China looks pretty good next to Russia, these days. I get the feeling one is desperately seeking our approval, and the other is desperately seeking our eventual subjugation. I prefer the former...
To clarify, I think China is in hardcore image preservation mode because they are seeking Western approval. That's not perfect, but it's better than what Russia's doing, which is to try to crush anyone they notice seeking Western approval.
If any of you are under delusions that the Chinese people want more freedom than they already have, please go somewhere else.
Now of course, in a country of 1.3 billion people, you have many many people of all sorts. But the bulk of the people see that the communist party has raised 100 million people out of poverty and into the middle class, more than any other country in the history of the world. They also have more freedoms now than at any other time in the past 30 years or so.
We look at China has see that maybe 1% of the world's websites are censored. they look at it as hey, they can access 99% of the world's websites. Woohoo!
This isn't to justify human rights violations -- not at all. And I'm not saying people are happy (there are many riots about the corruption, lack of respect for property, and so on). But the vast majority of the people realize that it was a) once worse, b) things are getting better and c) they have enough to eat, which wasn't always the case in the past 100 years.
Unfortunately, this is not a byproduct of China's political system. Chinese people just don't think democracy, free speech, respect for those less fortunate than the rich and middle class, freedom of religion, etc. are very important and they don't even have a clear idea of what they actually entail.
Compared to the people the rule the Chinese Communists are downright liberal. Mainstream Chinese culture is only now starting to be influenced by Western Enlightenment values. If China should somehow magically transform into a democracy overnight I fear for what would happen.
Unfortunately, this is not a byproduct of China's political system. Chinese people just don't think democracy, free speech, respect for those less fortunate than the rich and middle class, freedom of religion, etc. are very important and they don't even have a clear idea of what they actually entail.
Compared to the people the rule the Chinese Communists are downright liberal. Mainstream Chinese culture is only now starting to be influenced by Western Enlightenment values. If China should somehow magically transform into a democracy overnight I fear for what would happen.
This isn't to justify human rights violations -- not at all. I'm dying of curiosity, Randy. If you were to justify human rights violations, what syllable of your first three paragraphs do you think you'd have to change?
If any of you are under delusions that the Chinese people want more freedom than they already have, please go somewhere else. Randy R.
Sorry, but you are quite mistaken. And to forestall any snide retorts, I'd counter that 1) I'm already in China, 2) I've been here a number of years, and 3) I speak the language.
The Chinese aren't clamoring for Western-style democracy, to be sure, but they do want more freedom, e.g. the freedom to travel or change residences w/o gov't approval, more economic freedom (an end to regulation enforcement that is either sporadic or political [funny how all the pirated DVD and software stalls disappeared prior to the Olympics]), and the freedom of association (most preferably not being virtually required to join the CP).
But the vast majority of the people realize that it was a) once worse, b) things are getting better and c) they have enough to eat, which wasn't always the case in the past 100 years. Randy R.
Problem with your view is that things were worse, true, but they were worse under the CP (Cult. Rev., anyone?), which everyone except the CP diehards admits. The Chinese see the party as good and bad. They disdain the party because they're happy with the opening up of the country, want greater individ. independence (the middle class dream of sending your kid to uni. in the West, provided the state approves), and rampant corruption (What do you need to take w/ you to court? Your wallet) but they depend on the party for stability, worried because state-run companies are failing right and left [leading to unemployment] and their savings in once-protected RMB are worth less and less as China's economy interacts more with the rest of the world.
Compared to the people the rule the Chinese Communists are downright liberal. Mainstream Chinese culture is only now starting to be influenced by Western Enlightenment values. If China should somehow magically transform into a democracy overnight I fear for what would happen. Jerome Cole
Well, as you're surely aware one of the nastiest by-products of freedom may be growing nationalism and esp. anti-Japanese sentiment. Several years back, the CP clamped down hard on anti-J protests and behavior (which it, at worst, instigated or, at best, tacitly allowed), but a more democratic gov't might have far less motivation or ability to stem negative public sentiment.
the communist party has raised 100 million people out of poverty and into the middle class, more than any other country in the history of the world
Yeah, 'cuz you know, in Bush's America, the middle class has shrunk to <100 million, there is a tiny oil oligarchy running things, and the rest of us live in grinding poverty that would make a medieval Russian Smerd nod his head in shame.
