
The Chinese Communist Party’s fear of its people spells trouble - okket
https://www.economist.com/open-future/2018/06/15/the-chinese-communist-partys-fear-of-its-people-spells-trouble
======
saagarjha
I'd argue that a government is _supposed_ to fear its citizens. It's just not
supposed to censor them and take away their rights to quell that fear: rather,
it should hold itself accountable and not do things that would cause
resentment.

~~~
dalbasal
That's (to my ears) a very American sentiment. I'd say the closest thing we
have in Europe would be found in France. It also carries a soft but audible
18th century, liberal resonance. Yous really are sister republics. Heh.

Anyway... I disagree (amicably). I think this is a terrible state of affairs.
A fearful regime is a dangerous one. Fear is the enemy of "us" and this is
degenerative to a republic, and oppressive in non-republics. The GDR feared
the people would overthrow. Assad fears the people.

It doesn't generally result in "we'll do a better job so they like us." It
results in building up a populist (and sometimes violent) popular
counterbalance. It results in paranoid spying and attempts at control.

I know HN prefers high brow, philosophical quotes but this really does sum
everything up, even if it's campy.

 _Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering_ \- yoda

~~~
orwin
> I'd say the closest thing we have in Europe would be found in France

I don't know about other countries, but you're right, some Frenchmen want the
government to fear them, because it's one way to keep the power in check. We
also have a really strong executive power who kinda own legislative rights and
have control over a tiny bit of the judiciary system, so it's understandable.

~~~
dalbasal
:)

I won't pretend I understand the nuances but to us it seems almost comical.
Train schedule changes, and people are upset? Fires will be lit.

~~~
candiodari
Oh come on, people in France are upset because [1], and especially given his
election platform that's more than understandable imho.

I mean, given who Macron was this was entirely predictable, but many people
believed he'd changed. For what reason ... I cannot fathom. But then again,
Australia did essentially the same: an ex-Goldman Sachs vice president (with
half his immediate family still GS VPs) will change the country to be more
fair ! Oh wait ... he didn't. Quite the opposite in fact. Cue complete and
total amazement.

[1] [https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-labor-reform-5-key-
po...](https://www.politico.eu/article/macron-labor-reform-5-key-points/)

------
geowwy
This seems to be the key paragraph:

    
    
      > A confident power permits debate to flourish, unthreatened by ideas; a fearful
      > one will seek to manipulate or shut it down. The party is increasingly obliged
      > to try to replicate its domestic censorship on a global scale, to suppress
      > views of China that the party does not like, wherever they are manifested.
      > Sustained investment in propaganda in Chinese-language media and in Western
      > media, subtle and unsubtle attempts to exert influence through the party’s
      > United Front Work Department, pressuring business partners to support
      > political positions on Taiwan and the South China Sea, buying political
      > influence and muscle-flexing on Western campuses—all have caused alarm in
      > several countries recently, notably in Australia and New Zealand.
    

I guess it shouldn't surprise anyone that China is trying to control the
narrative overseas. Most major powers try to do the same.

~~~
throw8185
This is a good point. I definitely support free speech (that should go without
saying), but it seems to be spread with a fervor not unlike how Christianity
was spread during colonization.

For example, is the quality of life in Mexico--with free speech and democracy
--better than one like Singapore or even China?

There are also different ideals of free speech too. The US version is very
different from the European version.

Free speech should be ultimate goal, but perhaps there are other steps that
need to be achieved first.

~~~
sgift
Mexico doesn't have free speech in practice: If you speak out against the
wrong people you get killed by the cartels. Also, we don't know what the
quality of life in China is, because ... you cannot talk about things which
are critical of the government.

That is technically correct, but being allowed to criticize the government
without getting send to a prison seems to be a common denominator, so we could
start with that.

