Beijing is banning all foreign media from publishing online in China
qz.com
qz.com
Both ways, you get no revenue, but one way, you waste a lot of time first. It's not worth compromising your principles in order to capture 18% of the world market. 82% is a lot bigger than 18%.
Chinese don't need the money, most Chinese can get the loans from the government based on half-lies according to a Chinese friend of mine.
In America the Capitalist class also plays by its own rules. They will steal an idea, pump it with money, then dump it on the public... and walk away with billions. While the product lasts maybe a year or two. Bad CEOs are blamed and the cycle repeats itself. US government steals secrets and gives them to major corporations, can be proven, etc.
Honestly, people are simply rooting for their own team. The rules that they play with always favor some party which has power in whatever country. If they don't the country is corrupt and not prospering.
Billions? Billion dollar companies are rare and ones that reach billions and only last a only year are two can be counted on your fingers.
The market has a short memory. China can act this way for as long as it is profitable. As soon as it starts to hurt them, they can stage a 'revolution' and after a few years of playing nice, all will be forgiven. That's what scapegoats are for, transferring sins.
Several of the towns which depended upon speed traps for their funding found out that the Internet is a good resource for letting people know to avoid an area.
This will be interesting when self-driving cars don't ever disobey traffic laws.
It will be even more interesting when the passed laws and administrative acts will be automatically checked and validated (by something other than humans) so that fining won't be for addressing some revenue deficit but for actually preventing harmful phenomena!
Just the other day I was driving down the narrow roads of a nearby hill and there is a section with single lanes with lots of traffic moving at 35 mph. One lady comes weaving down the traffic on both sides to get in front of the crowd with a net savings until when the lanes opened up of 30 seconds. So much risk to everyone for what little benefit.
The twenty minutes or so morning and evening, 35-40 minutes overall is not to be sniffed at. The round trip on public transport would be well over 90 minutes.
They dragged on the construction for more than a year making barely any progress so that they could keep the construction zone open. (2x fines) The bridge was crossing a ravine at the bottom of a hill so they just kept a couple cops parked there every day and pulled over everyone with an out of state license plate all day and the county made millions. Eventually people caught on and sued. Bridge was finished nearly immediately after that.
Google Street view: https://goo.gl/VwIadH
I have a neighbor (lives across the lake from me) who is a retired police officer...23 years on the job...
I asked him once if there was any truth to the rumor that traffic cops had to meet a quota...
He said, "Not in so many words...every now and then the Captain, during the shift briefing would say, "Boys, I need to see some paper" and we all knew what he meant."
Nice movie, I also liked it.
http://www.studychineseinchina.com/community/knowledge-base/...
It's technically illegal to make something with a round corner because that's Apple's patent. If you piss off Apple, they'll try to enforce it. If you don't piss them off, they won't care. The law will side with Apple because they have better lawyers than you do.
The above is just an article published to a government website.
And of course in Canada there are limits to foreign ownership of media outlets (foreign ownership cannot be majority), as well as foreign content in media.
"If I wanted to do massive, irreparable harm to China, this is the law I would pass. And yet, they have done this willingly to themselves, without hesitation or incident."
These aren't the smart engineering politicians with a 10 year view China has foisted its fable onto the world. These are the corrupt paranoid politicians who know they are one mass protest away from having all their families disposed. These are fat and lazy billionnaires who have siphoned off local schools, hospitals, people, environments, and is about to abscond with riches. These are the people that see their debt-fueled economy collapsing, and know there's no more workers to be paid in pennies to be exploited.
"In total, 106 members of China's National People's Congress and 97 members of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress, are on Hurun's China Rich List. Their combined wealth hits $463.8 billion. By comparison, the median wealth of American politicians was just over $1 million in 2013, according to CNN Money. " http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-politicians-are-rich-...
463.8/(106+97) = avg of ~2.28 billion per china congress critter
Edit: as pointed out below, the math is more complex as there is 2987 seats in the NPC and I can't quickly find numbers for the number of total seats in the CPPCC, so the average is certainly drastically lower than the above.
To get the average per "congress critter" you'd have to get the total in each body, and get the net worths of the ones not on the rich list. I suspect it's less than 2.28B, but still a good bit higher than in the US.