Getting away from the hyperbole about the glorious success of communism, some would say that a political system that has had 60 years to create a middle class and still has not managed to get 10% of its people into the middle class is a dismal failure, but last time I checked, that term is only applied to Bush's America™.
Still others would point out that the government didn't really create a middle class, it got out of the way of people who then earned their way into it, but I guess when you start from the prospect that communism is pretty damn successful, the notion that people are generally responsible for their own economic success or failure must seem as foreign as human rights to a chinese party official.
The Chinese aren't clamoring for Western-style democracy, to be sure, but they do want more freedom, e.g. the freedom to travel or change residences w/o gov't approval, more economic freedom (an end to regulation enforcement that is either sporadic or political [funny how all the pirated DVD and software stalls disappeared prior to the Olympics]), and the freedom of association (most preferably not being virtually required to join the CP).
I think this is right, but I think it glosses over a key point: few people anywhere clamor for democracy, per se. Democracy is an instrumental desire, not a goal in-and-of-itself. People want democracy because they want more freedom to do whatever they want in particular, not because they love seeing campaign billboards. So saying, "People there don't want democracy; they just want an end to corruption, the right to protest, more economic freedom, etc." is missing the point.
what do the 1.3 billion or so people of China want? anyone have a good handle on that? I expect the answer to that is no. The one comment that does show some wisdom above is that the recent success is based not on Communism but on the communists getting out of the way.
"Nothing like a little racism to justify communism."
No, not at all. Sheesh -- you try to open a dialogue, and everyone jumps all over you. I guess you can't deviate from the standard party line here in American without being called a racists, or supporter of communism.
In a country of 1.3 billion people, anything you say about them is absolutely true -- and also false. It's difficult to generalize about anything at all. Of course there are people who are clamoring for western style democracy, but there are people who'se main concern is whether they have anything to eat. David N. point is a good one -- democracy is something few people clamor for. In fact, in the US, we don't have many people who actually vote in our own elections, so one could argue that democracy is hardly on the plate for everyone here.
My point, however, is that many people are under the delusion that China is this seething caldron of people who are totally oppressed by the communists, and they just can't wait until they overthrow the communists. This isn't to say that they like the communists, of course (most don't in my experience) but they also know from history that sometimes you need a strong leader to keep peace.
During the Tibetan revolts, I was in China, and I found no sympathy for them at all. Everyone I met thought that the Tibetans were ungrateful for all the help they were given by China, and said that if a state in the US wanted to seceed, we wouldn't allow it.
"The Chinese aren't clamoring for Western-style democracy, to be sure, but they do want more freedom, e.g. the freedom to travel or change residences w/o gov't approval, more economic freedom (an end to regulation enforcement that is either sporadic or political [funny how all the pirated DVD and software stalls disappeared prior to the Olympics]), and the freedom of association (most preferably not being virtually required to join the CP). "
I find this to be true as well. But the funny thing is that have in fact more of these freedoms today than they have had in the past 30 years or so. Perhaps that's good, perhaps that's bad -- make of it what you will. But that is a fact that is undeniable. It's also undeniable that quite a few chinese are much better off materially today than they were in the past 100 years or so. Again, make of it what you will, but that's a fact.
I would think that most people would think these are good things -- in the sense that if it were the reverse, that would be bad thing.
Do they want more? Should there be more freedoms? My opinion doesn't really matter, and neither does yours. All I am trying to do is understand the issues, which are deep complex and not subject to glib statements that indicate superiority.
ejo: "The one comment that does show some wisdom above is that the recent success is based not on Communism but on the communists getting out of the way."
yes and no. First, many comment that China is far more capitalist than we are in the US.
When I first went to China, every tech company had a communist party member on the board of directors, and it was wholly or partly owned by the party. Today, that is much changed. So yes, they are getting out of the way.
Second, the communist party has been spending billions on education, infrastructure and on develeping their tech sector. As a result, China is poised to become one of the leading tech regions of the world. It would not have happened to this extent or this quickly without the support of the communist party. They build entire cities for 1-3 million people, containing universities for 50,000 from scratch in a matter of 5-7 years. This could simply not be done without the party mandating it, and that is what is helping to fuel their success.
