> I’m really curious to better understand what aspects of China’s government would hurt your day to day life.

For tech workers in particular, the structure of the economy would prevent high equity-based compensation. I also distinctly recall China's heavy-handed enforcement of COVID lockdowns, and the sudden about-face when discontent reached a boiling point. Then there's the censorship too - disagreeing on low-stakes local issues is one thing, but if you disagree with national policy, you cannot exactly discuss it in the open the way that we do here.

I have known a few Chinese people, and they downplay this stuff. Some of them are even political refugees from the purges following Mao's death, and they downplay the level of authoritarianism in the country. As bad as the US has gotten recently, we're still not at that level.

It really does seem like both nations are slowly converging on similar systems of government, but hopefully this authoritarian swing in the US can be limited.

I'm not sure where you are reading, but people are not free to rant in China. Many of my friends would lose privileges because they were foolish enough to openly speak poorly regarding certain topics, and suddenly they were banned from Wechat, which is equivalent to being banned from the internet, and from using money in noncash form. My sister was visiting and was dumb enough to get herself banned from way more services and she was scared she wouldn't be able to get back home. In a very few places, they check your social score to ensure that you aren't low-life enough to be barred from there too. I only spoke freely after checking an area for no cameras, so I always had all of my privileges, but me and a Chinese friend, after coming to the USA (I am not Chinese, only went there for school), hope we never end up back in China. Regarding day to day life in the USA, I am unaffected by China.

I can answer this question. I’m a native-born Chinese, and I’ve never studied abroad. This year I just completed my first trip overseas, visiting the UAE. First of all, I don’t think China is a fully democratic system, but it’s not an outright dictatorship either. At the same time, I don’t think the two-party voting system in the U.S. qualifies as democracy either. One of the biggest drawbacks of Western criticism of China for being “undemocratic” is that many Chinese people travel abroad and are exposed to the outside world. If the West had a better system, we would definitely be willing to follow it, but their proposals are worse than ours—especially after Trump took office, things have only gotten more chaotic.

In China, the only real restriction is that you cannot severely criticize the Party and its leaders. I mean, minor criticism is acceptable—for example, pointing out areas that aren’t working well—but you cannot completely reject them. For instance, you cannot post offensive memes about leaders. This is different from the U.S., but I think the comparison is interesting. By sacrificing this particular freedom, we actually gain many other freedoms.

The most typical case this year was a food poisoning incident at a kindergarten. The staff, ignoring safety regulations, added toxic chemical elements to the food. This incident went viral on the Chinese internet, and the public criticism was focused on the government and relevant medical authorities, but people did not(dared not)—blame the Party itself. In the end, a large number of the responsible personnel were punished or sentenced. The problem was resolved, and it did not implicate the Party itself.

Many people don’t realize China’s major advantages, and I only understood them by observing foreigners who run businesses in China( i mean this video if anyone is intreseted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-ozoOKhUO4&t=329s) . China has a system of accountability. If anyone travels in China, I highly recommend observing rivers, streets, and even trees—they all have markers indicating who is responsible. This means that if something goes wrong in that area, someone is accountable. Of course, corruption can undermine this, but the system is still operational. China doesn’t have problems like California’s high-speed rail, the UK’s HS2, or the charging stations under Biden that were barely built and with almost no one held accountable.

As for why I chose the UAE: honestly, Europe has disappointed me too much these days. Our social media is full of reviews about being stolen from or robbed while traveling in Europe, and the same applies to Southeast Asia. They’re basically at the same level of insecurity. Even in the UAE, which is considered a relatively safe country, I was still worried about my credit card being lost or fraudulently charged. In China, I never have to worry about such things. Of course, Japan, South Korea, or Singapore might also be safe, but those countries are just too boring for me.

Do I care about politics? Of course I do. The more sensitive topics can always be navigated with wordplay—everyone is familiar with these strategies. For more serious matters, a VPN works perfectly.

(My English writing isn’t very good, so I often write in Chinese and use ChatGPT to help me translate.)

Don’t you think you’ve been influenced by propaganda? You have admitted yourself that you couldn’t even find information on Naomi Wu.

I’ve lived in Europe my whole life. I’ve never been robbed or felt unsafe. It’s also a very diverse region so it’s hard to generalize. But the supposed “decay of the west” is mostly internal propaganda from our very own anti-migration right wingers.

But regardless, I’d take having a 0.001% chance of my wallet (which contains zero valuables) being stolen versus being silenced by the government for criticizing the regime or being unable to acknowledge your sexual orientation. Let alone all the history rewriting and censorship.

In general Europe is quite safe, but tourists scammed in some more popular destinations does happen quite a bit.

