Official China Discussion Thread

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20171123_05/

China reached out to South Korea to tell them that they don't want to see any more THAA Ds.

I'm sure South Korea will agree wholeheartedly, once Beijing gets Kim to back the fuck off.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20171128_25/

An ex-DPP employee from Taipei is sentenced to jail for 5 years for being a subversive after being detained in China.

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20171205_11/

News from Macau that a pro-democracy lawmaker was arrested by the PSPFM for joining a rally declared illegal.

So is it true that the current Chinese regime is facing a "crisis of political legitimacy"? I've been reading that a lot lately. I'm a huge fan of Confucian philosophy in both China and abroad and I've been reading some books and papers on trying to apply it to modern China. Basically, China was hijacked by a Western philosophy and headed by a guy who actively sought to destroy Chinese culture. But now, all these years later, I'm hearing about how the only way forwrd for China is eithr a return to hardcore Maoism or just embracing Western style democracy.

That is, with the exception of the books I've been reading which call for a Confucain-inspired state that, ya know, actually embraces China's amazing history of political insight instead of continually bowing to Western ideas, be they Marxism or Liberalism.

Hardcore Maoism led to one of the single worst humanitarian disasters in history. Not a great record there.

Honestly, the Chinese are just running your typical Market Authoritarian state, which will work...as long as the peace is kept (One Child Policy+Actual Losses Of Young Men=Bad Stuff) and the economy/living standards stay decent.

edited 6th Dec '17 6:09:51 PM by Rationalinsanity

While I'd like nothing better than to see the CCP collapse, it's still pretty popular in China, sadly. Its "legitimacy" is not in jeopardy.

A typical Bread and Circuses act.

And yeah, anyone advocating for a return to Maoism can go fuck themselves.

edited 6th Dec '17 6:12:28 PM by M84

Double post for topic change:

China's debt levels pose stability risk, says IMF

This part stood out for me:

So basically China is going down the same road as the USA did prior to the 2008 crisis. The IMF praised Xi Jinping for committing to financial security but also pointed out that the reforms of the past few years haven't done enough to deal with the debt problem.

At this rate, the bubble I've been worried about might actually burst soon.

Should we expect that to drag the world economy down as the US crash did, and the article seems to warn? ^note If this is obvious, forgive me, but my knowledge of the dismal science is rather limited.

Also, this story could be on the Econ thread as well.

edited 6th Dec '17 7:59:01 PM by CenturyEye

I'm going to have to stop you right there. Trust me, if you understand what Confucianism is actually about, you absolutely do not want that. In case you didn't know, while Confucianism certainly had some elements that were good and Fair for Its Day (e.g. offices are meritocratic rather than aristocratic, it's the emperor's moral duty to rule his subjects humanely), and some of its aspects certainly still sound good on paper, it's a fundamentally authoritarian philosophy. A lot of the severe class and misogyny issues that have plagued the Sinosphere to this day are a direct result of Confucianism's impact. Hell, the whole reason Taoism came about was as a reaction to Confucianism's tendency towards full-blown totalitarianism.

Also, the number one biggest fans of Confucianism are the CCP themselves. AKA the dictatorial assholes responsible for subjugating the country under their thumb, and who stand to benefit the most from a philosophy that's built around veneration of authority figures. They've been trying to push Confucianism really hard in the media lately and to Chinese people abroad to ensure a perpetually subservient populace and to promote cultural chauvinism, basically as good as saying that true Chinese patriots would reject Western ideas of democracy and egalitarianism (aka democracy in general as I'll explain later) in favor of a return to a more monarchic form of government, with the CCP as a group of oligarchic pseudo-emperors.

Now I'm not a fan of colonialism or forcing ideas on a foreign people, but in this case, the exchange of Western political ideas was sorely needed, as Chinese culture would not have been capable of producing this kind of egalitarianism on its own. Chinese philosophy didn't experience the same kind of flourishing of political philosophy Enlightenment Europe did, so what we got stuck with was stagnant and largely various evolutions of Confucianism, along with Buddhism and Taoism (which is the most liberal of these three, but more akin to monarchic minarchy than democracy). And honestly, some aspects of Chinese culture just deserve to be left in in the history books, much like footbinding, female infanticide (a byproduct of Confucian attitudes), and forced queue hairstyles. Don't let yourself be preyed on by authoritarian propaganda.

Also, like everyone already said, fuck Maoism. Fuck any political philosophy that considers the perpetual, violent purging of any kind of political dissidence a major tenet. It is a cancer on the history of the human race, and anyone who seriously advocates it deserves as much of your attention as your typical Nazi.

edited 7th Dec '17 12:58:01 AM by AlleyOop

Sounds like you're describing neo-Confucianism.

Neo-Confucianism is basically one of those evolutions of Confucianism that got popular, but most of the core ideas are the same. Biggest difference is that original Confucianism was a little more religious and probably a little less codified, like original Marxism vs its offshoots. Blatant favoritism for sons, traditional gender roles, and obedience to authority were part of the philosophy from day one.

