

"What Is the Chinese Economic Model?" author reports server attacked - ilamont
http://www.tapsns.com/blog/index.php/2010/01/thank-you-and-please-continue/

======
swombat
While I found the original article believable and interesting, I can't help
but wonder whether there's more than meets the eye to all this "Oh yeah, China
is evil" movement that's developing...

The US government has been trying to get China to "behave" for quite some
time. One of the very obvious points of contention is copyright law - as
someone once said, "Chinese copyright is the right to copy anything they
want". Now, the previous article painted this from the point of view of
massive industrial IP theft - theft of patents, technologies, etc.

But we all know that there's another kind of IP that has a lot of influence
over the governments of the world, and that's media IP - music, books, movies,
etc.

It's clear that both are happening to some extent, but what are the
proportions? Is 99.9% of the "Chinese IP problem" to do with stolen media? To
do with the fact that you can buy pirated DVDs on every street corner? Or is
it 99%? 90%? 10%? Basically, is the main force behind all this anti-china
discussion the media lobby, or is it a somewhat more bona fide effort to
protect more legitimate industry?

Cause I have to say - if I have a choice between the Chinese model of media
copyright (i.e., no copyright protection) and the US one, I'll pick the
Chinese one. It's a better starting point for improvement than the current US
model.

~~~
shpxnvz
It's especially interesting given that the U.S. model for IP is pragmatic
rather than ideologic, i.e. temporary government-granted monopolies are a
necessary evil we accept in order to further technological and creative
progress for the benefit of all citizens.

Considering the opinion many here have that innovation in the U.S. is stifled
rather than encouraged under the modern politicized IP model, it might be
enlightening to compare how effective innovation is under each model. I am
curious how much sustained innovation is happening over there versus the
highly-publicized accounts of IP 'theft'?

~~~
DougBTX
_temporary_

Practically speaking, copyrights are perpetual in the US. If something is
copyrighted for life plus 90 years, I'm not going to see anything made during
my lifetime enter the public domain naturally.

~~~
shpxnvz
This is true, but it was not always the case. That copyrights last so long now
is the result of change due to political pressure.

Even as recently as 1998 copyright was only authors life plus 50 years, and
less before that.

------
hh
I am not surprised by this action. Bottomline, China is a big bully. You want
example?

China claims all of South China Sea <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-
pacific/8047206.stm>

China that sent 250,000 troop over to teach Vietnam a lesson during 1979 war
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War>.

On and on...we need to be tough on China. American CEO needs to think long
term before moving jobs to China.

~~~
sketerpot
It's remarkably ineffective bullying. Oh no, the web site was down for several
minutes, and some unnecessary expenses were incurred! We're doomed!

What these guys need to learn to do is say "Fuck you, you're an idiot, and
here is a coherent rebuttal:" and submit it to the news aggregators that gave
the original article its popularity. There are enough contrarians that it
should be easy to get a lot of people to read your rebuttal and take it
seriously. Launching some half-assed attack on a server is the equivalent of
just flinging poo, and it just doesn't work.

~~~
potatolicious
The thing is, the Chinese are fiercely nationalistic - it would not surprise
me at all if many of these attacks are being done without government sanction.

I would tread carefully on news like this - it's easy to read too much into
it, and it's too easy to manipulate, kind of like blaming all communists
because one of them set fire to a building.

~~~
hh
Are you kidding me? Take a look at this video
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_gSasJPs1Y>. Chinese Plain-Clothes Officials
Block CNN Cameras With Umbrellas In Tienanmen Square. How low can the Chinese
government goes? They operated like a gang, no less.

~~~
potatolicious
And how does this indicate that these hack attacks are sanctioned or originate
from the Chinese government?

Nobody is saying the Chinese government isn't censor-happy and oppressive, but
get a grip on yourself man. Talk to some Chinese - particularly the young ones
- and you will find a population very truly eager to attack the West in
whatever way they can. It's _more_ than likely that a significant number of
hacks coming out of China today are occurring out of people's own free will,
not by the explicit order of the government.

~~~
plinkplonk
"Talk to some Chinese - particularly the young ones - and you will find a
population very truly eager to attack the West in whatever way they can."

