I'm not sure if you realize that is a work of fiction based on one person's opinion, which hardly reflects the view of the "HK society" that you so grandiosely claimed. Should I take the Hunger Games seriously as capturing how Western society views the near future?
The people of Hong Kong are hardly winning supporters within China. Much is made of the disdain that Hong Kong people have for Chinese mainlanders, but less is mentioned that it is equally true in reverse.
There is a commonly held belief (which I haven't researched and thus don't know if true or not) that they didn't make nearly as much of a ruckus when they were under British colonial rule, when they were de facto second-class citizens. As such, the independence/pro-democracy movement is viewed as a Western-backed attempt to destabilize China, with supporters (generalized to the whole people of Hong Kong, depending on how many of them you believe support the movement) viewed as submissives to the West. (If you add in a racial dimension, where the Hong Kong people are Asians willing to submit to "whites" while fighting back against other Asians, adds to that disdain).
Any attempts to "help", as some on this thread have suggested, is only going to help affirm this belief and harden the mainland Chinese stance against Hong Kong.
> If you add in a racial dimension, where the Hong Kong people are Asians willing to submit to "whites" while fighting back against other Asians, adds to that disdain.
This sounds uncomfortably close to Imperial Japan's concept of "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (大東亜共栄圏)", i.e., Asians should unite together and defend themselves against Western aggressors. Under some Asian banner, of course.
Oppression does not become more tolerable just because it's inflicted by "the same people".
> There is a commonly held belief (which I haven't researched and thus don't know if true or not) that they didn't make nearly as much of a ruckus when they were under British colonial rule
During the early years of colonization there was a ton of protests and fighting, but they were brutally suppressed by the British.
After getting rid of early activists and over 70+ years later, the quality of life improved so there were less and less complaints.
> (If you add in a racial dimension, where the Hong Kong people are Asians willing to submit to "whites" while fighting back against other Asians, adds to that disdain).
I definitely agree there is a major dose of postcolonial mentality going on among the middle-class Hongkongers.
After the rich elite either moved to the West or became chummy with China, the middle class basically moved into the second tier of the "racial hierarchy (whites & hapas > rich Hongkongers > everyone else)"
In my opinion, this seems to be more of a class struggle. I see a lot of blue collar Hongkongers being friends with Mainland Chinese. And I see a lot of intermarriage among them as well. Same as when I visited Taiwan.
I think just like British colonization took 70+ years, after China has held onto Hong Kong long enough, things will change.
If you think this post was "defending" China, then you have a very thin skin for dissent. I was instead trying to discuss the challenges these activists may face and why attempts by the west to "help" may backfire.
> Why am I not surprised.
Because HN does a good job allowing active debate on a complex subject?
I am not arguing for British colonization, but were they second class citizens? I believe they were British Subjects and therefor entitled to all the rights of any other British subject, or at least that of British subjects in any other British Dependent Territory.
I was in HK for a while under British rule. Us Brits had some advantages. Most obviously Brits had the right to live and study and the like in the UK whereas HK Chinese didn't. Also most of the better government funded jobs tended to go to Brits rather than HK Chinese.
The HK Chinese were however much better off at the time under British rule than the mainland Chinese were under China's. China was kind of a mess at the time.
> The HK Chinese were however much better off at the time under British rule than the mainland Chinese were under China's. China was kind of a mess at the time.
Perhaps materially, but on principle I don't think anyone would want to be considered second-class.
Most of the mainland Chinese were second-class to the communist party insiders back then and couldn't even travel around China without special permits.
The primary objective of British colonization around the world has been without exception the subjugation of the native population in order to extract economic benefits.
The objective fact is that Hong Kong now enjoys greater electoral freedom after severance from British colonial rule and returning to Chinese sovereignty. Yet the cacophony coming out of western media are actively encouraging the repainting of an otherwise undeniable fact as somehow controversial.
And then you have these nativist protestors who knowingly break the laws of the jurisdiction in a "I dare you to arrest me" fashion. It hit the peak of hypocrisy when they went to Washington to implore Donald Trump to assist them in instilling democracy in Hong Kong.
> The objective fact is that Hong Kong now enjoys greater electoral freedom after severance from British colonial rule and returning to Chinese sovereignty.
Does a British subject have less rights than a British citizen / non-subject in that colony (e.g., the administrators)?
EDIT: I asked this half rhetorically. Although I don't have citations to back it up, my impression is that natives who were colonial subjects didn't generally fare well. You may be able to argue minutae.
I think what they mean is that governors were appointed by British government from the UK region (predominatly white) and Hong Kong govt. would rotate around several colonial figures without democratic input from Hong Kong as is normal with British colonies and thus most of HongKongers life would be affected by a man they would not have an effect on.
As well, "British subjects" in a colony is always a controversial and touchy subject because you have both cases of how theyre treated depending on how they were percieved by the UK. There was a reason why USA started a revolution and India wanted to be independent under Gandhi which again ties with the idea that colonial subjects are usually exploited and not heard from.
