- lead by a billionnaire dictator and son of veteran communist party member, who has shown to purge his enemies, jail innocents/reporters without trial, disappear others. He oppresses the will of hong kongers to self govern, and acts like a crybaby whenever Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, does anything political
- controlled by a "congress" of billionnaires, who work together to exploit workers for pennies on the dollar, turn a blind eye to deadly air pollution/water pollution/poisonous food in favor of money, and when in danger, flees to Australia/Canada/US with billions
- member in WTO, but never abides by any of the rules. Foreign companies are forced to give up tech, partner with locals, suffer 30% import tax, and eventually, leave due to unfairness. And other countries loses factories/jobs/communities. Internet companies are sometimes banned outright.
Of course China needs to spend billions spreading its false/hateful messages via its 50cents army on reddit, facebook, etc. It has a cruel and evil authoritarian dictatorship, that if unchecked, will swallow the world
People who haven't lived in China have a hard time wrapping their heads around the grave implications of this.
There is no free press in China so you can only see a small fraction of the life-destroying problems that are pervasive throughout the country, let alone shine enough light on them to solve them.
An extended PR campaign such as this is only going to exacerbate the distortion of reality.
Boo. False equivalency. Can we acknowledge that this is the favored argument by authoritarian propaganda machines and it's a baseless distraction? It has no place here.
Huh? Not sure how that's relevant to you trying to use a garbage argument in response to very valid criticisms of modern China. Everything PP said was accurate, US doesn't come close by comparison, your observation is manipulatively off base.
The US is also still largely a transparent democracy. By soft-power do you mean the only modern country so defined by its achievements that it's culture is emulated across the world?
In the former Soviet Union and even in modern China it's fashionable and a sign of wealth to have American technology and fashion. Among many trade barriers, China artificially limits the number of American movies allowed in theaters to a couple a year because they're so popular.
Even countries with extremely friendly relations to the US take some actions to limit the pervasiveness of US culture. In the case of Japan, limiting the number of US baseball players on Japanese teams comes to mind.
It's telling that even with the magnitude of recent intel leaks there has been nothing found to indicate the US uses government funded propaganda. They don't need to.
Not to go too off my chain too much on why US culture is looked up to, but we're talking about the country that invented the car,microchip, transistor, computer, atomic weapons, GPS, and the internet.
Most of the great inventions of modern history were created in the United States, some of them by the government itself. Silicon valley continues to pump out the most valuable companies in the world at an astounding rate to this day.
So what is soft power exactly? Is it bad that a lot of countries look up to the US model of society? Is that unfair? Your claim is baseless, American culture is popular simply because the US is so successful.
Or in Chile, where the United States overthrew a democratically elected leader and installed a dictator who went on to commit over 300 human rights atrocities.
Indeed many of the technologies you cite as being invented by the US were invented within a military context! Atomic weapons were not, I'm sorry to say, America's wonderful altruistic gift to the world.
The US has certainly been successful projecting its power around the world - arguing that that has come from the sheer force of American global popularity is more of a stretch.
And here we go, meandering farther and farther from the point at hand. That article is not from a respectable news source and your claims, which have nothing to do with China, are not verifiable.
However, my arguments are easily verifiable and widely known. Why do other countries feel the need to block things like US movies and sports stars? Are your seriously suggesting that such things are secretly US govt propaganda?
The most reasonable explanation is that US movies and sports stars are known for their high quality and allowing the US to compete in those countries would totally wipe out local movies and sports stars. This would obviously contribute to the spread of US culture and continue propagating the believe that the US model of society produces superior products.
Countries like Russia and China depend on their propaganda machines to keep the population complacent. Allowing foreign competition to overtake local firms and show their superiority to the local populace would result in questions those governments don't want these citizens asking.
Foreign companies find little trouble competing in the US, because the US govt by large is not concerned with the influence of foreign culture. The government is slight corrupt but not to the point that it makes widespread lies necessary to maintain order. Many foreign companies have the US as their primary market, something China and other countries that depend on propaganda for peace would never allow.
Trump has proposed exactly the same kind of 30% import tax, is also happy to turn a blind eye to air pollution and has handed over the Department of Education to a billionaire who to all intents and purposes bought the job.
Perhaps those American exceptionalism rose tinted sunglasses aren't working so well for you.
