This thread is scary, because a cynical Chinese leader mischaracterizing the Hong Kong conflict while getting full private briefings about what is actually going on is much less of a threat than a true believer being told what he wants to hear until publicly humiliated by eventshttps://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/1198814005126676481 …
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I've said this before, but there's a dynamic where China combines the worst of two worlds—a very real technological surveillance state, plus a leadership team that is being fed back its own propaganda. This decoupling from reality makes it hard to do GAME THEORY
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An underreported aspect of this too is how the big scary technologies China is using for oppression—like mass facial recognition and AI—don't work that well. Their widespread deployment adds further abitrariness and terror to people's lives. It's phrenology with labor camps.
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Anyway, you don't need AI or a global surveillance network to understand what Hong Kongers want. You don't even need to speak Chinese, they helpfully chant in English from time to time. The fact that this information isn't privately getting through to Beijing is very significant
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There's an alternate universe where China could have used its incredible capacity to infiltrate and observe the protests, made skillful use of Cantonese-speaking agents to channel decisions and conversations on LiHKG, subverted Telegram groups etc. But we're in the derp timeline.
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Replying to @Pinboard
I would hesitate to ascribe this to incompetence. MSS and others are highly competent in many areas. I think you're possibly overlooking what could just be plain old ideological decision making at higher levels or a simple intel miss on how many HKers are unhappy with gov.
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Replying to @synthgrizzly
I'm not ascribing it to incompetence! I think the low-level intelligence is good, and there are plenty of mid-level people who would love to run a sophisticated operation like this. It's the failure in information flow upwards that fascinates me
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Replying to @Pinboard
Interesting. My sense is that they are getting good intel but their actions, however counterproductive, are being driven by a diff. strategic goal or ideology. There's a lot of political background in terms of "not backing down" that I think is influencing CCP's response.
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The fact that they were caught flat-footed by the election result suggests that they're getting bad information.
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