That podcast caused me to find a very important NYT Magazine article from April 3 (which I'd missed), "The Case of Hong Kong’s Missing Booksellers/As China’s Xi Jinping consolidates power, owners of Hong Kong bookstores trafficking in banned books find themselves playing a very dangerous game."
I won't pull out a large enough excerpt to make the story clear to you, only to give you as sense of the drama:
The morning after his interrogation, [Lam Wing-kee] was blindfolded, handcuffed and put on a train for an unknown destination. His captors didn’t say a word. When the train came to a halt 13 hours later, Lam’s escorts shoved him into a car and drove him to a nearby building, where they removed his hat, blindfold and glasses. He took stock of his situation: He was in an unknown location in an unknown city, being held by officers whose identity and affiliation he could not ascertain....
In January 2016, more than two months after he began counting the length of his detention, Lam was informed of the charge against him: “illegal sales of books.”...
Lam was transferred to a new city for the next phase of his detention. There, he was told he would be permitted to return to Hong Kong, but only on the condition that, upon arrival, he report immediately to a police station and tell them his disappearance was all a misunderstanding. He would then go to the home of Lee Bo and pick up a computer containing information on the publisher’s clients and authors, which he would deliver to China....
That night, alone in his hotel room, Lam violated the conditions of his limited release, using his phone to search for news about his case... He saw his name and the names of his Mighty Current colleagues appear again and again... Lam saw photos of thousands of protesters marching through the streets, holding posters of the missing booksellers and demanding their release; Lam’s shuttered shop had become a site of pilgrimage...
On the morning he was expected back on the mainland, Lam arrived at the train station with the company computer in his backpack. He paused to smoke a cigarette, then another. Other Mighty Current employees had friends, family or wives on the mainland. “Among all of us,” Lam told me, “I carried the smallest burden.” He thought of a short poem by Shu Xiangcheng that he read when he was young:
I have never seen
a knelt reading desk
though I’ve seen
men of knowledge on their knees
पोस्ट्स
१२३ टिप्पण्या:
My son lives in Hong Kong and he tells me that the Chinese are clearly slowly but surely ramping up the repression. It won't be long before Hong Kong joins the Chinese Total Surveillance State.
If only we did that here. There would be so much less bickering. We could be the country Thomas Friedman adores.
East Asians lack a disinterested cooperation gene.
These are the people to whom buwaya compares us unfavorably.
The Case of Hong Kong’s Missing Booksellers/As China’s Xi Jinping consolidates power, owners of Hong Kong bookstores trafficking in banned books find themselves playing a very dangerous game.
So the Chinese booksellers have Xi Jinping to contend with, and we have Jeff Bezos?
"The Chinese government has long sought to shape and control information, but the scope and intensity of this effort was something new..."
Political correctness with uniforms and night sticks.
Advanced facial recognition,registration of everyone and social credit scores that can keep people from travel show China is quickly marching towards a tightly controlled totalitarian state,
Too bad China is run by Red Scum. Our universities here are run by people like them. Afraid of other people’s thoughts who disagree with them.
. . . China is quickly marching towards a tightly controlled totalitarian state,
I don't know how to break this to you but . . . I don't know. Maybe read a history book or two.
"On the morning he was expected back on the mainland, Lam arrived at the train station with the company computer in his backpack."
I hope he, like, wiped it clean. With a cloth or shit.
@ Bill - Heh.
What does your mind conjure up when you hear "lamb winky?"
Bill Republic of Texas beat me to it. Has there ever been a significant period of time when China wasn't totalitarian? The Mongol period? Perhaps the first half of the twentieth century might count. But really that was no more than a chaotic interregnam between the empire and Mao. R/V, what exactly do you teach?
These are the people to whom buwaya compares us unfavorably.
?????
The books had hate speech in them.
Hong Kong is the coolest city in the world outside New York. It's truly a shame what's happening to it. When I visited 7-8 years ago, the PLA had just opened up their massive new headquarters above Hong Kong Park in Central. On my latest visit in November 2017 I see that the PLA has outposts on the docks, higher up Victoria Peak, in skyscrapers in Central, Kowloon, etc.
When will Westerners learn to maintain the things that got us to the pinnacle of civilization? Hong Kong, Macao, the Panama Canal - literally giving these things away for nothing in return is as much a metaphor for civilizational decline as it is physical, real evidence of same.
Althouse,
That was quite the article to which you pointed us. Lam was as much a smuggler as he was a bookseller, so in that sense he was "asking for it." Also in that sense at least the authorities picked their target well. I haven't listened to the podcast yet.
"hate speech" determined by political betters . hmmmm what American party does that remind us of?
"Too bad China is run by Red Scum. Our universities here are run by people like them. Afraid of other people’s thoughts who disagree with them."
It's important to read about people who have to fight to get or keep freedom because we don't value what we have. I mean, I think we should care about people in distant places anyway, but vicariously experiencing their struggle — by reading about them — can give some substance to the feeling that we possess something that has been struggled for and that we ought to fight to keep it.
We're so casual and weasley about it, so ready to haplessly cede the ground to the ridiculous, impassioned fools who are geared up to fight to take it away.
