[wilfra]

The truly sad part of this is most Chinese people wouldn't really mind the site being blocked because of this, nor even be all that surprised to learn what the article said. They don't get offended and angered by their government hiding things from them or abusing their power in the same way people in Western countries do, nor do they have a strong desire to learn the truth. They just accept this as the way things are.

Yes, there are exceptions, but those who feel different are in the minority.

[JumpCrisscross]

An influential Dutch researcher in cultural economics identified, in 1981, a cultural dimension he terms "power distance", defined as "the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally".

On PDI, scaled zero to one hundred, the U.S. scores 40 and China scores 80 (Russia scores 93).

Another dimension of significance is individualism, defined as "the degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members".

On IDV the U.S. scores 91 and China 20 (Russia scores 39).

China (and Russia) value social cohesion along implicitly informative, i.e. highly contextual, information flows. Leaders are given tremendous leeway to do their jobs and are to be questioned only in cases of extreme breach of obligation, i.e. when they threaten social harmony.

Note that Russians, in surveys, explicitly prefer social stability to free speech and a free media. Chinese find the legalistic contortions American politicians have to go through to do something generally favoured as awkward and wasteful. We see allowing elites to enrich themselves off market reforms to help them buy into the idea of change as distasteful whereas from a social utilitarian perspective it's strategically kosher.

[cs702]

Latest PDI and IDV figures: http://www.clearlycultural.com/geert-hofstede-cultural-dimen...

[JumpCrisscross]

The full data are available on Hofstede's site, too

http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html

[octagonal]

The differences between Japan and China are truly interesting.

[venus]

The only thing surprising to me is that Japan's number is not much higher. Their political apathy is astonishing; in my opinion there is no functioning democracy in Japan.

Call me jaded but I am surprised to see the numbers so low for a lot of countries. Perhaps the questions asked how things should be, rather than how things actually are.

[jseliger]

>Note that Russians, in surveys, explicitly prefer social stability to free speech and a free media.

I wonder how much this is informed by Russians being conditioned by their media to "prefer social stability to free speech and a free media."

[_feda_]

If russians do indeed explicitly prefer social stability to free speech and media, then it must be an artifact of a troubled past and one where the divide between rich and poor has always been wider than europe and the americas. I think it's ingrained into their whole culture really, this kind of slave mentality which is similar almost to a serf who wouldn't dare attempt to gain his freedom for fear of starving once he'd gained it.

[harlanlewis]

American individualism is hardly a natural born trait, we are all influenced by our environment. What people value and how they act in the interest of those values is what culture is all about.

[pionar]

While that may be true, it is also true that the environment is shaped by the people that inhabit it. Most of the people in the US come from immigrants, people who weren't afraid to set out on their own to a new place. Those kinds of people generally value individual freedoms over the stability of society.

[xibernetik]

I'm curious what the actual stats are with regards to that theory. More than a few historic immigration waves were prompted because things were so bad "back home" - for a variety of reasons including social instability - that the fear of setting out to a new place was far less than the fear of remaining. I'm not sure if that was so much an issue of individual freedom.

Examples off the top of my head would be the rise of the communist party in China and the Irish potato famine.

However, the first wave of Europeans colonists to come the US definitely did value individual freedoms over stability. I don't know how strong their influence is on the population itself, but their views are definitely reflected in the laws and historical document (e.g. The Constitution).

[harlanlewis]

Totally.

The short answer is that the data doesn't support generalizing the motives of American immigrants over 300 years from very diverse social, political, and economic conditions. There is no suitable generalization. The same goes for attempting to describe America's current cultural values as a single group.

Longer answer requires the gradiated initial cultural values held by every significant immigrant group (puritans, slaves, Irish, Chinese... significant defined by impact, population, whathaveyou), determining how resilient those values were when thrown into America's melting pots (assimilated? insular?), and to what extent they influenced the groups around them over time. That's a career question, though - not a HN comment that I'm underequipped to answer.

[waterlesscloud]

Even in the case of migration to avoid a bad situation, it's still a small minority that left whatever the old place was. The vast majority stayed there, so you've still got a tiny self-selecting population of immigrants.

[Retric]

That's interesting. I wonder how Japan scores on those scales as they share many cultural values with China, but have vary different governments.

[blrgeek]

The Japanese closer to the Chinese, that the USA.

