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shaobo

58 karma · joined August 9, 2015

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shaobo··on A “Safety Emergency” Happened at Wuhan Institute of Virology in November of 2019
You wrote:

> Shutting down ALL internal Chinese travel from Wuhan, but letting international departures - that did happen, after all the more the merrier, let the world share our misery. ...

implying China allowed the flights to leave so they can infect the rest of the world, when in fact China did stop international flights from leaving, but the US, UK governments lobbied hard for these repatriation flights due to their own domestic politics.

shaobo··on A “Safety Emergency” Happened at Wuhan Institute of Virology in November of 2019
You mean flights specifically chartered by the US and British governments to evacuate their citizens and their family from Wuhan?

It is all in the articles you linked.

shaobo··on A “Safety Emergency” Happened at Wuhan Institute of Virology in November of 2019
It did not.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/trumps-flawed-china-travel...

shaobo··on A “Safety Emergency” Happened at Wuhan Institute of Virology in November of 2019
One postal service from Hong Kong is a far cry from "all air transport to Wuhan"
shaobo··on A “Safety Emergency” Happened at Wuhan Institute of Virology in November of 2019
Do you have a source for this?
shaobo··on 'Do Not Split': A Hong Kong protest film [video]
So where are these videos?
shaobo··on US has underestimated Huawei, says founder
It is an everybody thing, why else would the phrase enter popular usage.
shaobo··on China’s new ‘social credit system’
Does NY Post have a source/reference for this?
shaobo··on China bans 23M from buying travel tickets as part of 'social credit' system
Like most articles on social credit, it is mistaking a bunch of separate things as a single unified system.

from https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-soci...

"The public blacklist has been incorporated by another incarnation of the social credit system — Zhima Credit, a service of the mobile payment provider Alipay. China has a huge mobile payment market, with transactions totaling $5.5 trillion in 2016, compared with $112 billion in the United States. Alipay, owned by Ant Financial, and WeChat Pay dominate the still-growing Chinese market.

Zhima Credit is an optional service embedded in Alipay that calculates users’ personal credit based on data such as spending history, friends on Alipay’s social network, and other types of consumer behavior. Zhima Credit’s technology director controversially told the Chinese magazine Caixin in 2015 that buying diapers, for example, would be considered “responsible” behavior, while playing video games for hours could be counted against you.

Hu Tao, Zhima Credit’s general manager, paints a different picture now. She says the app doesn’t monitor social media posts “nor does it attempt to measure qualitative characteristics like character, honesty, or moral value.” Zhima Credit is not a pilot for the social credit system and doesn’t share data with the government without users’ consent, she says."

shaobo··on China bans 23M from buying travel tickets as part of 'social credit' system
The last one almost certainly refers to "forcibly occupying reserved seats" instead of doing it accidentally.

For example, this incident, https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514d7a457a4e79457a6333566d54/...

shaobo··on China blacklists millions from booking flights as 'social credit' introduced
I'd love to know why people downvoted me with no explanation.
shaobo··on China blacklists millions from booking flights as 'social credit' introduced
The references linked in the article specifically mentions smoking on trains and planes.
shaobo··on China blacklists millions from booking flights as 'social credit' introduced
The devil is always in the detail.

The "buying too many video games" line came from the gamification aspect of a social network owned by a private enterprise and has nothing to do with the government scheme. And even they have backpedaled from that claim:

"Hu Tao, Zhima Credit’s general manager, paints a different picture now. She says the app doesn’t monitor social media posts “nor does it attempt to measure qualitative characteristics like character, honesty, or moral value.” Zhima Credit is not a pilot for the social credit system and doesn’t share data with the government without users’ consent, she says."

from https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/04/03/life-inside-chinas-soci...

And the "posting fake news online" line actually refers to "spreading false information about terrorism" which quite a bit more serious.

shaobo··on Debtors in China Shamed on Highway Billboard Featuring Their Faces and Names
> You shouldn't let financial institutions using this kind of coercion at will.

This is done by local courts, not the financial institutions.

And if you read related article on this kind of name and shame tactic, you find that it is designed for debtors who are capable of repaying their debts but choose to defy court orders. Hence the travel restrictions are for flights and high-speed trains, and not regular trains or other public transports.

from http://uk.businessinsider.com/chinas-tax-blacklist-shames-de...