I suppose it's the fading light of England's imperial hubris that is oblivious to why a Chinese man would fail to appreciate that he is the "subject" of a monarch who lies over 9,500 km away.
What rights do those the British try to "subjugate" in the six counties of north Ireland have? Diplock courts, the Special Powers act, shoot-to-kill, military/intelligence collusion with loyalist death squads etc.
Everyone knew it would happen and nothing can really be done (see Tibet). No one will start a trade or real war with China . They have veto power in UN ad that makes them powerful. So reality sets in.
Treaties and agreements can be enforced only with smaller nations.
> They have veto power in UN a[n]d that makes them powerful.
I'm interested in this idea. Obviously, they have veto power in the UN because they are powerful. But if they weren't already strong, how would the veto power help?
Inequality, is simply the cause of all these problem. That is everything from Spain, Brexit, US ( Trump ), and Hong Kong.
Housing prices is a big part of it. Because of QE, US has exported inflation around the world, along with China getting very rich since joining WTO, Pushes Asset prices to level unheard of.
Now some of you may think all these are irrelevant to the post above. Most people protest and wanted democracy not because it is a noble thing to do. They want better living standard, or for Hong Kong they simply want a place to live. Hong Kong housing prices / income is 50% to double of Vancouver. And people were calling Vancouver's prices insane.
They wanted their voice to be heard. And then hope some changes are being made. It was that simple, so they have hope, somewhere along the line in their future, they have hope some of these issues they have will be resolved.
Look at the world right now, politician in modern world is 10 times worst then what it was 10 - 20 years ago. They act a lot slower, but thanks to technology information flow has gotten million times faster. People's patient are wearing out. What do you expect them to do.
Read this pieces which descirbe the problem, and why some in Silicon Valley dont get it.
I don’t know how the people I listened to and talked to voted, but it’s easy to see why they might feel as if no one in Washington is living their lives. And that the tech world is just as distant as Hollywood or Wall Street.
We knew this going in. We decided to trade human rights and to empower an authoritarian government for cheap pants and blood-electronics. I’ve prayed just now, but I did so with a new iPad Pro 12.9” in my lap. I have no idea how to help.
As a Chinese citizen, I would appreciate if you stop thinking about "helping" us.
Even if you are genuine, it would come across as condescending.
Majority of people in China are happy with their lives, we certainly do not see the need for help from other countries in the way you wanted to.
Instead, I would suggest you focus on the problems and issues faced in your own country. In Chinese, there is a saying that "Please take care of your own backyard, before thinking of cleaning up other people's backyard."
Every country has its own problems, US, Spain, UK and China. Do you see people from UK offering to help solve gun problems in US? Do you see people from US offering to help self-determination problem in Spain?
Don't assume you have the moral high ground and Chinese people need your help. Try to talk to Chinese people and understand their perspective first.
No, I am not talking about someone being jailed for being activist. On that front, HK has its own laws and I respect that, the same way I respects US law and law in mainland China. I hope you would also respect the HK law being applied to HK residents.
I am specifically replying to the comment where the person wants to "help" China.
> You talk about the majority position. But what about these minorities? Do they feel the same way?
Many countries don't have the obsession over multiculturalism that America seems to have. Their priority isn't to have a diverse population, but rather is to raise the quality of life for as many people as possible as quickly as possible, hence the focus on the majority of the population. A homogeneous culture has many benefits during growth, like lower interpersonal conflict. Concepts like democracy and freedom mean very little if the quality of life is low.
Multiculturalism is taught since grade school in America and is seen as the only way to structure a society by most in the country. I actually often get called a racist when I mention to other people that it isn't the only way.
edit: I do find it interesting that this comment was downvoted. For those of you downvoting me, could you please explain why? Was my critique on multiculturalism not the reason my post above was downvoted?
I have a very close friend from mainland China and we talk frankly about politics.
There's a video that went viral on Weibo a couple of months ago.
- A mainland Chinese girl is destroying HK independence posters at a HK university.
- A Honkinese girl admonishes her for destroying the posters, as they are free speech.
- The mainland Chinese girl says that free speech means that since the Honkinese girl can put up posters the mainland Chinese girl can destroy them
- The HK girl says that the mainland Chinese girl can put up her own posters if she wishes.
In mainland China, the view is: that the Chinese girl speaks better English than the HK girl and makes an excellent point about how she's allowed to tear down the posters if the other girl can put them up because that's what free speech means.
This isn't ironic, it's what people think and that's why the video was popular: because the mainland girl spoke great English, made what seems like a good point, and defended Chinese integrity.
Close friend mentions that re: democracy, the people don't have any will at all: they don't really engage with politics. It's someone else's job to lead. You'd want to engage with running the country as much as being a firefighter or running the sewers.
Well, yes, I agree that Chinese people are somewhat lacking in critical thinking since so much policies are straight from the government and people just follow. It is very different from HK and US. In fact I think that's the main reason why the government's policies are so successful.
