Quote Originally Posted by 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.

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