The Undiscovered Country
March 24, 2018 10:38 PM Subscribe
A great bunch of lads.
posted by Segundus at 12:46 AM on March 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Segundus at 12:46 AM on March 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is the most important article written on China in ages*, and should be borne in mind whenever someone makes a confident prediction (or declaration) about how things will be (or currently are) in China.
This is a huge part of why the Chinese government’s policy-making can often be incoherent** - they have no empirical basis on which to make decisions, because the information that they have about China is so unreliable as to be worthless. Other factors include a completely one-way flow of instructions from the top downwards, with no way to push back against impractical ideas***; existing laws that are intentionally vague and contradictory, to keep people on their toes and permit rent-seeking; and a system in which everyone is competing with their colleagues and trying to second guess their moves all the time, while making decisions that are narrowly in their own self-interest and likely involve a lot of ass-covering. Oh, and political barriers**** to institutional learning.
* Disclaimer: I’ve met James, so I’m biased, partly because he’s one of the few people I know who I mentally categorise as “whoah, genius”. His twitter is a must-follow for anyone interested in China (and even for anyone who isn’t).
** Domestic policy. Their foreign policy is normally extremely canny, because they are ruthless about achieving policy goals (e.g. will happily sign any international agreement with no intention of following it), and they normally have the same people in the same positions for a long time, who become very good at what they’re doing and can wait out any elected / appointed foreign bureaucrat until a more amenable one comes along.
*** This state of affairs might be more relatable to Americans nowadays than it would have been a few years ago.
**** Via the aforementioned twitter feed.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 7:19 AM on March 25, 2018 [33 favorites]
This is a huge part of why the Chinese government’s policy-making can often be incoherent** - they have no empirical basis on which to make decisions, because the information that they have about China is so unreliable as to be worthless. Other factors include a completely one-way flow of instructions from the top downwards, with no way to push back against impractical ideas***; existing laws that are intentionally vague and contradictory, to keep people on their toes and permit rent-seeking; and a system in which everyone is competing with their colleagues and trying to second guess their moves all the time, while making decisions that are narrowly in their own self-interest and likely involve a lot of ass-covering. Oh, and political barriers**** to institutional learning.
* Disclaimer: I’ve met James, so I’m biased, partly because he’s one of the few people I know who I mentally categorise as “whoah, genius”. His twitter is a must-follow for anyone interested in China (and even for anyone who isn’t).
** Domestic policy. Their foreign policy is normally extremely canny, because they are ruthless about achieving policy goals (e.g. will happily sign any international agreement with no intention of following it), and they normally have the same people in the same positions for a long time, who become very good at what they’re doing and can wait out any elected / appointed foreign bureaucrat until a more amenable one comes along.
*** This state of affairs might be more relatable to Americans nowadays than it would have been a few years ago.
**** Via the aforementioned twitter feed.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 7:19 AM on March 25, 2018 [33 favorites]
Really interesting; pulls a lot of stuff together and makes it clearer.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:58 AM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:58 AM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
and should be borne in mind whenever someone makes a confident prediction (or declaration) about how things will be (or currently are) in China.
Yes, interesting article and I recall an extreme qouate from Li Si.
"Those who use the past to criticize the present should be out to death, together with their relatives."
posted by clavdivs at 9:08 AM on March 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yes, interesting article and I recall an extreme qouate from Li Si.
"Those who use the past to criticize the present should be out to death, together with their relatives."
posted by clavdivs at 9:08 AM on March 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
That is a remarkable article. It's also sort of a weird perspective. It's not a total cipher like North Korea has been. There's a lot more openness and communication, both internally and externally. A lot of its unknowability is that it's a really fucking big country with a whole lot of people. There's just a lot going on.
One of my great regrets in life is I'll never read Chinese. There's an enormous amount of amazing computer science going on in China now but it's inaccessible to me, doubly so because machine translation to English is not good enough. The Economist has a recent article though, The battle for digital supremacy. I don't like it's pugnacious tone but it does a good job documenting the ascendancy of Chinese technology. We're a long long way from "all China does is clone American technology". (Although they do that too, and the result is often better than the original.)
posted by Nelson at 9:48 AM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
One of my great regrets in life is I'll never read Chinese. There's an enormous amount of amazing computer science going on in China now but it's inaccessible to me, doubly so because machine translation to English is not good enough. The Economist has a recent article though, The battle for digital supremacy. I don't like it's pugnacious tone but it does a good job documenting the ascendancy of Chinese technology. We're a long long way from "all China does is clone American technology". (Although they do that too, and the result is often better than the original.)
posted by Nelson at 9:48 AM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
We're a long long way from "all China does is clone American technology". (Although they do that too, and the result is often better than the original.)
