This is pure insanity: "Quartz contacted the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology from Hong Kong asking for further clarification on how the rules would work, but the ministry said it could only reply to faxed questions that came from a reporter with a mainland press card."
I see it here in the US as well. "We only accept queries by email and will reply within three to five days" or "It will cost $1 per page to print" etc.
They are cutting off the foreign news outlets. If you aren't a mainland Chinese journalist with a press card of that nature they no longer have any interest in your opinion.
Why bother replying to people you don't care about?
That only strengthens the totalitarian government's position by further blocking any outside ideas. They don't care whether the press makes money, they want control.
The government censor in New Zealand wants web sites to submit their material, item by item, to the censor's office for approval.
Australia and the UK already have firewalls that filter all Internet traffic which "my bad, so sorry" seem to keep "accidentally" including all sorts of sites their backing legislation doesn't justify (at least as far as anyone can tell - the Australian government list is confidential). The UK is trying to roll out laws requiring all citizens to register with the government to view R18 material.
Really? Perhaps you could enlighten those of us that live there and have not noticed this. There is a widely used block on CP sites: https://www.dia.govt.nz/Censorship-DCEFS - but that's a very different thing.
Not deliberate censorship (excluding the 1200 they did intend to censor, of course). I've had many dealings with ASIC throughout my career and can assure you that most of their 'bad actions' can be ascribed to incompetence rather than malice.
Not that it's much of a comfort; the outcomes of giving power to evil are roughly the same as giving power to stupid.
"Pravin Lal: As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
from Alpha Centauri (the video game)
Funny how this was about the Americans and not the more obvious choice.
"How do you license media in an age when everyone could become a writer and publisher?" As far as I can imagine - you don't, that's the thing! Maybe they won't do you anything for now, but if they don't like what you're publishing they will have a ready-available "legal" reason for detaining you for publishing without a publishing license (which of course could be claimed to be totally unrelated to your published content)!
Well, ever since the change of government China has been closing back on itself again and censorship has been stronger and stronger. It's not surprising and tells me I made the right choice to leave the country in 2013...
I always wondered why the US has never seemed all that concerned with their trade deficit with China. Imports and paid for with exports, after all.
It turns out that the US has been playing a long game. America imports cargo containers filled with manufactured goods, and exports one-way, first-class plane tickets to America (and Vancouver), for use by the Chinese nouveaux-riches.
Brilliant. Devious and brilliant. The dollars never need to be exchanged into yuan, because they come back inside immigration-curious pockets. Export the factory; import the tycoon carrying the factory profits. And if China tries to stop it in the usual way, the brain drain only worsens. It's more like a brain siphoning.
But taking the foil hat off, it's probably just entirely accidental. Not that the US wouldn't milk it for maximum benefit anyway, but it's just too much like the outcome of a cursed monkey's paw wish to have been planned that way.
No I'm not, I've lived in China for 6 years, 1 year near Wuhan and 5 years in Shanghai and came there the first time in 2002.
When I first came there, China was gradually opening itself, things were becoming more free and people were very optimistic. If you talked to Taxi drivers, waiters or basically any people in the street, they were very optimistic and thought that the future was going to be great. Overtime this optimism has changed, when I would talk to taxi drivers, they would be bitter, thinking that the growth only really profited the rich and they had been left behind. It was a very different feelings...
Surprisingly, upper class Chines that I would talk to were also wary about the changes of the government and a lot of them were thinking of finding ways to leave China (I have a friend who went to Canada to give birth to her child for this very reason).
Sounds like the normal thing in China. Make something illegal, don't enforce it, if someone's saying something you don't like then enforce it specifically against them, keeps everyone else in line.
Selective enforcement of laws in very common in many countries. If they enforce is too harshly then people will protest. For example exceeding the speed limit while driving.
Harsh enforcement also causes their revenue to drop.
Several of the towns which depended upon speed traps for their funding found out that the Internet is a good resource for letting people know to avoid an area.
This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws.
"This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws."
It will be even more interesting when the passed laws and administrative acts will be automatically checked and validated (by something other than humans) so that fining won't be for addressing some revenue deficit but for actually preventing harmful phenomena!
Hadn't thought about this before your comment, but this could be a reason for continuing to drive themselves. If they are willing to exceed the speed limit, they can get to their destination faster than a self driving car with speed limit enforced by software.
Say you are driving 10 mph over the speed limit on a 60 mph highway for an hour, the maximum time savings is less than 10 minutes out of an hour. If the trip is shorter or you have stop, turns, traffic, the savings are even less. So in most cases except long distance drives, the savings are minimal. It is just that we are all impatient.
Sure but it that is the best case. In my own experience, traffic can impact those numbers substantially. And just some bad luck with traffic signals can eliminate most of those savings as the slow/fast cars tend to get synchronized.
Just the other day I was driving down the narrow roads of a nearby hill and there is a section with single lanes with lots of traffic moving at 35 mph. One lady comes weaving down the traffic on both sides to get in front of the crowd with a net savings until when the lanes opened up of 30 seconds. So much risk to everyone for what little benefit.
Kind of. I mean theoretically you could say the same about a train, but I still see most of the time I spend on a train as wasted even though I don't have to drive the thing.
Riding my motorcycle to work, I might bend a few laws - especially as London increasingly becomes 20mph throughout. But it reduces my commute from ~35 minutes (flow of traffic) to ~17 (filtering and exercising discretion when there's good visibility on an clear road, as is frequently the case since that's what traffic lights do - clear the road).
The twenty minutes or so morning and evening, 35-40 minutes overall is not to be sniffed at. The round trip on public transport would be well over 90 minutes.
This happened near where I live. There was a small bridge under construction in an otherwise unremarkable county where it is common practice to speed 10 over on the highway, so 65 mph actual speed.
They dragged on the construction for more than a year making barely any progress so that they could keep the construction zone open. (2x fines) The bridge was crossing a ravine at the bottom of a hill so they just kept a couple cops parked there every day and pulled over everyone with an out of state license plate all day and the county made millions. Eventually people caught on and sued. Bridge was finished nearly immediately after that.
Not just Internet. When I first saw this AAA billboard in FL, I thought it's a prank. But it is not, and it warns about one of the America's worst speed traps.
It's more common in countries where rule of law has broken down, for exactly the reason dageshi is talking about: you can make the laws harsh and as long as they are broadly not enforced people will not care, but it gives you cover to go after your domestic enemies.
"selective enforcement" is an interesting concept...
I have a neighbor (lives across the lake from me) who is a retired police officer...23 years on the job...
I asked him once if there was any truth to the rumor that traffic cops had to meet a quota...
He said, "Not in so many words...every now and then the Captain, during the shift briefing would say, "Boys, I need to see some paper" and we all knew what he meant."
Selective enforcement has a very different meaning in my country. I mean they force us to pay debilitating bills for electricity but they don't care that 11 years ago's 24/7 availability is now as random as rolling dice. We have to pay taxes for the city when we have been suffering of garbage filling our roads, only to end with them to recollect the waste and throw it in our city historic river. They patch things just for the corruption councils to get another day to play or be played with like a broken pawn. It is still the coolest place if you do not mind assassinations, bombings, mafias, world powers, nightclubs you need to reserve a table at for 10 grands to get in, we protest about everything, we speak words from 3 languages in every other sentence, and have the best food. We can easily hit the beach and 20 minutes ski on awesome slopes this time of the year. We love each other but I hate hearing my neighbor complain about getting 1/200 of my bill when I am sure they steal electricity illegally. But with their background, connections, and stares, I am good.
