> "This is why the Chinese government feels that it is under attack by the United States, and it does not see a line between NGOs, the NYT/WSJ, and the US government..."

They are neither incompetent nor ignorant. They can tell who's who. When they want Industrial info, they know where and how to get it. When they want advanced tech, they know how to get it. When they want to retaliate "cybernetically" they know how to do it.

I would say, as others have pointed out, that this is in retaliation to the pieces about graft and wealth building by CN officials counter to the spirit of the revolution because it could cause internal PLA dissent/strife -and to see if they could obtain info about sourc(e)s of that info.

>"and in general even the NYT does tend to side with the USG against China or Arab regimes"

This is like comparing people's comments about the weather and saying "see, they are aligned, they agree on aspects about the weather". I think it's more that their views coincide rather than the implied "pseudo-state-organ-piece" view. They (CN) are not naive.

I'd predict that if you began hosting Fa Lun Gong sympathetic views and began getting traction that you (your site) would become a target -not because you'd be assoc with the gov't, or even think you were related to the gov't, but because FLG is something they consider counter to their interest. You could be based in North Korea, but if you published things they found counter-productive, they'd look into investigationg your nature, I suspect.

  I would say, as others have pointed out, that this is in 
  retaliation to the pieces about graft and wealth building 
  by CN officials counter to the spirit of the revolution 
  because it could cause internal PLA dissent/strife -and to 
  see if they could obtain info about sourc(e)s of that info.

Absolutely. But the greater context is that they see this as a skirmish in the larger campaign to discredit the PRC's current leaders, foment discontent, overthrow the government, and set up a (US-controlled) democracy.

You have presented nothing to connect that to this, except the obvious one: that state sponsored actions have state objectives behind them. You're arguing by insinuation and equivocation, and present nothing relevant to this event. It's like a comment section on the Stuxnet worm being inundated with comments about Iran sponsoring suicide bombers in Israel. Yes, it's related, but the volume of "evidence" you've added to this discussion suggests you just want to have a conversation about something else.

I thought it was helpful to see a rational state objective behind why the Chinese military may be hacking the New York Times (the article leaves motive unanswered beyond insinuating general malevolence).

"It's like a comment section on the Stuxnet worm being inundated with comments about Iran sponsoring suicide bombers in Israel."

This may not be a news flash for Israelis or Americans, but I bet it would make for informed reading for an Iranian (or even for an American sitting next to an Iranian). I've found foreign articles on current events illuminating of my own cultural blinders.

...except the GP provided no rational state objective for this except insinuating general malevolence as perceived by the Chinese government. That's my whole point. There's no argument here except equivocation.

> This may not be a news flash for Israelis or Americans, but I bet it would make for informed reading for an Iranian (or even for an American sitting next to an Iranian). I've found foreign articles on current events illuminating of my own cultural blinders.

Sure, but Stuxnet was built for very specific purposes, and sponsorship of suicide bombers is so far down the list of motives that it becomes essentially a non sequitur. However, it does achieve very well a change in conversation from the implications of introducing a computer worm to sabotage a nuclear program to a discussion of how evil a regime is. The former is a conversation worth having, no matter how much you feel Stuxnet was justified.

Here, we have a comment about the "context" of this action, which is summed up for us pretty well above as "they see this as a skirmish in the larger campaign to discredit the PRC's current leaders, foment discontent, overthrow the government, and set up a (US-controlled) democracy" (which, incidentally, sounds exactly like the greater context for the great firewall and state-controlled media, as well). This completely ignores the very specific correlation the Times points out with a series of articles they ran on Premier Wen Jiabao. That accusation is much more specific then the "context" found above.

Well, you implied in your comment below that you weren't interested in a simple "discussion of how evil a regime is". Very understandable and I agree with you. Yet the thing is that without this context Americans just don't understand why the Chinese military would get involved on a negative story about a leader. It seems like a gross overreaction. Indeed, without understanding the context it just seems "evil".

Until you realize that undercutting popular support for a leader is step 1 in the PNAC handbook for democratic change. We accuse them of atrocities, we accuse them of holding WMDs, we accuse them of suppressing freedom of speech, we get their population to believe that they are illegitimate by funding "democracy" movements. Then the fighting starts and we drop off weapons with the rebels, even if we know full well this could result in something worse ("Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants").

Now half a dozen countries are burning across the Middle East in the name of setting up US-controlled democracies.

Yet most Americans don't get why the Chinese would defend their leaders reflexively or why the Chinese military would hit out. The view goes something like this: Sure, Wen Jiaobao may have skimmed some money off the top, but politicians are constantly caught in scandals and China has gotten richer while the US has gotten poorer. So China's corruption isn't fatal to growth, while America's bank/Fed chimera may well be. And yet America wants to set China on fire just like it has so many other countries in the world, first with words and then with guns.

