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Comment by astebbin | Hacker News Reader

We've heard this story before. In the West, the line (for years!) was that China's economic growth and foreign trade would _inevitably_ lead to democratization and widespread human rights improvements. That didn't happen -- the Communist party adapted quickly. They learned how to use economic growth as the base of their continued legitimacy, and as a fig leaf for continued political oppression (Internet censorship, jailing human rights activists, intimidating journalists, etc). With China as their mentor, I don't have high hopes for a different scenario unfolding in North Korea.

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But it did lead to human rights improvements. As far as I know, many (most?) Chinese people can freely move around and visit other countries. No Chinese scholar was dragged onto streets by government-sponsored teenage thugs in decades. Some of them even criticize the government occasionally, although if you do that too loudly you may still go to prison.

So, there was a huge improvement since the days of Cultural Revolution. Just not enough. And if North Korea achieves the same level of human rights that is available in China now, it will be considered a vast success by everybody who cares.

Strangely, some people seem to maintain that freedom is either absolute everything or nothing. But you don't have to equate everything as "still non-free" in order to fight for more freedom and justice.

Well put. "All or nothing" is poison, and by that standard, Western democracies also fall in the category of "nothing."

For the massive human rights gains in China to be so thoughtlessly dismissed is frustrating.

Agreed.

If anyone is foolish enough to think china will adopt democracy in the guise of America or Europe is foolish, their culture is so different as so to not even be understandable by most westerners.

I'd agree that china is partially democratic and free - insomuch as there are limited methods of redress, and some criticism of the government is allowed, provided you don't attack the foundations of the government.. and every year little by little the Chinese government allows a little more criticisms and adds more methods of redress. They'll make it in my lifetime, but again, it won't look like us in the west.

> If anyone is foolish enough to think china will adopt democracy in the guise of America or Europe is foolish, their culture is so different as so to not even be understandable by most westerners.

I think that's wrong and patronizing, everyone is capable of democracy.

Aloha did say China will become a free democracy in their lifetime, only that it will not be the western model of such.

>"If anyone is foolish enough to think china will adopt democracy in the guise of America or Europe is foolish, their culture is so different as so to not even be understandable by most westerners."

Taiwan is a clear counter-example to this ridiculous claim. In many ways, ranging from traditional religions to the writing system, Taiwan has preserved more traditional Chinese culture than the PRC has. None of this has stopped Taiwan from becoming a modern democracy with citizen referendums and more tolerance of peaceful protest than any English speaking country I know of.

Didn't most of those human rights improvements precede economic liberalization? People are talking as if China joined the WTO right after Mao's death. That's not how it went.

It's worth looking at what led to democracy within what's now the United States of America. Economic growth, foreign trade, and the rise of a powerful merchant & professional class started in the mid-late 1600s. By 1688 it had led to political reforms in England itself, with the Glorious Revolution and recognition that the King was subject to parliament. It took a further 88 years before we got the American Revolution, and over 100 before the Constitution of the U.S. was ratified.

Political changes take much longer than economic changes, which take much longer than technological changes. Typically, you need to have a whole generation grow up who believes that their prosperity is due to their own hard work and that of their parents, and that they owe nothing to the existing political regime. We're just barely, within the last 1-2 decades, seeing the economic changes that resulted from China's opening to the West and adoption of modern technology. Maybe by the time our grandchildren are adults, they'll see the political liberalization that goes along with that.

What led to the American Revolution was a lack of much governance by Britain of the colonies for generations, which led to the establishment of self-governance. When eventually the King didn't have enough money and needed to levy more taxes on the colonies, the new ruling class revolted. The American Revolution was not a revolution in the sense that France had or that we typically talk about. It was a War of Secession. Comparing it to attempts to overthrow the ruling class in one's own country is not appropriate. It was war to shake off a foreign oppressor from the other side of the world.

Sure, but there's nothing stopping the same dynamic from playing out in China (or the current U.S, for that matter). What happens if the economic elites in Shanghai or Shenzhen decide that their interests have diverged from Beijing and that they'd be better off with self-governance? Their economic engines are fueled as much by Western multinational investment as by Beijing, anyway.

That's a big "if". So far it seems like a unified China puts them at an economic advantage since they have the muscle to drive beneficial trade agreements through. So long as the ruling party keeps them all placated they'll have no reason to defect.

