China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

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Sogol: Apr 11, 2013; Galileo's Finger

Cream_Filling posted:

This is a discussion forum, not a lecture venue and hugbox. You should try responding to questions and criticisms directly instead of passive-aggressively refusing to reply or immediately changing the subject to some other tangent.

Very well. Here then is my reply. Sorry to be slow, I had meetings.

This is where the conversation started.

Bizarro Watt posted:

What's the state of academia and scientific (non-military) research in China? Someone earlier mentioned that there are only a few internationally renowned universities, and I believe I've read in the past that science in China tends to be rife with research fraud. On the other hand, I know a couple scientists who have heard that China is pouring a ton of money into their research, but I'm unfamiliar with the mechanism how. Does China have their own NSF and NIH for funding?

Note the question, which has mostly not been engaged.

TheBalor posted:

I have a friend who's deep into Chinese anthropology and archeology, and she says that there are institutions where you basically fund a dig, tell them what you want to have the result be, and they'll get back to you with your desired result no matter their findings.

Interesting, but anecdotal as was my initial comment.

Followed by the Nazi comparisons.

ReV VAdAUL posted:

Sorry to Godwin but are we talking similar to the Nazis and their digs that found hey, Germany had an ancient culture just as advanced as the Romans sort of thing or something more subtle?

TheBalor posted:

I didn't ask, but I assume it's more subtle than that. The Chinese academics she was talking to all knew that place was full of poo poo. If they came out with national enquirer-esque stuff like that, they would probably become well known to the general public as liars, too.

WarpedNaba posted:

A more apt comparison would be the North Koreans, who're actually still doing this.

I found the following very useful as it speaks to something about the inner workings, how research is actually done and the implications.

MeinPanzer posted:

I'm quite interested in Chinese archaeology myself, though only as a side interest because I study ancient Mediterranean history, and there is a good reason that the results of archaeological excavations can be easily manipulated. Chinese archaeological method and theory is largely based on the Soviet model, which involved taking extensive notes in the field but only publishing an overview of any findings unless the find is particularly significant. This means that most archaeological reports are lacking in the sort of information and analysis that is standard in Western archaeology, while most of the important, detailed findings are sitting in an archive somewhere, thus making it easy to present results publicly in vague terms and skew them one way or another.

This isn't unique to particular universities or institutions, either; the Chinese government is blatant in its manipulation of scholarship on ancient history in a way that surpasses even the USSR in its heyday. The most egregious example is the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, which was basically a means of providing a scientific foundation for that claim of "5,000 years of Chinese history." Western scholars unsurprisingly criticized heavily the methods and results soon after it was released, though this dissipated quickly undoubtedly because of the Chinese government's willingness to revoke archaeological permits. Needless to say, the chronology established by this project is now canonical in Chinese scholarship.

TheBalor posted:

The one bright spot, I suppose, was that the same academics she was talking to were trying to form their own associations of only reputable archeologists. It's great for the Chinese government if they can make up whatever poo poo they want, but the fact of the matter is that because of those same antics, no one cares what Chinese academics have to say.

Really? No one? All Chinese academics.

WarpedNaba posted:

Eh. Most chinese scientists worthy of the name would be getting the gently caress out of dodge from the sounds of it. If good brains move to where they can be better used, why complain?

Nationalism.

Arglebargle III posted:

Terrible. A shockingly small percentage of published Chinese studies are properly controlled, in any field. There's a pervasive culture of fraud (just like in the rest of the professional culture) and the conclusion of Western academia has been to declare all mainland Chinese science garbage until they can clean up their act.

This is so (PRC) Chinese, start from a proclamation of murky origin and then go through the motions of whatever legitimizing process is required to have it declared true. Then crush dissent from anyone honest enough to point out that it's bullshit. I do ask Chinese people this question all the time, "5,000 years of history starting when? Starting with what?" and people just goggle with no response. 5,000 years of history is drilled into people here without even an attempt to connect it to reality. Sometimes I get people start talking about the Shang Dynasty but that only takes you back to 3,000 years, and then sometimes they try to go Xia but that would mean the Xia Dynasty has to be 2,000 years long! Even Erlitou culture is only 4,000 years old and that's firmly pre-history. I wonder where the hell they got the 5,000 year number that has such a stranglehold on Chinese thought now.

Yeah, this. Chinese science and Chinese restrictions on intellectual freedom create a real brain drain, mostly to the United States. There are lots of good Chinese scientists working at US research institutions.

I also found this useful, though China and inflated, revisionist history is a common theme. Again, I would like to understand what process is used in order to understand the 'shocking' number.

Claverjoe posted:

A route that I know of with some of the Chinese academics is to co-publish with somebody in a western nation. I know my PhD. adviser and my department chair went to China a few times a year, and hosted some Chinese professors/postdocs on a mostly one-way exchange from China to the U.S.

Yes, one of our main research partners is a Chinese university and people are interested in this, though the exchange is not one way. That work is mostly about hydrology and desertification.

MeinPanzer posted:

I sometimes wonder if it doesn't have to do with anxiety over Near Eastern historical records going back much further. If you're going to imprint some bullshit rounded number in everyone's minds, might as well make it match the age of the oldest historical states (those of Ur in modern Iraq).

On the topic of the Xia-Shang-Zhou Chronology Project, I have to quote the words of Edward Shaughnessy, one of the foremost non-Chinese authorities on early Chinese history, in an article he wrote criticizing the project, whose goal was to bring together "under socialist conditions" over 200 scholars from various different disciplines:
quote:

quote:
Scholarship by committee (or, even worse, by committees) is almost surely designed to result in compromise at the lowest common denominator. What is needed is for single individuals, with control of all of the evidence at hand, to produce their own chronologies that will then compete freely in the market of scholarship. I am confident that someday one of those individuals will solve the puzzle of ancient China's chronology.

I also found this useful, though it is where the 'market' of scholarship is introduced. I find this language objectionable because of the way such thinking has corrupted higher education in the US.

My first research in China (1986-1989) was asking the question "how do modern ideologies effect traditional cultural practice?" I looked at capitalism, Marxism (in China) and technology. One of the things that I found was that with respect to the various practices post 'the cultural revolution' committees were formed to recover many practices. Committee members were asked to bring the 'best' part of their practice in order to create a superior state sanctioned form of practice. Of course the committee members did not actually wish to give the state the best part of their practice, that the state had been trying to wipe out for the past decade. Instead they offered the middle parts, keeping the best within the tradition. They knew this, but it was not obvious to new generations learning the practice.

ReV VAdAUL posted:

We need to be careful here, western scholarship can be more than happy to tow a line. British historians kept very quiet on Mau Mau for instance.