So, yes, I do believe this context is relevant. You don't need to agree with their views, but you do need to understand why they see this as self-defense against US imperialism.

Again, all you've done is repeat the same explanation for the Great Firewall and censorship of news as soon as it starts to appear to be capable of "fomenting dissent". It's worth noting that many in China do not share your view, and we have the weibo messages to prove it. While there is certainly a good bit of animosity aimed at the US (both well-sourced and born of invented stories), it's ridiculous to claim that even a large portion of the populace believes that they need to be protected from revolution brought about by american psyops in the news.

Assuming that of them certainly sells the people of China short, not to mention the complete lack of agency you seem to believe the people that actually live in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, etc had in deciding to revolt in the first place. It's not clear what your personal belief is here (you're only reporting on the "context", after all), but you've repeated the libya arms thing enough that I'll assuage your fears: look back through history. Nation building by rebel proxy does not work as intended. You only have to look at your so called new "US-controlled democracies" to dispel any idea of US control.

Meanwhile, the new york times reported on corruption in those around Wen Jiabao, and the Chinese government hacked into their systems apparently so they could find out who provided information to the reporters and how they got the information that they did. It's a silly strawman to suppose that "without this context Americans just don't understand why the Chinese military would get involved on a negative story about a leader." No, it's extremely clear, and I think few here were very surprised.

  the complete lack of agency you seem to believe the people 
  that actually live in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, etc had 
  in deciding to revolt in the first place. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/21/barack-obama-ara...

  Egypt's revolution provided the first hurdle. Obama was 
  criticised for backing stability as the drama of Tahrir 
  Square unfolded. But on 1 February came his call for 
  Mubarak to step down "now". As the New York Times wrote: 
  "Obama upended three decades of American relations with its 
  most stalwart ally in the Arab world, putting the weight of 
  the United States squarely on the side of the Arab street."

As for this:

  look back through history. Nation building by rebel proxy 
  does not work 

Nation building doesn't work. Revolution by rebel proxy sure does. Governments don't overthrow themselves. As for history, the American Revolution succeeded because the French were pumping in money. The Vietnamese beat off the Americans because they had the Chinese and Soviets in their corner. The Afghans repelled the USSR with the help of the US and the Stinger missile. You will be hard pressed to find a revolution that won or even began without the intervention of foreign powers; where are the armaments coming from in the first place? The record shows that the Arab Spring was caused by US training, funding, armaments, and media support.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewante...

  “We learned how to organize and build coalitions,” said 
  Bashem Fathy, a founder of the youth movement that 
  ultimately drove the Egyptian uprisings. Mr. Fathy, who 
  attended training with Freedom House, said, “This certainly 
  helped during the revolution.”

  At one time the United States financed political reform 
  groups by channeling money through the Egyptian government. 
  But in 2005, under a Bush administration initiative, local 
  groups were given direct grants, much to the chagrin of 
  Egyptian officials.

  The Egyptian government even appealed to groups like 
  Freedom House to stop working with local political 
  activists and human rights groups.

  “They were constantly saying: ‘Why are you working with 
  those groups, they are nothing. All they have are slogans,’ 
  ” said Sherif Mansour, an Egyptian activist and a senior 
  program officer for the Middle East and North Africa at 
  Freedom House.

  When their appeals to the United States government failed, 
  the Egyptian authorities reacted by restricting the 
  activities of the American nonprofit organizations.

  In the face of government opposition, some groups moved 
  their training sessions to friendlier countries like Jordan 
  or Morocco. They also sent activists to the United States 
  for training.

Further documentation on this topic is not hard to find. But feel free to minimize the explicit, acknowledged support of the most powerful country in the world for violent democratic revolution in favor of local "agency". As for whether this article on the #2 leader in China was printed at random, The New York Times has a track record of coordinating with the US government:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/asia/22pakistan.html...

  The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold 
  information about Mr. Davis's ties to the agency at the 
  request of the Obama administration, which argued that 
  disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk. 
  Several foreign news organizations have disclosed some 
  aspects of Mr. Davis's work with the C.I.A. On Monday,  
  American officials lifted their request to withhold 
  publication, though George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, 
  declined any further comment.

http://www.salon.com/2011/02/21/nyt_16/

  It's one thing for a newspaper to withhold information 
  because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives. 
  But here, the U.S. Government has spent weeks making public 
  statements that were misleading in the extreme -- Obama's 
  calling Davis "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- while the NYT 
  deliberately concealed facts undermining those government 
  claims because government officials told them to do so. 
  That's called being an active enabler of government 
  propaganda. ...

