What does that tell me? It tells me you’re taking a Great Leap Backward when you have a chance to own the future with a new Cultural Revolution.Then you can dominate what I like to call the Gang of Four Techs:

Someone shoot this guy

April 11, 2010 @ 6:59 am | Comment

Hi Richard,

I read the article and felt it was decent but while scrolling through your twitter I watched the apache Gun-cam video of the reuter’s photographer getting killed. I watch all that I can stomach and it blew my mind. How do they in good conscience use a helicopter gunship in crowded city? and how do they green light an attack against a crowd of at least 15 when they can only ID 3 gunman amongst them the rest clearly clearly unarmed? (one of them later turns out to be holding a camera and a camera bag). How do they reason a blue van going to the scene must to there to pick up weapons? How do they do brush off a child’s death by saying “they” shouldn’t bring kids to a war?

If this doesn’t make one people hate another, I don’t know what can. So much for the hearts and minds… This is how you lose an insurgency and turn Iraq into Iran’s backyard.

April 11, 2010 @ 7:31 am | Comment

If this doesn’t make one people hate another,

You must be a dictatorship-lover. Every iraqi is happy to be liberated by the great West, to be given the great gift of democracy and elections. Even when there’s gunfire, it’s democratic gunfire, better than dicatorial gunfire.

April 11, 2010 @ 7:43 am | Comment

I believe the proper term is Freedom Fires, HongXing. To the Hollywood brainwashing centers/Gitmo camp of democracy, love, truth and peace for you.

April 11, 2010 @ 7:51 am | Comment

Interesting how that democratic gunfire is shown on Youtube, all around the world, while dictatorial gunfire is still That Thing That Didn’t Happen In 1989.

See, look, I can play the “YOU DO IT TOO!!!!” game as well, Mr. Fifty-Cents. One of these days you’re going to surprise me and actually say something insightful. I’ll be the first person to recommend you get raised to seventy-five.

Justin, IMO, the Iraq invasion was probably the US’s biggest foreign policy blunder of the century, and more than that, a criminal tragedy. There are no excuses, no justifications for it. It’s shameful.

My “fifty cents.”

April 11, 2010 @ 8:09 am | Comment

And I could go on about the imperialist component of American foreign policy and why it’s ultimately a disaster, and how similar the American and Chinese “empires” are in some ways, but I fear there’s little point. The trolls who populate these threads aren’t interested in real discussion. What’s worse, they are BORING.

(Justin, I am not speaking about you)

Back to work. Or to a good book. Sheesh.

April 11, 2010 @ 8:20 am | Comment

Lisa, thanks SO much.

And Merp, did you understand that the Forbes article is a parody? Or did that go right over your head?

Justin, I fully agree, which is why I tweeted the video and said it was the most horrific thing I’d seen from the war to date. Read James Fallows on this topic for some good perspective – and that’s what we all need (perspective).

HX, Merp: The way the Iraq war was carried out was a disaster in every way, one of the most idiotic and inexcusable blunders the US has ever made, and it’s made quite a few. Even if 30 or 40 or even 60 percent of Iraqis ultimately feel it was a good thing, and even if eventually Iraq ends up with a functional democracy (very doubtful) the cost in terms of human suffering and dollars and global reputation and the surrender of fundamental values still make it an unjustifiable catastrophe. Our role isn’t to march in and create democracies. Many if not most Americans now see the war as a bad idea. Merp refers to the “Hollywood brainwashing center” – all I can say is go see Hurt Locker, Standard operating Procedure and the other films that have been made that are anything but pro-Iraq War. If you think Hollywood is pro-Iraq War, I can’t begin to tell you how ignorant you are.

April 11, 2010 @ 8:22 am | Comment

Whenever you describe Iraq war, I notice you use strategic-judgment terms descriptions like “mistake”, “blunder”, “error”, instead of more moral-judgment terms like “crime”, “evil”, “inhuman”, etc. But when you talk about China, you switch to moral-judgment terms. And this seems to be the normal language used by mainstream media too, Iraq war is a mistake, a strategic blunder, an error, rarely do you see anyone using words like “evil”, “crime”, “inhuman” in the American mainstream media to describe it. But when it comes to China, you have no hesitation to “upgrade” your rhetoric and use words like “evil”,”crime”, etc.

What’s the difference between strategic blunder and evil crime?

April 11, 2010 @ 8:36 am | Comment

HX, you now have a golden opportunity to prove to all of us that you are a sincere, intelligent fellow or a serial liar and moron: Show us just two or three posts where I call China “evil,” aside from posts I put up more than 7 years ago during the SARS calamity. Let’s make it even easier: show me ONE post where I say China is evil. And if you’ve been paying attention, I’ve said here many, many, many times that American under Bush made it very hard to criticize China because my government was failing to live up to its own values. But in neither case did I say the countries were evil. In fact, I have always stressed the fact that there are good and bad elements pushing against one another, and that both governments generally wanted what was best for its people, but these efforts were hampered by elements of greed, lust for power, corruption, etc.

So put your money where your mouth is: where do I call China evil?

And finally, I have called Abu Ghraib an evil crime, if not with those exact words. I have called the Iraq War an evil crime. I have called Bush’s war on terror an evil crime. I am actually harder on the US than China because with our level of development and centuries of democracy and rule of law we’re supposed to know better. But not surprisingly, you don’t see any of that. Comb through the site – do a search for Bush and Iraq and Abu Ghraib and see whether or not I give the US a free pass while demonizing China.

It’s all in your head, Red Star, and there’s lots of room up there for fantasy considering the depressing lack of grey matter.

April 11, 2010 @ 9:37 am | Comment

Lisa
and how similar the American and Chinese “empires” are in some ways

They are not similar at all.

Interesting how that democratic gunfire is shown on Youtube, all around the world, while dictatorial gunfire is still That Thing That Didn’t Happen In 1989.

There were photographs of My Lai, but that didn’t really stop anyone from doing anything.

Richard
And Merp, did you understand that the Forbes article is a parody? Or did that go right over your head?

Considering the level of crap that is mainstream, I couldn’t really tell.

April 11, 2010 @ 9:52 am | Comment

About events, not the country, stupid.

April 11, 2010 @ 9:55 am | Comment

and Lisa, for all of these atrocities that are recorded, quite visibly, there are literally hundreds or thousands buried.

there are a lot of declassified documents for you to read, esp. on Korean War atrocities.

April 11, 2010 @ 10:06 am | Comment

You’re calling me stupid? Here’s what you say:

Whenever you describe Iraq war, I notice you use strategic-judgment terms descriptions like “mistake”, “blunder”, “error”, instead of more moral-judgment terms like “crime”, “evil”, “inhuman”, etc. But when you talk about China, you switch to moral-judgment terms.

Where do I do this alleged “switching”?

Merp, you couldn’t tell it was parody because as usual you saw what you wanted to see, without a bit of actual thought. You are a slave to your preconceived notion, a hostage of your paranoid delusions. Even a brief scan should have told you it was a parody. About My Lai, again you don’t know what you’re talking about. It was a pivotal moment in America’s revulsion against the war and set the country on fire with demonstrations and outrage. Lt. Calley may have been let off, but again, read James Fallows to see where the blame actually lies. Every educated American knows what happened at My Lai. Can we say that about June 4?

Finally, Merp old sport, there is no such thing as a war without atrocities. That doesn’t in any way excuse them, but read up on any war and you’ll know what I mean. Of course, some are much worse than others; the Rape of Nanjing and the Bataan Death March and Hitler’s genocide of Eastern Europe are up at the top. But when it comes to committing atrocities, you can’t single out the US, and if you have to reach back over half a century we know you’re grasping.

I can see this thread was hijacked within minutes of being published. Sorry. Can someone please change the subject? 🙂

April 11, 2010 @ 10:06 am | Comment

Soooo, let’s leave that the dead horse that is Chinese indignation at western media alone…

In other news, there’s a string of executions in China involving foreign drug dealers. It has provoked an international reaction to China’s policies but the issue isn’t clear cut. In case of Akmal Shaikh, many of his fellow brits welcomed a harsh penalty for drug dealing and recent execution of three Japanese nationals didn’t provoke the same magnitude of reaction. Now we hear a SA woman has been sentenced. What do you guys (and gals) think the concerns here are for the international community? Due process? objection to capitol punishment overall? Would these harsh punishments discourage travel to China? What about the fact that Akmal Shaikh claimed to be bi-polar? Was this given enough consideration?

Also do you guys think that China’s harsh drug laws stem from a fear of addiction and a memory of the opium wars?

April 11, 2010 @ 10:47 am | Comment

Justin, I am always opposed to capital punishment, and the US and China are up at the tippy-top when it comes to executions. However, I think it’s unfair to single out China for executing drug dealers, and I don’t think it ties back to the Opium Wars. It’s actually not uncommon in Asia, as every traveler to Singapore knows. I don’t think this practice discourages tourism – most of us don’t deal drugs – and the outcry over these executions is nothing compared to the media frenzy over Michael Fay’s caning in Singapore for spray painting a car. In other words, most of the world isn’t noticing. As much as I’d like everyone to stand up and get outraged over capital punishment, here and in the US, these executions will be forgotten in a few weeks.

April 11, 2010 @ 11:13 am | Comment

Okay Richard, the game’s up. It’s time for you to admit that Merp and HongXing are really just guerilla literature on your part. Usually they are at least half-way believable as Feng Qing, by no dice this time, simply nobody could be as dumb as to try to castigate as pro-war an anti-war blog (which this is) for being antiwar.

Come clean Richard, it’s for the best . . .

April 11, 2010 @ 6:52 pm | Comment

Oh no, I’ve been exposed; I was hoping no one would ever realize Merp and HX are my sockpuppets.

No, I’m not nearly creative enough to conceive of two such entirely preposterous and inexplicable creatures as Merp and Red Star. I don’t know who are what created them. All I know is that it wasn’t me.

April 11, 2010 @ 9:29 pm | Comment

No need to pay attention what some say here. There are people who will be as sad as their father dying upon any good news from. China. These people are nothing but a rectal itch. The best policy towards them is: spiritual castration and biological elimination

April 11, 2010 @ 11:59 pm | Comment

Anybody see Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Friday night?
I missed it because I was at ABC headquarters with a sign that reads “We will never forget- prevent British militarism.” No one understood!
I wish I was Chinese!

April 12, 2010 @ 2:17 am | Comment

Gawd, why did I come back and look at this thread?

To the Fifty-centers — please do not make assumptions about what I have or have not read. The nice thing about having access to information is that with a little effort, you can inform yourself.

April 12, 2010 @ 4:02 am | Comment

To the Fifty-centers

Don’t forget there are Quarter-parties here in the US. Where? See here:

After the helicopter guns down a group of men, the video shows a van stopping to pick up one of the wounded. The soldiers in the helicopter suspect it to be hostile and, after getting clearance from base, fire again. Two children in the van are wounded, and one of the soldiers remarks, “Well, it’s their fault for bringing their kids into a battle.”

Here again, psychologists say, when people are intensely focused on observing some specific feature of the landscape, they may not even see what is obvious to another observer.

The soldiers were looking for combatants; experts say it is not clear they would have seen children, even if they should have.

The video’s emotional impact on viewers is also partly rooted in the combination of intimacy and distance it gives them, some experts said. The viewer sees a wider tragedy unfolding, in hindsight, from the safety of a desk; the soldiers are reacting in real time, on high alert, exposed.

Psychologists Explain Iraq Airstrike Video
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/08psych.html

———–

You see, American psychologists already explained, those marines laughing and joking when killing the journalist and the children are doing it to relieve pressure during war situations, no need to be shocked by it, normal, totally normal.

April 12, 2010 @ 5:54 am | Comment

HX, I would suggest you read James Fallows about this but I know you wouldn’t make the effort. He in effect agrees with the psychiatrist – this is typical war behaviour, it’s how the mind works under war, and it is the same on all sides and has been since war was invented. This is not American behaviour. Now, that lets no one off the hook. But atrocities, justified in the minds of the perpetrators, are a standard feature of war, which is why wars need to be avoided at nearly all cost, until they become absolutely imperative.

April 12, 2010 @ 6:47 am | Comment

When an American is shocked at what the Chinese leadership did, normal. When a Chinese is shocked at what the American leadership did, a Fenqing.

April 12, 2010 @ 6:50 am | Comment

Again, pug, go back through this blog and review my shock and rage at the horrors of the Bush war crimes. And read my shock and rage about some of the things the Chinese government did. And read about how in both cases, I say these are not evil governments. There’s evil, there’s incompetency, and there’s also a lot of good, and mostly a lot of the ordinary, the human. This sudden theme you and other assorted losers are trying to grasp at, that I let America off the hook while being hard on the Chinese, is of course a fantasy, but you have to keep trying to prove there’s bias against poor China, a victim of imperialist contempt. Ironically, I’d have to say the only China haters here are you and Merp and Red Star, who see China as weak and unstable, a frightened child who needs to be constantly coddled and cuddled lest someone hurt her tender feelings. You see China as inferior, and it hurts you deeply. Let me try to relieve some of this self-imposed burden: China isn’t inferior and she’s stronger than you think. I can slam the US and I can slam China, and trust me, they’ll both withstand the blow. In fact, embracing the criticism – not necessarily accepting it, but listening to it – may help China become even stronger. Time to stop hating the motherland and see her for what she is – she’s a big girl now, and she doesn’t need to be treated like an invalid.

April 12, 2010 @ 7:21 am | Comment

Somebody’s logic is a little slippy here my friend, it should be “When an ethnic Chinese living in America spend ages writing bizarre off-topic rants about America on China-centric blogs, they are a Fen Qing“. Really, has anyone here been making excuses for the helicopter pilots? No. Has anyone here been doing what you normally do when the behaviour of say, the Chinese armed forces to their own people in 1989 is raised as a subject and blaming everyone except your own (presumably former) countrymen? No. This doesn’t make non-Chinese better than Chinese, but this does make non-Fen Qings better than Fen Qings.

April 12, 2010 @ 7:28 am | Comment

China needs criticism yes, but not from you democracy lovers, china has a great tradition of self criticism and self reflection unlike the american government

April 12, 2010 @ 10:48 am | Comment

I disagree Steve jobs, there are plenty of level headed academics and policy makers who’s input would be sorely missed during China’s integration into the international system. Ex. both bush’s and obama’s china policy advisors, the folks at the new america foundation and brooks institute are all great people.

