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Serious question: How does one get educated about modern China? (I'm Chinese but mostly Western educated) Having seen my grandparents/parents/relatives escapin

Serious question: How does one get educated about modern China? (I'm Chinese but mostly Western educated) Having seen my grandparents/parents/relatives escaping communist China and now my generation escaping HK, it has heavily influenced me on how even people who identified as Chinese and hoping for democracy and freedom for their own cousins in China are being played and lied to for multiple decades. My people in HK are screaming that the West previous engagement policies have proven again and again to be ineffective. It's believed that the only way is to "distrust and verify" and not kowtow to their ways like what the West had been doing for the previous decades. I do not claim to know everything about how the Chinese system functions and can only observe how my immediate network is being oppressed but still hope that there's a way to engage the CCP if at all possible.

alisonatwork 6y ago
It's extremely difficult to get unbiased information on China. However, there are some good sources. If you have the money, Sinocism[0] is a great newsletter that collects the top (mostly political) stories of the day. Some other good (free) Substacks are Chinarrative[1], which publishes translated human interest stories, and Chinese Journal Review[2], which translates abstracts of a selection of academic papers. If you would like a local insight into more young/liberal perspectives, Sixth Tone[3] is fairly interesting. Be aware that this is a state-owned media source, so it has an interest in presenting China as progressive in ways that outside of middle class communities in top tier cities it usually isn't. Just because it's state-owned doesn't mean it's not informative, though! China Media Project[4] is perhaps a useful accompanying source to try understand exactly how the state media is biased. Of the western media, New York Times probably does the best reporting on China (they even have a Chinese language version), but like all western media they struggle to get access. Inside China, Caixin is probably the best newspaper, but unfortunately it is pay-walled. From left wing perspective I can also recommend Made In China Journal[5]. [0] https://sinocism.com/ https://sinocism.com/ [1] https://chinarrative.substack.com/ https://chinarrative.substack.com/ [2] https://chinesejournalreview.substack.com/ https://chinesejournalreview.substack.com/ [3] http://www.sixthtone.com/ http://www.sixthtone.com/ [4] https://chinamediaproject.org/ https://chinamediaproject.org/ [5] https://madeinchinajournal.com/ https://madeinchinajournal.com/
vkou 6y ago
I am not from China, but I am from Russia. Western posturing and brinksmanship isn't going to bring about any meaningful change. It's been tried for seventy years against the USSR, with no effect [1]. All that a foreign enemy (that loudly proclaims their belligerence) does is unite people behind shitty leaders. (As we have seen in Western democracies when their governments are more concerned with blaming external enemies, rather than fixing internal problems.) Change in the CCP will have to come from movements within China. These kinds of changes take generations, and will not always result in the kind of change you would like to see. Even in an authoritarian country, there is still a feedback loop between public sentiment, and their ruling government. At the end of the day, no government can govern without the consent of its people. It's just a much slower feedback loop than what you see in countries that have regular elections [2]. Strong-man anti-China posturing will not do anything to China, and its architects know that. China is not the target of their behaviour - looking strong in front of domestic audiences is. In the 90s, tough-on-crime was popular in America, for the same reasons, to devastating consequences. Today, we've moved on to tough-on-China (which will result in devastating consequences if it ever moves past rhetoric, and into a shooting war.) [1] The USSR imploded in a combination of incompetence, complacency, and a desire for its leaders (Gorbachev and his allies, who won a power struggle against Brezhnev's circle) to stop the worst of its repressive practices. [2] Which in itself operates on a timeline of decades, if you look at how long it takes to go from public sentiment, to the primaries, to actual results in elections.
- jogundas 6y ago
  Your point [1] argues that the USSR collapsed due to internal reasons only. I believe that it is an oversimplification. Cooperation with totalitarian states often prolong their existence. An example that comes to mind is the US subsidizing grain being sold to the USSR and thus preventing starvation, which would have arguably led to a collapse of the communist regime [a]. However, it is also possible to encourage the "feedback loop" that you mention by merely demonstrating the alternatives that are out there. Radio from the other side of the Iron Curtain [b] gave hope to many people in the USSR. To sum up, thoughtful action from the outside can help bring down totalitarian regimes faster. [a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Grain_Robbery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Grain_Robbery [b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America#Cold_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America#Cold_War
rayiner 6y ago
The CCP is walking a fine line between relaxing it’s hold over day to day things enough to make western businesses feel comfortable operating there, and maintaining the CCP as the ultimate source of authority over all aspects of society. Just from my knowledge, courts is an example. They’ve had western legal scholars come in and help reform their legal system. These days, it’s not lawless in the sense that arbitrary whims of party officials will decide court cases. But the courts are there to ultimately implement party will—it’s not like in the US where some federal judge will randomly enjoin something Trump does. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-policy-law/chinas-top-judge-warns-courts-on-judicial-independence-idUSKBN1500OF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-policy-law/chinas-t...
baybal2 6y ago
> It's believed that the only way is to "distrust and verify" and not kowtow to their ways like what the West had been doing for the previous decades The only way that will work will be dropping few tank divisions on direction to Beijing. I've dealt a lot with people like Xi, and Putin in my life, during my childhood, and youth in worse parts of Russia. I've tried everything, nothing stops them, they will keep pushing with brazen arrogance. I had once such guy taken away by police, he came out on bail, and came back to bully me the next day. They are pretty much like cartoon zombies, keep coming back until they cannot.
- baybal2 6y ago
  In other words, what I want to say is that Puting, or Xi will not go anywhere from seats of power, nor would they back down, unless they are down, like down physically. Not advocating a war, per se.
euix 6y ago
Before covid I would have just said go visit China and travel the country. I don't think westerners really understand China as cliched as that sounds. If you add up all the western countries together + their westernized protecterates/allies, Japan, SK, Taiwan. You would only get half the population of China. Think of the scale of that, your internal market is literally twice the size of the entire western market. That goes for domestic products like soap bars or video sharing but also industrial policy like airplanes, high speed trains, etc. China is basically another planet that also happens to be located on Earth. That's a good analogy I think. The CCP is the current planetary govt. If you are the government of Mar's you wouldn't really care much about happens on Earth would you? (I.E. the rest of the world). Relations in China are the ultimate expression of realism. Politics is power politics, authority resides in he who controls the guns. The branches of government that matter are intelligence, military and security. Because at the end of the day, the only force is coercive force. This isn't particularly new or fascinating as it's been true throughout Chinese history. The rules of international politics applies to domestic politics in China. I.E. the law of the jungle. It's a very old political culture so I imagine a lot of methods were tried and ultimately centralized authority backed by a strong army came out as the most efficient way to unify and govern the land. The governing method of China has and always has been for the last 2000 years some variation of Legalism. Dress it up as communism or socialism with Chinese Characteristics or any other neologism but Legalism has always ruled the land in an unified China. I don't think the west is kowtowing to China, the western elites just recognize the balance of power has shifted in China's favour and have started to accept the "facts of the ground" so to speak, but they have not communicated this in any coherent way to their domestic population which continue to cling onto the pretence of the economic and political superiority of the western bloc, hence the dissonance between what is preached and what is actioned. As for the article I don't put too much stock (no pun intended) in it, mostly because I follow BABA stock quite closely and while it has lost a lot of value recently, news like this should really cause big moves if it is true. I could be wrong and maybe in a month's time we will all be nursing big losses from the rug being pulled from underneath us. But as it stands this has not been picked up any major newswire as far as I know (FT, WSJ, Bloomberg) so I am holding my positions, not shorting or placing puts. Money talks, bullshit walks.
- pedrosorio 6y ago