More broadly the "free market"of scholarship strangely seems to favour voices that are friendly to the elite such as Niall Ferguson. More dissent is allowed but that dissent tends towards much lower public prominence.

Arglebargle III posted:

False equivalency is false. "But X has problems too" is a useless thought-terminating cry of surrender. It is a retreat from critical thought. It is, like any act of surrender, an act of consent. The speaker authorizes and legitimizes whatever misdeed he excuses by its utterance. If I could express how much I dislike false equivalency in harsher terms without going into purple prose, I would.

I could go into why this particular equivalence is false, but I won't. It's a well-known logical fallacy, and one that the Chinese state loves to employ in defense of its misdeeds, and one that Chinese people constantly employ to rationalize away their cognitive dissonance between inculcated nationalism and dislike for the state, and we should just leave it at that.

I found this insightful, but it cuts both ways. Critique of one system should not be made impossible by assertions about a critique of another. The confusion arises, it seems to me, when we somehow imagine both systems having the same purpose in some broadly generalized way, without having examined to what extent this may or may not be the case.

WarpedNaba posted:

Easiest way to challenge false equivalency is to ask 'So you're saying China/The Chinese can't do better? At all? You're just going to take cues from the West and never make your own decisions?'. Either they blow up in your face, concede the point or have their nationalism rather well bruised.

Which, for me, is always win-win-win.

This does not challenge the false equivalency. It is really only useful if you are interested in 'winning' and humiliating another human being, rather than learning, for instance.

ReV VAdAUL posted:

I'm sorry but when I see someone suggesting the reduction of scholarship to a "free market of ideas" is a positive thing I'm going to attack it. Chinese scholarship seems to be worthy of little but contempt but that does not mean it should be a cause for backslappery for western scholars.

As others have pointed out more broadly China's system is becoming ever more similar to neoliberalism thus failings it is easy to see in China as outsiders should be cause for reflection regarding failings in our own, increasingly similar system.

That China, a repressive dictatorship, needs to do better regarding it's scholarship is so obvious as to be almost unworthy of comment. The point is to ask the question, can't the west do better too?

Yes, the 'west' can do better and that has to do with not idealizing the academic process in the face of military-industrial complex expressed through a broken social contract solely purposed toward the maximization and consolidation of profit. In these conditions the suggestion in academia that science is not simply an economic driver is considered radical and people act on that despite the protections of tenure.

I will also say that I have worked with a fair number of Chinese scholars and scientists. Indeed, one of the Chinese universities is a partner in our current research, as I have mentioned. I have also met with students, scholars and scientists at both Bei Da and Tsing Hua over the past decade when I was in China as much as anywhere else. This includes many haigui, trained at MIT and such. They do not seem to hold this exact view, though they are critical of the system.

Arglebargle III posted:

Haha what the hell? You brought up the tu quoque thing, and now you're twisting around to being against people using the badness of Chinese research to excuse poor western practices? Nobody was talking about that. I think we can all agree that good research is good and bad research is bad. Maybe you should leave it at that?

You happen to be wrong about the free market of ideas thing but that's tangential to the whole barging in and declaring "we need to be careful" about legitimate criticism because someone, somewhere whose only conceivable connection with the posters in this thread is sharing the overbroad label "western" did something bad. The free market of ideas mentioned was probably a metaphor for peer review anyway.

Yes and these metaphors are important in that they influence practice. If we believe Lakoff they are the most important thing.

WarpedNaba posted:

Not to mention the west is doing better. Much better. Far better. Which is why we're comparing Chinese academia and research integrity to it and finding it wanting in the first goddamn place AAAAAARGH.

I have been asking the question about criteria. How is efficacy measured? Much of the criteria in the US, for both funding and publication is structurally conditioned by an environment in which economic gain, often tied to Cold War nationalistic rhetoric about security, is the primary measure. The NSF strategies have been very explicit about this, though that is changing.

MeinPanzer posted:

While I only posted that passage because it amusingly parallels so many ideological conflicts between Chinese and Westerners, I can't imagine how a "free market of ideas," in the form of scholars who, though they may align with particular movements or groups, present individually peer-reviewed work to be criticized by others, is a bad thing. It's not like the economic free market, in which people are invariably exploited and suffer for it; in an intellectual free market, competition simply forces academics to produce quality work persistently and to remain relevant.

It is not a bad thing. It is a great thing. We should also realize that it is a late stage product of the industrial era that did not exist prior to WWII. What I am suggesting is that the process is not currently this idealized form of a competitive free market. The implied necessity of competition as an exclusively organizing principle, rather than say collaboration, has many unintended consequences, most of which are institutionally invisible and unaccounted for.

Sogol posted:

Warning: anecdotal information.

I have a good friend who is from China and now a sociologist in the US for over a decade. She has the following problem. The research questions being asked in the US 'academic market place' (cough) in her field are all questions directed toward a criticism of the Chinese state based on a particular ideological stance. The questions being asked in China are, not surprisingly, quite different and often asked in a different way. The notion of an 'academic free market' is even more of a myth than the existence of an actual free market.

This is where I entered the conversation. My friends contention is this. The research questions she can get published in the US are conditioned by an unexamined ideological stance. It is not that this work should not be done, but rather that the functioning peer review process eliminates questions that are relevant in China being pursued in the US. The reverse is also true, but thus far she has been less clear on this.

MeinPanzer posted:

Of course the "free market" isn't actually entirely free, and the work of academics everywhere is circumscribed by ideology and various conventions. But do you actually mean to suggest that scholars working under the aegis of an obviously partial organization which has no qualms about interfering in their work and desires a specific result produce more fruitful work than a group of scholars working individually and freely criticizing each other's findings?

I don't mean to suggest this, but until quite recently this describes the scientific process arising from the Hellenistic tradition. I think the peer review process is likely a vast improvement. It has the capacity of dealing both with very esoteric and specialized endeavors as well as the level of complexity now being generated.

Sogol posted:

I don't find that the peer review process works exactly as you are advertising it, though that would be a good idea. This is particularly true with respect to innovation, most of which is funded by the DoD. In briefings on the national R&D strategy academics are literally told 'you develop it, we will decide what to do with it'. I have a chart from the NSF displaying this if I can find it. We are blind to the effects of this (as well as some aspects of peer review). That perception may just be some eccentricity of my experience though. A thread on the deconstruction of peer review and the effects of the military-industrial-academic system might be interesting.

I do not understand China. I have been going there for over 25 years, lived there for several years at a time in the process, done research, worked, learned the language, made dear life long friends, etc. I really still fail to understand in many basic and I imagine profound ways. I do notice how easily I can judge based on my own ethnocentricity. This is not a back handed claim about somebody else, it is simply what I notice about myself.

