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They'd just see a black pot calling out the kettle. Not they would. They DO. But honestly, despite its evident corruption that even their own leader admits is

by PakG1 10y ago

They'd just see a black pot calling out the kettle. Not they would. They DO. But honestly, despite its evident corruption that even their own leader admits is the biggest threat to the viability of their government, their government still strikes me as more competent in a gets-shit-done way than most other countries I see these days (considering only G20 countries, the smaller your country is, the less complex your problems are, and consider that China's problems are MASSIVE). Canadian living in China, amazed by how well things get done here, despite the massive problems they have. Albeit they aren't a democracy, so they don't need to care as much about doing what people want. On the flip side, the government is focusing mostly on what people want anyway, so it mostly works out. People who are ignorant about China are significantly ignorant about how well-run their government is. It's much more of a meritocracy than other countries' governments are, despite the evident corruption. I'm not justifying abusing human rights. I am torn in that I don't know how they keep a handle on their country if they don't have an iron fist. I find that most people who say otherwise are ignorant about the complex reality in China. It's not a simple situation.

muglug 10y ago
The problem highlighted here is that a lack of free press in China means you will never know the scale of corruption, especially at a provincial level. Unless you have access to a vast underground network of informers, I don't much trust your view that the government is 'well-run'.
- PakG1 10y ago
  I'd say the question is what does "well-run" mean? Does it mean infrastructure is getting built at a high-quality level, GDP per capita is rising, life expectancy is increasing, quality of life is increasing, and so on? All of that stuff is happening in China, and the world doesn't require a free press to confirm that. Again, people who don't know much about China don't know about the details of what's happening on the ground. They just see all this fear-mongering in the press about how horrible and evil China and its government is. The truth is always much more nuanced. Everyone lives in their own echo chamber. Just some people aren't aware that they do. If Clinton supporters didn't live in such an echo chamber, they wouldn't have realized how out of touch they were with all the people who voted for Trump, and how angry all those Trump supporters were at the establishment. If the Trump supporters didn't live in such an echo chamber, they wouldn't have elected someone who looks like he doesn't know what he's doing. Again, Xi Jiping is on record saying that corruption is the biggest risk being faced by the Chinese government. He is on record saying that the Communist Party's future depends on stamping out corruption. Their methods for identifying and stamping out corruption may or may not work. But it is disingenuous for anyone to suggest that their government is either ignorant of the level of corruption or actively trying to hide it. You didn't say that. But constantly focusing on corruption is preaching to the choir. Would a free press help? It may, it may not. It may not because a free press is also a blunt instrument. You have a large percentage of the population that's uneducated and easily manipulated. Think fake news and alternative facts are a problem in the US? China does not want to open that Pandora's Box. Seeing what's happening in the US, I don't blame them. A lot of China's problems require finesse in terms of sound long-term policy and policy execution, and I am sad to say that after living here for a while, I agree that a free press could whip uneducated masses into an unproductive frenzy. This situation is very dissimilar to how Wycliffe, Huss, and Luther translated the Bible to English to free them from control of the Catholic Church. These people are often literate already, thank you very much.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    > the world doesn't require a free press to confirm that Well, yes, we do. I also can't imagine how Chinese people could ever know those without a free press. They can at most gather some anecdotes about them and their family, such anecdotes are almost guaranteed to be highly correlated and thus useless for knowing any overall trend.
    - z2 10y ago
      I'd propose that a free press is not a binary thing. Sure, by definition, if all we care about is government censorship and intimidation, China's press is not free. But if we want to see the root issue of good quality, comprehensive, bias-free news, most media (at least in the US according to the following study) fails the test [0]. That said, are you suggesting that highly-correlated, anecdotal evidence of having more wealth, better quality social services, and not currently suffering in a retrogressive cultural revolution can't be trusted because there is no free press to tell people that their quality of living is definitely trending upwards? 0: https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/2637/MeasureMediaBias.pdf https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/26...
      - marcosdumay 10y ago
        It is certainly not a binary thing. But as the saying goes, a big enough quantitative difference becomes a qualitative difference. The US government can not lie too much about the US wealth. Somebody would immediately call the lie, and people would become mad. Even here at Brazil, that scales way lower on press freedom, the government can not lie about any objective measure of wealth (but has extensive lies about subjective ones). The Chinese government seems to lie about their numbers every single time - everybody just discounts them by now, but there is no reason to assume the official numbers have even the correct signal. And yes, I'm saying exactly that. People there have no way of knowing if for anybody they see progressing in life there isn't a dozen other having their life ruined, because those later dozen are invisible.
        10y ago

