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>> "You have a wealthy company from a developed nation going into an economy or democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground - and taking adv

>> "You have a wealthy company from a developed nation going into an economy or democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground - and taking advantage of that to profit from that," he told MPs. > Christopher Wylie (ex-Facebook whistleblower) just gave the primary reason why Facebook is blocked in China. No. China isn't a "democracy that's still struggling to get its feet on the ground," China is a country run by anti-democratic authoritarians who want to protect their power by controlling the information their people see. It's also rather protectionist, and does not want foreign companies to be major players on its internet. The way Facebook makes its money has nothing to do with why it's blocked there.

chrischen 9y ago
So you think the Chinese government's motivation for protectionism is purely because they are undemocratic evil-doers hell-bent on preserving their power. I disagree and believe they have other motivations behind protectionism, limiting democracy, and authoritarianism. It seems you probably don't have background in Chinese history. There was a period pre-WWII where China was divvied up by colonial powers and humiliated in defeats for over a century (primarily due to a weak navy). The country was addicted at that time not to Facebook but to opium, which was imposed upon by foreign influence. Both nationalist and communist parties recognized this and vowed to unify and expel foreign power. The communists ended up essentially winning, but the legacy of weariness towards foreign influence persisted. I can assure you the #1 and #2 things in China's mind when banning facebook and google are to #1 prevent a backdoor for the US into massive data collection and #2 nurture homegrown technology companies to prevent spilling wealth out. You might consider #2 to be unfair, but you'd also have to consider that the US was a fully developed economy, and China's developing economy would not be fairly competing against foreign tech companies. The decision has nothing to do with free speech as facebook would simply have to comply with local laws and would have gladly censored at the request of China—but that wasn't the issue. That being said, protectionism isn't exclusive to China. It's adopted heavily in Japan too, as well as in the US. You can't really argue for or against it as it's a matter of sovereign policy as foreign citizens do not have a natural right to exploit a sovereign market. Regarding democracy and authoritarianism, keep in mind the the country was super poor and uneducated. Ceding power democratically across the country would have probably resulted in massive corruption. The country is not a dictatorship though, but it is governed by a subset of the population who are communist party members. While they probably want to keep power to themselves, they'll also in theory be better governors than the general public. Believe it or not the population of China overwhelmingly supports their government. The authority and legitimacy of a government does not come from democracy per se (nor from opinions of people half-way around the world), but from the people. Democracy is a great way to represent the power of the people, but as long as the population approves and delegates power to the government (by not rebelling), then it has legitimacy. So no there's no democracy, but if they did have a vote right now the people would side with their government, and not the poorly informed foreign distant opinions from people like yourself. It just so happens their form of government does not delegate decisions of governance at the same granularity to the people as we do in America, but then again we don't have much granularity either through our representative form of government (we don't even pick the president!). They pick their premier through rules of the communist party. We pick our president through a set of complex rules masking the fact that an electoral college actually selects the president (with things like super-delegates, which were enacted to reduce the power of the average voter since one election the democratically elected candidate didn't satisfy the DNC party expectations). In the end they have one party, we have only two real parties. There's not much difference except we directly elect a few more representatives than they do.
- Slansitartop 9y ago
  > Regarding democracy and authoritarianism, keep in mind the the country was super poor and uneducated. Ceding power democratically across the country would have probably resulted in massive corruption. Are you claiming China's government isn't massively corrupt right now? > The country is not a dictatorship though Never claimed that it was (at this moment). > Believe it or not the population of China overwhelmingly supports their government. The authority and legitimacy of a government does not come from democracy per se (nor from opinions of people half-way around the world), but from the people. Democracy is a great way to represent the power of the people, but as long as the population approves and delegates power to the government (by not rebelling), then it has legitimacy. I too have seen that state-published English-language book about the survey that "shows" the Chinese people want a "moral" government before a democratic one. It's right next to a similar title about "true history" of the Dalai Llama (or something like that) in the bookshop in the international terminal of the Beijing airport. On some level, I agree it's true. But the question of, "do the Chinese people support their government" is a complicated one that I don't think is even answerable at a meaningful level right now. The Chinese information environment doesn't permit it, since it doesn't give the Chinese people the necessary ideological framework or information about alternatives to even form an independent opinion. I'm sure some people do so anyway, but it's a much harder task. In the west people benefit from concepts like "you can love your country and hate your government;" relatively unbiased information; and more varied, competing, opinions. > So you think the Chinese government's motivation for protectionism is purely because they are undemocratic evil-doers hell-bent on preserving their power. > I disagree and believe they have other motivations behind protectionism, limiting democracy, and authoritarianism. And those motivations are? The historic national humiliation thing? To be honest that reads as more of a convenient "surface" justification akin to American evidence-laundering via "parallel construction" from evidence obtained by illegal surveillance. It's not supported by the history of Google in China, for instance. They had a large ~30% marketshare until they refused to play ball on censorship, they then they were blocked, but not before.
  - chrischen 9y ago
    > Are you claiming China's government isn't massively corrupt right now? The corruption happens at lower levels, and is usually a byproduct of too much power granted to someone who doesn't deserve it. Enabling democracy would have caused more corruption as it requires a well-informed public. China during the revolution was definitely not full of educated and well-informed people. > But the question of, "do the Chinese people support their government" is a complicated one that I don't think is even answerable at a meaningful level right now. The Chinese information environment doesn't permit it, since it doesn't give the Chinese people the necessary ideological framework or information about alternatives to even form an independent opinion. I'm sure some people do so anyway, but it's a much harder task. In the west people benefit from concepts like "you can love your country and hate your government;" relatively unbiased information; and more varied, competing, opinions. You're clearly not Chinese, and probably don't many people in China. But I am, and I know people who live in China (middle class, even poor people), and the sentiment is that the government is doing a good job. > And those motivations are? The historic national humiliation thing? To be honest that reads as more of a convenient "surface" justification akin to American evidence-laundering via "parallel construction" from evidence obtained by illegal surveillance. It's not supported by the history of Google in China, for instance. They had a large ~30% marketshare until they refused to play ball on censorship, they then they were blocked, but not before. Protectionism is preferred by countries in the same way as the "Buy USA" rhetoric in America that you may be able to relate to. The unique history China had with colonialism is just a bonus. It turns out that China was smart enough to recognize the national importance of the internet technology industry, and levied massive walls against them. You can't easily put an import tax on Google, but you can block them. I can guarantee you it had nothing to do with censorship. Google/Facebook are businesses and would never make a stand by jeopardizing their China business by not complying with local censorship laws. It was never about that. It was simply because they were not welcome, and that if they did flourish they'd have troves of data on Chinese citizens in the hands of a foreign entity.