Just like the way many companies work with regard to behavior policies (recreational internet browsing, showing up on time, etc). You know, to engender trust, respect, loyalty.
Yes, the variant is 'the mountains are high' versus 'heaven is high' in the Chinese saying quoted above. The saying 'While the cat's away, the mice will play.' is along similar lines.
Often how administrations play favorites from corporate backers. If anyone breaks the law then you have to in order to stay competitive. But now if you speak your mind the EPA/FDA/whomever shows up.
This is pretty close to the situation in the US with patent law.
It's technically illegal to make something with a round corner because that's Apple's patent. If you piss off Apple, they'll try to enforce it. If you don't piss them off, they won't care. The law will side with Apple because they have better lawyers than you do.
The World Press Freedom Index [1] might be a good place to start exploring. You can click on individual countries to see trends. However, I have a hard time getting more details from the site.
The above is just an article published to a government website.
And of course in Canada there are limits to foreign ownership of media outlets (foreign ownership cannot be majority), as well as foreign content in media.
"If I wanted to do massive, irreparable harm to China, this is the law I would pass. And yet, they have done this willingly to themselves, without hesitation or incident."
These aren't the smart engineering politicians with a 10 year view China has foisted its fable onto the world. These are the corrupt paranoid politicians who know they are one mass protest away from having all their families disposed. These are fat and lazy billionnaires who have siphoned off local schools, hospitals, people, environments, and is about to abscond with riches. These are the people that see their debt-fueled economy collapsing, and know there's no more workers to be paid in pennies to be exploited.
"In total, 106 members of China's National People's Congress and 97 members of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, are on Hurun's China Rich List. Their combined wealth hits $463.8 billion. By comparison, the median wealth of American politicians was just over $1 million in 2013, according to CNN Money. "
http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-politicians-are-rich-...
Your quote compares the combined wealth of Chinese politicians with the median wealth of American politicians. That's a misleading statistic if I ever saw one.
In addition, it's the wealth of the very top level politicians in China vs median wealth of all politicians (If I understand correctly) in US. A fair comparison should be the senators and representatives.
463.8/(106+97) = avg of ~2.28 billion per china congress critter
Edit: as pointed out below, the math is more complex as there is 2987 seats in the NPC and I can't quickly find numbers for the number of total seats in the CPPCC, so the average is certainly drastically lower than the above.
Those are the numbers of people who are on the rich list, not the total in those political bodies.
To get the average per "congress critter" you'd have to get the total in each body, and get the net worths of the ones not on the rich list. I suspect it's less than 2.28B, but still a good bit higher than in the US.
You could put a lower limit on it by assuming the rest of the NPC members are flat broke: 463.8/2987 = $155 million per congress critter, or about 150x the average for US Congress critters.
> In total, 106 members of China's National People's Congress and 97 members of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, are on Hurun's China Rich List. Their combined wealth hits $463.8 billion.
Ummm... The NPC has 2987. Put in context 97 of 2987 are rich or 3%. That's a far better stat than you'll find for the US senate or congress. The CPPCC is larger.
Add to that the comparison to the median wealth all American Politicians, your comment is all smoke and mirrors. Compare likes to likes.
I'm having trouble finding these numbers for our current congress, but in 2009-10, out of 435 House reps 168 had law degrees, 83 had a masters degree, 23 had a PhD, 17 had a medical degree. 32 had nothing beyond an associate's degree; that leaves 109 with just bachelor's degrees. All numbers according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_St...
Your typical person with an advanced degree in their late 50s probably has some retirement savings. And note that the cited article says some of the numbers (but not all!) include the values of the House members homes. It's really not that hard to hit $800k if you count home equity and retirement savings, assuming you have any reasonable amounts of either...
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age of beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one 'makes' them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted-and you create a nation of law-breakers and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
--Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
Writing her off completely is also wrong. While I may not agree with much of what she said, I do agree with that paragraph. Case in point: the Civil Asset Forfeiture "law"s.
Her writing is very problematic and her ideas seem to fall down a bit when trying to use them outside of her authorial universe.
To me, it's like a literary Rube Goldberg device where it looks cool on the page, but seems impractical and kind of unhelpful as a way to live your life.
It's also important and useful to know why you don't agree with her. So many people have never read her writing but have very strong opinions about her but only based upon some blog they read or what their friend told them.
It always reminds me of fundamental Christians patting each other on the back about dinosaurs not being real and knowing better than to have to read the literature on it.
Rand has some great points, one thing that bothers me is when in Atlas Shrugged and her philosophy is that she always attributes everything to a single amazing person. It's like a 50's version of the Steve Jobs biographies.
Not really. The fallacy is likely to come on the next line below the quote, where the quote gets used as an excuse to ignore all laws. including things like traffic regulations and public drunkenness.
The overall message is that laws and government is an obstruction to be ignored or demolished.
As i get older i learn that while it is good to question laws and regulations, many of them have actual factual reasons to exist. So blanket dismissal is as much a wrong as unquestioning obedience.
Government is a system, and like all systems it will require maintenance. And sometimes the job the system was constructed for is no longer there.
But just tossing the system out because it is in your way is as useful as throwing out a random server just because you need the rack space.
I think it's simpler than that, as you get older you recognize patterns, and you then associate those patterns to things, negative or positive.
I see this with myself and people who are aging with me, we have so much to do as we get older that we have automated thinking around certain subjects.
I think the younger people lack this conditioning to things as they are and can see better methodologies for approaching the situation.
But we old farts have created our pattern and understand it, and so block the young from testing their theories, in a small community this would be a fairly ideal situation, but when scaled to countries, it's slow and inefficient.
We need a more scalable thought process when it comes to large scale humanities.
You also see younger people getting excited about ideas that you recognize are really not new, and since you know they have always failed in the past, you are skeptical. You also see cycles repeating themselves.
That seems overly dismissive of experience, while overly optimistic regarding the creativity of youth.
Way too many times the young dismiss existing conditions simply because they feel constrained by them, and lack the context for why said conditions came to be. End result is that they rebel against everything just because its there by (learned) reflex.
Yes, as one grow older one fall into patterns. But i think quite a bit of it is because of the work pace of modern day rather than some condition of age.
Edit: Again from personal experience, i have come to think that people need to experience something to really get it. So if you tell someone young that drinking is bad (in excess), they may or may not listen (and may just ignore you because you are old). But let them experience it under relatively controlled conditions, rather than some random binge hidden away somewhere, and maybe some synapses will connect up (and quite a few destroyed most likely) and the message will be received.
yeah I thought about rebuking his point, but someone who quotes fiction texts not from 'another thread', but from a book written in 1957 that was talking more about socialism and fascism in Hitler's Germany and Russia, and proceeds to copy and paste an entire paragraph in order to support his point about US in 2016 Well, that's some sort of superpower right there.
Less a super-power and more a sad reflection of the lack of integrity, enlightenment, and honesty of both those that are put in power and those who put them there.
Reading is a superpower!
The book is neither about Hitler nor fascism.
I would say it is a book about the magically industrialists that she wishes existed in her youth when her family was disposed by the Russian communists. They have ray guns and invisibility machines and everything, oh and trains don't forget trains.
American business mantra: better to ask for forgiveness after committing the crime, then to ask for permission before. I don't know any major business who does not follow this.
Really? Most big businesses in America devote incredible resources to following the law. Of course there are prominent examples to the contrary, but those are the exceptions, not the norm.
No they devote incredible resources to covering their ass when shit hits the fan. Obviously compliance is another issue entirely. But they are always lobbying hard to get rid of that, until they get rid of it and shit hits the fan again. Ex. Enron.
