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WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

nautil.us

281–290 of 306 posts

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are dozens of ethnic minorities (yes, even Muslim minorities) that are prospering just fine along with the rest of China. There are dozens that are fine and dozens that absolutely aren't. Don't try to reduce how serious putting thousands of people into a f * concentration camp in 2019 is.

I’m not reducing anything. I’m simply pointing out facts that often get thrown under the bus for the sake of pushing a particular narrative - facts that contradict overly simplistic characterizations of their actions such as “they hate Muslims!” or “they hate freedom!”. The fact is, the reality is much more nuanced than that. Painting the picture as black and white and then getting emotional over it helps nobody.

You can't be pro-freedom and put people in concentration camps.

You can't be pro-Muslims and put them into concentration camps.

It is that black and white, the things are mutually exclusive.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#282
post #205

There's a great Polish sci-fi novel - Paradyzja (~/Paradise/) (wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradyzja ) which describes ever-eavesdropped society. In the end, the society develops a metalanguage ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koalang ) to evade automatic systems which record and analyze all written and spoken communications (even at peoples' homes). I wonder if WeChat users already developed something similar…

The Chinese already do that with regards to ‘winnie the pooh’ in reference to their leader (and when that was blocked, further obscure poetic language).

I think the govt. is happy with this change, because it dramatically slows down communication rates if people have to have built-in encryption/decryption parsing in their speech.

Also, if you accidentally inform a government agent of the code, so to say, you disappear and the in-group has to change their coding language again.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not reducing anything. I’m simply pointing out facts that often get thrown under the bus for the sake of pushing a particular narrative - facts that contradict overly simplistic characterizations of their actions such as “they hate Muslims!” or “they hate freedom!”. The fact is, the reality is much more nuanced than that. Painting the picture as black and white and then getting emotional over it helps nobody.

You can't be pro-freedom and put people in concentration camps. You can't be pro-Muslims and put them into concentration camps. It is that black and white, the things are mutually exclusive.

> You can't be pro-freedom and put people in concentration camps.

> You can't be pro-Muslims and put them into concentration camps.

> It is that black and white, the things are mutually exclusive.

Yes, you can and no, it isn't. This is essentially the fundamental basis of statecraft - making tradeoffs and weighing the benefits of certain policies over others. Very rarely will you find a problem that has a perfectly packaged solution to it, and this is where historical context and nuance comes into play. Nothing is ever black and white.

Let’s take your example of Muslims and “concentration camps” for example. You and the mainstream media would characterize them as “concentration camps” for its sensational effect (though technically correct, I think we can all agree on its historical connotations - i.e extermination camps). If you were to be charitable, a more accurate description would be to classify them as forced “re-education camps”. We have to keep in mind that there is currently a tidal wave of propaganda from both China and the West that is unfolding right now, triggered by a fundamental shift in geopolitical strategy from the U.S.

Post-1980s, elements of Wahhabi/Salafi Islam were imported into Xinjiang from Saudi Arabia/Turkey and subsequently to mostly Uyghur East Turkistan separatists. This radical version of Islam supplanted the less extreme forms of Islam practiced by ethnic Uyghurs at the time (i.e - Shafi-I, Sufi Islam) [1]. Not only did this erode and destroy traditional Uyghur cultural and folkloric practices, but this led to many violent terrorist incidents inside of Xinjiang and elsewhere in China [2][3]. Regressive constructs of Wahhabism/Salafism such as burkas, suppression of women’s rights, suppression of secular education and jihadist proselytization [4] were perceived as a threat to stability of the region.

The re-education and vocational camps, however ill conceived, were designed to directly address this issue. They were designed to stem the rising tide of unemployed, unskilled and increasingly radicalized Muslim ethnic minorities in the region and to revert it back to its pre-Wahhabi influenced state. They did not just pop up out of nowhere without any historical context like the mainstream media would have you believe.

If the CCP were truly anti-Muslim, do you think they would allow mosques to exist and Muslims to worship freely in them? Don't you think they would have bulldozed every single one of the 39,000 mosques by now?

To reiterate: forced re-education camps are far from a perfect solution (if a perfect solution even exists), but given the authoritarian nature of the CCP, they could have done far, far worse.

[1] https://www.iris-france.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Asia-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2009_%C3%9Cr%C3%BCmqi_rio...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_China#Chronology_...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Mansour

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't be pro-freedom and put people in concentration camps. You can't be pro-Muslims and put them into concentration camps. It is that black and white, the things are mutually exclusive.

> You can't be pro-freedom and put people in concentration camps. > You can't be pro-Muslims and put them into concentration camps. > It is that black and white, the things are mutually exclusive. Yes, you can and no, it isn't. This is essentially the fundamental basis of statecraft - making tradeoffs and weighing the benefits of certain policies over others. Very rarely will you find a problem that has a perfectly p…

> accurate description would be to classify them as forced “re-education camps”

That surely makes it okay /s

I'm not willing to argue against demagogy and goalpost movement.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can't be pro-freedom and put people in concentration camps. > You can't be pro-Muslims and put them into concentration camps. > It is that black and white, the things are mutually exclusive. Yes, you can and no, it isn't. This is essentially the fundamental basis of statecraft - making tradeoffs and weighing the benefits of certain policies over others. Very rarely will you find a problem that has a perfectly p…

> accurate description would be to classify them as forced “re-education camps” That surely makes it okay /s I'm not willing to argue against demagogy and goalpost movement.

Which part of my comment constitutes demagogy and goalpost movement specifically? Especially the “demagogy” part.

