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The problem with China is that its people have never known democracy. The leader is eternal like Putin. You can see how an economic superpower with nukes and a

The problem with China is that its people have never known democracy. The leader is eternal like Putin. You can see how an economic superpower with nukes and a dictator can go. So all the article goes about how nice and misunderstood things are in China without addressing the hard reality.

popularonion 5y ago
> “This ties into another common misconception about China - the idea that the government wants to track everything you do at all hours of the day” > “I was involved in a project that uses face recognition to track residents going in and out of communities … Data from such a system was also entirely managed at the local level and not automatically shared with the provincial or central governments.“ > “In all fairness, I consider it to be extremely easy to stay off China’s social credit ‘blacklist’ - just be reasonable and avoid breaking the law.” It went through the whole progression from “it’s not happening” to “it might be happening but it’s not a big deal” to “it’s happening and you deserve it” in just a few paragraphs. Impressive.
- arisAlexis 5y ago
  Yes will sound bad but I have no idea about Chinese culture but it's objectively a biased look as OP is himself raised by Chinese parents although in another country. It's not like an Italian guy is describing these issues from a Western point of view.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    I'm German and I lived/worked in China for several years. I don't see much bias at all in the post. The foreign perspective is straight up cartoonish and the "all seeing superpowered computers monitor you 24/7" narrative could be straight up out of futuristic Japanese anxieties of the 80s. In reality life in China today is not much different than it is anywhere else. And I think it's borderline bizarre if not straight up insulting to suggest that the author does not have a 'Western point of view' despite living in the US since he was three years old. Chinese parents, like the Chinese state, contrary to popular imagination do not have brain altering superpowers.
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      The CCP-as-omni-scient/-potent has the same feel as 90s American conspiracies about their government. It takes Olympic level mental gymnastics to get to "all-seeing and all-powerful secret government" from "my local DMV can barely fill out a form correctly." I'm sure all world governments would function much better if there were in fact a limitless supply of extraordinarily capable employees willing to work for government salaries.
      - themacguffinman 5y ago
        It doesn't take omniscience or omnipotence or a limitless supply of extraordinary employees to effect severe oppression. North Korea exists. The KGB, now called the FSB, exists. The Great Firewall exists. Xinjiang internment camps exist. Operation Fox Hunt exists. WeChat & Douyin censorship exists. The Gestapo used to exist. American government-enforced chattel slavery used to exist. American Japanese internment camps used to exist. So tell me, how do you get there from "my local American DMV can barely fill out a form correctly"? Because it happened. And it will continue happening if we forget history.
        ethbr0 5y ago
        Severe oppression wasn't the the topic of the comment I was replying to. It was regarding unreasonable fantasies of competence in government oppression. You can construct an oppressive regime simply by dedicating enough people to it, but they still can't exceed the fundamental ceiling of wage:job_tenure:performance. Consequently, every example you mentioned routinely failed. In aggregate they accomplished oppression, but emotional pleas about "forgetting history" don't change the fact that we're talking about bureaucracies. And bureaucracies only ever approach a semblance of competency via brute force, either in resources or manpower.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - jollybean 5y ago
