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What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

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Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#261

Post by zozbot234 »

paisawalla wrote: post #176
igorkraw wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but wonder this myself, although I don't think it is safe/easy to say this with confidence - but if you look at Jane Jacobs, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, Rosa Luxemburg, Chelsea Manning and others, I sometimes think about whether being in the historically weaker societal role sharpens your insight and moral cohones. I don't believe there's enough evidence to say it's there, but I would buy a story that we…

Manning was a man when he became a whistleblower.

Sure, but even as a gender questioning male he was definitely being placed in a "historically weaker social role".

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#262

Post by jjcc »

burntbridge wrote: post #210
msoad wrote: post #52

Every time there is a story that criticizes China's Communist Party there is a flood of troll-like comments here in Hacker News. Lot of "What about X" comments and just general trolling and uncivil behavior. As a non-Chinese I never could understand the relationship of CCP, Chinese nationals and Chinese immigrants in the US and West. To me, it seems very hyocritcal to live in the Western societies and be very pro-CCP…

I think the problem here is people in the West see things in the following way: Chinese system inherently evil. Western system inherently good. When a bad thing happens in the West; we condemn it but don't see it as the overall system being evil. When a bad thing happens in China; we condemn it and see it as further evidence of the fundamental evil of the system. I think the Chinese basically have faith in their Gove…

Let's go deeper. Not many people know why human invented the concept of evil.

Most animals especially mammals evolved by the arm race between the predators and the preys to perfect their power,agility and intelligence. The algorithm is called GAN. There are few extreme instances that GAN between predators and preys is not enough. Human is among the few primates that often kill their own species. Competition and cooperation are 2 parts of evolution. The extreme competition is war among human tribes. We have the nature of fighting and killing other human even the society become civilized.

The concept of "evil" emerged as a reason to justify the killing of our same species. You can get that from a lot of Hollywood movies. There's a spiritual need for evil to exist.

That's why NATO can bomb the oppressive regimes all over the world everywhere. Because they are collectively supported by the people of NATO countries. When something's wrong they collectively blame wrong information. What I mean is: "Weapons of Massive Destruction was caused by intelligence failure" is a bigger lie than WMD itself. It's also cannot be blamed on a few politicians who are democratically elected by people. The real reason is there was a spiritual need for evil so the people were easily fooled.

Even today after millions of people's life were ruined and there are massive waves of immigration people in NATO countries still don't connect the cause end effects, never realize that it was their own arrogant belief that they own democracy and human rights, along with they have superior weapons to liberate the people from oppressive regimes, cause the chaos world today.

Will they wake up? not likely. The retreat from Afghanistan was because of running out of resource but not because realize it was fundamentally wrong.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#263

Post by bardan »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #248
bardan wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why, in your opinion, was her name censored on the PRC Internet? Why have international broadcasts in China been dropping out when her case is mentioned? Why did the CCP deny any knowledge of her situation, only to later say "she will be making a public appearance soon"?

First I want to know whether you genuinely want to know my opinion, or whether these are some sort of rethorical questions. After all, I see that you are worried about "shills" and "propaganda". If you are not open to alternative perspectives then there's no need to talk to me. We can agree to disagree and still respect each other.

I assume that you are a good-natured member of this community. Hacker News tends to have a higher grade of participant. I also note that I gave no indication about my opinion of you personally, despite your suggestion. Since that is cleared up, and since you seem to take an alternate viewpoint than mine, I will repeat my initial question:

Why, in your opinion, was her name censored on the PRC Internet? Why have international broadcasts in China been dropping out when her case is mentioned? Why did the CCP deny any knowledge of her situation, only to later say "she will be making a public appearance soon"?

