Well, the reaction is certainly overshooting. However, there is a reason for that.

February 14, 2008 @ 1:09 am | Comment

By the way, why do you think “message threads on major portals like Sina and Tianya to contain some voices of reason”?

I see that they are always ridiculous in most of threads.

February 14, 2008 @ 1:11 am | Comment

One reason is that there is latent, rising hostility between Koreans and Chinese. Korean netizens, frankly, aren’t any better; they displayed similar schadenfreud after 9/11.

Yahoo News used to have message boards, but they were shut down due to spamming and other problems. There were plenty of racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynist posts, but there were also intelligent, reasonable commenters condemning intolerance. A major Korean news portal allows only real name comments, and its message threads tend to be more balanced than the anonymous ones.

February 14, 2008 @ 1:45 am | Comment

The reasons are really deep rooted. Chinese, and China, has always seen all other countries as “barbaric”, and China is the only nation in the whole wide world with any culture. And furthermore, the “Hate the Rich, and Despise the Poor” is a very important Chinese Characteristics. Laughing at someone’s misfortune is the greatest past time of Chinese.

February 14, 2008 @ 2:16 am | Comment

I am sorry about the loss. However, I agree with fatbrick that there is a reason for the reaction (however childish it may be).

When you claim somebody else’s culture as your own (again and again), you should expect reaction like this. It has been brewing for a while already.

February 14, 2008 @ 2:29 am | Comment

Posted by: Reasons at February 14, 2008 02:16 AM

Now you are just trying to be ridiculous. I think you can survive in Tianya or Sina.

February 14, 2008 @ 2:34 am | Comment

However, there is a reason for that.

What is the reason, fatbrick? That the Chinese netizens in question are arrogant, spiteful gits?

AC

When you claim somebody else’s culture as your own (again and again), you should expect reaction like this.

You mean that it shouldn’t be surprising Chinese internet-goers respond like this given they already see Korean culture as being a poor copy of their own?

If so it doesn’t reflect well on many young Chinese.

February 14, 2008 @ 2:36 am | Comment

Raj,

I am not justifying their childish behavior, I am just trying to tell you what the cause is.

It started out by the historical dispute about Goguryeo. Then it was the claim at UNESCO that Duan Wu Jie (Drangon Boat Festival) is a Korean cultural heritage (when did Qu Yuan become Korean?). It’s things like this pissed off a lot of Chinese.

February 14, 2008 @ 2:59 am | Comment

@Sonagi: I wasn’t aware they started tossing around “gaoli bangzi”* for South Koreans too. Ugh.

@Raj: AC has already defended himself, but most anti-Korean Chinese netizens** are anti-Korean owing to the work of Korean nationalists who, in addition to the bizarre cultural claims AC mentioned, regularly promulgate maps claiming large pieces of Dongbei, even Shandong, as “historically Korean.” Hence, the vitriol. I think Sonagi can confirm that similar hatred would appear on Korean sites for similar reasons in the event of a disaster in Japan.

* One Chinese interpretation of “gaoli bangzi” is that the original “gaoli bangzi” were Korean enforcers serving the Japanese during the Japanese invasion of China. The Japanese didn’t trust the Koreans with guns, just big sticks (“bangzi”), and Chinese use the name to refer to Koreans as thugs or hicks. It also may remind Chinese of Korean participation in “dismembering” China.

** I’d argue most Chinese netizens don’t have such strong feelings about Korean culture, so we’re seeing the jackasses whose hatred drives them to post.

February 14, 2008 @ 3:10 am | Comment

Raj,

I think others already gave you a pretty detailed explanation why there is such sentiment.

February 14, 2008 @ 3:19 am | Comment

My Korean friend once said to me in a serious tone, that Confucius was Korean.

I joked, you can adopt him if you’d like, it’s not like he’s done anything good.

February 14, 2008 @ 3:35 am | Comment

AC: Are you saying that your supposed “reason” justifies the crass behavior of the PRC netizens? The fact that some fringe Korean netizens posted something ridiculous as arguing that Confucious was Korean (99.999% of Koreans also ridicule this view) fails to justify the crass behavior of these PRC netizens. What explains this behavior is that this is but a symptom of overall unrest and anger felt among the disaffected Chinese.

Basically I perceive Chinese antipathy towards Koreans as their repressed anger towards their own regime. So instead of protesting against their oppresive regime, they channel their anger towards other perceived “phantom” threats like Korea to deflect attention towards the real source of their anger. Contrast with Korean politicians use of anti-Japanese/US propaganda; US politicians against the violent Islamists. Same tactics were used by the German Nazi’s. This unwarranted hatred will only increase with the increase in social unrest, censorship, and government oppression.

And indeed there is much reason for the Chinese to be fearful and angry. See environmental degredation of massive scale, rising birth defects, decreasing amount of safe drinking water, rising food/oil prices that could lead to social unrest in China, air pollution that will only get worse thanks to ever greater consumption of coal.

However, instead of protesting against their own government, Chinese youngsters choose to pick foreign devils. Like Koreans, Chinese were educated to be extreme nationalists and are devoid of critical thinking. Anyone remember the riots and store-burning of Japanese stores in China? How about the couple of riots in China when Japanese soccer team beat China? The Gong’an tolerates these protests more than they tolerate Chinese farmers’ protests against unfair land confistigation. No surprise.

The reality remains that PRC is a highly oppressive State with mostly poor and uneducated citizenry. It is amazing how many young Chinese hear about the Tianmen “incident” for the first time when they go abroad. This misguided hatred will only increase with the increase in social unrest, censorship, and government oppression.

February 14, 2008 @ 3:48 am | Comment

Like the Russians used to say, every family has its ugly child: Every country has nationalist, or even fascist elements. And they have almost always been the minority.

You don’t have to develope it into another theory to prove China’s oppressiveness.

February 14, 2008 @ 3:59 am | Comment

“Chinese internet-goers respond like this given they already see Korean culture as being a poor copy of their own?”

It would be interesting to know how much of Korean culture was infused into China when Korea controlled much of NE and eastern China down to Ningbo 6000 years ago…

Chinese seem to have the same feelings about “poor cultural ripoff” when it comes to Vietnam as well.

February 14, 2008 @ 5:07 am | Comment

“It would be interesting to know how much of Korean culture was infused into China when Korea controlled much of NE and eastern China down to Ningbo 6000 years ago…”

Funny, I thought Korea didn’t exist 6000 years ago. Nor did China.

February 14, 2008 @ 5:17 am | Comment

It started out by the historical dispute about Goguryeo. Then it was the claim at UNESCO that Duan Wu Jie (Drangon Boat Festival) is a Korean cultural heritage (when did Qu Yuan become Korean?). It’s things like this pissed off a lot of Chinese.

Hating Koreans becaus of the conflict over Goguryo is childish. As for the Korean petition to have Dano declared a UNESCO cultural heritage, the holiday originated from Duanwu, but its customary foods and games are very different from the way Duanwu is celebrated in China. I asked some angry Chinese why the Chinese government couldn’t petition to add Duanwu, and they had no answer for me, only scowls and harrumps.

most anti-Korean Chinese netizens** are anti-Korean owing to the work of Korean nationalists who, in addition to the bizarre cultural claims AC mentioned, regularly promulgate maps claiming large pieces of Dongbei, even Shandong, as “historically Korean.”

The netizen wars started earlier with the Goguryo conflict.

Hence, the vitriol. I think Sonagi can confirm that similar hatred would appear on Korean sites for similar reasons in the event of a disaster in Japan.

Oh, lord, yes. I was teaching at a prestigious university in Korea when the Kobe earthquake hit, and there was little sympathy for Japan. Some students were quite gleeful.

Overall, on the matter of internet wars among Asians, each side seems to give as good as it gets. Japan’s popular 2 Channel is a notorious hangout for racists and xenophobes, and there are numerous Japanese websites devoted to anti-Korean and anti-Chinese content.

February 14, 2008 @ 5:18 am | Comment

LaoWei ,

I don’t know why you see things that way. But, what’s the heck. You can choose to see whatever you want to see and read others’ minds at your will. I guess a little imagination does not really hurt anyone anyway.

February 14, 2008 @ 5:23 am | Comment

LaoWei,

If you can understand the fact that only a few Koreans are making those ridiculous claims, why can’t you understand that those netizens on tianya and sina also only represents a small fraction of the Chinese population? Then why the generalization? I sense a little double standard here.

February 14, 2008 @ 5:49 am | Comment

@Jinhan;

Look up the “Red Devil”.

February 14, 2008 @ 6:42 am | Comment

Like the Russians used to say, every family has its ugly child: Every country has nationalist, or even fascist elements. And they have almost always been the minority.

If these overly-nationalistic twits are the minority, why don’t the sensible people speak up?

Chinese seem to have the same feelings about “poor cultural ripoff” when it comes to Vietnam as well.

China is about the last country which should be complaining about “cultural ripoff”, but even so, what a ridiculous thing to be upset about. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to remind themselves that imitation is the most sincere flattery? At the least that wouldn’t make them look silly to the rest of the world.

February 14, 2008 @ 6:51 am | Comment

If you want true mainstream opinion, don’t go to Tianya. (Or at least, be careful which Tianya board you stumble into.)

Tianya’s ‘zatan’ (and many other forums) are mostly a collection of high school and college students reveling in the freedom of being online, away from moderating adult influence for the first time in their lives.

@LaoWei (sic)
It is amazing how many young Chinese hear about the Tianmen (sic) “incident” for the first time when they go abroad.

I call bullshit on that story. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

February 14, 2008 @ 2:39 pm | Comment

my understanding is that fatbrick isn’t justifying what has been said, but is merely pointing out that given the childishness on both sides it is unsurprising that this has happened.

when i was teaching in the far east, word round the campfire regarding korea was almost entirely negative. their reputation is truly appalling

February 14, 2008 @ 4:38 pm | Comment

The Koreans despise the Chinese and hate the Japanese.

The Chinese despise the Koreans and hate the Japanese.

The Japanese despise both the Koreans and the Chinese.

The Vietnamese, incidentally, hate the Chinese and the Koreans (South Koreans soldiers fighting alongside the Americans in the Vietnam War had a particularly vicious and ugly reputation).

But Koreans, Chinese and Japanese all love Koreans TV dramas.

… And that’s the way the world turns, follks.

February 14, 2008 @ 5:38 pm | Comment

For a country that has such brands like “Samesong”, and “Made in Kobea”, they hating on an entire country for copying their culture, I find it not only ridiculous and funny, but also downright insulting to my intelligence.

The UNESCO registration by Korea for the Dano festival is so misrepresented by the Chinese that you can’t help it that the Chinese media is using this for political purposes. Korea registered “Dano-je” – the festival at city of Kangneung that goes on during that time, and not the Dano holiday itself.

Korea registered the celebratory acts of brewing of liquor to offer to the spirits, shamanistic rituals, traditional mask dramas, and a 5000 man parade across Kangneung. The Chinese have the option to register their Dragon Boat festival if they want to. Koreans have been celeberating this holiday for at least a thousand years. It is just as much of their culture as others, and they have the right to be proud of it.

As for the “Confucius is Korean” charges, there is absolutely no basis that that’s what Korea is claiming. I don’t know where that’s coming from.

The Chinese charges that Korea is stealing Chinese culture to justify mass hatred of Koreans is ironic in that there’s no other bigger country right now that’s illegally, so blatantly, and exactly copying Korean pop culture, than China. If you don’t believe me, go to Youtubes and do a search. You’ll find a whole slew of blatant Chinese violations of copyrights. So many that you can’t help but think the entire Chinese pop culture is a complete sub plant of Korean pop culture. China even has a copy of Korean pop star “Rain”.

Samples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ByEto0V_tg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlqnqXSeE-A
(watch the end of the video and you’ll see thousands of songs and MV are exact duplicate copies with no variations whatsoever)

February 14, 2008 @ 7:15 pm | Comment

A better analogy would be China’s copying Western culture, its technology, buildings, clothing, its government, down to its communism.

Maybe in this perspective, one gets a better view of all the old architecture in Korea. Korea is one of the few countries that have built and that now preserves a lost era.

February 14, 2008 @ 7:26 pm | Comment

@hksojourner

like your synopsis!

but what i want to know is….

what do the vietnamese think of korean tv shows?

February 14, 2008 @ 8:06 pm | Comment

“A better analogy would be China’s copying Western culture, its technology, buildings, clothing, its government, down to its communism.”

And you know what the answer would be? Everyone copies from everyone, not just the Chinese. That’s the excuse you will hear. It’s funny that point is lost on those Chinese in those sites bashing Koreans for ‘stealing’ Chinese culture.

February 14, 2008 @ 9:04 pm | Comment

there’s a difference isn’t there, between being influenced by a culture and breaching copyright on a massive scale. there’s also a difference between being influenced by a culture and then claiming your country is, in fact, the originator.

subtleties lost on some, it would seem

February 14, 2008 @ 9:57 pm | Comment

fatbrick

Sorry, I haven’t heard any real reasons for these snide comments. If someone is a bit silly, you are under no obligation to be unpleasant in return. Chinese and Koreans may disagree over where “China” and “Korea” starts/ends but that shouldn’t cause people to take delight/mock the destruction of a piece of cultural heritage like this.

February 14, 2008 @ 10:21 pm | Comment

CCT, interesting you should call bullshit on the Tiananmen comment made by Laowei. There is a generation of young people (at least those with whom I have spoken) that has been brought up to believe that the government “suppressed” a “counterrevolutionary rebellion” after there were no other options. I would call this bullshit of the highest degree. But I have met quite a few people who have no other information available to them!
This is the trash taught in history books, unfortunately, alongside other jokes like “three years of natural disasters.” Within China, this history is covered up with a vehemence that would make militarist and Nazi revisionists proud. It is not bullshit at all that someone would actually learn the truth about ’89 after leaving China.
If you disagree, please explain why.

February 14, 2008 @ 10:53 pm | Comment

Me said: For a country that has such brands like “Samesong”, and “Made in Kobea”, they hating on an entire country for copying their culture, I find it not only ridiculous and funny, but also downright insulting to my intelligence.

If you are intelligent enough, then you should be able to tell the difference between copying somebody else’s invention and claiming somebody else’s invention as your own.

February 14, 2008 @ 11:36 pm | Comment

AC,what Chinese invention is Korea claiming to be its own?

It’s kind of hypocritical to claim Korea is claiming Chinese stuff when the Chinese claim Genghis Khan was a Chinese. How do you think the Mongols feel?

http://www.pekingduck.org/archives/003493.php

quote:

“Apparently the Chinese see him as one of their greatest leaders, and as the 800th anniversary of the founding of his empire approaches, get ready for a big Genghis Khan lovefest. ”

February 15, 2008 @ 12:12 am | Comment

kevin..pudong,

LaoWei’s specific comment was that many Chinese “hear about Tianmen for the first time” when they go abroad. Since you claim to have had actual conversations on the topic in China, I’d imagine you’d agree that the above comment is bullshit and the product of a fertile imagination.

Now, as to your point that many Chinese hear only the “official” interpretation of Tiananmen, I don’t disagree with that. Many Chinese hear only the mainstream version of what happened in Beijing, because that’s the version taught in the classroom.

I think that’s generally untrue for university students. Many university students (at least those interested in politics/history) have watched Carma Hinton’s excellent documentary on Tiananmen. If you hang around on Tianya, you’ll absolutely find references to Tiananmen.

Now, I don’t know how much time you’ve spent talking to these “young Chinese” who eventually do go overseas and get all the wonders of free speech: Falun Gong fliers and aged overseas democracy activists. If you did, you’d find that most continue to sympathesize with the government position. Not outright support (by most), but sympathy: history has proven the Communist Party to be more right than the student activists.

February 15, 2008 @ 12:28 am | Comment

AC,what Chinese invention is Korea claiming to be its own?

