

China slams U.S. "information hegemony"  - ilamont
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2010/01/22/china-slams-clintons-call-internet-freedom

======
1010011010
"China's constitution protects the right of citizens to free speech"

Yeah... I'm sure it does.

~~~
sparky
Apparently true: <http://www.usconstitution.net/china.html#Article35> Also,
Article 41:

 _Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and
make suggestions regarding any state organ or functionary. Citizens have the
right to make to relevant state organs complaints or charges against, or
exposures of, any state organ or functionary for violation of the law or
dereliction of duty, but fabrication or distortion of facts for purposes of
libel or false incrimination is prohibited._

 _The state organ concerned must deal with complaints, charges or exposures
made by citizens in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one
may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures or retaliate against the
citizens making them._

It appears that the constitution states that people have these rights, but
unfortunately it is the people who constitute the government of the time who
protect (or disregard) rights, not a document. Actions speak louder than
words.

~~~
adrih
The idea that the constitution shouldn't be too highly regarded even seems
like a legitimate point to make in trials:

 _The charges stemmed from the CCP’s interpretation of Guo’s actions as
subversive to its rule. His defense was not to dispute the evidence, but to
argue that the published materials were not subversive, and that the
constitution covers freedom of speech anyway. The prosecution asserted that
the interests of the Party-State take priority._

<http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/27316/>

~~~
dandelany
A judicial decision that states that "The interests of the Party-State take
priority [over the Constitution]" seems legitimate to you? Are you being
sarcastic?

~~~
adrih
No, I meant that the argument is legitimate in Chinese courts. It wouldn't be
in Europe or in the US.

------
hh
Most people are forgetting that the communist party is above the constitution.
It's very weird but that is the way it works in China, Vietnam, and other
communist countries. You can have free speech all you want but if you are
violating certain contradictory decree then you go to jail. period.

------
grandalf
Does anyone seriously think that a determined information-seeker in China
can't find out whatever information he/she wants? Google's old approach of
showing which results are censored was highly empowering for such truth
seekers because it showed exactly what their government didn't want them to
read.

It's important to take the recent anti-China news in proper context:

1) China has long been a huge buyer of US treasury bills, in order to keep its
currency low relative to the dollar. This helps make China's export industry
more competitive but harms the Chinese in general. Some Americans dislike this
because they think this makes the US vulnerable to China. Other simply dislike
competing against extra cheap Chinese manufactured products. This unites two
strange bedfellows against China.

2) Obama moved to start a trade war with China by imposing a tariff on
tires... this was simply a political handout to the US tire industry... an
industry he must have owed something to.

3) Google's move to pull out of China, aside from harming average Chinese
people, was a silly, knee-jerk response, and Google will probably be punished
by shareholders if it proceeds.

4) Hillary's recent remarks were intended simply to rile up the Chinese
government. Does anyone really think that the way to persuade someone else to
your line of thinking is to publicly insult them? Hillary knows this, but
ramping up some petty friction with China serves her political ambitions.

For those who are wondering, China is a very difficult country to keep stable.
After economic reforms, coastal cities have become rich very quickly, leaving
inland areas extremely poor, etc. Most of what China does that Americans find
offensive is intended to preserve social stability. In that sense it's highly
conservative. One can imagine a small public library in the US refusing to
install a computer long after the internet age began... out of some slightly
misguided notion that it will help stave off social changes the librarian
considers unsavory.

In China's case, the danger is widespread, violent riots, etc. Do you think
that would be a good thing? What should China's government do if that occurs,
acquiesce? So far China's government has done a decent job of instituting more
free market policies, at the expense of social freedoms. They've essentially
modeled their approach a bit more after Singapore than after the US.