I do not think the Chinese system of research is superior. In the 80�s it was not possible to get books or materials outside of your field and even that was limited. Of course that has changed significantly. I do think, like centralized planning, or traditional thesis construction in 'east' and 'west', it is very different and I am pretty sure I do not understand those differences, even having spent a fair amount of time on the question.

It is interesting to look at patents, though I have not decided what that tells me yet.

http://www.ipwatchdog.com/2013/04/04/chinas-great-leap-forward-in-patents/id=38625/
Again, how does it actually occur in China beyond sweeping generalizations. Who talk with whom, under what conditions? How is (non-military) research strategy determined? What is the role of the five year plan? What is the role of the NDRC? How does that occur for a particular researcher or effort? I will append my limited experience with this at the bottom.

The conversation on patents and whether they actually tell us anything follows. The underlying question is, aside from anecdotal information how is scientific progress measured? How is that done in the Chinese system? How is strategy set?

MeinPanzer posted:

I think we are to a certain extent talking about apples and oranges here. I am approaching this from the perspective of academics who are not working for a partial organization - i.e. tenured individuals or independent scholars who are not in the pocket of a company or other institution which desires a particular outcome from their research. In the West as in China, there are huge swathes of the academic community who choose to work for government agencies or corporations and are thus subject to direct manipulation. I am talking, however, about academics in the ivory tower sense of scholars who are free to teach and research without overbearing restrictions being imposed on their work.

Of course I understand that universities everywhere are by no means impartial institutions, and that tenured Western academics are subject to all kinds of forces that influence their scholarship, but in this realm there is a fundamental difference between the Chinese and the Western approach to academia. In the former, all scholars working in China, and especially those working on topics relating to China, are limited by the government's oversight, regardless of whether they have tenure or not; in the latter, scholars not affiliated with a particular institution that pays them to come up with a certain result are free to research and debate topics of their choosing, even if they reflect poorly on their country's history, government, or culture.

This is the other side of the false equivalency model at play again.

In 1989 after I returned from China I did a set of research interviews in partnership with Oxfam. On the US side of the research I interviewed around 30 'hard' scientists and a similar number of 'soft' scientists and policy makers. In general I was asking about 'climate change' and the constructed understanding of 'environment'. One specific question I asked them all was 'do you feel that the economic or political environment effects the questions you can ask and the nature of your research. Without exception all of the 'hard' scientists said 'yes'. Interestingly, all of the 'soft' scientist and policy makers said 'no'. Noam Chomsky said 'no, science is a harsh mistress'. The other interviewees included Kennedy school wonks, EPA and World Bank senior leadership, etc. This is just a confusion between scientific method (itself ideologically problematic) and structurally deterministic conditions in which that method is used.

Cream_Filling posted:

Also the discussion was clearly about the humanities and things like historical research, not science or engineering as in patents. The US government doesn't command historians to "find" research that, for instance, indicates that Native American tribes all left on their own or freely gave their lands to white settlers. You can talk about the effects of ideology in terms of framing and biasing research, but this is very very different from literally making poo poo up.

I do not see how it was 'clearly about the humanities', though some of the examples were. I am clear that for you it was about that. And again we are back to the other side of the false equivalency argument here, in which comments on peer review become impossible. Nothing is offered about the actual process associated with 'making poo poo up' or research in general in China.

Fojar38 posted:

Perhaps a more basic way to interpret it is the fact that I'm having trouble remembering the last technological breakthrough to come out of China since the middle ages. I'm probably just not looking hard enough.

Again, this an assertion of unstated criteria, based on a particular unstated use orientation.

China was educationally gutted by the 'cultural revolution'. They are recovering and that recovery has been primarily focused on industrialization.

Another possible axis for understanding 'progress' might be R&D expenditure, since patents may not tell us much. In fact looking at patents by the listed address of the scientist, rather than nationality gives China much, much lower numbers. Looking at what the Chinese are patenting is also not terribly helpful since half the patents are 'other'.

http://www.wipo.int/ipstats/en/statistics/country_profile/countries/cn.html

Here is the wiki on R&D budgets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_research_and_development_spending

Of course this is subject to 'the Chinese statistics problem' as my colleagues in China call it. What is this being spent on and how is that managed? How is strategy set? Where are decisions made?

Cream_Filling posted:

This is a nonsensical statement because "we decide what to do with it" has nothing to do with peer review.

As I have said, and has been suggested up thread, in fact it does. This is not some secret or mystery and is talked about openly.

Sogol posted:

I did not mean to do a drive by derailing on peer review. I certainly do not know enough about how publishing and 'grant' funding works in China to use it as some critical baseline for US peer review, were that even remotely appropriate. I still find my friend's experience interesting. She is by no means nationalistic, yet feels that the questions being asked in her field in China are more relevant. I have asked her about sociologists being suppressed. I believe this to be the case and feel I have found examples in the past. She does not. I would like to understand that without being dismissive in some way. I thought it remotely possible someone might have some experience or insight.

The DoD strategy and funding environment does effect the peer review process in the US, all the way from what questions are likely to be funded to the guts of the process itself. I have interviewed scientists about this first starting 1989 and worked with NSF officers on the question in the last several years. It would be nice if it really were not politicized at the funding level or the immediacy of the academy, but it is. The process is under some critique, not for good reasons, it seems to me. The elimination of peer review and replacing it with Congressional criteria seems an incredibly bad idea to me.

The NSF is concerned about peer review and funding environment being able to allow sufficient innovation, given the 'Grand Challenges' and such. Currently they feel that it does not. That is not about the 'halo', reproducibility or the issues people raise having to do with the need to produce positive results. It is a consequence of the process working as intended. Given the current madness about Congressional control this is probably not a very politic thing to say in DC at the moment. There is also all this motion about 'fast tracking', open access, etc. I would be far more supportive of that than of Congressional management, which they seem to be suggesting. The open access stuff is already happening and probably needs some process attached to it.

People also seem to talk about tenure as if it affords the protection intended, in conjunction with peer review. The work we are doing is in great part based on the premise of academic freedom. We are able to do the work because of this, but it is not without consequences. The NSF happens to be incredibly supportive and happy thus far. It is the institutional reaction that is interesting, both locally and nationally. That said, one of our primary partners is a Chinese University and of course the overt dynamic is strongly hierarchical.

I would be interested to hear from someone who has been doing research in China to understand their experience, if there is anyone. My guess is that it is highly politicized and based on kabals reaching into the NDRC? It used to run on Taiwan in a similar way, but I am not sure what that is like now.

Thank you for the article on patents. I am still wondering how the Chinese might measure the relative success or failure of their own research efforts, and such things as 'intellectual merit'.

As I said, my comments are based on direct experience working with the NSF Advisory Committee on STEM. My comments on tenure are responding to the idealized version up thread (minus the false equivalency that makes it impossible to talk about).

