Another thread about China....

[Fengzi]

potatoes survived! Ok so I am still worried about espionage and motive. They are buying up the world but then so are we. I really want to talk more on this Fengzi
if you can calm my fears than more power to you! I even considered moving to China at one time so I am no way against China, but I worry about a communist government. Maybe when I know more China I won't be worried.
I need more answers but right now I gotta go eat dinner.....I'll ttyl.

How much do you know about Communism?

Communism as a theory or communism as it exists in China? Communism, as in Karl Marx's version where property is divided up equally, work is shared, and each gets according to his needs and does according to his abilities, does not exist in China. I don't know if it really truly existed anywhere. China certainly tried to make a go of it back in the 50's, 60's and early 70's, however. In fact my mother in law, the daughter of a Bourgeoisie landlord, was sent to a commune shortly after my wife was born so she could be re-educated among the laboring masses.

A lot has changed since then, however, and nothing resembling true communism exists in China today. Take a walk down Shanghai's Huai Hai Street with it's boutiques, cafes, and even Starbucks and you'd have no idea that you were in a "communist" country . Privately owned businesses are as common as State run businesses and some State run ones have even been sold off to private investors. Stores are filled with pricey Western goods and there seems to be no shortage of people buying them. People buy and sell stocks and, just like here, everyone's goal is to get rich.

China today is communist only in that it is run by the communist party. And that, is only a name, like Republican, Democrat, etc, nothing more. The government is not run by strange little men in Mao suits anymore. It is run by intelligent, generally respected, professional politicians. At least the high level, central, government is. It is not a dictatorship as that would imply it is run by one person when, in fact, decisions are made by many. There are both conservative and liberal factions within the government and control tends to go back and forth between the two groups.

Of course the people can not vote so there is no danger to the communist party of it ever losing power. Most people here in the U.S., however, would be surprised to see how much the general population actually influences the government. The government does not want to see unrest and protests like the incident in Tiananmen back in â??89. They understand that the best way to prevent this is to keep the people as happy as can be within the confines of the system. So, they pay close attention to public opinion and play a game where they let the leash out just enough to make people happy and then slowly bring it back in if needed. For the most part it works.

The biggest problem with the government is that it is filled with cronyism and corruption, especially at the lower levels. To make matters worse, China is a huge country with a poor infrastructure outside of the more modern cities on the eastern coast. Many, many cities in Chinaâ??s interior are quite remote, taking a day or more by bus to get to, and the central government in Beijing has little direct control in those areas. It is in these cities where the corruption is the worst . Many of the horror stories we hear about the Chinese government are actually from these areas, not the central government in Beijing itself. Kind of like if they had a story in one of their newspapers stating that American government supported marijuana use and gay marriages. While this may be true here in San Francisco that view isnâ??t held in Washington.

Hopefully this will have answered some of your questions. If you have any specific ones feel free to ask and Iâ??ll answer as best I can. And please donâ??t get me wrong, I have no illusions about China having a perfect government. There is a lot there that is seriously fucked up. Itâ??s just that I have just seen how the American media puts itâ??s spin on any story about China so that most Americanâ??s see China as an evil regime intent on turning the world commie. There are so many misconceptions about China and as we have recently seen certain misconceptions, such as about wmd, can have serious consequences.

[nicholasstanko]

Well I thought Chretien was pretty cool.

I liked it when he told the Bush people he wasn't kisses anyones arse. lol

for real!? he did that!?


aw man that is so cool. i thought only north korea had the balls to tell bush to fuck off.

[F L E S H]

What did you think of Chretien?

Chretien is pretty misunderstood, and under-rated. I think this is mainly because of his appearance and manner of speach: he speaks like an old french-canadian farmer, believe me, I've met a few However, the man is one of the cleverest politicians, at least in Canadian history.

And Paul Martin is indeed a big schmuck. I think the Liberals will probably lose the next election, which is a good thing even if the Conservatives win. Because no matter who it is, a party cannot be in power for almost 15 years and NOT have some form of corruption. The proof is that advertising scandal that's still not fully rsolved yet.

There's no doubt Chretien was in on the scam, but even deep down, on some level, it was a sort of noble cause, to help prevent Quebec separation.

