
The Transparent Chinese - kercker
http://cn.nytimes.com/opinion/20131120/c20murong/en-us/
======
ilaksh
>>The Edward J. Snowden affair finally raised a chilling question for the
whole world: How much privacy do citizens have to give up for the sake of
public security? For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much
privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security?

The thing that most westerns still don't realize is that the reasons we are
giving up privacy actually are the same. Our governments are just using the
'terrorism' myth as an excuse. Its amazing how the majority of people believe
this type of propaganda and are completely unaware of the global and
historical precedents of this type of strategy for suppression of dissent.

~~~
WoodenChair
If you don't believe the United States is actually using its intelligence for
fighting terrorism then you're just as delusional as the people you refer to.
Of course the government abuses and misuses its power on its own people - but
the evidence is clear that the government is fighting terrorism. Many of the
leaks, going all the way back to wikileaks, confirm this - not to mention the
body bags.

~~~
r0h1n
Two places above this link on the HN front page right now is an Ars article
about US senators admitting that there is "no evidence" bulk meta data
surveillance is useful.

Edit: adding a link
-[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6766669](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6766669)

~~~
comex
There's an enormous difference between something perhaps not truly being
useful for its intended purpose and the purpose being a conspiracy sham.

~~~
pessimizer
Between people who fight for expensive and inconvenient procedures in the name
of a particular existential threat, but when pressed admit that the methods
are not at all effective for that purpose - an enormous difference between
those people and people who have a different motive than they claim to have? A
minuscule difference.

If you support A to do B, but admit that A doesn't do B, then I assume that
you support A to do X. If doing A causes you to make money, I'm gonna assume X
is to make money.

~~~
comex
The main difference is what they believe they're doing. I seriously doubt that
most or many people at the NSA think they're in the line of "suppression of
dissent".

Even though people doing the wrong things for the right reasons can cause a
great deal of harm and should be stopped, it's still less of a threat than
people doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons. For example, I doubt
anyone from the NSA would show someone footage of their girlfriend "walking
into a hotel with other men" as an attempt to ruin their lives.

~~~
scarmig
Why would you doubt that?

It's not like the US intelligence services haven't done this before. See how
they treated MLK before (e.g. spying on him, accusing him of being in league
with communists, leaking details of his personal life to Strom Thurmond).

------
vorg
One trick I've tried here in China is to talk to myself a lot, about things
both true and absurd, using intonations both serious and comical, then sit
back and wait to see who knows what I've been saying. The sociopaths running
the system have many clueless intermediaries who have an emotional need to
show off they're part of the loop.

One thing that pissed me off, though, is when foreigners got involved in the
surveillance a while back. Many of those in business and the media in the West
don't respect the freedoms many Chinese are trying to give their children.

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United857
I lived in China for years, and this is not news. Chinese know from day 1 they
are potentially being spied on -- the opposite of American thinking.

If the Chinese government had a leaker like Edward Snowden, any information
from him would not surprise any Chinese person.

