[Fasces]

What's boring is your constant backdropping. First it was the SCS then it was everyone hates China, then Evergrande, now it's the "Asian model".

Chrissakes, you spent the first half of this thread telling me Xi changed everything for China for the worse, and now you try to say Xi isn't saying anything new? Embarrassing. Pick a lane.

[Rugoz]

This time for sure.

...

Headlines are always exaggerating. No idea what that is supposed to prove. Moreover, the Chinese economy obviously has its ups and downs. Just because it has a high underlying growth rate doesn't mean there's no business cycle.

And again, people engage in speculation when they don't have reliable data. For example, how is anyone supposed to know how inequality developed under Xi? There's only data up to 2015.

Replace Hu Jintao with Xi Jinping, and 2008 with 2019, and this sentence could've been written this year - almost word for word. In the last couple of years, Hu has been "rehabilitated" in the eyes of the west, now seen as a reformer and liberal in comparison to Xi. I imagine that if/when the next paramount leader takes the helm in China, Xi would also undergo a similar rehabilitation.

Hu was "rehabilitated" because Xi proved to be so much worse.

[late]

now it's the "Asian model"

It would be nice if you had something to say.

You didn't argue that they aren't using the Asian model, because you can't. Facts are stubborn things..

If it makes you feel better, much of the world sailed into the pandemic with too much debt. That money sloshed around in too few hands, driving up asset prices across the board, for the most part. The problem with the Asian model is that it is made worse by having too much government involvement which results in severe distortions in the economy.

This is not new, look at how hard Japan crashed when it hit the wall.

[Rugoz]

Moreover, the Chinese economy obviously has its ups and downs. Just because it has a high underlying growth rate doesn't mean there's no business cycle.

On the other hand, it's suspiciously flat from 2014 to 2019. Maybe Xi ordered his underlings to apply a filter.

[JohnRawls]

On the other hand, it's suspiciously flat from 2014 to 2019. Maybe Xi ordered his underlings to apply a filter.

Let me zoom that in for you:



Gdp per capita in China is around 10 000 so 5% or lower is 500 bucks and less. Even if you believe the official numbers that a lot of people don't nowadays.

[Crantag]

Being able able to discuss different subjects without censorship is not nonsense, being able to discuss the mistakes of your government and officials is not nonsense, being able to elect your own leaders is not nonsense and so on...

It's not my agenda to defend China per se, and if you haven't noticed, everywhere sucks.

You are holding China to an artificial standard though, which is based on 'western' ideals (as opposed to 'western' standards).

You can say the same shit about the US, quite frankly.

I never used the word 'nonsense' either, but we don't elect our own leaders in the US. And people talk about whatever they want in China.

The censorship is a pain in the ass, though. It sucks needing a VPN subscription to access Youtube, I'll grant you that.

It has to do with the IT Monopoly wars, like the US ban on Huawei. (My Huawei phone was the best phone I ever had by the way, and I'd buy one today, if not for the ban.)

[Godstud]

I get to speak almost daily to Chinese teachers, or people who are doing business with China(and have worked in China for years) and I never get this impression of "Evil China".

They love their country. They are proud of its achievements. They are proud to BE Chinese. They defend it. They are critical of their government.

Remind you of anyone?


PS: As for the "Great Firewall of China, a simple VPN gets them around that. It's an inconvenience.

[JohnRawls]

It's not my agenda to defend China per se, and if you haven't noticed, everywhere sucks.

You are holding China to an artificial standard though, which is based on 'western' ideals (as opposed to 'western' standards).

You can say the same shit about the US, quite frankly.

I never used the word 'nonsense' either, but we don't elect our own leaders in the US. And people talk about whatever they want in China.

The censorship is a pain in the ass, though. It sucks needing a VPN subscription to access Youtube, I'll grant you that.

It has to do with the IT Monopoly wars, like the US ban on Huawei. (My Huawei phone was the best phone I ever had by the way, and I'd buy one today, if not for the ban.)

Gross misinterpretation of reality, you seem to not understand or pretend to not understand that in China you have no ability for free speech if that speech is in any way critical of leadership or CCP. Even if it is not related to the leadership, CCP actively engages in policing morality be it in IT, business, popular culture and so on. This is not even remotely the same as problem as in the US. US or any Western country does social engineering through laws but they don't police morality. Nor is severity in US is remotely close to what is in China. As an individual or collective of individual, you do not decide anything and the party decides for you. It doesn't matter what or who you are if you haven't noticed. Even if you don't like businesses having lobbying and representation then its fine but NOBODY has any sway over the CCP be it the people or the big business to any degree. CCP is a beast that lives for itself and shapes the country for itself without any supervision over it. And the list can go on and on and on...

