07d046

True. It would be a more accurate post if it listed "having a watch set to the wrong time zone" instead (mentioned in the HRW report).

It is unfortunate that there is a lot of misinformation about China out there. Winnie the Pooh isn't banned. The social credit system apparently isn't like how it's commonly reported in the West. But I also chafe at the suggestion that China is little worse than the US on these points. There are few countries on earth that have more control over their population and shape the way they think than China.

https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/09/09/eradicating-ideologica...

Definitely. As a rule of thumb, the shorter the event, the more it advantages young males.

I think it goes both ways. As a democracy, America has a pressure valve if things are going poorly, and a peaceful transition of power to the other side of politics is always an election away. (It could fall as a democracy, but it's hard to see a trade war with China being a cause for that.) Maybe America might discover a lack of political will, but there's also a chance it could be wrapped up in nationalism and sold to voters, and action against China is one of the rare things that a number of strongly anti-Trump people do support.

As the rulers of a one-party totalitarian state, the CCP is setting itself up to take the credit and blame for everything in China. Following the "century of humiliation", China is attempting a century of rejuvenation. It started poorly with the Cultural Revolution and tens of millions dying in famine and violence, but it has made remarkable progress since Mao. It appears that the government is well-liked today (although nobody knows anything about China [1]) and economic development is continuing. The government can easily deal with a bit of discontent if required (by, say, putting a million people in concentration camps), but if there was a genuine crisis and people realised that the government had terribly mismanaged things or economically stagnates long before it becomes truly wealthy, the CCP might find that the mandate of heaven has shifted.

1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/03/21/nobody-knows-anything-a...

That's very true, extraordinarily few people are going for fastest times on these, so it's quite speculative. Here's an article about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/04/sports/on-the-longest-hik...

Yep, I've heard the same about thru-hiking. Women might be faster at running 2000+ miles than men. It's for efforts measured in minutes or hours that the fastest men are faster than the fastest women.

Edit: I wasn't expecting my comments here to be so controversial

Crazy.

But I'm not so sure about this claim that the coach makes:

My theory is that women are able to push that aging envelop a little further than men and are more capable of long-distance peak performance

At the top end, the strongest men are always stronger than the strongest women, and age impacts women more quickly than men, judging by rowing results: https://www.concept2.com/indoor-rowers/racing/records/world/...

I have no idea how likely that is, but that looks like an ideal scenario for the White House, and a possible existential threat for the Chinese Communist Party. People have a habit of putting up with a lot when the economy is growing dramatically and their lives are noticeably improving, but they might not be so happy with an increasingly oppressive government and a struggling economy that isn't giving any sign of future greatness.

To be fair, China doesn't really want "fair" trade either. China would like to become a high-tech autarky dominating modern global supply chains [1], is very happy to throw its economic weight around to punish countries for doing things it doesn't like [2][3], and has a habit of playing by international rules only when it suits them (America isn't great on this point either) [3][4].

1. https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-does-everyone-hate-made-china-2...

2. https://qz.com/1000541/norway-wants-china-to-forget-about-th...

3. https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/asia/china...

4. https://thediplomat.com/2015/02/u-s-china-relations-the-hypo...

It's not just about economics. The China-watching community seems to be generally cautiously supportive of action against China, although not necessarily the action taking place, and certainly not some of the rhetoric around it. Overall, the fear is that China could become the world's superpower and dominate supply chains and control what the rest of the world says about it [1]. China would like to "dominate advanced industries like robotics, advanced information technology, aviation, and new energy vehicles" and become self-sufficient with their Made in China 2025 initiative [2]. This isn't popular with the West, and it has been reported that some Chinese journalists have been instructed to stop talking about it [3]. China also has a habit of intellectual theft [4] and only playing by international rules when it suits them.

One aim of the tariffs is to get China less involved in global supply chains [5]. This would be more likely to create jobs in Vietnam and Mexico than in America, but for strategic reasons this would still be good.

1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/14/china-is-buying-african... , https://www.merics.org/en/china-monitor/cosmological-communi...

