I have wondered whether the 50c army will go global, and what would become of forums like this one if it happens.
This way they could claim on twitter how it was "business as usual" for the Chinese embassy on Kabul during the Taliban invasion. Information clearly not directed to its alleged audience.
Though yes, it should be on Twitter and FB to detect and control those bot accounts.
It’s actually impossible to have a reasonable conversation about China, Chinese economy, Chinese government, or Xijinping because those seperate things are all conflated into a single one.
Where as if you try to conflate, Biden (or trump) with US economy, america or the america people you will quickly get torn down as being ridiculous for the conflation.
It’s very hard to overcome this blind spot on HN.
Thailand has similar rules; criticising the king is illegal because anti-patriotic. Cambodia has rules around criticising the government (conflating it with criticising the country). Myanmar is a bit of a special case at the moment. Not sure about Laos or Vietnam.
The culture there just doesn't allow that kind of expression: you can't criticise your boss, or any authority, in public. That has become a flat "you can't criticise the CCP or its policies without being seen as attacking China" online.
Yes, there's a very noisy mainority both online and abroad that will make you believe so.
It's far from representative of the culture(s) and views of people in China, though.
There's this whole concept of "social harmony" that we don't have in the West. And partly it revolves around respecting your place in a very strict social hierarchy. Criticising those above you in the hierarchy is "disharmonious" and not accepted.
I'm fascinated if you know this is different in China? I haven't been to China (yet). But my impression from the contact with the Chinese I have had is that (at least in this respect) the cultures are very similar.
There are party elites. There are also a huge number of private enterprise that are not politically involved at all. They are there to make money, or impact.
You are right about the social harmony aspect, but the younger generations interpret that as “don’t interfere with gov” … they won’t publically criticise or do any kind of political activism. But that still leaves a whole lot of things they do do.
Ehm...you are aware that you're talking about a one-party state? I used to live in one; it was all the same thing (except for the Xi Jinping part, of course).
Yes political speech isn’t really a thing. Yes xi is a problem. But to miss the awesome because of that is a mistake in my opinion.
Small enterprises are largely uneffected by government. Sure Tencent and Alinaba have to jump through government hoops… but there is A LOT of business underneath that. Doing awesome stuff.
I could say the same things about my country of birth at the time when the things I said were all true. I never said that no communities can thrive under oppressive conditions.