shows how far stupid people will go to flaunt their status symbols. they’ll do it even if it poisons them. that is if they’re luckily enough to not have their heads simply explode in city traffic.

October 26, 2007 @ 6:13 am | Comment

This reminds me of something related only tangentially….. I live in the Atlanta area, and I lived here before, during and after the ’96 Olympics. My co-workers and I convinced our bosses to let us all take vacation or leave of absence for the entire 2 weeks, due to traffic concerns. Know what happened? Everyone thought the traffic was going to be bad, so no one drove. Turns out the traffic was better during that first week than it had ever been — there was no traffic. People weren’t driving, they were either out of town, staying home, or taking mass transit. The second week? People figured out you could drive, and the traffic rebounded. But still not as bad as usual.

October 26, 2007 @ 6:43 am | Comment

This is China. If necessary, the PSB and PAP will shut down the factories and put barriers on the ring road on ramps, with only official and Olympic vehicles being allowed access.

If the Olympics are cancelled due to pollution, the CCP and China will lose more face than any paltry boycott effort could ever hope to achieve.

And that loss of face might be the only motivator for China to really clean up its act. Just as the Cayahoga River fire and Love Canal were the final straws in the US.

October 26, 2007 @ 1:15 pm | Comment

God himself couldn’t cancel the Beijing Olympics. The marathon and/or other events may need to be postponed, but cancellation of the entire Games? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

October 26, 2007 @ 8:48 pm | Comment

Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

Why? It’s not up to Beijing to decide. If pollution were that bad the IOC may not have a choice but to at least reschedule events, if not cancel the games.

The problem isn’t so much cancellation, which is not so likely, but pollution ruining things. That would be worse than having it cancelled, because at least with the latter the Chinese authorities could claim discrimination, racism or something. To hold it and fail would cause the real loss of face.

Also it isn’t just the marathon that could be affected. A lot of the long-distance runners would be sucking in large amounts of air too. Even the sprinters could see their performance affected. Can you imagine the effect of a headline like “X wins gold medal because Y pukes up due to Beijing air”?

Richard, let’s be honest – this is a UN report. It’s not looking good for Beijing at the moment with less than a year to go. They’ve got to shape up – pretending everything is fine as some Chinese officials seem to think won’t help.

October 27, 2007 @ 6:30 am | Comment

I went to a major event the day before yesterday at which Jacques Rogge, president of the IOC, publicly congratulated Beijing on the progress it’s made in cleaning up the city. Whether he meant it or not, who knows, but he’s on the record saying it, as he has also been on the record telling Beijing they still have a long way to go. I agree with you that the air here is still vile, and I think it’s not inconceivable (though it is unlikely) that some events may be canceled or postponed or moved elsewhere. But the Beijing Olympics will not be canceled. The IOC at this point has far too much invested in it, and anyone who seriously considers the notion that the IOC might actually pull out at this point, a scant 280 days before the games, is dreaming. Should they cancel it? Maybe. Will they cancel it? No way on earth, and I will bet my life savings on it. Seriously, it’s so absurd it’s laughable. I mean, anything’s possible. Maybe Bush will admit he’s made a terrible mistake in Iraq and call for all the troops to be home by Christmas. But this is the real world. The troops aren’t coming home by Christmas, and the Beijing Olympics will start on August 8 come hell or high water. Anyone who wants to place bets, let me know and we can set up an escrow account and put down our money – I am dead serious.

October 27, 2007 @ 1:13 pm | Comment

“God himself couldn’t cancel the Beijing Olympics”

Of course. But conversely, the Communist Party has cancelled the Second Coming of Christ and the reappearance of the Hidden Imam, and resurrection of the dead, AND they can change the weather at will and make the Earth turn more slowly so that the Olympics will last forever.

October 27, 2007 @ 2:28 pm | Comment

Hey, Richard, I got my plane tix to Shanghai (so I could use miles you see – the airfares to Beijing for the Olympics are absurd), got plenty of cushion to get to Beijing for the first event that I may (or may not) have tickets for, AND…have three nights at what is normally a cheap hotel – you would not believe how much they are pumping up the prices. Or maybe you would. I am feeling fortunate to find a room to split with a friend for $130 a night! This for a room that is normally @ $30 for two beds.

And that was the best deal I was able to find.

