[HN Gopher] China blocks Wikimedia from entering World Intellect...
___________________________________________________________________
China blocks Wikimedia from entering World Intellectual Property
Organization
Author : hardmaru
Score : 321 points
Date : 2021-10-10 15:56 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wikimediafoundation.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (wikimediafoundation.org)
| [deleted]
| epgui wrote:
| (Disclaimer: I'm a franco-Canadian of mixed European descent.)
|
| This article doesn't give China a great image, sure. I can think
| of a million criticisms to levy against China.
|
| However, I feel like a lot of the comments aren't just
| criticizing China, they seem to be outright anti-China.
|
| I wonder if, in the grand scheme of things, Americans/Westerners
| might be feeling threatened by the shift in power. I wonder if
| Americans/Westerners are capable of appreciating the things that
| China gets right, or does right. I wonder if Americans/Westerners
| are capable of acknowledging the things that their countries get
| wrong, or do wrong. I wonder if we here in the West are as fair
| and balanced as we tend to think.
|
| This isn't merely an academic question, I think it goes to the
| core of the state of mind that is required to view situations
| objectively (regardless of whether we might be right or wrong in
| any specific context).
|
| In this case, I'm totally on Wikimedia's side. But I feel like we
| in the West are standing right on the slippery slope of
| nationalism.
| musicale wrote:
| There's a difference between being anti-CCP and anti-China.
| Fricken wrote:
| Nonsense. Domestic approval ratings for the CCP are insane.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Nobody seems to notice that it should not matter at all how
| accurate exactly the information Wikimedia contains, because it
| has no relation to the role they can fulfil at WIPO.
|
| China blocks the application, citing irrelevant info. Then other
| countries dismiss those irrelevant accusations as false. It seems
| the future of WIPO is to become irrelevant UN body.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| China does this across the whole UN. You can't bring your high
| school club to visit without appeasing the censors, who will
| check that the school and its clubs have never blogged
| mentioning Taiwan as anything other than a "province of China."
|
| China is on the security council so this will never change. The
| UN will implode first.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/china-makes-sure-everyone-w...
| int_19h wrote:
| To be fair, this is just one of the many examples of UNSC
| being broken by design. In a similar vein, US tends to use
| its veto indiscriminately to cover up for Israel, and Russia
| does the same for its client states and allies.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| That's the entire point of the Security Council -- to allow
| states with the most powerful militaries and nuclear
| weapons to exert greater influence.
|
| To create another system would be to risk irrelevance due
| to the mismatch between actual military power and UN power.
|
| It sucks when it leads to states using that power, but the
| alternative is more wars and potentially nuclear weapons
| use.
| int_19h wrote:
| That's the entire point of the Security Council _veto_.
| Note that there are other, rotating members on it, which
| do not have the veto power. In principle, all members
| could be like that.
|
| I understand that UNSC is the way it is because that's
| the only way to actually get the power players to
| participate. That doesn't make it any less broken.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > It seems the future of WIPO is to become irrelevant UN body.
|
| I certainly hope so!
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| They will be joining a long list of irrelevant UN bodies...
| [deleted]
| tuberelay wrote:
| China corrupts any global organization it touches.
| fouric wrote:
| I can think of the WHO, John Cena's Twitter apology, Blizzard,
| the NBA, and Apple, but what else is there?
| voldacar wrote:
| Superhero movies, and hollywood in general
| adventured wrote:
| Hollywood - the movie industry more broadly - is also mostly
| gone now. They're all cowards, terrified of doing or saying
| anything critical of China (for exactly the same reason the
| NBA is, fear of losing the China market). They should be at
| the forefront of being critical of an illiberal superpower,
| given their supposed ideological leanings as an industry.
| Instead they're hiding in the back of the room, they'll be
| the last to say anything.
| lelandfe wrote:
| I don't think this should surprise anyone. Hollywood has no
| ideological anything beyond "make more money," and for some
| franchises China is not just a market - it's the market.
|
| The Transformers series especially wound up being money
| printing machines in China.
|
| Even overlooking the pressure China doubtlessly applies to
| Hollywood, the execs greenlighting scripts would have to
| start hating money to approve anything that jeopardizes
| revenue from Chinese theaters.
| boba-men wrote:
| You make it sounds like that's not enough? WHO in of itself
| would be extremely troubling. And its not just Apple, MANY
| fortune 500 companies have agreed to comply with
| authoritarian policies to do business in China.
| midasuni wrote:
| Aqueducts?
| ben_w wrote:
| Global organisations are to nations what words are to
| individual humans, both in capability and purpose: they get
| used, not corrupted, by government action.
|
| Actual corruption can still happen by individuals within
| organisations, but that (continuing the metaphor) is like
| coughing or stammering while you talk, and isn't desired even
| by the user.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Yup. Supposedly free american companies are forced to bow down
| to authoritarian chinese government demands because they can't
| afford to lose that market. The wonders of globalization.
