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China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

economist.com

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Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#111

Post by Guvante »

keepamovin wrote: post #108
Animats wrote: post #32

China is having an internal information crackdown. It's approaching the nutty level, which probably indicates that Xi is losing it. The latest thing is a crackdown on clothing "detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese people."[1] [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-66737272

What's an alternate hypothesis? I.E., why might they be doing this besides going insane? So, an alt explanation that avoids the China-crash forever story?

Xi feels he is losing power isn't a China-crash necessarily.

The US economy doesn't stop when we switch leaders regularly.

Certainly there would be changes but they aren't predictable. (For instance the new leadership could censor even more due to not having as established based on less as they got into power by promising less invasive actions)

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#112

Post by vuln »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #78
vuln wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can repeat the 2020 election the “most safe and secure” election ever. Funny how Russia and China sat that one out huh? Guess they’d let the other team win one.

The safe and secure claim was largely around the conduct of the election itself, whereas US adversaries largely deployed disinfo and propaganda tactics to interfere in the election. So, not sure they sat it out as much as the U.S. was a little better prepared. For instance, social media platforms did a better job of not being completely owned as fire hoses for propaganda and disinfo. Of course, some then complained t…

> For instance, social media platforms did a better job of not being completely owned as fire hoses for propaganda and disinfo.

Better job by not cashing the adversaries checks?

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-ad-spend/...

> Of course, some then complained that this constituted "censorship" by the platforms.

Ah you mean the government going hunting and finding accounts that violated the ever changing ToS which was heavily influenced by the USG?

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#113

Post by oreally »

isaacfung wrote: post #106
jamesaurichs wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xi is losing it everywhere; - internal purging of military senior officials. 5 out of the 7 senior officials are now missing in action. https://www.newsweek.com/china-defence-minister-li-shangfu-m... . Very similar to Mao Zedong's purging of his generals https://www.hoover.org/research/lin-biao-incident-and-people... . China has had to transfer generals from airforce and army to head up missile force, because so many…

Can you provide some sources about the flood destroying military forces and Hangzhou government raiding temples? About Huawei stores being empty, some seems pretty crowded at least on the first day. https://youtu.be/YFeE2xHQVRI?si=2-tqnqXj8aF8srN6

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#114

Post by jcranmer »

aragonite wrote: post #89
Animats wrote: post #32

China is having an internal information crackdown. It's approaching the nutty level, which probably indicates that Xi is losing it. The latest thing is a crackdown on clothing "detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese people."[1] [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-66737272

I'd suggest taking a look at the specific clauses under discussion, esp. as the draft laws are still in the public commentary stage. See clauses 2 and 3 of Article 34 in ( https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/public-security-adminis... ) and consider them in the context of clauses 1, 4, 5, and 6. Note the recurrent mentions of 'heroes and martyrs' and 'wars of aggression' within these clauses, something a casual read…

"Causing harm to the names, images, reputations, and honor of heroes and martyrs through insult, defamation, or other such means" pretty clearly means to me something along the lines of "you can't point out that Mao Zedong's Great Leap Forward caused a famine that killed tens of millions of people."

There's nothing along those lines in any EU country, let alone the US (where such a concept is in extremely flagrant violation of the First Amendment). The closest you'd come is laws against Holocaust denial--but notice the key difference between a law that makes it a crime to suggest that a "good" person might have done something bad versus a law that makes it a crime to suggest that a bad deed never happened.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#115

Post by keepamovin »

Guvante wrote: post #111
keepamovin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's an alternate hypothesis? I.E., why might they be doing this besides going insane? So, an alt explanation that avoids the China-crash forever story?

Xi feels he is losing power isn't a China-crash necessarily. The US economy doesn't stop when we switch leaders regularly. Certainly there would be changes but they aren't predictable. (For instance the new leadership could censor even more due to not having as established based on less as they got into power by promising less invasive actions)

Sure, you raise a good point. It's also useful to consider how the idea that the leader for life of the country is going insane could be felt to be denigrating to the country and could be considered to be part of the general China-crash tropes.

For the sake of good analysis, it's important to focus on real alternatives to that hypothesis, and avoid getting bogged down in semantics.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#116

Post by AussieWog93 »

oreally wrote: post #113
isaacfung wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide some sources about the flood destroying military forces and Hangzhou government raiding temples? About Huawei stores being empty, some seems pretty crowded at least on the first day. https://youtu.be/YFeE2xHQVRI?si=2-tqnqXj8aF8srN6

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

It's the first time we've had some serious quantitative data behind it, though.

There are good indicators that an economic stagnation or recession are coming, and that could potentially hurt the CCP long term.

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#117

Post by jamesaurichs »

oreally wrote: post #113
isaacfung wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide some sources about the flood destroying military forces and Hangzhou government raiding temples? About Huawei stores being empty, some seems pretty crowded at least on the first day. https://youtu.be/YFeE2xHQVRI?si=2-tqnqXj8aF8srN6

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

[dead]

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#118

Post by isaacfung »

oreally wrote: post #113
isaacfung wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide some sources about the flood destroying military forces and Hangzhou government raiding temples? About Huawei stores being empty, some seems pretty crowded at least on the first day. https://youtu.be/YFeE2xHQVRI?si=2-tqnqXj8aF8srN6

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

I know. I live in Hong Kong. Some of these are worrying but a few of them seem questionable. From what I can find, the previous asian games opening also wasn't attended by many world leaders. It's not Olympic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Asian_Games_opening_cer...

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#119

Post by oreally »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #116
oreally wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

It's the first time we've had some serious quantitative data behind it, though. There are good indicators that an economic stagnation or recession are coming, and that could potentially hurt the CCP long term.

What are you talking about? Data has been collected since they opened up, enough for people to be writing books on it like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Collapse_of_China

Now are you going to say the data collected before is unreliable somehow and this time it's reliable?

Re: China is flooding Taiwan with disinformation

#120

Post by oreally »

jamesaurichs wrote: post #117
oreally wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it isn't the first time that narratives about China's collapse have surfaced; they've been going on since the 2000s. Take anything you read about China on western boards with a pinch of salt; vice versa for the other side too.

[dead]

Imagine having such a superiority complex thinking that China's survival hinges entirely on western investment and graces. That's some jingoism right there.
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