I spoke with a World Bank official, and he stated that China actually is one of the few countries where gov't investment has proved to be sustainable. So at least for now, the party is doing something right.
Is this perfect? Of course not. To build this vast new cities, they had to kick off the farmers, and we never hear about them.
we have had the same kind of projects-they are called housing projects. didn't work that well. I am sorry but suspect that "mandating" a city won't work, although the World Bank does love central planning.
I did a google, which showed such a centrally planned city near Shanghai which was still in the planning stages. are there other examples in the nation that one could point to as centrally planned successes?
Virtually every major city in China. Check Suzhou, Tianjin, Beijing, Pudong, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Wuxi, Dalian and others. Part of the reason why they work is because housing and office space is needed. There is currenltly a huge migration from the farms to the urban areas. They are planned and built by the world's finest architects, and Singapore has a major hand in planning. They are very beautiful -- lots of waterways, plenty of public transportation, great landscaping everywhere. Any one of these planned cities would be the envy of any us city.
We are talking about building the equivolent of office space of an entire us city, such as Baltimore, Buffalo, St. Louis or Seattle within 5-7 years. And they fill up almost as fast as they can build them. There are not mere 'housing projects' -- they are entire cities, with housing, office space, recreational space, exhibition halls, public transport. Remember -- the concept of suburbs is virtually unknown in China.
I bring many technology professionals on delegations to China, and even though these are sophisticated and knowledgable people, theire jaws drop at the scope and scale of activity. right now, about 500,000 students graduate each year with a degree in software engineering. how many in the US? Just a tiny fraction. Now perhaps that's too many, but what else would you have them learn? 19th Century British fiction? I doubt it.
China has many challenges, and many of those challenges are created by the communist party. but to think it's some sort of stalinist or even moaist country out of the 1950s just isn't true. They do have some successes, and those successes are often ones that we agree are good.
I mean, geez, someone sneered because they lifted 100 million people out of poverty in just 10 years. The communist party isn't in any current danger of being overthrown any time soon. that's just a reality we have to live with. Whether we like this reality is really beside the point. We can try our best to change reality to our preferences, but sometimes it's best to work with reality than to ignore it in preference of our fantasies, don't you agree?
the wikis of these show them as old cities, not newly minted centers of commerce dreamed into being by the central planners. I further see that the growth seems to be in places designated as open for foreign investment. I would suspect that the growth isn't a result of central planning but foreign enterprise.
Then the wikis are wrong. Some are still being built, some are brand spanking new. Generally speaking, they have Singapore developers actually develop the land, hire the architects, engineers, etc, but they use gov't money. And they use gov't money to fund the operations and marketing, of course.
you can have central planning by the gov't, or you can have central planning by developers. But no matter how you slice it, you have central planning. You simply can't build a new city from scratch for one or two million people within a few years without it.
And you know what's really cool (to me at least?) After the roads are laid, the very next thing that gets put in is all the landscaping. Almost mature trees, double rows, with bushes inbetween on all streets. so by the time the buildings are finished, you have mature landscaping creating an almost solid wall of greenery down every street.
Slightly OT (or maybe not): Did anyone spot the upside-down Chinese flag carried during the Olympic opening ceremony? A bunch of blogs have picked up on it, but no one's really sure what to make of it. I doubt it was a planned part of the ceremony, but was it "merely" a monumental oversight or a genuine act of protest?
Sometimes I can't tell if you are just kidding, or whether we are supposed to take you seriously. This is one of those times.
I'm all about the West, of course.
Now of course, in a country of 1.3 billion people, you have many many people of all sorts. But the bulk of the people see that the communist party has raised 100 million people out of poverty and into the middle class, more than any other country in the history of the world. They also have more freedoms now than at any other time in the past 30 years or so.
We look at China has see that maybe 1% of the world's websites are censored. they look at it as hey, they can access 99% of the world's websites. Woohoo!
This isn't to justify human rights violations -- not at all. And I'm not saying people are happy (there are many riots about the corruption, lack of respect for property, and so on). But the vast majority of the people realize that it was a) once worse, b) things are getting better and c) they have enough to eat, which wasn't always the case in the past 100 years.
