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Li Wenliang
- 40acres 7y agoFrom the outside looking in the combination of Coronavirus response and Hong Kong protests are the strongest challenges to the Communist Party legitimacy I've ever seen. I think we're a long way from any possibility of downfall but its been interesting to see the backlash from mainland citizens over Li's death and even Xi go out and make public appearances to sure up the appearance of control over the virus response.
- theseadroid 7y agoReading many Chinese sources made me doubt your assessment. Regular mainland Chinese are not happy. But not to the point that they are thinking alternative governance. Rather some of the anger are rooted with the expectation that the Party can be better in future.
- rini17 7y agoThe trust can get irreparably broken, though. This happened in eastern Europe, resistance was not an option so the result was widespread apathy and stagnation instead.
- tartoran 7y agoYou’re forgetting that China had a renaissance moment under the comunist party. They may not agree with some things but are majorly backing their government. They’re in a way rational, if the communist party fell overnight they’d be in big trouble, they wouldn’t be able to self govern democratically. The problem is that the party is corrupted and has absolutely no plans to reform. It will only get more corrupted before something significant changes.
- rini17 7y agoI don't know anything about China but Taiwan and Hongkong apparently can govern itself democratically?
- tartoran 7y agoHK and Taiwan are a completely different thing. They are not under the CCP rule. China has been trying to but quite unsuccessfully.
- franknine 7y agoHong Kong is China territory with semi-democracy government under "One country two system" policy. But most of the legislators are appointed by CCP or groups close to CCP. That's the reason why even facing landslide defeat in 2019 Hong Kong local elections, Chief Executive Lam doesn't budge a bit and continue to suppress protesters. Recently she refuse to close border with China which results in medical workers strike. Taiwan is an independent country with full democracy system but not being recognized by international society because China is pushing its "One China" policy to other countries. Foreign countries or companies violate this idea would be punished economically by China(France got punished for selling Mirage 2000 to Taiwan)
- noobermin 7y agoLook at the President of the US and how there isn't a revolution planned by anyone.
- rini17 7y agoRight, the revolution did not happen because his election was like opening the pressure relief valve. There can still be reconciliation in the society. Chinese system does not have any such valve.
- Aperocky 7y ago> This happened in eastern Europe And the results are in. Would you like to live in 1970s Russia or 1990s Russia as an ordinary Russian?
- rini17 7y agoSo you imply China mentality is closer to Russian - if the party falls, everything goes to hell? I don't know, I was born in Czechoslovakia.
- Aperocky 7y agoCzechoslovakia had the advantage of being a small country next to the EU. China had the disadvantage of being the most populous country in the world. In crisis, economic or otherwise, Czechoslovakia is much more likely and capable of being rescued by the international community. China will need to rely on itself if only because it is way too big for any kind of help to be substantial and meaningful. Thus the outcome will likely be even worse than Russia, which only has around 1/10th the population of China and an impressive natural resource reserve.
- pimmen 7y agoThere are also countries that thrived economically after the fall of socialism. Why yes, I'll gladly take an apartment in East Berlin if you're offering me one.
- peisistratos 7y agoPeople have been saying the CCP is on its last legs for over 70 years.
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y agoUSSR dissolved because of atrocious economy. It was hard for people to have their families fed, fixed prices and influx of money in the economy had led to a coupon system - basically a right to buy a certain quantity of sugar/dairy products/meat/etc. (I was born in the USSR and had lived through the agony of the regime) Unless CCP somehow screws up the economy really BAD, driving everyone to the point of starvation, nothing will change. And even then: looking at North Korea, people there were driven far beyond the point of starvation, and they still endure these hardships without any discontent against Kims.
- pm90 7y agoAgreed with all your points but I don't think DPRK is a good comparison to PRC. DPRK is small enough to brainwash all its citizens and imprison those that refuse, not so for PRC (although they do seem to be trying this in Xinjiang).
