
In China, an App About Xi Is Impossible to Ignore – Even If You Try - woodandsteel
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/07/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-study-the-great-nation-app.html
======
duxup
>Schools are shaming students with low app scores. Government offices are
holding study sessions and forcing workers who fall behind to write reports
criticizing themselves. Private companies, hoping to curry favor with party
officials, are ranking employees based on their use of the app and awarding
top performers the title of “star learner.”

>Many employers now require workers to submit daily screenshots documenting
how many points they have earned.

That is some scary stuff.

They don't need to integrate it into the social credit system if employers use
it and give them the same results.

~~~
emmelaich
> forcing workers who fall behind to write reports criticizing themselves

The struggle session returns:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session)

Scary indeed. Imagine a China as tightly controlled as NK but far far more
powerful.

~~~
Razengan
Could we hinder them by not making the tools that enable them to do that?

~~~
crowbahr
What control does the west have over their tools?

They write the software themselves. They make the devices themselves.

The West has 0 leverage.

~~~
Razengan
Well, in TFA, the app in question is distributed via Apple’s & Google's app
stores.

~~~
jdietrich
The Google Play Store is not available in China; Android apps are distributed
in China through a variety of Chinese-based app stores.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/google-misses-out-on-
billion...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/17/google-misses-out-on-billions-in-
china.html)

~~~
Razengan
Ah sorry, I assumed Android == Google Play Store.

------
iliketosleep
Some Chinese have already found a way to circumvent this app, by downloading a
program from Github that will automatically watch the videos and complete the
quizzes for them. It no secret, and ironically comes up as the first search
result on google when you type in the app name (xuexiqiangguo). For those who
search it, the name of the github repo does indeed start with the letter "f".
Chinese readers will enjoy the comments in the Issues section - there's some
interesting debate and also shows evidence of the cat and mouse game that
people are playing with authorities.

~~~
_bxg1
This kind of thing gives me hope. China's communist party is ignorant and
terrifying, but to a great extent its people seem unwilling to simply roll
over for authoritarianism, and display ingenuity in their efforts to
circumvent it. Westerners would be wise to help those people out in any way
possible, through technology or otherwise.

~~~
iliketosleep
People didn't mind the authoritarianism so much when the government took a
pragmatic approach to governance and people's lives were improving. But now
they've gone back to putting ideology at the forefront, like Mao did. People
in Western countries can help by pressuring large corporations and governments
not to pander to China.

------
qlk1123
From the aspect of psychological warfare(1), however, it is hard for Chinese
to "feel" this is weird or dystopian, given all the inconvenience. One does
complain about the party or Xi if he has guts, but at the end of the day, he
may still believe the policies are necessary for national security.

This sounds just like an example of biased sample fallacy, so I ask you to do
this experiment with your Chinese friends. See if they criticize CCP or Xi and
what their judgement about the policies are.

(1) As the frontier of democracy, Taiwan suffers from all kinds of attack from
China every day, from physical to cyber ones. To counter that, a retired
military officer wrote a series of blogs(2) to mentor all Taiwanese the right
ways to fight psychological warfare against China. The main donts is exactly
"don't criticize CCP or Xi ... it has no or even negative effects."

(2) The title of the series is somehow pessimistic: "Lost without a Fight: On
Cross-Strait Psychological Warfare." All written in Traditional Chinese:
[https://www.thenewslens.com/article/105952](https://www.thenewslens.com/article/105952)

------
whatshisface
America will learn a lesson from this. Let's hope the lesson is "never do
this," not "hey, it works."

~~~
kome
credit score is already a reality in the US, and to my european perspective,
that's already aberrant: it's a systematic violation of privacy, and often
it's used in fields that have nothing to do with credit, like renting or for
hiring.

Chinese gov is just perfecting the tool.

~~~
caprese
I always get basically ostracized for pointing out that China even copied our
No-Fly List, now I’m being mostly facetious criticizing the fact we have one
and making fun of how China copies things

But Its met with a weird “but hey OUR version was good!”

because only people named Muhammad would get accidentally found on the list

My world is a lot more collaborative so all parties can be criticized, I dont
live in a world where I have to choose sides

~~~
linkregister
Where on HN do you see anyone supporting the No Fly List's extremely poor
execution? Or even the list's existence at all?

~~~
caprese
The consensus on prior mentions conveys a lot about the crowd

Low consensus wouldnt be met with explicit responses

------
sgjohnson
Well, the regime knows that with increased economic liberty, the complete
political control is not sustainable.

Which is why they came up with the social credit system and this. It’s a
desperation move. The Chinese aren’t stupid. The regime will fall sooner or
later. They always do.

~~~
xuki
The west have been saying this for decades, and China just keep going, it's
scary.