|
| Imagine what China is gonna do to Apple now that on-device
| wrongthink scanning is a thing.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > on-device wrongthink scanning is a thing.
|
| Yes, it's horrifying how the authoritarian Chinese government
| forced this.
| perihelions wrote:
| Of course Wikimedia won't take any action to appease this
| totalitarian nonsense. But, most for-profit companies do exactly
| that. When was the last time any Hollywood movie or mainstream
| entertainment mentioned Taiwanese conflict? When do you last
| remember seeing "Free Tibet"? Or any Tibet? Chinese film censors
| can apply billions of dollars of pressure, simply to change a
| single word. Who can withstand that?
|
| Wikimedia is just one small pebble in this river.
|
| Soft propaganda is going to rewrite how the world perceives the
| sinosphere, more thoroughly and more profoundly than any Winstons
| rectifying Wikipedia. I don't think we have any meaningful models
| to understand what's going on right now -- there's not really
| much precedent in history or even in fiction.
| chunghuaming wrote:
| Watching James Bond this weekend made me sad. No mention of
| China at all, as the cause of many geopolitical crisis around
| the world, as well as the source of atrocious acts against
| muslims (go check out cnn's china whistlerblower interview
| recently that detailed the hanging of uighurs and raping of
| them). If you want a super evil villain, look no further than
| Xi Jing ping and the CCP, who has threatened literally most
| democracies (nuke Australia/Japan, conquer Taiwan), sent pirate
| ships to plunder all sealives around the world, continue to
| build up coal power plants to increase global warming, and
| let's not forget COVID.
|
| Also, let's not forget CCP is the reason why North Korea still
| exists and why Vietnam is still a communist country.
| baybal2 wrote:
| The West really, really wants to shut its eyes on China very
| tight. We need to deny the West this comfort.
|
| That's a paradoxal reaction. It's like somebody being raped
| tries to cover her face to not to see her rapist.
|
| Not seeing a rapist doesn't change the ground reality of you
| still being raped. The correct action is not to use hands to
| cover your face, but to punch back the assailant.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I don't think it's fair to suggest China is "raping" the
| West. Hong Kong, maybe, but not the entire democratic
| world. At least, not yet.
| baybal2 wrote:
| It is indeed raping the whole free world. It indulges
| inflicting this humiliation, and seeing the whole world
| seeing the West being so powerless about it.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Facts make a better argument than histrionics.
| vmception wrote:
| The best model would be the time period from 1910 to 1950 where
| the US Supreme Court had ruled that motion pictures had no 1st
| amendment protection. This let states censor and dictate at the
| same level that China is doing right now.
|
| Productions that wanted access to the entire US market bent to
| the most restrictive state's demands.
|
| Did some states occasionally pay to incentivize compliance?
| Don't know about that, but the function is largely the same.
| tim333 wrote:
| >Soft propaganda is going to rewrite how the world perceives
| the sinosphere
|
| There may be a bit of a Streisand effect going on. It's hard to
| avoid hearing about the Chinese communist party giving Taiwan a
| hard time when they are trying to censor every organisation
| around the world pretty much.
| satao wrote:
| It's even crazier because when you are not american you realize
| that Hollywood is also the biggest soft propaganda agency for
| the USA.
|
| When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2? Or
| about the Guantanamo Bay?
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| I believe Enemy at the Gates was a major blockbuster.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > Or about the Guantanamo Bay?
|
| Sure, here's one from this year:
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4761112/?ref_=kw_li_tt
|
| And here's the list
|
| https://www.imdb.com/search/keyword/?keywords=guantanamo-bay
| perihelions wrote:
| The US didn't use soft power to censor Soviet cinema within
| the USSR. It's an absurd power.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| > When have you seen a movie about the USSR winning the WW2?
|
| Any Russian movies about the US winning the WW2? Naturally
| each country tells their own narrative. This seems like a
| silly point to make.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Not so when you consider that Hollywood is pretty much
| defining the culture for good half of the planet.
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's not a silly point to make when you realize that
| Hollywood is not a government agency. It is a reasonable
| question to ask how this coordination is possible when
| there are no legal restraints on failing to coordinate.
| bmicraft wrote:
| Hollywood gets to borrow millions in us army equipment
| for free if the producer runs the script by them first.
| Part of the deal is that the us army always have to be
| the good guys and not have _any_ internal problems
| related to things like sexism homophobia or anything else
| whatshisface wrote:
| That only explains it when the movie involves borrowed
| equipment.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| The theory is probably that the characters must be
| relatable and therefore American. Films about British
| actions in the war often have random American characters
| thrown in too. (I'm not sure that is unrealistic though)
|
| Perhaps another thing is that when the memory of the war
| was still fresh and people (at least in eg France)
| generally knew that the USSR had a big impact,
| McCarthyism was also at its height and there were strong
| reasons not to show communists in a good light. And then
| maybe later films mostly copied the trend.
| lelandfe wrote:
| > The easiest way to inject a propaganda idea into most
| people's minds is to let it go through the medium of an
| entertainment picture when they do not realize that they are
| being propagandized.
|
| - Elmer Davis, director of the US Office of War Information
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _Enemy at the Gates_ is pretty good.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| The GP asked for movies about winning _the_ WWII, not
| winning _in the_ WWII. _Enemy at the Gates_ was just a
| sniper duel movie (a good one, though).