Apple is looking to China for further sales growth. Fewer Chinese buying iPhones is probably a bigger problem for them than higher manufacturing costs.
Tim Cook has already made a big deal about "currency headwinds" to explain Apple's slowing revenue growth.
Why would they care? They are selling a Chinese made product to the Chinese.
Maybe not as profitable due to exchange arbitrage, but still profitable since the costs go down exactly as much as the retail price does. Engineering for the Chinese market already exists due to all the other markets, so it's essentially money left on the table if they don't.
I don't think they'd go that far. They're mainly interested in controlling information. Nationalization, that would only accelerate the decline of the economy by spooking foreign companies who would soon high tail it leaving behind tons of idle machinery and idle workers, something the PLA would rather avoid.
They are ultimate in charge of handling unrest, so while the CCP is the face of the government, ultimately its power and control come from the PLA. When the "incident" in tian an men occurred, it was the PLA who had to go in, they are rather loathe to have to go mop up again.
I think this decision will accelerate the spooking of foreign companies. Need to take a long hard look at whether your industry is one where China will want foreign investment over the long term.
I am not a sociologist, political scientist, or an economist. It appears that China is too big to govern and has become a diseconomy of scale. China has 160 cities with over 1-million people in them (US has 10 cities) and I think it's a miracle that the lights still work and they have running water.
When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier (Observe what it takes to fly a B-52).
The PRC seems to be circling the wagons to protect from some unknown enemy that the free flow of information will allow the arrows to strike.
It's odd between mainstream media talking about how China is becoming the main power ignoring structural issues of that kind. But that's only a 'theory' so far, how to know if China will evolve into tumor or functioning organism.
These things work until they suddenly stop working. The USSR was considered to be as wealthy as the USA until a few years before its end. Few people really saw it coming, and they were not believed by the media.
I confirm that. In 1989 I talked out a stipend from the enterprise I wished to work for in the USSR. I thought my future is all set. What happened in 1991 was a complete surprise for me, and completely redefined my future.
It's no miracle, the bureaucracy is as huge as the cities. Even in a shit tier city like Zhanggong, Jiangxi they employ hundreds of people to monitor social media. I imagine the number of people employed for things that actually matter must be many thousands.
China has historically been too big to govern. Few regimes over the last 2500 years have managed to hold any major portion of what is modern day China under a single rule for any amount of time. While the PRC may make token shows of aggression on the world stage, all of their arrows are really pointed inwards.
Outward aggression can have internal reasons, too. War with a "foreign aggressor" is a pretty good way to get a fractious polity to pull together, historically speaking.
The trick is to find a "foreign aggressor" who's powerful enough to scare people into putting their internecine disputes aside, but not so powerful that they stomp your regime like a bug.
I don't think China has any intention of attacking and occupying India. I'm sure they are more than capable if they wanted to but there is just no incentive.
Arunachal Pradesh, sheltering the Dalai Lama, generally not cozy with Pakistan (Chinese ally)... there are a lot of "incentives" that can be invented if they need a war to justify staying in power.
I suspect they want totalitarian control over the south "China Sea" like Turkey practically has over anything leaving the Black Sea via their naturally formed strait, the Bosphorus.
> I don't think China has any intention of attacking and occupying India. I'm sure they are more than capable if they wanted to but there is just no incentive.
They do not. Conquering and occupaying a country with the size, population, and nuclear weapons of India would be a massive undertaking, I think the largest such war in history. And remember that China would have to cross the Himalyas to reach India, maybe the most difficult geopolitical obstacle in the world. Finally, China is just developing its military and their capabilities are limited (but growing quickly); many experts believe Japan is more miilitarily capable than China, for example.
Japan? The country that has in its constitution that it cannot hold an offensive military, nor take part in researching/developing offensive military technology... Which expert believes that?
Or do you mean historically? (Pre WWII)
I would hazard a guess that China's korean war "Human wave" tactics would be sufficient against Japan (assuming US was not also involved).
> Japan? The country that has in its constitution that it cannot hold an offensive military ...
The consequences of that are not what one might think. Japan has the 7th largest military budget in the world, and it's been high for a long time (i.e., they've accumulated quite a bit). Much of what they own, from fighter planes to warships to submarines, could just as well be used to attack as to defend. The current Japanese government has been stretching the bounds of the pacifist Constitution greatly; they are not going to sit by and watch China dominate them and the region, and they want Japan to take its place in world affairs commesurate with its population (10th largest) and economy (3rd). For example, they now take part in multinational military operations, they are equipping and training their marines to storm islands, they are exporting Japanese military equipment, etc. Also, remember that Japanese companies are world-class in technology; they can build some pretty good equipment.
Japan long has been considered to have one of the finest militaries, restrained by policy - and that policy is fading away.
> I would hazard a guess that China's korean war "Human wave" tactics would be sufficient against Japan
They'd get pretty wet. Also, that doesn't work in wars against modern countries whose air power is so accurate (the Gulf War is considered the turning point in military history on this issue). The Chinese, and many other large countries, have been shrinking the number of soldiers in their military as a result.
If nations had institutional-DNA I'd say modern China has probably inherited at least a few traits that aided its sprawl-prone predecessors. (Whether they'll be enough for modern challenges is, of course, another question.)
Historically, too big to govern would apply not to the number of citizens but to the time information needed to cross the empire.
Hence the famous Rome roads, the Nile for the Egiptians or the excellent communication system of the Incas (there are quite a few other examples) that made those empires possible.
China might have been historically to big to govern with some stability, but with the high speed communication networks of the present that might have changed.
Or they might just be hitting different obstacles now. History is not always a linear interpolation of the past (though more often than most people are ready to admit).
The population wasn't as big, but without modern technology the history of Chinese national governance is likely better than any other region in the world. From around 250 BC to 1911, the Chinese usually had effective national government which made China a world leader economically, culturally, and technologically.
(There are many caveats: 1) During that time there were periods of civil war and division also; 2) the geographical area defined as China varied quite a bit; 3) I use the word "usually", but I don't know the percentage of time stable, effective government was provided; certainly there were many successful emporers and dynasties.)
I think that Chinese history is quite remarkable. It's a bit like a Roman Empire that grew, changed, and stumbled, but never truly fell. Heck, it even has about the same amount of arable land as the EU[1].
Not that it's your main point, but I think B-52 has 8 engines because they're an old design. They're about 10,000 lbf each, while the engines in new planes provide more than five times the thrust, so two 787 engines are stronger than ten B-52 engines.
Xi Jin Ping is worse than King jong un. He is a stupid and arrogant leader. He want people in China to call him "习大大(xi big big)", but actually we like to call him "习包子(xi bao zi)"
baozi is a traditionsl food of China.
When xi came to power at the very beginning, a picture is shown in main stream media of China that Xi devouring his BaoZi and paying for his meal just like everyone else. Xi's performance is too bad, all the people know that is just a show. Now Xi show its true feature, he is not a man of the people, he is just a Dictator.
From the Chinese government point of view they have several good reasons (for them) for doing this, chief among them (in my opinion) saving face and controlling mass opinion.
When China was the huge success story it was, until recently, they were far more tolerant of criticism. Even then, the Chinese Government would clamp down very quickly on criticism. Right now their tolerance is pretty much zero. They do not want to admit or even hear that they have done anything wrong or that China has significant problems.
They also greatly fear any kind of mass action. During the boom years, with high employment and everyone happy, there was little chance of mass action. Now with entire industrial areas becoming ghost towns, high unemployment, no pensions and growing poverty, mass action becomes a real threat.