Duanwujie. Personally I have no problem with registering it as a Korean festival at UNESCO, I do have problem, however, with using the name Dano (which is Duanwu in hanzi).

Also, remember the controversy about the image on Kroean money lately?

It’s kind of hypocritical to claim Korea is claiming Chinese stuff when the Chinese claim Genghis Khan was a Chinese. How do you think the Mongols feel?

Let’s not forget that Mongolia was part of China for centuries until the declaration of independence in 1911. The last time I checked, Inner Mongolia is still part of China, is it not? So technically it’s not that far-fetched to say Genghis Khan is part of Chinese heritage, is it?

February 15, 2008 @ 1:06 am | Comment

@AC
“So technically it’s not that far-fetched to say Genghis Khan is part of Chinese heritage, is it?”

I don’t think Genghis Kahn would agree with that.
He conquered China but he was no Chinese.

They same way Attila was not a Roman.

Although both had great influence on both civilizations.

February 15, 2008 @ 1:45 am | Comment

@ecodelta,

I don’t think Attila is the right comparison. Attila’s primary “influence” on Rome was his destructive ability.

Genghis Khan not only conquered China, but he also laid out its future borders before he had died. He assigned what became the Yuan Dynasty to his heir as “Great Khan”, carving it out intentionally from the Mongol homeland and the rest of the empire.

In other words, Genghis Khan wasn’t just an invader, but really the originator of the Yuan dynasty itself. I’m not sure whether Genghis Khan should be considered Chinese, but IMO the Yuan dynasty absolutely should.

It’s a little like arguing whether Romulus’s Greek parents should be considered Roman or Greek. Who the hell knows? But I think it’s an obvious statement that Romulus’s history (not the wolf, but whatever biological parents) are worthy of study by Romans. Same is true of Genghis Khan.

February 15, 2008 @ 2:03 am | Comment

@ecodelta,

Genghis Kahn didn’t conquer China, his grandson Kublai Khan (who founded the Yuan dynasty) did. The Yuan dynasty is more Chinese than people like you would admit. It’s a Chinese dynasty as far as I’m concerned.

February 15, 2008 @ 2:08 am | Comment

Stay on topic please – this is about the reaction to the recent fire. If you want to rant about random stuff go to a forum or request an open thread.

February 15, 2008 @ 4:09 am | Comment

“Duanwujie. Personally I have no problem with registering it as a Korean festival at UNESCO, I do have problem, however, with using the name Dano (which is Duanwu in hanzi).”

So using the same hanzi is a problem?
So I guess you’ll have a problem with Korean last names too then. Korean names like Lee Myung Bak, Chung Ju Young, Roh Mu Hyun. All Chinese hanzi names – how dare they say they’re ‘Korean’ names.

“Also, remember the controversy about the image on Kroean money lately?”

No. I don’t what that is about. That’s new to me.
What was it this time?

February 15, 2008 @ 4:45 am | Comment

No. I don’t what that is about. That’s new to me.
What was it this time?

I couldn’t find any English articles, so here is a Chinese one:
http://news.sina.com.cn/w/2006-05-19/15048971426s.shtml

There is also a rumor that Korea is planning to register Chinese medicine as Korean heritage using the name Korean medicine at UNESCO. I also heard some people argue that it was the Koreans who invented printing and hanzi. The list goes on and on.

The Koreans have every right to feel that their actions are justified. Whether the Chinese agree with them or not is another matter. I don’t think this blog is the place to argue who is right and who is wrong on these issues. So let’s stop.

As I said, I was just trying to tell you why there is such sentiment on the Chinese side. And again, I am sorry for Korea’s loss.

February 15, 2008 @ 6:01 am | Comment

There is also a rumor that Korea is planning to register Chinese medicine as Korean heritage using the name Korean medicine at UNESCO.

I heard a rumour that China is developing a secret chemical weapons programme up Hu Jintao’s backside.

There is a rumour about everything these days – none should be treated seriously.

February 15, 2008 @ 6:11 am | Comment

Sorry, wrong link. here is the correct one:
http://news.21cn.com/world/guojisaomiao/2007/01/24/3100968.shtml

February 15, 2008 @ 6:12 am | Comment

“IMO the Yuan dynasty absolutely should.”

It really depends on whom you were asking and when. The Mongol rulers clearly believed that the conquered peoples of the Song were a subgroup of their larger empire, and of the four classifications of society, “Chinese” were at the bottom. (Mongol, Semu/Central Asian, Northern Chinese, Southern Chinese). There was considerable resentment and resistance, both active and passive, on the part of the Han toward the Mongols and this is one reason the Yuan control over all of China proper was really quite short-lived (less than 100 years).

Many people died at the end of the Song defending their homeland against the Mongols, I’m not sure they would be so quick to label the Mongol invaders as “Chinese.” We should also remember the efforts at the end of the Yuan and during the founding of the Ming to beat the Mongols back beyond the Wall, I doubt that the rulers, statesmen, and soldiers of that time looked across the battlefield at the Mongol cavalry and thought, “Wow, he’s just like me. This is a war between brothers, a civil war.” Rather they saw it as defense against outside invaders.

This is one situation where Han nationalism gets in the way of objective scholarship. I can understand why an an uncritical adoption of the Yuan feels good to some (as do some supposed Korean claims on Confucius, or the attempts by the Center for Borderland Studies at CASS to make a land grab in Korea by claiming the founding Korean dynasties were really “Chinese”). But the situation with the Yuan was quite complicated, and it’s important to consider how concepts like inner/outer, Han/non-Han were perceived at the time, rather than allowing contemporary political exigencies to drive the discussion.

February 15, 2008 @ 6:40 am | Comment

CCT,

“If you did, you’d find that most continue to sympathesize with the government position. Not outright support (by most), but sympathy”

Data?

February 15, 2008 @ 6:42 am | Comment

“I couldn’t find any English articles, so here is a Chinese one”

I can’t read Chinese. Can you tranlate what it’s saying? I guess this is a big news in China, but it’s strange in Korea nobody knows about it or cares.

“There is also a rumor that Korea is planning to register Chinese medicine as Korean heritage using the name Korean medicine at UNESCO.”

I heard a rumor that China is about to declare Western medicine as really Chinese medicine with UNESCO. I also heard a rumor that Chinese will register Western clothes and buildings as Chinese invented with UNESCO. There’s also rumor that China is registering baseball with UNESCO as a Chinese heritage. Seriously though,
can you give me at least a link that says Korea is registering Chinese medicine as Korean with UNESCO? Please give me a non-biased English link. Like it or not, Korea has used Chinese/Oriental medicine for thousands of years. It’s also their culture, and they also contributed towards it.

” I also heard some people argue that it was the Koreans who invented printing and hanzi.”

Well you heard wrong. Koreans don’t claim “printing”. They claim “movable metal type printing”. Two very completely different things.
Read this important distinction here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_type

As for hanzi, there’s no organized movement to register hanzi with UNESCO in Korea. And this ideal is overwhelmingly and generally not supported in Korea, other than some educated nut jobs in Korea. Furthermore, nobody even cares in Korea.

” The list goes on and on.”

Yes indeed. Most are rumors, innuendos, exaggerations, and flat out lies. Why is China escalating this into a verbal war? I think it all started with China’s sudden claims on Koguryo with an eye on North Korea to virtually annex it when it collapses.

February 15, 2008 @ 6:54 am | Comment

Back to the original topic, I’m not sure why it’s so hard to agree that:

1) It’s sad when any historical site is destroyed.
2) Expressing joy at said destruction is crass, no matter who does it.
3) The rantings and lunacy of the internet classes and BBS dwellers should be construed as ‘mainstream’ only with the absolute greatest of care.

Somehow we’ve managed to drag Chingghis Khan and Tiananmen Square into it.

As for the popular Chinese BBSs, they seem to be populated in large part by lonely boys and 20-somethings hanging out in the internet cafes, bored teenaged girls, and educational refugees self-secluded in their labs and dorm rooms in the US and Europe. Am I missing something?

February 15, 2008 @ 7:01 am | Comment

“(as do the Korean claims on Confucius,”

Jeremiah, where is this coming from?
I really want to know. Who’s claiming this? Which Korean? What? Where? When????? Nobody has given any solid proof, other that one Youtube clip of that Japanese program that says exactly the same thing: “Koreans claim Confucius”, “Koreans claims this”, “Koreans claim that”. The show itself fails to give any source other then that Koreans claim this and that. What kind of investigative report is that?

February 15, 2008 @ 7:01 am | Comment

Jeremiah,

Not sure what kind of data you want, but here is one:
http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=257

February 15, 2008 @ 7:04 am | Comment

Easy there, Me.

I was just paraphrasing some crazy comment from earlier in this thread. I’d never heard of such a claim before, either.

February 15, 2008 @ 7:07 am | Comment

AC,

I didn’t see anything in the Pew report that supports CCT’s assertion that a majority of overseas Chinese students support or sympathize with the government position on Tiananmen.

Did you just google the word “data” and post the first link that came back?

February 15, 2008 @ 7:09 am | Comment

Jeremiah,

OK, I wasn’t sure.

I know I alone can’t be considered as majority, but I participated in the demonstrations on TAM in 1989, and I think the government did the right thing.

Just my 2 cents.

February 15, 2008 @ 7:17 am | Comment

While the vulgarity of the “netizens” that Richard speaks of is certainly something that we could do without, I think here he only demonstrates how one knocks down a straw man.

I am sure Richard had been aware of the presence of anti-Korean sentiments, before he found it where he most expected it to surface.

February 15, 2008 @ 7:18 am | Comment

AC,

Fair enough.

February 15, 2008 @ 7:19 am | Comment

My apologies to Richard — apparently Sonagi was the original poster.

February 15, 2008 @ 7:27 am | Comment

@Me

Look at the picture, there is the image of Celestial Globe (invented by Zhang Heng) on the paper note.

I also just checked, according to Xinhua, the korean government has already filed the application for “Korean medicine” at UNESCO. It wasn’t a rumor after all.

February 15, 2008 @ 7:30 am | Comment

Well, Jeremiah, the “crazy comments ” are derived from all resources, to name 1 or 2, Korean Daily (while I am not sure that it is the correct english name of that paper). I think people read lots of those stories from that paper. If you have spare time, you can try to dig up some archives there. Another occasion is on one winter sport event, 4 Korean girls held a poster claiming a mountain along the boarder belong to them when they received the medals. All those kinds of things…While I have no bad experience dealing with Korean myself, it is understandable that many people have a very negative attitude toward Korean in China. In those forums, lots of guys are trying to be more extreme or ridiculous to get attentions.

Enough said, all those comments about Yuan history and TAM seems to be a little nonsense too. Why is there a thread about this in the first place?

February 15, 2008 @ 7:37 am | Comment

Fatbrick,

This little turf war over competing Chinese and Korean historical claims is between you and “Me.”

I was only making a parenthetical aside about other examples of history being dragged into contemporary political squabbles.

February 15, 2008 @ 7:45 am | Comment

Traditional Korean medicine, OK, “Chinese medicine” (to placate the Chinese posters here), in Korea is a mixture of origins from China and India – since the days of Korea’s three kingdom days. Over the centuries, Korea had its own input into this form of medicine. In other words, it’s just as much as it’s part of Korea’s, as it is part of China’s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Korean_medicine

Now, I don’t know the full story of Korea registering it with UNESCO (if it’s true, and I can’t be sure, especially if it’s from a Chinese government controlled media). But it could be just a particular portion or treatment within the Oriental medicine that Korea is registering with UNESCO (I’ve yet to see if this is even true) – much like Canada registering the discovery of Salk vaccine with UNESCO, rather than registering the entire “Western medicine” as theirs.

February 15, 2008 @ 7:59 am | Comment

While the vulgarity of the “netizens” that Richard speaks of is certainly something that we could do without, I think here he only demonstrates how one knocks down a straw man.

I am sure Richard had been aware of the presence of anti-Korean sentiments, before he found it where he most expected it to surface.

As a reader of message threads in many forums and being aware of bilateral conflicts between Koreans and Chinese, I was expected to find anti-Korean comments. What surprises me about Chinese and Korean internet message boards is that rarely does one find comments chastizing the scoundrels. This is NOT true of North American news boards. You will find ethnic, racial, sexist, and homophobic slurs on anonymous news message threads, but those bigoted posts are almost always condemned by other commenters. My post was not trying to knock down any strawmen; it was intended to elicit comments from TPD readers as to why such threads are almost unanimously negative.

February 15, 2008 @ 8:01 am | Comment

“This is NOT true of North American news boards. You will find ethnic, racial, sexist, and homophobic slurs on anonymous news message threads, but those bigoted posts are almost always condemned by other commenters.”

Could many of them be Asian ethnicities who condemn those bigoted posts? I don’t think Korean boards would light up with unanimous delight if this same thing had happened to China instead.

February 15, 2008 @ 8:10 am | Comment

@Raj,

There is a rumour about everything these days – none should be treated seriously.

Really? You’re no longer going to treat rumours seriously? Even when they apply to Chinese affairs? Think you can live up to that?

@Jeremiah,

Data?

No one has conducted a scientific survey on this issue, nor can I imagine how one can be done. I’ll just redirect you to any number of forums where “average” Chinese students studying overseas tend to congregate and discuss all issues, including Chinese politics.

http://www.mitbbs.com/bbsdoc/ChinaNews.html
http://bbs2.creaders.net/
http://forum.dwnews.com/
http://www.cnd.org/

The discussions heat up right around 6/4, as you’d expect. It’s a deeply controversial topic that divides the community, especially considering the vast majority of Chinese students studying overseas in ’89 came out overtly and protested the Chinese government en masse.

You can read it for yourself. I’ll characterize the mainstream opinion this way:

– first, it’s still one of the most shameful, painful episodes in 20th century Chinese history… that the People’s Army had to use weapons on patriotic students. Everyone involved deserves blame for allowing the situation to escalate to that point.

– China would not have had the past two decades of unbelievable, earth shaking growth if force had not been used, as the students had become radicalized and showed no sign of accepting accommodation;

– the Chinese military was poorly equipped for handling the conflict peacefully;

– some of the Chinese student leaders deserve to die a thousand times for their provocative and cowardly actions (talkin’ about you, Chai Ling).

That’s my non-scientific, anecdotal rendering of what most Chinese think. If you don’t like it, go read it for yourself and come up with your own.

February 15, 2008 @ 8:10 am | Comment

CCT,

I would but all four of the links you posted are blocked here in Beijing.* I guess somebody feels the views expressed therein aren’t supportive enough….

(*And yes, I check these boards out from time to time, I’m just tweaking you a little.)

February 15, 2008 @ 8:18 am | Comment

@Jeremian,

I, and many others, have long thought that a truly open discussion of these issues in China would ultimately be in the Communist Party’s favor.

But of course, the Communist Party sees the issue from a different perspective. I don’t think its concerned about losing the debate, but sees any such debate as distracting to the larger cause, and obviously very, very divisive.

February 15, 2008 @ 8:45 am | Comment

@CCT

as the students had become radicalized and showed no sign of accepting accommodation

I beg you pardon. I think we should be fair when we apportion blame here. One of the reasons why the student movement escalated was the fact that the People’s Daily branded the movement as counterrevolutionary in an infamous editorial. It was very hard to back down from that point, and the government refused to promise to reverse that verdict when they were approached. They were basically tellings students to go home and trust the government that it wouldn’t persecute them back home. That may or may not have worked for people who were from Beijing, but it was a hard sell to the many student who had come from outside of Beijing to demonstrate their support.

And sure Chai Ling said and did a few stupid things. Everybody knows that. But she stayed on the square until the very last moment and left when more coolheaded students had negotiated a truce with the PLA. You can say a lot about her, but she is not guilty of the bloodshed in western Beijing June 4-5.

And how do you know that we owe the current prosperity of China to the crackdown? No one had any idea what would happen in Eastern Europe and in Russia later that year. And you could just as easily say that the economic reforms that followed in the 1990s was a product of the protests in 1989.

