README.adoc

Another consideration is that any profile information is essentially a form of advertisement. Some people advertise their skills for hire, or their company and product. Other people, advertise their <<falun-gong,religion>> or <<gay-rights,sexual orientation>>. So why should you not be able to advertise your political position? Companies pay millions of dollars to grab other people's attention. Ciro feels it is much fairer to instead pay for those ads with your labour of love.

<<programthink>> has, of course, a beautiful reply to this at https://github.com/programthink/zhao/tree/e8eea46424549c11792dfe61cf9e7698bdbd7240#致反对此项目的墙内程序员[]:

[[programthink-meant-to-be-used]]
____
致"反对此项目的墙内程序员"

本项目上线第二天，就收获 363 个 star 兼 88 个 fork，甚至还挤进 GitHub 的"当日 Trending"——俺很荣幸，也很高兴有这么多人给俺捧场。

但是在本项目的 issue 列表中也看到好几个反对此项目的程序员（应该都来自墙内），他们担心这个项目导致 GitHub 被 GFW 封杀。

这几年来，类似的言论俺已经看了不少。就好比强盗拿刀杀人，围观者不但没有谴责强盗，反而去谴责卖刀的店家——这就是传说中的"link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/斯德哥爾摩症候群[斯德哥尔摩综合症]"。

有兴趣的同学，可以看俺之前的博文——《link:https://program-think.blogspot.com/2012/06/stockholm-syndrome.html[天朝民众的心理分析：斯德哥尔摩综合症]》
____

Translation:

____
In reply to: "Programmers behind the <<gfw,GFW>> who are against this project"

The second day after the project went online, it got 363 stars and 88 forks, and even squeezed into GitHub's "Trending repositories of the Day". I am honored and I am so happy that so many people gave me their support.

However, in the issue list of this project, I also saw several programmers who opposed this project (likely all from within the GFW), and they worried that this project would cause GitHub to be blocked by GFW.

Over the past few years, I have read a lot of similar comments. A good comparison would be if a robber were killing someone with a knife, and the onlookers not only did not condemn the robber, but instead condemned the shop that sold the knife. This is the legendary "link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome[Stockholm syndrome]".

Interested people can read my previous blog post: https://program-think.blogspot.com/2012/06/stockholm-syndrome.html["Psychological Analysis of the People of the Heavenly Dynasty: Stockholm Syndrome"].
____

The more places we can denounce dictators, the better people are off, <<disturbs,the minor annoyance to sensitive people is worth it>>. Ciro wrote a poem:

____
Don't discuss politics on Stack Overflow. +
Don't discuss politics on GitHub. +
Don't discuss politics on YouTube. +
Don't discuss politics on Facebook. +
Don't discuss politics on Twitter. +
Don't discuss politics. +
Don't discuss. +
Don't. +
. +
____

Infinite duplicate pool:

* https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ameant-to-be-used+
* https://github.com/caffeine-overload/bandinchina/issues/89

==== Is Ciro Santilli making programming contributions with the main intent of promoting his political agenda?

No, that is just a side effect.

For example, if that were the case, he would definitely target more widely used technologies, in particular Web and JavaScript, instead of obscure things like C and assembly in which I have spent tons of my time.

Also, <<effective,any attempt to influence a billin people is unlikely to have any effect>>. Much more likely to have any effect, would be for <<ciro-santilli>> to become rich and powerful first, and the best way to do that is to invest in whatever he thinks is most useful.

Actually, it can even be argued that Ciro's somewhat irrational, since he would be much more likely to become rich and powerful by bowing down to the CCP and trying to get their money instead.

On the other hand, becoming rich and powerful is also highly unlikely, so maybe it's justa matter of taking a low-risk low-reward path?

Ciro has have very little free time, and he will never do something for political reasons, only things that interest me technically.

Finally, do you really think he'd be able to do such awesome projects if he had primarily political considerations in mind? XD

===== Is Ciro Santilli making trivial edits on questions just to spam your name further?

No.

I just think that the website is great, and want to push it to perfection, in particular with better Google keyword hits, and uniform grammatically correct titles.

If you think that any of my edits were harmful, please ping me and open a meta thread to discuss specific edits, and I will comply with consensus.

[[communist-bread]]
==== Communist bread (中共面包)

Earliest sources found so far are from <<reddit>>:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/o2qyu5/china_has_a_brand_of_bread_named_stop_interfering/
* https://www.reddit.com/r/chonglangTV/comments/o2l16c/香啊造啊/

English text:

____
Stop interfering in China's internal affairs
Bread
____

Chinese text:

____
中国人不吃这一套 +
美国没有资格 +
居高临下同中国说话 +
巧克力酱面包 +
保质期10天 +
____

Translation:

____
The Chinese people don't eat this trick +
The United States is not qualified to +
Take the high ground and look down on China +
Chocolate sauce bread +
Best before: 10 days
____

https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/o2qyu5/china_has_a_brand_of_bread_named_stop_interfering/h2838jz mentions that this was something that came from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93China_talks_in_Alaska[2021 US-China Alaska summit]

Here is a different picture of the same product from April 14th: https://twitter.com/YukayuyuWasGod/status/1382218316895244295 That one might allow better brand identification: 万X福 That one also posted at: https://www.reddit.com/r/China_irl/comments/o2zbsw/偶然看到这张图不知道是不是真的/ Watermarked Weibo @第三豹弹

.Chinese <<dual-use-technology,dual-use>> bread. More info at: <<communist-bread>>.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Stop_interfering_in_China_s_internal_affairs_bread.jpg[height=500]

.Communist bread vs Communist condom. Someone made a brilliant communist condom Photoshop reply to the <<communist-bread>>. Pointed out at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/523 and a previous source at: https://weibo.com/5586291457/K9Vg7ceM7?type=comment#_rnd162900969912[]. Part of the joke is that the Chinese message reads "中国人不吃这一套" (The Chinese people won't fall for this trick, literally "don't eat this trick"), and "套" is the last character for condom in Chinese (避孕套), so the sentence is recast as "The Chinese people won't eat this condom.". "套" more generally means a type of "slip-on cover or envelope". <<ciro-santilli>> reposted at: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/p4p3u3/stop_interfering_in_chinas_internal_affairs/ on <<r-china>>. As mentioned at https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/p4p3u3/stop_interfering_in_chinas_internal_affairs/h90foja the association of the Chinese sentence with condoms had been done independently before this Photoshop emerged, see e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdEQ7JavgLw[] by <<gfwfrog>>. GFWfrog also twitted this image of course: https://twitter.com/gfwfrog/status/1387121102967672835[].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Stop_interfering_in_China_s_internal_affairs_bread.jpg[height=500]

[[why-end-dictatorship]]
=== Why would China be better without its Dictatorship? (为什么没有独裁的中国会更好？)

Because it would make China, and the world:

* <<richer,richer>>
* less likely to get into <<war,WW3>>
* <<intolerance,safer for its own citizens>>

[[richer]]
==== Why would democracy and freedom of speech make China richer? (为什么民主和言论自由能够让中国变得更加富有？)

Democracy is even one of the <<core-socialist-values>>!

