27 ms·

Can you explain why a comment like this is posted here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344355

by msoad 5y ago

altern2 5y ago
I posted that and I'm 0% Chinese. What do you think is unreasonable about the comment? Isn't it true that nothing done to prove that she is fine has been accepted?
FooBarWidget 5y ago
(Part 1) Here's where the original translation becomes relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344036 Specifically, there are doubts on whether it's a rape charge at all. See the translation discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344244 One possible interpretation of the main point of the post is that it was venting about Zhao having left her and played with her feelings. Her social media accounts being censored, plus the fact[1] that the WTA chair said that he couldn't reach her, made the WTA and western journalists suspect that she "disappeared", i.e. in jail or dead. The problem with the "censorship + WTA non-contact -> disappeared" reasoning are as follows: 1. Censorship in China is not about removing posts that criticize the government. Censorship is applied equally on praises and criticisms of the state. What actually determines whether a post gets censored is whether the post has collective action potential, e.g. whether it can get out of control and cause social unrest. Chinese authorities do not want a post to cause mass protests on the streets or things like that. Posts critical of the state are not censored as long as they have no collective action potential, i.e. they don't go viral. This is corroborated by Harvard research: https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-allows-government-criticism-silences-collective-expression https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-... 2. Censorship is not related to jailing offenders. They're orthogonal. The Chinese government is actually very responsive to criticisms, in the sense that they regularly actually change policies in response to criticisms. It is not uncommon for criticisms to be censored and listened to at the same time. See expat Cyrus Janssen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcScSCTgbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcScSCTgbM 3. Chinese have high trust in their government, between 93% and 98%. These are not fake government numbers: they're measured by Harvard and York University through thousands of participants and anonymous surveys. See https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/05/did-pandemic-shake-chinese-citizens-trust-their-government/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/05/did-pande... 4. "Disappearances" in the sense of not appearing publicly (instead of the Soviet/Mao-era sense of being kidnapped into jail) is common if someone was caught for violating a law, and at the same time there is potential for a major scandal. Celebrity Fan Bingbing is a good case. Jack Ma is another case. In all these cases, the person in question is not in danger in the sense of being tortured in a prison. It's taking in for questioning with a gag order (and depending on the severity of the case, a house arrest) until it's over — a practice which is not unique to China. Both Jack Ma and Fan Bingbing never "disappeared" as in being jailed — they all appeared publicly later on, and then information is released on what happened. Fan Bingbing was caught for evading tax. Jack Ma's example was not so much "the Party punished him for criticizing the state". It was more like a stern talk: "Mr Ma we are a socialist country, you can't just pump money into a big pyramid scheme which only benefits you for a short while after which the bubble bursts. Restructure your company and make sure it actually works for the benefit of the people". I'm not sure in which instance there was a gag order and in which instance the people involved voluntarily decided to lie low. But voluntarily lying low is not at all an uncommon practice during a major scandal involving a celebrity. In all these cases, after their reappearance (and a public announcement of the punishment), the situation is considered solved. Jack Ma is now vacationing in Europe and Fan Bingbing is making movies again. Given these points, Chinese people at large don't believe at all that she's "disappeared" in the Soviet/Mao-era sense. They don't believe that she's ever been in danger. My relatives don't even believe that she's silenced. "What, why would they silence or catch her? She didn't do anything illegal. If she wants to file a rape charge, the police will help her." Anti-corruption is a thing in China nowadays. Even though western media frames anti-corruption purely as an excuse to purge political opponents, Chinese don't believe so. They have faith in it because it has actually produced results. Thus, Chinese have high trust in their police w.r.t. catching corrupt officials. People trust that if Zhang is truly guilty, then he will be convicted, even if he has a lot of power. It isn't the first time that a corrupt but powerful high official was convicted, and it won't be the last time. Why Chinese wife is like, "why do westerners think that the Chinese government is a monster? westerners are so weird" Some other posters noted patriotism. While this indeed plays a role, it's not the whole story. I think my above points are much more important. What patriotism contributes, is the sense that western criticism is often hypocritical and full of ulterior motives (which they often are). There is indeed no evidence that any of her friends or family have reported her as missing. Western reports are purely based on the reasoning "censorship + WTA non-contact -> disappeared". Hence "Who had the right to declare her missing in the first place?" Okay this post has been very long and I'm about to hit the text limit. And it's late, so I'll continue tomorrow with part 2. Feel free to ask questions in the mean time. [1] I'm just going to assume good faith on part of WTA here. There are those who doubt its good faith because it's not the first time that an organization is or has been turned into a front for US regime change operations. This probably sounds conspiracy theoristy if you've never heard of this concept, but you really should research what the NED does and how the US weaponizes human rights.
