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This is only half correct. Until Mr. Xi came to power, China was getting wealthier and (somewhat) more open. Since ~2010 China is becoming more closed and more

This is only half correct. Until Mr. Xi came to power, China was getting wealthier and (somewhat) more open. Since ~2010 China is becoming more closed and more aggressive. See for example Xinjiang, Hongkong and Taiwan. 1938's Germany was also much worse than 1934's Germany. So it is no point of saying, well, you did not complain about Hitler in 1934, so no right to complain about him in 1938. Another geek datapoint: I travel to China often, and every year it gets harder and harder to access outside websites (yes, even with proxies).

truth_ 5y ago
Yes. Deng was more concerned about growing silently. He cared about his people, and did not want to draw too much attention to China. I knew Xi was a textbook dictator when I heard about him banning Winnie The Pooh in Chinese internet [0]. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...
- lucian1900 5y ago
  That didn’t happen though. Even today you can find Winnie the Pooh memes on Chinese social media. Most Chinese people think they’re racist and uninteresting, but that’s a different matter.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  I don’t think the Pooh censorship was Xi’s doing, and the apparatus would have done some similar proactive censoring for the previous president as well. Xi crossed into dictator territory when he was able to declare himself president for life. Otherwise, we’d be talking about his successor by now.
  - xtian 5y ago
    Xi never declared himself president for life, the National People's Congress simply passed a law removing term limits. Angela Merkel has been chancellor of Germany for twice as long as Xi has been president of China.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      What’s the difference? Xi got the assembly to remove term limits, and the next president won’t be selected until the end of his term. Merkel has to go through national parliament elections every so often, and her party must still vote for her as chancellor after those. None of those apply to Xi.
      - xtian 5y ago
        The president of China is elected by the National People's Congress after each term. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Are you saying the national people’s congress isn’t a rubber stamp body? If you are Chinese, who is your congress person or who did you vote for in the last election?
        xtian 5y ago
        No, I'm an American disappointed in the ignorance of my countrymen. My congressperson has been in office consecutively since 1997 with no serious challenges, and I couldn't name a single thing she's done for me in that time.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        That’s fine. I’ll tel you how it works: in the USA, almost anyone can run for congress, there are primaries to sort out the top contenders for a general election. Congress people get “unelected” all the time which is how the house changes parties every so often. In China, you are given a list of 41 names and have to select 40 of them, that one not being picked not getting a seat. Ironically enough, Xi was in that position before but his status as a princeling meant he still got a seat anyways.
        5y ago
cromwellian 5y ago
Yes, absolutely. The Deng era was characterized by a like of Gorbachev like opening, far fewer things were censored. After the whole Falun Gong purge, which it seems was partially used as an excuse for the hardliners to purge the moderates, a series of increasingly fascist leaders have taken power, culminating with Xi (now "president for life"). Under Xi, they have stoked nationalism a lot more, the same as Trump did here, at the same time as they have built a surveillance state like no other. Yes, the US isn't innocent here, but let's not draw false equivalences between what the NSA was doing, and installing cameras every 10 feet with deep neural nets to track everyone movement from the time they leave their home to the time they return, and even tag ethnic features (label video detected features as "uighur") There's been a rise of nationalism around the globe, with fascists being elected everywhere. And that's why the West should resist China, not because China's rise is bad, but because China's rise with Xi at the helm is bad. I wouldn't have said resist Germany prior to Hitler either, as there was nothing wrong with their economy improving after the horrors of WW1. It's all the other shit they were doing under the Nazis that called for a boycott. Ditto for Japan and the US oil embargo. Japanese economic growth? Not a bad thing. Japanese economic growth used to invade, pillage, and rape China? A good reason for resistance. This is something hard to get through to a lot of people, but criticism of the CCP is not criticism of the Chinese people, China, or Chinese culture. But the CCP has thoroughly convinced people that to oppose them, is to "insult China" and provoke a nationalist response. The resistance we need is to fascism, of all forms.
- cromwellian 5y ago
  Oh, the other phenomena that's new is young nationalists, like the overseas 小粉红 "little pinks" who voted these down. :) Normally nationalists tend to be overrepresented in the older generation, like the snowflakes in the US who take great offense at someone kneeling during the anthem at as Football game, but the CCP has a number of funded propaganda outlets targeting younger people, the opposite strategy of Fox News, whose channel demographic is median age 65. One example is Observer News Network (Guancha). The Doublethink Lab blog has done an analysis of its roots and funding: https://medium.com/doublethinklab/tracing-control-and-influence-at-guancha-news-54219a0f8203 https://medium.com/doublethinklab/tracing-control-and-influe...
beaunative 5y ago
Not mean to correct you, but China's still getting wealthier. Xi has generally kept his economy policies along the lines of his predessors, though politically it does seems he is much more conservative and nationalistic.
- xbmcuser 5y ago
  China biggest problem is he has stamped out opposing views from the communist party. China has 1 party system but previously their were different factions in the party so opposing views did come up that is becoming less and less so as Xi has consolidated power.
  - bingbong70 5y ago
    Its hard to have an anti-corruption movement without the side effect of consolidating power. Hopefully the US will soon have an anti-corruption movement (long overdue), so the world can see an example of how one can be properly executed.
refenestrator 5y ago
Openness is irrelevant, the issue is their rise in power and the fear of losing hegemony in America. If they had continued on the Hu Jintao trajectory, getting slightly more open while amassing economic and political power at the same rate, you'd see the exact same moralizing from Americans about how bad they are.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
  The rest of the world is handing them money bags and they aren't supposed to rise in power?
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    They were supposed to keep grinding away on the dirty manufacturing while we pocket all the profits via financial services and IP rents.
odiroot 5y ago
> This is only half correct. Until Mr. Xi came to power, China was getting wealthier and (somewhat) more open. The Internet filtering was already being introduced by Hu Jintao. But, admittedly, Xi is the Paranoid-Man.
FooBarWidget 5y ago
That is also only half of the story. Prior to Xi, China was on the verge of collapse due to internal corruption, and its economic strategy was too focused on cheap labor and low-quality products. That wasn't sustainable. This doesn't mean I'm supporting Xi. I'm just pointing out that China's direction had to change, some way or another, so it makes no sense to look back at previous administrations with rose-colored glasses.

