Is China a "free", democratic, country? Of course not. It's the GCDP (Great Capitalist Dictatorship of the People ). Are the 15 million peeps in Shenzhen and Zhuhai living in fear of the state, or any of its local organs? No. Are the people there pretty much free to do as they wish? Yup. Pretty much as free as HK, the UK or any such similar place. There are certain things that one shouldn't do - as there are anywhere, otherwise get on with things.
Am I philosophically opposed the the CCP and the political system in China? Yes I am. Do I want to see a more democratic China? Yes. Do I want certain laws and practices changed? Yes. Are there changes that I feel could and should happen immediately? Absolutely. Will China be a perfect society tomorrow? No. Ten years? No. Twenty years? Probably not. Is China today an immeasurably better place than it was thirty years ago? Undoubtedly. Will China be a better place ten years from now? I believe so. And in another ten after that I believe it will be a better place still. Am I doing my part to impact this country positively? I do what I can. Could and should I do more? Probably. Does what I do actually make any difference? I like to think I play a small role.
There are more than 1.3 billion people alive in this country. It is, therefore, my estimation that it is extremely important that China succeeds.
Woof
If you don't address the root causes (that some will always lose from capitalism and hence need to be compensated to prevent them going postal) and just try and crack down on the symptoms then it's ultimately counterproductive.
Jessiedog said:Yeah. I was thinking a bit about this tonite.....
There is no doubt that the Leadership are very concerned about these issues - they'd be fuckin' stoopid not to be.
The problem is, now that the Genie is well and truely out of the bottle and the contents of Pandora's box have bolted down the street (and down south to Guangdong), that it's a very difficult scenario to manage.
Endemic corruption swathed in intertwined and interconnecting layers and spirals of Guangxi and most, essentially, outside of the reach of those whose interests lie in curtailing it.
The Leadership, so far, are really not sure how to deal with this - they are rattled. The recent clampdown on all mediums of information-transmission, both into and within the country is, to a fair degree, a(n) (desperate,) attempt to stimey the spread of unrest and yet, ironically, or perhaps perversely, it is the media that, until recently, has been the most vigorous in weeding out corruption. It's a double edged sword.
In my view, the medicine needs to be taken sooner rather than later, corruption needs to be addressed in an effective way. The more that China liberalises, however, the further the spread of information, so greater and greater numbers of peeps are getting more and more impatient to get more of "their share" of the goodies and, to stop others (local officials and businessespeople,) stealing what they do have.
It really is balanced on a fine knife edge and, currently, stellar economic growth is the only thing holding everything together. Should this flounder (and there are many, MANY dangers to the global economy hovering around at the moment - it's prolly only a matter of time,) then China is in deep shit.
The Leadership needs to move very swiftly towards more effective control and curtailmant of the worst of the excesses rather than just trying to mop up the messes. Unfortunately, without the necessary infrastructure (free media, independent corruption agancy and judiciary, better pay for public servants, etc.) this is a daunting task. I reckon that there needs to be quite radical change within a decade or China will implode - perhaps sooner if the economy stumbles.
Really, we need to see concrete measures implemented within five years if we are to avoid a deterioration in social discontent.
And please God, let the economy continue to prosper, otherwise we're in deep doodoo.
China can absorb massive shocks (look at the country's exemplary behaviour during the "Asian Financial Crisis" in 1997/98,) but is also under barely imaginable pressures both internally and externally.
It's a knife edge alright!
A bit of a ramble as usual. Sorry.
But whatever......
Woof
kyser said:However, it does little to 'counter' my opinion of China as being in a nascent stage of becoming an imperial power in the same mould as the US - use of soft power (companies, markets, culture) coupled with back channel use of hard power, or hard power thru proxies to achieve it's strategic aims of securing basic resources.
Jessiedog said:It's very difficult to predict whether China's stated goal of "Peaceful Rise", recently softened to "Peaceful Development" so as to avoid the use of any language that might alarm any westerners, is merely rhetoric. At least for the time being, however, and under the current leadership (Hu, Wen, et al), I think we can take China at her word.
Given China's meteoric economic development, the leadership's attention is clearly focussed upon managing the corresponding social problems engendered.
Currently sitting on a trillion US$ cash in the bank and with little qualms about dealing with obnoxious regimes in order to secure energy and raw material supplies, China is very well placed to continue on her current path (with the usual various caveats thrown in about the dangers of uneven economic development, a rising Gini Coefficient, environmental degradation, social disorder, endemic corruption, failing healthcare and welfare/pension services, etc, etc,) and to go from strength to strength without the need for external aggression.
