Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

engadget.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 280 posts

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#111

Post by ghostcluster »

thinkpad20 wrote: post #41
antishatter wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently went to Xian which locals had described to be as being more of a small village feel. A mere 8m population.

Xian at least has thousands of years of history. On the bullet train in China you’ll often pass by cities of millions of people which might have been mere hamlets a generation or two ago. The size of China, its economic renaissance and the fact that good jobs in China are almost exclusively found in urban areas has led to a vast migration towards city centers which is pretty much unprecedented in human history.

there are a number of mounting structural dangers though. Due to decades of the one child policy, their population is rapidly aging, without a strong youth base to replace them. China, though nominally a communist state, has no social safety net akin to Social Security for the elderly.

Additionally, their economic rise has contributed to higher wages and hence a relatively weaker position in the price sensitive globalized labor force, and they are beginning to lose out to more competitive countries like Vietnam, Thailand, and India. Since exports make up such a fractionally large portion of their GDP, this is another hazard.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#112

Post by headsoup »

Feniks wrote: post #76
toephu2 wrote: post #71

On the plus side, I just visited China last month and never felt safer. Before you would wear your backpack on the front of your chest when taking public transportation for fear of thieves. Now, with surveillance everywhere (and random ID checks at subways), you can freely wear your backpack on your back where it belongs without fear of theft.

You're not wrong, article looks at it from a Western viewpoint. This surveillance is actually not new. Its a throwback to imperial China, with technology added to it. I can imagine a lot of Chinese prefer it to lawlessness. It does cost vast amounts of money though. China spends more on surveillance and the police than the entire military budget.

I imagine there are some shades of grey between 'authoritarian surveillance' and 'lawlessness'...

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#113

Post by kashprime »

smallnamespace wrote: post #67
ghostcluster wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

they actually have a very tense, tenuous relationship with their citeznry and its propensity for public demonstrations that keep the government in line. there is a breaking point they know they have to avoid. > The number of annual protests has grown steadily since the early 1990s, from approximately 8700 “mass group incidents” in 1993[1] to over 87,000 in 2005.[2] In 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences esti…

At least a few years ago, de Toqueville's 'On the Old Regime and the Revolution' was on the Communist Party's reading list [1]. The Chinese Civil War of '49 and then the Cultural Revolution (where most of the then-current Party leadership suffered) is still within living memory of the ruling class. Of course they understand that there is an implicit contract between themselves and the rest of society, even if it the…

> The question is not whether China will eventually devolve more political power to the populace——that is almost a given

This idea was popular in 2013 when this article was written, but Xi's regime has indeed shown that greater prosperity can be had with increased repression. Turmoil in America only underlines this.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#114

Post by ghostcluster »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #108
pentae wrote: post #99

So can anyone tell me why we should support what China is doing? Why should any entrepreneur or tech worker go there and support this government? How come China seems to get a free pass on human rights issues like this by western society?

Because keeping a large diverse country stable and safe is very difficult, and a failure causes enormous tragedy. The approach that works to keep the US stable does not always work well in other countries. To keep the billion people who live in China safe from civil war and rampant terrorism is already a great achievement -- even it comes at the expense of some nice things such as human rights. In fact, China manages…

The ruling ethnic elite (and fully 91.51% of the population as of 2010) are Han Chinese, and you could say they enforce somewhat of an ethnostate. Foreigners cannot become citizens even if they marry a native Chinese and contribute to their economy.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#115

Post by ghostcluster »

kashprime wrote: post #113
smallnamespace wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least a few years ago, de Toqueville's 'On the Old Regime and the Revolution' was on the Communist Party's reading list [1]. The Chinese Civil War of '49 and then the Cultural Revolution (where most of the then-current Party leadership suffered) is still within living memory of the ruling class. Of course they understand that there is an implicit contract between themselves and the rest of society, even if it the…

> The question is not whether China will eventually devolve more political power to the populace——that is almost a given This idea was popular in 2013 when this article was written, but Xi's regime has indeed shown that greater prosperity can be had with increased repression. Turmoil in America only underlines this.

> greater prosperity can be had with increased repressio

for now, anyway. plenty of looming societal issues remain uncertain until we see how they unfold: their aging population, lack of social safety net, mounting domestic unrest, increasing lack of labor cost competitiveness, etc.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#116

Post by yusuke10 »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #108
pentae wrote: post #99

So can anyone tell me why we should support what China is doing? Why should any entrepreneur or tech worker go there and support this government? How come China seems to get a free pass on human rights issues like this by western society?

Because keeping a large diverse country stable and safe is very difficult, and a failure causes enormous tragedy. The approach that works to keep the US stable does not always work well in other countries. To keep the billion people who live in China safe from civil war and rampant terrorism is already a great achievement -- even it comes at the expense of some nice things such as human rights. In fact, China manages…

1.) Chinese government did this to itself, with the 1.3B population. China only had 500M in 1950, but the communist government condemned birth control and banned imports of contraceptives.

2.) At some point, you can't keep using the excuse "but 1 Billion people" for doing disgusting things. When you harvest prisoners' organs. When you imprison 120,000 minorities in camps. When you build an artificial island to the horror of 10+ other countries around you. When you keep threatening to invade Taiwan. When you prop up North Korea. When you monitor and censor everything.

3.) You rule out the possibility that China can have a republic or democracy. which is shameful. Granted it's low, but Authoritarian regime doesn't have to be a certainty.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#117

Post by yongjik »

stevenjohns wrote: post #20
monocasa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uighers may be the first population to sign up for satellite subscriptions If they can at all. Uighers can't even buy a knife without it being engraved with a QR code of their national ID number.

I recently traveled to China and went to a fairly remote area dominated by Uyghurs and didn't see anything that would indicate that level of oppression. They seemed quite free to do what they wanted to between themselves (such as buying a knife) although I imagine their political rights wouldn't be very strong.

If you visited Seoul in 1980s you wouldn't have seen much oppression, either, unless you knew where to look. (I grew up through it, so I know.) You can live a surprisingly peaceful life through some dictatorship as long as you toe the party line and don't get too unlucky. (And if you do get unlucky, you will be quickly removed from other people's lives, so that they can continue the semblance of peaceful lives.)

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#118

Post by dragonwriter »

_cs2017_ wrote: post #108
pentae wrote: post #99

So can anyone tell me why we should support what China is doing? Why should any entrepreneur or tech worker go there and support this government? How come China seems to get a free pass on human rights issues like this by western society?

Because keeping a large diverse country stable and safe is very difficult, and a failure causes enormous tragedy. The approach that works to keep the US stable does not always work well in other countries. To keep the billion people who live in China safe from civil war and rampant terrorism is already a great achievement -- even it comes at the expense of some nice things such as human rights. In fact, China manages…

> A push for human rights increases the chance of a government collapse. That's what happened in the Soviet Russia during Gorbachev

Strictly, no. That was the USSR. Soviet Russia (the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) didn't experience government collapse, though it did change its name to the Russian Federation.

Re: China's Xinjiang surveillance is the dystopian future nobody wants

#120

Post by Cw67NTN8F »

toephu2 wrote: post #71

On the plus side, I just visited China last month and never felt safer. Before you would wear your backpack on the front of your chest when taking public transportation for fear of thieves. Now, with surveillance everywhere (and random ID checks at subways), you can freely wear your backpack on your back where it belongs without fear of theft.

North Korea is even safer, I'm willing to bet. Wanna live there?
Post reply on HN