To clarify, when I said they don’t have environmental issues I meant that because they’re a one party dictatorship they don’t have strong laws concerning the environment versus their booming industry (which gives their industry an advantage). They are sort of like the Western world was at the peak of the industrial revolution in regards to this (and labor disputes etc.)
Well, having strong laws and enforcing strong laws are two different things. Beijing and the immediate surrounding provinces proved last year during the APEC (jokingly referred to as Air Pollution Eventually Controlled) that they can both have and enforce strong environmental laws. Beijing itself is now seeing if they can enforce the recently effective (1 June 2015) strong law on smoking in public places.
The way I see it, the Chinese government looks at capitalism the way that the Saudi government looks at oil; it’s a resource that the government can use for its own purposes. The Chinese government allows capitalism because it’s useful not because the government considers capitalism a desirable trait in its own right.
How do you therefore distinguish Communism from Fascism from other types of Totalitarianism? Or do you? And if you don’t, then how is your definition useful? For that matter, even if you do how is your definition useful? I’m not snarking; I’m honestly curious.
Actually, the Chinese DO have strong laws for environmentalism (as well as a number of other things). The real problem is that they aren’t uniformly enforced, and the Communists can enforce them or not at their whim…and, of course, the do so when it suits them and don’t when it doesn’t. As in most things in China, a situation can go on for a long time as suits the Communists in charge, and then if needs be an example can be made of someone or some group.
The western world (by which I assume you mean the US and Western Europe) was never really like this. There were never very strong laws on the books that were ignored by the government when it suited them. Instead, what you had was more nebulous laws and regulations that were tightened over time in response to various agencies or disasters/events, and usually once those laws were on the books were generally enforced. It’s a completely different dynamic.
They are nothing like anything in the West. The Peoples Liberation Army owns a large amoungt of industry as does the State. Environmental laws mean nothing to these enterprises. Who could enforce them?
You seem to be asking what my definition is and why it’s useful, but my post gave little more information than the definition so I’m not sure why you’re asking that.
As to why it’s useful, I’d say for the same reason as any other “naming of a thing”. It’s useful to have a concrete term that can be discussed.
Granted, I’d agree that it would be reasonable to come up with new names for things as they change over time. A Democrat today bears no relationship to a Democrat of 1900; a Socialist today bears no relationship to a Socialist of 1900; and a modern Fascist is far removed from a Fascist of 1900. But if everyone else seems to be satisfied to not retire terms, I’m pretty happy not to either.
[ul]
[li]Prices unaffected by supply and demand[/li][li]Preferential treatment and job prospects for party members[/li][li]Props up foreign Communist regimes[/li][/ul]
Yeah, it’s the same party.
Is this a joke?! In terms of industrial environmental damage they’re worried about second hand smoke?!?
It’s this kind of thing I see in the media that made me think China gave up communism:
“China’s millionaire population is now the world’s second-largest, trailing only the U.S…”
My concept of what communism is supposed to be, makes me think this shouldn’t be possible.
At least in North Korea everyone is poor, which fits just right my concept of communism.
I guess if your communist nation’s economy is really booming, then everyone in the nation would end up being millionaires after you redistribute the wealth.
China is absolutely still nominally communist. It’s nominally a lot of things; all you have to do is append “with Chinese characteristics” after the point you’re trying to make. In the case of China, the preferred term is “socialism” “with chinese Characteristics.”
In practical terms? China has almost nothing to do with the “communism” that you and I grew up with (Cuban and Soviet style communism). There’s also no Stasi.
It’s very authoritarian limited by its ability to actually be authoritarian. If you’re high profile, then sure, they have the resources to come after you. But the Chinese aren’t organized enough to police much of anything that can’t be controlled technologically. Great Firewall, internet censorship, control of the press, yes; anything that requires personal interaction isn’t controlled (until you’re high profile enough to be a risk). You can drive like an idiot without any risk, as long as you’re doing the speed limit when you pass near a camera.
In a lot of ways, if you ignore the laws like all of the Chinese seem to do, there’s a lot more freedom here than in the United States.
53% of Chinese men are smokers, and 1 in 5 will die of smoking related illnesses. It’s a major health problem, and it has been extremely difficult to make changes because the state-owned tobacco companies represent a hefty portion of government revenues.