China's leadership seems to be becoming more paranoid. Yet China has no serious external enemies other than the ones they make for themselves, the economy is stressed a bit but production is in great shape, and the standard of living has been rising for years. Why?
If you control the populace's view of the outside world then you can turn foreigners into anything you want them to be: monsters, war mongers, greedy capitalists intent on collapsing your economy and taking away the dream of prosperity, etc.
China has too many single men who will never know marriage and who present a huge threat to their society. It is better to point the tip of that spear in a different direction through tightly controlled propaganda. War, cold or hot, is on the horizon.
My brother in law lived there for years and claims that the general sense is that if the leadership can't maintain at least 5-10% GDP growth forever they will lose favor. People there are very unsatisfied with the government but they're also afraid of revolution. Paranoia seems a good description of the government's mentality.
> People there are very unsatisfied with the government but they're also afraid of revolution.
Sounds like the west. Yet we're too fat, lazy and complacent to do anything. Bernie and Trump are achieving some success because of this, but in the end Hillary will win (possibly through some sort of shenanigans), continue towards Obama and the establishment's police state, and once again the people will lose.
It's funny how people talk about dissatisfaction in non-western countries, without realized that people are very dissatisfied in the west...
People may be dissatisfied with the government in the west, but the context is different. People in China have fresh memories of shortage and hardship. My wife is 26 years old and remembers a childhood where meat could only be bought once a week. The people do not want to loose the prosperity of the last ten years.
Again, not much different than here. Meat prices have skyrocketed in Canada, as have produce prices, and the prices of everything else. We're in a recession. There's hardly any employment opportunity for recent grads. Almost all my family has gone to the US. On the plus side, my 1.5 hour commute (each way) is now 25 minutes.
Yes, a country that started further behind in development is objectively 'worse' than a developed country.
But China today is objectively better than 20 years ago and will likely continue development. Meanwhile western countries aren't a panacea.
My wife comes from a 3rd world country where people immigrate to China from. A country that constantly sees its population decline from the exodus, where you can drive through entire abandoned neighborhoods. A country that's behind China on basically every metric you can think of, and where the only development that happens is paid for by China, who constantly forgives their debts. There's always going to be someone that's better off, and worse off than you.
The point isn't to shit on anyone or say China's great, but only to say that different countries have different levels of development, and the 'grass is always greener' mentality leads nowhere good. In 2000 everyone said China wouldn't continue its growth for various reasons, but it did. Today we're saying the same thing, with no recollection of past failed predictions of doom.
China is too big, too educated and too dynamic to stop developing. Yes quality of life isn't that of Canada or the US, but that doesn't mean they're not on a good path.
Just because X country is poorer today than Y country doesn't make X a shitty place.
You can ask that in any number of countries. Yet the US and Americans try convincing Ukraine, Libya, Syria, Russia, China, etc..., that they'd be better off overthrowing their leaders.
As for the US, they just need to 'open up' their political system. Maybe some sort of proportional representation to break the 2 party system. Eliminate lobbying, which is really just institutionalized bribery.
As it stands right now the US has 2 parties which are bought by the same corporate interests, the largest police state and prison system in the world, unrest and protests fairly often, in multiple cities, and so on.
For the record, I'm not advocating armed revolution, that usually ends up rather poorly. However the US needs to stay out of China's business, and let them sort it out, gradually, the way they do. The decision to ban foreign media isn't some sort of nefarious response to unrest, but rather a direct response to increased anti-China propaganda coming from the west.
Yet all throughout this thread there's tons of posts shitting on China for all sorts of reasons, when much of this can be seen through the lens of history and common sense.
I remember 5 years ago, most outlets had very pro-China things to say. Now it's undoubtedly taken a very negative turn. Daily stories about China's impending economic collapse, their various 'crackdowns', and so on. Even this article. To be honest, half of the stuff they want to ban isn't even allowable in Canadian media (literally, 3 out of 6 bullet points are strait up illegal in Canada), and we're hardly a totalitarian state.
But when western media and NGOs are stepping up the propaganda and support for violent secessionist groups (Occupy HK took a violent turn recently, some Uighur groups are strait up terrorists with US support), China has to do something. A collapse would be catastrophic, yet that's exactly what the US government is trying to achieve (as evidenced by Syria).
Edit - Anyone want to address these points? Or is the propaganda working too well?
Coverage has taken a negative turn because events have taken a negative turn. Growth is weakening. Shares have fallen sharply. Exports are down. And they're doing things like this.
And of course, China's stock exchange is holding steady now, around their long term growth average. It was overvalued before, now it's corrected, and definitely hasn't crashed.
A 2011 article from Rolling Stone proves what? Furthermore, it's not particularly well written or objective.
The point is, they're pretty spot on when it comes to forecasting. More so than pretty much any media outlet. If they say China isn't going to descend into Mad Max style anarchy in the next decade, I believe them.
I see one point that would be illegal in Canada. All the others have language that makes them far more broad than any restrictions placed on our media here. But I'm probably brainwashed just like you my friend.
That's a generous reading of those points. You're not including everything.
#2 - endangering national security, or harming national honor and interests [national honor? not illegal in Canada]
#3 - undermining national unity, or going against ethnic customs and habits [going against ethnic habits? not illegal in Canada]
#5 - insulting or slandering others, infringing upon the legitimate rights of others [I'll give you that slander and infringing rights is illegal in Canada, insulting is not]
Note that all of these are vague, intentionally vague at that. Whether or not you violated these rules is entirely up to the interpretation of the CCP.
And you're not including the first words of each bullet point, which clearly ARE illegal here.
- disclosing state secrets, endangering national security, or harming national honor and interests
Illegal, possibly illegal, and while we don't have a concept of national 'honor', going against national interests can be illegal, depending on context.
- inciting ethnic hatred or ethnic discrimination, undermining national unity, or going against ethnic customs and habits
Even the second point (inciting ethnic discrimination) is contrary to our hate speech laws, and the first point definitely is.
- spreading rumors, disturbing social order, or undermining social stability
I didn't include this because it's a maybe, but unfounded rumours are often considered slander, and disturbing social order is often considered hate speech (though not always).
- insulting or slandering others, infringing upon the legitimate rights of others
Illegal.
> Note that all of these are vague, intentionally vague at that. Whether or not you violated these rules is entirely up to the interpretation of the CCP.
You're not familiar with 'common law', are you? Canada's law system (I assume the same holds true for other countries who adopted Britain's system of laws) isn't set in stone, are quite a bit is left to interpretation. It's not particularly unusual.
For instance, our last government used an anti-terrorism law to try strip the citizenship of and deport someone who was born in Canada, on the basis that he 'could' be eligible for citizenship in a country he's never stepped foot in. Granted he was convicted of a crime, but goes to show that, even in Canada laws can be interpreted rather broadly.
I think you missed my point. I was highlighting the parts you left out. You said "Point #3 is illegal in Canada" when in fact, it isn't. Only part of it is.
I'm familiar with common law and I wouldn't compare common law in Canada will the law in China.
Edit: “Insult” and “slander” are two entirely different things. To insult is to speak disrespectfully or abusively about someone. An insult would be something like “Donald Trump is an asshole.” To slander is to make false defamatory statements about someone, e.g. “I saw Donald Trump kick a puppy.”
Slander is, yes. If you can prove its truthful it's OK, if it's provably false it's illegal, and you can take the offending party to court.
Edit - publicly insulting someone often falls into slander, depending on what was said. In Canada all charges are pressed by the crown, so to a certain degree they decide what's what. In general, if there's the possibility of damages arising from the insults, it can be prosecuted.