That assumes you cannot work on free speech and "other steps" at the same
time. Free speech is so easy, blocking it costs more resources than just
accepting it. These resources could be used for "other steps", so blocking
free speech is detrimental to them.

~~~
lev99
> we don't know what the quality of life in China is, because ... you cannot
> talk about things which are critical of the government.

If you want to know what the quality of life is like in China you can visit
China and meet people living there. Visas are easy to get. It's not a secret,
and there are plenty of first hand accounts of even their darkest hours.

------
dalbasal
This is a tangent, but I noticed how this line feels like it (almost) requires
no further support:

" _liberal democracy’s current ills have opened an.._ "

While I'm not disagreeing, just don't recall reading a decent narration on
what exactly is going on. What are liberal democracies' current ills? Did we
agree on a list, when I wasn't looking?

~~~
simonh
There are some trends in current international relations that are worrying for
many people who support liberal democratic principles. The failure of the
Euro, which was a landmark liberal project. The Brexit vote in Britain.
American protectionism. Russian political interference and military
aggression. China's renewed suppression of individual liberties and its moves
to export it's totalitarian and censorious principles abroad.

To be sure some of these are self-inflicted. The Euro was badly conceived and
implemented. Brexit and Trump are the result of democratic votes. However they
are clearly signs of a general swing away from liberal values. Liberalism and
it's proponents in it's broadest sense bears much of the blame for all of
this.

By liberalism I do not mean socialism. I'm a lifelong Conservative voter. I
believe in individual freedom and see the EU with it's freedoms of movement
and trade as a cornerstone of individual liberties here in Britain and the
rest of Europe. Trade free of arbitrary and capricious tariffs is another
important freedom we are in danger of having curtailed. The Good Friday
agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland did so by granting Northern
Irish the freedom to choose British or Irish citizenship or both and opened up
the border, a triumph of increased individual liberty, and is under threat due
to Brexit. Liberalism in it's broad sense cuts across the left/right political
divide, at least here in the UK.

~~~
blattimwind
The Euro has failed? That's news to me.

~~~
growlist
Unemployment is at high levels in several eurozone countries, and this is
blamed by some on the euro, and if you consider this a fair assessment and are
unemployed I suppose you might think the euro has failed for you.

~~~
candiodari
And if you were an elderly Greek, and saw your (not very generous to begin
with by Eurozone norms) pension cut by 75% in order to save some German banks
? Would you consider that "failed" assessment to be fair ?

Investors, by contrast, might say that despite all the damage done to Eurozone
economies (most, but of course, not all, Eurozone economies, ie. the PIIGS),
European banks are ... well "teetering on the edge of bankruptcy" is perhaps
not a fair assessment, but they're ~90% closer to it than they were at the
beginning of the Euro project.

Savers, bond investors, ... have similar complaints : they haven't been able
to invest productively.

And for what ? Even if they were altruistic : GDP hasn't exactly taken off in
the Eurozone, in fact quite the opposite. Even Germany's GDP evolution can at
best be referred to as "not a disaster". Greece's would be far beyond
"catastrophe", and everyone else is in between.

But yes, 25 year olds who have a stable job find travel easier (of course,
that's because the economic misery of others makes travel cheaper, otherwise
the Euro would just have made it more obvious that they couldn't travel)

~~~
growlist
You misinterpret me - I think this unemployment problem is a scandalous waste
of potential.

------
baybal2
After meeting not one, but now around ~15 CCP members/officials of different
statures in the party hierarchy. I can say that indeed a lot of things that
drive the current generation of CCP's "hereditary nobility" (people in late
forties to ~55 now) are manifestations of their social ineptness and
insecurity.

Their comparison to frailing 19th century European nobility, I think, is
totally appropriate.

What they afraid the most is "becoming nothing special people."

The world outside China scares them, as they see there is no place for people
like them in the modern society that China _will_ inevitably and invariably
become as it evolves economically

~~~
nwatson
Thank you for this insight ... could you guess or know how many of these CCP
functionaries, in spite of their insecurity, pursue their duty in good faith,
versus engaging in self-dealing etc.?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
It is really hard to get promoted as an idealistic CCP functionary, so if
anyone makes it to the somewhat upper stages, they will most definitely be in
on whatever their peers are doing (meaning, they have enough dirt so that
their peers don’t have to worry about them ratting them out, and they will put
on great shows to please anyone higher than them so they can keep getting
promoted). In the west, it is like finding an honest politician: they might
exist, but they simply don’t win elections enough that you can really find
them in higher offices you pay attention to.