There is infinite debate about this out there, some examples:

* https://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/can-poor-countries-afford-democracy-becker.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20180923192824/https://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/can-poor-countries-afford-democracy-becker.html[archive])
* https://www.quora.com/Is-democracy-or-authoritarianism-better-for-developing-countries

For:

* dictatorships are more likely to start <<war>> or other <<policies,crazy policies>> like the <<great-leap-forward,Great Leap Forward>>, which completely destroy the economy in one go
* society becomes richer when people know that they can do their startups, get rich, and stay in the country without fear of being persecuted unfairly and losing everything instead of migrating to Canada, see also: <<rule-of-law>>, <<jack-mas-disappearance-2021>>
* it is much harder to fix problems if you can't talk about the. Any criticism of the government, even if constructive, <<censorship,is taken as menace to power, and more likely to be shut down>>, which makes the government and just becomes less efficient since there is less feedback.
+
This greatly increase the probability of dealing poorly with such problems, see e.g. all the global problems listed at: <<not-chinese>>.
* governments are monopolies, and the more powerful they are, the worst it is for competition an efficiency in general. E.g.: the startup with better government ties wins, instead of the most efficient one.
* people in dictatorships tend to <<real-username-law,hide their true identities online>> and in life in general. It is best not to stand out, because if you make any mistake, you are really fucked. As a result, for example, if you do something awesome like a creating an open source project, but do it anonymously, you won't get as much fame. And therefore everyone does less of such awesome things on average.

Against:

* presidents only care about the 4-8 year horizon, while dictators can make longer term decisions to maintain power forever, their power being limited only by "the people are happy enough to not start a revolution"
* dictatorships can make changes faster without the same amount of discussion that happens in democracies, where power is more spread out.
+
Killing a million people will make us richer? No problem, let's do it.
+
That is great when they make good decisions, but it sucks when they make <<war,bad ones>> more likely.

Maybe China was poor because of Mao's crazy communist regime. Similar regimes also made <<russia>> poor. And yes, before that exploitation by the West may have been a factor.

Definitely, the current regime is better than Mao's, but just imagine how rich China could be if it had more freedom and justice.

Imperial China lost the race for the Industrial Revolution. Will another dictatorship be able to stay on top of the next technological revolution?

.XKCD 937 "TornadoGuard" comes to mind in relationship to the <<dictatorship-variability,variable performance of dictatorships>>. https://xkcd.com/937/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/XKCD_937_tornado_guard.png[height=500]

[[dictatorship-variability]]
===== Dictatorships have greater development variability (专政具有更大的发展可变性)

<<ciro-santilli>> really likes https://web.archive.org/web/20180923192824/https://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2011/05/can-poor-countries-afford-democracy-becker.html[Posners'] way of putting it:

____
While average rate of growth do not appear to differ much between democracies and authoritarian regimes, the variability in performance does differ more among authoritarian governments. China has had remarkable growth since the 1980s, but the prolonged devastation and hardship produced by China's "<<great-leap-forward>>" (when millions of farmers starved to death) and its Cultural Revolution would unlikely have occurred in a democratic country like say India. Nor is it likely that say Cuba and many African nations would have suffered so long with such terrible economic policies if they had reasonably democratic institutions.
____

[[tea-egg-incident]]
===== Tea egg incident (茶葉蛋事件, 2011)

* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/茶葉蛋事件

A Taiwanese celebrity said many people in China can't even buy <<tea-egg,tea eggs>>, which are extremely cheap and easy to make at home: you just need to cook some eggs in any cheap tea! Chinese internet <<wumao>>s made fun of that, and likely rightly so.

[[censorship-makes-countries-poorer]]
==== Censorship makes countries poorer (审查使国家更穷)

<<dictatorship,Dictatorships>> need <<censorship>> to survive, and they must control all information to make themselves always look good: <<dictator-needs-gfw>>.

As a result, knowledge of problems flows more slowly, and therefore they also take longer to solve.

Maybe this hurts the argument, but Hillary agrees: :-)

____
But countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century
____

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccGzOJHE1rw&t=2110 "Secretary Clinton Speaks on Internet Freedom", U.S. Department of State, 2010-01-22
video::ccGzOJHE1rw[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=2110]

Also mentioned at: link:https://youtube.com/watch?v=d3dE_LDz_9E?t=1681[Google versus China - VPRO documentary - 2011]

This is also the basis of a <<keyword-attack>>.

This suggestion is even more explicit in the fictional https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z[World War Z] 2006 novel by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Brooks[Max Brooks] about a <<covid,virus>> outbreak in China. It was later adapted into the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z_(film)[World War Z (2013)] movie by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramount_Pictures[Paramount]:

* https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jun/04/brad-pitt-china-world-war-z[]: Paramount cowards tried to kowtow and remove references to China from the movie, but it failed
* https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/china-barred-my-dystopian-novel-about-how-its-system-enables-epidemics/2020/02/27/cc0446f0-58e5-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html[]: no Chinese publisher dared publish the book unless China references were removed, which the author declined, and so the book was not published in China

Or https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/21/death-statistic/[if you prefer]:

____
The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.
____

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen[Amartya Sen] is another famous proponent of similar arguments in the area of hungers: https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/211/44284.html[] (https://web.archive.org/web/20170722090616/https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/211/44284.html[archive])

____
In democratic countries, even very poor ones, the survival of the ruling government would be threatened by famine, since elections are not easy to win after famines; nor is it easy to withstand criticism of opposition parties and newspapers. That is why famine does not occur in democratic countries. Unfortunately, there are a great many countries in the world which do not yet have democratic systems.
____

although like any other political argument, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/does-democracy-avert-famine.html[some disagree].

Virus outbreaks and other natural disasters also illustrate this well: <<covid>>.

Bibliography:

* https://www.uow.edu.au/the-stand/2019/chernobyl-a-lesson-in-truth.php Chernobyl: a lesson in truth Secrets were kept, mistakes were made, and people were exposed

[[chernobyl-2019-miniseries]]
===== Chernobyl 2019 miniseries (切尔诺贝利_(迷你剧))

* link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_(miniseries)
* link:https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/切尔诺贝利_(迷你剧)

Suggests that part of the reason why Chernobyl happened is because of the Soviet Union's obsession to save face, and illustrates well how <<censorship-makes-countries-poorer>>.

The URSS only admitted Chernobyl three days after when Swedish nuclear plant radiation detector alarms started going off.

Notably, in order to keep it secret, they for example did not cancel the https://time.com/4313139/post-chernobyl-parade/[International Workers' Day parade in Kharkov, Ukraine which happened five days after the disaster]. Related: <<different-levels-of-truth>>.

Related:

* <<different-levels-of-truth>>
* <<law-of-gravity-1984>>

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocBVLMHK6c8 Chernobyl supercut scene where the reactor explodes, and a chief engineer "Comrade Dyatlov" accepts a hastily made radiation measurement of 3.6 Roentgen as "Not great, not terrible" and forwards it to his superiors who take actions based on that, even though the radiation measurement apparatus only goes up to 3.6 Roentgen! Needless to say, the actual radiation was much, much higher: when a proper measurement was made much later on, the value was 15000 Roentgen!
video::ocBVLMHK6c8[youtube,height=400,width=600]

.Photo of a CDV-717 radioactivity meter that maxes out at 3.6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roentgen_(unit)[Roentgen] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/倫琴_(單位)[倫琴]) like the one that would have been used in Chernobyl. https://www.reddit.com/r/ChernobylTV/comments/bnio6n/36_roentgen_on_a_cdv717/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/3_6_Roentgen.jpg[height=400]

[[censorship-makes-no-one-trust-your-country]]
===== Censorship makes no one trust your country (审查使得沒有人相信你的国家)

Who would trust a government that does not <<censorship,trust its own journalists and citizens>>?

Even democracies cannot be trusted, but dictatorships? No one ever believes what they say, even when it's true.

The boy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Who_Cried_Wolf[just called wolf far too many times].

And as a result, this makes it very difficult to have allies.

Sure, other dictatorships will seem to become allies with your dictatorship and collaborate.

But deep down, you know that they are all just waiting patiently to put a knife in one other's backs.

Dictators will always live in fear.

