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WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

reuters.com

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Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#101

Post by tablespoon »

bllguo wrote: post #86
tablespoon wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're broadly correct. With regard to China, a lot of people's understanding is driven in large part by wishful thinking, which is a serious weakness and vulnerability. > Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn't that they want a western liberal democracy. So lots of people will speak in favor of a benevolent elite and against populism or what they see as western chaos or oppression. When…

> When educated Chinese people were better exposed to ideas about liberal democracy, they were very clear that they wanted it This falls flat for me. So the implication is that there are no educated Chinese today with exposure to liberal democracy? I think we take for granted the supposed superiority of a system that empirically has delivered many recent failures.

> This falls flat for me. So the implication is that there are no educated Chinese today with exposure to liberal democracy? I think we take for granted the supposed superiority of a system that empirically has delivered many recent failures.

I'm not saying "no exposure," I'm saying they were "better exposed" in the past. You can even see changes like that happening in Hong Kong now, under the new crackdown on civil liberties. For instance, the government is now tinkering with the curriculum of a "Liberal Studies" course in Hong Kong to make it more "patriotic."

> I think we take for granted the supposed superiority of a system that empirically has delivered many recent failures.

Would you trade Donald Trump, Joe Biden, the Democrats, and Repubicans for Xi Jinping and the CCP (and everything that entails)?

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#102

Post by sudosysgen »

Steltek wrote: post #93
sudosysgen wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, yes and no. Go to reddit for example, you can find endless amounts of people explaining the Chinese perspective and getting voted down and accused of being wumaos, and you'll get banned for it in many places too. At some point I imagine it gets tiring.

Isn't that the problem though? How do you know you're getting a genuine opinion when there's a public, broad, and well funded astroturf campaign? What even is a genuine opinion or free thought when the government employs such ruthless censorship?

There is a 90% chance there are ruthless, public, broad and well funded astroturf campaign for and against most of your impactful opinions.

You have to take it with détachement. I have enough Chinese friends living away to know that opinions often aren't that different living here vs in China. Censorship isn't that effective in the era of anyone easily getting a VPN.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#105

Post by tablespoon »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #99
tablespoon wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. What now? China has a pretty extensive film and television industry, and as far as I know it's very popular. > And they find the North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated. And in that case, the most logical reaction is political disengagement, which is compl…

You might think so, but slacking now seems to be considered to be dangerously rebellious[1] by the CCP. 1: https://qz.com/2019322/why-lying-flat-a-niche-chinese-millen...

That's different, the "slacking" of which you speak is a kind of dissent.

What I mean by "political disengagement" keeping a distance from political issues and otherwise "saying withing the lines," so to speak.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#106

Post by tablespoon »

sudosysgen wrote: post #83
starfallg wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long time ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or nationalistic, like Americans. They appreciate the CCP and what it has accomplished. They have a strong domestic arts industry making movies, books, games. Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn't that they want a western liberal democracy. Having been on the inside, it's not that they don't…

I think this position is very valuable. By far the best way for us to effect change in China politically, and every other major ideologically opposed nation, is to effect change at home, and be so sucessful that the superiority of our approach cannot be refuted. Bonus point that there is a lot less chance of war this way.

> I think this position is very valuable. By far the best way for us to effect change in China politically, and every other major ideologically opposed nation, is to effect change at home, and be so sucessful that the superiority of our approach cannot be refuted.

I don't think so. Fixing domestic problems is a worthy goal, but it's wishful thinking to believe it will do anything to "effect change in China politically."