Over the longer term, it's difficult to say, but I see no reason why any gigantic superpower should be any less belligerent than previous claimants to such status have proven to be.
kyser said:What does interest me more however are the posts on Chinese culture - it fascinates me to look at a country that was basically Confuscian for 2500 years, was then wrenched apart by wars and the attempted regeneration based on a Western European's philosophy that had been around (then) for about 100 years, and now to see it in a bizarre and fascinating phase-space - not communist (or even Mao/Stalinist), not a democracy, not a Confucian society (altho as I understand it the legal system is still largely based on confucian principles?) and one that it once again having it's 'business spirit' re-awakened (from the histories I've read the Chinese have long been an industrious, hard working lot) is now undergoing huge economic growth of the kind not seen in Europe since the industrial revolution. So it intrigues me as to how the Chinese see themselves now - what are the bedrocks of the Chinese identity.
Jessiedog said:It's an intreging question that is being addressed both within China and by external commentators.
It's important not to underestimate the importance of the cultural revolution in shaping the modern Chinese psyche. During this decade, nobody went to secondary school or university, a whole generation of children lost their education. Pretty much all existing art, literature and "culture" was destroyed. Traditional bonds of kin and clan were shattered. Traditional values, religious and/or spiritual values, moral values, any fucking values, were virtually obliterated. The country was wracked with poverty, hunger and death. Millions were murdered and tens of millions brutalised.
The Cultural Revolution left China in a national state of shock, stripped of the values built-up over thousands of years. A nation bereft of history. A nation where friends and family could not and did not trust one another. A nation that was starving.
Two years after this utterly disasterous policy of Mao's was formally abandoned in 1976 saw the beginning of China's opening and the instigation and implementation of the Socialist Market Economy.
The only thing that mattered was the modicum of freedom that permitted an individual to earn enough money for food.
Nothing else.
Oh. Except for the ongoing impetous to flee China - ususally to HK, we soaked up about four million hungry migrants between 1937 and 1982.
Now - a single generation later - China is churning out more than 4 million university graduates a year (5 million expected next year) and only creating enough jobs for 2.75 of them (there's a million fresh graduates trying to get jobs as roadsweepers at the moment.
The impetous to make money has grown and grown as the chance to do so has spread from the core beginnings in Shenzhen, up the east coast, to about half of the population today. There are some 300 million "middle class" in China now.
This singleminded worship of the Yuan, unfettered by traditional, moral, religious or spiritual values, is a potent force. Whether it bodes well for China's sustainable development is another question entirely.
kyser said:More importantly, and especially given the cover ups over bird flu, do any of the China lot think the government will be competent to deal with things like climate and water crises? China occupies a LOT of land, so global warming will start to impact on it more than many other countries - will the govt adopt a 3 Gorges approach and just say 'fuck it' and go all Katrina on people or are there the infrastructure and social controls to deal with the massive environmental problems the country will have to - indeed should be - dealing with at the moment, examples: the drying of the Yangtze and the massive pollution of the Yangtze and other major watercourses, a current problem; the estimates by some geologists that approximately 1/4 of the water table is now contaminated with heavy metals at levels that could be deemed as dangerous to the public.
Jesiedog said:The leadership is belatedly waking up to the looming environmental crises facing the country.
One of the "benefits" of dictatorship is the ability to "mandate" things quickly and the latest five-year-plan has emphasised sustainable development.
Ten thousand heavily polluting factories have been closed down in Guangdong Province over the last six months (although that leaves hundreds of thousands more ad those worst offenders that were closed will simply move to less developed, interior provinces) and the leadership is getting tougher on a whole range of environmental issues.
Unfortunately, the aforementioned corruption that goes hand-in-hand with the single minded pursuit of weath acts as a severe drag on attempts by the Central leadership to clamp down on nefarious environmental practices.
Running China is an extremely delicate balancing act and the leadership is paranoid about a free media reporting on economic, social, environmental, health-issue and, in particular, corruption problems. There is no doubt that such reporting creates social tensions and fosters social unrest - rightly so. Unfortunately, suppressing the media (again, particularly corruption reports since they piss-off the peasantry and the working and middle classes more than anything else - after all, corruption means less for them,) makes it that much easier for corrupt cadres and business owners to ply their destructive trades.
China remains a spectacular success story - the creation of a middle class of 300 million and the rasing from poverty of a further four hundred million, all within in a single generation, is not to be sniffed at.
As to whether the strains that the rate of development is placing on the environment as well as the psyche of the people can be managed in a sustainable fashion remains to be seen.