YMMV. I've been in and out of real-time downhole (measure-while-drilling, or MWD) oil and gas drilling technology for 15 of the past 30 years. Chinese stuff, even their clones, is known and shown throughout the industry to be absolute crap, because they don't take hi-rel design practices and quality control seriously. All it has going for it is that it's dirt cheap. Precious little consolation when your instrumentation or telemetry fails at the end of five miles of drill pipe.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:18 PM on March 25, 2018 [6 favorites]
YMMV. I've been in and out of real-time downhole (measure-while-drilling, or MWD) oil and gas drilling technology for 15 of the past 30 years. Chinese stuff, even their clones, is known and shown throughout the industry to be absolute crap, because they don't take hi-rel design practices and quality control seriously. All it has going for it is that it's dirt cheap. Precious little consolation when your instrumentation or telemetry fails at the end of five miles of drill pipe.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:18 PM on March 25, 2018 [6 favorites]
Many Chinese manufacturers appear to have realized that One Sigma manufacturing is good enough. There’s plenty of profit to be made when just two thirds of your customers are satisfied.
posted by monotreme at 2:09 PM on March 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by monotreme at 2:09 PM on March 25, 2018 [3 favorites]
This seems to be an illustration of Robert Anton Wilson's assertion that communication is only possible between equals. A hierarchical authoritarian regime such as China would, by definition, be a void of reliable data.
posted by acb at 5:32 PM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by acb at 5:32 PM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
The article talks about massive censorship on social platforms like Weibo and Wechat, and I witness that a lot. Sometimes a big/sensitive story would blow up -- like the time the head coach of men's national table tennis team got sacked out of the blue, (he was hugely popular) and the news generated wall-to-wall posts, but in a couple of days you don't see anything about that story anymore. Recently there was also a couple of stories about how the public healthcare systems in a lot of provinces were running out of money, and had started restricting access to medical supplies, but there was simply no follow-up on these stories either.
(Spoiler alert:) It reminds me of the dragon's breath in "The Buried Giant" that makes people forget things and maintains insidious peace.
And about the "we don't know how many people there are in China" part -- one guy in my Weibo feed often states his mistrust of the official figure, but in the opposite way -- i.e. he thinks the figure is massively inflated and China would have a severe population deficiency down the road. This just goes to show, depressingly, how in the absence of reliable data, people are more free to believe anything they want.
posted by em at 7:30 PM on March 25, 2018 [6 favorites]
(Spoiler alert:) It reminds me of the dragon's breath in "The Buried Giant" that makes people forget things and maintains insidious peace.
And about the "we don't know how many people there are in China" part -- one guy in my Weibo feed often states his mistrust of the official figure, but in the opposite way -- i.e. he thinks the figure is massively inflated and China would have a severe population deficiency down the road. This just goes to show, depressingly, how in the absence of reliable data, people are more free to believe anything they want.
posted by em at 7:30 PM on March 25, 2018 [6 favorites]
Interesting point about China having 'five thousand years of history' being a myth. It is such an oft repeated turn of phrase that I gave it no consideration. Note to self, accept nothing, question everything.
If longevity of continuous habitation and society is now a measure for respect then maybe we should be giving the inhabitants of Australia some attention. They have approximately 60,000 years of history, demonstrating quite clearly the superiority of permaculture as a means for longevity of survival. Funny, they don't seem to be afforded the same deference that the current Chinese regime is given. Maybe there is some other factor that causes the sycophantic pandering?
The systematic genocide of the inhabitants of Australia may have destroyed the opportunity to learn much of their knowledge about the past. Will the willful destruction and fabrication of information in China leave our descendants with a similarly partial record of current affairs? They might have the problem that they have too much data to deal with, once they dig it out of the landfill or whatever.
posted by asok at 8:01 AM on March 26, 2018
If longevity of continuous habitation and society is now a measure for respect then maybe we should be giving the inhabitants of Australia some attention. They have approximately 60,000 years of history, demonstrating quite clearly the superiority of permaculture as a means for longevity of survival. Funny, they don't seem to be afforded the same deference that the current Chinese regime is given. Maybe there is some other factor that causes the sycophantic pandering?
The systematic genocide of the inhabitants of Australia may have destroyed the opportunity to learn much of their knowledge about the past. Will the willful destruction and fabrication of information in China leave our descendants with a similarly partial record of current affairs? They might have the problem that they have too much data to deal with, once they dig it out of the landfill or whatever.
posted by asok at 8:01 AM on March 26, 2018
this is behind a paywall for me, could we maybe add a tag?
posted by Wilder at 9:21 AM on March 28, 2018
posted by Wilder at 9:21 AM on March 28, 2018
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What a surprise.
posted by pjmoy at 11:50 PM on March 24, 2018