  Following the dictates of the U.S. Government for what they 
  can and cannot publish is, of course, anything but new for 
  the New York Times. In his lengthy recent article on 
  WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, NYT Executive Editor Bill 
  Keller tried to show how independent his newspaper is by 
  boasting that they published their story of the Bush NSA 
  program even though he has "vivid memories of sitting in 
  the Oval Office as President George W. Bush tried to 
  persuade [him] and the paper's publisher to withhold the 
  eavesdropping story"; Keller neglected to mention that the 
  paper learned about the illegal program in mid-2004, but 
  followed Bush's orders to conceal it from the public for 
  over a year -- until after Bush was safely re-elected.

In other words, whether under Bush or Obama, the NYT has an acknowledged track record of coordinating with the US government on stories that could result in international incidents. A hit piece on one of the top people in the Chinese government might not have been done at the State Department's request, but it certainly would not have been published over the State Department's objection. The fact that its effect was to sow discontent with China's leadership is not unnoticed by anyone skeptical of US-exported democratic revolution.

While I totally understand and don't debate that the US has supported many of the revolutions in the Middle East, there is a fundamental difference between supporting and creating said movements.

As far as I can tell, the US has been a follower, not a leader, in these movements. Sure, activists have been trained in the US. That's been the case for decades though, and it took organization and significant change and economic pressure — not brought about by the US — in the region to create an the conditions for change.

I think this comes close to accusing an umbrella seller of conspiring with the weather because she happens to push umbrellas when it rains and switches to selling lemonade when it's hot. I think the NYT and Salon both have readerhips and understand them and try to ride waves of interest.

I think there are coincidences and occasionally there could be coercion (don't publish on account of national security) but I do not see it as "an organ of the gov't". It's self interest. In other words it's not comparable to XinHua News, as you're implying.

W/re ME revolutions. All those examples were in places where the outcome was nearly inevitable (needed some logistical/moral support) and the US/EU didn't want to appear to be on the 'wrong side' of history. Witness CN and RU. Specially RU tends to pour arms into those conflicts to upset the West, to some extent --I don't fully understand their intent but they are unsuccessful in much but delaying the inevitable.

Perhaps. The bigger 'threat' is not so much from foreign media per se, but from internal Chinese (activists) who would translate and disseminate this information via various channels. It's not as though most Chinese know how/bother to avoid the GFC or know how to read English. It's the internal 'conspiracy theorists' and anti-propagandists who the gov't fear the most which is why they have introduced laws governing internet cafes, ISPs, blogs, microblogs, and hire thousands to scrub sites of offending info, etc.

The gov't mostly want to control internal communication. I think in this case they were looking for info on where the NYT got this information, so they could track down and rectify the sourc(e)s.

Very good points!

>> it does not see a line between NGOs, the NYT/WSJ, and the US government.

Aren't we all doing the same mistake when we refer to them? All we know is that the attacks came from China, so we safely assume it came from the Government? Why is it that each time something comes from China (a country with approximately 5 time more people than the US - source Wikipedia) we blame their government and treat it as a declaration of war (or, with less exaggeration, a political move)? Is it possible that this enormous gigantic human honeycomb has, say, organizations, corporations, competitors, God-knows-what-which-isn't-their-government?

The western media have created this weird image of China and ... something doesn't add up. I've never been there and I hope I'll get the chance some day, but I can't help but feel that "someone" (feel free to replace this word with the antagonists of your favorite conspiracy theory) is trying to shove down our throat that China is a menace.

That being said, I agree with your analysis. The Chinese government has seen what happened in the Arab world and it knows that the US constantly needs an enemy. It probably does feel threatened.

I've been there. I spent 6 months last year.

What you might not understand is that the Chinese government has its hands in every corporation, organization, competitor, etc.

You might have false assumptions coming from the US system, where corporations and government are separate entities. They even sue one another at times.

In China, large corporations are overseen by the government. The government funds them, decides what they can and cannot do, and decides which corporations will succeed. You cannot build a search engine or social network right now, unless you pull a political coup, because the government controls which companies succeed. Baidu and Tencent are the "blessed children" for the time being.

Within the government, China is run by various clans, continually vying for power in the Communist Party. It's easiest to build a large company by having a family member in the upper echelon of the party, to push things through.

Everything is connected to the government in China. It's in your company's interest to keep the party in power, because the corrupt politicians keep you in business. It's in your wealthy family's interest to keep the government in power, because they keep you wealthy. It's a giant corrupt system, keeping itself in place.

Most likely, these attacks were actually executed by some low-level hackers somewhere. But most certainly, someone in the government has something to do with their funding, organization, or guidance.

>> What you might not understand is that the Chinese government has its hands in every corporation, organization, competitor, etc.

Yes, this is the point. Being a 30-year-old Chinese, I've already known under a dictatorship almost everything is controlled by gov. Want to give birth to a child? need a permit (or your kid won't have ID nor social security); want to start up your own NGO? need a extremely complex license which is designed to scare you away; want to publish a book? need a license and it will be censored or even be banned; want to form a street demonstration? almost impossible.

