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China’s Re-education Camps

102 points by dqpb 8y ago

394549 8y ago
Paywall bypass: http://archive.is/bX0a0 http://archive.is/bX0a0
seibelj 8y ago
It's impossible to say for certain where the next financial crisis will come from, and when, but I bet there is a decent chance that a global meltdown originates in China. Autocratic, opaque, statistics no one believes, infrastructure spending for cities and rails no one needs dictated by political hacks, entrenched corruption, rising national debt... a few wrong moves and the house of cards falls. The fact that the second largest economy is so radically different from western capitalist countries makes it difficult to predict how it will evolve. Democratic revolution could still happen.
- herogreen 8y ago
  I am pretty sure China cities do need electric buses. But that could be anecdotal.
- ethbro 8y ago
  The problem with communism was a large country's economic system was too complex to manage. Centralized control simply wasn't possible. China skirted that by pivoting to a market economy under political direction. On the plus side, this affords them the power to directly deflate asset bubbles in a way democracies can't. On the minus side, the lack of transparency and accountability increases inefficiency and hides issues. It remains to be seen which of these will triumph. If the increased power offsets the inefficiencies, everything might stay fine. But if they fail to notice or act on a major issue... it's a pretty fragile system.
  - polskibus 8y ago
    You forgot that China has big data tools to help them achieve centralisation. That are using it on a very wide scale. No other authoritarian government had such resources available before.
    - ethbro 8y ago
      I'm aware. I'm just suspicious of the human operation of such systems. The world is complex. You can compress that complexity with tooling. But at some point, you're increasing technical complexity in exchange for decreased management complexity. That isn't a guaranteed path to success.
      - polskibus 8y ago
        You can't compress the complexity, but they still try and the people are the ones paying the price. This is not that different to policy planning done by democratic countries, but more wholesome, on more levels. There are many countries (ex-communist) that serve as a proof how it can go wrong without big data.
        ethbro 8y ago
        I think it's arguable you can compress the complexity. Certainly something like Project Cybersyn [1] would have a much better chance of success now than in the 70s. (Although admittedly, the CIA backed regime change stopped it then) And when I say compress complexity, I'm using it in an interchangeable sense with "increase efficiency of those humans who do make decisions." There are a huge number of actions that need to be taken -- but many require little or no thought. Automating those formulaic actions and only surfacing critical decisions with relevant data qualifies as compressing complexity, imho. Sadly, in China, this is being done in a politically paranoid police state. One wonders what could happen if you had a computer-planned economy, some kind of basic income, and individual freedom to spend the rest of ones labor. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
- gowld 8y ago
  Not to mention the rest of the world exporting its labor needs, debt, waste, and pollution to China, with no plan for what to do if the Chinese government stops dumping these on its citizens.
  - c2k18 8y ago
    +1 our states are even worse! If you’ve ever been to China to see how people live (if you can call that a life) you see the hypocrisy in that.
gwbas1c 8y ago
I know we don't like to talk about politics on Hacker News... But: This. Is. Fascism.
- msla 8y ago
  No, it's Communism. It's anti-Fascist.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > No, it's Communism. It's the kind of “Communism” that is authoritarian, militaristic nationalism with significant economic role for private capital, but where both that private capital and labor are deeply intertwined with the administrative machinery of the state in a corporatist manner. The system run by the Chinese Communist Party is “Communist” in the same way the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is “Democratic”; it's a label on the package that doesn't accurately reflect what is inside. Which, in China, is a lot closer to fascism.
- oh_sigh 8y ago
  You should resolve to stop buying Chinese goods, or using Chinese services or companies...or something?
- rudolfwinestock 8y ago
  No, it's not. It's Communism. Granted, the difference isn't much in terms of human rights. I don't have the reference handy, but I remember reading about a priest who had the dubious distinction of having survived both a Nazi concentration camp as well as a Communist concentration camp. In his opinion, the Communist camp was worse. In addition to the hard labor, other physical hardships, and the ever-present threat of death, the Communists added brainwashing. “At least the Germans didn't try turning you into a Nazi.” Don't forget. Cuba and Vietnam have the same system in operation. Ask anyone in the exile communities in the United States.
  - msla 8y ago
    The fact this is downvoted is proof of the historical illiteracy of Hacker News readers.
ocschwar 8y ago
In Weimar Germany, there was a Keynesian jobs program very much akin to FDR's Civilian COnservation Corps - a jobs program to perform forestry work and prepare rural areas for the hiking and skiing that's so popular there to this day. One of the program's mottoes was "Arbeit macht frei", meaning "this work will free Germany of the economic woes affecting us right now." When that same motto was put on the gates at Auschwitz, the intent was to reassure prisoners that the camp was NOT a slave camp. The point is that we should not bother calling these re-education camps. We all know what they are. THey're going to do what all camps do once they enclose large numbers of people.
- dmix 8y ago
  Are you suggesting China is on track to commit genocide against an ethnic minority because they established reeducation camps? A better example of the next tier is the gulags, you know, actual work camps... mass murder is quite the leap. I know it's popular today to call everyone Nazis whenever they show the slightest signs of analogous behaviour...but isn't re-education bad enough as it is? Shouldn't we focus on the issue at hand and challenge it's merits? Just saying "hurr-durr China = Nazis" is a big distraction that ignores the context of how this came about (ie, under a pretext of suppressing terrorism) and glosses over the countless other ways this is distinct from historical death camps.
  - seppin 8y ago
    According to history, odds are yes
    - dmix 8y ago
      How many examples besides the Nazis are there really? There have been plenty of internment camps, communist re-education camps, and political imprisonment which didn't involve mass genocide (including in Canada and US during WW2 of Japanese). Genocides/mass murders have almost always happened during the anarchy of war. They have almost never been done formally by an established state during normal civil life. The Nazis (and Turkey) started theirs in the stateless fringes of their warzones, after the local governments were razed. Again, I don't see how any of this helps the conversation or our understanding of the issue.