I would expect the usual 10% for WTO members without other trade agreements. If you add the higher 17% VAT rate to that and round up, I guess you can sort of justify "30%", but that's misleading, since VAT applies to domestic companies too.
They spy on you, regardless of if you live in the country or not, committing global espionage[0][1]
They do not observe human rights when imprisoning you [2][3]
They are happy to bomb civilians using automated robots in the name of freedom and enlisting you to their brand of freedom[4]
They are happy to arm terrorists then assassinate them when they are no longer relevant to their cause[5]
They will wage illegal wars when it is convenient for them[6]
They were happy to obliterate people's homes to conduct nuclear tests in the name of freedom[7]
They institutionally protect the interests of the people with the most access to wealth[8]
They have elected a narcissistic nepotistic sexist bigot for their president, and do not have free healthcare [no citations necessary]
I'm not here to spark a tally of which country has committed more atrocities or which country is better - the world is simply a dirty place, and to this day, humans are still as capable of committing human on human sin.
China is no doubt guilty of many crimes too but I find China bashing by other countries reeking of hypocrisy and evidence that our own nations' propaganda machines are well oiled and in full-throttle.
At least there are articles/opinions written down for what is happening in US which you can quote. For China, in many cases, you can't even do that given press/govt restrictions.
Also, to say that China has better human rights record vs. US is almost blasphemy. Why even quote that?
For the last point, what are you trying to say? Democracy doesn't work - lets all most to the communist model!? I know you are trying to be a the devils advocate, but using one off examples (while ignoring everything that China represents) to justify your points seems wrong.
>At least there are articles/opinions written down for what is happening in US which you can quote. For China, in many cases, you can't even do that given press/govt restrictions.
Also, are you really trying to say that press in China has unfettered rights to publish anything? This is a country which has a giant firewall to prevent users from reading news/articles critical of it published outside China.
Yeah - as I said, I'm not saying China is without sin. I just find China bashing to really be nothing more than an exercise of "pulling the ladder up". Europe was perfectly happy colonising the world in its heyday, as was America in the past. Now that they've entrenched their position in the world, suddenly it's not ok when other people are trying to climb the ladder.
You are implying that China _must_ behave this way in order to become a developed country and then they can adjust to modern standards. Seems silly to me.
uh, this is 2017, not 1930s. let's judge China by today's standard. You can't absolve a sin from someone today because someone else "used to do it" 100 years ago
>They ...do not have free healthcare [no citations necessary]
When I lived and worked in China, for a government entity, the insurance didn't cover anything I ever needed it for and I had to pay out of pocket 100% of the time for all costs. The private healthcare industry is exploding in China right now because the public healthcare system is inadequate.
There is no such thing as free healthcare. Even if you install single payer and ration health supplies to the extent more people die on waiting lists like in Canada, the government will still be paying for the little care that remains through your own taxes or debt obligations.
People die on waiting lists in America too, so if you are going to make this argument, be specific. How many people, what are they on the waiting list for, and how is it worse than what we have in America?
The answer is in just one word to the left of that quote: "_more_ people die on waiting lists like in Canada."
It's not that the free market provides a panacea utopia, it's that it's empirically better than everything else. The government system in Canada predictably and steadily broke down as efficiency left due to the lack of a free market.
>The study, an annual survey of physicians from across Canada, reports a median wait time of 20 weeks [in 2016] —the longest ever recorded—and more than double the 9.3 weeks Canadians waited in 1993 [when single-payer began], when the Fraser Institute began tracking wait times for medically necessary elective treatments.
Well this will be my last response in playing the "but what about X" whackamole game where someone fires off a one liner and I gather data to create response after response when I've already demonstrated and evidenced the concepts and none of the axioms I've mentioned whose application would've answered that question have been addressed let alone refuted.
I've already spent significant amounts of effort in this thread gathering and summarizing data only to be repeatedly downvoted for bringing hard evidence that challenges the status quo opinion.
The study I've already cited more closely than international comparisons isolates the variable of single payer because it measures the same data points over time using the same methodology in the same country.
Comparing the US and Canada tends to be less reliable in comparison because the properties involved are more fluid, although it's still a useful comparison in some ways. Furthermore, the US healthcare system already has major single payer elements such as Medicare, which would complicate the isolation of the variable.
I just googled "difference in procedure wait times between the united states and canada" and literally every result on the front page supports the longer wait times in Canada that you asked to be shown.