There will be many, many slips and falls as China rumbles forward and there's no guarantee that the country won't implode and enter another dark period for a decade or more. The (relatively) good news is that nobody wants this to happen and the vast majority of today's Chinese value stability above all else.
After all, you need stability in order to make money and it is this goal that pervades today's Collective Chinese Conciousness.
I'm an optimist on China. It won't be an easy path and there will be many, very difficult, setbacks, but it's difficult not to stand and wonder at the rate and depth of transformation the country is undergoing. The Genie is out of the bottle and China is headed where she is headed - fast! Managing the transformation is the key - and the most challenging - task.
Jessiedog said:Right now, right here in greater China, history is being written. History that will deeply influence the future course of events upon this planet. History is being carved out in the most profound of ways and I do feel it is a privilege to be right at the epicentre and, moreover, to be a tiny part of something that in some small and insignificant way, is actually making a difference, is actually acting as a force which is contributing to the shaping of events as they happen.
Very difficult to judge... what strikes me as more interesting is how China will fare in an economic crisis (in particular, one that includes a credit crunch or the good old winds of creative destruction).
fuck me, you are a prophet. this post is from 2005!
More than 10,000 vehicles are stuck in a 120km (75-mile) traffic jam on China's Beijing to Tibet motorway.
The majority of the vehicles stuck in the jam, which began on Tuesday, are coal trucks heading to the capital.
A 100km traffic jam that had lasted nine days on the same motorway was cleared just over a week ago.
This week, 17 organizations and individuals wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon requesting the government of Canada to declare Liu Shaohua, first secretary of the education section at the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa, to be persona non grata for his role in mobilizing Chinese students and scholars to suppress Canadian protesters.
Liu Shaohua was caught on tape asking Chinese students and scholars to fight a ‘political struggle’ during Hu Jingtao’s visit. He said “Falun Gong, Tibetan separatists, Uyghur separatists, and democracy people” were planning protests that would “sabotage” and “interfere with” Hu’s visit. He stated: “This is a battle that relates to defending the reputation of our motherland!” and whoever cannot come “must ask for leave from me.” He said the embassy will cover all expenses, but “do not talk about it outside.”
My name is Zhang Jiyan and I am wife of a diplomat at the Chinese embassy in Canada. I have recently left the embassy.
At this event to support 20 million who have quit the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations, I not only find it a great pleasure to see so many Chinese people awakening to say "no" to the Chinese Communist Party, but I also take pride in being one of them, and can stand forward today to let out the words that have been hidden in my heart.
In China, half of the population has been subject to persecution in one way or another in the so-called political movements. Since the Chinese Communist Party came to exist, 80 million Chinese nationals have been slaughtered. The Chinese Communist Party's depletion of the Chinese people's spiritual pursuit has been a persecution of the nation's soul, which is a destruction that has affected everyone. In replacement, the Party has used its communist ideology to poison the minds of the Chinese for several generations.
In particular, the persecution of Falun Gong, which teaches cultivation of Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance, has shattered the morals and conscience in the society. To date, more than 3,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death; tens of thousands of them are still being held in the Chinese labour camps and prisons, where they have been subject to cruelty, tortures, their lives in great danger, their organs harvested. This reveals the evil nature of the Chinese Communist Party and shall not be tolerated, in accordance with heavenly principles.
I am here calling for all the fellow Chinese to say NO to the Chinese Communist Party so that together we make ourselves free men and women who can hold our rights and the fate of our lives in our own hands
Yeah, reads as a typical CIA I wanna cause a revolution missive.
Just reread the whole thread - most of which is from 2005, over 5 years ago and my, oh, my, how things have changed in the last 5 years.
It's been interesting reading stuff from half a decade ago.
What about a roll-call for Urbs in China right now, are there more or less and how are you enjoying it?
Good to see you're still around Jessiedog.
On a slight tangent.
Thousands of vehicles stuck in 120km China traffic jam
BBC 3rd September.
Looks like the infrastructure is reaching its current limits.
Cool, say hey to Ninjaboy for me, we lived in S.Korea at the same time and had a mini Urban meet once.
Here's something about China and chinese political tactics:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/25430
This happened in Canada; he was talking to chinese students in Canada.
What about a roll-call for Urbs in China right now, are there more or less and how are you enjoying it?
Definitely Liu wouldn't be known by many outside small liberal circles. I think he's a fucking idiot myself (mad free-marketeer and gobshite, if with a decent prose style) but obviously don't support the way the state has treated him and think he should be freed immediately (and compensated). Meanwhile Zhao Dongmin, actual Party member locked up for his workers' rights advocacy, is only getting international attention in a few lefty circles. http://chinastudygroup.net/2010/10/zhao-dongmin/