A Conversation with a Chinese Person 05 | Why Fear That People Doing Business with America Will Stop Obeying, yet Think the Crime Groups Will Obey Forever?

"They fear the people who do business with America will stop obeying, yet they think the crime groups they deal with will obey forever."

Author / interviewer: Brennan Ruskell

Interviewee: Liu, 65, moved to the United States after retiring

Brennan Ruskell: These past few years, what change do you see in China's internet censorship?

Liu: I have used the Chinese internet for decades. I know what you could say before, and what you could not say. I also know which things later became harder and harder to say. These past few years I have again seen some curses stay online, curses that used to vanish fast. I do not think the Communist Party has suddenly started to respect the people it rules. If it really respected them, the first thing it would do is let the ruled have the right to replace it. My view is this. In its head, the Party certainly wants to control everything. No doubt about that. That is the kind of organization it is. But it is getting harder and harder for it to wipe out everyone's anger, or to grab everyone. Think about it. Even with AI, some of the checking still needs people. Keeping that AI system running also needs people. The AI system also keeps burning tokens, the little pieces it spends, and those cost money. And so on. So the censorship system, however advanced the technology, needs to spend resources. Hiring people takes money. The cards that run the tokens, and the electricity, are money too. The money, the people, and the methods that used to shut you up, are they still enough now? Looking at the way China is going, this has already become a real problem.

Brennan Ruskell: Why do you put this down to money?

Liu: Because shutting people up is not a boss shouting one sentence, and the people below being able to keep doing it forever. The people who check need wages. The technology needs upkeep. The platforms need to keep teams. The police need to do the work. The work unit needs to put someone on you to watch you. Someone has to pay for all of that. Before, business was easy. Some people made money and could pay tax. Some people did not want trouble. Some people sang its praises on their own. Now some people are out of work. Some people's homes have dropped in price. Some people cannot even get their wages. Companies are finding it harder and harder, and more and more painful. A lot of foreign companies sold their shares to people inside China, cut the tie, and left. Even if you delete every post by someone who is angry, you cannot make his bills disappear. Tomorrow someone else hits the same thing and comes out cursing again. If you want the same quiet, you have to keep stuffing things in. The cost gets bigger and bigger. The resources get smaller and smaller.

Brennan Ruskell: But it is also building AI. Can't the machines help with the checking?

Liu: Of course they can. When the Communist Party gets a new technology, how would it forget to use it to control people? So I am not saying it already cannot control them. What I am saying is, the things it wants to control keep growing. At home it wants everyone grateful. Abroad it wants other people to believe it. On the military side it wants to contest America. On technology it also wants to contest America. It also wants to gather information everywhere, and keep its ties. What makes it think it can pay all these bills at the same time, forever? A leader says everything is important. In the end the people below have to decide which job really gets done, and which job is just for show, so they can hand it in.

And on this, AI is not that easy to use that way either. How do you think the AI watching would work? Before, the Party liked to let companies like Tencent run the checking. So the Party kept using policy to hit Tencent's rivals, until ByteDance showed up. Because TikTok, the short-video app ByteDance runs outside the Party's land, can help the Party's propaganda outside that land. Through the picking machine, the thing that chooses the next video, it slowly washes people's heads, changes how foreigners think, and gets them to support the Chinese Communist Party. That wish is why the Party now uses ByteDance more to watch people inside and outside. Tencent has dropped back to second.

Think how these companies do it. A lot of the time WeChat sets off a check when some sensitive information shows up. Then the check has to pull some of the chat around those words, so the AI can look. As long as a group has three people or more, this check is easy to set off. Think how much machine power that takes. And Chinese people are really fucking stupid. After they say something sensitive, they like to send sticker pictures about loving the motherland. The problem is, that is easy to file as one kind of behavior, one kind of label. That means when some Chinese people suddenly send a lot of patriotic stickers in a group, Tencent's checking system has to step in. That makes it easier to set off Tencent's censorship. It pulls the messages around them, then an AI check and a person check. How much money does Tencent have? Tencent's big owners have been selling these past few years. Tencent's AI has been a total mess. Its own cards are probably not even enough for itself. How many cards can it hand to the checking?

ByteDance is the same. ByteDance's spending on AI machines, set next to Google, Meta, and the rest, is far behind. Its only advantage is that hiring people in China costs less. But that pulls in other problems. TikTok has to compete with products like Instagram and YouTube. Inside China, the money in Douyin, the short-video app in the area the Party controls, still comes from that area. But the Party's money comes from orders the Western world gives. So when less water is flowing into China from the source, will ByteDance's resources really still grow the way they used to? Back when the Chinese Communist Party backed Huawei, the Party's resources were on the way up. Now the Party wants to use its resources to back ByteDance, Huawei, and the others. But the resources themselves are on the way down.

