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Any sort of heavy hand the West takes to “prove” that whatever it is that China is doing (censorship, communism, etc) is wrong/doesn’t work is going to backfire

Any sort of heavy hand the West takes to “prove” that whatever it is that China is doing (censorship, communism, etc) is wrong/doesn’t work is going to backfire to the highest degree. It will entrench them in their already strong beliefs that the West is only interested in holding progress back from China (out of jealousy at their high economic growth). If you believe your system is better, then you really should not have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Forcing it through just shows that you are motivated by self interest, and not a core belief in the superiority of your own values. Such a strategy will lose the hearts and minds of the people of China as well, and at which point who are you protecting the rights and interests of anymore if those who you seek to “help” aren’t even on your side?

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> It will entrench them in their already strong beliefs We tried the hug approach when China was prematurely let into the WTO. That backfired. Our concern should be, first and foremost, with our own morality. Helping a dictator repress billions of people is wrong, against our values, and should not tolerated by people in our society.
- hakka-nyu-su 7y ago
  You say China joined the WTO "prematurely" which implies that certain economic conditions were not met, but the real hold-up was political: questions of liberalism vs Leninism, etc. The Chinese people have gained enormously in terms of their standard of living since 2001, and while political repression has not gotten better, it also has not gotten worse.
  - CodiePetersen 7y ago
    I think better and worse are subjective. But the thought reconditioning camps, the concentration camps for the Muslims, and the forced propaganda app are in my opinion pretty bad.
    - hakka-nyu-su 7y ago
      Which "forced propaganda app" do you refer to: the Xi Jinping quotation study app that voluntary members of the Communist Party use to demonstrate promotability? https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/2186037/chinas-most-popular-app-propaganda-tool-teaching-xi-jinping-thought https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/2186037/chinas...
      - CodiePetersen 7y ago
        "Party cadres across the country are now required to use the app every day and accumulate their scores, according to recent state media reports."
    - chrischen 7y ago
      You don’t win thought reconditioning with thought reconditioning.
- aclsid 7y ago
  I don't know which country are you from, but I think the world has far bigger problems than to "liberate" China. Especially when the US turns a blind eye to a journalist murder because it was done by an ally.
- chrischen 7y ago
  > Our concern should be, first and foremost, with our own morality. Helping a dictator repress billions of people is wrong, against our values, and should not tolerated by people in our society. This is the main issue here. First and foremost morality is relative and our morals are not necessarily the right morals. Believing your way is the only right way and forcing others to conform is how dictatorships spread and start wars. Second, imposing one’s own morals on others is immoral, and is what started the crusades, proselytizing, Christian missions, imperialism, and slavery. Third, you may believe they have a brutalizing dictator, and this may be true or a simple misguided opinion based on ignorance at a distance, but if the population you are trying to help doesn’t agree with you then who’s interests are you really serving? The reality is that regardless of whether China’s ways are in absolute terms (there are no absolute terms) wrong or not, American foreign policy towards China, or even other countries, has always been self-serving, and less about promoting “morals”. Much of the Cold War and anti-communism campaigns on the US were extremely immoral, and only in hindsight do we see that they were carried out of ignorance, prejudice, and a desire mostly to secure more Western allies. And if you really believe whatever it is they are doing in China won’t work, it will collapse on its own like the Soviet Union. If you are a true free market democratic capitalist, then you should have no problem letting their system survive on its own merits. Anything else is just self-serving ulterior motive propoganda.
malmsteen 7y ago
> If you believe your system is better, then you really should not have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Uh why ? I think it's exactly the opposite
malms 7y ago
> If you believe your system is better, then you really should not have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Forcing it through just shows that you are motivated by self interest, and not a core belief in the superiority of your own values. Uh why ? I think it's exactly the opposite
- pgeorgi 7y ago
  Depends on "better". For any definition where better includes economic superiority, the easiest way to show that is to let time sort things out.
- alephr 7y ago
  I don't claim to be an authority on this by any means and it's a very complex space but... the approach of "forcing" a foreign country to take on social/political beliefs seems like a very difficult task when the local culture doesn't already support them implicitly. The worst example of this in recent history is probably our(US) interactions in the middle east that in many ways have backfired and made the situation worse by creating economic uncertainty and power vacuums. I think generally more liberal values become more attractive as economic prosperity. if this is true it seems like a simpler/more effective foreign policy strategy to create economic opportunity for citizens of the foreign country and simply tie an example of the liberal values we want to spread to those opportunities. Then pushes for these sorts of changes would have a much stronger local, and thus more aware of the local situation, base of support. If the views really are superior it should be easy to derive them independently given examples as your lower level concerns become less of a problem. And if they come to those positions in a more independent way the likelihood that they'll last is much higher.
- wjmao88 7y ago
  This is basically a free market argument. If something is superior then it shouldn't need to convince people to choose it, because people will naturally choose it over other inferior options.
gentro 7y ago
Also if you ask regular Chinese people if they want a censored version of google, most of them would probably say hell yea, when does it launch? What’s the alternative? Only other censored search engines. And Chinese people know baidu search results suck ass compared to google’s. So basically the western commentariat killing off dragonfly has a demonstrably negative impact on Chinese quality of life. But we’re only trying to protect the freedoms of oppressed Chinese people, right?
- CodiePetersen 7y ago
  That's not the only reason. You're trying to conform your neighboring country to an acceptable global standard. It's not just the feel good immediateness of "I'll take a censored Google because fighting for open access Internet is too hard" It's about that influence that will begin to dictate googles policy as more of their revenue comes from China. It's about changing the way China acts towards its citizens and adjacent neighbors. They are a power that can not be ignored. Their influence and policy progrogates through all companies navigating international business. That in turn effects societies they come from. Additionally they represent a HUGE chunk of the Internet and its hardware and on the topic of information security China definitely plays an important part on the way the global community thinks about policy going forward.
- tmcronn 7y ago
  If Google proceeded per the government's wishes for these reasons, that sets an interesting precedent. Companies would be able to implement features they deem to be ethically questionable, so long as they or the public determined that "it's what the customer wanted, anyway".
- aclsid 7y ago
  I don't think you know a lot of Chinese people. They use Baidu when they are outside continental China. It is mostly because the search results are finely tuned to local stuff and it has the big plus of not giving you links that are censored if you are in China so you don't waste your time. I ended up using it myself a couple of times for that reason.
CodiePetersen 7y ago
If those companies operate within our country we have an obligation to ensure they are following ethical standards everywhere. If you don't you directly fund any unethical standards being enforced elsewhere. It doesn't matter who it is, whether it's NSA or Russia or Sweden if Google is cooperating with them in unethical ways you should do something about it. Apathy and a blind eye is why corporations can get away with working people to death so we can live in comfort. People may have excuses for that but there is no excuse for allowing them to go so far as what has been written in dystopia literature. Also just step back for a moment and try to think of scenarios in which people would have to apply your "don't fight opposing systems". I feel you will find it does not apply to a great many things.
wool_gather 7y ago
What "forcing"? This is the international equivalent of, "Hey, Bob, you're kind of an ass---- and we don't want you coming to the softball league anymore".
jgalt212 7y ago
I guess, but the temptation to do "something, anything" is too great. In the 1980's there were all sorts of efforts to economically freeze out South Africa. Other than making Marc Rich a very wealthy man, I cannot definitively say it sped up or slowed down the unwinding of apartheid, but it was the morally correct thing to do. Action must be taken.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> It will entrench them in their already strong beliefs We tried the hug approach when China was prematurely let into the WTO. That backfired. Our concern should be, first and foremost, with our own morality. Helping a dictator repress billions of people is wrong, against our values, and should not tolerated by people in our society.