"Restrictions are placed on "high-expenditure consumption" and "consumption not necessary to sustain normal life or businesses" for individual defaulters as well as the legal representatives and CEOs of companies that default."

shaobo··on China Forces Norway to Adhere to ‘One China’ Policy
Okay, this is getting way beyond my level of legal knowledge.

> China knew this going in, and agreed to it when they signed the treaty.

China signed it but they didn't agree to compulsory arbitration. They made declaration to that effect, along with a number of countries.

https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/conventio...

shaobo··on China Forces Norway to Adhere to ‘One China’ Policy
I am not comparing it to the UN, but how it is referred to in the media is often misleading, especially the "in the Hague" part. Quite a few articles even dropped that bit and just referred to it as an "UN court/tribunal".

It gave the impression that China is defying the UN, not saying that China wouldn't do something like that, but they didn't in this instance.

And because it is a court of arbitration, both sides have to agree to have their dispute resolved by arbitration in the first place. China did not agree to it.

shaobo··on China Forces Norway to Adhere to ‘One China’ Policy
It is also worth noting that the Permanent Court of Arbitration is only in the Hague, it is not an UN agency, and not a court in the traditional sense.

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

shaobo··on China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017
I think the bar for real-life dystopias are considerably higher these days.
shaobo··on China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017
So they should be less transparent?
shaobo··on China announces ban on ivory trade by end of 2017
If they are "shockingly cheap" and can be found in a street market, then they are probably not real.
shaobo··on China’s New Tool for Social Control: A Credit Rating for Everything
It is not fabricated, it just wasn't accurately reported.

Every article I read described it as a government system already implemented and measuring every aspect of your life, when it was actually a scheme created by a private company within their ecosystem and most people used it for showing off.

The government proposed system is still in pilot stage.

https://www.techinasia.com/china-citizen-scores-credit-syste...

shaobo··on Adapting to American culture as a Chinese student
He is asking why are you overthinking this? People in China have put the cultural revolution behind them, it might be helpful for others to do the same when attempting to psychoanalyse present day Chinese behaviours.

Your weight, your age and how much you earn are not taboo subjects in China, so people will bring them up in casual conversations.

shaobo··on “The whole world ought to be concerned”: HK lawyers on Beijing’s “clarification”
The book is all well and good, but I would prefer to read an actual article about "allowing their bureaucrats free rein to terrorize local businesses and extract mob-style protection payments".

It is easy claim that China is autocratic therefore it must do X bad things

shaobo··on “The whole world ought to be concerned”: HK lawyers on Beijing’s “clarification”
How does the Chinese Government extracts wealth from Hong Kong?

I am genuinely curious.

shaobo··on Chinese state media discourages April Fools' Day
The headline is rather clickbaity, it is all based on a tweet from the news agency, it is not a government edict.
shaobo··on China passes law requiring tech firms to hand over encryption keys
The Verge (referencing WSJ) says firms are not required to handover encryption keys.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/12/27/10670346/china-passes-law...

shaobo··on Liu Cixin, China’s hottest science-fiction writer
No, but there is also a wide spectrum of opinion/speech available in China between anti-state and pro-state.

The point I am trying to make is that people think China is a smidgen way from North Korea, when the actual difference is night and day.

shaobo··on Liu Cixin, China’s hottest science-fiction writer
No one is saying that there is no censorship or repression, but rather it works differently than most people think it does. Though I will concede that the paper is quite a few years out of date.

The point I was trying to make is that, a sweeping statement such as "Anything that is published in China, by definition is representative of the opinions of the Party.", simply isn't true.

It is not even true for the mainstream media, nevermind a work of fiction.

shaobo··on Liu Cixin, China’s hottest science-fiction writer
No I haven't, but if you have the data to show otherwise, then by all means write it up.
shaobo··on Liu Cixin, China’s hottest science-fiction writer
It doesn't work that way.

For example, from http://gking.harvard.edu/publications/how-Censorship-China-A...

"Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored. Instead, we show that the censorship program is aimed at curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilization, regardless of content."