Ummm... The NPC has 2987. Put in context 97 of 2987 are rich or 3%. That's a far better stat than you'll find for the US senate or congress. The CPPCC is larger.
Add to that the comparison to the median wealth all American Politicians, your comment is all smoke and mirrors. Compare likes to likes.
A senator averages about $3M, a house rep is about $800k.
For example, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20... claims that as of 2009 the age of US House members averaged 57. I doubt they've gotten younger on average since.
I'm having trouble finding these numbers for our current congress, but in 2009-10, out of 435 House reps 168 had law degrees, 83 had a masters degree, 23 had a PhD, 17 had a medical degree. 32 had nothing beyond an associate's degree; that leaves 109 with just bachelor's degrees. All numbers according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_St...
Your typical person with an advanced degree in their late 50s probably has some retirement savings. And note that the cited article says some of the numbers (but not all!) include the values of the House members homes. It's really not that hard to hit $800k if you count home equity and retirement savings, assuming you have any reasonable amounts of either...
Quote stolen from another thread:
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age of beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one 'makes' them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted-and you create a nation of law-breakers and then you cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." --Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
To me, it's like a literary Rube Goldberg device where it looks cool on the page, but seems impractical and kind of unhelpful as a way to live your life.
It always reminds me of fundamental Christians patting each other on the back about dinosaurs not being real and knowing better than to have to read the literature on it.
Rand has some great points, one thing that bothers me is when in Atlas Shrugged and her philosophy is that she always attributes everything to a single amazing person. It's like a 50's version of the Steve Jobs biographies.
The overall message is that laws and government is an obstruction to be ignored or demolished.
As i get older i learn that while it is good to question laws and regulations, many of them have actual factual reasons to exist. So blanket dismissal is as much a wrong as unquestioning obedience.
Government is a system, and like all systems it will require maintenance. And sometimes the job the system was constructed for is no longer there.
But just tossing the system out because it is in your way is as useful as throwing out a random server just because you need the rack space.
I see this with myself and people who are aging with me, we have so much to do as we get older that we have automated thinking around certain subjects.
I think the younger people lack this conditioning to things as they are and can see better methodologies for approaching the situation.
But we old farts have created our pattern and understand it, and so block the young from testing their theories, in a small community this would be a fairly ideal situation, but when scaled to countries, it's slow and inefficient.
We need a more scalable thought process when it comes to large scale humanities.
Way too many times the young dismiss existing conditions simply because they feel constrained by them, and lack the context for why said conditions came to be. End result is that they rebel against everything just because its there by (learned) reflex.
Yes, as one grow older one fall into patterns. But i think quite a bit of it is because of the work pace of modern day rather than some condition of age.
Edit: Again from personal experience, i have come to think that people need to experience something to really get it. So if you tell someone young that drinking is bad (in excess), they may or may not listen (and may just ignore you because you are old). But let them experience it under relatively controlled conditions, rather than some random binge hidden away somewhere, and maybe some synapses will connect up (and quite a few destroyed most likely) and the message will be received.
Of course, the same can't be said for the anti-trust regulation book.
I would say it is a book about the magically industrialists that she wishes existed in her youth when her family was disposed by the Russian communists. They have ray guns and invisibility machines and everything, oh and trains don't forget trains.
Here is the thread I copied the quote from, but I have read the book. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11088704
I see it here in the US as well. "We only accept queries by email and will reply within three to five days" or "It will cost $1 per page to print" etc.
Why bother replying to people you don't care about?
Australia and the UK already have firewalls that filter all Internet traffic which "my bad, so sorry" seem to keep "accidentally" including all sorts of sites their backing legislation doesn't justify (at least as far as anyone can tell - the Australian government list is confidential). The UK is trying to roll out laws requiring all citizens to register with the government to view R18 material.
China is just playing catch-up at this point.
Weirdly, I think its helped China become a bigger power.
Not deliberate censorship (excluding the 1200 they did intend to censor, of course). I've had many dealings with ASIC throughout my career and can assure you that most of their 'bad actions' can be ascribed to incompetence rather than malice.
