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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’

#31

Post by adrianratnapala »

rdtsc wrote: post #28
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…

Singapore is often shown as proof that China's model will work. But look at it from the perspective of China.

To be like Singapore they would need to have a much more regular and neutral justice system and expose their politicians to much more democratic oversight (though still not to western levels). They would have to engage in a much more subtle and limited form of censorship.

If they do become like Singapore, then what do they get? They get to be about as rich as western democracies.

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

#32

Post by est »

kibwen wrote: post #29
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.

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.b…

> Cantonese, a language with 60 million speakers in China

Most of cantonese speakers can speak mandarin as well.

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

#33

Post by kibwen »

est wrote: post #32
kibwen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.b…

> Cantonese, a language with 60 million speakers in China Most of cantonese speakers can speak mandarin as well.

That doesn't refute my point; most French Canadians can also speak English, and yet French Canadian retains its own distinct subculture, so distinct that Quebec has repeatedly voted to secede from Canada. Language is merely one very obvious indicator of cultural heterogeneity, and the point remains that China is not nearly as culturally unified as the typical Westerner understands (which should not be so hard to believe; it's a country with a freaking billion people!).

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

#34

Post by pcnonpc »

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.

The current statistics in 2017 is around 600 million in rural area. Their monthly income is 3300 yuan or around 500 USD, more than $15 a day. According to World Bank, a country with $6000 USD a year is upper-middle income.

If you count their rural areas as a nation, its GDP is $3.6 trillion around the same size as Germany, 4th largest in the world.

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

#35

Post by PakG1 »

kibwen wrote: post #29
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.

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.b…

>> 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.

Mandarin is basically the Han dialect of Chinese. The Han people are 92% of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese

In addition, Mandarin is the standard language used in most or all public schools. I volunteered multiple times in an area where the majority of people are the Yi minority group (location: Zhaojue in southern Sichuan). The Yi people's language doesn't even share the same characters as Chinese. When I first heard their language, I swear it sounded like it was from Africa, a lot of similar phonemes. But even there, they used Mandarin in the public schools.

>> 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.

Shenzhen is a city built on top of a fishing village in the 80s that had very few incumbent people. Most of the people who live in Shenzhen come from outside of Shenzhen and never spoke Cantonese. As such, they have no choice but to speak Mandarin to each other, as that's the only common language out of all the people who come from all the other provinces. The fact of the matter is that I cannot remember the last time I heard Cantonese in Shenzhen. Guangzhou has a lot of Cantonese, but that's because there were a lot of Cantonese people in Guangzhou from the beginning, as Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong (the Canton province). Shenzhen's economy is forecast to outpace Hong Kong's economy, though Hong Kong will by no means become insignificant. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-05/as-shenzh...

If Cantonese is dying, it's a natural death brought on by social and economic factors, not a forced death. Mandarin has been the standard language used in public schools since the days of the Republic of China, China's attempt at democracy, in 1912. This is not some kind of new malicious strategy brought on by the modern Communist government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Modern_Standard_Chi...

So many factors are making it a natural death for Cantonese. My Cantonese speaking friends agree with this.

Source: I live in Shenzhen

edit: formatting

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

#36

Post by khc »

PakG1 wrote: post #35
kibwen wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.b…

>> 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. Mandarin is basically the Han dialect of Chinese. The Han people are 92% of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese In addition, Mandarin is the standard language used in most or all public schools. I volunteered multiple time…

Mandarin is _NOT_ the Han dialect of Chinese. Each region has its own dialect and while they are not taught in school (mostly due to central government's policy), regional dialects are often spoken at home.

Source: I grew up in Hong Kong and have relatives in mainland China

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

#37

Post by PakG1 »

wjn0 wrote: post #12
wavefunction wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why they have all those knife attacks and bombings and hundreds of young Tibetans self-immolating in protest. All that 'Chinese homogenity' and 'harmonious society.'

I'm curious to know the ratio of these crimes to population, as compared to Western countries. Harmonious != 100% peaceful.

100% this. Violent incidents in China pale in comparison to the US in terms of both scale and frequency. Take into consideration proportion of population? No comparison at all.

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

#38

Post by PakG1 »

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.

Judging from the populism happening in the US and various European countries, it seems that Western countries currently lack the latter too. See Trump's base, anger leading to Brexit, anger in Greece, etc.

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

#39

Post by PakG1 »

khc wrote: post #36
PakG1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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. Mandarin is basically the Han dialect of Chinese. The Han people are 92% of the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese In addition, Mandarin is the standard language used in most or all public schools. I volunteered multiple time…

Mandarin is _NOT_ the Han dialect of Chinese. Each region has its own dialect and while they are not taught in school (mostly due to central government's policy), regional dialects are often spoken at home. Source: I grew up in Hong Kong and have relatives in mainland China

Sorry, to be clear, I said that Mandarin is basically the Han dialect. It is true that a lot of people interchange the names Hanyu, Guoyu, and Putonghua, though they are not exactly the same thing. Just asked my co-worker about this to be sure, he said a lot of people consider Hanyu to be Putonghua even though it's not.

It's like me telling a Chinese person that Canadian English is basically American English, even though it isn't.

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

#40

Post by visarga »

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.

Yes, but among many poor students there can be plenty of very smart and talented ones. When you have 1.4 billion people, you got a lot of chances. The prospect of a better life and the parenting culture geared towards education are powerful motivators as well.
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