So a lot of this is a joke.

But I have said this much, so you should at least know that every step of the checking actually needs money. In a rising time, when you build the censorship offices, besides having money, you also expect the future to be good. In a falling time, even if you do not grow the censorship offices, the cost of keeping them up does not vanish just because you stopped growing them. Later the big building projects and the censorship system will both turn into scrap. Do not think the cost of upkeep is that simple.

Said this way, a lot of it should be clear.

Brennan Ruskell: Why do you think it damages the outside ties that used to let Chinese people make money?

Liu: I think what it fears most is this. After Chinese people make money, they find out that factories take American orders, companies take money from overseas, engineers work with foreign people in the same trade, and companies list on the American stock market and turn it into cash. Most Chinese people are really fucking stupid. They certainly think the Communist Party is good. But the Party worries too. Because nobody can see the future. The future the Party keeps promising Chinese people may not still hold. So suppose what the Party wants, and what future Chinese people want, clash. Your money comes from America. Right now you worship the Party. When that time comes, after the Party and America clash, your interest comes from America. Who do you listen to? The Party does not believe the bullshit you say now about being loyal forever. These people on the East Asian mainland, where China sits, in just these hundred-odd years, count how many times they changed who they were loyal to. Loyal to Cixi, the woman who held the Qing court. Loyal to the Manchus. Loyal to Japan. Loyal to the Soviet Union. Loyal to the eighteen provinces of the old Chinese heartland. Loyal to the Nationalist Party. Loyal to Mao Zedong. Loyal to Liu Shaoqi. Loyal to Jiang Qing. Loyal to Deng Xiaoping. Loyal to Xi Jinping. And on and on. To put it ugly, Chinese people are a pack of slavish dogs. Can you take a slave's words of loyalty as real? Can the Party believe them? The Party itself has watched how many times Chinese people changed who they served. So the Party knows Chinese people very well, and Chinese people know the Party very well. The Party is only getting ready before the rain. It betrays America one step first, so that later, in the hard days, this pack of Chinese slavish dogs will not find a chance to run to America for cover. Hit first and you have the upper hand. Hit later and you take the blow.

Brennan Ruskell: So you read its worsening tie with America as a worry about who is in control?

Liu: Yes. This is actually a very plain judgment. Think how the Communist Party got its start. The Chinese Communist Party started as a spy shop the Soviet Union planted on the East Asian mainland. The money it took was Soviet money. I tell you, the person you guard against best is certainly another you. So it is normal that the Party does this.

Brennan Ruskell: What does this have to do with the Hui Jian case you have been watching lately?

Liu: When I saw this case, the first thing I thought was that what the Party does puts most people in danger. But this is also something most Chinese people brought on themselves. The Party became the one who carries the blame.

Actually, all of us know that the so-called scam groups in Southeast Asia, or wherever they are, are dogs the Party raises. Otherwise, why inside China do they call terrorists phone fraud? Is that phone fraud?

I told you all before. Where do the organ transplants for some high Party bosses come from? They are done by these terrorists the Party trained.

But you have to know, raise a tiger and it turns on you. When the Party could still afford to pay these terrorists, fine. When it pays less, that is another story.

Isn't it the same inside the country? When ordinary people have no money, plenty of them will risk their lives for money. This also shows that the bottom of the Party's control is slipping faster than I guessed.

And why was the sentence in this case so light? Go back and look at the late days of the Qing state. Unless someone's reach was truly too big, did the Qing dare to sentence these people very hard? Judges are people too. One million can kill Hui Jian. The terrorists add another five hundred thousand to have the judge killed. Is that hard? Hard? Then add another five hundred thousand. At the bottom in China, some people want to pull one big job. I can see this. Can the judge not see it? And another thing. Behind these terrorist chiefs, which one is not a high Party official? It is like Journey to the West, that old story. The monsters who get to live, aren't they all pages standing next to the gods up in the sky? Later, when the Party wants dirty work done, it will still need these killers to step forward.

Brennan Ruskell: Why do you care so much that people inside the country take this job for money?