By the way - I am involved in cryptocurrency and it's become very common for "cypherpunk" types in the space to believe that Chinese-design and manufactured chips are now *superior* to American ones. And these are westerners. If China has really surpassed us in microchip design and manufacture, we are in a bad, bad place.
So much for one country, two systems.
So much for the notion that we can trust the Chinese on anything.
"That was quite the article to which you pointed us. Lam was as much a smuggler as he was a bookseller, so in that sense he was "asking for it." Also in that sense at least the authorities picked their target well. I haven't listened to the podcast yet."
In the podcast, it's very moving when you hear that Lam had been so worn down by captivity that he was ready to give over all the information on his customers and to continue to operate the bookstore to collect information on Chinese tourists who were coming there to get the information on their own country that they could not get at home. He was going to sell all those people out. But he had no idea that people in Hong Kong had made a hero out of him and had big protests about him, and that changed him into a hero.
It's an interesting narrative. Maybe you can think of some real or fictional examples of this, where a person who decided, for selfish reasons, to turn to villainy sees that people who don't understand what he is doing see him as a hero and, because of them, he decides to live up to what they think of him and put himself at risk and be the hero.
Chiana has been a near totalitarian state with punctures of reform but as I pointed out is now moving towards a fully totalitarian dictatorship. I am well aware of China’s history and a number of my friends are from Chiana including one who was at Tiananmen Square. I would recommend The Perfect Dictatorship by Stein Ringen to get a sense of my perspective. For a more close up look at the people. I would recommend Once Upon A Time In China, by Christine Merritt, a friend of mine, who taught at the medical school at Soochow University for several years and was the first Westerner to do so.
Althouse,
A big yes to both your most recent comments.
It's nice R/V took the time to Google some Chinese history books.
But those of us who have had families torn apart by "near totalitarian states" we don't need to be lectured by those who prop up and run interference for these police states.
Blogger CWJ said...
Has there ever been a significant period of time when China wasn't totalitarian? ...
Perhaps the first half of the twentieth century might count.
Currently reading "Stilwell and the American Experience in China" (Again after 30 or so years) Every bit as good as I remembered. It is a bio of Stilwell who spent a lot of time in China in the 20s and 30s, was US commander of the China Burma India theater in WWII and also Chiang Kai Shek's military chief of staff. Very interesting and competent guy in what was a completely impossible position.
I've also read a number of other books over the years about China between 1850-1950.
So, nope. Not the first half of the last century. Pretty totalitarian even then. To the extent that it had a meaningful government. Much of the time most people lived under various warlords. Not sure if they count as "government" but they did have control and were pretty totalitarian.
I do think that it is probably less totalitarian now than in the past. Bad as it is now.
John Henry
R/V, So your point boils down to the difference between "near" and "fully." That, to me, seems a superficial focus on the means available, rather than totalitarianism itself.
Blogger CJ said...
When will Westerners learn to maintain the things that got us to the pinnacle of civilization? Hong Kong, Macao, the Panama Canal - literally giving these things away for nothing in return is as much a metaphor for civilizational decline as it is physical, real evidence of same.
Don't forget the port of Long Beach California.
John Henry
"Don't forget the port of Long Beach California."
Or Long Beach Shipyard where the battleships were refurbished under Reagan. It is now owned by China.
"R/V, what exactly do you teach?"
I've wondered that myself.
Taiwan seems to be becoming the equivalent of what Hong Kong was under the British.
James Clavell's two novels about Hong Kong are well worth reading. The first, "Taipan" gives some history of the place as well as a feel for what 19th century China was like. The sequel, "Noble House" which is based on the story of the company, Jardine Matheson, is a bit dated but has links to his "Shogun." Both are good and have a bit of history about Hong Kong.
To the leftist, the difference between near totalitarian and full totalitarian is the victims. If the leftist agrees the people being jailed, tortured and killed are deplorables, then the government is in a period of reform or even an example to follow. If the people being jailed, tortured and killed are sympathetic to the leftist then the government is totalitarian.
Anybody who apologizes for the socialist or communist governments should be treated exactly like someone who apologizes for the fascist. They should be called out, shunned and not allowed in decent company.
ARM: "These are the people to whom buwaya compares us unfavorably"
I find it interesting that ARM is starting very early the transference of lefty love for China from lefties to conservatives.
It usually takes a bit longer for the left to migrate responsibility for lefty actions to the right.
The early bird gets the worm I suppose.
No doubt LLR Chuck will be along shortly to blame Trump because of course he will.
What you have in China is a totalitarian government that has learned the useful trick of liberalizing its economy while still retaining power.
Economic growth is perfectly possible under such a regime, especially so as they govern Chinese. Singapore was the model. There is a wonderful series of interviews with Lee Kwan Yew, who discusses this very openly, concerning his conversations with Deng Xiaoping (whom he deeply admired) developing his view, of the Chinese view, of the nature of the State.
Note also that banning books and running a creepy state security apparatus that kidnaps and blackmails dissidents are hardly the most overbearing things they have done, or do. These things just sound especially bad to some westerners. Note that when they were being "good" they were enforcing the "one child rule" and erecting the "Great Firewall of China".
Its an unpleasant way to govern that upsets many people, but that isn't going to stop them.
