China is using big data to tie the lifestyles and political views of their citizens to their credit scores. I find this really offensive. I am normally a big China supporter and think a wealthy, educated China will be a great thing for the rest of humanity but they have to learn to overcome shit like this if they want to be a constructive part of the 21st century. They even punish you for having friends who lead a lifestyle that the government disapproves of.
Why would you be a “big China supporter?”
It’s a totalitarian antidemocratic anticapitalist shithole that happens to have a lot of people who are willing to make shit.
Their human rights record is abysmal, and they don’t belong with the big boys for reasons such as your OP.
Are we at the point that anything non-white that remotely resembles a modern society gets a pat on the back and obsequious adulation?
If they wanna operate like a modern, open society, then I’ll care. Until then, they can live in 1984 (figuratively and literally) all they want.
Why doesn’t America have that sort of creativity? The friend thing is especially clever. That encourages peer policing. Divide and conquer. Very efficient.
Why are you a normally big China supporter when this sort of thing that they need to learn to overcome is absolutely standard operating procedure? This is what they do.
What do you support?
It’s not so much an Orwellian system as a Confucian one - heavy on both individual meritocracy* and group punishment/conformist peer pressure. Don’t knock it - it’s worked for China for over 3000 years.
It’s actually kind of funny to see a self-described communist state applying the very traditional methods they’ve always pooh-pooh’d… in a resolutely capitalist context :).
- where “merit” is defined as “what the father figure thinks is best”
China is the #2 global spender on R&D and will be #1 by next decade. They are the worlds biggest market for renewable energy.
As their population ages, they will become the #1 market for affordable healthcare and affordable chronic illness care. China will probably solve the healthcare crisis in US & Europe by inventing cheap healthcare innovations this century.
Chinese investments are building infrastructure in Africa.
In the 21st century China will play a huge role in health care, biotech, energy, IT, communications, lifting Africa out of poverty, etc.
Maybe they will follow the path of South Korea and Taiwan, when per capita GDP gets to about 15k the people will rebel.
None of this, none of this at all, depends on China changing its form of government. In fact, all of it depends on China continuing to follow the same path as it is now.
Are you, in fact, at all familiar with the history of China? God damn, that’s all we need to wish for, is internal unrest in China.
Cash is still king in China, and ID is never required for mundane purchases like dish washers or baby supplies. I guess this only applies to online purchases where you can be tracked by your bank card or Alipay account.
I still have trouble understanding how they link to your friends, though. As far as I can tell, TaoBao doesn’t have any of that social networking crap that would link me to any friends or relatives.
South Korea & Taiwan made the transition to wealthy liberal democracies. I don’t know what’ll happen in China (maybe they will end up like Singapore with an authoritarian wealthy state).
Either way as long as they keep pumping out the science and engineering I"m happy.
Well. This seems totally amoral, and also not in agreement with your OP. Are you actually sure what you really think? Are you sure you want to stand by this statement?
Also, I have to wonder why, if they are so good at science and engineering, they keep stealing same from U.S. companies?
For myself, I regard China as an almost completely immoral country which only has a place on the world stage due to sheer numbers of population.
It’s worth noting that a credit rating in China isn’t as all-important as it is in the US. Even mortgages for housing is still a relatively new idea.
Frankly, this system kind of shows a weakening of control. It reminds me of when I texted a friend in China and he didn’t get it. It turns out his phone had been switched off for a week for sending an anti-government message. Yes, creepy and intrusive. But also…kind of piddling. At least compared with the more traditional methods of control (such as having the career prospects of yourself and your family destroyed.) When I was in China, I definitely saw the control was there. But it’s more slapdash and incoherent than you’d expect.
China is complex. They have achieved the greatest alleviation of poverty in human history. That is not nothing. But of course, it is nowhere near a democracy and there are some massive systematic problems in the governance system.
That said, most Chinese people long for freedom, but are unimpressed with our criticism. People from rural areas in my generation (I’m in my mid-thirties) are often stunted from lack of nutrition. Kids in the new generation will never know hunger. That is a powerful thing. You can’t just write off how much has changed for the better in a short time.
