Chinese internal affairs

[Lethevich]

Above post has nothing to do with the title of the topic: 2008 Olympics, as the sentence I deleted had nothing to do with the title of the thread. It was criticism of the Chinese justice system in regards to free speech.

The Olympics are about competitive sporting events, let's keep the discussion to the topic. If anybody wants to talk about Chinese internal affairs, start a topic with the subject. 

I don't want to miss any of the drama!

[uffeviking]

 

[Sarastro]

I don't want to miss any of the drama!

How bloodthirsty you are.

[Tapio Dmitriyevich]

I don't share the idea of a complete democratic consensus world. I want a world of diversity. It's simple: human beings and regimes have skeletons in their closet. China simply is developing.
The question is if we want a mediocre world (look at Europe) where anaesthesia is the biggest value, consensus is the god, where the middle class has to settle enormous payments in order to keep anything quiet.

[eyeresist]

 
And yet you haven't moved to China....

[knight66]

..... where the middle class has to settle enormous payments in order to keep anything quiet.

What does this mean?

Mike

[Bunny]

I don't share the idea of a complete democratic consensus world. I want a world of diversity. It's simple: human beings and regimes have skeletons in their closet. China simply is developing.
The question is if we want a mediocre world (look at Europe) where anaesthesia is the biggest value, consensus is the god, where the middle class has to settle enormous payments in order to keep anything quiet.

You have a strange idea of what diversity means.  Democracy is the one system that prizes diversity of opinion as well as diversity of ethnicity.  It's expensive for the members, but well worth the price

Since you have so little love for democracy, why don't you move to another part of the world where democracy is valued the way you value it?  I'm sure you will love living in places like Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Sudan, where democracy is considered an aberration and a free press unnecessary.  You won't have to pay any taxes either, because you won't have the money to pay them.  Just watch your step and don't bother to express any opinion that diverges from the official line.

[Gustav]

You have a strange idea of what diversity means.  Democracy is the one system that prizes diversity of opinion as well as diversity of ethnicity.  It's expensive for the members, but well worth the price

Since you have so little love for democracy, why don't you move to another part of the world where democracy is valued the way you value it?  I'm sure you will love living in places like Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Sudan, where democracy is considered an aberration and a free press unnecessary.  You won't have to pay any taxes either, because you won't have the money to pay them.  Just watch your step and don't bother to express any opinion that diverges from the official line.

The irony is that most people in China do love living in their country, I can't speak for the other countries, but all the Chinese I have spoken to seemed to be much happier and why? They are wealthier than ever, and i wondered whether they could've become this wealthy by taking the "democratic" approach.

I sense that you have a profound hatred towards China, but why? Just because they aren't democratic? So, it's that logic that "if they aren't one of us, than they are against us?" Why are you against China anyways? attacking them all the way from the Olympics to their national alcoholic beverage. What's your problem?

[Bonehelm]

The irony is that most people in China do love living in their country, I can't speak for the other countries, but all the Chinese I have spoken to seemed to be much happier and why? They are wealthier than ever, and i wondered whether they could've become this wealthy by taking the "democratic" approach.

I sense that you have a profound hatred towards China, but why? Just because they aren't democratic? So, it's that logic that "if they aren't one of us, than they are against us?" Why are you against China anyways? attacking them all the way from the Olympics to their national alcoholic beverage. What's your problem?

A typical blind and mindless westerner..what do you expect?   

[Sarastro]

I'm sure you will love living in places like Russia

I will. And I suggest you read the topic about Russian attacks over Georgia - what an American person who is living there thinks and also suggest that you read what I wrote for you in the topic about Astonishing Opening Ceremony. Your opinion is zealously pro-Western and very media-based. I bet you have no perception of how people live in these countries, or it is biased for some reason.

I'll go with Gustav.

[Bonehelm]

It is sad that so many of them are stereotype makers...and culturally ignorant ones at that. This goes for both the east and west. I have met Americans who thought all Chinese were dirt poor farmers living in slumps, and I have met Chinese who think all Americans are imperialists just because Bush loves war. So I guess it's all about not being ignorant by actually learning about other countries' affairs, history and culture before making bold statements.

[Lilas Pastia]

A typical blind and mindless westerner..what do you expect?   

I hope you don't mean that a typical westerner is blind and mindless? Using all three adjectives in connection with a single noun is likely to give the wrong impression.

[Bonehelm]

I hope you don't mean that a typical westerner is blind and mindless? Using all three adjectives in connection with a single noun is likely to give the wrong impression.

