China's Biggest Movie Star Was Erased From the Internet, and the Mystery Is Why (wsj.com) 234
Zhao Wei was the Reese Witherspoon of China, then she was censored by the Communist Party amid a clampdown of the country's entertainment industry. WSJ: She directed award-winning films, sold millions of records as a pop singer and built a large following on social media, amassing 86 million fans on Weibo, China's Twitter -like microblogging site. She also made a fortune as an investor in Chinese technology and entertainment companies. Today, the 45-year-old star has been erased from the Chinese internet. Searches for her name on the country's biggest video-streaming sites come up blank. Her projects, including the wildly popular TV series "My Fair Princess," have been removed. Anyone looking up her acclaimed film "So Young" on China's equivalent of Wikipedia wouldn't know she was the director; the field now reads "---."
Ms. Zhao's online disappearance on Aug. 26 came at the onset of a broader clampdown on the country's entertainment industry as the Communist Party attempts to halt what it sees as a rise in unhealthy celebrity culture. The Chinese government hasn't publicly stated what prompted this sudden change to her status, raising questions among fans and observers about how far it is willing to go against her and other celebrities, and why. The mystery also has sparked open speculation about what, if anything, she might have done wrong. "Zhao Wei is like a poster child for what the Communist Party sees as what's wrong with celebrity culture in China," said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in Chinese films and politics. "It's a demonstration that no one, no matter how wealthy or popular, is too big to pursue." In Zhao Wei's case, he added, the lack of explanation "will certainly make other celebrities extremely cautious and proactive in embracing regime goals."
Ms. Zhao's online disappearance on Aug. 26 came at the onset of a broader clampdown on the country's entertainment industry as the Communist Party attempts to halt what it sees as a rise in unhealthy celebrity culture. The Chinese government hasn't publicly stated what prompted this sudden change to her status, raising questions among fans and observers about how far it is willing to go against her and other celebrities, and why. The mystery also has sparked open speculation about what, if anything, she might have done wrong. "Zhao Wei is like a poster child for what the Communist Party sees as what's wrong with celebrity culture in China," said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in Chinese films and politics. "It's a demonstration that no one, no matter how wealthy or popular, is too big to pursue." In Zhao Wei's case, he added, the lack of explanation "will certainly make other celebrities extremely cautious and proactive in embracing regime goals."
Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for china. Or at the very least Don't bow down and edit stuff in the usa version of them.
Re:Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:5, Insightful)
Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for china.
The USA doesn't. The movie producers do in order to go into that market. The distinction is important because if you actually want it to happen, as opposed to just posing as someone who wants that to happen, then how you go about it is radically different. You know, voting with a ballot vs. voting with your dollars and all that.
Re: Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:5, Informative)
It was funny watching The Martian, and thinking to myself, here is NASA without a rocket it needs. Where is SpaceX, Blue Origin, or any of the other reality based (or movie mock up) version of the private industry?
You might want to try reading a book instead. The emergency rocket was Chinese in the source novel. But I'm sure Weir just did that to ensure he'd sell an extra billion books, right?
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That is the nature of free markets.
"In the autumn of 1905 he [Soviet diplomat Maxim Litvinov] founded, together with Krassin, the newspaper New Life; the necessary money being given by millionaires, who thereby helped weave the rope from which many of them should hang later on." (S. Dmitrijewski, "The Soviet Foreign Minister", in: Review of Reviews, July 1931, p.72.)
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Was that in the Book or added by the Movie?
Re: Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:5, Informative)
It was funny watching The Martian, and thinking to myself, here is NASA without a rocket it needs. Where is SpaceX, Blue Origin, or any of the other reality based (or movie mock up) version of the private industry?
In the book, NASA attempted to (too quickly) get one of their own rockets launched (this rushed preparation caused it to fail during takeoff). In the book, they asked for China's help because China had a rocket ready to launch (time was of the essence because the main character was going to starve if they didn't launch supplies soon). There wasn't time to build another rocket. China was NOT added to the movie to appease China; it was already in the book.