A public smoking ban is a major shift in thinking and a huge public health win.
I was surprised at how much “disparity of wealth” exists in China (I live in Jinan). Lots of elderly beggars (though much fewer than in, say, the Philippines) or elderly who make their living recycling cardboard and such out of public trash cans (though South Korea has that as well). My neighborhood has a LOT of fancy German and Korean cars, too.
Apparently they’re worried about both. You could always call up (and I’m not making up the name of this outfit) the Beijing Patriotic Health Campaign Committee and ask.
The 2nd one is going through some changes. The third one isn’t necessarily propping up foreign communist regimes but rather propping up certain regimes to do what the Chinese government calls “maintain stability”. As for the first one, supply and demand are wreaking havoc on some prices right here in Beijing.
Well you’re going to be mighty surprised then when you find out that not everyone in North Korea is poor. Bribery, and I mean for serious amounts of cash, pretty much is how to get anything done there.
Meta hijack: So far in this thread we have at least three posters posting non-positive things about the Chinese government from within China, including at least one mention of the Great Firewall.
How does that work? Do you just use your ordinary Internet connection and post to the SDMB? No fear of consequences?
When I was in China, yeah. I had a VPN, which is trivially easy to arrange. But that was mostly because I did a lot of current events in my classes and news sites tend to be blocked enough that it was making preparing for class a pain. I’m sure a chunk of what I transmitted was read, but based on what I saw of other types of surveillance, I don’t think it was used in a particularly coherent way.
For foreigners, the worst that is realistically going to happen is that you get kicked out. China has enough to deal with without making a huge international incident every time a foreign teacher decides to say they like Tibet. The Chinese government is pretty practical. They aren’t wasting their time on foreigners saying midly crtical stuff to foreign audience.
For Chinese people, there are some implicit rules. There are some things that people are allowed to critisize pretty freely, and speak frankly on. Other things are better off unsaid. There is a certain amount oc venting that is tolerated, even on edgier subjects. What the government is really concerned about is groups or organizations that are deemed threatening, direct attacks on the central government, and a handful of off-limits discussions. But even the average Joe can go pretty far before he feels any heat.To give an example, I called a friend once and he mentioned his text messaging had been turned off for a month. Why? Because he had sent an anti-government message.
Now, they can do terrible things to people they judge to be threats. But they are smart, and they recognize that people need to vent and a certain percent of young people are always going to try to get away with stuff. So they have built that in to the way they do this kind of work.
I wasn’t on the VPN when I made that comment, but the ability to make that comment exactly illustrates how China is only nominally authoritarian. The Great Firewall isn’t doing real time keyword analysis of the entire internet (although it does real time analysis for some sites). It blocks and/or DNS poisons certain websites. It is doing deep packet inspection looking for illegal VPNs, and its effectiveness comes and goes. It should also be noted that the Great Firewall is implemented at the ISP level, and isn’t some giant, central government thing. The central government dictates the rules, but all of the ISPs implement them, and they’re implemented differently, sometimes differently even at different locations of the same ISP (e.g., Jiangsu Telecom is a different ISP than, say, Shanghai Telecom, and they implement the firewall different ways). The SDMB is never blocked in any of these schemes, for example.
Censoring is done manually. Yes, the government and its contractors employ people to both search the internet for subversive content, and others to post counterpoints that tote the party line (these latter called “wumao” because that’s half a CNY, and that’s how much they get paid per post, supposedly). When the sensors find something, the government will order the website to take it down. Often enough time has passed, though, that the “subversive” content is forwarded among social networks before the takedown order is executed.
You can criticize the government, but you can’t get attract followers and criticize the government as an organized group. You can protest the government. The typical first reaction from a protest is a local flunky that tries to calm everyone down so he can save face in front of his superiors. Very seldom do demonstrations lead to police actions, as that would cause the political flunky to lose face for having failed.
I have no fear of consequences because there’s not really anything I’m saying that’s not already public knowledge, and I’m not promoting insurrection, calling Taiwan a separate country, or lending support to the HK Umbrella movement. If I did any of these, I still wouldn’t worry about consequences unless I started attracting a following.
My experience is the same as that of Balthisar.