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#107

Post by em500 »

tablespoon wrote: post #73
georgeecollins wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. I am no expert, but I disagree and I think this is the kind of thinking that has failed the west for the last thirty years. I think the idea started with the fall of the Soviet Union. That culture and ideology was bankrupt. So a lot of western people thought that when there was a free exchange of ideas with China, the Chinese would event…

I think you're broadly correct. With regard to China, a lot of people's understanding is driven in large part by wishful thinking, which is a serious weakness and vulnerability. > Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn't that they want a western liberal democracy. So lots of people will speak in favor of a benevolent elite and against populism or what they see as western chaos or oppression. When…

Assume for the moment that you're American, liberal, white collar and live in one of the more affluent blue coastal states. Now imagine that 75% of your countrymen are rabbid red state Trump supporters, of low education, get most of their news and information from low quality Facebook shares, and are clearly misinformed about the world in many ways. Now imagine that the Federal government is much more powerful than the States, and that representative democratic policy will mostly reflect the will of Trump True-believers, the people fully supportive of the Capitol riots. How principled are you really about the rule of democracy?

Now I'm not suggesting that this is a good analogy for the Chinese situation, nor that this is how highly education urban Chinese think about democracy (though I do know a few who do seem to think that way). What I am suggesting is that democracy is not always and everywhere the slam dunk win that some Western liberals appear to think it is.

I write this as a second generation immigrant raised since elementary school with Western democratic values. I do believe that despite some flows it is the best system for most of Europe and the US. My parents fled the madness of the Mao CCP regime, and they've probably seen the worst side of the CCP. Yet they are ambivalent whether a US-style democracy today would be superior for the Chinese citizens to the current CCP.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#108

Post by ilamont »

Under the CCP, the "rights" pendulum swings wildly for society and the economy. Some policies and edicts seem well thought out, others seem impulsive and extreme with little regard to long-term consequences or the impact on China's people.

100 flowers/Great Leap Forward. Cultural Revolution/Deng reforms. Tiananmen/hypernationalism.

Tech has enjoyed a relatively open hand for two decades. Now the fist is closed and comes smashing down. Justification for clampdowns, crackdowns and purges are really about CCP leaders using all tools at their disposal to maintain a hold on power.

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#109

Post by tpm »

refenestrator wrote: post #98
Steltek wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the problem though? How do you know you're getting a genuine opinion when there's a public, broad, and well funded astroturf campaign? What even is a genuine opinion or free thought when the government employs such ruthless censorship?

If you're not open to other opinions, you will hear none, and that's entirely on you. In extremely broad strokes, China has gone from colonized and poor to powerful and rich. Is it so hard to believe that the average Zhao is pretty OK with things?

It's not a question of belief, it's more a question of who is speaking - him or the state propaganda? We had the same in communist Eastern Europe - you publicly said things that you thought were ok and assumed anyone with ears can be an agent of the regime. Privately you might have thought something very different, but why end up in prison and cause problems for your family?

Re: WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance

#110

Post by aerosmile »

sudosysgen wrote: post #81
aerosmile wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it make sense to have strong principles and not be guided by financial incentives alone? Sure. But would it make more sense to have a solid regulatory framework to start with, as opposed to being loosey goosey for a very long time and then course correcting in a way that evaporates billions in value overnight from domestic and foreign investors? Countries and companies have a lot in common. Consider this analogy…

It's not possible to have a solid regulatory framework from the beginning. You can't predict the advance of cutting edge tech. Sure, you can do it earlier, but never from the start. Also, billions of dollars of value didn't disappear overnight. No jobs are or will be lost, and very little utility is lost, except being able to sign up for 1-2 weeks. I'm not absolutely thrilled by the rise of China either, but we gotta…

> No jobs are or will be lost, and very little utility is lost, except being able to sign up for 1-2 weeks.

Contrast that with the quote from the article:

"Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday amid widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory crackdowns on high-growth sectors, including online platforms and, most recently, private tutoring. Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 4.2%."

The stock price may not correlate with short-term budgets, but it absolutely has an impact on long-term budgets. So what the investors will be asking themselves now is: "Is this disruption just a short blip on the radar, or did we just witness a long-term change of the Big Tech landscape in China?" Getting on the shit list of the Chinese government sounds like a long-term problem to me.

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