
China’s Censors Ban Winnie the Pooh and the Letter ‘N’ After Xi’s Power Grab - mr_spothawk
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/world/asia/china-censorship-xi-jinping.html
======
detaro
previously:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16482406](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16482406)

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pmarreck
I love that Chinese university students are posting George Washington's
farewell address (which at the time was the first (?) peaceful turn-over of
power ever?)

I also love the freedoms I have in the States even more now.

~~~
masterofcookies
It certainly was not the first peaceful turn-over of power in history - there
are many examples, but Cincinnatus[1] immediately sprang to my mind. He
actually was given and then gave up dictatorial powers twice (note that being
a dictator meant in the Roman political system something different than what
it means today [2]).

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucius_Quinctius_Cincinnatus)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator)

~~~
thwave
Solon[1] is my favorite example, and how I think a benevolent ruler should
act; Write a good constitution and take a step back. I think Juan Carlos of
Spain did something similar: "Expected to continue Franco's legacy, Juan
Carlos, however, soon after his accession introduced reforms to dismantle the
Francoist regime and begin the Spanish transition to democracy" [2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Carlos_I_of_Spain](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Carlos_I_of_Spain)

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longcommonname
Welcome to Chia, home of the world's best iteret.

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pmarreck
[dumb comment removed]

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logfromblammo
Written without the letter 'N'.

~~~
pmarreck
Well ow I feel uitelliget

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dkural
Xi is saying his rule is needed for China to become a superpower. A country
doesn't seem so strong to me, if it depends on any one person's single man
rule to become a superpower. A truly strong country does not depend on a any
single man, good or bad.

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blondie9x
People of China, speak up, rise up. You deserve better than this. Chinese
people should have the freedom to choose where they can visit and what content
they can consume and who they want to lead the country forward.
[http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-south-korea-
to...](http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-south-korea-
tourism-20180228-htmlstory.html)

~~~
yegle
If you played Civ5: no ideology is inheritly wrong. As long as the "public
opinion" is "content", people would be happy with it. Player would
intentionally choose Order or Autocracy to gain some "Tenets". E.g. Order
usually gets you better productivity and Autocracy usually gets you better
military power.

Right now people in China are mostly content with the current ideology.

This design actually matches reality very well: while US apparently chose
Freedom ideology, China chose Order ideology. China would finish impressive
large project faster and more efficient, with the cost of dictatorship.

[http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Ideology_(Civ5)](http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Ideology_\(Civ5\))

(Civ5 got a lot of these right, including a technology called "the Great
Firewall" to counter the cultural influence from other civilizations
[http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Firewall_(Civ5)](http://civilization.wikia.com/wiki/Great_Firewall_\(Civ5\))
)

~~~
danvayn
Fun post, but I'd argue that china chose is somewhere between the Order and
Autocracy ideologies. For starters, while Mao Zedong laid a different set of
plans (more similar to the Order branch of Civ5) than most rebel leaders, he
was, for the most part, an autocratic leader.[1] They've had a more democratic
approach as of late, but it appears that Xi Jinping seems to be turning China
into an autocracy once again[2]. It's very interesting to me because for the
most part, past Autocratic methods put military development at the forefront
and left Technological development as more an afterthought. This seems pretty
contradictory to the groundwork China has been laying during the past 30 or so
years, placing a lot of value in M&S and installing technocrats to leadership
positions[3].

[1][https://books.google.com/books?id=YQOhVb5Fbt4C&lpg=PA92&ots=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=YQOhVb5Fbt4C&lpg=PA92&ots=ui-
eqKa13p&dq=mao%20zedong%20autocracy&pg=PA2#v=onepage&q&f=false)

[2][http://theweek.com/articles/757554/china-now-just-another-
au...](http://theweek.com/articles/757554/china-now-just-another-autocracy)

[3][http://www.observa.it/the-technocratic-trend-and-its-
implica...](http://www.observa.it/the-technocratic-trend-and-its-implication-
in-china/)

~~~
liberte82
China views democracy as a tool to be used where appropriate, rather than an
ideology to adhere to.

