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China Censors Bad Economic News Amid Signs of Slower Growth
- advizon 8y agoHaha, typical China. There's something we don't like? Let's censor it. Pathetic and scary at the same time.
- bayesian_horse 8y agoIt would really have surprised me to hear that they didn't. Though there seems to be some relevance to the government's numbers, otherwise the market would totally ignore them.
- alecco 8y agoThe kind of "bad economic news" censored: TABLE-China bond defaults rise over 56 pct from 2017 at $8.74 bln https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-defaults/table-china-bond-defaults-rise-over-56-pct-from-2017-at-874-bln-idUSL8N1WD3CR https://www.reuters.com/article/china-economy-defaults/table...
- dis-sys 8y agohow about not to selectively ignore the total market size? that is as bad as censorship. $8.74 bln defaulted out of the $11 trillion market [1]. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/china-s-11-trillion-bond-market-faces-test-with-rising-defaults https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-07/china-s-1...
- hungryhobo 8y agoalso interesting is the debt graph's y axis does not start at 0 to make the effect more dramatic
- paradite 8y agoHow about stopping the baseless accusations thrown at China? http://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bond/research/2018-04-13/doc-ifyteqtq9368408.shtml?cre=tianyi&mod=pcpager_fintoutiao&loc=1&r=9&doct=0&rfunc=100&tj=none&tr=9 http://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bond/research/2018-04-13/do... http://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bond/2018-08-31/doc-ihinpmnq8345092.shtml http://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bond/2018-08-31/doc-ihinpmn... http://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bond/research/2018-06-15/doc-ihcyszrz8981691.shtml http://finance.sina.com.cn/money/bond/research/2018-06-15/do... http://bond.jrj.com.cn/2018/09/30133825154607.shtml http://bond.jrj.com.cn/2018/09/30133825154607.shtml http://bond.hexun.com/2018-08-01/193639187.html http://bond.hexun.com/2018-08-01/193639187.html Edit: Looks like I'm being flagged for pointing out the false accusations? Slowly losing my faith in HN.
- King-Aaron 8y ago> How about stopping the baseless accusations thrown at China? Apologies, but all the links you posted are in chinese, and google translate just turns them into mostly garbage so Im struggling with the context of your comment. But I'm not sure what this issue here is, the user above you pointed out "the kind of information being censored" as an example of what's being discussed in the parent article, and that seems unrelated to the argument "Stop throwing baseless accusations about X". Is the problem with the accusation that China is censoring economic information, or is it that the default rate as used in this example is inaccurate?
- paradite 8y agoThe example is inaccurate, or rather false and misleading.
- King-Aaron 8y agoWelllllll I don't really think that was the point of the comment, rather it was showing an example of what content has been blocked.
- paradite 8y agoI'm not sure where the misunderstanding is. The article is about censoring economic news. The top comment suggests an example of economic news that is censored. Anyone reading the comments would assume that the example news is indeed censored. However, that was not the case, as shown in the links I provided. (If they were censored, the pages would have been taken down retrospectively) I'm pointing out that example is a false accusation of the content being censored.
- mads 8y agoWhat were the links posted? They were flagged and removed.
- ciucanu 8y agoI wouldn't be surprised to read this kind of news about some of the Eastern Europe countries in the future.
- switch007 8y agoI wouldn't be surprised to read this kind of news about Western European countries in the future !
- ciucanu 8y agoEast 2nd, East 2nd, at least this time.
- Tade0 8y agoI originally downvoted you, but now I think I see where you were going with this. It is possible in at least one instance.
- glandium 8y agoI'm not particularly convinced this is much worse than what happens in the west, where people get their news from biased sources, be they Fox News, CNN, or Facebook. Sure, there's the theoretical difference, censorship is bad, etc., but practically speaking, the result does not feel that different...
- tdb7893 8y agoIn the West there are biased sources (it's impossible to have unbiased sources because there's no consistent agreement on what "unbiased" could be) but there's actually a lot of diversity of content. It's pretty easy to find some articles arguing different sides and get a decent idea of the whole situation, which is obviously not true when the government censors content.