I think for a dictator, he needs a system to restrain the free flow of people and information (a good example, North Korea), to do this the gov uses its power/money/people to reach out as far as possible into every corner of social and personal lives. It wants to know everything and wants to control everything (whether it can do is another story).

I cannot say I have any evidences to prove a sophisticated operation like this can only be done by gov, but I believe only gov or gov sponsored organizations can do this.

"Government" is not one cohesive entity, certainly not in a country as big as China. Sure, there might be some rogue actors sympathetic to such attacks. But that doesn't imply that "Chinese government" in general is supportive of such acts, just like a few corruption scandals do not imply that entire US government is corrupt.

But for each scandal we need to re-evaluate the prior.

I'm irritated that you post this as if presupposing that the US government is not corrupt. I know you are factually correct, but the connotation bothers me.

When they failed to stop SOPA of their own accord, I realized that the majority are either incompetent or corrupt.

Well, my main point was about China and mentioned US govt just as an example. If you don't like that example, how about: "Its wrong to call a corporation corrupt just because a few mid-level employees go rogue"

> Aren't we all doing the same mistake when we refer to them? All we know is that the attacks came from China, so we safely assume it came from the Government?

I think the reason they see all of our institutions as one head of the same beast is that in China things really do work that way.

Of course, as parent points out, it's not completely false to see the United States that way, although our institutions collaborate in a more anarchic and haphazard fashion than the Chinese leadership may realize.

China pushes an alternative world view[0] to the US, it doesn't involve individual rights, and free markets. It seems the majority in the west (primarily the U.S) view this as a 'menace' or a 'threat' to their way of life... hence the constant propaganda.

EDIT: Just in response to the down votes, I thought maybe it was due to no citation.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_market_economy

On every parametric cultural ontology I've seen the U.S. comes out at the top for individualism, e.g. Hoftstede's IDV: {US, 91; China, 20} [1]. This is why we believe in free speech, even if it's hateful speech, to a level alarming to the rest of the world. As Americans we are likely to see society as a composition of individuals than a cohesive system, or of individuals as points on the fabric of society.

[1] http://geert-hofstede.com/united-states.html

Right, that's exactly the other citation I needed.

I think that explains why the US is so hostile to the activities of china (and vice versa)

The giant honeycomb is (supposedly) tucked away inside the Great Firewall.

As much as I'm tempted to accept the self-loathing implicit in your analysis, temphn, I must strenuously object. Talking to people should never be denied or (in this case) punished. I don't care if it's government sponsored propaganda, the NYT, or the KFC marketing department: there is no justification for censorship.

If, as you say, "the Chinese government feels that it is under attack by the United States" then perhaps they should ask themselves why they are so afraid of information. Why are they not able to influence their own population on their home turf more effectively than these American interlopers? If they can't do that, then perhaps the foundations of their government are too weak to support the dreams and aspirations of almost 2Bn human beings.

I'm all for freedom of information, but let's not kid ourselves that the U.S. government doesn't restrict information either:

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

You know, I really don't think that a regional book ban of James Joyce in 1933 is really all that comparable with what's going on in China today. Call me crazy.

I don't think you are wrong about the way China perceives the US influence, and I don't think China is wrong to perceive it that way, either.

The US government publicly avows its support for human rights and democracy around the world in general (even as it diminishes those very principles within its own borders -- but that's another story). It's not exactly a secret, although America definitely makes exceptions for its own convenience all the time (e.g. its support for the Shah of Iran, or the dictator Mubarak), and doesn't tend to publicly proclaim its support for revolution by as-yet unknown actors in nuclear-armed states like China.

However, I don't see any evidence that this notion is related to this specific case of hacking. Concern about US influences that would threaten the autocratic regime that currently controls China may be one big reason why they developed a large-scale military hacking capability.

But in this particular case, it simply looks like the principal(s) of the regime using those capabilities to try to find out the names of people who leaked sensitive information -- presumably, so that those people can be imprisoned/tortured/murdered.

The CPC simply wanted the names of whoever was leaking their corruption to the foreign press to 'fix the leak' by rounding these people up for unpleasant interrogation.

lol western orchestrated arab spring in China. I don't think so.

Hey China, you guy's stop buying our debt, floating our consumer economy with a giant pool of near slave labor we can exploit, and stop giving us billions for our resources or we will promote a rebellion so all your nuclear weapons can wind up in the hands of breakaway republics that might be hostile like nuclear Uyghurstan

>> Whether or not you believe the Arab Spring actually resulted in good outcomes, the salient fact is that US funded groups started the revolutions and prominent neocons (like Fukuyama in that WSJ article) were/are calling for similar actions in China. This is why the Chinese government feels that it is under attack by the United States

The Chinese don't give a rat's hoot about the Arabs. They attack American computer systems for obvious reasons, obvious to most of us.

