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I have been there ;) You're misinterpreting the nature of control. Yes, there are protests, mostly because the government lets them happen. It helps people let

I have been there ;) You're misinterpreting the nature of control. Yes, there are protests, mostly because the government lets them happen. It helps people let off steam, it gives the government an indication of how people feel, and quite often there are conflicting interests which the Party can rise above (remember, government and the Party are not the same thing). So, often it's a bunch of workers protesting against a company, or a corrupt local official in one department - the Party can let that happen, and choose sides later when they've decided which way the wind is blowing. Policemen are shitting themselves because the Party mostly sides with the security apparatus but today they might let the protest get a bit wild if they want to allow the protesters a bit of leeway, and then those untrained, poorly equipped policemen will be screwed. When stuff he Party doesn't like happens, they shut it down using methods you (on the whole) cannot do in France, the UK, and the U.S. Try introducing political censorship of material critical to Hollande. Try censoring books and courses in university. Try locking up journalists and writers (on tax evasion charges of course) when they say stuff you disagree with. Try rolling out the tanks when a protest gets out of hand. Etc. So don't be fooled by the seemingly light hand of the gov - they've intentionally backed off from the Cultural Recolution level of control because they know that most people don't give a damn, and if left alone they will do nothing. How about an experiment - I'll hold up an anti government sign in front of the French parliament, and you do the same in Tiananmen Square and we'll see how much control the Chinese gov has ;)