I think the main thing to focus on isn't that there's a direct correlation between economic growth and political liberalization, but rather a "genie out of the bottle" effect where societies will consistently mobilize to preserve their new standard of living, which props up and exaggerates political forces believed to provide that standard of living. Sometimes this leads to civil liberties, other times it leads towards nationalist or imperialist sentiment. But history shows that our tendency is to take on increased complexity as a way of getting something for everyone: regulated markets and civil liberties are both modes of complexification.

A lot of the big shifts happen during a crisis: Europe's social democracies, the liberalized markets of Japan and South Korea, the USA as superpower: all of those were forged from the global crisis conditions of World War II and have only gradually drifted off their various trajectories.

And, to the extent that the world has a crisis now(and we have a whole bunch of events conceivable as crisis scenarios), it isn't going to resemble the last one: the premises are different, and the means of resolution are likely to be different too.

The response cycle for the Chinese government is vastly shorter than what King George's government was dealing with.

China is pretty big, and for some citizens the ruling party may as well be on the other side of the world.

But uniquely among all countries, they're very likely to be of the same ethnic group, and speak the same language as their rulers. You certainly cannot say that of Brazil, Russia, hell even of the US.

Han Chinese is by far the largest ethnicity on Earth - I've always wondered how that impacts Chinese sentiment and history.

As much as China has a dominant ethnicity, this is only really true in the eastern, core parts of China. In the Northern and Western fringes, plus Tibet, there's entirely unrelated groups of people who, at times, want nothing to do with Beijing.

There are countries with more ethnic cohesion, though they tend to be smaller: Iceland for example. Any larger country either came about by annexing smaller ones, or was sufficiently valuable enough that it was colonized at some point.

The taxes the King wanted to levy were relatively minor. The ruling class hypothesis doesn't explain why they would launch an expensive and dangerous revolution over a few minor taxes, nor does it explain the revolution's support from the people and intelligentsia. In fact, the rich and powerful tended Loyalist, and many of the top Revolutionaries weren't exactly landed gentry.

There's great danger in the Marxoid tendency to see everything in terms of economics and social class. Leaving aside its obvious failures in practical matters, this tendency discounts many real human emotions and often leads one to topsy-turvy assumptions compared to what actually happened.

The problem is a lot can change if we going to give China nearly a century for political change.

A lot of countries today are starting to look not to Western democracies as examples/role models of success but to China. Even in existing democracies, it is not surprising that the recent populist/nationalist movements arguing for isolationism, economic-nationalism, increased government control stem out of a world where China is the shining beacon of consistent 5%+ economic growth.

By the time China should change, they might have already reshaped the world such that they don't need to change.

Change is not imposed from outside. It's just that increased wealth and trade in the end always results in increased liberalism, tolerance and freedom.

But it doesn't. Even the US is moving away from liberalism. Consider the increasing restrictions on and fading support for freedom of speech, the most fundamental of liberal values.

Yeah, that's the other side of the coin: Decreasing prosperity leads to decreasing liberalism, and in many US and EU regions prosperity is decreasing with predictable political consequences.

The authoritarians of the day don't have a lot of supporters in NY, SF, London or Paris. It's the US flyover states and French mining towns that are turning away from liberalism.

I think it's a stretch to assume that this translates directly.

The Chinese government competently used a combination of crony capitalism and state-run-enterprises to sustain steady economic growth. It's well understood that government policies encouraged and supported the free-ish market.

In North Korea, the markets which have sprung up have happened despite the government. If it is increasingly seen as incompetent, that's clear distinction with the situation in China, which was run by fairly ruthless technocrats (since the 90s).

It's also quite a stretch to think that the farmer's markets in North Korea could possibly transition into the huge industrial giants which have powered China's economy.

I think most of the west would be more-or-less OK with a Chinese-style regime in North Korea -- a competent, responsible, undemocratic politburo more interested in economic growth than pointless military threats (China does not weekly threaten to nuke San Francisco, with 80s-era animated illustrations).

Not quite.

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365155890/

"S32 Ep6: Secret State of North Korea"

There are some really funny parts where citizens who are doing illegal things berate the officers who are trying to enforce the laws. It seems rather unlike a state with a firm grip on its populace.

High rates of growth are impressive but also not hard given how much of a backwater NK was. We'll see if it continues. China succeeded because they liberalized and have a massive populace. NK simply doesn't have that and is isolated from the world community. How long can that growth continue and if it stops, will the locals accept it?

Oh, and PBS has lots of good online video content. They're worth supporting.

Thanks for the link, I'm a huge fan of Frontline. I'll give that episode a look!

This.