hakka-nyu-su 7y ago
You say China joined the WTO "prematurely" which implies that certain economic conditions were not met, but the real hold-up was political: questions of liberalism vs Leninism, etc. The Chinese people have gained enormously in terms of their standard of living since 2001, and while political repression has not gotten better, it also has not gotten worse.
- CodiePetersen 7y ago
  I think better and worse are subjective. But the thought reconditioning camps, the concentration camps for the Muslims, and the forced propaganda app are in my opinion pretty bad.
  - hakka-nyu-su 7y ago
    Which "forced propaganda app" do you refer to: the Xi Jinping quotation study app that voluntary members of the Communist Party use to demonstrate promotability? https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/2186037/chinas-most-popular-app-propaganda-tool-teaching-xi-jinping-thought https://www.scmp.com/tech/apps-social/article/2186037/chinas...
    - CodiePetersen 7y ago
      "Party cadres across the country are now required to use the app every day and accumulate their scores, according to recent state media reports."
  - chrischen 7y ago
    You don’t win thought reconditioning with thought reconditioning.
aclsid 7y ago
I don't know which country are you from, but I think the world has far bigger problems than to "liberate" China. Especially when the US turns a blind eye to a journalist murder because it was done by an ally.
chrischen 7y ago
> Our concern should be, first and foremost, with our own morality. Helping a dictator repress billions of people is wrong, against our values, and should not tolerated by people in our society. This is the main issue here. First and foremost morality is relative and our morals are not necessarily the right morals. Believing your way is the only right way and forcing others to conform is how dictatorships spread and start wars. Second, imposing one’s own morals on others is immoral, and is what started the crusades, proselytizing, Christian missions, imperialism, and slavery. Third, you may believe they have a brutalizing dictator, and this may be true or a simple misguided opinion based on ignorance at a distance, but if the population you are trying to help doesn’t agree with you then who’s interests are you really serving? The reality is that regardless of whether China’s ways are in absolute terms (there are no absolute terms) wrong or not, American foreign policy towards China, or even other countries, has always been self-serving, and less about promoting “morals”. Much of the Cold War and anti-communism campaigns on the US were extremely immoral, and only in hindsight do we see that they were carried out of ignorance, prejudice, and a desire mostly to secure more Western allies. And if you really believe whatever it is they are doing in China won’t work, it will collapse on its own like the Soviet Union. If you are a true free market democratic capitalist, then you should have no problem letting their system survive on its own merits. Anything else is just self-serving ulterior motive propoganda.