If more and more people are travelling abroad and absorbing this idea of free speech, the society would eventually transform and embrace the idea. However, critical thinking has to be there first, with majority of the people capable of making informed decisions, not like the reaction to the video you mentioned.
i suppose it's my western point of view that makes me view this sentiment as blisteringly immature, if that is indeed what most chinese actually think.
the stewardship of your country is always your job as a human being... even if you deny the responsibility, your country will act on your behalf, which means that you must control your leadership.
This strikes me as extremely confused. Chinese society is thousands of years old and has survived dynasty after dynasty, revolution after revolution. Perhaps their personal exit from politics is more earnest accumulated wisdom than blisteringly immature sentiment.
Contrast with your statement on stewardship, duty, and responsibility. What is behind this besides sentiment?
The society has survived with some level of cultural continuity. A lot of people died in those revolutions and the falling of those dynasties, though. The "wisdom" that China learned from that is "do everything possible to prevent a revolution or a change in dynasty". A better wisdom might be "make the transitions easier so that they don't have to be violent". Peaceful transitions via election are an example of this.
I think the things you mention are actually great ideas. Outsiders may have very different perspectives. Their experience and advice may be helpful or they may miss lots of details and offer completely useless, naive advice. But maybe learn why through dialogue. People are still free to disagree or disregard any the advice.
We should equally welcome opinions from Chinese citizens. I would hope blind patriotism would not prevent us from considering viable solutions.
> Do you see people from UK offering to help solve gun problems in US?
Many people do because the way UK society handles guns is very different from the US. The UK has a lot less gun violence.
> Do you see people from US offering to help self-determination problem in Spain?
Lots! Many Americans love to share their opinions. Both struggle with balancing the rights of central and local governments.
People help people, while nationalists are off somewhere in their own heads.
> Try to talk to Chinese people and understand their perspective first.
And that is? They're happy to be unfree, and think everybody else in the world only cares about their own problems, divided by nationality?
You said a lot, but not one word about your own, personal perspective. If I asked other Chinese people, would they also only tell me about yet other Chinese people? Then why bother?
Also note how you're not asking any questions yourself, either. You just assume others assume moral high ground and tell them, representative for all other Chinese citizens.
Even just one political prisoner, in China or any other country, makes the opinion of anyone who is "happy" in that country of rather secondary rank.
> In Chinese, there is a saying that "Please take care of your own backyard, before thinking of cleaning up other people's backyard."
I'm not an uptight corrupt goon, so for example I can make fun of the Chinese Communist Party and plenty of other politicians in plenty countries. I did take care of my backyard. I'm not responsible for what anyone else of $arbitrary_group_you_think_matters is doing, I'm responsible for what I'm doing. Criticize "my" country and I'll probably add to it, because of course I am critical of the things going on right under my nose. But defensive pouting? What for? Why would I need that?
Just because you love healthy food doesn't mean you go around on the street shoving salad in people's mouths.
> You said a lot, but not one word about your own, personal perspective. If I asked other Chinese people
He said:
> Majority of people in China are happy with their lives, we certainly do not see the need for help from other countries in the way you wanted to.
Which I'm pretty sure you can interpret as being how he and his immediate peers feel.
> I did take care of my backyard.
Unless you country is void of any problems or internal conflict, you've missed the point. Your backyard is your own government not your own appreciation of yourself.
> Just because you love healthy food doesn't mean you go around on the street shoving salad in people's mouths.
It's not a personal lifestyle choice or "culture". All human babies get born with a lot of curiosity and vitality. Some get broken and develop a pathological need for external validation to compensate something that never can compensate, instead of a grounding from which they can cooperate (and yes, that can mean following commands sometimes, but there's still an adult and a slave way of going about that, and if you were to say being a slave is a lifestyle choice then I'd just decide eating slaves is my lifestyle choice). That's not a matter of taste as far as I can tell, and if they defend their stunted development they by definition attack what I consider mental health, muddling it into some kind of thing nobody gets to have an opinion on until laws are broken. Not doing that. I see what I see, if you don't like what I have to say say something you think is better, but don't think I care about numbers of people. So far, I heard only "most people are happy". Not even "they are happy because", and not a PEEP how that outweighs those who are persecuted. It's literally just pointing to a blob. That's also something I see, and it's a sickness. Nothing to do with China, it's everywhere. But it's foolish in China, too.
There were people who got along fine in the GDR, too. I don't really blame them, I don't want to know how I would rate under such a regime. But really, when I want to know what the underbelly of the GDR was like, I don't ask them first, and certainly I wouldn't dream of only asking them.
Yeah, it's all subjective but that also gains us nothing because the subjective feelings of a billion Chinese don't outweigh my own subjective feelings. If they can't articulate why they feel that way, and can't interact with further responses to that, that doesn't surprise me at all.
