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China is choking the Internet

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Re: China is choking the Internet

#131

Post by hga »

jhancock wrote: post #124
hga wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ruling class of the PRC is currently willing to keep power by any means necessary . I'm hesitant to bet against a ruling class while it still maintains its own Gulag ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laogai ) and gets 65% of the country's organs for transplant from those it executes ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organ_harvesting_in_the_People%... ). Yes, someday it will likely all come tumbling down, although I thi…

Why does it have to come tumbling down? Can't you see a way forward where things improve without violence? There isn't one ruling class. I've seen government power change several times in Shanghai and at the national level over 10 years. You sound very pessimistic. What are doing to make the world a better place? Here are a few suggestions: * If you are a Chinese national, go home and become a member of the party, vo…

It doesn't have to happen with (a lot of) violence. The final denouncement of the Soviet Union was fantastically non-violent compared to what just about everyone expected.

But authoritarian regimes like the PRC's aren't very stable, they have legitimacy problems, succession problems, sooner or latter they tend to "tumble down".

The very fact that the ruling class is spending so much effort keeping a lid on things by continuing to build the Great Firewall of China (with all its collateral damage as we're discussing here), preventing any alternative forms of civil society from getting big (organized religion, Falun Gong ... are there even Chamber's of Commerce that are independent of the government???) tells us important things.

And then there are the looming demographic issues. The One-Child Policy is leading to a nasty 4-2-1 generational aging---4 grandparents have 2 parents who have 1 child ... to support all the parents---and a nasty male to female ratio imbalance. Who's going to support those parents in their old age? Who are those unmatched 10s of millions of men going to marry? What happens if one or neither of those problems get solved?

Energy doesn't seem to be a big problem for the PRC (is the Earth about to run out of coal, uranium, etc.?). Pollution ... well, wealth and the rule of law are what solved it in the developed nations. We'll see how the wealth game continues in the PRC, but I don't see any possibility of a sudden outbreak of the rule of law.

Re: China is choking the Internet

#132

Post by xster »

Super74 wrote: post #92

As I write this I too am having to go through a VPN to access the world. Even when it works properly, I constantly have to "play the VPN game." I really don't have the time to list out every item from jhancock that I disagree with, but pretty much all of them made me grimace. And I find it poignant that he no longer lives here. I too live in Shanghai and have for the past 5 years. I came here looking for another view…

I agree with your focus on the legal system. It is indeed shit in China. But when it comes to the solution, I'm not sure I can propose a better path than that already followed by China. That is, a progressive economic reform, a very limited artistic liberation and essentially no political reform. By appearance to westerners, this looks horrible, but then again, look at eastern european countries that did follow a typical western/IMF approach and where they are at today. We have seen quick political reforms and financial deregulations and all the other washington consensus sell points that the west imposed on developing countries and where they lead to.

Back to China, even during the warring states periods, 2 and a half millenia ago, chinese statesmen acknowledged that only through economic ascension can citizens start giving a shit about morals and rights and having been over half of China's provinces, I believe that what the students tried to achieve on Tien'anmen will never work in China's present state. (it's idealistic democracy didn't even work among students on Tien'anmen square that changed hands through essentially mob wars about 3 times a day). The best path to better political and social states for the Chinese is exactly what China is doing right now, that is improving the economic condition for as many as possible.

No, I'm not saying that some's political rights should be sacrificed for a long term gain or that the lesser of 2 evils is good, but I just can't envisage a better way to improve China than what China is doing now. China does have a lot of problems and like it or not, it will not be solved overnight and overthrowing the CCP is definitely not going to improve the lives of ordinary citizens.

Re: China is choking the Internet

#133

Post by xster »

drats wrote: post #122
jhancock wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your finding that I am not in Shanghai at the moment says nothing poignant. My family came back to the U.S. for a bit for family reasons: my grandmother is 99 and I wanted to spend time with her. My mother is getting a bit old and I wanted my son to spend time with her while he's still a young boy. There are certainly things about China that I personally am thankful for a break. Air and noise pollution mostly, and ha…

Political analysis is often hard because you can't control all of the variables. However we can look at very similar groups under different modes of governance. Hong Kong. British-derived institutions and law. 12th on the Corruption Perceptions Index. 1st on the Index of Economic Freedom. Outranking the USA in both. Taiwan. Democracy. 37th on the Corruption Perceptions Index. 27th on the Index of Economic Freedom. Ch…

Nice point. I made a comment about economics on the same thread, that Chinese statesmen 2500 years ago recognized that first economic improvements have to take place before moral enlightenment and the protection of individual rights. Mainland did do worse than these other equally Confucian societies, but I'd argue on where mainland did wrong and the solution. And I'm hesitant to say that these political reasons are the cause rather than the effects of bad economic performance of mainland. The mao period is undeniably a period of complete tragedy. But as much as a political tragedy, it is also an economic failure. So when it comes to the solution, I would again argue that political reforms at this stage in China will not bring benefits much less overthrowing the CCP. Gradual economic improvements is the best way to improve the political and social conditions of the Chinese masses

Re: China is choking the Internet

#134

Post by xster »

+10 points for HN I don't agree with a lot of points of view here but I'm so glad it's happening here on HN rather than on Digg or something. Almost everyone who expresses their political views have been in China or does business in China rather than just repeating what fox news said.