The vast difference is 'Uncertainty Avoidance' - while Chines go with the flow and are able to accept Uncertainty, the Japanese will do nearly anything to avoid uncertainty. [J:92, C:30]

The second difference is in Competition/Cooperation [Masculinity/Feminity], (J:95, C:66]. Japanese society values hard work and competition and excelling in work far more than any other society.

[uniclaude]

Living there, I was curious about that too.

See this link: http://geert-hofstede.com/japan.html

[blrgeek]

Interestingly India and China are pretty close on PDI, MAS and UAI, with some differences in Individualism [India 48, China 20, USA 91], and Long Term Orientation [India 61, China 118, USA 29].

But cutting off freedom of information like this would be impossible.

Perhaps it has something to do with the non-homogeneity of India? There is not as much trust and social cohesion as in China perhaps, and therefore more willingness to openly question those in power.

[moconnor]

I just checked the latest figures for the UK vs Germany. As a British citizen who spent the best part of a decade living in Germany I was surprised by how accurately they capture the cultural differences and similarities.

[rohern]

I think you are correct for the most part. When I lived in China, my experience was that most people felt the way that you describe or they simply were not going to embarrass their country by admitting to a foreigner that they felt that things were unjust in China. There were some persons with whom I became good enough friends for them to feel comfortable talking about politics, and among these people disappointment in their government was the dominant emotion. Some of them showed considerable shame about the treatment of Tibet, for example, though most of them had little concept of the history of the situation.

There is also a strong reaction among most Chinese people that while the Chinese themselves might not like the policies of the government, they will not stand to have an outsider -- good old waiguo guizi ("foreign devil") -- tell them their business nor criticize their country. They will handle their own problems, thank you very much. This is an attitude one finds no shortage of in the United States.

You also need to understand the general ignorance of the wider world among the populace in China.

There is the stereotypical case: Shanghai is a major tourist destination inside China. One of the many attractions in Shanghai are all the weird looking foreigners! Walk down the Bund, the main boardwalk, and you'll be stopped every ten meters for a picture. A friend of mine with a red beard was a huge hit.

Even university teachers were misinformed about the world. I would sometimes casually question them, having traveled a lot myself, on what they thought the world was like. They were certain that Beijing was as advanced as any other city in the world. Tokyo and New York were basically the same as any big city in China. They were not aware how strange the pollution is to outsiders. They did not know that in most large cities in other countries, you can see the sky.

[tokenadult]

They just accept this as the way things are.

I can remember when this was true of people in Taiwan, as I was living in Taiwan when it was still a dictatorship. But I also know people in China who have told me very explicitly, "If China had a free press, the Communist Party would only last a week." As information flows in, desire for freedom expands. The common people in China already do not enjoy "stability." By acknowledgement of the official Chinese press, instances of social instability (street protests and even riots) number in the many thousands each year, as peasants are displaced from their homes in land grabs by the local dictators, and as official corruption and party control of the police and the courts deny people recourse when their rights are violated. People I've met in China were embarrassed by the situation there already in 1982, the first time I was there, and they are losing hope that the current economic advancement is bringing with it political freedom. That is just what happened in Taiwan. People eventually gained the courage to demand their rights. I remember lots of people in both places who told me about their desire for freedom long, hard years before that freedom was won in Taiwan. Taiwan's example will point the way for people in China. They can have democracy and a free press if they stand up together.

Chinese social scientists are deeply frightened by the huge wealth disparities between the differing regions of China, which are greater than those that existed in Yugoslavia before Yugoslavia disintegrated. When you consider that barely more than half the population of China is even conversant in the standard national language,

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-03/07/content_5812838...

there is plainly a lot of possibility that China will repeat its historical pattern (experienced during my mother's childhood) of being split into regions not really united by a national government with effective control of all the territory now labeled as "China."

[bilbo0s]

Wow!

You are the first Westerner I've read or come across that has noticed this! Most of them seem to think things like blocking internet sites matter??? To the Chinese... I don't think it does.

There also seems to be this conspiracy thinking going on as well. Chinese people see conspiracies EVERYWHERE. If an article like that is in the NY Times...

Then, to the Chinese mind... It must be the US Government "trying to keep China down."

Seriously. Whenever I'm in Ningbo these days, I just avoid talking about anything remotely political... it is an exercise in frustration.

Sigh...

I suppose we have a Tin Foil Hat crowd over here as well. However, even though in the States I will concede that that crowd is growing, I don't think it is as big percentage wise as in China.

[tokenizer]

Not just in China, I'm sure if this was AlJazeera being blocked in the US the majority of Americans wouldn't care as well.