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Ceauescu was brought down by a coup attempt which aimed at keeping Communism in Romania alive and well, but degenerated into a pseudo-democracy which is yet to fully mature, 31 years later.
Re:Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:5, Insightful)
The USA (the government) can however impose restrictions on trading with foreign governments if their actions are seen as distasteful enough.
China has gotten so bad within the last 15-20 years that I wouldn't care if we full out halted all trade with them. They are a brutal dictatorship with an atrocious human rights record that is keen on expanding. We need to tackle this problem now before its too big to tackle.
Mark my words - we will be involved in a military conflict with China eventually - maybe in 10 years, maybe in 50. Hell maybe in 100, but its going in that direction. I don't feel it wise to continue to strengthen an inevitable opponent. Particularly with the offshoring of manufacturing. Thankfully American military manufacturing is still largely done within the country but if we actually get embroiled in a WW2 level conflict it would be crazy to be stuck with our enemy being the place where they make all your physical items.
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Since they already pretty much own the US government, they are already "too big to handle".
Re:Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:4, Funny)
Realistically if the US cut of all trade with China, well first it would tank the US economy, but quite likely it would force China to invade Taiwan. The US would doubtless try to force Taiwanese companies to stop doing business with China, and China needs Taiwan's factories, especially their silicon foundries.
Then we would have a big problem on our hands. China has a powerful military and nukes, can't really stop them. Everyone needs Taiwan for high end chips. We are seeing what happens when there is a shortage right now, but imagine if the US was banned completely from getting any made in Taiwan. No more iPhones.
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I don't have a problem going to war to protect Taiwan. Hell we've promised them protection anyways so to not do so would be unethical and not bode well for any other potential allies.
Honestly considering that the US, UK, Australia, and Japan would all likely be on board to protect Taiwan I don't see China calling that bluff.
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Isn't it interesting how all the hard core capitalists are all for voting with your wallet, right up until the point when someone with a similarly sized wallet comes along and suddenly they don't always get their way.
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Too much money at stake. Those movie execs see a billion potential customers.
Re:Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:5, Insightful)
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Considering how many of our stars are highly vocal leftists, most of them are simply following their beliefs when they kowtow to Beijing.
Re:Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:5, Interesting)
China is NOT leftist.
China is at this point a right-wing fascist dictatorship.
China doesn't have things like single-payer healthcare, a social safety net, a minimum wage that's a living wage, or anything else that an actual leftist society would provide.
China does have concentration camps for certain minorities, a state that conspires with supportive corporate interests, massive income inequality, a heavy emphasis on nationalism and militarism, and essentially everything else a right-wing fascist country would have.
China is not leftist. China is not communist. China is not socialist.
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Form the perspective of someone in Europe it's the same when they do it for the US audience. One of the weirdest things about Michael Bay movies is how there are American flags in so many shots and lots of American military worship.
Most of Europe finds that a bit gauche, and in Germany it's really frowned up for obvious reasons. The UK is a bit of an exception because our government is trying to go full nationalist at the moment. The Prime Minister claimed that British food was the best in the world yesterd
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But the market! The market! I mean, the people over here will watch the movies anyway, they're experienced kibble gobblers who'll swallow any crap you put in front of them (and if they don't, just call them names because it can't be that they don't want to watch your movies because they're bland, boring and your heroes are one-dimensional cardboard cutouts).
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We need more indie studios with clout. Except that when they get clout they're really kind of not Indie anymore. In the past we had upstart director and producers that would buck the system, push the envelope of the production code, etc. Movies are so very expensive to make now that you can't really get away from the big studios as much.
Maybe what's needed is to have the American public laugh at John Cena for being such a pussy, or mock the NBA for being scared?
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Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for china. Or at the very least Don't bow down and edit stuff in the usa version of them.
Communist societies impose government censorship. In the US wne we want a star to disappear, we use the private sector. Remember when we could listen to Garrison Keillor?
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Funny how allegations of inappropriate behavior were enough to get him removed, yet we had a president openly doing far worse and Republicans not only shrugged, but voted to not remove him.
