China: Vote as I say • Hacker News Board

Re: China: Vote as I say

#11

Post by shareme » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 6:47 AM UTC

netcan wrote: post #4

cubeboy wrote: post #3

China is interesting. It's not like USA with just a population of 310,000,000, it has 1,330,000,000 people. If one group successfully causes enough political unrest, and 5% of the population supports and follows this group, that's a total of 66,500 000 people, the current population of the UK. Its astounding when you start looking at numbers like this. USA, UK, Europe and the Western world will just be a distant memo…

"Great divergence" is not necessarily a problem for democracy. Any specific manifestation of democracy is a tool for governing despite them. Civil war is not more likely in a democracy than a non democracy. Civil wars (I'm perhaps controversially excluding revolutionary wars such as the current Libyan or Syrian wars because they are usually wars between a regime and the The People) are rarely over political disagreem…

It could always go the way of the 30 year civil war in Mexico or Egypt..in which case you will see a marked increase in both protests and crack downs

Re: China: Vote as I say

#12

Post by vorg » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 7:35 AM UTC

code_duck wrote: post #5

cubeboy wrote: post #3

China is interesting. It's not like USA with just a population of 310,000,000, it has 1,330,000,000 people. If one group successfully causes enough political unrest, and 5% of the population supports and follows this group, that's a total of 66,500 000 people, the current population of the UK. Its astounding when you start looking at numbers like this. USA, UK, Europe and the Western world will just be a distant memo…

> USA, UK, Europe and the Western world will just be a distant memory when China and India start becoming major players. As individual entities, perhaps. As a bloc? NATO member countries total population is about 800 million, if I'm not mistaken. The Western world is hardly going to disappear.

Not just a bloc of NATO countries, but also with Russia, which seems to be eagerly invited into organizations such as G8 (= G7 + Russia). With Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, the total population of such a bloc is 1 billion. I can forsee the US, France, Germany, and Russia soon forming a proto-military alliance, to give them the option to counter-balance China if they need to one day.

And of course the US, unlike China, has immigration as its foundation. They could accept, say, 20 million educated and/or wealthy immigrants from China over the next 20 years, with no shortage of takers ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2660178 ), which would strengthen America and weaken China.

Re: China: Vote as I say

#13

Post by patio11 » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 8:31 AM UTC

Volpe wrote: post #10

firemanx wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience in China has been a little different. You certainly see divides along economic lines, but there are tremendous ethnic divides in China that aren't talked about outside the country, and often its these ethnic divides that create some of the worst economic divides. Additionally, in recent years the population of China's cities has grown to be around half or more of the total Chinese population. It's not j…

Is country/peasant worker vs city worker an ethnic divide? Sounds more like a class divide. (ironic in a post-maoist country) The urbanisation figures in china are highly suspect. Given one child policy is primarily policed in the city and intentionally lax in the countryside. This coupled with the fact their census seems (unconfirmed) do NOT count unofficial residence (i.e second/third/etc children). It makes it ver…

Is country/peasant worker vs city worker an ethnic divide?

The distinction you're looking for is "Han Chinese" versus "everyone else." China's outlying rural provinces have significant populations -- often pluralities or majorities -- from ethnic groups which are not Han Chinese, which is the dominant economic group in China and which is the portion of China largely winning from economic growth. For example, there are several large, predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the border provinces, by the *stans and what have you. Plus Tibetans, etc, etc.

It is possible that this ethnic conflict eventually gets resolved like the Yamato vs. Everyone Else conflict in Japan: the nation of Japan became coextensive with Yamato Japanese and everyone basically pretends that Japan is monoethnic. (This would have been Serious News To Us for most of Janaese history.) It is also possible that China goes along a more Russian or Balkan path.

It is also possible, I suppose, that China resolves its ethnic issues by some combination of ethnic cleansing and genocide, which would not be new.