Nope, that is not what I meant. I meant that he is a typical mindless and blind Westerner. Of course not all westerners are mindless and blind. If I meant that, that would make me stereotypical too. If you actually read my other post in this very thread, you can see that I'm against westerners making stereotypes towards the east and vice versa.

[Gurn Blanston]

Nope, that is not what I meant. I meant that he is a typical mindless and blind Westerner. Of course not all westerners are mindless and blind. If I meant that, that would make me stereotypical too. If you actually read my other post in this very thread, you can see that I'm against westerners making stereotypes towards the east and vice versa.

Making generalizations about things that we are only superficially familiar with is what people do, actually. I do it about you, you do it about me, even though we may not want to. And when one has a basic antipathy towards the subject, then the generalities always tend towards the worst stereotypes. This, of course, is the underlying basis for all wars that are not directly caused by greed. It is so very easy to make the worst out of whatever we don't know a lot about. Much easier than making the best of it.

[M forever]

This, of course, is the underlying basis for all wars that are not directly caused by greed.

Are there any wars not caused by greed? My impression is that all wars were/are fought for economic reasons, the ideological/religious/national interest reasons given are just how they sell it to the people who have to do the actual fighting and dying.

[bwv 1080]

While the CCP is largely a bunch of corrupt thugs, they do deserve some credit for opening the economy and preserving stability.  Despite the stereotypes of unity and tranquility, China's history is market by devastating civil wars and the country has dozens of potentially rebellious non-Han ethnic groups.  More important than elections, China is developing institutions and public discourse - essential components of a stable liberal society.  The mistake we in the US make is to confuse the existence of elections (i.e democracy) with a civil society when nothing could be further from the truth. Witness Iraq or any number of African or Latin American countries where elections are merely a continuation of civil war by other means.  In most developing democracies politics is a zero-sum game between rival ethnic / religous groups for control of public resources (particularly if some valuable export commodity like oil is involved).

Seeing China Whole
Don't underestimate its capacity for positive change
Steve Chapman | August 11, 2008

If you look closely at a spot in a meadow, you will see some things you may not enjoy looking at—weeds, bugs, funguses, bare spots of dirt, bits of trash, animal bones, and so on. If you view it from a distance, however, you may see a vista that is far more appealing.

With the opening of the Beijing Olympics, outsiders are putting modern China under a microscope and finding much that is ugly. That perception is accurate but not complete. A full appreciation requires taking in the panorama of Chinese life and history, which may be hard to do in the preoccupation with the host country's flaws.

There are plenty to choose from. The government is repressive, undemocratic, and often brutal. It censors news coverage, imprisons dissidents, restricts religion, and maintains a monopoly on political power.

So far, the Olympics have not served the goal of fostering liberalization. "The year-long prelude to the Beijing Games has seen a major crackdown on free speech and dissent; a massive sweep of 'undesirables' from the host city; and increasing abuses of ethnic minority Tibetans and Uighurs," says Minky Worden, an official of Human Rights Watch, in an e-mail. In the next two weeks, the Chinese leadership is going to get a lot of unflattering coverage, all richly deserved.

But it would be a shame to focus on its sins to the exclusion of everything else. Westerners can easily forget that this authoritarian country used to be a totalitarian country, with perhaps the most grotesque human rights record of the 20th century

During the three decades after the Communist Party took over in 1949, it was responsible for more than 70 million deaths. Some of them were due to political persecution and terror, and some to catastrophic economic mismanagement. The party deliberately fomented savage social upheavals that not only punished its alleged enemies but devastated China's cultural heritage. It also kept the country poor.

All that is in the past. Since Deng Xiaoping gained power in the late 1970s and liberalized the economy, China has been transformed almost beyond belief. Its economy has expanded tenfold. No country in history has ever lifted so many people out of poverty so rapidly.

What was once a vast prison camp has conceded a great deal of personal freedom to ordinary people. They can work and live where they choose. They can travel and study abroad. They have access to the Internet. There is a growing sense among the Chinese that they are entitled to certain basic human rights—a startling development in a country where, for centuries, individual rights have been an alien concept.

As repressive regimes go, this one could be worse. Robert Ross, a China scholar at Harvard and Boston College, says, "I would put China in the top 10 percent of all the authoritarian states in the world"—comparing it favorably with many East Asian countries (notably North Korea and Burma), most Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, and most African nations.

He thinks the recent pre-Olympics security crackdown won't last long. And there is good reason to expect that in the coming years and decades, China will continue to progress in human rights.

Hoover Institution fellow Henry Rowen, an East Asia specialist, notes that development and democracy almost universally move in tandem. A market economy can't function without substantial freedom from state control. As countries become richer and more educated, they unleash forces that are incompatible with authoritarian rule.