February 15, 2008 @ 8:49 am | Comment

Jeremiah: good point re Mongol vs. Song identity. In fact, the concept of nation-states is a fairly new one.

Fatbrick, AC: Chinese can have their Kongzi. In fact, there is a book called, “Confucius must dies to save Korea,” in S. Korea which literally about getting rid of this outdated and maladaptive philosophy to modernize Korea.

Me: good point re the use of Chinese characters in Korea. North Korea seemed to have rejected the use of Chinese characters in their version of Korean, and I see a growing trend in new borns getting native Korean names as opposed to Character-based names.

AC: Consider the bigger picture. The rest of the world will become increasingly sensitive to what comes out of China (both products and Internet discussions). 15 years ago, no one would have paid attention to PRC let alone become worried about what their youngsters being taught and how they behave in the Net. China has become that important.With the growing economic prowse of PRC, China will increasingly flex its new found power esp. in Asia. Unfortunately, the recent events will increasingly worry non-Chinese.

The recent border clashes with India, backing of the oppressive Myanmar/Burma, growing economic and military ties with Pakistan and Iran, etc. all point us to question the “peaceful rise” of China.

Also unfortunately, the economic rise of China hasn’t been all positive even within China. There is the increasing inflation (i.e. 3 Chinese dying over a discounted rapeseed oil), increasing unemployment among the youth, environmental devastation, and possibly the global recession (global decoupling has been debunked, and the banking crisis in the US is already affecting India with decreased economic growth).

In a country where dissent is strongly discouraged, it is just too tempting for the Politburo to turn Taiwan/Korea/Japan into new monsters to unify the people.

February 15, 2008 @ 9:05 am | Comment

Basically I perceive Chinese antipathy towards Koreans as their repressed anger towards their own regime.

Basically you don’t know what you’re talking about whatsoever. Chinese people probably like Koreans more than any other country (according to polls at least). The reason why Chinese “netizens” hate Koreans is because “netizens” as this thread clearly shows, are generally ignorant douchebags.

Korean “netizens” not only claim every single thing in China is Korean, they also claim they’re the master race of Asia, (some have told me they’re the “Aryans” of Asia), call other people “Australoids”, want genocide for Japan, claim the Sumerians were Korean, claim Jesus was Korean, claim hanja (hanzi/kanji) was Korean, etc.

Don’t spout this “99.99% of Koreans don’t believe that” BS. The same can be said of Chinese people that are mocking the destruction of Korean culture; 65% of Chinese people would be horrified.

These disgusting lies about Chinese “racism” are just created by a lying, fork-tongued, two-faced propagandists that want the whole world to think Chinese are “racist” and “imperialist” so they can guilt trip them into accepting foreign influence.

February 15, 2008 @ 9:37 am | Comment

in S. Korea which literally about getting rid of this outdated and maladaptive philosophy to modernize Korea.

Stupidest thing I’ve ever read. The reason why “the West” and other murderer nations are so rich is because of Christian religious intolerance, racial hatred, slavery, genocide, economic exploitation, poisoning, expansionism, etc. Not philosphy; I think only the rational approach to science is conducive to modern nation building in the 21st century. Nations that did not do such things directly benefitted from racial favoritism as trade partners or geographic closeness.

The recent border clashes with India, backing of the oppressive Myanmar/Burma

Your precious India also backs Myanmar/Burma.

growing economic and military ties with Pakistan and Iran

Iran is certainly a more peaceful nation than the U.S.

too tempting for the Politburo to turn Taiwan/Korea/Japan into new monsters to unify the people.

I can see Taiwan. But Japan? Take a look at your poor victimized Koreans and what they think of Japan. Many Koreans want to invade or nuke Japan, and kill all Japanese people.. and they didn’t even get the worst treatment during the war.

Filthy, dirty lies and propaganda.

February 15, 2008 @ 9:48 am | Comment

Don’t know how to respond some of the messages… My take is the modern Chinese state, isn’t the only one who inherits the ancient Chinese civilization. So what if today’s Korea wants to celebrate Dano its own way?

@Jeremiah, but Ming did consider Yuan a previous dynasty, didn’t it? Yuan was considered a Chinese dynasty long before ROC and PRC, which presumably may benefit from such notion.

@LaoWei, I just hope China’s rise can be more peaceful than the US’ rise (successful story) or pre-WW2 Germany’s rise (failed story), but nothing is assured. When one gains power, the instinct is to flex it. That’s just human nature. But at least Chinese aren’t calling Chinese the greatest people in the world. There is still hope.

As to decoupling. Time will tell. Right after the late 90s Asian economic crisis gained its momentum, stock market in the US sold off very hard. The idea is that many American firms sold to Asia. If Asia was in trouble, these firms’ earnings had to suffer. It was half right. The other side was, the global capital was liquid. The capital pulled out of Asia, landed in the US to seek better return. That fanned up the innovation and the Internet revolution in the US. The US stock market bounced back and went on a tear.

So in short, all will go down initially. But some will stop and bounce back first — those will be the leaders for the next bull leg.

February 15, 2008 @ 9:51 am | Comment

JXie,

Let’s not get too far afield here, but you’re making the wrong argument. In reply to your last comment: if we let Zhu Yuanzhang be the judge, not a legitimate “Chinese” dynasty.

But if you want to really counter my previous comment and so steer this ship back to what’s important (which is apparently deciding who are the biggest “lying, fork-tongued, two-faced propagandists”) what you’d want to say is this:

“Jeremiah,

But isn’t it true that not a few Han officials fought against Zhu Yuanzhang and the other anti-Yuan forces, and in fact some of those Han officials even committed suicide rather than serve the new Ming dynasty?”

I’m not denying that the Yuan were a part of Chinese history, but definitive statements using modern conceptualizations of ethnicity and nationality in a historical context need to be far more carefully and critically deployed than is usually the case, which is a point, going by the opening to your last comment, on which we seem to have some common ground.

February 15, 2008 @ 10:02 am | Comment

Hangul wasn’t created until in the 1400s, so the ancient Korean history and ancient Korean literatures were solely written in Chinese — if it makes you happier, ancient Chinese that most Chinese nowadays can’t fully comprehend. Outright rejecting Chinese characters, may do more harm to Korea in the long run.

Our histories have been intertwined. In a parallel universe, we are actually distant cousins.

February 15, 2008 @ 10:05 am | Comment

LaoWei,

For one I am not happy that they want our territory. For two, I really do not like some troubles they make inside China (Since it is off topic, I won’t name those problems.)

I don’t really care whether Korean use our characters or want Kongzi or not. If they feel happy about those stuff, hey who am I to stop them feeling that way?

February 15, 2008 @ 10:18 am | Comment

Yeah sure, Jeremiah. Agree with the part about “modern conceptualizations of ethnicity and nationality in a historical context.”

But 元史 (history of Yuan) was written in Ming, wasn’t it? Yuan was a special case, that I will agree. But I tend to believe you may want to qualify the statement, but you can’t say it’s wrong:

“Yuan was a Chinese dynasty.”

February 15, 2008 @ 10:19 am | Comment

LaoWei,

You do have a very rich imagination. But I don’t think you have a clue of what you are talking about.

My brother owns two apartments in the Wangjing area in Beijing (where over 50k Koreans live and work). All his tenants have been Koreans, he actually prefers Korean tenants. There are Korean restaurants and businesses everywhere in that area, conflict between the Koreans and the locals is unheard-of. I’ve never sensed any hostility towards the Koreans. Some Chinese do ridicule the ridiculous claims made by the (some) Koreans, but I would never use the word “hatred”. The concept of “political correctness” simply don’t exist in China. Your assertion that somehow the government is involved is simply baseless, far-fetched, and laughable.

February 15, 2008 @ 10:29 am | Comment

I’m not even going to even bother spending any lengthy time responding to ferin and fatbrick. 99.99% of Koreans belive Koreans are Aryan race of asia, and want Confucius and Hanzi? Whatever. Believe your propaganda.

February 15, 2008 @ 10:38 am | Comment

JXie,

1. You’re asking me to prove a negative, when I’ve already helped you to make your case for the affirmative. You’re a very strange kid, I’ll give you that.

2. In the Yuanshi, do they refer to the Mongols as Chinese? I’d have to check, but I don’t think they do. I’m not a Song/Yuan specialist, but I seem to recall that the language used was quite clear in delineating the Mongols as something separate. (No doubt this had something to do with the ongoing conflicts in the Ming with the Mongols).

3. In any case, I never said it was wrong, so I’m not really sure why you keep arguing. I said we should consider such statements carefully and critically. (By way of example, the various terms translated as “Chinese” in English, have had different meanings to different people at different times, and are not always consistent with the usage in contemporary political discourse.) Now, I do think that unequivocal statements are often made without being critically and carefully considered, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish.

February 15, 2008 @ 10:41 am | Comment

The arsonist was probably a Chinese tourist.

February 15, 2008 @ 10:55 am | Comment

@JXie, “Our histories have been intertwined. In a parallel universe, we are actually distant cousins.” –> This made me smile. 🙂 I think I can agree with your statement.

@Jeremiah, nice take on the Asian currency crisis. But this crisis will be a lot worse. In fact, the US Fed hopes to start buying assets directly (stocks esp.) and I won’t be surprised if this spineless Congress relents. What are they going to do with the trillions of derivatives? Also, you have to realize one of the reasons why there was a stock bubble was due to the baby boomers with their new found wealth. They began retiring and they will soon tap into 401K’s soon –> massive sell off.

Also there is the elephant in the room: Peak Oil, which is also the reason the US went to the war in Iraq. We are literally running out of oil, and the world economy is based on ever expanding supply of energy. Even if we start building a lot of nuclear power plants, there won’t be enough energy to power this high level of industrialization/development. As for China, it has a net importer of coal (from net exporter), and its dependence of coal for power will increase ever more. When I was in Beijing a few years ago, I was aghast at the level of air pollutin (black soot collecting my nose), and this will only get worse. My hope is the current recession will give us a few more years to find an alernative source of energy. Btw, ethanol from corn is such a dumb idea, and will increase food prices. People from developing countries will be affected the most as a higher proportion of their income goes to food.

@ferin, I am well aware of the general history of the world, including how the West has pillaged China starting (i.e. Opium wars). I am also well aware of the atrocities committed by the US (including US meddling in Latin America including two invasions of Cuba) . However, China hasn’t always been a nice neighbour (e.g. modern invasions of Vietnam, and annexation of Tibet). I worry China will replace the US as the biggest bully in the world.
And honestly your choice of words, “lying, fork-tongued, two-faced propagandists,” read a lot like those of official North Korean news media.

February 15, 2008 @ 11:04 am | Comment

LaoWei,

I’m always prepared to take credit for snappy commentary, but I think you’re referring to JXie’s take on the Asian currency crisis.

February 15, 2008 @ 11:07 am | Comment

Fair enough, Jeremiah. It’s always interesting to talk to you. Han (ethnicity, 族) implicitly means the descendants of Han dynasty. The more recent “foreign” infusions, Manchu and Mongol still have their distinctive ethnicities. Yet the “foreign” infusions from 五代十国/隋/唐/金/辽 lost their trace in the all inclusive Han. For instance, the 1st emperor of Tang was half Turk. The Han today, isn’t quite pure “Han” — if you discount the inter-ethnicity mixing to begin with.

Many oversea Chinese of older generations call Han Ren as Tang Ren (唐人) — Chinatown as 唐人街. So in that sense, to them the cutoff point was Tang, I guess.

February 15, 2008 @ 11:12 am | Comment

Jeremiah, oops. BTW, nice blog.

From your blog:
Chairman Mao: “Do you want our Chinese women? We can give you ten million.”

February 15, 2008 @ 11:15 am | Comment

read a lot like those of official North Korean news media.

Then their propaganda against Chinese people reads like that of Goebbels’.

The arsonist was probably a Chinese tourist.

Just like how you said the VT shooter was a Chinese national; rather I bet it was a Christian fundie following Reverend Moon or some white trash redneck terrorist like nanhe. Christians in Korea have a history of violence against Buddhists and destroying or vandalizing Korean temples and cultural artifacts.

me:Believe your propaganda.

Learn how to read. Every single group of people on this blog gets that kind of defense; oh, 99.99% of them are good people! Except Chinese people, they are racists, polluters, ignorant, hateful, etc. Filthy, dirty liars and propagandists want to extort China for their own benefit. They also call Koreans racist and xenophobic and try to extort them with the race card.

fatbrick:For one I am not happy that they want our territory

They don’t. Very few of them believe in “Greater Goguryeo”.

February 15, 2008 @ 11:38 am | Comment

Jeremiah, as to Yuan Shi. It’s unmistakably the same format from Shi Ji. You can check out it here:

http://www.yifan.net/yihe/novels/history/yuanssl/yuas.html

Pretty interesting read.

BTW, I am reasonably certain it should be me calling you kid age-wise.

February 15, 2008 @ 11:49 am | Comment

69-year-old man identified as Chae, Jong-gi was arrested on suspicion of arson and then later confessed to the crime.

sorry Ferin – I have to delete that. Please refrain from ad hominems like that.

Richard

February 15, 2008 @ 11:50 am | Comment

A lot of cross-threads in here.

@Jeremiah, I don’t see how its possible to answer the question of whether the Ming considered the Yuan to be “Chinese” for all the reasons you already articulated. There weren’t clear concepts of ethnicity and nationality.

What does seem clear, however, is that the Ming considered the Yuan a legitimate part of the historical dynastic chain. That, interpreted through modern prism, is significant enough.

I made the comparison in a post that Raj found necessary to delete. But really, this is somewhat equivalent to debating whether Queen Elizabeth and the House of Windsor are truly English… or just French invaders.

@Amban,
I’m not going to repeat the entire debate about the proper allocation of guilt between the students’ and the government’s roles in Tiananmen. It’s been done ad nauseum by people working off of the same body of information, and people have come to different conclusions.

I’m only going to re-emphasize that many Chinese, fully exposed to the same information you’ve seen in reference to Tiananmen, continue to sympathesize with the government’s decision.

@JXie,
I believe Chinese are referred to as “Tang ren” partly due to foreign preference, not self-identification with the Tang. The Tang represents the greatest period of expansion for Chinese cultural influence, and many neighboring peoples came to refer to all Chinese as Tang ren from that point forward.

I’ve heard this is the same reason we’re called Chinese in the Roman-influenced world: we’re forever marked by early (indirect) interaction between the Qin/Chin and Roman empires.

February 15, 2008 @ 2:23 pm | Comment

CCT

Really? You’re no longer going to treat rumours seriously? Even when they apply to Chinese affairs? Think you can live up to that?

Please quote some times I have relied on/given support to pure rumours. If you can’t/won’t then that statement is irrelevant.

February 15, 2008 @ 3:20 pm | Comment

Wow.

Some of these tangents are really interesting. Others are just…bizarre.

Look, it’s terribly sad when something beautiful and culturally significant is destroyed. I don’t care what country it’s in. This is very sad.

Anyone applauding the destruction for whatever reason is an idiot.

Night, all.

February 15, 2008 @ 3:31 pm | Comment

i am very disappointed no-one has told me what the vietnamese think of korean tv shows.

🙁

February 15, 2008 @ 4:36 pm | Comment

Ferin, I deleted your last comment. You have to watch your mouth.

February 15, 2008 @ 9:18 pm | Comment

@CCT

I’m only going to re-emphasize that many Chinese, fully exposed to the same information you’ve seen in reference to Tiananmen, continue to sympathesize with the government’s decision.

I don’t dispute that, but what mystifies me, and many other bystanders, is the fact that the same people who are ready to forgive the PRC government almost anything, are the same people who take to the streets and attack Japanese people who have little or nothing to do with what happened in China sixty or seventy years ago.