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Is the claim here that the US has organizations that
| actively work to prevent a movie showing Russians winning
| WW2?
|
| It is easier for me to believe that a movie specifically
| about the Russians winning WW2 simply would not get
| financed due to low probability of earning a decent ROI
| due to American/English audiences not wanting to pay to
| watch it.
|
| I was also taught in US history AP class in high school
| that a significant, if not necessary, element of winning
| WW2 was the Russians tying up the Germans on the eastern
| front, and it was stressed that the Russians suffered the
| most casualties by far.
| cryptonitez wrote:
| It would really be fun to make a movie about overthrowing the
| CCP, could be uplifting.
| FatalLogic wrote:
| Analysis and explanation (from 2020, but the issues are
| unchanged): https://qz.com/1908836/china-blocks-wikimedia-from-
| un-agency...
|
| Creative Commons comment on the most recent blocking: "As in
| 2020, China's statement falsely suggested that the Wikimedia
| Foundation was spreading disinformation via the independent,
| volunteer-led Wikimedia Taiwan chapter"[0]
|
| [0] https://creativecommons.org/2021/10/06/creative-commons-
| resp...
| mrobot wrote:
| I view political articles on Wikimedia's Wikipedia similar to how
| i view media sources such as Radio Free Asia. There is really
| nothing democratic or open about the political content you will
| find there. There are even seemingly obsessive accounts with
| thousands of edits a day that may just be government or think-
| tank managed accounts, reinforcing content favorable to US
| foreign policy goals. I see Wikipedia as kind of a good jump off
| point to see what the US State Dept and CIA position is on some
| issue, and then continue my investigation from there.
|
| If everyone googled about what is going on some part of the
| world, almost all would read the Wikipedia article. If the
| Wikipedia article differed in any major way from what the
| Pentagon's goals were, well... you can see how that would be a
| problem for the Pentagon. If you allow yourself to believe that
| the goals and movements of the Pentagon are not always grand, you
| can see how the political content there can more or less act as a
| weapon of war. Not really an exaggeration to say that, i really
| don't think...
|
| I feel like a lot of people just aren't catching on to how
| tightly managed US media is when it comes to "hostile" or
| "aggressive" actions of others, "democracy", "brutal dictators",
| etc. in other parts of the world. People are really still
| ingesting these corporate news sources with anything other than
| the utmost suspicion.
| [deleted]
| beaunative wrote:
| I don't think China has grudge against Wikimedia specifically,
| the official policy of theirs has always been that if you
| recognize Taiwan, you are no friend of them. I don't think the
| Chinese delegate there cares about free knowledge, further it's
| their job literally to say no to Taiwan recongition anywhere on
| earth.
|
| So why should we be surprised that China does this when the
| United States federal government don't call their Taiwan
| ambassador ambassador, but rather director of the American
| Institute in Taiwan, out of respect of the same policy.
| fouric wrote:
| I don't think that that makes it any better. Actually, it seems
| _worse_ that the CCP would act to obstruct an organization
| (ostensibly) devoted to the dissemination of knowledge simply
| because they recognize Taiwan as a country than if they had a
| particular grudge against The Wikipedia Foundation in
| particular.
| 1ris wrote:
| First of all, no private organisation can "recognize" a state.
| That is a privilege for states. Private organisations can only
| boycott (non-)states by not doing any business with said
| (non-)citizens. Why in the world Wikimedia do that, and how?
|
| Second, this policy by china is the problem. Not the lack of
| obedience by the rest of the world.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I have 0 clue why in the 1970s we didn't make it a de jure
| situation, like with Korea, like with Vietnam.
|
| China wanted the UN seat, right? Would they really turn that
| down because the US insisted on saying some shit about
| Taiwan? When they were kinda broke and caught between us and
| Soviets? Did the KMT really not want to give up "Republic of
| China", even if it meant being relegated to non-country
| status? Does it even matter what they think, being a
| subordinate dictatorship at that point?
|
| This seems like entirely a problem of the US's creation.
| netflixandkill wrote:
| The core of the problems is the KMT, who have been the
| roadblock to resolving this the whole time. Yes, they
| really were not willing to give anything, and it's black
| comedy at this point how many of them are in the PRC's
| pocket under the delusion the CCP will have any use for
| them at all if unification ever occurs (magic 8 ball says
| odds not good).
| baybal2 wrote:
| > China wanted the UN seat, right? Would they really turn
| that down because the US insisted on saying some shit about
| Taiwan?
|
| Because the security council seat was for the taking.
|
| And ChiComs had a very good memory how the Korean war
| started.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| So if they wanted a seat, and they are weak and Mao is
| old, then then can deal with it being called Taiwan. They
| can still stay it's an illegitimate breakway or whatever.