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Who? No one cares.
We were going to let America's Dad die alone in cage, for goodness sake! No one is going to cry for some random ass-grabber with an outmoded radio program.
We have standards now and we're a better society for it. It's just a first step, of course. We still have a long way to go.
Re:Now the USA need to stop censoring movies for (Score:5, Interesting)
The USA doesn't make movies. People who want to make money with a profit motive do, and they by-n-large don't give a flying fuck about what the Chinese government does to individuals.
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Try searching for a Johnny Depp movie on Netflix.
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Well, the latest Life Is Strange game added a Tibetan flag that has totally freaked out China and Chinese players. Waiting for the mods that put a Tibetan flag in front of every building. Is this China supplying an army of review bombers, or is the population really gone so totally nationalistic?
Hollywood should do the same and either be neutral towards China (leaving in things that seem natural but which might offend politial sensibilities), or deliberately tweak their noses. Just decide up front that t
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As FPs go, that was about as feeble as it can go without AC's help. Didn't lead to anything interesting (that I could detect).
I was hoping for jokes about "she thought she had an 'artistic license' to skip the cheer leading" or something about the power of self-censorship as other movie stars ponder the lessons of her erasure.
Paper tiger. (Score:2)
"It's a demonstration that no one, no matter how wealthy or popular, is too big to pursue." In Zhao Wei's case, he added, the lack of explanation "will certainly make other celebrities extremely cautious and proactive in embracing regime goals."
What is power without the ability to flex it?
Re:Paper tiger. (Score:5, Insightful)
Our opening up to China was intended to export our culture of freedom to them, instead we have been importing their authoritarian culture instead.
20+ years ago, a bunch bureaucrats from the west visited Shanghai. When they asked about how Shanghai was able to build what they wanted, where they wanted to, the mayor said they just moved the people and did it. New train? New financial sector? Who cares about the people who lived there. The westerners saw this and were in awe and wanted this power too.
Oh, that Shanghai mayor? He now runs the entire show and has more power then Mao did.
Re:Paper tiger. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Paper tiger. (Score:5, Interesting)
We had democracy before industrialization. There is no requirement that one go along with the other. Ours was built on Anglo-Saxon notions of equality leavened by Enlightenment thinkers all seeded by Greek democracy and traditions. China has no such history.
The natural state of Man is a poor mass of powerless peasantry controlled by a tiny elite. Democracies and Republics where men rule themselves are few, far between, and rarely last long. It is not healthy to think that such a state maintains itself or will come about naturally.
Re:Paper tiger. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Paper tiger. (Score:4, Interesting)
Our opening up to China was intended to export our culture of freedom to them, instead we have been importing their authoritarian culture instead.
Weird as it sounds, this is traditionally the case in Chinese history. The country was defeated and conquered several times over the millennia. In all cases, after a few decades/centuries, the conquerors had became culturally Chinese. Heck, even though Communism defeated China, and did a pretty good job of destroying most of traditional Chinese culture (plus tens of millions of lives), it, Communism itself, is slowly turning Chinese too.
To defeat that, or at least set clear boundaries, the other side needs a culture similarly strong. I'm not sure modern Western culture has that. I surely hope it does, because I definitely don't want semi-Communist/distorted-Confucianism setting the tone of world policy in the 3 decades of life I still have ahead of me.
wow! (Score:2, Insightful)
Thank goodness that couldn't happen here!
I mean, the big tech companies that run social media would all have to collude, and even the domain registrars and payment processors would have to agree to make you disappear, and ... oh wait.
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They can refuse service to whoever they want. Would you rather the government force business to serve everyone? That’s the least conservative idea I can think of.
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Now, now, ladies...no need to argue.
You're BOTH doing your best to institute tyranny and autocracy!
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Hosting companies are highly regulated? News to me. Nobody disappeared from the internet. Trump started his own blog site and then pulled the plug when nobody read it.
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The "leftist" position is that businesses can decide not to do business with customers that cost them money.
Ah, got it. That explains why banks can just not lend to certain neighborhoods, real estate agents can be super selective in who they serve, and so forth.