A lot of people who have inflicted terrible sufferings on Chinese people since 1949 are still at large and could be brought to justice – if there was a will to do it. These are the people that should be forgiven and forgotten in the name of economic growth and political stability. But it is OK to throw heaps of bile on people who happen to come from a country that invaded China half a century ago or more. And it is understandable that Chinese netizens laugh when a Korean national treasure is lost to arson.

This is the country that is supposed to host tens of thousands of foreigners in six months time. Good night, and good luck.

February 15, 2008 @ 10:49 pm | Comment

Considering CCT’s preposterous argument, perhaps the Japanese invasion of China meant sense, considering the rapid economic development that Japan enjoyed while China remained trapped in imperial national socialism.
I don’t actually believe this, just taking CCT’s position to its rational conclusion.
There is a point at which economic development can’t justify everything, particularly the slaughter of one’s own fellow countrymen, and I will openly state that I believe that support for the government’s position on Tiananmen is a joke at best or perhaps a severe form of social dementia.

February 15, 2008 @ 11:31 pm | Comment

Amban,

the same people who are ready to forgive the PRC government almost anything, are the same people who take to the streets and attack Japanese people who have little or nothing to do with what happened in China sixty or seventy years ago.

Personally don’t condone those who attack Japanese. But Amban you have to understand human emotion better. Murder can range from involuntary manslaughter to hate crime. The reaction by the victim’s family toward the perps of course will be drastically different. I imagine to many, what the Chinese government did at Tiananmen, was to the left of involuntary manslaughter; and what the Japanese army did, was to the right of hate crime. How so? How about forcing people to commit acts of incest, gang-raping pregnant women, then cutting their uterus open and removed the fetus? Images that are pretty impressionable to young people, huh?

Well, the Japanese who were responsible for such acts are still being enshrined in Japan today. Now you tell me.

February 15, 2008 @ 11:35 pm | Comment

I would agree, Kevin. It’s one of those hard-wired arguments, like, “Thank God those students were put down, otherwise we might have had democracy and been plunged into chaos and misery like Russia.” Only problem is, Russia ended up doing pretty well… A few years of growing pains seems like a small price to pay for far greater freedoms.

February 15, 2008 @ 11:37 pm | Comment

Richard, at one point in Russia, life expectancy decreased by close to 10 years. That’s only topped by the 2 world wars and the 1918 flu epidemic in the developed world since the industrial revolution. You tell me if that’s just growing pain.

The trend though stopped after Putin took the power — coincidentally the time when many in the West consider Russia moving to the wrong direction. Whatever these people are selling, I wish that they can keep only to themselves.

February 16, 2008 @ 12:06 am | Comment

@JXie

Take a look at some of the footage of what happened at Muxudi during the night of June 4 and then tell me it was involuntary manslaughter. Troops firing live ammunition into crowds shouting anti-PLA slogans look like cold-blooded killing to me.

As for all the horrendous acts committed my the Japanese army, I agree that these have left a horrible stain on Japan. But I can also provide you with a laundry list of horrible and willfully committed atrocities committed in China since 1949, many of which were encouraged or tolerated by the government and then covered up to this day. The murder of Bian Zhongyun is one of those acts:

http://voyage.typepad.com/china/2007/04/the_first_casua.html

February 16, 2008 @ 12:17 am | Comment

@Amban,

We’re asking for a lot, trying to encompass a unified theory of sentiment towards a century’s worth of Communist + Japanese policies in this single thread.

But you asked a few specific questions, so I’ll try to respond:

First, Tiananmen; I’m sure you recognize that a snapshot is hardly a fair representation of what was essentially a 12-hour long running battle. But I think we can all agree on some fundamental facts…

1) anyone who left the streets that night were not in danger of being shot (intentionally);
2) tens of PLA soldiers were killed; some were burnt, disemboweled, and hung from a bridge… no one can give a clear accounting of when this happened during the course of the night. But usually, armed soldiers firing assault rifles recklessly don’t end up disemboweled by unarmed students.
3) the Communist Party’s objective was to clear the square, period. Tactically speaking, unclear Beijing had any other options. Not enough rubber bullets, fire engines, and tear gas to deal with the scale of this protest.
4) the student movement had meandered by 6/4, with no clear purpose for the occupation *but* to force a violent reaction from the Beijing government. Chai Ling’s makes this obvious, as does the early decision by many of the student leaders to leave Tiananmen *before* 6/4.

We can justifiably talk about all of the government missteps leading from 1979 to 1989 that led to the movement’s coalescence in the spring of 1989. But when we speak of 6/4 itself, it seems to me the Communist Party had only two options:

– completely surrender its position, and allow the (anything but democratic) student leadership on the square dictate a new government,

– use any means necessary to clear the square and restore order.

And when seen in this perspective, many (probably most) of fully informed Chinese absolutely prefer the second scenario to the first. No one takes pride in the violence, but many understand the unfortunate need that it served.

Second, Japan versus Communist atrocity:
In any legal system, intent is seen as an important factor in determining the severity of the crime. Killing you accidentally is different from killing you out of negligence, which is different from killing you out of emotional distress, and which is yet again different again from killing you out of sheer greed or animosity.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Tiananmen might be an example of a negligent government, followed by temporary insanity due to great emotional distress. The suffering of the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution should probably fall between the accidental/negligent category.

Japan’s massacre of the civilian population in Nanjing, as well as the invasion itself, can only be painted as an act of murder on a national scale.

I think it’s perfectly understandable why we may see these events differently.

February 16, 2008 @ 1:01 am | Comment

@CCT

Sure, a snapshot cannot represent the entire event. But it illustrates the cold blooded attitude of the troops. And as for the killing of soldiers that you describe, it is pretty well established that these happened after the government had started the crack-down.

It is also pretty well established that hardliners within the CCP leadership, such as Chen Yun and Bo Yibo, wanted to crack down on the students already in April to set an example against the reform faction and deter students from further protests. They refused to talk to the student leaders, who were quite moderate at that point, and they were the ones who pushed through the publication of the infamous editorial of April 26, which branded the student movement as a “counterrevolutionary” movement. As everybody knows, if the Chinese government calls you “counterrevolutionary,” it will use whatever means it deems necessary to get rid of you. However, the leadership was divided and Gorbachev’s visit made it impossible to crack down on the students, who grew increasingly bold as they got support from

The two choices you claim the leadership faced is a false choice. At no point was the CCP leadership prepared to withdraw the April 26 editorial or promise the students to go back to their campuses without being persecuted. As soon as the hardliners go the upper hand and had ousted their opponents, they cracked down on the students and the increasingly defiant population of Beijing. They were not prepared to make any concessions and if the killing in June was accidental manslaughter, it would have stopped then and there.

It didn’t. In the days following June 4, the government summarily executed people and persecuted all leaders of the movement, even those who had wanted to leave the square. The few soldiers who were killed were given official funerals, but it did not permit any public mourning of the hundreds of civilians. The government also singled out individuals who had spoken to the foreign press about what they had seen during the night of June 4 and sentenced them to lengthy prison sentences. This was not a government that was intent on national reconciliation.

What happened on June 4 was not an accident. The atrocities that occurred during the Cultural Revolution and other government-sponsored hate campaigns such as the anti-rightist movement were no accidents. The fact that Peng Dehuai was persecuted when he dared to speak out against the Great Leap Forward was not an accident. Since 1949, the PRC government has periodically incited campaigns of hatred and mass persecution of real and perceived enemies, and it has refused to take responsibility for the supposedly “accidental” or “collateral” loss of human life that followed. Instead it has portrayed itself as the sole guarantor against the very same chaos it has encouraged from time to time.

February 16, 2008 @ 1:44 am | Comment

Jxie & CCT,

Come on. What’s the point of arguing with a person who can’t even tell the difference between manslaughter due to ill-conceived policy and premeditated rape and murder of a nation?

February 16, 2008 @ 2:13 am | Comment

@AC

If you do not want to face reality, there is obviously no point arguing with me.

As for “the difference between manslaughter and premeditated rape and murder”, you are probably aware of the fact that apologists for Japanese militarism deny that the Nanking massacre was premeditated, but instead argue that Japanese atrocities were a collateral consequence of the conditions of war and of the “ill-conceived policy” of invading China. And sure, where do you find evidence that the Japanese government was planning a massacre in 1936? But does that exculpate the Japanese government? Not at all.

And here we have people who argue that a government that deliberately whips up hatred and orchestrates mass campaigns in peace time, killing millions of people, should be exonerated on account of its misguided policies. Well, let that government plead its own case. As of now, they don’t even permit the question to be asked.

Please note that I am not arguing for an exact equivalence between wartime Japan and the PRC. But I am pointing to the glaring double standard with which the Chinese government and their cyber-nationalists treat the Chinese past.

February 16, 2008 @ 2:51 am | Comment

Clearly, fatbrick, no one in your family was killed in 1989. And you were not forced into prison that summer.
If that had happened, you might be a bit less eager to declare the “glorious mighty and correct” nature of a government slaughtering its own people.

February 16, 2008 @ 3:21 am | Comment

@Amban,

And what was this feared punishment for the student leaders of the ’89 campaign who were later arrested? Wang Dan served all of 3 years in prison for his role as leader of the student movement.

They refused to talk to the student leaders, who were quite moderate at that point, and they were the ones who pushed through the publication of the infamous editorial of April 26, which branded the student movement as a “counterrevolutionary” movement.

See, you’re pulling me into the debate which I wanted to avoid. This has been debated ad nauseum by people fully aware of the facts. I don’t know if you’re intentionally leaving out facts on the basis of trying to “prove a point”… but here’s the opposite, contradictory fact.

On April 29th, the same People’s Daily published a far more moderate editorial as an intentional counter-point to the April 27th editorial. On the same day, senior government officials met with 45 students publicly to explain:

– all editorials are written by the writers at individual newspapers; they don’t reflect government opinion. (which we all know isn’t completely true, but the meaning of his statement is obvious.)

– the April 27th editorial absolutely wasn’t referring to the students when it mentioned “counterrevolutionary” forces. (The editorial, in fact, talks about counterrevolutionary forces inflaming the situation and taking advantage of the young students.)

– on May 18th, Li Peng and other members of the Politburo Standing Committee meets with student leaders at renmin dahuitang (in response to a long-held student demand). Li emphasizes, again, that the government has never believed that the students were counter-revolutionary. His statement calls for a recognition that Beijing had fallen into an anarchic, government-less condition… and that the central government simply couldn’t allow that to continue.

All in all, could the Beijing government have avoided these protests more deftly in the spring of ’89? With the benefit of hindsight and a creative imagination, I think the answer is… sure, of course it *could* have. It didn’t have to publish the editorial on April 27th. For that matter, maybe Li Peng could’ve fallen on his knees and begged Wuer Kaixi’s forgiveness… surely that’s better than the massacre to follow, right?

But for the majority of Chinese now putting themselves in the shoes of the Chinese government in April/May/June of 1989, its not difficult at all to comprehend (and sympathesize with) the government’s actual policies. The government made genuine attempts to compromise on key issues, but the student leaders had gradually become increasingly radicalized.

As Chai Ling said, on camera, the student leadership had reached the conclusion that the blood had to flow on Tiananmen in order to achieve their objectives of overthrowing the existing voernment. (Not her blood mind you… she was too important to the cause; the blood of other innocents would be a fine substitute.)

So, again. I don’t want to debate this with you in hopes of changing your mind, because quite frankly, your opinion simply doesn’t matter. You also are not going to tell me anything I don’t already know on this topic that’s likely to change my mind, so you probably don’t need to waste your time.

My only purpose in discussing 6/4 in this thread is to share what I believe to be popular opinion amongst Chinese *fully informed* of the events surrounding Tiananmen.

February 16, 2008 @ 5:14 am | Comment

@CCT

Thanks for the detailed comments, but I am not letting this go. You say that “The government made genuine attempts to compromise on key issues”. What key issues?

You are right in pointing out that the response of the government was contradictory and that the April 26 editorial was not the only statement of government policy. That does not change the fundamental point that I am trying to make, that the crackdown was not just about dispersing the crowds in Beijing and elsewhere. You know that, and you do not want to talk about that. This was not crowd control gone awry. If it was just a case of restoring law and order, perhaps Li Peng and the others would deserve our sympathy.

As you are well aware of, repression did not end on the night of June 4. The government wanted to set an example and intimidate future generations of Chinese not to challenge the CCp ever again. It seems that they have succeeded, at least in the short term. Anyway, the less known the leaders were, the harsher the punishment they got. Sure, Wang Dan got a couple of years in jail, but what about that guy who spoke to a foreign TV crew and were sent to jail for a decade? Do you sympathize with him or Li Peng?

You seem to make an awful lot of the fact that Chai Ling went on camera expressing her wish for bloodshed. She sure got what she wanted, but why do you focus on that? There were several leaders that did their utmost to prevent bloodshed and spoke in favor of the students returning to school. Why were they branded as counterrevolutionaries on live TV and hounded throughout the country?

It is much easier to put the blame of June 4 on the rash words of a misguided leader than to face the fact that the PRC government clamped down on the movement with much more force than simply restoring order would require. Chai Ling is an easy target. It doesn’t cost you anything to attack her. To blame the PRC government for June 4 is far more risky.

February 16, 2008 @ 6:11 am | Comment

@Amban,

As far as compromising on key issues, Beijing promised to discuss issues of corruption with official student organizations. It also (as discussed previously) reversed its previous claims of these students being involved in counter-revolutionary activity, which you claimed previously had forced students into extremism. For that matter, Li Peng met with the students… even if it was only for 50 minutes, and even if the tone was hostile… surely you realize that the meeting wasn’t for *his* benefit.

It is much easier to put the blame of June 4 on the rash words of a misguided leader than to face the fact that the PRC government clamped down on the movement with much more force than simply restoring order would require.
What a remarkable turn of events, wouldn’t you say? Blaming the unarmed students is “much easier” than blaming the PRC government’s clamp down? Who would’ve thought the world would come to this viewpoint, 18 years later?

It sounds like you’re still trying to apportion the right amount of blame here. What a pointless, pointless exercise. I personally don’t think you can weigh and compare levels of blame in situations like this. If there’s a supreme god out there passing judgment on all of us, let him do that. Both sides were driven by fear, paranoia, greed, arrogance, and ambition… and the result was the classic human tragedy.

February 16, 2008 @ 7:34 am | Comment

Amban,

Speaking of double standard, it exists in every society. You dont have to go all worked up at China and Chinese people.

We all know double standard is bad, but do you have to running around like a 3 year old telling people about the “glaring double standard” in the Chinese society?

“And sure, where do you find evidence that the Japanese government was planning a massacre in 1936”

This shows your ignorance or you are just a troll. Japanese military’s atrocity in WWII is well documented, a good starting point is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

Now, tell me where you are from, and maybe we can understand you better?

February 16, 2008 @ 8:21 am | Comment

@CCT

I have no idea what you are trying to say here about apportioning blame. It is indeed tragic when soldiers are ordered to shoot at their compatriots. But when a vindictive government is hunting down dissidents who took part in largely peaceful demonstrations were not talking about a tragedy anymore. When individuals who tried to prevent the tragedy from happening are singled out as “black hands” were are not talking about a classic human tragedy anymore.

From your answers, it appears that there is a statute of limitations at work when it comes to atrocities committed by the PRC government. That’s all I can say.

@From China

This is a blog about China, so comments tend to center on China. I have never said that Chinese are better or worse when it comes to double standards. And my national origin is irrelevant.

February 16, 2008 @ 9:05 am | Comment

@Amban,

“And sure, where do you find evidence that the Japanese government was planning a massacre in 1936”

Did you check out the link I gave you?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_war_crimes

Any comments?

And I really wanna understand you better. Could you kindly tell me where you were brought up? Your race and current nationality are irrelevant, but it would help me and others to understand what makes you think that way toward China and its government. I am only asking where you collected your knowledge of China. Where did you have your secondary education?

