# China ## [China’s rising vulnerability to foreign investors](https://www.ft.com/content/7a1cbb0e-ab57-4092-ba33-b231fc1b1783) [[Financial Times]] on [[2021-12-01]] ## [Why Is China Insisting It Is a Democracy?](https://thediplomat.com/2021/12/why-is-china-insisting-it-is-a-democracy/) [[The Diplomat]] ## [[Neil Woodfine]] on [[China]] ### The West envies the amount of control achieved in [[China]] [Tweet](https://twitter.com/nwoodfine/status/1304716407913947136?s=20) on [[2020-09-12]] Exactly. The Western establishment loves demonising China as the “Other.” But really, they’re jealous of all Chinese authorities have achieved, and are doing their best to emulate their most “successful” policies of control. ![[Pasted image 20220105040159.png|350]] See: [[China#ICP license]] ### Intentionally misspelling sensitive words on Western media [Tweet](https://twitter.com/nwoodfine/status/1447660426083377159?t=3zdiYJr4nZEsCxxgegCjPg&s=19) on [[2021-10-11]] The West went all "China" in the blink of an eye. Few noticed or mind much. Seeing the use of intentional misspellings for "sensitive" words on Western social media become an everyday habit across multiple topics is so surreal. In China, it's been a thing for over a decade (see grass mud horse), but never imagined it would happen so fast here. Spoiler: the censorship gets worse. ### Riots are common but suppressed [Tweet](https://twitter.com/nwoodfine/status/1243881401079877634?t=DU6qGte8-6DqfPlvZCry3w&s=19) on [[2020-03-28]] These events are surprisingly common in China, just kept very well hidden, so I wouldn’t read too much into it yet. The vast majority of the population are currently extremely supportive of the government’s measures. ### Chinese laws are intentionally ambiguous [Tweet](https://twitter.com/nwoodfine/status/1040025131429445632?t=cZEB90dVp6RoUymBI_mB-Q&s=19) on [[2018-09-12]] China has lots of ambiguous laws that are sloppily enforced, but when they want to get you, they can always find something. End results of stuff like this: - outsourcing burden of compliance/surveillance to large players who have too much to lose - smaller players acting/speaking/publishing extra carefully so as not to rock any boats ## General ### [[Radio Free Asia]] page https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china ### ICP license https://www.wikiwand.com/en/ICP_license ![[Pasted image 20220105040159.png|350]] ### Not a stable place to build a company long term “The crackdown was all of a sudden, and we were not prepared,” De La Torre reflected. “We don’t want instability anymore. … We are looking for something stable in the United States. The government is not going to come and close your company, like they do in China.” https://restofworld.org/2021/bitcoin-miners-china-texas/ ### China strongly emphasizes alignment - Public interests supercede private interests - Government objectives supercede private enterprise - In [[West]], the government objective is to encourage private enterprise. ### Trouble on the Belt and Road Trouble on the Belt and Road "China has appeared reluctant to write off its loans to foreign countries, which AidData says on average carries interest rates four times higher than offered by other bilateral lenders and maturity periods of a third as long" https://www.wsj.com/articles/hidden-debt-plagues-chinas-belt-and-road-infrastructure-plan-studies-find-11632866461 https://twitter.com/Cold_Peace_/status/1443648897113546760?s=19 "The report also estimates 35% of China’s overseas infrastructure projects have faced major problems like corruption scandals, labor violations, environmental hazards and public pushback. AidData links almost 400 projects valued at $8.3 billion to China’s military." "Mr. Xi had signaled a recalibration of the program in April 2019 when he told the heads of state of some of the biggest recipients of Belt and Road financing that China would emphasize financial stability and transparency in its Belt and Road portfolio." ### [[Naomi Wu]] says that cryptocurrencies / P2P tech aren't viable in China... ![[Screenshot_20211117-172029_Brave.jpg]] https://medium.com/@therealsexycyborg/shenzhen-tech-girl-naomi-wu-my-experience-with-sarah-jeong-jason-koebler-and-vice-magazine-3f4a32fda9b5 ### Book recommendations by [[Branko Milanovic]] https://twitter.com/BrankoMilan/status/1341139885873311744?s=19 Here is (for whoever may be interested) the list of books on China that I have read in the past 5-6 years; in no particular order, with my assessments: 5 stars is the best, 2 the worst. Books I reviewed on my blog are noted with ++. John Palmer, The death of Mao, Faber & Faber, 2012 ** Jonathan Fenby, Will China dominate the 21st century, Polity, 2014 *** Quan Yanchi, Mao: Man, not God *** Jacques Gernet, Daily life in China on the Eve of Mongol Invasion 1250-76, Stanford UP, 1962. **** ++Giovanni Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century, Verso, 2007. ***** Minxin Pei, China’s crony capitalism, Harvard UP, 2016. **** Minxin Pei, China’s Trapped Transition, Harvard UP, 2006. *** ++Martin Jacques, When China rules the world, Penguin, 2012. ***** Cheng Li, Chinese politics in the Xi Jinping era, Brookings, 2016. *** ++Julian Gewirtz, Unlikely Partners Chinese Reformers, Western Economists, and the Making of Global China, Harvard 2017. **** Zhao Ziyang, Prisoner of the state, Simon and Schuster, 2009. **** ++Wang fan-hsi, Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary, Columbia UP, 1991. ***** ++Kenneth Pomeranz, The Great Divergence, Princeton UP, 2000. ***** Alan Wood, Limits to Autocracy: From Sung Neo-Confucianism to a Doctrine of Political. Rights, 1995. *** Xie Chuntao, Fighting corruption: how CPC works. 2016. **** Wu Guoyou, The period of Den Xiaoping’s reformation *** Chung li-Chang, Income of the Chinese Gentry, 1962. *** ++Henry Kissinger, On China, Penguin, 2011. ***** Chi Hsin, Teng Hsiao-ping: A political biography, Cosmos Books, 1978. ** Wang Hui, China’s New Order, ed Theodore Huters, Harvard, 2003. ** ++Jean-Pierre Cabestan, Demain la Chine: démocratie ou dictature?, Gallimard, 2019. *** ++Ho-fung Hung, The China Boom: Why China will not rule the world, Columbia UP, 2017. ***** ++Robert Bickers, Out of China: How the Chinese ended... Western domination, Penguin, 2017. **** ++Richard McGregor, Asia’s Reckoning: China, Japan & the Fate of US Power..." 2017 *** Isabella Weber, How China Escaped Shock Therapy, Routeledge, 2019.*** ++Yuen Yuen Ang, China’s Gilded Age, 2020. Cambridge UP, **** Joanna Waley Cohen, The sextants of Beijing, W. W. Norton and Co., 1999 **** ## "Why is China Insisting It Is a Democracy?" https://thediplomat.com/2021/12/why-is-china-insisting-it-is-a-democracy/ ##### The attempt to frame an alternative model of democracy highlights a shift in the CCP’s quest for legitimacy. [[The Diplomat]] on [[2021-12-11]]