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

What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 347 posts

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#131

Post by outside1234 »

jdonaldson wrote: post #95
rectang wrote: post #6

> With the Winter Olympics opening in Beijing in February, the IOC and corporate sponsors have multi-billion-dollar reasons to help China make the Peng Shuai story go away. Therein lies a bleak lesson. The WTA has been brave in challenging China, given that it has organised lucrative tournaments there. But as a women’s sports association, it depends on retaining the confidence of women players. Sometimes there are in…

I'm not a big fan of China, but it's probably best if our business leaders didn't mock each other's countries in poor taste.

Can you be more specific?

We are talking here about a former professional player the China government made disappear.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#132

Post by outside1234 »

yung_steezy wrote: post #8

The WTA have done an amazing job of raising the profile of this case and keeping the story in the media. I have to admit that despite watching a lot of tennis, prior to this incident I was not familiar with Peng Shai. Doubles tennis is a little bit like a sport within a sport though.

And with the profile raised, we should not let off the gas.

Every story about the Olympics should have a comment asking "Where is Peng?"

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#133

Post by FooBarWidget »

afavour wrote: post #119
FooBarWidget wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People think Chinese propaganda is clever and insidious but in truth Chinese propaganda is extremely clumsy to the point of being essentially harmless in the west. This is the typical level of Chinese propaganda: https://twitter.com/manyapan/status/1454346638596743173

> being essentially harmless in the west. Is their aim to be harmful in the west? My impression has always been that they’re pretty ambivalent about that, they’re more concerned with the internal effect. I don’t know that people even do think Chinese propaganda is clever! In my mind their skill is overarching control over communication. It’s dumb and brute force but it seems to work.

They aren't aiming to be harmful.

But I've seen plenty of people paint everybody who have a non-mainstream opinion on China, as paid undercover propagandists.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#134

Post by FooBarWidget »

coupdejarnac wrote: post #128
FooBarWidget wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cyrus Janssen, Daniel Dumbrill, Geopolitics In Conflict, Carl Zha, Brian Berletic.

This has to be satire. Anyone looking to be informed about China would be better served by reading the Axios Sinocism newsletter.

I don't believe that Axios is a better source.

Maybe let people check both out and decide for themselves.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#135

Post by FooBarWidget »

arvigeus wrote: post #117
guscost wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll add these to my sources, thanks.

Cyrus was recently exposed as paid by CGTN. Dumbshill recently posted a clip of an old video of laowhy86, “exposing” him as a racist… which turned out to be taken extremely out of context and edited to be purposely misleading.

You should check his rebuttal to the "exposure" then. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb-6fgN3MZA

Let people watch both and decide for themselves who to trust.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#136

Post by outside1234 »

ipnon wrote: post #24

There is no Streisand effect on the dark side of the Great Firewall. There, a scandal has a short lifespan. It is hard for the censors to prevent its birth, but its progeny, the discussion and the aftereffects, are easily nipped with keyword blocking and disabling comments. What effects does this have on Chinese society? What happens when the only public scandals are those that are convenient for the government?

Wait until an Olympic Athlete wears a "Where is Peng?" shirt.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#137

Post by outside1234 »

alkonaut wrote: post #94

I wish another org would follow suit ahead of the Winter Olympics. A brilliant move would be if the ice hockey tournament would be moved to Taiwan, much like the world championships were pulled from Belarus recently. Who would lose? Sponsors would be happy, players would be happy.

Or the whole thing to Taiwan.

It's China after all (according to China alone).

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#138

Post by FooBarWidget »

tomatofarmer wrote: post #125
FooBarWidget wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because censorship doesn't work the way you think it works. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344676

It works exactly how I think it works. As long as no one takes notice, I am free to say whatever I want. You should reflect on how much effort you spend defending such a regime all over this website, twitter, and elsewhere.

Well you're ignoring the fact that the Chinese government is very open to criticisms and actually regularly change policies based on criticism, despite the counter-intuitive act of simultaneously censoring some critics.

I have reflected and I disagree with you. Explaining how China works and presenting alternative views is not "defending [an evil] regime", thank you very much.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#139

Post by FooBarWidget »

legutierr wrote: post #45
FooBarWidget wrote: post #23

The media's reporting on Peng Shuai's case is... let's say, incomplete. For a better picture, one should read her original Weibo post. Here is a translation: https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/qmn69a/full_transla... I've checked this translation and I agree with most of it.

How is the specific content of her Weibo post relevant at all here? The issue is that the woman was kidnapped by the Chinese government because simple because she spoke out publicly, and it seems to me that the media’s reporting has been very complete in that regard. What specifically has been lacking?

It's fine if you don't think it's relevant. I am posting for those who do think it's relevant.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#140

Post by sudosysgen »

pphysch wrote: post #106
ginko wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to at least admit that the reaction of the Chinese government didn't help in the matter. If the post hadn't been immediately deleted and any discussion censored, if the government announced an open investigation and Peng Shuai were free to talk to media then none of this would have happened. This lack of openness of the Chinese government on issues such as these is what essentially leaves what you call sinop…

Food for thought: when has any action of the Chinese government been cast in a good light by Western media? We start from the conclusion "China bad" and search for evidence to confirm it, while ignoring contrary evidence.

That's true. There was a meme not long ago showing headlines that admonished China for doing something, and then for doing the opposite. There is an element of a hermetic dogma that whatever China does is bad.

That being said, the whole Peng Shuai situation is quite shady. On the whole the only really bad thing is that the post was censored, and it's reasonable to infer negative things from that.

Post reply on HN