gbog 12y ago
> You're misinterpreting the nature of control. I don't think so. I am just taking the other angle, from the people's perspective, and want to debunk the cliche that Chinese people are easy to control. They've had much more revolutions than any other country in their long history. They're all but easy to control. In French we say "like boiling milk", which means they can easily and suddenly get out of control and wash out anything on their way. Just blocking a few topics on social network is certainly not enough. As for things that are allowed or forbidden, it seems more cultural than anything else: In China direct verbal confrontation is very rare, while it is very common in the West, and this holds in families, in companies and also at the country's level. Not very surprisingly, in France insulting the head of state is not forbidden, and even something like a national entertainment. However, in France we have laws telling people if they are allowed to work on Sundays, which seems extremely weird and borderline "totalitarian" to the Chinese, which believe people should be allowed to work whenever they need to or want to. Also, when talking about China, it needs to be reminded that in fact the core Western values (i.e. Enlightment values) and the core Chinese values (i.e. Confucean values) are very similar, and quite compatible. (See how fast Chinese immigrants adapt to and adopt Western values.) For instance, secularism and religious tolerance, equality of rights and before the law, meritocracy, etc. I think the world is going very badly these days, and a big chunk of it is in the hands of people whose values are really opposed to the core of modern humanist values, and this chunk is not China. We'd better team up and fight (with ideas, not with guns) what really threatens humanity as a whole. Just my thoughts.
- westiseast 12y ago
  Hey, I didn't see it was you! Still at Douban? I know what you mean in terms of "boiling milk" - in that respect I agree. I keep thinking these days of that old saying of China as a sleeping elephant; instead I think the people are the sleeping elephant. I think the government's strategy relies a lot on ignorance and apathy, but if even half of these stories we read as standard on NYTimes etc made it into the public consciousness, there would be huge issues. About the laws - I guess it's not the actual content of the laws or relatively different values that illustrates control. Eg in your example about working on Sunday's - if you decided to fight one of those laws, you could do it openly and publicly and in principle it would be a fair fight. You might even embarrass the government or a political leader, but here there's so little chance of that - that's the different nature of the Communist Party control. The government/party has taken away avenues to legitimately discuss/debate/fight, so the options are either total apathy or explosive revolution. That's scary!
  - gbog 12y ago
    (Yes, still working for Douban) > if you decided to fight one of those laws, you could do it openly and publicly and in principle it would be a fair fight. Yes, but here you may have assumed that "openly and publicly" is a precondition for fairness. I do not think openness and publicity of fights is the only way to get fairness. Or at least this can be discussed and we should allow that, on one side openness is often faked, on the other that private and closed tractations may to some extent result in a decision or in a law that is efficient and corresponds to the long term better good of the concerned people (i.e. what they would really choose if given all the elements, and not disturbed by red herrings) For instance, if the governing elite is composed of ("extracted from") people from all parts of society, attracting the best of them with some good rewards (e.g. not money, but something like "good fame") and they collegially discuss important issues using the powers of associations, it could very well be a sane way to distillate the will of the people. Maybe even a saner way than ours (where representatives are elected from their good-looking face, this has been proven).
    - westiseast 12y ago
palmer_eldritch 12y ago
> but today they might let the protest get a bit wild if they want to allow the protesters a bit of leeway, and then those untrained, poorly equipped policemen will be screwed. I'd say most often than not, when a government lets a protest get wild it's because they want to justify the harsh repression that's coming or at least that when the time comes for decision, they won't side with the protestors. Or they're just in over their head but in that case, they don't let it get wild, they just loose control.
- westiseast 12y ago
  The HK protests were interesting recently for that reason - the protestors had the momentum, and the governments first reaction if it was mainland China would probably be to crush it. They let it boil over, and eventually the momentum was lost and anti-protestor sentiment took over. Whether that was by design or 'helped along' is another issue, but it showed how popular protests can sometimes just sour if left to their own devices.
  - briandear 12y ago
    Occupy Wall Street comes to mind as another example. NYC sentiment turned rather quickly against that movement once the public delectation, rape allegations and the inconvienient even caused by protestors started to boil over.
    - westiseast 12y ago
      At university my friend was studying police tactics dealing with football hooligans and riots in the UK - they were slowly changing their tactics from full-on horse charges and batons waving to a very tai chi style light touch. Generally speaking the moderates would get bored and go home and then leave only the hardcore, who were then easier to identify and target. The light touch is a fantastic PR tool too because it shows any gov as tolerant and open.
bsaul 12y ago
"How about an experiment - I'll hold up an anti government sign in front of the French parliament, and you do the same in Tiananmen Square and we'll see how much control the Chinese gov has ;)" Actually, i did just that 10 years ago, in front of the elysee ( white house french equivalent), alone, american style with my street sign ( although i didn't shout any sligan, i remained silent), and one policeman asked me my ID, went somewhere with it, gave it back to me, and told me to leave, saying "this is is not the US here". But, yeah, nothing else happened. I wasn't beaten up or followed or spyed upon after that.
- xxs 12y ago
  >>I wasn't beaten up or followed or spyed upon after that How can you know?

gbog 12y ago

> You're misinterpreting the nature of control. I don't think so. I am just taking the other angle, from the people's perspective, and want to debunk the cliche that Chinese people are easy to control. They've had much more revolutions than any other country in their long history. They're all but easy to control. In French we say "like boiling milk", which means they can easily and suddenly get out of control and wash out anything on their way. Just blocking a few topics on social network is certainly not enough. As for things that are allowed or forbidden, it seems more cultural than anything else: In China direct verbal confrontation is very rare, while it is very common in the West, and this holds in families, in companies and also at the country's level. Not very surprisingly, in France insulting the head of state is not forbidden, and even something like a national entertainment. However, in France we have laws telling people if they are allowed to work on Sundays, which seems extremely weird and borderline "totalitarian" to the Chinese, which believe people should be allowed to work whenever they need to or want to. Also, when talking about China, it needs to be reminded that in fact the core Western values (i.e. Enlightment values) and the core Chinese values (i.e. Confucean values) are very similar, and quite compatible. (See how fast Chinese immigrants adapt to and adopt Western values.) For instance, secularism and religious tolerance, equality of rights and before the law, meritocracy, etc. I think the world is going very badly these days, and a big chunk of it is in the hands of people whose values are really opposed to the core of modern humanist values, and this chunk is not China. We'd better team up and fight (with ideas, not with guns) what really threatens humanity as a whole. Just my thoughts.

