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.
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?
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.
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.
- 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...