Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Chinese state media has urged authorities to take a "tougher line" against protesters in Hong Kong who vandalised state-run Xinhua news agency and other buildings at the weekend, saying the violence damaged the city's rule of law.
[...] In an editorial, state-backed China Daily newspaper criticised the "wanton" attacks by "naive" demonstrators, adding, "They are doomed to fail simply because their violence will encounter the full weight of the law."
Police fired tear gas at black-clad protesters on Saturday and Sunday in some of the worst violence in the Asian financial hub in weeks, with metro stations set ablaze and buildings vandalised.
Violence also erupted on Sunday after a man with a knife attacked several people and bit off part of the ear of a pro-democracy politician. Two of the victims are reportedly in critical condition, according to reports.
The past five months of anti-government protests in the former British colony represent the biggest popular challenge to President Xi Jinping's government since he took over China's leadership in late 2012.
Protesters are angry at China's perceived meddling with Hong Kong's freedoms, including its legal system, since the Asian financial hub returned to Chinese rule in 1997. China denies the accusation.
The widely-read Global Times tabloid on Sunday condemned the protesters' actions targeting Xinhua and called for action by Hong Kong's enforcement agencies.
"Due to the symbolic image of Xinhua, the vandalizing of its branch is not only a provocation to the rule of law in Hong Kong, but also to the central government and the Chinese mainland, which is the rioters' main purpose," it said.
On Friday, after a meeting of China's top leadership, a senior Chinese official said it would not tolerate separatism or threats to national security in Hong Kong and would "perfect" the way it appointed the city's leader.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @12:26PM (84 children)
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @02:23PM (65 children)
I don't really think this is the issue. To start with let's try to assess the popularity of the protesters. We can measure this in at least 3 ways:
1) Anecdotal - the least valuable, but in this case it's ubiquitous and also reporting the exact same thing. The protesters had positive to mixed support mixed support early on. That support has now deteriorated to very near 0 as the protests have turned increasingly violent and destructive.
2) The lack of reporting on support. The US media has been unabashedly promoting the protests and protesters. Polls showing extensive support would provide a significant datum in this narrative. Such polls do not exist, which is why we're left with these 3 indirect measurements. The reason for the rather conspicuous absence of this sort of polling is, I think, self evident. And on the other end, if China carried out such polling all the media would just pretend it's fake, because China - similar to the Russian Crimea polling which was later completely validated by Gallup and other western pollsters.
3) Related polls such as this. [reuters.com] I'd normally question the bias of the poll given the source (which should be overly preferential to Hong Kong) but the picture it paints is quite the opposite. Only 17.4% of Hong Konger's at least somewhat supported the idea of independence from China when it's "one country, two systems" agreement ends with China in 2047. So in other words, only 17.4% of Hong Kongers would be at all interested in detaching themselves from China - 25 years from now, and completely peacefully. That poll was following another major round of "democratic protests".
---
Ok, so the protesters are probably not well liked. What's it matter? You are effectively suggesting that a small group if unpopular individuals should be able to force a drastic political change so long as they engage in a sufficient amount of violence and destruction. That's not a great precedent to set. It also gives a foreshadowing of what would happen. Imagine Hong Kong did form its own independent democratic government. And the people elected representation strongly in favor of strengthening ties with China. Are the same protesters, now happy to destroy and attack people for "democracy", suddenly going to be happy with the same or similar political outcome because it was done by democratic vote?
The issue is not one of democracy or anything else. Hong Kong is a part of China. A small group of people don't like that and want Hong Kong to be part of the western order. They're only going to stop being twats if they get their way, which is not only not going to happen under China, but also almost certainly would not even happen under democracy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @03:09PM (63 children)
You're missing two important things. First, the protests came about because of unjust policies put forth by China. It's likely that this wouldn't have happened if there were democratically elected governments in charge of both China and Hong Kong.
Second, just because some movement is relatively unpopular (which isn't actually the case here) doesn't mean that it should be suppressed. Particularly when much of the violence comes from the authorities.
Democracy isn't a pancea, but it would work here to prevent the tone deaf and brutish Chinese government machinations here.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Wednesday November 06 2019, @03:46PM (40 children)
Current Hong Kong government is direct successor to British colonial administration. It doesn't come from mainland bureaucracy. Yet exactly this government made the decision to ratify those extradition laws that are subject of the riots. Lack of public elections is caused by Britain thinking that Chinese on the island shouldn't be allowed to elect representatives. So it is not connected to mainland government decisions. Elections are purely western custom and even actual westerners don't think that eastern people are eligible to participate in them. Having elected government will contradict the "one country, two systems" principle because it involves temporarily keeping old unelected(or at least elected by small circle of people) British colonial government.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @02:38AM (39 children)
Which is irrelevant. China is still quite capable of taking over the current Hong Kong government and probably already has.
Funny how they "made the decision" to implement the Chinese government's wishes.
So should it be Britain's responsibility to go in and fix this mess by implementing direct elections in Hong Kong? Will you support that?
So why shouldn't elections be a western custom that China observes? The current custom is clearly inferior since it's resulting in huge protests (and perhaps in the near future, huge crackdowns on human freedom!).
That's a hypocritical system that should have been contradicted back in the 1970s.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:56AM (38 children)
It wasn't Chinese government wishes. It was just British successor government plugging blatant hole in laws making certain murders unprosecuteable. It's impossible to keep this situation. If they're protesting against convicting murderers then they're not for democracy or letting people have more power. Mainland Chinese government isn't involved here. This is a lie. No matter which kind of government is in power it cannot allow murderers to walk free. Thus protesting against this particular law is absolutely untenable position to have. Also remember that elections are not panacea. Not the best person wins elections but who lies best. Liars don't always make good rulers. So if you're for full public elections there you're basically for making everything worse. Only true way to have government that represents people is to have low barrier of entry into it, so everyone irrespective of social status or ancestry can join government and advance in it strictly based on merit. Honestly, looking at current Hong Kong's government, its election system for top executive works a lot like in US..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:46PM (37 children)
And my unicorn farm produces 100 rainbows per hour.
Don't buy it. The laws were far too broad to be for that purpose. I find it interesting that you spout these statements uncritically and then whine about lying in democracies. Not much point to caring about the quality of the lies, when you're that gullible.
The Chinese system selects for liars too. So what?
Like what? Your sole example is lying. China is notorious for its lies (such as the Hundred Flowers Campaign [wikipedia.org] to the later "one country, two systems" fig leaf) some which killed tens of millions of people.
False. Government should only serve a minimal role in society. Where's the talent that will lead your society to greatness, if it's squandered in some hidden bureaucracy and worse only validated by its status in that bureaucracy? At least, China has abandoned the full state and allowed its people to excel in business.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Thursday November 07 2019, @02:50PM (36 children)
Where's the proof that law is too broad? Can you link actual analysis of the law? Also since PRC already controls the territory with its military it won't need any laws to engage in any possible abuses so it's irrelevant. As it is currently a murderer can't even get prosecuted for that particular crime even though he tried to turn himself in. Resolving this situation should be higher priority than arguing about relative efficiency of government systems.
Size of government is irrelevant here. Even representative democracies can and do have huge bureaucracies. So size of government is not related to leader choice method. You frame it like you refuted what I said but you in fact didn't.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @12:01AM (35 children)
There're standard judicial reforms that China needs to make before that can happen. Making families pay for the bullets isn't cutting it.
I disagree, of course. Keep in mind the earlier AC asserted that citizen representation somehow is conditional on participation in government. So, for example, should I suppose that China's space program would be more "representative" of its people, if it's employing everyone, rather than merely a subset who happen to have cutting edge manufacturing and aerospace knowledge and experience? Or that the massive participation in government, makework projects, and reeducation camps made for better representation by government back in the genuine Communist days?
