The “cops" will make sure that all the appropriate filters and processes are in place for the government to monitor its own citizens.
They are there to enforce regulation on the companies, not on “cybercriminals.” Or to put it another way, operating an Internet company that fails to acts as a de-facto arm of the state’s surveillance and culture-control policy is itself a cyber-crime.
Also, people who are that close to the pipe are probably the ones most likely to know how to circumvent their rules, so a bit of extra monitoring on their day-to-day surely won't hurt.
The same thing any compliance officer does anywhere. Whether you have one because you're legally required to or you have one because you don't want to risk getting fined or sued isn't really a meaningful difference.
How is it different? Either way, you're doing what he/she tells you to out of fear, and all your other employees resent the shit out of him/her for it.
China seems to be the crucible of some remarkable scary political and social innovation. I don't know what is more likely to happen: police stationed within a office will be ridiculously corrupt or it will totally kill any innovation or risk taking within the company.
It will certainly have a 'chilling effect' if there ever was. China is between a rock and a hard place. Either they're going to have to open up completely (which will result in a democracy and obliteration the group that has been running the country for decades) or they're going to have to try to contain the genie. They're obviously trying to do the latter but it will hurt them economically in the longer run. As long as there is visible progress my guess is the current batch of leaders will do just fine, as soon as progress stagnates there may be a more dramatic change.
hasn't it been the same in China for 5000 years? What's different now? The only difference I can tell is China becoming the world empire and this is not because of the democracy.
I disagree, though I'm not particularly pleased about it.
I think 25 years ago, it seemed that choice existed. You could do liberal, capitalist democracy following the examples of Western Europe, Japan & the US. The other hand was a hodgepodge of failure, either state failure or economic failure. Most notably was the failed soviet bloc but also China, India & South America (right and left). All or nothing. Revolution or stagnation. Free your people or live in culturaly stagnant, poverty stricken destitute with .
The idea that political freedoms necessary for democracy are intertwined with the economic freedoms necessary for capitalism had a lot of traction. But, with the examples of the last generation (positive and negative) I think that is no longer conventional wisdom. China's been very successful at growing economically by hand selecting policies and freedoms they want and keeping other out. You could call it non-fundamentalist or you could call it unprincipled depending on your biases and judgements, but it's hard to ignore it.
China has been selectively liberalizing economically, socially and (to a lesser extent) politically. It doesn't see how you could argue that a sudden democratization in 1980 or 1990 would have gotten them further along.
The reality is that the choices are nowhere near black and white. There is such a thing as a soft authoritarian, single party, free market state. They are doing it.
Its nice to think that liberal democracy and prosperity are intertwined because I like democracy. But, I think democracy must be justified on its own merits. The conic advantages…. They're debatable.
China is a somewhat unique example as they are operating at a scale that no other country has to deal with. So solutions that work at the 300 million people scale, simply don't work at 2 billion people scale.
While this doesn't justify China's actions, it does provide an explanation for them.
Meh, this is a weak argument. Not too long ago people were saying "Of course the small eastern european states need authoritarian communism! They aren't rich like the USA! They need a strongman to lead them and to control the weak economy or they'll fall into starvation. Ceausescu keeps the lights on and our bellies full!"
Capitalism scales just fine. So does democracy, ask India. Lets stop giving authoritarians more excuses.
India may not be the best example, considering there have been several organizations that have rated it more corrupt than China. Furthermore, while they both started in similar economic positions, China has pretty much left India in the dust at the moment in many metrics.
I'm not saying these are perfect solutions but they are doable. Also comparing India to China, economically, is a bit tough. China wasn't occupied by the British Empire for 100 plus years. The history of colonialism can't be dismissed overnight. Ironically, India's many communist parties and communist-influenced legislation is still hurting it, notable the law that companies larger than x size are more or less nationally controlled in a de facto sense - for example it is illegal to fire anyone, you actually need to ask the government to fire them which involves trials and years of work. Companies in India try to stay under that size, thus a lack of proper economic growth due to lack of scale. The new guy in charge is up for liberalization, so lets see how that works out.
Let it play out, China's growth isn't remarkable and people said the same things when other countries where undergoing the same type of growth -- Japan, Brazil, and even the USSR. There are malinvestments. There has not been a significant correction so no one knows what % of their economy is sustainable or waste. What will things look like after a correction is complete, politically or economically?