++++
<span id="corona">
++++

[[covid]]
===== Censorship of the 2019 Corona Virus (2019冠状病毒病早期迹象审查)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019冠状病毒病

The Chinese Government <<censorship,censored>> the initial outbreak in January and did not inform Wuhan on January 8, which likely made the situation much worse than what it could have been.

On the other hand, one may argue that the "city closure" measures were stronger/faster than in democracies, and maybe that is true.

And <<ciro-santilli>> does believe that the virus would have escaped even if there had been no censorship. Although maybe thousands of lives would have been saved due to smaller saturation of hospitals had a proper early warning been given.

So Ciro's main criticism is that of the censorship of citizen reports the event: <<people-arrested-for-reporting-on-the-2019-corona-virus>>. Why do you need to censor things when you are doing so well?

And it should also be said that some Western politicians have used "blame China" as an excuse to divert attention from their own failures.

Some believe that the Chinese government grossly under-reported death counts. Initial official figures were about only 3300 deaths, in the insanely densely populated Wuhan area, while Italy had reached 10000 deaths:

* 2020-04-19 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr280LWjJT0&t=2198 Trump says on a White House briefing he does not believe China's case count
* 2020-04-01 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says CIA speaks
* 2020-03-29 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8165717/Locals-Wuhan-believe-42-000-people-died-coronavirus.html Reports of funerary urns sold

Maybe China is saying the truth this time. Maybe the rapid Dictatorship response worked. But maybe the most important lesson to take out of this is that https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/27/china-loses-trust-internationally-over-coronavirus-handling[no one] trusts <<censorship-makes-no-one-trust-your-country,in a Dictatorship after an infinitely long history of lies and lack of freedom of the press>>.

<<li-hongzhi>> of course doubts those numbers :-) <<falun-gongs-view-of-epidemics>>.

Good timelines so without a fucking paywall:

* https://www.axios.com/timeline-the-early-days-of-chinas-coronavirus-outbreak-and-cover-up-ee65211a-afb6-4641-97b8-353718a5faab.html "Timeline: The early days of China's coronavirus outbreak and cover-up"
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_in_November_2019_–_January_2020

Timeline:

* 2019-12-27 several genomics companies had sequenced the coronavirus and noticed the similarity to Sars. According to GeneBank, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/MT019529[] the sample was collected on and 23-Dec-2019 and published on 04-FEB-2020
* 2020-01-01 <<cctv>> announces that posting about it online is a crime: https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/ko18aa/on_this_day_one_year_ago_cctv_first_reported_on/
* 2020-01-03 findings were sent to the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Center_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention[Centre for Disease Control] (CDC, https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中国疾病预防控制中心[中国疾病预防控制中心]) in Beijing, but then the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Health_Commission[Chinese National Health Commission] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/中华人民共和国国家卫生健康委员会[中华人民共和国国家卫生健康委员会]), China's top medical authority, issued orders to not talk about it and destroy samples
* 2020-01-08 CDC team went to Wuhan to see the situation, was not informed that contagiousness of the disease had been confirmed
* 2020-01-20 the findings were made public, in an interview with Zhong Nanshan. He later said in an interview that the local government should be blamed:
+
video::LK1Pz8FmryM[youtube,height=400,width=600,start=132]
* 2020-01-23 Wuhan begins lockdown
* 2020-01-24 to 30 Chinese New Year

News coverage:

* 2021-03-04 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/china-makes-anal-swab-covid-tests-compulsory-for-foreign-arrivals-mvthjq8c7 "China makes anal swab Covid tests compulsory for foreign arrivals". This is not a criticism to China as the test might be accurate. But it is one of the funniest things I've ever heard.
* 2020-12-20 https://www.propublica.org/article/leaked-documents-show-how-chinas-army-of-paid-internet-trolls-helped-censor-the-coronavirus "Leaked Documents Show How China's Army of Paid Internet Trolls Helped Censor the Coronavirus" talks about <<wumao>> working during COVID
* 2020-05-12: https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-cia-believes-china-tried-stop-who-alarm-pandemic-1503565 CIA people said China stopped the WHO from sounding the alarm from January 24 to January 30, while at the same time stockpiling protection materials
* <<caixin>> article about how early Coronavirus signs were censored:
** https://china.caixin.com/2020-03-10/101526309.html (https://web.archive.org/web/20200317111527/http://china.caixin.com/2020-03-10/101526309.html[archive]) "李文亮所在医院为何医护人员伤亡惨重？" (Why did Li Wenliang's [李文亮] hospital suffer heavy casualties?)
** https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-02-29/in-depth-how-early-signs-of-a-sars-like-virus-were-spotted-spread-and-throttled-101521745.html (paywall) "In Depth: How Early Signs of a SARS-Like Virus Were Spotted, Spread, and Throttled"
** https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/chinese-scientists-destroyed-proof-of-virus-in-december-rz055qjnj "Chinese scientists destroyed proof of virus in December". Paywall skip: https://archive.md/xOKiu Terrible copy paste of some Caixin article with no sources/precise names.
* https://www.businessinsider.com/china-information-crackdown-on-wuhan-coronavirus-2020-1 "China spent the crucial first days of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak arresting people who posted about it online and threatening journalists" (https://web.archive.org/web/20200124113400/https://www.businessinsider.com/china-information-crackdown-on-wuhan-coronavirus-2020-1?r=US&IR=T[archive])
* https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/g5xykx/you-can-now-go-to-jail-in-china-for-criticizing-beijings-coronavirus-response "You Can Now Go to Jail in China for Criticizing Beijing's Coronavirus Response"
* https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdn4d/doctors-in-wuhan-are-still-dying-and-beijing-is-still-trying-to-silence-them Ai Fen's (艾芬) report of how the situation was mishandling was censored
* 2020-04-13 https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/12/asia/china-coronavirus-research-restrictions-intl-hnk/index.html "Beijing tightens grip over coronavirus research, amid US-China row on virus origin". The Government can now veto papers from being published on the subject of the origin of COVID-19.

In other countries:

* <<india-covid-handling-twitter-suppression-2021>>

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assemblage_(art)[Assemblage] of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Respirator[respirator mask] with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gag_(BDSM)[BDSM gag ball] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/口塞[口塞]) attached to it, suggesting that citizen reports of COVID-19 in China have been censored. https://twitter.com/FakeNewsOfChina/status/1221396086033530880[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Covid_gag_mask.jpg[height=600]

.Corona Xi mural of <<xi-jinping>> morphed into a Coronavirus by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lushsux[Lushux]. Fuller composition view: https://twitter.com/lushsux/status/1243830638966235136[]. Reddit called it https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fqku03/winnie_the_flu/[Winnie the Flu] in a reference to <<winnie-the-pooh>>. https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/fqku03/winnie_the_flu/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Covid_Xi.jpg[height=500]

.Comparison of how some Chinese sources counted COVID deaths excluding <<taiwan>> and <<hong-kong>>, while at the same time https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4266780[including their gold medals in their gold medal count to overcome the United States' medal count]. TODO original untranslated source. https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/p133fx/double_standards/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/CCP_Olympic_medal_2020_vs_COVID_death_counts.jpg[height=500]

[[li-wenliang]]
====== Li Wenliang (李文亮)

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/李文亮

He reported <<covid,the virus>>, but was told by authorities to stay quiet, and later died from the virus, becoming somewhat of a martyr:

* https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801
* https://chinadigitaltimes.net/chinese/2020/02/【网络民议】你能做到吗？-你听明白了吗？/ by <<china-digital-times>>

The following excerpt from his forced confession trended:

____
你能做到吗？ +
你听明白了吗？
____

Translation:

