theseadroid

hmm... I invite you to visit China at least once before stating above like facts...

Assuming you are not living in China, could you please go ask some Chinese around you? There are really plenty of Chinese living abroad.

Thank you for being curious. What I found offending on HN is people who are cool-headed within their own domain can be irrational and quick to conclusions when it comes to issues related to China.

We all know the project management tree swing cartoon[1]. We can almost replace the project with China within this cartoon lol.

1.http://www.zentao.pm/file.php?f=201712/f_2a1ca764ce384a33d05...

edit: I read some of your other comments and I dont think you know China as much as you imagined you know. There's news about Belgian police shot a refugee child for example. I wont based on that to say all belgian kills refugee children. So treat news from China as news if you dont mind. More extreme things happen within a population of 1.5 billion.

But you have to admit there are risks for the switching, i.e. there are countries that become worse after the switching. Personally, I dont think democracy is the cure to the current problems. Education probably is. And I haven't been presented with enough evidence to think otherwise.

Like, did Taiwan become drastic better after removal of martial laws? Or is Taiwan at a better position today mainly because of the help of U.S.? Is there any other third world democratic countries that have developed as fast or faster than China, who is NOT a U.S. ally?

have you talked to any Chinese people and how many of them oppose this reeducation of entire religions? I'm just curious whether that will still happen in your planned democratic China.

Sorry but I think your first paragraph is not complete? when we talk about China () then?

Generally speaking I wont get offended as long as the discussion is rational and logical. Me personally dont care much about country or patriotism. But Chinese are like any other populations, each individual can be quite different.

I'm not really in the loop of what is happening now but I do think sometimes only (trade?) wars can resolve unbridgeable misunderstandings.

Thanks! My reply is to your comment's parent though :)

I'm not saying Chinese culture is incompatible with democracy. I'm talking about eduction mainly. If you look into post WWII histories of Taiwan/South Korea, it wont be hard for you to find a few dictators within the democracies[1]. I personally think during those periods the citizens of those democracies were catching up on how democracy works.

1. examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Park_Chung-hee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek

As a Chinese, I'm inclined to agree with you. One thing above all is the education level of the population has gone up quite a bit. I personally think that's a cornerstone for any future social reforms.

really? source please?

Maybe there's a third option aside from continue the state quo or convert fully into a democracy? Maybe the party can evolve into something that's more and more benevolent to the people it governs?

As a Chinese who emigrated because of the many social problems of China, I'm not sure switching to democracy right now will be beneficial for regular Chinese. You've all heard stories about how bad mannered Chinese tourists are, but those are still somehow better than the average Chinese I'd say. Think about people who still eat shark fins today, who have no problem buying rhino horns or pangolin skins. (there are more extreme stuff, one example: https://www.animalsasia.org/intl/media/news/news-archive/fiv...). If you ever visited mainland China you probably noticed many public restrooms have no toilet paper. Some places tried to put toilet paper in but people would steal all of them right after.

I am not sure democracy can work with people like that. I fear it wont. I fear not enough educated/informed people will make democratic decisions that are harmful to themselves. I fear a democratic China will become the next Russia, the next Brazil, the next Turkey. At least the current party has done more poverty fighting than most of the third world democratic countries. (data available on world bank website)

Does China have problems? Absolutely. The question is if you really understand what are the problems, before we even start talking if the proposed solutions will work or not.

>Will the PRC just continue to exist as it is, forever? My last remaining hope is for massive power grabs by xi jinping (already happening), followed by government ineptitude as he ages and underlings squabble, followed by chaos upon his death. Beyond that I can't see any way out.

If that happens, is that a good thing? To you, or some Americans who see China as a foe, maybe. I doubt such a chaos is what the average Chinese wants.

P.S. PRC doesn't allow dual citizenship.

Say if we suddenly realize earth is going to be unsuitable for all life forms in a year. What would we do? I would fire as many rockets as possible to Mars, carrying all kind of life forms on earth, and hope a few of them will survive and possibly evolve to Mars' environment.

In what capacity you are sure learning it will be a certain waste of time?

Anyway here's a Chinese social media site with many people working in SFBA. I guess you can have more access to places like that if you know a bit Mandarin.

https://www.douban.com/group/sfbayarea/

From your previous comment, you dare to stand in front of a tank, yet you wont put in the effort to learn Mandarin. I dont know about others but that's pretty irony to me.

What's more, you replied without read my comment (or misread?). I said I'm a Chinese in the first sentence. I would like to have conversations with people who are serious about the matter but even on HN where people are rational and logical in most other topics are not showing their best when it comes to topics about China.

Anyway here's one guy who learned chinese: https://www.youtube.com/user/jaredfaa (he's a bigger influencer on bilibili coz youtube is unfortunately blocked in China)

here's a guy went around the world and passed China without knowing Mandarin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjI1O11S8KY (one of his several vidoes)

Anyway, ignorance promotes fear. Understand the problem first before propose solutions.

Treat it as just as any other problems and solve it using the startup thinking? Understand the problem, explore the solution, deliver MVP.

Honestly, most comments here misunderstood the problem to the point the purposed solutions are ridicules. Go talk to Chinese people living near you. Ask them why things are operating like this. Plenty live in SFBA/Seattle as far as I know.

I can tell you there are plenty on HN, myself included. I mean if you wanna make a bigger impact you can learn Mandarin and maybe go to China to meet some more people. Actually there are plenty of Chinese in SFBA or Seattle already. Have you talked to some of them???

