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

I don't think it excuses the actions of the CCP, it just contextualizes it. Anyway, I agree with most of these points. I'd just like to comment that many members of the politburo responsible for the terrible policies you've mentioned are no longer alive. It may be the same party in name, but as mentioned in the parent post, the CCP is by all measures quite factional in nature. Right now the hardliners are in charge under Xi's leadership (as you've also pointed out), but the younger reformist factions probably do still have some influence in shaping party policy.

The CCP's justification for censoring would probably be that they need to preserve their legitimacy while the country is still in its formative phase. China is often perceived as a superpower (and it likes to promote this view), but the reality is that its nominal per capita GDP is still 1/6th that of the U.S.

> 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.

I agree with this point also, and it's a very important point to make. One factor that exacerbates this is the sheer wealth creation that has taken place in China, especially in the last 10 years since the great financial crisis. Due to various central bank policies around the world, global credit has never been cheaper nor more plentiful. I'd argue that a lot of Chinese FDI has been a result of wealth spillover from people who have run out of places to park it.

> 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.

That could have been one possible future. Another possible future (and more realistic IMO) could have been the disintegration of China as one cohesive nation (basically, another century of humiliation which had only just ended, where China was chopped up and claimed by western powers). The largest driver of CCP policy was probably the collapse of the Soviet Union which was arguably the end result of perestroika and glastnost. CCP members at the time probably saw what happened next (fragmentized nations engaged in endless civil wars) and balked at the thought of reform. Lifting 850 million people out of poverty is no easy feat and is a fact that bears repeating over and over again.

> 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.

Agreed. I’d say it’s a trade-off of risks. I personally believe that benevolent dictatorships work the best for developing nations. Leaders like Lee Kuan Yew come to mind. Others, like Suharto, were unbelievably corrupt, but are remembered fondly for creating decades of stability and prosperity. You can move fast and implement policies that need to be implemented without being mired in endless deadlock and debate like in parliamentary systems which tend to yo-yo, with one party undoing all the work of the previous. The risk is that the dictatorship turns sour and policy mistakes are made, resulting in power grabs and instability. This is not to say I’m against parliamentary systems - they work very well for highly educated, wealthy and developed nations.

> 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.

Yup.

> 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?

I don’t think anything can justify oppression and corruption. In an ideal world, there would be none of that. Unfortunately, we live in a very unideal world full of compromises and decisions between lesser evils. We’ll have to see what happens, but my personal belief is that China will move more and more towards glasnost-like policies as time goes on but at its own pace, not at the pace dictated by western powers. Personal freedoms in China in the present day bear no resemblance to the personal freedoms 30, 20, even 10 years ago. The vast majority of Chinese people are able to travel abroad, wear what they want and work where they want. They are able to enjoy the prosperity of the nation with only one caveat: do not do anything that can lead to instability - hence the rise in technological surveillance. There are many nation-state actors that would greatly prefer if the global world order were not disrupted by the rise of China.

> So yeah, fuck CCP

Surely you mean “fuck the hardline members of the CCP, but hopefully the reformers win out”?

You would expect the censoring to be less instead of more as the country develops. This has been the hope of the rest of the world as well -- that economic growth, higher education level and stability would usher in the transition away from autocracy. However, this doesn't seem to be happening and the tech-enabled information control only serves to worsen -- Chinese citizens' knowledge of personal freedom, checks and balances have been stagnating.

> We’ll have to see what happens, but my personal belief is that China will move more and more towards glasnost-like policies as time goes on but at its own pace, not at the pace dictated by western powers.

This had been the hope of the world, Chinese abroad and much of Hong Kong. But the recent actions of CCP, including the Hong Kong extradition law proposal seem to suggest this doesn't seem likely or the time scale might be slow enough that the rise of China may become a threat to the rest of the World first (lack of the rule of law , and the associated forced intellectual theft and transfer, leveraging economic might to bully its neighbors).

I see the trade-war as the external stimulus that is needed to accelerate China's transition. When the economic growth slows, the party would have to address the social issues. However, years of state-education and nationalistic propaganda is difficult to overcome.

> Surely you mean “fuck the hardline members of the CCP, but hopefully the reformers win out”?

You are right. That is the ideal outcome. Hopefully Xi is more Chiang Kai-Shek than Mao.

Unfortunately, in today's world, fake news is so widespread that it really can lead to the destabilization of nations. Especially with the advent of ubiquitous apps like WeChat, unsubstantiated news generated for the purpose of fomenting outrage can spread unbelievably quickly. In the hands of the poorly educated, things can spiral out of control if you have no means to control it. This has been a growing trend even in highly educated and developed nations (Russia-Trump, Facebook, Brexit, etc). Can you imagine what problems this could cause with a population 5x as large and 1/10 as educated?

WeChat was not even invented 10 years ago and now it is used by almost a billion people daily. As new forms of communication become more widespread, the CCP will develop new ways to control it. Some might characterize this as a worsening of surveillance and state control, but I'm of the opinion that it's a natural evolution in response to evolving methods of communication.

> This had been the hope of the world, Chinese abroad and much of Hong Kong. But the recent actions of CCP, including the Hong Kong extradition law proposal seem to suggest this doesn't seem likely or the time scale might be slow enough that the rise of China may become a threat to the rest of the World first (lack of the rule of law , and the associated forced intellectual theft and transfer, leveraging economic might to bully its neighbors).

> I see the trade-war as the external stimulus that is needed to accelerate China's transition. When the economic growth slows, the party would have to address the social issues. However, years of state-education and nationalistic propaganda is difficult to overcome.

The HK extradition law is a whole other can of worms and would take many posts to dissect. My brief understanding is that the law in itself is not really a threat. The law itself is a pre-cursor to what could be a threat to HK autonomy in the future. Skimming over the legislation, there are many checks and balances in place with the ultimate decision of extradition falling on the hands of an independent judicial review in HK [1]. It's not a broad, sweeping law, but a provision for case-by-case extradition.

As far as transitional time scale goes, it’s a generational change that I think it will be slow but inevitable as more and more Chinese are exposed to democratic, liberal ideology and standards of living improve. American corporations and their lobbyists (who are driving a lot of the trade war rhetoric) think on a very short term, quarter-by-quarter basis. They will not want to wait 5, 10, 20 years for Chinese markets to open up fully to them -if they had their way, they would force China to open up tomorrow, destroying domestic industries that are unable to compete. China would be the world's largest Banana republic.

On the other hand, the CCP is also known for long-term strategic planning (5 year plan, 10 year plan, etc). These two interests are at direct odds with one another. To make matters worse, there are probably elements of the current Politburo who would preserve their iron grip on state owned enterprises forever, if they could. Your point about the trade-war being an external catalyst for reform is a salient one and will likely push the issue to some kind of middle ground.

> You are right. That is the ideal outcome. Hopefully Xi is more Chiang Kai-Shek than Mao.

I hope so too. Thanks for the nuanced discussion :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_Offenders_and_Mutual_...

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