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y agoI don't think small nation is easier to control. For example, in Russia, whoever controls Moscow controls the country (don't want to explain here why exactly, so please just trust me in this). So, theoretically, a moderately big popular uprising against Putin in Moscow could gather 300K-500K protesters, and Moscow police would have just 30K riot troops to deal with it, plus 40K regular policemen. However, in a span of few hour, reinforcements from all over the country can be brought in from all over the country, bringing the number of riot police to 150K, quite comfortably enough to counter 500K protesters. And regional protesters have no real way to join the protests in the epicenter, because Russia is freaking big, travel is controlled by the government and can be ceased in case of emergency. Side note: 2013-2014 protests in the Ukraine worked for a simple reason - not only protests enjoyed an overwhelming support in the capital, and had a fraction of parliament supporting it, Kiev is relatively close to western Ukraine, so many active protesters from there just got on buses and drove to join the fight and make the balance more even. This said, I believe that the bigger the country, the easier it is to control, because government forces are way more mobile, which easier brings local numerical superiority. As for imprisonment, in a bigger country you just need more prisons, that can be achieved without much difficulties.
- khuey 7y agoI don't think "legitimacy" is a useful concept here. The Communist Party of China doesn't derive its power from the consent of the governed, as Mao said, it derives it from the barrel of a gun. As long as they have the weapons and continue to be ruthless enough to use them they are not going anywhere.
- mdonahoe 7y agoI wonder what is more to blame: the government structure or the sheer number of citizens. I assume the former but would be curious if anyone can make a compelling case for the latter.
- mahart 7y agoAs big of a challenge as this is, the party has more control now than it ever had before. Control from technology but also control from social structure and how they teach people to think.
- jackallis 7y agoChina therefore is not ready to be a global leader on anything.
- shaneprrlt 7y agoThat wasn't obvious by virtue of being a communist nation that censors free speech? Edit: LOL at anyone that downvotes a post criticizing actual communism in 2020.
- jmcqk6 7y agoI have no idea what you're trying to say. There isn't some criteria you have to meet in order to be a "global leader" beyond just doing things. Chine is a global leader in a whole lot of things. You're going to have a lot of trouble finding any country that doesn't do shitty things. Turns out that's a people problem, not a governmental one.
- datashow 7y agoCan you list the things China is a global leader in?
- acvny 7y agoA very very big part of all consumer goods in the world are made in China. Including your iPhone.
- Panoramix 7y agoYou mean like solar panels, drones and 5G? There's plenty of things
- datashow 7y agoI did't expect you would name "global leader" in each of those items, that would be a lot. Maybe ping pong as another one?
- mr_overalls 7y ago
- derision 7y agoThey're a global leader when it comes to the spread of infectious disease
- iNate2000 7y agoOr in government dictates about scientific truth. The current U.S. administration is working hard to catch up. MAGA!
- allovernow 7y agoTry writing something like publically that about the Chinese government as a Chinese national.
- mads 7y agoPretty good at having their feelings hurt also.
- simonh 7y agoUnderstandably there’s a lot of anger directed against the police and administrators that censored Dr Li. Of course they will be convicted of corruption or misconduct or something, but that just makes them victims too. They were doing their jobs exactly the way they were trained and incentivised to do it. I’m not justifying them, actively supporting a corrupt system is a corrupt thing to do, but them being punished by the system they worked for is bullshit. I just hope Chinese people realise that the censorship of their protests about this is exactly the same as the censorship of Dr Li. It’s the same system run by the same people for the same reasons. It’s crap like this that the HK protesters are trying to keep out of HK. Most Chinese mainlanders swallowed the party line about HK. I hope this gives them cause to reconsider that attitude.
- datashow 7y agoAlso remember lots of things changed under Xi. China never allows political dissidence, but it is under Xi where everything in WeChat is heavily monitored and people get arrested for all sorts of minor things. So Xi is personally responsible for the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.
- chaostheory 7y agoBefore XJ, China seemed to be gradually opening up. IMO it was inevitable that one of their metros would eclipse Silicon Valley. Now with XJ in power, a lockdown on freedom of expression, and a more perfect execution of state policy; I no longer see it happening. It’s more likely that India will have Silicon Valley’s successor in the future, if anyone can produce one
- keanzu 7y agoThat's a technological advance and not a policy change. WeChat didn't exist prior to 2011 and Xi Jinping rose to power in 2012.