We’re taking a chance and not getting the room for the whole time, because you actually have to pay for the damn thing when you book, and maybe there will be cheaper places to be had…but who knows?

What I do know is that the demand in the US for tickets is so high that Cosport (the agency handling ticket sales) has had to delay telling you what you got in the lottery by two months.

Supposedly we will know by Oct. 30 what we actually got.

But I wouldn’t miss it, for all that.

October 27, 2007 @ 2:29 pm | Comment

The Munich Olympics of 1936 were a no-miss event too. All the best people were there, really hip people who understood National Socialism was the wave of the future.

October 27, 2007 @ 3:45 pm | Comment

Nice, Ivan. Thanks.

Look, I have been going to China since 1979. It was a very tough place back then, and it’s sure no paradise for most of its people now. But there are many wonderful things about China and Chinese culture. Maybe you can’t appreciate them. That’s a pity.

More to the point, and I admit it freely, I like to see what’s going on in the world. I’d go to just about anyplace on this planet in a heartbeat, because I want to know what it’s like. In another life I would have been a foreign correspondent, or some other kind of experience junkie.

I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to go, and more to the point, I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to leave when I want to.

My obligation in exchange for this privilege, i feel, is to try to communicate what I’ve learned, and to support people and organizations who are trying to do the right thing.

I don’t do nearly as much as I’d like or I should, but I try. In the next phase of my life, I hope to do more.

October 27, 2007 @ 4:25 pm | Comment

I’ll say something else, as long as I’m here. The first time I was in China, it was largely cut off from the West and from much of the world. China, the Middle Kingdom. I recognize that China was never this hermetically sealed environment; of course there were all kinds of outside cultural influences and dealings with the rest of the world, but….

What’s going on now strikes me as fundamentally different from earlier cultural exchanges. China has opened itself up to outside influences in a way that is unprecendented. We’re all living in a world where nationality is only one factor in our cultural and economic mix.

I’m fascinated to see how the Olympic drama plays out in China. It’s going to be about a lot more than athletic competition.

October 27, 2007 @ 4:38 pm | Comment

Ivan said, ‘But conversely, the Communist Party has cancelled the Second Coming of Christ and the reappearance of the Hidden Imam, and resurrection of the dead, AND they can change the weather at will and make the Earth turn more slowly so that the Olympics will last forever.’

Don’t forget about the successors of the Panchen Lama and DL. They will not be allowed to reincarnate without the permission of the Chinese Communist Party.

But seriously, I agree with Richard. The IOC has everything to loss and nothing to gain by cancelling the Beijing Olympics. So this is not going to happen. I dare say that Jacques Rogge’s ambivalent attitude is very common among IOC officials. The IOC has never been consistent in its effort to ensure a green Olympics. If the IOC is sincere about its commitment to the environment, it would have set a much higher benchmark for the bidders. And Beijing would never have been chosen to host the Games in the first place. If recollections serve me right, many IOC officials are famous for being flexible negotiators. I’m sure the Beijing Olympic Committee will figure out a way of bypassing their problems.

October 27, 2007 @ 6:11 pm | Comment

“God himself couldn’t cancel the Beijing Olympics. The marathon and/or other events may need to be postponed, but cancellation of the entire Games? Not a snowball’s chance in hell.”

Same challenge went out from the builder of the Titanic. I hope God heard, turned around and said “oh really?!”.
It would serve the falsehood known as the international community, the joke known as the IOC and the con men known as the CCP.

October 28, 2007 @ 6:05 am | Comment

It is indead a dream. I am kind of sorry for those people who are advocating the cancellation of the Beijing Olympics. It really shows the desperation.

October 28, 2007 @ 6:56 am | Comment

Why not just police the gas stations and proclaim a national bike month where each biker who bikes will get a special prize.

About standards there is too many out there now. I doubt pollution is the most highest problem there. Pollution has not been a big issue for the longest and now has remerged with the western elections comming again.

Also anybody here remembers when Chicago had a polution problem where they filter the cars carbon and took major steps to gain a clear sky?

Why not filter the factories. They can let green peace come in and do it for free as well as clone more dolphins.

October 28, 2007 @ 6:58 am | Comment

Ivan, it is not too late to start boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games. The best way for the foreign expats to boycott it is to give your boss the middle finger and leave China.