malmsteen 7y ago

> If you believe your system is better, then you really should not have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Uh why ? I think it's exactly the opposite

malms 7y ago

> If you believe your system is better, then you really should not have to actively participate in fighting opposing systems of belief. Forcing it through just shows that you are motivated by self interest, and not a core belief in the superiority of your own values. Uh why ? I think it's exactly the opposite

pgeorgi 7y ago
Depends on "better". For any definition where better includes economic superiority, the easiest way to show that is to let time sort things out.
alephr 7y ago
I don't claim to be an authority on this by any means and it's a very complex space but... the approach of "forcing" a foreign country to take on social/political beliefs seems like a very difficult task when the local culture doesn't already support them implicitly. The worst example of this in recent history is probably our(US) interactions in the middle east that in many ways have backfired and made the situation worse by creating economic uncertainty and power vacuums. I think generally more liberal values become more attractive as economic prosperity. if this is true it seems like a simpler/more effective foreign policy strategy to create economic opportunity for citizens of the foreign country and simply tie an example of the liberal values we want to spread to those opportunities. Then pushes for these sorts of changes would have a much stronger local, and thus more aware of the local situation, base of support. If the views really are superior it should be easy to derive them independently given examples as your lower level concerns become less of a problem. And if they come to those positions in a more independent way the likelihood that they'll last is much higher.
wjmao88 7y ago
This is basically a free market argument. If something is superior then it shouldn't need to convince people to choose it, because people will naturally choose it over other inferior options.

gentro 7y ago

Also if you ask regular Chinese people if they want a censored version of google, most of them would probably say hell yea, when does it launch? What’s the alternative? Only other censored search engines. And Chinese people know baidu search results suck ass compared to google’s. So basically the western commentariat killing off dragonfly has a demonstrably negative impact on Chinese quality of life. But we’re only trying to protect the freedoms of oppressed Chinese people, right?

CodiePetersen 7y ago
That's not the only reason. You're trying to conform your neighboring country to an acceptable global standard. It's not just the feel good immediateness of "I'll take a censored Google because fighting for open access Internet is too hard" It's about that influence that will begin to dictate googles policy as more of their revenue comes from China. It's about changing the way China acts towards its citizens and adjacent neighbors. They are a power that can not be ignored. Their influence and policy progrogates through all companies navigating international business. That in turn effects societies they come from. Additionally they represent a HUGE chunk of the Internet and its hardware and on the topic of information security China definitely plays an important part on the way the global community thinks about policy going forward.
tmcronn 7y ago
If Google proceeded per the government's wishes for these reasons, that sets an interesting precedent. Companies would be able to implement features they deem to be ethically questionable, so long as they or the public determined that "it's what the customer wanted, anyway".
aclsid 7y ago
I don't think you know a lot of Chinese people. They use Baidu when they are outside continental China. It is mostly because the search results are finely tuned to local stuff and it has the big plus of not giving you links that are censored if you are in China so you don't waste your time. I ended up using it myself a couple of times for that reason.

CodiePetersen 7y ago

If those companies operate within our country we have an obligation to ensure they are following ethical standards everywhere. If you don't you directly fund any unethical standards being enforced elsewhere. It doesn't matter who it is, whether it's NSA or Russia or Sweden if Google is cooperating with them in unethical ways you should do something about it. Apathy and a blind eye is why corporations can get away with working people to death so we can live in comfort. People may have excuses for that but there is no excuse for allowing them to go so far as what has been written in dystopia literature. Also just step back for a moment and try to think of scenarios in which people would have to apply your "don't fight opposing systems". I feel you will find it does not apply to a great many things.

wool_gather 7y ago

What "forcing"? This is the international equivalent of, "Hey, Bob, you're kind of an ass---- and we don't want you coming to the softball league anymore".

jgalt212 7y ago

I guess, but the temptation to do "something, anything" is too great. In the 1980's there were all sorts of efforts to economically freeze out South Africa. Other than making Marc Rich a very wealthy man, I cannot definitively say it sped up or slowed down the unwinding of apartheid, but it was the morally correct thing to do. Action must be taken.