About the Political Consultative Conference's 13th National Committee's third session, answer to the 4404th proposal (410th on education). Teaching proposal no. 475 (2020)
Yes, no doubts about its ultimate goal indeed.
The answer begins:
您提出的《关于防止男性青少年女性化的提案》收悉，现将涉及教育部业务部分答复如下：
Having received and read your "Proposal on the prevention of the feminization of male youth", the answers to the parts concerning the Ministry of Education are as follows:
(Then there's a bunch of blabla about improving school sports and whatnot, without any references to gender.)
So someone (who?) was concerned about feminization and asked the Ministry of Education to do something about that and they responded.
The BBC seems to have mistaken the title mentioned in the response for a statement of the Ministry of Education's official policy.
Maybe I should submit a "Proposal to replace Google Translate by fluent Chinese speakers" to the BBC so they can publish a headline "BBC to improve its reporting on China" but I'm not holding my breath.
That someone is perhaps a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. I think a close equivalence is an MP in the UK or a congressman / congresswoman / senate in the US.
They make proposals on various aspects of life in China. Those proposals aren't official policies.
BBC should really have done a better job here.
It is also funny to see the top thread a few minutes ago quickly developed into something like military might and "China must be stopped".
> They make proposals on various aspects of life in China. Those proposals aren't official policies.
> BBC should really have done a better job here.
The BBC has been flogging SJW agendas for a while now. Even though they're a state organ they need clicks just like anyone else -- and this gets traffic.
Mix in some good ole China xenophobia and voila, one of the most active posts on HN.
My apologies if I caused offense. In terms of focus I advocate for the power of "and" although I disagree with your characterization of the problems raised as "smaller inward-focused." The wars and droning are not small nor inward-focused. The ramming was referred to in gallows humor as I don't think the Navy is so incompetent that they would think ramming cargo vessels would be effective, just incompetent enough to be accident-prone.
The g-parent comment asserts that "China must be stopped" and I started thinking about what aspect(s) of China do they want to stop. Certainly they don't want to end the country and its inhabitants. Maybe they want to stop some behaviors that cause harm in the world? What behaviors would those be? The comment uses the past tense "stopped" instead of "stop" so the implication is that some not-China entity performs the stopping.
So what behavior to stop and what entity to do the stopping? Are the actions necessary to stop the behavior proportionate and are they likely effective? To predict this, I look to the track record of previous attempts to "stop" nations and it isn't pretty. My comment came from thinking about what has happened in the US over the course of this century as it has embarked on ever newer crusades to stop this or that.
> The g-parent comment asserts that "China must be stopped" and I started thinking about what aspect(s) of China do they want to stop. Certainly they don't want to end the country and its inhabitants. Maybe they want to stop some behaviors that cause harm in the world? What behaviors would those be? The comment uses the past tense "stopped" instead of "stop" so the implication is that some not-China entity performs the stopping.
> So what behavior to stop and what entity to do the stopping?
Honestly, it sounds like you're playing ignorant here. Those aren't hard questions to answer, though the post you're commenting on likely had some government/nation confusion. I suggest you spend some quality time with Wikipedia and a good newspaper.
> Are the actions necessary to stop the behavior proportionate and are they likely effective? To predict this, I look to the track record of previous attempts to "stop" nations and it isn't pretty. My comment came from thinking about what has happened in the US over the course of this century as it has embarked on ever newer crusades to stop this or that.
The US had at least couple of successes in the last century. Anyway, your thrust seems to be towards fatalism, which is perspective that should be rejected out of hand.
No, seriously, what ongoing action(s) of China “must be stopped” and what actions by whom are likely to succeed without causing more harm than that which would be stopped? Referring to Wikipedia without even a link to the “List of Internationally Recognized Chinese Bad Stuff” is a tacit recognition that there isn’t much that can be “stopped” short of an armed conflict nobody wants and nobody liked Trump’s attempts for economic sanction either. “Save the Spratleys” is a weaker rallying cry than “Save Tibet” and the navy is plenty engaged there already.
The win/loss/left-a-mess ratio of the US doesn’t engender positive predictions of future actions especially given how many are in endless overtime. Is it fatalistic to be realistic?
> No, seriously, what ongoing action(s) of China “must be stopped” and what actions by whom are likely to succeed without causing more harm than that which would be stopped?