|
| Of course _now_ there is no UN seat to dangle, and they
| are strong, and like with NK it 's a fuck situation of
| our own procrastination, but then I think it was easy,
| and we just fucked up.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| Back in the 70s, the KMT definitely supported the One China
| Principle. They were still firmly dreaming about retaking
| the mainland. Back then the mainland and Taiwan even
| regularly fired shells at each other, not to actually
| attack, but as a statement by both sides to foreigners that
| the China-Taiwan issue is an internal China matter (namely
| a civil war), and not one of Taiwan being an independent
| state.
| azernik wrote:
| And it was personal for the KMT! These were people who
| had been middle-aged, established bureaucrats and
| generals in China in 1949.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I really made a mistake making my first sentence "did the
| KMT really?..." Yes, they did, I know that. KMT have
| always mostly been shitheads.
|
| The more important point is I don't see KMT having any
| leverage over the US in the 1970s, so it doesn't matter
| what they think.
| CheezeIt wrote:
| So then the U.N. and China both have an empty seat for
| Taiwan.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| We have North and South Korea when the communist
| revolution succeeded in the north but not the South. In
| the U.S., West Virginia split off from Virginia when most
| of Virginia joined the confederacy but a part didn't.
|
| Civil Wars, partial rebellions, partial revolutions, are
| one the mechanisms of state formation.
| pessimizer wrote:
| We have North and South Korea because of a US invasion,
| the massacre of tens of thousands of people in the South
| with any sort of left/social-liberal sympathies, and a
| fully fascist government propped up by the US that lasted
| until the 80s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilminism
|
| It's nothing to respect. The US is something to respect,
| because it's got a lot more economic and military power
| than poor backwards NK. Through the US, South Korea
| became a country. That's the mechanism of state
| formation.
|
| China doesn't bow to the US, so it's an entirely
| different dynamic. I say entirely different but the
| creation of Taiwan was a forceful takeover of an
| inhabited island by a retreating army who ruled with an
| iron fist. It was under martial law for 40 years. The
| nicest thing I hear people say about Taiwan is that it's
| 1) not China, and 2) not that oppressive anymore.
|
| The idea that China would suddenly respect that is weird.
| Plenty of people in Taiwan support unification.
|
| It also isn't like people who also wish to deal with
| China don't deal with Taiwan as if it were a country,
| they just don't call it one. It's like when they tried to
| call gay marriage "civil unions" in order to maintain the
| letter of homophobic policies while abandoning the
| substance.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| > We have North and South Korea because of a US invasion
|
| No, this is demonstrably false. Korea was annexed by
| Japan in 1910. After the war, Korea was partitioned --
| much like Europe -- with North Korea occupied by the
| Soviet Union and South Korea occupied by the US along the
| 38th parallel in 1945. Except the nature of the
| respective military presence was very different. The
| Soviet Union and China brought in large quanties of
| military equipment and troops, while actively supporting
| communist guerrillas in the South (but there were never
| more than ~5000 such guerillas). North Korea invaded the
| South on June 25, 1950 with ~200K troops and 75K PLA
| troops of Korean ethnicity, whereas the US had 2-300
| troops in all of South Korea. The North attacked with 280
| tanks furnished by the Soviet Union, whereas South Korea
| had no tanks, as the US refused to provide them with any
| prior to 1950. The North had 110 attack bombers, and 150
| Yak fighter planes provided by the USSR. The US did not
| give any aircraft to the South, and there were only 22
| aircraft in the South. The US had basically a token
| military presence in South Korea as it was not interested
| in either invading the North or building military bases
| in the South. You can read more at
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_War#Prelude_to_war_(
| 195...
|
| To call this a "US invasion" is absurd. Moreover, somehow
| trying to make this about the boogeyman of "fighting
| fascism" or even "civil unions" is bizarre -- what is the
| state of civil unions in North Korea or China? What is
| the state of freedom of expression? Or freedom of
| religion? If you are going to be using words like
| "fascist", then they are much better applied to North
| Korea or China than to South Korea or Taiwan.
|
| Please don't spread this type of disinfo on public
| forums.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >To call this a "US invasion" is absurd
|
| A US invasion to prop up the Rhee government that
| massacred leftists is the only reason there isn't a
| unified Korea under North Korean rule. You can argue
| that's a good thing, but trying to claim the US did not
| invade is absurd.
|
| And on the fascist bogeyman parts, any improvement in
| those areas happened in South Korea and Taiwan rather
| recently, in the past thirty years or so.
| type0 wrote:
| > It was under martial law for 40 years. The nicest thing
| I hear people say about Taiwan is that it's
|
| The nicest thing I can say about Taiwan an White Terror
| is that it gave us this horror game called Detention
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detention_(video_game)
|
| Now it's even made it into a movie
| https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/detention-movie-
| review-20...
| int_19h wrote:
| Korean War was a military operation authorized by UN.