- mthoms 5y ago
  >Censorship in China is not about removing posts that criticize the government. Censorship is applied equally on praises and criticisms of the state. Can you provide any examples where praise of the government (CCP) was "censored"?
  - yeetman21 5y ago
    When the CIA bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Chinese people were mad and going around in pro government/ anti-US riots and tried to storm the embassy/ consulates in Beijing and other cities. The government shutdown the subways and public transportation and enacted some degree of censorship in the state controlled news. (This was in '99 before widespread adoption of the internet)
    - mthoms 5y ago
      You mean this incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_C... ? Quote: >Large demonstrations erupted at consular offices of the United States and other NATO countries in China in reaction to news of the bombing. On May 9, 1999, then-Vice President Hu Jintao delivered a national televised speech calling the act both "criminal" and "barbaric" and that it "has greatly infuriated the Chinese people." He said the unauthorized demonstrations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenyang reflected the anger and patriotism of the Chinese people, and which the Chinese government fully supported, but urged against extreme and illegal conduct. >The protests continued for several days, during which tens of thousands of rock-throwing protesters kept U.S. Ambassador James Sasser and other staff trapped in the Beijing embassy. There's zero evidence that the CCP censors pro- and anti- government information equally here. None. Only that, after first inflaming the rioters.... they eventually owned up to their internationally recognized responsibility to protect embassy staff.
  - FooBarWidget 5y ago
    From the paper I linked, section "Content of Censored and Uncensored Posts", here's one example: > we now highlight the obverse condition by giving examples of two posts related to events with collective action potential that support the state but which nevertheless were quickly censored. During the bombings in Fuzhou, the government censored this post, which unambiguously condemns the actions of Qian Mingqi, the bomber, and explicitly praises the government’s work on the issues of housing demolition, which precipitated the bombings: > “The bombing led not only to the tragedy of his death but the death of many government workers. Even if we can verify what Qian Mingqi said on Weibo that the building demolition caused a great deal of personal damage, we should still condemn his extreme act of retribution.... The government has continually put forth measures and laws to protect the interests of citizens in building demolition. And the media has called attention to the plight of those experiencing housing demolition. The rate at which compensation for housing demolition has increased exceeds inflation. In many places, this compensation can change the fate of an entire family.” --- A more recent example. Jerry Grey is a Canadian who lives in China and who opposes the Xinjiang narrative in western mainstream media because he has travelled to Xinjiang and saw a different reality than described in the media. On Chinese social media he posted a criticism of Adrien Zenz, one of the people pushing the genocide narrative. Grey's criticism was that Zenz has never been to Xinjiang, and Grey says that Zenz should go and take a look. This was then censored, because "it's not China's place to encourage other's to change their minds". https://twitter.com/Jerry_grey2002/status/1318729179773296641 https://twitter.com/Jerry_grey2002/status/131872917977329664...
vore 5y ago
I'm not personally a supporter of the CCP, but I do interact with people who are. For those who are immigrants from mainland China who support the CCP, there's an element of patriotism with regards to seeing their country becoming a burgeoning superpower and as a form of comeuppance for national shame that stretches all the way back to the unequal treaties during the era of the Qing dynasty. For people born and raised in the West who support the CCP, a lot of them tend to approach it from an enemy-of-my-enemy angle in opposition to US imperialism (they tend to be aligned along a subfaction of leftists), along with a general skepticism of US media.
- jjcc 5y ago
  I think your interpretation is quite simplified. Yes there is some "element of patriotism" but it's enhanced by something else. Let me explain. homo sapiens are born to have defects that their brains can not differentiate model of their neural network and data (i.e. fact). The people from China have more data or ground facts compare to the Westerners who get all the information from media. There's a quite big discrepancy (There are some reasons but beyond the scope). What happened quite often is their perception of unfairness. More specific: The western media lied in a very tricky way so almost the whole western are brainwashed. Please note: that's somehow popular perceptions. But the perception is also mixed and dynamic. For the dynamic part: Today's popular perception was not popular 15 or 20 years ago. The perception has been changing gradually because the neural networks are fed with new data so the weights are changing and models i.e. opinions are changing. Especially young generation who have better neural plasticity. For the mixed part: There are quite portion of anti CPP opinions. You can easily find many anti CPP people from China. Some are quite extreme. You can say it's somehow polarized. Even within China the portion of anti CPP is quite sizable.
  - vore 5y ago
    I agree that I've boiled it down a bit too much and so I should also add that beyond patriotism the CCP have actually had a positive impact on the material conditions of the rural people of China, as well as engaging in extensive modernization -- compare Shanghai's Pudong district between now and 20 years ago and it's night and day.

