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China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#331

Post by chaostheory »

dreamfactored wrote: post #322
chaostheory wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there's a tendency for people to overestimate the importance of foreign apps to Chinese consumers Then why take the trouble of blocking something so small and unimportant? ;) > eg., the Chinese tech/online market is so huge it can sustain multiple competitors of its own in each sector Doesn't China have bigger aspirations than just the mainland? People are missing the bigger point. I'm not talking about the…

1. These are foreign-owned infrastructure platforms and China is protective about its markets. Foreigners can't set up businesses of any kind, let alone infrastructure. 2. You seem to assume the bulk of innovation is going to be happening outside China and that blocking consumer access to Western platforms would somehow inhibit a flow of information to China. I'd disagree on both counts. The Chinese government is act…

1. My question was rhetorical. It was in response to someone saying that apps outside of China are unimportant and small.

2. No single country has a monopoly on innovation. Consequently the sharing of ideas from different locations and cultures is really important for moving forward. You miss out on this benefit when you consciously work to block it. Historically, the last time China was this arrogant about isolation, it didn't turn out too well.

Last Update: I've wasted enough time on this and probably should have put this in my original post.

If you think of sharing data as a resource, China just made it artificially scarce, made it extremely slow, and made it really costly which makes total business sense in the Information Age /s Hopefully our governments won't follow

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#332

Post by Nomentatus »

chaostheory wrote: post #298
westiseast wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a China hawk, but this is what has been happening and what will continue happening unless something massively more drastic than blocking a single minority foreign app happens. I think there's a tendency for people to overestimate the importance of foreign apps to Chinese consumers and to underestimate the Chinese market. It's almost laughable that people think blocking WhatsApp will make any difference to Chinese…

> I think there's a tendency for people to overestimate the importance of foreign apps to Chinese consumers Then why take the trouble of blocking something so small and unimportant? ;) > eg., the Chinese tech/online market is so huge it can sustain multiple competitors of its own in each sector Doesn't China have bigger aspirations than just the mainland? People are missing the bigger point. I'm not talking about the…

Innovation is a lot harder if you've grown up with someone looking over your shoulder all the time. I think we're going to pay that price, and that China will be more affected. The times of real progress in human history are few, the stagnant centuries are plentiful. But we'll see. Snowden ain't coming home any time soon.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#333

Post by dreamfactored »

Sargos wrote: post #270
JBiserkov wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you heard about a certain drone manufacturer, DJI?

I'm certainly not saying that there aren't actual Chinese products that are selling. It's just not the norm. DJI is a great company but not indicative of the general ecosystem of China.

You are right that today DJI is exceptional and represents the cutting edge - but that in itself is indicative of what is normal in the future.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#334

Post by narrator »

dreamfactored wrote: post #322
chaostheory wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think there's a tendency for people to overestimate the importance of foreign apps to Chinese consumers Then why take the trouble of blocking something so small and unimportant? ;) > eg., the Chinese tech/online market is so huge it can sustain multiple competitors of its own in each sector Doesn't China have bigger aspirations than just the mainland? People are missing the bigger point. I'm not talking about the…

1. These are foreign-owned infrastructure platforms and China is protective about its markets. Foreigners can't set up businesses of any kind, let alone infrastructure. 2. You seem to assume the bulk of innovation is going to be happening outside China and that blocking consumer access to Western platforms would somehow inhibit a flow of information to China. I'd disagree on both counts. The Chinese government is act…

As for sharing knowledge goes, China has sci-hub.io and westerners get to pay $35 a paper.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#335

Post by dreamfactored »

flexie wrote: post #124
chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

I think censorship is only part of the reason. Protectionism and national security probably plays a role aswell. Look at the list of websites they block: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland... Google, facebook, instagram, twitter etc. Those are one-way streets that provide next to no jobs, little tech transfer and no tax revenue to the countries they do business in, but tend to outcompete the…

Yes, I'm expecting Europe to start waking up to this

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#336

Post by FabHK »

School-Cotton wrote: post #210
micaksica wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their middle class are now sending their children to western schools and many of them will probably go back to China I disagree with the "middle class" being the ones sending their children internationally. The Gini coefficient in China is higher than that of the United States. Even if it was the same income distribution, America's middle class cannot afford to send their children to private schooling in other coun…

"Middle class", "upper class", etc. are not defined by percentiles. Otherwise it would mean nothing when we say a particular country has a "growing middle class".

At any rate, GP is right that it's not the "growing middle class" in China that sends kids to private school in the US. It's the upper class.