      "The foreign perspective is straight up cartoonish and the "all seeing superpowered computers monitor you 24/7" narrative could be straight up out of futuristic Japanese anxieties of the 80s." It's 'cartoonish' for someone who has not yet been on the receiving end of the negative externalities of such system to fathom that it doesn't exist. Why don't you, as an 'Enlightened Ex-Pat in China' go around making posts about the history of Tiananmen, or write a critical piece about the police state in Xianjing, and then see what happens? Or any number of other things? "In reality life in China today is not much different than it is anywhere else." Of course it is - because most of us are preoccupied with normal things. Life in Russia is 'mostly the same as everywhere else', even right now, as we speak, isn't it? And yet, witness what is happening in Ukraine. 'Life in China is mostly the same as everywhere else' is true, just as up to a million people are being interned on the basis of their ethnicity. The OP is effectively correct: although 'bias' may not be the correct term, certainly the simple participation in absolutist and totalitarian systems without oversight is a problem, and the attitude that somehow this is 'normal' and 'without externalisations' is what OP was referring to as 'bias'. Your own dissonance is similar, and it's at the root of the problem. "My life is normal, ergo, the system is relatively normal" is the myopia that allows for these things to happen.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  I don't know why he'd think that, as a foreigner, he'd be allowed to work on projects that touched state security. It's like working at BlueApron and claiming that the NSA definitely isn't spying on Americans because they aren't tracking their meal plans.
eunos 5y ago
On the other hand the rise of China allows dispelling the myth that "outside of liberalism/west* there will be no prosperity" that was heavily propagated during late 90s and early 00s. * For the west part, I recently saw an old video of Biden (still senator) mocking post-Soviet Russia for thinking to look at China for prosperity.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  The End of History comes to mind. I remember people parading that book around like it was gospel.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tiahura 5y ago
  - eunos 5y ago
    Ahahaha that clip. Chinese nationalists used that clip (among others) to show that US only friendly to you when you are unequal or incomparable to the US. When of course China is rising US reacted by showing its zero-sum mentality instead. P.S. Xi wasn't the paramount leader yet back in 2011.
- qiskit 5y ago
  > On the other hand the rise of China allows dispelling the myth that "outside of liberalism/west* there will be no prosperity" that was heavily propagated during late 90s and early 00s. Which is insane when you look back on it. Since we didn't become prosperous under liberalism either. Nowhere in the west did liberal democracy bring prosperity. The US wasn't a liberal democracy when it became rich. We are the wealthiest nation in the world decades before liberal democracy arrived. The same goes for the british, french, etc.
AsceticBear 5y ago
What is real democracy? Is it true that only Western democracy is correct in the world? It's just a joke. It's not that China doesn't have democracy. China's democratic system was created by itself based on its own national conditions. It is completely different from Western democracy, but it does not mean that there is no democracy. It is recommended that you read the history of China objectively and understand how this country with a long history has developed step by step to today. Oh I believe your opinion will change.
- arisAlexis 5y ago
  Democracy is easily defined by not having the same leader self appointed for life. You can't dance around that China is a democracy. It's ridiculous and adds nothing.
  - AsceticBear 5y ago
    Please take a look at the transition of Chinese leaders over the past 20 years, it's not what you say. China's population is too large, the Western multi-party system is not suitable for China, and the internal friction is too serious. Western systems have been explored in Chinese history, but all have failed.
    - philliphaydon 5y ago
      No they haven’t. China has never attempted anything except authoritarian and totalitarian.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - shigawire 5y ago
      Sure, but democracy has a real meaning. Just because you like single party rule doesn't mean you can call it democracy because that has a better brand than autocracy.
    - deleted 5y ago
bene_legionary 5y ago
Even Sun Yat-sen, who worked his whole life off trying to bring democracy to China in the chaos of the civil wars before WW2, decided China wasn't ready for democracy. Dr. Sun's successor state of sorts, Taiwan, did manage to carry out his vision in a way (even if they don't agree with the Chinese bit). The first time China had an election was in 1912, and it was largely free by the standards of the time, although the elected president, who was a friend of Sun, was assassinated not long after (the person who ordered the assassination ended up declaring himself emperor of China)