You are also categorically incorrect.

The Chinese central government most certainly cares about Arabs, as they share a disputed border with several majority Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Moreover they have repressed domestic minority populations who are predominantly Muslim. The extent to which there are Islamic unification or nationalist movements (which are often tied in with movements in the middle east), the Chinese government very much does care about unrest amongst Chinese muslim populations.

I'm confused... What's the relationship between Arabs and Pakistan/Afghanistan?

There's a difference between being Arab and being Muslim. The greatest Muslim countries are not Arab (Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan).

"Islamic unification" is by definition the opposite of "nationalist movements", and is very unlikely to happen. I can guarantee that Saudis, Pakistanis, Morrocans and Turks have way too little in common to even consider unification.

Source: I'm a non-Muslim from the Middle East.

Revolutionaries tend not to be known for dealing in practicalities.

And yeah, you're right, Arabian culture is distinct from other parts of the Muslim world, but neither are they totally disentangled either. Both the green revolution in Iran and the Egyptian revolution against Hosni Mubarak had well defined religious components for example.

Again bad example, Iran is not an Arab country. They don't speak the same language, they don't share the same culture, they consider themselves the descendants of the Persian Empire, not the Caliphate (the big Arab Empire a few hundred years ago).

Also, I'm not sure I get your last sentence either. An awful lot of revolutions in the world (Arab and otherwise) have been fueled by religion. Even in the US, religion might not have been a motivation for the War of Independance, but it had a major impact on the relationship between government and religion.

Arabs also know how to do revolutions without involving religion:

- Lebanon went through something extremely similar to the Arab Spring back in 2005. The revolution against the oppressors of the time succeeded by putting religion aside and having most parties unite. (Lebanon is a segregated mosaic of approximately 17 religions, each having more or less political power).

- Syrian resistance (or rebels, depending on your point of view) are not, despite what the media is telling you, an Islamist resistance. The leaders of the resistance have clearly repeated over and over again that they're not after the minorities, they're not trying to put Islam forward, they're simply against the Assad regime.

jebblue, I believe the point of the paragraph you highlighted is that China feels it's under attack by the United States, not that it cares about the Arabs.

Maybe I should have highlighted the whole drivel of a comment ... my point ... remains what I wrote. America trying to teach Arabs about the virtues of Democracy is +not+ why China attacks American computer systems.

No one said what you're disagreeing with. Try reading the comment again.

> It's not obvious that they are wrong in that assessment.

Any entity with the reach of the United States is naturally going to have connections with all kinds of actors. While the idea of Americans/Zionists/Illuminati/Nibiru pulling the strings behind every major event is no doubt very exciting for conspiracy theorists (eg. I'm getting 2.28 million google hits for ["dalai lama * a cia agent"]), and simpler (ignoring the agency of the citizens of those countries), that doesn't mean sane people should believe extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence. It's not in anyone's interest to topple the PRC, even if it were possible, which it is not.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/africa/weapons-sent-...

  But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly 
  was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in 
  helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not 
  previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar 
  strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to   
  become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi 
  government.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/06/16/us-iran-election-t...

  U.S. State Department speaks to Twitter over Iran

  The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted 
  the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a 
  planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to 
  Iranians who are disputing their election.

http://judiciary.house.gov/news/Hearing%20Statement%20hr2121...

  China Democracy Promotion Act of 2011

  By denying visas to certain Chinese nationals in the 
  government who promote human rights abuses, we might as 
  well assist Chinese patriots who work to end the lack of 
  accountability for government officials who are part of the 
  Chinese Communist Party. This legislation will send a 
  message that abuses by these officials that go unchecked 
  within China will not be ignored by the international 
  community.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/world/asia/chinese-communi...

  But they say the party’s agenda, as it stands today, is not 
  visionary enough to set China on the path to stability. 
  What is needed, they say, is a comprehensive strategy to 
  gradually extricate the Communist Party, which has more 
  than 80 million members, from its heavy-handed control of 
  the economy, the courts, the news media, the military, 
  educational institutions, civic life and just the plain 
  day-to-day affairs of citizens. Only then, the critics 
  argue, can the government start to address the array of 
  issues facing China 

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674008793

  By examining the growth in individual rights, the public 
  sphere, democratic processes, and pluralization, the author 
  seeks to answer questions concerning the relevance of 
  liberal democratic ideas for China and the relationship 
  between a democratic political culture and a democratic 
  political system. 

http://csis.org/files/publication/TWQ_13Winter_He.pdf

  China represents an uncomfortable thorn in U.S. efforts to 
  promote democracy around the world. While some projects 
  have been successful, a large gap exists between the 
  increasing U.S. funding in China and its "limited
  impact." [1] Moreover, U.S. democracy promotion in China 
  has contributed to strategic distrust between China and the 
  United States; Beijing perceives it as a strategic move to 
  destabilize the rise of China and sabotage the Communist
  Party’s leadership.