Anti-capitalist? Have you even been there? I live in Beijing and it’s pretty much Ground Zero of Capitalism everywhere I look. Let’s try to not confuse the economic system with the political system. China is certainly no democracy, but that does not mean it’s not capitalist.
I’d go more that it’s quasi-Capitalist. SOME of the means of production and distribution are privately owned, but more than 50% are directly or indirectly controlled by various members of the Communist party, almost as private fiefs…at least they were last time I checked. I agree they aren’t the quintessential Anti-Capitalist™ country though.
As to the OP, I’m also unsure why anyone who actually knows that much about China would be surprised by these actions…hell, these are pretty mild in comparison to other things they do. And if this sort of thing upsets the OP, I’m also perplexed by the ‘I am normally a big China supporter’…I mean, what exactly do you support in China? Them being rich (the country that is…and the few VERy rich private millionaire types, along with the many very rich CCP officials)? Tibet? The Uighurs/Weegers issues? South China Sea/East China Sea expansion? Their handling of Hong Kong? Their wonderful human rights record wrt groups like Falun Dafa/Falun Gong? Great Firewall Of China(tm…arr)? Their epic handling of their massive real estate bubble by creating a massive stock market bubble? Their wonderful environmental record? Massive and systemic political corruption, purges and inter-clique infighting? Blah blah blah. It’s all part and parcel…this IS China and especially the CCP, so I’m not sure how anyone can be a ‘big supporter’ of the supposedly better things while turning a blind eye to the really horrible stuff. China created this ‘orwellian monitoring system’ decades ago.
If the Chinese government wants its citizens to have children, wouldn’t it make more sense to stop fining people for having two children even if neither parent is an only child?
Sure, when the infrastructure helps them export raw materials from Africa, or is otherwise beneficial to them. China does not do these things because it’s altruistic.
Exactly what i came in to say. It’s an autocratic political system existing alongside a profit-driven economic system. It has many of the worst attributes of each: limited freedom of expression; suppression of political dissidents; a corrupt judicial system; business cronyism; and virtually non-existent wage laws and health and safety regulations.
I wouldn’t go so far as to suggest that we can completely separate the two systems, because things like cronyism and political corruption often determine who gets to take advantage of capitalist opportunities. Plenty of the wealthiest people in China got that way because their entrepreneurship was aided by their close ties to the country’s political rulers.
Also, as XT points out, plenty of the nation’s enterprises are controlled, in one way or another, by the state or by high-level members of the political leadership. I’ve heard some commentators refer to China’s mix of political autocracy and global capitalist involvement as a “state capitalist” economy.
The west didn’t outsource manufacturing to China to be altruistic either, but it helped the Chinese double their economy every 7-10 years for the last 40 years. If the same thing happens to Africa then China will have done more for global poverty than any other nation by far.
So this is more of a sign of weakness than anything?
I am under the impression that Chinese people are more concerned with making enough money and with environmental pollution, and that government oppression isn’t really a top priority right now.
How do the Chinese oppress the average citizen? I was under the impression that as long as you didn’t threaten the government you were pretty much free to live your life as you see fit.
Whoa, what?? :eek: Government oppression is ALWAYS the top priority in China. No joke. It’s how they keep the lid on things. I don’t know where you get the impressions you are getting in this thread, but seriously, you should look into this a bit deeper. I’ve found the China Uncensored channel on YouTube to be pretty educational wrt China, and they have videos on basically all the subjects you have brought up in this thread…and tons you don’t see aware of at all.
By controlling and censoring everything they read or see, and by stomping down on them hard for anything they do that goes against the PARTY. You can complain in China about local government, you can complain about the environment and everything else, as long as your complaints don’t impact the party or reflect badly on them. If you do then the first step is censorship. Become a pain in the ass though and you are going to have bad things happen to you.
Sometimes that’s true, though sometimes not…it all depends on what the PARTY finds threatening, and whether or not the faction stomping on you is doing so because they have an agenda. Look into Falun Gong sometime to see how times ‘threatened’ means what some party official wants it to mean, especially if he can use it to gain power or influence in suppressing something.