I think it is a fallacy to say that China can develop independent of the world. It may have been true 500 years ago (though I have my doubts), it is just a blatant impossibility in the 21th century. Even if we in China are happy with its internal affairs(big if), China itself may still be unacceptable to the international community and this can severely affect China’s well-being, growth and not to mention world stability. It is China’s job to reassure a worried world about its peaceful rise and work more openly with the right people to establish amiable lanes of communication.

Like it or not these “democracy lovers” are an important part of the world and this china-western liberal dem. relationship is going to determine the shape of the 21th century for better or worse.

April 12, 2010 @ 11:09 am | Comment

Oh that said, I really truly despise popular coverage of China. Objective and empathetic reports is impossible to find. Popular print and media love scare stories because they sell and nothing right now is scarier than China, the red menace from the east. I also understand how the Chinese can get frustrated and angered from this treatment and the overwhelming hypocrisy of it all, believe me I’ve felt it. It however doesn’t excuse people spewing the same crap right back. I believe this cycle hurts everyone and can possibly lead to a confrontation of the sort where neither side can benefit.

incidentally I want to recommend Sue William’s work for anyone that’s unfamiliar as a paradigm of objective and empathetic reporting in China. She was the one that really taught me about my own countrie’s history

they are available free on the PBS frontline website as the titles “China in the red” “young and restless in china”

her epic series “china a century of revolution” can be found on youtube I think.

April 12, 2010 @ 11:24 am | Comment

The only worried ones are the traditional western powers who see the possible change in the current world order that will lead them to lose the dominance they held since the industrial revolution. This is the worry and unease you are refering to.

You are lucky that you have in China a benevolent and peaceful future power with no intention of establishing a hegemony. So if American and European powers are willing, we can work together to build a harmonious world for future generations.

If, however, you insist on derailing china’s rise, and refuse to unclench your fist, then you will be unpleasantly surprised.

As chairman mao said, if you don’t fuck with me, I won’t fuck with you. If you fuck with me, I will definitely fuck with you.

April 12, 2010 @ 11:48 am | Comment

SNORK! Okay, this is reaching new heights of hilarity. Let’s go ahead and do some comparisons, shall we?

When the Watts Riots broke out in Los Angeles, what happened? When the LA riots in 1992 occurred, what was the response of the American media and government?

A lot of really stupid things were said, sure. But there were commissions and studies and a lot of self-reflection, which concluded that institutionalized racism and inequality were largely responsible.

Now, um, Xinjiang? Tibet? Those “disturbances”? Wait, wait — don’t tell me! Those were totally caused by foreign splittists, the CIA, the Dalai Lama and Rebya Kadhir!

You know, I love China. I feel like it’s my second home. But one of the things that continually disappoints me is the unwillingness of the government to engage in some serious “self-criticism” and honestly look at the root causes of such events.

I’m not expecting them to fix the problems overnight. Not at all. You know, as someone pointed out above, I may have the freedom to criticize my own government about conduct that I find reprehensible (Iraq, American Imperialism in general, institutionalized racism/sexism/class warfare), but that doesn’t mean my little cries in the night will change it, and I find that horrifically disturbing.

But if you aren’t even willing to articulate the problems, and you punish people who do…

This just fills me with despair.

How are we EVER going to make things better if we can’t even take that first step of honest discussion?

HongXing, Pug-ster, Merp, if you honestly think China is without guilt, or, more accurately, you’ve so internalized China’s identity as your own, and YOU are unable to take any sort of criticism…well, I am sad for you, because you are doomed to be disappointed.

April 12, 2010 @ 12:08 pm | Comment

By the way, I suggest all of you take a look at this Stratfor analysis of China and US foreign policy. Some of these insights were new to me, but seem quite obvious upon reflection.

April 12, 2010 @ 12:15 pm | Comment

Justin Liu #29,

That’s the problem with the ‘free media’ run by the ‘independent’ media companies. They make money by exaggerating stories about China and re-enforcing the idea that China is a communist nation run by tyrants. This kind of stuff sells, and I’m sure that is some newspaper was sympathetic towards China like say ‘manufacturing jobs leaving the US toward China’, I am sure that many people would call the media and author communist sympathizers (like that Shaun Rein guy.) People who try to be moderates in the China issue are dismissed by both sides.

Seriously, the Western Media misinforms Westerners about China so that they can make a profit. That’s what most Chinese hates most.

April 12, 2010 @ 12:17 pm | Comment

What makes pug so irritating is the nonsense he utters that can’t even be argued or addressed, it’s just so dumb. Newspapers make profits writing bad things about China? As if advertisers are paying more for ad space if China is portrayed badly, or more readers buy the paper or watch the show if it makes China look bad? Where is this coming from? (Rhetorical questions; it’s from a place where the sun doesn’t shine.)

The media makes everything look bad; no news is good news and if it bleeds it leads, etc. Have you seen Fox News of Obama, or MSNBC or GW Bush?

If Pug weren’t so lazy, he’d know there are many, many western media with radically different viewpoints on China. Some make it sound like the next paradise. Others, like the report Lisa just linked to, are far more sober and cautious. The US media doesn’t speak with one voice, unlike some other countries’ I know.

April 12, 2010 @ 2:10 pm | Comment

I’m getting a strong vibe from “Steve Jobs” that he’s one of our long-time trolls.

April 12, 2010 @ 2:11 pm | Comment

Out of curiosity, what is a fifty-center?

April 12, 2010 @ 2:34 pm | Comment

Richard,

Advertisers don’t care what kind of news they are showing as long as they got enough eyeballs watching the shows. Why do you think fixed news targets Right wing audiences? Imagine if fixed news decided that they show more ‘fair and balanced’ news and got rid of Glen Beck, it will surely hurt their bottom line. So some of these Americans want to be fed those lies from fixed news. Is that ‘free press?’

April 12, 2010 @ 7:01 pm | Comment

Fenqing troll invasions like the one The Peking Duck is suffering need to be treated like computer viruses or infections such as head lice, fleas or crabs. Spray, disinfect, moderate, delete….

50-centers are that huge army of Chinese Internet commenters paid 0.5 RMB by the Communist Party for every pro-China or pro-government comment they make. If the trolls here are getting paid that much for their laughable work, the Party is getting ripped off — and we are all poorer for the experience.

April 12, 2010 @ 9:05 pm | Comment

@Justin Liu – Tough question to answer, but basically, if you read like you are being paid 5 mao a comment to post for the Chinese government, then you are likely to be accused of being one.

April 12, 2010 @ 9:06 pm | Comment

@Richard – Either that or your scathing criticism of the iPad on Twitter has hit a sore nerve . . . .

April 12, 2010 @ 9:18 pm | Comment

Funny, FOARP.

Pugsley, some quick media lesons for you:

Pugsley, Beck is a fringe lunatic. Relatively fair and balanced news media like National Public Radio and PBS are highly valued in America, where we have all kinds of media – far left, far right, liberal, moderate, conservative. Glenn Beck is a kook. He is not even a journalist, just a clown. Luckily, we have James Fallows and Christopher Hitchens and Dahlia Lithwick and Jonathan Chait to balance the insanities of the fringe. As usual, all you can do is point to the most extreme – Iraq! Indians! Beck! Kent State! Well sure, those are valid things to point to. But they do not define 21st century America anymore than Glenn Beck defines American journalism, or anymore than the crushing of the demonstrations in 1989 defines modern-day China. There’s much more to the picture, and a lot of context that’s required to fully understand the issues. Of course, perspective and context aren’t exactly your strongest suits, so no need to feel embarrassed if you don’t understand what I’m talking about. No one expects you to.

April 12, 2010 @ 11:10 pm | Comment

Richard: Do you have anything to say about iPad? If so, please reproduce it here.
I bought one when it came out a week ago. I love it.

April 13, 2010 @ 12:14 am | Comment

Slim,

Fenqing troll invasions like the one The Peking Duck is suffering need to be treated like computer viruses or infections such as head lice, fleas or crabs. Spray, disinfect, moderate, delete….

Sounds like you are pro-censorship. Just to let you know, I don’t get paid by the so called 50-cent party to post.

Richard,

Relatively fair and balanced news media like National Public Radio and PBS are highly valued in America

If they are so highly valued, then why do they need government funding for these programs? It is not profitable for media companies to go out and to do any kind of real investigative reporting nowadays. It is more profitable for Beck and Olberman to have their rants because they get better ratings. That’s what’s so sad.

April 13, 2010 @ 12:21 am | Comment

@Justin
many of his fellow brits welcomed a harsh penalty for drug dealing and recent execution of three Japanese nationals didn’t provoke the same magnitude of reaction. Now we hear a SA woman has been sentenced. What do you guys (and gals) think the concerns here are for the international community? Due process? objection to capitol punishment overall?

I’d say kill them all unless they can prove they weren’t selling drugs. No special treatment for foreigners that didn’t earn it.

What about the fact that Akmal Shaikh claimed to be bi-polar? Was this given enough consideration?

All of them claim to have some kind of mental impairment, “bi-polar” is one interesting euphemism for “stupid, self-centered and greedy”.

@otherlisa
When the LA riots in 1992 occurred, what was the response of the American media and government?

Your government peed itself and left several Korean shop owners to fend for themselves, which ultimately got 50 African American citizens killed for only looting. I don’t know what you were trying to get at here, the LA riots were not comparable to Tiananmen (in which millions upon millions protested and where soldiers were attacked and disemboweled). Esp since local gov’t failed miserably at containing the LA Riots- they didn’t even try. Why would the police risk their lives for people they don’t care about (non-whites). This is similar to the situation in Katrina.

It’s just brushed under the carpet and everyone forgets about it. American MSM has a very short term memory.

Now, um, Xinjiang? Tibet? Those “disturbances”? Wait, wait — don’t tell me! Those were totally caused by foreign splittists, the CIA, the Dalai Lama and Rebya Kadhir!

Here’s what happened in Tibet- a small minority of unemployed young Tibetans were brainwashed by expat ethnic nationalists of arguable Tibetan extraction into nursing grievance and instigating race riots. The Dalai Lama’s involvement is unclear, it seems more likely that those operating closely with him were behind it, not the Dalai Lama himself.

In Xinjiang, it’s nothing new- “Uighurs” (misattributed ethnonym) have a long history of committing mass murder against people who were in Xinjiang before them (or Xiyu, if you go by the Han Dynasty lexicon). The Urumqi Riots (Urumqi was founded by a Tang Emperor in Dzungaria) are just a continuation of this genocidal impulse. Kadeer? Just another racist, supremacist bitch.

But if you aren’t even willing to articulate the problems, and you punish people who do…

This just fills me with despair.

Why? You sound like you think Chinese people are inherently stupid and immoral. Do you think they sit back and smile when they hear about corruption and pollution? Every single Chinese person I’ve ever talked to including those who took the brunt of CCP propaganda are highly critical of the government. Those of them who are not idiots, however, are also very skeptical of the West for good reason. Even Gyalo Thondup is frustrated with American intervention. He’s the one who dragged his little brother back to Lhasa after Mao tried to influence him, and now he’s lost faith in America. That’s saying a lot.

How are we EVER going to make things better if we can’t even take that first step of honest discussion?

Reading this I get the idea that China has not improved at all in the last 30, 20, even 10 years. Patent growth, GDP growth, efficiency growth, are all the fastest in the world. People’s living standards have improved greatly. CR and GLF are over. Individual Chinese are taking these problems into their own hands, maybe if Americans spent less time whining and policing other nations and more time working and handling their own problems intelligently it wouldn’t be in such dire straits.

HongXing, Pug-ster, Merp, if you honestly think China is without guilt, or, more accurately, you’ve so internalized China’s identity as your own, and YOU are unable to take any sort of criticism…well, I am sad for you, because you are doomed to be disappointed.

There’s a difference between criticism and slander. There is a difference between hand-wringing and solutions. And we know when people are genuine and when they’re insulting our intelligence. When’s the last time there was a post on TPD that wasn’t “Oh look what’s happening in China! It’s SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO horrible!” or “China is bad and evil and Chinese people love Hitler!!!” (stuart, nanhe, Mike, Lindel) or “China needs CHRIST! That’s the biggest problem!” (nedophile, Ivan). Interestingly, we haven’t heard from Ned in a while since those child molestation suits started taking off. Coincidence?

My family, like many others, was persecuted by the CCP. I won’t go into details because it’s none of your business. They’ve all known hardship and hunger for decades. But that’s in the past. Americans didn’t care about them then and they don’t care about them now (just like the Tibetans)- so please stop acting like you do. We are perfectly capable of handling our own problems. We don’t need American MSM constantly trying to dehumanize us, tacitly or not- either by saying it outright or by hinting that Chinese/Arabs/Iranians/(insert menacing non-white of the day) are fundamentally incapable of creating a humane or functional society without outside “liberation”.

To all the pro-West overseas Chinese, listen to Gyalo Thondup about the West. America is just using you against the PRC, they don’t give a shit about you or your granny living in rural China. They don’t give a shit about Taiwan or the Taiwanese. They don’t care about Tibetans or Uighurs or Martians or Iraqis. They are only interested in maintaining their own privileged position that costs the world so much.

@FOARP
“When an ethnic Chinese living in America spend ages writing bizarre off-topic rants about America on China-centric blogs, they are a Fen Qing

You mean when an ethnic non-Chinese living in China spends ages writing bizarre America-is-superior-to-China comments on a China-centric blog and then claims we now can’t talk about the America you just compared China to because it’s a China centric blog, they fail at logic and can only resort to pathetic cop-outs to cover their asses, and their entire anti-China/anti-Chinese rhetoric is really about deflecting attention from America and the West, not about how they “care” so much about all 1.32 billion PRC citizens.

April 13, 2010 @ 5:13 am | Comment

wanted to add that those last few paragraphs were directed at American MSM and China blog trolls in general, not any specific poster.

April 13, 2010 @ 7:16 am | Comment

50-centers are that huge army of Chinese Internet commenters paid 0.5 RMB by the Communist Party for every pro-China or pro-government comment they make. If the trolls here are getting paid that much for their laughable work, the Party is getting ripped off — and we are all poorer for the experience.

Come on, everyone knows your american daddy pays a lot more, one quarter per post, therefore the name Quarter Parties.

And usually those who accuse others of paid posters are usually paid posters themselves.

let me give you a Chinese saying for free: “拿钱发帖，全家死光“.

April 13, 2010 @ 7:54 am | Comment

But they do not define 21st century America anymore than Glenn Beck defines American journalism, or anymore than the crushing of the demonstrations in 1989 defines modern-day China.

CNN disagrees:

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/12/us.china.relations/?hpt=Sbin

This is an article intended to give a top-level overview of modern China (and US relations with China), and they have one spot to pick a picture to put there. And the editors made a conscious decision to put up that one.