You're basically saying -- maybe you don't want to say that, but that's what all this means, that's what matters in this -- it's good the people in the article and others are in jail or worse. Because to say otherwise would be "forcing my preferences on others"... how dare you, really. This isn't about whether someone likes the New Kids on the Block or Take That more. A million people who just go along to get along are not worth one person in jail for trying to be an individual. And you don't get to shove jail bars in their face because you can't stand words, even though you're so sloppy with those, too.
> Which I'm pretty sure you can interpret as
Yeah, I can, if I pretend "majority of people in China" means "me and my friends". But I can also read it as it's written, as opposed to sentences like "I think X because of Y".
> Unless you country is void of any problems or internal conflict, you've missed the point.
Not only did I not missed it, I addressed it. It's an invalid criticism in my books. A person isn't allowed to only speak up about anything in another country unless their country is "void of any problems" -- what would that even mean? That's like saying you can't write using any letters but square circles. That's not a point, it's just sophistry.
And as a bonus, it would also mean a person from $X doesn't get to criticize a person from $X for criticizing $X unless their country is perfect. Be HN US centric or international, it certainly is not within the great Firewall of China, right? So wouldn't a Chinese person make their country perfect and everybody in it immortal before ever criticizing a non-Chinese person? As I said, I find those demands completely arbitrary and void. But if some thinks they're valid, they should heed them themselves.
As a US citizen, if the Chinese people are happy with their government (or at least not unhappy enough to revolt) then the Chinese people should have that government. If the Chinese people are unhappy with their government, then they should revolt and if sufficient momentum is built up in that regard, and we are asked, only then should we consider "helping" anyone. I'd hope the Chinese would treat our sovereignty with the same respect.
I'd say there's one non-violent way to fight back that could significantly hurt China. Host an open source repo on GitHub that highlights China's suppressed history, and use QQ/WeChat/Weibo/etc to spread it to Chinese locals. Do the same for Reddit, and every other western service that isn't blocked in China. (It would likely also help to leave 1-2 star app/play store reviews of WeChat and mention the fact that all private messages/pictures are accessible to the government, and they use the service to limit free speech.)
Imagine how much western companies would suffer if GitHub disappeared overnight. It would quickly become known to the Chinese that a freaking repo containing nothing besides accurate Chinese history was responsible.
If you already obtained a decent reach within Chinese social media apps, then you should consider this: China can easily "shadow-block" certain phrases like tiananmen, hong kong + protest in same message, etc. and you can be certain most of these imagines you find online will also be "shadow-blocked". However, all it takes to beat their current system is to modify a single pixel.
Before you(or anyone else) commits to this plan, consider that your point of view may not be shared by the chinese people themselves. Your activism may have a negative effect for a variety of reasons - the people you're trying to educate don't have the same values as you, and they don't really see American intervention into local affairs as benevolent and virtuous.
> the people you're trying to educate don't have the same values as you, and they don't really see American intervention into local affairs as benevolent and virtuous.
Compare all the recent outrage caused by media stories that put the words "Facebook" and "Russia" in the single sentence. Messing with social media of another country is fun until you find yourself on the receiving end, then suddenly it's scandalous.
technically that happened ~10 years before the cold war ended. at that time, both sides were understood to be engaged in various less-than-friendly activities.
post-cold war happenings are things worth focusing on, imo.
I'm honestly too scared to do it. Not because I worry I'll be known as the guy who got GitHub banned in China (presumably after the rest of the world had to suffer from the inaccessibility caused by DDOS attacks that would likely last weeks (I mean the DDOS would last weeks, not the inaccessibility)), but because I worry the Chinese government would retaliate on me.
I agree that many Chinese don't share these values (although I do believe most of them choose to sacrifice their freedom because they don't really have a choice, and they feel it's justified by the country's growth), and that many innocent people would suffer. But I feel as long as the repo focus on spreading truthful history, then the government is to blame for whatever negative effect that occurs as a result of this.
As previous poster I would advise against this. While your intentions might be good it is usually a bad idea to try to intervene in domestic affairs of another country. See Iraq/Iran/Libya/Egypt and other examples from Middle East. You might just anger the local population and fuel anti American sentiment.
Plus also the point about Chinese people not necessarily sharing your western liberal values is a good one. It's not true that western values are universal (they are just a product of our society and history) and perhaps they have slightly different set of values based on their society and history.
> See Iraq/Iran/Libya/Egypt and other examples from Middle East.
The first three were military interventions, very different from fighting censorship. I don't know enough about Egypt/Mubarak to say the level of Western involvement if any.
Also China is interfering in other governments - specifically Taiwan and HK - all the time. *
* Re: HK, China agreed to allow HK people to vote for the leaders by 2017 in return for sovereignty, and did not fulfill this promise, therefore there is no reason to recognize their sovereignty.
> Re: HK, China agreed to allow HK people to vote for the leaders by 2017 in return for sovereignty, and did not fulfill this promise, therefore there is no reason to recognize their sovereignty.
