I'm pretty sure jerf is dismissive of all that noise, and intends to ignore it... within limits.
> My plan is to start worrying about it when people face systematic government consequences for actually mouthing off about the ruling party. Right now, to a first approximation, nobody has in a long time. Any examples that anxious partisans will rush to contradict me will simply further demonstrate my point with how minor and unsystematic they are in the US.
Downvoters, I think you're misreading one line, and reacting based on your misread.
> And I'm pretty sure that you didn't mean it like people are taking it.
That blanket absolutist statement is at best false, and is easily disproven with the current situation. Then the whole argument is undermined by the last paragraph about angering the social media mob.
If you mean that the current party isn't instituting totalitarianism, I would agree with that. Trump has taken more steps to put down government power than to pick it up. A totalitarian does not lower taxes, which is a form of government power, nor does he cut regulations, which is obviously a form of power. You can argue about the effectiveness, but there's no way to argue that into an increase in power.
If you mean that nobody is accusing Trump of being totalitarian... I have no idea how you could possibly have that impression. Google "Trump" and "authoritarian" together and start reading.
And if you don't fear the social media mob, poke them and see how you like it. Talk is cheap; prove you aren't afraid of them, and that you get away with it, and I'll reconsider.
I don't doubt that the social media mob is dangerous, but I perceive that it is mostly against the current US administration.
Civil disagreement on matters of politics and philosophy seems to be waning in the West.
Unfortunately I don't see big American companies doing anything but continuing to court China and their growing class of wealthy consumers.
as much as it pains me to see China regressing on the freedom front, I hope we will sort things out in a less violent manner.
You will not have a revolution without spilling blood.
However, I'd be curious to hear good reasons for China's economy to dominate the world stage even with this sort of thing constantly happening. I can kind of understand the brute-force approach of just pure production from a gigantic population, but India has a comparable population size, but not a comparable economy, so I tend to think that a large population doesn't guarantee a large economic output.
There is so much innovation I see happening in the tech of China, but their fear of their own citizenry and fear of transparency make me think they'll stay behind their potential.
This could all be my own Western bias for democracy, so I'd love to hear other thoughts on this.
Recently, I read "China's Future" by David Shambaugh. He argues along the same lines as you. He claims that the development driven by exports and government investing is exhausted because of growing protectionism, competition from nearby countries and growing inefficiency on government companies.
Meanwhile the country still has a lot inequality to solve, between west and the east coast and rural and urban population. It is also getting old very fast and doesn't have a good welfare network.
Therefore, the only path ahead is development of internal market. He claims that for this the country needs transparency, the rule of law and diversity of ideas but I don't think he made it very clear to me, however. Truth is that autocratic countries (e.g: Russia, Turkey, Cuba, Belarus, etc) are very, very bad at creating diversified economies. Let's see if China finds a way to do it.
I think after you travel around China a bit, it's really difficult to see it as a first world country that's at the forefront of innovation.
You can go to a city like Shenzhen and see all these cool products being launched and huge skyscrapers, which is impressive given 30 years ago it was just a fishing village overshadowed by Hong Kong. But then you travel around and see that a lot of China consists of huge cities with shoddy living conditions and very limited opportunities.
Anyone have the backstory for this?
EDIT: I see a couple of links below that compare him to Winnie the Pooh in pictures. Is the intent behind it to be derogatory or is it just poking a bit of fun?
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/winnie-the-pooh-fal...
One way would be to seed messages or websites with pre-loaded meanings, and use new, unrelated comments to refer to them. Example of a social media feed:
8/15/2017: "Today at noon in the square."
9/15/2015: "I think it's evil and corrupt and we can not stand for it!"
10/22/2017: "The government has taken a new decision today that affects us all."
11/10/2017: "We must protest this injustice!"
2/27/2018: "10-22-2017 + 9-15-2017 + 11-10-2017 + 8/15/2017"
Obviously this is clunky, but in theory you could chain together random bits of other people's messages to post a new one, and a censorship bot would have to be written to merge them all together to filter them; if some of these were behind logins on other sites, this could be very difficult. You could also make them less literal and more made up of memes and concepts with hidden meanings.
Wait, so you can't say "I don't agree with term limits" in China on Weibo?
Edit: Removed comment about Google.
A stable, prosperous, democratic China is ideal. An easy way for an authoritarian government to keep internal dissent down is to make an external enemy. Think of all the examples you mentioned. So this is probably bad news for the U.S. and the whole world.
Authoritarianism is easy to impose and democracy is fragile; the civic discourse required for a strong and stable democracy relies upon a considerable amount of mutual respect and rhetorical restraint.