- datashow 7y agoThere were other popular social media platforms in the past, such as Sina Weibo and other online discussion boards, which were not heavily monitored as WeChat is.
- whatshisface 7y agoHopefully Americans are by now completely inoculated against the idea of having systems in place to stop people from "making false comments on the Internet." The Chinese now have a very bad situation on their hands with no clear ways for them to improve it, but America is not there yet.
- heartbeats 7y agoHa-ha, no. Rather the opposite - after all, we need some kind of system to prevent anti-vax disinformation from undermining our public health response. EDIT: Yes, this is satire.
- filoleg 7y agoNot sure whether your response was tongue-in-cheek, but just in case it wasn't. When you get a loaded gun like this that gets passed around, you don't get to control what the next holder of that gun does with it. Just because it is you or your buddy who would want to use it for a good cause (preventing anti-vax disinformation), doesn't mean that the next holder of the gun won't use it in a way you won't like. And even then, that's assuming you do not believe that anti-vaxers should be allowed to publicly post their disinformation. I absolutely disagree with anti-vaxing, but I do believe in their right to post their info, just like i believe in their right to be publicly beaten into submission with overwhelming amounts of scientifically accurate information.
- seibelj 7y agoIf someone made it illegal to post anti-vax statements, it would just embolden people to do it more. That's just how human psychology works. It's also the most ridiculous, knee-jerk reactionary power we could possibly give the government.
- jbay808 7y agoBy this reasoning, China censoring doctors who warned about the flu was merely very effective reverse-psychology in order to get people to take it seriously? I don't support internet censorship, but I do support consistency of reasoning.
- _bxg1 7y agoAnd we've had our own disease outbreak (measles) because of a refusal to remove actual false statements from the internet. There is no simple solution. The mechanism that allows disinformation to be mitigated also opens the door for abuse.
- breck 7y agoI think we all need a little humility on how good our medical information is. It is bad. Very bad. We've had success with using math and science in domains like chemistry and manufacturing and think that we can apply it directly to human biology. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Human beings are far more complex than anything we make (look at how many cells your body produces every second, and how much information is in each one of those cells), and we don't have the luxury of massive, repeatable experiments. Our current data tools are nowhere near good enough for us to be so confident in most domains of medicine, such as vaccination. I get vaccines, but I support someone's write to abstain. It's a bit of a leap of faith and "authorities" have a long track record of giving terrible medical advice all the time. Here are 4 loosey goosey examples: currently 2 million opioid disorders with hundreds of thousands of deaths stemming from "prescriptions"; $100's of billions in revenue to depression drugs which have been terribly ineffective, and only now, after decades of banning them, is USGOV allowing psychedelic trials, which seem to cure people in a session, for next to nothing; the food groups—a lot of good nutrition advice has done; stress is a top of cause of medical problems and the top cause of stress is financial problems from health expenses! We don't need to "remove actual false statements from the internet". Instead we need to figure out how to actually put true statements on the internet. And no one I've seen is close to figuring that out.
- mudil 7y agoAs someone who came from the Soviet Union, I can attest that this is how socialism with the government in charge looks like.
- yes_man 7y agoAlthough we all get what you mean and respect your experience, let us not confuse corrupted, oppressive, authoritarian single-party regimes with "socialism" just because they call themselves "socialist" or "communist" states. Especially in case of China, whose economy these days is de facto capitalism with strong rule of government
- mudil 7y agoWell, Soviet Union was pure socialism.
- mudil 7y agoThis is how Medicare For All looks like.
- kelnos 7y agoLook at much of the Western world which has some sort of single-payer or government healthcare option. They have lower healthcare costs than the US, generally better outcomes, and are in no danger of public revolt or economic collapse. Equating "government subsidized healthcare" with "authoritarian regime" is just arguing in bad faith on your part.
