<story><title>WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/technology/tencents-wechat-suspends-new-user-registration-cites-technical-upgrade-2021-07-27/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>starfallg</author><text>&amp;gt;My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long time ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or nationalistic, like Americans. They appreciate the CCP and what it has accomplished. They have a strong domestic arts industry making movies, books, games. Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t that they want a western liberal democracy.&lt;p&gt;Having been on the inside, it&amp;#x27;s not that they don&amp;#x27;t want a different system, it&amp;#x27;s that they see the real or perceived problems of our system as highlighted by their domestic media and generally from their point of view. This makes them substantially less enthusiastic than we think they would be.&lt;p&gt;The only way to convince them is to show them that liberal democracy does indeed yield better results, with people feeling more secure and leading happier lives. In order to do that we need to ensure that our democratic processes lead to solidarity and not division. That&amp;#x27;s why the last 4 years have been so damaging to our system, the fabric of the system has been damaged by extreme partisanship, without considering that standing together  with our neighbours is in many cases more important than being &amp;#x27;right&amp;#x27;.</text></item><item><author>georgeecollins</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with.&lt;p&gt;I am no expert, but I disagree and I think this is the kind of thinking that has failed the west for the last thirty years.  I think the idea started with the fall of the Soviet Union.  That culture and ideology was bankrupt.  So a lot of western people thought that when there was a free exchange of ideas with China, the Chinese would eventually reject the CCP.&lt;p&gt;My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long time ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or nationalistic, like Americans.   They appreciate the CCP and what it has accomplished.  They have a strong domestic arts industry making movies, books, games.   Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t that they want a western liberal democracy.  So lots of people will speak in favor of a benevolent elite and against populism or what they see as western chaos or oppression.  When people are against the government, they aren&amp;#x27;t wishing for a different government system, just less corrupt or more benevolent authoritarians.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, that is the way I am thinking about these days.  But I could be very wrong and I would love to hear from people who are from or spend time in China.</text></item><item><author>vehemenz</author><text>The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. They want to legislate a return to &amp;quot;old&amp;quot; (post 1949) values by banning foreign tutors, suppressing dissent on WeChat and Weibo, and doing generally authoritarian shit to encourage nationalism. Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. And they find the North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated.</text></item><item><author>mc32</author><text>Naively, it looks like the CCP sees the influence and heft US tech exercises on the US population and world at large.&lt;p&gt;The CCP will forgo economic might (in this sector) for social stability and control every time.  They do not want these titans to have more power or influence than they have so they rein them in and let them know who holds the straps.</text></item><item><author>throwaway4good</author><text>&amp;quot;Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday amid widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory crackdowns on high-growth sectors, including online platforms and, most recently, private tutoring. Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 4.2%.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock market might react.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ypzhang2</author><text>Anecdotally, western democracy was seen as a means to an end for many “common folk Chinese”.  The end is prosperity.  Now that the prosperity gap has drastically closed (also there are more clear paths to prosperity), the desire has also dissipated.  China has also seen a China-like society in Singapore achieve a very strong economic and social outcome with authoritarian government, so western style democracies aren’t the only “role model” so to speak anymore</text></comment>
<story><title>WeChat suspends new user registration for security compliance</title><url>https://www.reuters.com/technology/tencents-wechat-suspends-new-user-registration-cites-technical-upgrade-2021-07-27/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>starfallg</author><text>&amp;gt;My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long time ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or nationalistic, like Americans. They appreciate the CCP and what it has accomplished. They have a strong domestic arts industry making movies, books, games. Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t that they want a western liberal democracy.&lt;p&gt;Having been on the inside, it&amp;#x27;s not that they don&amp;#x27;t want a different system, it&amp;#x27;s that they see the real or perceived problems of our system as highlighted by their domestic media and generally from their point of view. This makes them substantially less enthusiastic than we think they would be.&lt;p&gt;The only way to convince them is to show them that liberal democracy does indeed yield better results, with people feeling more secure and leading happier lives. In order to do that we need to ensure that our democratic processes lead to solidarity and not division. That&amp;#x27;s why the last 4 years have been so damaging to our system, the fabric of the system has been damaged by extreme partisanship, without considering that standing together  with our neighbours is in many cases more important than being &amp;#x27;right&amp;#x27;.</text></item><item><author>georgeecollins</author><text>&amp;gt;&amp;gt; The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with.&lt;p&gt;I am no expert, but I disagree and I think this is the kind of thinking that has failed the west for the last thirty years.  I think the idea started with the fall of the Soviet Union.  That culture and ideology was bankrupt.  So a lot of western people thought that when there was a free exchange of ideas with China, the Chinese would eventually reject the CCP.&lt;p&gt;My experience of people in China-- admittedly a long time ago-- was they are generally very patriotic or nationalistic, like Americans.   They appreciate the CCP and what it has accomplished.  They have a strong domestic arts industry making movies, books, games.   Sure lots of people disagree with the party, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t that they want a western liberal democracy.  So lots of people will speak in favor of a benevolent elite and against populism or what they see as western chaos or oppression.  When people are against the government, they aren&amp;#x27;t wishing for a different government system, just less corrupt or more benevolent authoritarians.&lt;p&gt;Anyway, that is the way I am thinking about these days.  But I could be very wrong and I would love to hear from people who are from or spend time in China.</text></item><item><author>vehemenz</author><text>The problem is that the CCP has nothing to replace this cultural vacuum with. They want to legislate a return to &amp;quot;old&amp;quot; (post 1949) values by banning foreign tutors, suppressing dissent on WeChat and Weibo, and doing generally authoritarian shit to encourage nationalism. Meanwhile, young, educated people almost exclusively consume the cultural products of the West, Korea, and Japan. And they find the North Korean style propaganda embarrassing. The disconnect really cannot be understated.</text></item><item><author>mc32</author><text>Naively, it looks like the CCP sees the influence and heft US tech exercises on the US population and world at large.&lt;p&gt;The CCP will forgo economic might (in this sector) for social stability and control every time.  They do not want these titans to have more power or influence than they have so they rein them in and let them know who holds the straps.</text></item><item><author>throwaway4good</author><text>&amp;quot;Shares in Tencent plunged 9.0% in Hong Kong on Tuesday amid widespread market jitters over Chinese regulatory crackdowns on high-growth sectors, including online platforms and, most recently, private tutoring. Hong Kong&amp;#x27;s benchmark Hang Seng Index (.HSI) fell 4.2%.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Fascinating how the Chinese authorities seem to be regulating the these companies with complete disregard on how the stock market might react.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sudosysgen</author><text>I think this position is very valuable. By far the best way for us to effect change in China politically, and every other major ideologically opposed nation, is to effect change at home, and be so sucessful that the superiority of our approach cannot be refuted.&lt;p&gt;Bonus point that there is a lot less chance of war this way.</text></comment>