And where have I supported large bureaucracies in democracies? Not seeing it myself.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Friday November 08 2019, @12:43AM (34 children)
China itself already has proper extradition treaties with other countries. In this particular case problem existed only because Taiwan was involved and that country isn't accepted by majority of countries in the world. So that Hong Kong law existed solely to try and plug that legal loophole. And it was needed to enable extradition TO Taiwan. It wouldn't extradite FROM Taiwan since Taiwan wouldn't respect PRC laws in any case. It wouldn't endanger anyone in China more than before because it's already controlled by their military and they can apprehend whoever needed already.
You misunderstood. Anyone should have a chance to become skilled expert irrespective of his ancestry and family connections based solely on work they performs to earn their skills, and have actual power in proportion to their expertise. West, particularly US has problems with this. So it will be bad for everyone if China walks in its footsteps. Way of meritocracy that Confucius promoted is better than silly western religions of communism and capitalism.
You kidding right? You just need to study them better then.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @01:43AM (33 children)
Like? I found here [scmp.com] Australia mentioned, but they would be evaluated on a case by case basis.
The problem might have "existed" for that reason, but the solution covers political persecution cases in China as well. As I noted earlier, it's far broader than the problem it alleges to fix.
"West, particularly US has problems with this." It's interesting how my critics in this thread have noted various problems of the US or sometimes more generally of the developed world and then completely missed the obvious - that China has it worse. Hypocrisy/inconsistency? Tragedy of the commons? Tyranny? Biased media reporting? Lowest common denominator? Lying and deception? And now, vacuous claims about having more opportunity. Sorry, China has it worse.
The only reason China is doing so well now is that its people have the freedom to excel at business. That's it, but it's a huge profound thing. The government itself is just a tapeworm clinging on for the ride. It's time to get rid of the tapeworm.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Friday November 08 2019, @09:34AM (32 children)
Well if you want improvement you shouldn't settle with lesser evil(in this case western pseudo-representative government) when you have a better way: actual meritocracy. Although I'm not asserting that is what China has right now, nonetheless it had it in the past and may have it in the future.
Why you're so sure it covers political persecution in China? The law referred to extraditions to arbitrary domains, because it really was targeting Taiwan but couldn't actually name it. And thus it would work by definition on case by case basis. China already controls Hong Kong with its military and if it wants to apprehend someone they wouldn't need an extradition law.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @01:40AM (31 children)
Why do you think a meritocracy is better? Who is deciding what this merit is? Representative government means that the general public is deciding the merit of the top leaders of their societies. And if we're putting people of merit into government, then we're taking them away from productive enterprise in the private world. There's yet another reason I strongly advocate government reduction.
Second, why speak of "better" systems when you're not comparing the US to an actual better system? China is a deeply flawed system. It's not in any way improved by an irrelevant discussion of US flaws compared to some imaginary system.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Saturday November 09 2019, @02:26AM (30 children)
General public is many people most of whom are too busy doing other things. They don't have time to research things properly so marketing decides who wins. Also it increases barrier to entry to this position. There's no way people would recognize you as a good leader if you just work hard. Because one person can affect only so many people at the same time, this number minuscule compared to total population. So only marketing can convince the rest to vote. And if marketing can do that it can also convince people to vote for bad leaders. As long as they amass enough media support. So it basically amounts to plutocracy: media are in power because they decide who gets elected because they decide what information people will have. While if a leader is chosen and accountable only to his direct subordinates then it offers significantly less scope for abuse. Your position is supported strictly by people who you work with and who know you. Only with complete knowledge is proper decision possible. Leaders should be chosen only by direct subordinates and only via consensus based decision making. And this should apply to all levels. Modern government is complex, so many positions that decide things and only vanishingly small percentage of them can be electable because people have limited time for voting. So it's better if only most local positions are electable, when you elect only people you can know personally. Although being able to elect a president might sound powerful in theory, in practice it nearly does nothing. Since president cannot meaningfully go against wishes of all those lower ranked unelected functionaries. They do most of the work simply due to their sheer number. And making them do something they disagree with will simply grind government to a halt, like with government shutdown caused by disagreement about Trump's wall.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @03:45AM (29 children)
So what? China has marketing too.
Just working hard is not the sign of a good leader.
Then why does China suck so much compared to countries with elected leaders?
In case you haven't noticed, in every single democracy the elected positions are in charge of the unelected positions.
They can in a variety of ways, such as by firing those lower ranked unelected functionaries and appointing new unelected functionaries that obey orders.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Saturday November 09 2019, @10:52AM (28 children)
People are not interchangeable cogs. It may not be possible to find efficient replacements for many of them. And if they all are in clash with president this will just lead to a crisis. President is just figurehead whose job is to justify his unconditional alignment to bureaucracy that actually does the job. Thus if people want to change something they have to join government themselves, rather than vote for president that won't be able to change anything. All in all I know near nothing about China. I know a lot more about governments in Europe and US. They originally imported concept of meritocratic government from China as part of cultural exchange. And used it better than China for a time. But later meritocracy got sidelined by dogmatic adherence to ideologies based on fetishization of economic concepts: communism/socialism and capitalism. And even managed to bring China itself in this camp. Better society cannot be built on blind adherence to anything. Current situation in China is caused by western empires trying to teach Chinese their own philosophy after mangling it so it looks like it got fed to to chinese->english and then english->chinese automated translator. True progress is possible only if Chinese are allowed to think for themselves. If we managed to conquer China it doesn't mean our western ideas of governance(and communism/capitalism bullshit) are superior. After all Mongols managed to conquer China too yet nobody has much respect for Mongol teachings now. Same fate awaits European groupthink too.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @02:17PM (2 children)
Replacing disloyal with loyal is not merely interchanging cogs.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Saturday November 09 2019, @02:51PM (1 child)
"Loyal" and "disloyal"are subjective concepts and proper name for "replacing disloyals" is witch hunt.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @07:50PM
With the subjectivity well defined.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @02:38PM (24 children)
Doesn't sound to me like you know much about the history of governments in Europe and US either. Meritocracy, such as it existed in Europe and the US evolved by necessity, not because of exposure to China, which was pretty broken by that time. For example, a lot of meritocracy (and other management/leadership ideas and processes) evolved during the Industrial Era due to the advances of technology (particularly the logistics of mass production) and business. At that time, China was a basket case, merely useful as a market for opium and such.
Hence, the need for democracy. In its absence, you don't get people thinking for themselves.
The Western "empires" got that way through better ideas, processes, technology, and processes. And China has learned despite your assertion of the futility of the process. I'm merely observing that it's time to complete the process and get rid of the tyrannical dead weight of the present Chinese government and implement democracy and rule of law - both clearly superior to what China has now.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Saturday November 09 2019, @02:58PM (23 children)
They only managed to unseat China's domination of trade via military force followed by application of unequal trading treaties, a refinement of viking raiding campaigns. As far as actual philosophy west never had and will never have a particular advantage. China shouldn't adopt western fads. Communism is a western fad too. And capitalism. What will be next? Chinese have no time for this bullshit.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @08:16PM (22 children)
China wasn't dominant in trade in most of the world. There's Africa, New World, and Europe/Middle East, for example as huge areas where Chinese trade wasn't dominant.
And how did that demonstrate transfer of meritocracy ideas, asserted a couple posts back?
Democracy is the obvious rebuttal to that. And that goes back to the Hong Kong protests at the core of the present story. Chinese government via the state media is calling for a harder line. Throw away the parasitic government and then the need for the hard line goes away. There's no unjust attempts at extraditing people for imaginary crimes against the state. Democratic societies work have protests all the time without this sort of drama. The problem resolves itself by ceasing to be a problem.
