 |
| |
|
|
GePap
|
 |
of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:34
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by mindseye
GePap, could you maybe go read the other examples I listed in the other thread first? I'm getting tired of re-typing this stuff. Like I said before, it's something you see in a myriad of ways, great and small, every day.
If you want more examples, just let me know how many and what type. I could also point you to articles written by others (other "racists"?) on the same topic, but like I already said, better yet is to ask anyone who actually lives here.
I added this particuliar example because (1) it was such a grotesque, extreme multi-layered example, and 2) it's been on my mind lately. |
Instead of giving me "examples" of everyday horros of corruption, which you can get from around the world, not only China (which is my point), why not some of that cultural annalysis you spoke of?
Because again, examples of corrupt and self-interested officials letting the public get screwed for their own personal profit are a dime a dozen in the third world.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
mindseye
|
 |
A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:34
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by lord of the mark
Ya think? Like its been asserted for decades by Arendt and others that totalitarianism is isolating, and you take a population only recently (and barely) out of totalitarianism, and you start telling them to enrich themselves, and they end up money grubbing indivualists. Will wonders never cease!!! |
No, that's not it. It's not money-grubbing or enrichment. It's at a more fundamental level.
As I have said many times already, Chinese view their social sphere in a fundamentally different way than westerners do. It's split sharply into two worlds: the people you know -- and strangers. To people they know, Chinese are very kind, polite and generous. I agree with DaShi that Chinese exceed westerners in these respects, with people they know. I think both DaShi and I have said this multiple times before. It seems to get lost amidst the charges of racism.
On the other hand, people Chinese don't know usually count for little or nothing. So, it's not just about money.
Example: many westerners have witnessed the sight of a huge crowd gathered around someone in distress, but no one helping. Someone struck by a car may lie bleeding in the street. 100 - 200 people may come running from blocks away to gather around and ogle (inevitably, there will be a few @ssholes laughing and joking). But not a soul will assist the victim. Because they are a stranger.
I have witnessed this phenomenon myself, and I know many others who have as well. There are similar accounts in the blogosphere. I don't think this happens in many other cultures, regardless of income level. This happens less often in big modern Chinese cities (more evidence that these attitudes can be changed), yet it does still occur, even in Shanghai.
It's this attitude that provides the foundation for other issues like putting personal profit ahead of public welfare. It's because the general public are strangers that Chinese don't care much about them, not because they are money grubbers.
IMO, this is also the reason why so many Chinese resent westerners haranging them about human rights. Most Chinese simply don't care about some dissident imprisoned somewhere, he's a stranger. And since they don't care, they cannot conceive that foreigners actually could care. So instead, they interpret the western criticisms as thinly-veiled attempts to "hold China back".
Personally I think it's sad and extremely regrettable that so many Chinese don't care more about strangers, but I certainly don't HATE them for it.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
mindseye
|
|
A Yankee living in Shanghai
Apr 1999
time: 13:34
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
More specifically, the problem is linked to low paid officials who see people enriching themselves around them. This creates a breeding ground for corruption. You can't mix capitalism into a socialist system without tearing apart society.
This isn't specifically a Chinese problem. My Indians friends keep calling India the most corrupt country inthe world. You can't get anything done without a bribe. Markets and socialism just don't mix. |
Che, you may be interested in the following SF Chronicle story (from my "hope springs eternal" file). It's one of the most encouraging articles on China I have seen in some time. By the way, did you get my recent pm? I really meant it. 
quote:
China's inequities energize New Left
Failures of reform buoy new thinking
Jehangir S. Pocha
San Francisco Chronicle
June 19, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c...INGK0D963J1.DTL
Beijing -- This city's soaring glass towers and giant neon signs make it seem like the new mecca of global capitalism. But behind the glitz lie rising inequalities and falling social services that are fueling the rise of China's New Left.
This is a loose coalition of academics who challenge China's market reforms with a simple message: China's failed 20th century experiment with communism cannot be undone in the 21st century by embracing 19th century-style laissez-faire capitalism.
China is "caught between the two extremes of misguided socialism and crony capitalism, and suffering from the worst of both systems," says Wang Hui, a professor of literature at Beijing's Tsinghua University. His passionate denunciations of China's market reforms in Du Shu, a magazine he edits, are partly credited with energizing China's New Left intellectuals. "We have to find an alternate way. This is the great mission of our generation."