____
Can you manage? +
Do you understand?
____

.Selfie of <<li-wenliang>> on his hospital bed before he died. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51409801[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Wenliang_covid.jpg[height=400]

[[li-wenliang-by-kuang-biao]]
.Caricature of <<li-wenliang>> wearing a mask made of barbed wire by artist <<kuang-biao>>. The image https://nationalpost.com/news/world/chinese-government-censor-li-wenliang-dead-weibo-wechat-coronavirus[circulated on Weibo] for some time. https://rsf.org/en/news/coronavirus-information-heroes-china-silenced[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Li_Wenliang_COVID_barbed_wire_mark_by_Kuang_Biao.jpg[height=500]

====== nCovMemory

Popular GitHub repo documenting personal experiences and media reports:

* https://github.com/2019ncovmemory/nCovMemory "新冠肺炎记忆：报道、非虚构与个人叙述" 2020 New coronavirus pneumonia memories: reports, non-fictional and personal accounts.
+
Some of the creators of the repostory were arrested in 2020: https://qz.com/1846277/china-arrests-users-behind-github-coronavirus-memories-page/ and the repo must have been taken down at that time.
+
 fork with the most stars we can find: https://github.com/dta0502/nCovMemory[], in case that goes down: https://github.com/cirosantilli/nCovMemory
* https://github.com/memoryhonest/nCovMemory-en translation project

Other interesting GitHub repositories: <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

Related:

* https://github.com/lestweforget/wuhan2019
* https://github.com/lestweforget/COVID-19-Timeline

[[people-arrested-for-reporting-on-the-2019-corona-virus]]
====== People arrested for reporting on the 2019 Corona Virus (因报道 2019 年冠状病毒而被捕的人)

Best montage: <<eight-people-were-punished,Eight people were punished>>.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chen_Qiushi[Chen Qiushi] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/陈秋实_(律师)[陈秋实])
** Twitter: https://twitter.com/chenqiushi404
** YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCv361SF6FKznoGPKEFG9Yhw
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/09/asia/wuhan-citizen-journalist-intl-hnk/index.html "Chen Qiushi spoke out about the Wuhan virus. Now his family and friends fear he's been silenced"
** 2020-04-18 https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/epgek4/he-traveled-to-wuhan-to-report-on-coronavirus-and-hasnt-been-heard-from-since "He Traveled to Wuhan to Report on Coronavirus – and Hasn't Been Heard From Since"
** https://youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpr55PZEJ8 "Lawyer Chen Qiushi documenting coronavirus epicentre disappears" by <<scmp>>
+
video::Iwpr55PZEJ8[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* Fang Bin (方斌)
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Bin
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方斌
** Twitter: https://twitter.com/GuqZJRTOvbqbGub
** YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRItarzSwqakT-EZkSvuy3A
*** The last YouTube video simply says:
+
____
全民反抗 +
https://zh.m.wiktionary.org/zh-hans/还政于民[还政于民] +
方斌书
____
+
which translates as:
+
____
All the people, revolt. +
Return the country (politics) to its people. +
Written (calligraphed) by Fang Bin.
____
+
video::_7VIG2qp0j4[youtube,height=400,width=600]
** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUvBNpkxrJo "Fang Bin is second Chinese citizen journalist to vanish while reporting from coronavirus epicentre" by <<scmp>>
+
video::sUvBNpkxrJo[youtube,height=400,width=600]
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Zehua[Li Zehua] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/李泽华_(记者)[李澤華])
** YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJHUpBCNKrZwBhxfcIrP8Aw
** Twitter https://twitter.com/kcrissli
** 2020-02-28 https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qjdejp/a-chinese-citizen-journalist-covering-coronavirus-just-live-streamed-his-own-arrest
* 2020-04-25: Chen Mei, Cai Wei and his girlfriend, who contributed to <<terminus2049>>
* 2020-04-14: Zhang Zhan (张展)
** https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsNKkvZGMURFmYkfhYa2HOQ
** https://www.scmp.com/video/coronavirus/3084983/coronavirus-chinese-citizen-journalist-detained-after-live-streaming
*** 2020-11-16 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/16/citizen-journalist-facing-jail-in-china-for-wuhan-covid-reporting-zhang-zhan[], finally accused of <<picking-quarrels>>
*** 2020-12-28 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/28/wuhan-citizen-journalist-jailed-for-four-years-in-chinas-christmas-crackdown[] "Wuhan Covid citizen journalist jailed for four years in China crackdown"
* <<xu-zhangrun>>

TODO maybe not arrested but relevant:

* https://www.reddit.com/r/China/comments/p2t243/police_travel_to_mans_house_and_force_him_to/ unconfirmed video: Police travel to man’s house and force him to delete his WeChat post about Covid-19 spreading in his area because the government won’t admit to any cases.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fang_Fang[Fang Fang] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方方_(作家)[方方]) published in 2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuhan_Diary[Wuhan Diary] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/方方日記[方方日記], 方方日记)
+
Possible free Chinese version: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGF5YWJvb2suY29tfHd3d3xneDo3ZGUzZWZjZDgyZDkxNjc0 (http://web.archive.org/web/20200720084342/https://doc-10-bk-apps-viewer.googleusercontent.com/viewer/secure/pdf/3nb9bdfcv3e2h2k1cmql0ee9cvc5lole/0cr4s4veutmm50d7alffk68perm7us3s/1595234550000/lantern/%2A/ACFrOgDGbspvoNIJBVI1N2-EwaZHJPCTgPKmJeFaWgposQKpu5Eu0aqwA_CIZfLkobNVy1-xKcxKzw2CMAyxH4aUPjcHsp2w1JB2fwoX1g_39gVGh38SxfK-UrQyhy_3n19wbWhWErj_a41hMVR4?print=true[archive])

[[censorship-makes-it-harder-to-solve-social-problems]]
==== Censorship makes it harder to solve social problems (审查制度使解决社会问题变得更加困难)

* <<labour-rights>>
* <<metoo>>
* <<gay-rights>>

[[low-end-population]]
===== Low-end population (低端人口, 2017)

* https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/北京低端人口
* https://qz.com/1138395/low-end-population-what-you-need-to-know-about-chinas-crackdown-on-migrant-workers/

[[war]]
==== Why would democracy and freedom of speech make China less likely to start a war? (为什么民主和言论自由会让中国不太可能发动战争？)

This has been discussed to death:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Peace:_A_Philosophical_Sketch

Some arguments include:

* the people who will actually fight and die on the front can't vote against it
* dictators have huge power, so if they put it in their heads that they want to start a war, it is much harder for sensible people to stop them
* dictators need <<evil-west,to keep the people in fear all the time to keep their power>>, and a war is a great way to achieve that

Of course China won't say that they are starting a war when they do.

They will of course start with territories which they claim as theirs, to add to <<separatism,other recent additions which were not theirs>> until the recent past, even though their inhabitants desperately want to leave China:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_China–India_skirmishes | https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/beijing-said-to-fund-separatist-india "Beijing Said to Fund Separatist India Movement"

Which reminds us of... <<nazi>>:

* 1939 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleiwitz_incident[Gleiwitz incident], a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag[false flag attack]
* 1938 Annexation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudetenland[Sudetenland] from Czechoslovakia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_II explains:
+
____
A decisive proximate event was the 1938 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_Agreement[Munich Conference], which formally approved Germany's annexation of the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia. Hitler promised it was his last territorial claim, but in early 1939 he became even more aggressive, and European governments finally realized that appeasement was not guaranteeing peace."
____
* 1935-1938 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Causes_of_World_War_II&oldid=968409781#Expansionism_and_militarism comments:
+
____
In Italy, Benito Mussolini sought to create a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Empire[New Roman Empire], based around the Mediterranean. It invaded Ethiopia as early as 1935, Albania in early 1938, and later Greece. That provoked angry words and an oil embargo from the League of Nations, which failed.
____
* 1931 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria[1931 Japanese invasion of Manchuria], with one false flag event preceding it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident[Mikden Incident].