As for "philosophy", my take is that philosophy is more about learning about and questioning of beliefs than in forming or implementing them. Authoritarian societies are notoriously weak at that.
China is adopting successful western ideas like capitalism whether or not you think they should.
Sure, they do have the time. It's not like they are employing better ideas after all.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday November 10 2019, @09:45AM (21 children)
Hong Kong protests will resolve exactly like french yellow jacket protests. Only difference that french protests were larger in scale. Imposition of western customs on china is cultural imperialism. Period. Those ideologies do nothing. Only actual implementation matters. Underlining idea behind imposing "democracy" upon Chinese is cultural superiority. It requires replacement of whole cultural fabric to make things work. All will be for nothing because it's nothing more than color of your flag.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 10 2019, @12:57PM (20 children)
Even when it's done by the people themselves?
Which is true here. Democracy is a superior culture here.
So? I see no problem with that.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday November 10 2019, @01:54PM (19 children)
The only problem that is useless as there can be no such thing as superior culture. Whole notion is idiotic. Promoting it is empty waste of time.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 10 2019, @02:57PM (18 children)
And yet, we have counterexamples to that all over the place, particularly in China. Some cultures persist and others die out.
When discussing matters that aren't critical to us, like which behaviors are considered polite or not (burping during a meal or wearing white between two dates of the year aren't actions that make or break society), to speak of the superiority of one culture would be folly. But when it comes to survival or the prosperity of a society, culture matters a great deal. For example, I've noticed that a lot of extant Chinese philosophy starts with the idea that normal people can't take care of themselves and discussion of the need for strong leaders. I think that's more because that's what books will survive millennia of authoritarian society than because it is somehow appropriate or right for Chinese culture. Similarly, Chinese culture has been shaped by those millennia of feast and famine.
But we're no longer in that era. Those cultures which suppress human individuality and free thought are inferior because they can't change fast enough to keep up with the world. Where are the innovations and adaptations going to come from? China is much better in this light than it used to be, but it still has a ways to go.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday November 10 2019, @03:35PM (17 children)
Such observations like you did are possible only with extreme amount of cherry-picking. Chinese themselves have own history of individualism too, in fact for most of their history they were ahead of western monarchies in that regard. Only problem that Mongol, Manchu and Western invasions slowed down their development. As long as individualism is associated with the West they will not increase individualistic component in their ideologies because Westerners are jerks. So to promote this among them we need to convince them that Westerners themselves are not individualistic. Otherwise it's a doomed idea.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 10 2019, @03:57PM (16 children)
And they did quite well during those times.
China rotted from within.
Their loss. And as we see in the Hong Kong example, there are much bigger jerks out there than Westerner stereotypes.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday November 10 2019, @08:30PM (15 children)
West has it worse now. It would be more convincing in times of Abe Lincoln but now not anymore. So making Hong Kong more West like would be like curing plague with cholera. Humanity's social institutions always need improvement but adopting external aspects of foreign institutions is never a good idea. It's along the lines of "Lincoln was a great leader so if I'm going to wear same top hat as him I'll be a great leader too!". Same thing with elections. They're not panacea. Some great leaders managed to come to power via them like.. Adolf Hitler! Whoops!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 10 2019, @09:29PM (14 children)
What? You and others have mentioned several such problems. Each case China had it worse. So what's the problem that China doesn't have worst that makes the difference?
You would, of course, adopting the working aspects of foreign institutions, not the external aspects.
Without elections, China managed to get Mao Zedong, one of the few people in history who killed more people than Adolf Hitler. Sure, elections aren't panaceas, but they're great for preventing the sort of widespread injustice and abuse that the two governments are trying to impose in China.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday November 10 2019, @10:00PM (13 children)
And this is exactly what I'm asserting: that general elections are an external aspect, not working aspect. It's nothing more than a PR ploy to feel people represented while in fact hereditary aristocracy(Bush I, Bush II) is still in power.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @12:42AM (12 children)
Except that they aren't still in power and hereditary aristocracy is a nonsense term even for the political families - they still have to get elected.
And once again, since this is a comparison rather than just considering the US in a vacuum, China doesn't do it better. You might detect a theme here.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday November 11 2019, @06:37AM (11 children)
It's simply irrelevant what's going on in China. It's another country with language from another language macro-family, it has own cultural context that's most likely cannot be understood properly for anyone not immersed in their culture. As far as actual evidence goes, "they have it worse" is nothing more than ideological statement which is taken as axiom. Cherry-picked facts aren't needed to prove it, since you don't need to prove axioms.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @01:51PM (10 children)
To you. Allegedly. Yet we get all sorts of interesting narratives from you every time they pull something like this.
Ah yes, talk about how we can't ken their ways and wiggle the fingers mysteriously.
Or truth.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday November 11 2019, @04:02PM (9 children)
It cannot be truth in general since it's not a truth-apt statement. It merely reflects compliance to memes mandated by your local government. It doesn't reflect anything happening in objective reality. It's modern variant of the christian Trinity doctrine, it blatantly makes no sense yet it's still exchanged like meme in order to establish a feeling of commonality and justification for hostile raiding of other communities that don't share same nonsensical ideas.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 11 2019, @09:26PM (8 children)
I like how you contradict yourself in the second sentence. "It" can't be truth-apt except then you provide a context "memes mandated by your local government" that indeed makes it truth-apt. Good job.
Not what truth-apt [wikipedia.org] means:
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday November 11 2019, @09:43PM (7 children)
There is no contradiction. Government more than can mandate you to spew nonsense. Those memes don't carry truth-apt statements, they're merely information tags, they function kinda like smells for territorial animals like cats. They have no other purpose other than friend/foe determination. And multiple meme macrocosms cannot be superior one to other, just like one colony of cats is not inherently superior to other.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @12:26AM (6 children)
Still stand by what I said before. Plus, mandate means coercion. Chinese government has that power.
I can think of plenty of ways a cat colony can be superior to another: lower population density, less disease, no psychopathic kids in the neighborhood, more food, etc. So far you've named one way Chinese culture is superior to Western culture - namely, it's a bit easier for someone immersed in Chinese culture to understand Chinese culture.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Tuesday November 12 2019, @09:32AM (5 children)
I've never tried to even look for advantages of Chinese culture. The point that the whole idea for looking for them is fallacious. It's pure idiocy. In case of cat colonies each one can cover limited territory so many of them can exists at the same time, whatever fine points they have over each other change over time and what can be considered advantage or not is in the eye of beholder. Probably even cats themselves have enough brains to understand that. I see human macrosocieties like this too: they have things in which they're different, they have things that they share. You utterly failed to prove that there is any need to establish an order relation on their set.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @02:18PM (4 children)
I think it would be a healthy exercise to try contrary to assertion.
Unless, of course, it's not.
And yet, none of the conditions I mentioned was subjective like that.
False. None of the societies present now share the facet of nonexistence with the ones that have gone away.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Tuesday November 12 2019, @02:52PM (3 children)
All of the above is nonsense. Justify why would anyone look why one society is superior than other or concede that you have no point. Any advantages or disadvantages are so subjective that any way about proving advantages/disadvantages would involve insane amount of cherry-picking and will not be falsifiable [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @03:08PM (2 children)
I already answered [soylentnews.org] the question.
You're just not paying attention.