alisonatwork 6y ago

It's extremely difficult to get unbiased information on China. However, there are some good sources. If you have the money, Sinocism[0] is a great newsletter that collects the top (mostly political) stories of the day. Some other good (free) Substacks are Chinarrative[1], which publishes translated human interest stories, and Chinese Journal Review[2], which translates abstracts of a selection of academic papers. If you would like a local insight into more young/liberal perspectives, Sixth Tone[3] is fairly interesting. Be aware that this is a state-owned media source, so it has an interest in presenting China as progressive in ways that outside of middle class communities in top tier cities it usually isn't. Just because it's state-owned doesn't mean it's not informative, though! China Media Project[4] is perhaps a useful accompanying source to try understand exactly how the state media is biased. Of the western media, New York Times probably does the best reporting on China (they even have a Chinese language version), but like all western media they struggle to get access. Inside China, Caixin is probably the best newspaper, but unfortunately it is pay-walled. From left wing perspective I can also recommend Made In China Journal[5]. [0] https://sinocism.com/ https://sinocism.com/ [1] https://chinarrative.substack.com/ https://chinarrative.substack.com/ [2] https://chinesejournalreview.substack.com/ https://chinesejournalreview.substack.com/ [3] http://www.sixthtone.com/ http://www.sixthtone.com/ [4] https://chinamediaproject.org/ https://chinamediaproject.org/ [5] https://madeinchinajournal.com/ https://madeinchinajournal.com/

