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Chinese Reactions To Google Leaving China
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Most people have already heard western media reactions to Google leaving China proper and redirecting search traffic to its Hong Kong branch, but ChinaSMACK has translated comments from average Chinese internet users so that non-Chinese can understand how the Chinese public feels. While many of them are supportive of the government on some level, they were able to obtain many comments by those critical of the government before they could be 'harmonized' (deleted) and translated those as well. The deleted comments often complain about the wumao (50 cent party), government employees who are paid 50 cents RMB per post supporting the government, and worry that the Chinese Internet will become a Chinese LAN."
It was probably the cyber attack that was the last straw. The PRC probably did unload on Google with all the hacking power they could afford, and Google went, "fuck this shit, we're outta here".
I'd bet any amount of money on it.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
You know it's weird. I'm actually in Japan right now, living in a dorm with a lot of Chinese foreign students. One of them told me how his father was actually one of the students at Tiananmen Square, and after the incident burned a book filled with writings of his classmates so that the government wouldn't find it and record his previous affiliations on his resume.
This guy also tells me how shocked he was after he came to Japan and was finally able to see the Tiananmen videos on Youtube (blocked in China of course), and how it's changed his views of his government. According to him, a lot of Chinese youth are extremely nationalistic, and are "brainwashed" by the government. The government hires people to parrot their views of events as if they're normal citizens telling their own personal viewpoints.
He told me he himself used to like his life in China, but now that he's realized the truth about his government, he'd prefer not to go back to China after his study period in Japan is over.
Not entirely on-topic, and mod me down if you must, but I just thought it was interesting how this Chinese guy has become disconnected from his country and his own people, who seem to be influenced so heavily by their government.
Although I am happy to see yet another thread about a totally unrelated subject get turned into the standard "Europeans consider Americans as inexplicably stupid" argument though.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
so you mean it's kind of like China's version of /. ?
This is basically true. I live in China and I have asked my co-workers and several classes of students about it. The adults aren't really surprised by any of it, but that might be a little different among the tech crowd. Some of my students were concerned about Google leaving, as most of them do use Google and prefer it. However, most said they would just use Baidu.
Although they may dislike how things worked out, or disagree with the government's actions, the overall legitimacy of the government is rarely called into question. People are more interested in fixing the problems in their government. The basic reason is that they think the only way to prosper as a country is to work together, like China is a big family including the government, and this mindset is deeply set in many people. It's not all "government vs. the people" everywhere in the world. There are a few people who are pro-democracy advocates, but they are typically pro-everything-western Christians. Most people I have talked to will remark that democracy isn't appropriate for China, and that it is fundamentally different from western countries.
The fact is that people aren't too concerned about issues like this over here. They are too busy living their lives, and the whole Web as they know it is basically different. They don't use YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, or any of the normal sites. Only around 1% use Wikipedia. It's a totally different game here, where the number of QQ users is larger than the entire U.S. population.
After Google moved to Hong Kong, a teacher asked me about it, and I explained it to her. Then I told her that they moved because the mainland and Hong Kong have different laws. She replied back playfully with, "... maybe. Maybe they do," pretending to look a little nervous, and then laughing playfully. It's not all evil empire stuff over here. People roll their eyes at a lot of it, and everyone knows that the government can't control so much. There are too many people, so it's just like controlled chaos, with aspirations of harmony.
In some ways it's freer than the U.S. because there are so few people to enforce the laws or keep things in check. If a cop is going too slow, cars will honk their horns obnoxiously at him, swerve around him into the oncoming lane to pass him up, and generally just treat him like another asshole on the road. In the U.S., the cops are on your ass just for going through a yellow light too late. The American public is nothing for authorities to fear, but the Chinese public is much bigger and more powerful. In many ways it's difficult to imagine a government like the U.S. has, able to maintain the peace with 1.3 billion people.
Systemd: the PulseAudio of init systems
internet user != vocal comment poster
There might be one paid comment poster writing 1000s of comments per day for every 1000 real internet users who are too afraid to post their opinions, whose comments get drowned in the flood of paid spam or who simply don't care about comments.
By your logic, the average internet user would be a viagra salesman. After all, without sophisticated counter-measures 99,9% of all comments would be spam.
There was another comment about this, yes, it's not just Europe thinking this.
When people (Americans) come overseas and apologise for presidents and the stupid things their country is doing, that's gotta be embarrassing.
People who I know / have met from Australia and New Zealand... (Let's not talk about Canada) ... and a number of people I know scattered across Asia share this belief as well.
Curiosity was framed; ignorance killed the cat. -- Author unknown
I agree with your first sentence, but your second one not so much. It is a very blanket statement to say that, since morals are not universal, but personal. Some things can pretty much be agreed upon as immoral: murder (note, not simply killing); rape; abuse of power etc. but everything else is entirely based upon circumstance. If you are brought up in a culture where personal possession is meaningless for example, then stealing cannot be considered immoral.
Regardless, I'm not sure that many Americans do think that universal health care would be a bad thing, they just don't want to fund it through their taxes, so don't support it. They likely see it as something along the lines of "if people want health care, they should work to pay for it". It is a very capitalist model, but not necessarily immoral. I myself don't agree with it, and see it as pure selfishness pretty much, but I am a product of my surroundings as well, and having been brought up by fairly liberal parents in the UK (where we have universal heath care) it is almost inevitable that I feel the way I do.
The legitimacy of voting thing; yeah, that's pretty much wrong if you accept democracy as good, but I'm sure that not everyone agrees. It definitely isn't FAIR for hereditary rule etc, but I'm sure there are those that think it's better regardless of the fairness.
as for "Europeans consider Americans as inexplicably stupid". Yeah, we pretty much do, but then we are coming from a background in monarchy (true monarchy I mean, not like the monarchy in the UK) where the "ruling class" had ultimate power, which was partially tied to the church. Therefore we tend to strongly believe in a secular society, and one where the distribution of power is more even. America seems to have lost some of that by being free by default.
That reminds me of something a Chinese friend of mine said once. He said that there is little demand for democracy among ordinary Chinese, but there is a huge wish for accountability. He said people loath corrupt party officials and the like and there is real pressure for reform in that area, but that democracy isn't really seen as relevant to that debate.
That, and a real fear that democracy would lead to instability and even the possibility of civil war, means (according to one affluent, western educated Chinese) that the push for democracy within China is far less than a Westerner might suppose.
This sig all sigs devours
He said that there is little demand for democracy among ordinary Chinese, but there is a huge wish for accountability.... but that democracy isn't really seen as relevant to that debate.
Your friend hit the nail on the head there. In theory, Democracy should be all about accountability: prove you did a good job or get kicked out. Instead what we see (especially in young democracies) is that corruption is still there, but in a slightly different form than before.
Honestly, I don't think democracy is the be-all end-all of governance. A very good step in the right direction for China might be to find a way to hold their officials accountable to the people in some way.
A good idea, if a way can be found.