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#264

Post by marcus_holmes »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #207
marcus_holmes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a view of history where the thousands of years of Chinese rule-by-bureaucracy is uninterrupted. My grandfather grew up there and was fond of saying "you have to remember the Chinese did not pray to God. The average Chinese person is not important enough for that. They prayed to the third under-secretary to God's chamberlain. What they really worship is bureaucracy". I don't know China well enough to comment…

He didn't say "China", though. He said "the CCP". They don't have any claim on those thousands of years.

my point being that the CCP is merely the figurehead, much like the emperor was. It doesn't really matter if the CCP is replaced by something else, the rule-by-bureaucracy continues uninterrupted.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#265

Post by burntbridge »

post_from_work wrote: post #225
burntbridge wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why should we as Westerners actually care? The majority of people in China are happy with their Government.

>>>But why should we as Westerners actually care? Because the CCP has built a blue-water Navy, which it continues to expand, with the stated goal of dethroning the US as the global hegemon? https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/china-ar... https://www.amazon.com/Unrestricted-Warfare-Chinas-Destroy-A... https://sg.news.yahoo.com/china-seeks-become-worlds-next-025... Because the CCP conducts influence ope…

With respect I think you should worry about something else. China has no intention of taking over the U.S.

What size defense force do you think China should have? China has a population 4.3 times that of the US you've got to allow them something.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#266

Post by bardan »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #239
tomatofarmer wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He may not be a paid shill, but he is not arguing from a position of sincerity. FooBarWidget is far too intelligent to actually believe half of what he's saying, especially his claim that 98% of Chinese citizens are happy with their government. That number is absurdly high. For reference, trust in government is 84% in Switzerland (highest in the OECD), 65% in Germany, 46% in the US, 42% in Japan, 35% in the UK. Even…

Yes that number is absurdly high. But it doesn't change the fact that I pulled it from the York University study https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/05/did-pande... Do you know why I am angry and pushed to speak up so much about China lately? Because the reality on the ground turns out to be really different from mainsteam media depiction. For 25 years I have heard tropes like "Chinese people are oppresse…

It isn't really a question of agreement or disagreement. In the PRC people are jailed for complaining too much, or complaining about the wrong thing. You can't have an accurate picture of what people think about the state in those circumstances, especially when this information is distributed solely by government-sanctioned and/or actively censored outlets. Like that joke Zizek tells sometimes:

"A German worker gets a job in Siberia; aware of how all mail will be read by censors, he tells his friends: “Let’s establish a code: if a letter you will get from me is written in ordinary blue ink, it is true; if it is written in red ink, it is false.” After a month, his friends get the first letter, written in blue ink: “Everything is wonderful here: stores are full, food is abundant, apartments are large and properly heated, movie theaters show films from the West, there are many beautiful girls ready for an affair—the only thing unavailable is red ink.”"

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#267

Post by marcus_holmes »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #230
coredog64 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Imperial China period from 200-something BC to 1912 had pretty solid control over a fair chunk of what we think of as modern China.

One could make a similar argument and generalize about Europeans and claim European unity exists because for most of the past 2,000 years practically all states in Europe were under the influence of the Catholic church in some way or another. China's history is as complicated as any other similarly sized territory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:China_Dynasties.gif and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Chi…

yes, you're right. There is a view of European history that sees the Roman Empire mutate into the Holy Roman Empire and maintain control over much of Europe for thousands of years (I guess from the end of the Republic in 27BC to the last Holy Roman Emperor in 1806, so not quite "thousands").

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#268

Post by bardan »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #244
Manuel_D wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fan Bingbing is a good case. Jack Ma is another case. In all these cases, the person in question is not in danger in the sense of being tortured in a prison. It's taking in for questioning with a gag order (and depending on the severity of the case, a house arrest) until it's over Being put under house arrest and prevented from having contact with the outside world by the government, without being charged with a cr…

> I believe that you earnestly feel this is an okay thing for the CCP to do This is a wrong characterization. China has different values and practices. Freedom means something different in China than in the west. China values other things more than western-style freedom of speech. For example there is a greater emphasis on responsibility. The practice you quoted is unacceptable in the west. That's fine — for you. Chi…

> The practice you quoted is unacceptable in the west. That's fine — for you. Chinese think differently and believe that such practices are sometimes necessary to prevent rumors from running wild and causing social instability. That's also fine — for them.