------
vorg
Anyone want to post the text of this article in the comments for those of us
in China?

~~~
keevie
BEIJING — About once a month, Hao Jian is politely asked by the police “to
have a cup of tea.” He knows it wouldn’t be prudent to say, “No thank you.”

A government critic and professor at the Beijing Film Academy, Mr. Hao signed
Charter 08, a 2008 manifesto modeled on Charter 77, the 1977 document that
helped usher in the end of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia. He has
participated in forums about democracy and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre,
where his cousin died from a bullet wound. The police tap his phone, read his
email and follow him. On special occasions, like for several months after Liu
Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, the government forbids him
to leave China. “To me, your life is totally transparent,” a police officer
told Mr. Hao during one of his recent chats.

Among my acquaintances and friends like Hao Jian, dozens are compelled to lead
transparent lives. And in addition to government critics, the authorities
watch organizers of church services held in private homes, Falun Gong
practitioners and simple petitioners. No one knows how many people are under
surveillance. We can’t even be sure which agency oversees that daunting task.

The Edward J. Snowden affair finally raised a chilling question for the whole
world: How much privacy do citizens have to give up for the sake of public
security? For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much
privacy do we have to give up for the sake of the government’s security?

China is blanketed with surveillance cameras. They have been installed on most
streets, in supermarkets and in classrooms. The official purpose of this
growing network — known as Skynet — is often described as “law-and-order
management.” But high-profile crimes — like the murder of an infant in a
stolen car in Jilin Province earlier this year — suggest that the cameras have
little to do with fighting crime: The costly camera network was criticized by
the public for failing to find a suspect in that case.

By contrast, the surveillance system worked perfectly when targeting Li
Tiantian, a Shanghai-based human rights lawyer. According to Ms. Li, security
officials tried to show her boyfriend video footage of her walking into a
hotel with other men, suggesting she was unfaithful. (He refused to watch it.)

The main purpose of the surveillance, of course, is control and intimidation.
For almost a decade, “weiwen,” or “maintaining social stability,” has been the
government’s public mantra, but this pursuit is simply a way to justify the
Communist Party’s hold on power. “Stability” has been deemed more important
than education, health care and even national defense. In the 2012 government
budget, expenses for domestic security exceeded $111 billion, compared with a
defense budget of $106 billion.

Wang Lijun, the former police chief of Chongqing who is in prison for seeking
refuge in a U.S. Consulate in 2012, among other crimes, gave a glimpse of how
the surveillance power is abused. He boasted in 2010 that his city’s
surveillance system had identified 4,000 “unwelcome” people who had entered
Chongqing around the time of Chinese New Year. Most of them were found and
forced to leave the city within hours.

Yet most Chinese citizens seem unconcerned about living transparent lives.
Even on social media, the most open opinion platform in China, few people
question the legality and necessity of the extensive surveillance network. A
survey conducted in 2012 among students in Central China Normal University
showed that only about 55 percent of them were opposed to the installation of
cameras in dormitories.

As an outspoken writer, I have become paranoid. I often suspect that I am
being followed and videotaped, but I have no way of proving it. I occasionally
turn around to see if the police are nearby. When I sit down at a café with
friends, I often cannot help checking under the table for a listening device.

My internal battle to fight off the constant fear of not knowing what could
happen to me at the hands of the government affects my judgment. I don’t know
if this has affected my writing. Intuition tells me it hasn’t, but I have
trouble trusting my intuition. It is the breakdown of trust — trust of
oneself, trust of others — that is the worst consequence of living a
transparent life.

At a party a few months ago, I witnessed one friend accusing another of being
an agent for the Communist Party. It was not an isolated incident. I cannot
avoid the thought that among my acquaintances someone is spying on me. I tell
myself to be sincere with everyone, but my sincerity is frequently mixed with
caution.

People under surveillance often cannot help look for ulterior motives behind
ordinary social interactions. We are cautious when interacting with strangers.
If a conversation with a stranger is inevitable, we tend to avoid speaking our
minds. We fear whatever we say may be used against us. A friend recently told
me that he has not made a single good friend in the past few years because it
is difficult for him to trust people.

The Chinese government talks about building a “harmonious society.” But how
can a society become truly harmonious if surveillance cameras are everywhere
and everyone has to live with suspicion and fear? What kind of lives can we
lead without trust?

Murong Xuecun, the pen name of Hao Qun, is the author of “Leave Me Alone: A
Novel of Chengdu.” This article was adapted from a speech delivered in New
York on Nov. 14 at a symposium on surveillance, co-sponsored by PEN America.
It was translated by Jane Weizhen Pan and Martin Merz from the Chinese.

~~~
vorg
Thanks, hope the NYT don't mind. I can't be bothered with proxies and VPN's -
whenever I find a free one that works, the party doesn't last long, so I don't
bother much anymore.

~~~
zmh
It's so ironic that Edward Snowden fleed to Hong Kong under China first.