But Europe is also quite heterogeneous. E.g. in Scandinavia getting scammed or pickpocketed is really rare, but in say Barcelona or Rome the chance is a lot higher. Violent crime like robbery is in general very rare everywhere.

> But the supposed “decay of the west” is mostly internal propaganda from our very own anti-migration right wingers.

it's not propaganda, i am talking some thing like 'yelp', real people share real experience after travel to EU. sure there are many good ones, but lots of bad ones.

> unable to acknowledge your sexual orientation

you can. but not in the public media. people share LGBT content on the Internet all the time. Right now the most popular influencer on chinese tiktok is a crossdresser

not intent to change your view, just some clarification.

Thank you for your clarifications. I don’t really know what to make of these experiences, I know for sure that it can’t be much more than a small percentage of tourists getting pickpocketed. Plausibly, the people with negative experiences are a loud minority.

I also now realize that my original comment may seem harsher than I intended. I fully understand your point of view since I was also born in a comparatively poor place, and I realize how uplifting it is to see everything around you improve at a rapid pace. But despite this, cases like that of Naomi Wu are egregious. Nobody can say for sure how much each “inconvenient” aspect of her online presence (accusing companies, being openly gay, having an Uyghur partner) has contributed to her shutdown, but the fact is that this person can’t publish her videos on tech anymore. This is very hard to justify for me.

Nonetheless, thank you for sharing your opinion. It is very valuable to get your perspective here.

I was also somewhat emotional, after all, relations between China and the EU are more hostile than before, and that naturally affects how people view each other. As for Naomi Wu, she was never that popular in China to begin with—after all, ordinary people don’t really know much about things like open-source licenses. As for her disappearance, well, she disappeared, and not many people really care. Other comments have already pointed out that she was involved in many issues, including violations related to open-source, and possibly some interactions with Linux; it’s hard for me to sort out exactly why she was “banned” on the Chinese internet. Her videos are still there; I don’t know if she still updates them, but indeed, no one really talks about her anymore.

Personally, I don’t quite agree with this kind of action, unless there’s a clear law that she violated. But China isn’t very transparent about such matters, so sometimes what the government does is right, sometimes it isn’t. Each case needs to be studied specifically. However, this lack of transparency is indeed a weakness.

I mean, the reasons for her shutdown are pretty clear: she walked into national security terroritory and attracted attention from paranoid security officials. The reasons came out of her own mouth, as reported by The Dailo Mao. See my other comment on this topic.

> I’ve lived in Europe my whole life. I’ve never been robbed or felt unsafe.

Really, where?

I have been robbed in Belgium and in France, have had a knife on my throat on a Sunday morning, and have had burglars twice (once in Antwerp, once in Leuven). About five of my bikes were stolen, and I've been conned by construction workers several times.

Southern Italy. We’ve had burglars once actually, but that’s about it. I’ve since then also lived in Switzerland and Sweden, which are obviously much safer. Perhaps I’m too optimistic, but I don’t see the point in worrying about this. I take my precautions like anyone else and that’s about it.

Anyhow, sorry to hear about your experience. That’s how statistics work I guess. For any particularly unlucky person there’s a correspondingly lucky person that averages them out.

Conning is definitely more of a thing, but I wouldn’t place it in the same league as pickpocketing of tourists. Which of course is a thing, I don’t want to deny it. Just that using it as a reason to avoid Europe is absolutely blowing it out of proportion.

I think you're severely underestimating how safe China has become. Nowadays people don't even lock their motorbikes, and can leave their laptops in coffeeshops unattended for half an hour. You definitely can't do either of that in Netherlands. Maybe in some small village where everybody knows everybody else it's still possible.

That is the baseline that Chinese are comparing to nowadays. That's why even many what we call safe places feel unsafe to them.

Also consider that just 15 years ago, China was definitely way unsafer than many European countries. China upgraded from a low public trust to high public trust society in front of people's living memories. This is what you have to consider when considering why Chinese people are happy with their government. All this voting stuff is just theoretical benefit. In Netherlands, our politics have been a mess for more than a decade. Voting certainly didn't solve the problems.

I actually forgot to mention something related to my travels. When I was in the UAE, I suddenly realized I had lost my keys. I called several hotels, but they all said they hadn’t found them. It was a difficult situation because I had to figure out a way to get a spare key from my company or have a new one made. The company has strict access control, so I couldn’t be 100% sure I’d be able to get in. In the end, after quite a bit of hassle, I managed to get the spare key from the company. When I finally got home, I found that my original keys had been hanging on my door—for eight full days. Countless delivery drivers, couriers, and possibly other people had passed through the building and seen it, but no one stole anything.

What you said is absolutely right. We’ve gotten used to this kind of society, so our expectations for safety when traveling are much higher than those of people from other countries. Credit cards are, of course, convenient, but in China we’re used to going out with just a phone—no wallet, no cards. No risk of fraud, no risk of robbery, convenient, fast, and safe.

