61–70 of 203 posts
WeChat registration was a fascinating experience. You download the app and then someone who is already in the system has to verify you via QR code scan. That's how it was when I visited a couple years ago, at least.
Or to be more precise, it works for a few days, then abruptly locks you out until a friend with a China phone number and bank account vouches for you.
WeChat registration was a fascinating experience. You download the app and then someone who is already in the system has to verify you via QR code scan. That's how it was when I visited a couple years ago, at least.
Or to be more precise, it works for a few days, then abruptly locks you out until a friend with a China phone number and bank account vouches for you.
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…
Re-frame the question: if they could have western style liberal democracy without any bloodshed, would they? The answers you're seeing might be tainted with knowing the path to democracy would be painful, and all else equal, that pain is worse than the current power structure.
I don't think the Chinese would want a fall of the USSR scenario, however little the bloodshed is. Economic disruption can kill a lot of people and there is not even any guarantee the next system would stand on it's own.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Naively, it looks like the CCP sees the influence and heft US tech exercises on the US population and world at large. The CCP will forgo economic might (in this sector) for social stability and control every time. They do not want these titans to have more power or influence than they have so they rein them in and let them know who holds the straps.
The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. They want to legislate a return to "old" (post 1949) values by banning foreign tutors, suppressing dissent on WeChat and Weibo, and doing generally authoritarian shit to encourage nationalism. Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. And they find the North Korean styl…
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 completely A-OK in the CCP's book.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that may be part of the point. In matters of state, in China, markets react to policy not the other way around. In the west markets direct policy through a kind of indirect or virtual parliament. Whether China's approach is wise or not...I don't know.
What examples do you have of this "indirect parliament" effect? Yes various interests lobby the government all the time. But what are the best/clearest examples of the market tail wagging the policy dog?.
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…
Re-frame the question: if they could have western style liberal democracy without any bloodshed, would they? The answers you're seeing might be tainted with knowing the path to democracy would be painful, and all else equal, that pain is worse than the current power structure.
WeChat registration was a fascinating experience. You download the app and then someone who is already in the system has to verify you via QR code scan. That's how it was when I visited a couple years ago, at least.
Even Hong Kongers couldn’t register Americans at the time.
Looks like tech will inevitably one day circumvent all the barriers China has set up. It seem there is a panic with in the govt as they notice the trend. Delays the inevitable, but for how long?
I remember when the "great firewall" seemed like a joke, as did digital copyright compliance, online censorship or basically any means of controlling the internet. Information wanted to be free, and neither man nor king could stand in its way.
Maybe that is true, and the last 15 years have been an aberration. But... that would mean a reversal of a trend, not a continuation of the current one. To me it seems likely (careful with inevitabilities) that the internet will increasingly become a way of controlling people.