102 points by dqpb 8y ago

Paywall bypass: http://archive.is/bX0a0 http://archive.is/bX0a0

It's impossible to say for certain where the next financial crisis will come from, and when, but I bet there is a decent chance that a global meltdown originates in China. Autocratic, opaque, statistics no one believes, infrastructure spending for cities and rails no one needs dictated by political hacks, entrenched corruption, rising national debt... a few wrong moves and the house of cards falls. The fact that the second largest economy is so radically different from western capitalist countries makes it difficult to predict how it will evolve. Democratic revolution could still happen.

herogreen 8y ago
I am pretty sure China cities do need electric buses. But that could be anecdotal.
ethbro 8y ago
The problem with communism was a large country's economic system was too complex to manage. Centralized control simply wasn't possible. China skirted that by pivoting to a market economy under political direction. On the plus side, this affords them the power to directly deflate asset bubbles in a way democracies can't. On the minus side, the lack of transparency and accountability increases inefficiency and hides issues. It remains to be seen which of these will triumph. If the increased power offsets the inefficiencies, everything might stay fine. But if they fail to notice or act on a major issue... it's a pretty fragile system.
- polskibus 8y ago
  You forgot that China has big data tools to help them achieve centralisation. That are using it on a very wide scale. No other authoritarian government had such resources available before.
  - ethbro 8y ago
    I'm aware. I'm just suspicious of the human operation of such systems. The world is complex. You can compress that complexity with tooling. But at some point, you're increasing technical complexity in exchange for decreased management complexity. That isn't a guaranteed path to success.
    - polskibus 8y ago
      You can't compress the complexity, but they still try and the people are the ones paying the price. This is not that different to policy planning done by democratic countries, but more wholesome, on more levels. There are many countries (ex-communist) that serve as a proof how it can go wrong without big data.
      - ethbro 8y ago
        I think it's arguable you can compress the complexity. Certainly something like Project Cybersyn [1] would have a much better chance of success now than in the 70s. (Although admittedly, the CIA backed regime change stopped it then) And when I say compress complexity, I'm using it in an interchangeable sense with "increase efficiency of those humans who do make decisions." There are a huge number of actions that need to be taken -- but many require little or no thought. Automating those formulaic actions and only surfacing critical decisions with relevant data qualifies as compressing complexity, imho. Sadly, in China, this is being done in a politically paranoid police state. One wonders what could happen if you had a computer-planned economy, some kind of basic income, and individual freedom to spend the rest of ones labor. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Cybersyn
gowld 8y ago
Not to mention the rest of the world exporting its labor needs, debt, waste, and pollution to China, with no plan for what to do if the Chinese government stops dumping these on its citizens.
- c2k18 8y ago
  +1 our states are even worse! If you’ve ever been to China to see how people live (if you can call that a life) you see the hypocrisy in that.