Don’t tell me about this bullshit about fair and balanced.

April 13, 2010 @ 8:29 am | Comment

#32 and #36 are so typical of the dreary “western-media this” and “western-media that” that the author (and many a like-minded folk) have tirelessly and repeatedly gone on and on about on another blog. But I guess some people don’t find it tiresome. Funny how some people “think”.

Richard,
I was recently overseas and also got my fill of CNN International. But I found anchor-guy Max to be quite entertaining (unintentionally).

As for the mischaracterisation of a Hollywood love-in with the Iraq War, perhaps the author wasn’t watching the same Hurt Locker or Green Zone as I was.

April 13, 2010 @ 1:33 pm | Comment

Merp: There’s a difference between criticism and slander. There is a difference between hand-wringing and solutions. And we know when people are genuine and when they’re insulting our intelligence. When’s the last time there was a post on TPD that wasn’t “Oh look what’s happening in China! It’s SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO horrible!” or “China is bad and evil and Chinese people love Hitler!!!”

Hmmm, how about last week:

http://www.pekingduck.org/2010/04/peter-hesslers-country-driving/

In fact, name me a single post within the past half-decade that even implies that “China is bad and evil and Chinese people love Hitler!!!” Even one. Liar.

April 13, 2010 @ 5:25 pm | Comment

Hong Xing is totally off his meds. He and pug make an adorable couple. Merp is the icing on the cake.

April 13, 2010 @ 5:28 pm | Comment

@serve

I am also tempted to get an Ipad. Specially now that the exchange rate dollar euro is advantageous to me.

There has been a lot of criticism about the Ipad, but I think the device is going to be a game changer.

It will be placed right between smart phones and notebooks, many people are going to use it as comfortable device for media consumption and not intensive computing tasks. More comfortable to use than an Iphone, and more comfortable to carry around than a notebook.

One area that could be the right niche for this thing is home automation and Home media theater.

For example, with smart automation devices, control home appliances: lighting, heating, etc. Another area is to supervise electric consumption. Also useful for connection to alarm systems and watch cameras. You can see on the Ipad what is going on when an alarm is triggered, or who is ringing at the doorbell.

On a more fun side. It can also be used as remote control on steroids for the future Apple Video on Demand system. Easily browse available movies and series; select for playback, get previews, recomendations, etc.

It seems goggle is working on its own version with HTC from rebel Taiwan province…

April 13, 2010 @ 6:58 pm | Comment

I don’t know enough to offer any insights into the iPad, except to say I saw someone using one at a restaurant at the LA Airport last week and it sure looks odd, coffee cup in one hand and a wafer-thin tablet in the other, like he was reading a long, thin book.

I actually agree with Eco, it’s a game-changer. It’ll be ridiculed and sneered at for a while, then it will get better and more functional, and soon you will simply have to have one. Apple has done this before. Having been brainwashed by Steve Jobs (not the commenter here, the real one in Cupertino), I have total faith in them.

April 13, 2010 @ 7:26 pm | Comment

@Richard
“Having been brainwashed by Steve Jobs”

So you have also being exposed to Steve Job’s famous reality distortion field!

All people within a range of aprox 5m from him are usually affected by it. The field effects is that anyone within it is automatically convinced that all he says is true and visionary.

So far no shielding has been found against his reality distortion field. 😉

April 13, 2010 @ 9:11 pm | Comment

Some secret reports says that the CCP has tried to replicate that field, so far without success. That is one reason why they have to use such a resource intensive and awkward solution as the GFW.

One thing that comes to my mind is the energy footprint of each Chinese net-citizen when browsing the Internet. Besides the energy to power his/her computer and the network, the energy required by the GFW, humans and hardware, must be significant.

The resulting Carbon footprint of their browsing experience must be also higher.

Soooo un-ecological! 😉

Also how many (solid) schools could be constructed with all those wasted 5 cents…

April 13, 2010 @ 9:17 pm | Comment

Have merp or Red Star ever written an honest sentence in their lives? Where? Certainly not here.

April 13, 2010 @ 10:42 pm | Comment

An American talking about honesty is like Hitler talking about world peace.

As for CNN, BBC, if they can be trusted, then even pigs can climb onto trees

April 13, 2010 @ 11:59 pm | Comment

It’ll be ridiculed and sneered at for a while, then it will get better and more functional, and soon you will simply have to have one.

Many people may feel like that, but as long as I can get books in print at affordable prices I will prefer them over any electronic competitor. There’s something really nice about reading things in print (especially when so much of our lives involves digital screens).

April 14, 2010 @ 12:09 am | Comment

The main weakness in iPad is the lack of multitasking. I cannot surf Internet and chat on Skype at the same time. I heard an OS update is coming later this year to fix this problem. Then my device will be perfect.

The sad thing is that no other company can offer any real competition to Apple. Not HP, Dell, or any of these guys in Taiwan. I wish Google can do something good with their Android, but it appears that they are more interested in scoring publicity points from China than offering any real good products. I had high hope for their Google phone, but it turned out to be too expensive and had too little build-in storage capacity.

Major hardware companies should seriously think about investing heavily in software. Dump Microsoft. Start over from scratch. Use the Linux community for help.

April 14, 2010 @ 12:27 am | Comment

no other company can offer any real competition to Apple.

Monopolies and legions of hipster fanboys will do that for you.

Apple’s R&D budget is probably larger than HTC’s revenue. State and fanboy zombie subsidized American corporate monopolies are wonderful, huh?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko

April 14, 2010 @ 1:55 am | Comment

I’m still waiting for iPants- pants will never be the same again.
http://tinyurl.com/y37ul5c

April 14, 2010 @ 2:13 am | Comment

You’re out, “Steve Jobs.”

April 14, 2010 @ 6:55 am | Comment

Oh dear, I have missed some good ones here! 🙂 Ah, well…perils of letting work get in the way of relaxing reading…

Wish I was Shanghaied – been a while since I was last there. Never mind, 2011 will see the Goldthorpes in Shanghai and Nantong. Look out IKEA (and don’t knock it until you live in a country without it…)! I’ll probably try and persuade my parents to fly over – meet in Hangzhou probably as there’s direct flights from Penang. Dad’s memories of China are from the 80s….he still thinks it’s roughly the same today 😀

April 14, 2010 @ 11:49 am | Comment

After laughing at some of the ridiculous comments, I think I’ll take this back to the topic of the actual post…I can’t believe you can’t find anyone to show you around Shanghai! I had a lot of fun there when I visited back in 2006. I’ll trade places with you…I’d love to spend more time there.

April 14, 2010 @ 11:58 am | Comment

I could get hold of my brother in law – sure he’d be able to sort you out with a guide. Take the bus to Nantong – the countryside is pretty cool and the houses show the wealth there. I liked the small radiomast things on the roofs – asked the wife about them and she said she thought they were decorations… Nantong is pretty – they’ve cleaned it up a fair bit, aparently. Got this nice little canal systme in it – hire a paddle boat and squeak your way around it 🙂 There’s also a famous Buddhist temple close by…if you like that sort of thing…

April 14, 2010 @ 12:09 pm | Comment

Matt, Mike – it’s my schedule. It’s crazy erratic, and I have to work most of the day from my hotel room and then go to dinner with the client (whom I love). So not many opportunities for fun or sightseeing. In addition, aside from some nice warm days when I got here on the 6th, it’s now cold and rainy. This is definitely not a holiday.

In response to one of Merp’s unpublished nasty comments: “Steve Jobs” is out because anyone who says “An American talking about honesty is like Hitler talking about world peace” is a fanatic and a hater and an idiot. I would never say that sort of thing about Chinese people, and anyone saying it about Americans is here to troll, not to interact.

April 14, 2010 @ 12:25 pm | Comment

If people don’t want to engage in discourse in a reasonable manner, by all menas apply the rules they wish us all to live by 🙂 Sad that with this opportunity to reach out and learn about others, many think retreating into stereotypes and affirming their hatred is the way to go.

I’d love to be in Shanghai when it’s cold. Only ever get there in August – hot and sweaty, number 1 daughter complaining about being hot, wife dragging us hither and yon for shopping, Santana taxi rides that scare me, bus rides that I enjoy…

April 14, 2010 @ 12:33 pm | Comment

Pug_wash?
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/show/162471

😉

April 14, 2010 @ 12:38 pm | Comment

I like that quote in the link you posted, Mike. It applies to more than one of my commenters.

I can always deal with hot. I cannot deal with cold. I guess it’s a matter of metabolism. The sky in Shanghai at the moment is letting down freezing rain and I am hiding away in my hotel with the heat turned up all the way.

April 14, 2010 @ 3:21 pm | Comment

Cold means you can wear more. Hot….well, once you’re down to skin, that’s it. And there’s only so much beer you can drink to cool down before wife gives you “The Look”.

🙂

Just remember – however pissed off you feel, there’s always someone jealous of you 🙂

Have a great night! I’m off to bed!

April 14, 2010 @ 5:15 pm | Comment

Damn, when is Shanghai ever cold? As long as it’s over -15 degrees it’s tolerable for me.

April 15, 2010 @ 9:16 am | Comment

My mistake. Didn’t realize you had to work from the hotel–that can get really boring (I don’t even like working from home that often). Any other areas of the hotel that are quiet with wi-fi? Or maybe a decent coffee shop?

April 15, 2010 @ 10:17 pm | Comment

Apologies if already covered here, but offering a quite excellent analysis of the Google spat, from an unlikely source:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/LD14Cb02.html

April 16, 2010 @ 12:42 am | Comment

Thanks Slim, great link.

The Google analysis may not be covering entirely new ground, but I really enjoyed the humourous bits, especially the explanations of all the mythical creatures and the phonetic play on words. And his description of bloggers who defended the CCP position was like deja vu all over again.

April 16, 2010 @ 7:48 am | Comment

The annoying thing about 5-star hotels is that you have to pay for Internet and the one I’m in doesn’t offer wifi. I’ve been hanging out in Element Fresh quite a bit, working off my iPhone. Today is supposed to get warmer after a full week of cold rain.

Excellent article, Slim.

April 16, 2010 @ 9:04 am | Comment

China should broker a deal with Google. As long as Google doesn’t allow human stupidity and bias to bury historical and ongoing American atrocities in billions of pages of nonsense and garbage, and brings these crucial world issues to the forefront, they should allow a technically uncensored Google to operate in China- as long as they are permitted to label blatant American/Hollywood smear and propaganda as what it is.

April 16, 2010 @ 1:11 pm | Comment

Yes! Look at how google blatantly censors search results to make America look good!

Abu Ghraib

CIA + Allende

Genocide of Native Americans

Merp, old sport, you are really onto something. Google should really be ashamed of itself, covering up America’s transgressions. Blatant inexcusable censorship.

Why can’t we emulate search in China? Just go to Baidu and type in Tiananmen Square Massacre, Dalai Lama, Taiwan Independence and see what you get. Pure, uncensored, authentic search results, presented without fear or favor. We should all boycott Google, and insist that there be one single search engine for the sake of harmony, Baidu as it is in China.

April 16, 2010 @ 2:51 pm | Comment

For the sake of harmony, Baidu should rename itself River Crab.

April 16, 2010 @ 4:26 pm | Comment

“China should broker a deal with Google. As long as Google doesn’t allow human stupidity and bias to bury historical and ongoing American atrocities in billions of pages of nonsense and garbage, and brings these crucial world issues to the forefront, they should allow a technically uncensored Google to operate in China”

By technically uncensored, you mean censor everything that puts the CCP in a bad light but make sure America looks bad? Thought they did that…call in Baidu, if my info is correct 😉

April 16, 2010 @ 6:02 pm | Comment

Yes! Look at how google blatantly censors search results to make America look good!

Reading comprehension is your friend. Google of course uses an algorithm that is based on what users are looking for

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=tits&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=bcdf8cbbf06dc4f

http://www.google.com/#hl=en&safe=off&q=%22abu+ghraib&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=bcdf8cbbf06dc4f

Just go to Baidu and type in Tiananmen Square Massacre, Dalai Lama, Taiwan Independence

None of these are really as important as say, medical and educational sites.

@Mike
By technically uncensored, you mean censor everything that puts the CCP in a bad light but make sure America looks bad? Thought they did that…call in Baidu, if my info is correct 😉

Rather, garbage like CNN and Fox as well as anti-“Asian” media would have some kind of e-sticker slapped on it, advising people that it was made by retards, for retards. Otherwise they should be allowed to access it.

April 17, 2010 @ 8:16 am | Comment

Google of course uses an algorithm that is based on what users are looking for

Oh Merp, old sport, how we all love you. Imagine that – a search engine that is based on helping users find what they are looking for! The bastards.

April 17, 2010 @ 8:39 am | Comment

To Richard:
ROFL. #79 ought to put it into a nutshell for Merp.

As for using an algorithm that doesn’t necessarily find what users are looking for, I think Baidu/River Crab already has that market cornered.

Merp has now moved onto determining what is and isn’t educational for Chinese people. He must be one busy dude, making all these choices on behalf of 1.3 billion people. Where on earth does he find the time?!?

And Merp continues to display an alarming disregard for the intelligence of Chinese people. They need to be told with a flashing banner that they might be accessing useless material? They’re not capable of discerning that for themselves? I suppose when you’re trying to stick up for Big Brother, you need to try to convince the great unwashed that they need Big Brother’s help, if only to provide an excuse for Big Brother’s continued existence.

April 17, 2010 @ 12:13 pm | Comment

“None of these are really as important as say, medical and educational sites”
Educational sites…like…history? History is what the CCP says? Regardless to what really happened?
Would be a nice world having your internet – all we’d read is how great the CCP is. The war in Iraq would just be the good stuff – how terrorism is getting stopped. Same with Afghanistan. Abu Ghraib? Censored all away 🙂 Hell, we wouldn’t even be in the Great Recession! That’s bad for a harmonious society so that’s all swept under the rug and we’d be fed the stats that keep us happy…and so on and so on.

Sad that the gamut of western media is characterised by a few US agencies. But then, Merp does chose to live in the US and seems restricts his reading to those media, ignoring the rest of the west….

April 17, 2010 @ 1:56 pm | Comment

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/17/world/asia/17chinaweb.html?ref=global-home

Golly, who’d have guessed?

April 17, 2010 @ 1:58 pm | Comment

History is what the CCP says?

Rather than history being the botched garbage American pupils are taught, or what Fox News tells you?

Most American textbooks have like 1 or 2 lines on the Native American genocide and no textbook even considers the fact that maybe white Americans still don’t deserve to live on their land.