I have gained new respects for HN

Re: China is choking the Internet

#135

Post by spacebob »

jacquesm wrote: post #63
hga wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe this has anything to do with what you or I think is OK, I think it has to do with the rule of law and how that helps or hinders businesses. Having reasonably clear constitutions (big C and small c), laws and rules allows one to plan for the future and focus on serving customers and the like instead of worrying if the state will inadvertently shut you down (I assume we're both assuming that what the po…

For the most part all of the traffic blocked by the 'great firewall' of China is collateral damage. And that's exactly the problem. The human right violations in China notwithstanding the majority of the people there have roughly the same ability to plan their lives and the future ahead of them as a person in the US would. It's just that instead of relying on laws and judges they rely on corruption to stay out of tro…

Thanks for the insightful posts. I'm just curious as to the "older faction" within the government you pointed out, any idea as to their age, or how long they are likely to remain in power? Do you think there will be a succession of their ideologies or will they be buried together?

Sorry if the question sounds kinda narrow, but it seems like a bottleneck to a lot of problems. In my limited knowledge of Chinese politics from surfing, it seems that the faction of engineers among the newer generation of Chinese politicians happen to be quite enlightened, though they have to compete with the children of the previous communist leaders who came to power through nepotism.

It just reminds me of the whole thing Europe had to go through not so long ago.

Re: China is choking the Internet

#136

Post by Super74 »

If nothing else, I think we can all agree that the "China" topic can bring an emotionally heated debate and it's great to have the platform to discuss such issues. Thanks to pg for that! Forums such as these are not as common in the rest of the world as one could naively believe. But to bring this back to dublinclontarf 's original comment, I will write my last words on the subject.

As we are becoming more and more dependent on this thing called the internet, we must begin to create and offer the same types of securities, rights of access, usage and opportunities to the world, equally. Under the guidelines of free trade, like the WTO, we should have these already in place in some areas As online businesses are businesses, none the less, they should be given their due protection.

By restricting internet businesses from others and controlling what can and cannot be said on them is wrong. As China grows to become more powerful and has more ability to control their internet, I can only see a darker future for the state of freedom in China.

What we see now, are only examples of the type of governing and leadership in the CCP today. Human rights, free speech, social stability and environmental well-being all grow from the same tree. That tree looks to be quite unhealthy.

Bottom line, you do not have the freedom to discuss what you like on the internet in China. Period. Do so and you risk anything from losing a business license or police harassment to imprisonment or worse, in extreme cases. You do not have complete access to the online businesses being created daily across the globe. These are facts.

These freedoms that we take for granted in the US (I am an American) come from a basis of law and order. As I said before it is not perfect. Nothing humans create is. But from that law, we have much prosperity. the clean air comes from regulations and restrictions on wanton over-development, national parks have come from the common man fighting big business to protect something pure. By the way, even our president had to use his constitutional power to save one of the world's most precious gifts, the Grand Canyon, from the might of big business. And millions of immigrants have found a home to raise their families and prosper in their own unique ways.

Governments that oppress these freedoms and deny those rights have never fully grown to become world powers and beacons of hope. They made money and won some wars, but were never considered safe havens.

The problems associated with Internet and Freedom in China are merely symptoms of larger issues looming on the horizon. As we build this world wide web ever larger and stronger, we will see just how those two ideas are so intertwined.

Re: China is choking the Internet

#137

Post by geek_silk »

juvenn wrote: post #100
geek_silk wrote: post #65

china is a f *ing country

Please clarify, it's the government , not all Chinese people, who can be as friendly and kindly as every faithful human on the earth.

Yaa i am talking about government, not Chinese people. I know people are good, hard working.

Re: China is choking the Internet

#138

Post by braindead_in »

barkingcat wrote: post #110
braindead_in wrote: post #41

There seems to be a great market DPI and other "security" focused technologies. You can always sell such products to Governments. That being said, I find it hard to believe that the internet can be censored and regulated. It just takes too much time and effort to be worth it. Whatever the technology used, there will always be workarounds. There is no such thing as foolproof technology. More and more its seems like a…

There is nothing such as foolproof technology - that's why a large part of the firewall is powered by people. It helps develop computer skills in a large part of the population that would otherwise be out of work, and you reach your censorship targets at the same time. I think tens of thousands of young people (if not more) are employed as "firewall monitors" in China.

Who monitors the monitors?

Re: China is choking the Internet

#140

Post by X-Istence »

0wned wrote: post #44
beilabs wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in China for years, I recommend this approach....

Be sure to push your DNS through the OpenSSH tunnel too, or they'll see your client's DNS requests. Here is a very short write-up on safe web browsing while on untrusted networks: http://16systems.com/OpenBSD/untrusted.pdf

Instead of an OpenSSH tunnel, use OpenVPN. It has settings to automatically push DNS, and on my Mac for example using Tunnelblick (a wrapper) I can have a GUI that can give me status updates on my tunnels, and when they get disconnected, to make sure I don't accidentally sent information down the wrong line.
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