westiseast 12y ago
Hey, I didn't see it was you! Still at Douban? I know what you mean in terms of "boiling milk" - in that respect I agree. I keep thinking these days of that old saying of China as a sleeping elephant; instead I think the people are the sleeping elephant. I think the government's strategy relies a lot on ignorance and apathy, but if even half of these stories we read as standard on NYTimes etc made it into the public consciousness, there would be huge issues. About the laws - I guess it's not the actual content of the laws or relatively different values that illustrates control. Eg in your example about working on Sunday's - if you decided to fight one of those laws, you could do it openly and publicly and in principle it would be a fair fight. You might even embarrass the government or a political leader, but here there's so little chance of that - that's the different nature of the Communist Party control. The government/party has taken away avenues to legitimately discuss/debate/fight, so the options are either total apathy or explosive revolution. That's scary!
- gbog 12y ago
  (Yes, still working for Douban) > if you decided to fight one of those laws, you could do it openly and publicly and in principle it would be a fair fight. Yes, but here you may have assumed that "openly and publicly" is a precondition for fairness. I do not think openness and publicity of fights is the only way to get fairness. Or at least this can be discussed and we should allow that, on one side openness is often faked, on the other that private and closed tractations may to some extent result in a decision or in a law that is efficient and corresponds to the long term better good of the concerned people (i.e. what they would really choose if given all the elements, and not disturbed by red herrings) For instance, if the governing elite is composed of ("extracted from") people from all parts of society, attracting the best of them with some good rewards (e.g. not money, but something like "good fame") and they collegially discuss important issues using the powers of associations, it could very well be a sane way to distillate the will of the people. Maybe even a saner way than ours (where representatives are elected from their good-looking face, this has been proven).
  - westiseast 12y ago

palmer_eldritch 12y ago

> but today they might let the protest get a bit wild if they want to allow the protesters a bit of leeway, and then those untrained, poorly equipped policemen will be screwed. I'd say most often than not, when a government lets a protest get wild it's because they want to justify the harsh repression that's coming or at least that when the time comes for decision, they won't side with the protestors. Or they're just in over their head but in that case, they don't let it get wild, they just loose control.

westiseast 12y ago
The HK protests were interesting recently for that reason - the protestors had the momentum, and the governments first reaction if it was mainland China would probably be to crush it. They let it boil over, and eventually the momentum was lost and anti-protestor sentiment took over. Whether that was by design or 'helped along' is another issue, but it showed how popular protests can sometimes just sour if left to their own devices.
- briandear 12y ago
  Occupy Wall Street comes to mind as another example. NYC sentiment turned rather quickly against that movement once the public delectation, rape allegations and the inconvienient even caused by protestors started to boil over.
  - westiseast 12y ago
    At university my friend was studying police tactics dealing with football hooligans and riots in the UK - they were slowly changing their tactics from full-on horse charges and batons waving to a very tai chi style light touch. Generally speaking the moderates would get bored and go home and then leave only the hardcore, who were then easier to identify and target. The light touch is a fantastic PR tool too because it shows any gov as tolerant and open.

bsaul 12y ago

"How about an experiment - I'll hold up an anti government sign in front of the French parliament, and you do the same in Tiananmen Square and we'll see how much control the Chinese gov has ;)" Actually, i did just that 10 years ago, in front of the elysee ( white house french equivalent), alone, american style with my street sign ( although i didn't shout any sligan, i remained silent), and one policeman asked me my ID, went somewhere with it, gave it back to me, and told me to leave, saying "this is is not the US here". But, yeah, nothing else happened. I wasn't beaten up or followed or spyed upon after that.

xxs 12y ago
>>I wasn't beaten up or followed or spyed upon after that How can you know?