China is being run by a cabal of scared, mostly old (average age is 64, one woman in the politbureau) men. They're using every trick in the book to hold on to their power while trying to appease the crowds with shiny new trinkets. The question is if they can manage to consolidate before the crowds realize they don't actually need the old men and that the old men are still the biggest brake on their development.
That's why you get things like what the article discusses and why you get the great firewall. It's all about crowd control on a very large scale and it is driven by fear of what that crowd could do once it realizes there are no chains.
Well, at the moment the economy is still growing and that makes a huge difference. Even in the west, people who feel that their lives are improving are much less interested in political reform.(+)
If the economy experiences a serious recession, then things could get much nastier.
Yes. That's why the fact that China had such a huge backlog actually works in favor of the current leadership, and it is a very strong incentive for them to keep applying the brakes. Too much growth in too short a time could easily lead to things plateauing well before parity is achieved which would wake up some nasty sentiments but as long as there is growth there is hope that one day parity will be achieved. It's a very difficult balancing act. If the economy should crash (and there are definitely signs this may be in the cards) then all bets are off.
> ____ is being run by a cabal of scared, mostly 60-year old men. They're using every trick in the book to hold on to their power while trying to appease the crowds with shiny new trinkets.
You could literally be describing any country on earth with that.
The irony is that if they weren't so scared and determined to keep power by any means necessary, they could address the people's stated grievances (justice, corruption, and equal opportunity) and they would keep power by general consent.
What I can't figure out is why they think they need to retain power. Is it because they are scared of what will happen to them if they don't? Do they feel that China without Communism will be chaos? Or is it just institutional momentum?
>There is such a thing as a soft authoritarian, single party, free market state. They are doing it.
Even the worst leadership can make the jump from farming to industry. This is more or less the story of communism in the 50s and 60s. Suddenly, a lot of farmers went from backbreaking work just being able to feed themselves to making products. This is an economic force multiplier. The problem is autocratic states can't get past this stage very well. Compare N Korea and S Korea's GDP per capita over the decades, past the 1970s, the South led and had to liberalize a lot to continue growth. Now they're seen as a economic miracle at $26,000 GDP per capita compared to the North's $1,800. In the 50s and 60s we all sat stunned at how well the North was beating the South! Now they're an international laughingstock.
>The idea that political freedoms necessary for democracy are intertwined with the economic freedoms necessary for capitalism had a lot of traction
When everyone gets sick of factory work and realizes they own no property, can't give their children a better life, can't open their own businesses, have to bribe everyone to get even the basic services, etc they will have problems the same way N Korea, Cuba, and the USSR did. They just haven't hit that wall yet. That wall is coming. There's no avoiding it. They will either liberalize to stay competitive or pull a Putin and say "This is good enough, right here" and fall deeper into isolation, autocracy, corruption, economic stagnation, and more mindless jingoism/island annexation.
I agree, to an extent but I think you are overstating it. Russian Communism had similar results (I think it's the 20s-40s though. They moved from Czarism to communism. That's either proof that it's easy to grow from a low base or that communism is good at it. It might be that the two are unrelated. Overall, I tend to agree that degree to which China was depressed under Maoism needs to be accounted for.
Still, China's been doing better than India and a lot of other more liberal places.
I think the general point is inconclusive, but it's the specific point that matters. China over the last generation got a lot richer and there is no reason to think it would have done better economically if it was more liberal politically.
I think that even with the Stasi, corruption and the appeal of western culture to East Germans, the regime would still exist had it not failed economically. And, like I said at the start I think it's a stretch to tell China that they're in the same boat as N Korea, Cuba, and the USSR.
It seems clear China among others, has successfully decoupled democracy from capitalism. It has proven the two don't necessarily go hand in hand.
Well have to see how things play out, but it does not seem very promising. On the other hand, it'll be interesting to see which system can provide a better life for its population. It's not a given democratic capitalism is the only or best solution. Perhaps a different mix will win out.
> It seems clear China among others, has successfully decoupled democracy from capitalism. It has proven the two don't necessarily go hand in hand.
I think it is a bit early to call that. They avoided all-out revolution by letting go of the reins a bit, but in the slightly longer term things could very well still go pear shaped or result in a re-assertion of power.
