The World Economic Forum and Our Future

For John, BLUF:  There are a lot of concepts being presented for managing world affairs, which really all break down into oligarchies running the world.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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World Economic Forum chair Klaus Schwab declares on Chinese state TV:  'China is a model for many nations'

Here is the sub-headline:

Schwab praised China's achievements at modernization since the late 1970s

From Fox News, by Bradford Betz, 23 November 2022 7:58pm EST.

Here is the lede plus four:

World Economic Forum founder and Chair Klaus Schwab recently sat down for an interview with a Chinese state media outlet and proclaimed that China was a "role model" for other nations.

Schwab, 84, made these comments during an interview with CGTN’s Tian Wei on the sidelines of last week’s APEC CEO Summit in Bangkok, Thailand.

Schwab said he respected China’s "tremendous" achievements at modernizing its economy over the last 40 years.

"I think it’s a role model for many countries," Schwab said, before qualifying that he thinks each country should make its own decisions about what system it wants to adapt.

"I think we should be very careful in imposing systems.  But the Chinese model is certainly a very attractive model for quite a number of countries," Schwab said.

One wonders if Mr Schwab (WEF) is an advocste for ESG (environmental, social and governance) scoring for what he calls stakeholder capitalism?  One further wonders if he sees an equivelance with China's Social Credit System.

This line of thinking sometimes comes under the heading of The Great Reset.

For those of us who believe in individuaal freedom and the ability of peopl3e to rise or fall within their locl hierarchy, who believe in providing opportunities for the best to flourish, the idea of Mr Klaus Schwab and of Xi Jinping should be frightening.  They are about taking away individual autonomy and forcing conformance to the views of the State.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Our Lost Hope For a Western Oriented Russia

For John, BLUF:  We sent some talented people to help in the transition from the Soviet system, but they failed.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Russia’s Great Transformational Failure

Here is the sub-headline:

Hopes that post-Soviet Russia would join the ranks of prosperous liberal democracies have proven to be a chimera

From Tablet Magazine, by Postdoctoral Fellow Ms Maria Snegovaya, 28 September 2022.

Here is the lede plus one:

The collapse of the Soviet system led to a period of hope in Russia.  Throughout the 2000s, it was popular to describe Russia as a “normal country.”  The changes it went through during its transition from Soviet communism to a Westernized, market-based economy and parliamentary system were agreed to be irreversible, setting the stage for the country to eventually join the club of liberal democracies.

Thirty years later, however, it seems clear that Russia’s much-heralded modernization effort was a failure.

In the early 1990s, the political scientist Claus Offe explained the nature of the unique challenges faced by countries across the post-communist region, which he called the triple transformation:  the political transition from autocracy to democracy; the economic transition from planned to market economy; and a national transition from empire to nation-building.  While post-communist countries saw varying degrees of success, it is the failure to modernize along all three dimensions that distinguishes Russia.

As we look across the Globe we see Democracy, in various forms, the Communist Chinese approach of Social Credit and the Russian approach of authoritarianism.  To my surprise, and disappointment, the Russian model is gaining support in some areas.  However, notwithstanding the bleating from some in the US, authoritarianism does not appear to have a foothold here.

This is where a good foreign information program might be of value.  While I doubt such a program could overthrow the Social Credit syetem (it will have to undo itself by thwarting all aspects of freedom) it can help other nations cope with authoritarian aspects of thei government.  We have Madison Avenue.  We should be able to sell democracy and the freedom aspects of capitalism.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Big Brother Watching

For John, BLUF:  The referenced Blog Post is complicated by the legal argot, but the question is, will our "devices" feed data on us and our activities to Big Tech or Government Minders?  This relates to the Chinese Government's Social Credit System (The Link is to a Wikipedia White Wash of the topic).  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Will Your "Smart" Devices and AI Apps Have a Legal Duty to Report on You?

From The Volokh Comspiracy, by Professor Eugene Volokh, 18 June 2022, 1:30 PM.

Here is the lede plus three:

I just ran across an interesting article, "Should AI Psychotherapy App Marketers Have a Tarasoff Duty?," which answers the question in its title "yes":  Just as human psychotherapists in most states have a legal obligation to warn potential victims of a patient if the patient says something that suggests a plan to harm the victim (that's the Tarasoff duty, so named after a 1976 California Supreme Court case), so AI programs being used by the patient must do the same.

It's a legally plausible argument—given that the duty has been recognized as a matter of state common law, a court could plausibly interpret it as applying to AI psychotherapists as well as to other psychotherapists—but it seems to me to highlight a broader question:

To what extent will various "smart" products, whether apps or cars or Alexas or various Internet-of-Things devices, be mandated to monitor and report potentially dangerous behavior by their users (or even by their ostensible "owners")?