Because the Left is fine with businesses refusing to do business with certain groups. Always has been.
Business is king, after all! I can't question the Left's rock solid consistency on that score ...
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Ah, got it. That explains why banks can just not lend to certain neighborhoods, real estate agents can be super selective in who they serve, and so forth.
Look up 'protected class' some time.
Business is king, after all! I can't question the Left's rock solid consistency on that score ...
Riiight. Like we don't remember the "grannies want to sacrifice themselves so we can reopen" bit about this time last year.
Why aren't you mad at the people who are actually causing you problems? "We don't want violent members in our party because it taints our reputation!" -- Why is it so hard to say that diving into projecting like you just did is preferable?
Re:wow! (Score:5, Insightful)
The huge difference is that in China, there is a central authority that can unperson you for no obvious reason. In America you have to be such a corrosive asshole that dozens of entities have to decide that they just don't want to do business with you.
And then you can still get on getter, gab, and parlor to bitch about being silenced.
Your implicit request is for a government big enough to give you everything, which of course leads to a government big enough to take it all away--like in China!
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I wasn't aware Amazon was the only hosting company in existence.
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...even the domain registrars and payment processors would have to agree to make you disappear, and ... oh wait.
Apparently it's a huge surprise to a lot of people around here that if you're toxic enough no-one will do business with you.
Remember when that was called the "Invisible Hand"?
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Freedom of Association is a fundamental right. [mtsu.edu]
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Correct, which is why freedom of association could also be called freedom of disassociation. Two sides of the same coin.
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They're trying to take the position that corporations aren't people. And that the people in them aren't representative of the group as a whole. It's a bad position, and they'd probably cry for corporate personhood on nearly any other issue, but here we are.
There it is, the utterly predictable whataboutism (Score:3)
Name one single case of a major celebrity being completely erased from all US-accessible web sites. I'm not talking about demonetized, or banned from posting, or fired from their job. I'm talking completely erased, utterly invisible. "No results" on all search engines. Redacted from news archives.
Go ahead, just one. Doesn't even have to be a famous person, could even be a friend of a friend of yours. I'll wait.
You can't do it, because it's never happened, and never will happen. That's what's fucking differe
How ironic.. (Score:3, Informative)
They don't need censorship for me, just put TFA behind a Wall Street Journal paywall and I'll never see it!
Doing my own research (Score:5, Funny)
I heard that China's biggest movie star's boyfriend's cousin's got the vax and then he got bit by a moose.
If you have to explain yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
then you've lost power.
If you have to acknowledge an unpersoning, you cede the power of memory.
Can't have that.
The thing that Orwell observed about human memory being malleable and controllable by external actors isn't a particularly subtle or non-obvious point: even toddlers attempt to shape reality with lies.
I suspect that in a short while, voices will be popping up all over, even in the west, asserting earnestly that this woman never actually existed. She was a hoax. She was a phantom. She was really som
China is struggling with inequality (Score:5, Interesting)
China has a huge, huge problem with its nouveau riches. There are a couple people who, by work or luck, got into money and they're not shy to show it. Other people see that, and they want a share of the cake. They want to be rich, too.
Now, the official leadership of China still has this thing going with Communism. You know, that doctrine about where everyone is equal and everyone gets what they need and should do what they can... and that breaks apart as soon as you notice that there are haves and have-nots, and that the haves don't give a fuck about Communism because, well, "screw you, I got mine" is far too tempting an ideology.
Pooh bear is trying to turn back the wheel of time to a "better" time when there was more equality, where everyone was much more happy with what they had rather than wanting more and more. Unfortunately, those happier times for Pooh were basically just happier because he and his cronies were the only ones who had luxuries.
And the people don't want that bullshit anymore.
That crackdown is just yet another aspect of this attempt to turn back to "old values" and a "better time" when people were easier to govern and happy if they just had some stuff to eat.