Given countless public statements like this, the PRC thinks with some justification that all these American institutions - Twitter, the State Department, the New York Times, Harvard - would like to see their government changed and replaced with a democracy. Despite their obvious internal differences, said institutions do share the assumption that exporting Western democracy will be good for China. But China sees what it has done for the Middle East and may have its own opinions.

  that doesn't mean sane people should believe extraordinary 
  claims without extraordinary evidence

Move along, nothing to see here? Yet the NYT itself admits: "Diplomatic cables report how American officials frequently assured skeptical [Arab] governments that the training was aimed at reform, not promoting revolutions." Much of this is out in the open, so it's more coordination than conspiracy. As for the phrase "conspiracy theory", the implication of that phrase is that conspiracies don't exist. And to entertain the idea that Americans (let alone Zionists!) could possibly conspire is equated by you to believing in the Illuminati and the Nibiru. Yet in this selfsame article the NYT implies that the Chinese government engaged in a conspiracy against them.

Perhaps then you believe it is only Americans that never conspire. What then to make of "the Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants"?

Occam's Razor says some office working for the Chinese government is looking for who snitched on Wen Jiabao's problematic enormous wealth.

> Perhaps then you believe it is only Americans that never conspire.

seriously?

Just look at the flailing US response day by day in the Egyptian revolution as they tried to get ahead of how it would turn out for an example of how the Obama administration was just as blindsided by the Arab Spring as everyone else.

For US intervention in the Libyan revolution, after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Rice said "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."

More generally, a bunch of unconnected dots about supporting democracy or human rights in China, like any other interesting subject, is normal.

> Yet the NYT itself admits: "Diplomatic cables report how American officials frequently assured skeptical [Arab] governments that the training was aimed at reform, not promoting revolutions."

From the same article (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewante...): "No one doubts that the Arab uprisings are home grown, rather than resulting from “foreign influence,” as alleged by some Middle Eastern leaders."

>>For US intervention in the Libyan revolution, after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Rice said "I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."

A change of subject, but... Why have this been forgotten today?! Syria seems worse than Libya. It reminds me of the civil war in ex-Jugoslavia with the rape camps and atrocities.

(I mostly read discussions about China to see if I can spot the members of the "50 cent army" :-) )

> As for the phrase "conspiracy theory", the implication of that phrase is that conspiracies don't exist.

Exactly this. Or that all theories are not worth our time, since they are just that, "just a theory" (implying there is no proof?), like creationists (of which, America is filled with) like to say.

> Or that all theories are not worth our time, since they are just that, "just a theory" (implying there is no proof?), like creationists (of which, America is filled with) like to say.

congratulations on the beautiful ad hominem

I don't see it. I was adding to the argument that you are using the word "theory" with a negative connotation, which makes absolutely no sense. And that mistake is very common in America, since you have religious folks spreading misinformation all over the country, including schools. On the other hand, I can see an ad hominem here:

> the idea of Americans/Zionists/Illuminati/Nibiru pulling the strings behind every major event is no doubt very exciting for conspiracy theorists

Someone is a "conspiracy theorist", so whatever he finds exciting must be wrong.

It's ad hominem because (a) bringing up creationism make the US look bad and (b) has nothing to do with conspiracy theories about the US having orchestrated the Arab Spring and plotting to overthrow the PRC. Are you saying I'm a creationist, or am being secretly influenced by them?

In fact, believing in creationism fundamentally relies on conspiracy theories and makes one more likely to believe in conspiracy theories.

> Someone is a "conspiracy theorist", so whatever he finds exciting must be wrong.

From a Bayesian perspective, I would get behind "much more likely", yes. I'm claiming the conspiracy theories involving those four all assume magical powers in similar ways and are just as unlikely, so I think they're OK to associate with each other, as they inform on each other.

> Whether or not you believe the Arab Spring actually resulted in good outcomes, the salient fact is that US funded groups started the revolutions

Wait, what? Do you have any evidence to support that?

Yes, please read the article I linked:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewante...

  Title: US Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings

Here is another.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/world/africa/weapons-sent-...

  The Obama administration secretly gave its blessing to arms 
  shipments to Libyan rebels from Qatar last year, but 
  American officials later grew alarmed as evidence grew that 
  Qatar was turning some of the weapons over to Islamic 
  militants, according to United States officials and foreign 
  diplomats.

  But in the months before, the Obama administration clearly 
  was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in 
  helping arm Libyan militants, concerns that have not 
  previously been reported. The weapons and money from Qatar    
  strengthened militant groups in Libya, allowing them to 
  become a destabilizing force since the fall of the Qaddafi 
  government.

and do you have anything at all that makes this relevant to the hacking incident at the nytimes?