Liu: Don't you think this looks a lot like the Qing state starting, step by step, down its slope? Look back at history. In the middle and late Qing, especially the last half of that time, to use the words people use now, the "foreign forces" put up the money, and revolutionary groups inside the country killed Qing officials or important people. Was that rare? In the late Qing, the steadiest money from overseas for the revolutionary groups came mainly from Chinese living overseas, and from their organizations. Have you thought about this? In the Qing state's eyes, those revolutionary groups back then were terrorist organizations, or phone-fraud groups. The Revive China Society was founded in 1894 in Honolulu, in America. The Tongmenghui, the league that followed it, was founded in 1905 in Tokyo, in Japan. These were organizations that Qing people set up outside the country. Aren't those terrorists now also Chinese people setting up organizations outside the country? Back then the Qing did kill some people. And then? When the time came, the blow came from inside and outside together. The Qing government then faced one organization after another popping up, one thing after another happening. Could it keep up? Did it have the power to fix the problem? No. What is happening now already lets us see, very clearly, that this slide has started.

Brennan Ruskell: When you say "the evil force it raised itself," what exactly do you mean?

Liu: Even a pig's brain knows what the tie is now between those terrorists and the Communist Party. The Party calling the terrorists phone fraud already says a lot. Where did these phone-fraud people get so much information on Chinese people? If the Party did not give it, who did? When I was a child, a phone was not tied to your real name the way it is now. These so-called phone frauds, to say it straight, terrorists, where did they get so much information on Chinese people? The Party's offices gave it to them. When people later look back at this history, who with a conscience would dare say these terrorists were not raised by the Party?

Brennan Ruskell: Do you think the offices of power can also be frightened by these people?

Liu: I just told you about the Qing officials. Qing officials were people. Party officials now are people too. They have families and children. The Party can use someone else's child as the soft spot, to frighten that person. Do other people not dare use your family, your children, and your property to frighten you, the Party? Go look it up:

• Lev Kamenev: the questioners threatened to kill his son, and forced him to admit the charges.
• Grigory Zinoviev: he also gave in after his family was threatened.
• Ivan Smirnov: after he saw the guards treat his daughter roughly, he finally gave in.
• Kosior: he gave in after his daughter was sexually attacked.

Go look up Stanislav Kosior too, a high leader in Stalin's time. Kosior was tortured hard, but he never gave in. The questioners then brought his sixteen-year-old daughter into the room and raped her in front of him. Kosior finally gave in.

What does that show? It shows the Communist Party is not as hard as they boast. And before that, Stanislav Kosior took part in leading the policy that forced farms together in Ukraine. While he was in office came the Ukrainian famine of 1932–1933, which killed a great many people. So in the end he simply died. You could say God looked after him.

The Party's courts in China are people too. They have their own little sums. They have their own fear.

Brennan Ruskell: You call this the boomerang of threats?

Liu: Yes. But I do not only mean that the people doing the work fear payback. To stop Chinese people from standing on their own, the Party damaged the ties that let people earn money in a normal way. It fears that the ruled, the people who do business with America, will not be loyal later. So the Party can frighten them. Look how the Party orders Chinese people around, like a master pointing at servants, when it frightens them. But when the terrorists you yourself raised grow up and turn on you, the Party, those terrorists do not argue the rights and wrongs with the Party the way Americans did, or the way people from those big companies did before. You, the Party, used to make people obey by frightening them. Now, when the terrorists frighten you, the Party, they will not go easy either. They look at what you, the Party, can actually do, not at the talk you put out. The real test is what your hands can do. With one million, terrorists can buy the killing of a well-known voice online, on the Party's own ground. Is killing a Party official really something that cannot be done? On the logic, what is the difference?

Brennan Ruskell: Can this show that the Party's control is fading?

Liu: One case of course cannot answer for everything. But the small thing shows the big thing. It is enough to make me doubt that the Party's grip is fading in a clear way. It put its resources into the big AI fight, and into pushing the Party's spies in all over the world. Then some places, to say it straight, it just cannot cover. Hold this and you drop that. That means its resources cannot cover the whole. But even five years ago, the Party was not like this. That means it has already entered the time of decline. And this shows that among ordinary people in China, that is, the Party's world at the bottom, parts of it are clearly already out of control.

Brennan Ruskell: What do you most want to tell the people who still cheer for it?

Liu: Why would I tell these people anything? I left the country because I could not stand these slaves who cheer the Party every day. Whoever they want to cheer, whoever they want to shout for, let them shout. It has nothing to do with me. I am not young. What I do now is write down what I know, and the stories I see. Why would I warn those slaves who love the Party? Have you thought about this? As long as the terrorists pay enough, the people who cheer the Party now can turn around and go kill people inside the Party's land. The Party itself knows these people very well. So they are only making each other feel good.