Except of course, by its presence or absence in the future. The future will happen.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Tuesday November 12 2019, @06:59PM (1 child)
Your reasons are just cherry-picking. If you look at it objectively currently Chinese are better at surviving than rest of humanity if population numbers are taken in account. Even your theories about relative importance of "strong leader" are unconvincing and unsubstantiated. Like there are people emphasizing different aspects of strong leadership both in China and outside of it. Sweeping statements can be once again only made by cherry-picking. But you still evade my question. Not why is China superior/inferior but why you want to answer this question in the first place? Why even try to grade it on some scale? Why do it? After all your points are driven by a wish to find some advantage so if you find them then it's not admissible proof due to fine-tuning and cherry-picking(They are better in some thing? Then it's irrelevant. They're worse at some thing? Then it's all-important). Only justification is your wish for it to be so. Thus it is circular reasoning. Many of unfortunate things in China are directly caused by Western policies aimed at achieving purely mercantilist aims. Thus it's also self-fulfilling prophecy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday November 12 2019, @07:16PM
Just cherry picking a couple of really important ones. You don't need a thousand reasons to own a cat, you just need a good one.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @03:48PM (21 children)
Before hitting on the bill/protests, I think it's relevant to share something. I had an unpleasant epiphany on the coverage of Hong Kong recently when I was trying to find video of the protester shootings. It seemed odd to me that in the era of a protest of a million smartphones, that full in-context video was not being shared ubiquitously on every single article about the shooting. I mean these sites love multimedia, but instead used only isolated stills? Eventually I did find it. Here are two videos of the exact same shooting incident (video is not especially graphic, and all parties involved lived):
This [reuters.com] is the US mainstream media report.
This [youtube.com] is a video report from Channel News Asia showing extensive footage of the exact same incident.
Please watch at least the US version before reading below due to 'spoilers.'
It feels overly "edgy" to use such a phrase, but I find it difficult to describe the US media version as anything short of propaganda. It not only actively misinforms the user in video and in text, but also provides maliciously edited footage to further aid in the deception. In particular when the protesters scatter and the body of the officer they were beating, potentially to death, is shown - it immediately cuts out to a new frame. And both the text as well as the cherry picked cut of the police response are made to strongly imply that the officer who shot the protester was the one who's life was in danger. Quoting the article:
There is no other term for reporting like this. It is, literally, propaganda. Incidentally this discovery sent me pretty far in the opposite direction even if only out of repulsion.
----
In any case because of this, I do not think it's wise to trust US media reporting on Hong Kong. Consequently I've begun to rely more on first party sources such as in-context videos, original documents, etc. So onto the bill itself. This [wikipedia.org] is your "unjust" bill the the protests began over. The bill was in response to an event described on the Wiki page:
I find it difficult to describe this bill as "unjust." Just about every country in the world shares extradition treaties with their allies, let alone internal territories. And furthermore, these policies were not being passed by China (in the sense that you're referring to the mainland) but by Hong Kong's government. Carrie Lam has a favorable stance towards the mainland, but as the polls I presented show - so do nearly all of Hong Kongers so it's hardly unrepresentative. I don't think the bill was unjust or really had much to do with the protests. Rather, I think the protesters were looking for any plausible act to protest against that could be viably spun as unjust. Indeed the 'opposition' proposal was quite absurd. They proposed that the extradition bill be passed only for Taiwan and then immediately rescinded after the extradition of Chan Tong-kai. I do not think that was a good faith discussion on the downsides of the topic. Indeed, other interests had proposed various amendments to the bill to help prevent abuse, but these were sidestepped for suggestions the protesters-in-waiting surely knew would never, ever, be accepted.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:25PM (20 children)
That doesn't excuse tyranny. What's going on here wouldn't have happened in the first place, if these governments we're accountable to the people.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @05:00PM (19 children)
I think the point of my post is clear. I am not talking about this incident as condemning the protests, but to emphasize that our media coverage is literally less than worthless - it is actively misinforming us. I say this as a pattern because this was obviously not an accident. And I think it's equally obvious our media didn't decide 'ok we'll engage in a little bit of overt propaganda - but just one time!' This is undoubtedly an ongoing trend.
Would you generally believe China's state media take on the protests? I'd hope and assume not. Yet now it is completely clear you equally cannot rely on our media. So how do you aim to form an opinion on Hong Kong protests? Hong Kong citizens who speak fluent English sharing their perspective on western social media? That's certainly not going to be biased, especially not after Twitter and Facebook chose to delete hundreds of thousands of accounts engaged in "inauthentic activity" regarding discussion of Hong Kong. I'm certain they've made sure there's only "authentic activity" now, such as our Reuters' reporting. Wouldn't want any fake news after all.
And so I'm looking to find your "tyranny." What, exactly is it?
When we were going through our multiple red scares in the past, did people ever stop to think... are we in a red scare? Or was it just so normalized that people never even stopped to question themselves? An extradition bill is tyranny, but (just checking the front page) a horrific copyright act bill, government mandated biometric ID tracking, and much more.. are what? Because we live in a democracy they are somehow something different? I mean if that extradition bill is tyranny, I'd take that tyranny a million times over the acts we continue to pass year by year in our government that is "accountable to the people."
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday November 06 2019, @08:10PM (9 children)
I read an interesting piece online a few months ago (which I can't find now) which made the point that the US does not have a state-run media, then posed the question that if they did, how would it look any different from what you have now?
Not that I am claiming my country is any different. One of our major media outlets have just begun campaigning for a particular individual to become the leader of the opposition. They will then campaign for him during the General Election next year.
They have done it before.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:05AM (8 children)
Funny how people who ask that sort of question answer it with bullshit (particularly, since they allow that they can figure out somehow that the US doesn't have a state-run media). First, you wouldn't have the huge attacks on Trump and other politicians. You wouldn't have a vast sea of unsanctioned news and opinion sources. You wouldn't have "fake news".
"One". One major media outlet is not "state-run media".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @02:09PM
I think your interpretation of state media is based on stereotypes instead of reality.
For instance the BBC is state media. Does it simply parrot Boris Johnson's interests? Radio Free Europe [rferl.org]/Asia [rfa.org]/etc are entirely state funded US media outlets built for propaganda. Quite literally, Radio Free Europe was funded by the CIA and used to broadcast propaganda into the USSR. Again, do they simply parrot Trump? Various other organizations, such as NPR, also receive substantial state funding.
State media isn't some well honed propaganda device. It's just another awkward agency of the state filled with contrasts, contradictions and, most of all, incompetence. And no, I don't really think there'd be much difference between what much of our media has turned into, and state media. They already serve as little more than puppets when it comes time for things like our military invasions. Remember Iraq? The evidence is Irrefutable [washingtonpost.com]. The NYTimes chose to take it a step further, Irrefutable and Undeniable [nytimes.com]. Using such strong language in light of evidence that was not only questionable but in fact almost entirely fake is a pretty good indicator of the sort of ineptitude and you get with state media. Ineptitude? The writers of those articles undoubtedly knew that there was a very good chance that the whole WMD thing was bullshit, and the world would discover that soon enough. They could have beat their war drums while still leaving themselves some outs. They didn't, because they're inept and myopic.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday November 07 2019, @09:14PM (6 children)
The particular media outlet I am thinking of is in fact owned by the state.
Does it not strike you as odd that a media organisation is campaigning for particular politicians?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @12:27AM (5 children)
So it's not an example of private media acting as state-run media. Funny how you didn't mention that in your cool story.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday November 08 2019, @02:25AM (4 children)
It is in fact both, as life outside your weird little bubble is slightly more complex than you might think.
The particular institution is known as a State-owned enterprise. [wikipedia.org]
So yes, they act like a private profit driven company and they pay a dividend to the shareholder who happens to be the taxpayers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @04:18AM (3 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Friday November 08 2019, @08:41PM (2 children)
No, it is State owned. It has a board just like any business.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @01:29AM (1 child)
A lot of government organizations have such things.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday November 10 2019, @06:50PM
Yes.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @02:59AM (8 children)
Even if we were to believe you, we still have the problem that you've mentioned no better source. Once we rule out things like news and polls (as a previous AC suggested), then what's left? The lies of the governments?
