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From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

reuters.com

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Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#21

Post by adventured »

131012 wrote: post #9
api wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To some extent yes, but it's a false equivalence to compare the USA and China. They're pushing surveillance further than our own intelligence agencies, and more importantly they have no bill of rights. I dare someone to try a Sasha Cohen act in China mocking the present leadership. You'd end up in a prison camp within a week. In America you can openly call the President and the ruling party hideous names, troll them,…

The main difference is legal/constitutional. Yet they use almost the same tools.

The main difference is cultural in fact. The legal / constitutional aspect entirely derives from cultural underpinnings. If you remove the cultural, you remove all support for the existing constitutional protections and the politicians in DC will promptly begin revoking rights at will. The reason China can't support a rights based Constitution as in eg the US or parts of Europe, is due to the lack of a culture that overwhelmingly believes in the premise. There are pockets of resistance in China, that push back against the tyranny, the problem is that they're modest and fairly easy to contain. If Trump passed an executive order to revoke freedom of speech tomorrow, he'd be impeached by his own party, and there'd be tens of millions of people protesting in the streets across the country. Trump would be lucky if his own military didn't coup him at that point, their first oath is to the Constitution, not the Presidency or a party. That's an intense cultural underpinning, which China is lacking.

To overly simplify it: if you have cultural protections, then the people revolt and get very pissed off, when politicians try to take away rights. The culture is the real shield for a constitution, without which it's just worthless paper that can be shredded. The people have a viseral reaction, it's instantaneous, because the culture is in their blood so to speak. Politicians in the US constantly test that live wire to see what they can get away with. They typically have to be extremely sneaky about what they do, or use emotional events as cover, if they want to take some ground on rights (eg the Patriot Act et al.).

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#22

Post by kosma »

christophilus wrote: post #16
geogra4 wrote: post #6

They're just copying what the CIA/NSA has been doing for decades.

There's not an equivalency, though. In the US, at least in theory, we have a system that is founded on the idea that a human being has inalienable rights that come from their creator, and therefore are not arbitrary concessions of the state. China has no such concept. China views a human being as merely material, and human rights as essentially arbitrary. This is not just a theoretical difference. It's as practical a…

> the US, at least in theory, we have a system that is founded on the idea that a human being has inalienable rights

As long as you're a US citizen.

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#23

Post by graeme »

mherrmann wrote: post #11
assblaster wrote: post #4

I have first hand experience in Xinjiang a decade ago. Based on this report, it's gotten even worse. What I remember most was: 1) nearly hourly MMS messages to my flip phone from unknown numbers with an unknown attachment. Since my phone was bought outside China, the MMS attachment didn't automatically open the likely spyware. 2) Being followed and monitored by plainclothes policemen 3) Having my hotel room searched…

"Moving towards dictatorship" is an understatement imho. They're already there.

Interpreted charitably, they may have been referencing the idea that growth would gradually move China in the direction of democracy. Instead, they're going in the reverse direction on the scale.

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#24

Post by graeme »

kosma wrote: post #22
christophilus wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not an equivalency, though. In the US, at least in theory, we have a system that is founded on the idea that a human being has inalienable rights that come from their creator, and therefore are not arbitrary concessions of the state. China has no such concept. China views a human being as merely material, and human rights as essentially arbitrary. This is not just a theoretical difference. It's as practical a…

> the US, at least in theory, we have a system that is founded on the idea that a human being has inalienable rights As long as you're a US citizen.

You might be thinking of the border. Within the US, the constitution applies generally to foreigners, IIRC

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#25

Post by tepidandroid »

api wrote: post #5

I'm really tired of people fawning over China. This is a country with a horrible human rights record, over a million people presently in camps based on racial profiling , and an active program to build the most comprehensive surveillance state in the world. It's doubly hypocritical when the people doing the fawning are American liberals that would go completely bonkers if anything like that were happening here. (The…

> I'm really tired of people fawning over China.

Where are you seeing this? Any thread even remotely involving China is 95% filled with anti-Chinese posts, such as your own. There were a few this week. Heck, look in this very same comment thread -where are the 'fawners' you speak of?