> #3 - undermining national unity, or going against ethnic customs and habits [going against ethnic habits? not illegal in Canada]
Undermining national unity is not illegal in Canada - even to the point where a political party was advocating the separation of Quebec (BQ) and a Bloc Quebecois MP tried to incite members of the Canadian Forces to desert and join a possible Quebec military if Quebec separated from Canada.
"Jacob faced accusations that he advised Quebec members of the Canadian Forces to join a Quebec army if there was a winning vote for Quebec sovereignty in the 1995 Quebec referendum. The prevailing Liberal government decided to investigate these remarks, while the Reform Party demanded Jacob be charged with sedition.[2]"
The definitions are far more vague in this case. They could basically make the case that anything is "undermining social stability"; whereas making the same judgement in Canada would be tougher.
"endangering social morality or national cultural tradition" could probably even include publishing anything upsetting or otherwise true about the party.
> making the same judgement in Canada would be tougher.
Kind of like stripping the citizenship of and deporting a Canadian who was born in Canada and never stepped foot in the country they're being deported to?
that would be a waste. Indefinite prison term and slavework in forest enterprises of Saskatchewan would suit better to anyone undermining social order of Canada.
Chinese most fear a civil war. Nearly 10 million people died during the last civil war, the one before that 36 million people died. One before over 25 million. compare that with the absolute carnage of Syria which has taken 300,000 lives so far. The scale of disaster will be uncomparable to anything else if another civil unrest happens in China. We like to call them paranoid, but their paranoia isn't baseless.
>Yet China has no serious external enemies other than the ones they make for themselves
Except tons of western interested parties, you mean, who would be very glad to see the regime go, and be able to freely plunder the country a la Yeltsin's Russia.
To me this looks like a big win for companies based in China. The social media companies for the billion people in China will be employing local people, and the advertising revenue will stay within China.
Not that this is the main goal of the ban though..
Seems absurdly broad, if this article is correct. Doesn't this basically mean Chinese would be unable to read or view anything we can? Including this site? With the exception of Chinese published/created information.
'This ban covers words, pictures, maps, games, animation and sound of an "informational and thoughtful nature" -- unless they have approval from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.'
Still it's very onerous but not a complete shutdown.
You're only focusing on news sites, which of course are important. And yes it's (effectively) a ban on news sites, but not necessarily on non-news sites.
If I wanted to do massive, irreparable harm to China, this is the law I would pass. And yet, they have done this willingly to themselves, without hesitation or incident.
Here's how I would explain it to a 5-year-old - when you make laws like this, you make everyone else not want to do business with you. This means that you only get to business with people in your own country. 7 billion people with ideas is going to be much better than just one billion people with ideas. The 7 billion people have more money, more ideas, and more people to make cool things, and you're stuck with your one billion people. You will be left behind.
well, with this law, you got stability and can focus on things important. With 1 billion well educated ppl, I am not too worried about shortage of talent.
But with stability, you also get stagnation. The State being able to crush upstarts to protect their own interests means a lot of those 1 billion people won't challenge the powers that be.
You might get stability. But if the population is already disillusioned with you, you might get less stability. The way I understand it, many people already don't believe what the government says; what happens if you have a large population of people who assume the government is not tell the truth whenever it opens its mouth? Whatever it is, I don't think it is stability.
I have heard it said that people don't need to get their way, but they do need to feel heard. The more you can't express yourself, the more things can get out of control quickly when an opportunity finally arises to vent.
A laser gets its coherence from the atoms being in an inverted population: they are all excited, so when one drops down and releases a photon, that photon triggers a chain reaction of all the other atoms to release theirs. I worry that this is what will end up happening. Someday, something will happen and maybe the censors are a little behind or something, like the high speed rail crash near Shanghai, and it triggers everyone's pent-up disillusionment and feeling unable to change anything. I don't think this would be a happy time for anyone, and, ironically, is just the sort of thing that the control is intended to prevent.
But this sort of "stability" without massively greater levels of repression† is only metastable, it sets the rulers up for things like preference cascades, such as the one that sparked the "Arab Spring". The PRC's nomenklatura ought to be worried about this recent example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceau%C8%99escu%27s_final_speec... 4 days later he and his wife were summarily executed (and large numbers of public/publicized executions remain a tool of control for the PRC's nomenklatura).
†In the context of the PRC, say a return to ration coupons being required to buy food, this allowed your local block or village committee to trivially starve you to death if you get on their wrong side. My 1988 roommates, straight from the PRC to the US for grad school, told me the development of an open market for food was the single greatest change on the ground, getting on the committee's wrong side "only" increased your cost of food.
please don't educate me on China. I was born there and much older than your 1988 roommates. China is not perfect, but it's way better than what western media depicts. On the other hand, you have to be political correct in every country, even in US ...
Care to show how western media depicts China? Do you want to bet that for every negative article you cite, I can find a positive one?
I was in China last week. Major Western news sources such as NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, BBC are all blocked as far as I can tell. So Chinese audience is deprived of major alternative sources, political correct or not.
I feel like we don't really place any emphasis on the pragmatics of seven billion people having ideas. In reality you probably have a million truly unique ideas that should be explored. People don't really read much anyway and don't think for themselves as much as I like them to. Then there's also cultural bias and societal bias and of course all the many levels of peer pressure.
The fact that people feel good wearing "good" clothes is telling, no? Unless I'm missing something there's no real reason to wear "good" clothes and feel good about it.
Based in China. There are occasional times I'm unable to access HN without VPN. No idea if that's because it's being blocked or packets just aren't being given priority. Admittedly, China's pipes to the rest of the world are not very large.
Certainly they do. They use a machine learning DPI algorithm to block oversea VPNs and HTTPS/Socks proxys. So you can't hide your proxy in SSL or ssh tunnels.
Almost all foreigners has a vpn to access their facebook and gmail.
And for the demand, let me show you an example: Several months ago, a malware, XcodeGhost, infects EVERY large internet company in China. The attack worked by tricking developers into using a fake version of Xcode, Apple's software development tool, to build apps. So their apps were published to Apple App Store with hidden malicious code. This virus also has a android version. You may wonder why these developers didn't download the xcode and android sdk from apple and google's website directly. They are the top class developers in China. But the fact is they rarely use these websites and services. You can live without google even you are an android developer.
I would say bad China, but given how polarised and politicised the Western media is, I find it hard to fault them.
Unbiased journalism seems such a quaint concept these days, and as the divisions between right and left take on an almost war like characteristic, everything becomes propaganda.
Hell, I might even move to China to get away from it all.
274 comments
[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 274 ms ] threadI see it here in the US as well. "We only accept queries by email and will reply within three to five days" or "It will cost $1 per page to print" etc.
Why bother replying to people you don't care about?
Australia and the UK already have firewalls that filter all Internet traffic which "my bad, so sorry" seem to keep "accidentally" including all sorts of sites their backing legislation doesn't justify (at least as far as anyone can tell - the Australian government list is confidential). The UK is trying to roll out laws requiring all citizens to register with the government to view R18 material.
China is just playing catch-up at this point.
Weirdly, I think its helped China become a bigger power.
Not deliberate censorship (excluding the 1200 they did intend to censor, of course). I've had many dealings with ASIC throughout my career and can assure you that most of their 'bad actions' can be ascribed to incompetence rather than malice.
Not that it's much of a comfort; the outcomes of giving power to evil are roughly the same as giving power to stupid.
https://pirateproxy.pw/ also works.
from Alpha Centauri (the video game)
Funny how this was about the Americans and not the more obvious choice.