Re: China: Vote as I say

#14

Post by dimmuborgir » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 9:05 AM UTC

vorg wrote: post #12

code_duck wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USA, UK, Europe and the Western world will just be a distant memory when China and India start becoming major players. As individual entities, perhaps. As a bloc? NATO member countries total population is about 800 million, if I'm not mistaken. The Western world is hardly going to disappear.

Not just a bloc of NATO countries, but also with Russia, which seems to be eagerly invited into organizations such as G8 (= G7 + Russia). With Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, the total population of such a bloc is 1 billion. I can forsee the US, France, Germany, and Russia soon forming a proto-military alliance, to give them the option to counter-balance China if they need to one day. And of course the US, unlike Ch…

Russia has always been against NATO and lately it is pushing hard for a strong SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) [1] which is branded as Russia's/China's answer to NATO.

The current major issue with SCO though is it needs either India or Pakistan or both as its members to make it a formidable military alliance. But since India and Pakistan are archrivals there are differences between Russia, which has always backed India, and China, which has always backed Pakistan.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisati...

Re: China: Vote as I say

#15

Post by w1ntermute » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 9:11 AM UTC

vorg wrote: post #12

code_duck wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> USA, UK, Europe and the Western world will just be a distant memory when China and India start becoming major players. As individual entities, perhaps. As a bloc? NATO member countries total population is about 800 million, if I'm not mistaken. The Western world is hardly going to disappear.

Not just a bloc of NATO countries, but also with Russia, which seems to be eagerly invited into organizations such as G8 (= G7 + Russia). With Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, the total population of such a bloc is 1 billion. I can forsee the US, France, Germany, and Russia soon forming a proto-military alliance, to give them the option to counter-balance China if they need to one day. And of course the US, unlike Ch…

> They could accept, say, 20 million educated and/or wealthy immigrants from China over the next 20 years, with no shortage of takers ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2660178 ), which would strengthen America and weaken China.

This is the best way to weaken China. In fact, it's the best way to weaken any poor country. Just pay the best people they have to come to your country and become permanent citizens. It's still not too late. Within 20-25 years, there may be no advantage for them, but right now, there is still something for the Chinese to gain by moving here.

Re: China: Vote as I say

#16

Post by wisty » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 11:06 AM UTC

afterburner wrote: post #7

cubeboy wrote: post #3

China is interesting. It's not like USA with just a population of 310,000,000, it has 1,330,000,000 people. If one group successfully causes enough political unrest, and 5% of the population supports and follows this group, that's a total of 66,500 000 people, the current population of the UK. Its astounding when you start looking at numbers like this. USA, UK, Europe and the Western world will just be a distant memo…

One potential result is that you end up with... two democracies. Revolutionary divisions in Europe just ended up more permanent than the ones in China. But I don't think population totals tell the whole story. One thing I like to quote is when a friend of mine visited China and noted that the "small towns", which still had 2-4 million people but were smaller than the big cities, still felt like small towns. They were…

Well, I think difference between China and Europe is geography, and now a common language. Mandarin is spoken basically everywhere, except Hong Kong. Even the border provinces like Tibet (Xizhan) and Xinjiang (formerly a Turkic country) have a lot of Han migrants (or colonists, as some might say). It's easier to hold a country together when you share a common language. There are local dialects and languages, but school kids learn Mandarin, and the writing is all the same (though obviously the grammar, phrasing, and idioms will be different).

As for geography, China is very flat. It was flat 5000 years ago, and peasants (the occasional ruler with a civil engineering fetish) have been making it flatter for millennia. There's nowhere for an army to hide. Dissenters can hide in the concrete jungle, but you can't make any real strongholds. Also anyone who holds the Yellow River and Yangtze River will have strategic control of most of China, and the two rivers have been linked since (IIRC) the Qin dynasty.

As for the "small towns" being a little, well, dead, that's partly a result of rural poverty (and taxes redistributing wealth to the capitals); but also (as you said) of the bigger cities being of interest to young ambitious people.