Here is a book by a current NSF officer on how ideology works in engineering, where it is most visible among STEM in some ways:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdpucwen0kjclth/Synthesis%20Lectures%20on%20Engineers%20Technology%20and%20Society%202008%20Riley.pdf

Here is a long excerpt:

Riley, 2008 posted:

2.3.4 Positivism and the Myth of Objectivity
A positivist mindset often relates to two other perspectives that are commonly held in engineering: reductionism and technological determinism. Reductionism is the notion that phenomena (or problems) can be broken down into smaller components for analysis and that analysis of the components can fully explain the system as a whole. A reductionist perspective is evident in the engineering problem solving and engineering design processes. Technological determinism holds that technology develops on its own in a self-propelling fashion (i.e., without regard to social forces) and that its innovations, in turn, impact society and drive political, cultural, and economic developments. This perspective is found in engineering when concern is placed on the impacts of technology on society without consideration for how society also constructs technology. Positivism and technological determinism lead many engineers to believe that their work is objective and that science itself is objective.

As Foucault [12] points out, however, science is subject to the same vicissitudes of power that other forms of truth face from institutions in society. It is easy to recognize power at work in what questions are considered fundable, what research is pursued and later published, and how entire fields of inquiry are established and supported or left unfunded and floundering. For example, in the Bush Administration�s Climate Change Science Program begun in 2002, 13 federal agencies� funding directed toward climate research has been coordinated to answer questions determined to be of high priority. Unfortunately, many of the most critical questions around the human and economic dimensions of global change have been given short shrift, while the anthropogenic causes of climate change (which were already well established by 2002) are now extremely well studied [13]. It should also be noted that in the Bush administration, even more extreme measures were taken to control information related to climate change. Science journalist Seth Shulman [14] documents several cases of government suppression of scientific studies that differed from the administration�s position and other efforts to undermine the work of government scientists. Cases include censorship of government reports on climate change.

When science is seen as objective, technology itself is seen as neutral (and often ahistorical), disregarding the social forces that demand certain forms of technology or pose certain questions. The consequences of technology are attributed entirely to the way the technology is ultimately used and not seen as part of the engineer�s responsibility. Thus, the values that are embedded in technology are often those of the engineers� employers. Each engineered object brings with it a set of values and assumptions, which ought no longer to be taken for granted. I will examine these issues further in Chapter 3.

Waller [15] points out the predominance of positivism in engineering research, which carries over into engineering education research, to its detriment. Harding [16: 125] questions the use of positivist frameworks in engineering (and science) research, noting that �the ideal of one true science obscures the fact that any system of knowledge will generate systematic patterns of ignorance as well as of knowledge.� Harding further notes how the myth of expertise can lead to authoritarian power structures. Science and technology studies scholar Langdon Winner [17] makes a similar point in noting how engineered systems, such as nuclear power plants, require centralized power structures in order to be created and maintained.

2.3.5 Uncritical Acceptance of Authority
A positivist mindset that sticks with the scientific method as the only way of knowing what we know, combined with a lack of exposure to other ways of knowing, or contexts in which those other ways of knowing are valued, can lead to a lack of questioning of certain types of information. When we do not learn to question the information given to us, we are unlikely to question authority. When the organizations who hire us operate in hierarchies and we are rewarded by following orders within those organizations, we are unlikely to question authority. Sociologist Diane Vaughan�s [18] account of the events in National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) leading up to the Challenger accident document the ways in which power can construct knowledge in organizations, as outside pressures related to NASA�s funding and productivity became internalized and began to affect thinking and behavior inside the organization. She documents the ways in which engineers conformed to organizational norms when raising concerns, following chains of command and deviating only at the behest of an authority. Vaughan�s work suggests that the organizations in which engineers work may play a large role in setting these norms for engineers, as other employees may behave similarly regardless of their training or profession.

Sociologists Diego Gambeta and Steffen Hertog [19] present some unsettling data about the overrepresentation of engineers among radical Islamist groups (44% of those with college degrees where the major subject was known were engineers). Notably, engineers were not present among non-Islamic leftist groups, but were well represented among non-Islamist right-wing groups and overrepresented among U.S. white supremacists. In seeking to explain this overrepresentation, the authors found no evidence of engineers being selected by the radical groups because of their technical expertise. They rather offer two explanations: that engineers experienced particular social difficulties in Islamic society and that engineers, among others, are more likely to possess a certain mindset that increases their propensity to right-wing radicalism and violence. To support their argument, Gambeta and Hertog reference documents from radical Islamist groups and Western intelligence, noting recruiters look for a combination of intelligence and a willing acceptance of authority. Engineers were, in fact, recruited by some groups (and self-selected into others) more for their mindset than their technical ability.

This mindset exhibits three traits: monism (a belief in one right answer and an intolerance of uncertainty), simplism (locating a single cause for complex phenomena, a belief that rational behavior leads to simple solutions to social problems), and preservatism (a desire to restore a lost mythical order to society). Monism and simplism relate fairly clearly to positivism and reductionism as discussed above. Gambeta and Hertog cite additional evidence for the presence of this mindset in surveys of engineers around the world and ethnographic work with radical Islamist engineers. This mindset is distinctly right-wing in a political sense. It also prevents the acquisition of some critical analytical tools used in the social sciences and humanities to understand our world.

Cream_Filling posted:

You seem to be conflating peer review of grant applications with peer review of publications. These are different processes with fairly different ends. Basically everything you've said since then has been based on this misunderstanding along with selectively ignoring the scope of the question in favor of steering the conversation towards areas you're familiar with instead of areas you seem to know very little to nothing about.

This is funny. I am published (most recently on innovation) and have several successful NSF research grants that I authored. I go through and am subject to both aspects of the process on a regular basis as an author, a funded researcher and a peer reviewer. Perhaps you can help me with 'selectively ignoring scope'? If I am, which is not unlikely, it will be hard for me to see.

Sogol posted:

Truly and simply, I am not interested in arguing with you. You may list my many irredeemable character flaws and ignorances, as well as all your arguments and I will simply concede them.

I would be interested to understand more about how research and funding decisions are actually made in China, if anyone has anything on that.

Wherein I make a feeble attempt to return to the question that started this.

Comments:
There are subsequent useful posts about military research in China.

I really have no idea about how publishing works in China. Here is my (anecdotal) experience with how non-military scientific projects are funded. It is minimal.

First, have an idea. I have several examples. The one that comes to mind is the heat exchangers used on the QingHai railway.

http://www.inepec.com/Pages/en/Petro_products/heat_pipe/Low_Temperature_Heat_Pipe_with_Inner_Thermometer.aspx

The technology was seed funded (shoe lace, many years) and developed to prototype independently. Once there was a prototype the process is then to build a small group, consisting of the scientist (and technology), a set of businessmen and investors and an NDRC connection, or political connection with sufficient pull.