When China <<evil-west,calls the USA Imperialist>> (帝国主义), there is of course some truth to it, but it is also very ironic, because as https://youtu.be/GiVs05yq9-o?t=74[Lindybeige mentions], China is obviously the largest empire on Earth! Despite its <<xinjiang,uniformization>> efforts, China is highly diverse since it is obviously made up of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_China[large stitched up carpet of nations that were conquered by a single empire]. E.g. <<xinjiang>> translates literally as "The New Frontier"! Not to mention obviously the unification of the <<warring-states-period>>.

.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PhjfThj4IA Ending of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sportpalast_speech[Sportpalast speech], AKA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_war[total war] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/总体战[总体战]) speech by <<nazi,Goebbels>>, given in 1943, when Germany started to lose the war. This was later target of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:8th_Air_Force_psychological_warfare_leaflet.jpg[opposing allied propaganda]. Total war, that's what <<dictatorship,dictatorship>> bring you.
video::7PhjfThj4IA[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[the-united-states-has-recently-started-several-wars-and-killed-millions]]
===== The United States has recently started several wars and killed millions! (美国最近发动了几场战争，造成数百万人死亡！)

Not even democracies can fully protect people from other countries, because they don't vote. Yes, congratulations, <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

But if the USA were a <<dictatorship,dictatorship like China>> it would kill way more, because it would censor every report against the war internally to its own people, and the wars would just go on like in <<nineteen-eighty-four-war-is-peace>>.

How many times do we have to bring <<nazi,Hitler>> up? 70-85 million deaths in one go: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties

The only reason China has not started wars is because it is a poor country, and it would lose them. If it were rich, it would have started more wars and killed 100 times more people.

Finally, some wars are good.

If a country is oppressed by a dictatorship, and most of its people want to be free, it might be right to help them be free.

If a country sponsors terrorism, it might be a good idea to take out their Government.

This has to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis, and maybe a verdict will never be reached. But at least in a democracy the people can decide based on varied information. In a dictatorship, whatever the dictator decides happens.

Also, most of those small wars that he USA started end up being https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_war[proxy wars] between the USA and <<russia>>/China, with the USA pushing for democracy, and Russia/China pushing for more dictatorships.

[[uneducated-masses]]
==== The Chinese masses are still uneducated, and not fit for free speech and democracy 中国大众愚昧，不能好好选领导

When will they be ready? Who decides? What if they think that they are <<tiananmen,ready now>>?

In George Bernard Shaw's "Maxims for Revolutionists" words:

____
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for <<corruption,appointment by the corrupt few>>.
____

Many democracy supporters jokingly recognize democracy's shortcomings.

A https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-141/red-herrings-famous-quotes-churchill-never-said/[fake Churchill quote]:

____
The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
____

Art Spander:

____
The great thing about democracy is that it gives every voter a chance to do something stupid.
____

Laurence J Peter:

____
Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.
____

[[immoral-and-uneducated]]
.https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/preaching-to-the-mob[Preaching to the mob meme template]: "中国人道德低下素质差。所以不适合民主。" Translation: The Chinese people are immoral and uneducated (people are angry). That's why they're not suitable for democracy (people are happy). This makes fun of the fact even if you say bad things about the Chinese, some people will complain that you are racist. But the same people will also say the same bad things about the Chinese people as a way to explain why it is better if they don't vote, and no one minds that. https://www.reddit.com/r/chonglangTV/comments/jssa4t/道德低下素质差的好处/[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Immoral_and_uneducated.jpg[height=600]

.Translation of the above.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Immoral_and_uneducated_en.jpg[height=600]

[[not-interested-in-politics]]
===== The Chinese masses are not interested in politics and therefore not ready to vote (中国群众对政治不感兴趣，因此不准备投票)

But how would they be interested in politics or be able to discuss it, if it is <<dissidents,impossible to have a different view without going to jail>>?

What about the <<tiananmen,1 million people in Tiananmen>> and the 70 million <<falun-gong>> followers? Did they not care?

Chinese political spectrum meme in English: https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-b8d4cd1a58c6c7eee88bad82b94f4e5c

[[overlook-human-rights-for-profit]]
==== As long as China is developing economically, it is fine to violate the human rights of a few million people (只要经济好，我不在乎人权)

This argument can be made, but it is a risky way to live: <<intolerance>>.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Göring[Herman Goring] actually justified <<nazi,the atrocities of Nazism>> in the exact same way during <<goring-nuremberg,his appearance on the Nuremberg trials>>.

Do the <<violence,ends always justify the means>>?

What is the point of having all that wealth, when you risk <<rule-of-law,being put into jail for unfair reasons>>?

<<ciro-santilli>> argues that China would be even richer if it weren't for the CCP: <<richer>>, and that the CCP only violates people's human rights as a tool to stay in power: <<ccp-evil>>.

.<<rebel-pepper>> cartoon about a pig who does not care about politics because it cannot be eaten. 民主又不能当饭吃 https://twitter.com/remonwangxt/status/1131398147253710850[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Pig_politics_Chinese.jpg[height=600]

.Translation by Ciro Santilli of the Rebel Pepper cartoon about the pig who does not care about politics because it cannot be eaten.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Rebel_pepper_pig_can%27t_eat_democracy_cartoon_translated_to_English_by_Ciro_Santilli.jpg[height=600]

.https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shut-up-and-take-my-money[Shut up and take my freedom] meme by <<ciro-santilli>>.
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Shut_up_and_take_my_freedom.jpg[height=400]

.https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shut-up-and-take-my-money[Shut up and take my freedom] meme by <<ciro-santilli>> translated to Chinese: "什么都别说了，拿走我的自由".
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Shut_up_and_take_my_freedom_zh.jpg[height=400]

[[corruption]]
==== Democracies have less corruption than dictatorships (民主国家的腐败比独裁国家少)

One of the key points of <<xi-jinping,Xi Jinping's>> governments has been to quench corruption. And use that as an excuse to get rid of rivals while at it.

However, there is one much better solution to that: democracy and freedom of speech.

The reason is obvious: with censorship, <<chinese-politicians-really-care-about-the-chinese-citizens,corrupt politicians>> can <<internal-censorship,censor>> anything bad that they did, and so it becomes much harder to destroy corruption.

In George Bernard Shaw's "Maxims for Revolutionists" words:

____
Democracy substitutes election <<uneducated-masses,by the incompetent many>> for appointment by the corrupt few.
____

Ciro does however believe the <<spy>> claims made at https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/12/21/china-stolen-us-data-exposed-cia-operatives-spy-networks/ that the anti-corruption is also a legitimate national security issue for China, in addition to being a tool to take down political rivals:

____
Over the course of their investigation into the CIA's China-based agent network, Chinese officials learned that the agency was secretly paying the "promotion fees" - in other words, the bribes - regularly required to rise up within the Chinese bureaucracy, according to four current and former officials. It was how the CIA got "disaffected people up in the ranks. But this was not done once, and wasn't done just in the [Chinese military]," recalled a current Capitol Hill staffer. "Paying their bribes was an example of long-term thinking that was extraordinary for us," said a former senior counterintelligence official. "Recruiting foreign military officers is nearly impossible. It was a way to exploit the corruption to our advantage." At the time, "promotion fees" sometimes ran into the millions of dollars, according to a former senior CIA official: "It was quite amazing the level of corruption that was going on." The compensation sometimes included paying tuition and board for children studying at expensive foreign universities, according to another CIA officer.
____

Well known corruption cases:

* 2020 Ren Zhiqiang
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren_Zhiqiang
** https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/任志强
** https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/22/asia/china-ren-zhiqiang-xi-jinping-intl-hnk/index.html "Chinese tycoon who criticized <<xi-jinping,Xi Jinping>>'s handling of <<covid,coronavirus>> jailed for 18 years"
* 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ling_Jihua[Ling Jihua] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/令计划[令计划]): son died in Ferrari crash with two women on the car, which put the spotlight on him
* 2012 <<bo-xilai>>: trigerred by the murder of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Heywood[Neil Heywood], of which Bo's wife was accused

Related events:

* <<panama-papers>>

===== Operation Fox Hunt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fox_Hunt

Trying to prevent corruption is fine, but violating the laws of other countries in doing so, or the <<rule-of-law>> of their family is not.