Not that it's much of a comfort; the outcomes of giving power to evil are roughly the same as giving power to stupid.
https://pirateproxy.pw/ also works.
When you double the size of a plane it it becomes 4-times heavier (Observe what it takes to fly a B-52).
The PRC seems to be circling the wagons to protect from some unknown enemy that the free flow of information will allow the arrows to strike.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War#Final_years_.281985.E...
The trick is to find a "foreign aggressor" who's powerful enough to scare people into putting their internecine disputes aside, but not so powerful that they stomp your regime like a bug.
They do not. Conquering and occupaying a country with the size, population, and nuclear weapons of India would be a massive undertaking, I think the largest such war in history. And remember that China would have to cross the Himalyas to reach India, maybe the most difficult geopolitical obstacle in the world. Finally, China is just developing its military and their capabilities are limited (but growing quickly); many experts believe Japan is more miilitarily capable than China, for example.
Or do you mean historically? (Pre WWII)
I would hazard a guess that China's korean war "Human wave" tactics would be sufficient against Japan (assuming US was not also involved).
The consequences of that are not what one might think. Japan has the 7th largest military budget in the world, and it's been high for a long time (i.e., they've accumulated quite a bit). Much of what they own, from fighter planes to warships to submarines, could just as well be used to attack as to defend. The current Japanese government has been stretching the bounds of the pacifist Constitution greatly; they are not going to sit by and watch China dominate them and the region, and they want Japan to take its place in world affairs commesurate with its population (10th largest) and economy (3rd). For example, they now take part in multinational military operations, they are equipping and training their marines to storm islands, they are exporting Japanese military equipment, etc. Also, remember that Japanese companies are world-class in technology; they can build some pretty good equipment.
Japan long has been considered to have one of the finest militaries, restrained by policy - and that policy is fading away.
> I would hazard a guess that China's korean war "Human wave" tactics would be sufficient against Japan
They'd get pretty wet. Also, that doesn't work in wars against modern countries whose air power is so accurate (the Gulf War is considered the turning point in military history on this issue). The Chinese, and many other large countries, have been shrinking the number of soldiers in their military as a result.
This is meaningless. How could this statement be possibly falsified for any given region of the world?
So there is a creature after all, even if mechanical, to which the BMI applies!
Hence the famous Rome roads, the Nile for the Egiptians or the excellent communication system of the Incas (there are quite a few other examples) that made those empires possible.
China might have been historically to big to govern with some stability, but with the high speed communication networks of the present that might have changed.
The population wasn't as big, but without modern technology the history of Chinese national governance is likely better than any other region in the world. From around 250 BC to 1911, the Chinese usually had effective national government which made China a world leader economically, culturally, and technologically.
(There are many caveats: 1) During that time there were periods of civil war and division also; 2) the geographical area defined as China varied quite a bit; 3) I use the word "usually", but I don't know the percentage of time stable, effective government was provided; certainly there were many successful emporers and dynasties.)
Not that it's your main point, but I think B-52 has 8 engines because they're an old design. They're about 10,000 lbf each, while the engines in new planes provide more than five times the thrust, so two 787 engines are stronger than ten B-52 engines.
China has too many single men who will never know marriage and who present a huge threat to their society. It is better to point the tip of that spear in a different direction through tightly controlled propaganda. War, cold or hot, is on the horizon.
Sounds like the west. Yet we're too fat, lazy and complacent to do anything. Bernie and Trump are achieving some success because of this, but in the end Hillary will win (possibly through some sort of shenanigans), continue towards Obama and the establishment's police state, and once again the people will lose.
It's funny how people talk about dissatisfaction in non-western countries, without realized that people are very dissatisfied in the west...
The scale and degree of poverty in China now, let alone 20 years ago, are just a tad bit worse than trouble finding jobs and long commute.
Yes, a country that started further behind in development is objectively 'worse' than a developed country.
But China today is objectively better than 20 years ago and will likely continue development. Meanwhile western countries aren't a panacea.