Vote with your feet and make more room for us.

October 28, 2007 @ 7:55 am | Comment

Nice try pfeffer, old expats like you simply have nowhere else to go. Younger expats are bribed and/or lied to for the purpose of filling China posts.
And that is because that crappy education system turns out drones instead of thinking humans.

But the Olympics must be boycotted, and if not, let Richard’s challenge to God be answered!

October 28, 2007 @ 8:47 am | Comment

The Olympics will go forward, regardless, and the pollution will not be a problem because everyone will agree not to let it be a problem.

What’s going on now strikes me as fundamentally different from earlier cultural exchanges. China has opened itself up to outside influences in a way that is unprecendented. We’re all living in a world where nationality is only one factor in our cultural and economic mix.

What are the most important changes from your POV taking place now?

Michael

October 28, 2007 @ 11:28 am | Comment

Well, on a very basic level, China has become a major player in an increasingly globalized economy. You have a growing middle class that’s developed certain middle-class expectations (rights to their property, for example). You have a China that is looking outward, not just inward, Chinese people participating in the world and not just as a diaspora. The cities are chock full of international businesses and international communities – but unlike the Treaty Port days, the Chinese are in charge of their own country.

I know that most of this applies to the cities and not to the masses in the countryside – how much their lives and outlooks have changed is a whole other question. And the downsides of the “Economic Miracle” – well, all of us have blogged about those at length.

It’s interesting because when I was there the first time, on the one hand, it was like being on Mars – you can’t imagine how isolated China was from the rest of the world, how rigidly controlled peoples’ lives were, in every aspect. Yet I was still struck by certain parallels between China and the US – both very large countries, convinced of their own superiority and culturally isolationist. But the US is an immigrant nation and has had decades of seeing itself as a major global player.

I don’t think China is ever going to be the leading power in a unipolar or bipolar world. The problems of population, resources, pollution and good governance are going to be very tough to overcome.

Slightly OT: I worked for Jerry Brown once upon a time (back in 1992). I remember him saying, “We can cut CFCs all we want in the US. All it takes is for the population of China to get their own refrigerators, and all of our efforts won’t mean a thing.” We get air pollution from China here on the West coast. There’s a giant garbage patch in the Pacific 1500 miles wide that’s poisoning the oceans (that’s from all the world’s trash; I’m not singling out China here).

I guess that’s why I tend to want to look for areas of consensus and cooperation – these are global problems and require global solutions. I want China to have a good system of government that makes responsible decisions because the rest of the world needs it to.

And needless to say, I’d like an American government that is enlightened, responsible and progressive as well.

Okay, that was rambling.

October 28, 2007 @ 12:28 pm | Comment

It really is a time of great change in China. And as much as I’d love to prove my old arguments painting the CCP as the root of all evil, I can’t do that, at least not with any honesty. Some parts of the CCP are the root of some evil in China, other parts of the CCP have made a significant and positive difference in many people’s lives (can’t we say that about our own governments as well?). All in all I agree with Lisa, and if I get the time/energy today to expound on it I will.

October 28, 2007 @ 12:37 pm | Comment

But…but…I’m a Nazi sympathizer and too cool for morals, Richard! How can you possibly agree with me?

October 28, 2007 @ 12:43 pm | Comment

Nh, actually, the professor at my international business class told us that corporations usually send the not-so-smart people to overseas assignments. No wonder some of the expats that we have seen. 🙂

October 28, 2007 @ 12:52 pm | Comment

Which gov’t refused to sign Kyoto Treay? Which country produces the most SUV’s and Hummers? China is a developing country, of course it will have pollution problems! Does the USA not have factories, chemical waste in 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s? Now you blame China and other developing countries, when you yourself have polluted the earth for almost 50 years!

If USA wants to boycot the Olympics, then do not come! China will only get more gold medals! You loser.

October 28, 2007 @ 11:58 pm | Comment

No wonder you’ve been there so long pfeffer.

Hongxing, the US cleaned up much of its chemical waste. China has access to the experience, expertise and remediation technology of the EU and US but chooses to steal, lie, obfuscate, cover up and recklessly pollute.