- charlysl 8y agoIt is much worse, given that in the west biased reporting and cover ups can be publicly denounced, whether by other biased sources at the other end of the spectrum or in social media, whereas in China it is not allowed to disclose by any means that bad economic news is being suppressed.
- hrktb 8y agoI feel the strategy is just different. In our culture there is no need to suppress the bad news, it can just be drowned down in a flurry of stupid news, contradictory statements and "why do you hate freedom" kind of finger pointing. If random people speaking freely has close to no effect on the leading class, there is not much need to suppress free speech.
- charlysl 8y agoSure, in the west there are constant attempts at gaming the system, and propaganda is as rife as in authoritarian regimes, and this often results in the masses (us) being misinformed. However, I still don't think it's the same as direct censorship, where it's pretty much game over, nor as damaging. I mean, do you really believe that it's irrelevant that the conversation we are having now, without any fears, I assume, would be extremely risky in China?
- arnoldtheai 8y agoTrump does exactly the same. What's the difference.
- nerbert 8y agoTrump doesn't control the media.
- gaius 8y agoI guarantee that Trump has zero influence on how the NYT reports on the economy.
- phyller 8y agoThat's not true, if a piece of economic information would be damaging to Trump it would likely get even more coverage.
- frockington 8y agoHe's also gamed them a few times to accidentally cover good data. Most notably when he "leaked" the low jobs numbers and CNN/NYT covered it non stop
- seanmcdirmid 8y agoIsn’t that the opposite of influence though?
- justtopost 8y agoNot if you know how to spin it. Like him or not, Trump is unquestionably good at getting 'bad' press to work in his favor. Any power, positive or negative, can be harnessed if you are clever enough. To what end, well, thats a different discussion.
- tdb7893 8y agoIn certain media but in other media the opposite it true. The top cable news network for the last decade has been conservative (Fox obviously) and conservative media absolutely dominates talk radio and it also has a robust Internet presence.
- lolc 8y agoThe interesting thing for me here is a problem with all censorship: Those doing the censoring need to understand the issue to work effectively. So the censorship bulletins need to provide enough information that they become a source of truth. It gives investors an incentive to read them, because they are a factor in where the market moves.
- 07d046 8y agoI think it's partly censorship, and partly the secrecy around the creation of economic (and other) data. When people are incentivised to report inaccurate data and have the ability to do so, they will. This is an old problem. Emperor Kangxi developed a secret palace memorial system in the seventeenth century to learn from trusted eunuchs if the grain prices his senior officials were reporting were accurate, and if his son was a monster, and things like that.
- datavirtue 8y agoChinese "leaders" are in way over their head trying to direct the economy. Now they don't know what the people really know. Something tells me that clear and open information is the best choice but they have already gone down the rabbit hole.
- toss1 8y agoYes, and even if the are actually fully informed and very skilled, there are severe limitations on what "management" of press and psychology can do. In an economy, an excess must eventually be corrected. The problems are that it's a dynamic super-multi-variable system and tends to overshoot in both directions. Ideally, an excess would self-correct soon and gently, but many information loops have too long a lag. Hence, the warning that "markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent". In cases where the bubble is moderate, 'management' may well keep the psycology from falling too far and overcorrecting, buying time, so that the situation can correct without a crash. However, it also continues the excess for far longer, and often allowing a far greater degree of excess. So, if the excess breaks through the management, the crash will be _much_ steeper and deeper, overshooting far on the downside. I'm not sure if the PRC doesn't understand this risk, or if it does and is just in too deep to do anything else. Either way, it is a seriously growing risk for them and globally.
- datavirtue 8y agoThey way to prevent irrational markets out running your solvency is to avoid easy lending/borrowing in the good times.
- toss1 8y agoOf course, but the Chinese needed to do that a decade ago -- it is way too late for that now... Usually the central banks serve that function by raising interest rates in better times as the economy heats up. China's? Not so much. Seems they might need to learn this lesson the hard way.