My wife comes from a 3rd world country where people immigrate to China from. A country that constantly sees its population decline from the exodus, where you can drive through entire abandoned neighborhoods. A country that's behind China on basically every metric you can think of, and where the only development that happens is paid for by China, who constantly forgives their debts. There's always going to be someone that's better off, and worse off than you.
The point isn't to shit on anyone or say China's great, but only to say that different countries have different levels of development, and the 'grass is always greener' mentality leads nowhere good. In 2000 everyone said China wouldn't continue its growth for various reasons, but it did. Today we're saying the same thing, with no recollection of past failed predictions of doom.
China is too big, too educated and too dynamic to stop developing. Yes quality of life isn't that of Canada or the US, but that doesn't mean they're not on a good path.
Just because X country is poorer today than Y country doesn't make X a shitty place.
Who exactly, among the politicians and leaders, or anyone else for that matter, would you be willing to follow into battle?
A revolution has a huge cost, it's not just a matter of fear.
As for the US, they just need to 'open up' their political system. Maybe some sort of proportional representation to break the 2 party system. Eliminate lobbying, which is really just institutionalized bribery.
As it stands right now the US has 2 parties which are bought by the same corporate interests, the largest police state and prison system in the world, unrest and protests fairly often, in multiple cities, and so on.
For the record, I'm not advocating armed revolution, that usually ends up rather poorly. However the US needs to stay out of China's business, and let them sort it out, gradually, the way they do. The decision to ban foreign media isn't some sort of nefarious response to unrest, but rather a direct response to increased anti-China propaganda coming from the west.
Yet all throughout this thread there's tons of posts shitting on China for all sorts of reasons, when much of this can be seen through the lens of history and common sense.
I remember 5 years ago, most outlets had very pro-China things to say. Now it's undoubtedly taken a very negative turn. Daily stories about China's impending economic collapse, their various 'crackdowns', and so on. Even this article. To be honest, half of the stuff they want to ban isn't even allowable in Canadian media (literally, 3 out of 6 bullet points are strait up illegal in Canada), and we're hardly a totalitarian state.
But when western media and NGOs are stepping up the propaganda and support for violent secessionist groups (Occupy HK took a violent turn recently, some Uighur groups are strait up terrorists with US support), China has to do something. A collapse would be catastrophic, yet that's exactly what the US government is trying to achieve (as evidenced by Syria).
Edit - Anyone want to address these points? Or is the propaganda working too well?
And of course, China's stock exchange is holding steady now, around their long term growth average. It was overvalued before, now it's corrected, and definitely hasn't crashed.
Goldman Sachs lies to people who pay them millions, and you think that anything they publish for free is reliable? http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/pictures/how-goldman-ex...
Any report from Goldman Sachs is designed to advance Goldman Sachs' interests. Any resemblance to reality it might hold is sheer coincidence.
The point is, they're pretty spot on when it comes to forecasting. More so than pretty much any media outlet. If they say China isn't going to descend into Mad Max style anarchy in the next decade, I believe them.
#2 - endangering national security, or harming national honor and interests [national honor? not illegal in Canada]
#3 - undermining national unity, or going against ethnic customs and habits [going against ethnic habits? not illegal in Canada]
#5 - insulting or slandering others, infringing upon the legitimate rights of others [I'll give you that slander and infringing rights is illegal in Canada, insulting is not]
Note that all of these are vague, intentionally vague at that. Whether or not you violated these rules is entirely up to the interpretation of the CCP.
And you're not including the first words of each bullet point, which clearly ARE illegal here.
- disclosing state secrets, endangering national security, or harming national honor and interests
Illegal, possibly illegal, and while we don't have a concept of national 'honor', going against national interests can be illegal, depending on context.
- inciting ethnic hatred or ethnic discrimination, undermining national unity, or going against ethnic customs and habits
Even the second point (inciting ethnic discrimination) is contrary to our hate speech laws, and the first point definitely is.
- spreading rumors, disturbing social order, or undermining social stability
I didn't include this because it's a maybe, but unfounded rumours are often considered slander, and disturbing social order is often considered hate speech (though not always).
- insulting or slandering others, infringing upon the legitimate rights of others
Illegal.
> Note that all of these are vague, intentionally vague at that. Whether or not you violated these rules is entirely up to the interpretation of the CCP.