The US in its current trajectory certainly will yield global leadership to them, as I have said many times, if the US doesn't simply collapse. At that point the world will transition from the Pax Americana to the Pax Sinica. This will be an unpleasant change in most places, even if the transition passes peacefully.
Michael K: "Or Long Beach Shipyard where the battleships were refurbished under Reagan. It is now owned by China."
After giving the Chinese missile technology in exchange for illegal campaign contributions, the Clintons and the dems (SURPRISE!...remember "no controlling legal authority"?) were all gung ho to allow the lease of the shipyard to COSCO, which the dems did in fact allow.
The republican's successfully pushed back and changed the leadership/ownership to the South Koreans.
I fully expect ARM to push a "switch the storyline" maneuver where the roles will be reversed in the rewriting of history, which will be duly parroted on MSNBC and LLR Chuck will call the new lie "brilliant" or something.
buwaya: "What you have in China is a totalitarian government that has learned the useful trick of liberalizing its economy while still retaining power."
ARM's and Inga's heads just exploded.
The people who are most responsible for the rise of China relative to the US are the quisling leaders of industry who sold out US workers to the lowest foreign bidder.
All the blather in the world is not going to change this fundamental fact.
And, the Chinese did not 'liberalize their economy', this is just more doublethink provided to you by those same business 'leaders'. The economy is absolutely controlled by the communist party. Only a true partisan idiot cannot see that.
I did not know the subsequent history of the LBNS.
After review by the DoD and CIA, the lease went through, at an agreed-upon payment of $14.5 million per year from the Chinese, with renewal scheduled after ten years.[14] However, continued controversy and opposition by Republican lawmakers caused cancellation of the lease, and the new cargo terminal, which was in fact built by the Long Beach Harbor Department (Port of Long Beach), was leased to Hanjin Shipping, a South Korean firm. Hanjin was the majority partner in Total Terminals International (TTI), which was the primary tenant at Pier T[15] until the financial collapse of Hanjin in August 2016. Hanjin entered talks to sell its stake in the Long Beach Terminal to its minority partner in TTI, Mediterranean Shipping Company in October 2016.
Interesting. Thanks, John.
"the quisling leaders of industry who sold out US workers to the lowest foreign bidder. "
Named Bill Clinton and his supporters in crony capitalism, named Bernie Schwartz.
Later, in May 1996, Schwartz wrote to Clinton urging him make the
Commerce Department the clearing house for approval of export licensing
of commercial satellites rather than the State Department. Once again,
Schwartz got his way.
But still, we’re supposed to believe that Clinton would have made the
same decisions with the same timing had Schwartz not been the single
biggest donor to the his political career. For Pete’s sake, last year
Clinton even threw Schwartz a birthday party at the White House.
Nothing to see here. Move on.
ARM: "The people who are most responsible for the rise of China relative to the US are the quisling leaders of industry who sold out US workers to the lowest foreign bidder"
I see you are in full rewriting of history/spin mode.
Let's start with Billy Boy Clinton and noted Putin/Russia Colluder Hillary making sure that Bernie Schwartz and his Loral team "accidently" allowed China to "access" and retain MIRV-technology for their missile technology which advanced the Chinese rocket program by a decade.
And then campaign contributions flowed oh so freely into Clinton/Gore coffers.
And right in the middle of all that who did Hillary have sit next to her at a State of the Union address? ......yeah, you already knew the answer to that, don't you?
Bernie Schwartz.
Right at the moment Bernie was establishing his bona fides with the Chinese.
Unexpectedly.
Again ARM to continue his clearly ignorant deflection strategy and sorry buwaya, ARM simply lacks the capability to understand how the Chinese economy is actually run.
Anyone who has significant dealings with Chinese "companies" of all types knows that ARM is pushing tripe.
Per usual.
Not to worry though ARM, I'm sure there is a MI based lawyer somewhere who will be rushing to your (much needed) defense!
Oh how lucky we were to have White House advisors like Anita Dunn under obambi who publicly declared one of her favorite political philosophers to be Mao!
I can't wait to hear ARM explain that one away.
Should be as entertaining reading Inga explain away John Brennan's vote for Gus Hall of the completely controlled-by Soviets Communist Party (USA) when he was in his mid-20's and the reality of Russian/Soviet history was already well-known and undeniable.
The problem with the US, and the "west" in general, is that your elites hate not simply their own people, but everything about your - their - own heritage. Free speech and human rights and limits to the state are European concepts. This all is headed for the ash-heap, all being tossed into the furnace in a fit of mixed greed and fear and rage.
I quote the famous oath of Aragon - but typical of those made to the crown by regions governed under local liberties, the fueros -
"We, who are as good as you, swear to you, who are no better than us, to accept you as our king and sovereign, provided you observe all our liberties and laws, but if not, not."
The Chinese economy is extremely open to entrepreneurial persons - if they are Chinese. There is minimal regulatory overhead and rarely will corruption add costs beyond the bearable. From @1980 to today China, or most of it, really has been open for business. A poor man can indeed get rich through his own efforts and a degree of good fortune, and hordes have done that.
It helps a lot to have official contacts and relationships and plenty have gotten rich that way, but the mass of them have done it "straight".