"How do you license media in an age when everyone could become a writer and publisher?" As far as I can imagine - you don't, that's the thing! Maybe they won't do you anything for now, but if they don't like what you're publishing they will have a ready-available "legal" reason for detaining you for publishing without a publishing license (which of course could be claimed to be totally unrelated to your published content)!
Just wondering what your thoughts on the reasons for this move are.
It turns out that the US has been playing a long game. America imports cargo containers filled with manufactured goods, and exports one-way, first-class plane tickets to America (and Vancouver), for use by the Chinese nouveaux-riches.
Brilliant. Devious and brilliant. The dollars never need to be exchanged into yuan, because they come back inside immigration-curious pockets. Export the factory; import the tycoon carrying the factory profits. And if China tries to stop it in the usual way, the brain drain only worsens. It's more like a brain siphoning.
But taking the foil hat off, it's probably just entirely accidental. Not that the US wouldn't milk it for maximum benefit anyway, but it's just too much like the outcome of a cursed monkey's paw wish to have been planned that way.
When I first came there, China was gradually opening itself, things were becoming more free and people were very optimistic. If you talked to Taxi drivers, waiters or basically any people in the street, they were very optimistic and thought that the future was going to be great. Overtime this optimism has changed, when I would talk to taxi drivers, they would be bitter, thinking that the growth only really profited the rich and they had been left behind. It was a very different feelings...
Surprisingly, upper class Chines that I would talk to were also wary about the changes of the government and a lot of them were thinking of finding ways to leave China (I have a friend who went to Canada to give birth to her child for this very reason).
Several of the towns which depended upon speed traps for their funding found out that the Internet is a good resource for letting people know to avoid an area.
This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws.
It will be even more interesting when the passed laws and administrative acts will be automatically checked and validated (by something other than humans) so that fining won't be for addressing some revenue deficit but for actually preventing harmful phenomena!
Just the other day I was driving down the narrow roads of a nearby hill and there is a section with single lanes with lots of traffic moving at 35 mph. One lady comes weaving down the traffic on both sides to get in front of the crowd with a net savings until when the lanes opened up of 30 seconds. So much risk to everyone for what little benefit.
The twenty minutes or so morning and evening, 35-40 minutes overall is not to be sniffed at. The round trip on public transport would be well over 90 minutes.
They dragged on the construction for more than a year making barely any progress so that they could keep the construction zone open. (2x fines) The bridge was crossing a ravine at the bottom of a hill so they just kept a couple cops parked there every day and pulled over everyone with an out of state license plate all day and the county made millions. Eventually people caught on and sued. Bridge was finished nearly immediately after that.
http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-613081
Google Street view: https://goo.gl/VwIadH
I have a neighbor (lives across the lake from me) who is a retired police officer...23 years on the job...
I asked him once if there was any truth to the rumor that traffic cops had to meet a quota...
He said, "Not in so many words...every now and then the Captain, during the shift briefing would say, "Boys, I need to see some paper" and we all knew what he meant."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tian_gao,_Huangdi_yuan
Nice movie, I also liked it.
http://www.studychineseinchina.com/community/knowledge-base/...
It's technically illegal to make something with a round corner because that's Apple's patent. If you piss off Apple, they'll try to enforce it. If you don't piss them off, they won't care. The law will side with Apple because they have better lawyers than you do.
[1] http://index.rsf.org/
The above is just an article published to a government website.
And of course in Canada there are limits to foreign ownership of media outlets (foreign ownership cannot be majority), as well as foreign content in media.
"If I wanted to do massive, irreparable harm to China, this is the law I would pass. And yet, they have done this willingly to themselves, without hesitation or incident."
These aren't the smart engineering politicians with a 10 year view China has foisted its fable onto the world. These are the corrupt paranoid politicians who know they are one mass protest away from having all their families disposed. These are fat and lazy billionnaires who have siphoned off local schools, hospitals, people, environments, and is about to abscond with riches. These are the people that see their debt-fueled economy collapsing, and know there's no more workers to be paid in pennies to be exploited.
"In total, 106 members of China's National People's Congress and 97 members of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, are on Hurun's China Rich List. Their combined wealth hits $463.8 billion. By comparison, the median wealth of American politicians was just over $1 million in 2013, according to CNN Money. " http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-politicians-are-rich-...
463.8/(106+97) = avg of ~2.28 billion per china congress critter
Edit: as pointed out below, the math is more complex as there is 2987 seats in the NPC and I can't quickly find numbers for the number of total seats in the CPPCC, so the average is certainly drastically lower than the above.
To get the average per "congress critter" you'd have to get the total in each body, and get the net worths of the ones not on the rich list. I suspect it's less than 2.28B, but still a good bit higher than in the US.
Ummm... The NPC has 2987. Put in context 97 of 2987 are rich or 3%. That's a far better stat than you'll find for the US senate or congress. The CPPCC is larger.
Add to that the comparison to the median wealth all American Politicians, your comment is all smoke and mirrors. Compare likes to likes.
A senator averages about $3M, a house rep is about $800k.
For example, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20... claims that as of 2009 the age of US House members averaged 57. I doubt they've gotten younger on average since.
I'm having trouble finding these numbers for our current congress, but in 2009-10, out of 435 House reps 168 had law degrees, 83 had a masters degree, 23 had a PhD, 17 had a medical degree. 32 had nothing beyond an associate's degree; that leaves 109 with just bachelor's degrees. All numbers according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_St...
Your typical person with an advanced degree in their late 50s probably has some retirement savings. And note that the cited article says some of the numbers (but not all!) include the values of the House members homes. It's really not that hard to hit $800k if you count home equity and retirement savings, assuming you have any reasonable amounts of either...
Quote stolen from another thread:
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age of beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one 'makes' them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted-and you create a nation of law-breakers and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." --Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
To me, it's like a literary Rube Goldberg device where it looks cool on the page, but seems impractical and kind of unhelpful as a way to live your life.
It always reminds me of fundamental Christians patting each other on the back about dinosaurs not being real and knowing better than to have to read the literature on it.
Rand has some great points, one thing that bothers me is when in Atlas Shrugged and her philosophy is that she always attributes everything to a single amazing person. It's like a 50's version of the Steve Jobs biographies.
The overall message is that laws and government is an obstruction to be ignored or demolished.
As i get older i learn that while it is good to question laws and regulations, many of them have actual factual reasons to exist. So blanket dismissal is as much a wrong as unquestioning obedience.
Government is a system, and like all systems it will require maintenance. And sometimes the job the system was constructed for is no longer there.
But just tossing the system out because it is in your way is as useful as throwing out a random server just because you need the rack space.
I see this with myself and people who are aging with me, we have so much to do as we get older that we have automated thinking around certain subjects.
I think the younger people lack this conditioning to things as they are and can see better methodologies for approaching the situation.
But we old farts have created our pattern and understand it, and so block the young from testing their theories, in a small community this would be a fairly ideal situation, but when scaled to countries, it's slow and inefficient.
We need a more scalable thought process when it comes to large scale humanities.
Way too many times the young dismiss existing conditions simply because they feel constrained by them, and lack the context for why said conditions came to be. End result is that they rebel against everything just because its there by (learned) reflex.
Yes, as one grow older one fall into patterns. But i think quite a bit of it is because of the work pace of modern day rather than some condition of age.
Edit: Again from personal experience, i have come to think that people need to experience something to really get it. So if you tell someone young that drinking is bad (in excess), they may or may not listen (and may just ignore you because you are old). But let them experience it under relatively controlled conditions, rather than some random binge hidden away somewhere, and maybe some synapses will connect up (and quite a few destroyed most likely) and the message will be received.
Of course, the same can't be said for the anti-trust regulation book.