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sdm
Can it really be called a "power grab" when he already had all the power? This
is more fait accompli.

A lot of speculation is that Xi is doing this because it's now basically
impossible for him to retire now. Through the anti-corruption campaigns, the
taking down of so many tigers, and pushing out vested interests as China tries
to avoid the middle income trap, Xi has made too many enemies. If he were to
retire as planned, there are too many in the party who would then move on him.

~~~
mr_spothawk
interesting idea.

move on him, how?

~~~
sdm
Arrest and jail. Like what Xi did to Zhou Yongkang.

See:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Yongkang#Downfall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhou_Yongkang#Downfall)

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redwood
1 in 5 humans live under this dictatorship

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nukeop
And most of them are content with it.

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cfontes
Any sources of that claim? because seams very unlikely.

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TomMarius
Anecdote: Many expats that live in China have commented on this. The Chinese
don't care, they live their lives and the party lives its.

~~~
wmeredith
I could say the same thing about myself and the Trump administration. It's
mostly a sideshow.

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z2
Not just in 'N>2' as the article states, but 'N' is also commonly used in
Chinese slang as an mathematically-inspired, exaggerated or arbitrarily large
number. E.g. "I've already told you N times" or "This plan has N number of
problems." It's really N>>2.

~~~
udp
_> It's really N>>2._

N bitwise right shift 2 positions?

~~~
Mindless2112
N≫2

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/≫](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/≫)

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fenwick67
I'm admittedly naive about some of this, but is there a good way for me as an
American citizen to enable Chinese users to access an uncensored internet?

I don't really want to run a TOR exit node at my house because I'm afraid I'll
get in trouble over illegal (in the US) activity.

~~~
vinceguidry
No. CCCP blocks Tor anyway.

When you have physical control over the networks you have unlimited power to
determine what flows over those networks. Nothing any of us can do about it.

~~~
trevyn
Those SpaceX Internet satellites are looking mighty interesting right about
now.

~~~
fenwick67
That sounds nice but I doubt Musk has the guts to park geosynchronous
satellites over China without their permission.

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trevyn
They’re LEO, they orbit the whole earth.

~~~
fenwick67
Thanks for the correction

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iconjack
Just a few days ago, Google apparently banned shopping results for "water
guns" and so forth. The urge to censor in service of one's politics is strong
everywhere.

~~~
adventured
And yet I type "water guns" into Google and click "shopping" and get endless
pages of shopping results. Or, you know, I could just go directly to Amazon
and buy one too.

So much for that whataboutism.

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dlwdlw
A similar issue for companies and even communities is not total power but
focused power where value can be extracted. Increasing total power is scalable
but increasing it in a chosen direction is not.

A free market for example is "efficient" but you can't control (and take
credit) for anything it produces. It's output is wild.

So what's good for the Chinese people may not necessarily be good for the
concept of China and if the concept of China is broken so is the concept of
being Chinese. HK/Taiwan already stress this dynamic somewhat.

As to why it's so important for this concept to remain whole I suspect it's
historical/cultural. Fragmented city states proper as long as the ecosystem
does not contain warmongers. Each city-state requiring its own military is
like each individual being hunter-gatherers. Civilization doesn't proceed
without the freedom to specialize.

The "humiliation of China" which started via the opium wars is very fresh
relatively speaking. Many countries including the US still operate with a
domination oriented mindset rather than mutual prospering.

To China's credit. Historically it has never over extended and tried to
dominate other countries in the way many western countries have despite often
being able to do so.

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PakG1
I'm not sure why they would ban Winnie the Pooh. If I were Xi, I think it
would be a fantastic image-softening strategy. Look at him, he's like Winnie
the Pooh, so cute and cuddly and trustworthy! I would have totally taken the
Winnie the Pooh thing and made it my own subliminally, and I think it would
have worked well, because it's not contrived; it came from the people first.

~~~
mtgx
It's because dictators tend to become petty and take everything personally
because they think they can afford to do that.

This is the #1 reason why countries should not fall under dictatorship. Humans
are flawed, and flawed rulers with a lot of power are extremely dangerous.
They tend to retaliate aggressively either against individuals or other
countries because there are no "checks and balances" to keep them from abusing
their power when they get _emotional_ about something.

This is how you can _easily_ end-up with insane decisions at the highest-level
of a government such as "banning the letter N" because the ruler's feeling
were hurt. And this is just an example. We'll see many more like this once
he's officially declared a dictator (or Permanent President, or "The Senate"
\- whatever they decide to call him).