Plenty of their erstwhile competitors kid themselves about this.
The culture war component in the US of an elite that does not believe in American culture is huge.
Pushing this is:
- Education, public k-12 and upper education
- Media
- Hollywood
Hollywood and the Media are taking huge credibility hits.
Education I’m not seeing much change yet. Home schooling seems to be a niche. And online education has not grown to be much of a force yet.
buwaya said...
It helps a lot to have official contacts and relationships and plenty have gotten rich that way, but the mass of them have done it "straight".
Is there a chinese Soros funding this nonsense?
Sorry ARM - American democrats have always been sympathetic towards communists. Yes, communists come in all sorts of colors and flavors, including the crony capitalist types who use the power of the state to control the means of production and all the levers within. The largest area of D-commie cross-over is the lean-in towards controlled speech.
US markets played a large role in China's export-driven expansion. But this is simply part of the same pattern where US markets have created economic takeoff in dozens of countries. Japan and Germany, to begin with, got rich post-1945 by making and selling products for sale in the US.
And on and on, all over Europe and the various Asian "Tigers".
I was there dealing with the original Intel investments in the Philippines (part of my gig with Arthur Andersen) and Malaysia. The Philippine plant was moved thirty years later to Vietnam. China is just more of the same but on a vastly larger scale, the biggest "Tiger" of them all.
China under its regime's policies over the last forty years would have gotten rich anyway, just a bit more slowly than it would have without easy access to the US market. Most Chinese exports do not now, and never have, gone to the US, and even under unfavorable tarriff treatment the US would still be buying plenty from China.
Its not nonsense ARM.
Several of my college buddies are in business in China, some of those who got rich.
I guess so.
From 2011:
"90% of the 1,000 richest people tracked by the Hurun Report are either officials or members of the Chinese Communist Party "
The party has only become more controlling since then.
A case in point of the effect of low tarriffs pre-China.
The US camera industry. In the 1940s the US had high tech in this sewn up. Where you now have Nikon and Canon, back then you had Graflex and Wollensak and Kodak and Bell&Howell and Honeywell and etc., dozens of companies. This was all killed off (Kodak retreated away from the "hardware" into film), not by the Chinese, but by the Germans and Japanese.
US clothing manufacture back in the 70's-80's did not go to China. Check your clothing labels.
You are rich, or getting rich, in China, you join the party.
I know members of the party, one is Taiwanese, in mainland business.
ARM actually thinks his little factoid somehow disproves the Chinese economic liberalization reality.
Amazing.
buwaya: "You are rich, or getting rich, in China, you join the party."
Its like getting a key to the Executive Commie Washroom.
A very common small business in China is the contract machine shop. Small business. China is chock-full of small businesses.
You cannot even begin to start such a thing in CA.
buwaya said...
You cannot even begin to start such a thing in CA.
This is going to be news to one of our regular commenters.
US universities are almost as "party controlled" as China is.
I suspect most US university faculties are precisely as well-drilled on matters of dogma as any in China.
buwaya said...
US universities are almost as "party controlled" as China is.
Chinese Soros it is. Explains a lot.
buwaya said...
US universities are almost as "party controlled" as China is.
This is a truly pathetic attempt at deflection. Let's ask one question, if this were true why would Chinese students desperately flock to these institutions rather than remain in China? If it's all the same, why make the effort?
Statements like this display the intellectual corruption of many on the right.
Near has allowed students and artist to travel and study in other countries, Apple to set up factories, and our students, under some restrictions like don't attend Christian churches, to study in China, but full means a crack down on everything and every body and further control of those students studying in other countries. Recognizing China's history and the state/party control of everything does not mean condoning it. For example, I am proud to say, our university turned down an offer to host a Confucius Institute because of it suspected propaganda and party control.
Statements like this display the intellectual corruption of many on the right.
Whereas your statement indicates the cluelessness of the left.
Do you know where most of the Chinese students I talk to go ?
They go to the least political departments of US universities. STEM, Medicine. Computer Science, Business Admin.
Do you think they sign up for "African American Studies ?"
ARM, you need to up your game.
"Whereas your statement indicates the cluelessness"
Oh, I don't think ARM is clueless. He's just trolling harder today than usual.
The Confucius institutes are an interesting and worthy idea.
It is better to have them than not, as they offer the possibility of, at least, a clash of authoritarian systems, which is far better than the totalitarian monolithic culture of these places as it is. You will never again have liberty in these places, that is utterly gone. Conflict is better than the ant-farm alternative.
Keeping them out is much worse than letting them in. It is the result of close-mindedness.
If I had a few billion I would be tempted to start my own flavor of Confucius institutes.
Very different in ideology (though Confucius himself was cool), but entirely , fundamentally in opposition to the status quo.
ARM: "if this were true why would Chinese students desperately flock to these institutions rather than remain in China?"
Better technology/STEM educations, opportunities for Chinese nationals to develop potentially lifelong relationships with individuals who will become major "players" in the US Govt, business and military sectors, opportunities for Chinese nationals to come to a greater level of understanding of a potential future adversary.
Duh.
Drago said...