You seem to acknowledge that in the rest of your comment but that's inconsistent with claiming it is a success already, it's mostly early days in a pretty risky experiment.
China is but one example. Singapore is another. Russia is still undecided, but certainly not democratic.
Long term, it's hard to say what political-economic systems will look like. However, it appears China has so far achieved economic success via capitalistic economics without democracy. It does not seem that China is in any hurry to democratize. In its history, there has been at least weak centralization, never the less, centralization and strong central gov't is embedded in their collective psyche.
China has 500 million people living on not much more than $2 per day. And another 300 million above that, living on $3 to $5 per day. It's already very well understood which system works better.
Those bottom 500 million have seen zero improvement in 50 years inflation adjusted. They're also mostly peasant farmers, and it's illegal for them to own farm land - they're land slaves accordingly. They have no prospects, and have seen no real benefit from the labor utilization system, it has completely failed them.
The only meaningful thing China's system accomplished, was absorbing some of the vast, slack labor capacity for manufacturing. That would have happened by default minus the economic controls they previously had in place. China didn't have to do anything but take their boot off the throat of manufacturing. And now the manufacturing party is over, so they've turned to extreme debt acquisition and forced asset bubbles to fake growth.
There may not have been a greater economic myth than the story of China's rise, in the last century.
Sitting in China, where I have been based for 15 years - mostly well outside of major cities - this is nearly complete bullshit.
Firstly, dollar figures are useless in China as the USD/CNY exchange rate has varied significantly, the domestic economy is very dynamic (high inflation) and has surprisingly little to do with the international economy. The quoted figures, probably dodgy in the first place, are likely 15 years old.
Rapid evidence: I live in a 85% agricultural zone (5% concrete factories, 5% tourism to a nearby lake, 5% military) where people spend easily $1 each on breakfast, $2 each per dish at lunch or dinner, and up to $13 per dish if meat or seasonal mushrooms. Beers are $1-2 and people drink every day. Non-showy cigarettes are $2-$4/pack and the whole male population smokes, often easily 1/2 to a pack a day. Almost everyone has flat screen TVs (with a huge VoD library plus tens of cable TV channels), mobile phones, electric scooters (or cars, or motorbikes, or electric tractors), literacy and internet access (albeit with Chinese characteristics). Most people can afford to eat out almost every day. Looking west, all I can see are four storey private houses. Looking east, I see a small factory or two and more four storey private houses in a neighbouring village, beyond rich agricultural fields. A few year old major airport lies an hour to the northeast, and a city of six million to the northwest, currently building an extension of its subway line and a new highway here. People are materially doing very well - better than many part of the US - and this is a relatively poor province.
If you want to wax lyrical about China's rise being false, come and live here before doing so. I am currently putting together a documentary on the foreign community in the nearest city, which should dispel many of these myths. (TLDW; people from everywhere, lots of art, music, short working hours, safe, pluralistic society. Way comfier than the US. To quote a Californian I interviewed on the US, who has lived in Tokyo, SF, SoCal and Thailand but chooses to live in this part of China: "not my circus, not my monkeys")
We already have lots of history showing that capitalism and democracy are unrelated. France and Germany between the Renaissance and about 1800, for example: politically a monarchy, but economically capitalistic.
Isn't that the same the world over right now? I mean the Koch brothers aren't throwing lobbying money around because they are a charity, they are doing it to ensure that the revolution that will put them up against the wall never happens. Same with any hierarchical structure.
Its not a political and/or social innovation. Security services have been doing this since Telecom was invented. We have "commercial partnerships" in the US with the various Telecom companies b/t them and the security services that basically serves the same purpose.
Edit: pre-preemptively editing because the original, though I believe correct, was too glib and snarky.
Three Letter Agencies in the U.S. have long had commercial "partnerships"[0] with private companies including internet and telecom companies. As has come to light in the past couple years, these partnerships were not "just" about securing national interests and infrastructure.
The difference is one of degree only. Sometimes differences of degree can be big enough that they are effectively differences in type (e.g., jumping off a stool vs. jumping off a building; popping one pill vs taking the whole bottle). In this case, I wonder if there is anything fundamentally different about the US or US people that would resist a deployment of the security state to the degree that China has deployed. Or, given similar large-scale social unrest, would we also go along with the program? Is there an equilibrium here with J. Edgar Hoover on one end, and Thomas Jefferson on the other? Or, are we sliding down a one-way slope toward a totalitarian state?