At some point, you have to recognize that there's a lot of people protesting (whether violent or not) over things that shouldn't even be an issue. Extradition, for example, is a solved problem throughout the democratic world. What happened in Hong Kong was that the governments of China and Hong Kong tried to create an extradition process for matters that aren't crimes in Hong Kong and shouldn't be crimes in China. That violates a core principle of extradition, that the act is a crime in both countries. Another violation in the democratic world, of course, is that the defendant being extradited should be expected to receive a fair trial in the destination country. Since China doesn't have those, well, they shouldn't expect anyone to be extradited to China at all, even from Hong Kong.
Let's start with your question "Would you generally believe China's state media take on the protests?" Is it not tyranny to lie to the public about people exercising a just right to protest? And most people are pretty much in agreement that China is just looking for an excuse to crack down on these protests. They just haven't found the right secret sauce yet.
The mistake of the scares was not attributing a great deal of malice to players like the USSR or Communist China. Those were for real. Instead, it was blaming innocent people for collaborating with those tyrannies. While there's a bit of that happening today in the US, China is not an innocent party in this.
Because if the US does it, it must be ok? Just because other cultures are imperfect doesn't mean we should ignore the big problems!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:12AM (7 children)
Again, don't you see your own inconsistency? China does something, be it trying to pass unjust laws or lie about protesters or whatever else, it's tyranny? We do something such as pass unjust laws or lie about the protesters and it's something else? People yell tyranny, quite all of its quite powerful connotations, without ever bother to think about why they're using some words for certain actors and different words for other actors, to describe what in many cases are the exact same actions. As for sources on news, we have the best source for information that ever existed - raw unedited footage. As I showed with the shooting you can find such things if you search hard enough, and it doesn't lie - at least as long as you ensure there is sufficient context given to the events you're watching. If you hear about some major travesty, find raw footage of it. The more difficult the footage is to find, the more likely that you're being told, at best, a half-truth.
You've also quite reversed what's happening in Hong Kong. The protesters have been violent, destructive, and engaged in a countless litany of crimes. China has all the justification they could ever want or need. But they've learned from us. Their treatment of the Tiananmen Square protests was similar to our treatment of the civil rights protests. In both cases there was a severe backlash following a hardline approach. They're now snuffing out the Hong Kong protests using the exact same playbook we used to snuff out the Occupy Wallstreet protests. Simply let public opinion turn, make life difficult for the protesters without any disproportionate force, infiltrate the protesters, instigate infighting, push for actions likely to further isolate them from society, so forth and so on.
It's the protesters that want to provoke a violent response. The video of the shooting is clear evidence of this. Somehow the protesters knew there was an isolated police officer and so they stalked him and began to beat him, potentially to death. And they not only continued this after a slew of armed officers arrived but then even began to attack the armed officers as well. They likely believe that if they can provoke a hardline crackdown, that they'll gain international support. And so it's an increasingly typical situation where the government wants to act with restraint while the protesters want the government to turn to overt violence. Even in our own history, do you think we didn't provoke the Boston Massacre? Of course we did. But that doesn't change the fact that the violent response led to a sharp galvanization of public support for the 'Americans' and against the British.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:29PM (6 children)
First, that is tyranny.
Who is "we"? I personally am not a government or media source. I don't pass unjust laws or lie about protesters.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:39PM (5 children)
We would be the "west" in general, and the United States in particular. I put "west" in quotes as I would also consider nations such as South Korea or Japan part of the "west" in this reference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @04:33PM (4 children)
Why can't you just be against tyranny in general, whether the US government or the Chinese government does it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:09PM (3 children)
Because I don't agree that these actions are tyrannical in any way, shape, or form. And I think most people would generally agree except when the vile perpetrator of acts like pushing for extradition agreements happens to come from an 'unfriendly' nation. It invariably comes down to declaring things that we regularly engage in, but would never call tyrannical, are now required to be tyrannical. The most basic way to refute poor logic is to assume something is true and show it leads to a contradiction. Our overly enthusiastic use of words like tyranny is a perfect example of this.
I feel like in a way we're gradually turning into a Monthy Python skit. [youtube.com] However, it's somehow real life.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @12:17AM (2 children)
We know that China has set up an enormous apparatus to filter and eliminate speech and knowledge it finds inconvenient. That has long been tyranny. Here, Hong Kong is proposing extradition to China, famed for its lack of justice, for all kinds of dubious charges like political speech. That's long been tyranny as well. There is a remarkable hypocrisy here - lies excused, human freedom violated, and attempts in Hong Kong to break law on an institutional scale for their Chinese tyrants. And yet somehow the hypocrisy of the US completely justifies that evil.
Obviously, you have never considered the logical consequences of your hypocrisy. After all, if the US is similarly given a free pass on its stuff because China does it too, then we'll see a quick race to the bottom of human decency.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @04:56AM (1 child)
China is famed for injustice and targeting people for all kinds of dubious charges? How in the world is that they have 1/5th our incarceration rate then? It's interesting how often the rhetoric and the facts don't really line up, isn't it?
On the firewall not long ago I'd have agreed with you, but I've gradually come to see that social media is probably even more damaging to a society than many of the things we do strictly control, such as gambling or various drugs. The one and only reason I would never support such a thing in the US is because I do not think our politicians tend to prioritize individual > party > nation. The communist party of China is of course also very motivated by its own interest but I get the perception that the general ordering there is nation > party > individual. I think is a big part of the reason that China has been going into overdrive while much of the rest of the world continues to stagnate. Changes such as filtering in the US would be driven with national interests a distant concern to party interests.
So for instance the CPC does control what can be broadcast on television but instead of requiring just political rants or indoctrination, they require a certain chunk of general educational broadcasting. Imagine if our reality TV or clickbait news occasionally got interrupted for an episode of NOVA? It's possible I'm seeing things with rose colored glasses, but to me this not only seems like a very good idea but one that may ultimately end up being a necessary idea. Or even on recruitment to the CPC. Instead of valuing just blind loyalty, or charisma, or whatever other tertiary skill - they are now primarily focusing on technical skills and knowledge. China has quite a lot of problems, but again is also doing quite a lot of things very right.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 09 2019, @01:31AM
Why are you asking this question?
Based on whose evidence?
Indeed.
Yet another place where you've bought into the propaganda. Your assertion is ridiculous, not that I think that gambling or "various drugs" are significantly damaging to a society.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 10 2019, @04:15PM
Bullshit. The Russian "polling" would require the minorities in the Crimea who would be and are harmed by the Russian annexation to vote strongly for joining Russia which didn't happen. A fantasy validation by Gallup and other western pollsters doesn't cover that.
I find it interesting how there's overlap between apologism for the tyranny of the Chinese government and that of the Russian government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @03:12PM (15 children)
In regards to the Chinese voting system, it deserves some consideration. I think a big part of the reason our democratic systems have been failing is because of lowest common denominator issues. Democrats have to promise handouts to people, because it's how they've built their support. Reparations are the most visible example of this. We'll pay for you to vote for us! Even better, we're not paying you with our money! And the party platform is now increasingly frequently now turning into free everything, we'll sort out the implications or how to pay for it all later. Republicans, by contrast, end up proposing things like building a wall, even though if you magically zapped every single brown person out of the country today and split the US and Mexico by a few hundred miles of Pacific, I think it's improbable we'd see a dramatic improvement in conditions/wages for the labor class. It might help some but the gesture is largely symbolic, though the cost is anything but. In both cases it's simply appealing a lowest common denominator.
