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The misconception I carry is that the Rule of Law[0] doesn't hold the same weight as in America or Europe, due to extreme Selective Enforcement[1] - basically t

The misconception I carry is that the Rule of Law[0] doesn't hold the same weight as in America or Europe, due to extreme Selective Enforcement[1] - basically the person in power can arbitrarily apply the laws against those they personally dislike. This leads to the dependence on guanxi[2], where your families have been so close for generations that you're like siblings - who will arrest their own brother or sister? And people who can't leverage these guanxi relationships have barely more social leverage than a foreigner - so they diasporize. And leveraging a Chinese person with few guanxi relationships is a common mistake of companies doing business in China. [0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement [2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi

delinka 8y ago
Are you saying "the Rule of Law doesn't hold the same weight as in America or Europe" is your misconception? Or rather that you assume the rule of law would hold the same weight, it does not, and therefore "rule of law holds the same weight" is your misconception?
- exelius 8y ago
  Single-party systems by definition have either rule-by-decree or rule-by-consensus as a feature; so I’m not even sure the “rule of law” applies in the same sense when the rules are that the people in power are a hegemony that can change the rules whenever they want. Because those who abuse power often do it through selective enforcement, and because the population has no “acceptable” way to depose those who abuse power, you get a situation where the things you do matter less than who you are. I wouldn’t claim rule of law systems are immune to this type of influence, but a feature of a strong democracy is having checks and balances on who writes the rules vs who enforces them. You don’t have that in China, and there are definitely different sets of rules for different people.
  - delinka 8y ago
    I have no idea how this addresses my question asking GP to clarify its misconception.
arandr0x 8y ago
How is this different from networking in the US? don't most American companies hire e.g. account managers or business development folks with long lists of industry (and in specific industries, government) contacts? Is it just the case that the implied "guanxi" relationship has to be deeper than the circumstances in which an American would say "I know a guy who"?
- 794CD01 8y ago
  If you assign a foreign-sounding word to it, it sounds more official.
- westiseast 8y ago
  It's perhaps best to think of guanxi as an umbrella term for a number of different things you'd definitely see in any Western society too - crucially, that would include both 'good' and 'bad things. So it encompasses business networking, social favors, family favors, but also nepotism, political corruption, perjury, bribery etc. So if the guy at the print shop gave me a good price after my firm helped him out the week earlier with his broken air conditioning, then that's guanxi. If I managed to illegally obtain environmental certificate for my horrendously polluting plastics factory because my brother works at the environment department, that's also guanxi.
- Retric 8y ago
  It's more a question of degree. "I know a guy" might get you a job or back stage passes for a concert in the US. "I know a guy" can get you off of vehicular homicide in China. Granted, the US still has an occasional taste of the second, but it's far less common.
  - zajd 8y ago
    Not for the rich http://www.businessinsider.com/wal-mart-billionaire-alice-walton-gets-dwi-arrest-expunged-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/wal-mart-billionaire-alice-wa...
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Being a relative of a cop in the jurisdiction in which you ran someone over will prevent you from ever being charged with it the US (they'll probably give you some slap on the wrist charge though). Being good friends with the right folks at city hall will make sure your company wins the contract to do the landscaping at the city park. Knowing the right people will generally get any permit you need expedited or at the very least it won't be delayed. If special treatment is corruption then corruption is very much alive and well in the US. The difference is that the image of corruption is corruption is much less tolerable. If the details of the story of you running over someone makes the news or someone points out the conflict of interest of the person awarding the contract the corruption won't happen in that case. "I'm sorry I can't do that" is a much less common phrase than "I'll put in a good word for you". Corruption in US (federal, state and local) is a lot like the restaurant that only cleans up its act for the health inspector. Government is the restaurant and publicity is the inspector. When there's a spotlight on the problem everyone plays by the rules. When nobody's looking it's business as usual. Acts of obvious corruption (trading favors, bribes, etc) is rarer in the US than some other countries but leveraging relationships for special treatment is just as common as anywhere else, we just keep it under the table. This isn't an attack on government but government is certainly not the consistent and impartial organization that some people seem to think it is (though I think that's a good goal to have). Edit: I find it odd/interesting that whenever I say something that isn't positive about government it gets up-voted a couple times then down-voted a couple times. I really should write a script to track it because I have a hunch that the timing follows a particular pattern.
woodandsteel 8y ago
>The misconception I carry is that the Rule of Law[0] doesn't hold the same weight as in America or Europe, due to extreme Selective Enforcement[1] - basically the person in power can arbitrarily apply the laws against those they personally dislike. You're quite right, stephengillie. Corruption in the US is as bad as China. That means there is no point in the Chinese trying to get China as clean as the US is portrayed as being. It also means that US citizens should stop supporting their government. The world would be a much better place if the Chinese stopped criticizing their government, and the Americans stopped supporting theirs.