Sure there is, short of nuclear war there’s no way to get the PRC’s government out of Hong Kong.
And the PRC signed a treaty with the U.K., and the U.K.’s signature on a treaty is dirt. They guaranteed the indivisibility and independence of Cyprus and did nothing when the Greeks invaded, they guaranteed Ukraine’s borders along with Russia and the USA. Two things are always true in international relations; never give up your nukes and never trust the U.K. or USA.
You’re right, the Turks invaded before the Greeks managed to do so. I suppose the U.K. might have been the closest to sincere of the signatories to the Treaty of Guarantee. Let it be noted that the Turkish invasion was a response to a Greek government backed coup of the Cypriot government.
Fuck nuance. Never give up your nukes and never trust anyone for your vital interests.
The nukes in Ukraine were not Ukrainian - they were Soviet. Ukraine had no knowledge and resources to maintain them in usable state, they would simply expire anyway. So at least someone made a quick buck on that. This episode actually sums up behaviour of Ukraine's politicians in their 25 years of existence - whatever can be sold, will be sold, consequences for your co-citizens be damned. Ukraine as a state has no interests, vital or not - only politicians have.
On the other hand, do you wonder why North Korea wants nukes?
I don’t know whether Ukraine or Kazakhstan was the second largest of the Soviet republics but I would be very, very surprised if given their population they could not have at minimum cannibalised the Soviet nukes to build a domestic Ukrainian deterrent.
I don’t wonder why North Korea wants nukes. I know why. Iraq, Libya, Iran. Compare and contrast.
> Sure there is, short of nuclear war there’s no way to get the PRC’s government out of Hong Kong.
It's entirely possible PRC could collapse. High growth rates and widespread corruption could easily cause a financial crisis that turns into a political one.
> The first three were military interventions, very different from fighting censorship. I don't know enough about Egypt/Mubarak to say the level of Western involvement if any.
They were ultimately military interventions but military solution is used always as last resort if you can't achieve your goal without it. West has been meddling in their domestic affairs and trying to influence these countries internally long before military invasions. And it continues to meddle and influence after war is over.
With Mubarak of course there was a lot of US involvement. Obama and Clinton supporter Muslim Brotherhood & Morsi heavily for some reason which ended in overthrowing of Mubarak and establishment of a theocratic state... which had to be then reversed in another revolution.
> Also China is interfering in other governments - specifically Taiwan and HK - all the time. *
From their point of view HK and Taiwan are part of China. On Western maps it shows Taiwan as an independent country but mainland Chinese consider it integral part of China.
> * Re: HK, China agreed to allow HK people to vote for the leaders by 2017 in return for sovereignty, and did not fulfill this promise, therefore there is no reason to recognize their sovereignty.
That's true. But countries break promises when convenient including western democracies.
Equating invasions, bombings, and direct material support for local factions to "make some objective history available to people who want to read it" is extremely disingenuous.
Now you're getting off topic. Private citizens making factual information available is literally the opposite of propaganda.
It's no surprise that Russia tried to influence US politics. We need to do a better job of educating our citizens on critical thinking, including recognizing propaganda and fake news.
> Private citizens making factual information available is literally the opposite of propaganda.
This may be true if correctly done, but chances are good that if a state actor tried to Correct the Record, they would add their own political spin or only give information that helps the nation giving the information, and it would be widely seen as propaganda and looked at with disdain by most of the population.
Not all of what Russia released was just emotional manipulation. Russia released the DNC emails, which greatly increased political instability despite the fact that it was true. Russia is now seen as a meddler in our democratic process.
You don't think similar disdain would be seen towards Americans if we inject political instability into their country?
What's China gonna do about it? If someone lives in America, then they have nothing to worry about.
China can go ban github or something if they get upset over "foreign intervention". Then they will suffer all the economic damages that comes from that.
The reason to do something like this is PRECISELY because it makes those who do not support "western liberal values" upset.
>What's China gonna do about it? If someone lives in America, then they have nothing to worry about.
If you're on the internet, then you can be targeted by anyone across the world, no matter where you live. Psyops/social engineering, identity theft, DDoS, doxxing, blackmail...
Oh no, china is going to come after me for posting information about them on the internet that they don't like!
Oh no, my anonymous github account will be hacked!
Seriously, this shit doesn't happen. There are too many people doing too many things in the world for a government across the world to do much of anything to anyone.
I am not ever going to live my life in fear of something dumb, like that. I am going to criticize and offend whatever world governments deserve to be offended.
If they don't like it, they can send their secret james bond assassins after me for posting stuff on the internet that hurt their feelings.
If someone actually did this successfully, then GitHub is put in a very tough spot where they have to choose between potentially losing the Chinese market, or begin to censor their platform, which could be the beginning of the end for them (I imagine GitLab would certainly take advantage of the situation).
