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Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

qz.com

31–40 of 275 posts

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#31
post #26
post #13

Sounds like the normal thing in China. Make something illegal, don't enforce it, if someone's saying something you don't like then enforce it specifically against them, keeps everyone else in line.

Selective enforcement of laws in very common in many countries. If they enforce is too harshly then people will protest. For example exceeding the speed limit while driving.

Harsh enforcement also causes their revenue to drop.

Several of the towns which depended upon speed traps for their funding found out that the Internet is a good resource for letting people know to avoid an area.

This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#32
post #12
post #7

Well, ever since the change of government China has been closing back on itself again and censorship has been stronger and stronger. It's not surprising and tells me I made the right choice to leave the country in 2013...

Are you a Chinese national? Just wondering what your thoughts on the reasons for this move are.

No I'm not, I've lived in China for 6 years, 1 year near Wuhan and 5 years in Shanghai and came there the first time in 2002.

When I first came there, China was gradually opening itself, things were becoming more free and people were very optimistic. If you talked to Taxi drivers, waiters or basically any people in the street, they were very optimistic and thought that the future was going to be great. Overtime this optimism has changed, when I would talk to taxi drivers, they would be bitter, thinking that the growth only really profited the rich and they had been left behind. It was a very different feelings...

Surprisingly, upper class Chines that I would talk to were also wary about the changes of the government and a lot of them were thinking of finding ways to leave China (I have a friend who went to Canada to give birth to her child for this very reason).

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#33
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they'd go that far. They're mainly interested in controlling information. Nationalization, that would only accelerate the decline of the economy by spooking foreign companies who would soon high tail it leaving behind tons of idle machinery and idle workers, something the PLA would rather avoid.

PLA is People's Liberation Army, I don't think you were referring to them because socio-economics is not really their thing.

They are ultimate in charge of handling unrest, so while the CCP is the face of the government, ultimately its power and control come from the PLA. When the "incident" in tian an men occurred, it was the PLA who had to go in, they are rather loathe to have to go mop up again.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#34
post #21

This is pure insanity: "Quartz contacted the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology from Hong Kong asking for further clarification on how the rules would work, but the ministry said it could only reply to faxed questions that came from a reporter with a mainland press card."

Could international press community do something like embargo all mainland reporters?

That only strengthens the totalitarian government's position by further blocking any outside ideas. They don't care whether the press makes money, they want control.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#35

And so it starts. Economic collapse will prompt the dictatorship in China to - Increase anti-foreign rhetorics in media. Don't like it, Microsoft? tough - Ban Foreign services. Don't like it, Uber? tough - Devalue Yuan by 50%. Don't like it, Apple? tough - Nationalize foreign assets. Don't like it, Ford? tough

> Devalue Yuan by 50%. Don't like it, Apple? tough Why wouldn't Apple like this? Their manufacturing costs would become much lower, and they would rack up even more billions in profits.

He somehow assumed that choosing the Apple products have something to do with their price affordability.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#36
I am not a sociologist, political scientist, or an economist. It appears that China is too big to govern and has become a diseconomy of scale. China has 160 cities with over 1-million people in them (US has 10 cities) and I think it's a miracle that the lights still work and they have running water.

When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier (Observe what it takes to fly a B-52).

The PRC seems to be circling the wagons to protect from some unknown enemy that the free flow of information will allow the arrows to strike.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#37
post #31
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selective enforcement of laws in very common in many countries. If they enforce is too harshly then people will protest. For example exceeding the speed limit while driving.

Harsh enforcement also causes their revenue to drop. Several of the towns which depended upon speed traps for their funding found out that the Internet is a good resource for letting people know to avoid an area. This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws.

"This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws."

It will be even more interesting when the passed laws and administrative acts will be automatically checked and validated (by something other than humans) so that fining won't be for addressing some revenue deficit but for actually preventing harmful phenomena!

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#38
post #31
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Selective enforcement of laws in very common in many countries. If they enforce is too harshly then people will protest. For example exceeding the speed limit while driving.

Harsh enforcement also causes their revenue to drop. Several of the towns which depended upon speed traps for their funding found out that the Internet is a good resource for letting people know to avoid an area. This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws.

Hadn't thought about this before your comment, but this could be a reason for continuing to drive themselves. If they are willing to exceed the speed limit, they can get to their destination faster than a self driving car with speed limit enforced by software.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#39
post #13

Sounds like the normal thing in China. Make something illegal, don't enforce it, if someone's saying something you don't like then enforce it specifically against them, keeps everyone else in line.

Just like the way many companies work with regard to behavior policies (recreational internet browsing, showing up on time, etc). You know, to engender trust, respect, loyalty.

Re: Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China

#40

I am not a sociologist, political scientist, or an economist. It appears that China is too big to govern and has become a diseconomy of scale. China has 160 cities with over 1-million people in them (US has 10 cities) and I think it's a miracle that the lights still work and they have running water. When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier (Observe what it takes to fly a B-52). The PRC seems…

It's odd between mainstream media talking about how China is becoming the main power ignoring structural issues of that kind. But that's only a 'theory' so far, how to know if China will evolve into tumor or functioning organism.
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