truth_ 5y ago

Yes. Deng was more concerned about growing silently. He cared about his people, and did not want to draw too much attention to China. I knew Xi was a textbook dictator when I heard about him banning Winnie The Pooh in Chinese internet [0]. [0]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win...

lucian1900 5y ago
That didn’t happen though. Even today you can find Winnie the Pooh memes on Chinese social media. Most Chinese people think they’re racist and uninteresting, but that’s a different matter.
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
I don’t think the Pooh censorship was Xi’s doing, and the apparatus would have done some similar proactive censoring for the previous president as well. Xi crossed into dictator territory when he was able to declare himself president for life. Otherwise, we’d be talking about his successor by now.
- xtian 5y ago
  Xi never declared himself president for life, the National People's Congress simply passed a law removing term limits. Angela Merkel has been chancellor of Germany for twice as long as Xi has been president of China.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    What’s the difference? Xi got the assembly to remove term limits, and the next president won’t be selected until the end of his term. Merkel has to go through national parliament elections every so often, and her party must still vote for her as chancellor after those. None of those apply to Xi.
    - xtian 5y ago
      The president of China is elected by the National People's Congress after each term. I'm not sure what you're talking about.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        Are you saying the national people’s congress isn’t a rubber stamp body? If you are Chinese, who is your congress person or who did you vote for in the last election?
        xtian 5y ago
        No, I'm an American disappointed in the ignorance of my countrymen. My congressperson has been in office consecutively since 1997 with no serious challenges, and I couldn't name a single thing she's done for me in that time.
        seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        That’s fine. I’ll tel you how it works: in the USA, almost anyone can run for congress, there are primaries to sort out the top contenders for a general election. Congress people get “unelected” all the time which is how the house changes parties every so often. In China, you are given a list of 41 names and have to select 40 of them, that one not being picked not getting a seat. Ironically enough, Xi was in that position before but his status as a princeling meant he still got a seat anyways.
        5y ago