delinka 8y ago

Are you saying "the Rule of Law doesn't hold the same weight as in America or Europe" is your misconception? Or rather that you assume the rule of law would hold the same weight, it does not, and therefore "rule of law holds the same weight" is your misconception?

exelius 8y ago
Single-party systems by definition have either rule-by-decree or rule-by-consensus as a feature; so I’m not even sure the “rule of law” applies in the same sense when the rules are that the people in power are a hegemony that can change the rules whenever they want. Because those who abuse power often do it through selective enforcement, and because the population has no “acceptable” way to depose those who abuse power, you get a situation where the things you do matter less than who you are. I wouldn’t claim rule of law systems are immune to this type of influence, but a feature of a strong democracy is having checks and balances on who writes the rules vs who enforces them. You don’t have that in China, and there are definitely different sets of rules for different people.
- delinka 8y ago
  I have no idea how this addresses my question asking GP to clarify its misconception.

arandr0x 8y ago

How is this different from networking in the US? don't most American companies hire e.g. account managers or business development folks with long lists of industry (and in specific industries, government) contacts? Is it just the case that the implied "guanxi" relationship has to be deeper than the circumstances in which an American would say "I know a guy who"?

794CD01 8y ago
If you assign a foreign-sounding word to it, it sounds more official.
westiseast 8y ago
It's perhaps best to think of guanxi as an umbrella term for a number of different things you'd definitely see in any Western society too - crucially, that would include both 'good' and 'bad things. So it encompasses business networking, social favors, family favors, but also nepotism, political corruption, perjury, bribery etc. So if the guy at the print shop gave me a good price after my firm helped him out the week earlier with his broken air conditioning, then that's guanxi. If I managed to illegally obtain environmental certificate for my horrendously polluting plastics factory because my brother works at the environment department, that's also guanxi.
Retric 8y ago
It's more a question of degree. "I know a guy" might get you a job or back stage passes for a concert in the US. "I know a guy" can get you off of vehicular homicide in China. Granted, the US still has an occasional taste of the second, but it's far less common.
- zajd 8y ago
  Not for the rich http://www.businessinsider.com/wal-mart-billionaire-alice-walton-gets-dwi-arrest-expunged-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/wal-mart-billionaire-alice-wa...
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Being a relative of a cop in the jurisdiction in which you ran someone over will prevent you from ever being charged with it the US (they'll probably give you some slap on the wrist charge though). Being good friends with the right folks at city hall will make sure your company wins the contract to do the landscaping at the city park. Knowing the right people will generally get any permit you need expedited or at the very least it won't be delayed. If special treatment is corruption then corruption is very much alive and well in the US. The difference is that the image of corruption is corruption is much less tolerable. If the details of the story of you running over someone makes the news or someone points out the conflict of interest of the person awarding the contract the corruption won't happen in that case. "I'm sorry I can't do that" is a much less common phrase than "I'll put in a good word for you". Corruption in US (federal, state and local) is a lot like the restaurant that only cleans up its act for the health inspector. Government is the restaurant and publicity is the inspector. When there's a spotlight on the problem everyone plays by the rules. When nobody's looking it's business as usual. Acts of obvious corruption (trading favors, bribes, etc) is rarer in the US than some other countries but leveraging relationships for special treatment is just as common as anywhere else, we just keep it under the table. This isn't an attack on government but government is certainly not the consistent and impartial organization that some people seem to think it is (though I think that's a good goal to have). Edit: I find it odd/interesting that whenever I say something that isn't positive about government it gets up-voted a couple times then down-voted a couple times. I really should write a script to track it because I have a hunch that the timing follows a particular pattern.

woodandsteel 8y ago

>The misconception I carry is that the Rule of Law[0] doesn't hold the same weight as in America or Europe, due to extreme Selective Enforcement[1] - basically the person in power can arbitrarily apply the laws against those they personally dislike. You're quite right, stephengillie. Corruption in the US is as bad as China. That means there is no point in the Chinese trying to get China as clean as the US is portrayed as being. It also means that US citizens should stop supporting their government. The world would be a much better place if the Chinese stopped criticizing their government, and the Americans stopped supporting theirs.