2. https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-does-everyone-hate-made-china-2...

3. https://chinadigitaltimes.net/2018/06/minitrue-on-u-s-china-...

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/22/technology/china-micron-c...

5. https://nb.sinocism.com/p/tariffed-us-supply-chains-in-china...

Thanks, I'd seen that before, but completely forgotten about it.

The Zuckerberg for president talk was before the Cambridge Analytica thing blew up. HN has been critical of FB for a very long time, but it was only then that Zuckerberg's public image really took a beating.

Bezos has a much lower public profile. Apparently he's a libertarian. It's easy to portray him as everything that is wrong with American economic life — he's an ultra-rich man running an extremely successful company, while paying countless workers barely enough to live — so it's hard to see him as a viable candidate.

I've wondered about making the opposite, that is, a view that sorts by controversy.

There are quite a few things that get posted here that quickly get votes, quite a few comments, but are soon killed/massively down-ranked by flags. Sometimes it would be interesting to be able to see what these are if you don't see them in the hour or two that they're visible. I know they're often controversial social or political topics and that HN doesn't really want them, but they can still be interesting to look at.

It's more like if there was a communist revolution in the US followed by a civil war, with the anti-communists ending up holding Texas or California and establishing their own government there. The Chinese Communist Party has never ruled Taiwan, and Taiwan hasn't officially seceded.

If you read through https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_status_of_Taiwan , there are a lot of issues, like exactly who Japan surrendered to, and the status of the governments of China and Taiwan given that they were opposing sides in a civil war that never officially ended. There are those on Taiwan who believe that they are the rightful rulers of all China. My take on it is that Taiwan, China, and even the US can argue their claim to having sovereignty over Taiwan, but in the end, it will come down to balancing "possession is nine tenths of the law" against "might is right".

As someone on Twitter said, this is like taxation, but he pays less, and gets more credit for it.

The article mentions this:

> In many cities, cashlessness is so common that panhandlers and street musicians use WeChat and Alipay QR codes to ask for change. But these anecdotal cases obscure some of the class-related issues that cashlessness can’t fix, and may worsen. The 2017 World Bank Global Findex database, which measures financial inclusion, estimated that some 200 million Chinese rural citizens remain unbanked, or outside of the formal financial system. Cashless payment systems by design require formal enrollment in banks, which are then tied to the mobile payment platforms that WeChat and Alibaba host.

It's arguing that China could leverage Google's Chinese market access to influence how Google behaves around the world, sort of like how almost all airlines around the world now say Taiwan is part of China:

> Once Google’s new Chinese business is up and running, there will be nothing to stop Beijing from seeking to dictate how references to Taiwan are addressed not just in China but throughout the site globally. China may also demand to shape how protests in Taiwan, Hong Kong, or the mainland are addressed or what happens when people search for dissidents such as Liu Xiaobo or topics such as human rights. While Google executives may believe that their company would never accede to such requests outside of China’s borders, there are no guarantees. If China gains the leverage to shape how Google presents what Beijing considers to be sensitive topics throughout the rest of the world, it will deal a mortal blow to international principles of freedom of expression and thought.

Yep. See also: Clinton versus Trump. Trump was the perfect clickbait candidate.

I thought this NYT article gave some good context. Didi promoted the ride sharing service as a way to meet people and for hooking up: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/29/technology/china-didi-chu...

> So through suggestive ads hinting at hookups through driving, Didi pushed Hitch’s romantic possibilities. In a 2015 interview with the Chinese online portal NetEase, Ms. Huang compared Hitch cars to cafes and bars.

And:

> While it wasn’t obvious to female passengers that their drivers might want to hook up, the drivers knew. Until Didi deactivated Hitch, the car-pooling service allowed drivers to share comments with other drivers on the looks of their passengers, leading some male drivers to seek out the ones others had declared attractive.

Murder is very rare in China. Very few Western countries have a lower intentional homicide rate (America's is 8.5 times higher), and I believe other violent crime is similarly low.

(I hope this comment is okay.)