Better technology/STEM educations, opportunities for Chinese nationals to develop potentially lifelong relationships with individuals who will become major "players" in the US Govt, business and military sectors, opportunities for Chinese nationals to come to a greater level of understanding of a potential future adversary.
Don't actually know any of these students, do you? Escaping a shitty totalitarian regime never crosses their mind?
"if this were true why would Chinese students desperately flock to these institutions rather than remain in China?"
Also to spy, or "technology transfer".
And because US tech institutes are much more lucrative to academics, and they hire foreign grad students in masses.
And because a US degree from these places has great cachet in China.
Traditionally lots of Chinese leadership has studied in the US, going back to Sun Yat Sen - who went to Obama's Punahou school in Hawaii.
" Escaping a shitty totalitarian regime never crosses their mind?"
A few probably. In any population there are the idealistic and the disaffected.
The vast majority come to the US hoping to make more money more easily.
If the US were free but poor they simply wouldn't come.
The Philippines for instance has US levels of personal liberty and less overt oppression of speech, plus the population is sympathetic to Chinese dissidents.
They certainly are almost unanimously opposed to Chinese policies.
But dissidents don't go there.
The Chinese people who do go to the Philippines are the usual category of capital flight. That is, anyone who is setting up a hedge against a turning of the political winds against them - or a crackdown by one faction against another. That is the downside of a totalitarian government and a corrupt system.
Which leads to the bidding up of property through proxies as foreigners are not normally permitted to purchase land.
The same thing goes on, or went on, in Australia until the Australian government limited property sales to speculators.
And, of course, in the US, in San Francisco for instance, condo buildings are built and full sold out, but they have few residents as these are hedge investments, money parked abroad.
Buway,
There is a cool video on YouTube of a Chines Forging shop. They start with a big square of red hot steel, carry it with a forklift to a big tripod in a dirt lot then keep dropping a big hammer on it, moving around with the fork lift and guys with steel rods until they make a nice, hollow flange suitable for machining.
Pretty massive. Diameter of the finished ring is probably 5-6'
A really cool video to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0bbTZrcYMc
Probably does as good a job, in terms of the final ring, as the hundreds of millions in a modern US forging shop. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSWYbb5vWu4
If you like this kind of stuff, I highly recommend James Nasmyth's autobiography, available free via Ann's portal. Nasmyth was a Scottish painter who invented the steam hammer around 1800.
John Henry
buwaya said...
because US tech institutes are much more lucrative to academics
This is a little vague. If you mean the actual universities then this, now, is wrong. True once upon a time but not now. The Chinese government is funnelling vast fortunes into its academic institutions. If China does surpass the West this will be why.
If you mean the tech companies then this just makes my point, that the Chinese system is rigged for the party members. There is no good reason to stay in the US if the sole goal is to make money and you have the option of working in a faster growing economy with a larger market. Young men make their money in growth economies.
And, of course, in the US, in San Francisco for instance, condo buildings are built and full sold out, but they have few residents as these are hedge investments, money parked abroad.
I suspect that something similar goes on in Los Angeles although the Chinese seem to be moving there and living there. There are huge, busy Chinese restaurants in Monterey Park, the suburb where Al Gore collected the donations in 1996.
I had a friend who was the son of a well-to-do family in Hong Kong and he told me (before 1997) that many of his parents' friends had first class airline tickets to the US. They didn't use them but renewed them each year before they expired. The idea was that, if the balloon ever went up, there would be a rush for tickets and they had theirs.
I do wonder about all the Chinese kids joining the US Army to get citizenship. Their parents are still in China. I figure it is probably the same thing only with citizenship.
Buwya the Confucian Institute was an interesting idea and money generator for the Humanities but many universities are reconsidering their relationship to them--the University of Chicago shut theirs down for example. The clash of ideas you mention does not seem to take place,and with the party now apparently organizing cells on campus to further control its students more concerns are raised: for example--- "Their goal is to exploit America’s academic freedom to instill in the minds of future leaders a pro-China viewpoint,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. “It’s smart. It’s a long-term, patient approach.
Also, for those who like industrial history, Andrew Carnegie's biography of James Watt.
Carnegie's other books too.
Andrew Carnegie is an astonishingly good writer. Especially so when you consider his total schooling was about 3 months as a kid.
Special great deal via the portal today. FREE!
John Henry
roesch/voltaire said...
the party now apparently organizing cells on campus to further control its students more concerns are raised: for example--- "Their goal is to exploit America’s academic freedom”
They are apparently unaware that the universities are controlled by a uni-party, just like back home.
" contentious executive committee meeting about who to hire "
The same goes on within the factions of any communist party.
But no one else need apply.
"Their goal is to exploit America’s academic freedom”
Their goal is to push their POV and unlike others with a POV they have the resources, funding, to make an independent go of it.
As you note, America's academic freedom has severe limits and even a well funded player can get pushed out.
buwaya said...
America's academic freedom has severe limits and even a well funded player can get pushed out.
This sounds like pure CPC propaganda. The CPC's effort to spread disinformation on US campuses has nothing to do with academic freedom.
"The CPC's effort to spread disinformation on US campuses has nothing to do with academic freedom."