I would say it is a book about the magically industrialists that she wishes existed in her youth when her family was disposed by the Russian communists. They have ray guns and invisibility machines and everything, oh and trains don't forget trains.
Here is the thread I copied the quote from, but I have read the book. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11088704
- Increase anti-foreign rhetorics in media. Don't like it, Microsoft? tough
- Ban Foreign services. Don't like it, Uber? tough
- Devalue Yuan by 50%. Don't like it, Apple? tough
- Nationalize foreign assets. Don't like it, Ford? tough
Actually, I think Apple would love that. Decreases their manufacturing costs. :)
And many other things would go up in price with a depressed currency in general.
Why wouldn't Apple like this? Their manufacturing costs would become much lower, and they would rack up even more billions in profits.
Tim Cook has already made a big deal about "currency headwinds" to explain Apple's slowing revenue growth.
Maybe not as profitable due to exchange arbitrage, but still profitable since the costs go down exactly as much as the retail price does. Engineering for the Chinese market already exists due to all the other markets, so it's essentially money left on the table if they don't.
When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier (Observe what it takes to fly a B-52).
The PRC seems to be circling the wagons to protect from some unknown enemy that the free flow of information will allow the arrows to strike.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War#Final_years_.281985.E...
The trick is to find a "foreign aggressor" who's powerful enough to scare people into putting their internecine disputes aside, but not so powerful that they stomp your regime like a bug.
They do not. Conquering and occupaying a country with the size, population, and nuclear weapons of India would be a massive undertaking, I think the largest such war in history. And remember that China would have to cross the Himalyas to reach India, maybe the most difficult geopolitical obstacle in the world. Finally, China is just developing its military and their capabilities are limited (but growing quickly); many experts believe Japan is more miilitarily capable than China, for example.
Or do you mean historically? (Pre WWII)
I would hazard a guess that China's korean war "Human wave" tactics would be sufficient against Japan (assuming US was not also involved).
The consequences of that are not what one might think. Japan has the 7th largest military budget in the world, and it's been high for a long time (i.e., they've accumulated quite a bit). Much of what they own, from fighter planes to warships to submarines, could just as well be used to attack as to defend. The current Japanese government has been stretching the bounds of the pacifist Constitution greatly; they are not going to sit by and watch China dominate them and the region, and they want Japan to take its place in world affairs commesurate with its population (10th largest) and economy (3rd). For example, they now take part in multinational military operations, they are equipping and training their marines to storm islands, they are exporting Japanese military equipment, etc. Also, remember that Japanese companies are world-class in technology; they can build some pretty good equipment.
Japan long has been considered to have one of the finest militaries, restrained by policy - and that policy is fading away.
> I would hazard a guess that China's korean war "Human wave" tactics would be sufficient against Japan
They'd get pretty wet. Also, that doesn't work in wars against modern countries whose air power is so accurate (the Gulf War is considered the turning point in military history on this issue). The Chinese, and many other large countries, have been shrinking the number of soldiers in their military as a result.
This is meaningless. How could this statement be possibly falsified for any given region of the world?
So there is a creature after all, even if mechanical, to which the BMI applies!
Hence the famous Rome roads, the Nile for the Egiptians or the excellent communication system of the Incas (there are quite a few other examples) that made those empires possible.
China might have been historically to big to govern with some stability, but with the high speed communication networks of the present that might have changed.
The population wasn't as big, but without modern technology the history of Chinese national governance is likely better than any other region in the world. From around 250 BC to 1911, the Chinese usually had effective national government which made China a world leader economically, culturally, and technologically.
(There are many caveats: 1) During that time there were periods of civil war and division also; 2) the geographical area defined as China varied quite a bit; 3) I use the word "usually", but I don't know the percentage of time stable, effective government was provided; certainly there were many successful emporers and dynasties.)
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arable_land
Not that it's your main point, but I think B-52 has 8 engines because they're an old design. They're about 10,000 lbf each, while the engines in new planes provide more than five times the thrust, so two 787 engines are stronger than ten B-52 engines.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baozi
Basically, he's got a nickname that resembles "little piggy". (By intent, not literal translation.)
When China was the huge success story it was, until recently, they were far more tolerant of criticism. Even then, the Chinese Government would clamp down very quickly on criticism. Right now their tolerance is pretty much zero. They do not want to admit or even hear that they have done anything wrong or that China has significant problems.
They also greatly fear any kind of mass action. During the boom years, with high employment and everyone happy, there was little chance of mass action. Now with entire industrial areas becoming ghost towns, high unemployment, no pensions and growing poverty, mass action becomes a real threat.
China has too many single men who will never know marriage and who present a huge threat to their society. It is better to point the tip of that spear in a different direction through tightly controlled propaganda. War, cold or hot, is on the horizon.
Sounds like the west. Yet we're too fat, lazy and complacent to do anything. Bernie and Trump are achieving some success because of this, but in the end Hillary will win (possibly through some sort of shenanigans), continue towards Obama and the establishment's police state, and once again the people will lose.
It's funny how people talk about dissatisfaction in non-western countries, without realized that people are very dissatisfied in the west...
The scale and degree of poverty in China now, let alone 20 years ago, are just a tad bit worse than trouble finding jobs and long commute.
Yes, a country that started further behind in development is objectively 'worse' than a developed country.
But China today is objectively better than 20 years ago and will likely continue development. Meanwhile western countries aren't a panacea.
My wife comes from a 3rd world country where people immigrate to China from. A country that constantly sees its population decline from the exodus, where you can drive through entire abandoned neighborhoods. A country that's behind China on basically every metric you can think of, and where the only development that happens is paid for by China, who constantly forgives their debts. There's always going to be someone that's better off, and worse off than you.
The point isn't to shit on anyone or say China's great, but only to say that different countries have different levels of development, and the 'grass is always greener' mentality leads nowhere good. In 2000 everyone said China wouldn't continue its growth for various reasons, but it did. Today we're saying the same thing, with no recollection of past failed predictions of doom.
China is too big, too educated and too dynamic to stop developing. Yes quality of life isn't that of Canada or the US, but that doesn't mean they're not on a good path.
Just because X country is poorer today than Y country doesn't make X a shitty place.
Who exactly, among the politicians and leaders, or anyone else for that matter, would you be willing to follow into battle?
A revolution has a huge cost, it's not just a matter of fear.
As for the US, they just need to 'open up' their political system. Maybe some sort of proportional representation to break the 2 party system. Eliminate lobbying, which is really just institutionalized bribery.
As it stands right now the US has 2 parties which are bought by the same corporate interests, the largest police state and prison system in the world, unrest and protests fairly often, in multiple cities, and so on.
For the record, I'm not advocating armed revolution, that usually ends up rather poorly. However the US needs to stay out of China's business, and let them sort it out, gradually, the way they do. The decision to ban foreign media isn't some sort of nefarious response to unrest, but rather a direct response to increased anti-China propaganda coming from the west.
Yet all throughout this thread there's tons of posts shitting on China for all sorts of reasons, when much of this can be seen through the lens of history and common sense.
I remember 5 years ago, most outlets had very pro-China things to say. Now it's undoubtedly taken a very negative turn. Daily stories about China's impending economic collapse, their various 'crackdowns', and so on. Even this article. To be honest, half of the stuff they want to ban isn't even allowable in Canadian media (literally, 3 out of 6 bullet points are strait up illegal in Canada), and we're hardly a totalitarian state.
But when western media and NGOs are stepping up the propaganda and support for violent secessionist groups (Occupy HK took a violent turn recently, some Uighur groups are strait up terrorists with US support), China has to do something. A collapse would be catastrophic, yet that's exactly what the US government is trying to achieve (as evidenced by Syria).