Re: China is struggling with inequality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: China is struggling with inequality (Score:2)
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Not really, no. The CCP's ideology is basically to use capitalism and market but carefully controlled to make sure they always benefit the citizens. It's not all that dissimilar to the Nordic model in that respect. If they were bothered about equality they could just tax people more. If you look at recent actions, like banning children from playing more than an hour of video games a day, or investigating companies that abuse personal data, the issue is clearly not wealth.
There is a much simpler and more lik
Re:China is struggling with inequality (Score:5, Insightful)
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Note that I didn't say "deserve". Obviously nobody deserves this and you should withdraw your accusation.
Perhaps a better word than "carefully' would be diligently. Little escapes their notice and they seem to have planned for everything.
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Maybe we could learn something from Pooh (Score:2)
Have you seen the pictures of the Met Gala?
Honestly, if the West could just 'disappear' some of these weird fuckers who decide that showing off that $100k goofy outfit while people are desperately struggling to make ends meet, I wouldn't cry too hard.
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There are a couple people who, by work or luck, got into money and they're not shy to show it. Other people see that, and they want a share of the cake. They want to be rich, too.
People don't worry about that very much when their own incomes are going up.
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Embracing CCP Regime (Score:2)
"Zhao Wei is like a poster child for what the Communist Party sees as what's wrong with celebrity culture in China," said Stanley Rosen, a professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in Chinese films and politics. "It's a demonstration that no one, no matter how wealthy or popular, is too big to pursue." In Zhao Wei's case, he added, the lack of explanation "will certainly make other celebrities extremely cautious and proactive in embracing regime goals."
Maybe that's why Jackie Chan was kissing up to the CCP and said he wanted to join them.
https://variety.com/2021/film/news/jackie-chan-join-communist-party-1235019781/
He didn't want to get wiped off China's internet.
Blind guesses without motives (Score:2)
Zhao Wei not only rose into prominence, but also was part of serious controversies, like posing in a dress of enemy's-flag, or involved into revenge act against pregnant woman. There may be more, even if it looks like she could have been defamed and hurt intentionally.
Anyway, keeping it clean and under control is definite style of the ruling powers in China.
Celebrity culture is bad. Is this solution worse? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ideally we should educate
I don't even believe this is about (Score:5, Insightful)
Fine. They went with an emperor. It's what they're choosing as a country. Countries should be able to choose their own path. But it's really a shame. Having an emperor supresses talent, business, economic activity, personal initiative, imaginative thought, and all sorts of other stuff that's necessary for a superpower to have. I sort of wanted China to keep rising because the US needs a counterbalance, but there's more and more evidence that we're close to "peak China" and then they follow the USSR downwards. No country with an emperor/king/czar/caudillo/strongman/sultan or whatever you want to call it, is going to be at the top. That was the best model of operating 500 years ago, but since then we've invented a clearly better form of government. Hello, western-style liberal democracy. You've got tons of flaws, but you still blow the competition out of the water. The number 2 player on the field doesn't even come close, and number 3 and 4 are just jokes,
And I don't want to hear any reply from some chinese shill that the CCP is some form of "meritocracy". That's laughable. The claim works inside China's borders. Out here, we have actual information about how things actually work, and we know better. If china truly surpasses the west, I'll be the first to admit it and learn Chinese. But they actually have to take the title. Smoke and mirrors don't cut it.
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Well, as long as it is evaluated on merits of economy, science, cultural soundness, military power, they do not have to be counted on liberties, to have weight, or outweigh outright. It is just that you observer got used to freedoms, whatever they truly are, possibly made of just trust into freedoms for a good part.
A different source of power (Score:3)
IMHO, the Chinese government doesn't like it when someone else attains power and is able to change their status without their express consent. This is nothing new, BTW. About 5000 years ago, the first great civilized act in China was irrigation on a massive scale and that needed a bureaucracy to go with it. They pigeon-holed everybody and you stayed in your pigeon hole. If you thought you could do something or create something and rise in the world, nope. You weren't permitted to rise in the world. It's not much different now. The bureaucrats didn't much like it when Jack Ma got to the point where he didn't need to kowtow to the party. At least he created something of value that would allow others to become successful. The party sure as hell doesn't like someone who attains status merely by being popular. They see what a clustereff that phenomenon is in the US and they're not having it.
