China's Politics And Stuff

[Chinahand]

You're a westerner typing in English I genuinely wouldn't type those words in Chinese into a post if you were in China.

 

If you are so sure China's changed try it, but there are shed loads of empirical data that China has got more repressive not less in the last 5 years and I've regularly visited the country over that time as well as studying it in considerable detail.

[ScotsAlan]

You're a westerner typing in English I genuinely wouldn't type those words in Chinese into a post if you were in China.

 

If you are so sure China's changed try it, but there are shed loads of empirical data that China has got more repressive not less in the last 5 years and I've regularly visited the country over that time as well as studying it in considerable detail.

 

Try what Chinahand? I just done it. I posted the classic "banned words", on a western forum from China. I don't give a shit about empirical data. You are the one that is out of touch with modern China. Not me or Evil Goblin..

[ScotsAlan]

You're a westerner typing in English I genuinely wouldn't type those words in Chinese into a post if you were in China.

 

If you are so sure China's changed try it, but there are shed loads of empirical data that China has got more repressive not less in the last 5 years and I've regularly visited the country over that time as well as studying it in considerable detail.

 

Try what Chinahand? I just done it. I posted the classic "banned words", on a western forum from China. I don't give a shit about empirical data. You are the one that is out of touch with modern China. Not me or Evil Goblin..

 

Lets try another one....

 

Free Tibet :-)

 

 

Still alive....

[pauld]

How much info did you find out about the monks alan, doing a search from china, not much i guess, i thought at first you feigned ignorance, but i guess your not going to find out much about those abuses whilst living in china.

[Alias]

Lets try another one....

 

Free Tibet :-)

 

 

Still alive....

I'll admit I know little about China, but are you that confident that China (or any other country) does not abuse 'human rights' merely because you have not had the displeasure of experiencing it first hand? You've stated how big a country China is, and I would view it as ignorant to say that the country does not have these problems, despite the evidence from many bodies to the contrary. Your statements just help ease the pressure on such governments, when things may not be as blissful down the road.

[Chinahand]

ScotsAlan - stop being juvinile and trivializing serious issues which result in brave people having their entire lives and livelihoods taken away from them.

 

You are a westerner, posting in English, to a forum not based in China. Big internet tough guy.

 

I'm doubtful you even know what a 河蟹 is, but no they aren't much interested in you.

 

But just because you can piss about at being a disident doesn't mean that you could do what you do in Chinese to a Chinese audience, or that real disent doesn't have consequences.

 

Many people do take the repression the CPC dishes out seriously and attempt to fight it. The result is massive sacrfice and more than a little anguish - which is all the more tragic, because such people have made almost no impact for all the struggle and hardship they have had to endure.

[pauld]

ScotsAlan - stop being juvinile and trivializing serious issues which result in brave people having their entire lives and livelihoods taken away from them.

 

You are a westerner, posting in English, to a forum not based in China. Big internet tough guy.

 

I'm doubtful you even know what a 河蟹 is, but no they aren't much interested in you.

 

But just because you can piss about at being a disident doesn't mean that you could do what you do in Chinese to a Chinese audience, or that real disent doesn't have consequences.

 

Many people do take the repression the CPC dishes out seriously and attempt to fight it. The result is massive sacrfice and more than a little anguish - which is all the more tragic, because such people have made almost no impact for all the struggle and hardship they have had to endure.

 

For future reference.

 

Juvenile

Dissent

Dissident

Sacrifice

 

God bless private education.

[Chinahand]

I have never for one moment said my education taught me to spell. I am simply incapable and always have been. Quite simply I can't spell for toffee - but I think I can think, and have learned how to learn.

[pauld]

I have never for one moment said my education taught me to spell.

I am simply incapable and always have been.

Quite simply I cannot spell for toffee - but I think, I can think, and have learned, how to learn.

 

You managed to get that posting all correct spelling wise atleast, i corrected your presentation alittle mind, but well done.

 

"I have never for one moment said my education taught me to spell"

 

I have never claimed you did, however i thought it a reasonable expectation, that your private education that you let us all know about, may have equipped you too be able to string a sentence together correctly.

Edited July 14, 2011 by pauld

[ScotsAlan]

 

I'm doubtful you even know what a 河蟹 is, but no they aren't much interested in you.

 

 

Exactly Chinahand. They are not interested in me... a juvenile keyboard hero posting about "Harmonious society" on a western forum in English.

 

And that is my point.

 

Anyone reading your posts would think China is a locked down society with half the population in jail for political dissent. But that is simply not the case. People in China do talk about things, just as people in the west do.

 

You need to rise above western propaganda.

 

Imagine the outcry if the Chinese Government were to send an Army team into a foreign country to execute a terror suspect without trail....