What a marvelous coincidence for the CCP that "what Chinese people value", according to you, is the kind of submissive defference totalitarian governments desire from the people under their control.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#269

Post by FooBarWidget »

bardan wrote: post #263
FooBarWidget wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First I want to know whether you genuinely want to know my opinion, or whether these are some sort of rethorical questions. After all, I see that you are worried about "shills" and "propaganda". If you are not open to alternative perspectives then there's no need to talk to me. We can agree to disagree and still respect each other.

I assume that you are a good-natured member of this community. Hacker News tends to have a higher grade of participant. I also note that I gave no indication about my opinion of you personally, despite your suggestion. Since that is cleared up, and since you seem to take an alternate viewpoint than mine, I will repeat my initial question: Why, in your opinion, was her name censored on the PRC Internet? Why have inter…

To the best of my knowledge, this is what's going on:

- In China, censorship is common for any kind of controversy, regardless of whether they are pro- or anti-government. It's common for people to be silent during a controversy regardless of what it was about. Furthermore, censorship is not related to whether someone will be caught/jailed/kidnapped or not. See my writeups here for details: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29344676 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29347811

- When you say "CCP deny knowledge of her situation", you need to understand that neither the CCP nor the Chinese government (there is a distinction, but for the sake of simplicity let's assume they're the same) are a monolith. The people who were asked are responsible for foreign relations. They don't know every single domestic issue right away, especially not if China didn't consider that issue to be a diplomatic issue. It's like asking the US ambassador "where is Britney Spears, her Facebook is blocked!"

The censorship apparatus operates independently from the foreign relations apparatus, and even from the law enforcement apparatus. Censorship is more like super-moderation rather than a police force. Furthermore, censorship is decentralized. The censorship authority provides guidelines on what sort of content to censor, and then Internet companies do the censoring themselves. It's not so that the censorship authority directly monitors every post at all times.

The western public kept pushing for "Chinese government, produce her". So they did.

- The Chinese public largely does not believe that she is or has ever been in danger. Some Chinese criticized the fact that she's censored, but even they don't believe she's in danger. They don't believe she's forced to give a false statement. Chinese have high trust in government and police, and they trust that if Zhao is indeed a corrupt official then he will be dealt with.

- The Chinese view censorship and information control in a more nuanced manner than westerners. Where censorship is a deadly sin in the west, Chinese view censorship as sometimes good sometimes bad. They believe that sometimes censorship is necessary for the greater good.

I will note that my writeups are not so much about endorsing them. My primary goal of my writings are to promote better understanding between China and the west. You don't have to agree with their practices, but I do think it's important for people to understand what the Chinese public thinks, and how Chinese values are different from western values. The Chinese way would work disastrously in the west, and the western way would work disastrously in China. China is different rather than universally evil. To each their own.

Re: What Peng Shuai reveals about one-party rule

#270

Post by bardan »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #269
bardan wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume that you are a good-natured member of this community. Hacker News tends to have a higher grade of participant. I also note that I gave no indication about my opinion of you personally, despite your suggestion. Since that is cleared up, and since you seem to take an alternate viewpoint than mine, I will repeat my initial question: Why, in your opinion, was her name censored on the PRC Internet? Why have inter…

To the best of my knowledge, this is what's going on: - In China, censorship is common for any kind of controversy, regardless of whether they are pro- or anti-government. It's common for people to be silent during a controversy regardless of what it was about. Furthermore, censorship is not related to whether someone will be caught/jailed/kidnapped or not. See my writeups here for details: https://news.ycombinator.c…

I can't say you have answered my questions satisfactorily. Broadcasts from international news sources that mentioned Peng Shuai were censored - this is not just some procedural or algorithmic issue. And what business does the CCP have, if Peng Shuai is free from the kind of imprisonment it is assumed she is under, telling the public when she will be making a public statement? As for the Chinese public not believing she is in danger, well why would they? Again, information about her, including in international broadcasts, have been censored in China, online and on TV.
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