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We don't assume that at all. There are western researches that back this, such as this 15-year study by Harvard: https://ash.harvard.edu/files/ash/files/final_p

We don't assume that at all. There are western researches that back this, such as this 15-year study by Harvard: 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... If anything, the idea that either the Chinese population is unhappy and repressed, or that we can't possibly know what they think, that is an assumption. Or rather, an eternal myth perpetuated by undying stereotypes.

philliphaydon 4y ago
Sigh, I always see this argument peddled on twitter. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-sur... > The work began in 2003, and together with a leading private research and polling company in China. Knowing that studies like this must have government oversight, and that study was performed by a company in China, can you really trust the data of the study? My point is that we really do not know what is happening in China because we have very little visibility in China. Everything is censored and the CCP tells us what they want us to think. Now the people could very well be happy, and love the CCP, and not be repressed. But in reality we literally have no idea because anytime anyone speaks out in China its censored.
- FooBarWidget 4y ago
  And yet the protests inside China are very real. The criticisms online are very real. The fact that they change policies is very real. Censorship isn't omnipotent, China isn't North Korea. Or do you think every single Shanghai lockdown protester has been rounded up? Do you still remember the Evergrande protests? Are all those people in jail? The Harvard survey was anonymous. Or do you think they're lying and they secretly recorded every participant's personal information so that they can punish them to answering wrong? If so then why did 4% answer unsatisfied? Did they have a death wish? Have all those people been jailed? And why was satisfaction rate for lower governments much lower? Won't those people get into trouble with e.g. the local police department or the mayor?
  - philliphaydon 4y ago
    Yes protests happen and I’ve seen the videos of the students who protested the changes to collage mergers get beaten by police and social media posts of the violence getting censored from Weibo. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/chinese-police-squash-rare-campus-protests-after-merger-plan https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/chinese-police-squ... Censorship happens on a daily basis. I guess all the leaked photos and videos of the Shanghai lockdown that were censored and removed from Weibo never happened tho. The animal abuse. Staged food supply videos. Suicides. Forced removal. Covid camps partially built with no beds or showers. Office buildings converted to covid bed. People stuck in offices and restaurants during lockdown, delivery drivers who refuse to enter Shanghai for fear of being forced to stay once they deliver supplies. I guess because it was all removed from WeChat and Weibo it all never happened. —- Of course some people have to be dissatisfied. They can’t have a report that states 100% love for the CCP. You make it sound like I think the CCP is stupid. The survey being anonymous doesn’t change the fact that company doing the survey is beholden to the government. The survey cannot occur without government oversight. And it’s done by a Chinese company. That means every piece of information goes over the desk of The Central government before it ends up at the ash center. The Central government doesn’t care about the lower government. The lower governments get thrown under the bus all the time. It’s about protecting The Central government. Anyway it’s clear that you’re pro CCP so there’s no point in debating this with you because you’re just going to use any excuse possible to justify the actions of the CCP.
    - FooBarWidget 4y ago
      I am not "pro CCP", nor am I "justifying all their actions". I am pro-"treat China fairly" and I am protesting wrong assumptions and projections. You miss the point regarding censorship and you focus too much on it. I am saying that protests, censorship and the changing of policies in response to protests (despite censorship) are all real at the same time. So no of course those events did not factually disappear because there was censorship. What I am protesting is your notion that the entire population is being fooled and has no idea what's going on and that there aren't any societal discussions about government and policies. This is false. If you check for example Whats On Weibo then you can see that there are very often very active discussions and that people are aware of government screwups. Even state media has reported on what went wrong in Shanghai. I am also protesting the notion that the existance of propaganda must mean everything is fake. No. Yes maybe a few staged food supply videos exist, but food supply is very real! My family and acquaintances have had them. Propaganda is more like marketing than some brainwash scheme with nothing real behind. You then proceed to make some big assumptions about how government works. No, not everything goes through central! Do you really think that the central government has time to micromanage the entire country? Chinese governance is very decentralized. Businessmen who have had contact with the central government often think that just because they got approval from the foreign minister that everything is then taken care of, because of their own misconception that everything in China is top-down tightly cobtrolled. They then get confused by why nothing happens. The foreign minister then gets confused about why the businessmen don't talk to local governments directly, because the minister doesn't control those things. Likewise you seem to have some implicit assumption that any censored Weibo posts have been reviewed by government. No: government sets some rules on what's not allowed and then platforms have to do the censorship themselves. Censorship does not equal direct government disapproval, and more importantly censorship has little relationship with whether government addresses grievances or not. Stuff can be censored and policies can be changed to address grievances, all at the same time. --- Again, I am not "pro CCP". I am pro-"treat China fairly". If CCP screws up then they deserve to lose legitimacy. You mention e.g. badly built quarantine camps as if I would be okay with that. Of course not. Of course beating people is not okay, but I protest the notion that beatings happen on a regular and systematic basis as opposed to incidentally. Here in the Netherlands police beatings also happen but nobody uses individual cases to paint the larger narrative that the Dutch police beats all protesters. When one makes assumptions about China based on stereotypes and downplaying what many Chinese people say, that is not being fair. When anti-CCP sentiment is being hijacked to attack Chinese people (we're in a cold war after all), especially when the reasoning was flimsy in the first place, that's not being fair. For ** sake, today's China is literally the best 30 years out of 3000 years. Can't westerners be happy for us for a change instead of continuing to perpetuate the stereotype that we're all oppressed? China is not USSR. China is not North Korea.

philliphaydon 4y ago

Sigh, I always see this argument peddled on twitter. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/ https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-sur... > The work began in 2003, and together with a leading private research and polling company in China. Knowing that studies like this must have government oversight, and that study was performed by a company in China, can you really trust the data of the study? My point is that we really do not know what is happening in China because we have very little visibility in China. Everything is censored and the CCP tells us what they want us to think. Now the people could very well be happy, and love the CCP, and not be repressed. But in reality we literally have no idea because anytime anyone speaks out in China its censored.