Can you explain why a comment like this is posted here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344355

by msoad 5y ago

Can you explain why a comment like this is posted here? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344355 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344355

altern2 5y ago

I posted that and I'm 0% Chinese. What do you think is unreasonable about the comment? Isn't it true that nothing done to prove that she is fine has been accepted?

FooBarWidget 5y ago

(Part 1) Here's where the original translation becomes relevant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344036 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344036 Specifically, there are doubts on whether it's a rape charge at all. See the translation discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344244 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344244 One possible interpretation of the main point of the post is that it was venting about Zhao having left her and played with her feelings. Her social media accounts being censored, plus the fact[1] that the WTA chair said that he couldn't reach her, made the WTA and western journalists suspect that she "disappeared", i.e. in jail or dead. The problem with the "censorship + WTA non-contact -> disappeared" reasoning are as follows: 1. Censorship in China is not about removing posts that criticize the government. Censorship is applied equally on praises and criticisms of the state. What actually determines whether a post gets censored is whether the post has collective action potential, e.g. whether it can get out of control and cause social unrest. Chinese authorities do not want a post to cause mass protests on the streets or things like that. Posts critical of the state are not censored as long as they have no collective action potential, i.e. they don't go viral. This is corroborated by Harvard research: https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-allows-government-criticism-silences-collective-expression https://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-censorship-china-... 2. Censorship is not related to jailing offenders. They're orthogonal. The Chinese government is actually very responsive to criticisms, in the sense that they regularly actually change policies in response to criticisms. It is not uncommon for criticisms to be censored and listened to at the same time. See expat Cyrus Janssen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcScSCTgbM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqcScSCTgbM 3. Chinese have high trust in their government, between 93% and 98%. These are not fake government numbers: they're measured by Harvard and York University through thousands of participants and anonymous surveys. See https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7.6.2020.pdf https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_policy_brief_7... and https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/05/did-pandemic-shake-chinese-citizens-trust-their-government/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/05/did-pande... 4. "Disappearances" in the sense of not appearing publicly (instead of the Soviet/Mao-era sense of being kidnapped into jail) is common if someone was caught for violating a law, and at the same time there is potential for a major scandal. Celebrity Fan Bingbing is a good case. Jack Ma is another case. In all these cases, the person in question is not in danger in the sense of being tortured in a prison. It's taking in for questioning with a gag order (and depending on the severity of the case, a house arrest) until it's over — a practice which is not unique to China. Both Jack Ma and Fan Bingbing never "disappeared" as in being jailed — they all appeared publicly later on, and then information is released on what happened. Fan Bingbing was caught for evading tax. Jack Ma's example was not so much "the Party punished him for criticizing the state". It was more like a stern talk: "Mr Ma we are a socialist country, you can't just pump money into a big pyramid scheme which only benefits you for a short while after which the bubble bursts. Restructure your company and make sure it actually works for the benefit of the people". I'm not sure in which instance there was a gag order and in which instance the people involved voluntarily decided to lie low. But voluntarily lying low is not at all an uncommon practice during a major scandal involving a celebrity. In all these cases, after their reappearance (and a public announcement of the punishment), the situation is considered solved. Jack Ma is now vacationing in Europe and Fan Bingbing is making movies again. Given these points, Chinese people at large don't believe at all that she's "disappeared" in the Soviet/Mao-era sense. They don't believe that she's ever been in danger. My relatives don't even believe that she's silenced. "What, why would they silence or catch her? She didn't do anything illegal. If she wants to file a rape charge, the police will help her." Anti-corruption is a thing in China nowadays. Even though western media frames anti-corruption purely as an excuse to purge political opponents, Chinese don't believe so. They have faith in it because it has actually produced results. Thus, Chinese have high trust in their police w.r.t. catching corrupt officials. People trust that if Zhang is truly guilty, then he will be convicted, even if he has a lot of power. It isn't the first time that a corrupt but powerful high official was convicted, and it won't be the last time. Why Chinese wife is like, "why do westerners think that the Chinese government is a monster? westerners are so weird" Some other posters noted patriotism. While this indeed plays a role, it's not the whole story. I think my above points are much more important. What patriotism contributes, is the sense that western criticism is often hypocritical and full of ulterior motives (which they often are). There is indeed no evidence that any of her friends or family have reported her as missing. Western reports are purely based on the reasoning "censorship + WTA non-contact -> disappeared". Hence "Who had the right to declare her missing in the first place?" Okay this post has been very long and I'm about to hit the text limit. And it's late, so I'll continue tomorrow with part 2. Feel free to ask questions in the mean time. [1] I'm just going to assume good faith on part of WTA here. There are those who doubt its good faith because it's not the first time that an organization is or has been turned into a front for US regime change operations. This probably sounds conspiracy theoristy if you've never heard of this concept, but you really should research what the NED does and how the US weaponizes human rights.