US universities are chock full of "disinformation". In fact disinformation is the principal reason for the existence of most academic departments, saving only those that deal with nature, which does not honor lies and spin and fantasy.
What is worse about the Chinese government's lies?
That they are less truthful somehow?
That's a hard case to make vis-a-vis the modern intellectual climate.
To put it another way - the Chinese are your opponents, but they are reasonably honest opponents. Their divergence of interests is clear and their goals are in the open.
You do not have to endorse their goals to understand what they are, and the legitimacy of these goals depends entirely on what side you are on. This is a "clean" conflict by historical standards. And this is moreover one either side can "lose" and survive.
US universities by contrast represent an internal existential factional struggle inside your own society, with masked purposes covered over by illogic and hypocrisy. This is an extraordinarily filthy business. And it cannot be "lost", because the consequences will be existential. The losers, in the end, might as well have never have existed. They will be erased.
US universities by contrast represent an internal existential factional struggle inside your own society, with masked purposes covered over by illogic and hypocrisy.
They represent the political left, as does ARM.
The struggle has long since stopped being philosophical and is personal, as we see with ARM and with with typical academic leftists.
You should read the "Rate Your Professor" comments about the leftist English professor (required course).
Only a few have gone toward assassination methods, yet, but they will.
We have done more for China than anyone else, including the PLA. America has always favored China back to the 19th century.
Now, it's time for self preservation.
buwaya said...
What is worse about the Chinese government's lies?
That they are less truthful somehow?
That's a hard case to make vis-a-vis the modern intellectual climate.
When someone's claims are indistinguishable from those of a CPC flunky, what is the most obvious interpretation?
I am not, but there are worse things than being a Chinese flunky.
Think about it.
I don't have to.
ARM is getting more and more personal.
Are you thinking of applying for a job at U of Nebraska Lincoln ?
"I don't have to."
But you do. You may not think so, but it is your duty as an intelligent interlocutor.
What is the scope of human culture/philosophy/ideology/politics? What is the variety thereof? In that area, where does modern Chinese ideology and practice sit?
My personal cultural space is rather medieval and Catholic and colonialist. That is my heritage. Think Ferdinand and Isabella as my principal culture-heroes.
You have now seen that which is truly foreign, different. A lot of people can't deal. I, on the other hand, have been brought up to deal. That is a great advantage of being a colonialist.
I don't have to because it is blindingly obvious what the answer is, to someone not shilling for the CPC.
buwaya's claim here is that there is no difference between the propaganda arm of the CPC and US universities. This is fundamentally anti-American. US universities are among the very best of western universities. Are they perfect? No. Are they indistinguishable from CPC flunkies? Also no. To claim to not recognize a distinction is a direct attack on American values.
"buwaya's claim here is that there is no difference between the propaganda arm of the CPC and US universities. "
Obviously there is a difference. That's the point, no? The question is one of ethics. Are the Chinese evil, in any meaningful sense, are they damaging, likewise, and this versus the default state of US universities?
In what way is this Chinese propaganda/ideological influence operation "bad"?
In what way is it different/worse than the same things regularly at play, or that have historically been tolerated, in the US?
I don't see it.
As for American values, these are non-existent in your universities. "American values" are that which the prevailing system is dedicated to expunge, erase, exterminate.
buwaya, you can dress up your anti-Americanism in all kinds of different garbs, but it remains the same BS that the West has had to put up with for centuries now from angry disaffected ex-colonies.
If you don't believe that there is any difference between liberal university culture and Chinese totalitarian culture, don't take my word for it, or the vast number of Chinese fleeing China. Try it out for yourself. See how that works out.
And, from my position as an eye-witness, American/western culture and values (of the old school) are much more tolerated in China and Chinese communities than the same is in US universities.
The hate for all that is traditional American/Western, in your universities, is almost beyond description. It is a mad, uncontrollable, eterminating fury.
"liberal university culture "
There used to be such a thing.
There no longer is.
This is the main point between us.
buwaya said...
And, from my position as an eye-witness
You are no more an eye witness than I am.
American/western culture and values (of the old school) are much more tolerated in China and Chinese communities than the same is in US universities.
Pure CPC propaganda. Democracy? Rule of Law? Freedom of assembly? Where exactly does China excel in its acceptance of Western values? This has been the lesson of the last few decades, China's absolute rejection of Western values. Something that the quislings over here said would never happen.
buwaya said...
There used to be such a thing.
There no longer is.
This is the main point between us.
Only because you have chosen to accept the cartoon version of reality. You know nothing of which you speak.
I have recruited on nearly all California UC and State campuses, and put my kids through the UC system, and dealt with SF and Bay Area schools and the SF school board, over decades.
I am an experienced "customer" of your systems.
" Democracy? Rule of Law? Freedom of assembly?"
You will probably find that just about all Chinese like all these things. As ideals.
The problem is that regrettably the Chinese government does what it has to do - which is how they often put it, and you are welcome to judge them for this attitude. The mind-set does not map to what you are used to.
Anyone else notice how Inga and ARM get hysterical when someone criticizes US universities as they are today ?
US universities are among the very best of western universities.
Yes, especially Middlebury college
and Yale U
and Harvard U .
And especially, Evergreen State College.
Then, of course, there is the Fresno State professor.