chrischen 9y ago

So you think the Chinese government's motivation for protectionism is purely because they are undemocratic evil-doers hell-bent on preserving their power. I disagree and believe they have other motivations behind protectionism, limiting democracy, and authoritarianism. It seems you probably don't have background in Chinese history. There was a period pre-WWII where China was divvied up by colonial powers and humiliated in defeats for over a century (primarily due to a weak navy). The country was addicted at that time not to Facebook but to opium, which was imposed upon by foreign influence. Both nationalist and communist parties recognized this and vowed to unify and expel foreign power. The communists ended up essentially winning, but the legacy of weariness towards foreign influence persisted. I can assure you the #1 and #2 things in China's mind when banning facebook and google are to #1 prevent a backdoor for the US into massive data collection and #2 nurture homegrown technology companies to prevent spilling wealth out. You might consider #2 to be unfair, but you'd also have to consider that the US was a fully developed economy, and China's developing economy would not be fairly competing against foreign tech companies. The decision has nothing to do with free speech as facebook would simply have to comply with local laws and would have gladly censored at the request of China—but that wasn't the issue. That being said, protectionism isn't exclusive to China. It's adopted heavily in Japan too, as well as in the US. You can't really argue for or against it as it's a matter of sovereign policy as foreign citizens do not have a natural right to exploit a sovereign market. Regarding democracy and authoritarianism, keep in mind the the country was super poor and uneducated. Ceding power democratically across the country would have probably resulted in massive corruption. The country is not a dictatorship though, but it is governed by a subset of the population who are communist party members. While they probably want to keep power to themselves, they'll also in theory be better governors than the general public. Believe it or not the population of China overwhelmingly supports their government. The authority and legitimacy of a government does not come from democracy per se (nor from opinions of people half-way around the world), but from the people. Democracy is a great way to represent the power of the people, but as long as the population approves and delegates power to the government (by not rebelling), then it has legitimacy. So no there's no democracy, but if they did have a vote right now the people would side with their government, and not the poorly informed foreign distant opinions from people like yourself. It just so happens their form of government does not delegate decisions of governance at the same granularity to the people as we do in America, but then again we don't have much granularity either through our representative form of government (we don't even pick the president!). They pick their premier through rules of the communist party. We pick our president through a set of complex rules masking the fact that an electoral college actually selects the president (with things like super-delegates, which were enacted to reduce the power of the average voter since one election the democratically elected candidate didn't satisfy the DNC party expectations). In the end they have one party, we have only two real parties. There's not much difference except we directly elect a few more representatives than they do.

