
Western news about China depends on intrepid Chinese ‘news assistants’ - sohkamyung
https://qz.com/1094098/why-you-dont-know-the-names-of-the-people-who-take-the-biggest-risks-to-bring-you-your-china-news/
======
friendwithwifi
China under Xi Jinping has effectively turned into a dicatatorship, and so
with a dictatorship, censorship and blackouts naturally comes along with it.
That's the reason why Beijing has recently cracked down on VPN, sent many of
the young, brave democratic protestors in Hong Kong to prison, silenced many
of its Xi critics, etc.

Will China suffer from the censorship and blackouts? As discussed heavily on
HN, probably. Then again, it is most likely that China is already suffering
through its own turbulence. Its economy is standing perilously on shadow debt
(its going through its own 2007 real estate bubble deflation), while it
engages in heavy protectionism - it recently disallowed South Korean companies
from moving its assets out of the country, and its citizens, suffering from
massive inflation in food and real estate, pollution, dirty water and food,
are suffering.

~~~
owebmaster
> sent many of the young, brave democratic protestors in Hong Kong to prison,
> silenced many of its Xi critics, etc.

The crackdown on black people and BLM is very similar, but a lot more violent.

~~~
PakG1
I'd say that has more to do with societal norms and biases, not political
strategy.

~~~
owebmaster
From a commoner standpoint, for sure.

------
kiba
From my perspective, it looked like China will overtake the world and maybe
prove that democracy is optional for economic prosperity, a blow to Western
values and ideal.

But how true is that? I hear a lot about corruption and crackdown, and wonder
how much does that impact their economy.

How critical is good information about the world? Do Western Media do a good
job of it, or at least a better one than those in less democratic societies?

~~~
Cyph0n
They might take over the world (I think it's unlikely), but in my opinion, the
main reason isn't their political system: it's human capital (1/7 of the world
population) and homogeneity (very cohesive culture due to China's history).
Western countries lack the former, India and others lack the latter.

~~~
kibwen
I think you're vastly overestimating China's cultural homogeneity. 30% of the
population (so, a greater number than the population of the U.S.) doesn't even
speak Mandarin. Just like in India, regional loyalties are very strong despite
modern attempts to unify; see the continuing efforts to wipe out Cantonese, a
language with 60 million speakers in China and that is mutually unintelligible
with Mandarin: [http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-forcing-its-
biggest-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-forcing-its-biggest-
cantonese-speaking-region-to-speak-mandarin-2014-8) . And this isn't happening
in some backwater part of the country; in addition to Cantonese being the
official language of Hong Kong, Canton (a.k.a. Guangdong) is the most populous
province in the country, and the location of Shenzhen itself.

~~~
PakG1
_> > I think you're vastly overestimating China's cultural homogeneity. 30% of
the population (so, a greater number than the population of the U.S.) doesn't
even speak Mandarin._

Mandarin is basically the Han dialect of Chinese. The Han people are 92% of
the population.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Han_Chinese)

In addition, Mandarin is the standard language used in most or all public
schools. I volunteered multiple times in an area where the majority of people
are the Yi minority group (location: Zhaojue in southern Sichuan). The Yi
people's language doesn't even share the same characters as Chinese. When I
first heard their language, I swear it sounded like it was from Africa, a lot
of similar phonemes. But even there, they used Mandarin in the public schools.

 _> > And this isn't happening in some backwater part of the country; in
addition to Cantonese being the official language of Hong Kong, Canton (a.k.a.
Guangdong) is the most populous province in the country, and the location of
Shenzhen itself._

Shenzhen is a city built on top of a fishing village in the 80s that had very
few incumbent people. Most of the people who live in Shenzhen come from
outside of Shenzhen and never spoke Cantonese. As such, they have no choice
but to speak Mandarin to each other, as that's the only common language out of
all the people who come from all the other provinces. The fact of the matter
is that I cannot remember the last time I heard Cantonese in Shenzhen.
Guangzhou has a lot of Cantonese, but that's because there were a lot of
Cantonese people in Guangzhou from the beginning, as Guangzhou is the capital
of Guangdong (the Canton province). Shenzhen's economy is forecast to outpace
Hong Kong's economy, though Hong Kong will by no means become insignificant.
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-05/as-
shenzh...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-05/as-shenzhen-
overshadows-hong-kong-the-ex-colony-keeps-its-jewel)

If Cantonese is dying, it's a natural death brought on by social and economic
factors, not a forced death. Mandarin has been the standard language used in
public schools since the days of the Republic of China, China's attempt at
democracy, in 1912. This is not some kind of new malicious strategy brought on
by the modern Communist government.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Modern_Standard_Chi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Modern_Standard_Chinese)

So many factors are making it a natural death for Cantonese. My Cantonese
speaking friends agree with this.

Source: I live in Shenzhen

edit: formatting

~~~
khc
Mandarin is _NOT_ the Han dialect of Chinese. Each region has its own dialect
and while they are not taught in school (mostly due to central government's
policy), regional dialects are often spoken at home.

Source: I grew up in Hong Kong and have relatives in mainland China

~~~
PakG1
Sorry, to be clear, I said that Mandarin is _basically_ the Han dialect. It is
true that a lot of people interchange the names Hanyu, Guoyu, and Putonghua,
though they are not exactly the same thing. Just asked my co-worker about this
to be sure, he said a lot of people consider Hanyu to be Putonghua even though
it's not.

It's like me telling a Chinese person that Canadian English is basically
American English, even though it isn't.

~~~
taejo
It's closer to saying "English is the European dialect of Indo-European".
Cantonese, Shanghainese, Taiwanese are all languages spoken primarily by Han
people, they are all Han dialects. Of course Mandarin has a priviledged
position among them, but that priviledged position has not much to do with the
_Han_ people, since it shares that with all the others.

EDIT: it may well be the case that people use "Hanyu" (literally, Han
language) as a synonym for "Guoyu" (lit. national language, the Taiwanese
version of Modern Standard Mandarin [MSM]) or "Putonghua" (lit. common speech,
the PRC version of MSM). "Han language" is a poor English translation for
"Hanyu" if that's what you mean.