You're not familiar with 'common law', are you? Canada's law system (I assume the same holds true for other countries who adopted Britain's system of laws) isn't set in stone, are quite a bit is left to interpretation. It's not particularly unusual.
For instance, our last government used an anti-terrorism law to try strip the citizenship of and deport someone who was born in Canada, on the basis that he 'could' be eligible for citizenship in a country he's never stepped foot in. Granted he was convicted of a crime, but goes to show that, even in Canada laws can be interpreted rather broadly.
I'm familiar with common law and I wouldn't compare common law in Canada will the law in China.
Fact remains, we're shitting on China for banning things that are already banned in many non-totalitarian countries.
Edit: “Insult” and “slander” are two entirely different things. To insult is to speak disrespectfully or abusively about someone. An insult would be something like “Donald Trump is an asshole.” To slander is to make false defamatory statements about someone, e.g. “I saw Donald Trump kick a puppy.”
Edit - publicly insulting someone often falls into slander, depending on what was said. In Canada all charges are pressed by the crown, so to a certain degree they decide what's what. In general, if there's the possibility of damages arising from the insults, it can be prosecuted.
Edit2 - here's an interesting one for you: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/insulting-police-onli...
Undermining national unity is not illegal in Canada - even to the point where a political party was advocating the separation of Quebec (BQ) and a Bloc Quebecois MP tried to incite members of the Canadian Forces to desert and join a possible Quebec military if Quebec separated from Canada.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Marc_Jacob
"Jacob faced accusations that he advised Quebec members of the Canadian Forces to join a Quebec army if there was a winning vote for Quebec sovereignty in the 1995 Quebec referendum. The prevailing Liberal government decided to investigate these remarks, while the Reform Party demanded Jacob be charged with sedition.[2]"
In the end he wasn't charged with anything
This self-centered North American still reads al-jazeera, Guardian , and Der Spiegel .
"endangering social morality or national cultural tradition" could probably even include publishing anything upsetting or otherwise true about the party.
Kind of like stripping the citizenship of and deporting a Canadian who was born in Canada and never stepped foot in the country they're being deported to?
- China's total debt risen to 346% of GDP in 2015. http://seekingalpha.com/article/3852886-chinese-debt-problem...
- China exports fall 11.2% in January, imports down 18.8% http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/14/china-releases-trade-data-for...
- China’s $6.7 trillion bond market is flashing the same danger signs that triggered a tumble in stocks http://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2015/10/10/...
- China Capital Outflows Rise to Estimated $1 Trillion in 2015 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/china-capi...
- China's Net Capital Outflows Probably Hit $113 Billion In January http://www.actionforex.com/analysis/daily-forex-fundamentals...
- "Chinese banks will lose approximately $3.5 trillion of equity if China's banking system loses 10 percent of assets" (all of its reserve would be gone) http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/10/kyle-bass-china-banks-may-los...
Except tons of western interested parties, you mean, who would be very glad to see the regime go, and be able to freely plunder the country a la Yeltsin's Russia.
Just wondering what your thoughts on the reasons for this move are.
It turns out that the US has been playing a long game. America imports cargo containers filled with manufactured goods, and exports one-way, first-class plane tickets to America (and Vancouver), for use by the Chinese nouveaux-riches.
Brilliant. Devious and brilliant. The dollars never need to be exchanged into yuan, because they come back inside immigration-curious pockets. Export the factory; import the tycoon carrying the factory profits. And if China tries to stop it in the usual way, the brain drain only worsens. It's more like a brain siphoning.
But taking the foil hat off, it's probably just entirely accidental. Not that the US wouldn't milk it for maximum benefit anyway, but it's just too much like the outcome of a cursed monkey's paw wish to have been planned that way.
When I first came there, China was gradually opening itself, things were becoming more free and people were very optimistic. If you talked to Taxi drivers, waiters or basically any people in the street, they were very optimistic and thought that the future was going to be great. Overtime this optimism has changed, when I would talk to taxi drivers, they would be bitter, thinking that the growth only really profited the rich and they had been left behind. It was a very different feelings...
