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Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

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Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#21

Post by Cyph0n »

coumygen wrote: post #17
Cyph0n wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might take over the world (I think it's unlikely), but in my opinion, the main reason isn't their political system: it's human capital (1/7 of the world population) and homogeneity (very cohesive culture due to China's history). Western countries lack the former, India and others lack the latter.

Human capital doesn't automatically indicate economic prowess; you have to remember there's around 700M in China that still lives in rural areas with under $1 a day, and they can't get the jobs in urban cities because those jobs are going away due to moving to cheaper SE asia countries, robots, and lack of skillsets.

But it does indicate potential for economic growth... South Korea is a good example of an economy that has outgrown the available human capital.

Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#22

Post by QAPereo »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #16
QAPereo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previously it was a sort of vaguely Maoist gerontocracy; power was concentrated in some central committees, not just the premier.

You mean party secretary. The premier is Li Keqiang, who is pretty powerless, at least compared to Wen Jiabao.

You’re right, my bad!

Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#23

Post by QAPereo »

vkou wrote: post #18
QAPereo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previously it was a sort of vaguely Maoist gerontocracy; power was concentrated in some central committees, not just the premier.

What difference does it make to the common people, or to political activists, that power is spread out among the leaders of dozen CCP committees, versus a single man? The police will continue to repress, the press committees will continue to censor...

Dictators tend to collapse along with the stability of their countries. The more distributed power is, the more stable it is. China was already a huge country with massively centralized power. Now it’s still huge, but the power is concentrated in just one man, and thats even more unstable. So... worse crackdowns, even less freedom, and a much worse and less potentially flexible long term trajectory.

Edit: to be clear I am not endorsing either system, just describing them as accurately as possible.

Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#24

Post by thisisit »

Cyph0n wrote: post #9
kiba wrote: post #5

From my perspective, it looked like China will overtake the world and maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western values and ideal. But how true is that? I hear a lot about corruption and crackdown, and wonder how much does that impact their economy. How critical is good information about the world? Do Western Media do a good job of it, or at least a better one than those in less…

They might take over the world (I think it's unlikely), but in my opinion, the main reason isn't their political system: it's human capital (1/7 of the world population) and homogeneity (very cohesive culture due to China's history). Western countries lack the former, India and others lack the latter.

It's more of forced homogeneity than something driven by their history. They ban anything remotely resembling a different opinion.

Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#25

Post by echaozh »

Cyph0n wrote: post #9
kiba wrote: post #5

From my perspective, it looked like China will overtake the world and maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western values and ideal. But how true is that? I hear a lot about corruption and crackdown, and wonder how much does that impact their economy. How critical is good information about the world? Do Western Media do a good job of it, or at least a better one than those in less…

They might take over the world (I think it's unlikely), but in my opinion, the main reason isn't their political system: it's human capital (1/7 of the world population) and homogeneity (very cohesive culture due to China's history). Western countries lack the former, India and others lack the latter.

The Muslims have both, they're sure taking over the world.

Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#26

Post by owebmaster »

vkou wrote: post #18
QAPereo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Previously it was a sort of vaguely Maoist gerontocracy; power was concentrated in some central committees, not just the premier.

What difference does it make to the common people, or to political activists, that power is spread out among the leaders of dozen CCP committees, versus a single man? The police will continue to repress, the press committees will continue to censor...

The secret is to continue raising the standard of living of the people as fast as it's been raising in the past 2 decades.

Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#28

Post by rdtsc »

kiba wrote: post #5

From my perspective, it looked like China will overtake the world and maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western values and ideal. But how true is that? I hear a lot about corruption and crackdown, and wonder how much does that impact their economy. How critical is good information about the world? Do Western Media do a good job of it, or at least a better one than those in less…

> prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity

But it's always been optional. China showed it. But Singapore showed it best. It's undoubtedly prosperous, but not considered too democratic (it is on paper of course).

The West usually sells the idea of liberalization with the promise that Democracy will eventually follow. It goes something like "let us come in overthrow the government, start a war, install some dictator, bring some big multinational corporations to run things, etc. But don't worry, eventually democracy will arrive". But it seems it doesn't always.

Slavoj Žižek, hate him or like him, likes to call this Capitalism with Asian Values

He explains himself what that means here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ADfH9Rt6pc

(Be prepared for silly jokes, and endless diversions)

Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#29

Post by kibwen »

Cyph0n wrote: post #9
kiba wrote: post #5

From my perspective, it looked like China will overtake the world and maybe prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western values and ideal. But how true is that? I hear a lot about corruption and crackdown, and wonder how much does that impact their economy. How critical is good information about the world? Do Western Media do a good job of it, or at least a better one than those in less…

They might take over the world (I think it's unlikely), but in my opinion, the main reason isn't their political system: it's human capital (1/7 of the world population) and homogeneity (very cohesive culture due to China's history). Western countries lack the former, India and others lack the latter.

I think you're vastly overestimating China's cultural homogeneity. 30% of the population (so, a greater number than the population of the U.S.) doesn't even speak Mandarin. Just like in India, regional loyalties are very strong despite modern attempts to unify; see the continuing efforts to wipe out Cantonese, a language with 60 million speakers in China and that is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-forcing-its-biggest-... . And this isn't happening in some backwater part of the country; in addition to Cantonese being the official language of Hong Kong, Canton (a.k.a. Guangdong) is the most populous province in the country, and the location of Shenzhen itself.

Re: Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’

#30

Post by Cyph0n »

echaozh wrote: post #25
Cyph0n wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might take over the world (I think it's unlikely), but in my opinion, the main reason isn't their political system: it's human capital (1/7 of the world population) and homogeneity (very cohesive culture due to China's history). Western countries lack the former, India and others lack the latter.

The Muslims have both, they're sure taking over the world.

No, we are actually not homogenous at all. Even Arabs are pretty culturally divided, especially the Middle East vs. North Africa. We do have a sizable population though.

I would argue that the main barrier between Arabs and unity is authoritarianism.

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