| Calling it a "US invasion" is rather a stretch,
| especially considering that it was the North's invasion
| of the South that triggered the war.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| It was a US invasion. It was only authorized by the UN
| because Russia boycotted the UN due to it's refusal to
| accept China's new government.
|
| The war was started by North Korea, but the US definitely
| invaded North Korea in the war and preceded to burn down
| every town in the entire country.
| azernik wrote:
| The KMT _absolutely_ did not want to give up its title of
| "Republic of China". It had been only 30 years since the
| civil war. KMT leadership was still people who had
| personally fled the mainland in middle age. The president
| at the time, Jiang Jingguo, was on the young end (he was
| the son and heir of Jiang Jieshi) - and even he had only
| arrived in Taiwan at age 39.
|
| None of those people had strong local ties, either personal
| ones with the non-Mainlander population or political ones
| with homegrown political movements. Taiwan, for them, was
| at best a consolation prize, not a home.
|
| From the US perspective, why would they go out of their way
| to call Taiwan its own country when neither government, on
| either side of the Strait, was interested in that?
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| > From the US perspective, why would they go out of their
| way to call Taiwan its own country when neither
| government, on either side of the Strait, was interested
| in that?
|
| :) I feel like this the same sort of thinking as tech
| debt. Names? Who cares! Everyone knows what the situation
| is on the ground.
|
| In my view, norms have to be actively upheld, even
| especially if you are on "Team 'rule of law'". If the
| thing is a state, call it a state dammit! I like this
| argument because it doesn't rely on "well, you gotta
| foresee China becoming strong and stuff". No, you don't,
| just have a principle that de jure and de facto should
| deviate as little as possible.
|
| I stand by my original analysis that doesn't matter what
| the KMT thinks, because RoC effectively a client state of
| the US at the time, with no TSMC to get more leverage,
| and also that the PRC should be happy enough to get its
| UN seat. If we wanted to, we could have made this happen,
| but we are sloppy and we didn't try.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > In my view, norms have to be actively upheld, even
| especially if you are on "Team 'rule of law'".
|
| What norm or law makes Taiwan a state other than that it
| claims itself to be? If you're team "rule of law" I think
| you have to insist that the KMT still run China.
| int_19h wrote:
| The vote to replace Taiwan with PRC in UN was in the
| General Assembly. US did not have enough votes there to
| force PRC to do anything, nor did it have the power to
| veto.
|
| US did attempt to block it by claiming that it is an
| "important question" under Article 18 of the UN Charter -
| specifically, that it counted as expulsion of a member.
| This was rejected on the basis that no member was actually
| expelled: China was a member before the vote, and it
| remained a member after the vote, the only difference being
| which government's delegation represented it.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_General_Assemb
| l...
| juliangamble wrote:
| Look at which airlines have "Chinese Taipei" vs plain old
| "Taipei". (Malaysian airlines is not intimidated.)
| Corporations can and do recognise a state.
| refenestrator wrote:
| They should be a lot less aggressive and assertive about it,
| but, given the stakes nd the history I think the polite
| fiction is perfectly fine compared to lots of alternatives.
| garmaine wrote:
| It is not a polite fiction.
| antonvs wrote:
| It's better than a lot of alternatives, but it is not
| "perfectly fine". It's about much more than word usage for
| China, and they will exploit every inch given to them on
| this matter until they have occupied Taiwan.
| toxik wrote:
| If we use HK as the model for how Taiwan will be
| occupied, then it seems that it will be through political
| process. I'm not sure if the Taiwanese system is as weak
| as the HK setup was, but if anybody is able to find a
| hole, it would be the CCP.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > no private organisation can "recognize" a state
|
| Yes they can. A private organization could just treat it like
| a state, in the same way that it treats any other state.
|
| The consequences of that depend on what the organization
| does.
| mr_toad wrote:
| > First of all, no private organisation can "recognize" a
| state.
|
| That's not how the CCP sees it. They have threatened hotel
| chains and airlines that referred to Taiwan as a country.
| pjbeam wrote:
| Early in my career I got in trouble for including Taiwan on
| a web form country drop down list (not Amazon). Hadn't
| encountered that until that moment. Was a bit weird.
| dirtyid wrote:
| Basically. PRC blocks UN participation of any organization that
| doesn't follow official UN interpretation of One China. As how
| things should be. China's UN flexes last few years doing a good
| job demonstrating "the world" is more than the west. Some folks
| have a hard time coping with pacing non-white super power that
| represents 20% of the global population successfully lobbying
| for their own interests. Conveniently looking past fact that
| PRC still has plurality support in UN over HK and XJ policies
| while pretending the world is united against PRC when it's
| anything but.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _a hard time coping with pacing non-white super power_
|
| One, regional power. Emerging superpower. But still lacking
| long-distance force projection capability.
|
| Two, share of global population doesn't give one the right to
| invade and subjugate a free population. Taiwan isn't China.
| It doesn't want to be China. The world has a definite
| interest in protecting it.
| [deleted]
| dirtyid wrote:
| The US is next level global hyper-power. PRC only seeks to
| be regional hegemony / super power, i.e. pacing power. PLAN
| has enough ships and replenishment fleet to project to
| Djibouti/ME oil without issue for years. Not enough to go
| toe-to-toe with USN yet, but enough for anything else.
| Training is just focused on securing SCS right now.
|
| Within context post WW2 westphalia sovereignty construct
| PRC has right to finish civil war occuring within her
| domestic territory as recognized by UN. Interests of 1.4B
| PRC outweighs 24m on TW. If TW wants to be free, they'll
| have to fight for independence like everyone else. And they
| should, except the woeful state of TW military and doctrine
| suggest they're completely unserious and not up to the
| task.
|
| The world has demonstrated essentially zero interest in
| defending TW. AUKUS wouldn't exist if US courtship to
| contain PRC hasn't failed with EU, NATO, G8, FVEY, QUAD
| etc. There's literally no one committed to defending TW
| among the west while most of the global south is firmly in
| the PRC camp. Even the US wouldn't give TW Article 5 tight
| security pact and no regional countries that could help are
| reorienting meaningfully in PRC containment except maybe
| Australia. No countries except the US have even floated the
| idea of sanctioning the PRC for taking TW. There aren't
| even contingency sanctions like Iran nuclear programs,
| that's how little interest world has in interceding. US war
| planning itself has pivoted from TW defense to TW armourer.
| Outside geopolitical theatre for headlines, it's getting
| more and more clear no one is interested in defending TW.
| int_19h wrote:
| > Interests of 1.4B PRC outweighs 24m on TW.
|
| If Russia decides to annex e.g. Ukraine in its entirety
| tomorrow, do the interests of 146 million Russians
| outweigh the interests of 41 million Ukrainians? It
| doesn't really work that way.
|
| (Not to mention that the government of PRC is not exactly
| representative.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _as recognized by UN_
|
| Beijing flagrantly violates international law, _e.g._
| maritime law--appealing to it is ironic. In any case, it
| has no rightful claim to Taiwan nor its people--any such
| assertion is an intentional misreading of post-WWII
| international law.
|
| There is fighting will to defend Taiwan in several of
| China's neighbours; Australia, yes, but also India and
| Japan. The U.S. policy position, that an invasion of
| Taiwan would merit shedding American blood, is bipartisan
| and strengthening. There wasn't such consensus, in
| America or internationally, before Xi started being
| needlessly aggressive to further his personal political
| interests. (Australia was in the process of pivoting away
| from the U.S. and towards Beijing.) But he is
| undisciplined and so here we are.
|
| If the Chinese population is being led to believe a
| Taiwan invasion wouldn't result in significant loss of
| life, including on the mainland, I guess WWIII will be at
| least be interesting.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| One can connect the dots between this, this
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struggle_session and rampant cancel
| culture now prevalent in the US.
|
| Let this article connect some of those dots:
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-struggle-sess...
|
| And just on today's front page:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28817721
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/10/why-latest...
| [deleted]
| jjulius wrote:
| I would be very curious to see how you would connect those
| dots. Do go on...
| twofornone wrote:
| Do you need links of BLM riot footage? Millions of people
| rallying to raise their fists and yell and chant against
| "racism" "white supremacy" which are transparent euphemisms
| for their outgroup and scapegoat?
|
| Surely the parallels are obvious, even if you agree with the
| cause, no? Or perhaps you didn't see such imagery without
| "fiery but mostly peaceful" disclaimers?
|
| Edit: here's one of the first search results for "blm
| struggle session" but I have about a hundred gb of similar
| footage, including literal communist recruitment via
| megaphone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMtvgNfdyMo. I'd be
| happy to upload a torrent since so much of the footage has
| literally been wiped from the internet.
|
| Edit: oh, and how could I forget the "diversity
| [re]education" camps that white male (and only white male)
| employees have been coerced into attending, including
| executives at a diverse assortment of companies like Lockheed
| Martin and Coca Cola, where participants are asked to list
| all the ways in which their whiteness is problematic. If that
| isn't a struggle session, I don't know what is.
| orf wrote:
| Do you also have hundreds of gb's of footage of police
| brutality against minorities and white supremacy marches?
| Or is it just footage of minorities struggling against a
| system that doesn't work for them?
|
| If so, why?
| vishho wrote:
| Yes. You too can get an account for 49$ recurring. If you
| are interested that is. One weekend in the month we go
| over to Joe's and watch the best brutality videos
| together. Bring some beers and you are very welcome,
| mate!
| aftbit wrote:
| Please do upload a torrent. These videos should be kept
| alive and present in the discussion to guard against the
| obvious dangers. Regardless of what you think about
| disinformation, censorship does not serve our interests.
| Instead of deleting these videos, they should be hidden
| behind a clickthrough that provides the missing context.