Witness the utter failure of the glorious Three Gorges project, multiple World Heritage sites destroyed, hundreds of kilometers ruined for all time and a structurally unsound flood control project in one:
http://www.chinadialogue.net/article/summary/1417-The-Three-Gorges-a-wiser-approach

October 29, 2007 @ 1:21 am | Comment

Lisa said, with a feeble attempt at sarcasm:

“But…but…I’m a Nazi sympathizer and too cool for morals, Richard! How can you possibly agree with me?”

No, Lisa, I would never call you a Nazi-sympathiser – BECAUSE being a Nazi-sympathiser is UNFASHIONABLE and UNPOPULAR in your milieu in Southern California, where your “work” (as you have admitted in other posts on TPD) is to enforce the currently fashionable (fashionable in your milieu, fashionable among those who butter your bread) standards of the day in hiring or not hiring or otherwise professional supporting or not supporting workers (and/or potential workers) according to their race and/or gender etc etc.

No, Lisa, you’re not a Nazi-sympathiser. But you’re a slave of the intellectual fashions of your milieu, and thus a kindred spirit of the German intelligentsia who rationalised their support of the Nazis – and they, LIKE YOU, believed themselves to be “PROGRESSIVE!”

Lisa, you really are just like the majority of German intelligentsia who supported the Nazis.
You just go wherever the fashionable and currently respectable and so-called (fake) “progressive” wind blows in your own milieu.

If and when you ever fall into life-threatening poverty (I mean LITERALLY life-threatening poverty – and you have never been there, although I wouldn’t put it past you to make up lies about it) and/or LITERALLY risk your life (as I have done) for your “ideals”, Lisa, until then, you’ll always be just another typical Southern Californian slave of the fashions of the moment. That’s where your bread and butter come from, Lisa, from simply repeating the fashionable phrases of the moment in your milieu.

Ohhh, GENDER EQUALITY, how RADICAL! (Sarcasm) HAHAHAHAHA! Lisa, you’re just another abject servant of the fashions of the moment, in the milieu in which your bread is buttered – and your professed “feminism” and “liberalism” and “progressivism” is just a fig leaf to cover up how you are, after all, just a servant of the status quo.

October 29, 2007 @ 2:13 am | Comment

“If USA wants to boycot the Olympics, then do not come! China will only get more gold medals! You loser.”

I just don’t think many Americans want to boycot the Beijing Olympics, Did not Other Lisa tell you it is very hard to get a ticket to China during that period. Even George W will be there for the party.

Of cource, if people like nanhey and ivan want to boycot it, that’s fine, don’t even watch it on TV.

October 29, 2007 @ 2:56 am | Comment

This is what happens when you petition Beijing.

ht*p://w*w.veoh.com/videos/v1357069DKZqmaty

October 29, 2007 @ 3:16 am | Comment

Well, I may be feebly sacrcastic, Ivan, but you are a feeble excuse for a character assassin.

October 29, 2007 @ 3:44 am | Comment

BTW, just to set the record straight…

I had a lower middle class to middle class upbringing, went to public schools and mostly public universities, with the help of loans and scholarships.

I live in a very small house with second hand furniture and far too many books.

I’ve never claimed to have been poor or to have put my life on the line. I don’t consider myself to be particularly heroic a person, nor do I think I’m making the kind of contribution to the world that I would like to.

So, no big claims here. I’m not delusional or a liar.

October 29, 2007 @ 4:00 am | Comment

p.s. I do have some really beautiful bookshelves. A woodworker friend made them for me. The envy of my bibliophile friends.

October 29, 2007 @ 8:51 am | Comment

I lived in Beijing in 1990, when China hosted the Asian Games. The authorities shut down all the factories for two weeks before the Games began (but made the workers come in anyway, because they didn’t want to risk mass demonstrations) and severely limited auto and truck traffic into Beijing. The results: blue skies and sunshine during the entire period of the Games.

Granted, there were many fewer motor vehicles on the road in 1990, and the Asian Games were held at the end of September and during the first week of October, when the weather can be quite good in Beijing. If I understand things correctly, the Olympics will begin in August, when the weather is still pretty soupy at the best of times. So maybe doing the same thing next year won’t work. But in any case I expect the government to try to impose equally strict controls on vehicles and to close any remaining factories.