[BlueCat]

Chretien is pretty misunderstood, and under-rated. I think this is mainly because of his appearance and manner of speach: he speaks like an old french-canadian farmer, believe me, I've met a few However, the man is one of the cleverest politicians, at least in Canadian history.

And Paul Martin is indeed a big schmuck. I think the Liberals will probably lose the next election, which is a good thing even if the Conservatives win. Because no matter who it is, a party cannot be in power for almost 15 years and NOT have some form of corruption. The proof is that advertising scandal that's still not fully rsolved yet.

There's no doubt Chretien was in on the scam, but even deep down, on some level, it was a sort of noble cause, to help prevent Quebec separation.

Chretien seems to be a good person from what I have read. I was living in Canada when he stepped down, I found it sad as Canada needed someone to stand up to US conservative pressures. I think Martin has sold out but then that feeling comes from watching CNBC.
I don't live in Canada now so I am out of touch.
What problems do you have with Martin?

[nicholasstanko]

Chretien seems to be a good person from what I have read. I was living in Canada when he stepped down, I found it sad as Canada needed someone to stand up to US conservative pressures. I think Martin has sold out but then that feeling comes from watching CNBC.
I don't live in Canada now so I am out of touch.
What problems do you have with Martin?

he bows way to easily to american pressure. i dont think it's due to being weak-kneed i think it's that corruption flesh was talking about.

the pharm. drugs issue for example. he did nothing major to stop it, even though alot of people said he should retaliate by cutting the u.s. natural oil exports. he didnt.


he's just a big "liberal" pussy.


all hail bad canadian politicians

[BlueCat]

All hail bad politics EVERYWHERE....did you ever read that BCCI affair paper? There are so many crooks out there it is hard to know who to beleive....

BCCI's criminality included fraud by BCCI and BCCI customers involving billions of dollars; money laundering in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas; BCCI's bribery of officials in most of those locations; support of terrorism, arms trafficking, and the sale of nuclear technologies; management of prostitution; the commission and facilitation of income tax evasion, smuggling, and illegal immigration; illicit purchases of banks and real estate; and a panoply of financial crimes....

BCCI's systematically relied on relationships with, and as necessary, payments to, prominent political figures in most of the 73 countries in which BCCI operated. BCCI records and testimony from former BCCI officials together document BCCI's systematic securing of Central Bank deposits of Third World countries...

BCCI developed a plan to infiltrate the U.S. market through secretly purchasing U.S. banks while opening branch offices of BCCI throughout the U.S

It just gets deeper and deeper it is really an eye opening read and it is No Conspiracy theory it is a congressional investigation that has been proven to be true. The oil companies are invovled in this too. Surprise surprise

http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/1992...cci/01exec.htm

[BlueCat]

Thanks for the informative post Fengzi. it is appreciated.

Some questions...."China today is communist only in that it is run by the communist party. And that, is only a name, like Republican, Democrat,"

Ok but Democrats and Republicans have an a set idealogy, the Chinese government still supposts the communist Idealogy doesn't it?
How has this changed?


Of course the people can not vote so there is no danger to the communist party of it ever losing power

This concerns me. ^

I really don't trust either government. I know that economic growth will help us to communicate better and in turn may help humanitarian issues but I don't think that will happen with our present day leaders because they won't even admit there is a problem....

[Fengzi]

Ok but Democrats and Republicans have an a set idealogy, the Chinese government still supposts the communist Idealogy doesn't it?
How has this changed?

Actually the current government does not support a communist ideology. I'm not sure how to describe their ideology but it isn't communist. Maybe nationalist but not really. The problem is that people here want to see Chinese communisn fall like it did in The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. They want drama, to see walls being torn down, to see borders changed, etc. That's just not going to happen. What has happened is that Chinese communism has already fallen but rather than having an abrupt change it has happened gradually. Starting pretty much in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping came to power the government has gradually been reforming itself. It is now so differnet that the government, and its ideology, bears very little resemblance to that of Mao's day. This is why, although most people here see Deng Xiaoping as the evil villian behind the Tiananmen Square crackdown, most Chinese actually revere him as the father of "modern China".