If there is not a clear profit model for everyone involved, the technology does not see the light of day.

So this is a below the radar research model, with a particular development dynamic. I do not know what above the radar research looks like entirely, though I have some idea from ChongMing island. The island is divided into 18 research and development zones. Each one of these zones is assigned to a University or consortium. Many of the consortiums are international, lead by a Chinese team. The NDRC then stipulates what research is to take place in which zones. Zones have been assigned with this in mind and based on assumptions about the strengths of the institutions. This is what is prescribed. What happens in practice is very different and conditioned by the institutions themselves though if tasked with hydrology or energy efficiency the research will include that as some part of it.

Additionally, all east coast cities are required to have developmental partners in the western region where they carry out research and development. This is often beneficial, but also fraught with corruption, whereby research institutions may seek to profit from the scaled versions from the results of whatever they are doing. One of ours projects is a 5 year cycling hydrology effort in western China. This is pure research, funded out of one of the east coast cities. The inclination however, is to jump to (profitable) solutions prior to the actual findings of the research. In practice the institution balances this through trials and prototyped solutions while the base research is taking place. This can do some very cool things, but is often disastrous.

I have been involved in the critical review of both these processes and ChongMing at the institutional level. The biggest consistent problem in terms of application is the attempt to develop and install designs in absence of any consideration for local milieu. See the wiki on HuangBaiYu for a rich example of this. That project was more corrupted by 'western' corporate influence and the desire to profitably scale, than anything else. For example, BP advocated for and won the inclusion of coal based insulation. When last I checked one family from the traditional village lived there, because their house burned down.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangbaiyu

For an example at the 'state' level I spent several months a couple of years ago designing and facilitating sessions between 12 or so US cities and 30 Chinese cities. This included DRC and NDRC representation and the people from the US mayoral offices, such as Boston, who had actually done the work over the past decade. The question being asked was about strategy for zero emission city planning and design over the next several decades. For the most part the main question that the Chinese constituencies had was about how the US cities had organized and governed their efforts. There was no shortage of design possibility and understanding about where to start.

This is in no small part why I am interested in the question of how R&D are governed. I have people to ask in China, but not over email. I think I will be there for a few weeks in September and will ask about this.

Sogol fucked around with this message at 00:19 on Jul 30, 2013

# ? Jul 29, 2013 21:12

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# ? May 21, 2024 15:39

Sogol: Apr 11, 2013; Galileo's Finger

MeinPanzer posted:

I think we are to a certain extent talking about apples and oranges here. I am approaching this from the perspective of academics who are not working for a partial organization - i.e. tenured individuals or independent scholars who are not in the pocket of a company or other institution which desires a particular outcome from their research. In the West as in China, there are huge swathes of the academic community who choose to work for government agencies or corporations and are thus subject to direct manipulation. I am talking, however, about academics in the ivory tower sense of scholars who are free to teach and research without overbearing restrictions being imposed on their work.

Of course I understand that universities everywhere are by no means impartial institutions, and that tenured Western academics are subject to all kinds of forces that influence their scholarship, but in this realm there is a fundamental difference between the Chinese and the Western approach to academia. In the former, all scholars working in China, and especially those working on topics relating to China, are limited by the government's oversight, regardless of whether they have tenure or not; in the latter, scholars not affiliated with a particular institution that pays them to come up with a certain result are free to research and debate topics of their choosing, even if they reflect poorly on their country's history, government, or culture.

I agree that there are some very large differences in approach and organization. How do you think the oversight is organized or occurring in the Chinese approach? Is it all done over email? Is it the presence of a Party member? Departmental structure? An intelligence function? Something else operating in the background?

I have descriptions of these kinds of things, right or wrong, about the 'western' academy. I got nothing for China. Blank. How does it work?

# ? Jul 30, 2013 00:32

OXBALLS DOT COM: Sep 11, 2005; by FactsAreUseless; Young Orc

Sogol posted:

I also found this useful, though it is where the 'market' of scholarship is introduced. I find this language objectionable because of the way such thinking has corrupted higher education in the US.

The term "marketplace of ideas" originates in the writing of Milton and Mills and was famously quoted by Oliver Wendell Holmes in free speech jurisprudence. The term "free market of ideas" is a mangling of that phrase. It was used as a contemporary metaphor at the time and doesn't actually have anything to do with free markets or economics. It's an argument about not having content restrictions on speech, not about somehow determining the value of speech through a market system.

Sogol posted:

My first research in China (1986-1989) was asking the question "how do modern ideologies effect traditional cultural practice?" I looked at capitalism, Marxism (in China) and technology. One of the things that I found was that with respect to the various practices post 'the cultural revolution' committees were formed to recover many practices. Committee members were asked to bring the 'best' part of their practice in order to create a superior state sanctioned form of practice. Of course the committee members did not actually wish to give the state the best part of their practice, that the state had been trying to wipe out for the past decade. Instead they offered the middle parts, keeping the best within the tradition. They knew this, but it was not obvious to new generations learning the practice.

What does this have to do with the preceding sentence? Nothing. It's a total non-sequitur where you bring something up without doing any actual work to not waste the reader's time. And even as a summary it's vague to the point of meaninglessness.

Sogol posted:

I do not see how it was 'clearly about the humanities', though some of the examples were. I am clear that for you it was about that. And again we are back to the other side of the false equivalency argument here, in which comments on peer review become impossible. Nothing is offered about the actual process associated with 'making poo poo up' or research in general in China.

As I have said, and has been suggested up thread, in fact it does. This is not some secret or mystery and is talked about openly.

As I said, my comments are based on direct experience working with the NSF Advisory Committee on STEM. My comments on tenure are responding to the idealized version up thread (minus the false equivalency that makes it impossible to talk about).

Here is a book by a current NSF officer on how ideology works in engineering, where it is most visible among STEM in some ways:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdpucwen0kjclth/Synthesis%20Lectures%20on%20Engineers%20Technology%20and%20Society%202008%20Riley.pdf

Here is a long excerpt:

This is funny. I am published (most recently on innovation) and have several successful NSF research grants that I authored. I go through and am subject to both aspects of the process on a regular basis as an author, a funded researcher and a peer reviewer. Perhaps you can help me with 'selectively ignoring scope'? If I am, which is not unlikely, it will be hard for me to see.