popularonion 5y ago

> “This ties into another common misconception about China - the idea that the government wants to track everything you do at all hours of the day” > “I was involved in a project that uses face recognition to track residents going in and out of communities … Data from such a system was also entirely managed at the local level and not automatically shared with the provincial or central governments.“ > “In all fairness, I consider it to be extremely easy to stay off China’s social credit ‘blacklist’ - just be reasonable and avoid breaking the law.” It went through the whole progression from “it’s not happening” to “it might be happening but it’s not a big deal” to “it’s happening and you deserve it” in just a few paragraphs. Impressive.

arisAlexis 5y ago
Yes will sound bad but I have no idea about Chinese culture but it's objectively a biased look as OP is himself raised by Chinese parents although in another country. It's not like an Italian guy is describing these issues from a Western point of view.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  I'm German and I lived/worked in China for several years. I don't see much bias at all in the post. The foreign perspective is straight up cartoonish and the "all seeing superpowered computers monitor you 24/7" narrative could be straight up out of futuristic Japanese anxieties of the 80s. In reality life in China today is not much different than it is anywhere else. And I think it's borderline bizarre if not straight up insulting to suggest that the author does not have a 'Western point of view' despite living in the US since he was three years old. Chinese parents, like the Chinese state, contrary to popular imagination do not have brain altering superpowers.
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    The CCP-as-omni-scient/-potent has the same feel as 90s American conspiracies about their government. It takes Olympic level mental gymnastics to get to "all-seeing and all-powerful secret government" from "my local DMV can barely fill out a form correctly." I'm sure all world governments would function much better if there were in fact a limitless supply of extraordinarily capable employees willing to work for government salaries.
    - themacguffinman 5y ago
      It doesn't take omniscience or omnipotence or a limitless supply of extraordinary employees to effect severe oppression. North Korea exists. The KGB, now called the FSB, exists. The Great Firewall exists. Xinjiang internment camps exist. Operation Fox Hunt exists. WeChat & Douyin censorship exists. The Gestapo used to exist. American government-enforced chattel slavery used to exist. American Japanese internment camps used to exist. So tell me, how do you get there from "my local American DMV can barely fill out a form correctly"? Because it happened. And it will continue happening if we forget history.
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        Severe oppression wasn't the the topic of the comment I was replying to. It was regarding unreasonable fantasies of competence in government oppression. You can construct an oppressive regime simply by dedicating enough people to it, but they still can't exceed the fundamental ceiling of wage:job_tenure:performance. Consequently, every example you mentioned routinely failed. In aggregate they accomplished oppression, but emotional pleas about "forgetting history" don't change the fact that we're talking about bureaucracies. And bureaucracies only ever approach a semblance of competency via brute force, either in resources or manpower.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - jollybean 5y ago
    "The foreign perspective is straight up cartoonish and the "all seeing superpowered computers monitor you 24/7" narrative could be straight up out of futuristic Japanese anxieties of the 80s." It's 'cartoonish' for someone who has not yet been on the receiving end of the negative externalities of such system to fathom that it doesn't exist. Why don't you, as an 'Enlightened Ex-Pat in China' go around making posts about the history of Tiananmen, or write a critical piece about the police state in Xianjing, and then see what happens? Or any number of other things? "In reality life in China today is not much different than it is anywhere else." Of course it is - because most of us are preoccupied with normal things. Life in Russia is 'mostly the same as everywhere else', even right now, as we speak, isn't it? And yet, witness what is happening in Ukraine. 'Life in China is mostly the same as everywhere else' is true, just as up to a million people are being interned on the basis of their ethnicity. The OP is effectively correct: although 'bias' may not be the correct term, certainly the simple participation in absolutist and totalitarian systems without oversight is a problem, and the attitude that somehow this is 'normal' and 'without externalisations' is what OP was referring to as 'bias'. Your own dissonance is similar, and it's at the root of the problem. "My life is normal, ergo, the system is relatively normal" is the myopia that allows for these things to happen.
heavyset_go 5y ago
I don't know why he'd think that, as a foreigner, he'd be allowed to work on projects that touched state security. It's like working at BlueApron and claiming that the NSA definitely isn't spying on Americans because they aren't tracking their meal plans.

eunos 5y ago

On the other hand the rise of China allows dispelling the myth that "outside of liberalism/west* there will be no prosperity" that was heavily propagated during late 90s and early 00s. * For the west part, I recently saw an old video of Biden (still senator) mocking post-Soviet Russia for thinking to look at China for prosperity.

heavyset_go 5y ago
The End of History comes to mind. I remember people parading that book around like it was gospel.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tiahura 5y ago
- eunos 5y ago
  Ahahaha that clip. Chinese nationalists used that clip (among others) to show that US only friendly to you when you are unequal or incomparable to the US. When of course China is rising US reacted by showing its zero-sum mentality instead. P.S. Xi wasn't the paramount leader yet back in 2011.
qiskit 5y ago
> On the other hand the rise of China allows dispelling the myth that "outside of liberalism/west* there will be no prosperity" that was heavily propagated during late 90s and early 00s. Which is insane when you look back on it. Since we didn't become prosperous under liberalism either. Nowhere in the west did liberal democracy bring prosperity. The US wasn't a liberal democracy when it became rich. We are the wealthiest nation in the world decades before liberal democracy arrived. The same goes for the british, french, etc.

AsceticBear 5y ago

What is real democracy? Is it true that only Western democracy is correct in the world? It's just a joke. It's not that China doesn't have democracy. China's democratic system was created by itself based on its own national conditions. It is completely different from Western democracy, but it does not mean that there is no democracy. It is recommended that you read the history of China objectively and understand how this country with a long history has developed step by step to today. Oh I believe your opinion will change.

arisAlexis 5y ago
Democracy is easily defined by not having the same leader self appointed for life. You can't dance around that China is a democracy. It's ridiculous and adds nothing.
- AsceticBear 5y ago
  Please take a look at the transition of Chinese leaders over the past 20 years, it's not what you say. China's population is too large, the Western multi-party system is not suitable for China, and the internal friction is too serious. Western systems have been explored in Chinese history, but all have failed.
  - philliphaydon 5y ago
    No they haven’t. China has never attempted anything except authoritarian and totalitarian.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - shigawire 5y ago
    Sure, but democracy has a real meaning. Just because you like single party rule doesn't mean you can call it democracy because that has a better brand than autocracy.
  - deleted 5y ago

bene_legionary 5y ago

Even Sun Yat-sen, who worked his whole life off trying to bring democracy to China in the chaos of the civil wars before WW2, decided China wasn't ready for democracy. Dr. Sun's successor state of sorts, Taiwan, did manage to carry out his vision in a way (even if they don't agree with the Chinese bit). The first time China had an election was in 1912, and it was largely free by the standards of the time, although the elected president, who was a friend of Sun, was assassinated not long after (the person who ordered the assassination ended up declaring himself emperor of China)