April 17, 2010 @ 4:10 pm | Comment

Sad that the gamut of western media is characterised by a few US agencies. But then, Merp does chose to live in the US and seems restricts his reading to those media, ignoring the rest of the west….

Don’t read any American/Western MSM, it’s all bullshit. Pravda and Al Jazeera are better than CNN and Fox. Hell British tabloids are about on par with America’s top news agencies in terms of presenting facts.

China gets its priorities straight- teaching its people what matters. In exchange, some freedom is lost.

The Western lies, cheats, misleads and exaggerates for $$$$ because that’s what its people want- sensationalism. The vast, vast majority of Westerners do not want to hear or see the truth. They just want lots of flashing lights, T&A and explosions.

April 17, 2010 @ 4:15 pm | Comment

When it comes to internet censorship, nothing beats the United States.

Many Fortune 500 American companies block a huge list of common websites, for example, the following websites are inaccessible from inside 50% of fortune 500 American companies:

facebook.com
gmail.com
mail.yahoo.com
hotmail.com
youtube.com
monster.com
twitter.com

If you visit these sites from inside the company, you’ll see a message like：“this is a entertainment(or video, or email, etc)
site, which is blocked by the corporate network.”

Using MSN, AIM, QQ? Forget about it.

These days, these websites are essential in receiving information for citizens in the 21st century. By blocking these websites, these companies impose a state of total information blackout for their employees (American citizens mostly). These American citizens are therefore stripped of their universal human right to communicate with the outside world and receive information. For 8, 9, 10 hours a day, these American citizens are essentially blind and deaf, and can only move within a “safe” area determined by their “big brother” (the company).

Can you communicate with the world outside these great American firewalls? Yes, you are allowed to call or email your families during emergencies. But all your calls and emails and monitored and recorded, and in American companies’ legal words “the properties of the company”. Human rights? Privacy? Forget about it.

Of course, you can say “These are private companies, they can do whatever they want!”. This I don’t care, I only care about the real effects these have on American citizens. And the real effects are, for 8,9,10 hours day, at least 50% of employed American citizens are subject to a total information blackout, total blockage of “unhealthy” information, total information censorship, total loss of information freedom.

As a Chinese citizen, I am very very sympathetic to these American citizens.

April 18, 2010 @ 3:55 am | Comment

It’s SO, SOOOO, SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO horrible HongXing! The American regime must be toppled immediately!!

April 18, 2010 @ 4:58 am | Comment

Red Star,
you’re kidding, right? Are you a complete doof, or do you just play one on PKD?

You are conflating so many different things that it defies description. For starters, you’re trying to compare corporate internet usage policies with censorship. When a company is paying you to do work, they have a reasonable demand for an employee to maximize their efficiency while at work. Unless you work for facebook, or twitter, or youtube, you’d have to explain to me how an employee updating their friends list, tweeting, or uploading/downloading a video might serve to enhance the company’s investment in that employee’s time.

Second, when you go work for a company, there are company rules that you implicitly accept. If a company says you can’t tweet while on the company dime, and that’s unacceptable to you, then by all means seek alternate employment.

Unless companies are restricting employees’ internet activities during after-work hours (and I’d love for you to provide an example of that), your point is…pointless.

Oh, and yes, for the balance of one’s working day, one may not have unfettered access to all that’s out there on the internet. Likewise, one may not have an unfettered ability to go to the beach, go skiing, or catch a movie, while on the company dime. That’s the way it goes. It’s called work. Ever tried it?

Now, as a Chinese citizen, you should be more concerned about your fellow citizens having their rights and freedoms restricted 24/7/365, rather than concocting the rubbish you just did here. It would be far better use of your time, whether it be on your own or someone else’s dime.

April 18, 2010 @ 7:01 am | Comment

Now, as a Chinese citizen, you should be more concerned about your fellow citizens having their rights and freedoms restricted 24/7/365,

he should, and that’s why he probably opposes opening china up to be flooded by foreign propaganda.

April 18, 2010 @ 7:58 am | Comment

Sorry, I do not care what the reason is. I care only what the end effect is. The end effect, for Americans working for those fortune 500 companies, for 8,9,10 hours of their day, which most of their day, they are in a state of informational blockage. That is the end effect, do you disagree with this statement? If you cannot disagree with this statement, why should I care about your explanations?

When a company is paying you to do work, they have a reasonable demand for an employee to maximize their efficiency while at work. how an employee updating their friends list, tweeting, or uploading/downloading a video might serve to enhance the company’s investment in that employee’s time.

So many things I can point out in this sentence:

1) Employees are just machines? Objects of investment? Their time is just like CPU cycles managed by a company? Of course this is all true, and the inhuman nature of today’s efficiency-based, and industrial society.

2) I can also say that China is a socialist country, Chinese government pays for education, welfare, military, everything (of course not 100%, but maybe more true in Cuba or North Korea, but you get the idea), then if China is a big company, and citizen is just a employee of this company. If the company does well, citizens get dividends, and other benefits. So in this case, it’s also not unreasonable for companies to determine what is a best use of their employees.

Please, improve your argumentation-making abilities, otherwise the NED is not getting their quarters worth.

April 18, 2010 @ 8:28 am | Comment

I saw Hong xing’s argument #2 (china is a big company) coming before I even read it! Maybe I should start a career as a psychic reader of fascist propaganda. “next he will say…”
The end logic is of course the need to justify whatever the chinese government does, no matter how many hoops he has to jump through on the way…

April 18, 2010 @ 8:57 am | Comment

To red star who has apparently imploded and who should soon become a black hole:

“for 8,9,10 hours of their day, which most of their day,”
—dude, it’s less than HALF the day. Perhaps I should step back, all of your other pointlessness notwithstanding, and help you define “most”.

“That is the end effect, do you disagree with this statement?”
—of course I do, numb-skull. They’re WORKING. Which means they’re not there to tweet, write on friends’ walls, or watch videos. If you’re WORKING, you’re going to miss out on the opportunity to do all sorts of other things. Like I said, you may as well complain that companies deprive employees of the right to go snowboarding during work hours. Given your grasp of “logic”, it wouldn’t surprise me if you did.

“Of course this is all true, and the inhuman nature of today’s efficiency-based, and industrial society.”
—I guess you’re now pointing out things I said which are true. Thanks for doing that. You have an interesting method for constructing an “argument”. To each his own. BTW, I don’t think companies need to apologize for being efficient. Perhaps you are more appreciative of inefficiency.

“then if China is a big company, and citizen is just a employee of this company.”
—and let’s say an employee wants to leave the company…how would they go about doing that? I imagine there are some Tibetans, Uyghurs, and perhaps others who are keen on your advice in this regard.
And as I said, these Chinese employees work 24/7/365? Gosh, no wonder they complain about “workers’ rights”. Sounds like they have a good argument.

April 18, 2010 @ 9:23 am | Comment

—dude, it’s less than HALF the day. Perhaps I should step back, all of your other pointlessness notwithstanding, and help you define “most”.

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

of course I do, numb-skull. They’re WORKING. Which means they’re not there to tweet, write on friends’ walls, or watch videos. If you’re WORKING, you’re going to miss out on the opportunity to do all sorts of other things. Like I said, you may as well complain that companies deprive employees of the right to go snowboarding during work hours. Given your grasp of “logic”, it wouldn’t surprise me if you did.

You are not allowed to have any leisure time at work? You must work every second of the day? You cannot take lunch break? Cannot relax? Cannot have any activity other than work? Where’s your human rights? Where are your humanitarian universal values? Even a coal mine owner in Shangxi province is not as cruel as you.

Workers are too dumb to know what is an efficient use of their time? They will always waste time and not work if they are not policed and monitored? Even the CCP is not as cruel as you. I believe in letting the workers decide what is an efficient use of their time, instead of being patriarchial (your liberals favorite word) and acting like a big brother (another favorite word of yours).

On this point, I must disagree with you, I do not believe in treating workers as machines, but as human beings. On this issue, I am a Western liberal,

To each his own. BTW, I don’t think companies need to apologize for being efficient.

This is what that Shangxi coal mine owner said when asked why he refused to implement all the security measures.

and let’s say an employee wants to leave the company…how would they go about doing that?

How did you think most of the millions of Chinese students/immigrants living overseas arrived there? By secreting escaping CCP border patrols and staying in shipping containers?

April 18, 2010 @ 9:38 am | Comment

Ahh, sleep. So you’re talking waking day….I see…

“You are not allowed to have any leisure time at work?”
—but actually you’re no longer talking about the amount of time one loses as a proportion of one’s waking hours. Seems you begun to realize that work is work. So now you’re talking about coffee breaks and lunch time. So really, it’s about 1 – 1.5 hours of one’s day that isn’t necessarily company time where one is prevented from tweeting etc while at work. Still not “most” of the day, is it?

But here’s the thing. Is the company obligated to provide you with means of entertainment and information access on your own time? If a company says that you cannot tweet on your iPhone or watch videos with your laptop and wifi stick on your lunch hour, that’d be going too far. But please explain how the company is responsible for providing their workers with such access on company computers, simply for use during break time. This I’d love to hear.

“I believe in letting the workers decide what is an efficient use of their time”
—but you apparently don’t believe in letting CHinese people freely decide on how they should govern themselves. Interesting.

“This is what that Shangxi coal mine owner said when asked why he refused to implement all the security measures”
—umm, being efficient is completely separate from ensuring the safety of the workers. You’re comparing apples with hockey sticks.

“How did you think most of the millions of Chinese students/immigrants living overseas arrived there? ”
—by wanting to leave China, being allowed to leave, but also having a destination country willing to take them in. One can just quit a company. But one can’t just quit CHina, even if one wanted to.

April 18, 2010 @ 10:17 am | Comment

Merp
I’ve seen the Hollywood movies that distort history too. Was it Americans that took that German sub (I forget the name)? Was it Americans that faught single handedly in Northern France and the Pacific? I say this having watched Band of Brothers – can’t believe they didn’t meet any other allied force during their fighting to Germany.
Point is, yes, each country does exagerate their contribution to world history. Some more than others. You should feel comfortable – seems to be what you are espousing sometimes.
As for whether or not anyone deserves to live on the land they do – where do you draw the line? Should most English people leave their island and return to Northern Germany? Should Poland move 400 miles (or was if kms?) eastwards to it’s old borders…or indeed vanish as it was before the Great War? Should British people be justified in kicking out their immigrants? Should Inner Mongolia reunite in Mongolia? Or do you think all Mongolian lands, even those in what was the Soviet Union, be placed in Chinese hands? Should China actually be returned to Mongolia? How about Chinese incursions into Tibetan lands? I mean all of them, not just Tibet? Or Indian incursions to Tibet – should all of Tibet be freed of their Sino-Indian settlers?
Where do you draw the line?
Do you read of white farmers’ murders in southern Africa with glee? Even those white people that have lived there for, what, 4 centuries? How about Zulu incursions into non-Zulu land? What about the San – the original inhabitants? Should they be justified in getting rid of the Bantu speakers?
Then, of course, you have the question of those that inter-bred. Hmmm….where do they stand? Are they indigenous? Or do they get kicked out as well?
Serious argument here, mate, not just shit slinging.

HongXing – the old Hong “Let’s kill 5000 Hong Kongers and let the bodies rot in the Harbour as a warning to the rest” Xing? Ummm…you feel you have a pertinent argument here, HX? On any subject?

April 18, 2010 @ 11:49 am | Comment

where do you draw the line? Should most English people leave their island and return to Northern Germany? Should Poland move

So in other words, you’re saying it’s fine that China has taken control of Tibet. Or no wait, it’s not. White people can’t be inconvenienced to do the right thing, China has to and if it doesn’t we all jump down China’s throat. I think you captured the European (and their illegal anchor babies) viewpoint quite well.

All of those examples you brought up of course are good ones. The thing, white people are disproportionately a part of the problem in this one question. Logically your argument is “we did it first, we did it worse, we’re enjoying our loot, shut the fuck up”.

So who do you stop first, a psychopath with a long history of committing mass murder, or a petty thief? But yes I’d generally say it’s best for people to return to their homelands. If you have a situation like Japan or Britain where the people are deluded into thinking they’re homogeneous, then let them have their delusions I guess.

April 18, 2010 @ 12:06 pm | Comment

Merp
I am not saying the white people (and all other colours that followed – you’re being a bit homogenous here now) have the moral high ground. I am saying that is the situation now. There are many “apologising” for what they have done but it’s all….pish.
No – my main point is that you use this argument a lot – it’s our white assed fault for this and that but it’s OK for the Han to do it because…well, we, the pink folk, did it.
Either it is all OK or it is not. Either you accept what the pink people did and say that’s why the Han do it or you say it’s bad and maybe the Han should set an example.
There is not right or wrong in this argument – merely “that’s how it is”. I accept that the arguments leveled against the Han are stupid when coming from other immigrant nations. Don’t forget, I live in New Zealand – I am a pakeha and I have, it seems, advantages that the indigenous people here don’t…as is my wife and other asians. I know the arguments and I try to do what I can to change the situation to favour all (by voting for the parties that can do something – not a CCP option).

I fully accept that things were done in the past but undoing them is out of my hands. Things are the same in China – I can’t change them and I accpet them. I make no arguments other than those I make for the effects I have on the people whose land I now live in.

Britain is homogenous??? Which part – seems I missed it!

April 18, 2010 @ 1:46 pm | Comment

No – my main point is that you use this argument a lot – it’s our white assed fault for this and that but it’s OK for the Han to do it because…well, we, the pink folk, did it.

The thing is, the “Han” didn’t do it. If you’re talking about Tibet, the Tibetan Communists are equally “guilty”. Obviously treating Tibetans as barbarously as Europeans treated their subjects would not be right, which is why China doesn’t do it.

Britain is homogenous??? Which part – seems I missed it!

They seem to think so. That is, the British of 100 years back, not the ghettoized hodgepodge they have going now.

April 18, 2010 @ 2:06 pm | Comment

“it’s best for people to return to their homelands.”
This is why I have always said that China needs to be run by Mongolia, as it was traditionally during the Yuan Dynasty.

April 18, 2010 @ 2:10 pm | Comment

Kevin – I think it just means we all have to go back to Africa. But apparently when pink folk do that it’s wrong…

April 18, 2010 @ 2:50 pm | Comment

“he should, and that’s why he probably opposes opening china up to be flooded by foreign propaganda.”
—and I suppose you two good folks should be designated the purveyors of what Chinese citizens should or should not consume. Do Chinese people know that you 2 good comrades have been so appointed? Probably not, since they didn’t get a choice in that matter either. Well, at least the process is consistent.