It's hubris to claim that every country should choose exactly the same mix of
social and economic freedoms as the US. This situation should remind all of us
of when George W. Bush took great pains to convince the world what a bad guy
Saddam was, so that he could start a war.

~~~
joe_the_user
Let's look at some statements in your post: _Does anyone seriously think that
a determined information-seeker in China can't find out whatever information
he/she wants?_

 _Google's move to pull out of China, aside from harming average Chinese
people._

So "determined information seekers" could the information the information that
Google _wasn't_ giving but by no longer providing government approved data,
Google is harming average Chinese? I know you're teasing out two different
groups in China but the argument seems remarkably _stretched_.

 _China has long been a huge buyer of US treasury bills, in order to keep its
currency low relative to the dollar. This helps make China's export industry
more competitive but harms the Chinese in general._

Given that this policy has allowed China to gain the second largest economy in
the world over twenty-odd years, how has it harm average Chinese?

I would certainly say this policy is _unsustainable_ and needs to be adjusted
for that reason. But that's a somewhat different matter.

~~~
grandalf
On the first point: For the average Chinese person, simply having an awareness
of government censorship is _a good thing_. Google is taking this away. The
censorship isn't perfect... for example how many times do you think the full
WikiPedia is brought into China on laptops every day? I'd guess dozens per
day. Google is suffering the "Napster Problem", they are easily vulnerable to
a centralized attack (in this case blocking IPs)... but before and after
Napster people still got all the illicit mp3s they wanted.

On the second point, the economic argument would be: If China were not
subsidizing its export industry, the dollars currently used to buy US
Treasuries would have likely been spent on useful goods and services. Instead,
it effectively sat idle and could not be used to invest in infrastructure,
etc. You can point to the result and say it worked, but China has a natural
competitive advantage in manufacturing, so it's hard to say how much benefit
the policy caused; the harm is easier to imagine.

(China probably has some sensible reasons for promoting mercantilist policies,
but it's inevitable that they lower prosperity over all and amount to a
transfer from one group within china to another. This is the same sort of
tradeoff we experience it the US with a wide variety of policies, notably
agriculture policy).

~~~
joe_the_user
Can you explain why a censored Google makes the Chinese more aware of
censoring?

~~~
grandalf
All one has to do is compare the search results of google.com to google.cn and
the ones not in google.cn are the specific things the Chinese government is
trying to stop.

I started a project a while ago called censoredinchina.org which uses this
feature to help generate awareness.

I haven't published any code yet, but the goal of the site is to generate
images of the censored web pages that can be easily embedded in blogs, etc.,
where they are more difficult for China's human censors to find/stop.

------
jhancock
The China response, which is part of this article in The Standard, is a
rewrite of what was published by the China Daily here:
[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-01/22/content_936488...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-01/22/content_9364889.htm)

The China Daily does not tell you too much more, but at least its closer to
and identifies the source of China's response.

------
heresy
Just how much influence does the US government actually have over the Internet
and regulation of it, these days? Not much, I would have thought.

But I think it's great that in theory, we could cut China off from the rest of
the world, information wise, which is probably what their sour grapes
intimates.

Fuck living in a world where China has any influence over what happens on the
Internet in any way except inside their own borders.

I think they're just a bit sore their "asymmetrical warfare" has this weakness
- any state of Total War will result in no Internet for them from which to
launch attacks.

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grandalf
Strange that any post in which I _make an argument_ that the reaction to China
of late is overblown gets harshly modded down with no counter argument. Talk
about censorship!

edit: this phenomenon isn't going to make me stop arguing against the neocon
anti-china perspective, it will only make me more determined.

~~~
dandelany
This particular comment isn't being modded down for the content of your
argument, it's being modded down because you're talking about yourself, and
not the issue.

Also, being modded down is not even comparable to censorship.

~~~
grandalf
Ok so you fancy yourself some sort of HN rules referee? I gather that you
disagree with my other posts, so why not write a rebuttal? That is generally
the preferred way to handle such things on HN (unlike reddit).

~~~
TrevorJ
The posts where you do lay out your arguments are currently not in the
negative karma zone, and they appear to be garnering at least some responses.

~~~
grandalf
True, but far more downvotes than constructive replies/comments. Sort of
discouraging to me but I guess I need to find a more mind-opening meme to
begin with :)