Who knew that Jabba the Hut was a professor with tenure ?
ARM, there are great US universities, none of which you have any experience with, but they are all STEM type institutions, which may be why Chinese students go there and not to the looney bin U type.
"looney bin U"
looney bin U is way more important than one would think.
More than anything, these places teach your K-12 teachers, or teach the teachers of the teachers, or those who write their training manuals, or curricula.
buwaya said...
The problem is that regrettably the Chinese government does what it has to do
The tell is the 'regrettably'. Straight up apologist for a totalitarian regime.
When you feel comfortable denouncing the Chineses government with the same force you apply to US universities get back to me.
That is the usual Chinese (mainland) attitude ARM.
You will also find the same, for instance, with reference to their own government, in Singapore. You will find the same with respect to the government of the State of California, or the City of San Francisco, often in bitter terms.
Chinese are used to dealing with unfortunate realities.
The inability you exhibit in merely processing a presentation of a foreign mind-set is telling. Its a hard thing to say, but you can't handle the truth. This is what I have always said - your modern culture is unable to process the truly foreign, you have to construct a fantasy, which cripples individuals. And when the truth is revealed, when scabs are ripped off, the first target is the messenger.
ARM is deeply deluded about things like the insane culture of US universities.
Personally, I would like to see state legislators start to defund the more insane like Missouri has done.
I think the brick and mortar U will fade away as it is too expensive and the education, aside from a few hard science programs, is useless.
Teachers, in particular, should be going to free teachers colleges and leave off the political agitation, like that in Arizona where they plan to walk out just before year end.
I suppose they plan to hold high school diplomas hostage.
The Tucson elementary schools are full of illegals and ESL students.
Again, when you show some actual critical faculties regarding your Chinese paymasters get back to me. You are a shameless shill for a totalitarian regime. Your are, however, correct in one sense, these are foreign values, which the West has rejected.
The irony here is that the many Chinese who I know personally are much closer to my position than yours.
CJ said...
"By the way - I am involved in cryptocurrency and it's become very common for "cypherpunk" types in the space to believe that Chinese-design and manufactured chips are now *superior* to American ones. And these are westerners. If China has really surpassed us in microchip design and manufacture, we are in a bad, bad place."
The Chi-Coms have made some pretty good supercomputing chips, because the US government wouldn't let US firms sell them ours. That's about it. But that said, the US firms are being hollowed out by SJWs and Diversity bullshit. It's really just a matter of time. I am hoping that someone will see the huge opportunity that exists when a vastly wealthy organization systematically pisses off the engineers responsible for that wealth by giving the rewards and promotions they have earned to others for PC reasons.
ARM, what buwaya is saying is that the level of lockstep ideological conformity of US faculties is fully as totalitarian as that of the Chi-Com propaganda arms. If you really doubt that, the reason is because your ideology is in perfect agreement with the one being propagated by US faculties. And as to the superiority of American universities, dream on. American STEM is still pretty good, although it is beginning to be drawn under the mangle. But American "Liberal Arts" education is rotten to the core. As is Law, Education and to a lesser extent Medicine. Sad, sad. Oh, so sad. But true.
Don't try to explain anything to ARM. He already knows everything there is to know about China.
Buwaya, I have been listening to Max Boot's biography of Lansdale and was just listening to the chapter on Ramon Magsaysay.
Jupiter, David Goldman has been saying the same things about China and education, but of course ARM knows more about it.
David P. Goldman, economist, author, and Asia Times columnist whose pen name is “Spengler,” talked to Breitbart News Tonight co-hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak Thursday, warning of threats to America’s global position via China’s ascendance in science and technology.
Goldman described China’s One Belt One Road project as placing the one-party state at the center of an increasingly prosperous economic region that is becoming more unified through digital and physical means. China’s increasing centrality to emerging Asian economies, he continued, may facilitate its rise to global economic preeminence.
Goldman has been writing the "Spengler column" for Asia Times for years but what does he know ?
ARM is the expert. Could you link us to any of your writings on China, ARM?
Michael K said...
"Teachers, in particular, should be going to free teachers colleges and leave off the political agitation, like that in Arizona where they plan to walk out just before year end."
Yeah, well. The Teacher's Unions give huge amounts to Democrat politicians, who give it right back as salaries and bennies. They won't let anyone teach who has not passed through one of the utterly corrupt Education Departments, and they pay full tuition and give an automatic raise to anyone who gets a Masters from one of those shit factories. It is a racket, and a very lucrative one all around.
The only hope I can see is individual parents deciding they won't hand their kids over to these vermin. When your kids come home and tell you that the nice lady from Planned Parenthood came today and taught them how to do anal sex and BDSM (and no, I am not making that up), some parents start to wonder whether that "free" baby-sitting is such a good deal after all. And the Educrats know it, because they are becoming increasingly hostile to homeschoolers.
Somehow, I don't think the "Don't you dare criticize 'Murica, you dang furriner!" gambit is going to work any better for ARM than it did for Inga.
"When your kids come home and tell you that the nice lady from Planned Parenthood came today"
My grandson had trouble with fourth grade math. His mother talked to the teacher who said., "I can't do it either using Common Core."