“it’s best for people to return to their homelands.”
—as romantic a notion as that may seem, is that even within the realm of the possible, much less plausible and practical? For starters, most inhabitants of the Americas (and of course I’m talking the continents, and not just one country that captivates Merp’s attention), as well as Africa and Australia, would have to leave. And beyond that, many inhabitants of many island nations and archipelagos would also have to go. And depending on how far back in time you go, maybe we should just all retreat back into the sea. And even if you could send everybody in the world back to the place of their ancestry as defined at some historical point in time, the reality is it’s still 2010. How do you prevent people from turning right around and venturing far and wide to stake their turf anew? Fantasy doesn’t begin to describe what Merp is proposing. However, this is his only moral argument to justify Tibet: the usual “white guys” did it, so China can too song and dance. It’s too bad he doesn’t have a contemporary model to serve as justification. He’ll probably drag up Iraq and Afghanistan; but the difference is that “the west” hasn’t been there for 51 years, and is planning to leave; if he really wants to use that, the best it’s good for is that China moved into Tibet in 1959 to liberate the serfs, but what they should have done is to help average Tibetans set up their own form of representative governance, then leave. Even if you accept the first part, China certainly hasn’t done the last 2 parts.

As a further point of irony, Merp himself would have to go. Wonder how that’s going to go down.

April 18, 2010 @ 2:59 pm | Comment

But if Merp goes back to his “homeland,” he will realize that it is not as wonderful as he imagines it. This could be immensely dangerous.
He will then no longer have any stupid shit to write online, and might then disappear into thin air (key dramatic music), as his sole function on earth seems precisely to be writing such stupid shit online, which anyone who has spent any significant amount of time in China would never ever be naive enough to say!
For his mental stability and even his continued existence, I think all Americans should just stay in America, as a kind of Merp support group. I could handle Italy, but I wouldn’t want to force Merp back to live under his Mongol overlords!

April 18, 2010 @ 3:15 pm | Comment

Merp-o-san, up to your old tricks, I see, but that’s why we all love you.

So in other words, you’re saying it’s fine that China has taken control of Tibet. Or no wait, it’s not. White people can’t be inconvenienced to do the right thing, China has to and if it doesn’t we all jump down China’s throat.

You see, this is a straw man. None of my posts have ever said China doesn’t have territorial claims to Tibet, nor have I ever said China should give it up. Literally never. I would say virtually all my commenters know this isn’t happening, and no one here has ever insisted on it. What they have said was that China’s crackdown on Tibet was harsh, and that China could be a less heavy-handed in the way it’s administering the region. What they have said is that China’s demonization of the DL, the jackal and his clique, does little for them internationally. What they have said is that the Chinese often seem crazed on this topic, which is a matter of fact, not conjecture. Etc. This site is not Free Tibet, but you spew accusations that make it seem that way.

Another trolled-out thread.

Still working in Shanghai. After two relatively nice days, the rain has started again, though at least it’s warmer outside. Five more days to go.

April 18, 2010 @ 5:10 pm | Comment

SKC
Merp would have to leave twice over – from the US and from Taiwan.

Richard – rain? You lucky sod! Been waiting here for ages but no luck. Got a water tank (not mains water) and it just doesn’t want to rain here….so it’s a call to the water truck.

On China and Tibet (and yes, a western publication…so be aware…)
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/world/asia/18quake.html?ref=global-home

April 18, 2010 @ 6:23 pm | Comment

SK Cheung
and I suppose you two good folks should be designated the purveyors of what Chinese citizens should or should not consume. Do Chinese people know that you 2 good comrades have been so appointed? Probably not, since they didn’t get a choice in that matter either. Well, at least the process is consistent.

and I suppose YOU should have the right to force your views on the Chinese? It isn’t “us 2 good folks”, rather reason and logic and geopolitical sense. Millions of Chinese would agree with me.

argument to justify Tibet: the usual “white guys” did it, so China can too song and dance.

SK Cheung’s usual argument of white people are special and can’t be damned to do the right thing, while China doing a better job in Tibet than any Western power ever has means China is evil and bad.

@Kevin
But if Merp goes back to his “homeland,” he will realize that it is not as wonderful as he imagines it. This could be immensely dangerous.

Once you and your ilk have left, I’m sure it will be a great place. I’ve been to China, since before it was popular- and it was just fine to me. Then again I’m not a pampered brat like some people.

But since we arr rove lomance, your Chi-nee “wife” will not have to return to Bangkok and can go with you when you back your backs for England.

What they have said was that China’s crackdown on Tibet was harsh, and that China could be a less heavy-handed in the way it’s administering the region. What they have said is that China’s demonization of the DL

Crackdown was harsh? How would “they” know this considering they were not there at the time and the TYC’s propaganda is a heap of horseshit? China could be less heavy-handed? You mean they aren’t already lenient enough with their excessive minority policy? Not that they know what “China’s” (and Tibetan Communist) administration is like anyway. China’s demonization of the DL? It goes both ways. It’s just that unlike the Dalai Lama, the West despises the Chinese people so of course they’re not going to pay attention to this fact.

@Mike

I knew it wouldn’t take long for the garbage Western media to take a “China is evil” spin on the Yushu Earthquake.

April 19, 2010 @ 12:12 am | Comment

What they have said is that the Chinese often seem crazed on this topic

I supposed Jews would be crazed on the topic of Nazi propaganda as well, fancy that. That is if I were to go up to a Jew and say “Hitler tells me you’re a rat. Therefore you must be! And your children!”

The Nazi propagandists would have a lot to learn from Western media.

April 19, 2010 @ 12:13 am | Comment

Lets play “spot the propaganda” at novice level:

Tibetans, many of whom have long struggled to maintain their autonomy and cultural identity amid a Han-dominated country. Widespread Tibetan rioting against Han rule.

“They are everything to us,” said Oh Zhu Tsai Jia, 57, opening the trunk of his car so a group of young monks could pray over the body of his wife.

On Saturday morning, the monks ferried 1,400 bodies from the city’s main monastery to a dusty rise overlooking the city.

There, in two long trenches filled with salvaged wood, they dumped the dead and set cremation pyres ablaze.

“Those big bad hans,” said Kelsang, a nun “are stealing resources and destroying our culture!”

“These Tibetans, they are so lazy”, spat General Go Pi, an evil Han Chinese, as he took a bite from a dead Tibetan baby he found under the rubble. “You see, Chi-nee gov’ment no rike Tibet! We come here, onry for dericious Tibet baby for use in Evir Chinese medicine! Prus, we rike watch Tibetan suffel! Ho ho ho! HUA HUA HUA HO HO!”

Gotta love white reporters sitting in their armchairs in New York and then accepting any propaganda from “the ground” (that is anyone who sends anti-Chinese information to them while based within 1,500 miles of the story). I love all the parts where he makes up names and ages and mixes this all in with pure make-believe. I guess he wasn’t satisfied with the material his “source” sent him.

April 19, 2010 @ 12:26 am | Comment

pack your bags** not back your backs of course :p

April 19, 2010 @ 12:31 am | Comment

We all agree that proper management of information in the online world is a challenge faced by all governments and civil societies in today’s world. It is therefore not helpful to make wanton accusations that are not grounded in facts and without regard to the laws and conditions of different countries. And when it comes to “freedom of information”, the United States is probably a big violator of it.

The United States is pushing its hegemony under the pretense of “Internet freedom.” The United States monopolizes the strategic resources of the global Internet, and has been retaining a tight grip over the Internet ever since its first appearance. There are currently 13 root servers of Internet worldwide, and the United States is the place where the only main root server and nine out of the rest 12 root servers are located. All the root servers are managed by the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), which is, by the authority of the U.S. government, responsible for the management of the global root server system, the domain name system and the Internet Protocol address. The United States has declined all the requests from other countries as well as international organizations including the United Nations to break the U.S. monopoly over the root servers and to decentralize its management power over the Internet. The United States has been intervening in other countries’ domestic affairs in various ways taking advantage of its control over Internet resources.

The United States has a special troop of hackers, which is made up of hacker proficients recruited from all over the world. When post-election unrest broke out in Iran in the summer of 2009, the defeated reformist camp and its advocators used Internet tools such as Twitter to spread their messages. The U.S. State Department asked the operator of Twitter to delay its scheduled maintenance to assist with the opposition in creating a favorable momentum of public opinion. In May 2009, one web company, prompted by the U.S. authorities, blocked its Messenger instant messaging service in five countries including Cuba.

In essence, many American information technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, have evolved into instruments of US foreign policy, and become weapons wielded by the United States government in the battle for opinion on the world-wide stage. This is no longer a pure and innocent issue of “information freedom” but an issue of information hegemony and information imperialism; It has become politics.

April 19, 2010 @ 3:29 am | Comment

Merp, I wasn’t there for Abu Ghrain or Aushwitz or the My Lai massacre, but I know enough to be confident it wasn’t about tea and crumpets. I condemn them with everything I’ve got. Maybe the crackdown on Tibet wasn’t on that level but I believe it was harsh enough to have traumatized Tibetans at the time, and a long time afterward. I never accept propaganda. That’s why I am not a Free Tibet type. The whole scenario of the DL as a saint and the Chinese as Orcs is bullshit. I apply my own thinking after I get as good an idea of the facts as possible. You are just ranting (imagine that). Your comparison of the Jews’ attitude toward Hitler and that of the Chinese toward the Dalai Lama are specious and revolting and despicable. It is a form of derangement syndrome and exactly what I was referring to in my earlier comment. Hitler was liquidating the Jews. The DL has never suggested genocide against the Chinese people. But we won’t get anywhere here; your brain has just arrived fresh from the dry cleaners.

April 19, 2010 @ 7:34 am | Comment

Common Folk, this is amazing! If you go to this article you will see that somehow they lifted your comment, word for word! And the article is from a week ago!

Why do the trolls and idiots congregate here?

April 19, 2010 @ 7:40 am | Comment

Yes, because that text is a pretty good summary of the hypocrisy and irony of the current US stance on internet freedom. I forgot to cite my source because of carelessness, I apologize.

In any case, my point still stands.

April 19, 2010 @ 8:07 am | Comment

I understand, Common. It’s a very common mistake, cutting and pasting big blocks of copy, pretending it’s written by you and then, when you’re caught, saying you forgot that it’s from somewhere else. An easy thing to forget.

April 19, 2010 @ 8:32 am | Comment

“Twitter, the social networking website, postponed a scheduled maintenance shutdown after a US State Department request that it keep publishing during the Iran election protests.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/5552733/Twitter-maintained-service-during-Iranian-elections-after-US-State-Dept-request.html

“This morning at New York University’s graduation ceremonies at Yankee Stadium, Secretary Clinton offered a glimpse of this new approach to “21st Century statecraft” in her commencement speech. Citing the broad array of problems facing America and the world, including the threat of pandemics, the financial crisis and global warming, Clinton said, “We need to build new partnerships from the bottom up and use every tool at our disposal.”

http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/hillary-clinton-launches-21st-century-statecraft-initiative-state-department

How can world users trust that services like google/facebook/twitter will remain neutral and represent “information freedom and neutrality” when we already know that Twitter cooperates with requests with US dept of State? How can the world people trust those companies, when they have shown themselves to be the instruments of war under direct influence by US foreign policy makers under the banner of “21st century statecraft”?

April 19, 2010 @ 8:43 am | Comment

To 104:
“I suppose YOU should have the right to force your views on the Chinese?”
—once again, has someone not been paying attention? I do not seek to force my views on Chinese people, nor do I presume to know what Chinese people want. I’ll leave such activities to good folks like you, cuz they seem to be right in your wheelhouse. If you had been paying attention, you would have realized that all I ever suggest is to ask what Chinese people want for themselves, and to let them make their own decisions. Admittedly, that’s a big “if”, further complicated by the fact that it involves concepts well beyond your grasp.

If Chinese people, when given the choice, prefer that their government restrict their access to information, fantastic. If CHinese people, when given the choice, prefer the same mode of governance as they’ve got now, wonderful. You get the idea…then again, probably not.

“SK Cheung’s usual argument of white people are special”
—I’d ask if you know how to read, but I suspect I know the answer to that already too.

“Once you and your ilk have left, I’m sure it will be a great place. I’ve been to China, since before it was popular- and it was just fine to me.”
—LOL. China is already pretty good, but would be much better if all the foreigners left and it became “purely CHinese”, whatever that means. Ahhh, Merp and his warm fuzzy thoughts. Oh, and Merp’s been to China, and it was just fine, but not fine enough to live in, which is why he lives in the US and waxes poetic about the beauty of being a Chinese citizen in China, about which he speaks from an abundance of experience.

“Not that they know what “China’s” (and Tibetan Communist) administration is like anyway.”
—but apparently, Merp does! And he gained such knowledge by living in the US! Amazing!

To 106:
yes, the article reports anecdotes. And your evidence that the author was simply engaging in “creative writing”? I’m waiting….still waiting….

Anything there that you would like to point out to be untrue, AND have a legitimate basis for so saying? (of course not including your idiotic second-to-last paragraph).

Here’s the thing: everything is propaganda to you…makes the term meaningless. If you don’t agree with something, it’s “propaganda”. If something is critical of the CCP, it’s “western media bias”. When someone writes something in NYT that you don’t like but can’t possibly disprove, it’s “he makes up names and ages and mixes this all in with pure make-believe.” You’re one classy dude…but then I knew that already too.

Hey, since you said this (““it’s best for people to return to their homelands.”), how about responding to what I wrote about it in #100 instead of the usual ignore-it-and-run-away tactic you like to employ.

April 19, 2010 @ 8:49 am | Comment

To CF #111:
“In any case, my point still stands.”
—duly noted. Could you please tell me what part of #108 is “your point”? Thanks a bunch.

April 19, 2010 @ 8:55 am | Comment

it’s best for people to return to their homelands

That would be interesting. Not only would Merp have leave America and return to the plains around the Yellow River, he’d also have to queue for a visa if he ever wants to take a holiday in Tibet.

April 19, 2010 @ 11:06 am | Comment

“Once you and your ilk have left, I’m sure it will be a great place. I’ve been to China, since before it was popular- and it was just fine to me.”
My wife lived in China before it was popular. She thinks it’s much better now. Of course, in those days she didn’t have the privilege you had of being able to leave freely….

April 19, 2010 @ 11:29 am | Comment

“your Chi-nee “wife” will not have to return to Bangkok”

That’s funny Ferin, because your mom never mentioned that she is of Thai descent! That explains a lot…

“Once you and your ilk have left, I’m sure it will be a great place. I’ve been to China, since before it was popular- and it was just fine to me.”