China would most definitely retaliate; first by threatening and attacking GitHub, and if that didn't work then block the site completely. This would result in the Chinese companies/government losing billions, their tech progress could be severely hurt, and they would risk enraging the Chinese dev community.
It's very naive to think that the people responsible for creating and spreading this repo wouldn't be attacked, and while you might succeed in maintaining anonymity of the GitHub account (risky assumption), you most certainly wouldn't be able to remain anonymous when spreading it on Chinese services like QQ/WeChat/Weibo/etc (at least if an individual were to attempt to do this).
This kind of stuff has already played out. For years, people have been putting stuff on github, for the purpose of pissing off china. The most famous example is with GreatFire, an organization that helps people get around the great firewall of china. That is why I defended it as a very good example of a way to fight chinese censorship. Because people are literally already doing it, and the attempted attacks on those people, and github, have failed.
China did not win. Github did not get permanently blocked. They got DDoS for a week or something, but ultimately did not lose "billions".
The reason these temporary blocking attempts and attacks fail, is because github is a critical piece of infrastructure, and if a country blocks it, then it will suffer massive economic damage, and be forced to reconsider the block.
I very much hope that China continues to waste their time on these attacks. They will fail like they failed before. The more desperate they are, the more that they thrash around and fail to achieve any results, the more that people realize how little power they actually have to stop people from spreading information.
"This would result in the Chinese companies/government losing billions, their tech progress could be severely hurt, and they would risk enraging the Chinese dev community."
Good. Maybe then the Chinese citizens will do something about it. Chinese censorship mostly only hurts their own people (and by extension, it would then hurt the people in power), which will hurt them in the long term.
"It's very naive to think that the people responsible for creating and spreading this repo wouldn't be attacked"
The GreatFire people seem to be doing just fine, despite how much they have pissed off the chinese government. So empirically, as proven by facts, you are wrong.
I'm well aware of previous incidents, which is my basis for why GitHub is the platform that can cause so much damage to the Chinese government. We both seem to agree that China is very dependent on GitHub (perhaps the only western website they still rely on) and the economic damage of being forced to block it would be astronomical.
What I suggested and GreatFire is miles apart. Moreover, I'm not saying that throwing up some wikipedia articles about Tiananmen, Chairman Mao, etc. will result in China being forced to block GitHub or attack you. The path to success is to have the repo spread to tens of millions of Chinese locals. Regular people, not just the tech savvy that knows what a VPN is. It certainly won't be easy, especially considering they can easily shadowblock all links to the repo, the name of the repo, a picture with a link/QR, etc.
By the way, people have already been and continue to be tracked down and attacked for doing these kinds of things (a notably incident that reached the front page of HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10101469), so no, the assumption that people will be attacked for doing this is most definitely not wrong.
>Seriously, this shit doesn't happen. There are too many people doing too many things in the world for a government across the world to do much of anything to anyone
But it also looks like a western person showed up and messed with their system, thereby purposefully sabotaging them and trying to get services blocked to the average Chinese?
I believe everyone deserve access to factual information and history, and it deeply saddens me when people abuse their power to suppress information, rewrite history, brainwash people, etc. China is not the only offender, but I'd say that they are the most dangerous one, and they even abuse their power to force other nations to submit themselves to their tyranny.
Everyone is unique, have different ideas, beliefs and thinking capabilities. It's only natural that, as such, people will process and respond to the same content in different ways.
I do believe that many Chinese people would form drastically different opinions if they had access to factual information. That being said, I must admit that my personal motivation would be less about helping the Chinese people, and more about attempting to limit China's power.
However, as I also mentioned in the other post, I'm not brave enough to even attempt to execute this idea. It's also important to anyone who might consider it that they would, if successful, endanger the life of themselves and their loved ones.
Thank you for taking the time to respond. The problem is that "factual information" can have a narrative that changes how events are interpreted [1].
An additional question: suppose you could limit the power of the alt-right, neo-nazies, and other racist agitators by limiting the flow of information.
Agreed, but I believe you'll also agree that factual information with a narrative is better than fictitious information (and I'm struggling to think of an example where fictitious/censored information wouldn't have a narrative as well).
In an ideal world, then I'd say that the goal should be to educate the current and future generations to develop critical thinking capabilities, so that they'll hopefully laugh/cry/shake their head (or if they have more patience/heart than me, try to educate) when they read the kind of information you'd more often than not find on the_donald.
I honestly don't support the idea of censorship, and I believe everyone should have the right to privacy (I'm very saddened today to discover that Apple/NSA/Chinese government/etc is likely secretly recording my iPhone screen as I type this message). A part of me would even want to go as far as to say that if people wanted to spread hateful messages/illegal activity, then the solution shouldn't be to censor them, but rather to rely on the people to downvote and educate. Imagine a Reddit where mods were incapable of deleting/censoring any content. What do you think would happen? I personally have no idea, but I believe that there's a real chance these alt-right and racist aggregators wouldn't be able to succeed in creating a "safe haven" where they'd continue to have their hateful views reinforced. I recently read an interesting article about a neo-nazi that was forced to interact with a black police officer, resulting in a friendship that ended his hateful views. I strongly believe that if they couldn't censor rational voices (which I'd like to believe outnumber them by at least 10 to 1) then there's a high chance that their views could be corrected.