by PakG1 10y ago

muglug 10y ago

The problem highlighted here is that a lack of free press in China means you will never know the scale of corruption, especially at a provincial level. Unless you have access to a vast underground network of informers, I don't much trust your view that the government is 'well-run'.

PakG1 10y ago
I'd say the question is what does "well-run" mean? Does it mean infrastructure is getting built at a high-quality level, GDP per capita is rising, life expectancy is increasing, quality of life is increasing, and so on? All of that stuff is happening in China, and the world doesn't require a free press to confirm that. Again, people who don't know much about China don't know about the details of what's happening on the ground. They just see all this fear-mongering in the press about how horrible and evil China and its government is. The truth is always much more nuanced. Everyone lives in their own echo chamber. Just some people aren't aware that they do. If Clinton supporters didn't live in such an echo chamber, they wouldn't have realized how out of touch they were with all the people who voted for Trump, and how angry all those Trump supporters were at the establishment. If the Trump supporters didn't live in such an echo chamber, they wouldn't have elected someone who looks like he doesn't know what he's doing. Again, Xi Jiping is on record saying that corruption is the biggest risk being faced by the Chinese government. He is on record saying that the Communist Party's future depends on stamping out corruption. Their methods for identifying and stamping out corruption may or may not work. But it is disingenuous for anyone to suggest that their government is either ignorant of the level of corruption or actively trying to hide it. You didn't say that. But constantly focusing on corruption is preaching to the choir. Would a free press help? It may, it may not. It may not because a free press is also a blunt instrument. You have a large percentage of the population that's uneducated and easily manipulated. Think fake news and alternative facts are a problem in the US? China does not want to open that Pandora's Box. Seeing what's happening in the US, I don't blame them. A lot of China's problems require finesse in terms of sound long-term policy and policy execution, and I am sad to say that after living here for a while, I agree that a free press could whip uneducated masses into an unproductive frenzy. This situation is very dissimilar to how Wycliffe, Huss, and Luther translated the Bible to English to free them from control of the Catholic Church. These people are often literate already, thank you very much.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  > the world doesn't require a free press to confirm that Well, yes, we do. I also can't imagine how Chinese people could ever know those without a free press. They can at most gather some anecdotes about them and their family, such anecdotes are almost guaranteed to be highly correlated and thus useless for knowing any overall trend.
  - z2 10y ago
    I'd propose that a free press is not a binary thing. Sure, by definition, if all we care about is government censorship and intimidation, China's press is not free. But if we want to see the root issue of good quality, comprehensive, bias-free news, most media (at least in the US according to the following study) fails the test [0]. That said, are you suggesting that highly-correlated, anecdotal evidence of having more wealth, better quality social services, and not currently suffering in a retrogressive cultural revolution can't be trusted because there is no free press to tell people that their quality of living is definitely trending upwards? 0: https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/2637/MeasureMediaBias.pdf https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/26...
    - marcosdumay 10y ago
      It is certainly not a binary thing. But as the saying goes, a big enough quantitative difference becomes a qualitative difference. The US government can not lie too much about the US wealth. Somebody would immediately call the lie, and people would become mad. Even here at Brazil, that scales way lower on press freedom, the government can not lie about any objective measure of wealth (but has extensive lies about subjective ones). The Chinese government seems to lie about their numbers every single time - everybody just discounts them by now, but there is no reason to assume the official numbers have even the correct signal. And yes, I'm saying exactly that. People there have no way of knowing if for anybody they see progressing in life there isn't a dozen other having their life ruined, because those later dozen are invisible.
      - 10y ago