I’ve been out of China for a while, as have you. Because we both know where life’s truly comfortable, and not “just fine” (your words, not mine). The only difference between us is that one of us has an inferiority complex about that decision and deals with it by creating a romantic and idealist image of China that doesn’t exist, while ranting angrily against the United States to deny the fact that you couldn’t stand to not live here.

April 19, 2010 @ 11:46 am | Comment

I guess I killed that conversation…

April 21, 2010 @ 4:43 am | Comment

Merp, any comments you write that denigrate another commenter’s wife will not get published. If I miss it and see it later, I’ll delete it.

Richard

April 21, 2010 @ 9:31 am | Comment

Common Folk, doubtless you are right to claim that the internet is nowhere a neutral, unblemished network, and that the U.S. government uses it for its own geo-political purposes. That’s Realpolitik. But so what?

The one example you keep harping on about is that when the Iranian government was returned to power following what is commonly agreed was a fradulent election, and then went on to massively curtail freedom of expression and civil liberties, the U.S. government actively tried to keep avenues of communication open for the beleagured opposition. Doubtless the USA did this for its own self interests … but nevertheless it was in this case on the side of the angels, right?

What YOU need to do is to cite a case where the U.S. government fundamentally censored the internet in order to hide embarrassingly political information being disseminated.

Because, after all, we all know that governments act in their own selfish interests, but what matters is when this violates what I and every decent, undeluded individual considers a fundamental human right — the right to freely discuss political and social issues without the intervention of Big Brother.

So pleaase stop the sophistic obfuscation.

April 22, 2010 @ 12:06 pm | Comment

Furthermore, “information imperialism” is little more than an expression used in desparation by those who are losing the war of ideas.

April 22, 2010 @ 12:17 pm | Comment

What YOU need to do is to cite a case where the U.S. government fundamentally censored the internet in order to hide embarrassingly political information being disseminated.

They bury it before it reaches the internet, ever hear of “top secret”?

April 23, 2010 @ 6:53 am | Comment

“They bury it before it reaches the internet, ever hear of “top secret”?”

Nah. Your colleagues at CCP hacker HQ would make mincemeat of such feeble defences. Don’t you think, old sport?

April 23, 2010 @ 9:21 am | Comment

“Top Secret”??
Yeah, like that works really well!

Ever hear of “leaked information”?

April 23, 2010 @ 9:51 am | Comment

Because, after all, we all know that governments act in their own selfish interests, but what matters is when this violates what I and every decent, undeluded individual considers a fundamental human right — the right to freely discuss political and social issues without the intervention of Big Brother.

This is too subjective a statement. To roughly impose a “fundamental human right” without regard to the cultural and historical conditions of each country is itself a violation of human rights.

As for the “censorship” issue, there are many cases of censorship by the US and other Western governments today, I believe you do not need me to point to you some of these cases.

As for China, of course China has its own laws and regulations governing the management of online information. No country will allow the internet to be filled with pornography, violence, gambling, feudal superstitions, publishing articles on subverting the government, ethic separatism, religious extremism, racism, terrorism, hatred, and xenophobia. On what basis can a company such as Google, under the slogan of “freedom of information”, force the American values upon another people? Is that not the biggest violation of freedom?

In essence, many US technology companies like Google, Twitter, Facebook are keen to use the Internet to act as a tool of conducting cultural infiltration and value infiltration.

Thus the phrase Information Imperialism.

April 23, 2010 @ 11:25 am | Comment

“They bury it before it reaches the internet, ever hear of “top secret”?”

So you can’t cite a single example.

It’s like when UFO fanatics say aliens have visited Earth, and when one asks for evidence they’ll say it’s a U.S. government conspiracy to “hide the truth”.

So, in other words, you don’t know of a single example but just ASSUME it’s a fact.

April 23, 2010 @ 2:24 pm | Comment

Ferin’s just falling back on the ole reliable idea of “state secrets.” They use it internally to imprison innocent people, and externally to serve as an answer when you run out of arguments. Either way it makes no sense, except to members of the CCP cult.

April 23, 2010 @ 2:44 pm | Comment

To CF #126:
“This is too subjective a statement. To roughly impose a “fundamental human right” without regard to the cultural and historical conditions of each country is itself a violation of human rights.”
—agreed.

“As for the “censorship” issue, there are many cases of censorship by the US and other Western governments today, I believe you do not need me to point to you some of these cases.”
—actually, I’m not aware of “many”. Could you cite some?

I agree with your third paragraph as well, in principle. The major problem, though, is that, while you object to Google “forc(ing) the American values upon another people”, you’re neglecting that the CCP is forcing her party values upon the Chinese people. If Google is violating the freedom of Chinese people, how would you characterize what the CCP is doing?

Your fourth paragraph is comprised of an unsubstantiated accusation. Not only that, but the availability of Twitter etc only means that Chinese people can actively seek out alternate cultural influences if they wish. If they choose to accept such influences, it’s hardly imperialism. Your argument as it is presented here does not justify the use of your buzz words.

April 25, 2010 @ 12:21 pm | Comment

“This is too subjective a statement. To roughly impose a “fundamental human right” without regard to the cultural and historical conditions of each country is itself a violation of human rights.”

Common Folk, you are truly sad. When you wake up and look at your face in the mirror don’t you squirm with self-loathing, not merely for your parroting of the tattered and shop-soiled justifications for authoritarianism but also of its rhetorical tropes and cliches?

April 25, 2010 @ 4:36 pm | Comment

China should offer to buy Greece, which is broke but has several things totally missing in the Middle Kingdom: democracy and its philosophical underpinnings, good salads and a beach culture.

April 26, 2010 @ 12:10 am | Comment

Common Folk says:
“To roughly impose a “fundamental human right” without regard to the cultural and historical conditions of each country is itself a violation of human rights.”

A right is a legal entitlement. You cannot “impose” a right, let alone
“roughly impose” it. Common Folk is basically saying that the right to freely discuss political and social issues is interfering with the people’s right to shut up.

“cultural infiltration and value infiltration” is not related to fundamental human rights – it is one of the bases of xenophobia.

“Cultural Imperialism” is an Orwellian style euphemism for xenophobia.

April 26, 2010 @ 1:31 am | Comment

I recommend this interesting article from NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/world/americas/24iht-currents.html?scp=1&sq=open%20source%20china&st=cse

Long story short. China is Mac and US is Linux. Top down authoritarianism vs bottom up open
society. Which one do you think is a better model?

April 26, 2010 @ 3:19 am | Comment

Which one do you think is a better model?

Another stupid question. No such thing as a better model, only the most suitable model for a country.

Why always be so simplistic?

April 26, 2010 @ 5:14 am | Comment

“only the most suitable model for a country”

Countries don’t have specific models – ruling parties impose the models on the people.
It’s not an in-built genetic thing. If it was, Germans (for example) would still be living under authoritarian rulers, Chinese people living abroad would not vote or partake in the parliamentary democarcy process and Japanese people would still be worshipping their emperor.

April 26, 2010 @ 6:41 am | Comment

None sense, absolute none sense.

April 26, 2010 @ 9:56 am | Comment

“only the most suitable model for a country.”
—is Mac OS better or is Linux better? Who knows? Depends on what you’re using it for, how you’re using it, whether you have prior experience with one or the other, personal preference…the list goes on. But the bottom line is that the “better” one is the one the user(s) prefer. And the one thing you can say for sure is that Chinese people don’t get to choose their OS.

April 26, 2010 @ 10:14 am | Comment

But the bottom line is that the “better” one is the one the user(s) prefer.

Or you mean 3 users choosing for themselves and two other users. If we had your way, there would be no Macs to begin with since they’re the minority.

April 26, 2010 @ 10:33 am | Comment

“Or you mean 3 users choosing for themselves and two other users.”
—sure beats having some schmuck who isn’t even computer-literate making the choice on behalf of the users themselves.

April 26, 2010 @ 10:39 am | Comment

HX, comment 136
You are right there – you’ve made absolutely no sense.

Merp – minorities can have their Macs too. They’d just remain minorities. Bit like the Liberal Democrats in the UK…

April 26, 2010 @ 11:37 am | Comment

sure beats having some schmuck who isn’t even computer-literate making the choice on behalf of the users themselves.

And that beats having 3 complete and utter evil retards choosing for you. Because their religious book told them so, or maybe because they listen too much to mainstream media.

April 26, 2010 @ 12:58 pm | Comment

Wow, how original. You do realize you were the “schmuck who isn’t even computer-literate”, right? You want to make choices for Chinese people without having to live with the consequences of such choices…how noble. Me, I say let Chinese people decide for themselves. If they want Mac OS, great. If they want Linux, awesome. If they want to make their own system, fantastic.

You, on the other hand, remain engrossed with your pre-pubescent fixation with “mainstream media”, all the while trying to make decisions for others without having the conviction to experience the consequences of such decisions yourself.

April 26, 2010 @ 1:37 pm | Comment

“If we had your way, there would be no Macs to begin with since they’re the minority.”

Hello! Macs would still exist, they’d just be in the minority.
If you want to find somewhere that Macs wouldn’t exist, a more accurate example would be a one-Party system, of the type that you so vigorously defend.
Ever tried thinking logically?

April 27, 2010 @ 1:22 am | Comment

The comparison of the Apple eco-system and China is striking.

The Apple Company (the analogy of CCP) is led by a visionary and determined Steve Jobs who was once fired and later brought back (Deng Xiaoping was twice purged and later rehabilitated). He went on to build the fastest growing, most successful company in recent decades. In the recent versions of Mac OS (for iPhone and iPad) everything is controlled by Apple. You can only install software from Apple’s Apps Store. If Apple finds something objectionable on the Web (Flash based content), it keeps it away from the user, like erecting a great firewall.

But Mac just works. Once you go Mac, you will never go back. Exactly like China.

April 27, 2010 @ 3:37 am | Comment

Hello! Macs would still exist, they’d just be in the minority.

I suppose you’re voting for Ralph Nader or Ron Paul?

April 27, 2010 @ 3:56 am | Comment

Hmmm…all this talk of Macs….feel hungry….

April 27, 2010 @ 7:31 am | Comment

“I suppose you’re voting for Ralph Nader or Ron Paul?”
Your point is…?

April 27, 2010 @ 8:31 am | Comment

But Serve, Apple never had its brains sucked out of its skull like China under Mao, nor did it discourage radical thinking and questioning authority. An imperfect analogy. If we’re going to take that route I would compare China to some type of fantastical hybrid machine, like fusing a Batmobile and a donkey, something totally unlikely, almost impossible to conceive, the most advanced and most primitive technologies somehow patched together and somehow all working in synch, always going, always working even though it seems impossible, but never far from a possible breakdown (which will then somehow self-correct).

April 27, 2010 @ 9:16 am | Comment

Liked this
http://blogs.reuters.com/photo/2010/04/14/the-china-i-met-a-land-of-contradictions/

Loved some of the comments too – the 50 centers aren’t picked for brains, are they?

April 27, 2010 @ 11:13 am | Comment

To 144:
“Once you go Mac, you will never go back.”
—and that’s a CHOICE you’re certainly free to make. On the matter of choice, how’s that “Exactly like China”?

April 27, 2010 @ 11:22 am | Comment

Your point is…?

Not very quick are you? When’s the last time an independent won a major election in America?

::crickets::

Back to Sojourners pathetic argument about the US not keeping secrets:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/04/01/2862210.htm

April 27, 2010 @ 12:02 pm | Comment

Quick enough to recognize your pathetic attempt at bait and switch.
First you made a ridiculous comparison between Apple and political parties, saying that in a majority rules system you wouldn’t have Apple. I pointed out that it’s more accurate to say that you wouldn’t have Apple in a one-party totalitarian system of the type that you always defend, in which all alternatives are muzzled and suppressed. The CCP is like Microsoft on steroids, actually capable of enforcing a complete monopoly. Except it’s a badly managed Microsoft- Windows Vista sucked, but at least millions didn’t die because of it.
In a non-dictatorial system, Apple can exist without being locked up, even if it’s just in the minority.
Clearly unable to deal with real logic, you dodged this issue and brought up Ralph Nader and Ron Paul. If they don’t win elections, they also aren’t rounded up and sent to prison. And oh, I can even search their names on google! I guess they aren’t one of those “top secrets”!
Can I look up a second party on a Chinese search engine? People are even afraid to type the characters for Communist Party because it’s a blocked word sometimes, so you have to type GCD in postings!
So, your comment about Macs was completely ridiculous, but that’s pretty much par for the course with you.
Cue personal insults…

April 27, 2010 @ 1:27 pm | Comment

Quick enough to recognize your pathetic attempt at bait and switch.
First you made a ridiculous comparison between Apple and political parties, saying that in a majority rules system you wouldn’t have Apple.

Nope, I said that there would be no Apple in SK Cheung’s perfect, happy, flawless fairy tale land. This is because the majority would simply crush it to death.

Learn how to read.

Except it’s a badly managed Microsoft- Windows Vista sucked, but at least millions didn’t die because of it.

Luckily democracy doesn’t kill millions. Oh wait, millions have already died in Iraq. Millions died in Vietnam. Millions died in Korea. Millions died in the Philippines.

You lost this one, too.

And oh, I can even search their names on google! I guess they aren’t one of those “top secrets”!

Obviously they aren’t, because they aren’t a threat to national security- unlike things such as the Apache Gun-cam footage which was suppressed. But once it was leaked, America could do nothing- because their “legitimacy” is based in the public’s delusion of America being transparent in democratic, when in fact it is the worst human rights violator in human history after Nazi Germany.

April 27, 2010 @ 2:42 pm | Comment

Nice points, Kevin.

Furthermore, Merp is forever fixated in his rant against the US and the two-party system, while continuing to remain oblivious to many other democratic countries who boast multi-party systems which sometimes result in minority or coalition governments, thus rendering his fascination with “independents” fairly moot. But Merp has never been one to let reality get in the way of his perception thereof.

But since he’s curious about “an independent (winning) a major election in America”, maybe he’d share with us when was the last time an “independent” was allowed to run in a major election in China. Or better yet, when was the last “major election” in CHina.

April 27, 2010 @ 2:52 pm | Comment

Furthermore, Merp is forever fixated in his rant against the US and the two-party system, while continuing to remain oblivious to many other democratic countries who boast multi-party systems which sometimes result in minority or coalition governments, thus rendering his fascination with “independents” fairly moot. But Merp has never been one to let reality get in the way of his perception thereof.