> I wonder if there is anything fundamentally different about the US or US people
I don't think there's anything fundamentally different about the citizens of the respective countries. Both are loath to give up comfort and the status quo to challenge their governments surveillance states in meaningful ways.
The big difference as I see it is that the staus-quo, at least on the surface, is vastly different in the two countries so the governments go about their efforts in appropriately different ways.
There's nothing fundamentally different between Chinese and American citizens? Are you joking?
The cultures are entirely different, and that includes the perspective of the people towards the government. You can find many sources to support the claim that in general, the Chinese people trust the Chinese government more than the American people trust the American government. In China, the attitude toward the state is akin to the attitude of a child toward a parent. The prevailing wisdom in China is that what's good for the state is good for the people. Obviously that's not the case in America, where polls show record levels of distrust toward the government from its citizens.
These political differences stem from fundamental cultural ones, which is why I take issue with your claim that there's nothig fundamentally different about American and Chinese citizens. On the contrary, most differences are fundamental ones.
The prevailing wisdom in China is that what's good for the state is good for the people. Obviously that's not the case in America, where polls show record levels of distrust toward the government from its citizens.
That's not remotely obvious to me. In my experience, American citizens distrust specific politicians, but they strongly trust the state apparatus. As examples, American citizens gave/give broad support to the NSA, invasions of other countries, and police/soldiers/firefighters/anyone in a uniform.
The American founders did not trust the State, hence the checks and balances and built-in limits to the Sate. There are entire political parties whose aim is to reduce the State to the bare minimum required.
To broadly generalize, liberals seem to trust the State to be able to provide equality to people, so they might appear to "trust the State apparatus." Conservatives tend to be patriotic, so they might also appear to "trust the State apparatus." But both those groups are also trying to limit the State, just in different ways. Conservatives try to limit the social creep of the liberals. Liberals try to limit the defense spending.
I think you overestimate the "broad support" of the NSA, invasions, and uniformed men. If you've been reading the news it should be apparent that there is a huge lack of trust in the police, for example.
I agree with you. I was talking more generally about basic human nature from a self-actualization perspective ala Abraham Maslow. Though now that I put that into words I'm agreeing even more with you as Maslows B-values such as justice, self-sufficiency and perfection, though shared, ARE likely ranked quite differently between the two cultures.
Did you really equate communist forced police presence with voluntary and beneficial government partnerships with the private sector in the US? The Internet exists because of the US Government (DARPA) and US taxpayer; not under its direct police control.
How about the requirement that foreign carriers have US citizens in US offices at the point of interconnect with the US.
I also believe there are reporting oddities in the role too, but I can't find the reference to it anymore.
The result is that same as China, the difference is who's paying the person's salary.
Edit [information below]:
[1] (13) Carriers shall comply with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), see 47 C.F.R. §§
1.20000 et seq. Page 5 of 6
1.20000 et seq.
[2] (14) Every carrier must designate an agent for service in the District of Columbia. See 47 U.S.C. § 413, 47 C.F.R. §§
1.47(h), 64.1195.
For those who don't know much about CALEA here is a short article from an industry rag[0] and a more technical document on a specific solution by Cisco[1]
It's not the same as China. China is putting police in local (Chinese) companies with Chinese citizens in Chinese companies. That's kind of different than requiring a citizen in the office of a foreign company doing business locally.
I expect that the intent is different, although I don't know US law. The Chinese intent is to (forcibly?) prevent unwanted communication. I doubt that is the intent of the US law.
Actually, CALEA [2] is a requirement for all US carriers (ISPs/telcos), it's just an extra requirement on anyone peering with a US firm. It's also been around since 1994.
CALEA intercepts are implemented through automated systems, the judge signs a warrant, it's entered into a computer and the wiretaps are done automatically, with the traffic routed to the requesting agency's systems.
In China, they probably noticed that they don't have a legal intercept facility built in, and don't want to spend the time to negotiate with all of the interested parties. So, they put a person on site.
The threat and the outcome is the same. If you don't provide legal intercept, you're going to get locked up.
For an example of what level of access these systems provide, a Greek carrier was hacked through theirs - the hacker(s) turned it on and used it to listen in on the Prime Minister's phone calls[1].