I literally could give some likely possibilities of what they were specifically thinking about from memory, but it's basically a list of major news stories about the PRC from the past several years, which you're welcome to research yourself.
> The win/loss/left-a-mess ratio of the US doesn’t engender positive predictions of future actions especially given how many are in endless overtime. Is it fatalistic to be realistic?
The PRC is a genuinely difficult geopolitical problem. However, you seem to be taking Iraq and Afghanistan as your main precedents for action, when they'd be poor ones even if the US had been far more successful there.
You literally can’t give any. Handwave “must be stopped” or “aighta be a law” all you want in your fantasyland of no consequences.
I’ll take a tour of things at the top of my head:
* North Korea: we have nada, nuke horse is out of the barn
* Taiwan: prop up the post-KMT status quo and hope for the best
* Hong Kong: nada
* Nine dashed line (S China Sea): pray Navy doesn’t get shot up and apologize if they do [0]
* Tibet: lost and forgotten neverland
* India: duking it out for itself
* Uighers: an “internal matter” Holocaust, see also Christians and the occasional Jack Ma
* Global Warmer: the former industrialized nations exported their industry and pollution to places like China, what are we going to do, pay them to produce the same stuff but not pollute? Could have done the same with internal industry instead of outsourcing
* Endangered species: slightly bright spot for some well loved species like rhino and elephant, too bad about the sharks and fisheries tho
* Industrial espionage: ok, there’s room for work that might not make things worse
Anyone who follows main stream entertainment in China and social media would understand these events as a commonly occurring cultural phenomenon (roughly the equivalent of 'masculinity/identity crisis' lately).
Having lived in Europe for more than a decade I however, did find the english title very alarming and worrying, even while reading the same chinese text have no such feeling at all.... language works in different context I suppose...
Two things to note here, first that this isn't really different to any other part of the world. There's always some concern about feminisation of men by (usually) older people who had a rough childhood in the war or something and now project their ideals onto others.
The other thing to note, although its not particularly interesting, is that there's going to be a media bias against china from the west in general.
Hmm. Sudden off-topic thought: I regularly hear about the decline in violent crime, and hear it attributed to the end of leaded gasoline. Could it be due to falling sperm count instead (or due to the cause of the falling count)?
There are nuances and some culture differences in young people from asian and US background e.g. The feminine males are a big part in the mass media such as pop culture (Jpop or Kpop) and anime. Never have the muscular characters dominated any genre (just check any main guy in Japanese/Korean productions). The frail ones are a stereotypical archetype. But I guess you're right about the older generation projecting ideals onto youths nowadays...
Whatever China does lately seems to be tailored to inch its society toward more expansive mode and military values. A lot of nationalism in the curriculum, the "wolf warriors" ideas etc.
I do not think they are doing this for shits and giggles. They invest a lot overseas and must be aware that one day, one of their client countries will rebel and will need to be subdued militarily to protect the investments and dissuade others from going down the same road.
The question is what is the rest of the world going to do. So far we seem to be mostly ignoring this yet-soft development, maybe because the idea of having a Cold War 2.0 with a major industrial power is really uncomfortable.
... doing what countries run by a dictator tend to do. I don't think we fully understand how much Xi Jinping has changed the PRC. The Chinese system was already autocratic, but Xi turned it into full-blown dictatorship. There are no balances to his power, there is no limit to his rule, there is no incentive for anyone in China to oppose anything he does or to develop alternative political lines. This situation requires an increasing amount of chest-thumping to justify itself.
> must be aware that one day, one of their client countries will rebel
A lot of these client countries are not even in Asia, and the Chinese have never been "expeditionary". Their force projection is typically limited to their close interests. The PRC leadership has traditionally played the long game, but justifying a dictatorship has costs that must be paid for; Xi needs to show gains in a much more overt way than his predecessors. That's basically what it is. From what I can see, their only major objective is still to get the South-East off American control, and that will be it.
> The question is what is the rest of the world going to do.
You're already seeing it: periodic waves of anti-Chinese action in civilian fields. Full-on cold-war seems fundamentally impossible in a world where most "Western" money effectively runs on items manufactured almost-exclusively in China - which is not just "a major industrial power", it's effectively unique in whole sectors and dominant in others. "We" will continue with the tit-for-tat and occasional offensive like on 5G.