They have adapted very, very well. For example:

- Mass surveillance and censorship. Over the Internet: State regulated search engines, encyclopedias, news, social networks, etc. Baidu, Baike, WeChat... all curated and monitored.

- Your credit score can be affected if you don't show alignment with the party.

- If you are considered problematic for the party, they can send you to jail, force you into labor, harvest your organs. You name it. There's no press coverage of it.

- The People's Liberation Army does not belong to the People's Republic of China, it belongs to the Communist Party of China. Big part of their training is political indoctrination.

- China pressures countries to align their vision with theirs. Stay silent about human right violations, Taiwan, Tibet, etc. Even through passive aggressive ways like withdrawing Pandas from your zoo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panda_diplomacy

- All entertainment content is also curated/censored. Hollywood movies need to pass state review if they want to be in the Chinese market.

I find this funny. If we compare that to US or UK or whatever... looks quite similar :)

> Mass surveliance and censorship?

Yes, we got that.

> Your credit score can be affected...

Yes, your Zipcode tells everything

> If you are considered problematic for the party...

Yes, we got that. We get people 'suicided' and then we close the files so that they can't be opened for 50 years or whatever. Got that.

> China pressures countries to align their vision with theirs.

US, UK, France, Italy etc etc do that too

> Contents censored

Yup. See 'national board of review'

No, we don't "have that as well". If you can't see the difference between censorship in China and US then i don't know what to say.

Who needs censorship if you have Cambridge Analytica?

Well, it depends. For me the Chinese censorship towards google/facebook is not only about politics, it also helps a lot for local companies to become gigantic. In some way they ban google/facebook == US ban Pirate Bay, etc. They harm local businesses.

No, I don't see it.

Disclaimer: I know a bunch of people -- friends, colleagues, neighbours etc that are Chinese/or of Chinese descent.

1. - they got here somehow -- was it hard?. No. They did not have to escape on a raft like Cuban exiles. They just left and noone bothered them.

2. - They seem to be communicating with their families in China with no issues. You know, SMS, email etc

3. - They also travel back and forth, this includes kids, parents, grandmas and grandpas.

Overall, the funny thing is that I never heard any of my friends/colleagues complain about China.

Meantime, CNN and Fox etc keep saying that China is like devil, except worse.

Guess who I trust.

https://www.google.com/search?q=abu+ghraib+prison

https://www.google.com/search?q=tank+man

One of these searches is incredibly damaging to Chinese interests, one to US interests.

Try doing them in each country.

At the same time I agree very strongly that China is nothing like the former USSR, let alone the current North Korea.

But the people you mention, once go back to China, are behind the firewall, and everything they do is subject to surveillance and censorship.

Ask your friends if they would feel safe to go and openly/publicly criticize the communist party of China and hear their answers.

It only takes them to go and acknowledge membership to Falun Gong/Falun Dafa for them to be put into a organ donor list (while still alive).

Censorship in the West is a bit different. It is waged through the "free" mainstream media. Think of it as market share, where the MSM has 90% market share. It doesn't really matter what the other 10% think when they can be either brainwashed by partizan journalism or divided and made irrelevant. The main difference is that there isn't just one ruling party, there are usually two (conservatives and socialists) with their grip on power. If you don't align with them, you're irrelevant - unless they both screw up bigtime like it happened in France.

You could say what the differences are that you think he can't see, instead of acting as if "no" is a good enough argument or rebuttal.

Do you get steamrolled (not figuratively. literally, with a steamroller) in front of your village if you criticize the prime minister? probably not right?

Do you get your organs harvested in jail if you oppose the ruling party?

Can you open Wikipedia and read articles that challenge the political views of your leadership? Can you go to a library and buy a book about opposing political systems? Can you study such systems in school? Can an academic have a job if he has opposing political views?

Can you vote and pick a guy from another party? Do other parties exist at all? Can you start your own party?

So no, it's not the same. You can make all the analogies you want, but there's no equivalence, at least not in the extent in which these things are happening.

There is surely shady stuff going on everywhere, and corruption and coverups, but it's still not the same.

We even have RT, the Russian station that is mostly propaganda for the Russian Federation leadership views, and you can tune into it if you want and watch it all day if so you prefer.

> Can you vote and pick a guy from another party? Do other parties exist at all? Can you start your own party?

All you're illustrating with this one is that the US does a better job of faking democracy.

If China had a pro-establishment Democratic Communist Party alternative to a pro-establishment Communist Party, each sharing 99% of the resources, media, power and influence, along with infinite minnow parties that pose no threat to the system or established order because the system doesn't allow them to, it would be as democratic as the US.