~~~
craftyguy
> become petty and take everything personally because they think they can
> afford to do that.

Not just dictators but also, as we've seen recently, US presidents too.

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bonsai80
With a few companies working on global, fast, low-latency satellite internet
it seems that censorship will get much harder. I'd guess the place to stop
people would be in preventing them from paying for the service. Are there
still ways to control this form of internet access? If not, satellite internet
development seem worth it even if only as a humanitarian effort.

~~~
aianus
Unless the upload signal was somehow ultra-directional like a laser or
something, they would detect your upload transmissions and come and arrest
you. Same as if you started up a cell phone jammer in the US.

~~~
crowbahr
Yeah, it's pretty old tech to triangulate a broadcast but I'm decently certain
that satellite transmissions need to be directional.

The problem then is you need the tech of a directional satellite dish that
knows where to send the data.

~~~
trevyn
The antenna on the satellite itself is highly directional, which is enough to
get you a good enough link budget to Earth for many applications with a
relatively omni antenna on the ground. See e.g. XM radio, Iridium.

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ausjke
China is actively using USA as an example to show that Democracy does not work
well these days too, for instance it appears gun violence, immigration and
race issues can never be fixed here, and the national debt keeps increasing
for years and there is no sign to stop. So, whatever their leader does must be
better than others nowadays.

Admit or not, the overall impression these days is that China is an uprising
power while US is in the decline. At the time they're building the best
transportation system and investing heavily into robots and AI, we are here
debating gender-less restroom, legalizing marijuana, keeping proving president
is tied with Russia,etc.

The tipping point has passed, the gap will keep getting wider, based on
history, there is no fix, countries rise and fall cyclically.

~~~
Erik816
I would be careful to not confuse the news with the underlying reality of the
situation. There are plenty of great things happening in America you don't
hear about, and plenty of horrible things in China you don't hear about. Long-
run, I'll take democracy personally.

~~~
landryraccoon
He has a point that democracy really needs to step up its game. We’re not
exactly having a good run at the moment.

~~~
afterburner
President acts like a corrupt asshat, almost immediately comes under
investigation, there have been 23 indictments so far.

The alternative to democracy is not letting people have a say in government,
and allowing rulers to rule for long periods until they pass down power to
favoured successors or are violently overthrown. Both of those things are
absolutely terrible for the health and safety of a society.

~~~
landryraccoon
You don’t have to convince me. But I think it’s a bad sign if defenders of
democracy can only get defensive when they have to face mistakes.

Is it really that hard to say we dropped the ball here, badly, and we need to
do better, rather than immediately going to whataboutism about China? Yes,
they have problems. That in no way contradicts the fact that we need to do
better.

~~~
afterburner
I feel like you have it backwards. The intent of my comment was to say
democracy _hasn 't_ dropped the ball. Trump is massively and obviously
corrupt, so he was massively and obviously investigated. Where's the
whataboutism? If anything I was responding to reverse-whataboutism (self-
deprecation from people in democracies when reading about 'N' being censored
in China).

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newdayrising
Leave it to the New York Times to call Chairman Mao's rule "traumatic." 46
million dead is, at the very least, a genocidal rule. Not mentioning this fact
in an article about Communist China's totalitarian tendencies is a problem.

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dewiz
Amazo lost 16% of its brand. Nothing to worry for Microsoft Apple Facebook
Google Uber, yet

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baybal2
Is this thread being marked as a dupe after being on line one? ...

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wernercd
Trump: I can say anything to make people go crazy... No one can top me!

China: Here... hold my beer.