As an Asian, after watching the movie Free Solo (and Alex Honnold's Ted talk), I think he gets mushin.

For anybody interested in learning a bit of Ainu people in a fun way, I highly recommend the anime Golden Kamuy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Kamuy)

I almost look at it everyday mate :D Most of my classmates are in China. And I still go back to visit my family like once a year.

There are attempts to innovate. But I think all the 996 and censorship and other policies to make the populace compliant is working against true innovation.

They can take an existing idea and execute with great efficiency. High speed trains, subways, electric vehicles. They are good at mixing ideas from both Western countries and Japan/Korea and other parts of the world. I like that part a lot. But original, novel ideas that will actually work? Not really. The culture there is not structured to promote/refine good ideas.

Strong copycats yes. Strong innovation tech companies? I dont think so.

I wonder why this type of specific purpose airplane needs human in the cockpit? Why can't it be remote controlled?

Have you been to cities in Netherlands or Danmark?

Also: 1. Isn't it in 1984 the bad guys (Oceania) was winning on conquering the world? So 1984 itself doesn't really provide any solution to the problem.

2. I recommend you read the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. The main relevant ideas: a. The evolution/progression of human kind doesn't necessarily have to benefit individuals. (this kinda circled back to 1) b. Democracy and liberal values are only hold dearly by a fraction of human beings during a small fraction of human history. There's probably not enough proof that those values are indispensable to human progress in all situations. It's just during this period of time the super powers of the world happen to possess them.

I've read 1984. I dont know why you emphasize promise as I was quoting things that have been DONE.

I guess what I wanted to say to you is I feel this discussion will not be able to produce actionable or make ourselves more knowledgable on the matter.

As I said more pressure from western countries probably will not make China better. Chinese citizens hate the government to some degree, but if you think they are closer to western ideologies, value your version of human rights and freedom more than what current Chinese government provides, you probably need a reality check.

Since you have communication channels with other Chinese, plz go ask them whether they consider what's going on in Xinjiang is a big issue worth protesting for. Ask them if they would like to be provided better human right standards from western country governments on Chinese soil.

Plz watch this if you haven't https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs

I've read those experiments. But so what? They are not physical laws. I dont like dictatorship. But say if China becomes a democracy today, how do you prevent China becomes next Russia (electing Putin), or next Turkey? or next Philippine? or next Brazil?

Democracy cannot solve every social problems. I dont think most Chinese citizens have the appetit to swallow your approach toward governing although I dont have any better suggestions. Maybe the helplessness from me feels like I'm defending current Chinese government but I'm not. I'm just not good enough on social science to provide a better solution. If there's one I'd like it gone faster than you.

I guess so, I'm not arguing against that.

Furthermore, I'd encourage spectramax or anyone this video if not seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs (Basically under a dictatorship you still need to represent the citizens in some degree.)

At this point I don't remember what I'm arguing and again I'm not an expert in social science who can contribute to a conversation on solving China's problem or the issue reported by NYT. I hope HN remains as a place where I can always see insights from people who truly understand the domain and can give constructive comments.

>According to the World Bank, more than 500 million people were lifted out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 6.5 percent in 2012, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_China

If this is not the biggest human right achievement during that 30 years I dont know what is. I also looked up data from world bank for India and Brazil and they albeit democracies seem less effective toward eliminating their proveties.

Do I want China becomes an even better place? yes. I emigrated but not my close relatives and friends and classmates. I miss them. Can China become a better place by pressure from western countries? I doubt it. It instead makes a great number of Chinese more anti-western.

What can make China a better place in my mind, is western countries showing what real democracy can do to make their own countries better. You bet all the Trump/Brexit/US healthcare/wars/drugs are not making ordinary Chinese more exciting embracing democracy.

Or maybe I'm wrong from the beginning that you are not interested in making China better with those discussions or criticisms.

It's very true as you said: >it's that our perspectives and expectations from other people and from government are different in some pretty significant ways.

But what I meant is really about whether HN is a good place to discuss this issue, where for most other discussions we expect to find some good comments from domain experts.

I have very limited interactions with Uighur or Tibetan so I said I'm not expert on the issue.

This guy has traveled in the Xinjiang/Xizang area and might give you some basic idea what that region is like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5t2sLWuYyc (the first video of his travel within China videos, there's no playlist I think)

If you know enough Mandarin, you can probably find some Uighur Tibetan people on Chinese social media like douban.com

Also some westerners live in the Lijiang / Dali region where there are many Tibetans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lijiang https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dali_City

I've never been but heard they are nice to visit.

>Freedom of press is a real thing in USA.

Interesting you think that way. From my observation in China government controls the media yes, but here capital controls the media no less. You can speak freely but the media wont necessarily distribute truth, they are free to distribute what makes the most money.

As a Chinese, I dont really understand the utility it brings to the table of people here criticizing Chinese government on issues like this NYT article. I dont see that it will make China a better place or bring new knowledge to the HN community. So I agree with the moderator's approach.

The reason being we (me included) are not subject experts on the issues.

>what’s the point of a community where I cannot freely express criticism of a government that takes a lot of risk by real journalists to put stories like this in front of the world.

The problem is you are probably not at a position to be able to differentiate whether this piece is by journalists taking risks and unveiling the truth or just a subtle propaganda to some degree. (And i'm very surprised by your confidence in Western media on issues related to China, yet most of HNers understand how inaccurate media are when dealing within their respective fields.)

I can go on and on about this topic. I also encourage you to talk to some Chinese around you who are first generation immigrants, rather than forming a China criticizing bubble here or somewhere else with other Westerners.