Maybe a small party will not make it to the presidency because of the issues you have mentioned (to that also add electoral trickery like gerrymandering).

But there are many branches of government that can help influence government, and you can also run for office within your state. Here some states have independent senators.

In China you don't really have independent branches of government, it's just the Chairman of the party and whatever he wants is what gets done.

> Can you open Wikipedia and read articles that challenge the political views of your leadership?

You can actually do that in China, if you know English. Only the Chinese Wikipedia is blocked.

> Can you go to a library and buy a book about opposing political systems?

If you mean a book that explains the political system of e.g. the United States, sure, you can read that. If you mean a book that proposes an alternative political system for China, probably not.

> Can you vote and pick a guy from another party? Do other parties exist at all?

There are no other parties, but in theory, you can write in any name you want on your vote sheet. It's just that one of the "recommended" guys always wins.

> So no, it's not the same.

Agreed. I just wanted to point out that it's not exactly as bad in China as you think it is.

Yes sure, I just wanted to stress some less known aspects of how repressive the system is. There are good things about China, there are things that work and scale more than in the US, for sure.

China works very well for you if you are aligned with the party, or you are indifferent and don't get in their way. Otherwise it does not work very well.

There is a documented story about a Doctor who defected from North Korea. After crossing the border from North Korea into China, she noticed bowls of rice and food on the ground. At first, she didn't understand why the food was on the ground. Then she realized, "dogs in China ate better than doctors in North Korea."[1]

There are many shades of grey on the scale of terrible place to live to amazing place to live. This is not black and white. Today's China (with its many faults) is a much better place to live than North Korea, or the China from 1970. In fact, China's per capita GDP (adjusted for purchasing power) has risen 7x in the past 25 years![2] I think people in China are happy to have this huge level of economic improvement for now, and will deal with the civil freedoms later.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_Envy#Dogs_and_docto... [2]http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-per-capita-ppp

>I think people in China are happy to have this huge level of economic improvement for now, and will deal with the civil freedoms later.

I think you're right about the current attitude of people in China. Unfortunately, as I have experienced in software development, often "later" (e.g. the Jira label "Future") means "never."

China is significantly better than it used to be.

Sure, it has internet censorship. But it is no longer jailing people, in mass, for the "crime" of being a university professor.

That's a win in my book.

I would not be to quick to judge. Usually countries either get stuck in the middle income or they change the government structure.

China has a long way to go yet to really be a first world country. Even now I think it's clear that the party is nowhere near as powerful as they were and there are things they don't do anymore.

They know that protest could break out if they do the wrong things, they are careful.

I don't think it is inevitable but I highly doubt that a country could get to the same GDP per capita as the western democracies without some government reforms.

Honestly if they could transition to even a China-like level of openness that would be light years of improvement in my opinion. Incremental change that doesn't involve some sort of bloody revolution with lots of loss of life seems like a great option. If they were able to build themselves up to be a functioning country it would probably help in a move toward disarmament, or less war-hawking in the highest positions of government.

Chinese are worried that messing with what works could stop the economic growth that they desire more than anything else.

If someone can guarantee 100% that ending "Internet censorship, jailing human rights activists, intimidating journalists, etc" wouldn't hurt the economic progress than perhaps they would be on board.

This is true, but at the same time, I think economic growth is the only modality to achieve significant improvements for a populace without a LOT of people dying. If say capitalist rebels tried to take over in China, we would have seen the worst civil war ever.

> the line (for years!) was that China's economic growth and foreign trade would _inevitably_ lead to democratization and widespread human rights improvements. That didn't happen

I don't think you understand what the word inevitably means.

I don't think you understand what you're quoting.

https://www.google.com/search?q=china+economic+"inevitably+l...

But this isn't about freedom or democracy. This is about foreign investment. The wealthy New Yorkers who subscribe to the times care about foreign investment, not freedom or democracy.

I'm neither wealthy nor a New Yorker and I subscribe... . I care about democracy and freedom too.

The NY Times is read across the country, because it's one of the few high quality newspapers left.

The theory here being that the NYT is running a story about the DPRK because they hope to profit off investment in North Korea?

While I have never been to the US and the UK, the NYT and the Guardian are two places I occasionally stumble to, to find out what's going on in the world. Well, you don't have to be a New Yorker to read the NYT, and neither is its focus.

No, you just have to be left leaning for those news outlets to grab your attention. I also read them occasionally but pretty much avoid the NYT now or just read through the lines.

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