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China's growing threat to academic freedom
- zn0rkel 7y agonazi germany in 21st century, can’t wait for new wolfenstein
- multibit 7y agoThat is actually a great idea, hope someone from id Software sees this.
- gddvhy 7y agoCCP is more like USSR v2: patched and improved. Still based on the same ideas and IIRC, Mao was inspired by Lenin. The gov control is also based on fear and cruelty. If this analogy is correct, it may be interesting to recall what crushed USSR: it was McDonalds. That's right. People were upset that on the west life is so obviously better, so they collectively and subconsciously sabotaged the gov. Offer the key people in CCP a better life and safety and they will happily dump Xi.
- Koshkin 7y agoStulta lex sed lex.
- gen_greyface 7y ago> Stulta lex sed lex. Latin for _stupid law but law_
- ThrowawayR2 7y agoIt's a parody of a saying from the legal profession, "Dura lex sed lex" ("The law is harsh, but it is the law."), so the appropriate translation would be "The law is stupid, but it is the law."
- mcguire 7y ago"Iwatani had confessed to “collecting inappropriate historical materials.” At the time of his detention, he had allegedly been found in possession of a book of documents relating to 20th century Kuomintang Party history. Unlike the literati Lu and his “forbidden book”, however, Iwatani had legitimately purchased his book at a bookstore." There is no "law" here. Do not confuse a country with a tradition of the rule of law with one without.
- retrac 7y agoGiven that there's no list of forbidden books, nor any realistic way of determining beforehand whether a specific book would be considered detrimental to China's security or otherwise would be illegal, is it actually a law? I am inclined to contrast it to what it's like in my own country. Canada, of course like every country, has a variety of laws that prohibit certain kinds of expression. The difference is that, while you may need to brush up on your legal scholarship and perhaps consult a lawyer, you can be quite confident, before you commit an act, whether it is or isn't actually illegal. For matters on the fringes of jurisprudence, the debate whether it is or isn't banned will occur publicly at trial, with reasons given and debated based on the text of the laws in question, and stand as precedent for what counts as illegal under that law. The content of a law may be arbitrary, but they aren't arbitrarily made up as you go. That's not law then, it's the fiat of a dictator.
- tempguy9999 7y agoMaybe. I recall shortly after sept 11th 2001 when there was general panic in the US, some guy there was arrested for possessing a book. He'd just taken it out of the library. Here in the UK there are deliberate 'chilling effect' laws which are meant to discourage trying something by making them sufficiently unspecified as to catch anything the government wants to (heard about these on the radio 4 programme 'file on 4', it was about export restrictions). Western governments are vastly better but they can do the same filthy tricks when it suits them.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoSomeone was tried for downloading a copy of the Anarchist's Cookbook last year in the UK, IIRC. Sorry, it was 2017. Amazon didn't get shut down for selling it though, strange that. It's almost like totalitarians like to keep laws on the book they can whip out when they want to use them. Reportedly you can be charged for "possessing information that could be used by a terrorist", a cached copy of a Lockpicking Lawyer vid from YouTube, maybe. Lock me away!
- pfortuny 7y agoSummum Ius Summa Iniuria.
- gen_greyface 7y ago> book of documents relating to 20th century Kuomintang Party history. Wondering what book it may be.
- throwaway1997 7y agoKMT is related to Taiwan even though they want closer ties to CCP
- mc32 7y agoThey , KMT, lost to the CCP in the civil war and fled to Taiwan.
- derefr 7y agoAnyone know what parts specifically of the KMT’s story are “left out” in the version of history promulgated by the PRC, such that a full accounting would be risky? My first guess: the strong affiliation between Sun Yat-sen and the party, since the CCP still seems to respect Sun and his Three Principles and use (their interpretations of) them to justify CCP tentpoles.
- yorwba 7y agoFrom what I hear, the CCP is displayed as bearing the brunt of the Japanese assault in Chinese textbooks, with the KMT only playing a minor role. I guess they want to avoid the KMT looking like war heroes whose weakness after the war was abused by the CCP to seize power. EDIT: For anyone interested in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the civil war that followed it, HistoryLapse (by HN user domnuprofesor) ran an interesting series of articles, starting with this one: https://en.historylapse.org/japanese-invasion-of-china-during-the-second-sino-japanese-war https://en.historylapse.org/japanese-invasion-of-china-durin...