February 16, 2008 @ 11:22 am | Comment

@From China

I am aware of Japan’s record of war crimes during WW2. My point was simply that if you want to find circumstances that show that Japanese government was not planning premeditated mass murder, you can surely find it. Yes, I am aware of the death toll in Japanese occupied territories, the horrendous crimes of Unit 731 and other Japanese war crimes. But can you find any evidence that Konoe Fumimaro was scheming the Nanking massacre before the invasion of China? Probably not. Does that exonerate the Japanese government from what happened in December 1937? Of course not. They may not have planned the massacre, but they certainly knew what happened on the ground and they took no steps to prosecute the guilty prior to the defeat of Japan in the war.

In a like manner, you can argue that many of the cruelties that happened in China between 1949 and, say, 1976, were not the result of a premeditated plan to kill millions of Chinese. But what steps has the PRC government taken to prosecute the guilty, except from a few show trials in the late 70s? Not much.

So, it is very hard to see how the PRC government can claim any high moral ground when they attack the Japanese government for covering up their crimes. Unlike PRC textbooks, most Japanese school textbooks actually do acknowledge the shady past of their government. But what does the PRC government and cyber-nationalists chose to focus on? – The few textbooks that try to whitewash Japanese war crimes. There are nationalist nut cases in Japan, just as there are in China and in most other countries. The difference is that in Japan, it is perfectly legal to attack the government for not doing enough to clean up its record. That is not the case in the PRC today.

Do you understand how I am thinking now?

February 16, 2008 @ 11:59 am | Comment

Amban,

Nice try. But let us shift the focus a little away from the governments. Whatever the governments formalize as stated policies tells very little about how they are enforced in the field. Overwhelming evidence indicates that many Japanese soldiers enjoyed the killing, or at least exercised it as a show of their twisted notion of courage and bravery. This happened within the context of the belief that the Japanese race is superior and therefore they have the right to kill low lives of other Asian nations.

The wartime atrocities are committed by Japan as a nation, not by the Japanese government only. Unfortunately, this is a lot more difficult to forgive and exonerate then whatever the Chinese government can do to its subjects. The Chinese government can never despise the Chinese as a nation.

February 16, 2008 @ 1:28 pm | Comment

@Bryags

I am not sure I follow you here, except that you seem to be trying to demonize Japan as a nation. You can argue that case. Based on widely available evidence from Chinese politics since 1949, you can also argue the case that the PRC government tapped into violent undercurrents in Chinese society to get rid of people it perceived as enemies. Many people who are interviewed about what they did in 1966-9 still do not seem to feel any remorse about the violent acts they committed under the cover of the Cultural Revolution. The point I’m trying to make here is not that this is something specifically Chinese, but that these kind of things can happen in almost any society once the government tells you it’s OK to have a go at your neighbor or at a complete stranger. The only difference I see between China and Japan in this regard is that it is OK to talk about this in Japan. In China it is not.

February 16, 2008 @ 1:50 pm | Comment

Amban,

I do not want to demonize Japan. Actually I believe it is in China’s interest to have a warm relationship with this important neighbor. My previous comment was to give you a reason why many Chinese cannot let Japan go while finding ways to accommodate the Chinese government. You want to mix these two things up, which seems to really crappy intellectually.

February 16, 2008 @ 2:11 pm | Comment

“The Chinese government can never despise the Chinese as a nation.”
And the survey says….
Based upon my impressions, this despising is what the PRC government is in the business of doing. Really, directly causing the deaths of more people than the Japanese, and getting away with it just because you shot a rocket in the air for 12 hours and won an Olympic bid? What is there not to despise in that? What kind of a country has “nationalists” that argue for the murder of their fellow countrymen for a sense of false pride and “development”?
If you don’t understand that the PRC gov’t doesn’t care about you at all except as a tool of propaganda or a GDP figure, then you’re simply too slow to even argue with…

February 16, 2008 @ 2:57 pm | Comment

Si: ” am very disappointed no-one has told me what the vietnamese think of korean tv shows.”

You originally asked me this question, and as I didn’t know, I didn’t respond. But having Googled, here’s your answer:

“Korean Soap Operas Spur Hot Trends in Vietnam

Korea Daily, Dec 09, 2005

The rising popularity of Korean soap operas throughout Asia has meant that such shows have become vehicles for exporting Korean culture abroad. In Vietnam, where Korean dramas began broadcasting in 1997, many young Vietnamese have become attracted to Korean pop-culture, and South Korean trends have changed young women�s attitudes in Hanoi.”

—
http://tinyurl.com/3a7w43

February 16, 2008 @ 4:47 pm | Comment

I believe that the Chinese government looks down on most Chinese, because it believes the China MUST be a one-party state “for the national good”. I.e. ordinary Chinese are too stupid/incapable of dealing with democracy.

That, or they don’t think the Chinese people deserve choice in who can govern them.

It isn’t a matter of “despising” them, but they’re certainly not regarded as mature adults more children.

February 16, 2008 @ 8:16 pm | Comment

kevinwhatever,

For the Chinese government to despise the Chinese as a nation, they have to despise me for I am being Chinese, like what the Japanese would do. I do not know what to make of this, maybe giving foreign visitors preferential treatment can attest to such a despise.

Raj,

Democracy is just one of many things the Chinese government cannot trust the people with. They do not trust them with a freely convertible currency; they do not trust them with discretion as to how many children they can have; they do not trust them with guns; farmers are not trusted with transferable land; factory workers are not trusted with shares so the economy could have been privatized overnight like what the Russians have done. The list can go on and on, doesn’t it?

February 16, 2008 @ 10:27 pm | Comment

@Brgyags

You want to mix these two things up, which seems to really crappy intellectually.

I am not I am following you here. I am not mixing anything up. I am merely observing that there are people who are ready to single out any Japanese for acts that were committed decades before they were born, while they are ready to forgive a government that has killed millions in our lifetime. I can understand that some people can make sense of this and that it is all very complicated. But it doesn’t make sense to me and a lot of other people.

Beijing will organize the Olympics this year and the world will expect more of China than before. In recent years, we have seen some Chinese sport fans ready to go at great length to humiliate Japanese athletes – even teenagers. Are we going to see more of this in August?

February 17, 2008 @ 12:23 am | Comment

directly causing the deaths of more people than the Japanese

If you want to nitpick, considering that the IJA and Japanese fascists weakened the Chinese nationalist government so much, Japan is also partly responsible for allowing the CCP to win the civil war and thus everything that followed.

ordinary Chinese are too stupid/incapable of dealing with democracy

Democracy is a fundamentally idiotic concept with a long history of failures (continuing today), and most modern democracies are built on previous failed so-called democracies and disgusting regimes that can definitely not be called democratic (i.e blacks/non-whites and women being unable to vote in America, democracy failing to keep imperialism in check, etc).

Rule of law, transparency, etc are more important. Democracy otherwise is just mob rule and mindless, temporal emotionality; influenced by public opinion and dominated by interest groups, etc. Remember that the populace of China and many other nations overwhelmingly favored Communism in the past. Likewise, many communist leaders like Allende and Lumumba were actually voted into power.

Though bringing up Russia’s problems and transition from a failed socialist empire into a neo-Nazi thug oligarchy with democratic pretenses is fallacy, especially when you’re talking about Tiananmen and Chinese democracy, it does somewhat discredit the notion that mob rule or democracy is perfect and/or infallible.

To say that democracy would automatically solve China’s ills belies the complexity of the issue. It’s easy enough to say anything is better than the current CCP; but they were more or less put into power by the masses.

February 17, 2008 @ 1:16 am | Comment

@Ferin

Sure, democracy is not perfect and we can wallow in its deficiencies. When it comes to the injustices committed by democracies, there is no statute of limitations. Whenever we want to find fault in democracies, a reference to segregation or Chinese exclusion can put an end to any discussion. But in the People’s Republic of China it is always eight o’clock Monday morning. Whatever may have happened in the past only serves to enhance today’s accomplishments.

All things said and done, both you and me prefer to live – or have the right to live – in one of those flawed democracies. Democracy will not solve all of China’s problems, but when we make our own choices, we act on the assumption that it will solve many of own problems.

February 17, 2008 @ 2:11 am | Comment

when we make our own

The problem is that for anywhere from 1-49% of the population this isn’t true. Most people don’t care enough to vote responsibly.

February 17, 2008 @ 2:20 am | Comment

@Ferin

Clearly you don’t understand the difference between a failed decision and a failed system. A majority vote doesn’t guarantee that the “right” decision is made every single time. But in the long run, it is a self-correcting mechanism that rules out follies like the Great leap forward or the Cultural revolution.

February 17, 2008 @ 7:02 am | Comment

it is a self-correcting mechanism

It really does not self-correct though… it didn’t stop Nazism or the War in Iraw either.

February 17, 2008 @ 10:39 am | Comment

@Amban,

The “self-correcting mechanism” in question hasn’t managed to self-correct in tens of developing nations throughout the world. India, Brazil, Mexico, Haiti…

I don’t think the flaw is necessarily with the self-correcting mechanism, but rather with its actual implementation. When applied incorrectly, it leads to very poor results. It gives us Gujrat, Rio slums, and the Zapatistas.

Here’s a question I always ask. Can you give us examples of a nation which in the post-WW2 era:

– started as a developing nation,
– and successfully grew to the status of a developed nation.

There *are* a few obvious examples off of the top of my head. South Korea; Taiwan; Singapore.

Now, repeat this exercise with a new condition: embraced democracy while GDP/capita was still third-world level. Help me understand why China, as a country with a GDP/capita in the $4000 range, should embrace democracy now. Help me understand what country’s development model China should hope to emulate.

February 17, 2008 @ 1:45 pm | Comment

Actually when democracy is applied most faithfully it’s the biggest disaster; then the mob is totally lawless and gets away with anything. Most people, to be blunt, are too goddamn stupid to be deciding the fate of nations.

February 17, 2008 @ 2:01 pm | Comment

@CCT

Well, for starters, India has not had a single instance of mass famine since independence. The last one was the Bengal famine of 1943. When did China has it most devastating famine? You know the answer to that question.

Now for your second question; again you know the answers, don’t you? Not a single government on earth has stared at GDP per capita statistics when they decided to introduce some form of democracy.

Yes, you can talk about Rio slums and Zapatistas and deplore the results. And others may point out that Britain was a developing country when it took it’s first steps towards democracy.

But guess what? If I had this discussion in Britain two hundred years ago, I may have encountered some problems, but I would not be ostracized like Liu Xiaobo or Hu Jia. And Britain was far less developed two hundred years ago than China is today.

February 17, 2008 @ 2:10 pm | Comment

By the way, the best example of post-WWII development is Japan, which you conveniently ignored.
Japan was an economic mess in ’45, became a democracy, and grew to become one of the most economically powerful nations in the world.

February 17, 2008 @ 2:38 pm | Comment

Japan under several years of LDP one-party rule was a democracy almost in the same way the KMT ruled Taiwan was a democracy in the 80’s or the modern CCP is now; the opposition parties were/are jokes.

That and Japan was relatively unscathed (and I stress relatively) by the war; they had fewer geopolitical problems to contend with.

India has not had a single instance of mass famine since independence.

India now is in a perpetual state of mass starvation, with millions of people that are unimaginably poor.

Anyway I think China and the Chinese should do what they can to support government transparency and greater rule of law as well as a step towards more political and personal freedoms. Despite the immorality of it all, I don’t think the CCP is just going to capitulate in a matter of days or something.

February 17, 2008 @ 2:51 pm | Comment

“Anyway I think China and the Chinese should do what they can to support government transparency and greater rule of law as well as a step towards more political and personal freedoms. Despite the immorality of it all, I don’t think the CCP is just going to capitulate in a matter of days or something.”

I agree although I’d replace ‘support’ with ‘increase’ or ‘demand’ and add ‘government accountability’. Baby steps.

February 17, 2008 @ 3:22 pm | Comment

First of all, Ferin, Japan was a democracy. There is a definition of democracy. It does not just change to fit your argument.
Second of all, Japan was not unscathed by the war. It certainly was not about to shoot rockets in the air and host the Olympics. Perhaps read John Dower’s “Embracing Defeat” to learn about the condition that Japan was in at the end of the war, and then come talk about this, because you’re way out of your league.

February 18, 2008 @ 12:09 am | Comment

It’s another reading comprehension thing, once again. I said RELATIVELY, and then put I STRESS RELATIVELY in quotations. As far as I can tell, you read that, and your post is just a copout avoiding the point.

The definition of “democracy” is rule by the people; i.e mob rule. That’s not going to change to suit your argument, either.

Japan was essentially lead by the same political elements before and after; only post-war they were castrated and occupied to prevent Soviet expansion.

Are you really asking me to delineate the millions of differences between post-war Japan and modern China? For one CCP ruled China was not heavily backed by the U.S during any period of its development. You could bring up post-war Germany as well, but that would discredit your argument since Germany was essentially a democracy during the war too. Not the kind that’s convenient for your argument though.

February 18, 2008 @ 1:27 am | Comment

ferin

Japan under several years of LDP one-party rule was a democracy almost in the same way the KMT ruled Taiwan was a democracy in the 80’s or the modern CCP is now; the opposition parties were/are jokes.

A ridiculous comparison. The LDP did not round up political opponents and have them thrown in jail/placed under house arrest/have them beat up and murdered. Also, for all the failing of opposition groups in Japan they were completely legal and not kept out of power by gerrymandering, control of the media, etc.

Japan under the LDP has been a far superior democracy to anything seen in China or Taiwan under the KMT.

February 18, 2008 @ 1:57 am | Comment

The LDP did not round up political opponents and have them thrown in jail/placed under house arrest/have them beat up and murdered.

Oh ffs… after the war, maybe. Also, the U.S for several decades did what it could to influence Japanese elections. The infrastructure was there to support pro-U.S and anti-Communist action (to the benefit of the U.S, Japan and the rest of the world). Anyway it’s not worth expounding upon until I hear your version of how Japan’s “democracy” (along with Haiti’s, Congo’s, and Chile’s) was set up.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE2DA113DF93AA35753C1A962958260

Before I go further I’m just going to ask for a clarification, are kevin, Amban etc asking for a repeat of Tiananmen square? Do you really think democracy will fix the problems in China? If you don’t mean democracy by “rule of the people” then what do you mean? A better legal system?

February 18, 2008 @ 2:13 am | Comment

“The definition of “democracy” is rule by the people; i.e mob rule. ”

Shows very well what ferin(s), (currently living in the USA as I would like to remind everybody), thinks of democracy (e.g. freedom of speech) and those that are called “laobaixing” in Chinese. They are just the “mob”, or maybe we should say “scum”?

“You could bring up post-war Germany as well, but that would discredit your argument since Germany was essentially a democracy during the war too.”

Not sure which war this self-declared historian is speaking about here.

“Before I go further I’m just going to ask for a clarification, are kevin, Amban etc asking for a repeat of Tiananmen square?”

Did I get this right? Is ferin(s) asking Kevin and Amban, if they want another massacre? Is he now going totally nuts or what is his agenda?

February 18, 2008 @ 2:42 am | Comment

If I want another repeat of Tiananmen? Uh, what do you mean? A massacre, of course not. But if there would be a new movement for democracy, I would obviously be happy. A lot of netizens spend a lot of time and energy to discredit the student movement of 1989. Everybody knows that the student leaders made a lot of mistakes. But it was not their fault that the government clamped down the way it did. That had more to do with the way CCP operates.

Given the fact the CCP has the ultimate say on media and any form of public expression, there are very few opportunities for young people in China to learn and experiment with democratic ideas. So, any movement for democracy is bound to make mistakes in the initial stage. Which gives the CCP an excuse to retain monopoly on power. Back to square 1.

February 18, 2008 @ 3:45 am | Comment

@Amban,

Mass famine? Your only standard for effective government is the presence of mass famine?