Such grand visions notwithstanding, the New Left's adherents don't offer a coherent set of alternate policies. Some are hard-liners, who say they rue the violence of the Maoist years, but remain enchanted with the sociopolitical initiatives of that period, such as collectivization.
But the majority of New Left intellectuals are moderates who recognize that old Communist dogma lies discredited. They say they simply want to rein in the excesses of China's market reforms, which have created widespread inequities.
China may be the world's fastest-growing economy, but it is also one of the world's most unequal societies. In a country where people used to save for months to buy a Flying Pigeon bicycle, the roads now are jammed with gleaming Audis and Buicks.
But among them, the unlucky ones who have missed the opportunities that have come with economic reforms still pedal their now-rusty Flying Pigeons. Free access to education and health care has been drastically cut, especially in rural areas, and property that was once seized from the rich and redistributed to the poor is being taken from farmers and given to developers.
Wang says it's time for people to understand that China's problems are the result of "bad policies and bad governance," not merely fallout from market mechanics.
Cui Zhi Yuan of Tsinghua University, a leading New Left thinker, says the crux of the problem is that "the government is more focused on helping export manufacturers than agriculture and rural welfare," which affect far more people.
One of the largest expenses in the budget is not education or health care, he says, but tax rebates to exporters. So, the government is returning money to domestic and multinational exporters while cutting welfare programs.
Wang and Cui say that with businesspeople now allowed to join the Communist Party, a government-business cabal is looting wealth that rightly belongs to China's workers, through the privatization of state-owned enterprises.
They depict reform of these enterprises as a wholly corrupt process, in which politically connected managers, in collusion with local officials and banks, strip enterprises of assets without any accountability, creating a might-is-right culture across the country.
Although both Wang and Cui say there is no doubt that China's state-owned enterprises, which generally lose vast amounts of money every year, need change, they are calling for a process of institutional renovation that would allow the enterprises to restructure without surrendering ownership or abdicating responsibility to workers.
The degree to which the New Left's rhetoric meshes with that of the government's indicates that President Hu Jintao and his team are tacitly supporting the New Left. Part of Hu's motivation is to discredit previous President Jiang Zemin, who committed the country to his awkwardly named Three Represents theory. Generally dismissed as a euphemism for Reaganesque trickle- down economics, Jiang's theory, enshrined in China's Constitution, is widely blamed for the deep inequalities in the country.
A recent confidential study of China's 20,000 richest people found that only 5 percent had made it on merit, according to a report in the China Rights Forum by Liu Xiaobao. More than 90 percent were related to senior government or Communist Party officials.
Such nepotism and corruption led to more than 50,000 protests across the country in 2003, seven times the number a decade before, according to government reports.
Chen Xin, a professor of sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing and a self-described New Lefter, says Hu realizes he must correct the imbalances created during Jiang's term because although a democracy can balance extremes by throwing out of power a party or a president who's gone too far, "in a one-party system, the party must have its own self- correcting mechanisms, or else it will lose touch with the people."
Yet critics of the New Left, such as Professor Shi Yinhong, director of the Center for American Studies at the People's University in Beijing, say the group has no real alternative to the current global economic system.
Wang accepts that the major focus of the New Left is constructive criticism, but he says a new economic framework is being created. At its core is a focus on what the New Left calls the san nong (or three nong): issues concerning the plight of the nong min (peasants), nong ye (agriculture) and nong cun (rural communities).
Cui says focusing on these three issues is China's best hope for making the transition from a foreign investment-driven economy to one based on organic growth driven by domestic investment, which will raise local salaries and standards of living.
With dissent still a delicate business in China, Chen is quick to point out that the New Left's concern "is not politics but social welfare. We're only amplifying what we see happening around us. Hopefully, that will aid and guide the government."
Because the Chinese government is congenitally opposed to any sort of unsanctioned organization, Wang emphasizes, "We're not a group ... just a loose affiliation of people with similar beliefs."
He adds, "Even the term 'New Left' is not ours. It was first used to discredit us and to portray us as the old socialists. But I don't really mind. When something new is happening, it's normal for people to try to define it in old terms."
