China

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Articles that touch on some of the complexities of China.
Articles that touch on some of the complexities of China. Of course China is a complex country, with rich culture and over 1B people. So there are few truisms or observations that apply to everywhere and everywhen.
ℹ️ Info          
~ Aristotle Sabouni
Created: 2018-04-13 

Articles

  • China Police Department in U.S. - China has opened “overseas police service stations” to monitor its citizens living abroad, including one location in New York City. According to Human Rights watchdogs, these "violate the international rule of law, and may violate the territorial integrity in third countries"... e.g. the Biden admin is ceding sovereignty of our nation/laws to the Chinese.
  • China Privacy - China doesn't believe that individuals matter: they care about the collective. That means that individual privacy is not something they even fathom. Why wouldn't you spy on your neighbor? If the state's objective is to protect the state, than places that don't use the Internet to protect the state are stupid and going to be darwin'ed out of the gene pool someday. And China is patient.
  • China Trade & Intellectual Property - There are a few areas of friction with China. A few of them are around their stealing of our trade secrets, not protecting our intellectual property in their country, and their predatory practices wrt trade (and creating trade deficits). As well as their currency manipulation. Basically, when you deal with China the rule is cheating to "win" is still winning.
  • Dispersed Knowledge - In the battle between Keynes and Hayek, history has shows Keynes wrong and Hayek the winner. Keynes models broke with Stagflation, Post WWII economy, Japans Lost Decades, China and Russian growth by privatizing. Hayek won the noble prize for explaining why: Dispersed Knowledge. Leaders don't know more than everyone else combined, then the more decisions you make from the top, the less efficient those decisions will be.
  • Global Massacres/Campaign to Suppresss Counterrevolutionaries - The Campaign to Suppress Counterrevolutionaries was designed to eradicate opposition elements to the CCP. There were mass trials done by what groups you belonged to and executions are admitted as 712K, but most Scholars put the deaths much higher (up to 2M). There was an overlapping/related Mass_killings_of_landlords going on, and Mao estimated 2-3M dead in that effort alone.
  • Global Massacres/Chengdu Bus Fire - Zhang's family reduced his financial support so he is believed to have committed suicide by bringing gasoline on a bus, and setting it ablaze.
  • Global Massacres/China Flight 5735 - China Eastern Airlines Flight 5735 was a scheduled domestic passenger flight in China from Kunming to Guangzhou. The Boeing 737-89P aircraft operating the service descended steeply mid-flight (no weather, malfunction, mayday, etc.) and struck the ground at high speed killing all 123 passengers and 9 crew members. Suicide by Pilot is suspected.
  • Global Massacres/Cultural Revolution - The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was the final purges (150K - 3M) of any capitalist/bourgeois (anyone not measuring up to the Maoists standards), and actually a series of massacres. Youth "Red Guards" mass murders included, Red_August (2K), Guangxi Massacre (500K), Inner Mongolia incident (100K), Guangdong Cultural Revolution Massacre (12K), Yunnan Cultural Revolution Massacre (18.6K), Hunan_Cultural_Revolution_Massacre (10K), not to mention the Banqiao Dam failure (240K).
  • Global Massacres/Great Leap Forward - The Chinese Communists decided to start a campaign to reconstruct the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society (Second Five Year Plan). This redistribution and central control caused a Great Famine and attrocities. Total dead estimated between 15 million on the very low end, 55 million on the more realistic end.
  • Global Massacres/Kunming attack - Eight knife-wielding Uyghur separatists/terrorists attacked passengers in the Kunming Railway Station, on 1 March 2014. They killed 31 civilians and injured more than 140 people. Four assailants were shot to death by police.
  • Global Massacres/Lanjisu Internet Cafe - Two middle school boys (13 and 14) were kicked out of the Internet cafe. So they purchased 1.8 liter of gasoline at a nearby gas station and lit it up. 2 other teens helped. Since they had bars on the windows, and only one door (locked), many died.
  • Global Massacres/Mushui Vehicle Attack - Man deliberately drove his SUV into crowds on a square in Mishui in Hunan, China -- then got out and attacked people with a shovel and knife. The attack resulted in the deaths of 15 people and injuries to 43 others. And the execution of the driver.
  • Global Massacres/Shanghai Shooting - Fan beat a coworker to death at his place of work, got a gun, shot a cab driver and a soldier/guard, got an assault weapon, went back to the office and killed 3 more people, before being apprehended.
  • Global Massacres/Shijiazhuang bombings - Deaf guy sets off five bombs near four apartment buildings in Shijiazhuang. He blew up the homes of his Mom, his ex wife, and a girlfriend (after stabbing his Girlfriend to death). Also tried to blow up his old home (that he'd sold), but that didn't do as much damage.
  • Global Massacres/Tian Mingjian - Jian'guo Gate mass shooting: Tian was having a second child (son) with his wife during China's one-child policy. His superiors forced abortion (at 7 months), killed his wife and son. He took offense, went on a rampage, killed his officers, soldiers that tried to stop him, went to town and indiscriminately fired at people in the streets until he was killed.
  • Global Massacres/Xiamen Bus Fire - Officials refused to correct an error in his identity documents, so Chen was denied his social security benefits. His solution was to take public transportation with gasoline, and set the bus on fire.
  • Global Massacres/Yangquan Bombing - Attempted to blow himself and ex-Girlfriend up at a show. She didn't show up. He still attented and blew himself up, collapsed part of the theater, and killed 32 people and sent 44 to the hospital. A suicide note (and some extra explosives) found at his home confirmed it was him.
  • Hillary Clinton: Chinagate (1996) - The Clinton-Gore campaign in 1996 allegedly took bribes from Chinese banks and their government (to help their dwindling poll numbers), and they sold seats on department trade missions to China, then "willfully impeded" the investigation according to the FBI Director and other agents who later testified before Congress.
  • Keynesian failures - It would be great if Keynesianism worked. But history shows it has failed every time it has been tried. Examples: the new deal, the new new deal, post WWII boom (cutting military should have caused depression), 1970's Stagflation broke the models, Japan's lost decades (Abenomics), every Communist economy that failed, every one that opened up and grew (N. Korea, Russia, China, Vietnam). All went the opposite of Keynes predictions.
  • Mao's Great Leap Forward - Socialist Success Stories: 45 million dead over four years, that's not counting the oppression and re-education camps. Obama's leftist posters to terms like "Forward" raises eyebrows. It was a signal (whether intentional or incompetence) on who he sympathized with. Socialism descended into famine and starvation, driven by the state. That's what "Forward" looks like to the left.
  • Milton Friedman goes to China - There’s a famous economics fable of Milton Friedman going to China (or India), and discovers them using men with shovels instead of earth moverrs to make a canal. When asked, they say it's to create jobs. Milton suggest using spoons instead. The point of the allegory is to show that less productivity is economic waste, and that politicians don't get economics.
  • Tankman - Tank man is a protestor that stood in place the day after the Chinese government's violent crackdown on the Tiananmen protests (June 5, 1989). He stood directly in the path of a column of approaching Type 59 tanks. After repeatedly attempting to go around rather than crush the man, the lead tank stopped its engines, and the armored vehicles behind it seemed to follow suit.
  • TikTok - A Chinese-owned version of VideoTwitter -- where you can upload short videos (3-60 looping videos). Highly popular, and created with Chinese Government sponsorship and regulatory rules, it has been called a "national security threat to the West", especially amongst armed services personnel because it can convey location, image and biometric data to its Chinese parent.


Conclusion[edit | edit source]

China isn't all bad. In fact there's a ton of good things about it that I like (some mentioned). But I'm not going to exclude the stories where they aren't all good and their reputation is earned either.

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