- bgee 7y agoThe question of which fource contributed the most in a war is actually not that easy. For example, the answer of who defeated Nazi changed significantly in the last 70 years in Europe [0]. [0]: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year-campaign-to-convince-people-the-usa-and-not https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...
- dtwest 7y agoThis is interesting. I wish there were more data points, they only show opinion in France in 1945, 1994 and 2004. The USSR may have saved Europe from Germany, but the USA saved Western Europe from the USSR. The French in 1945 were likely aware of this.
- pasabagi 7y agoThe French in 1945 voted the communists into power - so I'm not sure they generally had the same views on the USSR as modern people do.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pjc50 7y agoHardly a "growing threat" to academic freedom in a country that has never properly had it in the first place.
- rdlecler1 7y agoIt is a growing threat when that reach starts extending outside their boarders.
- magduf 7y agoSure, but that isn't happening here. According to the title, the guy was in China, and got arrested there. It shouldn't be any surprise that if you enter an oppressive nation with material they've banned, you'll be subject to arrest.
- prewett 7y agoIf you progress farther than the title, you may discover that the official banned book was legally purchased by the professor at a Chinese book store. I think most of use from non-totalitarian states would be a rather surprised if that happened to us. The article goes on the suggest that the police thought he fit the profile of someone doing bad stuff, and made up a charge that fit the criminal persona they’d pegged on him.
- drty6j54s 7y ago...And? The person you're responding to is right, none of this is surprising to hear about happening in China. When you throw people into concentration camps pursuing cultural genocide you lose a lot of credibility as far as what people expect from your police.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agohttps://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=anarchist+cookbook https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=anarchist+cookbook You can buy anarchist cookbook and have it delivered in UK, apparently. 2017 a young man was arrested, and tried, for having a copy. Is the UK a totalitarian state in your opinion?
- kd3 7y agoThis is disgusting. I felt sick just reading the headline. What an absolutely disgusting country.
- nravic 7y agovery visceral reaction there
- igravious 7y agoYou got a bit of a bee in your bonnet about China judging from your comment history.
- PavlovsCat 7y agoOh look. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20339362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20339362
- kd3 7y agoI don't think people realize what kind of serious damage is done to all of humanity by censorship and destroying knowledge of history in this way. It's an enormous tragedy.
- igravious 7y agoFunnily enough, you'll find that I'm very pro free speech – I defend speech that many (most?) find deplorable. By that token I object to censorship, here and in more totalitarian places like China. I cannot, however, abide by the inflamed rhetoric that is tolerated in many media (mass and social) concerning the so-called "enemies" of the West, namely: China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, etc. If you cannot express your disapproval of this singular example of academic censorship without resorting to “This is disgusting. I felt sick just reading the headline. What an absolutely disgusting country.” then maybe you need to take some time to figure out how to express yourself better. First off, where's your sense of proportion. Secondly, academic censorship and some jail time does not usually elicit tangible revulsion. I have been guilty of the same in the past. I try now to express my disapproval in a more measured, even-handed, less emotional, less name-calling way. It's tough when you see red to take a breath or two but for the sake of public discourse we all gotta try.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ptenk 7y agoWhat’s missing from this article is that Nobu Iwatani previously worked for defense and foreign ministries in Japan. He is no “civilian”.
- yorwba 7y agoThis is the same argument used by some to claim that Huawei is the extended arm of Chinese surveillance agencies (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20366883 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20366883 ) and I don't think it's very convincing. Work for the government once, lose civilian status forever?
- Jamwinner 7y agoThe revolving door between the two, at the very least, warrant closer scrutiny, even if they don't imply breathless accusation of corruption.
- simonh 7y agoThe fact he previously worked on a project for the military is mentioned in the article.
- nradov 7y agoYou don't get to redefine the word "civilian" to suit your politics. Merely working for a defense ministry doesn't make someone a member of the armed forces.
- bigpumpkin 7y agoHe was freed: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/15/national/crime-legal/hokkaido-university-professor-held-spying-released-china/#.XdJmmldKhRY https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/11/15/national/crime-...
- woodandsteel 7y agoLot of discussion here, but no one is really defending the Chinese government's actions and its general policies on academic freedom. That's because they are basically indefensible. You know, the Chinese government tells us that its people are strongly united behind it, except for a few dissidents. But its actions are those of a government that is scared to death much of its population opposes it, or at least supports it very weakly.
- PavlovsCat 7y ago> What does censorship reveal? It reveals fear. -- Julian Assange Here, there, anywhere...they're afraid of mere words. This they show us.