WeChat is owned by the 'private company' Tencent. And most here think it's perfectly valid when Facebook or Google censor things they don't like. I'm sure you think that Google is a real private company, while Tencent is not. But the difference isn't really all that valid anymore; the US government has backdoors and special access to our tech behemoths, just like the Chinese do for their tech companies.
Maybe it's not such a good idea to cheer for Google, Facebook, and the other companies when they censor whatever it is you currently dislike politically. Do you naively believe they'll not someday censor you, too?
> I think your parent is arguing that they use the threat of the camps to back up their censorship
I am indeed. But of course your use of the term "threat" might imply to some readers that it is not a reality for those poor souls... I would substitute "hellish reality".
Thanks for clarifying, but I still don't think this is relevant to the current discussion. This is probably another discussion as to why people allow censorship, one reason could be the punishment, but there are probably many other reasons.
If what the gov is doing (ostensibly) makes them rich, e.g. they can afford cars and condo prices double every few years, them yes, the majority of people doesn't care.
Look, I've spoken to this to my friends in China about this before, and I can understand that to them it's okay, they've seen their lives improve over the past 10 years. And I understand why they feel that way, they've never known anything else.
But anyone coming from the Western world, and agreeing with what their government is doing in terms of censorship, that I can't understand.
China has a long cultural history of being relatively more wealthy than everyone else. But in absolute terms though they've just had a huge amount of technological progress dropped on them. Something like 3+ generations in of progress in Europe compressed into a fraction of a generation in China. And they look like they are regaining their traditional place as a world leading power.
India will eventually show them eventually up as having an inferior political model but on balance I can see how an evidence-based person would conclude that China's government is working well, on the basis that it presided over the fastest leap forward in living standards in human history. I'd still rather live in Europe, India or America though.
>India will eventually show them eventually up as having an inferior political model but on balance
I doubt it. If anything India's system is less effective, equally or more corrupt, and downright barbarous in some social aspects (e.g. castes). Plus the rampant inequality which is much worse than China.
Have you not been following the news where India just elected a facist leadership and had numerous deadly race riots supported by their government? Try checking your ideology with reality sometimes.
I can see how an evidence-based person would conclude that China's government is working well
Indeed, in the 50’s and 60’s it seemed plausible that the economies of North Korea, Cuba, Russia, the DDR were all going to surpass their Western counterparts before long. The wheels started to come off in the 70’s and by the 90’s it was all over for them.
But these countries were isolated from the world in terms of technology, economy and influence. China, on the other hand, is a country the West depends on both for production and profit, and has not closed off itself to anything that can help it stay on top. From a state of pariah, it rose to superpower status, and there is no real competitor to take its wheels off - the western companies and governments are the first to rush and make business with China, instead of beating it at its game like they did with the rest of the communist countries.
Snowden basically told the Western world how much access to their online data governments have, but people don't seem to care. Yet, they care that China does it for some reason
You're right that correlation does not equal causation, but it doesn't have to be for those folks to not care.
Having lived in Singapore, Hong Kong (current) and China, I can tell you that in Singapore's case, folks are aware that they live under a semi-dictatorship, that their government controls all media (radio, tv, everything is state-owned). But they always say "but I guess the government is doing a good job".
One has nothing to do with the other. The government can do a good job without the dictatorship, but it's the way folks rationalize their helplessness, their sense of lack of control over their fate.
This is also why we in Hong Kong ARE fighting against these kind of controls, probably in vein, but I for one do NOT want to resign in rationalizing for the government's over-control without a fight.
I've lived in Singapore too. Its mighty oppressive in that I found myself self-censoring on occasion but you can't compare it to the dystopia China has become.
Yeah, is there any information on why the Chinese government feels like they need the censorship?
As far as I can tell they are the most successful government at least in modern history in terms of increasing living standards (huge GDP growth and even things like being the only country to successfully almost eradicate SARS-CoV-2), so it seems they would keep power even in a fully functioning democracy with no censorship since they are so good.
Then maybe the censorship is actually integral to their success as it reduces the time wasted on going in directions different from the government's one and possibly boosts morale and happiness?
Bullshit! Taiwan started in the same state as the PRC communist dictatorship and they have progressed much more economically than China, their GDP is much higher.
Also culturally and from a human rights perspective Taiwan blows the chicoms out of the water.
Taiwan shows what China could have been if they would not have been taken hostage by the communist chinazis.
I don't think anyone's saying oppression is necessary, merely that bread and circuses have always been enough to placate the masses. Nobody revolts on a full stomach.
WeChat is owned by the 'private company' Tencent. And most here think it's perfectly valid when Facebook or Google censor things they don't like. I'm sure you think that Google is a real private company, while Tencent is not. But the difference isn't really all that valid anymore; the US government has backdoors and special access to our tech behemoths, just like the Chinese do for their tech companies.
Maybe it's not such a good idea to cheer for Google, Facebook, and the other companies when they censor whatever it is you currently dislike politically. Do you naively believe they'll not someday censor you, too?