Why? I am genuinely curious. I can see why someone (say)in an Islamic society
would want to attack the West, but why would a Chinese kid hate the West?

~~~
potatolicious
Yeah, the above "they're poor" explanation doesn't really hit the mark.

It's a combination of many things, some of which I will probably miss off the
top of my head:

\- Propaganda: The Chinese are educated to be very wary of Western influence.
Western societies in media are often portrayed as disorganized and chaotic, so
naturally there is aversion to Western ideas (though strangely, not Western
products).

\- Fear: There is a consistent belief (not unique to China) that America
unduly uses its influence to exploit other nations for its own benefit. The
education system encourages the attitude of "now it's our turn" with regards
to their current economic boom. When Western countries do things like, say,
discuss limitations on carbon emissions, the Chinese see this as deliberate
sabotage of their economy fueled by jealousy of their success. There is a
fairly prevalent belief that the US is out to "get" China, and that it's
China's rightful turn to be the dominant global player.

\- History: The Chinese have long proclaimed to have the richest history and
was in fact the most powerful empire on Earth for significant periods of time
through its history. Through nepotism and corruption the Qing dynasty fell to
European conquest, and China was forced to accept extremely unfavourable
surrender terms, and has basically been kicked around globally since then...
until now. Think of China as the bullied kid with a grudge - now he's going to
fuck you up, and there's not a thing you can do to convince him otherwise.
There is definitely a lot of feelings of vengeance involved when it comes to
Chinese antagonism of the West.

As a Chinese, I'm really, really terrified of China - not because they have a
totalitarian regime, but because they have a totalitarian regime _with popular
support_.

Also, there is a widespread belief that nobody will watch out for Chinese
interests except the Chinese... so despite the imperfections of their
government, many will defend it vehemently - because everyone else is out to
get them.

~~~
hh
This is the most ridiculous stuff I have ever heard. We Asian loves the west,
especially American. I have never heard anyone hates the west like you've
mentioned. Bottom line, China wants to be the center of the universe. They
would do anything to score a point. They don't have systematically governance.
That is why I call them a gang instead.

If they go to great length just to censure some minor stuff, what do you think
they would not do?

~~~
potatolicious
There are a lot of varieties of Asian - which one are you? I'm basing all of
the above off my experiences with the Chinese, particularly college-aged
Chinese international students that I've had extensively dealings with in the
past.

There is some selection bias here, but this is acknowledged: the Chinese
regime doesn't enjoy a great deal of popular support from the working class
(read: manual labor), but enjoys widespread support from educated
intelligentsia (the sort that would send their kids overseas for education).

I've also surfed through Chinese social networks, and the amount of anti-
American and anti-West media on them (and being passed around like LOLcat
pics) is pretty alarming. Keep in mind that the vast majority of people on
these networks are young, grew up without witnessing the atrocities of the
Cultural Revolution, and are the direct beneficiaries of China's capitalism.
Oh, they're educated to boot, which makes the whole deal just that much
scarier.

------
jhancock
"This would mean that China would prosecute and disavow IP theft."

There are (at least) three major areas where outsourcing to China provides
economic benefit to foreign companies:

1 - Wages - Many Chinese are paid a wage that despite China having "minimum
wage" laws are significantly below that of the foreign company's home minimum
wages. If Chinese workers are paid a "living wage" in parity with that of the
home country, the economics of outsourcing to China take a hit.

2 - Environment - China for the most part has let enforcement of environment
law (the law does exist) take a back seat to capturing business. Covering the
cost of protecting environment damage raises costs.

3 - Intellectual Property - Protecting IP increases cost and is for the most
part a long term "foreign tax", not an initial capital investment.

Start doing the above three "right" and doing business in China becomes
unprofitable for many.

The author of the article continues to express this as a one-sided problem:
"We look forward to having China as a real partner in the world, not on its
own private terms, but on terms well understood by global trading partners."

I support positive change in regards to doing business with China. I do not
see how this can happen without more objective discussion, which would include
how "global trading partners" contribute to the problems.

I'm with swombat and maxklein on this one. I'm going to start flagging HN
submissions that only paint half the picture.

~~~
pyre
> _2 - Environment - China for the most part has let enforcement of
> environment law (the law does exist) take a back seat to capturing business.
> Covering the cost of protecting environment damage raises costs._