There's no miracle. It's merely the communist party stopping 40 years of criminal abuse of its own citizens, and deciding to rent them out for pennies to the foreign corporations, and making billions in the progress (then allowing its members to escape China with the money).
The miracle actually is that Communist party, with its massive debt, crashing economic policies, authoritarian policies, censorship, human rights abuse, trashing of its environment/food supplies/water supplies, is still standing.
the communist party stopping 40 years of criminal abuse of its own citizens, and deciding to rent them out for pennies to the foreign corporations, and making billions in the progress (then allowing its members to escape China with the money).
It is a fair point that a lot of stolen money escaped the country, though it's generally recognized that this process is slowing now. However, it is not fair to suggest that the Chinese government abused its citizens for personal profit when quite clearly the entire population has benefited greatly from the country's transition to widespread modern material wealth.
The miracle actually is that Communist party, with its massive debt, crashing economic policies, authoritarian policies, censorship, human rights abuse, trashing of its environment/food supplies/water supplies, is still standing.
If you replace Community party with US or UK government, the same is also true.
As an American that has 100% ownership in two China legal enterprises, not sure where some items in your bullet list are coming from. Yes, there are unique difficulties. No, communist hard-liners are not setting over my shoulder plotting to take my business without a trial.
That's only if your company is a Wholly Foreign-Owned Enterprise (WFOE), which come with its own special set of deliberately roadblocks which are not there if a Chinese partner is involved.
Likely the allure of so many potential customers that are otherwise inaccessible. (I'm not saying this is a valid reason to ignore the above, but potentially why some might.)
> - requires you to give up 50% to a local partner
Chinese people. Don't worry, there's plenty. And they do not have subpar education, nor do they have less intellectual capacity (hell, most studies seem to conclude they have -just a little- more, on average).
> - blocks internet access to foreign websites (thus foreign customers)
I think you'll find that inbound commerce (or outbound commerce) is not all that restricted. Some movies, yes. And newspapers (do they still exist ?). That's about it. Other than that, it's not more restricted than in the west (ie. large amounts expenditures require government/irs/... approval one way or the other).
> - can take away your business/assets/customers without trials
It's not like Japan did it for 30 years before that ... By the way ... how did the US get started on it's industrial base ? Could it have been copying ?
> - treats foreigners as a mere entity to steal technology and clients from?
Again, one wonders how Europeans think about America in this area. Yep, similarly.
you seem to be wanting to argue about something which I did not even bring up. internet is not a place you start arguing with yourself.
> it's not more restricted than in the west
Yeah....you keep telling yourself that. I don't think you've actually been to China where foreigners struggles to hit youtube/facebook/google using a variety of VPN tools every day
I think I'll stop...there's too much cognitive dissonance here
It's unfortunate you're being downvoted. I highly recommend the book, Bad Samaritans [1] as it shows that all developed countries followed a similar pattern of IP theft and protectionism.
Sidenote: Jeff Tucker mentioned how the US in the 1800s enforced American authors' IP, but not British. So school teachers ended up using the cheaper British authored books instead of the Americans. Leading to more British authors becoming famous in the US.
Now, this I have been wondering for a long time. Chinese authorities, especially on a local level, aren't exactly known for their honesty and high moral standards. At the same time, they have a lot of incentives to over-report one particular metric: population.
So, when people are talking about 1,5 billion Chinese - have these figures have been independently confirmed, or just taken straight from the government?
If anything, the population is underreported. The 2010 census claims it to be around 1.3 billion. But it is widely accepted as a fact that a lot of people in the countryside weren't included in the census because they are "illegal" additional children born in defiance of the one-child policy, and were simply hidden in the basement during the census, as they are hidden whenever any government check is happening.
Those children have no rights, and according to the state, don't exist. They can't go to school, get an official job, etc. They are born to do physical work on the fields and support their parents into their old age.
"China’s sprawling Internet censorship regime is harming the country’s economic and scientific progress, a senior official has said in a rare public rebuke of long-standing Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policy."
So they're creating alot of startups that probably are just copycats of what's existing. Not surprising considering China really isn't known for innovations.
It's most likely a jumping off point. One way to learn painting in the past was to copy paintings made by masters. So as the economy develops and more people can afford to take risks, innovations should be more common (unless govt intervention prevents it). Japan was viewed upon as a land of where cheap imitations were made.