There's also New Confucianism, which is basically what the CCP has been shilling for the last decade or so.

edited 7th Dec '17 1:17:16 AM by AlleyOop

Okay, firstly, things like democracy and egalitarianism are not principles that are important to me. When constructing a society the thing that should matter most is ensuring that society is stable and peaceful. Caring about individuals comes later. The modern Confucians I've read reject liberal orthodoxies like popularity sovereignty which I am grateful for because I've never accepted them. The individual is not the center of the universe. In fact, the Confucians I've read have argued on environmental grounds because if we keep letting humans do what they want, they will literally destroy the planet. A handful of individuals will kill everything else in the world. China becoming some free capitalist market system will pollute the world passed the point of recognition which is why the state needs to be governed and regulated by moral principles, not economic ones.

As for Confucianism and Authoritarianism, eh. It depends on the school. There are tons of Confucian scholars all across East Asia, each with their own radically different ideas. Just in Japan you had a lot of differences and I can't even begin to guess at how many schools of Confucian thought there were in China over these thousands of years. Do we go with Mengzi/Mencius or Xun Kuang/the Xunzi?

But anyway, there is a wide array of modern Confucian thought. Do you want Jiang Qing or Joseph Chan? These are two radically different people with very different priorities. Chan actually has an essay criticizing Qing in the latter's book. (which I have and am reading right now. I still need to get Chan's book) But they emphatically are not trying to prop up the Party or perpetuate the current system.

I'm not trying to tell Chinese people how to change their country. For me this is all theoretical because Confucianism is a fascinating ideology and I approach it strictly as a political philosophy. As for Buddhism...I honestly can't even see a justification for a Buddhist state or government. It goes against every tenet of Buddhism shared by all the schools. You can't make a functioning polity based on the Four Noble Truths.

edited 7th Dec '17 1:33:31 AM by Nikkolas

... Holy shit, you sound like the kind of person who thinks the Cultural Revolution was a good idea. Are you actually, unironically advocating for dictatorship? Because anyone from my family in my dad's generation or higher can tell you why what you just said is a load of codswallop, basically an apologia for fascism and its ilk. I can't believe I'm reading this in this day and age, from someone who purports to be against Trump.

edited 7th Dec '17 1:45:37 AM by AlleyOop

1. The Cultural Revolution was a disaster and a a very bad thing. I thought I made that clear from my first post.

2. Rejection of the obsession with "I'M SO IMPORTANT" nonsense we are fed does not make one a fascist. It makes one a realist. You don't look at the one black person who succeeds and say "well, if he can do it, so can everybody." No, you look at the general outcome and state of African-Americans. Because people only really matter as groups when it comes to talking about society or the state. One person getting rich or living their life in peace means nothing about how your country is doing and as such I see little reason to be so obsessed with individual rights. What matters is groups and promoting their welfare.

3. I do not support dictators as I have yet to see any person in real life who I can trust so completely.

4. Trump is a racist, sexist, Islamaphobic, transphobic, homophobic moron n and perpetual liar. I do not support him because he epitomizes immorality and, quite frankly, everything wrong with democracy. A bunch of racists elected him and everyone else just has to suffer through it. We're all told growing up that it's a virtue of our system that "anybody can grow up to be president." Well, we got our wish. No matter how unqualified someone is, Donald Trump shows they can be president.

edited 7th Dec '17 2:08:05 AM by Nikkolas

So you have no ethical opposition to dictatorship, just that nobody did it "right" yet. Wow. Also the claim that Trump is everything wrong with democracy is stupidly ignorant, considering he lost the popular vote because we weren't democratic enough and were stuck with the electoral college, because the Founding Fathers agreed with you and didn't have any trust in popular sovereignity. In other words, it's exactly the people who think like you that are the actual reason we're stuck with Trump.

Also? Trump may be a piece of shit and stupid as all fuck, but I would take this administration any fucking day of the year over a mass murdering monster like Mao. At least I can trust our current government to not immediately herd us all in front of a firing range because of a couple of miraculous ideas called democracy and human rights which state that we're all at least nominally entitled to have a say in not being fucking murdered. Which is more than whatever your ideas allow for.

By your own logic slavery is OK, because individual rights are overrated, and egalitarianism doesn't matter, therefore a society built on the backs of slaves is acceptable as long as the society is stable and peaceful and as long as their owners treat them "humanely". And if they protest? Well, better to subjugate those ungrateful assholes with force if it means preserving societal harmony! The idea that women, people of different races, gay people, transgender people, any persecuted demographic deserves fair treatment in the first place? Also the product of egalitarianism, and often protected by functional democracy, those things you disparage so much. So yes, what you're advocating is basically a form of fascism, and that fact you can't recognize it is the result of your own cognitive bias.