China hasn’t had a mass famine since 1962, and is in no danger of having one today. If your value proposition for a conversion to democracy is that we can look like India and avoid famine… pardon me, you just can’t be serious. India’s economic and social development is the punch line to a bad joke, not an aspirational model.

February 18, 2008 @ 6:40 am | Comment

@Amban,

But guess what? If I had this discussion in Britain two hundred years ago, I may have encountered some problems, but I would not be ostracized like Liu Xiaobo or Hu Jia. And Britain was far less developed two hundred years ago than China is today.

But guess what? I don’t really care. If the Hong Kong experience doesn’t apply to Taiwan (as some have suggested elsewhere), then surely the experience of a small primarily trade-base mercantile society in western Europe doesn’t apply to a primarily agarian society in east Asia.

Can’t we at least agree that world economics and social challenges are a little different in 1950, from what they were in 1750? Can’t you find a more convincing example of a successful democratizing process from the most recent 70 years, preferably in a rural-dominated society with a population > 300 million?

February 18, 2008 @ 6:44 am | Comment

@mor

If you’re too stupid to understand plain English don’t bother responding

@Amban
if there would be a new movement for democracy

That’s just talk though.

February 18, 2008 @ 6:56 am | Comment

As far as I can tell, hoping for Chinese democracy means not wanting another Tiananmen. People died there not because of democracy, but because of autocracy.
“If you’re too stupid to understand” that, don’t expect anyone to take you seriously.
You’re hitting new lows in vapid arguments.

February 18, 2008 @ 7:03 am | Comment

@mor means at mor, not at kevinnolongerinpudong.

if mor is too stupid to understand why I type it’s not my problem. if he wants to put words in my mouth like the piece of trash he is, that’s okay.

February 18, 2008 @ 7:51 am | Comment

Last I looked, I thought the best part of democracy was its inefficiency–a system of independent checks and balances. It’s not designed to get things done, it’s designed to prevent bad things from happening. That events like the Iraq War still occur also suggest that it is a work in progress. I would never think that the US system is perfect, nor is the majority always correct, but I admire the ideal, however unrealized it has been, and I think it’s an ideal worth thinking about and working toward for all Americans.

When organizing a human society, you don’t choose democracy because it makes good economic sense or will help make your state rich and powerful. (Echoes of Yan Fu here.) I think you choose democracy because it’s right that people be allowed to elect who represents them, that if they feel wronged they should be able to pursue grievances through an independent judiciary, that they might worship as they see fit, and when the actions of the government so necessitate, they may have the ability to gather together, make their voices heard, write a letter, pen an essay, sing a song, all without the fear of state retribution.

Does this always work in the US? No. We have come a long way but we still have a long way to go. But here’s the salient point: The ideal is still there.

And I know many on this board will say that such an idea is ill-suited to all countries. Fair enough. But then I ask you: What’s your ideal? What’s the endgame?

February 18, 2008 @ 9:13 am | Comment

Ferins,

I’m (trying) to decipher your comments as well, and it does sound like your making the “Donald Tsang argument” that horrific events like the GPCR (or Tiananmen) were the result of ‘too much’ democracy.

You might want to clarify before simply hurling insults.

February 18, 2008 @ 9:16 am | Comment

Is this another thread about the threat of the China man?

There are plenty of Chinese who are pro-Korean. Please do not besmirch the entire Chinese people for a few miscreants.

February 18, 2008 @ 9:30 am | Comment

I’m a Japanese and wondering how the hell have we got associated in “Destruction of Korean Cultural Treasure Brings Out the Best in Chinese Netizen”thread.

ferin:
“Anyway it’s not worth expounding upon until I hear your version of how Japan’s “democracy” (along with Haiti’s, Congo’s, and Chile’s) was set up. ”

Japan’s democracy,although fragile,but had already existed in pre-war period of Taisho era(1912-1926).
However,the aftermath of great depression in the 30’s and poverty in rural areas had weakened the basis of liberal democracy in the homeland while confusion in China had encouraged the military to take adventurous aggression beyond the government’s formal policy. Thus end the pre-war Japanese democracy.

Post-war democracy,ndeedly backed by MacArthur,had helped turn on the switch of the machine that had already existed plus some more,like right to vote for women and unleashed large scale of left wing movements among labor unions and student movements which was partially prohibited under Taisho democracy.

Soviet Union and PRC also backed up these movement via their political and financial support to the Japanese communist party.
And it was this period,when CIA backed up the rightist fraction of LDP financially to contain the growth of Communist and Socialist in the diet.

Same kind of coverted actions by CIA were seen in Italy where the Communist and Socialist party could work freely and had many sheet in the parliment.

While these were illegal activity under Japanese(or Italian)law,these were not exactly what the CIA had operated in places like Haiti,Congo,or Chile where CIA had exercised political assacinations and attempted coup de tat.(and with the exception of Chile,these country didn’t have any democracy to begin with)

Back to the original subject. I too find it very uneasy to be focused in relatively small portion of the population to represent the whole.
Especially when past wrong doing of ours are used to legitimaize the hatred and to mobilize the mass while there is no democratical institution and basic freedom exists in China.

February 18, 2008 @ 10:20 am | Comment

What’s your ideal? What’s the endgame?

A system that’s more objective and selects people based on merit (not necessarily intelligence); with strong rule of law, transparency, more individual freedoms and some perhaps some element of democracy.

Particularly, one that’s more open to reform and is more efficient. The system in America has changed very little in recent times despite severe weaknesses showing up in the past decade.

I guess my main problem is with how leaders are selected. After reading statistics I lost what little faith I had in the central tenet of democracy, i.e that every adult over ‘x’ age has the wherewithal to take a small stake in governing the nation. George Bush and Chen Shuibian alone are enough to challenge the notion that the majority electorate is always right.

horrific events like the GPCR (or Tiananmen) were the result of ‘too much’ democracy.

Idealistic young people tried to fight heavily armed monsters defending their political interests. It’s sad and there’s no way they could have been cynical enough to expect the consequences.

It just shows that there’s no room to maneuver on that front.

I too find it very uneasy to be focused in relatively small portion of the population to represent the whole.

Yes. Most opinion polls I have seen put 65% of Chinese (850 million or so people) as pro-Korean. The notion that even a slim majority of Chinese people take pleasure in the burning of Namdaemun is absurd.

If it’s only a netizen thing, Korean netizens and of course most netizens in general are nasty obviously because of the anonymity of the internet. Glossing over the behavior of South Korean netizens also shows bias. What this amounts to is essentially an attempt to highlight the behavior of a tiny minority as evidence of alleged Chinese hypernationalism spiraling out of control.

All this is tied in to criticism of the CCP for fanning the flames, but I don’t really see that happening. The CCP should be criticized for a lot of things, yes, but it should be level and well-supported criticism.

February 18, 2008 @ 11:20 am | Comment

@CCT

My argument about famine is taken from a book by the Indian Nobel-prize winning economist Amartya Sen, where he convincingly argues that no elected government has ever allowed its population suffer mass famine. While he suggests that China has one or two things to learn from India – including their successful experience with democracy – he also suggests that India has a few things to learn from China in the area of education and health care. What a boring and evenhanded argument, don’t you think!

I am not surprised that you have nothing but scorn for India. But for a country that was plagued by periodic famine under British rule, it is quite an achievement that there has been no single famine since 1943. It is also an incredible achievement that India’s democracy and national unity has survived, despite very bad odds from the beginning. India has also enjoyed steady economic growth since independence and this growth has finally started to take off in the recent decade.

Yes, the PRC government has finally managed to get it right and now presides over record rates of growth. But the Chinese people has paid an incredibly high price for the government to come to that conclusion. Almost every policy reversal in PRC has been preceded by a major crisis – and sometimes bloodthirsty confrontations – since there is no political feedback mechanism that can manage social conflicts. The price I talking about mass executions during Land reform, the Anti-rightist movement, the Great leap forward, the Socialist education movement, the Cultural revolution, the first Tiananmen incident in 1976, the clampdown on the Democracy wall and the Tiananmen crisis of 1989. In most recent memory, we also have the SARS crisis.

And if the Chinese government does not create some mechanism for exchange of information and exercise of accountability – it doesn’t have to be complete democracy for starters – we are very likely to see new confrontations ahead since these are built into the system.

February 18, 2008 @ 11:23 am | Comment

@Amban,

You are truly delusional. China can learn nothing from India, go check the poverty/illiterate level, the percentage of the population in malnutrition, and the corrupt level of the Indian government.

Amban, China has a long way to go to be a perfect country. We are taking lessons from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. We have great role models in those successful eastern Asian countries. We have a lot in common with those countries. But India? You must be freaking kidding me. That’s one hell of a place.

February 18, 2008 @ 12:07 pm | Comment

@From China, with love

That was a very sympathetic, exhaustive and evenhanded treatment of my argument. Thank you. You are indeed filled with love, as you both your name and insightful comments give ample testimony of.

February 18, 2008 @ 12:18 pm | Comment

“All this is tied in to criticism of the CCP for fanning the flames, but I don’t really see that happening. The CCP should be criticized for a lot of things, yes, but it should be level and well-supported criticism. ”

And I could only hope you do some justice when you deal with Japan and LDP.
Since Japanese soccer team has just been yanked by the whole crowed in the stadium during the game with North Korea.Even the TV crews had cheered when Japan lost scores and booed when they shoot.

BTW,what had Chen Shui Bian done to be equaled with Dubya?
At least Taiwanese society is free from fear with in their country,at least form inside…

India is a lot more sensible model for China than Singapore or Japan.

Singapore is just too small to be compared.
And Japan…Well,we screwed up once in our path to modernization not so long ago…

February 18, 2008 @ 1:11 pm | Comment

we are very likely to see new confrontations ahead since these are built into the system.

True.

And I could only hope you do some justice when you deal with Japan and LDP.

The small minority of extreme politicians in Japan and the far right nationalists in China more or less prop eachother up. When a government official in Japan makes extreme statements it just gives the CCP more freedom to mobilize fanatics. There just seems to be too little interaction between moderates on both sides.

February 18, 2008 @ 1:34 pm | Comment

So far all the coverage on Nandaemun in Japan by the main stream medias are all highly sympathetic to Korea’s pain.

Leading left wing paper,Asahi called in op-ed page to offer “technical support”to restore the gate.(Somehow that may cut the nerve of some in Korea for hurting “the Korean Pride”,even all is in the spirit of good samatarian)

But then again,there are nasty comment in internet.There was a post in bi-lingual auto-translation site called “ENJOY kOREA”
that the arson was carrying a bag with big RISING SUN on(this post came from Korea)and
another article translated from Korean site
http://news.buddhapia.com/news/BNC001/BNC0016065.html
pointing out that the day the gate had burned down was Japan’s national foundation day.

Rather bizzare condemnation,I must say,but nonetheless the Japanese 2 channel went berserk.

February 18, 2008 @ 1:57 pm | Comment

@Amban,

You are the first troll to advocate China to learn something from India. India is a good example why a lot of Chinese people are fearful of a democratic system. Are you ignorant of India’s ground truth or you are paid by the Indian government? There are quite a few indian nationalists on the internet, just go check the wikipedia page on the sino-indian war.

The eastern asian model is development first, then democracy. This worked in Taiwan, South Korea, even Singapore. China is following suit.

India? You are freaking kidding me… No famine in India? yeah, and HIV is not widespread there either… I guess they recently discovered toilet paper too

February 18, 2008 @ 2:04 pm | Comment

@ Richard ( the original poster ) [ed note: the essay was a guest post contributed by Sonagi, and not written by Richard.]

It’s ridiculous for you to draw the conclusion from an internet message board… People tend to say stupid things like that amban who is asking China to take lessons from India ( I thought Japan, Taiwan, USA, and western European countries are better role models?)

Just a example to show that you cannot judge american people by what those post on message boards… I give you the following link

http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/rnr?query=indian

This is a popular message board and the posters are all from the more enlighted, liberal bay area…

Are you gonna say Americans are all racist against Indians?

February 18, 2008 @ 2:11 pm | Comment

From China, with love,

A couple of points:

1) Given your penchant for commenting without thoroughly reading either the post in question or previous comments, I’d be a little careful about whom you addressed as ‘troll,’ especially since you’ve only been posting here under your current name for the better part of a week.

2) Your little toilet paper remark, while assuredly indicative of your ability to participate in high minded debate, was off the mark and insulting. I understand these can be emotional issues, but I urge you to stick to the facts and not hurl insults.

Thanks.

February 18, 2008 @ 3:15 pm | Comment

@hksojourner

cheers for that!

@everyone

is it possible to have an intelligent debate online?

http://tinyurl.com/lwym2

richard, you are a most gracious host. best of luck

February 18, 2008 @ 4:34 pm | Comment

@Jeremiah,

Although it’s a well- known fact, I still would like to
apologize for the “toilet paper” remark. It’s too much for Amban to swallow. And that harms the harmony of the sino-indo relationship.

But he/she advocates China to learn from India in governance, it’s like to advocate someone learn English from some call center worker in India… sure they speak ‘English’, but I’d rather take lessons from a brit, an aussie or an american.

Just because you can vote, doesnt mean you have a FUNCTIONAL democracy. One of the India’s major political force is the BJP party.. this is a Hindu party that believes India is only for Hindus.. India’s human rights record is far from impeccable either ( this is true even when the Congress is in power, go ask an indian why the Gandhi’s got killed ).. I dont even want to get started with India’s caste system ( if you dont know, it’s the foundation of Hinduism)

If anyone is interested, we can totally start a debate about India’s psuedo-democracy while half of the population dont even read VS China’s benign authoritarian regime while 90% of the population is literate and at least the society is secular..

I cannot believe someone, in his/her right mind would ask China to learn from India… I mean, that’s one of the most backward “democracies” on the planet… unfreakingbelievable

Learn from the US/UK/France/Germany/South Korea/Taiwan/ japan/ Sweden.. Yes

Learn from India and other backwater”democracies”.. Hell no

February 18, 2008 @ 4:44 pm | Comment

@ferin

“if mor is too stupid to understand why I type it’s not my problem. if he wants to put words in my mouth like the piece of trash he is, that’s okay.”

I think I understand why you type. It’s most likely because you’ve got a keyboard for your computer and posting hand-written comments on a website would be rather hard. I also understand why you write what you write. It’s because both the administrators on this blog and the “mob rule” in the country you have chosen to reside in allow you the freedom of saying whatever you think, even if it’s a lot of nonsense backed up with nasty ad-hominem attacks. Freedom of speech is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? Only exists in countries with “mob rule”, though.

February 18, 2008 @ 6:55 pm | Comment

@ From China, with love

Your comments say much more about you and your prejudices, than about India. Learning English from call center workers or democracy from the BJP? HIV? Toilet paper?

February 18, 2008 @ 7:58 pm | Comment

allow you the freedom of saying whatever you think

I can go to Iran and attack America and nothing would happen to me. 😉

Oh there’s free speech in Haiti too. Did I hear people rushing to move there? Oh wait, it was Papa Doc and the Tonton Macoute cleaning up the trash.

February 18, 2008 @ 8:12 pm | Comment

“it’s like to advocate someone learn English from some call center worker in India… sure they speak ‘English’, but I’d rather take lessons from a brit, an aussie or an american.” posted by: From China, with love

Um, FYI, many Brits, Americans, Aussies, Europeans Kiwis grad & post graduate students have and are studying under the tutelage of English professors from India. (No, these are not UK/US/Aus/NZ born Indians.)