gwbas1c 8y ago

I know we don't like to talk about politics on Hacker News... But: This. Is. Fascism.

msla 8y ago
No, it's Communism. It's anti-Fascist.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > No, it's Communism. It's the kind of “Communism” that is authoritarian, militaristic nationalism with significant economic role for private capital, but where both that private capital and labor are deeply intertwined with the administrative machinery of the state in a corporatist manner. The system run by the Chinese Communist Party is “Communist” in the same way the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is “Democratic”; it's a label on the package that doesn't accurately reflect what is inside. Which, in China, is a lot closer to fascism.
oh_sigh 8y ago
You should resolve to stop buying Chinese goods, or using Chinese services or companies...or something?
rudolfwinestock 8y ago
No, it's not. It's Communism. Granted, the difference isn't much in terms of human rights. I don't have the reference handy, but I remember reading about a priest who had the dubious distinction of having survived both a Nazi concentration camp as well as a Communist concentration camp. In his opinion, the Communist camp was worse. In addition to the hard labor, other physical hardships, and the ever-present threat of death, the Communists added brainwashing. “At least the Germans didn't try turning you into a Nazi.” Don't forget. Cuba and Vietnam have the same system in operation. Ask anyone in the exile communities in the United States.
- msla 8y ago
  The fact this is downvoted is proof of the historical illiteracy of Hacker News readers.

ocschwar 8y ago

In Weimar Germany, there was a Keynesian jobs program very much akin to FDR's Civilian COnservation Corps - a jobs program to perform forestry work and prepare rural areas for the hiking and skiing that's so popular there to this day. One of the program's mottoes was "Arbeit macht frei", meaning "this work will free Germany of the economic woes affecting us right now." When that same motto was put on the gates at Auschwitz, the intent was to reassure prisoners that the camp was NOT a slave camp. The point is that we should not bother calling these re-education camps. We all know what they are. THey're going to do what all camps do once they enclose large numbers of people.

dmix 8y ago
Are you suggesting China is on track to commit genocide against an ethnic minority because they established reeducation camps? A better example of the next tier is the gulags, you know, actual work camps... mass murder is quite the leap. I know it's popular today to call everyone Nazis whenever they show the slightest signs of analogous behaviour...but isn't re-education bad enough as it is? Shouldn't we focus on the issue at hand and challenge it's merits? Just saying "hurr-durr China = Nazis" is a big distraction that ignores the context of how this came about (ie, under a pretext of suppressing terrorism) and glosses over the countless other ways this is distinct from historical death camps.
- seppin 8y ago
  According to history, odds are yes
  - dmix 8y ago
    How many examples besides the Nazis are there really? There have been plenty of internment camps, communist re-education camps, and political imprisonment which didn't involve mass genocide (including in Canada and US during WW2 of Japanese). Genocides/mass murders have almost always happened during the anarchy of war. They have almost never been done formally by an established state during normal civil life. The Nazis (and Turkey) started theirs in the stateless fringes of their warzones, after the local governments were razed. Again, I don't see how any of this helps the conversation or our understanding of the issue.