If Wang's benevolence toward his labelers seems magnanimous, it is partly because the "left" label has begun to work in favor of the intellectuals.
"I've been reading some New Left articles, and they make me feel very warm, because they remind me of the values my parents used to talk to me about, " says Maria Zhang, 24, a student at the Beijing Forestry University. "I feel like China has lost its bearing by bending too much toward Western ways. We're out of touch with our past and core values."
With such sentiments increasing, Hu has brought a different tone to decision-making in Beijing. His government has said it will look beyond economic growth to issues such as environmental decay, regional inequality and unemployment.
Lu She Zhong, 55, a village leader in central Henan province who's been battling local authorities for six years over unpaid compensation, after his entire village was resettled to make way for the giant Xiao Langdi Dam on the Yellow River, dismisses such talk as "only words" to mollify restive groups.
But Chen says rhetoric is always the first step toward change in China. "That sets the national mood," he says.
Jehangir Pocha is a member of the Chronicle Foreign Service. |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Commy
|
 |
St. Louis, MO, USA
Mar 2004
time: 05:34
|
|
Why does China want a large military? So that it can take Taiwan and South Korea? Well, you are partially right, but China wouldn't need a 12-13 million man army to do that, now would it?
No, China doesn't just want to be powerful and have the ability to attack whoever it wants, no no no...China wants to be powerful, attack whoever it wants, AND not have to worry about US retaliation or interference...
Why does the United States need a larger military you ask? I'm not in favor of big militaries, but let's think about this...how many people here at apolyton just absolutely despise America?
A good number...in fact, I would bet a good number of people in the world absolutely HATE America, probably more than there are American citizens...if this doesn't convince you of how many enemies America has, I don't know what will...I just hope I don't have to bring up things like 9/11 which are tragic but unfortunately overexagerrated too much...
The fact is, China is so under-developed, that it has 6 times more troops than America, and yet pays about a sixth on its military budget as America does...America spends 370 billion annually, China manages only 67.5 billion...
China needs a larger military, literally, because the quality of its military is so poor compared to its greatest threats...America and Europe...
Now true, the quality of your nuclear arsenal doesn't really matter, a nuke is a nuke, but consider this...
America spends more money on military than any other country...in fact, it spends the same as the next 12 countries combined...of those 12 countries, atleast 6 could be considered close allies, and only one (besides China), South Korea, could really be considered an enemy or hostile nation to the US...
China doesn't even need a larger military to take over other countries, China needs a larger military to prevent becoming just another one of America's many subordinate "allies" under the American military hierarchy...
With the European Union gradually emerging, and coming strong, China not only is outnumbered in military, but it also is in money and industry...
The United States, with a GDP of 11.75 trillion dollars, controls more than a fifth of the world's economy...add in the EU as its closest ally, which by the way, closely follows America in GDP, and you have a free nation alliance that controls 40% of the worlds goods and economy...
If you add India and Japan into all this mess, America and its little club of friends own more than half the worlds economy...
China on the otherhand, owns its puny 13% of the world economy, and is outnumbered not only in cold cash but is outdone in its military technology, progress in its Space program, and even with its high economic growth rate, will eventually fall far behind the US and Europe...unless China has a superlarge and bloated military...
Not only does China need a military to defend the nation from other nations, but it also needs to defend the nation from its people...it is most likely that the Chinese people would be very sympathetic to the American and European alliance, and if conflict arose between China and America, the chinese people could very likely end up as the closest allies to the Americans and Europe...China needs its troops to maintain the governments power and control over the people, not just from Western culture...
Are all these wide theories? Maybe...
Are all these just WW 3 fantasies? Maybe...
But the point is, unless China takes drastic measures, the shear size of its potential enemies and threats can prove even to large for a nuclear attack...simply put, not enough nukes to hit Europe and America...
On the other hand, if America stops increasing its military size and budget, China will become even more of a threat and may be one of the first "flagged" countries, if you will, to undermine America's unofficial role as World Police...
I don't like conflict, war, and am not in support of large militaries...but unfortunately, freedom is not free quite yet, but hopefully, if China falls, freedom can become quite cheaper...
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:34.
Apolyton Time is 00:34. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
20-06-2005 21:40
|