For example:

1) Prof. Banerjee, Sukanya.
University of Wisconsin, SA
Degree(s): Ph.D., English, University of California, Riverside, Sept. 2001; BA., English, Delhi University, India, 1994

Teaching Areas: Postcolonial Studies; Victorian Literature and Culture; Studies of colonialism and empire in the nineteenth century; South Asia; Gender Studies

2) Novelist, Salman Rushdie is from Mumbai, India

His novel, Midnight’s Children (1981)catapulted him to literary fame. It also significantly shaped the course that Indian writing in English would follow over the next decade. This work won the 1981 Booker Prize and, in 1993, was awarded the Booker of Bookers as the best novel to have received the prize during its first 25 years. It still receives accolades for being Rushdie’s best, most flowing and inspiring work.

February 18, 2008 @ 9:18 pm | Comment

@Amban,

As Confucius said, “with any three people walking, one can be my teacher”. Certainly, there are some things that India can teach China. (But really.. EDUCATION!? There’s nothing that India has to teach on the topic of education. Perhaps when more than 2/3rds of Indians are literate, then we can talk about the wonders of the Indian education system.)

But let’s put down the rhetoric and talk about practicalities. The last famine in China was 50 years ago… surely, there must be a better measure of government efficiency today.

I’ll state, again, that mass famines are not an interesting standard for evaluating the effectiveness of government in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

What I find remarkable are the huge numbers killed due to state violence and racial attacks in India. I find it remarkable that the average Indian will die 10 years sooner than the average Chinese. I find it remarkable that hundreds of millions of Indians live in unrelenting poverty in urban slums, with no prospect of self-improvement of any kind.

I don’t mean to change your opinion of the Indian state of affairs… because frankly, I don’t care what it is. I’ll just point out, again, that the Indian development experience is a nightmare from my point of view. The lack of infrastructure development, the lack of government initiative on eliminating the slums, the lack of serious effort in managing population growth… its appalling.

So, let’s try this again. I’m an average Chinese man trying to decide what kind of political model I should support. Give me convincing reasons on why I should support the democracy that has left much of India and Brazil in poverty, instead of the current system which has improved my life in remarkable ways.

February 19, 2008 @ 1:11 am | Comment

@CCT

The comments raised here speak volumes about the contempt certain people hold for India – which is an interesting fact in itself – but do not address anything substantive in what I said. If you read my comments, never suggested that China should copy India’s health care system or educational system, I actually said the symmetric opposite. I also said was that India has been more successful than is widely recognized and I referred to a famous economist to support that statement. What do I get? Heaps of bile about the inferiority of India as a nation and Indians as a people. What is going on?

The thread started to discuss some Chinese netizens’ attitudes towards Koreans, we have now learned more about similar attitudes as regards other nations. I have said it before: if these attitudes are widespread among Chinese youth, you will have problems in August 2008.

Anyway, if you cared to read my comments as regards China, I wasn’t only referring to the Great Leap Forward, but to a number of other events that have immediately preceded the policy shifts that have finally led to the prosperity we see today. That is not a “model” for development. That is trial and error, trials and errors that have lead to enormous suffering for millions of people. You can’t have the cake and eat it.

February 19, 2008 @ 1:45 am | Comment

@Jeremiah,

When organizing a human society, you don’t choose democracy because it makes good economic sense or will help make your state rich and powerful.

Ah, perhaps we’re finally narrowing down on the origins of this difference in opinion. I, personally, don’t care about increasing wealth at all expenses, or making the state “rich and powerful” in the absolute sense. I’d never use this universally as the basis for backing any government.

But I do care about a government that gives economic results, and here’s why.

I was born in the mid ’70s, in Nanjing… a major, upper-middle class city in a region of China traditionally known for its wealth of scholars and cultural importance. I, of course, grew up without indoor plumbing. Our living space was my grandfather’s traditional home, now divided and shared by 4 different families. The only electrical appliance we had was a 9″ black/white television. In the winters, I took baths about once a month… we had to put up plastic tarp to seal off our windows, boil water on the coal stove, and pour it into a wooden tub for a quick bath.

So, when you speak to me about government “efficiency” and economic growth, it’s far more personal than an ideological exercise about what’s nice and what’s not.

The current generation of Chinese children in Nanjing are living the highest standard of living (when compared to the international ‘average’) in the last 200 years. This isn’t a hypothetical achievement; it means the next generation are growing up with toilet paper clothes, food, and all sorts of consumer toys I could’ve never imagined.

I see the living conditions for the poor in India, Brazil, and Mexico… and it baffles my mind that the government in these countries deserves respect or acceptance because of the *structure* under which they’re created. And simultaneously, the government in China deserves what appears to be special criticism because of the *structure* under which its created.

Call me a simple and crass guy, but despite the great distance I’ve come since those early years, but I’ll support any formula or system that translates into results for the masses. And for developing nations in the modern era, there’s all too much evidence that democracy is too inefficient to succeed.

February 19, 2008 @ 2:04 am | Comment

@CCT

In the 70s, roughly 64 per cent of China’s and 51 per cent of India’s population were characterized as poor. Today the figures are 10 per cent and 25 respectively. In other words, while China has been very good at reducing poverty, India has not been bad either. And both countries are enjoying record rates of growth.

To continue, 19 per cent of the population in Brazil and 18 per cent of Mexico’s population are counted as below the poverty line. And China’s nominal GDP per capita is only a quarter of Mexico.

So, why all this mocking of other developing countries. 五十步笑百步

February 19, 2008 @ 4:56 am | Comment

@JFK

You aint comparing a call center worker to Rushdie, are you?

@Amban,

My prejudice? Have you ever stepped on Indian soil? How many India born Indian have you talked to? And your poverty reducing numbers show China should take lessons from India?

If India’s democracy is so awesome, why in the hell is india still in such a bad situation 60 years after being given independence and all that british laws? During the same period, China has been through a lot turmoil, Mao’s distastes, wars, but the ground truth is that china is so much ahead of India in pretty much all measures?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/5181024.stm

And we should take lessons from India, not Taiwan or Japan. Really? India’s, not Taiwan’s or Sweden’s democracy is China’s role model.. Really?

No body is mocking India, it’s you who brought India into the discussion, it’s like to advocate a B- student taking lessons from a straight D student

February 19, 2008 @ 6:05 am | Comment

@From China, with venom

I never said India’s democracy was awesome or the only model, but that doesn’t matter. You are just interesting in scoring cheap points.

February 19, 2008 @ 6:39 am | Comment

CCT,

In other words: The end justifies the means?

Funny, I always thought it should be more like:

富與貴,是人之所欲也;不以其道得之,不處也。貧與賤,是人之惡也;不以其道得之,不去也。

At what point does amorality become immorality?

February 19, 2008 @ 7:15 am | Comment

@amban,

So India’s democracy is not so awesome after all.. So maybe China has better role models to follow. You finally comes to sense now

Cheap points? Those are facts. India is everything a democracy should avoid to be.. A big messy mixed up of caste system/ religion/ election/ corruption/ illiteracy with an uncontrolled population, and you get the indian democracy.

Learning from india? That’s some insanity I have not seen for a long time

February 19, 2008 @ 7:24 am | Comment

Not that there isn’t some precedent, though.

Historians of the Age of Division and Tang have of late done some fascinating research on the influence of not only Buddhism, which everybody knows about, but also Indian influence in ancillary fields such as literature, painting, sculpture, and non-Buddhist religious practice.

The Chinese are justifiably proud of the invention of printing, but it’s worth noting that the earliest known extant work isn’t by Confucius or a copy of the Daodejing, but is instead a Chinese version of the Saddharmapundarika Sutra (The Lotus Sutra) originally translated into Chinese in 406 by the half-Indian half-Kuchen monk Kumarajiva (344-413).

Just throwing that out there.

(Apologies for the lack of diacritical marks, my computer is set up to work in Chinese/Japanese.)

February 19, 2008 @ 7:38 am | Comment

@Jeremiah,

Nobody is denying the influence of India on Chinese culture, philosophy, and basically on who were are today. China, throughout history, absorbs a lot of from surrounding civilizations. That’s what China is all about, that’s why China is so big and diverse today. We appreciate every bit of that, be it the awesome Manchuria from the Manchurians or Buddhism from nowaday Nepal/India, or the huge amount of vocabularies from Japan, or modern technologies/medicine/democracy from Europe/north America/ Japan.

Nobody is saying we should NOT learn from others. On the contrary, we have a lot to learn. Especially how the government should be ELECTED, should be run and we sure can use some free speech and free press.

What I have been refuting is the notion of taking lessons from INDIA for governance. They are good at yoga, cooking curry and running call centers. Sure, lessons learned. But democracy, governance, human rights? Thanks but no thanks. Not going to pay tuition fees to India or Amban for sure.

I hope I get my point across.

February 19, 2008 @ 7:59 am | Comment

@From China

Look, you haven’t even bothered to engage with anything I said, so I am not even commenting on your last post.

In your first contribution you said that I was “running around like a 3 year old” and then went on to talk about my “ignorance”. Several times you have called me a “troll” and the absolute bottom was reached when you called me “truly delusional”. I’ve tried to be level-headed, but now I have had it.

Please tell the rest of us why we should even bother to talk to you. In fact, I am surprised that Richard even allows you to post on this blog.

February 19, 2008 @ 8:46 am | Comment

@Amban,

I have been consistent all the way. I have never defended the Chinese government. As I put in my previous post, there are whole lot things we need to learn from the west/taiwan/japan. The only problem I have is someone is actually telling us to take lessons from India’s democracy and governance. I think I have given you enough proof that there is no way in hell China should take India as a role model when Taiwan is 200 miles away with a similar culture, when US/sweden/Japan are so well developed in governance and provide awesome role models for China.

That is my only point throughout. And so far you have nothing intelligent to say on why China should learn from India’s democracy and governance.

I am sorry if being called out a troll hurt your feelings. But I am still waiting for your intelligent response to my questions on India.

February 19, 2008 @ 9:27 am | Comment

@Jeremian,

Your thinking is muddled because you equate democracy with morality, and authoritarianism with immorality. That’s a concept Confucius surely wouldn’t have equated with.

Government, regardless of -ism, has the responsibility of creating a functioning society in which citizens can pursue their interests successfully. This is the ultimate function of government.

When the current Chinese government does behave immorally in isolated instances (and all Chinese can give you plenty of incidences of the latter)… it’s something I detest and absolutely do not support. But I see these absolutely as isolated instances, the failures of a poor developing nation. Overall, however, the Chinese experience over the past 30 years can not be seen as anything other than a triumph.

@Amban,

You’re confusing disdain with mock. I’m not mocking India; I’m only mocking your suggestion that the Indian political experience is something China should aim to emulate.

I recognize that China remains a poor, developing nation today with a significant poverty problem that won’t be erased for decades to come. I recognize, however, that China has come far further and far faster than any other comparable developing nation in recent history.

Tell me when you tire of playing rhetorical games. Tell me when you have some actual, practical solutions for me. I’m a common Chinese man trying to live my life, and raise my common family. Can you explain to me why I should embrace a political formula that has yet to work for any other developing nation?

February 20, 2008 @ 1:14 am | Comment

@CCT

You wrote:

Tell me when you tire of playing rhetorical games. Tell me when you have some actual, practical solutions for me. I’m a common Chinese man trying to live my life, and raise my common family. Can you explain to me why I should embrace a political formula that has yet to work for any other developing nation?

That is rhetoric.

February 20, 2008 @ 4:11 am | Comment

A follow up:

You’re confusing disdain with mock.

Am I to understand that you harbor disdain for India? In the context of discussing nations, disdain (“The feeling entertained towards that which one thinks unworthy of notice or beneath one’s dignity; scorn, contempt”) is a very important component of what we call “racism”.

February 20, 2008 @ 4:32 am | Comment

@Amban,

I wasn’t trying to speak rhetorically. I was only trying to make clear my response in advance to what I assumed you’d be arguing.

But please, feel free to ignore what you see as rhetoric and give me straight-forward answers:

“I’m a common Chinese man trying to live my life, and raise my common family. What political solutions do you advocate for me?”

As far as “disdain” being related to “racism”… now you’re just being silly.

February 20, 2008 @ 6:25 am | Comment

Up to this point, you haven’t really cared to address more than half of the points I have made. Why should I answer a rhetorical question?

“Disdain” means to look down on someone, and both you and China-love are stumblingly close of expressing disdain for a whole country and its people, and you don’t seem to be even bothered about it. That is exactly where this whole thread started. There are people out there in cyberspace who think it is OK to throw dirt on entire nations.

February 20, 2008 @ 6:38 am | Comment

CCT,

I don’t believe I did make that comparison as you phrased it, but I (and anyone who has taken a Philosophy 101 class) do believe that Confucius was very concerned about morality in government. It would of course be folly to say that the Big C was a little-d democrat or little-r republican (as Kang Youwei found when he tried to make similar arguments in “Confucius as a Reformer”), but searching for the most humane and moral way to order a society was of utmost importance to both Confucius and Mencius. The quest for wealth and power, not so much.

Leaving aside democracy for a moment, on a human level, do you not think it is right and just that people be allowed to worship whom they choose, have a say in those who claim to represent them in government, be able to avail themselves of their legal rights through an independent court, and be able to air their grievances publicly either in print, in speech, or in a group of likeminded concerned citizens?

Your arguments against democracy always come down to money and power, that China is not ready for democracy because too much freedom will derail economic development, and that’s a fair point. Money is important to many people, but, going back to the big C-Dog for a moment:

君子喻於義,小人喻於利.

Which of these best describes the arguments you have been making, in defense of 義 or in defense of 利?

February 20, 2008 @ 6:50 am | Comment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54Z92Qur1fM

This just in. One chinese player cheated in a soccer game…. And the whole population are cheaters..

I learned that from the comments on that video… And no, I dont think the whole south Korean population are racists. Unlike the original poster, I dont think we should draw any conclusion on the whole population from some internet message board..

Enough said

February 20, 2008 @ 10:55 am | Comment

I can’t read Koran, but if you expand the text in the right hand corner, the person who posted the video, presumably a Korean, asked that people do not post racist comments and that they do not judge a whole country for what you see in the video clip. Could you should me a single Chinese BBS board where someone has tried something similar? I am very interested.

February 20, 2008 @ 11:59 am | Comment

Jeremiah, interesting way to interpret what Confucius stood for. His teaching has a lot more to do with how to become an introspective Jun Zi and how to treat others, than anything else. The practical version of Confucianism, the meritocratic way of governance, had been implemented much later than the time he lived.

There are many undemocratic aspects in the American system that reflect the wisdom of American founding fathers and the guardians of the system, such as the justice system, and the Federal Reserve System. Presumably the belief was that they are too complicated to be decided directly in a truly democratic fashion. BTW, term limit is another undemocratic aspect, which acts as a safety valve. The safety valve wouldn’t have worked too well, if George Washington hadn’t decidedly avoided involving in politics after his 2 terms.

If you look at the Chinese government officials now, they are all technocrats. Hu, according to my uncle who went to Tsinghua the same year, was a very smart student with a photographic memory. It seems to me that a neo-Confucianism society is gradually forming. The power has been uneventfully transferred from one generation of technocrats, Jiang/Zhu, to another, Hu/Wen. What’s to say this form of governance has no future in the human civilization? We don’t know yet.

A question to you, do you know what is Confucius’ idea of happiness?

February 20, 2008 @ 12:53 pm | Comment

@Amban,

I didnt even accuse the poster of the video being racist. What I said is there are many racist responses, in English. And I have no idea why Japanese were drawn into the debates there. Oh well

Yeah, the poster had no racist intentions.. right….

http://comment4.news.sina.com.cn/comment/skin/default.html?channel=ty&newsid=6-12-3479829

This is Chinese’s response on SINA.. you go check out yourself… Well, it must be the censorship… all bad, racist comments are deleted.. Bad, bad Chinese government and Chinese whatever

February 20, 2008 @ 1:03 pm | Comment

No, you didn’t accuse the poster of being racist, did I say that? But you did make a remark about you being different from the original poster somehow.