Taiwan is the propaganda target, but their creeping occupation of the South China Sea shows what the larger overall objective is. PRC leadership (i.e. Xi and friends) really see their future as the sole owners of South-East Asia; Taiwan will “naturally” come as part of that.
The problem is that three decades of US adventurism in the Middle East have left “us” without the moral high ground to oppose them.
> The question is what is the rest of the world going to do.
Most of the world probably dislikes China as much as they dislike the USA. If anything, they will be indifferent to the conflict, unless they happen to be in a "proxy-conflict" zone.
I can't imagine, given the history between the two countries, that the Chinese are that delighted to have the Royal Navy active in their part of the world again.
When they are ready to do so I'm pretty sure that the Chinese Navy will send an aircraft carrier visit Russia (Murmansk, St Petersburg, or Kaliningrad) and they will make sure to sail through the Channel. Or maybe they will just 'patrol' the North Atlantic. Two can play that game.
A Chinese destroyer already sailed through the Channel in 2019 on its way to an event in St Petersburg.
At the end of the day the UK of the 21st century cannot keep up with the China of the 21st century. The Chinese economy is already 6x times larger than the UK's, with a population 20x larger. At some point the Chinese Navy will be able to align 10 aircraft carriers for every British Navy one if they want to.
Even if what you say is true (it isn't) the world does NOT want major armed conflict between the two major powers. There would be a spillover of conflict, and major economic impacts.
Eh, I would count this just as some people not being comfortable with the social changes happening.
If you look at most of the pop culture that comes out from East Asia, the typical male archetype seems to be gentle, boyish looking men who are chivalrous and act cute at the same time. Typical masculine features like beards are generally considered unattractive on males. I guess, some people might not like it.
I'm no expert on anime, but the two big examples I'm familiar with, Sword Art Online and Demon Slayer both feature many masculine adult characters[1], but usually in a mentor or antagonist role. The protagonists are literally boys, who by definition are less masculine than grown men.
[1] The Legendary Hero Bercouli in SAO and Sakonji Urokodaki in Demon Slayer are two that immediately spring to mind.
> So far we seem to be mostly ignoring this yet-soft development, maybe because the idea of having a Cold War 2.0 with a major industrial power is really uncomfortable.
The big question is: what can we do, really? The media in the West are quite frank about what is going on: China is a totalitarian state with all consequences. The politicians, though, seem terrified and bend over backwards in order not to offend the red dragon. There are small exceptions but in general China freaks out whenever anyone significant meets the Dalai Lama, for example.
A good example is Prague. Czechia is a tiny country in Central Europe with pro-China central government. However, the local government of its capital has a more free attitude and Beijing is getting furious each time the major of Prague meets the dissidents and so on. But most politicians in most countries are far less brave. Also they may realize the stakes are higher and higher.
There are a lot of things we can do, but that requires the EU, the US and China's neighbors to work together. It requires US to have a vision for countering China's growing sphere of influence. Unfortunately, the US is content to let China grow into the void that the US has left as it abdicates its role as superpower. The EU isn't fit to function as a counterweight to China.
I say all this as an EU citizen. For all its faults, the US is the one ally we have that could possibly coordinate an appropriate response (no, not military - financial, political and social, but also military if need be) and it's a tragedy that the US is just ... giving up.
It's a complex topic, and I sympathize with what you're saying but I think it's less a case of giving up and more of the US trying to benefit off of China's increasing dominance, combined with genuine laissez faire philosophy. I think that's changing now a bit but it's hard to say where it's going, especially in going from Trump to Biden.
Or more simply and less conspiracist, this is a mix of conservative values, public health (people are less active and fatter), and historical memory of what happened to them in the last 200 years (i.e. they should be able not to take any sh*t and to defend themselves).
First, "the last 200 years" is not the same as "200 years ago".
Second, history is what shapes cultures and people's views of the world. You cannot discuss and hope to make sense of what's going on in a country without understanding its history.
The BLM movement, arguments about links to slavery, China's international policy, just to name a few, are all stemming directly from events that occurred in the past and continue to have an impact to this day.
And lastly, there is nothing wrong with nationalism when it means defending your own people and sovereignty of your own country. That's what all countries do and in fact is the basis of the existence of countries.
That said, testosterone rates actually have been falling for a while now [1][2], and 'that's a thing'. Scientifically.
Also, we spend way too much time indoors as a species and there may possibly be a gendered aspect to it.