I really don't trust either government. I know that economic growth will help us to communicate better and in turn may help humanitarian issues but I don't think that will happen with our present day leaders because they won't even admit there is a problem....

I agree that it would be better if the Chinese people had some direct say in how the government is run. From what I have seen, however, most Chinese have little interest in participating in the government at all. I think that a lot of this is due to the fact that they simply don't know any other way. It's hard to miss what you've never experienced. Of course I'm basing this on people who I know personally, most of which are well educated, successful, and reasonably wealthy for Chinese standards. For these people life is good so why rock the boat?

On the humanitarian issues there is a lot that does bother me. We have to realize, however, that our opinions about what are basic human rights are based on our value system and beliefs. We are a terribly ethnocentric society and would like to think that all Chinese would love to have the rights that we do but this isn't neccessarily true. In fact, many are quite insulted by our criticism of their lack of rights. They feel we have far too many rights which has resulted in high crime and a lack of moral character. This is similar to an article I was reading a while back on Singapore, also pretty low on the rights ladder, where they did a survey asking if the people there would like more rights. While nearly all said yes, when given a choice of no change or change to every right given to Americans nearly all said no change. There's an interesting book called Human Rights and Chinese Values that you might want to read sometime that discusses this issue.

If you get the chance to teach in China again I'd highly recommend it. I actually taught for a while when I was there and its a great opportunity to talk with people from many different walks of life. Most people are pretty open and don't hold anything back. If nothing else its a great chance to see how another culture lives.

[nicholasstanko]

Ok but Democrats and Republicans have an a set idealogy, the Chinese government still supposts the communist Idealogy doesn't it?
How has this changed?

Actually the current government does not support a communist ideology. I'm not sure how to describe their ideology but it isn't communist. Maybe nationalist but not really. The problem is that people here want to see Chinese communisn fall like it did in The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. They want drama, to see walls being torn down, to see borders changed, etc. That's just not going to happen. What has happened is that Chinese communism has already fallen but rather than having an abrupt change it has happened gradually. Starting pretty much in 1978 when Deng Xiaoping came to power the government has gradually been reforming itself. It is now so differnet that the government, and its ideology, bears very little resemblance to that of Mao's day. This is why, although most people here see Deng Xiaoping as the evil villian behind the Tiananmen Square crackdown, most Chinese actually revere him as the father of "modern China".

I really don't trust either government. I know that economic growth will help us to communicate better and in turn may help humanitarian issues but I don't think that will happen with our present day leaders because they won't even admit there is a problem....

I agree that it would be better if the Chinese people had some direct say in how the government is run. From what I have seen, however, most Chinese have little interest in participating in the government at all. I think that a lot of this is due to the fact that they simply don't know any other way. It's hard to miss what you've never experienced. Of course I'm basing this on people who I know personally, most of which are well educated, successful, and reasonably wealthy for Chinese standards. For these people life is good so why rock the boat?

On the humanitarian issues there is a lot that does bother me. We have to realize, however, that our opinions about what are basic human rights are based on our value system and beliefs. We are a terribly ethnocentric society and would like to think that all Chinese would love to have the rights that we do but this isn't neccessarily true. In fact, many are quite insulted by our criticism of their lack of rights. They feel we have far too many rights which has resulted in high crime and a lack of moral character. This is similar to an article I was reading a while back on Singapore, also pretty low on the rights ladder, where they did a survey asking if the people there would like more rights. While nearly all said yes, when given a choice of no change or change to every right given to Americans nearly all said no change. There's an interesting book called Human Rights and Chinese Values that you might want to read sometime that discusses this issue.

If you get the chance to teach in China again I'd highly recommend it. I actually taught for a while when I was there and its a great opportunity to talk with people from many different walks of life. Most people are pretty open and don't hold anything back. If nothing else its a great chance to see how another culture lives.

im dreaming...two people actually went into the politics forum and managed to have respectful courteous debate

it's been a while....




all hail respect

[BlueCat]

Thank you so much Fengzi... I would like to hear more about your teaching job.

I will look for "Human Rights and Chinese Values".....

You have calmed a few fears...thanks