Read the top comment that started this whole conversation. It's foundational to the whole thread. There is no thread without that claim.

If you read my comments above, you can see that I did indeed read the top comment.

All that is provided is the assertion that all (american?) organizations questioning the Chinese government are apparently seen as arms of the United States's campaign against China, which explains why the Chinese government would make this move. What I was asking for any specific evidence that would preclude the much more obvious explanation that the New York Times wrote a story exposing corruption surrounding the Chinese Premier, and the people infiltrating the system were looking for the sources of that information (which is what the New York Times themselves are claiming). Without specific information, all we're left with is that "the Chinese government does not like dissent", and the Arab spring narrative is merely sophistry.

@magicalist: I agree with you (i.e., that in this case the obvious explanation is operative, and furthermore that the Chinese government is capable of discriminating between the actions of the US government and those of the NYT) but there's no sense arguing the point.

To me, this back-and-forth is reminiscent of "lefter-than-thou" debates I have witnessed before, and they all end up right where they started.

One caveat: it's quite possible that there are US government sponsored probes of Chinese sites, that we are not aware of, and that may be quite extensive and outrageous (to the Chinese government). So this skirmish with the NYT may be part of that larger cold war. This is not the same as saying (as the original comment did) that the Chinese government sees the NYT as a proxy of the US government.

False dichotomy perhaps? Consider this specific instance as a subset:

  >  the New York Times wrote a story exposing corruption surrounding the 
  >  Chinese Premier, and the people infiltrating the system were looking 
  >  for the sources of that information

of:

  > all (american?) organizations questioning the Chinese government are
  > apparently seen as arms of the United States's campaign against China

As a Chinese, I would say the Chinese government is worried about 'Arab Spring', but that's not why they attacked NYT this time. The 'Great firewall' was built to prevent any uprising similar to 'Arab spring' from being started.

How likely do you think a Chinese spring would be?

It's unfortunate that we don't get more foreign perspective on HN and Reddit - I hope you comment more.

I'm first generation Chinese-American, IMO not going to happen. Chinese people are concerned about money first and foremost followed by their family.

Also I'd like to challenge the implied perspective that somehow American democracy is somehow superior. In fact the very notion of fighting for a political cause is a Western idea, Chinese people are less naive than Americans in a sense because everyone in China knows that the nightly newscast (Xinwen Lianbo) is all BS whereas people in America listen and cling onto their political religion (Rachael Maddow/Amy Goodman/Colbert Report for Left Coast Yuppies, Glenn Beck for Tea Partiers and CNN for mainstream suburbanites).

The Chinese idea is that politics has really less to do with personal life as they are the waves of a ocean to a surfer; they come and go, rather than try to bend the all-powerful, insurmountable, it's best to yield to the ocean, surf in its direction. People humbly refer themselves as One of the Hundred Names (Lao Bai Xin), separate from the emperors or now CPC in their celestial palace.

Not fighting for one's identity and civil representation may seem apathetic and offensive to American sensibilities. But for the Chinese, one would rather improve one's lot by focusing on getting into a better school, a good employer and finding a good partner for marriage and taking care parents than getting a piece of legislation changed advertising that you could potentially live a better life.

I'm sure supporters of American-style democracy will point to the civil rights movement, the New Deal, child labor laws as democracy-in-action that changed working class people's lives for the better if people stick together and march onto Washington. But the Chinese perspective sees revolutions and protests as natural occurrences of the masses dissatisfaction, like waves in an ocean, they will form when the conditions are right (mass protests on polluting factories, mass Weibo posts on air quality and expose on certain official's corruption). Even Tianmen incident was a protest made by the falling dominoes of communism and a mass of disaffected students and workers with varying and complex mix of agenda's - and to compare with the Westerner's idea of a rallying cry (Sandy Hook, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Rosa Parks) with a singular hero or matyr, it's a contrast of Taoist Wu-Wei and Confucian idea of communal harmony to American individualism and manifest destiny.

I think you're overstating your case. I would say the "228 incident" [1] would counter your assertion that rallying cries (political causes) are anathema or that people don't care about authoritarianism as they might seek over ways to overcome the difficulties presented by such (following your waves in the ocean).

I think the healthy political involvement (even antagonistic approach) to politics in, practically Chinese, Taiwan speaks to how, essentially, Chinese people did "march on Washington" to produce change and shake off authoritarianism and did have a singular genesis with Lin, Jiang-mai and the Tienma Teahouse incident.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/228_Incident

The political ecology of Taiwan when 228 incident occurred is largely different than the current (smoggy and turbid) one in Mainland China. And in the late 1980s, KMT regime lost its vitality(, but still holds some kinda moral integrity, )as the older generation who fled from the Mainland to Taiwan around late 1940s died out or retired, allowing a transformation of the political session there. However, in Mainland China, the power of the ruling party still tightly grasp the controls and the grassroots are more suppressed and less clearly divided than those in Taiwan at the time.

