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China Blocks WhatsApp

nytimes.com

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#421

Post by nikdaheratik »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #290
majormajor wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which sounds like the "corporate profit maximizing controlled at higher-than-governmental levels" explanation. I think the argument in recent coverage like this is that it's no longer "has made their society far more open" but "HAD made their society far more open." And then it really exposes the financially-opportunistic, rather than principal-guided-as-advertised, nature of how the West deals with different countri…

Nothing the West does is principled, and the sooner people realise this the sooner they understand why the rest of the world reacts the way they do to the West. From destabilising Libya and Syria, to taking in refugees, to grandstanding with Russia, nothing is done for any set of moral principles. Libya and Syria were 2 nations that believed in Arab and African pan-nationalism, and tried to assert independence and se…

This is the kind of ideology over reality argument that gives academics such a bad name. You list all of these "bad" foreign policy actions without examining the context, the costs of doing nothing, or any of the "good" actions these countries have also done.

Take Libya, for example, the choice was to either do nothing, and let a dictator kill a bunch of his own people, in which case the US would have been condemned as "propping up" the guy, or help the rebels, in which case they get accused of "destabilizing the country."

If they send a bunch of people to help the rebels rebuild their country afterwards, they're now "nation building" and/or "colonizing". If they do nothing now they're ignoring the country they helped to "destabilize". If they sign a bunch of deals to bring in new goods or open new factories is "western capitalism" and "worker exploitation", but if they leave them alone, or only send aid workers then it's "paternalism" all over again.

Maybe the reality is that even the most powerful country in the world couldn't do anything to help the problems of a country with millions of people, but they still take the blame for whatever happens, even if they do nothing.

And Syria is basically this situation, plus a bunch of global powers doing their proxy war nonsense, plus a bunch of power hungry murderers using a religious ideology as a justification to do whatever they want, along with a murderous government that wants to hold power at any cost. No wonder Switzerland tries to stay out of this sort of business, other than bankrolling some of the people involved anyways.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#422

Post by drraid0 »

starchand wrote: post #272
Certhas wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative: Innovation happens within the context of Chinas censorship and political regime. Blocking of entrenched western competitors allows home grown solutions to spring up, and local technological know how to develop faster. Capitalism and innovation turn out to work within the context of an illiberal society just fine. Especially as China avoids the mistake of closing itself off to the rest of the world, but s…

100% this. And occasionally these apps out innervate their western counterparts. WeChat is better than WhatsApp, Facebook.

How is it better than whatsapp?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#423

Post by rorykoehler »

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…

Chinese have no problem sharing. If you've used wechat you'll know it's western tech that has fallen behind.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#424

Post by Chaebixi »

losvedir wrote: post #368
dmix wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is "China" in this case? Its government is the Communist Party. It's not going to abolish itself! I've read that something close to 1/3rd of the Chinese population is a member of the party or whose livelihood directly depends on it in some fashion where they are essentially a member. So this is a very good question.

If such a large proportion of the country is in the party, then... what's the problem? As I understand it, essentially any high performing college student can join the party, and then there's deal making and voting within the party. I wouldn't be surprised if there's different "factions" within the party, each fighting for control, or each who have a different vision for the future. Isn't that just a different framin…

> As I understand it, essentially any high performing college student can join the party

Not necessarily. I understand that it also takes personal connections and/or a little bribery to get in.

> and then there's deal making and voting within the party. I wouldn't be surprised if there's different "factions" within the party, each fighting for control, or each who have a different vision for the future.

My understanding is that this is absolutely true at the higher levels of the party, but not so much at the regular levels. Party membership itself doesn't confer much privilege or power.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#425

Post by narag »

msla wrote: post #22
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…

This is very essentialist, and I'll only point out that, prior to the Renaissance, you could say very similar things about European cultures. In short, history explains, it doesn't justify. And this can be explained even better by a closed oligarchy wanting to stay in power. Edited to add: Modern Western countries have had experiences with autocracy as well. Do you think there's some deep cultural reason Germany went…

This is very essentialist, and I'll only point out that, prior to the Renaissance, you could say very similar things about European cultures.

Thank you for showing me a new word: essentialism. It sounds philosophical, which is a kind start... to then calling the bs.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#426

Post by elefanten »

FabHK wrote: post #261
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…

In FinTech in particular, China is years ahead [1]. WeChat Pay had 100m users in 2014. [1] https://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/2171739...

This claim gets made a lot, especially by China's government in it's "four great modern inventions" marketing campaign. [1]

I don't get it. None of those are Chinese inventions. They're all technologies China adopted really fast. It's a testament to market size, development speed and certain idiosyncrasies about Chinese demographics, etc. But it has nothing to do with invention or innovation.

[1] http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/bizchina/tech/2017-08/08/conten...

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#427

Post by virtuabhi »

Nomentatus wrote: post #338
adventured wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you nuts?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#428

Post by Chaebixi »

nabla9 wrote: post #375
musage wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "the" Chinese. There are a lot of individual people, and if you took a Chinese baby and raised it in an encouraging way, there is no Chinese gene that would make them timid and obedient regardless. And just like you wouldn't take, say, an alcoholic, and say that being an alcoholic is obviously the best way for them to be, or they wouldn't be one, I don't see how that is any more sensible with "cultures".…

Different cultures have different relationships to authority. Han culture is very different from the west. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_distance

I get the impression that the idea that Chinese culture is somehow more naturally accepting of authoritarianism is part of a propaganda narrative promoted by Chinese authoritarians to protect their own power.

> China Takes Aim at Western Ideas

> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-lead...

> Communist Party cadres have filled meeting halls around China to hear a somber, secretive warning issued by senior leaders. Power could escape their grip, they have been told, unless the party eradicates seven subversive currents coursing through Chinese society.

> These seven perils were enumerated in a memo, referred to as Document No. 9, that bears the unmistakable imprimatur of Xi Jinping, China’s new top leader. The first was “Western constitutional democracy”; others included promoting “universal values” of human rights, Western-inspired notions of media independence and civic participation, ardently pro-market “neo-liberalism,” and “nihilist” criticisms of the party’s traumatic past.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#429

Post by Chaebixi »

eyeareque wrote: post #103
dmoy wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google didn't work for me at all in 2011. The VPN I used worked, but then stopped after 2015 ish. I now use free roaming on e.g. t mobile / Google fi / etc which gets around all blocks.

L2TP tunneling works when you use an ip address for the vpn server.

Why's that? Are you using some commercial VPN service where they're blocking the DNS?

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#430

Post by infinii »

drraid0 wrote: post #422
starchand wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. And occasionally these apps out innervate their western counterparts. WeChat is better than WhatsApp, Facebook.

How is it better than whatsapp?

Not going to go into detail as I'm sure you know how to use Google.

Wechat isn't simply chat. It has grown into a platform that has empowered it's users to partake in a growing ecommerce industry. It also has p2p payments which is hugely popular.

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