~~~
sgjohnson
It can’t keep happening forever. China has got an enormous debt and capital
retention policy. Rich Chinese are running away from China despite their
strict capital controls, and the money that they run away with occasionally
comes from the Chinese government.

It’s a timebomb.

And you can’t have a capitalist economy while having a communist government.
It’s a non sequitur.

~~~
mikeash
You can have a capitalist economy with a non-democratic government. China’s
government isn’t very communist these days.

~~~
dragonwriter
> You can have a capitalist economy with a non-democratic government.

It's possible, but vanishingly rare, outside the sense in which non-
Leninist/Maoist socialists describe Leninist/Maoist regimes as “state
capitalist”, but while there is a case that that is a legitimate label, it
mostly relies on “state capitalism” being a different-but-related system to
traditional capitalism (which one might label “private capitalism”.)

> China’s government isn’t very communist these days.

China’s economic system is more like the form of corporatism found in fascism
(whether the political system is otherwise fascist is a discussion for a
different time) than either communism or capitalism, though if one subscribed
to the idea that traditional Leninist/Maoist systems are “state capitalism”,
that form of corporatism could be seen as a hybrid capitalism that shares
elements of both state and private capitalism, but again that requires a
broader-than-standard definition of capitalism, where the standard definition
is specifically private capitalism.

~~~
mikeash
Is it really vanishing rare? Most of the dictatorships I can think of are
capitalist. Egypt, Russia, Thailand, Iran, as random examples. They’re not
total laissez-faire economies, but neither are democracies.

------
rorykoehler
>“President Xi has a dream of great renaissance,” he said. “When young people
are strong, the nation is strong.”

Ironic that the very existence of this phenomenon is a show of weakness.

------
jhallenworld
>The app makes the party’s messages difficult to ignore, awarding points only
when an article has been read completely and a video has been watched for at
least three minutes.

What's funny is that you need to do similar things when working in large US
corporations. In some you have aggravating HR training videos, in others you
have actual personality cults.

~~~
abecedarius
So Snow Crash's toilet paper memo is real life now.
([https://soquoted.blogspot.com/2006/03/memo-from-
fedland.html](https://soquoted.blogspot.com/2006/03/memo-from-fedland.html))
Somehow I didn't expect that to be one of the first bits to be realized.

------
nabla9
Uh. Gamified propaganda app where the score partially determines your score in
real life.

We know in the west that new ways to communicate have unseen negative
consequences. I think there is real danger that stressing people like this
backfires spectacularly against Xi at some point.

~~~
whatshisface
North Korea is a relatively stable situation despite sharing many things with
China's present direction. I don't expect anybody to revolt, instead the
leaders will prioritize power over economic growth in every decision until
there is no economy and barely enough agriculture to feed the army.

------
sonnyblarney
China is maybe jumping the shark, stuff like this has to be a material
productivity and motivation killer.

The 'central control' thing seemed to be working there for a while for a few
decades, I wonder if we're seeing the end of the 'golden leap' what with lower
growth, problems abroad, and internal shenanigans like this.

I also wonder how many Chinese actually 'get this' program, and how many see
through it for what it is.

It's one thing to have bits of propaganda into film and TV, it's another thing
altogether to force people to do some 'daily shenanigan'.

------
j16sdiz
Just wait the score include in the social credit

~~~
duxup
It might not need to, employers are already using the scores.

------
thinkloop
It seems the authorities are clamping down:

"We're sorry, but this URL is not supported by outline.com"

------
jessaustin
I had thought they would call it the "Little Red Smartphone App".

------
thatmagic
As I know, this situation is just happened around the members of civil servant
and staff in the state-owned enterprise ___by now_ __. Others just use it for
free online courses.

~~~
woodandsteel
Even if you are right, that's an enormous number of people.

------
ttflee
After recent updates that hided detailed scores and ranks from other member in
the same 'group', unsurprisingly, the competition for higher score ranks
stopped.

------
baybal2
The little red book 2.0. Times change fast...

------
steveneo
Really disgusting. China is on the road to 1984. A fact is, Xi only has a
middle school degree...

------
tibbydudeza
A modern take on Mao's little red book and the Red Guards. This is not going
to end well.

------
Rexxar
Could this have a negative impact on productivity if people spend too many
time on it ?

------
chaostheory
Even after all these years, China still has a penchant for emperors

------
mshahi8210
This is scary.

In India, we too have similar app based on our Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra
Modi, and the app is called as Namo App. On the other hand, The DTH providers
have also launched a dedicated channel on him, known as Namo TV.

~~~
plibither8
This is completely different from the NaMo app.

The use of the Chinese app is compulsary for many to teach themselves about
Xi's ideology and propaganda. They gamify this by scoring the "player" and
placing them on a leaderboard. The scores they receive on this app most
probably are and will directly or indirectly affect their actual social credit
scores. _That_ is dystopic.