China has quarrels with almost every nation that surrounds it. Even nations too far way to be affected by the sabre rattling are starting to question China and their influence (ie the debate in Australia right now).
Neither has democracy, depending on the definition of "worked". Try to narrow it down.
> The Constitution was designed to make the US Government as weak as possible
That is a premise, not a truism. Every democracy has, in time, given in to an appeal by the masses to (either by dupe or passively) give the government more power until it's not relatively weak.
This is false, though it's a popular modern myth; the whole reason for the Constitutional Convention was to strengthen the government under the Articles of Confederation to address problems caused by it's weakness, and the framers decided they needed to go a lot further than minor tweaks in doing that, sure some of them wanted to go even farther—Hamilton proposed an elective monarchy, for instance—but even the more modest final outcome was neither in intent or fact “as weak as possible.”
https://phys.org/news/2017-10-china-xi-zuckerberg-cook-beiji...
Not to mention that historically there have been many excellent leaders who rules for decades. An arbitrary term limit can be useful to prevent corruption, but it's also the reason for the fiasco that is Washington in 2018.
There are probably more historical examples of not-so-excellent (incompetent, evil, tyrannical, etc) leaders ruling for decades than excellent ones. The problem with tyranny is that the only way out is revolution. You may have an excellent dictator for decades, but then he dies and his son/crony/not-so-excellent replacement arrives for the next N decades...
At least with Trump there are a variety of strategies besides bloodshed to get rid of him if people decide they don't like him.
There are many more examples, those are just some that come to mind right away. You can argue whether or not they were "good", but they certainly did good things for their empires.
...and a bunch of Roman emperors. I prefer modern politics to that of imperial Rome, thanks.
Oh, and Solon. Arguably a truly great man, but um...
After completing his work of reform, Solon surrendered his extraordinary authority and left the country. According to Herodotus[123] the country was bound by Solon to maintain his reforms for 10 years, whereas according to Plutarch[59] and the author of the Athenian Constitution[124] (reputedly Aristotle) the contracted period was instead 100 years. A modern scholar[125] considers the time-span given by Herodotus to be historically accurate because it fits the 10 years that Solon was said to have been absent from the country.[126] Within 4 years of Solon's departure, the old social rifts re-appeared, but with some new complications. There were irregularities in the new governmental procedures, elected officials sometimes refused to stand down from their posts and occasionally important posts were left vacant. It has even been said that some people blamed Solon for their troubles.[127] Eventually one of Solon's relatives, Peisistratos, ended the factionalism by force, thus instituting an unconstitutionally gained tyranny. In Plutarch's account, Solon accused Athenians of stupidity and cowardice for allowing this to happen.[128]
I’ll argue that off the top of your head is what’s getting you into so much trouble with sweeping generalizations.
I was just questioning the dogma that having leaders in power for multiple terms is automatically bad. I'm open to the possibility that Xi is a bad leader--I'm no expert on China--but it seems that China today is a better place than when he came in to power. I guess people don't agree with me here.
Within 4 years of Solon's departure, the old social rifts re-appeared, but with some new complications. There were irregularities in the new governmental procedures, elected officials sometimes refused to stand down from their posts and occasionally important posts were left vacant. It has even been said that some people blamed Solon for their troubles.[127] Eventually one of Solon's relatives, Peisistratos, ended the factionalism by force, thus instituting an unconstitutionally gained tyranny.
And
... Charlemagne's grandsons broke the Carolingian Empire in civil war.
Sounds weaker to me. It seems like you’re somewhat lazily working your way backwards from a foregoing conclusion. Is it really any wonder we don’t agree with you?
It is kind of pleasant to realize that you were just arguing for the sake of it though, rather than some bizarre conviction in autocratic stability.
Exactly, there's your problem. China is suffering from 300%+ debt, capital outflows (hidden, unreported), fake gdp growth (several provinces have claimed 20-30% fake revenue), demographics time bomb, middle income trap, shrinking population (800M estimated in 2100), corruption, pollution, belligerent behaviors against all its neighbors (Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia, India, etc), smart people wanting leave, rich people wanting to leave, etc
I'm not worried about a superpower overtaking the US, I'm worried about a sharp economic collapse causing it to lash out. I'm worried about the global economic consequences if that were to happen.
The move to remove term limits means he will be an absolute dictator for life. One of the only "good" things about the Chinese political system was the 10 year limit, and governance through an oligarchy, so there wouldn't be another cult of Mao type scenario. Since taking office Xi has slowing consolidated power for himself alone, and now with the removal of term limits, I think his control over China is complete.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-corruption-xi-insig...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/02/china... - There's a better video report of surveillance on Bloomberg I think (I remember it was on a business news site)? but I can't find the link right now.