Publicized by China itself: <<china-daily>> http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-11/05/content_22375920.htm

* 2020-10-28 "Eight Individuals Charged With Conspiring to Act as Illegal Agents of the People's Republic of China" https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/eight-individuals-charged-conspiring-act-illegal-agents-people-s-republic-china

[[liu-changming]]
====== The detention of Liu Changming's (刘昌明) family (2018)

China imposed an exit ban on the ex-official's family, who are also USA citizens:

* officer Liu Changming (刘昌明)
* wife Sandra Han
* children Victor Liu (born July 1999 in the USA) and Cynthia Liu (27 in 2019, born in China, but also American citizen)

China says that the children and wife do have valid Chinese documents, so maybe those idiots did not give up their Chinese citizenship and went to China. Why, why, why would you do that? Don't they know anything about China?

Cynthia claimed her father has left home a long time ago and that they are not in contact with their father.

Liu is a so called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_official[naked official] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/裸官[裸官]), who let his family go live outside of China to prevent such problems with the CCP.

The wiki page also explains that in 2014 rules were added to prevent promotion of officials whose spouses live abroad.

This reminds Ciro of a Mafia movie, maybe Godfather II, where the bad guy says he "likes doing business with a man that has a family, because he has more collateral".

Coverage:

* 2018-11 https://www.businessinsider.com/liu-changming-china-holds-officials-family-hostage-to-force-return-2018-11

.2019-05-09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2hBtXdaYsQ Cynthia Liu, daughter of Liu Changming (刘昌明) pleas freedom on YouTube. Commented upload by CBS, TODO can't find original video on YouTube, maybe they sent straight to CBS?
video::t2hBtXdaYsQ[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[effective]]
=== Will the keyword attacks really help to destroy the firewall? (关键字攻击真的有助于破坏防火墙吗？)

It is both unlikely, and hard to be sure.

Just like it is unlikely that the activity of on individual can have a big influence in any group of 1 billion people.

Every action is statistical: I just push the balance a little bit towards freedom.

This FAQ and any talk is useless. You and I are wasting our time here.

The possibility of blocking Stack Overflow and GitHub is 1000x more useful than any talk, but it is still useless.

However, potentially blocking those websites takes <<better-to-do,0 of my time>>, I just leave the content there, so it is worth my time.

To have an idea, in 2015 there are about:

* 20M developers in the world
* 2M in China : https://www.quora.com/Approximately-how-many-programmers-are-there-in-the-world https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/european-technology/there-are-185-million-software-developers-in-the-world-but-which-country-has-the-most/
* 5M Stack Overflow users https://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/227868/select-count-from-users
* TODO I wonder what percentage of GDP those programmers control. I'll bet any programmer on Stack Overflow is at least 20x more powerful than the average Chinese.

And if we never start somewhere, nothing will ever happen.

Furthermore, even if the <<gfw,GFW>> falls, it is not clear that this will imply the end of the dictatorship: <<dictator-needs-gfw>>.

Even if it is not, it does not matter, since <<ciro-santilli>> spends so little time doing it: <<better-to-do>> and has fun in doing it.

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(American_TV_series)[House of Cards] S01E02 "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this." GIF. https://houseoflessons.tumblr.com/post/43967209684/on-protesters-nobody-can-hear-you-nobody-cares[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nobody_can_hear_you.gif[height=400]

[[embargo]]
==== Embargoes make dictatorships stronger (禁运使独裁更强大)

The <<keyword-attack,keyword attack>> is basically an embargo.

There is already a lot of literature about this, especially in the cases of Cuba and North Korea. It is basically a libertarian vs conservative/Cato vs Heritage thing in the US:

* https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/no-embargo-harms-cubans-gives-castro-excuse-policy-failures-regime
* https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/why-the-cuban-trade-embargo-should-be-maintained
* https://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_big_idea/2006/08/thanks_for_the_sanctions.html

The key dilemma is:

* if we keep contact with the Dictatorship, maybe its people will see that democracy is better and start a liberating revolution
* if we keep giving technology to the Dictatorship and it does not become a democracy, we are making a Dictatorship more technologically advanced, and therefore <<war,dangerous>>

Some interesting aspects of the keyword attack embargo:

* it is immediately self-enforcing: we don't need politicians to decide and enforce the complex "if you do this, we punish you like that" question.
+
By political and technological information is together, and this immediately puts the dictatorship in a bad spot, without us having to decide anything.
* by affecting programmers in particular through Stack Overflow and GitHub, we make them more likely to develop better <<censorship-circumvention,Firewall climbing>> tools themselves

One point in favor of the embargo is that China has opened up since the '80s '90s, but did freedom improve at all? Under <<xi-jinping>>, it may be argued that it did not, and maybe that we should just stop feeding them technology and accept that they won't become free.

Trump's link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/02/trump-banning-huawei-beginning-of-biggest-trade-war-ever-united-states[2019 China trade war], and in particular the <<huawei>> ban, is an event that has brought this question to the spotlight once again.

===== Keyword attacks could be used by certain CCP political groups to justify blocking off the entire external Internet, and make the dictatorship even more pervasive

It is a risk, but it would make China drastically <<richer,less powerful>>, so at least they wouldn't be able to start or sustain <<war,WW3>>. So I don't think it will go that way.

[[so-block-cost]]
==== Stack Overflow and GitHub could be blocked at no cost by the Chinese government (中国政府可以免费封锁 Stack Overflow 和 GitHub)

Hitting the block button has, of course, no cost.

The cost of blocking Stack Overflow lies of course in the loss of information, and slower technological development, see also: <<why-keyword-attack>>

Remember that <<it-is-not-possible-to-block-a-single-page-of-an-https-website>>

The 2019 <<nine-nine-six-icu>> event however brought to my attention that Chinese (usually WebKit-based) browsers are already censoring HTTPS websites selectively of course, see e.g.: https://github.com/996browser/996.BROWSER/tree/77f28a36a862e3cc4d238dc47c19872156096bc4

But Ciro doubt developers use those browsers, right? The only way would be for China to forbid foreign browsers entirely.

BTW, <<ensi>> brings a whole new dimension to HTTPS by encrypting the domain name as well!

[[is-stack-overflow-blocked-in-china]]
===== Is Stack Overflow blocked in China? (Stack Overflow 在中国被封锁了吗？)

There was no clear evidence of that as of April 2020: https://meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/267715/is-stack-overflow-accessible-in-china/288497#288497

It worth noting however that as mentioned at <<is-stack-overflow-blocked-in-china>> that websites can become non-functional if CDNs they rely on are taken down, instead of the website being taken down itself.

For example, Stack Overflow relied on Google for some of its JavaScript and on Imgur for images, both of which are blocked in China.