It would definitely be very difficult to achieve this when governments like Russia's appear willing to commit hundreds of millions of dollars (I'm assuming) in supporting hateful views. But I do (probably naively) believe that if people were highly educated then it should be possible to build a platform that could withstand these state attacks (e.g. value an upvote by a high karma user higher than a low karma user). Do you think the HN crowd would be negatively influenced (persuaded) by hateful flow of information? If the answer is no, doesn't that mean that high intelligence can withstand hateful/fake information and that there'd therefore be no need to censor it?
Censorship is dangerous because it can easily be abused. You may want to argue that with the right censorship tools then we could've prevented Trump from becoming the president. But what happens when a manic like him ends up in a position of control over said censorship tools? I'm guessing he'd do everything possible to become a dictator, to rewrite history, to spread his hateful views, to worsen the education and attempt to brainwash the students, etc. The way I see it, the only sustainable solution would be achieving a highly intelligent population.
I thank you for having good intention, but please do research properly, understand the bias and perspective from each article that you read, and make a judgement only after you have considered all sides of the argument.
Do rush to spread information that you think is true just because you read it from the Internet and China is bad.
They cannot block a specific repo (although GitHub could make it inaccessible to Chinese users, but I don't think they'd want to censor their platform), which is why China resorted to DDOS. I think it really speaks volumes as to how important GitHub currently is to them.
Github and Google services were once blocked in Turkey for political reasons. Even ATMs couldn't fetch updates because they relied on Github. When people started to realize the situation, github and google services were unblocked in a day.
Consistency would be nice. I'll even give you a stronger word for it: integrity.
But you didn't ask for consistency. You asked for one specific thing. Why that one thing rather than something else? Why not something more general?
It sounds like you don't just want him to be consistent. It sounds like you want him to grind the axe that you want him to grind, or else like you want to discredit him while he's grinding the axe that he wants to grind. And it sounds like you want to hide that behind asking for consistency, which is a really dishonest and cheap rhetorical trick.
Now, it's possible that I'm misreading what you're trying to do. But you sure come across that way, at least to me.
I think the common understanding before 2000 was that as China developed, it would open up and 'have no choice' but to gradually move towards liberalization and democracy.
It's a question that really hasn't been answered yet, to be honest.
If you look at the top 50 countries by GDP per capita, most of them still do have a relatively high degree of freedom (in speech, press, etc.) compared to the world average. (The exceptions tend to be authoritarian regimes with oil, but with "peak oil demand" being a possibility in the long term, the long term future of this position is uncertain, in my opinion).
Nothing has changed in this regard. China has risen far economically and is still rising today. But by the GDP per capita statistic they still rank roughly on par with the world average (in the 70s rank). Russia's probably the strongest authoritarian economy that is not hugely dependent on oil (although it's still a decent chunk of it), but as far as GDP per capita goes they've been treading water lately.
Correlation is not causation, of course, so it's hard to tell whether this is a feature or a coincidence. I suppose we'll find out in the near future. I think it's still an open question whether China's policies increasingly interfere with the increasingly important knowledge economy, and end up hindering their growth. (Based on how China tiptoes around censorship of tech areas like Github, I suspect they are well aware of this possibility.)
It's likely that China is not going high-income. It's obvious that India is not going high-income. It's apparent that Russia isn't going to be high-income either. Same for Iran, Indonesia, Philippines. So are we headed towards a planet which is mostly authoritarian, and in which most of GDP is produced in authoritarian countries?
Won't islands of democracy become fewer and further between? It seems that Democracy became much more expensive not unlike real estate and college are, and now a lot of communities can't afford it still.
Are you referring to Nixon/Kissinger opening up a bit with China or Clinton (mostly?) opening up trade with China or the whole process? IIRC the UK only had a 99 year lease on Hong Kong due to the western powers winning the Opium Wars and it had to go back to mainland China (unless the UK wanted to go to war again I suppose) so I was always kind of fatalistic about the fate of Hong Kong under China - it was always going to resemble the mainland governance at some point.
Hong Kong Island and Kowloon were ceded by the Qing Dynasty in perpetuity. The New Territories were leased (Boundary Street being the dividing line). Even with the New Territories though HK is dependent on the mainland for things like fresh water, so some accommodation with the PRC was going to have to be reached regardless.
This is a modern re-interpretation of inter-state conflict. In the past it was widely accepted that states could resolve disputes via war. By that standard, the UK could indeed keep HK indefinitely.
A post-WWI agreement, called the Kellog-Briand Pact, sets the state for multilaterism, and outlaws war for conquest. This later develops into non-recognition of illegal conquests, war crimes, etc.