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#26

Post by 3pt14159 »

mherrmann wrote: post #11
assblaster wrote: post #4

I have first hand experience in Xinjiang a decade ago. Based on this report, it's gotten even worse. What I remember most was: 1) nearly hourly MMS messages to my flip phone from unknown numbers with an unknown attachment. Since my phone was bought outside China, the MMS attachment didn't automatically open the likely spyware. 2) Being followed and monitored by plainclothes policemen 3) Having my hotel room searched…

"Moving towards dictatorship" is an understatement imho. They're already there.

Eh. I dunno. There should be a word for it that isn't dictatorship. There is an order-ness and a certain degree of pragmatism and restraint that the Chinese state has that most dictatorships do not. They sort of bend with the wind at times and it vents the outrage. They allow the intelligent to get access to the real internet without letting the bulk of their population talk unhindered. The way they do the Communist party is really smart too. They take the top high school students and successful academics / business people. So it naturally turns into the area that smart people solve problems, instead of turning them against the state.

I agree that AI-powered surveillance is worrying, but it's not going to look like Stalin. It's going to look like something completely different.

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#27

Post by christophilus »

graeme wrote: post #24
kosma wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US, at least in theory, we have a system that is founded on the idea that a human being has inalienable rights As long as you're a US citizen.

You might be thinking of the border. Within the US, the constitution applies generally to foreigners, IIRC

Yep. This is right, and many of our actions at the border are in direct violation of human rights as recognized by the "unalienable rights" clause.

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#28

Post by dnomad »

tepidandroid wrote: post #25
api wrote: post #5

I'm really tired of people fawning over China. This is a country with a horrible human rights record, over a million people presently in camps based on racial profiling , and an active program to build the most comprehensive surveillance state in the world. It's doubly hypocritical when the people doing the fawning are American liberals that would go completely bonkers if anything like that were happening here. (The…

> I'm really tired of people fawning over China. Where are you seeing this? Any thread even remotely involving China is 95% filled with anti-Chinese posts, such as your own. There were a few this week. Heck, look in this very same comment thread -where are the 'fawners' you speak of?

It's strange, isn't it?

It's a ritual at this point: an anti-China post is submitted by adventured, rapidly voted up, and then filled with comments that are a competition to see who can denounce China the most.

What do you suppose the point is?

Is it a Trump thing?

It certainly wasn't always the case. There was a time when I happily shared HN with Chinese colleagues. Was that point, I wonder.

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#29

Post by adventured »

3pt14159 wrote: post #26
mherrmann wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Moving towards dictatorship" is an understatement imho. They're already there.

Eh. I dunno. There should be a word for it that isn't dictatorship. There is an order-ness and a certain degree of pragmatism and restraint that the Chinese state has that most dictatorships do not. They sort of bend with the wind at times and it vents the outrage. They allow the intelligent to get access to the real internet without letting the bulk of their population talk unhindered. The way they do the Communist…

> I agree that AI-powered surveillance is worrying, but it's not going to look like Stalin. It's going to look like something completely different.

China is in the hands of Xi now. So that entirely depends on what he's willing to do to try to retain power, and what he regards as necessary to pursue his vision. Dictators get increasingly paranoid and erratic with time, with few exceptions in the last several hundred years. Erdogan is the latest example of a dictator losing his mind and running a country into the ground to preserve his power and pursue his vision. That's in part because the people get tired of a leader over time, even in the best of circumstances. The only choice to maintain the position Xi has is to crack down more and more on the population, restrict them further and further. Eventually every squeak is perceived as a threat.

The real question is whether Xi leads them back to more Mao-like hyper authoritarian policies, to ensure his dictatorship and his vision for China. I'm skeptical it can end any other way, the path seems to have already been decided. The people that say China is different, are ignoring that this is no longer Deng's China, there has been a fundamental recent change in where they're going. China had to either continue liberalizing, or had to turn back, you can only float inbetween for so long. They chose (both Xi and the party that has handed him the reins).

Re: From laboratory in far west, China’s surveillance state spreads quietly

#30

Post by uRreading2slow »

ataturk wrote: post #2

This is not what I hoped the 21st century would be like! Dystopian scifi novels were supposed to warn us not act as a template. Know what else? Fuck China. “In China, it’s not wise to refuse.” Coming to a Western country near you. We're going right back into feudalism.

No, fuck totalitarianism. We don't even know what China might be if it weren't for totalitarianism. Just like an individual under such pressures cannot become themselves.

Speaking of things that suck, why is this story "penalized"? Looking at position, age, points and comment count, it's super obvious there's something up when comparing to non-penalized stories.

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