[[disturbs]]
==== Keyword attack profiles disturb me (关键字攻击个人资料页打扰我)

But isn't it better to be annoyed than having <<war,war>>, <<richer,being poor>> or <<xinjiang,put into jail unfairly>>?

Another good option is to use the trusty <<cac-report-website>>.

Installing any of those immediately give you <<social-credit-system,10 Sesame Points>>, <<xi-abolishes-term-limits-2018-03,习万岁>>.

See also: <<harm-programmers>>.

[[what-is-more-obscene-sex-or-war]]
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwCyQINNXwE "What is more obscene: sex or war?" scene from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_People_vs._Larry_Flynt[The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996)]. Ciro just can't stop thinking about that scene when someone tells him that <<disturbs,his profile disturbs them>>. What is more obscene? <<xi-jinping-memes>> or human rights violations?
video::SRPiE59e8NU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

[[browser-extensions-to-hide-keyword-attacks]]
===== Browser extensions to hide keyword attacks (隐藏关键字攻击的浏览器扩展)

If the truth is too much for you to bear, worry not, you could use one of:

* Greasyfork browser extensions
** https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/32236-stackoverflow净化器 "StackOverflow净化器" (Stack Overflow cleanup)
*** GitHub user with the same username: https://github.com/EternalPhane
**** https://github.com/eternalphane/UserScripts repo with that source, and a related issue: https://github.com/eternalphane/UserScripts/issues/4 by https://github.com/SiqingYu
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20181211094818/https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/32236-stackoverflow%E5%87%80%E5%8C%96%E5%99%A8
*** https://web.archive.org/web/20181211094917/https://greasyfork.org/en/forum/discussion/47981
** https://twitter.com/guangyang_li/status/1204880709636124672 dude admiring it: https://github.com/gyli
** 2020-07-09 https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/406756-ciro-santilli "Ciro Santilli"
*** https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/406756-ciro-santilli/discussions/53697
*** Some possible authors (of course, with that name, there must be 10 thousand Chinese people at least):
**** https://english.meta.stackexchange.com/users/156741/li-xiaodong
**** https://github.com/DoyleLi from Intel
* a custom ad terminator expression shown at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues/87 `stackoverflow.com##a[href="/users/895245/ciro-santilli-%e6%96%b0%e7%96%86%e6%94%b9%e9%80%a0%e4%b8%ad%e5%bf%83%e6%b3%95%e8%bd%ae%e5%8a%9f%e5%85%ad%e5%9b%9b%e4%ba%8b%e4%bb%b6"]`
* https://gist.github.com/chenx6/97d912a6ef623f5142f69f44b580c1a0 replaces Ciro's username with "Ciro Santilli my mother died".

[[not-chinese]]
=== Non-Chinese people should not interfere in Chinese politics (外国人不应该干预中国政治)

* For better or worse, China and other countries happen to be located in the same planet.
+
If China's <<richer,economy>> is bad, the economy gets worse in other countries.
+
If China's <<howey-ou,environment is bad>>, the environment gets worse in other countries.
+
If China <<war,starts a war>>, other countries will have to fight it.
+
If China <<covid,fails to control a viral outbreak>>, other countries might get infected.
* <<tiananmen,Millions of Chinese people>> disagree with their government, but can't say anything about it, otherwise <<t-shirt,they will go straight to jail>>. See also: xref:most-chinese-people-like-their-dictatorship[xrefstyle=full]
* Chinese people have been brainwashed by the <<evil-west,commies who say that all foreigners are bad>>, more than the West has been brainwashed to think that he CCP is bad: <<brainwashed-by-usa>>
* China would never ever try to influence foreign countries, would it? E.g. <<belt-and-road-initiative>>, <<confucius-institute>>, <<cgtn>>.
* If I <<wife,marry a Chinese woman>>, my <<ciro-santilli-mother-in-law-jail,mother-in-law might be unfairly put in jail>> :-)
* <<the-ccp-would-not-be-in-power-if-it-werent-for-the-second-sino-japanese-war>> and if the link:https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/how-stalin-elevated-the-chinese-communist-party-to-power-xinjiang-1949[Soviet Union helped out Mao]:
* You can't do anything about it.
+
In the end, this is what all politics comes down to: power.
+
In some sense, this may be similar to the CCP and any other political party.
+
But conversely: <<effective>>.
+
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(American_TV_series)[House of Cards] S01E02 "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this." GIF. https://houseoflessons.tumblr.com/post/43967209684/on-protesters-nobody-can-hear-you-nobody-cares[Source].
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/Nobody_can_hear_you.gif[height=400]
+
.https://youtube.com/watch?v=SRPiE59e8NU House of Cards S01E02 Officer: "Some guy was trying to get into the building, when we said "no" he started tearing his clothes off." Frank: "Nobody can hear you. Nobody cares about you. Nothing will come of this. Why don't you let these nice gentlemen take you home?" video clip. Interpretation: https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/94608/what-can-we-make-out-of-the-final-scene-from-house-of-cards-season-1-ep-2
video::SRPiE59e8NU[youtube,height=400,width=600]

Why don't you go instead <<shitpost,shitpost>> in one of the following repositories and which are written in Chinese by Chinese citizens, many of which have many times more stars than china-dictatorship, and therefore <<keyword-attack,are much more effective at taking down the GFW>>? <<github-repositories-with-censored-information>>.

See also:

* <<is-ciro-santilli-chinese>>

Duplicate pool: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Ayou-are-not-chinese-argument

[[the-ccp-would-not-be-in-power-if-it-werent-for-the-second-sino-japanese-war]]
==== The CCP would not be in power if it weren't for the Second Sino-Japanese War (如果没有抗日战争，中共就不会执政)

TODO study further to confirm:


* https://www.quora.com/How-much-is-Japan-to-blame-for-the-KMT-losing-control-of-the-Chinese-mainland
* https://china-journal.org/2018/02/26/why-did-chiang-kai-shek-lose-china-the-guomindang-regime-and-the-victory-of-the-chinese-communist-party
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/毛泽东感谢日本争议
* https://www.japanpolicyforum.jp/diplomacy/pt20160517095311.html (Japanese state media, but cites sources)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Communist_Revolution mentions:
+
____
The French historian Lucien Bianco, however, is among those who question whether imperialism and "feudalism" explain the revolution.[7] He points out that the Chinese Communist Party did not have great success until the Japanese invasion of China after 1937. Before the war, the peasantry was not ready for revolution; economic reasons were not enough to mobilize them. More important was nationalism: "It was the war that brought the Chinese peasantry and China to revolution; at the very least, it considerably accelerated the rise of the CCP to power."
____
+
And China would be much much less technologically advanced had it come in contact with the West, from which it is still trying to learn/steal from: <<university-espionage>>.
+
Foreign influence can be both good or bad.
* http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2005/07/12/2003263221/ (BIASED) says:
+
____
War histories from both Japan and the Republic of China clearly indicate the scale of the CCP's "participation." From 1937 to 1945, there were 23 battles where both sides employed at least a regiment each. The CCP was not a main force in any of these. The only time it participated, it sent a mere 1,000 to 1,500 men, and then only as a security detachment on one of the flanks.

There were 1,117 significant engagements on a scale smaller than a regular battle, but the CCP fought in only one. Of the approximately 40,000 skirmishes, just 200 were fought by the CCP, or 0.5 percent.

Not even the CCP can provide any data on its number of casualties in the war, and there are no memorials to CCP heroes in the war to be found in China. This makes one wonder what China really did contribute
____

[[brainwashed-by-usa]]
==== Non-Chinese people have been brainwashed by the USA know nothing about China (非中国人被美国洗脑，对中国一无所知)

Everyone is "brainwashed" by their environment.