Okay. I'm very intellectually curious about China, and I hope other people are too. I mostly comment on these sorts of topics because, relatively speaking, I know slightly more than the average HNer, but I'll take this into consideration.

Chinese New Year can be political. Why is it celebrated under that name in Western countries, rather than Tết or Korean New Year or just Lunar New Year? And then add Chinese money funding the events for some soft power propagation...

I saw this thread on Twitter that talks about what might happen if China tries to take over Taiwan soon: https://twitter.com/adam_ni/status/1033179777220276224

> A physical blockade in some form could be coupled with intense economic pressure, and cyber operations. This conflict escalates, and because of domestic nationalist pressure as well as factional infighting, Xi chooses confrontation instead of a backdown.

> PLA cyber, missile, air and maritime forces are deployed against TW in order to neutralize its ability to defend itself. At this stage, an invasion is still not the preferred plan because that would entail a costly campaign involving amphibious assault and urban operations.

> Instead, precision conventional missile, counter space, maritime/economic blockade, and cyber operations are used to bring TW to its knees. For the #CCP this is not only a campaign to obtain limited concessions, but to achieve its vision of unification.

This is an important and well written article, but it would say something about Hacker News if it got more traction here than any of the articles about Weinstein.

There's been a lot of discussion recently about Chinese influence or interference in Australia, and much of that is through Chinese people living in Australia. For example, Chau Chak Wing is a Chinese-Australian billionaire with ties to the Chinese Communist Party, is one of Australia's top political donors, and is the unindicted co-conspirator in a bribery case involving the former president of the UN general assembly.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/political-donor-chau...

Edit: In today's news, more controversy around another Chinese billionaire with permanent residence in Australia and how he's getting involved in Australian politics for the benefit of the CCP https://www.smh.com.au/politics/western-australia/wyatt-s-al...

Yeah, the perpetual state of war and the drone strikes that coincide with that that America has gotten itself into is concerning. Still, I would strongly argue that there is a world of difference between the sins of America and China about targeting family members.

The third parties (i.e., children or wives) that are killed in drone strikes are surely collateral damage. America isn't targeting these people. (I'm certainly not arguing that it's right.)

China has shown on many occasions that it is willing to use the relatives of people it doesn't like as leverage. I don't know if it's because it has a long history of it [1] or just because it's effective and China isn't constrained by the rule of law. There have been many cases where the relatives of journalists working overseas have suffered [2], and Liu Xia was under house arrest for almost a decade because of her husbands "crimes" despite never being charged herself [3].

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_familial_exterminations

2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/china-detains-relatives...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liu_Xia_(intellectual)

This whataboutism is not helpful.

Unless you think the boy was deliberately targeted to be killed, surely you can understand that being killed in a drone strike targeting another is very different to being deliberately shot to death.

It's a popular argument that "Asian values" legitimise China's approach. But it appears to be wrong:

> Findings from our multinational survey suggest no obvious relationship between Asian values and support for freedom of expression at the country level. At the individual level, the data suggest a positive relationship between Asian values and support for freedom of expression when Asian values are treated as a single concept.

http://as.ucpress.edu/content/58/3/535

Moreover, the existence of Taiwan, a progressive, wealthy liberal democracy full of Chinese people, would disprove that claim too.

Technically, this wouldn't be treason according to the US definition, because treason is only possible in the context of a declared enemy of the USA (i.e., war).

Also, there is a judicial process in the USA, not a summary execution.

Also, the pregnant wives of traitors aren't executed in the USA.

From an earlier NYT piece:

> According to three of the officials, one was shot in front of his colleagues in the courtyard of a government building — a message to others who might have been working for the C.I.A.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/20/world/asia/china-cia-spie...

Absolutely. And this isn't a hypothetical.

> Yet even for those who have escaped China, surveillance and intimidation have followed. As part of a massive campaign to monitor and intimidate its ethnic minorities no matter where they are, Chinese authorities are creating a global registry of Uighurs who live outside of China, threatening to detain their relatives if they do not provide personal and identifying information to Chinese police. This campaign is now reaching even Uighurs who live in the United States.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-police-are-spying-on-u...