I'm not saying that the Chinese are doing the right thing, just that it's largely equivalent to what happens here.
Intercepts with warrants is really, really different than giving unaccountable thought police a desk in the news room. Equating these things is silly and borderline offensive.
Some of the partnerships, maybe even all of them, are beneficial to the private sector entities and their customers. The U.S. government provides security, guidance, technical competence and resources. But just because they are beneficial in some ways doesn't mean they can't also be harmful in others.
The government can make sure that the private sector information and communication is secure against nation states and industrial espionage while also using the partnership and the access it provides to further its surveillance efforts, even its efforts against its own citizens.
It's not nearly the same. The main aim of putting police physically on premises is to ensure rapid enforcement of upstream decisions.
Something bad, from a ccp pov, being discussed on a forum? Quick, netops, now, cut the cord... now.
It's quite different. The CNG are willing to spite their companies to further the party's viability. The party always comes first, not law, not country, its the party and the pla.
> I guess they are finally catching up to the U.S.
It's still too glib and snarky.
There's a really big difference between controlling what is said and observing everything that is said. I think the NSA has gone too far, but it's way different from censorship. And even censorship is different than what Communism does, which as far as I can tell from the People's Daily, is that they simply say what they wish were true as if it were true. Apparently they also suppress statements to the contrary. This is very, very different than privacy violations from recording everything.
That's just nonsense (and unsubstantiated). Read the People's Daily--they have an English version online--for a while and then read the Washington Post, NY Times, etc. The American media routinely criticize the government: Fox -> Democrats; NY Times -> Republicans. I'd be surprised if you can make it a week reading the People's Daily, it's so full of right thinking that it'll make a NY Times article on Obama look condemning...
> The American media routinely criticize the government
That's another difference between the U.S. and China: the U.S. use elected politicians as media decoys in addition to foreign countries a lot more than China, leaving unexamined the real groups that run the countries, which in the U.S. includes the corporations that pay money to advertise on TV or in the news.
When the US gets close to election time and there is at least the chance of a conservative win in the White House; the Chinese government gets worried and defensive. They will probably remove the police after a couple of years and the new president (conservative or liberal) has settled in.
The same way the Great Firewall went down during Clinton or Obama? Come on, don't be naive. This is the status quo in China and has NOTHING to do with the USA. Stop blaming the failings of other nations on the US.
Partnerships with major Chinese companies now introduces new counterparty risk if that relationship can be leveraged as a back door. Interesting to see how that effects large U.S. Companies working in China. Long term, this can't be good for the country.
A very sad thing. I don't think the early hackers writing GPL code envisioned this turn of events.
Most of those Internet companies would not exist if it weren't for the free and open source software that they run on.
Instead of 'liberating' people and bringing them 'freedom', the free sofware has the undesired effect of creating the Supreme Big Brother.
We are "Hacker news" here, we should be very worried about this - the early hacker's visions are being killed by the hour.
The point I was trying to make is that GPL and free software in general is the manifestation of a deeper idealistic dream - a society in which collaboration and sharing makes people free and everyone wins.
Free to make their own choices, to do what they want, free from any form of control.
That dream is what created most of the Internet, but now it's being hijacked by people who've contributed nothing... And that is the sad part.
The only thing free software is intended to liberate people from is closed-source binaries and proprietary code.
If governments choose to use GPL code to spy on and oppress their people, that's perfectly within the spirit of free software, as long as they respect the users' freedoms regarding the source code while doing so.
Stallman's book on my book shelf is called "Free Software, Free Society" and I believe the spirit of GPL goes beyond just software.
It's the idea that sharing and collaboration will bring us more freedom - freedom from opressors or owners of any kind, who can control our lives for their benefit.
I believe this to be the deeper philosophical implication of free and open source software. It's the dream of a better, freer, smarter society.
So I don't think government spying is perfectly in the spirit of free software, it's exactly opposite to it.
84 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadThey are there to enforce regulation on the companies, not on “cybercriminals.” Or to put it another way, operating an Internet company that fails to acts as a de-facto arm of the state’s surveillance and culture-control policy is itself a cyber-crime.
It's not censorship; it's purification.