E.g. people in the West are brainwashed to believe in democracy, freedom of speech and human rights.

<<ciro-santilli>> doesn't doubt that Chinese people know more about China than him.

Saying that "someone is not Chinese, he does not understand China", is just an useless https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem[ad hominem] argument and closely related to <<not-chinese>>.

Since you know so much about China, why  why don't you just actually prove your point by teaching Ciro one single interesting about China that Ciro didn't know about? He loves learning new things.

But please, link to reference material instead of just saying it, it will be much more convincing.

But if you are Chinese, also consider that you have been brainwashed by the commies, so likely much more than Ciro since you live in a dictatorship.

See also: <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

[[evil-west]]
==== The CCP exaggerates the threat of the West to keep in power (中共夸大了西方要继续掌权的威胁)

First, obviously, <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>>.

However, the CCP greatly exaggerates how evil the West is, because making your people constantly afraid is a classic strategy used by dictators to stay in power.

Or in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fable[fable] form:

____
Once upon a time, there was a farmer with a farm.

One day, the animals on the farm started feeling a bit trapped, and started bumping against the fence to get out.

The farmer, however, was smart, and told the animals:

_____
Careful! There is a wolf outside! If you go out, you will be eaten by the wolf!
_____

The animals, were not that smart, and listened to the farmer, they were afraid!

From time to time, one of the animals would disappear (and without their knowledge, reappear on the farmer's dinner table).

But the farmer kept giving the animals delicious food without them making any effort, so they decided to believe the farmer's explanation that animal had escaped and been eaten by the wolf.

Maybe, there was actually a wolf outside. But if they had escaped, only some of the animals would have been eaten by that wolf.

But by staying on the farm, all the animals were, sooner or later, eaten one by one.
____

TODO source.

This theme is also highlighted in many well known works/events.

North Korea for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_North_Korea[China's good and trusty friend], is just a caricatural level of this, since it manages to be more a <<dictatorship,dictatorship>> than even China itself!

In fiction, <<nineteen-eighty-four>> is undoubtedly the most prominent example, in which the Party constantly switches from being at <<war,war>> with one country to the other in a never ending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_war[perpetual war] (exactly like North Korea vs South Korea, or China vs <<taiwan>>).

One of the best related quotes comes in Part Two, Chapter 9 when Winston reads Emmanuel Goldstein's subversive text, one of the chapters contains (emphasis by Ciro):

[[nineteen-eighty-four-war-is-peace]]
____
The war, therefore, if we judge it by the standards of previous wars, is merely an imposture. It is like the battles between certain ruminant animals whose horns are set at such an angle that they are incapable of hurting one another. But though it is unreal it is not meaningless. It eats up the surplus of consumable goods, and it helps to preserve the special mental atmosphere that a hierarchical society needs. **War, it will be seen, is now a purely internal affair**. In the past, the ruling groups of all countries, although they might recognize their common interest and therefore limit the destructiveness of war, did fight against one another, and the victor always plundered the vanquished. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact. The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. The peculiar pressure that it exerted on human beings between the Neolithic Age and the early twentieth century has disappeared and been replaced by something quite different. The effect would be much the same if the three super-states, instead of fighting one another, should agree to live in perpetual peace, each inviolate within its own boundaries. For in that case each would still be a self-contained universe, freed for ever from the sobering influence of external danger. A peace that was truly permanent would be the same as a permanent war. This--although the vast majority of Party members understand it only in a shallower sense--is the inner meaning of the Party slogan: WAR IS PEACE.
____

This is also the first line of the party slogan, which perfectly resonates with the CCP:

____
WAR IS PEACE +
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY +
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
____

or in Part One, Chapter 3:

____
Since about that time, war had been literally continuous, though strictly speaking it had not always been the same war. For several months during his childhood there had been confused street fighting in London itself, some of which he remembered vividly. But to trace out the history of the whole period, to say who was fighting whom at any given moment, would have been utterly impossible, since no written record, and no spoken word, ever made mention of any other alignment than the existing one. At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible.
____

The theme is also mentioned in <<v-for-vendetta>>, where a <<covid,viral outbreak>> is used by governments to increase their power over the people.

https://youtu.be/74Mw3N6WxG0?t=174 Cant Get You Out of My Head S01E05 Part Five The Lordly Ones also (2021, BBC) mentions that a huge propaganda machinery was created to spread the fake news that <<tiananmen>> was an evil western plot.

Duplicate pool: https://github.com/cirosantilli/china-dictatorship/issues?q=label%3Aevil-west+

Bibliography:

* https://github.com/dessalines/essays/blob/master/us_atrocities.md

[[friendly-west-china-moments]]
===== Friendly West-China moments (中西友好时刻)

====== United China Relief

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettis_Garside
* https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/葛思德

____
United China Relief was the largest humanitarian effort in the United States to aid the Chinese people up to that time. The organization, which was renamed United Service to China (USC) after the Second World War, raised over US$50 million in donations over ten ten years.
____

.1942 billboard by United China Relief that reads "3,000,000 Chinese have given their lives for democracy. What have you given?"
image::{china-dictatorship-media-base}/United_China_Relief_3_million_Chinese.jpg[height=400]

[[bias]]
=== Ciro Santilli and this page are completely biased against the Chinese Government! (三西猴和本页完全对中国政府有偏见！)

<<ciro-santilli>> prefers the term focused :-)

That being said, <<ciro-santilli>> takes the agenda of information sources very seriously.

E.g. he tries to clearly classify <<biased-media,Communist Party, Falun Gong, and Western government-linked information sources>>.

If we had more <<western-democracies-are-not-perfect>> content, then maybe this repository would be considered a more reputable source by Chinese people.

However, there are a few practical problems to that:

* there is freedom of speech in the West and people can already see that information on newspapers who have a million times more viewers than this repo (and still obviously no conclusion was reached), there's no need to repeat that here
+
Conversely, bad China news are always OK because, because those are all censored in China and help Chinese people learn about it.
* flooding <<evil-west>> posts is a primary <<wumao>> tactic
* <<evil-west>> information is already abundantly accessible to Chinese people in Chinese via any CCP media: <<chinese-government-media>>.
* <<preconceived,people's minds cannot be changed>>, and notably <<effective,not in a language that most people of a country don't understand>>. This is why the primary goal of this repo is the <<keyword-attack>>: it does not require changing people's opinions.

For those reasons, we currently forbid, posting several evil-West news without explaining why dictatorships handle it better. It would just generates more noise than signal.

If you do explain however why dictatorships/China handle it better, then the post is welcome.

Any political material that is censored by any country besides China, will also be readily accepted.

Any evidence of positive political progress towards freedom will also be added to this repo, e.g. people openly discussing politics online, human rights activists doing political stuff and not being put into jail, etc.

See also:

* <<flg-bias>>
* <<radical>>

[[throne]]
==== Ciro Santilli's claim to the Qing Dynasty throne (三西猴清朝皇帝觊觎)

Ciro Santilli's <<wife>>, her mother, and paternal cousin, believe that Ciro's wife is the descendant of the brother of a recent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qing_dynasty[Qing emperor] through her father's family.

Although they have not been able to produce concrete evidence, which could be explained by the endless political turmoils in 20th century China, Ciro decided that this would be a good bet to take, and married her anyway.

If anyone is able to provide further evidence of this relationship, please, please, please get in touch.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Qing dynasty, like the previous Ming dynasty, used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_name[Generation names] (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/行辈[行辈]), such that the first character of the given name is the same for all people in a given generation (counted directly from the first emperor that adopted the rule.