Re: China: Vote as I say

#17

Post by iaskwhy » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 12:01 PM UTC

w1ntermute wrote: post #15

vorg wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just a bloc of NATO countries, but also with Russia, which seems to be eagerly invited into organizations such as G8 (= G7 + Russia). With Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan, the total population of such a bloc is 1 billion. I can forsee the US, France, Germany, and Russia soon forming a proto-military alliance, to give them the option to counter-balance China if they need to one day. And of course the US, unlike Ch…

> They could accept, say, 20 million educated and/or wealthy immigrants from China over the next 20 years, with no shortage of takers ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2660178 ), which would strengthen America and weaken China. This is the best way to weaken China. In fact, it's the best way to weaken any poor country. Just pay the best people they have to come to your country and become permanent citizens. It's…

You don't even need to pay people to move, you just need to have a better society (and get rid of all the immigration laws which prevent this from happening).

Re: China: Vote as I say

#18

Post by gcb » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 12:12 PM UTC

wisty wrote: post #16

afterburner wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One potential result is that you end up with... two democracies. Revolutionary divisions in Europe just ended up more permanent than the ones in China. But I don't think population totals tell the whole story. One thing I like to quote is when a friend of mine visited China and noted that the "small towns", which still had 2-4 million people but were smaller than the big cities, still felt like small towns. They were…

Well, I think difference between China and Europe is geography, and now a common language. Mandarin is spoken basically everywhere, except Hong Kong. Even the border provinces like Tibet (Xizhan) and Xinjiang (formerly a Turkic country) have a lot of Han migrants (or colonists, as some might say). It's easier to hold a country together when you share a common language. There are local dialects and languages, but scho…

"to hold a country" is the key phrase there

Re: China: Vote as I say

#19

Post by wisty » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 12:19 PM UTC

gcb wrote: post #18

wisty wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I think difference between China and Europe is geography, and now a common language. Mandarin is spoken basically everywhere, except Hong Kong. Even the border provinces like Tibet (Xizhan) and Xinjiang (formerly a Turkic country) have a lot of Han migrants (or colonists, as some might say). It's easier to hold a country together when you share a common language. There are local dialects and languages, but scho…

"to hold a country" is the key phrase there

Exactly. Why do you think China insists on celebrating diversity (the 55 official ethnic minorities get lots of airtime in cultural events - I've seen a national day celebration on TV in which every official minority had a representative dance troup), while emphasizing some kind of fundamental unity of the country (at the end of the celebration, all the dance troupes danced together).

Re: China: Vote as I say

#20

Post by _delirium » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 12:27 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #13

Volpe wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is country/peasant worker vs city worker an ethnic divide? Sounds more like a class divide. (ironic in a post-maoist country) The urbanisation figures in china are highly suspect. Given one child policy is primarily policed in the city and intentionally lax in the countryside. This coupled with the fact their census seems (unconfirmed) do NOT count unofficial residence (i.e second/third/etc children). It makes it ver…

Is country/peasant worker vs city worker an ethnic divide? The distinction you're looking for is "Han Chinese" versus "everyone else." China's outlying rural provinces have significant populations -- often pluralities or majorities -- from ethnic groups which are not Han Chinese, which is the dominant economic group in China and which is the portion of China largely winning from economic growth. For example, there ar…

On a macro-scale the non-Han are relatively small, though, especially compared to some of the other cases of multi-ethnic countries. Non-Han-Chinese make up only 8% of the PRC population, whereas non-Russians make up about 20% of Russia's current population, and made up about 40% of the USSR's.

It is true that they're much more prominent in the outlying areas; e.g. 60% of Xinjiang is non-Han. Those areas have relatively few people compared to the more populous parts of China, though; Shanghai alone has more people than all of Xinjiang. China's current strategy seems to be to take advantage of that numerical imbalance to Han-ify the outlying areas, since the smallish (in absolute numbers) non-Han population can be swamped by moving only a few percent of the people from the central cities out there.