mthoms 5y ago
>Censorship in China is not about removing posts that criticize the government. Censorship is applied equally on praises and criticisms of the state. Can you provide any examples where praise of the government (CCP) was "censored"?
- yeetman21 5y ago
  When the CIA bombed the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Chinese people were mad and going around in pro government/ anti-US riots and tried to storm the embassy/ consulates in Beijing and other cities. The government shutdown the subways and public transportation and enacted some degree of censorship in the state controlled news. (This was in '99 before widespread adoption of the internet)
  - mthoms 5y ago
    You mean this incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_C... ? Quote: >Large demonstrations erupted at consular offices of the United States and other NATO countries in China in reaction to news of the bombing. On May 9, 1999, then-Vice President Hu Jintao delivered a national televised speech calling the act both "criminal" and "barbaric" and that it "has greatly infuriated the Chinese people." He said the unauthorized demonstrations in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu and Shenyang reflected the anger and patriotism of the Chinese people, and which the Chinese government fully supported, but urged against extreme and illegal conduct. >The protests continued for several days, during which tens of thousands of rock-throwing protesters kept U.S. Ambassador James Sasser and other staff trapped in the Beijing embassy. There's zero evidence that the CCP censors pro- and anti- government information equally here. None. Only that, after first inflaming the rioters.... they eventually owned up to their internationally recognized responsibility to protect embassy staff.
- FooBarWidget 5y ago
  From the paper I linked, section "Content of Censored and Uncensored Posts", here's one example: > we now highlight the obverse condition by giving examples of two posts related to events with collective action potential that support the state but which nevertheless were quickly censored. During the bombings in Fuzhou, the government censored this post, which unambiguously condemns the actions of Qian Mingqi, the bomber, and explicitly praises the government’s work on the issues of housing demolition, which precipitated the bombings: > “The bombing led not only to the tragedy of his death but the death of many government workers. Even if we can verify what Qian Mingqi said on Weibo that the building demolition caused a great deal of personal damage, we should still condemn his extreme act of retribution.... The government has continually put forth measures and laws to protect the interests of citizens in building demolition. And the media has called attention to the plight of those experiencing housing demolition. The rate at which compensation for housing demolition has increased exceeds inflation. In many places, this compensation can change the fate of an entire family.” --- A more recent example. Jerry Grey is a Canadian who lives in China and who opposes the Xinjiang narrative in western mainstream media because he has travelled to Xinjiang and saw a different reality than described in the media. On Chinese social media he posted a criticism of Adrien Zenz, one of the people pushing the genocide narrative. Grey's criticism was that Zenz has never been to Xinjiang, and Grey says that Zenz should go and take a look. This was then censored, because "it's not China's place to encourage other's to change their minds". https://twitter.com/Jerry_grey2002/status/1318729179773296641 https://twitter.com/Jerry_grey2002/status/131872917977329664...

vore 5y ago

I'm not personally a supporter of the CCP, but I do interact with people who are. For those who are immigrants from mainland China who support the CCP, there's an element of patriotism with regards to seeing their country becoming a burgeoning superpower and as a form of comeuppance for national shame that stretches all the way back to the unequal treaties during the era of the Qing dynasty. For people born and raised in the West who support the CCP, a lot of them tend to approach it from an enemy-of-my-enemy angle in opposition to US imperialism (they tend to be aligned along a subfaction of leftists), along with a general skepticism of US media.

jjcc 5y ago
I think your interpretation is quite simplified. Yes there is some "element of patriotism" but it's enhanced by something else. Let me explain. homo sapiens are born to have defects that their brains can not differentiate model of their neural network and data (i.e. fact). The people from China have more data or ground facts compare to the Westerners who get all the information from media. There's a quite big discrepancy (There are some reasons but beyond the scope). What happened quite often is their perception of unfairness. More specific: The western media lied in a very tricky way so almost the whole western are brainwashed. Please note: that's somehow popular perceptions. But the perception is also mixed and dynamic. For the dynamic part: Today's popular perception was not popular 15 or 20 years ago. The perception has been changing gradually because the neural networks are fed with new data so the weights are changing and models i.e. opinions are changing. Especially young generation who have better neural plasticity. For the mixed part: There are quite portion of anti CPP opinions. You can easily find many anti CPP people from China. Some are quite extreme. You can say it's somehow polarized. Even within China the portion of anti CPP is quite sizable.
- vore 5y ago
  I agree that I've boiled it down a bit too much and so I should also add that beyond patriotism the CCP have actually had a positive impact on the material conditions of the rural people of China, as well as engaging in extensive modernization -- compare Shanghai's Pudong district between now and 20 years ago and it's night and day.