| jbm wrote:
| To try to steelman the argument, I believe the main point can
| be expressed as follows;
|
| 1. China is trying to censor Wikimedia at the world stage for
| their political purposes
|
| 2. Some Social Justice related groups have similar outlooks
| towards using censorship against their opponents. If we don't
| stop them, we will have their preferred flavour of censorship
| imposed on us, with widespread suffering of non-conformers.
| This will follow the pattern of Communist China during the
| cultural revolution.
|
| The reason for the deliberate vagueness is that the idea is
| overly dramatized and only tangentially related to the topic
| at hand.
|
| We already have the censorship they complain about; it is
| social mores. Decent people don't use terms derogatory terms
| towards strangers in public places. They don't scrutinize the
| background of every Oxy patient in order to determine whether
| or not they deserve to die.
|
| As for out groups being ostracized from society; well yes? I
| think that's generally the case everywhere. If you don't fit
| into the morals of a larger society, you aren't going to have
| a good time.
|
| The implicit threat, though, is nonsense. Communist China in
| the 1960s was a complete top-down command society and Mao was
| using his cult of personality to try to regain influence
| (potentially influenced by the Gang of Four). Is there anyone
| in the US who actually has that kind of influence over all of
| society? If anything, the only person I know who claims
| influence over a portion of American Society is DJT - and he
| can't even convince his followers to get vaccinated without
| getting booed.
|
| I don't really feel much sympathy for the argument.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Here you go:
|
| https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-ready-for-the-struggle-
| sess...
|
| You are welcome.
|
| Edit: Parent comment edited. See that.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| Given that the OP was has been flagged into oblivion, I can
| only guess they were talking about parallelism between the
| Cultural Revolution in China and the cultural revolution
| happening right now in the USA and spilling all over
| several Western countries. One crucial difference is that
| in the West, the worst that can happen to you is getting
| fired. In Communist China, thousand were murdered in cruel
| ways. This hasn't happened in Western democracies and I
| very much doubt it would, in a foreseeable future - because
| the basic sets of values are different.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| > One crucial difference is that in the West, the worst
| that can happen to you is getting fired. In Communist
| China, thousand were murdered in cruel ways.
|
| Getting fired, losing sole source of income,
| contemplating suicide and spiraling into depression are
| all issues that liberals fight to eradicate.
|
| I would'nt wish this to the worst enemies, even if
| they're racist or bigoted or whatever. We have laws and
| criminal justice system.
|
| Sounds cruel and despicable.
| jjulius wrote:
| Given that HN tries to foster discussion, I was hoping that
| "you would". You know, in your own words. Surely if you
| feel strongly enough about something, you'd be capable of
| discussing your viewpoint instead of just dropping a few
| links at random.
| aww_dang wrote:
| Maybe try asking more pointed questions?
| hardmaru wrote:
| Full title (before shortening to <= 80 characters): "China again
| blocks Wikimedia Foundation's accreditation to World Intellectual
| Property Organization"
| twofornone wrote:
| My only surprise is that China hasn't mentioned the rabidly
| biased cabal of editors that gatekeep any _remotely_ political
| article and bully any "non-pc" editors off the platform.
| Probably because the divisiveness is useful to China's rise, and
| it wouldn't surprise me if they are behind some of the editing.
|
| It's kind of offensive that wikipedia still has an image of
| neutrality when the entrenched activist editors refuse to
| acknowledge the perspective of [?]50% of the country (if turnout
| from the last two elections is a valid measure of US political
| alignment).
| aww_dang wrote:
| Wikipedia has always felt like a walled garden for certain
| topics. The crowd sourcing is a nice window dressing for an end
| product which can be highly partisan where it matters.
|
| That said, I think you would do well to distinguish between the
| CCP and China the nation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per...
| Supermancho wrote:
| > I think you would do well to distinguish between the CCP
| and China the nation.
|
| Why is that? Granted, the people of China individually work
| within the gaps of totalitarian control. Ok. The country of
| (historic and modern) China is whatever the CCP leadership
| dictates.
| aww_dang wrote:
| Individuals are not the collective. Not only is it
| inaccurate as a generalization, but it personifies the
| collective. A nation state is an abstract concept.
| Politicians and leaders act. Individuals may agree or
| disagree. Abstractions have no agency.
|
| This is most apparent for me in the false narrative of,
| "China lifted a billion people out of poverty".
|
| Unpack that one. This advancement is relative to a largely
| agrarian society which was then subjected to the Great Leap
| Forward. Loosening your grip on the victim's neck isn't the
| same as performing the Heimlich maneuver.
|
| China, the nation advanced economically. Business people
| worked together to develop an economy. These individuals
| are the real heroes, not the state. They prevailed despite
| government regulations, corruption and central planning.
| Going back to the propaganda narrative, how much better off
| would the people of China be if they were not under the
| yoke of the CCP?
|
| From there it is not only easy to see how this narrative is
| inaccurate, but a toxic mistruth in service of
| authoritarians. The distinction is important.