And yes, there are many racists responses in English after the video, but if you care to read them, most of the they are directed against Koreans and not a few are posted by Chinese…

February 20, 2008 @ 1:20 pm | Comment

@CCT

“But please, feel free to ignore what you see as rhetoric and give me straight-forward answers:

“I’m a common Chinese man trying to live my life, and raise my common family. What political solutions do you advocate for me?”

Spend most of your time outside China, so you don’t have to care about the CCP’s policies that much!

“As far as “disdain” being related to “racism”… now you’re just being silly.”

Not at all, disdain and contempt for whole nations and ethnic groups are the very foundation of racism. Calling others silly or stupid, because they happen to disagree with you, is a pathetic way of arguing that you better leave to people like ferin.

February 20, 2008 @ 8:54 pm | Comment

@Jeremiah,

I obviously don’t want to preach about the specifics of this to someone who presumably studies it for a living, but:

Confucius was entirely consumed by the concept of the morality of the individual, not the morality of a system. His belief was that any system of moral junzi would automatically be a moral one. On the other hand, a system made up of immoral individuals will never be moral, period. And morality can only be cultivated through constant study and self-improvement.

On this very superficial level at least, I completely agree with Confucius’ view. China can not have a moral democracy as long as we Chinese are not cultivated.

The Imperial Examination system have been described by some as a meritocracy. I believe (and this is probably not an original thought, but I’m not very well read on these topics) that it’s very much a moral-ocracy. It created a system in which those most deeply doused in the traditional belief systems would rise to the top of government rule.

I personally think the ultimate political solution in China will have to bring that back in. I believe the political lessons in Chinese schools today (and then later on ideological study sessions for Party members) are really hurting rather than helping the cause… just about everyone realizes these political lessons on Marxism and Leninism are full of hypocrisy, so rewarding those who excel in these courses is in effect rewarding the best liars, the most *immoral*.

As far as ‘yi’ versus ‘li’. To put it mildly, many government/party officials are hardly junzi, and seek ‘li’ at every opportunity. I’m not optimistic, however, that the solution is to follow the Wester model and revise government into a battleground for groups of li-pursuing xiaoren.

February 21, 2008 @ 12:47 am | Comment

@amban,

I think this debate is getting old. I state my point again for the last time and let’s move on

Nobody should be upset by whatever is on internet message boards, be it SINA, YOUTUBE, CRAIGSLIST or YAHOO (good old times). The most outspoken people on those message boards are usually very opinionated, are fast to draw conclusions, and some of them are closeted bigots. As we can see here (both camps will laugh here).

And to draw a conclusion on a country and its population from internet message boards? I say, that’s just plain stupidity ( i could use stronger words here, oh well )

This is my last post on this one.

February 21, 2008 @ 1:38 am | Comment

@Jeremiah

I realized I missed a significant block of your post:

Leaving aside democracy for a moment, on a human level, do you not think it is right and just that people be allowed to worship whom they choose, have a say in those who claim to represent them in government, be able to avail themselves of their legal rights through an independent court, and be able to air their grievances publicly either in print, in speech, or in a group of likeminded concerned citizens?

That’s a long list. Answers to some are yes, and some are no. The obvious yes answers include: independent court system to which citizens should have the right to bring their grievances, and to have these grievances decided in an objective and professional manner.

Religion
I do believe people should be allowed to worship whom they choose, but freedom of belief is different from freedom of action. Let me give you a very Chinese example to consider. Should Chinese Muslims have the right to enroll their children in Islam-focused madrassa? Should Chinese Tibetans have the right to send their children to Buddhist monasteries, at a young age, where they’ll be removed from “modern” education?

This is a social issue every country faces; the United States has its own share dealing with polygamist Mormons and faith-healing evangelicals.

Do you have a simple answer? Does providing religious freedom for the *parent* extend to giving them the right to force a specific lifestyle onto the *child*?

I, for what its worth, believe that the right to *practice* religion should only begin at the age of 18. That children may be taught religion in a comparative and academic matter, but that they should not be brain-washed into any faith before they’ve reached a certain level of maturity.

… Let me try to make a general observation that helps capture my point of view in general.

I don’t fundamentally believe government and society must remain in constant tension, that our constant vigilence and participation is necessary to protect our rights from an ever encroaching government.

I believe that government’s role is in building a healthy productive society, in which I can love my family, raise the next generation, accumulate wealth, and live free of fear. I believe government can largely succeed in this role by consulting the best professionals in each field, and balancing the need of all.

I do believe there needs to be “supervision” of government in this role, but I have no firm convictions on how government should be supervised.

February 21, 2008 @ 2:48 am | Comment

Should Chinese Muslims have the right to enroll their children in Islam-focused madrassa? Should Chinese Tibetans have the right to send their children to Buddhist monasteries, at a young age, where they’ll be removed from “modern” education?

I share your concern and different Western countries show different degrees of permissiveness in this regard. But it is interesting that you single out national minorities in China, which is an interesting slip of tongue. And going beyond China, do you think it is a human right for ethnic Chinese in Malaysia or Indonesia to have their own schools?

February 21, 2008 @ 7:03 am | Comment

@Amban,

It’s not a slip of the tongue. It’s a religious issue, and Han are non-religious, almost by definition. (After all, basically the only primary ethnic/cultural distinction between Hui and Han is Islam.) Religion is a complicated, non-intellectual issue… and I believe children should be protected from its dangerous effects. If they choose to become religious as adults, then that becomes a choice I respect.

Going back to the issue of a multi-cultural country earlier… (or was it a different thread?), I said a successful multi-cultural country has to respect differences while forging a common identity.

So, for that reason, I think Tibetans and Uighurs should have schools which teach the Tibetan and Uighur language, as well as history/culture unique to their nationality. (And Mongolian, and Korean…) At the same time, I don’t think there should be a bending of the rules in terms of testing in putonghua for college admissions.

And for the same reason, I think Indonesia and Malaysia should allow the teaching of Chinese culture/language.

February 21, 2008 @ 9:16 am | Comment

So, for that reason, I think Tibetans and Uighurs should have schools which teach the Tibetan and Uighur language, as well as history/culture unique to their nationality. (And Mongolian, and Korean…) At the same time, I don’t think there should be a bending of the rules in terms of testing in putonghua for college admissions.

By the way, this is exactly what China has today. China implemented reforms over the past decade, slowly phasing out the 民考民 process (by which minorities could attend college fluent only in Tibetan or Uighur), and instead requiring 民考汉 (in which minorities are tested in hanyu)。

This, predictably, translated into criticism of cultural genocide perpetuated by the god-less Communists. I disagree. I think it’s sound, long-term policy that any multi-cultural country would be wise to pursue.

February 21, 2008 @ 9:26 am | Comment

China implemented reforms over the past decade, slowly phasing out the 民考民 process (by which minorities could attend college fluent only in Tibetan or Uighur), and instead requiring 民考汉 (in which minorities are tested in hanyu)。

Well it is not only that. You can’t get a college education any other language than Chinese in Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang. If you want to do anything serious, you need to speak Chinese, even if you are in your own country. But I know that you are a level-headed person, so if we had this discussion in 1930, I’m sure that you would be defend Japanese-only educational policies in Korea and Taiwan. After all, what use did their native languages have at that time?

February 21, 2008 @ 10:04 am | Comment

@Amban,

You’re either misinformed, or very ignorant. Japanese policy in Korea and Taiwan included forcibly erasing non-Japanese surnames, and penalizing anyone who used their native language in school in *any* context. That *is* cultural genocide.

The fact that China doesn’t further subsidize a Tibetan-language university education isn’t cultural genocide, it’s partly market economics, and partly good national policy. Furthermore, if you were so inclined, you could walk into China today and establish a private Uigher-language higher institute of learning. Just don’t expect much student interest.

February 21, 2008 @ 11:43 am | Comment

@CCT

No. you are misinformed. The Japanese policy of forced Japanization did not start until 1936-7, several decades after Taiwan and Korea were incorporated. My hypothetical question was in relation to 1930, when no one knew what would happen half a decade later. Should the last decade of Japanese rule over these colonies decide our verdict over Japanese imperialism? Perhaps. But how do we then evaluate Chinese rule over Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia or Tibet? By its “best” period or “worst”? Is 1966 the benchmark or 2006, and why?

Now, there are signs that Tibetan and Uighur are becoming less and less relevant in Tibet and Xinjiang. Last time I visited Urumqi, it was easier to find a Chinese-Italian dictionary than any literature about the Uighur language. Most people in Inner Mongolia do not speak Mongolian any more, because most people are Han Chinese. That is convenient to you and me, who speak Chinese, but how do Mongols, Uighurs or Tibetans feel? How would you feel, if the language of your grandparents was no longer the relevant medium of communication, just something you learned in high school and then forgot about once entering college? How on earth do you think that the Uighurs would have a chance to establish a viable medium of communication, when, for political reasons, they were forced to use three to four different writing systems since 1949? I take it that you would just shrug your shoulders and talk market economy.

I find it interesting to hear to you claim that you can go to Xinjiang (and Tibet too?) and establish a institute of higher learning today. Do you really believe that? Do you think I could start a Uighur university tomorrow (completely secular, I promise), and perhaps have some academic exchange across the border to Kazakhstan?

You are the master of invective here, so I leave to you to find the appropriate adjective to describe such an assumption.

February 21, 2008 @ 1:19 pm | Comment

Uighurs committed genocide and/or cultural genocide of Kucheans, Arsians, Khotanese and other fine peoples of precious cultures to become what they are now. The Kucheans did not really welcome the nomads from the Gobi, I guess. But everybody there is a proud Turk now, so it seems things can be forgotten.

February 21, 2008 @ 2:17 pm | Comment

@Amban,

My hypothetical question was in relation to 1930, when no one knew what would happen half a decade later.

Now, you really are just being silly. If you were specifically stating a hypothetical about the year 1930, then no, I don’t have strong objections about Japanese education policy in Korea and Taiwan.

How should we evaluate American race relations? Is 1956 the benchmark, or 2006? And why?

As far as how to evaluate Chinese rule over Xinjiang, Innoer Mongolia, or Tibet… really, why do you feel a constant need to generate a value judgment on anything at all? And perhaps even more importantly, why should anyone else care what your ultimate judgment on the issue is?

I, personally, am interested in the year 2008, and very likely, next year I will be interested in the year 2009. And the year after that, 2010.

February 21, 2008 @ 2:27 pm | Comment

@Amban,

Ah, something finally clicked for me.

I believe in your own mind, you’ve manufactured a self-identity as that of a “China scholar”… in effect, an amateur Sima Qian. You’re already composing your epic “Gongchandang Shi”. At least, that would seem to be consistent with your constant attempts to reach some sort of a conclusion, a verdict, a final judgment on each of the important topics in recent Chinese history.

I’m really, really uninterested in that specific effort. My interest is strictly on forging a constructive future based on my understanding of the present, something which probably does not interest you.

February 21, 2008 @ 2:54 pm | Comment

People, most of you get too personal and deviate from the main topic. We are talking about Korean and Chinese cultures. I speak 5 chinese dialects and am learning Korean language now. I found that I can easily pick up Korean languague, why?, because I can find some of these 5 chinese dialects
Cantonese, Hakka, Hokkiean, Teochew and Toishan including mandarine (also some Thai) in it. I am sure there are others dialects which is in it too that I am not familiar with.
Now you tell me who originate from whom??
Language is one of the root to our chinese culture. Can you blame the chinese from being pissed?

Now if we are going to claim which race is smartest, racist etc. we can start world war 3 soon. The only creatures laughing at us will be the ants and cockroaches. Too bad Ghengzhis Khan did not finish his goal to conquer the world, that why we have this topic in every country today.

February 21, 2008 @ 4:06 pm | Comment

Wow, you can speak FIVE DIFFERENT CHINESE DIALECTS! Now, if you can also prove that you know at least 10,000 Chinese characters, have visited every single town in Greater China and memorized all 1993 FBI statistics, you might actually be allowed to make comments on China and its people without getting verbally abused and cursed by our Super Voice House Troll.

February 21, 2008 @ 7:51 pm | Comment

@CCT

Thank you for your psycho-analysis of me, I’m honored. I don’t want you to render your services for free, do you accept credit cards?

You may find my hypothetical question silly, but I do not think you are as indifferent to the Chinese past as you pretend to be. You do care, as do many other people commenting on this blog. You would never have cared to post anything in the first place if your only care was what would happen in China during the next two years. And not only do you care, but you evaluate regimes around their world and their histories. Haiti. India. The United States. And you assume that a statement about segregation in the American south (in 1956!) or the failure of Haiti to build a stable society have a bearing on how we deal with the thorny topic of democracy in China. I don’t dispute any of that.

You may make fun of me as an “amateur Sima Qian”, but when you lecture me about the relative merits of the US form of democracy you sound like a self-styled Toqueville to me. I don’t mind it. I don’t think anyone here minds it. The blogosphere is full of mini-Tocquevilles. Now, if it is true that China is the next superpower, are we to be surprised that we have a few Sima Qians out there, trying to make sense of China’s twentieth century experience and what it means today? You are completely silent on that question and I find that very intriguing, given the fact that you so much to say about other countries.

February 21, 2008 @ 10:57 pm | Comment

The present state of India is why China should not rush into democracy.

India may be a democracy but the truth is it is a country without respect for human rights and worse still is more lawless than China. Look at what the India security forces are doing in Kashmir:

http://www.holocaustinkashmir.50megs.com/
http://hellinparadise.150m.com/

Needless to say a lot of kashmiris resent Indian rule and want independence. Read here:

http://www.geocities.com/jklf_uk_europe/malikinuk.html

If India is indeed a democracy then they should let the people of Kashmir have their way.

Does anyone know that India has the world’s largest no. of child slaves? Read here:

http://hrw.org/reports/1996/India3.htm
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/slavery1.html

India officially outlaws slavery but corrupted officials and businessmen work hand in hand to exploit children in India.

The rule of law in China is still quite weak. Yet it is still attracting much much more foreign investiors than India. Does anyone know why majority of foreign investors prefer China over India? Exactly bcos it is even more lawless and unstable than China!

Western media has a lot to say about human rights in China. Even now they are still talking about Tiananmen. India’s atrocities in Kashmir are just as bad but it is indeed amazing why for so many years it receives so little coverage from mainstream western media. Very strange.
Why has India’s human rights violations largely ignored by the western world?

In the end there’s not much of a democracy left.

February 22, 2008 @ 12:25 am | Comment

@Amban,

History plays a role in informing our decisions today. Certainly, to me, the lack of a successful democratic developing nation within the modern era informs my decision on what sort of political system I’d support today.

I’m also interested in discussing deficiencies and strengths in the current education system in China vis-a-vis minority and majority interaction.

But I have little interest in the hypothetical comparison between 1930 (not 1937) Japanese colonial education policies and 1966 (not 2006) Chinese colonial education policies. Zero. None. I leave you to your amusements on that account.

February 22, 2008 @ 2:11 am | Comment

Now, if it is true that China is the next superpower, …

February 22, 2008 @ 2:12 am | Comment

@CCT

I can’t resist the temptation to post the 200th comment to this thread, hehe.

Hypotheticals and comparisons are a way to help you think about things. You do not seem to like mine, that is OK, just spare me the insults.

I don’t have time to get into a long discussion about the relationship between development and democracy. A number of theories are bandied about and you can pick a chose among them. From my humble point of view, if history is any lesson for China, I would argue that by almost any standard of comparison, China is far more repressive and less transparent than any other society at a similar stage of development. The Chinese government today is much more repressive and less tolerant of a pluralist society than the Taiwanese or South Korean governments were when they had roughly the same GDP per capita (if we accept that standard). The simple reason for that is that there is little or no will at all from the CCP to share power. You seem to be fine with that, fair enough. I disagree.

February 22, 2008 @ 2:31 am | Comment

Okay, who screwed up this thread’s margins? Please use tinyurl.com, or make a hyperlink.

February 22, 2008 @ 2:25 pm | Comment