I'm not trying to generalize that a revolution would not happen here in China but changes in near future is highly unlikely, except that the economy of China would collapse or the ruling party itself would be split by inner struggles.

One of my implied points was that democracy is not 'foreign' and uninteresting to the Chinese, as implied by the OP. Prior to Mao's consolidating power, there were lots of CN intellectuals who were very excited about the prospects for CN and democracy. Song, Jiaoren was one such enthusiast of democracy who was assassinated prior to assuming CN Premiership[1]

It reminded me somewhat of the Japanese justification for protecting domestic ski manufacturers from EU mfgs: "Japanese snow is different".

[1]http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568587-shot-killed...

> It's unfortunate that we don't get more foreign perspective on HN and Reddit.

Agree. But you should be aware that culturally different point of views and requests to avoid US-centrism on HN are often downvoted. I have experienced it myself. I do not care that much except that I fear other potential contributors may feel it as an injunction to "shut up".

For exmple, I detected that many of my colleagues (in an It company) read HN very regularly, but I am under the impression that they would not try to comment or would be repelled by downvotes.

What? Why? I happily wish for the day that the Great Firewall gets shut off, but in my book, the Chinese Government has been fantastically successful.

The sheer number of people brought out of poverty in the last few decades is mind-boggling. In 1981, 85%[1] of China's population (that's 850 million people[3]) lived on < $1.25 a day. In 2005, that was 16% (200 million people)! The USA is at 16%[2].

I'm confident that we'll eventually see reform in China. It'll take a few decades. People are still "high" on growth. Once the growth slows down, people will start taking a more critical eye on their government, and change will occur. I think those changes will be occur gradually and peacefully.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_Peoples_Republic... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States [3] http://www.chinability.com/Population.htm

It might be worth taking a quick glance at those articles again to make sure you're making a meaningful comparison.

The US poverty figures you quote are for an income of $23k/yr, or ~$11/hr. In that chart you quote for China, you notice that even the 71% mark only gets you up to $5/day (so $0.60/hr).

Frack me. Good point!

Edit: thinking about it. Isn't the poverty line relative to the cost of living? It may take a lot less money to feed and clothe a family in China than in the US.

Correct. The number of people living in the US under the UN definition of poverty is ~0

In one of my visions, the Internet freedom would deteriorate after some 'Spring', as the security deteriorated in Egypt in the past years. And the next one taking the power would only control the firewall more tightly.

I didn't ask the question rhetorically. I agree with you, but it's nice to get different perspectives as well.

not op but I would say almost nil. The "Arab Spring" occurred in already unstable regimes, which China is not. There is also a massive difference in scale with regard to the amount of power that must change hands for something even close to occur - a much higher activation energy.

I think the best hope for China is a gradual transition to democratic reform as the old guard passes on. It's likely though that nepotism will bridge the generation gap.

A friend of mine studying Foreign Relations, pointed me to The Heartlands Theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geographical_Pivot_of_Histo... ).

Basically, it states that since 50% of world's resources are concentrated at Europe + Asia + Africa, whoever desires to control the world should control this area first. If you think of it this way, it makes sense that if an international super-power such as the USA wishes to maintain that power, it has to control this region, or at least make sure no one else controls it. The greatest threat in this situation is certainly China and the best possible way to attack this problem would be to create internal strife considering the peculiar circumstances. </tinfoil>

It's more important to understand that there's not one monolithic "Chinese perspective" at any level.

It is about powerful political masters of China trying to hold on to their riches.

> This is why the Chinese government feels that it is under attack by the United States, and it does not see a line between NGOs, the NYT/WSJ, and the US government,

Ironically, you are assuming the same thing about China.

Because that's actually how it IS in China.

China is a giant corrupt honeycomb. There are blurred lines between corporation/government. Corporations are often a face for government interests. It's totally corrupt, and everybody knows that the face of an organization is not the actual motives behind the organization.

A single Chinese clan will control multiple branches of government and multiple corporations. They all seem separate, but they have the same interests and work together.

It makes sense for the Chinese to assume that the US is similar. That there is some corrupt connection behind the faces of separate entities, just like in China.

In point of fact I think this kind of hacking attempt is a kind of ham-handed attempt to control what cannot be controlled. The Chinese are pissed, and so someone put some money and time toward attacking the NYT. And not doing a very good job, either.

The US, by contrast, has more direct ways to express its displeasure.

Maybe but more likely one faction thinks another has leaked info and wants to get evidence. The power struggles over succession to the leadership are very serious. Indeed the whole business of staying in power is serious eg current case of poisoning.

And the only people who can do this are the government and corporations? Surely not all traffic leaving China is accounted for by the government.