October 29, 2007 @ 9:12 am | Comment

Ivan, I am glad you are back, but that kind of personal invective cannot be permitted. If I delete your last comment, as I am seriously considering, please do not take it personally, and try to understand that I don’t want my site to be a place where readers insult one another, especially when the one being insulted is a close personal friend of mine.

October 29, 2007 @ 9:14 am | Comment

“”””””””””Well, on a very basic level, China has become a major player in an increasingly globalized economy. You have a growing middle class that’s developed certain middle-class expectations (rights to their property, for example). You have a China that is looking outward, not just inward, Chinese people participating in the world and not just as a diaspora. The cities are chock full of international businesses and international communities – but unlike the Treaty Port days, the Chinese are in charge of their own country.””””””””””””

Did you know that the communist party hides the truth? Do you understand that your impression is conjured deliberately so that what you have said seems to be true.

The CCP in the old days said, if you repeat a lie a thousand times it becomes true. Of course its bull, but I just want to let you know that this surface perception that you claim is false and you ought to look into the truth, its much more interesting (although incredibly evil, but interesting to see the people who resist)

You say the Chinese people are running China and the overseas Chinese are such and such. Do you know what its like to be under the constant threat of torture? Think about it. Look what happened in 1989 when the people tried to participate in running China. Look, and understand. That is the reality in China. You follow the party line or you get totally fucked. Do you think that is “progressive”,a “positive contribution to the standard of living”?, then you are a communist or nazi.(hypothetically, no offense intended Lisa.)

The media cant step outside the party line, the teachers, the polititians (who may even have good hearts), the judges etc etc, no one in China, EVEN THE OVERSEAS PEOPLE, are allowed to step outside the party line and the party has ways of fucking the overseas, look into it, they use all sorts of bribery and threats (you have family back in China?, you have business in China, we take your passport, if you come to China, they will torture you)

And what does the international community do about it? Nothing, so if the CCP wants to fuck you and the international community in complicit, where is a Chiney man with a conscience to turn to? Do you think it is safe to defect from China when the rest of the world is complicit? Who would not be terrified of that party knowing how conscienceless and how brutal they will be to get what they want?

Western businesses in China, good for society? Complicit pigs willing to eradicate their consciences to score cash, good for society?

Look at the pigs who turn a blind eye to the Junta in Burma. Do you think thats healthy for the society? Of course it is not.

October 30, 2007 @ 1:27 am | Comment

gulags, torture, threatening your family with torture, stealing all you own, no justice, inciting the masses to unify in party politics to engage in whatever, no where to turn, no one will stick up for you if youre outside the party line, dark places for torture and brainwashing, organ harvesting, complicit international community.

These are the tools of the CCP’s brand of social stability, no one dares to act according to the truth.

Can you imagine?

October 30, 2007 @ 1:34 am | Comment

Snow, you are reading a lot of things into my comment that weren’t there. On the most basic level, I didn’t make a whole lot of value judgments about what I observed. You did.

Honest to god, for a number of people on this blog, it’s “when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”

I have to go to work so that’s all I have time for right now.

October 30, 2007 @ 1:45 am | Comment

Oh snow, you are so hopeless and out of touch.

“Western businesses in China, good for society? Complicit pigs willing to eradicate their consciences to score cash, good for society?”

You being in China helps the CCP. It’s time to leave.

October 30, 2007 @ 2:45 am | Comment

Lisa, I accept your criticism, I ought to be more patient and considerate.

How is a good way to discuss this thing?

by the way,

I think this is where I picked out a value judgement :

“”””””””You have a China that is looking outward, not just inward, Chinese people participating in the world and not just as a diaspora. The cities are chock full of international businesses and international communities – but unlike the Treaty Port days, the Chinese are in charge of their own country.”””””””””

October 30, 2007 @ 2:48 am | Comment

I don’t want to insult you pfeffer, not at all, so I won’t, there’s no reason to. Even if I think you are wrong, it doesn’t make me angry at you or wish to say mean things about you, not at all, whats the point of insulting people?

Someone once said here that some tasteless comment here went against the whole sort of social conscience image of this blog and makes for a feeling of false caring or hypocritical useless talk, I think the same goes for if we around here talk about the world from a social conscience perspective, then we just bicker and insult each other, not very good energy…

October 30, 2007 @ 2:55 am | Comment

Snow. I was asked the question, what did I think were the most profound changes in China since my first time there in 1979. My answer, to sum, was China’s participation in the global community and a more outward orientation than before, increased interaction with foreigners and foreign concerns but on Chinese terms (as opposed to the days of treaty ports and concessions).