Surprisingly, upper class Chines that I would talk to were also wary about the changes of the government and a lot of them were thinking of finding ways to leave China (I have a friend who went to Canada to give birth to her child for this very reason).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baozi
Basically, he's got a nickname that resembles "little piggy". (By intent, not literal translation.)
While China doesn't have the benefit of Google in the short term, by blocking them it gives it a chance for local companies to develop the technology and catch up.
Also take the example of TOMs shoes giving away free shoes replacing local markets and producers. These poor countries of weak governments, and even a small foreign company can impact the local the economy in uncertain ways. http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/10/economic...
If you can understand this you can understand the viewpoint of Chinese officials. We come in with the viewpoint of "how can I have my fair and equal opportunity to extract wealth from China" while the capitalists in China are thinking "how can I extract wealth from China and prevent the foreigners from doing so." In reality the playing field isn't level. Our counterparts in China don't have the same education, quality of life, and financial status. Therefore a foreign company with foreign talent would already enter the market with an upper hand. By the time local companies are ready, they'd be fighting an uphill battle against foreign incumbents, or worse yet, not develop at all.
If you're familiar with Star Trek, there's the concept of the Prime Directive. It's principle is that the developed races must never contact or interfere with an undeveloped race because doing so would alter their natural development.
Foreign companies don't have an inherent right to the Chinese market. If they feel they do, or want to enter, it's because they feel there is profit in it. The profit comes from exploiting the opportunity in the local market, and in an underdeveloped market such opportunities are ripe. This isn't exactly fair if mature companies are allowed unfettered access.
The actual research paper is here: http://repository.usfca.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005.... In it, the authors say "After controlling for household and parental characteristics as well as ADP-level fixed effects, we can uncover no statistically significant negative impact on shoe purchases in local markets."
Apparently Xi's predecessors did not think this was as important, but Xi seems to be old-school.
I do not think this is a good idea for China or the government. It seems like the government only has one solution for a problem: more control. More control is like pressurizing a container. The more pressure you put, the bigger the explosion when the container eventually ruptures. I don't think this is in the interest of anyone in China, so I hope they rethink things before the pressure gets too high.
In a developed nation this is OK because the public has fewer problems to worry about and can devote the time to punish bad press or filter out bad actors. In China where people worry about many things including clean water and corruption, having to have to worry about a large portion of the population being swindled by a bad acting foreign media propaganda is a real concern. In the US if some nazi propaganda publication gets published its ok. Most people know well enough to dismiss them. In an undeveloped country this could potentially result in a nazi takeover. See impoverished Germany after World War I as an example.
This doesn't mean the Chinese government isn't spewing its own propaganda, but at the least its working well enough to drive economic growth at the moment, and they don't want to derail that with chaos or dissent.
And how are they gonna act against poisonous water and corruption if they cannot form a movement through some sort of free media?
> In an undeveloped country this could potentially result in a nazi takeover. See impoverished Germany after World War I as an example.
Do you really consider 1930s Germany undeveloped? Even a developed country is not impenetrable to propaganda. Just look at all the radical nationalists across all of Europe.
There are rules and there is implementation. Reality in China is not so cut and dried.
I share pbkhrv's sentiment about this possibly being a preparation for a rash of bad economic news late this year. I have it on very reasonable authority that the RMB will tank at least 15% by end of year.
The view from here in China is basically the same as ever... nobody with money really cares about foreign journalism and reporting, only food prices (steadily increasing), education (crisis), health (crisis), pollution (huge) and inflation (big). Transport is also a problem. They just try to get their money out.
The Chinese government has a difficult job. They don't really do too badly when all things are considered.
Maybe they got tired of having banned content mirrored by un-blocked IP ranges and constantly having to hunt them down.
When China was the huge success story it was, until recently, they were far more tolerant of criticism. Even then, the Chinese Government would clamp down very quickly on criticism. Right now their tolerance is pretty much zero. They do not want to admit or even hear that they have done anything wrong or that China has significant problems.
They also greatly fear any kind of mass action. During the boom years, with high employment and everyone happy, there was little chance of mass action. Now with entire industrial areas becoming ghost towns, high unemployment, no pensions and growing poverty, mass action becomes a real threat.
