4 ms·

And it is not blocked in Hong Kong! Still one country, two rules...

by erynvorn 14y ago

apaprocki 14y ago
And even when they blocked Bloomberg, the articles could still be read by anyone in China with a Bloomberg terminal..
- jbigelow76 14y ago
  If you have a Bloomberg terminal an article about money accumulation isn't going to be the type of article that would bother you.
  - mdda 14y ago
    But I believe that most Bloomberg terminal subscribers would argue that capitalist-style money accumulation (free markets, etc) is a good thing for an overall population, and that corruption-style money accumulation (which is the implication of the article) is a huge negative for a country.
    - gwern 14y ago
      But you can easily phrase it the other way and argue that corruption is good because it gives leadership an incentive to keep the capitalist system going instead of flipping back to Communism, and the cost of the payoff (a few hundred billion?) is far less than the increased welfare of the Chinese people (pulling hundreds of millions out of deep poverty). Indeed, some have argued corruption is a good thing in general because people can buy what they want from the leadership instead of their running rampant over everything, which ameliorates any abuses: see for example Bryan Caplan http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/incorruptibly_e.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/incorruptibly_e....
matthewrudy 14y ago
Many people here in Hong Kong don't regard themselves to be part of China. We have our own legal, visa, financial, and political system. Although Beijing occasionally steers the political system, censorship of any kind usually ends up in protest. I can't imagine what would happen if they tried to do censor the internet here.
- 46Bit 14y ago
  For that reason it's the one sort-of-part of China I'd actually like to visit one day soon - me and a lot of others I think.
- viviantan 14y ago
  Hong Kong's awesome. Love the food, love the people, love the incredible cityscape, love everything :) I heard that Beijing's trying to phase out the Cantonese language in Hong Kong. Has it been enforced?
  - bduerst 14y ago
    Doubtful - last I checked they were trying to shift the financial center from Hong Kong to Shanghai.
  - barry-cotter 14y ago
    I really, really doubt that. They pulled back on “patriotic education” which is honestly something a relatively large minority cared strongly about. If they tried to phase out Cantonese everyone who didn't move from the mainland would go ape. Also, Mandarin isn't even an official language, Cantonese and English are it.
    - viviantan 14y ago
      Matthewrudy is right. The legislation for regulating Cantonese in broadcast and print media was enacted in Guangzhou, not Hong Kong. My mistake. No politicians would say outright that they want to eliminate a major language, but they could drastically reduce its usage by imposing specific restrictions. And not just on spoken Cantonese, but variations of written Chinese other than the official simplified characters. I wish I could post an original article here with more details, but for some reason even the bilingual news sites don't cover this story in English. Wikipedia gives a pretty good summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Anti-Cantonese_regulations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Anti-Cantonese_regulations. The sources are all in Chinese (the only English link appears to be dead) but Google's translations weren't too bad.

And it is not blocked in Hong Kong! Still one country, two rules...

apaprocki 14y ago

And even when they blocked Bloomberg, the articles could still be read by anyone in China with a Bloomberg terminal..

jbigelow76 14y ago
If you have a Bloomberg terminal an article about money accumulation isn't going to be the type of article that would bother you.
- mdda 14y ago
  But I believe that most Bloomberg terminal subscribers would argue that capitalist-style money accumulation (free markets, etc) is a good thing for an overall population, and that corruption-style money accumulation (which is the implication of the article) is a huge negative for a country.
  - gwern 14y ago
    But you can easily phrase it the other way and argue that corruption is good because it gives leadership an incentive to keep the capitalist system going instead of flipping back to Communism, and the cost of the payoff (a few hundred billion?) is far less than the increased welfare of the Chinese people (pulling hundreds of millions out of deep poverty). Indeed, some have argued corruption is a good thing in general because people can buy what they want from the leadership instead of their running rampant over everything, which ameliorates any abuses: see for example Bryan Caplan http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/incorruptibly_e.html http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/09/incorruptibly_e....

matthewrudy 14y ago

Many people here in Hong Kong don't regard themselves to be part of China. We have our own legal, visa, financial, and political system. Although Beijing occasionally steers the political system, censorship of any kind usually ends up in protest. I can't imagine what would happen if they tried to do censor the internet here.

46Bit 14y ago
For that reason it's the one sort-of-part of China I'd actually like to visit one day soon - me and a lot of others I think.
viviantan 14y ago
Hong Kong's awesome. Love the food, love the people, love the incredible cityscape, love everything :) I heard that Beijing's trying to phase out the Cantonese language in Hong Kong. Has it been enforced?
- bduerst 14y ago
  Doubtful - last I checked they were trying to shift the financial center from Hong Kong to Shanghai.
- barry-cotter 14y ago
  I really, really doubt that. They pulled back on “patriotic education” which is honestly something a relatively large minority cared strongly about. If they tried to phase out Cantonese everyone who didn't move from the mainland would go ape. Also, Mandarin isn't even an official language, Cantonese and English are it.
  - viviantan 14y ago
    Matthewrudy is right. The legislation for regulating Cantonese in broadcast and print media was enacted in Guangzhou, not Hong Kong. My mistake. No politicians would say outright that they want to eliminate a major language, but they could drastically reduce its usage by imposing specific restrictions. And not just on spoken Cantonese, but variations of written Chinese other than the official simplified characters. I wish I could post an original article here with more details, but for some reason even the bilingual news sites don't cover this story in English. Wikipedia gives a pretty good summary: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Anti-Cantonese_regulations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Anti-Cantonese_regulations. The sources are all in Chinese (the only English link appears to be dead) but Google's translations weren't too bad.