 

Freedom of speech in China is changing rapidly. Largely thanks to the internet. Yes you can be arrested for posting stuff in Chinese on Chinese blogs. But did the UK not jail a guy who tweeted about blowing up an airport because his flight was delayed? A student in Scotland was jailed for downloading bomb making instructions.

 

"wo baba bu shi Li Gang"

[ScotsAlan]

Lets try another one....

 

Free Tibet :-)

 

 

Still alive....

I'll admit I know little about China, but are you that confident that China (or any other country) does not abuse 'human rights' merely because you have not had the displeasure of experiencing it first hand? You've stated how big a country China is, and I would view it as ignorant to say that the country does not have these problems, despite the evidence from many bodies to the contrary. Your statements just help ease the pressure on such governments, when things may not be as blissful down the road.

 

Of course I am not saying there are no problems. There are problems everywhere.

 

But what I am saying is that things are nowhere as near as bad as Chinahand would have you believe.

[ScotsAlan]

I have never for one moment said my education taught me to spell. I am simply incapable and always have been. Quite simply I can't spell for toffee - but I think I can think, and have learned how to learn.

 

Learning is good...but it depends on the teacher.

 

I try to teach myself through experience.... and I could not have a worse teacher :-)

[Alias]

Imagine the outcry if the Chinese Government were to send an Army team into a foreign country to execute a terror suspect without trail....

Only for lack of confidence

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/05/19/team-america-meet-team-china-common-ground-on-somali-pirates/

 

China will step up its foreign intervention as it gains confidence in it's military power (as any big country does).

[ScotsAlan]

Imagine the outcry if the Chinese Government were to send an Army team into a foreign country to execute a terror suspect without trail....

Only for lack of confidence

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2011/05/19/team-america-meet-team-china-common-ground-on-somali-pirates/

 

China will step up its foreign intervention as it gains confidence in it's military power (as any big country does).

 

I disagree Alias. But at the same time I do agree.... Not unusual for me:-)

 

I think China wants to be on the international stage... but on the financial stage, not the military.

 

The Party depends on the support of the PLA to stay in power. But they have fustrated generals etc, so they need to give them something to do. So why not send them pirate hunting?

 

China are well behind the USA in terms of weapons technology. And they both know it. Taiwan has American weapons. And the Americans use every chance they get to show them off.

 

I personally think the Gulf wars were not so much about oil.... they were about the USA showing China what they have.

 

The Americans think China wants Taiwan. Chinese Generals maybe do, to save face. But the top party guys want money power. And they are getting it. Rapidly.

 

When western countries go bankrupt the Chinese turn up. With a chequebook, not a carrier battle fleet.

 

Who do you think will win in the long run?

 

And yes, I do know China lunched their first carrier this month :-)

[Chinahand]

What is happening in China at the moment.

 

It really is a fascinating enigmatic country.

 

I’ve recently read a series of posts which seem to sum up some of the contradictions within its society.

 

Firstly there is this Bloomberg report - In China, Don't Dare Help the Elderly - reporting a series of incidents where elderly people were left to die in busy streets because no one came to help them. The cause of this indifference has been a series of court cases where Good Samaritans were blamed for causing the injury and forced to pay the hospital fees and compensation to the "victims".

 

The Useless Tree analyses this phenomenon quoting an academic study which points to a rising hostility towards strangers in China. Part of this hostility comes from increased atomization and inequality in Chinese society, but also traditional Chinese values emphasised values and hierachical responsibilities within the family which saw strangers as outside a person's social relationships and hence responsibility.

 

Next there is the grand opulence of a company headquarters in Harbin. Is this an example of China's huge success and increasing wealth, or corrupt officials mis-investing government loaned funds in hubristic vanity?

 

And then there is

report on huge, but empty real estate investments in Inner Mongolia - I can personally say these sorts of projects are all over China with the houses being touted for hundreds of thousands of pounds - far beyond the spending power of the local population.

 

 

Patrick Chovanec, a professor at Beijing's Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management calls this a bubble - I can't help agreeing with him!

 

And finally there is a chinese journalist's blog post disagreeing with Chinese celebrity artist Ai Weiwei's article in Newsweek about his dislike of Beijing.

 

She very much disagrees with him, but in doing so makes this remark:

 

Joaquin, a friend stayed with me recently, grew up in Latin America. He described the neighborhood like ‘a slum in Venezuela without the violence or danger’.

 

Such are China's contradictions - from a distance it seems like a hubristic super power and economic powerhouse taking jobs from a deskilled west, closer up there are huge social problems and a country which for all its economic power houses its people in slums. But for all the social break down seen in China these slums are less prone to violence and danger - more than likely due to the social control the CPC police state still exerts - the CPC makes a great virtue of the social stability its authority brings.

 

I await ScotsAlan to tell me I'm totally out of touch and talking crap - but for me China has replaced Russia as being a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma - what its future will be I cannot say - but I feel we live in interesting times!

Edited September 11, 2011 by Chinahand