In China the government is designed as an hierarchy of representatives. People start voting at an extremely low level. Villages vote for their representatives who have a pretty substantial degree of federally backed power to enact positive change in a community they live within. Those representatives in turn vote for a branch of higher representatives one tier up and so on upwards until you get the 2,280 delegates that choose the president. I think the biggest weakness of this system is also its biggest strength. It removes accountability of one representative from individuals substantially far removed from himself. And so there is no real appeal to the lowest common denominator, people only vote for people who are closely connected to them.
Because of this China are able to focus more on the long-term. Many positive longterm actions be demonized with short-term rhetoric. For instance China recently built the world's largest radio telescope. [wikipedia.org] That's a great achievement which will help advance China technologically as well as push them closer to becoming a scientific hub which would have immeasurable benefits. At the same time you are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to listen for faint signals from outer space. In a top-bottom democratic system this is difficult to do because, "Wasting hundreds of millions of dollars to listen for ET while children starve back here on Earth?" It's a disingenuous argument for many reasons, but it's highly effective nonetheless. In the Chinese system these sort of attacks have no value because the 2,280 are sufficiently informed to understand the big picture and the value of such systems.
And of course such a political system does not stop change. If people were genuinely upset with President Xi, then he could be removed in rapid order even if by simply changing their representatives to ones that promised to do such. What about the electoral college? At a glance the systems seem similar, but they're radically different. The electoral college is unelected, unaccountable, and has no power to do anything except decide the president. Something similar would be like if we had county/subcounty mayors each representing around 2,000 or so people. These individuals would have substantial power to enact local change. They would, in turn, elect district mayors who elected regional mayors who ... elected the president. As a citizen your sole responsibility was electing the man who would represent you and 2,000 other people in immediate vicinity to you. Now talking to your representative would no longer be a token act with form letters and bullshit responses. Even if one of these representatives was visited by every single member in his constituency, it'd be less than 7 people a day. That's completely doable.
In America today each member of the house of representatives represents 711,000 people. That's why "write your representative" has become practically a joke. Far from having any impact, you'll be lucky to get a form letter sent out by an intern with a stamp of "your" representative's signature on it. If we drop labels and preconceptions, which system offers a greater degree of democracy?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @06:34PM
Name some of those issues, and then tell me why it would be bad for them to be paid for using taxpayer dollars. Try to take into account other countries where those policies are already implemented while you do so. Then, tell me whether or not you support "free" military, firefighters, law enforcement, and other public services.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:01AM
Keep in mind that you are the lowest common denominator! If governments should be ignoring your opinions, then why should I be any different?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @03:48AM (11 children)
How many levels is that? And why should it ever be more than one level thick?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:27AM (10 children)
When the United States government was first formed (following the first representative election) we had 65 members in the House of Representatives. The exact number of voters is unclear since there were quite a lot of restrictions on who could vote, most exclusive being the need to be a property owner. But our very first presidential election is at least going to give us the right ballpark (since turnout is going to be high for such an historic event). And in that election exactly 43,782 votes were cast. That gives us an average of each representative representing about 674 voters. This number rose pretty quickly, but still stayed quite low. Today in the United States each representative represents more than 700,000 people. We're increasingly passing all sorts of awful laws. But what are you going to do? Your representative couldn't care less about you. His power is not sustained by appealing to his constituency but by mass media advertising alongside party affiliation. When you reduce the the number of people represented each vote suddenly starts to matter and so your voice does matter more than mass media or partisanship.
The Chinese system ends up with the lowest level representative representing about 2,000 people on average. So let's adapt that to our system, but make it a single tier. We'd now have a house of representatives with roughly 164,500 members. Might need to make a somewhat larger house! I think you can see quite clearly why multiple tiers are needed in systems with good ratios of representation:population. And that's just in the United States. China has more than 400% our population, so their representation system would be pushing towards a million members! China has 3 tiers: local, provincial, national. And the local group (which is directly elected by the population) has the power to recall their elected provincial representative at their discretion. Plenty more details here [wikipedia.org].
I suppose the key question is, is democracy sustainable in the age of mass media and the internet? The problems we're facing in the US are more visible than in other places, but they're not unique. Democracy everywhere seems to be running into some turbulent times. And I think this is largely because mass media now means elections are being largely decided by voters whom are not only quite low information, but also being actively deceived. So we're getting to stage of 'Vote for me because I have a pussy.' At one point the 2020 election looked like it might be Trump vs Opera. Reality TV Star vs TV Talkshow Host. Are we really that far off from Idiocracy? And if not, how do we stop it? Trying to get corporations to curate mass media is a joke along the same lines of 'fact checkers.' It's an institutionalized version of the same stupidity we do as masses. Fact Checking = 'stuff that affirms my biases = true', 'stuff that contradicts my biases = false'. Worthless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:54AM (4 children)
I'm a little dubious of this ACs claim that they are American...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:50AM (3 children)
Of course you are. Much like during the Red Scares anybody who said 'Guys, perhaps we're kind of freaking out a bit...?' would immediately be labeled at minimum a 'sympathizer' and likely an overt communist himself. Deport 'em! It's even similar to the various witch trials throughout history. You must remain vigilantly ignorant and zealous against the witch, lest you yourself risk being labeled the next witch. This is precisely how such stupidity spreads. People become afraid to learn about the 'enemy' for fear as being seen as one of them.
And in this case I think there's something people don't really want to consider. About 50 years ago we put a man on the moon and were a united nation making unimaginably rapid progress. At about the same time Chinese were literally starving to death by the tens of millions in their 'Great Leap Forward.' Today? Outside of more toys (all of course made in China as a completely government endorsed means of bypassing our labor/environmental standards), it's hard to say we've advanced much. We are certainly becoming much more divided, and our government has become not only much less representative but also increasingly incapable of achieving things on a big scale. This is particularly important as we enter into the space era of humanity. We can turn to private industry, yet there's no guarantees there. What if China offered Elon Musk effectively unlimited funding and support to become the technical lead in China's space program? The chief architect [wikipedia.org] of our Apollo program was literally a key Nazi scientist we recruited. Led to some amusing satirical quotes, "I am at the stars, but sometimes I hit London."
On the same time frame China has gone from mass starvation to becoming an established superpower. And they've improved the quality of life for their citizens to an unimaginable degree. They are also rapidly advancing in all scientific fields where they are very much capable of achieving 'big picture' progress. They're now running experiments about growing food on the moon while we struggle to get back to the moon at all. Do you think these trajectories are suddenly going to change? If not imagine how the world might look in 50 more years along these lines. One must consider possibility that perhaps China is doing something right, as well as the possibility that we are doing something wrong. I think ignoring this possibility, let alone condemning it, because they are 'bad guys' is the epitome of jingoism, and real jingoism - not the irrelevant divisive rhetoric now regularly published by our lovely media.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @12:14PM (2 children)
You certainly built an impressive straw man out of a single sentence, have a lot of time on our hands don't we? And what an incredibly biased reading of recent (and not so recent) Chinese and American history. The American government, and society in general, seems quite capable of "achieving things on a big scale"; the amount of innovation coming out of that country in the last 20 years has been impressive, much more so than China. Yes, as you say, China is doing much better after making significant free market reforms (people are in the main, no longer starving, yay) but there is no guarantee this will continue without reducing the high levels of corruption, corruption being one of those things that happens when you can only elect your leaders from a well vetted list of candidates (and voted on only by a select group of citizens - did't mention that before did you?).