Yes, let us not fixate on the key piece on the board. Many independent parties? So you’re saying these so-called democratic nations are free to choose who they want to lead them. L. O. L.

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

Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925–17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba’s government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis.[1] He was subsequently imprisoned and murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States.[2][3]

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

was the Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953 when he was overthrown in a coup d’état backed by the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

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

was a physician and the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in the Americas… …General Augusto Pinochet deposed Allende [3] in a U.S.-backed[4] coup d’état on September 11, 1973 [1]

So yeah, you can vote for whoever the CIA wants you to vote for, or they invade your country/kill your PM and install a dictator that is friendly to Western interests.

I love how you think Canada is such a great example of democracy when we obviously know a non-white nation like China would face endless hostility and hatred from the Christian US.

April 27, 2010 @ 3:11 pm | Comment

OMG Merp, you are something else.

“What YOU need to do is to cite a case where the U.S. government fundamentally censored the internet in order to hide embarrassingly political information being disseminated.” (Sojourner 121)

““They bury it before it reaches the internet, ever hear of “top secret”?” (Merp 123)

“So you can’t cite a single example.” (Sojourner 127)

Sojourner was talking about internet censorship. Your response was a mindless catch-phrase. Sojourner called you on it. So in a fruitless effort to salvage some face, you scour the internet for almost 4 full days, and all you can come up with is that article in 151?

Have you even read the article? The banner may say “ABC News”, but it’s not the “ABC News” that most people would know. No idea who these guys are. Be that as it may, the article references Japanese “secrets”. And they date back to Cold War years. How is that an example of US “internet” censorship to prevent the dissemination of “embarrassing” information? Not to mention that this Japanese “principle” governed nukes on their soil, whereas we’re only talking US warships making ports of call in Japan, and US warships are US territory, so whatever nukes they may or may not have been carrying were never on Japanese soil in the first place. But that’s probably a bit much for you to grasp. For a face-saving exercise, that was a big swing-and-a-miss. And you’ve got proverbial egg all over yourself. Maybe 4 days wasn’t enough time…

Is it too much to ask of people to make relevant arguments, and to do so with relevant links? For some, evidently.

April 27, 2010 @ 3:19 pm | Comment

Sojourner was talking about internet censorship. Your response was a mindless catch-phrase. Sojourner called you on it. So in a fruitless effort to salvage some face, you scour the internet for almost 4 full days, and all you can come up with is that article in 151?

Oh so I see Richard deleted my comment about American Cold War atrocities. How typical. I’d tear you a new one in any forum where the moderators are not incredibly biased pro-American megatrolls.

Here is the deleted post:

@Sojourner
So you can’t cite a single example.

Nice fail at logic. You can, if you were ever damned to get a real education, see that the CIA releases many of these old “top secret” documents (their words, not mine) with “top secret” crossed out to the public.

40-50 years after the deeds have been done.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-09.pdf (NOTE THE URL. IT’S FROM THE FUCKING CIA)

Here’s the US Gov’t doing a 180 on their assessment of the Sino-Indian border wars. Much more sophisticated than the warmed over dreck the likes of stuart and his ilk like to pander on the internet.

April 27, 2010 @ 3:31 pm | Comment

Here is more on America’s obfuscation of the facts via the net:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/03/report-recruit/

April 27, 2010 @ 3:33 pm | Comment

Merp
Germany is also the west. So is New Zealand. And Italy. There’s also Britain.
Why your fixation on the US system? The US is not THE west, only one country in that sphere.

“Not very quick are you? When’s the last time an independent won a major election in America?”
When was the last time one could ask the same about the People’s Rupublic? Seems only to work in the ROC….something the PRC (with your help) wants to stamp out.

April 27, 2010 @ 6:06 pm | Comment

@cheung
Or better yet, when was the last “major election” in CHina.

Merp and his fellow trolls are likely gonna say: HU Jintao elected president by National People’s Congress with a total of 2,963 votes; XI Jinping elected vice president with a total of 2,919 votes

But wait!
Announced candidacy February 24, 2008 on Meet the Press. Nader received 738,475 votes,the third highest total in the popular vote count.

738,475 votes: not elected in the US with 309,147,000 people
2,963 votes: elected as President of China where there is 1.3 billion people

How does that work, merp?

April 27, 2010 @ 6:51 pm | Comment

@merp

When’s the last time an independent won a major election in America?

When was the last time the whole Chinese nation and its people enjoyed universal suffrage?

The answer to my question is the answer to your question =)

April 27, 2010 @ 6:56 pm | Comment

@Mike
There’s also Britain.

I wonder what is merp’s take on the emergence of Nick Cleggs and the Liberal Democrats in the upcoming UK general election? Wasn’t the UK a battle between the Tories and Labour for decades? How will merp explain the rise of the Lib Dems as a third force in UK politics?

April 27, 2010 @ 7:02 pm | Comment

@Serve
But Mac just works. Once you go Mac, you will never go back. Exactly like China.

But autocratic rule just perpetuates. Once you have an emperor (red ones included), you will never go back. Exactly like the CCP.

April 27, 2010 @ 7:08 pm | Comment

@merp

When’s the last time an independent won a major election in America?

Oh,one more thing.

When was the last time China had a non-Han as head of government since the last century? Or a female head of government in modern times?

While, at least America now has a non-white president.
UK had Maggie as PM for 11 years.
Germany has Angela Merkel as chancellor.
NZ has Helen Clark as PM before.
Sarkozy, the current French President, is of mixed national and ethnic ancestry.

So what did China had since 1949? Mao, Deng, Jiang and Hu: All domineering Han males!

April 27, 2010 @ 7:19 pm | Comment

Christ, kill this thread. You guys are debating merp (!) a troll whose moniker is synonymous with racialist bile and logical fallacy, full stop. He’s never won one argument, yet never conceded defeat.

April 27, 2010 @ 7:42 pm | Comment

It’s not very common to see a Chinese person writing about other country’s politics, this article was written by Jeanette Chiang, the Europe bureau chief for China Times.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/apr/25/where-are-the-modernisers

I found the comments section was very interesting to read, especially when some readers didn’t realise that China Times is a Taiwaness newspaper which supports KMT.

April 27, 2010 @ 8:11 pm | Comment

Christ, kill this thread.

Nope. Merp/ferin is providing a daily dose of comic relief by spewing his/her/its xenophobic and bigoted venom (often done without utilizing the organ between his/her/its ears) all over this tread 😀

April 27, 2010 @ 8:13 pm | Comment

when we obviously know a non-white nation like China would face endless hostility and hatred from the Christian US.

Yup, just as the Vietnamese will face endless hostility and bullying from the CCP rulers who think they ruled a “Celestial Empire”. They even block up the Mekong river upstream. A suzerain mentality indeed!

April 27, 2010 @ 11:46 pm | Comment

“How typical. I’d tear you a new one in any forum where the moderators are not incredibly biased pro-American megatrolls.”
Two comments:
1. Ah, Ferin would like to inform us that if only we could see all of his argument, we would be left with no choice but to agree. It’s not his delusions and inability to string together even a veneer of coherence, but the fact that one of his posts was deleted, that leaves us unconvinced.
Furthermore, it was a post about “American Cold War atrocities.” Maybe the moderator in fact didn’t delete it: maybe it was the CIA! A “top secret,” indeed!
Everybody stay online, I’ll do a google search and see if I can get over the American firewall to learn more about this, and fill you in!
2. After all of the immense patience shown to you on this site, it seems slightly ungracious to label the moderator an “incredibly biased pro-American megatroll.” However, it’s not suprising. The frustration of having your completely innane arguments repeatedly torn to pieces leaves you with no choice but to accuse people of bias, propaganda, and then sink into personal attacks.
I’ve had my fun with you but this is getting far too repetitive. You’re like one of those inflatable punching bags that keeps popping back up with a goofy look on its face.
http://tinyurl.com/2722pdd

April 28, 2010 @ 12:08 am | Comment

I wonder if Ralph Nader, Ron Paul, or actually anyone (Ferin included), ever says “gosh, I wish I lived in China!”
Here’s what happens when you try to help a paraplegic friend:
http://tinyurl.com/37ktyt7

April 28, 2010 @ 12:29 am | Comment

To tell the truth, Kevin, the main reason I’ve deleted various Merp comments this week was his attacks against other commenters wives, including yours and Michael’s. That won’t fly. Neither will the insane “America did everything evil since time began” repeat post, which is basically the essence of every Ferin post anyway. I allow him to make this argument, but when he paints a picture of Aericans roamoing the world and blowing out the brains of helpless babies and their mothers everywhere I feel no remorse in hitting the delete button.

Agree that this thread should be put to pasture. But until I get over my current writer’s block it’s the bast I can offer.

April 28, 2010 @ 12:54 am | Comment

I understand completely, and truly appreciate your hitting the delete button on those- there’s nothing more pathetic than Ferin turning personal.
I was joking in my comments about being unable to see his full argument, as he claimed. I imagine it’s just more racist-cum-delusional drivel, a kind of one-man Tea Party. At this point, I could probably even predict what he says and write it myself.
Even though Ferin appears to be a fixture on this site, I’ve come to feel like we might all benefit from looking the other way when he posts. Sometimes I enjoy stirring him up and getting him to say stupid things, but the end product is all too predictable.

April 28, 2010 @ 2:14 am | Comment

@Chi, comment 166
Nice article – rings true with me 🙂 One reason I left the UK was the….stagnation. Don’t get me wrong, I am British (though born in Brunei and having an Austrian mother and having lived anywhere but Britain for the first decade of my life) and I love the concept of being British, however arcanely 19th century that sounds 🙂 But buggered if I’ll ever be tempted to go back – NZ has more.
As for wanting to live in China, many Chinese have voted with their feet and are not living there (including Merp). Last I read (I believe I linked the article here a while back) more Chinese than Britons have come to NZ under some family program (parents emigrating to be with their children). A walk down Auckland’s Queen Street suggests many Chinese are more comfortable here (as well as Koreans, etc) than “at home”.

April 28, 2010 @ 6:17 am | Comment

@Kevin, comment 170
Enlightening comments in your link.

April 28, 2010 @ 6:26 am | Comment

As for wanting to live in China, many Chinese have voted with their feet and are not living there

Oh yes because not even 1% of the population immigration, and less than 5% expressing a will to leave, are “voting with their feet”.

I guess every emigrant nation must have horrible countries, which is why there are hundreds of millions of Anglo-Saxons in places they really don’t belong like the Iroquois Nation or Aotearoa.

April 28, 2010 @ 6:29 am | Comment

and there are more white foreigners in China than the other way around- millions upon millions of Russians in Outer Manchuria and Tuva.

April 28, 2010 @ 6:30 am | Comment

“I said that there would be no Apple in SK Cheung’s perfect, happy, flawless fairy tale land. This is because the majority would simply crush it to death.”
—huh? What on earth are you talking about? Apple exists despite Microsoft. The GOP exists despite the Dems being in majority. Now, our political system is one of democracy…so you’re right in the sense that we’re not communist and democratic at the same time (of course, those are mutually exclusive anyway, but just thought I’d point it out to you). However, if you want to start a communist party of America, you’re welcome to (in fact, there might already be one in existence that you can join). And if someday, lo and behold, they resonate with the people, who knows, we might go communist ourselves. But the one system where all dissent is crushed is China’s. You should really get that straight in your head by now.

“Millions died in Vietnam. Millions died in Korea.”
—you seem to be forgetting the role of the combatants on the other side.

“worst human rights violator in human history after Nazi Germany”
—I normally don’t do this, but you throw around “Nazi’s” with such reckless abandon that I’ll make an exception for you, since you richly deserve it: “worst human rights violator in human history after Nazi Germany” and China.

To 155:
did you read the entirety of those wiki entries? Or just the parts that were convenient for you?
In Congo, the PM enacted change that was unpopular with the army. He was locked in a power struggle with the president. Eventually the president won, and you may choose to belief the conspiracy theory aspects of that article…after all, that is very “you”. However, note also that those aspects come with a common refrain: “citation needed”. So you can do with that what you will.

In Iran, there was maybe more substantiation of outside involvement. Even then, however, the conspiracy theories are in serious need of “citations”…though the bribing of the Shah’s sister with mink coats is amusing reading.

In Chile, there was already a popular uprising against Allende’s rule. If the people didn’t want him, then he should be gone. However, I doubt the CCP would be so progressive and enlightened in their thinking.

“non-white nation like China would face endless hostility and hatred from the Christian US.”
—oh look, now Merp is making it an issue about race and religion. Must you always regress to the lowest of lows?

To 157:
nice try, but what’s that got to do with Sojourner’s point about internet censorship? You’ve actually linked to documents on the internet…that’s the exact opposite of your supposed argument. You really are something. And you’ve yet to offer any justification for the goofy link you provided in #151. It is becoming rather typical of you.

Oh, and since you liked paragraph #2 of #154 so much as to quote it in its entirety, you should give those questions in paragraph #3 a try. I’d love to hear your answers. After all, there’s nothing better than a good laugh.

April 28, 2010 @ 7:38 am | Comment

“and there are more white foreigners in China than the other way around- millions upon millions of Russians in Outer Manchuria and Tuva.”

Loads of Russians in….Russia….riiiight…..

April 28, 2010 @ 8:37 am | Comment

Merp, old sport, when you post ad nauseum about America as a Nazi-like state and keep referring to American Indians and Chile, no matter what the topic of discussion is, and refer to other comments as “idiotic drivel” and say hateful things about commenters’ wives – if you do these things, don’t feign surprise when those comments don’t appear. Surely, if your case is so strong, you can make these arguments in a civil, meticulous way, without obscenities and ad hominems. Look carefully at what comments of yours get published and which don’t, try to identify where you cross the line, and try to learn from that.

April 28, 2010 @ 9:59 am | Comment

Now that I think about it, as generally intelligent people, maybe we could try having a normal conversation, instead of being drawn into constant circular engagement with trolls (a mistake of which I am just as guilty as anyone else).
To start, I found this article, on the topic of international PR by the PRC, interesting albeit brief:
http://tinyurl.com/3xrsqnl
What do you think?

April 28, 2010 @ 11:06 am | Comment

There seems to be many differences in opinion over a wide range of issues, from human rights to information management on the internet. China and US are wholly different countries with different histories, cultures, and values. It is therefore normal to have differences of opinion over these issues. What is important is to keep dialog open, and to have a open-mind and high tolerance and try to take into account each country’s unique situation. After all, we should definitely avoid imposing a fixed system of values over another country without reconciliation and respect for cultural and political diversity. There’s no system that’s “best”, no universal development mode that’s “correct”, there’s only the path of development most suitable for each country, and each country must find its own path of development. I think with more inter-cultural and inter-civilizational dialog, we can work out our differences and together build a harmonious, peaceful, and politically diverse world.