Not exactly the whole story. (Score:2, Informative)
Everyone who actually watches Chinese shows, etc. and knows a little about Chinese celebrities knows that Zhao Wei has been under pretty strict scrutiny for the last 5 or so years because of financial fraud dealing with securities fraud and tax evasion issues. Then there's the 2 decade old controversy when she draped herself with the Japanese war flag. There has been a whole lot of issues. To say it's a "mystery" is a bit disingenuous. Perhaps a mystery for Westerners, but not for Chinese people.
This is a move of desparation (Score:5, Insightful)
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There are some things to this: it is quite some time, that China's situation was considered inconsistent. And yet, you still cite healthy growth. The air wasn't smelling very well before neither. Net result is good.
Second: they have re-positioned into very certain wealth and competences, having started with pure communistic poverty. Too often they are global expert maker with the benefits of an unmatched scale. This strength is not quick to disappear soon.
Third: they really have control and resources of the
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Who gives a fuck? (Score:2)
Seriously, "China is asshole!" If you have the means to leave China then do so otherwise you're fucked by a Pooh Bear.
Where is she? (Score:3)
Does anyone know where she is, how she is? I can't believe there's this many comments on this story here and no one else seems to have asked or answered that question? Who gives a fuck if her internet presence was deleted?* Has the Chinese government erased this actual human being, too?
*Yes, obviously, censorship is an important matter, but there's a real live woman involved here, too, not just a few film credits.
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Re:Where is she? (Score:4, Informative)
She was spotted in her hometown.
https://www.scmp.com/news/peop... [scmp.com]
Threatened (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if the Social Credit system is finally driving the Chinese citizens to the brink and mass discontent is fueling speculation of a future uprising.
Orwellian (Score:2)
This slashdot story refs unperson. Doubleplus ungood. Rectify.
On the plus side (Score:2)
A couple of extra organs appeared for transplant at least, so it's not all bad.
Why? (Score:2)
Why does Slashdot post so many stories that are about China? I could give two shits what China does in its borders.
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Communism is when the government controls the economy.
Capitalism is the total opposite of that.
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Difference (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is if you do something that a large corporation doesn't like in the US, the most they can do is sue you. More likely, they'll give you a whole bunch of money to go away.
If you do something the government doesn't like, they can put you in prison. Or, in the case of China, simply make you disappear.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you just trolling? You don't see how decentralized power, or power shared amongst lots of competing organizations could be even a little better than absolute centralized power controlled by a leader-for-life (Jinping)? The US was built on this whole idea! Checks and balances? Separation of powers?
Look, I'm liberal, want quality for all, etc. I'm Canadian and I think our universal health care system, while certainly not perfect, is better than a for-pay system. But gosh darnit, the evidence is in: centralized control is (a) a really bad economic system and (b) makes a really crappy place to live. Well regulated market economies are the clear winner when it comes to providing improving standards of living. Yes, "well regulated" means we need to keep a watchful eye on big organizations whether they're big companies or government departments.
This is what I don't get. If I want to support a more equal society with opportunity for everyone, why is my only option to support an organization (BLM) whose two founders have openly declared themselves Marxists? That shit doesn't work! Decades of trying it out in the 20th century proved it: Stalin, Mao, Castro and various others proved it's awful. Can we not learn from the horrors of history?
There is a path forward, but it starts with acknowledging that what we have here isn't perfect, but it's a heck of a lot better than living under a dictatorship in China! People stormed the capitol on Jan 6th and they're getting a fair trial. Someone just threw a handful of gravel at the Prime Minister of Canada the other day, and yes, he's been charged, but he hasn't been disappeared! Can you not see the difference between this and China?
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This is what I don't get. If I want to support a more equal society with opportunity for everyone, why is my only option to support an organization (BLM) whose two founders have openly declared themselves Marxists? That shit doesn't work!