cromwellian 5y ago

Yes, absolutely. The Deng era was characterized by a like of Gorbachev like opening, far fewer things were censored. After the whole Falun Gong purge, which it seems was partially used as an excuse for the hardliners to purge the moderates, a series of increasingly fascist leaders have taken power, culminating with Xi (now "president for life"). Under Xi, they have stoked nationalism a lot more, the same as Trump did here, at the same time as they have built a surveillance state like no other. Yes, the US isn't innocent here, but let's not draw false equivalences between what the NSA was doing, and installing cameras every 10 feet with deep neural nets to track everyone movement from the time they leave their home to the time they return, and even tag ethnic features (label video detected features as "uighur") There's been a rise of nationalism around the globe, with fascists being elected everywhere. And that's why the West should resist China, not because China's rise is bad, but because China's rise with Xi at the helm is bad. I wouldn't have said resist Germany prior to Hitler either, as there was nothing wrong with their economy improving after the horrors of WW1. It's all the other shit they were doing under the Nazis that called for a boycott. Ditto for Japan and the US oil embargo. Japanese economic growth? Not a bad thing. Japanese economic growth used to invade, pillage, and rape China? A good reason for resistance. This is something hard to get through to a lot of people, but criticism of the CCP is not criticism of the Chinese people, China, or Chinese culture. But the CCP has thoroughly convinced people that to oppose them, is to "insult China" and provoke a nationalist response. The resistance we need is to fascism, of all forms.

cromwellian 5y ago
Oh, the other phenomena that's new is young nationalists, like the overseas 小粉红 "little pinks" who voted these down. :) Normally nationalists tend to be overrepresented in the older generation, like the snowflakes in the US who take great offense at someone kneeling during the anthem at as Football game, but the CCP has a number of funded propaganda outlets targeting younger people, the opposite strategy of Fox News, whose channel demographic is median age 65. One example is Observer News Network (Guancha). The Doublethink Lab blog has done an analysis of its roots and funding: https://medium.com/doublethinklab/tracing-control-and-influence-at-guancha-news-54219a0f8203 https://medium.com/doublethinklab/tracing-control-and-influe...

beaunative 5y ago

Not mean to correct you, but China's still getting wealthier. Xi has generally kept his economy policies along the lines of his predessors, though politically it does seems he is much more conservative and nationalistic.

xbmcuser 5y ago
China biggest problem is he has stamped out opposing views from the communist party. China has 1 party system but previously their were different factions in the party so opposing views did come up that is becoming less and less so as Xi has consolidated power.
- bingbong70 5y ago
  Its hard to have an anti-corruption movement without the side effect of consolidating power. Hopefully the US will soon have an anti-corruption movement (long overdue), so the world can see an example of how one can be properly executed.

refenestrator 5y ago

Openness is irrelevant, the issue is their rise in power and the fear of losing hegemony in America. If they had continued on the Hu Jintao trajectory, getting slightly more open while amassing economic and political power at the same rate, you'd see the exact same moralizing from Americans about how bad they are.

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
The rest of the world is handing them money bags and they aren't supposed to rise in power?
- refenestrator 5y ago
  They were supposed to keep grinding away on the dirty manufacturing while we pocket all the profits via financial services and IP rents.

odiroot 5y ago

> This is only half correct. Until Mr. Xi came to power, China was getting wealthier and (somewhat) more open. The Internet filtering was already being introduced by Hu Jintao. But, admittedly, Xi is the Paranoid-Man.

FooBarWidget 5y ago

That is also only half of the story. Prior to Xi, China was on the verge of collapse due to internal corruption, and its economic strategy was too focused on cheap labor and low-quality products. That wasn't sustainable. This doesn't mean I'm supporting Xi. I'm just pointing out that China's direction had to change, some way or another, so it makes no sense to look back at previous administrations with rose-colored glasses.