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China Blocks WhatsApp

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Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#171

Post by frandroid »

tryingagainbro wrote: post #71
dmix wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's important for Westerners to realize that the Chinese never had a Locke, or a Rousseau, or a Hobbes. Neither did South America but they were inspired by all of them when they formed their modern republics after the various revolutions, after kicking out the Spanish rulers in the 1800s the military generals had a choice to form democracies and they sought inspiration from Europe, just as America did a century ea…

Serious question: what would happen if China abolished the Communist Party or whatever they call and chose democracy. Chaos? Breakdown of the country into separate states /provinces? Civil war? Military rule? I would not want to the one in charge the day after. Obviously (moderated) rule by the people is best but not sure how China and say countries in the mold of Saudi Arabia will handle it.

What is "China" in this case? Its government is the Communist Party. It's not going to abolish itself!

The question to ask, if you want China to change, is to ask how would the Chinese Communist Party lose its grip on power. That would probably need to happen following an economic crisis. However, looking at how badly the Chavistas are driving Venezuela into the ground these days, and how much they're able to hold onto power, you can see that it's not easy to get rid of a government with a lot of resources. The boiling frog theorem applies here. A sudden shock, sudden famine, sudden economic turmoil is what's most likely to create the conditions of regime change.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#172

Post by kwoff »

pangfandang wrote: post #126
micaksica wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people who will get ahead in China in the future are the ones who are somehow able to live outside of China to experience new ideas. So in other words, the ruling class continues to rule, as they will be the only ones with the sanctioned political freedoms to study abroad, etc. > China's fate as being relegated to being the world's giant copy machine is sealed unless things revert China being the world's giant…

China is still very poor. The Chinese rural households have a per capita income of only 9,892 yuan – about $4 dollars a day. and there's 680 million of these rural households still. Chinese urban households have only a per capita income of 29,831 yuan – an abysmal $4,500 a year. https://geopoliticalfutures.com/china-is-still-really-poor/ And we see the effects of poverty on education: "Surveys by Rozelle's team have…

The things you mention are easily turned around (I certainly don't support the CCP, however).

Maybe the Chinese are very efficient with their money (try living on $4 a day in the US; or what does $4 mean in China?), or don't need as much money due to... a socialist system and/or, if you prefer, Hong Kong Post. Maybe they've started to realize the dream of Star Trek's "economy". ;)

"Consider the aggregate IQs of rural and urban/suburban whites [in the US]. During the 1970s according to Wordsum-IQ data, the intelligence gap between whites raised on farms and those who grew up in an urban/suburban background was enormous, almost exactly equal to the white/black gap. The data would indicate that a non-trivial slice of the white farmboys of the 1970s suffered from clinical mental retardation".

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#173

Post by tanilama »

bad_user wrote: post #116
micaksica wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people who will get ahead in China in the future are the ones who are somehow able to live outside of China to experience new ideas. So in other words, the ruling class continues to rule, as they will be the only ones with the sanctioned political freedoms to study abroad, etc. > China's fate as being relegated to being the world's giant copy machine is sealed unless things revert China being the world's giant…

China might build their own products and I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives, but I won't install Chinese alternatives to WhatsApp on my phone, which means the Chinese won't be able to talk with me, an European, all the while I'm communicating without issues with acquaintances from all over Europe and the U.S. This means that the Chinese are living in a bubble. This isn't news of course. But the other issue…

There is WeChat, and it is far more successful than WhatsApp.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#174

Post by natural219 »

chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

I've been reading Westerners talk about how China is doomed for 10 years now. Every "mean" or disagreeable thing they do seemingly spells doom for their regime, but they keep getting bigger and more powerful.

Maybe I should read less English-language media on the subject.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#175

Post by Saad_M »

Certhas wrote: post #117
chaostheory wrote: post #40

What the long-term effects will be: China's ruling class further cement their power at the cost of China's innovation and future growth. Interesting and useful things are made when people able share and consume information. e.g. Jack Ma's US visit exposed him to Yahoo. Ma Huateng was clearly inspired by his exposure to ICQ. The list goes on. The same thing happens in the West but it happens a lot more often since the…

Alternative: Innovation happens within the context of Chinas censorship and political regime. Blocking of entrenched western competitors allows home grown solutions to spring up, and local technological know how to develop faster. Capitalism and innovation turn out to work within the context of an illiberal society just fine. Especially as China avoids the mistake of closing itself off to the rest of the world, but s…

Another alternative is that you may get a Galapagos island effect where Chinese firms do innovate, but their innovation is tied to the cultural and regulatory norms and not very applicable outside of China. The same effect was seen with Japanese cell phone companies pre-smartphone era.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#176

Post by splintercell »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #149
bryananderson wrote: post #130

This event is an amazing lesson in what China's rulers see as their interests and how they pursue those interests. Over the last several decades, these rulers have done a lot to open China to the world and lift the totalitarian restrictions of Maoism. This process has been the greatest poverty reduction program of all time, and thus it would be easy to mistake it for altruism, or at least a belief in governing in the…

And China's rulers will still be in power. I wonder. When the inevitable downturn comes the population won't have the option of voting out the current government. They may well turn to other means.