If we can talk all day about special needs, issues and accommodation for women, there's not reason we can't do so for men.
Never an athlete myself, and loathing the American focus on Collegiate sports - I've actually come to admire it. Maybe not to the 'they call get full ride' kind of admiration, but rather, a respect for the fact that physical vitality is part of our essential being.
1 hour of PT/sports per day should be standard literally all the way through life: Elementary, HS, College, integrated into the Workplace.
Just getting people moving would fundamentally change so many things. Probably ever aspect of life would improve, and if we want to make it a 'men's issue' I'll bet that rates of ADD, attention span etc. improve, as an unscientific hunch.
Edit: It's not a 'hunch' - physical activity will improve ADD [3], attention span [4].
The BBC article's intro implies that the Chinese government wants to draft more men into the military. But the actual issue has got nothing to do with the military or militarism at all.
At the heart of the issue is the perception that young men lack physical exercise. This government suggestion is receiving a lot of criticism inside China. Chinese netizens don't have anything against encouraging kids to exercise, but they are incensed that it's sold as a way to make boys more manly. https://radiichina.com/masculine-feminization-teenagers/
Wait, I thought that was already the effect, no? With men outnumbering women by a good margin, surely men would try to "out-man" each other to find a mate?
You can't really out-man other men like we used to in the old days anymore.
(i.e. raid another village, kill the men, take the women)
Nowadays we do things more civilized by posing on social media with gym bods and expensive cars and other displays of sexual fitness. Trying to lure a mate instead of taking one.
Unfortunately, the numbers are what they are: a ~30 million gender imbalance. So however you turn it there's going to be 30 million men without a wife/family no matter what they do. Not a good thing if you want society to remain peaceful.
So they either import more women (via force or promise of a better living standard), or they get rid of the excess men (via war), or they suppress them with heavy policing and entertainment doping until the gender imbalance fades out over the next generation or so.
When there are so many men that they know that they will never have a girlfriend or wife in their lives, they stop competing....why go to the gym at that point?
Or the labour export. Iirc, it was a thing in Pakistan a few years back that the Pakistani govt had to clamp down on because it led to domestic abuse and abandonment in many cases.
Average testosterone levels have been dropping significantly all around the world, so this policy likely wouldn't be the cause of the feminization of men.
That paper reminds me of Connections by James Burke.
High incomes leads to better spending on food leading to more cattle production leading to more soy use and more dairy consumption, which leads to more intake of oestrogen in water, leading to lower testosterone counts in consumers, leading to lower fertility rates.
Chinese history repeats itself endlessly. Dominance is followed by weakness is followed by revolution. Chinese leadership is very aware of their history, yet is ultimately powerless to change it, but each generation thinks this time is different. Modern China is only 70 years old.
Has any country remained strong for all its history in the last millenium? Look at Britain or the Dutch. They aren't weak as such but their influence is very less now.
Not GP, but it is. Chinese believe that the govt has to have a heavenly mandate to rule over them, and that when they lose favour with the heavens, they end up in decline. And Chinese govts know fully well about the cyclical nature of government in the country. If you see recently, most of the moves by the CCP recently have been to advance the image of Xi as the modern equivalent of an emperor.
The linked notice is titled 关于政协十三届全国委员会第三次会议第4404号（教育类410号）提案答复的函 教师提案〔2020〕475号 http://www.moe.gov.cn/jyb_xxgk/xxgk_jyta/jyta_jiaoshisi/2021...
About the Political Consultative Conference's 13th National Committee's third session, answer to the 4404th proposal (410th on education). Teaching proposal no. 475 (2020)
Yes, no doubts about its ultimate goal indeed.
The answer begins:
您提出的《关于防止男性青少年女性化的提案》收悉，现将涉及教育部业务部分答复如下：
Having received and read your "Proposal on the prevention of the feminization of male youth", the answers to the parts concerning the Ministry of Education are as follows:
(Then there's a bunch of blabla about improving school sports and whatnot, without any references to gender.)
So someone (who?) was concerned about feminization and asked the Ministry of Education to do something about that and they responded.
The BBC seems to have mistaken the title mentioned in the response for a statement of the Ministry of Education's official policy.
Maybe I should submit a "Proposal to replace Google Translate by fluent Chinese speakers" to the BBC so they can publish a headline "BBC to improve its reporting on China" but I'm not holding my breath.