I think 25 years ago, it seemed that choice existed. You could do liberal, capitalist democracy following the examples of Western Europe, Japan & the US. The other hand was a hodgepodge of failure, either state failure or economic failure. Most notably was the failed soviet bloc but also China, India & South America (right and left). All or nothing. Revolution or stagnation. Free your people or live in culturaly stagnant, poverty stricken destitute with .
The idea that political freedoms necessary for democracy are intertwined with the economic freedoms necessary for capitalism had a lot of traction. But, with the examples of the last generation (positive and negative) I think that is no longer conventional wisdom. China's been very successful at growing economically by hand selecting policies and freedoms they want and keeping other out. You could call it non-fundamentalist or you could call it unprincipled depending on your biases and judgements, but it's hard to ignore it.
China has been selectively liberalizing economically, socially and (to a lesser extent) politically. It doesn't see how you could argue that a sudden democratization in 1980 or 1990 would have gotten them further along.
The reality is that the choices are nowhere near black and white. There is such a thing as a soft authoritarian, single party, free market state. They are doing it.
Its nice to think that liberal democracy and prosperity are intertwined because I like democracy. But, I think democracy must be justified on its own merits. The conic advantages…. They're debatable.
While this doesn't justify China's actions, it does provide an explanation for them.
Capitalism scales just fine. So does democracy, ask India. Lets stop giving authoritarians more excuses.
That's why you get things like what the article discusses and why you get the great firewall. It's all about crowd control on a very large scale and it is driven by fear of what that crowd could do once it realizes there are no chains.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politburo_of_the_Communist_Par...
Well, at the moment the economy is still growing and that makes a huge difference. Even in the west, people who feel that their lives are improving are much less interested in political reform.(+)
If the economy experiences a serious recession, then things could get much nastier.
(+) this does not apply to Tibet
You could literally be describing any country on earth with that.
For instance, NL has a 10/5 split m/f and the average age of the ministers is 52.
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabinet-Rutte_II#Ministers
What I can't figure out is why they think they need to retain power. Is it because they are scared of what will happen to them if they don't? Do they feel that China without Communism will be chaos? Or is it just institutional momentum?
Even the worst leadership can make the jump from farming to industry. This is more or less the story of communism in the 50s and 60s. Suddenly, a lot of farmers went from backbreaking work just being able to feed themselves to making products. This is an economic force multiplier. The problem is autocratic states can't get past this stage very well. Compare N Korea and S Korea's GDP per capita over the decades, past the 1970s, the South led and had to liberalize a lot to continue growth. Now they're seen as a economic miracle at $26,000 GDP per capita compared to the North's $1,800. In the 50s and 60s we all sat stunned at how well the North was beating the South! Now they're an international laughingstock.
>The idea that political freedoms necessary for democracy are intertwined with the economic freedoms necessary for capitalism had a lot of traction
When everyone gets sick of factory work and realizes they own no property, can't give their children a better life, can't open their own businesses, have to bribe everyone to get even the basic services, etc they will have problems the same way N Korea, Cuba, and the USSR did. They just haven't hit that wall yet. That wall is coming. There's no avoiding it. They will either liberalize to stay competitive or pull a Putin and say "This is good enough, right here" and fall deeper into isolation, autocracy, corruption, economic stagnation, and more mindless jingoism/island annexation.
Still, China's been doing better than India and a lot of other more liberal places.
I think the general point is inconclusive, but it's the specific point that matters. China over the last generation got a lot richer and there is no reason to think it would have done better economically if it was more liberal politically.
I think that even with the Stasi, corruption and the appeal of western culture to East Germans, the regime would still exist had it not failed economically. And, like I said at the start I think it's a stretch to tell China that they're in the same boat as N Korea, Cuba, and the USSR.
Well have to see how things play out, but it does not seem very promising. On the other hand, it'll be interesting to see which system can provide a better life for its population. It's not a given democratic capitalism is the only or best solution. Perhaps a different mix will win out.
I think it is a bit early to call that. They avoided all-out revolution by letting go of the reins a bit, but in the slightly longer term things could very well still go pear shaped or result in a re-assertion of power.
You seem to acknowledge that in the rest of your comment but that's inconsistent with claiming it is a success already, it's mostly early days in a pretty risky experiment.
Long term, it's hard to say what political-economic systems will look like. However, it appears China has so far achieved economic success via capitalistic economics without democracy. It does not seem that China is in any hurry to democratize. In its history, there has been at least weak centralization, never the less, centralization and strong central gov't is embedded in their collective psyche.