BTW I'm also not an American :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:01PM (1 child)
I've obviously had this debate before and the regularity with which one is declared a 'secret China spy' or whatever simply for being a mixture of reasonably informed and not rabidly opposed to any and everything from the 'bad guys' is remarkable. Hey China, if you're listening and willing to pay me for my regular rants - please do get in contact. I type fast + come with experience! ;-) But more seriously, I think it indicates some degree of deterioration of our culture that's aiming to prove Orwell right: "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength." How many people who declare e.g. Jinping a dictator, have even the vaguest understanding of the Chinese political system? And I would not understate China's successes. Yes, people are no longer starving. And they now also have the fastest growing middle class in the world, more billionaires than any other nation in the world, and are achieving a slew of technological and scientific successes. The nation once starving while we put a man on the moon is now learning how to grow plants with a lander on the moon while we try to figure out how to get back to the moon...
I agree there's no guarantee it will continue, but that is always true. I see no reason to believe it won't. A big part of the reason for Jinping's popularity is specifically because he's been quite brutal [wikipedia.org] on corruption and has taken down corrupt officials at the height of Chinese politics. And the consequences there are real. You have politburo members serving life sentences in prison. In past corruption cases, the death penalty has been utilized. Ultimately I think the Chinese system offers a lot to consider -- I do not believe that the extremely positive results they're having are just some coincidence. It's similar to our past. The United States went from a poorly developed backwoods outpost to absolutely dominant world leader in less than 200 years. To not deeply consider how we achieved such would be foolhardy for any student of politics or history. At the same time, I think it would be equally foolhardy to not consider why we seem to be stalling out in more recent decades.
---
Two questions for you though:
1) What do you think are some of the "much more impressive" government driven achievements of the US in the past 20 years?
2) What do you mean on only select people being able to vote in China? My Chinese handler hasn't given me a sufficient instruction in their political system yet, so I'm still left to to use the interwebs like a pleb. From the page [wikipedia.org] I referenced earlier:
And that law was adopted in China, as mentioned, in 1998.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 10 2019, @04:21PM
I would point out the massive expansion of global trade (among other things, making the possibility of turning the entire world into the developed world) and development of the internet as examples. They aren't government-driven, but the same is true of the massive development of the Chinese economy which grew more by the absence of government influence than its "driving".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:26PM (4 children)
Name any of those problems that get better with the Chinese system, which doesn't even represent you in the first place. There's the "state-run media" as an AC put it, which serves the role of mass media advertising. There's the sole political party which serves the role of partisanship. This is a great example of whataboutism. China sucks so let's peer at the flaws of a single other country to justify the suck. Even if the US isn't the greatest example of democracy at present, it's not the only democracy out there.
Of course, it is - but will we choose to sustain democracy? That is a different question. As to your criticism of the 2020 election, what's supposed to be wrong with Trump versus Oprah? They're both successful business people who have demonstrated ability to lead large numbers of people. What's different about the US system is that we have a vast portion of society who can run for and be successful at political office. It's not just some ideological or technocratic people who have never had experience outside of the political apparatus.
My take is that China is much more likely to replace its present government in the near future than the US. The US has a government that has lasted over two centuries. China has already radically changed its governance over the past few decades. My take is that instead of creating problems in Hong Kong, it's time to complete that process and become a grown-up country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @07:39PM (3 children)
I answered your question within the block of text you quoted. When your representative only represents a small number of people - your opinion does matter. 2,000 people is enough such that a single individual could meaningfully influence an election in cases of an injustice from a politician. And, furthermore, those 2,000 people are very physically close to you and so they too are likely going to be interested in issues that matter to you. Partisanship and mass media only start to matter at large scales when both people are quite disconnected from their representative and their representative is quite disconnected from them.
---
As for democracy, I assume you're well aware of what a tragedy of the commons is. There's a pond. Each fisherman fishes enough to fill himself. At the end of the year the pond runs dry from overfishing, and there's no fish anymore for anybody. Each person acting in their own best interest results in a catastrophic collapse for everybody - whereas had they chosen to suffer individually, everybody could have at least something for years to come. I do not think democracy is inherently immune to such possibilities.
How many people voted for Hillary because they thought 'I think this person truly stands for the values I believe in and will make a great president.'? How many, instead, voted for her because the alternative was simply unthinkable? And similarly for those that voted for Trump. Think about, from a politician's perspective, what a remarkable achievement they've made. They both managed to get people to vote for them, by the tens of millions, that didn't even like them! All they had to do was to convince enough people that the alternative was Hitler. Politicians discover that dividing people is a far more effective means of garnering votes than actually running on their own policies. And so they set forward on that. And it works. But as a result you end up with increasingly mutually incompatible groups. Democracy does not work when groups are mutually incompatible - it simply reverts to a tyranny of the majority. In the longrun the very act enabling you sustain your control in a democracy ends up undermining that same democracy.
---
Trump vs Oprah was simply indicating what our democracy is devolving into. Our early political leaders were political philosophers and writers who spent extensive time considering political issues, writing on these topics, and trying to logically 'solve' politics so much as they could with what information they had available. In modern times our political leaders have become jokes. It's little more than a mixture of celebrity + demagoguery + charisma. Imagine a political discussion between e.g. James Madison and Trump or Oprah... And it's not like great political thinkers no longer exist, but they don't have what it takes to get elected by large numbers of low information voters.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @12:23AM (2 children)
And yet, who pollutes more? The US or China? Just because democracies don't always deal well with tragedies of the commons doesn't mean that they are the worst at it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 08 2019, @04:27AM (1 child)
I'm not sure you're engaging in good faith here. That is a huge tangent that has little to do directly with the point.
But beyond that, it's a humorous tangent. I can only imagine you thought your question was rhetorical, because the answer is that it's the US, by a huge margin. China's CO2 emissions are 7.7 tons of CO2/capita. The US is more than double that at 15.7. Those figures are made even more absurd by the fact that a huge chunk of China's emissions are also driven by manufacturing outsourced by countries, including the US, so we can bypass our more stringent labor/environmental laws!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 08 2019, @01:19PM
A tangent some AC introduced. Several times someone has similarly claimed problems in US or developed world societies while ignoring that China has those problems as well. It's a dead end not because it's irrelevant but because China happens to be worse at it.
Because mass of CO2 emissions are the sole measure of pollution? I assure you that a lot more people per capita are dying of air, water, and soil pollution in China than the US. And it remains that China's emissions driving by outsourced manufacturing are still China's emissions.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:31AM
In the US, senators used to be appointed by state legislatures. Quite some time ago, the Constitution was changed by amendment so we directly elect them now--making the Senate more democratic and less elitist was the idea; but it has the consequence of causing people to care less about state legislative elections. There hasn't been a huge move to repeal that amendment; but I think it's worthy of consideration. I definitely wouldn't want to go full China though and seat all the House members like that.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @09:15AM (1 child)
Yellow vest protesters (which I don't recall have ended yet, and have been sufficiently violent from both sides.)
Protests for independence in Catalonia, national police showing up to beat down a local organised referendum.
Kent State shootings
...
Yes, if only they were elected democratically that solves all issues.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:33PM
It solves the present issues. Accountable governments wouldn't pass laws that piss off enough of their populace that a large portion of the population goes out to protest. If China wasn't supporting Lam with their vast resources, her government would have already folded.
(Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Wednesday November 06 2019, @03:18PM (2 children)
I think I will choose to be on the side that isn't biting off the ears of their opponents in the street, tough call for many I know. We weren't really prepared for this type of difficult decision in school or any of the books in human history. /s
"You know the rulers of the country are truly great and full of Chi and bring harmony to China, when their loyalists are biting ears off in the street and women are being systematically raped in their own homes." - Confuscious
I never knew that Qi Gong taught the harvesting of organs for profit and the longevity of the rich, but now the leadership of the chinese communist party is showing us their true colors and we should thank at least for their honesty even if their moral bankrupcy is an absolute nightmare for the human species, and complete betrayal of their own heritage, if not human heritage.
Pass this on to Xi the Pooh and his clown car for me, if they ever take a break from their moronic 'tough line' to read fan mail.