To be sure, the Tarasoff duty is somewhat unusual in being a duty that is triggered even in the absence of the defendant's affirmative contribution to the harm.  Normally, a psychotherapist wouldn't have a duty to prevent harm caused by his patient, just as you don't have a duty to prevent harm caused by your friends or adult family members; Tarasoff was a considerable step beyond the traditional tort law rules, though one that many states have indeed taken.  Indeed, I'm skeptical about Tarasoff, though most judges that have considered the matter don't share my skepticism.

I fear the Woke mobwill say yes, your devices must report you.

This is not good for the First Amendment Rights of those in the United States.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Is Social Credit Coming?

For John, BLUF:  Social Credit, as understood here is the Chinese Communist Party System, calling "for the establishments of unified record system for individuals, businesses and the government to be tracked and evaluated for trustworthiness."  If you don't have credit, you can't do business.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Democrats Move to Take Over Your Credit Score and Go Full 'Woke' – Just Like Communist China

from PJ Media, by Reporter Victoria Taft, 11 July 2021, 3:21 PM ET.

Here is the lede plus three:

That was fast.  Here come the Chinese-like social credit scores.

Leftist Democrats, but I repeat myself, are making no secret of their plans to become more like their comrades in China.  They support vaccine passports for COVID mRNA shots in order for people to receive certain social rewards such as going to school or attending a Major League Baseball game, just like the social credit score system in the People’s Republic.  Now, Democrats and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, want your FICO score to go full “woke.”

They’re not even trying to hide it.

USA Today reports that in testimony before Waters’s committee on June 29, the counsel for a group called the National Consumer Law Center, Chi Chi Wu, a product of Harvard and Johns Hopkins, gave away the game on how her law-fare grifting group and people like them want to change FICO credit scores.  Wu and her fellow travelers got a warm reception at the three-hour-plus hearing.

Plainly, social credit, as understood in this context, is anathma to democracy.  When the Government and industry tracks your life based on their perception of your trustworthiness, then you are not free, but are a puppet.  The social credit score determines you educational opportunities, your job progression, your standing in your society.

It is all bad.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff

Wokeness in North Korea

For John, BLUF:  North Korea gives us an example of how ugly it can get when certain thoughts are proscribed.  .  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Four publicly executed in Pyongyang on charges of distributing “illegal video materials”

From the Daily NK, by Reporter Ha Yoon Ah, 12 March 2021, 1:03 PM.

Here is the lede plus two:

Four North Koreans were publicly executed in Pyongyang recently on charges of distributing “illegal video materials,” Daily NK has learned.

A source in the country told Daily NK yesterday that the execution took place on Mar. 2 at the Daewon-ri Firing Range in Pyongyang’s Sadong District.  The four people, including three men and one woman, were executed by firing squad in front of local city residents and the heads of all Pyongyang’s inminban (neighborhood watch-like organizations).

All those executed were residents of Hadang-dong, an area of Pyongyang’s Hyongjae District.  Led by a man in his early 50s along with his wife, who was in her late 40s, the group was accused of placing South Korean movies, entertainment and music programs on SD cards and distributing them throughout the country.

This seems rather harsh.

The source of this action is covered toward the end of the article:

Article 27 of the anti-reactionary thought law says that anyone caught importing or distributing South Korean movies, music or published works face a lifetime of forced labor or execution, according to materials obtained by Daily NK.

Now there is serious "woke" enforcement.  There is, apparently, no forgiveness, no bringing a repentent person back into the Community.  In North Korea wrong thoughts, wrong actions, wrong words can get you in trouble, a lot more trouble than here, so far.

Those doing wrong not only sufferred execution, but also consequences for their immediate families:

The teenage children of the couple have been sent to South Pyongan Province’s Bukchang 18 concentration camp, which is run by the Ministry of Social Security.  The immediate family members of the other executed people who had been living in Pyongyang have all been exiled to other parts of the country.

Will those family members ever recover?  Not likely under the rein of President Kim Jong-un.  Under North Korea's Songbun system the sins of the parent, and of the grandparent, will be visited on the individual.  Digging out from under the Songbun system is not easy.

But, are we not developing a like system here, with our Woke approach to things?  We aren't executing anyone, but we are removing them from their place in society and casting them aside.

Regards  —  Cliff

China's Concerns Regarding Afghanistan

For John, BLUF:  The current Administration is working on pulling US forces out of Afghanistan, where we have sunk billions of dollars, but seem unable to bring democracy and (classic) liberalism.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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China's Strategic Assessment of Afghanistan

From War on the Rocks, by Academic Yun Sun,♠ 8 April 2020.

Here is the lede plus five:

With the U.S. troop withdrawal in sight, Afghanistan's future seems less certain than ever.  As a neighboring state with significant interests at stake, how does China view and prepare for Afghanistan's future?