- yAnonymous 8y agoI want to condemn this, but given the current state in western countries, I'd feel like a hypocrite. We have so much light censorship and politicians get to lie without any consequences. The institutions who play along are rewarded and those who try to speak out about it are discredited. There's illegal surveillance that we only get to know about from whistleblowers. Political correctness is used to silence millions of people and invalidate opinions without having to debate anyone. Elections are won through illegal social media campaigns. If anything, China is copying us.
- virmundi 8y agoI agree with the general thesis that many different forms of censorship occur in the West. I agree that the Left tends to use political correctness as it’s means to make people fear being called a bigot. However no one illegally won an election from outside sources. The Russians paid about 100k in ads on Facebook. Doris spent millions. We have more to fear from internal threats than from external. China is not copying us. Corruption is universal. It’s a question of degrees. The US has less corruption and more access to correct what does exist than the Chinese. What they learned from us, if anything, is how technology can control things. Given that they’ve had advanced tech on the past and did similar things to suppress inconvenient truth, I’d say they are pretty much doing what they’ve always done back to the days of the emperor.
- buboard 8y agoWhen your business is to run a regulated economy, neglecting to censor the bad news would be a bad sign for your investors.
- mabbo 8y agoThis should really terrify us all. The Chinese economy is not just inflated, it's now an enormous chunk of the world economy. Throw in their really wild housing bubble [0] and it's a time bomb. Globalization has made everything cheaper, but it's tied us all together in many ways. They won't fall over alone. Hiding news that the economy isn't doing well distorts incentives. Those with political connections will know what's really happening and take full advantage. Those without will make poor choices. Like buying a 4th unfinished condo as an investment. [0]https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-24/why-china-can-t-fix-its-housing-bubble https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-06-24/why-china...
- nscalf 8y agoAbsolutely this. For all of the benefits that come along with globalization, there is very little talk about all of the risks that come along with it. And you can see this on many scales---when European nations "globalized" to include all of their neighbors, they exponentially increased the risk that they would undergo economic stress. They let go of their tight control over their own economy and their ability to quickly and sharply respond to problems. I went to college for economics during the recovery from 2008, and one of my professors was a very well respected economist managing large funds. One conversation I had with her stuck with me. We had to read the Wall Street Journal for some assignments, and I asked her why it seemed that Quantitative Easing wasn't have anywhere near the result we expected it to have. She said she thought it was because everyone was doing it. I remember reading articles about concerns that Japan was also doing QE and that it might belittle the efforts of the Fed over here. I think globalization is a huge step forward and really beneficial overall, but it's not a panacea and it does come with some drawbacks.
- Chris_Chambers 8y agoThe reason QE “didn’t work” is because it was a trick meant for the Federal Reserve’s cronies to steal (“buy”) a ton of our property and rent it back to us. QE worked perfectly.
- rqs 8y agoActually, before the trade gone bad, many local governments in China already installed some limits on the housing bubble. For example, in some place, you can only buy house, but unable to sell it. This will limit how many money can flood back to the economy. So far, that policy is effective. After all, nobody want to play the Japanese character during what's after the "Japanese economic miracle"[0]. And the housing bubble thing is like textbook example of "How not do your economy". [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_economic_miracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_economic_miracle
- rossdavidh 8y agoCannot help but wonder if we are seeing, right here in this comment section here, people paid to counter any discussion of a bad Chinese economy. Of course, I'll probably never know for sure.
- gwern 8y agoChinese censorship doesn't appear to work that way: largely domestic, and focused on adding friction and distraction rather than criticism/rebuttal - https://qz.com/311832/hacked-emails-reveal-chinas-elaborate-and-absurd-internet-propaganda-machine/ https://qz.com/311832/hacked-emails-reveal-chinas-elaborate-... https://gking.harvard.edu/50c https://gking.harvard.edu/50c http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/experiment_0.pdf http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/gking/files/experiment_0.pd...