~~~
baybal2
Sean, are you now in Shenzhen by any chance?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Nope. Moved back from China almost 2 years ago.

------
Emma_Goldman
This is a rather anemic entry in a 100-year-old genre. Westerners have been
doom-mongering about the rise of China since at least the Boxer Rebellion.

The FT ran a more informative and sober piece a week or two ago, on China's
gambit to create a global energy network:

[https://www.ft.com/content/bdc31f94-68aa-11e8-b6eb-4acfcfb08...](https://www.ft.com/content/bdc31f94-68aa-11e8-b6eb-4acfcfb08c11)

~~~
cbzbc
Yes, generally with the economist ignore the editorials and read the news:

[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/1991/10/-quot...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/1991/10/-quot-
the-economics-of-the-colonial-cringe-quot-about-the-economist-magazine-
washington-post-1991/7415/)

As you say, doom-mongering about various parts of the world is a venerable
genre and one which the Economist resorts to on a fairly regular basis (at
least once a year there'll be scare pieces on China, and an article on why the
French economy is doomed).

------
07d046
I've just started reading Silent Invasian: China's Influence in Australia,
which made headlines around the world last year when its original publisher
decided not to publish it out of fear of what the Chinese Communist Party and
its proxies in Australia would react. That China has this sort of influence
(see also all the airlines and hotels and other companies that bent over
backwards to apologise for listing China and Taiwan as separate countries)
overseas already is worrying.

On another note, I don't like the moral equivalency that seems to be popular
between China and the US. The "but America does bad things too" response. The
reality of America is often ugly, but it was founded and has always preached
ideals like democracy and liberty and human rights and the rule of law.
America's great failings are generally when it doesn't live up to its own
ideals. Meanwhile, the Chinese Communist Party holds none of those ideals,
sees the rights of the individual as completely subservient to the needs of
the state, and has no qualms with wide scale censorship, jailing human rights
lawyers and activists, harvesting the organs of political prisoners, etc.

In my opinion, one of the most unfortunate consequences of China's growing
power is that it gives other authoritarian countries cover to abuse human
rights. We seem to be seeing it in the Philippines with Duterte, and just last
week a US citizen was arrested (and hasn't been released) in Vietnam after
being involved in a protest.

~~~
philliphaydon
When ever I see people comment on the Philippines I wonder if they have any
idea just what’s going on in the Philippines. I’m still yet to meet a single
Filipino who does not like duterte.

~~~
majewsky
Devil's advocate: I've yet to meet a single North Korean who does not like Kim
Jong-un.

Popularity (both apparent and actual) and respect for human rights are
frustratingly orthogonal.

------
em3rgent0rdr
Interesting how the State-Socialist authoritarian countries ended up not
actually being an existential threat to freedom, due to the weakness of a
planned economy. But since China embraced capitalism, it's economy became very
strong, and so is now a more serious threat.

------
zeth___
>To be a great, rather than just a big power, China needs the world’s
acceptance. More open domestic markets, fewer hidden subsidies and less
dumping, less industrial espionage and less aggression in the South China Sea
would all help.

Why? The US posturing and genocide in South America for 200 years did not stop
it from being a great power, that the pacific rim will now see the same from a
yellow and not white face doesn't change much.

~~~
coldtea
It's funny how pundits from countries that have (and are still doing) all
those things, point the finger at other countries for doing the same (and,
internationally, far less).

"aggression in the South China Sea"? The US has invaded 3+ countries in the
last 20 years producing as much failed states. Is it just a "big" and not a
"great" power?

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Note: The Economist is British.

~~~
coldtea
UK itself has for 5+ decades been deeply tied to the power across the
Atlantic, so?

------
vezycash
From the article: "To suppress views of China that it does not like, the party
is trying to replicate its domestic censorship on a global scale," says Isabel
Hilton

Real purpose behind EU's copyright filter?

~~~
em3rgent0rdr
Even if that is not the intended purpose, it may inevitably end up being used
for that.