Make it about half a million Chinese students in the US currently, so we're talking about the top 1%.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#337

Post by the_common_man »

Danihan wrote: post #329
the_common_man wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. What are you talking about? The west has completely accepted surveillance by it's governments. The ideas by Locke, Rousseau, or Hobbes have 0 effect on western society. If you think western society is an 'freer', it's only because…

That's simply factually wrong. The US has much better press freedoms, freedom of speech and gun ownership rights than any other large country. It has nothing to do with an echo chamber. The laws are objectively very different. Comparing surveillance by the NSA to information accessibility in general is disingenuous at best.

> The US has much better press freedoms, freedom of speech and gun ownership rights than any other country.

Any country that requires and authorizes gun ownership is broken to start with. That you think this is somehow superior and better is.. I don't know what to say.

> Comparing surveillance by the NSA to access to information in general is disingenuous at best.

What's the difference?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#338

Post by Nomentatus »

adventured wrote: post #97
tryingagainbro wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: what would happen if China abolished the Communist Party or whatever they call and chose democracy. Chaos? Breakdown of the country into separate states /provinces? Civil war? Military rule? I would not want to the one in charge the day after. Obviously (moderated) rule by the people is best but not sure how China and say countries in the mold of Saudi Arabia will handle it.

India with its 1.3 billion people is capable of operating via a Democratic system (with its various issues and flaws not detracting from that fact), and they're even poorer than China and with fewer resources. There's no reason China can't manage a successful (even if messy) transition away from authoritarianism to a variation of representative government.

Corruption is worse in India than China, and that's problem one. Not coincidentally, growth in India has generally been slower (until recently) and just dropped. And India may be devolving into a theocracy. Not the most attractive example.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#339

Post by nv-vn »

dmix wrote: post #43
meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

> It's important for Westerners to realize that the Chinese never had a Locke, or a Rousseau, or a Hobbes. Neither did South America but they were inspired by all of them when they formed their modern republics after the various revolutions, after kicking out the Spanish rulers in the 1800s the military generals had a choice to form democracies and they sought inspiration from Europe, just as America did a century ea…

Keep in mind that Hong Kong was a British colony for 150+ years (contiguous minus the Japanese occupation during WWII). The fact that Hong Kong represents liberal Western values should surprise nobody. While the PRC represents much of Chinese philosophy and has mandated it be taught to its citizens, the leaders of Hong Kong were never in this mindset. The British Crown was above China, and thus people learned more about Western ideals. Even today, Hong Kong is mostly autonomous and it makes sense that its people would continue supporting the ideas that they have been taught or have lived under in the past.

As for Taiwan, I think it is important to remember that, while Chiang Kai-Shek was seemingly "less Chinese" than Mao, the two had many similarities. Like Mao, Chiang Kai-Shek was a believer in socialism and nationalism, with his own cult of personality. He also was responsible for his own purges early on and was very much a dictator. While he had support from many international countries, he was only slightly more liberal than Mao (which probably had to do with a number of factors, but I think it's important to note that he was educated in Japan at one point). It was not until after his death that Taiwan became democratic, and I think one of the reasons for this was because Taiwan had aligned itself with Western countries when it was driven out of mainland China. Had the ROC won and the PRC lost, I don't think much would be different here. It's possible to say that the fact that the ROC was anti-communism contributed to these changes, but Chiang Kai-Shek was by no means a supporter of democracy. To me it seems like the deciding factor for Taiwan becoming less authoritarian was almost certainly due to their defeat, and that the PRC would very likely follow in those same footsteps had the roles been reversed.

That all is to say that, despite the differences between Hong Kong/Taiwan and mainland China, the PRC is extremely representative of Chinese culture. The modern values of Taiwan and Hong Kong are obviously very different, but had different circumstances played out (Taiwan winning/Hong Kong becoming an independent Chinese state rather than becoming a colony) I do believe that these countries would end up nearly identical to modern China.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#340

Post by dreamfactored »

KGIII wrote: post #213
flexie wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think censorship is only part of the reason. Protectionism and national security probably plays a role aswell. Look at the list of websites they block: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Websites_blocked_in_mainland... Google, facebook, instagram, twitter etc. Those are one-way streets that provide next to no jobs, little tech transfer and no tax revenue to the countries they do business in, but tend to outcompete the…

I don't know that the United States has any legal mechanism to prevent an online Chinese company from holding the top position and doing what American-native companies do with the data. At least I can't think of any such mechanism? Perhaps someone here is a legal scholar?

If a hostile foreign company starts getting significant market share, you can be sure that the local companies will be seen to cry out for regulation and the government will oblige
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