They've been saying that since the Chinese economy opened up in the 80s, really opened up in the 90s, really really opened up in the 2000s. so far, nothing in 35 years. Japan had so much innovations in way less time. meanwhile China's economy is crashing down, and no more free FDI to fuel any further progress
I have a few anecdotal examples of innovations or ways in which China is 'ahead':
Bike-sharing startups like MoBike: Use their app to find the nearest bike to you, scan a QR code to unlock it, and pay $0.15 for one hour. You can then ride and leave it anywhere. Admittedly, this is only possible due to v. high urban density (China has ten cities with populations greater than London and similar urban densities).
I can order a lot from the same app/interface: takeaway, cinema tickets, hotels, flights, KTV, etc. I find this more convenient than UK. Mobile payment penetration here is very high here too. Almost everyone pays for almost everything with WeChat.
Andrew Ng argues that AI progress in China is underreported due to the language barrier. I suspect this insight applies more generally to all the innovations happening here.
The amount of information available to westerners about the Chinese economy is pretty pitiful. Here in the U.S. there's like four or five talking points that echo around the media about the Chinese economy and those are the only tidbits people bring up.
I've seen a few NHK documentaries about China. Kudos to them for chasing down interesting angles.
Ng may be right, and the article suggests a massive upsurge in papers in the last 3-4 years, but I'm dubious about quality, if the AI field is anything like neuroscience was. When I was back in grad school, I worked with a prominent Dutch researcher who routinely saw his papers translated into Chinese and re-published by Chinese authors as their own.
At first, it drove him crazy, and he tried to get them to stop, issue retractions, etc. But he eventually learned to roll with it. The people involved may have had excellent careers at home, but were contributing no new knowledge, and just taking up resources.
Highly doubtful on both points. As for open up political system
- Xi Jinping is consolidating his power to be the dictator of China. He is removing rivals using routing out corruption as excuse (and not targeting his own supporters)
- China's economy is crashing. It's approaching 300% debt ratio in combined corporate + government + individual. Its gross reserve is down to less than 3T (IMF believes China needs at least 2.7T to operate). Its net reserve (gross - debt) is down to 1.7T. It had a capital outflow of 700B in 2016. Yuan fell the most in 2016, since 1994. It is now trying to close up the internal system via capital control, rights restrictions, censorship, etc
- censorship, bad access to world internet, corruption, zenophobia/racism, bad manners/behaviors from locals, no weed
- China only has 600,000 foreigners registered living in there in 2016. Half of those are from Taiwan/Hong Kong. Super small number for a country of 1.3B.
The Chinese communist party (CCP) tortured its own citizens for 40 years. Then it stopped beating them and then rented them out to foreign corporations for pennies on the dollar, for hard, back-breaking labor. Then the CCP members left China with billions and escaped.
Actually...my friend went to an organized rave in north Beijing, the authorities stopped the bus on the way back to the city, all Chinese were drug tested, the foreigners were just ignored for some reason.
I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I've never heard of anyone getting even deported for drugs, let alone jailed. But remember Chinese laws are enforced selectively, so it is playing with fire.
I don't know about the rest of it, I suspect you might well be right, but having been born in Mexico, lived in the US for 5 years and traveled to China for 2 weeks, I can tell you that "lack of food delicacies" is a much bigger issue in the USA than in China from my point of view ;)
- lead by a billionnaire dictator and son of veteran communist party member, who has shown to purge his enemies, jail innocents/reporters without trial, disappear others. He oppresses the will of hong kongers to self govern, and acts like a crybaby whenever Taiwan, a self-governing democracy, does anything political
- controlled by a "congress" of billionnaires, who work together to exploit workers for pennies on the dollar, turn a blind eye to deadly air pollution/water pollution/poisonous food in favor of money, and when in danger, flees to Australia/Canada/US with billions
- member in WTO, but never abides by any of the rules. Foreign companies are forced to give up tech, partner with locals, suffer 30% import tax, and eventually, leave due to unfairness. And other countries loses factories/jobs/communities. Internet companies are sometimes banned outright.
Of course China needs to spend billions spreading its false/hateful messages via its 50cents army on reddit, facebook, etc. It has a cruel and evil authoritarian dictatorship, that if unchecked, will swallow the world