AFAIK, there are government officials and positions that care about this and
try to do their job, but for example, when polluting factories are due for
inspection they stop polluting long enough to pass inspection (even surprise
inspections). Obviously there are other elements in the government that are
subverting the process (or that just view the process as a PR campaign with
the people, not really caring about the results).

~~~
jhancock
I can see this being the case. One thing people miss while they are bashing
the China gov about corruption and oppression is that a great deal of the "bad
behavior" in China is caused by business leaders (small and large), not
government. There exist fairly good laws protecting worker rights.
Unfortunately, if an employer wants to be abusive, they will and its up to the
employee to decide how or if they want to fight it.

------
ilamont
The original essay was discussed extensively here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1054989>

------
vorg
As a non-ethnic Chinese who's lived in China many years, the one thing that
annoys me is the sweeping access restrictions on sites and blogs related to
IT. The other points are fairly irrelevant to me personally.

In May 2009, the whole of blogspot was blocked, including through proxies,
feeds, etc. Two months earlier (March), Youtube was blocked, but I never used
it so I didn't care. Before that, from before the Olympics to the Youtube
block, was 8 or 9 months of general internet freedom. Perhaps falun gong (and
similar) and porno was blocked, I don't know. But there were no noticeable
restrictions on IT-related sites and blogs. Even before the Olympics, when
blogs were blocked, it was only temporary, and easy to get around it with
proxies.

But since May 2009, the sudden change in internet policy affects me, and my
online interest in IT. I'm not interested in porno or reading about human
rights while living in China anyway. So these Great Firewall restrictions,
instead of blocking just what needed to be blocked, blocked far too much,
blocking what I wanted to access. Not only that, China being China, sites got
blocked that had no reason to be, like <http://www.python.org/download> and
subpages. Seems someone in the Firewall staff tried to hide their mischief by
keeping the main www.python.org page available. But maybe I wrong, and no-one
paid anyone, instead China's just decided to promote a closer-to-home
Japanese-invented scripting language by blocking downloads of a
European/American one.

Some would ask, why don't I get a VPN? So far, I can't be bothered, China's a
cash economy so I don't have credit cards.

As for the other points:

(1) China protects its industries from foreign competition completely. James
McGregor's "One Billion Customers" is the most readable book I've read on this
subject. I'm not in China run a business. If I want to make money, I'll leave
first and go live somewhere business-friendly.

(2) As swombat said in another thread "if I have a choice between the Chinese
model of media copyright (i.e., no copyright protection) and the US one, I'll
pick the Chinese one. It's a better starting point for improvement than the
current US model."

I wouldn't know where to buy or watch a legal English-language movie in China
anyway, I don't think they have them outside Jingapore (=what we who live
outside Beijing call it).

(3) I just assume my internet-connected PC is being accessed remotely, or at
least my emails being read. At one place I lived, I was given a new phone
which could listen while it was on the hook. I didn't bother complaining, they
could just say it must be from a faulty batch. If I really need to keep some
information private, I'll go live in a Western country.

(4) As for currency manipulation, looks like the US and China are in a deadly
embrace. By the time it unwinds, the Euro will be the big winner, which was
what the Euro was really about in the first place, wasn't it?

(5) Re human rights, if I decide to take an interest in that subject, I'll
leave China and return to my home country and begin there. No need to preach
to others while there's plenty of problems at home.

------
maxklein
This anti-china propaganda on the internet at the moment is sickening. If you
want to buy into the China Removes Avatar from Cinemas and Rides With Hitler,
then go on, but I'm not going to involve myself in any more of these
discussions.

China is trying to develop for 1/4 of the worlds population in a system that
is different to yours, but is similar to the system that has been in place for
5000 years of chinese civilisation.

This will be my last sentence on china related topics till this propaganda
wave blows over: Just because it's different does not mean you must kill it.

~~~
DarkShikari
So if, say, Germany was found to have hired tens of thousands of hackers to
break into companies and servers around the world, we should just chalk it up
to their "different system" and let them off with a slap on the wrist?

Australia is currently attempting to censor movies, the internet, and video
games in rather absurd ways--and just like China, they're getting criticized
for it. Why should China get special treatment? Why shouldn't we be allowed to
criticize them as we would criticize anyone else who did the same things?

 _but is similar to the system that has been in place for 5000 years of
chinese civilisation._

There is absolutely nothing similar between China's current embarrassing
actions and their glorious history prior to ~1800. Merely _comparing_ the
current oligarchy to the institutions of the past is a huge insult to China
and its history.

~~~
yread
Can you provide a reference for the tens of thousands of hackers to break into
companies and servers? Surely there would be some whistle-blowers, after all
hackers are such an unreliable bunch! That's exactly what the parent is
talking about: all this smells fishy. Google says it and 34 other companies
have been attacked and the world goes crazy. Companies exist to make profit,
government is here for security. I think it is quite realistic to assume that
Google did it to make more money, see
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1062059>

~~~
profquail
Yep, here you go:

[http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2010/01/13/chinas-sophistcated-
ha...](http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2010/01/13/chinas-sophistcated-hacker-army-
the-worlds-best-cyber-terrorists/)

    
    
      The FBI report estimates that since 2003, the Chinese Army
      has specifically developed a network of over 30,000 Chinese
      military cyberspies, plus more than 150,000 private-sector
      computer experts, whose mission is to steal American
      military and technological secrets and cause mischief in
      government and financial services.

~~~
chrischen
Why don't we pump more money into our cyber armed forces too?

~~~
djcapelis
We're trying, but for the most part we haven't yet developed the type of
comprehensive strategy for these types of operations that the PRC has. You
should read the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission's report
linked from Google's blog entry.

~~~
pyre
More like the government agencies are all falling over themselves to be the
'one true agency/military branch' that does _all_ of the cyber-defense. I
remember a few years ago about the Air Force starting up some sort of Cyber
Intelligence branch which was going to be completely separate from any other
branch/agency's efforts.

