4 ms·

No offense, but it sounds like she's trying to justify authoritarianism by shifting the blame to its victims for not "getting out".

by jmckib 11y ago

crdb 11y ago
I read it somewhat differently. From my limited interaction with Chinese citizen as a resident of Singapore, many think more pragmatically. "We do what it takes to get a billion people to first world middle class standard of living. Yes, there's a bit of collateral damage but you guys' industrial revolution was not all roses, read some Dickens. We can have the luxury of rights when we're there. You're telling me to eat cake since we ran out of bread." In other words the majority of Chinese citizen (that I know - YMMV, selection bias, etc.) think that the government is doing an alright job considering its constraints, and don't feel particularly oppressed - the authoritarianism is population-sanctioned. Just like the new French anti-terrorism measures.
- paul_milovanov 11y ago
  crdb: are you my separated-at-birth twin? I've been looking for you all my life. These are my thoughts exactly, down to my favorite Dickensian analogy. Everybody's favorite pastime, pointing fingers on China on everything from "freedoms" to the environment, is really more of a reflection on the commentators' astonishing lack of historical perspective. There's no shortage of fifty-year-olds around China today (say, about a population of Sweden's worth) that will tell you how they were plucked out of the university and sent to work the fields for years during the Cultural Revolution, and point out the exact level -- somewhere between knee- and waist-deep in shit -- that the country was at prior to Deng Xiaoping. I'm sure anybody that witnessed the change from then to now would have a richer and more nuanced opinion on China's government.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- jmckib 11y ago
  > We can have the luxury of rights when we're there. You're telling me to eat cake since we ran out of bread The majority of economists would disagree. More economic and political freedom would accelerate economic progress, not hold it back. Check out Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu for an in depth discussion of this in relation to China.
  - paul_milovanov 11y ago
    The chicken-egg problem has been solved and nobody told me? my, my.
    - jmckib 11y ago
      All I'm saying is that more freedom causes economic growth, which is not a controversial statement. I think you're saying that economic growth will lead to more freedom. I'm sure that's true to some degree, but there are counterexamples. The Soviet Union experienced dramatic economic growth, but freedom never improved, and eventually the economy stagnated, as will China's (I predict). In any case, surely more freedom in China would not be a bad thing.
      - rumcajz 11y ago
        > All I'm saying is that more freedom causes economic growth What about Russia in '90s?
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
paul_milovanov 11y ago
Nope, she's describing the only reasonable way of operating under conditions you can't change. So far as Chinese companies are concerned, the government has just standardized and formalized rules already in place. So far as foreign companies are concerned, they planned for this possibility and can now proceed accordingly. If there's any international company that doesn't have their Chinese infrastructure in a silo, their friends and loved ones should take away their keys RIGHT NOW because they're a danger for themselves. This brings back memories -- back when they were making lots of money, RIM had a row with Indian government over the same issue. They did a little "we're outraged" dance and promptly forked over the keys -- they'd be idiots not to (and idiots with a lawsuit for breach of fiduciary duty on their hands). This is also far better for the users, although a lot more work, than pulling out of the country entirely, as some companies have done in the past. The world is a complicated and hairy place, and you can either pretend otherwise or be a global company. For instance, I suspect that it might be more than a coincidence that large telecom companies that have any presence in emerging markets tend not to have any presence in the US (someone had a bright idea to pass a law that gives US courts jurisdiction to punish companies with presence in the US for "engaging in corruption" abroad). I'd suspect everyone else goes out of their way to create a wide moat between the mother corp and their offspring (Nestle India comes to mind, which trades independently on NSE)

No offense, but it sounds like she's trying to justify authoritarianism by shifting the blame to its victims for not "getting out".

by jmckib 11y ago

No offense, but it sounds like she's trying to justify authoritarianism by shifting the blame to its victims for not "getting out".

crdb 11y ago

I read it somewhat differently. From my limited interaction with Chinese citizen as a resident of Singapore, many think more pragmatically. "We do what it takes to get a billion people to first world middle class standard of living. Yes, there's a bit of collateral damage but you guys' industrial revolution was not all roses, read some Dickens. We can have the luxury of rights when we're there. You're telling me to eat cake since we ran out of bread." In other words the majority of Chinese citizen (that I know - YMMV, selection bias, etc.) think that the government is doing an alright job considering its constraints, and don't feel particularly oppressed - the authoritarianism is population-sanctioned. Just like the new French anti-terrorism measures.

paul_milovanov 11y ago
crdb: are you my separated-at-birth twin? I've been looking for you all my life. These are my thoughts exactly, down to my favorite Dickensian analogy. Everybody's favorite pastime, pointing fingers on China on everything from "freedoms" to the environment, is really more of a reflection on the commentators' astonishing lack of historical perspective. There's no shortage of fifty-year-olds around China today (say, about a population of Sweden's worth) that will tell you how they were plucked out of the university and sent to work the fields for years during the Cultural Revolution, and point out the exact level -- somewhere between knee- and waist-deep in shit -- that the country was at prior to Deng Xiaoping. I'm sure anybody that witnessed the change from then to now would have a richer and more nuanced opinion on China's government.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
jmckib 11y ago
> We can have the luxury of rights when we're there. You're telling me to eat cake since we ran out of bread The majority of economists would disagree. More economic and political freedom would accelerate economic progress, not hold it back. Check out Why Nations Fail by Daron Acemoglu for an in depth discussion of this in relation to China.
- paul_milovanov 11y ago
  The chicken-egg problem has been solved and nobody told me? my, my.
  - jmckib 11y ago
    All I'm saying is that more freedom causes economic growth, which is not a controversial statement. I think you're saying that economic growth will lead to more freedom. I'm sure that's true to some degree, but there are counterexamples. The Soviet Union experienced dramatic economic growth, but freedom never improved, and eventually the economy stagnated, as will China's (I predict). In any case, surely more freedom in China would not be a bad thing.
    - rumcajz 11y ago
      > All I'm saying is that more freedom causes economic growth What about Russia in '90s?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

paul_milovanov 11y ago

Nope, she's describing the only reasonable way of operating under conditions you can't change. So far as Chinese companies are concerned, the government has just standardized and formalized rules already in place. So far as foreign companies are concerned, they planned for this possibility and can now proceed accordingly. If there's any international company that doesn't have their Chinese infrastructure in a silo, their friends and loved ones should take away their keys RIGHT NOW because they're a danger for themselves. This brings back memories -- back when they were making lots of money, RIM had a row with Indian government over the same issue. They did a little "we're outraged" dance and promptly forked over the keys -- they'd be idiots not to (and idiots with a lawsuit for breach of fiduciary duty on their hands). This is also far better for the users, although a lot more work, than pulling out of the country entirely, as some companies have done in the past. The world is a complicated and hairy place, and you can either pretend otherwise or be a global company. For instance, I suspect that it might be more than a coincidence that large telecom companies that have any presence in emerging markets tend not to have any presence in the US (someone had a bright idea to pass a law that gives US courts jurisdiction to punish companies with presence in the US for "engaging in corruption" abroad). I'd suspect everyone else goes out of their way to create a wide moat between the mother corp and their offspring (Nestle India comes to mind, which trades independently on NSE)