You can usually anticipate political advances by gauging the rise of gross domestic product per capita. "In 2005," writes Rowen, "every country in the world (oil states excepted) with GDPpc topping $8,000 was at least Partly Free [as categorized by the human rights group Freedom House]; indeed, all ranked as Free except the tiny island city-state of Singapore." Given China's growth trajectory, he predicts it will move from Not Free to Partly Free by 2015—and by 2025, it will be "classed as belonging to the Free nations of the earth."

Anyone contemplating the thuggish repression still prevalent under the Beijing government may find that hard to imagine. But if the last 30 years have taught us anything, it is not to underestimate China's capacity for positive change.

[Bunny]

The irony is that most people in China do love living in their country, I can't speak for the other countries, but all the Chinese I have spoken to seemed to be much happier and why? They are wealthier than ever, and i wondered whether they could've become this wealthy by taking the "democratic" approach.

I sense that you have a profound hatred towards China, but why? Just because they aren't democratic? So, it's that logic that "if they aren't one of us, than they are against us?" Why are you against China anyways? attacking them all the way from the Olympics to their national alcoholic beverage. What's your problem?

Most Iraqis told anyone who asked that they loved Saddam before he was overthrown too.

Where have you been in China?  Have you been to the villages that were destroyed by the earthquake where parents are weeping because their one child has been killed and they are unable to comprehend this loss?  Have you been to Tibet where most of the people would prefer to be independent again?  Have you seen how the farm labor lives there -- struggling in houses without electricity and no indoor plumbing, with a per capita income of about $1.00 per day?  I've been in the Chinese countryside and seen huge plantations that produce fruit and vegetables where workers live in barracks with holes in the floor for the plumbing while the owners and operators of the plantations live like the plantation owners in the Antebellum South.  Being assured that these people are grateful for the meager wages they earn in the fields all day isn't reassuring. 

Sure, there are plenty of people in China who are making good money.  The guide that we used in Beijing carried a Louis Vuitton handbag (hopefully real and not counterfeit) and wore a scarf from Hermes.  We went to stores filled with luxury goods.  There is great wealth in China and even a burgeoning middle class.  However, there is more poverty in China than you or I can imagine.  For years, thousands of Chinese passed into Hong Kong every day to find economic opportunity while Hong Kong was under British control.  To this day, Chinese immigrants board ships operated by unscrupulous profiteers who charge enormous amounts of money to take them out of China and deliver them to America and other countries.  China is a vast country, and not everyone lives a happy life.  It's also a country where if you even mention Tiananmen Square you had better not be talking about this -- an image that is blocked in China:



It's easy to accept the smoke and mirrors presented by the Chinese government, but anyone with a grain of intelligence should realize that sometimes a show is is not reality.

I don't share the idea of a complete democratic consensus world. I want a world of diversity. It's simple: human beings and regimes have skeletons in their closet. China simply is developing.
The question is if we want a mediocre world (look at Europe) where anaesthesia is the biggest value, consensus is the god, where the middle class has to settle enormous payments in order to keep anything quiet.

If it were so awful living in Europe,then why would so many people from Turkey, Africa and the Middle East be going there for economic opportunity?  If it's so expensive and awful to live there, then why do so many leave their homeland to settle there?  Obviously it's better there than where they came from or they would go back. 

While the CCP is largely a bunch of corrupt thugs, they do deserve some credit for opening the economy and preserving stability.  Despite the stereotypes of unity and tranquility, China's history is market by devastating civil wars and the country has dozens of potentially rebellious non-Han ethnic groups.  More important than elections, China is developing institutions and public discourse - essential components of a stable liberal society.  The mistake we in the US make is to confuse the existence of elections (i.e democracy) with a civil society when nothing could be further from the truth. Witness Iraq or any number of African or Latin American countries where elections are merely a continuation of civil war by other means.  In most developing democracies politics is a zero-sum game between rival ethnic / religous groups for control of public resources (particularly if some valuable export commodity like oil is involved).

First, saying that the CCP is a group of thugs who keep things stable is like saying that Mussolini wasn't so bad because kept the Italian trains running on time, or that Hitler had his good side because he managed to build a great autobahn and eliminate street crime.  What a ridiculous premise!  I can't believe that no one here is not laughing in disbelief at such a ridiculous statement!

If you don't think that it's possible to have economic development with a democratic government, then consider India where they are experiencing tremendous growth with a government that is a parliamentary democracy.  Poverty is still rampant but India is changing and growing, with a rising middle class.  It's far from perfect and too many people live in desperate poverty, but it's a country with such great potential. 