So, in contrast to HK, Tibet will never be part of China. But at the moment China is too rich, and Tibet to inconsequential, for anyone to make a big deal over it.
" But at the moment China is too rich, and Tibet to inconsequential, "
This is it.
When I was in Cali 1997-2003 - 'Tibet' was all the rage.
Hollywood, popular opinion, documentaries etc. etc..
Then about the mid-2000s', 'Tibet' was snuffed out as a 'popular concern'.
There were quite a number of big business people/CEO's whispering about Tibet as a 'cause' - but they shut up pretty quick.
China has very effectively divided and conquered Western leaders who speak with 1000' voices (i.e. politicians, CEO's, academics) and even played nations against one another.
They have very effectively dangled the 'we have 1 Billion consumers carrot' in front of everyone and have them all kow-towing (pun intended) to get a juicy slice, but it never quite happens.
It's amazing how much indirect influence a coordinated attempt to attack an issue can have.
I remember the Dalai Lama used to even be a big name in the press, we hardly hear about him any more. Many, long tentacles ...
> This is a modern re-interpretation of inter-state conflict. In the past it was widely accepted that states could resolve disputes via war. By that standard, the UK could indeed keep HK indefinitely.
By that standard PRC could send their military and take over Hong Kong and then keep it indefinitely. In a direct conflict UK would lose and they probably knew that which is why they left voluntarily.
> A post-WWI agreement, called the Kellog-Briand Pact, sets the state for multilaterism, and outlaws war for conquest. This later develops into non-recognition of illegal conquests, war crimes, etc.
This pact seems to be historically insignificant. US has been using war as an instrument of national policy quite frequently. Same for Russia and before that Soviet Union. And other countries. So why not China?
> So, in contrast to HK, Tibet will never be part of China. But at the moment China is too rich, and Tibet to inconsequential, for anyone to make a big deal over it.
Tibet is definitely a part of China though. For example, on Google Maps I don't see Tibet marked as a separate nation. It's part of China according to biggest online maps provider.
This always seemed a bit strange. Provoke a nation into war (e.g. Britain with the opium wars, America when they wanted to annex California) and you get to keep the land you took, but if you didn't use violence to get the land you have to give it back.
Was there an actual choice to be had, though? I know we in the West enjoy the self-flagellation, but it's not like countries we don't trade with are necessarily beacons of respect for human rights and democratic accountability.
If it wasn't going to be China, it was going to be, and has already been somewhere else. Look at the labels on the clothes you wear, many aren't made in China.
>Wong is open about his Christian faith and how it catalyzed his activism against Beijing’s tightening control over Hong Kong.
Christianity's role in Chinese society is interesting.
There are something like 100 million christians in China, and based off of stories from friends, a lot of cults in that space as well. A lot of organizations play off of that. For example multi-level marketing stuff talk a lot about being children of God in their sessions in China.
Considering how Christianity affects decision-making in the west, I wonder if this will in fact drive major change politically in China as well.
> I wonder if this will in fact drive major change politically in China as well.
It will change 0 politically in China.
Firstly, 100 million would be close to 1 in 15 people being Christian, and Christianity is nowhere near that popular in China.
That aside, even if it did get so popular that it started to become a threat (in terms of wielding political influence), Beijing would simply shut it down.
See for example Falungong, which was estimated to have upwards of 70 million practitioners and was allowed (and even encouraged) for a time, but as their influence and their unwillingness to submit in anyway to government interference grew, so did tensions between the two groups, culminating in Falungong supporters staging a protest surrounding the entire central government compound of Zhongnanhai with > 10,000 supporters.
The government began work to suppress and dismantle Falungong almost overnight.
The Taiping Rebellion resulted in 20-30 million deaths so I think it's fair to say that Christianity has already caused major political change in China.
100 million isn't anywhere close to what I've seen reports of before, and I can't imagine it being true. Do you have any non-religiously motivated sources for that claim?
I'm not sure where the 100 million estimate comes from, either, but on the other hand, I have no idea what your reports have stated.
I'm not clear on how religious motivation should exaggerate their data. Does it help to intentionally overreport and claim that religious people are underrepresented? Is it better to intentionally underreport and go for the angle of persecuted minority group, so that the greater international community, and perhaps even the general populace would have sympathy? Maybe both, depending on the situation.
Are there studies on the difference in accounting of the number of self-professing religious believers in a population as reported by religious and nonreligious sources?
The article struck me as strangely religious in nature. Then the front page of the website showed what seemed to be a few more religious issues (assisted suicide, abortion), related articles as well. Their about page is a wall of vague text, but one of the main topic categories being "abortion" leads me to believe this is a news site centering around religious issues?
Would appreciate someone filling me in on what sort of publication this is, if possible.
This is allegedly caused China to block Apple iTunes after carrying "10 Years" in their catalog. http://www.smh.com.au/world/china-blocks-apple-itunes-and-ib...