I don’t understand how this is a value judgment.

I do believe in engagement as opposed to isolation – not universally but as a general policy.

I’m also somebody who is not terribly crazy about the increasingly corporatized system in which all of us are embedded, but that’s another topic.

October 30, 2007 @ 3:37 am | Comment

Olympics will start on time. Some thoughts:

1. The world goes on after the Olympics. Everyone soon forgets and keeps moving. Much ado over nothing, for the most part. Lots of hype before. That flame does really go out at the end of the games (but it re-ignites for the paralympics a week or two later).

2. More cars, more factories, more coal plants than in 1990 Asia Games. China will likely shut down factories and limit some traffic, but it’s not enough. It’s the damn dirty coal plants that are mucking up the air (pretty sure of that). And they won’t turn off the electricity for that.

3. Don’t buy tickets for events in advance. Just go, and there will be plenty of scalpers on the street. Most tix will go just above face value. Plenty of events to go to.

4. Track and field is a big part of the olympics. God help them, it’s all outside in a stadium, like it is every time. Marathon same thing. Some lower-tier events, rowing, shooting, sailing are outside also, but not as air-quality dependent as track and field.

5. The other marquis events, swimming/diving/basketball/gymnastics, are all inside, so that will be fine.

Those poor bastards doing track and field.

October 30, 2007 @ 4:39 am | Comment

“I don’t want to insult you pfeffer, not at all, so I won’t, there’s no reason to. Even if I think you are wrong, it doesn’t make me angry at you or wish to say mean things about you, not at all, whats the point of insulting people? ”

Snow, who insulted you? Did I? By calling you “hopeless and out of touch”? Both are descriptive, not insulting.

I seriously think you are out of touch because your view of China, especially with regard to the CCP shows that you are out of touch with the ground reality in China. If you have never lived in China, I don’t blame you. If you have, I am going to have to imagine that something extremely terrible happened to you that made you this bitter and your view this skewed.

Again, I can’t imagine why people like you and nh would continue to stay in China (if you actually live here). I would never tolerate a place that makes me sick this much. You and nh talk about how foreigners doing business with China helps the CCP, yet you don’t look at yourself in the mirror and think how your presence here has helped it. If you are unwilling to leave China for whatever reason (I am guess it is monetary), why blame the corporations and people who want to engage China?

October 31, 2007 @ 6:51 am | Comment

pfeffer;

Unlike you, snow and I are not stuck in China for life, with nowhere else to go. We do not need to sell ourselves on China.

November 2, 2007 @ 12:37 pm | Comment

“”””””I seriously think you are out of touch because your view of China, especially with regard to the CCP shows that you are out of touch with the ground reality in China. If you have never lived in China, I don’t blame you. If you have, I am going to have to imagine that something extremely terrible happened to you that made you this bitter and your view this skewed.”””””

First of all:

I love China, answer me, can you understand the difference between the communist party and China? Learn it.

About what you said, your comment indicates that you make the common error of taking the CCP at face value. You think what you see in your bubble world is ‘reality” That is exactly what the party wants.

And you said that something happened to make my view point such and such, well how about something happened that is contrary to what most people think about the CCP. The things that I know about the CCP are not popular conversation, people dont want to acknowledge the facts for whatever reason.

Its as if I got tortured by mr. P and you know Mr. P as a friend, well, does that make him less a torturer because he is friendly towards you? If you calling a spade a spade, a torturer a torturer a skewed view, you’re not thinking right, wouldnt it be you who has the skewed view?

I dont blame you, the CCP has blocked your access to the truth, but unless you really understand that they are doing that to you, you wont know the truth if its right in front of you, you wont look for it and you wont believe it, because you seem to not understand that the CCP creates a false, (even worship and fear), environment for its own sustainability.

November 2, 2007 @ 11:38 pm | Comment

nh, what have you been doing in China if you haven’t sold yourself on it? You paid the Chinese government $50 for the visa to get in, you by living in China have contributed to their national economy (the CCP loves it), you by overstaying your visa (by refusing to leave China) will end up benefiting the Chinese foreign reserve another couple hundred dollars.