What do you think of Naomi Wu's case?

To be honest, I roughly searched around, including asking AI, but I couldn’t really figure out what happened. I hardly have any impression of her; her videos can be found on Chinese internet, but the recommendation algorithms have never suggested them to me. From what I’ve found so far, she seems quite controversial. She might have been limited in reach on Chinese internet. Maybe the government found a suitable reason, or maybe not — I really haven’t clarified that part.

Also, Linux is invovled?

It seems she was silenced for publicly advocating for LGBT and visited by agents multiple times about it. But there are a lot more details I'm sure.

I think she got in trouble for exposing multiple companies that were violating GPL. They came after her by threatening her GF's family with deportation to the camps (allegedly)

It’s possible. LGBT issues and religion in China fall into a category of “you can exist, but don’t promote it.” There are cities, bars, and celebrities known for being LGBT, but the government never officially acknowledges them and doesn’t allow public advocacy. Discussion among ordinary people is fine. Some other places might not agree with this approach, but for me and most Chinese people, we really like it. In China, transitioning isn’t actually difficult: once you complete the psychological evaluation and surgery, the government will verify it and issue a new ID. But you’ll never see it publicly promoted because, in the eyes of the authorities, it doesn’t exist.

You like that people are caged for publicly acknowledging LGBT? It’s hard to understand that, because it’s not just that it’s lowkey there, it’s something people are under threat of caging for.

(Yes it is coming under threat of caging in the US too now.)

I totally support LGBT rights, but china is not the only country in the world and US is very good at color revolution. Many of the programs related to feminists and LGBT rights turn outs to involved with people and founds connect to USA. So until USA is collapsed, NO.

This seems more reasonable than most other countries where LGBT advocacy / propaganda / public exposure and circus draws negative opinions and more discrimination and aggression.

He is saying that LGBT advocacy/public exposure (what LGBT "propaganda" have you seen?) results in caging. Isn't that worse? How is caging better than negative opinions?

What caging? He didn't say anything about any caging. Did you reply to the correct comment?

> the government never officially acknowledges them and doesn’t allow public advocacy

Do you think this is a polite suggestion from the government?

I wouldn't call any police action "polite", but the worst I remember reading about was a 24h detention of a crossdresser that was caught on security cameras by building administration while doing self-bondage videos. The security camera feeds were shared live with the other residents until the police arrived. That person described the policemen as "polite" in the uploaded video.

I trust it more than other internet posts, as it's a first-hand description. It also mostly matches what @yanhangyhy wrote here.

There's more than that. She was on the verge of exposing Chinese intelligence surveillance methods/technologies. The Shenzhen authorities know her well and were relatively lenient, but the moment she touched upon the intelligence area, she attracted the attention of much more paranoid security officials. Those officials then found out she had a Uyghur girlfriend and became even more paranoid due to suspected links with terrorism; those officials, after all, spent the 80s/90s exchanging bullets with Uyghur terrorists.

If suspect these are much more of a reason to offboard her from social media than all the LGBT stuff, which she had already done for years.

Source: The Daily Mao on Twitter, who said he physically spoke with her half a year ago. Naomi said she's fine, she's just not allowed to have a public social media presence. She's very lucky not to have been thrown in jail for national security/terrorism reasons, especially given how paranoid the security officials are. Perhaps the Shenzhen authorities put in a good word for her.

>For instance, you cannot post offensive memes about leaders. This is different from the U.S.

Well...

> This year I just completed my first trip overseas, visiting the UAE

So you have only ever visited a country that is very definitely NOT a democracy, and you have never lived in a democratic country.

> In the end, a large number of the responsible personnel were punished or sentenced. The problem was resolved, and it did not implicate the Party itself.

How is that "gaming many other freedoms". If the party was not to lame fine, but what happens when they are to blame?

> China doesn’t have problems like California’s high-speed rail, the UK’s HS2, or the charging stations under Biden that were barely built and with almost no one held accountable.

You said you cannot criticise the party and its leaders. So if something like HS2's cost overruns happen would you even know about it? Does everything get done at the planned cost?

> Our social media is full of reviews about being stolen from or robbed while traveling in Europe, and the same applies to Southeast Asia

That is not the reality of living in Europe. I lived most of my life in the UK and those sorts of crimes are rare.

> So you have only ever visited a country that is very definitely NOT a democracy, and you have never lived in a democratic country.

i belive no country is democratic. its would be a fool to believe the two-party-voting-system=democratic.

> How is that "gaming many other freedoms". If the party was not to lame fine, but what happens when they are to blame?

its the freedom of accountability, people do wrong things, they get punished or sentence to death. most country dont have.