Those bottom 500 million have seen zero improvement in 50 years inflation adjusted. They're also mostly peasant farmers, and it's illegal for them to own farm land - they're land slaves accordingly. They have no prospects, and have seen no real benefit from the labor utilization system, it has completely failed them.
The only meaningful thing China's system accomplished, was absorbing some of the vast, slack labor capacity for manufacturing. That would have happened by default minus the economic controls they previously had in place. China didn't have to do anything but take their boot off the throat of manufacturing. And now the manufacturing party is over, so they've turned to extreme debt acquisition and forced asset bubbles to fake growth.
There may not have been a greater economic myth than the story of China's rise, in the last century.
Firstly, dollar figures are useless in China as the USD/CNY exchange rate has varied significantly, the domestic economy is very dynamic (high inflation) and has surprisingly little to do with the international economy. The quoted figures, probably dodgy in the first place, are likely 15 years old.
Rapid evidence: I live in a 85% agricultural zone (5% concrete factories, 5% tourism to a nearby lake, 5% military) where people spend easily $1 each on breakfast, $2 each per dish at lunch or dinner, and up to $13 per dish if meat or seasonal mushrooms. Beers are $1-2 and people drink every day. Non-showy cigarettes are $2-$4/pack and the whole male population smokes, often easily 1/2 to a pack a day. Almost everyone has flat screen TVs (with a huge VoD library plus tens of cable TV channels), mobile phones, electric scooters (or cars, or motorbikes, or electric tractors), literacy and internet access (albeit with Chinese characteristics). Most people can afford to eat out almost every day. Looking west, all I can see are four storey private houses. Looking east, I see a small factory or two and more four storey private houses in a neighbouring village, beyond rich agricultural fields. A few year old major airport lies an hour to the northeast, and a city of six million to the northwest, currently building an extension of its subway line and a new highway here. People are materially doing very well - better than many part of the US - and this is a relatively poor province.
If you want to wax lyrical about China's rise being false, come and live here before doing so. I am currently putting together a documentary on the foreign community in the nearest city, which should dispel many of these myths. (TLDW; people from everywhere, lots of art, music, short working hours, safe, pluralistic society. Way comfier than the US. To quote a Californian I interviewed on the US, who has lived in Tokyo, SF, SoCal and Thailand but chooses to live in this part of China: "not my circus, not my monkeys")
Room 641A, etc.
Edit: pre-preemptively editing because the original, though I believe correct, was too glib and snarky.
Three Letter Agencies in the U.S. have long had commercial "partnerships"[0] with private companies including internet and telecom companies. As has come to light in the past couple years, these partnerships were not "just" about securing national interests and infrastructure.
[0]https://www.nsa.gov/business/programs/ncsc.shtml
I don't think there's anything fundamentally different about the citizens of the respective countries. Both are loath to give up comfort and the status quo to challenge their governments surveillance states in meaningful ways.
The big difference as I see it is that the staus-quo, at least on the surface, is vastly different in the two countries so the governments go about their efforts in appropriately different ways.
The cultures are entirely different, and that includes the perspective of the people towards the government. You can find many sources to support the claim that in general, the Chinese people trust the Chinese government more than the American people trust the American government. In China, the attitude toward the state is akin to the attitude of a child toward a parent. The prevailing wisdom in China is that what's good for the state is good for the people. Obviously that's not the case in America, where polls show record levels of distrust toward the government from its citizens.
These political differences stem from fundamental cultural ones, which is why I take issue with your claim that there's nothig fundamentally different about American and Chinese citizens. On the contrary, most differences are fundamental ones.
That's not remotely obvious to me. In my experience, American citizens distrust specific politicians, but they strongly trust the state apparatus. As examples, American citizens gave/give broad support to the NSA, invasions of other countries, and police/soldiers/firefighters/anyone in a uniform.
To broadly generalize, liberals seem to trust the State to be able to provide equality to people, so they might appear to "trust the State apparatus." Conservatives tend to be patriotic, so they might also appear to "trust the State apparatus." But both those groups are also trying to limit the State, just in different ways. Conservatives try to limit the social creep of the liberals. Liberals try to limit the defense spending.