Since 9/11, the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan has presented a dilemma for China.  On the one hand, Beijing instinctively sees American troops in China's "backyard" as a serious strategic threat.  However, China believes that it has benefited from the security that the United States has provided there, especially in terms of curtailing the growth and spread of anti-China terrorist groups.  The implication of this dilemma is that China wants the United States to withdraw — but only when the withdrawal is responsible and does not leave a chaotic power vacuum that would destabilize the region.  The reality, however, is that the American decision regarding Afghanistan will be made in Washington — not Beijing — and that China must react to whatever moves the United States makes going forward.

The United States and the Taliban signed a peace agreement in Doha on Feb. 29, 2020.  The agreement has been met with official optimism in the United States.  China, however, is less sanguine about the agreement.  Beijing has little confidence in the internal Afghan peace process.  Instead, China expects that the U.S.-brokered agreement will lead to more instability, and that the region eventually will have to seek multilateral alternatives — including U.N. peacekeeping operations — to escape the abyss.

China's Historical Posture Toward Afghanistan

China's fundamental interest in Afghanistan is stability.  Chaos in Afghanistan, from Beijing's perspective, stokes Islamic fundamentalism that threatens domestic security in China, particularly in Xinjiang.  If anything, China is not a revisionist power in Afghanistan.  Given the choice, China would prefer to see an Afghanistan with internal stability and a functional government that is preferably but not necessarily neutral among great powers.  Having witnessed the quagmire in which Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States were each entrapped, China has always been convinced that Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires."  Traditionally, Beijing believed that it should avoid serious entanglement in Afghan affairs at all costs.

China's overall view of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is a mixture of conflicting factors.  On the negative side, China saw the invasion as the United States establishing a foothold in the heart of the Eurasian continent that could then be used to contain China.  Beijing views the ongoing war with the Taliban as the United States "irresponsibly" destabilizing the country and rattling the region.  From the Chinese perspective, 9/11 and the ensuing war in Afghanistan fostered the radicalization of Muslims in the region and directly contributed to the unrest in China's northwest Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region.  But, on the positive side, the Chinese have viewed America's wars since 9/11 as the best thing that has happened to China since the end of the Cold War — a god-sent "window of strategic opportunity" that gave Beijing a decade to build its strength while Washington was distracted, bogged down, and spending trillions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  While the United States needed China's nominal support for its war on terror, China played up the terrorist threats in Xinjiang, using the global war on terror to justify its policy in the Uighur region.

On the one hand China is concerned about Muslim radicals meddling in China internal affairs, such as the Uighur community.  On the other hand, China is no encourager of freedom and democracy.  We can expect China to try and pull Afghanistan into its Belts and Roads initiative.  But, can they export their social credit system to the very decentralized "nation" of Afghanistan.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  Yun Sun is the director of the China program and co-director of the East Asia program at the Stimson Center.

Censorship

For John, BLUF:  It is the Gleichschaltung .  Which is why the First Amendment is so important.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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We Are China:  How Reputation Systems Break America Into Virtual Nations

From PJ Media (Belmont Club), by Richard Fernandez, 22 July 2019.

Here is the lede plus two:

Intentionally or by accident, the West is developing the equivalent of the Chinese reputational rating system. The New York Times describes how in Xinjiang "children are interrogated. Neighbors become informants. Mosques are monitored. Cameras are everywhere." Then the data is fed into a system and scored according to a Communist Party virtue rating system. Fact-checkers monitor social media to see who's expressed offensive opinions or joined any Hate Groups. The virtuous are rewarded but low scorers on Beijing's community guidelines can be stopped from traveling, excluded from admission to schools, banned from social media platforms, charged in court and doxxed.

If non-Chinese find it disturbingly familiar it is no coincidence. The same technology is involved in policing both the West and the Middle Kingdom. In the West the social scoring system is not yet official but Newsweek has already asked: should racism and hate be illegal? It happily pointed out that "most of those who advocate a ban insist it need not interfere with American democracy. As Jack Greenberg of Columbia University points out, incitement to racial violence is outlawed in most liberal democracies, including Britain, Israel and most of Western Europe."

Organizations dedicated to identifying "hate groups" have proliferated, most notably the Southern Poverty Law Center. Its blacklist is so extensive it has to be divided into categories, including male supremacy, hate music, and radical traditional Catholicism. Ironically the SPLC has itself also been accused of being a hate group after its founder and guiding light, Morris Dees, was blamed for sexual harassment and racial prejudice. Over time there will be many more organizations dedicated to resource and platform denial.

Life is going to change if we don't develop some tolerance for diversity of ideas.  Maybe better, it will regress to what it was in the past.  Even Islam had a period of intellectual flowering, now crushed by the Wahhabist School.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff