alanwong

It's largely translated from a Chinese social media post [1] that's been floating around without clear attribution.

[1] https://twitter.com/syhily/status/1517868079648104449

Did you just make that up?

Can someone change the title to the actual headline please?

The article answers the question twice.

1,500 illuminated drones formed into the game’s logo and characters before transforming into a floating QR code that links to its homepage.

(Caption) THE FLOATING QR CODE LINKS TO A VIDEO GAME'S WEBSITE. PHOTO: BILIBILI

I'm just going to pull two videos showing the "police rampage in which cops shot two schoolkids" to let you judge Cegłowski‘s judgment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN4MvOrPotk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHKbe5mAoNo

OP and an editor of the news site (Inkstone) that published the article.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave them in the comments. It's getting late over here but we can answer your questions tomorrow.

For those of you interested, here's a link to the published research: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20171765 (full text requires a subscription.)

And here's a draft of the research (PDF): http://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-as/econ/documents/2018-fal...

Totally not ignoring the ownership structure of the SCMP. As I said earlier in another comment in this thread, following the money is almost always a good idea. But I invite readers to decide for themselves by examining the goods, not just the money behind it. This applies to every publication that has an owner or a leader.

I appreciate that you acknowledged the comparison wasn't ideal.

Zhao Wei, Gui Minhai, and staff resignations are all issues people have raised over and over again, and I think the scrutiny is justified. I wasn't around when those things happened, though, so I don't know more than you do.

Thank you for taking the time to explain your reasoning.

An Inkstone editor here. It's almost always a good idea to follow the money, but I'd argue that there's no better way to determine our impartiality by examining our work. Alibaba owns Inkstone but we've received absolutely no editorial direction from them and/or from any of their executives, including Jack Ma. This editorial independence matters to readers and matters to those of us who work here.

Also, I'm not sure people are getting the right idea about what being a CCP member means in China these days. I find this NYT (my former employer) article informative: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/27/business/jack-ma-communis...

I work for Inkstone, part of SCMP but of a different division from the China and Hong Kong news desks.

You're citing an SCMP article dated April 29, before Taiwan made those remarks, and comparing it with an AFP story published by HKFP on May 10.

How about comparing apples to apples, starting from this May 9 piece by SCMP titled "Taipei will not agree to transfer of Hong Kong murder suspect if Taiwanese citizens risk being sent to mainland China"? https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/politics/article/3009506...

“Without the removal of threats to the personal safety of [Taiwan] nationals going to or living in Hong Kong caused by being extradited to mainland China, we will not agree to the case-by-case transfer proposed by the Hong Kong authorities,” the council’s deputy minister Chiu Chui-cheng said.

“We want the relevant suspect to face justice but our government cannot ignore damages to the human rights of our nationals.”

“We have to ask whether the amendment proposed by the Hong Kong government is politically motivated, as some have speculated,” he said.

Writer of the articles, and an editor of Inkstone here. Thank you so much for the comment. You're describing exactly what that piece sought to do: a quick look at the views of the main stakeholders. You may also be interested in a thread I tweeted yesterday that goes a little deeper into the tensions behind the extradition bill: https://twitter.com/alanwongw/status/1138670655480639490

Thanks for sharing those. (I wrote them.)

Clinton in 2000 said:

In the new century, liberty will spread by cell phone and cable modem. In the past year, the number of Internet addresses in China has more than quadrupled from 2 million to 9 million. This year, the number is expected to grow to over 20 million. When China joins the WTO, by 2005, it will eliminate tariffs on information technology products, making the tools of communication even cheaper, better, and more widely available. We know how much the Internet has changed America, and we are already an open society. Imagine how much it could change China.

Now, there's no question China has been trying to crackdown on the Internet. Good luck! [Laughter] That's sort of like trying to nail Jello to the wall. [Laughter] But I would argue to you that their effort to do that just proves how real these changes are and how much they threaten the status quo. It's not an argument for slowing down the effort to bring China into the world; it's an argument for accelerating that effort. In the knowledge economy, economic innovation and political empowerment, whether anyone likes it or not, will inevitably go hand in hand.

Looks like China has mastered nailing jello to the wall.

Full transcript of his speech at Johns Hopkins: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/WCPD-2000-03-13/html/WCP...

Thanks but no need to apologize to me!

You realize I'm an editor of Inkstone, right? I've been sharing stuff I think would interest people here and on other sites. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.

Inkstone editor of the piece here. I just wanted to add that his essay touched on much more than just China's removal of presidential term limits. He also called for the abolition of special privileges for Communist Party officials, disclosure of Chinese leader's assets and a repudiation of the official verdict on the 1989 Tiananmen protests (the Communist Party considered it "counter-revolutionary" in legitimizing its military crackdown.) Writing about each one of these is enough to land you in trouble.

See what happened to Leica:

Leica censored on Chinese social media over Tank Man video

https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/leica-camera-censored-...

And what happened to three activists who put derivative images of the "Tank Man" on liquor bottles to pay tribute to the nameless protester:

They put the Tank Man on booze bottles, and got punished

https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/activists-who-put-tank...

Here's a link to a great translation of the Tsinghua professor's article. Imminent Fears, Immediate Hopes — A Beijing Jeremiad

http://chinaheritage.net/journal/imminent-fears-immediate-ho...

Inkstone is Hong Kong-based and independent. We're only a little more than one year old but have published countless stories about all of the topics you mentioned. I'll give you a few examples, below. Try searching the site with site:inkstonenews.com if you want more.

Well, I only trust a news agency that would also report about the people in captivity there ( a couple of million Muslims).

The two most recent pieces on Xinjiang:

US lawmakers want this man punished over China’s treatment of Muslims https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/us-lawmakers-urge-sanc...

US condemns Muslim camps that China calls ‘boarding schools’ https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/us-highlights-mass-det...

Or about the digital credit system. ‘Worse than doing time’: life on the wrong side of China’s social credit system https://www.inkstonenews.com/china/chinas-13-million-discred... Got bad social credit? Your son isn’t going to college https://www.inkstonenews.com/society/chinas-social-credit-sy...

We're a Hong Kong-based media organization, meaning no government, Chinese or not, dictates to us what we can or cannot report on. Our website is blocked in China. We do not censor our content and have reported on Tiananmen. For example: did you know that China just sentenced several men who put the image of the Tank Man on baijiu (a kind of hard liquor) bottles as a form of protest? https://www.inkstonenews.com/politics/activists-who-put-tank...

Few sites list editors of an individual article these days. Here's my author page. https://www.inkstonenews.com/author/alan-wong-0 My role is also listed in my hackernews profile. Try searching my name and Inkstone. You'll find me and my relations with Inkstone. It's all one search away.

Thanks. A reply button wasn't available until just now, so I had edited my original comment and added a note.

No I don't find you snarky. I'm just confused. Are you saying that by engaging in a discussion about an article I posted in an online forum I'm "cataloging" and "actively manipulating" it? Am I "cataloging" a discussion if I tweet an article and reply to the responses? Am I "actively manipulating" a Reddit discussion if I post a link on the site and... respond to the comments? I've been doing both my whole career.

What's new is perhaps the China Initiative, something that the US Department of Justice announced late last year to focus on curbing Chinese economic espionage. Now the leader of this initiative has named Boston as a "target-rich environment."

Here's an official factsheet (PDF): https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/file/1107256/download

I created the article! Trust me when I say I'm not cataloging this discussion or actively manipulating it.

(EDIT: deleted "with my colleagues" because another commenter says it sounds like something other than reporters working with editors to put out an article.)

OP and an editor of Inkstone here. Surely I don't think what we do is farcical. Happy to answer any questions you have of our work.

And?

Fair enough.

No, I didn’t refer to your citing of my previous submissions as a personal attack. I referred to a different part of your comment, since deleted. Anyway, this exchange doesn’t add any value to the discussion. Have a nice and peaceful day.

You're making a personal attack and a false statement.

How can this, for example, be considered "China bashing"? > China, undisputed king of electric transport (inkstonenews.com)

"The dystopic social credit system that people are afraid of" doesn't exist yet.

Thanks for the feedback. I had intended the styling for emphasis, but I can imagine how it might not communicate well with some people.

My refutations are based on clearly worded, non-ambiguous official documents characterizing court ordered blacklists as part of China's social credit system.

Here's the Chinese Supreme People's Court's website. http://shixin.court.gov.cn/index.html The statement front and center explains that the blacklists are promulgated "to promote the building of a social credit system."

For a more comprehensive look at what China's social credit system is and what its components are, I recommend this site: https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/social-credit-documents...

Thanks for this. Alarmist reports of a Black Mirror style social credit system in China have really distorted many people's understanding of the reality of the system, which, to begin with, isn't just one thing.

The point is, as demonstrated in the article, high speed train isn’t always a luxury. And the punishment can have the opposite effect of making people to pay their debts.