Edit - Anyone want to address these points? Or is the propaganda working too well?
And of course, China's stock exchange is holding steady now, around their long term growth average. It was overvalued before, now it's corrected, and definitely hasn't crashed.
Goldman Sachs lies to people who pay them millions, and you think that anything they publish for free is reliable? http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/pictures/how-goldman-ex...
Any report from Goldman Sachs is designed to advance Goldman Sachs' interests. Any resemblance to reality it might hold is sheer coincidence.
The point is, they're pretty spot on when it comes to forecasting. More so than pretty much any media outlet. If they say China isn't going to descend into Mad Max style anarchy in the next decade, I believe them.
#2 - endangering national security, or harming national honor and interests [national honor? not illegal in Canada]
#3 - undermining national unity, or going against ethnic customs and habits [going against ethnic habits? not illegal in Canada]
#5 - insulting or slandering others, infringing upon the legitimate rights of others [I'll give you that slander and infringing rights is illegal in Canada, insulting is not]
Note that all of these are vague, intentionally vague at that. Whether or not you violated these rules is entirely up to the interpretation of the CCP.
And you're not including the first words of each bullet point, which clearly ARE illegal here.
- disclosing state secrets, endangering national security, or harming national honor and interests
Illegal, possibly illegal, and while we don't have a concept of national 'honor', going against national interests can be illegal, depending on context.
- inciting ethnic hatred or ethnic discrimination, undermining national unity, or going against ethnic customs and habits
Even the second point (inciting ethnic discrimination) is contrary to our hate speech laws, and the first point definitely is.
- spreading rumors, disturbing social order, or undermining social stability
I didn't include this because it's a maybe, but unfounded rumours are often considered slander, and disturbing social order is often considered hate speech (though not always).
- insulting or slandering others, infringing upon the legitimate rights of others
Illegal.
> Note that all of these are vague, intentionally vague at that. Whether or not you violated these rules is entirely up to the interpretation of the CCP.
You're not familiar with 'common law', are you? Canada's law system (I assume the same holds true for other countries who adopted Britain's system of laws) isn't set in stone, are quite a bit is left to interpretation. It's not particularly unusual.
For instance, our last government used an anti-terrorism law to try strip the citizenship of and deport someone who was born in Canada, on the basis that he 'could' be eligible for citizenship in a country he's never stepped foot in. Granted he was convicted of a crime, but goes to show that, even in Canada laws can be interpreted rather broadly.
I'm familiar with common law and I wouldn't compare common law in Canada will the law in China.
Fact remains, we're shitting on China for banning things that are already banned in many non-totalitarian countries.
Edit: “Insult” and “slander” are two entirely different things. To insult is to speak disrespectfully or abusively about someone. An insult would be something like “Donald Trump is an asshole.” To slander is to make false defamatory statements about someone, e.g. “I saw Donald Trump kick a puppy.”
Edit - publicly insulting someone often falls into slander, depending on what was said. In Canada all charges are pressed by the crown, so to a certain degree they decide what's what. In general, if there's the possibility of damages arising from the insults, it can be prosecuted.
Edit2 - here's an interesting one for you: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/insulting-police-onli...
Undermining national unity is not illegal in Canada - even to the point where a political party was advocating the separation of Quebec (BQ) and a Bloc Quebecois MP tried to incite members of the Canadian Forces to desert and join a possible Quebec military if Quebec separated from Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marc_Jacob
"Jacob faced accusations that he advised Quebec members of the Canadian Forces to join a Quebec army if there was a winning vote for Quebec sovereignty in the 1995 Quebec referendum. The prevailing Liberal government decided to investigate these remarks, while the Reform Party demanded Jacob be charged with sedition.[2]"
In the end he wasn't charged with anything
This self-centered North American still reads al-jazeera, Guardian , and Der Spiegel .
"endangering social morality or national cultural tradition" could probably even include publishing anything upsetting or otherwise true about the party.
Kind of like stripping the citizenship of and deporting a Canadian who was born in Canada and never stepped foot in the country they're being deported to?
- China's total debt risen to 346% of GDP in 2015. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3852886-chinese-debt-problem...
- China exports fall 11.2% in January, imports down 18.8% http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/14/china-releases-trade-data-for...
- China’s $6.7 trillion bond market is flashing the same danger signs that triggered a tumble in stocks http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2015/10/10/...
- China Capital Outflows Rise to Estimated $1 Trillion in 2015 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/china-capi...
- China's Net Capital Outflows Probably Hit $113 Billion In January http://www.actionforex.com/analysis/daily-forex-fundamentals...
- "Chinese banks will lose approximately $3.5 trillion of equity if China's banking system loses 10 percent of assets" (all of its reserve would be gone) http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/10/kyle-bass-china-banks-may-los...
Except tons of western interested parties, you mean, who would be very glad to see the regime go, and be able to freely plunder the country a la Yeltsin's Russia.
According to this story [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-set-to-ba...]:
'This ban covers words, pictures, maps, games, animation and sound of an "informational and thoughtful nature" -- unless they have approval from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.'
Still it's very onerous but not a complete shutdown.
EDIT: Context for my question is that of rule of law and how much can get away without actually having an effect at the top.
I have heard it said that people don't need to get their way, but they do need to feel heard. The more you can't express yourself, the more things can get out of control quickly when an opportunity finally arises to vent.
A laser gets its coherence from the atoms being in an inverted population: they are all excited, so when one drops down and releases a photon, that photon triggers a chain reaction of all the other atoms to release theirs. I worry that this is what will end up happening. Someday, something will happen and maybe the censors are a little behind or something, like the high speed rail crash near Shanghai, and it triggers everyone's pent-up disillusionment and feeling unable to change anything. I don't think this would be a happy time for anyone, and, ironically, is just the sort of thing that the control is intended to prevent.
I hope the government reconsiders this idea.
But this is in itself an illusion no? It's equivalent to not being heard anyway, just that you could be heard.
Now that I think about, yes I agree that's how I would prefer to feel.
†In the context of the PRC, say a return to ration coupons being required to buy food, this allowed your local block or village committee to trivially starve you to death if you get on their wrong side. My 1988 roommates, straight from the PRC to the US for grad school, told me the development of an open market for food was the single greatest change on the ground, getting on the committee's wrong side "only" increased your cost of food.
I was in China last week. Major Western news sources such as NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, BBC are all blocked as far as I can tell. So Chinese audience is deprived of major alternative sources, political correct or not.
Also, not sure how your age is relevant?
The fact that people feel good wearing "good" clothes is telling, no? Unless I'm missing something there's no real reason to wear "good" clothes and feel good about it.
If no adults are around, watch this movie: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/81753727/
And for the demand, let me show you an example: Several months ago, a malware, XcodeGhost, infects EVERY large internet company in China. The attack worked by tricking developers into using a fake version of Xcode, Apple's software development tool, to build apps. So their apps were published to Apple App Store with hidden malicious code. This virus also has a android version. You may wonder why these developers didn't download the xcode and android sdk from apple and google's website directly. They are the top class developers in China. But the fact is they rarely use these websites and services. You can live without google even you are an android developer.
http://www.cso.com.au/article/585378/apple-ween-chinese-ios-...
Seems like a contradiction. Are you publishing online, or in China?
Unbiased journalism seems such a quaint concept these days, and as the divisions between right and left take on an almost war like characteristic, everything becomes propaganda.
Hell, I might even move to China to get away from it all.
On the other hand, watching political agitators with an axe to grind masquerading as journalists makes me mad.