April 28, 2010 @ 11:33 am | Comment

Kevin – don’t you recall how China was before the Olympics? I recall listening to all sort, like, as I recall, Have Your Say done in Beijing. Rather funny as the government official in the panel said, on air, that there was no 1 child policy in China – people just chose to have one child 🙂
All marketing – and I think every country is guilty of that…just some bend the truth a bit further than others.
Of course, hard to make a correct judgement by reading all the press – apparently some are biased against and some fawningly for the regime in the PRC…what’s a boy to think?

Still wondering why Merp equates Russians in Russian territory as an influx of foreigners in China….

April 28, 2010 @ 12:05 pm | Comment

To Kevin,
I’m guilty as charged as well. If you ever find a cure for such a predicament, I’m all ears.

Interesting op-ed piece. China obviously has a stellar track-record of controlling media within her borders with an iron fist, and even if the internet has nipped away at the outer reaches of its control, there are still numerous red lines that cannot be crossed. Such lines in the sand are motivated by party interest, rather than the electorate’s interest, and are enforced by “laws” based on convenience rather than that based on principle. Unless and until such barriers are addressed, there will remain a dichotomy between what Chinese experience in China and what China wishes outsiders to perceive of that experience.

That said, it seems very plausible that China would embark on a PR campaign. She is an emerging power, and such powers not infrequently seek to project their strength. She is also in need of playing some serious catch-up in this arena, and has the means of investing in same. Ultimately, this will be a good thing. If there is in fact a sentiment of fear among a certain subset of the population towards China, then more information contact and exchange is a reasonable way to combat it. To combat it is to introduce the notion that Chinese are more similar than dissimilar to other peoples in the world, replete with shared goals and wants. There stands to be a greater benefit as well, if a new and different voice can help to hold the traditional voices to account.

Ultimately, the success of China’s PR offensive will be predicated on her ability to disarm the cynicism that many probably hold towards her underlying machinations. There’s no point projecting an international voice that isn’t believed…for that, there’s already Xinhua and the People’s Daily. This will likely be their biggest challenge…how to be taken seriously when she is funded by the same masters, and constrained by the same chains, as her homeland predecessors.

April 28, 2010 @ 12:17 pm | Comment

I agree that it’s important to recognize similarity over dissimilarity, but I also think that a lot of “publicity” promoted by China attempts to do just the opposite, saying that “we Chinese” have a special way of doing things which “we” are coming to tell “you” all about. And it is only because of a “Western bias” that “you” formerly misunderstood “us.” In that way, I think it sort of tries to reinforce difference, at least as far as I have seen. And who does this “we” represent?
About the one-child claim before the Olympics, it makes me think of Chi Haotian, who claimed in a speech at some US college in the 90s that not a single person died in Tiananmen. From my perspective , such claims go beyond marketing to simply make Chi and other spokespeople appear idiotic, and rather than easing people’s concerns instead confirm people’s worst fears about the Chinese government.
I tend to think that there is a real need for openness and discussion within China before Beijing can attempt to promote a truly positive image of itself overseas. Otherwise, at times of pressure, they’ll simply retreat to the same old tired propagandistic tactics used at home. It’s almost like inviting a home-schooled Christian fundamentalist to a college debate on evolution: people are simply working on different levels.

April 28, 2010 @ 1:30 pm | Comment

“It’s almost like inviting a home-schooled Christian fundamentalist to a college debate on evolution”
—in a word, “Kansas”.

It would be ideal if the image China wishes to project, of openness etc etc, is reflective of the reality back home. I imagine such openness will be in short supply in the foreseeable future. But an image of openness her PR machine will likely try to project nonetheless. Whether people will buy the image, or realize that the substance doesn’t match the image…we’ll have to see.

April 28, 2010 @ 2:08 pm | Comment

yaawwn

It would be ideal if the image the West wishes to project, of openness etc etc, is reflective of the reality back home. I imagine such openness will be in short supply in the foreseeable future. But an image of openness her PR machine will likely try to project nonetheless. Whether people will buy the image, or realize that the substance doesn’t match the image…we’ll have to see.

April 28, 2010 @ 2:21 pm | Comment

@Common Folk
It is therefore normal to have differences of opinion over these issues. What is important is to keep dialog open, and to have a open-mind and high tolerance and try to take into account each country’s unique situation. After all, we should definitely avoid imposing a fixed system of values over another country without reconciliation and respect for cultural and political diversity. There’s no system that’s “best”, no universal development mode that’s “correct”, there’s only the path of development most suitable for each country, and each country must find its own path of development.

While this sounds logical and sound, it is essentially an expression of cultural relativism. Sure, there is indeed a diversity of culture in this world. But you ignore that there are also things that should be universal. If your argument cuts ice, then female genital mutilation, suttee or even foot binding can be justified. Why? Because defenders of such practices can say that it is THEIR culture and values to do that. Do remember that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted unanimously and the only country which abstained and still exists is Saudi Arabia.

April 28, 2010 @ 11:23 pm | Comment

The CSM writer mistakenly lumps economic aid under soft power, best defined as ways to exert influence without coercion or payment. (Think Hollywood, Bollywood, anime, manga, Korean TV & film). The developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that China pours its investments into welcome the business, but with a few exceptions all have greater political, media, labor and intellectual freedom than China so they don’t feel they have much to absorb from PRChina aside from cash. China’s ancient culture, philosophy, language and food represent some significant soft power, but this is not credited to the PRC, which destroyed or at least disregarded most of that while it was kept alive in Taiwan and in the diaspora. Censorship of literature, film and media and clumsy PRC propaganda tend to rob the PRC of its ability to project soft power and until this changes, the billions China is spending to bring CCTV to the world will be squandered and China will punch far below its weight in public opinion. IMHO, Western-level political and intellectual freedoms probably will not be attainable for the mainland Chinese for several decades, but China could benchmark South Korea, which shed a pretty harsh dictatorship in the late 1980s, has arguably Asia’s best democracy and now is a considerable popular cultural force in East Asia.

The fenqing and fascist fanboys who troll sites like this do not really represent China despite the general rote uniformity of their tiresome talking points. But I would suggest that, like European soccer hooligans or whiny American tourists, they do their country’s image far more harm than good.

April 28, 2010 @ 11:55 pm | Comment

And now for something completely different.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8649853.stm

My view is as follows.

http://skepticalteacher.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/facepalm.jpg

April 29, 2010 @ 7:13 am | Comment

@Raj
I can sort of imagine the woman he spoke to 🙂 In a past life, reading meters in the less salubrious parts of Reading (UK) I came across a dear old lady, the picture perfect granny, who was most insistent on telling me how low the neighbourhood had gooten when “all theose bloody niggers moved here”
This, of course, in full voice with all the Asian (UK parlance…so we’re talking Indian subcontinent) neighbours nearby….
Not that they took any notice – when I read their meters, they told me about how batty she was.

April 29, 2010 @ 7:34 am | Comment

To Slim:
“The fenqing and fascist fanboys who troll sites like this do not really represent China despite the general rote uniformity of their tiresome talking points. But I would suggest that, like European soccer hooligans or whiny American tourists, they do their country’s image far more harm than good.”
—well said. Folks like Merp, who chronically display juvenile antics and possess a dearth of originality (as again demonstrated by #186), would be well-served by taking notice and acquiring a new song-and-dance routine. Alas, that’s probably not going to happen.

April 29, 2010 @ 1:27 pm | Comment

Considering my viewpoints are fairly unique, I’m going to chalk that up to you being sore losers because you lost an argument.

Rather, it seems like you’ve stripped your arguments straight out of Dick Cheney’s handbook.

April 29, 2010 @ 3:08 pm | Comment

China’s ancient culture, philosophy, language and food represent some significant soft power, but this is not credited to the PRC, which destroyed or at least disregarded most of that while it was kept alive in Taiwan and in the diaspora

I would agree a few years ago, but as far as I can tell now traditional culture took a hit but it still managed to survive. Obviously, Taiwan represents Taiwan and Minnan cultures, and the diaspora usually various Cantonese ones. Tradition still survives in other regions not as well represented on the international stage.

has arguably Asia’s best democracy

A dubious honor, to be sure. South Korea doesn’t seem to have the confidence to handle reunification on its own.

April 29, 2010 @ 3:12 pm | Comment

To all
Married as I am to a Chinese woman (Chinese, Merp, not Thai, Philipina or any other of your fantasy women), with the Chinese family and friends that comes with such a marriage, I know the trolls are….odd. A minority. Heck, even the Chinese I work with are completely different to the wee racists that fell for Mao’s doctrine.
Unless, of course, I have been really lucky so far….

April 29, 2010 @ 3:50 pm | Comment

@Merp
A dubious honor, to be sure. South Korea doesn’t seem to have the confidence to handle reunification on its own.

What can be more dubious than Kim Jong Il’s desperate attempt to continue the Kim dynasty?

Oh, and China doesn’t even seem to have the confidence to deal with Hong Kong’s rightful demand for universal suffrage stipulated by Article 68 and 45 of the Basic Law.

April 29, 2010 @ 11:02 pm | Comment

@merp
Considering my viewpoints are fairly unique,

Yup.Uniquely fatuous and deranged beyond anyone’s comprehension.

April 29, 2010 @ 11:03 pm | Comment

Mike Golddump

Married as I am to a Chinese woman (Chinese, Merp, not Thai, Philipina or any other of your fantasy women), with the Chinese family and friends that comes with such a marriage, I know the trolls are….odd. A minority. Heck, even the Chinese I work with are completely different to the wee racists that fell for Mao’s doctrine. Unless, of course, I have been really lucky so far….

Maybe you’re the troll and the racist.

April 30, 2010 @ 5:26 am | Comment

“Considering my viewpoints are fairly unique”
—you’re kidding, right? They’re a dime a dozen on some blogs. Furthermore, your “viewpoints” revolve around 3 things: CIA conspiracy theories; “western media bias”; and North American aboriginal peoples. Not only are your “viewpoints” not unique (though the fact that there are others who think like you is in itself disturbing, but I digress), they’re fairly irrelevant on a blog about China. It is noteworthy that you’re on a blog about China by talking about everything except China. In that way, you’re “fairly unique”.

However, I must concede that your “viewpoints” are amusing, so you do serve some purpose of sorts.

April 30, 2010 @ 7:01 am | Comment

Arse_wipe

Oooooh, what cutting wit! And such profound arguments!

April 30, 2010 @ 7:30 am | Comment

CIA conspiracy theories; “western media bias”; and North American aboriginal peoples.

Ohoho, now the truth (as said by the CIA itself, on the CIA’s official website) are now conspiracy thoeries. All those people editing and creating articles detailing these subjects on Wikipedia are Communist spies. http://www.cia.gov was hacked by Mao Zedong’s ghost. We can now put quotations around Western media bias, because clearly, the Western media is a selfless entity that exists only to promote balanced views of everything.

As for North American Aboriginals, who cares? They’re dead, just a footnote in history, we can’t do anything, stop talking about it!

Okay SK Cheung, we’ve established that even when arguing for arguments sake I wipe the floor with you and make you look really bad. So lets start over, alright? At least you can express your thoughts coherently (which just helps me laugh at them more). No more ad populum either.

@spz
What can be more dubious than Kim Jong Il’s desperate attempt to continue the Kim dynasty?

What is this supposed to even mean?

Oh, and China doesn’t even seem to have the confidence to deal with Hong Kong’s rightful demand for universal suffrage stipulated by Article 68 and 45 of the Basic Law.

Confidence? Yes. They have what they want, and they don’t need to give anyone anything. What’s in it for them, anyway? Hollow praise from the Western press? Yeah right, they will just move onto the next lie of the day.

April 30, 2010 @ 8:01 am | Comment

the truth is now a conspiracy theory*

sounds like something SK would say, but no, it’s just a correction

April 30, 2010 @ 8:02 am | Comment

“we’ve established that even when arguing for arguments sake I wipe the floor with you and make you look really bad.”

Almost a century later, Ah Q is alive and well.

April 30, 2010 @ 10:06 am | Comment

To 200:
Oh look, the CIA has a website. And links to some papers. Looks like the CIA did some things. And the CIA didn’t do others. So you’re right in the sense that they’re not ALL conspiracy theories. But you’ve never been one to separate facts from theories. And this relates to China how, exactly?

“because clearly, the Western media is a selfless entity that exists only to promote balanced views of everything.”
—Now when have I said that? The problem with your mode of thinking (using the term loosely here) is that you first conclude that there is “western media bias”, then go looking for ways to prove it. Most people examine things first before drawing conclusions. That’s the more scientific way; you embody anti-science.

“North American Aboriginals, who cares? …stop talking about it!”
—it doesn’t happen often, but every now and then you have some good advice that you should consider taking yourself. Or at the very least, don’t cheapen the issues with the way you haphazardly fling it around.

All of which is amusing, of course, which I’ve already stipulated is what you’re good for. But I’m still at a loss as to how they have any relevance to China. It looks like China is not only not good enough for you to live in, but it’s also not good enough for you to talk about. And yet you’re on a blog that proposes to do just that. Curious contradiction.

It appears you have a penchant for taking this as a win/lose proposition. If you think you’re “winning”, be my guest. I’m not here to win…besides, a win against “you” means little anyhow. I’m here to point it out to you every time you make a stupid argument…and let’s face it, that’s a frequent, if not daily, occurrence. As I said earlier, every time you speak, I’m ROFL, so you in fact serve a very important purpose. So do please continue…

April 30, 2010 @ 12:03 pm | Comment

@merp
Confidence? Yes. They have what they want, and they don’t need to give anyone anything.

I see. The CCP has once proved its “peaceful” rise by tearing up the promises it made to the people of Hong Kong. Its confidence of tearing up promises to its own people is indeed fascinating.

April 30, 2010 @ 12:06 pm | Comment

Oh, one more thing. It bespeaks a certain level of insecurity, and immaturity, to feel the need to “declare” oneself the “winner”. As I always say, you do what you gotta do. And as I’ve just said above, don’t stop doing what you gotta do cuz what you do serves an important purpose. That notwithstanding, I’m prepared to seek my entertainment in other quarters if you were to someday demonstrate the capacity for making reasonable arguments about China. For the reach should exceed the grasp, as they say…

April 30, 2010 @ 12:10 pm | Comment

This thread has been going on waaaaay tooooo looooong. I’m going to close it up, if no one minds.

April 30, 2010 @ 12:13 pm | Comment