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The China Cultural Clash

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Re: The China Cultural Clash

#151

Post by throwaway1997 »

jimclegg wrote: post #133
CharlesColeman wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thus the best way "oppose a government that is the sworn enemy of values you regard as precious" is to allow it to face its internal discord without giving it the "enemy" it so desperately needs as ammunition to use against you. If the CCP wants to make the US out as China's enemy, they'll make us out to be their enemy, even if they have to lie and distort to do so. The CCP has near-total control of the PRC's domes…

Lot of truth to the funding sources for HK protests originating in the west even if the protestors believe in what they are fighting for.

Sources please. I, and everyone I know, pay for our own gear. We haven't received any offer of funding from foreign nations.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#152

Post by knzhou »

ookblah wrote: post #127
knzhou wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know? I see literally zero direct evidence for this in the linked post -- only that some people in China responded. Not everybody in China is working for the government. When analogous statements are found offensive in the US, US citizens, US tech companies, and the US media can act with astonishing speed and coordination to stamp them out. That doesn't mean that the US government is directing all of it.

The Chinese consulate in Houston put out a statement condemning the tweet. You have a track record of China using the heavy hand to dictate the messaging of corporations and individual citizens. No coordinated message in China goes through without the explicit or implicit consent of the government, even if it starts "from the people". It's not hard to make the connection here.

> The Chinese consulate in Houston put out a statement condemning the tweet.

Okay, perhaps. But that could also be them jumping on a popular bandwagon.

I'm just raising this doubt because I've seen, many times on sites like this, enormous panics over supposed Chinese government actions, which actually boil down to totally innocuous actions from individuals. The most common cognitive bias when the West discusses the East is to think of it as a giant collective -- not being able to "tell them apart".

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#153

Post by mark_l_watson »

I also have mostly been a supporter, at least in spirit, of China. I enjoyed traveling there and I respect their tech abilities.

My support has changed, and I can’t help but think that this is about the ego of Chinese leadership, since it seems like they are making some poor decisions. Perhaps even stupid decisions.

I also wonder what the effect of President Trump has had in the poor decision making process of Chinese leadership since Trump also makes a lot of bad decisions and has lowered the bar on skill in diplomacy.

This is a sad situation since I really hope for lots of trade, travel between countries, and respect for other countrys’ rights to their own culture and autonomy.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#154

Post by CharlesColeman »

jimclegg wrote: post #133
CharlesColeman wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thus the best way "oppose a government that is the sworn enemy of values you regard as precious" is to allow it to face its internal discord without giving it the "enemy" it so desperately needs as ammunition to use against you. If the CCP wants to make the US out as China's enemy, they'll make us out to be their enemy, even if they have to lie and distort to do so. The CCP has near-total control of the PRC's domes…

Lot of truth to the funding sources for HK protests originating in the west even if the protestors believe in what they are fighting for.

> Lot of truth to the funding sources for HK protests originating in the west even if the protestors believe in what they are fighting for.

What truth? The protestors don't actually need that much funding [1], and the help they need actually comes from older Hongkongers who are sympathetic to them:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/you-dont-have-to-face-it-alone-...

[1] Seems like their equipment typically consists of: an umbrella, a household respirator like the ones used for painting, protective googles, a hard hat, and bottled water. None of that is expensive.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#155

Post by totaldude87 »

ilamont wrote: post #17

Attempts by China to leverage market access into self-censorship by U.S. companies should also be treated as trade violations that are subject to retaliation. Thank you, Ben, for this honest appraisal which involves sticking out your neck and perhaps even harming your ability to travel to China or expand your business. Regarding this comment about Apple: And then there is Apple: the company is deeply exposed to China…

>>Cook et al saw the writing on the wall years ago

exactly, i've read somewhere that they are trying to move further to south/south east Asia, like India , Philippines etc..

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#156

Post by throwaway1997 »

UIZealot wrote: post #130

It helps to know a little bit about what's been going on in Hong Kong, before you all line up and take your daily dump on China. It all started a few months ago when someone committed a crime in Taiwan and fled to Hong Kong. To prevent HK from becoming a safe haven for criminals, the Chief Executive of HK proposed a new law to facilitate extradition of these crime suspects from HK to various jurisdictions in the regi…

Yes, if you deliberately ignore any of the bad things the government did, and focus on the bad things the protestors did, that story is roughly accurate.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#157

Post by colorincorrect »

Loughla wrote: post #117
colorincorrect wrote: post #97

counterpoint: anglo-sphere internet is very hostile towards right-winged content, with the exception of a few special purpose "containment"-websites and social media personalities. but these people are also pretty much ignored. this is defacto censorship, or more accurately, a publication ban.

counter-counterpoint: much right-winged content is associated with hate speech and violence. Further, many users of websites such as this are young and tend to skew more left of center, and therefore will gravitate toward that content anyway.

>many users of websites such as this are young and tend to skew more left of center

This is true.

>much right-winged content is associated with hate speech and violence.

I guess this is also true, but I think its more subtle than that.

I think it depends on who you identify as being "canonical representation" for the right-wing. Popular media would lead you to believe that it is the people that appear on 8chan or went to the Unite the Right rally. They are certainly a very vocal group among that representation, but I don't quite think they accurately represent that group. If you buy into the idea of a "silent majority" (a typically conservative notion), then you might agree that it would be difficult to find an accurate "representation" of said group.

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#158

Post by tpmx »

eternalban wrote: post #104
tpmx wrote: post #4

This article frames this as the US vs China, but it's really been the "Western world" vs China. And the western world has been incredibly naive and uncoordinated when it comes to dealing with China. We've all accepted the incredibly one-sided deal, in some kind of idealistic hope that the Chinese would latch on to "western" values of democracy etc just by trading with us. Edit: World -> Western world.

> And the western world has been incredibly naive and uncoordinated when it comes to dealing with China. Some of us were paying attention in the '90s and we're still paying attention. Here are some interesting items to review: 1 - McDonnell Douglas (yep the same gang that ruined Boeing): https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/29/business/mcdonnell-dougla... 2 - "Pentagon Blessing" https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB832727883654…

Upvoted.

(And yeah, I feel like I have been personally aware at least during the past ten years or so. Things move slowly.)

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#159

Post by [deleted] »

emanreus wrote: post #149

Pot, meet the kettle. You're both niggers :) An amusing tirade but politics and economy tend to go hand in hand, especially when it comes to superpowers. And there are far more brutal examples of it going on as we speak. Blocking access to essential medicine and food comes to mind. Outside the virtue signaling bubble and PR facades the world is a very Machiavellian place.

[deleted]

Re: The China Cultural Clash

#160

Post by Merrill »

drcode wrote: post #91
Merrill wrote: post #45

Since diversity is a strength, it would seem that the ideal situation globally is to have a diversity of economic, political and legal systems. If instead, these systems around the globe tend towards similarity and strong coupling, the result is likely to be fragility and instability. By having weakly coupled diverse systems with well defined interfaces, the overall global system becomes more robust and disturbances…

You think totalitarian regimes like China and North Korea are OK, because "diversity"?

North Korea is totalitarian, and it will hopefully change to something acceptable.

I think of the current regime in China as more an authoritarian single party regime. We have tolerated or been allied with authoritarian single party regimes in earlier decades such as Taiwan under the KMT, Japan under the early LDP, and South Korea under Rhee.

China places a higher priority on enforcing social harmony than the US, but China has a history where there have been multiple periods of severe social disturbance causing 10s of millions of deaths, such as the Taiping Rebellion. In actual practice most people have quite a lot of freedom on most subjects most of the time since, "Heaven is high, and the Emperor is far away."

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