And like I mentioned before, misogyny is pretty hard-coded into Confucianism from its inception. When you advocate for it you're also advocating for women to Stay in the Kitchen even if they technically have equal rights as men.

edited 7th Dec '17 2:58:50 AM by AlleyOop

I have no moral objections to a philosopher king or enlightened despot, no. We're talking hypothetically here and few things are 100% wrong. There is always an extreme case or exception. If there was a magical person I considered supremely virtuous and representing everything I believe in and they wanted to rule the United States, I would support them. However I am one of the most skeptical people you will ever met and I'm not saying this as a positive thing. I simply have an incredibly difficult time trusting people or believing things. Supporting a dictator is kinda like believing in God - you need that absolute faith that is beyond difficult for somebody like me who questions things constantly.

I'm sorry, how many people voted for Trump the rapist conman? Nearly 63,000,000. Clinton beat him by a couple millions which is pretty much nothing when weighed against the actual population of the United States, who presumably just hated both of them. Most of the country didn't even care which is why Republicans rule most of the damned country. Given that only about half of the country voted, I'm not sure how this is even supposed to be democracy in action.

As for your hatred of Mao, I don't like him either so....

EDIT:

As for slavery, it's inefficient. There's literally no reason to have it. It does more harm than good. That would be the number one reason it wouldn't be allowed in any hypothetical state I created. Ethics are a harder topic, very subjective and thus kinda difficult to base a country on unless you want everyone to subscribe to a state-enforced morality.

And I'm aware of the problems of women in Asian societies and history. I'm not sitting here telling you "we must recreate Edo Japan or the Song Dynasty China and have women killed if they speak up to their father or husband." I was bringing up political philosophers and ideas that interest me.

This is an extremely abstract discussion and I just don't get why you seem so heated over it.

edited 7th Dec '17 3:01:49 AM by Nikkolas

Slavery being inefficient is your main problem with it?

FFS.

And it's hardly an abstract discussion when these philosophies have actually been put into practice, with real consequences for real people.

edited 7th Dec '17 3:02:44 AM by M84

If I was building a country, I cannot write a law that says "this is bad, you can't do it." People don't share your morality, I'm sorry to say. To convince people, you need to appeal to ideas that are as universal as possible.

And what philosophies that I'm supporting have been put into practice and hurt people?

edited 7th Dec '17 3:05:28 AM by Nikkolas

Confucianism. It's what you brought up earlier. And when Alley Oop pointed out why it wasn't such a good idea in practice, you dismissed them.

But just what are you proposing? What is your alternative to democracy, egalitarianism, and individualism?

And a bit earlier, you mentioned this:

That's just plain utopianism.

And I pointed out Confucianism is a HUGE fucking school of thought spanning multiple countries and thousands of years. Saying Confucianism is bad is like me saying all democracy is bad because of Athens. They didn't answer my question about which Confucian school we should follow. Xunzi? Zhu Xi? ogyu Sorai?

Confucianism can evolve just like anything else. A few hundred years ago, Christianity justifies countless atrocities. Are you saying we can't have Christianity anymore? I noticed they also didn't mention if they had actually read any modern Confucianists when, by the way, many are actually looking to try and combine Confucianism with democratic ideas.

Western Liberalism is not the only way for a society to be run humanely or justly.

I would say no. Morally speaking, I don't think there's anything wrong with killing somebody who has killed your family member or loved one. But that is still a legal offense because the stability of society as a whole matters more than any one person's feelings. We can't let people go around killing others for grievances, no matter how justified they are.

And I don't really have an idea. That's why I'm reading the books I linked to earlier, in addition to this one. Confucian Democracy in East Asia

I never said I had all the answers, I said what I thought and I'm trying to learn more about it. It's slow going given my lack of funds and disability.

There have been plenty of Buddhist states and political systems, with a few still existing. There's nothing in Buddhism that fundamentally challenges violence and statebuilding, as scripture has been used to justify both.

This is not the thread for this though.

In regards to China itself, if a known mainland philosopher is allowed to exist it's because he serves the Party's interest. Otherwise he wouldn't be around for long.

edited 7th Dec '17 3:24:46 AM by TerminusEst

I dunno, I was talking to a guy who knows a lot about Christianity in China and how the persecuted Christians from that Washington Post article were little non-denominational village sects and all Protestants or Catholics must register with the government. The idea is that the Party hates religion but they know they can't get rid of it so they control it as best they can. So they only really mess with the little village sects or cults like I mentioned.

Is that accurate?

It seems like philosophy wouldn't be any different. You can't stop people from thinking.

edited 7th Dec '17 3:29:46 AM by Nikkolas

The official policy is that as long as the religious outfit admits that the CCP is supreme to their religion, they are left alone (something to read here). Regional governments do sometimes get very heavy handed at dealing with what they see as a challenge to their authority, be it tearing down churches or brutalising members of house christians etc.

The continued existence of the 610 Office gives a pretty good idea on what they are willing to do to those who don't adapt.