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2012-mapping-chinas-
| red-n...
| Supermancho wrote:
| > Individuals are not the collective. Not only is it
| inaccurate as a generalization, but it personifies the
| collective. A nation state is an abstract concept.
|
| A nation state (which is a political organization) is the
| way that populations interact on the political stage. A
| nation state presents representatives which uniformly
| have a manner of control over the population and the
| forces (eg economic and/or social and/or military) that
| population can wield. So this "abstract concept" is not
| relevant in any way to the discussion. China is whatever
| the CCP says it is, because they can do all the things a
| nation state might want to do (imprison, slaughter, wage
| war, nationalize industry, etc).
|
| > This is most apparent for me in the false narrative of,
| "China lifted a billion people out of poverty".
|
| It's a misrepresentation of history by omission, but it's
| not false by any stretch. I don't think it's impressive
| given the historical context, but all sorts of
| governments use information without context as slogans.
| I'm not surprised the slogan is so limited. It lifted
| multiple billions out of poverty by putting them in the
| ground.
|
| > China, the nation advanced economically. Business
| people worked together to develop an economy. These
| individuals are the real heroes, not the state.
|
| They aren't China. They operate there at the CCPs whims.
| I am confident these individuals operate there because
| the CCP allows it and doesn't want what they have (yet).
|
| > Going back to the propaganda narrative, how much better
| off would the people of China be if they were not under
| the yoke of the CCP?
|
| We are talking about the China of today. Telling someone
| to make a distinction because you want to discuss about
| China's future or even alternate past is a derail. GL
| with whatever.
| int_19h wrote:
| A nation-state is not the way that populations interact
| on the political stage, but rather the way the elites
| that rule those populations do. You're correct in that
| the elites are who defines what the "nation-state of
| China" is, but that doesn't mean that they speak for the
| "people of China".
|
| (It should be noted that this also goes for the vast
| majority of nation-states.)
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Your post is deceptively vague. What "perspective" (dogwhistle
| for opinion) do you feel Wikipedia isn't validating for you?
| twofornone wrote:
| I mean this post is literally it. Look at the talk page of
| literally any _remotely_ politicized article and you will see
| a consistent, massive power imbalance in one direction,
| enforced with implicit conflations like the one you 're
| making with your reference to dog whistling.
|
| Given the wide range of policies on which the American left
| and right differ, "perspective" is an appropriate and
| unloaded term. Perhaps you are offended my gall to suggest
| that we treat right and left leaning perspectives on equal
| footing, but there is no deception on my part here. There is
| far more to "right of center" than racism and so called
| whiteness, but reading from "authoritative" institutions like
| wikipedia, you'd never know it. And that's entirely due to
| bullying and bias from entrenched activist editors. It's
| telling that what is excluded under the guise of "trolling"
| almost exclusively leans in one direction.
|
| It's not just wikipedia and it is disenfranchisement, to the
| degree that recent polls suggest approximately a majority of
| republicans and something like 35% of democrats are
| supposedly starting to look at balkanization/secession
| favorably. Is this really the path you want to go down?
| tesselator wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Barrington_Declaratio
| n went though this.
|
| It's early version were hugely biased, and I was
| disappointed to see this on Wikipedia. The talk page had
| the imbalance you describe.
|
| Over time, however, this article has become more objective.
| This gained me respect for the checks and balances within
| Wikipedia.
|
| Update: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/
| 104925888... is a recent unfair change.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| The notion of China posturing to defend / support the idea of
| intellectual property is _patently_ hilarious.
|
| Obviously, the core of this is not appeasing to Chinese / CCP
| censors but the headline is funny nonetheless.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| [ _This post represents my private opinions and is unrelated to
| my employment._ ]
|
| It seems like you're trying to be flippantly dismissive, or to
| just make a joke, but the intent of your 'joke' isn't clear at
| all. What are you trying to intimate? Chinese companies gain
| millions of patents each year, in China and elsewhere, so China
| defending IPR as a concept seems wise. They seem to use a lot
| of utility patents (I think the USA equivalent is the 'design
| patent', it covers a product rather than an invention _per se_
| ).
|
| China as a nominally formerly communist state it makes sense
| that IPR would be weak in Chinese law [there's a lot to be said
| on whether the Chinese progress with, for example, 6G phone
| tech has been accelerated by that approach - which might
| indicate that the West has things locked down too much and
| stifles innovation somewhat??]; just like how the full power of
| IPR goes to the richest companies in USA because of their
| strong capitalism. China is changing, and whilst they may not
| enforce IPR in the way many Western Capitalist countries do
| Chinese organisations still use patents heavily. Indeed the
| Chinese government have schemes to encourage acquisition of
| foreign patents.
|
| So, yeah, not sure where you're going with that?
| drsnow wrote:
| It's hilarious because China regularly steals trade secrets
| and intellectual property from any, primarily American,
| company they desire.
| theHIDninja wrote:
| Anything China touches is automatically discredited.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| They don't like the idea of free information and open discussion.
| I can why they blocked it.
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