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Expanding on (1): It is important to explain to HN readers the reality of CCP membership. You can consider it the equivalent of national honor society in high

by verst 6y ago

Expanding on (1): It is important to explain to HN readers the reality of CCP membership. You can consider it the equivalent of national honor society in high school in the US and various honor societies in college, but with membership dues you must pay. Membership is symbolic and people must attend mandatory propaganda classes which they don't take seriously. Why would they do this? Because this is the way to get into many leadership roles in government. So CCP membership is driven by capitalist motives. I personally am friends with quite a few CCP members. I assure you they are critical of the government and have no insight into what the leadership is doing. CCP membership in itself means little. Really depends on how high up an individual is within the party.

bad_user 6y ago
> CCP membership is driven by capitalist motives You probably mean _selfish_ motives. I was born in the communism of Eastern Europe. Back then being a party member was also for selfish reasons. About 20% of people from our country were members of the communist party. Party members had a higher status, of course, hence the phrase "in communism, everybody is equal, but some people are more equal than others". I can assure you that membership in the communist party wasn't meaningless. Yes, you had party members criticizing the party (always in private of course, and only for the show), yet they were tools of the party nonetheless. Every single one, succumbing to doing dreadful deeds whenever the party required it, and doing everything they can to preserve the status quo. And that's not capitalism my friend. That's just being immoral. --- Interestingly I see more and more CCP propaganda on HN. Someone like me can smell the bullshit from a mile long, unfortunately other people aren't as lucky to have been born in a Warsaw Pact country.
xmprt 6y ago
Thanks for the clarification. It seems like a lot of the boom in Chinese industries is because of them adopting capitalistic policies (although maybe not publicly).
yorwba 6y ago
This squares with my experience as an exchange student in China. Once I went on a hiking trip organized by the Communist Youth League (as a non-member, obviously) and when I told some friends about it, they were surprised because their only interaction with the CYL was paying 2 cents a month in membership dues. They didn't even know there was supposed to be anything more to it... (The reason they gave for being members in the first place was that all students with good grades were encouraged to join.)
whoevercares 6y ago
That’s the truth, I don’t know why you are downvoted. Point is at the moment it’s infeasible to use the CCP membership to infer if a person or organization works for CCP. It’s a deadly dangerous door to open because the next step is to inspect the direct family affiliation to CCP. Given the proliferation of CCP members, it’ll be affecting over half billion people and effectively you are telling most Chineses in America that they are suspects. It’s not too different from terminating the diplomatic relationship and worse, effectively you are saying Chinese people ~= CCP by the connection to members
- verst 6y ago
  In the US people either under estimate the size of the CCP or act as though it is an egalitarian group of people where everyone has access to all information and is briefed on strategy. The CCP doesn't vote on its strategy among all of its members. Most things that we see as controversial or dangerous when it comes to the CCP aren't even apparent to most CCP members. Joining the CCP isn't generally a decision to turn a blind eye for personal gain. It is difficult to comprehend just how much China controls the flow of information to its citizens (and the ordinary CCP members). We must distinguish between CCP leadership and the ordinary members. The average CCP member is no evil person and is unaware of any evil acts being committed. Now you might wonder why people don't investigate rumors they hear from Western media (even if the sources are banned): - Western media tends to attack Chinese culture and pride, attack ordinary Chinese - The Chinese government refuted the news and any contradicting sources are blocked. - Approval of how the country is run is generally high. Han Chinese and other groups are doing as well as never before. (And they truly don't know that there are people who are not being treated well.)
  - diabeticApe 6y ago
    This concerns me very much. Information control can basically be equated with population control. I have no doubt that your average Chinese citizen is a good person and it pisses me off that much more knowing the CCP is manipulating thier own people, often at the expense of thier own people. I recently saw a video that you might appreciate on the rise of open source softwate in China as a means of circumventing censorship and oppression.10 minute video, worth the watch. Heres the link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RFjIBM0TR7U https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RFjIBM0TR7U Or you can go to YouTube and search china rise of open source it's by a channel called honeypot. To be honest i fear that the US is also starting to head down that path. Very alarming.

by verst 6y ago

bad_user 6y ago

> CCP membership is driven by capitalist motives You probably mean _selfish_ motives. I was born in the communism of Eastern Europe. Back then being a party member was also for selfish reasons. About 20% of people from our country were members of the communist party. Party members had a higher status, of course, hence the phrase "in communism, everybody is equal, but some people are more equal than others". I can assure you that membership in the communist party wasn't meaningless. Yes, you had party members criticizing the party (always in private of course, and only for the show), yet they were tools of the party nonetheless. Every single one, succumbing to doing dreadful deeds whenever the party required it, and doing everything they can to preserve the status quo. And that's not capitalism my friend. That's just being immoral. --- Interestingly I see more and more CCP propaganda on HN. Someone like me can smell the bullshit from a mile long, unfortunately other people aren't as lucky to have been born in a Warsaw Pact country.

xmprt 6y ago

Thanks for the clarification. It seems like a lot of the boom in Chinese industries is because of them adopting capitalistic policies (although maybe not publicly).

yorwba 6y ago

This squares with my experience as an exchange student in China. Once I went on a hiking trip organized by the Communist Youth League (as a non-member, obviously) and when I told some friends about it, they were surprised because their only interaction with the CYL was paying 2 cents a month in membership dues. They didn't even know there was supposed to be anything more to it... (The reason they gave for being members in the first place was that all students with good grades were encouraged to join.)

whoevercares 6y ago

That’s the truth, I don’t know why you are downvoted. Point is at the moment it’s infeasible to use the CCP membership to infer if a person or organization works for CCP. It’s a deadly dangerous door to open because the next step is to inspect the direct family affiliation to CCP. Given the proliferation of CCP members, it’ll be affecting over half billion people and effectively you are telling most Chineses in America that they are suspects. It’s not too different from terminating the diplomatic relationship and worse, effectively you are saying Chinese people ~= CCP by the connection to members

verst 6y ago
In the US people either under estimate the size of the CCP or act as though it is an egalitarian group of people where everyone has access to all information and is briefed on strategy. The CCP doesn't vote on its strategy among all of its members. Most things that we see as controversial or dangerous when it comes to the CCP aren't even apparent to most CCP members. Joining the CCP isn't generally a decision to turn a blind eye for personal gain. It is difficult to comprehend just how much China controls the flow of information to its citizens (and the ordinary CCP members). We must distinguish between CCP leadership and the ordinary members. The average CCP member is no evil person and is unaware of any evil acts being committed. Now you might wonder why people don't investigate rumors they hear from Western media (even if the sources are banned): - Western media tends to attack Chinese culture and pride, attack ordinary Chinese - The Chinese government refuted the news and any contradicting sources are blocked. - Approval of how the country is run is generally high. Han Chinese and other groups are doing as well as never before. (And they truly don't know that there are people who are not being treated well.)
- diabeticApe 6y ago
  This concerns me very much. Information control can basically be equated with population control. I have no doubt that your average Chinese citizen is a good person and it pisses me off that much more knowing the CCP is manipulating thier own people, often at the expense of thier own people. I recently saw a video that you might appreciate on the rise of open source softwate in China as a means of circumventing censorship and oppression.10 minute video, worth the watch. Heres the link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RFjIBM0TR7U https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RFjIBM0TR7U Or you can go to YouTube and search china rise of open source it's by a channel called honeypot. To be honest i fear that the US is also starting to head down that path. Very alarming.