Boycott China? hehe, exactly how?

November 3, 2007 @ 10:05 am | Comment

snow, there is no need to stage a disclaimer (nh will be offended that you claimed you love China, :-).

I take you are referring to your conversations with your FLG buddies again. Again, I have no argument with you knowing that you are affiliated with the FLG. You should write for the Epoch Times, you might as well make some money with your anti-CCP rage.

For the 10th time, torturing people is bad and inexcusable. Has the Chinese government tortured people? Of course it has. But is that all there is about it? No. THAT, is my argument. capiche?

November 3, 2007 @ 10:10 am | Comment

“””””””””Poll the Chinese and tell me how many of them actually think the military buildup and the economic development are bad.””””””

I never said that the military buildup is BAD persay, I said it was -combined with all those other elements- threatening.

I never ever said that economic development is bad. Of course under the CCP this economic development has been managed terrible, just so terribly.

Without the CCP I think your economy would have been much better and MUCH MUCH MUCH more STABLE, because the CCP is a time bomb, it is totally unstable and does too much WRONG. Then it covers up everything it does wrong to form a facade to fool people and has all this crap in its camp just waiting to explode. The truth equals the CCP is #*@*, so if the media is alowed to tell the truth and people are free to say what they think, the facade will be eliminated and well, the rest is according to nature. Truth is nature, all I advocate is no more propaganda, no more censorship, no more crackdown on freedom of thought and belief… If the CCP was worthy of managing China, it would be able to coexist with the truth.

I didnt quite understand your last post, it seems you cannot tell the difference between party and country.

November 4, 2007 @ 9:46 am | Comment

“build up an enormous army armed with psycho propaganda a la NKorea, if the CCP wasnt a cult that spread its lies all over the world threatening people’s economies etc ect”

If that’s not what you meant, what did you mean by this?

As a Canadian, of course you don’t like the Chinese military buildup and find it threatening. But the Chinese also find American military threatening, so what? The Chinese military is designed to protect China, not Canada. If you think it is threatening, too bad. Who cares?

What facade? The Chinese economic growth is a facade? You mean the progress made in the past 20 years is a facade? The CCP has managed the economy terribly? Like what?

Your eyes are covered by the hatred and no matter what the CCP does it will rub you the wrong way. Unfortunately, you can’t do anything about it except for whinning online.

November 4, 2007 @ 3:12 pm | Comment

“The Chinese military is designed to protect China, not Canada. If you think it is threatening, too bad. Who cares?”

The Chinese military is designed to suppress and control. The South Koreans, Japanese and Russians know this and have accelerated their military buildups, with SK and Japan building mini-carriers. Russia has locked China out of all aircraft and naval R&D JVs while engaging India to develop new cruise missiles and a 5th generation fighter. Russia has also blocked all sales of Sakahlin island oil and gas to China and have booted out western oil companies for signing contracts with Beijing to do so.

Singapore, Thailand, India and Malaysia are also beefing up their militaries and the USN has been making quite a few port calls in Vietnam and the Phillipines.

China must be suppressed, contained and permanently deconstructed if it behaves badly.

November 5, 2007 @ 6:35 am | Comment

“””””””””” “build up an enormous army armed with psycho propaganda a la NKorea, if the CCP wasnt a cult that spread its lies all over the world threatening people’s economies etc ect”

If that’s not what you meant, what did you mean by this? “”””””””””””

The enormous army in itself is not a problem persay, get it? It’s the fact that the army is armed not only with weapons only but with propaganda “a la North Korea (actually North Korea is a la CCP, but, whatever)

There is a difference between a CCP force and a regular military arrangement. The mandate of the CCP is to crush dissent, anyone who disrupts or has thoughts or actions feared by the party as ‘subversive’ will not survie the CCP rise, as the CCP rises, basic freedoms of belief, media, expression, thought, these all disappear. Get it?

I understand a countries defense, but defense against the truth?, defense against people speaking their minds, an army so big just to protect one party from justice?!!!!! To heck with that!

your third to last and last paragraph are totally off the mrk and the second last, I’ll have to talk to you later cause I don’t have much time.

By the way, hope you don’t take this stuff personally, if you do, it is because you can’t distinguish the difference between yourself and the party, a very very serious problem.

November 5, 2007 @ 8:04 am | Comment