vkou 6y ago

I am not from China, but I am from Russia. Western posturing and brinksmanship isn't going to bring about any meaningful change. It's been tried for seventy years against the USSR, with no effect [1]. All that a foreign enemy (that loudly proclaims their belligerence) does is unite people behind shitty leaders. (As we have seen in Western democracies when their governments are more concerned with blaming external enemies, rather than fixing internal problems.) Change in the CCP will have to come from movements within China. These kinds of changes take generations, and will not always result in the kind of change you would like to see. Even in an authoritarian country, there is still a feedback loop between public sentiment, and their ruling government. At the end of the day, no government can govern without the consent of its people. It's just a much slower feedback loop than what you see in countries that have regular elections [2]. Strong-man anti-China posturing will not do anything to China, and its architects know that. China is not the target of their behaviour - looking strong in front of domestic audiences is. In the 90s, tough-on-crime was popular in America, for the same reasons, to devastating consequences. Today, we've moved on to tough-on-China (which will result in devastating consequences if it ever moves past rhetoric, and into a shooting war.) [1] The USSR imploded in a combination of incompetence, complacency, and a desire for its leaders (Gorbachev and his allies, who won a power struggle against Brezhnev's circle) to stop the worst of its repressive practices. [2] Which in itself operates on a timeline of decades, if you look at how long it takes to go from public sentiment, to the primaries, to actual results in elections.

jogundas 6y ago
Your point [1] argues that the USSR collapsed due to internal reasons only. I believe that it is an oversimplification. Cooperation with totalitarian states often prolong their existence. An example that comes to mind is the US subsidizing grain being sold to the USSR and thus preventing starvation, which would have arguably led to a collapse of the communist regime [a]. However, it is also possible to encourage the "feedback loop" that you mention by merely demonstrating the alternatives that are out there. Radio from the other side of the Iron Curtain [b] gave hope to many people in the USSR. To sum up, thoughtful action from the outside can help bring down totalitarian regimes faster. [a] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Grain_Robbery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Grain_Robbery [b] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America#Cold_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America#Cold_War

rayiner 6y ago

The CCP is walking a fine line between relaxing it’s hold over day to day things enough to make western businesses feel comfortable operating there, and maintaining the CCP as the ultimate source of authority over all aspects of society. Just from my knowledge, courts is an example. They’ve had western legal scholars come in and help reform their legal system. These days, it’s not lawless in the sense that arbitrary whims of party officials will decide court cases. But the courts are there to ultimately implement party will—it’s not like in the US where some federal judge will randomly enjoin something Trump does. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-policy-law/chinas-top-judge-warns-courts-on-judicial-independence-idUSKBN1500OF https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-policy-law/chinas-t...

baybal2 6y ago

> It's believed that the only way is to "distrust and verify" and not kowtow to their ways like what the West had been doing for the previous decades The only way that will work will be dropping few tank divisions on direction to Beijing. I've dealt a lot with people like Xi, and Putin in my life, during my childhood, and youth in worse parts of Russia. I've tried everything, nothing stops them, they will keep pushing with brazen arrogance. I had once such guy taken away by police, he came out on bail, and came back to bully me the next day. They are pretty much like cartoon zombies, keep coming back until they cannot.

baybal2 6y ago
In other words, what I want to say is that Puting, or Xi will not go anywhere from seats of power, nor would they back down, unless they are down, like down physically. Not advocating a war, per se.

euix 6y ago

Before covid I would have just said go visit China and travel the country. I don't think westerners really understand China as cliched as that sounds. If you add up all the western countries together + their westernized protecterates/allies, Japan, SK, Taiwan. You would only get half the population of China. Think of the scale of that, your internal market is literally twice the size of the entire western market. That goes for domestic products like soap bars or video sharing but also industrial policy like airplanes, high speed trains, etc. China is basically another planet that also happens to be located on Earth. That's a good analogy I think. The CCP is the current planetary govt. If you are the government of Mar's you wouldn't really care much about happens on Earth would you? (I.E. the rest of the world). Relations in China are the ultimate expression of realism. Politics is power politics, authority resides in he who controls the guns. The branches of government that matter are intelligence, military and security. Because at the end of the day, the only force is coercive force. This isn't particularly new or fascinating as it's been true throughout Chinese history. The rules of international politics applies to domestic politics in China. I.E. the law of the jungle. It's a very old political culture so I imagine a lot of methods were tried and ultimately centralized authority backed by a strong army came out as the most efficient way to unify and govern the land. The governing method of China has and always has been for the last 2000 years some variation of Legalism. Dress it up as communism or socialism with Chinese Characteristics or any other neologism but Legalism has always ruled the land in an unified China. I don't think the west is kowtowing to China, the western elites just recognize the balance of power has shifted in China's favour and have started to accept the "facts of the ground" so to speak, but they have not communicated this in any coherent way to their domestic population which continue to cling onto the pretence of the economic and political superiority of the western bloc, hence the dissonance between what is preached and what is actioned. As for the article I don't put too much stock (no pun intended) in it, mostly because I follow BABA stock quite closely and while it has lost a lot of value recently, news like this should really cause big moves if it is true. I could be wrong and maybe in a month's time we will all be nursing big losses from the rug being pulled from underneath us. But as it stands this has not been picked up any major newswire as far as I know (FT, WSJ, Bloomberg) so I am holding my positions, not shorting or placing puts. Money talks, bullshit walks.

pedrosorio 6y ago