This almost always happens. Because in order to achieve what they have achieved, they had to give their citizens a certain amount of freedom.

Generally when the new generation becomes old enough , it would have never seen why people are afraid of the rulers so much, then it becomes a situation of a showdown.

Though it doesn't always have to end with a bloody outcome, for instance Spain went from dictatorship to democracy quite peacefully after it's dictator died in 1975.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#177

Post by nv-vn »

gerbilly wrote: post #93
meri_dian wrote: post #15

Edit: This is not a justification or defense of internet censorship. It is an explanation of why the Chinese public may be more willing to accept strict government controls than the West. While most Westerners see actions like this as serious violations of individual rights, the Chinese are used to such exercises of control by their leaders. There is a firm historical basis for similar behavior going back thousands o…

I know you didn't intend your comment this way, but I see it as a bit patronizing to assume that just because China hasn't produced a Rousseau or a Hobbes domestically[1], that they couldn't possibly take new ideas from them. Asia is about a lot more than social harmony and the mandate of heaven. There is an incredible diversity of opinion on almost any subject there, just as in the West. [1] Citation needed.

Yes, but what is being said is that Rousseau and Hobbes and Locke are ingrained in Western culture in much the same way that Confucianism is ingrained in Chinese culture. Lapses in the absolute power of Western monarchy opened up a space for an Enlightenment and gave rise to those new ideals, not to mention the prior blows that this style of governance had suffered in the West -- the Magna Carta, more frequent war, rapid losses in colonial territories, and the growth of Catholicism. The collapse of Western monarchy was what brought on the Enlightenment, which then served as a catalyst for further destruction of that system. China didn't experience hundreds of years of rebellion against the government, and for a long time it wasn't openly trading new ideas with the West (whereas the European countries were tied closely together in a lot of political matters). For the most part, the Chinese approach to this power structure was also much, much more defined. Keep in mind that Europe was largely still connected to Greco-Roman history, and these basic cultural foundations called for democracy and republicanism rather than an absolute social harmony.

In the context of today, it's important to remember who the teachers and adults in China are: people who grew up under the Communist government. And with more respect towards the older generation, historically China has had a hard time rebelling against social norms ingrained in their culture. Trying to do away with Confucianism isn't a question of how many people are involved when the elders were all indoctrinated in those ideas by a Communist regime. Even if half the young population of China had independently stumbled upon papers describing these Western cultural values, spreading the idea is impossible when it goes against the CPC's core values, defies the ideas of the older generation, and is completely foreign from what was taught in school.

The fundamental difference between the West and China here is that China has always been under a strong, conservative leadership that these ideas have not been able to permeate. To think that China could simply pick up ideas from Western philosophy misses the point.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#178

Post by FabHK »

princekolt wrote: post #85
micaksica wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The people who will get ahead in China in the future are the ones who are somehow able to live outside of China to experience new ideas. So in other words, the ruling class continues to rule, as they will be the only ones with the sanctioned political freedoms to study abroad, etc. > China's fate as being relegated to being the world's giant copy machine is sealed unless things revert China being the world's giant…

> China being the world's giant copy machine has worked very well for those in power in China. Yes, but that's not OPs point, I think. What I think OP means is that the west doesn't have to worry (much) about China becoming the world's main innovation spot, because with censorship, the best they can do is copy. In a weird way, this is good for the western world.

I think that's too optimistic. It seems to me that China manages to control the vast majority of the population. If you have technical expertise and perseverance, you can still circumvent the GFW (great firewall), install WhatsApp, etc., and I think you will continue to be able to - but most people in China don't.

(It's a bit like pirating music and movies in the west - you can still do it, but many people now use the legal options (iTunes, Netflix, ...), because it's just not worth the hassle.)

But the CCP doesn't care about a small elite knowing things.

OP contends that suppressing political discontent and censoring & controlling the communication of the vast majority of people will necessarily impede innovation and economic growth. That's not obvious to me at all, unfortunately.

Re: China Blocks WhatsApp

#179

Post by bad_user »

tanilama wrote: post #173
bad_user wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China might build their own products and I can see them building WhatsApp alternatives, but I won't install Chinese alternatives to WhatsApp on my phone, which means the Chinese won't be able to talk with me, an European, all the while I'm communicating without issues with acquaintances from all over Europe and the U.S. This means that the Chinese are living in a bubble. This isn't news of course. But the other issue…

There is WeChat, and it is far more successful than WhatsApp.

With WhatsApp having over 1 Billion daily active users [1], I find that really hard to believe, but assuming that all of China's population is on WeChat ...

My point is that WeChat does not exist for me and probably never will.

[1] https://blog.whatsapp.com/10000631/Connecting-One-Billion-Us...

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