FooBarWidget 4y ago
And yet the protests inside China are very real. The criticisms online are very real. The fact that they change policies is very real. Censorship isn't omnipotent, China isn't North Korea. Or do you think every single Shanghai lockdown protester has been rounded up? Do you still remember the Evergrande protests? Are all those people in jail? The Harvard survey was anonymous. Or do you think they're lying and they secretly recorded every participant's personal information so that they can punish them to answering wrong? If so then why did 4% answer unsatisfied? Did they have a death wish? Have all those people been jailed? And why was satisfaction rate for lower governments much lower? Won't those people get into trouble with e.g. the local police department or the mayor?
- philliphaydon 4y ago
  Yes protests happen and I’ve seen the videos of the students who protested the changes to collage mergers get beaten by police and social media posts of the violence getting censored from Weibo. https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/chinese-police-squash-rare-campus-protests-after-merger-plan https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/chinese-police-squ... Censorship happens on a daily basis. I guess all the leaked photos and videos of the Shanghai lockdown that were censored and removed from Weibo never happened tho. The animal abuse. Staged food supply videos. Suicides. Forced removal. Covid camps partially built with no beds or showers. Office buildings converted to covid bed. People stuck in offices and restaurants during lockdown, delivery drivers who refuse to enter Shanghai for fear of being forced to stay once they deliver supplies. I guess because it was all removed from WeChat and Weibo it all never happened. —- Of course some people have to be dissatisfied. They can’t have a report that states 100% love for the CCP. You make it sound like I think the CCP is stupid. The survey being anonymous doesn’t change the fact that company doing the survey is beholden to the government. The survey cannot occur without government oversight. And it’s done by a Chinese company. That means every piece of information goes over the desk of The Central government before it ends up at the ash center. The Central government doesn’t care about the lower government. The lower governments get thrown under the bus all the time. It’s about protecting The Central government. Anyway it’s clear that you’re pro CCP so there’s no point in debating this with you because you’re just going to use any excuse possible to justify the actions of the CCP.
  - FooBarWidget 4y ago
    I am not "pro CCP", nor am I "justifying all their actions". I am pro-"treat China fairly" and I am protesting wrong assumptions and projections. You miss the point regarding censorship and you focus too much on it. I am saying that protests, censorship and the changing of policies in response to protests (despite censorship) are all real at the same time. So no of course those events did not factually disappear because there was censorship. What I am protesting is your notion that the entire population is being fooled and has no idea what's going on and that there aren't any societal discussions about government and policies. This is false. If you check for example Whats On Weibo then you can see that there are very often very active discussions and that people are aware of government screwups. Even state media has reported on what went wrong in Shanghai. I am also protesting the notion that the existance of propaganda must mean everything is fake. No. Yes maybe a few staged food supply videos exist, but food supply is very real! My family and acquaintances have had them. Propaganda is more like marketing than some brainwash scheme with nothing real behind. You then proceed to make some big assumptions about how government works. No, not everything goes through central! Do you really think that the central government has time to micromanage the entire country? Chinese governance is very decentralized. Businessmen who have had contact with the central government often think that just because they got approval from the foreign minister that everything is then taken care of, because of their own misconception that everything in China is top-down tightly cobtrolled. They then get confused by why nothing happens. The foreign minister then gets confused about why the businessmen don't talk to local governments directly, because the minister doesn't control those things. Likewise you seem to have some implicit assumption that any censored Weibo posts have been reviewed by government. No: government sets some rules on what's not allowed and then platforms have to do the censorship themselves. Censorship does not equal direct government disapproval, and more importantly censorship has little relationship with whether government addresses grievances or not. Stuff can be censored and policies can be changed to address grievances, all at the same time. --- Again, I am not "pro CCP". I am pro-"treat China fairly". If CCP screws up then they deserve to lose legitimacy. You mention e.g. badly built quarantine camps as if I would be okay with that. Of course not. Of course beating people is not okay, but I protest the notion that beatings happen on a regular and systematic basis as opposed to incidentally. Here in the Netherlands police beatings also happen but nobody uses individual cases to paint the larger narrative that the Dutch police beats all protesters. When one makes assumptions about China based on stereotypes and downplaying what many Chinese people say, that is not being fair. When anti-CCP sentiment is being hijacked to attack Chinese people (we're in a cold war after all), especially when the reasoning was flimsy in the first place, that's not being fair. For ** sake, today's China is literally the best 30 years out of 3000 years. Can't westerners be happy for us for a change instead of continuing to perpetuate the stereotype that we're all oppressed? China is not USSR. China is not North Korea.