The NaMo app/television channel is just mode of communicate to the larger mass
regarding the party's ideas and news updates.

------
mikeash
“The state-run news media teems with glowing reviews of the app, including
stories about diligent hospital workers and kindergarten teachers who open
Study the Great Nation as soon as they awaken, even before they drink water or
go to the bathroom.”

How many Americans check Facebook or Twitter before they get out of bed on the
morning?

It’s interesting to see how things are framed when they come out of China.
Maybe this app is as bad as it seems, but things like the above quote make me
wonder.

~~~
arduanika
FDR's America had radio and early television, just like Germany. It's
basically the same thing, morally; doesn't matter how the technology was used.
Why do dictatorships get so unfairly "framed"?

Don't want to presume or attack anything about you personally, but your
argument is despicable.

~~~
mikeash
My point is that this paragraph uses stilted language to make a completely
mundane event sound sinister, and this makes me skeptical of how the app is
portrayed in general. What’s despicable about that? Should I ignore
manipulative writing as long as the targets deserve it?

~~~
arduanika
Ah, ok, I think I see what you meant.

At least as far as I've seen, this is roughly the same general alarmist,
sensational tone that you'll see in NYT's articles about the (very real)
dangers of tech in the West.

> Should I ignore manipulative writing

Hard to, these days. Most news is manipulative, most news is slanted. We're
all kind of stuck trying to extract facts from the morass of spin, and form
our worldviews based on that. And of course it's fine to point out
manipulation as you see it -- I apologize for calling that despicable.

But: reread that sentence you quoted. It's not talking about the "mundane
event" of checking an app in the morning. It's telling you about the
noteworthy trend of a state-run media in a fascist country celebrating such
mundane habits. The NYT is calling out "stilted language" and "manipulative
writing" as it were, albeit indirectly and without direct citation or
translation, so it's the NYT's word against the People's Daily's. Whom do you
trust more? (I'm as disappointed as the next guy in the NYT these past few
years, but I really hope your answer to this question isn't a false
equivalency).

~~~
mikeash
How are they calling out the manipulative writing? Why does it matter who I
trust more? I trust the NYT much more than the People’s Daily, but how is that
relevant to my point here?

~~~
arduanika
Which point?

Your claim was that the NYT was reporting on mundane events. In fact, the New
York Times in that sentence is reporting on how the Chinese media manipulates
and guilts the public by normalizing & praising extreme usage. Perhaps
"manipulative" is a little strong, but it is indisputably an
advertisement/endorsement, and all advertising involves some degree of
scripting/manipulation.

The "whom do you trust more" is relevant only because the NYT did not quote
from specific articles or broadcasts, so we're stuck trusting their synopsis.
(And, as you've been saying, filtering out / correcting for their habitual
biases).

And -- I wouldn't sign onto your strawman suggestion that one should ignore
bias if the targets deserve it. The current US president deserves far worse
than stilted reporting, but that doesn't stop me from being peeved at the
media for throwing out their duty to truth whenever there's any slight chance
to tear him down. My visceral reaction is to how you turn around the article
with your initial "How many Americans...". This feels like deflecting the
issue with a false comparison.

~~~
mikeash
But it’s not extreme usage! It’s perfectly normal usage. I don’t think it’s
healthy to go straight for the smartphone in the morning before even getting
out of bet, but lots of people do it. _That_ was the point of my “how many
Americans” comparison: using an app before getting out of bed is completely
unremarkable, so why is the NYT calling it out, and why are they using such
bizarre language to do so?

If you’re saying that they’re just repeating the People’s Daily in an attempt
to show that China is manipulating people with weird language for mundane
things, I think that’s way too subtle to belong in ostensibly objective
reporting without something explicitly calling that out. I also don’t trust
the translation to accurately portray the character of the original. It’s
extremely common for English media to use stilted translations of mundane
Chinese phrases (and I’m sure this happens with other languages too) in order
to portray something as exotic or weird. See the recent “Breed Ready” nonsense
for an example. That bad translation originated with the programmers, but none
of the reporting mentioned that it was in fact a really bad translation of a
fairly mundane term.

~~~
arduanika
Ah, yes, "extreme" is a bad word choice. I mean to say, "unhealthy". Unhealthy
usage is totally the norm, but it's abnormal for a country's media to praise
such addiction in a climate where most countries' media are sounding an alarm.

> bizarre language

Again, I contend that this is how NYT typically talks about all countries'
social media these days, but this is of course my subjective impression.

> Too subtle a point

Point conceded, you're right. I was a little too eager to turn your own
verbiage around on you.

The "BreedReady" translation is really bad, I agree. Hadn't seen that. What's
the original hanzi? Like, if you're reporting on a country, you should know
how its compound words are formed. But it's the nature of the 140-character
dystopia that the most shocking translation is the one that goes viral.