Because from this distance, nothing about Xi seems Chinese at all. From where I am sitting, and really, believe me I don't really have a dog in the 'chinese heritage' hunt, so I am actually pretty objective in this so all of you middle managers for this Xi enterprise should fucking pay attention because I'm not kidding and I am really trying to help:
I don't see anything really Chinese about Xi the Pooh and what is happening to China at all, from this angle Chinese culture is being systematically destroyed by Xi and co., and since he has been prime minister he has made a laughing stock out of the Chinese people.
drops mic.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:26PM (1 child)
Something on this topic I've come to realize is that media reporting is useless. You need complete, in context footage. And you need to seek things out rather than passively consuming media.
For instance this [rt.com] is a video from today. There was just an overt and seemingly professional assassination attempt of a pro-Beijing Hong Kong lawmaker. I say professional since it was seemingly quite well planned and executed, even though it failed. He provided a bouquet as a distraction + occupying his target's primary arm, disarms any concern with flattery and harmless doofus outfit, and casually pretends he's looking for his phone for a selfie. Then notice right before he grabs his knife he double checks to ensure the politician is looking away and then grabs his knife and aims straight for the heart with a long wind up for penetration) attempt to assassinate a pro-Beijing Hong Kong lawmaker. So are we left to choose between ear biters (assuming this is even what happened, which without complete in-context video is not really a given) or heart stabbers?
This is not really an attempt to get into a tit-for-tat so much as to emphasize that we're seeing a pretty distorted view of what's happening in Hong Kong ( and I suspect the world at large ). Had this law-maker been in favor of the West/protesters, this would be a breaking news front-page story on every single US mainstream outlet. Some would likely even begin hinting at using it as a justification for more direct "intervention" in China. But because the guy who was killed was of the wrong political opinion it's going to be, at most, a side-note where the sites will put up an article and then bury it. E.g. here [nytimes.com] is the NYTimes coverage of it. Clearly not worthy of the frontpage unlike articles such as, literally, "Why Donald Trump Hates Your Dog." [nytimes.com] Amazing what trash our media has turned into.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @05:16PM
Yep, when you control the news you can literally get away with murder.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday November 06 2019, @03:22PM (4 children)
Naive western propagandists who promote (and, most obviously, operate) Hong Kong protests are failing to understand two fundamental concepts of Chinese civilization: Huaxia and Tianxia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huaxia [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianxia [wikipedia.org]
And as well they are completely ignorant about concept of martial arts virtues: Wuxia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia [wikipedia.org]
For illustration of the complexity in relations of those, I recommend to study in detail a story line of the movie Hero
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_(2002_film) [wikipedia.org]
which spectacularly represents Huaxia by Tianxia through Wuxia.
Hong Kong demonstrations exhibit no such qualities at all. By a civilization paradigm, they are not Chinese. Why their leaders use biblical (Joshua, Nathan) names?!??
So, to my perception, they are obviously just puppets of the youknowwhom.
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @03:40PM
They are clearly tainted by the daj00s for 99 years. Clearly every people should have its own nation and every nation should stick to their own lane.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday November 06 2019, @04:36PM
One wonders how your arguments would play against a non-straw man. Naive Western propagandists can't get that kind of turnout.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @07:15PM
Yes. It's almost as if they have a 99 year heritage [wikipedia.org] of a western civilization [wikipedia.org], and had been promised to maintain their own governmental style [wikipedia.org], rather than following classical Chinese values, and are pushing back against the forcible imposition of foreign [wikipedia.org] and different [wikipedia.org] values [wikipedia.org].
But I'm sure it's just because they are just good Chinese people just like those who went through the Maoist takeover and Cultural Revolution, and are merely puppets of nefarious foreign powers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @06:06AM
You call out others as propagandist and yet appeared to have swallowed Chinese government propaganda wholesale. Communist China is not the inheritor of traditional Chinese culture and in fact stands in opposition to it. I would have thought that the cultural revolution was sufficient evidence of this.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Wednesday November 06 2019, @06:03PM (6 children)
Others have commented on who is right and wrong. Putting that aside for a moment, one wonders what is the end game? Hong Kong goes into open revolt; the Chinese military respond; unrest and political violence for decades to come?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @06:47PM (3 children)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 06 2019, @07:24PM (1 child)
If Ukraine had a Russian-appointed leader, and tried to pass a law saying "if Russia asks for it, you will be extradited to Russia with no right of appeal," I imagine they would self-organize a protest.
I agree many armchair activists in more complacent Western countries wouldn't do this. That is not representative of the world cultures.
Hong Kong is in a very precarious situation, and many people there are hyper-aware of their state vis-a-vis mainland China, and are prepared to take action. Just look at what happened with SOPA/PIPA... now imagine it was your life and liberty at stake.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @05:12AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:52PM
The Chinese government will come out of this weaker no matter what. China? Not so.
Unless, of course, it is not an "insignificant detail". One wonders how China missed this alleged foreign influence? Perhaps they need to replace their leadership with someone more competent?
I'll note also that I think a democratic China would be far more powerful in the long run than the present state!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 07 2019, @08:23AM (1 child)
Why assume this would have any particular endgame? So far as I can tell there are only two things unique about this protest:
1) The extensive 'foreign meddling.' Imagine if a nation such as Russia/China/etc was driving nonstop overt propaganda in support of the Occupy Protests, or if the Occupy protesters were actively waving Chinese/Russian flags and meeting with high level Chinese/Russian diplomats. This protest is pretty unique in that any notion of national impartiality has been thrown out the window by both the protesters, host nations, and foreign nations.
2) The scale. This is a huge factor at first, but not once you consider the geography of the protest. Hong Kong is tiny. If it was a circle it'd have a side-to-side diameter of about 20 miles. The population density in the main district of the region is over 100,000 per square mile. Many people support various protests, such as the Occupy ones, but are unable to participate due to geography. In Hong Kong this isn't a problem. It also helps reduce attrition. Part of the way we cracked down on Occupy was getting them where they sleep. In Hong Kong a protester can come from the entire opposite side of the region, protest, and easily make it back to sleep in his comfy bed at home. For that matter they can even go take a bath room break at home, grab some munchies, and then and get back to protesting. So the scale is going to be more a reflection of geography than any particularly unique appeal. Protesting is extremely convenient.
As for the outcome, it seems to me that China has learned from America in regards to how to handle protests. Consider our response to the Civil Rights protests as opposed to our response to the Occupy Wallstreet protests. The latter very much had the potential to transform into the former, but we effectively snuffed it out with more subterfuge and less violence. I think China has certainly learned from this lesson and is responding similarly. Similarly, with each act of violence and destruction the protesters lose ever more support. Should China choose to act, it will be only when they have near ubiquitous support from Hong Kong's residents.
Right now there are also ongoing major protests in Spain, France, Ecuador and many other places. However, we mostly don't hear about them because they don't hit the #1 tickbox mentioned up above. For the most part they're all going to end the same way. Over time, they lose gas and eventually run out entirely. The civil rights protests went on for 14 years, through administrations of both major parties, before achieving anything real. We don't have that sort of focus anymore, and I think that's because the things we fight against are not of the same sort. Real and overt state-enforced skin-color based discrimination is a bit more unifying and motivating than protesting against an extradition treaty.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday November 07 2019, @01:58PM
Much of that did happen. So what?
The Occupy Wall Street protests were politically driven. Once the political goals were attained, the financial support for the protests went away.
And they are likely to be addressed or ignored depending on whether the general public supports the protests.
I know it's a shame that your government thugs are under a microscope while others aren't. It's not fair, but you can always fix that by addressing the causes of the protests. It's not going to be the presence of foreign cooties, but injustice that brings that many people out into the streets.