- kelnos 7y agoIt was also a corrupt, repressive, single-party, authoritarian regime, which was the important ingredient for its badness and eventual downfall. Its economic policy likely just made it fail faster, which I think is what sets China apart and has made it more successful. That, and more-advanced technology that has made mass surveillance more practical.
- shmageggy 7y agoIt would be nice to have some context in the title. As of right now just seeing a name at the top of HN is effectively click bait.
- nyolfen 7y agowarning your close friends in a private chat group does not seem like the same thing as whistleblowing imo
- yurlungur 7y agoI think part of the reason why Li Wenliang's story stirred up such emotions is that he wasn't really an activist with a righteous indignation, he was just a normal citizen looking out for the people around him. That said, his action effectively blew the whistle through the spread of information.
- nyolfen 7y agoit seems more like the guy who leaked the screenshots and got him in trouble is the whistleblower
- 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago> Wuhan police summoned and admonished him for "making false comments on the Internet". I want everyone to think of this type of stuff when you hear someone advocating for 1st amendment free speech exceptions. It always starts innocent enough, such as protecting elections against fake news, or stopping false vaccine scaremongering, etc... but the laws will always, always, eventually be used to silence those who challenge the government. KNOW YOUR RIGHTS! KEEP YOUR RIGHTS!
- leoh 7y agoObviously his censorship by the Chinese government was dumb and harmful and obviously he was right about the virus. But I don't quite understand how an opthalmologist would be equipped to identify Coronavirus. Does anyone have the details here?
- snapetom 7y agoHe didn't identify Coronavirus specifically. He initially called them SARS cases. The message to his colleagues was along the line of, "hey, there's something going on here. We're seeing SARS again." After that, he was called into the police department for "rumormongering."
- aarongray 7y agoI think what happened was that the initial doctors who identified the coronavirus cases were told to keep silent by the authorities and hospital. Li happened to see some of these reports and he notified other doctors in the WeChat group. So he didn't identify it, he raised the alarm when no one else was.
- RandallBrown 7y agoIt says he saw a report that 7 people had confirmed SARS infections. He simply sent that to his friends on WeChat, who then sent it to other people on WeChat, who sent it to other people... He didn't identify it, he just told the public about it.
- Jerry2 7y ago>I don't quite understand how an opthalmologist would be equipped to identify Coronavirus. A patient could have come to him with symptoms of a conjunctivitis [1]: > As explained by Dr. Ignasi Jürgens, medical director of ICR, some reports suggest that the virus can cause conjunctivitis and be transmitted by aerosol contact with the conjunctiva. Therefore, patients who go to the ophthalmologist for conjunctivitis and have respiratory symptoms, in addition to having traveled abroad, especially to China, could be suspected of having the virus. [1] https://icrcat.com/en/coronavirus-and-conjunctivitis/ https://icrcat.com/en/coronavirus-and-conjunctivitis/
- aristophenes 7y agoAs soon as he started feeling sick he booked a hotel room to keep his pregnant wife and child from getting it. Respect.
- foobar_ 7y ago> After screenshots of his WeChat messages were shared on Chinese forum and gained huge attention, his manager talked to him, blaming him for leaking the information. Managers playing the blame game as usual.
- tpmx 7y agoWell, it will certainly be interesting to see how the moderators handle this thread.
- Aperocky 7y agoIs this thread being hidden and if so, why?
- tpmx 7y agoI guess something along the lines of "this thread may disrupt the harmony of our shared society" or similar.
- thedudeabides5 7y agoWasn't this just top of the front page? Now it's not even on like page 5? What gives? Is there admin over-ride to what's on the front page and did this get censored?
- keanzu 7y agoThere's an 'overheated discussion detector' but as far as I know the precise mechanism isn't described. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16020089
- sizzle 7y agoWould love to see a toxicology report that has some verifiable chain of command element to rule out foul play from his unfortunate demise as a dissent in that harsh political climate where having an unpopular opinion can result in your life being ended.
- known 7y ago"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it" --Einstein