According to this story [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-set-to-ba...]:
'This ban covers words, pictures, maps, games, animation and sound of an "informational and thoughtful nature" -- unless they have approval from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.'
Still it's very onerous but not a complete shutdown.
EDIT: Context for my question is that of rule of law and how much can get away without actually having an effect at the top.
I have heard it said that people don't need to get their way, but they do need to feel heard. The more you can't express yourself, the more things can get out of control quickly when an opportunity finally arises to vent.
A laser gets its coherence from the atoms being in an inverted population: they are all excited, so when one drops down and releases a photon, that photon triggers a chain reaction of all the other atoms to release theirs. I worry that this is what will end up happening. Someday, something will happen and maybe the censors are a little behind or something, like the high speed rail crash near Shanghai, and it triggers everyone's pent-up disillusionment and feeling unable to change anything. I don't think this would be a happy time for anyone, and, ironically, is just the sort of thing that the control is intended to prevent.
I hope the government reconsiders this idea.
But this is in itself an illusion no? It's equivalent to not being heard anyway, just that you could be heard.
Now that I think about, yes I agree that's how I would prefer to feel.
†In the context of the PRC, say a return to ration coupons being required to buy food, this allowed your local block or village committee to trivially starve you to death if you get on their wrong side. My 1988 roommates, straight from the PRC to the US for grad school, told me the development of an open market for food was the single greatest change on the ground, getting on the committee's wrong side "only" increased your cost of food.
I was in China last week. Major Western news sources such as NYT, WSJ, Bloomberg, BBC are all blocked as far as I can tell. So Chinese audience is deprived of major alternative sources, political correct or not.
Also, not sure how your age is relevant?
The fact that people feel good wearing "good" clothes is telling, no? Unless I'm missing something there's no real reason to wear "good" clothes and feel good about it.
If no adults are around, watch this movie: http://www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/81753727/
Seems like a contradiction. Are you publishing online, or in China?
As a Chinese I don't give a damn about these new ridiculous rules since we always have ways to bypass them. And theses things changes very fast in this country.
We have laws, and the way them work are different than that in western countries.
And for the demand, let me show you an example: Several months ago, a malware, XcodeGhost, infects EVERY large internet company in China. The attack worked by tricking developers into using a fake version of Xcode, Apple's software development tool, to build apps. So their apps were published to Apple App Store with hidden malicious code. This virus also has a android version. You may wonder why these developers didn't download the xcode and android sdk from apple and google's website directly. They are the top class developers in China. But the fact is they rarely use these websites and services. You can live without google even you are an android developer.
http://www.cso.com.au/article/585378/apple-ween-chinese-ios-...
"How do you license media in an age when everyone could become a writer and publisher?" As far as I can imagine - you don't, that's the thing! Maybe they won't do you anything for now, but if they don't like what you're publishing they will have a ready-available "legal" reason for detaining you for publishing without a publishing license (which of course could be claimed to be totally unrelated to your published content)!
- Increase anti-foreign rhetorics in media. Don't like it, Microsoft? tough
- Ban Foreign services. Don't like it, Uber? tough
- Devalue Yuan by 50%. Don't like it, Apple? tough
- Nationalize foreign assets. Don't like it, Ford? tough
Actually, I think Apple would love that. Decreases their manufacturing costs. :)
And many other things would go up in price with a depressed currency in general.
Why wouldn't Apple like this? Their manufacturing costs would become much lower, and they would rack up even more billions in profits.
Tim Cook has already made a big deal about "currency headwinds" to explain Apple's slowing revenue growth.
Maybe not as profitable due to exchange arbitrage, but still profitable since the costs go down exactly as much as the retail price does. Engineering for the Chinese market already exists due to all the other markets, so it's essentially money left on the table if they don't.
Unbiased journalism seems such a quaint concept these days, and as the divisions between right and left take on an almost war like characteristic, everything becomes propaganda.
Hell, I might even move to China to get away from it all.
On the other hand, watching political agitators with an axe to grind masquerading as journalists makes me mad.
Will the foreign websites published in Mandarin be banned to view from mainland China?