~~~
WoodenChair
He was afraid to go to (A) any country with an extradition treaty with the
United States (B) any US ally. It just goes to show that most of the countries
of the world actually do like the United States I guess/or could've in his
opinion been coerced to extradite him.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "It just goes to show that most of the countries of the world actually do
like the United States"

I doubt countries support the US in things like Snowden because they 'like'
them. They do it because the US is powerful and the repercussions of not
extraditing Snowden aren't worth it to them.

~~~
stygianguest
It may seem hard to believe, but countries like Germany did operate by the
assumption that the Americans at least have good intentions. Everybody knows
that the US can and will push their agenda when they think it is important,
but often nobody sees real harm in cooperating either.

That is also why the spying on Merkel is extremely harmful to American-German
relations. It changes the view of the public at large on the US.

~~~
mcguire
Actually, that is the oddest part of the story, to my mind.

Is it really true that Merkel, or any other major political figure in _any_
major country, believed that they _weren 't_ being watched by essentially
every other country, allied or not?

I can see that the public at large does not understand that, but the only
reason I can find for the issue to come up is Merkel using that lack of
understanding to manipulate German public opinions.

If the shoe were on the other foot, and it came out that German intelligence
were listening to Mr. Obama's phone calls, I would at worst chuckle and at
best be impressed if they came up with a new way of doing it. _And_ I'd view
any outrage from U.S. government circles as the cynical attempt at
manipulation that it would be.

------
UnclePeepingSam
[http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/13/after_mul...](http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/08/13/after_multiple_denials_cia_admits_to_snooping_on_noam_chomsky)

so the title of this news should be "The Transparent American"? Lol

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bmurali
Frankly I don't mind surveillance and spying when used for preventing
terrorism or act of violence the same way as I don't mind when at
international airports most of the time I find myself directed to the double
security checks. But when its so apparent that the data is being used to
target citizens in general and not fight crime it appalling! How do citizens
stop a government from exploitation and damage?

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ido
Wow, they literally named it "skynet".

------
ChrisAntaki
Surveillance has a chilling effect on free speech.

------
ender7
_For almost a decade, “weiwen,” or “maintaining social stability,” has been
the government’s public mantra[...]“Stability” has been deemed more important
than education, health care and even national defense._

Political and social fixity (to use an obnoxious historian term) has been one
of the overriding goals of the dominant Chinese polity since before the Great
Wall was built. It's something that Westerners have a lot of trouble
understanding -- Communism might be a fairly recent addition to China, but the
value the Chinese place on stability is a tradition that dates so far back we
have trouble measuring its age.

~~~
samspenc
Possibly, but the Communist Party is perhaps the only one of its kind that
uses tax money to protect _its_ stability, not necessarily the stability of
the nation. I think that's exactly what the author is trying to say with this
statement:

> For us Chinese, this question is slightly different: How much privacy do we
> have to give up for the sake of the government’s security?

~~~
prewett
I think if you take a look at Chinese emperors you will find that they had a
similar view on using tax money to protect their own stability.

For instance, the Qianlong emperor, one of the best recent emperors, banned
over 2000 book and burned 150,000 copies of revolutionary literature. [1]

I'm guessing European kings also had a similar view of dissenters...

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor#Burning_of_boo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor#Burning_of_books_and_modification_of_texts)

------
nl
The article finishes with what I presume was supposed to be a rhetorical
question:

 _The Chinese government talks about building a “harmonious society.” But how
can a society become truly harmonious if surveillance cameras are everywhere
and everyone has to live with suspicion and fear? What kind of lives can we
lead without trust?_

Unfortunately - given recent revelations in the West - it isn't exactly clear
that surveillance has _anything at all_ to do with the kind of lives we lead.

------
mtgx
Too bad it's not the other way around: "The Transparent Chinese Government".
Governments should be the ones that are completely transparent, not its
citizens.

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maize33
One quibble: the article says that the ubiquitous surveillance cameras "have
little to do with crime prevention" and cites a single case in which they
weren't useful as proof. In fact they're constantly used to bust hit and runs,
muggings, etc. I agree with Franklin's "those who would trade..." quote but
its dishonest to pretend that this kind of surveillance doesn't help catch a
lot of crime.

~~~
senriblyume
Can't agree more. There are loads of examples show that surveillance cameras
did play an important role in crime prevention and criminal convictions, but
they are conveniently ignored in the article ... He made some valid points,
but using surveillance cameras to support them? I don't buy it.