I think you overestimate the "broad support" of the NSA, invasions, and uniformed men. If you've been reading the news it should be apparent that there is a huge lack of trust in the police, for example.
I also believe there are reporting oddities in the role too, but I can't find the reference to it anymore.
The result is that same as China, the difference is who's paying the person's salary.
Edit [information below]:
[1] (13) Carriers shall comply with the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), see 47 C.F.R. §§ 1.20000 et seq. Page 5 of 6 1.20000 et seq.
[2] (14) Every carrier must designate an agent for service in the District of Columbia. See 47 U.S.C. § 413, 47 C.F.R. §§ 1.47(h), 64.1195.
[3] https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-15-348A1.pd...
Not that ominous, just normal legal intercept. The US has had this requirement for a long time.
[0] https://insidersurveillance.com/calea-solutions-should-you-b...
[1] http://www.cisco.com/web/about/security/intelligence/LI-3GPP...
I expect that the intent is different, although I don't know US law. The Chinese intent is to (forcibly?) prevent unwanted communication. I doubt that is the intent of the US law.
CALEA intercepts are implemented through automated systems, the judge signs a warrant, it's entered into a computer and the wiretaps are done automatically, with the traffic routed to the requesting agency's systems.
In China, they probably noticed that they don't have a legal intercept facility built in, and don't want to spend the time to negotiate with all of the interested parties. So, they put a person on site.
The threat and the outcome is the same. If you don't provide legal intercept, you're going to get locked up.
For an example of what level of access these systems provide, a Greek carrier was hacked through theirs - the hacker(s) turned it on and used it to listen in on the Prime Minister's phone calls[1].
I'm not saying that the Chinese are doing the right thing, just that it's largely equivalent to what happens here.
[1] http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/security/the-athens-affair
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...
The enforcement that goes with the surveillance is much less intrusive, almost invisible, but that doesn't mean we should ignore it.
[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/10/government-wiretap_...
The government can make sure that the private sector information and communication is secure against nation states and industrial espionage while also using the partnership and the access it provides to further its surveillance efforts, even its efforts against its own citizens.
Something bad, from a ccp pov, being discussed on a forum? Quick, netops, now, cut the cord... now.
It's quite different. The CNG are willing to spite their companies to further the party's viability. The party always comes first, not law, not country, its the party and the pla.
It's still too glib and snarky.
There's a really big difference between controlling what is said and observing everything that is said. I think the NSA has gone too far, but it's way different from censorship. And even censorship is different than what Communism does, which as far as I can tell from the People's Daily, is that they simply say what they wish were true as if it were true. Apparently they also suppress statements to the contrary. This is very, very different than privacy violations from recording everything.
The U.S. simply makes a far greater effort to make the movie/TV industry appear fundamentally different to and disconnected from the NSA.
That's another difference between the U.S. and China: the U.S. use elected politicians as media decoys in addition to foreign countries a lot more than China, leaving unexamined the real groups that run the countries, which in the U.S. includes the corporations that pay money to advertise on TV or in the news.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
I think I'm going to have that put on t-shirt.
Most of those Internet companies would not exist if it weren't for the free and open source software that they run on. Instead of 'liberating' people and bringing them 'freedom', the free sofware has the undesired effect of creating the Supreme Big Brother.
We are "Hacker news" here, we should be very worried about this - the early hacker's visions are being killed by the hour.
How can we win back the dream ?
The point I was trying to make is that GPL and free software in general is the manifestation of a deeper idealistic dream - a society in which collaboration and sharing makes people free and everyone wins.
Free to make their own choices, to do what they want, free from any form of control.
That dream is what created most of the Internet, but now it's being hijacked by people who've contributed nothing... And that is the sad part.
If governments choose to use GPL code to spy on and oppress their people, that's perfectly within the spirit of free software, as long as they respect the users' freedoms regarding the source code while doing so.
It's the idea that sharing and collaboration will bring us more freedom - freedom from opressors or owners of any kind, who can control our lives for their benefit.
I believe this to be the deeper philosophical implication of free and open source software. It's the dream of a better, freer, smarter society.
So I don't think government spying is perfectly in the spirit of free software, it's exactly opposite to it.
We should airdrop millions of copies of a Chinese translation of "Fahrenheit 451" all over China...
http://ebookbees.com/fahrenheit-451-free-ebook/