> So if something like HS2's cost overruns happen would you even know about it? Does everything get done at the planned cost?

yes. no, but things like HS2 would never happen in China. its just too Absurd. In China, at most the leaders might embezzle some money, but they still get the project done.

> That is not the reality of living in Europe. I lived most of my life in the UK and those sorts of crimes are rare.

Compared to China, it is still a very unsafe place. if i have travel to most of the relative-safe countries, i might go to EU. After all ,i read so many books about it, it's still a must-to-go place

I mean, here are the obvious for this minority member:

- My marriage is invalid in China

- There are multiple clinics that can prescribe me gender-affirming care with little gatekeeping in my city (for now at least). My understanding is that there is significantly more gatekeeping in gender-affirming care in China

- The government actively censors discourse related to my sexual orientation and gender identity

While it appears the US is looking to become more like China in this regard, for now life under the Chinese government would be comparatively untenable for me.

> for now at least

So much in such few words. It sucks immensely.

I am a trans lesbian and thus I am ineligible for a legal gender change in china. The UK is bad about trans people, sure, but at least it is legally possible for me (for now)

This is false information. Gender transition is legal in China. There are many cases on Chinese social media. We even have a celebrity who is transgender.

On Chinese internet there is even a joke. Because women retire earlier than men in China, people discuss whether they can exploit a loophole by changing their legal gender to female in the year before the female retirement age to retire earlier.

I'm sorry, I got my information from The Economist, which says that you have to be unmarried, heterosexual and get permission from your family to change your gender, and you have to have surgery before you are recognised

In China, the process requires passing a strict psychological evaluation and surgery before one can change their legal identity and be recognized by the state. Since I used to be know some people from the community, so I have some understanding. I don’t know the policies of other countries, but for those who truly want to transition, I think this is necessary. The requirement to be unmarried is reasonable, since China does not recognize same-sex marriage. I’m not entirely sure about the family consent requirement, but China has the household registration system (hukou), which records family members, so it seems somewhat reasonable. As for being heterosexual, I don’t think that should be a standard requirement, since the main requirements are the hospital’s psychological evaluation and surgery. At least I know of many cases where people successfully changed their legal identity. Of course, these requirements might seem a bit strict in other countries.

This is horrible and only seems to show that voidUpdate was in fact right.

> I think this is necessary

Are you trans?

Keeping it strictly medical and requiring a surgical procedure that only the most dedicated would choose seems a lot more reasonable than the western idea of basing it off identity and having basically no gatekeeping.

Sounds like a gross violation of human rights, along with eugenics. https://tgeu.org/human-rights-victory-european-court-of-huma...

Depends on if one agrees with that ECtHR judgment.

Considering that Article 8 of the ECHR is framed as a negative right (as in freedom from coercion and interference):

> Right to respect for private and family life

> 1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

> 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

Then it seems odd that the ECtHR decided, at some point, to start interpreting it as a positive right (as in obliging specific actions to be taken), in this case the argument that anyone should be free to instruct the state to change their sex marker on state-issued identity documentation, with minimal restrictions attached.

Also they seem to have disregarded that permitting this may have significant repercussions on the rights and freedoms of others, depending on what exactly this sex marker permits an individual to do in any particular jurisdiction, i.e. accessing services and facilities restricted to those of that sex.

Is this yet another alt of the person who keeps making new accounts every few days for the past 2 years in order to post antitrans/terf stuff?

I’m not, but I know quite a few people who are. I’ve seen too many people regret it after surgery. Sometimes I even think the evaluation requirements aren’t strict enough.

People that you know personally or propaganda that you saw online? And what perventage of these cases was due to bad surgical outcomes? (Potentially due to surgeon incompetence)

Because I really doubt that you personally know many trans people in this category.

> Sometimes I even think the evaluation requirements aren’t strict enough.

Leave it to trans people to judge that.

According to the NIH, the regret rates for transgender surgeries are somewhere in the region of 1%. Regret rates for knee surgery are somewhere in the region of 10%. The evaluation requirements for knee surgeries should be way higher then, surely, if even 1% is too much?

It's worth reading this critique of the paper that 1% figure comes from. Very unlikely that it is an accurate representation of regret:

https://journals.lww.com/prsgo/fulltext/2021/11000/letter_to...

I asked you a question before but you forgot to respond :)

People in europe were making the same joke. It wasn't done with respect of trans people.

Have visited China often. My major gripe to living there would be digital freedom and surveillance - unlocking bootloader,etc are heavily restricted there. Plus the GFW, which does prevent the population being psyop'd by foreign social media, but is a small pain if you need to use outside services.

That doesn't really affect my daily life though, especially for someone born there. If it's the tradeoff for the other aspects (high public safety, developed infrastructure...) then I would consider accepting it.