The long story short, Liberal Democratic order acknowledges that there is no consensus on most basic questions and it is ingrained in to the order itself to solve the problem of this. China doesn't acknowledge that that there is no consensus on most basic questions so they try to police or brainwash everyone in to one opinion. This never worked and will never work. How do you convince somebody that Protestantism is better than Orthodoxy or Catholisism is better than Atheism and so on? You can't....

[JohnRawls]

I get to speak almost daily to Chinese teachers, or people who are doing business with China(and have worked in China for years) and I never get this impression of "Evil China".

They love their country. They are proud of its achievements. They are proud to BE Chinese. They defend it. They are critical of their government.

Remind you of anyone?


PS: As for the "Great Firewall of China, a simple VPN gets them around that. It's an inconvenience.

The CCP and the government apparatus is not the same thing as the Chinese people.

[Godstud]

Yes, I know this, but what the Chinese people think is more important than what Western people, who only get propaganda, think.

I have a few friends who work with Chinese companies and who have worked in China for decades. They don't hold the same Western views either, because they lived and worked with the people and within the country.

I have the same idiots telling me about Thailand all the time. They read blogs and propaganda and then think they know the place.

Does the CCP suck? Absolutely. You'd have a hard time finding a Chinese person who didn't think so.

Does the Canadian Liberals suck? Absolutely. Their corruption is off the scale, with hundreds of millions being stolen and then laws changed to prevent the companies from being charged.

Do the Thai people dislike their current King? Absolutely. He's an impotent figurehead of a playboy who is eclipsed by his father who was truly a national treasure.

So the recurring theme here is that everywhere people dislike who is ruling them, but at the end of the day, if it doesn't affect their daily lives in a significant way, they can keep on rolling.


This is also China:
A Bridge Construction Done in 43 Hours in China
Read more at: https://gineersnow.com/engineering/civi ... ours-china
https://gineersnow.com/engineering/civi ... 0overnight.

The West could take some tips on their infrastructure programs from the Chinese.

[Crantag]

Gross misinterpretation of reality, you seem to not understand or pretend to not understand that in China you have no ability for free speech if that speech is in any way critical of leadership or CCP. Even if it is not related to the leadership, CCP actively engages in policing morality be it in IT, business, popular culture and so on. This is not even remotely the same as problem as in the US. US or any Western country does social engineering through laws but they don't police morality. Nor is severity in US is remotely close to what is in China. As an individual or collective of individual, you do not decide anything and the party decides for you. It doesn't matter what or who you are if you haven't noticed. Even if you don't like businesses having lobbying and representation then its fine but NOBODY has any sway over the CCP be it the people or the big business to any degree. CCP is a beast that lives for itself and shapes the country for itself without any supervision over it. And the list can go on and on and on...

The long story short, Liberal Democratic order acknowledges that there is no consensus on most basic questions and it is ingrained in to the order itself to solve the problem of this. China doesn't acknowledge that that there is no consensus on most basic questions so they try to police or brainwash everyone in to one opinion. This never worked and will never work. How do you convince somebody that Protestantism is better than Orthodoxy or Catholisism is better than Atheism and so on? You can't....

I am guessing you have had the pleasure of meeting some Chinese people. They are ornery as fuck. Probably the most ornery people on the planet.

Chinese people put up with what they put up with, and no more.

The place isn't perfect, but it is far from the propagandist narrative you think it is.

Your vision of China is a contrived picture, informed by 'western' propaganda.

China is actually a pretty decent place to be.

[JohnRawls]

I am guessing you have had the pleasure of meeting some Chinese people. They are ornery as fuck. Probably the most ornery people on the planet.

Chinese people put up with what they put up with, and no more.

The place isn't perfect, but it is far from the propagandist narrative you think it is.

Your vision of China is a contrived picture, informed by 'western' propaganda.

China is actually a pretty decent place to be.

So you can criticize the CCP and its leadership? What exactly is Western propaganda here. Point by point please and not generalised.

[Crantag]

So you can criticize the CCP and its leadership? What exactly is Western propaganda here. Point by point please and not generalised.

You aren't supposed to criticize the government in things like social media.

In private conversations, people say whatever they want.

It is true that there are spies and shit, and that if someone says something wrong in the wrong company, they can have repercussions.

The only time I ever personally encountered it, was when I was teaching one-on-one to a government employee, and the lesson plan called on some political matters.

She was uncomfortable talking about such things.

And, we improvised, and just basically did free talk.

I'm not saying everything you know is lies, but I am saying it is also not how you think it is.

Most people just say whatever they want, but the staying in your lane thing is truthful.

It isn't a place that experiences tremendous oppression though.

And take a good look at the US, this place is fucked up too.

Everywhere is fucked, everywhere sucks, as far as I have seen. Western Europe was maybe the best place I've been, but it probably sucks too in its ways.

