Makes me wonder... How did this country become such a global supplier?
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The Chinese government is willing to forgo living wages for its populace, environmental protections, worker safety, etc. As a result, the cost of manufacturing is dramatically lower than in developed countries.
For example, a Chinese manufacturer can just dump toxic waste in a pit. A manufacturer in the US has to dispose of waste responsibly. Naturally, this is much more expensive. Those costs are passed on through the supply chain. We want everything impossibly cheap, hence the movement of manufacturing to developing countries.
This, of course, brought tons of manufacturing to China. They have become a world power with a reasonably strong economy. Their leaders don't want to give that up, since if their people demand workers' rights, environmental protections, and so on, manufacturing will just move on to the next developing country in line.
Therefore, they decided to implement harsh censorship, in order to lower the possibility of a revolt.
I mean, that's very 2000. It's 2016 and China's advantages are more moat-based than anything else.
Why do we build electronics in China? The labor isn't that much cheaper in 2016 and represents one of the smallest costs in an electronic device. An iPhone breakdown usually lists $200 in parts and labor, with $2 going to Chinese labor.
On the flip side, they have a generational moat for electronic manufacturing. You build electronics there because everyone builds electronics there. All the factories and subcontractors are all near by. The system is efficient and cost effective.
If you wanted to assemble in America you'd probably still be importing tons of Chinese parts.
Assembly happens in China, many of the parts are actually made in South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. China still isn't great at high value part creation (well, it's more like, no one dares move that tech to China).
We build electronics there because they have a near monopoly on rare-earths. They use this to keep manufacturing in China. Not long ago there were quotas that limited the amount of rare-earth minerals that could be exported.
I expect that as their monopoly on rare-earths slips, electronics manufacturing will move elsewhere, slowly but surely.
That is only a small part of it. Most developing countries either sacrifice living wages, environment protections and worker safety deliberately, or have no strong governments to enforce those things, yet few are as successful as China.
I think that "no strong governments" is the key. At the very least, manufacturing business needs strong government in order to maintain reasonable stability. It doesn't necessarily have to be a particularly nice government, though a nice government (at least at some minimal level, not trying to be too optimistic here) may be necessary for a robust consumer market.
Try to get a factory approval in China these days for any non-green business and then you will find that actually the government does not condone any of the practices you've listed in your rant.
I suspect nothing prevent Chinese businessmen from traveling to other nations and receiving uncensored information about the global markets just like there's nothing preventing Chinese students from studying oversea.
Well, yeah. But the vast majority of Chinese citizens fall into neither of those two groups, and I assume this is who this measure is aimed at.
A large, poor workforce. The question: How can it maintain its consumer class.
To be fair...
it's China. It didn't HAVE a consumer class. Whatever "consumer class" it has to speak of, was developed over the last 15 years or so. And it's not much of a "consumer class" as "consumer classes" go. For instance, it's still not large relative the total population, and the savings rate of members of the "consumer class" is still through the roof.
So I think your real question is...
"How can it DEVELOP its 'consumer class'?"
Objectively, you don't know this decision is bad yet.
Where any decision stands on a range between good and bad is a subjective judgement.
There's that too. I can rephrase it as we don't know if these measures will have positive or negative short term repercussions for China.
What could the positive effects be of not being free to buy "South Park: The Stick of Truth" in Australia? I think South Park itself is one positive effect of not inhibiting free speech just because it offends.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_banned_video_games_in_...
Generally these things only exhibit negative effects in the long term.
If it exhibits short term negative effects, it'd be obvious what to do.
The AU governments' censorship of video games spans decades and no clear upside has emerged yet!
In addition to video games we also censor television, books, porn, the internet and music. Slippery, slippery slope... it's now illegal for doctors to talk about the facilities and treatment they observe working with attempted-illegal immigrants detained indefinitely by the AU government.
For the population, and from a human rights perspective, this decision is objectively bad.
How can it be good? Let's hear the devils-advocate point of view on this one.
China has a competing system, culture, and government to that of the West. If it has to deal with the reality and consequences of its actions, it certainly doesn't need a Westerner on a pedestal to look down on its self-determination.
How can it be good? There's a million ways it can be good, but you and I wouldn't know them for sure. Just like how arbitrary Western policies can swing either the positive or negative side of consequences. Just like how a large portion of Britain thinks Brexit is good, and a large portion thinks it's bad. You can't just assume your viewpoint is automatically assumed to correct. You have just as much responsibility to defend your position as the opposition does to have to defend it against your inquisitions.
Before you judge, you're viewing China from a lens of systematic Western propaganda. You automatically assume their crazy laws are crazier than those proposed in the US, like New York's anti-large-soda law, which is also an example of mass behavior control.
From China's perspective, they probably think America is barbaric in terms of gun control (guns are generally not allowed in China), just as we from our perspective think it's barbaric they censor their internet.
What if I think that China's censorship is bad and New York's soda law is silly and our lack of gun control is bad? Then can I judge, or is this one of those things where I have to fix my own country first somehow?
People often bring up similarly misguided policies in Western countries when defending China's policies but this kind of censorship is bad no matter who practices it.
If you want to know how censorship can be good, look at all the crank theories and beliefs that people expressed that the majority of the population would regard it as 'wrong', and said population would be right.
But the government couldn't censor their views, because it would be against our constitutional rights. For better or for worse, we think the freedom of expression outweigh the benefit of having a government ban expressions.
I am glad that doesn't happen here in the Western world, but it's a good idea to try to think from their point of views of how censorship might be good.
Chinese civilization has been enormously successful, but it was designed for a largely agrarian society. In the modern industrial era, it has been found repeatedly that, over the long term, free and open discussion leads, on average to better governmental decisions than when all public discussion is suppressed and decisions are made by small elite.
Thanks. This'll come in handy the next time I'm arguing against the anti-large-soda law with someone who supports it on the grounds that it serves a greater good.
I'm certain it's bad, regardless of the outcome.