China under Xi Jinping has effectively turned into a dicatatorship, and so with a dictatorship, censorship and blackouts naturally comes along with it. That's the reason why Beijing has recently cracked down on VPN, sent many of the young, brave democratic protestors in Hong Kong to prison, silenced many of its Xi critics, etc. Will China suffer from the censorship and blackouts? As discussed heavily on HN, probably.…
> sent many of the young, brave democratic protestors in Hong Kong to prison, silenced many of its Xi critics, etc. The crackdown on black people and BLM is very similar, but a lot more violent.
I'd say that has more to do with societal norms and biases, not political strategy.
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…
Wasn't it Mao's tongue in cheek assessment of the American democracy experiment that it's "too early to tell"? The same can certainly be said of Chinese current state. They're a remarkable success on a scale unlike anything else in the world's history but lets wait a little longer...
That was Zhou Enlai to Nixon about the legacy of the French Revolution.
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.
I thought the problem with that is that it is literally impossible to continue the trajectory.
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 believe the 60 millions of so cantonese speakers includes the chinese over the world where many of them are from Canton
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…
well I live in Shenzhen too (live and work in Nanshan) and I hear Cantonese and Teochew on the streets daily. You can hear people speaking Cantonese all over the place: in markets, in office building elevators, restaurants, etc. In certain areas you can hear tons of Teochew being spoken as well (most electronics markets and wet markets seem to be run by people from Chaoshan), which is another regional culture with a strong identity that's strongly resisting getting wiped out.
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.
Anger fueled by fake news that Russian extraterritorial propaganda department happily spreads with three help of their army of professorial trolls.
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.
There's no comparison because the data isn't there, not because the news report on something or not.
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 believe the 60 millions of so cantonese speakers includes the chinese over the world where many of them are from Canton
I understand that Cantonese is exceedingly popular among the Chinese diaspora, particularly in the US, but some quick searching implies that the number of worldwide speakers is closer to 70 million. The article that I linked specifically qualifies their 60 million figure with "in China", though they don't state what their source is.
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…
Your information is old; China is the most indebted country in the world, and its growth in debt is scaring alot of economists.
> sent many of the young, brave democratic protestors in Hong Kong to prison, silenced many of its Xi critics, etc. The crackdown on black people and BLM is very similar, but a lot more violent.
This is what you can't say in America - that the "democracy" is not so democratic.
> This is what you can't say in America
Yes you can. You just did. It’s a stupid thing to say, in the same vein as likening the Civil Rights Movement to contemporaneous protests under Diem’s regime in Vietnam or the Cultural Revolution in China. But we have the First Amendment and courts to defend it. It’s not perfect, but it’s miles apart from a full security crackdown.