iliveinchina

There is of course a variety of opinions across any demographic.

My impression is that, aside from people who've studied abroad, Chinese youth today are more conservative and nationalistic than their elders. They've been fed only on a diet of domestic media with external news censored and have grown up only seeing their standards of living rapidly improving with China taking a more central role on the world stage.

The older generations, who suffered through the Cultural Revolution and then saw it end, and those who grew up during Deng's period are more likely to be liberal and sympathetic to the West. Even Jiang Zemin spoke English and liked Western opera.

But I think if you ask people of about any demographic, they will tell you Xi has changed the trajectory that China was previously on. The end of 10-year term limits demonstrated an objective shift towards one-man rule instead of an oligarchy where power was more diffused between elite factions.

The point is these areas are still pretty actively Tibetan today, not just historically.

Is there a contiguous region stretching from Mongolia deep into the Middle East and to Europe where a high percentage of the population (like a quarter or more) speaks Mongolian as their native language?

I know that might be true for a small area surrounding Mongolia in Russia, but I think the comparison stretching into the Middle East and Europe is not accurate.

Qinghai is still almost a quarter Tibetan (a percentage that has probably been consistently shrinking in recent history due to migration) and is almost as large, area-wise, as the formal Tibetan autonomous region.

I agree, there is some nuance to the matter.

I am partially sympathetic to the idea that this can be a way for people to lead better lives - in the modern, economic sense - instead of subsistence nomading.

At the same time, China has, over the past several years, also demonstrated a trend of new behavior and a clear break away from a previous trend of liberalization that started with Deng. This push in Tibet should be seen in light of what is going on in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, the South China Sea, the East China Sea, Inner Mongolia, and at the Indian border.

Tibetan history, like Chinese history, is complicated.

On the subject of Tibetan assimilation: what most people think of Tibet - that is the current Tibetan autonomous region of the PRC - is actually only about 1/3 of what many Tibetans would call "Tibet."

What is culturally and ethnically Tibetan actually stretches across Qinghai province, as well as large swaths of Sichuan, and part of Yunnan and Gansu. If you go to these regions and talk to Tibetans, they will tell you you are in Amdo, Kham, etc, even though you may be in the administrative province of, for example, Sichuan. Residents will still sometimes even use these designations on their postal envelopes.

There are some historical reasons for the way Tibet is currently defined, but "Tibet" was also chopped up into a much smaller contemporary "tibet" for, er, strategic reasons.

If you are interested in the big 3 Tibetan regions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kham

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9C-Tsang

I've hiked through regions of Tibet and talked to villagers in relatively remote areas. One thing I saw hiking in the mountains and valleys was abandoned nomad lodges and pastures. My Tibetan guide sadly explained to me that the local officials found the nomads too hard to manage when they were living independently and so used a system of sticks and carrots (fines and subsidies) to move them into villages that were created from scratch and comprised of cookie-cutter cement houses.

One effective incentive to get the nomads to settle down is to threaten their family members with fines or removal of subsidies unless they move into town.

I visited some of those made-ex-nihilo villages and talked to the people there. One immediately obvious thing is there are Chinese national flags flying on almost every single household and big posters of Xi in the households. I asked about those and the residents explained they get fined if they don't fly the flag or hang Xi's photo. They were definitely not acting out of patriotism. The scenes reminded me of a wartime occupation.

Military recruitment posters were also plastered everywhere, as it is a form of employment in a region with relatively few alternatives.

This is the first time I've heard of migration ratios as bureaucratic targets, but it's not surprising at all as it is typical for the government to set clear KPIs for their policies.

In such an environment, anecdotes may be among the most accurate information one can get.

I've never really seen such personally. People occasionally petition the central government due to grievances, but those people are heavily monitored, strongly discouraged, and later suffer negative repercussions (I know one such individual personally).

There are occasionally protests regarding local issues: housing demolition, environmental problems. They are not allowed to persist. I've never seen these in person.

I used to very occasionally see graffiti critical of the government, but I don't think I've see such in 5+ years. I figure the omnipresence of the security cameras have discouraged this.

I once received a robocall from the Falun Gong critiquing the government. I also occasionally see Falun Gong messages stamped on paper currency.

That's about it. I'm curious about the specifics of the case(s) about which you've heard.

You are likely underestimating the staying power of ByteDance. They have a portfolio of successful apps within China, such as Toutiao, and have probably overtaken Baidu to be the 3rd most important software company in China (after Alibaba and Tencent). Unlike Vine or Snap, they have a lot of e-commerce revenue and are a major sales platform.

Should they be allowed to continue expanding internationally, something like a Facebook or Amazon peer would be the more relevant comparison.

> Chinese policy seems to have not significantly changed in the last 5 years towards the US

Chinese policy "towards the US" may be too narrow a view.

Within the past 5 years, Xi Jinping has eliminated the scheduled 10-year leadership transition which served to alternate power between various elite factions in China. This has put him in a position to maintain leadership for life. After Xi achieved this, China has seen numerous significant domestic and foreign policy shifts.

As China has become more of a near-peer global power with the US, Chinese domestic politics have become more relevant to everyone.

This is factually incorrect.

China's legislature amended Hong Kong's constitution to add the new national security law precisely because the Hong Kong legislature - even under heavy influence by mainland China - was unable to pass it.

Your base case scenario should be that this will be globally widespread. The tipping point was when Iran became an epicenter. This is problematic because of its porous borders with countries with weak government.

The good news is the virus is not too risky for an individual, excepting those who are old and with pre-existing conditions. The bad news is that there will likely be a lot of deaths in aggregate, globally. The other bad news is that the virus has been highly disruptive socially and economically in every country when the infection rate has started to climb.

The best we can do is calmly make preparations for how things will change.

I can comment on a couple unexpected shortages we've seen in Asia: toilet paper, due to panic buying, and hand sanitizer.

There are also some concerns about medicines unrelated to the virus because many meds are produced in China and the supply chain here is all screwed up. So some might consider getting medicine refills for 30 days (or however long your insurance will let you) in advance. You also might not want to have to go wait in line at a pharmacy during a pandemic.

In terms of work: it may make sense to start thinking about what kind of work can be done efficiently remotely vs. on-site.

You also may want to think about finances in case the world sees a significant economic contraction. If lots of countries replicate what has happened in China, the world economy will be highly disrupted for at least a couple months.

That is a possible explanation, but not necessarily the most likely explanation.

It's also quite plausible the Hubei numbers are being scrutinized and processed differently (perhaps with input or oversight from the central government) whereas the other provinces are relying more on local provincial officials' reporting. There is a high incentive for these officials to avoid reporting negative news, so a bias towards low numbers would not be surprising.

We should rely more on international numbers instead of Chinese ones and particularly look askew at the China ex-Hubei numbers.