Totalitarian governments don't guarantee stability, economic success or a better standard of living any more than any other government.  Democratically run elections do not guarantee the establishment of a democracy either.  We have a lot of history to prove this: Germany elected Hitler; Argentina elected Peron (twice); The Iranians elected the Ayatollah Khomeini; and Russia elected Putin and then Medvedev.  But totalitarian governments are rarely concerned with sharing wealth and political power; they are more concerned with preserving their political power and accumulating wealth.  The totalitarian governement is the ultimate form of "trickle down" economics, but a lot less trickles down there.

You mention that there are diverse ethnic groups (non Han) in China which would rather rebel and start a civil war than live as "chinese." Well, if you dominate a territory the size of China, you should expect that there will be different ethnic groups that don't understand why a government of people speaking a different language that is thousands of miles away wants to come in and run them.  Certainly Tibet is one of these places!  But, who really believes the Tibetans are trying to create a civil war in China?  They just want to be left alone, and they really don't understand why they aren't allowed to be as they have been for thousands of years.  If you want to maintain an empire, it costs money and blood.  It also means that you have to have an army that is willing to fire on its own citizens, and I think that is the most dangerous aspect of all.

[bwv 1080]

First, saying that the CCP is a group of thugs who keep things stable is like saying that Mussolini wasn't so bad because kept the Italian trains running on time, or that Hitler had his good side because he managed to build a great autobahn and eliminate street crime.  What a ridiculous premise!  I can't believe that no one here is not laughing in disbelief at such a ridiculous statement!

Spare me the histrionics. The CCP is not Hitler and the only credit given was for opening the economy and averting civil war, which was and remains a real possibility.  Realistically the current situation of the country, given the devastation caused by a generation of Maoism, is probably the best outcome that could be hoped for.

If you don't think that it's possible to have economic development with a democratic government, then consider India where they are experiencing tremendous growth with a government that is a parliamentary democracy.  Poverty is still rampant but India is changing and growing, with a rising middle class.  It's far from perfect and too many people live in desperate poverty, but it's a country with such great potential

. 

At independance India had relatively stable institutions and legal systems. China in the late 70s had neither.  The track record of countries moving quickly to democracy without institutions is extremely poor - Russia, Iraq, any number of African countries etc.

Totalitarian governments don't guarantee stability, economic success or a better standard of living any more than any other government.  Democratically run elections do not guarantee the establishment of a democracy either.  We have a lot of history to prove this: Germany elected Hitler; Argentina elected Peron (twice); The Iranians elected the Ayatollah Khomeini; and Russia elected Putin and then Medvedev.  But totalitarian governments are rarely concerned with sharing wealth and political power; they are more concerned with preserving their political power and accumulating wealth.

Seems to me you are proving my point here.  China is currently more properly authoritarian than totalitaran - probably on par with 1950s Tawain or South Korea.

individuals in any government are generally concerned with preserving their political power and accumulating wealth. 

You mention that there are diverse ethnic groups (non Han) in China which would rather rebel and start a civil war than live as "chinese." Well, if you dominate a territory the size of China, you should expect that there will be different ethnic groups that don't understand why a government of people speaking a different language that is thousands of miles away wants to come in and run them.  Certainly Tibet is one of these places!  But, who really believes the Tibetans are trying to create a civil war in China?  They just want to be left alone, and they really don't understand why they aren't allowed to be as they have been for thousands of years.  If you want to maintain an empire, it costs money and blood.  It also means that you have to have an army that is willing to fire on its own citizens, and I think that is the most dangerous aspect of all.

I did not say that non-Han groups "would rather rebel and start a civil war than live as "chinese." " just that it is a potential source of instability.  Eventually the Chinese government will either have to create a civil society that these groups want to participate in or cut them loose.

[Sarastro]

However, there is more poverty in China than you or I can imagine.

As I posted in another thread, there are 37 million people in the USA that live below the poverty line, about 12%. For example, 12% of the Chinese 1,321,851,888 is 158,622,226. Indeed, a lot.

China is a vast country, and not everyone lives a happy life. 

Is everyone in the USA lives a happy life?


I understand your point well and think you are good-hearted person, you want everyone to be happy, but it is unattainable for many reasons, one being politics.

[Bonehelm]

Do most westerners know that Hong Kong is largely autonomous and its standards of life and existence of human rights are no different than any other global city in the west? I keep getting the feeling that people seem to think that after 1997, HK just became another city under the "communist" regime. Seriously, it has the world's most capitalist economy (and freest), and is as modern as say, NYC or Paris or London.