You still don't get it: You're not talking about the peer review process in the original context in which it was discussed - the use of peer review to maintain standards of quality, rigorousness, and credibility. You are focusing entirely on the role of peer review in guiding the development of a field or future research, but this wasn't the original subject. You also seem to be trying to get into philosophical questions as to the objectivity of science or even somehow implying that "Chinese science" has some sort of unique goals and thus it's apparently a false equivalency to evaluate it by the same standards as normal science, which is a pretty dumb argument anyway and more importantly it's pretty much an attempt to subvert and avoid the entire discussion which pretty clearly uses conventional definitions of science and assumes the applicability of the classical scientific paradigm regardless of its faults. Throwing up your hands and going "but how do we really know anything is true?" and "oh well clearly cultural differences mean we can't judge Chinese science by our own western standards" are just ridiculous excuses.

Also, jesus christ, you don't need to quote the entire thread back at us including your own posts and add single-line ratings and reactions for every single thing. It makes your posts hideously unreadable while adding huge amounts of bulk to very little content. You're supposed to paraphrase and make coherent responses, quoting only relevant sections when particularly useful, not copy and paste half a chapter because you thought it vaguely related. Your constant repetition of your personal qualifications is also getting a little tiresome.

Your comments on personal experience with Chinese research were relevant and useful, but you're making people slog through a bunch of useless filler to get to it.

OXBALLS DOT COM fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Jul 30, 2013

# ? Jul 30, 2013 02:17

Sogol: Apr 11, 2013; Galileo's Finger

Cream_Filling posted:

The term "marketplace of ideas" originates in the writing of Milton and Mills and was famously quoted by Oliver Wendell Holmes in free speech jurisprudence. The term "free market of ideas" is a mangling of that phrase. It was used as a contemporary metaphor at the time and doesn't actually have anything to do with free markets or economics. It's an argument about not having content restrictions on speech, not about somehow determining the value of speech through a market system.

Thank you. That is a very useful distinction in the conversation.

Cream_Filling posted:

What does this have to do with the preceding sentence? Nothing. It's a total non-sequitur where you bring something up without doing any actual work to not waste the reader's time. And even as a summary it's vague to the point of meaninglessness.

Just for clarity, the conversation seems to be about the state manipulation of scientific process and how that happens. The anecdote was an example of that in another context.

# ? Jul 30, 2013 03:03

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Oh my goddd the quote splice. :psyboom:

# ? Jul 30, 2013 04:44

NaanViolence: Mar 1, 2010; by Nyc_Tattoo

Vladimir Putin posted:

I honestly wouldn't take any chances with my kids and I don't blame Chinese parents who would be concerned. Also not everybody can breast feed, for example if you had a C section.

My brother and I were both born via C-section, and we were both breastfed. I don't blame Chinese women, I blame the whole dumb culture for supporting the idea that milk powder is anything other than a last-ditch alternative to breastfeeding.

# ? Jul 31, 2013 06:49

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

Yeah I've never heard that C-section babies can't be breastfed. I was one and so was my brother.

It's as much about the culture as it is about the market policies that allow the industry to brainwash people (who admittedly don't bother to actually do any research on the subject) into thinking formula does magic poo poo. Remember my rants from last year?

# ? Jul 31, 2013 07:00

NaanViolence: Mar 1, 2010; by Nyc_Tattoo

Yeah the commercials are terrible and they are on all the loving time. In Wuhan I couldn't even watch 非诚勿扰 without seeing 5-10 dumbass milk powder ads.

# ? Jul 31, 2013 07:03

Warcabbit: Apr 26, 2008; Wedge Regret

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-08-05/how-cleaning-china-s-dirty-air-can-slow-climate-change#r=rss

http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/08/one-low-cost-safeguard-while-living-in-toxic-china/278352/

Yeah, so, we're all screwed. Interesting article, though.

# ? Aug 7, 2013 20:29

hitension: Feb 14, 2005; Hey guys, I learned Chinese so that I can write shame in another language

Man, I wish I was Edward Wong. I'd love to get paid to do what every other expat in China does: sit around and bitch about the air quality, the corruption, and every other facet of daily Chinese life. Hard hitting journalism right there.

# ? Aug 7, 2013 20:43

Mozi: Apr 4, 2004; Forms change so fast
Time is moving past
Memory is smoke
Gonna get wider when I die; Nap Ghost

Well, he's not wrong. All of those things suck.

# ? Aug 8, 2013 06:51

GuestBob: Nov 27, 2005

Bloodnose posted:

...brainwash people (who admittedly don't bother to actually do any research on the subject) into thinking formula does magic poo poo...

This issue isn't going to go away until you lead a crusade of a thousand angry SCMP subscribers dressed as giant mammaries through the HK/SZ border checkpoint and deliver a series of lectures on the benefits of colostrum to terrified high school students who don't even know what a boob is, let alone how to use one.

I bet you're eating a Kit-Kat right now aren't you...

# ? Aug 8, 2013 09:38

WarpedNaba: Feb 8, 2012; Being social makes me swell!

What kind of high school student has never seen a tit? Internet porn is everywhere, dude.

# ? Aug 8, 2013 10:56

computer parts: Nov 18, 2010; PLEASE CLAP

WarpedNaba posted:

What kind of high school student has never seen a tit? Internet porn is everywhere, dude.

There is a certain type of person who puts studies before even porn.

# ? Aug 9, 2013 04:10

WarpedNaba: Feb 8, 2012; Being social makes me swell!

computer parts posted:

There is a certain type of person who puts studies before even porn.

You let corpses study?

# ? Aug 9, 2013 04:31

Vaginapocalypse: Mar 15, 2013; B-but it's so hard being white! Waaaaaagh!

WarpedNaba posted:

What kind of high school student has never seen a tit? Internet porn is everywhere, dude.

I can assure you that at least 50 percent of high school students have seen tits.

# ? Aug 9, 2013 07:04

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

True story: I once witnessed hardcore porn playing on a classroom projector complete with sound.

I would explain the circumstances but that just makes it less interesting.

# ? Aug 9, 2013 10:16

VideoTapir: Oct 18, 2005; He'll tire eventually.

One of my students' uncle would come to pick him up most days. This uncle watched porn on his iphone as he waited in the lobby.

# ? Aug 9, 2013 10:31

Zuhzuhzombie!!: Apr 17, 2008; FACTS ARE A CONSPIRACY BY THE CAPITALIST OPRESSOR

http://www.systemiccapital.com/chinese-university-students-embracing-maoism-in-backlash-against-social-inequality/

quote:

SHANGHAI � On the campus of Beijing Normal University, professors say they�ve noticed a trend that worries them: students embracing radical leftism. They advocate a return to the socialist state that Communist Party founder Mao Zedong favored and that Chinese leaders for the last generation have tried to put behind them.

The students wear pins with pictures of Mao and carry bags with the former Communist leader�s famous quotations, such as �serve the people.�

...

�There is widespread discontent among students with inequality and corruption, plus frustrations in their own lives,� said Yang Dali, the faculty director at the University of Chicago�s Beijing center. �It is highly understandable that there would be a leftist sentiment.�

Thoughts?