Alas people rarely learn from observing others, most learn only when they suffer the consequences themselves. That's why the countries with the most vocal anti-fascist and anti-communist movements tend to be those that were once fascist, communist, or both: they know how bad it is from direct, personal experience.
Maybe the US has to go through a few decades of Fascism and a few additional ones of Communism before it, too, learns.
Re:Hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
BLM is deliberately a largely leaderless group, I honestly wouldn't even call it an organization. It was deliberately established that way to keep from having figureheads that could be suppressed. That said, who cares if the founders of a movement don't directly align with all of your own political leanings? Is the cause that BLM represents worthy of your support or not? I mean if we only supported organizations founded by people without objectionable beliefs/opinions, then we'd have to throw out the US Constitution as it was written and signed by a bunch of misogynistic, slave abusing assholes.
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Re:Credit where due.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The US has not economically declined. True, it lost share of the global economy, but much of that is because countries like Germany and Japan rose under US-influenced principles: they copied what works. Even China copied many aspects of American capitalism to get where they are. (Unfortunately they didn't copy democratic principles.)
No system is. A big problem with authoritarian governments is that transition of power is often rocky because the retiring/dying despot had full control. All power is put into one basket and that basket drops when the despot ages. China's had a "revolution" roughly once every 100 years.
Chinese gov't speeches of late suggest they believe it's "their turn" to be on top, a Chinese brand of manifest destiny. If ego is our weakness, they have the disease also and thus have no humility advantage.
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No system is. A big problem with authoritarian governments is that transition of power is often rocky because the retiring/dying despot had full control. All power is put into one basket and that basket drops when the despot ages. China's had a "revolution" roughly once every 100 years.
Feudalism was stable for around 1200 years. Liberal democracy is already in shambles and hasn't even made 250 years.
Some systems are more durable than others.
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How did the parent posting get modded down? It's true what they said, take a road trip through middle United States and the situation is drastically different than it is on the coasts. The mega churches are doing great, tho... tax free and all that; Billboard after billboard advertising to hopeless Americans saying salvation is just a donation-to-the-church away.
Note: I'm not on any of the political football teams this or that. Maybe we should tax the churches though.
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This is obviously terrible, but I have to wonder why celebrity news is on Slashdot. China does this to lots of people, including Jack Ma which was at least technology related.
Seems like there are a lot of stories getting posted just so people can have a 2 minutes hate at China these days. Makes me feel uneasy, history tells us that doesn't lead to good things.
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Which is the point. With the ability to control what people see, hear, and read, China is using technology to its fullest to rewrite history. Think 100 years from now. Will anyone know who this person was despite being this movie star? Not in China they won't because she will have been erased from memory.
In the past, to re
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The stability situation in China may look less rosy from where the Party sits; in fact it probably feels like trying to steer a train on a track leading over a cliff. They're a lot like a startup company that is facing the transition to a mature company in which growth is no longer easy and huge growth is no longer possible. 10% growth rates cover a multitude of sins, including a bureaucratic and unresponsive government. Governing at 5% growth should be fairly easy, but it's challenging for the party, a
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It's hard to beat rule by an enlightened, selfless, genius totalitarian dictator *on paper*. In practice, nobody is actually qualified for that job.
There may be a temporary fluke when a good dictator survives for a while. But it is not possible in the long term because a dictator is not in power by himself. He needs key persons to support him. Those persons will want rewards for themselves. That makes it impossible for the dictator to distribute resources optimally (in the sense of the best well-being of the masses).
See The Rules for Rulers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Democracies can last for thousands of years as long as they're focused on managing themselves, not ruling others.
Show me one.
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It did not happen yet but democracies are on the good run. The US democracy lasted 232 years. It is not much but I think the length of the time a political system lasts should be scaled by the world GDP growth. It is a way to express how quickly world moves. GDP did grow only 6.6 times from the year 1 to 1820 (US democracy started in 1789). Even if you would have a system which did last from 1 to 1820, it would be rated only at 6.6 * 1819 = 12e5. The US democracy can be rated at about 232 * 87250 = 20.2e6.
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San Marino