I will be more than happy to address each offence point by point.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state. No. China is not free. I am sorry you are fed up. But I bet millions of victims of Chinese oppression are in much dire condition and wish they could be fed up and not dead or disappeared. Xi Jinping is a dope. The amount of articulation of control China has over the its citizens is chilling. Defending China, Fuck the Chinese govt. I can s…

> Defending China, Fuck the Chinese govt. > I hope the Chinese people rise up one day and figure out a better form of governance for themselves. Besides the immature, flippant impulse to challenge authority that seems quite prevalent in the West, why should the Chinese feel compelled to pursue the path of destruction you're advocating for? The CCP, for all its imperfections, has lifted 850 million illiterate peasants…

> The CCP, for all its imperfections, has lifted 850 million illiterate peasants out of extreme poverty in a mere few decades

This is one of the most frequent arguments by Chinese excusing the actions of CCP. Keep in mind that this is the party that started the cultural revolution, which resulted in 5-10 million deaths due to famine and state-sanctioned purge, destruction of cultural heritage, and forcible seizure of land (all land in China is owned by the state). Yet to this day the details of this history are rarely discussed in school and subjective to censor.

A wealthy person who has no affiliation with the Chinese government is vulnerable to predatory action by local government [1] -- a big reason why there are so many wealthy Chinese buying and moving property in foreign countries, and part of why government officials tend to be among the richest in the country.

The massive wealth created as a result of private enterprises that end up in the hands of government officials through various methods, is often siphoned out of the country. Imagine if KMT stayed in power, the cultural revolution didn't happen, and private business owners weren't paranoid of the government meddling -- 850 million illiterate peasants were lifted out of extreme poverty despite CCP.

Since Xi's rise to power, the anti-corruption campaign has served both to root out some corruption, and at the same time removing his opposition in the party, leading to his limitless term as the party leader.

While some speculate Xi may use this as an opportunity to move China toward a more democratic model, there is nothing preventing him and his faction from siphoning more wealth from the country.

> The trade-off was made between an authoritarian but stable and prosperous society vs balkanization and endless wars that pre-mature democracies tend to produce.

Your whole thesis seems to be based on the economic growth of the country justifies the oppression and corruption. But as the economic growth slows down, at what point is it not enough as a justification? With the tight media country, how would the Chinese people EVEN know what the true state of the economy is? And even if they decided they've had enough, with the growing control of information, communication, and movements, what can they even do at that point?

So yeah, fuck CCP

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/01/business/china-parliament...

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> accurate description would be to classify them as forced “re-education camps” That surely makes it okay /s I'm not willing to argue against demagogy and goalpost movement.

Which part of my comment constitutes demagogy and goalpost movement specifically? Especially the “demagogy” part. I will be more than happy to address each offence point by point.

The notion that re-education camps are innocuous/a social good is pretty suspect. In the USA and Taiwan, former Chinese people (by nationality, not ethnicity!) say they were pretty terrible. In China, there's demented old people that say life was crazy back then and re-education camps really sucked. There's also non-demented old people who just say stuff like "life was tough back then but it's better now." But nobody has anything actually good to say about that system, more like it was good if you survived and thrived in spite of it.

Also, the uncritical assumption that China should be administering Kashgar! Just like the question of the USA administering little South American/Middle Eastern countries and Russia administering Ukraine.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#288
post #166

I find WeChat and its aggressively centralized model fascinating, and something to keep eyes on, but this article falls into the familiar trap of playing a bit loose with the facts when it comes to how the Chinese government surveils its citizens. For example, this is from article: >People are regularly arrested for messages they send in supposedly “private” group chats. In 2017, two people were arrested in Nanjing f…

I'm fed up with those people who think they understand China simply because they have read a sci-fi novel written by an Englishman before modern China has been founded. China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state.

Funny fact, this comment was upvoted to double digits during US day time then downvoted to 1 after East Asia day time.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#289
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China's system is so complicated and so far from a heavy-handed police state. No. China is not free. I am sorry you are fed up. But I bet millions of victims of Chinese oppression are in much dire condition and wish they could be fed up and not dead or disappeared. Xi Jinping is a dope. The amount of articulation of control China has over the its citizens is chilling. Defending China, Fuck the Chinese govt. I can s…

I think you misunderstand. China is not a heavy-handed police state not because everyone is perfectly free, but because not everyone is unfree. The police simply isn't equipped to oppress everyone, so it only hits an unlucky minority. It's just that in China minorities can comprise millions of people. So while in the worst case you might be executed and have your organs harvested, in the average case you'll not even…

China is a police state. If people go to the streets like in Honk Kong, they would be shot and driven over by a tank a few times so they can be disfigured and swept down the drain -- like at Tienanmen.

The police in China won't concern themselves if the problem or crime they are facing is something that wouldn't be a big deal publicly or would be viewed badly by the people if word got out.

Re: WeChat is Watching: Living in China with the app that knows everything about me

#290
post #289
post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misunderstand. China is not a heavy-handed police state not because everyone is perfectly free, but because not everyone is unfree. The police simply isn't equipped to oppress everyone, so it only hits an unlucky minority. It's just that in China minorities can comprise millions of people. So while in the worst case you might be executed and have your organs harvested, in the average case you'll not even…

China is a police state. If people go to the streets like in Honk Kong, they would be shot and driven over by a tank a few times so they can be disfigured and swept down the drain -- like at Tienanmen. The police in China won't concern themselves if the problem or crime they are facing is something that wouldn't be a big deal publicly or would be viewed badly by the people if word got out.

A week ago I would have thought the same, but these 1000s of students in Zhuhai haven't been shot yet: http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/19/6/11/n11315690.htm

(There doesn't seem to be any English reporting on this, but the videos and images should speak for themselves with the added context that this is a demonstration currently happening in Mainland China to protest plans to shut down the local university and establish a more elite institution on the same campus.)

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