# ? Aug 9, 2013 20:05

Forums Terrorist: Dec 8, 2011

Oh no communists are going to upset our nominally communist pyramid scheme of a government!

# ? Aug 9, 2013 20:27

Dr. Tough: Oct 22, 2007

Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:

http://www.systemiccapital.com/chinese-university-students-embracing-maoism-in-backlash-against-social-inequality/

Thoughts?

If it's anything like leftism on American college campuses then it's absolutely nothing to worry/care about.

# ? Aug 9, 2013 20:59

cafel: Mar 29, 2010; This post is hurting the economy!

Dr. Tough posted:

If it's anything like leftism on American college campuses then it's absolutely nothing to worry/care about.

Well leftism in students has been a potent political force many countries in the past. America from about the 1950's to now has just been able to supply enough money and jobs to undercut a lot of potential for real leftist sentiment to take hold. If China can do the same then they have nothing to worry about. Hasn't that been their policy since the 1980's anyway?

# ? Aug 9, 2013 21:22

Franks Happy Place: Mar 15, 2011; It is by weed alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the dank of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, stains become a warning. It is by weed alone I set my mind in motion.

Dr. Tough posted:

If it's anything like leftism on American college campuses then it's absolutely nothing to worry/care about.

You're right, its not as if China has a history of violent leftist student movements or anything. :downs:

# ? Aug 9, 2013 22:28

WarpedNaba: Feb 8, 2012; Being social makes me swell!

Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:

http://www.systemiccapital.com/chinese-university-students-embracing-maoism-in-backlash-against-social-inequality/

Thoughts?

University students advocating a societal change in a nation that favours the status quo? Nothing can go wrong.

~~If you ignore what happened the last time they tried that~~

# ? Aug 9, 2013 22:30

Pro-PRC Laowai: Sep 30, 2004; by toby

Dr. Tough posted:

If it's anything like leftism on American college campuses then it's absolutely nothing to worry/care about.

It's almost as if they have been hearing those stories from multiple generations about how hard life is for young people now. Seriously, hear this every damned time I'm with the inlaws. Free housing, guaranteed jobs, cheap everything, far less corruption, better access to medical care, effecively free travel, and no worries about retirement. The growing gap between rich and poor only serves to fuel those thoughts.

Known it for a long long time... if there is ever some large political shift in China, it ain't gonna be "hey everyone, let's have popularity contests like the US does, because that's going great", it'll more likely than not be a reversion... but with a far better standard of living.

# ? Aug 10, 2013 00:01

Zuhzuhzombie!!: Apr 17, 2008; FACTS ARE A CONSPIRACY BY THE CAPITALIST OPRESSOR

Reversion to what?

# ? Aug 10, 2013 00:54

GuestBob: Nov 27, 2005

I still find the fact that all university students are marched around campus for four weeks before National Day by local PLA sergeants to be far more worrying than the prospect of a perfectly natural bit of student rumpus.

To be honest, I am amazed that they find any life left in the philosophy of Marx and Mao after it has been laboriously and tediously dragged through innumerable pointless politics classes.

# ? Aug 10, 2013 01:01

vanity slug: Jul 20, 2010

In Chengdu they sell good popsicles for only 2rmb. If that's Maoism, sign me up.

# ? Aug 10, 2013 02:02

Dr. Tough: Oct 22, 2007

Fine-able Offense posted:

You're right, its not as if China has a history of violent leftist student movements or anything.

It was a joke.

# ? Aug 10, 2013 02:05

GuestBob: Nov 27, 2005

Melvyn Bragg: crunchy walnut haircut on the outside, smooth creamy corduroy in the middle.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b02ykzh7

"In Our Time" episode on The Three Kingdoms.

GuestBob fucked around with this message at 03:24 on Aug 10, 2013

# ? Aug 10, 2013 03:22

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

Alex Lo, a columnist for the South China Morning Post, is usually an annoying populist with very little interesting to say. Today, he was a heroic populist to such a degree that I want to repost his column here for all to see:

Alex Lo posted:

Estate agents complain the government's property cooling measures are killing their business. But builders have long warned about labour shortages, especially skilled construction workers.

Just last month, the new chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, Stanley Lau Chin-ho, called for importation of foreign labour to make up for the shortfall in the supply of construction workers, among other labour sectors.

So, we have a perfect match here. Jobless agents, many of them young and in their prime, should switch careers and work in construction. They have to be less picky. The days of making easy money are over. It's gone, buddy!

Instead of being parasitic middlemen with nothing to contribute to the productivity of our economy, let's try to be useful for once and actually build something. I know this must be a novel concept: to make an honest living. But it's good for the soul.

Agents and the bosses like Shih Wing-ching have protested in the streets. They have called media conferences to air their grievances. But that's a bit rich. When times were good, they were earning fat commissions. Did they complain that absurdly high property prices were driving ordinary people out of the market? Of course not! Now they think the government and society owe them something.

Hong Kong's housing prices surged 120 per cent from 2008 and are now 34 per cent above their peak in 1997. Any responsible government would have to introduce anti-bubble measures. One agent who joined a mass protest last month, said: "When the market was good, we had no time to go out for lunch because clients kept calling to look for flats. Today, I do not dare to go out for lunch because I have no money." Oh, you poor thing!

It's in the nature of market bubbles that they cannot last. If these agents thought the gravy train would go on indefinitely, they were incredibly na�ve. Several major agencies warn they could close up to a third of their offices.

Well and good! Instead of streets lined with ugly agency offices, whose windows are plastered with sales posters, we will have restaurants and shops selling useful and interesting things again.

If more agencies go under, maybe we can have our street life back again.

It does sound pretty appealing to take all the real estate agents and enslave them in the building of new homes that will further reduce real estate prices. Like a Dante's Inferno-style ironic punishment.

# ? Aug 12, 2013 07:44

Deceitful Penguin: Feb 16, 2011

Bloodnose posted:

Alex Lo, a columnist for the South China Morning Post, is usually an annoying populist with very little interesting to say. Today, he was a heroic populist to such a degree that I want to repost his column here for all to see:

It does sound pretty appealing to take all the real estate agents and enslave them in the building of new homes that will further reduce real estate prices. Like a Dante's Inferno-style ironic punishment.

Haha, drat. That thing is beautiful, does it also have a bunch of whiny comments on it by said parasites?

edit: What. Where are the whiners? Are they being pruned out?