Slansitartop 9y ago
> Regarding democracy and authoritarianism, keep in mind the the country was super poor and uneducated. Ceding power democratically across the country would have probably resulted in massive corruption. Are you claiming China's government isn't massively corrupt right now? > The country is not a dictatorship though Never claimed that it was (at this moment). > Believe it or not the population of China overwhelmingly supports their government. The authority and legitimacy of a government does not come from democracy per se (nor from opinions of people half-way around the world), but from the people. Democracy is a great way to represent the power of the people, but as long as the population approves and delegates power to the government (by not rebelling), then it has legitimacy. I too have seen that state-published English-language book about the survey that "shows" the Chinese people want a "moral" government before a democratic one. It's right next to a similar title about "true history" of the Dalai Llama (or something like that) in the bookshop in the international terminal of the Beijing airport. On some level, I agree it's true. But the question of, "do the Chinese people support their government" is a complicated one that I don't think is even answerable at a meaningful level right now. The Chinese information environment doesn't permit it, since it doesn't give the Chinese people the necessary ideological framework or information about alternatives to even form an independent opinion. I'm sure some people do so anyway, but it's a much harder task. In the west people benefit from concepts like "you can love your country and hate your government;" relatively unbiased information; and more varied, competing, opinions. > So you think the Chinese government's motivation for protectionism is purely because they are undemocratic evil-doers hell-bent on preserving their power. > I disagree and believe they have other motivations behind protectionism, limiting democracy, and authoritarianism. And those motivations are? The historic national humiliation thing? To be honest that reads as more of a convenient "surface" justification akin to American evidence-laundering via "parallel construction" from evidence obtained by illegal surveillance. It's not supported by the history of Google in China, for instance. They had a large ~30% marketshare until they refused to play ball on censorship, they then they were blocked, but not before.
- chrischen 9y ago
  > Are you claiming China's government isn't massively corrupt right now? The corruption happens at lower levels, and is usually a byproduct of too much power granted to someone who doesn't deserve it. Enabling democracy would have caused more corruption as it requires a well-informed public. China during the revolution was definitely not full of educated and well-informed people. > But the question of, "do the Chinese people support their government" is a complicated one that I don't think is even answerable at a meaningful level right now. The Chinese information environment doesn't permit it, since it doesn't give the Chinese people the necessary ideological framework or information about alternatives to even form an independent opinion. I'm sure some people do so anyway, but it's a much harder task. In the west people benefit from concepts like "you can love your country and hate your government;" relatively unbiased information; and more varied, competing, opinions. You're clearly not Chinese, and probably don't many people in China. But I am, and I know people who live in China (middle class, even poor people), and the sentiment is that the government is doing a good job. > And those motivations are? The historic national humiliation thing? To be honest that reads as more of a convenient "surface" justification akin to American evidence-laundering via "parallel construction" from evidence obtained by illegal surveillance. It's not supported by the history of Google in China, for instance. They had a large ~30% marketshare until they refused to play ball on censorship, they then they were blocked, but not before. Protectionism is preferred by countries in the same way as the "Buy USA" rhetoric in America that you may be able to relate to. The unique history China had with colonialism is just a bonus. It turns out that China was smart enough to recognize the national importance of the internet technology industry, and levied massive walls against them. You can't easily put an import tax on Google, but you can block them. I can guarantee you it had nothing to do with censorship. Google/Facebook are businesses and would never make a stand by jeopardizing their China business by not complying with local censorship laws. It was never about that. It was simply because they were not welcome, and that if they did flourish they'd have troves of data on Chinese citizens in the hands of a foreign entity.