[codewright]

That's not true at all. Not only are westerners rather proprietary about their freedoms, but most of the more politically engaged people I know read AlJazeera.

One of the most conservative people I know, a PoliSci major, gets a large portion of his news from AlJ. If you took that away from him he'd hoist the black flag and start slitting throats the next morning.

[kooshball]

>That's not true at all. Not only are westerners rather proprietary about their freedoms, but most of the more politically engaged people I know read AlJazeera.

Lets be realistic. Only a small portion of Americans follow AlJ. Just like I'm sure there are small proportion of Chinese that follow western news stories about china closely. The parent post was talking about average citizens not political engaged people.

[ImprovedSilence]

Yeah, but here's the thing about the US. It's a large enough number of people, to the point where somebody would be making noise until it was remedied. Also, I'd like to think that the US is culturally diverse enough, that there are large communities and groups of people outside the standard "white male" category who are reading AlJ, and would complain loudly if said paper was fire-walled. Lastly, hopefully there would be trusted academics and professors who would yell and howl and moan about the ethics of it. Then the stereotypical American would get involved, over the simple facts that his is America, and he loves freedom.

[seanmcdirmid]

Are you apart of the wumao? If the US blocked AlJazeera, their would be holy hell to pay in the press. It would be a huge story and their would be huge consequences. We really value free speech that much. We might not care to read it, but if it is blocked, that would go against our principles.

[wilfra]

If the Obama Administration started regularly deleting tweets and removing things from Google search results, a pretty big chunk of the American people would be really pissed off about that - including the Supreme Court and most Attorneys General. And people would vigorously hunt down the information that was being hidden from them. Generally speaking, this is not the case in China. The people know this is being done, don't really care and don't go out of their way to learn the truth.

Ultimately I guess thats why they can get away with it. If this were something the average Chinese person got really angry about, it would never work. They'd have another revolution on their hands.

[ihsw]

They already do it with torrent websites and nobody cares, how much of a stretch is other politically inconvenient sites being unilaterally blocked?

[nicholas_tuzzio]

Said torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US and many other nations and shouldn't be compared to the NYT.

[smokeyj]

> torrenting sites are by and large against the laws of the US

Right. We have free speech as long as it's legal. Just like the Chinese.

[redwood]

Blargh... yes and no. Nothing torrentable is explicitely bannable in the US... it's just that some methods of attaining the media are being banned. I'm not sure but I suspect the Chinese government could ban physical copies of the NYT as well as the web portal and no one would be able to do anything about it. This is not true in the US.

You know I see this a lot: we have valid grievances in the US, absolutely. But we also need to be able to see our own issues within a greater world context. There is a massive spectrum and we should be very grateful for the freedom we have and institutions that enable it. If we conflate what we've got with places that truly have materially less freedom, we risk not being able to fight the most important battles.

[JakeSc]

Why not? NYT has now been deemed "illegal" in the eyes of Chinese rulers, just as these torrent sites have been deemed "illegal" in the eyes of US rulers.

Both cases are forms of speech. Neither is free.

[seanmcdirmid]

It is not deemed illegal in China, there is no transparent policy to blocking sites. If you call a Chinese ISP and ask them why Facebook isn't working, they'll tell you it must be Facebook's fault.

[fijal]

I'm sure NYT is at odds with the laws of China by publishing things that blatantly (and I'm sure falsely) accuse the ruling elite. That does not mean they should be compared. However, your argument is flawed (and you can do much better than this to prove why they should not be compared).

[ihsw]

It's not difficult to argue that torrenting websites -- and ThePirateBay in particular -- are treated particularly harshly due to their obstinate flouting of American civil law, in addition to so quickly dismissing legal challenges to their existence.

Or more to the point it is retribution, and punitive measures are imposed as a warning to others.

I am by no means arguing for (or against) the concept of IP and the laws surrounding it, however the entire situation leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

[jarek]

Defaming sovereign leaders is against the laws of many other nations - laws as popular as Anglo-Saxon copyright laws.

[monochromatic]

It just blows my mind. I once discussed this issue with a tour guide in China, and his response was basically that censorship was ok, because people would just get all upset about things otherwise.

How do you even respond to that?

[edwardw]

You are such an acute observer, sir. This is the most accurate description about the matter by someone not Chinese I ever read. For that you have my respect.

[ucee054]

How much do you think Americans mind the Julian Assange affair?

I get the impression the difference between the societies is only of degree, not quality.