# ? Aug 12, 2013 16:50

caberham: Mar 18, 2009; by Smythe; Grimey Drawer

Normally it's Bloodnose and his constant SCMP reporting but today's article is on corruption and I hate corruption. Especially if it happens in Hong Kong because to me that's the only difference between this former colony of snooty imperials and the enlightened street making GBS threads masses of China. Heck even toilets in Taiwan are gross and resort to throwing toilet paper in a waste basket.

quote:

A District Court judge yesterday issued an arrest warrant for tunnel management company boss Victor Leung Yau-wing after he learned that Leung had crossed the border when he should have been in court.

The accused, who is facing a bribery charge, sent a text message to his wife telling her to "take care" after he had left home in the morning.

Leung, 66, is charged with being an agent soliciting a HK$6 million bribe from another tunnel management firm on July 10 last year, when he was an assistant general manager of Greater Lucky (HK), which runs the Kai Tak and Lion's Rock tunnels.

The trial was scheduled to be heard in the District Court at 9.30am yesterday and was expected to last for four days but Leung did not show up.

His lawyers said they could not contact him.

Judge Amanda Woodcock adjourned the case to 11.30am but Leung still failed to appear.

The Independent Commission Against Corruption also sent officers to Leung's home in Prince Edward.

His family told the officers Leung had left home earlier in the morning, saying he was going to court.

When the ICAC officers checked with the Immigration Department, they found Leung had crossed the Lo Wu checkpoint for the mainland at 9.34am yesterday.

Judge Woodcock then issued a warrant of arrest for Leung and forfeited his bail of HK$50,000.

According to the charge, Leung was accused of soliciting from Serco Group 1.5 per cent of the value of a tunnel management contract.

He allegedly requested the money as a reward for delaying the contract signing between Greater Lucky and the Transport Department.

The contract was for the management, operation and maintenance of the Kai Tak and Lion Rock tunnels, valued at HK$400 million. Serco Group was the previous manager of the two tunnels and its contract with the department ended in July last year.

Leung was charged in May this year and was allowed bail of HK$50,000, but there was no restriction on him leaving Hong Kong.

So in short, this 66 year old rich upper management dude got caught with a bribery scandal and absconded to the mainland. Triads and street punks sometimes escape to China and lay low after committing a hit on someone in Hong Kong but most of the time they just get caught and sent back to Hong Kong. Except for one famous case :Big Spender, aka Cheung Tze-Keung http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheung_Tze-keung

Basically some thug kidnapped the son of Asia's Wealthiest Tycoon. He got caught in China and instead of being transferred to Hong Kong, went through a Chinese firing squad. Some conspiracy theorist say that he was let into China on purpose so that he would be executed there being such a high profile violent case.

Which leads to a legal question on jurisdiction. I can't quote the Basic Law articles from the top of my head but Hong Kong actually has a very strong and large field of jurisdiction compared to the mainland government. If mainland residents commit a crime in Hong Kong, they are tried in Hong Kong courts. Even off duty PLA members are subject to Hong Kong courts. A off duty PLA officer/grunt got caught stealing from the Disney Land gift shop and went to HK prison.

caberham fucked around with this message at 03:34 on Aug 13, 2013

# ? Aug 13, 2013 03:31

OwlBot 2000: Jun 1, 2009

Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:

http://www.systemiccapital.com/chinese-university-students-embracing-maoism-in-backlash-against-social-inequality/

quote:
SHANGHAI � On the campus of Beijing Normal University, professors say they�ve noticed a trend that worries them: students embracing radical leftism. They advocate a return to the socialist state that Communist Party founder Mao Zedong favored and that Chinese leaders for the last generation have tried to put behind them.

The students wear pins with pictures of Mao and carry bags with the former Communist leader�s famous quotations, such as �serve the people.�

...

�There is widespread discontent among students with inequality and corruption, plus frustrations in their own lives,� said Yang Dali, the faculty director at the University of Chicago�s Beijing center. �It is highly understandable that there would be a leftist sentiment.�

Thoughts?

Lets hope they win. Barely any of the huge profits generated by State-owned Enterprises goes to social services, and the rich in China make 1890s robber barons look good.

Haha I love that leftism worries them, in "Communist"-party ruled China.

Pro-PRC Laowai posted:

Known it for a long long time... if there is ever some large political shift in China, it ain't gonna be "hey everyone, let's have popularity contests like the US does, because that's going great", it'll more likely than not be a reversion... but with a far better standard of living.

It might be interesting to see this reversion to actual Socialism, but hopefully less centralized. They don't necessarily need nation-wide popularity contests right away, but maybe direct voting within the workplace, towns and cities. And please someone do something about the pollution.

OwlBot 2000 fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Aug 13, 2013

# ? Aug 13, 2013 03:36

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

caberham posted:

So in short, this 66 year old rich upper management dude got caught with a bribery scandal and absconded to the mainland. Triads and street punks sometimes escape to China and lay low after committing a hit on someone in Hong Kong but most of the time they just get caught and sent back to Hong Kong. Except for one famous case :Big Spender, aka Cheung Tze-Keung http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheung_Tze-keung

I didn't know this story, thanks for sharing it. It makes me a dirty populist, but I kind of like the idea of ransoming any of Li's clan. Any of the property tycoons deserve to be ransomed, considering the way they hold all of Hong Kong for ransom every day.

But the moral of the story really is 'Don't gently caress with Li Ka-shing' because he will call the Chairman of the Communist Party and have you literally shot to death by a firing squad. :sigh:

# ? Aug 13, 2013 04:12

Zuhzuhzombie!!: Apr 17, 2008; FACTS ARE A CONSPIRACY BY THE CAPITALIST OPRESSOR

I stopped to eat lunch today and saw something that made me think of Bloodnose.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 00:50

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

That is really blurry and painful to read, especially the left side. Is it just because it's Mao and my avatar is Mao?

# ? Aug 19, 2013 02:46

Zuhzuhzombie!!: Apr 17, 2008; FACTS ARE A CONSPIRACY BY THE CAPITALIST OPRESSOR

Your avatar byline, actually. It was really far away so zoomed/shaky camera. I didn't want to be an annoying tourist and get up close to take a photo.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 03:18

Deep State of Mind: Jul 30, 2006; "It was a busy day. I do not remember it all. In the morning, I thought I had lost my wallet. Then we went swimming and either overthrew a government or started a pro-American radio station. I can't really remember."; Fun Shoe

What the gently caress (topical reference intended)? CY Leung is harping on the Manila bus shooting again? I don't think he could be any more blatantly trying to distract from current problems and scandals if he was shouting DON'T LOOK AT ME through a bullhorn.

I guess if there's one thing all Hong Kongers can get behind, it's "gently caress Filipinos" for no reason.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 04:31

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# ? May 21, 2024 15:39

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Is there anything going on in the world of Chinese politics? I've been lazy the last few weeks I'm not keeping up.

# ? Aug 19, 2013 05:05

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > China Megathread - Their navy can be taken seriously or taken littorally

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