He and his sister are now in a charter school. I feel bad I can't afford to send them all to private school, like I did their father but private school tuition is going out of sight.
The school their father attended is now $25k a year per kid.
It says something about public schools.
Blogger Michael K said...
"Goldman has been writing the "Spengler column" for Asia Times for years but what does he know ?"
Well, Pepe Escobar has been writing there at least as long, and he's batshit crazy.
Goldman is pretty good, he learned to do research in finance, where when you make a mistake they take you out and lop a zero off your net worth.
I think he knows a bit about China. It's amusing to see the lefties so certain they know everything about everything.
I think may be an ideological obsession to defend the crazy universities.
Most of the worst we see in universities comes from blacks acting out as they realize they have been "mismatched."
The Dartmouth thing is such a "tell."
They either knew they didn't have to study for finals or knew no professor would dare fail them.
What do they do after graduation? Dartmouth is a great brand. The white or Asian kids left out would have made great use of the chance.
I've been working in China for eight years now. When I arrived, ordinary Chinese people were pretty open to conversations with foreigners about political issues. Not today. Eight years ago, I heard speeches by high party officials about how China was moving towards democracy, which would happen in the future when everyone was educated. Not today. Of course, it's still nowhere near as bad during the Mao era. It's still possible for ordinary citizens to publicly criticize government policy so long as they don't challenge the Communist Party's primacy. It's just that everything is moving in a bad direction. How long this will last is anyone's guess.
Paco Wové said...
Don't you dare criticize 'Murica
I don't have a problem with him criticizing the US as long as he applies the same standards to China. The useless little fucker refuses to do this.
"The economy is absolutely controlled by the communist party. Only a true partisan idiot cannot see that." It's actually a lot more complicated than that, at least in South China. In Shenzhen, the richest city in China by far, privately owned high tech firms dominate. SOEs are relatively scarce here. The story is different in the north, where SOEs dominate. Does the Shenzhen municipal government provide a lot of public goods like public transportation, parks, roads, airports, education, etc? Yes. Does it or the local Party bosses tell Tencent or BYD or Huawei what to make and where and how to sell it and at what price? No. Is that "absolute control?" I don't think so buy YMMV.
Last comment: it is true that the CCP is gradually squeezing the life out of Hong Kong. The Party has decided that it does not need Hong Kong. The Nanshan District of Shenzhen is already richer than Hong Kong (higher per capita GDP) and that trend is likely to continue. So the Party doesn't care if Hong Kong withers on the vine - Shanghai and Shenzhen can fill China's financing needs and the trade docks in Shenzhen are already bigger and handle more trade than Hong Kong's. What the Party is more worried about is the threat that a truly free Hong Kong poses to Party dominance and rule. So it's going to keep squeezing Hong Kong's freedoms until nothing is left. It's like watching a python capture and swallow a nice fat goat.
Yes the Chinese communist party resembles the US Democrat Party in that it will not tolerate deviation from the party line.
So far, the Democrats enforce most discipline in ways that seem less violent and intimidating but that is just appearances.
I would not ask Justine Sacco about it though.
As she made the long journey from New York to South Africa, to visit family during the holidays in 2013, Justine Sacco, 30 years old and the senior director of corporate communications at IAC, began tweeting acerbic little jokes about the indignities of travel. There was one about a fellow passenger on the flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport:
“ ‘Weird German Dude: You’re in First Class. It’s 2014. Get some deodorant.’ — Inner monologue as I inhale BO. Thank God for pharmaceuticals.”
Then, during her layover at Heathrow:
“Chilly — cucumber sandwiches — bad teeth. Back in London!”
And on Dec. 20, before the final leg of her trip to Cape Town:
“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”
Oh well, she was just "stupid."
And then one from her employer, IAC, the corporate owner of The Daily Beast, OKCupid and Vimeo: “This is an outrageous, offensive comment. Employee in question currently unreachable on an intl flight.” The anger soon turned to excitement: “All I want for Christmas is to see @JustineSacco’s face when her plane lands and she checks her inbox/voicemail” and “Oh man, @JustineSacco is going to have the most painful phone-turning-on moment ever when her plane lands” and “We are about to watch this @JustineSacco bitch get fired. In REAL time. Before she even KNOWS she’s getting fired.”
The glee was typical of the leftist hive mind. China has nothing on the Democrat left.
It is true that the Shenzhen region is more free, in certain respects, than other parts of the country, but it is less free than Hong Kong and as you note Hong Kong is not that free itself anymore.
The head of Tencent is a party member. What does it mean to say the party doesn't tell Tencent what to do when a member of the Party controls the company?
From wiki:
"Ma is a deputy to the 5th Shenzhen Municipal People’s Congress and serves in the 12th National People’s Congress.
Because of Tencent’s dominance of the social network and instant messaging markets in China, Ma Huateng’ relationship with the Chinese Communist Party has repeatedly come under scrutiny. Speaking of censorship at a tech conference in Singapore, Ma was quoted as saying "Lots of people think they can speak out and that they can be irresponsible. I think that's wrong […] We are a great supporter of the government in terms of the information security. We try to have a better management and control of the Internet”."
China sounds almost as regimented as the Democrat Party.
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