[Rugoz]

So the recurring theme here is that everywhere people dislike who is ruling them, but at the end of the day, if it doesn't affect their daily lives in a significant way, they can keep on rolling.

Sure, and if you visited Nazi Germany in the 30s it would have been a nice place and Germans would be satisifed. After all those camps and stuff were just rumours and the media said they're foreign propaganda anyway.

[Godstud]

@Rugoz China is not Nazi Germany. Godwin's Law at work yet again by someone who can't make a cogent argument.

Your hyperbole is just ridiculous. To you different = BAD because you are being overly simplistic, and want to push your own personal narrative.

[Fasces]

Gross misinterpretation of reality, you seem to not understand or pretend to not understand that in China you have no ability for free speech if that speech is in any way critical of leadership or CCP.

The top post on Weibo today, with tens of thousands of comments, is a news story about how a pregnant woman went into early labor in Christian and was denied access to a hospital for not having a negative covid test on hand. The comments are vicious - thoroughly criticizing the Christian government for their failure in organizing the lock down, bringing up supply issues such as a lack of menstrual pads for women (big story from yesterday), slowdown in food deliveraries, and so on.

It is not as black and white as you're implying and there is room for criticism of the government in China. The CPC is not a pluralistic organization, but to argue so confidently about the speech of a people you don't read, can't read, and can't even be assed to visit their social media sites to translate is disturbed and dehumanizing. You know absolutely nothing about the status of speech within China because you haven't cared to have a half decent conversation with an actual Chinese national living there.

On the other hand, it's suspiciously flat from 2014 to 2019.

If being consistently flat at 5-8% GDP growth annually is a problem, I'd hate to be a citizen of the US, Germany, Japan or others - which are also flat, at a rate much closer to zero.

If China's in danger to collapse because of a mere 5% GDP growth this year, France must in the midst of a Civil War.

Hu was "rehabilitated" because Xi proved to be so much worse.

Anybody that dares challenge western hegemony is "worse", regardless of the facts. Deng said that China needed to bide its time and build up. It did. It has. It's awake now.

The man in the chair doesn't matter - if it were Bo Xilai we'd be lamenting that Xi was never elected. Their biggest crime is always the audacity to challenge Western hegemony.

Headlines are always exaggerating

Seems to me that Western media has a severe credibility problem then. Why should I trust anything they say?

And open one of the articles - they're not exaggerating the actual contents.

For example, how is anyone supposed to know how inequality developed under Xi? There's only data up to 2015.

Chinese authorities release data every year. The 2020 data is available online. So do international organizations.

The fact is that when data contradicts the hysteria, you lot choose to commit to the hysteria. You're no different in that regard to the Q fanatics, antivaxxers, or climate skeptics.

It would be nice if you had something to say.

The absolute irony of this shit coming from you.

[Rugoz]

@Rugoz China is not Nazi Germany. Godwin's Law at work yet again by someone who can't make a cogent argument.

Your hyperbole is just ridiculous. To you different = BAD because you are being overly simplistic, and want to push your own personal narrative.

Congrats for missing the point.

The vast majority of people can be do perfectly fine while the most hideous crimes are committed against a few. Hitler's approval ratings were sky high. After all he built all those beautiful autobahns.

It was convenient and easy for Germans to ignore the hideous shit and so they did.

Your "life is just fine for the Xs I talk to" argument is inane.

[Crantag]

Sure, and if you visited Nazi Germany in the 30s it would have been a nice place and Germans would be satisifed. After all those camps and stuff were just rumours and the media said they're foreign propaganda anyway.

This is hyperbole the likes of which, by one like me has never been seen.

You are a dipshit, no two ways about it.

[Crantag]

For the record my family members died in those camps.

You guys are fucking idiots.

[Unthinking Majority]

The top post on Weibo today, with tens of thousands of comments, is a news story about how a pregnant woman went into early labor in Christian and was denied access to a hospital for not having a negative covid test on hand. The comments are vicious - thoroughly criticizing the Christian government for their failure in organizing the lock down, bringing up supply issues such as a lack of menstrual pads for women (big story from yesterday), slowdown in food deliveraries, and so on.

It is not as black and white as you're implying and there is room for criticism of the government in China. The CPC is not a pluralistic organization, but to argue so confidently about the speech of a people you don't read, can't read, and can't even be assed to visit their social media sites to translate is disturbed and dehumanizing. You know absolutely nothing about the status of speech within China because you haven't cared to have a half decent conversation with an actual Chinese national living there.

Where's Tank Man?



Where'd that tennis player go for all that time? Where'd Jack Ma go? Where does anyone with any ability or influence to change anything go?

Are these Weibo users using a VPN? I guess you can't knock on 100 million people's doors to intimidate or jail them.