Strong (and often ruthless) emperor = peace and stability
Weak emperor = civil wars, and lots of people die.
The communist party has decided that the first is better for China than the second. This doesn't mean I agree with it, but that is how they think.
Compared to the people the rule the Chinese Communists are downright liberal. Mainstream Chinese culture is only now starting to be influenced by Western Enlightenment values. If China should somehow magically transform into a democracy overnight I fear for what would happen.
Compared to the people the rule the Chinese Communists are downright liberal. Mainstream Chinese culture is only now starting to be influenced by Western Enlightenment values. If China should somehow magically transform into a democracy overnight I fear for what would happen.
I'm dying of curiosity, Randy. If you were to justify human rights violations, what syllable of your first three paragraphs do you think you'd have to change?
Nothing like a little racism to justify communism.
Sorry, but you are quite mistaken. And to forestall any snide retorts, I'd counter that 1) I'm already in China, 2) I've been here a number of years, and 3) I speak the language.
The Chinese aren't clamoring for Western-style democracy, to be sure, but they do want more freedom, e.g. the freedom to travel or change residences w/o gov't approval, more economic freedom (an end to regulation enforcement that is either sporadic or political [funny how all the pirated DVD and software stalls disappeared prior to the Olympics]), and the freedom of association (most preferably not being virtually required to join the CP).
Problem with your view is that things were worse, true, but they were worse under the CP (Cult. Rev., anyone?), which everyone except the CP diehards admits. The Chinese see the party as good and bad. They disdain the party because they're happy with the opening up of the country, want greater individ. independence (the middle class dream of sending your kid to uni. in the West, provided the state approves), and rampant corruption (What do you need to take w/ you to court? Your wallet) but they depend on the party for stability, worried because state-run companies are failing right and left [leading to unemployment] and their savings in once-protected RMB are worth less and less as China's economy interacts more with the rest of the world.
Well, as you're surely aware one of the nastiest by-products of freedom may be growing nationalism and esp. anti-Japanese sentiment. Several years back, the CP clamped down hard on anti-J protests and behavior (which it, at worst, instigated or, at best, tacitly allowed), but a more democratic gov't might have far less motivation or ability to stem negative public sentiment.
Yeah, 'cuz you know, in Bush's America, the middle class has shrunk to <100 million, there is a tiny oil oligarchy running things, and the rest of us live in grinding poverty that would make a medieval Russian Smerd nod his head in shame.
Getting away from the hyperbole about the glorious success of communism, some would say that a political system that has had 60 years to create a middle class and still has not managed to get 10% of its people into the middle class is a dismal failure, but last time I checked, that term is only applied to Bush's America™.
Still others would point out that the government didn't really create a middle class, it got out of the way of people who then earned their way into it, but I guess when you start from the prospect that communism is pretty damn successful, the notion that people are generally responsible for their own economic success or failure must seem as foreign as human rights to a chinese party official.
No, not at all. Sheesh -- you try to open a dialogue, and everyone jumps all over you. I guess you can't deviate from the standard party line here in American without being called a racists, or supporter of communism.
In a country of 1.3 billion people, anything you say about them is absolutely true -- and also false. It's difficult to generalize about anything at all. Of course there are people who are clamoring for western style democracy, but there are people who'se main concern is whether they have anything to eat. David N. point is a good one -- democracy is something few people clamor for. In fact, in the US, we don't have many people who actually vote in our own elections, so one could argue that democracy is hardly on the plate for everyone here.
My point, however, is that many people are under the delusion that China is this seething caldron of people who are totally oppressed by the communists, and they just can't wait until they overthrow the communists. This isn't to say that they like the communists, of course (most don't in my experience) but they also know from history that sometimes you need a strong leader to keep peace.
During the Tibetan revolts, I was in China, and I found no sympathy for them at all. Everyone I met thought that the Tibetans were ungrateful for all the help they were given by China, and said that if a state in the US wanted to seceed, we wouldn't allow it.
I find this to be true as well. But the funny thing is that have in fact more of these freedoms today than they have had in the past 30 years or so. Perhaps that's good, perhaps that's bad -- make of it what you will. But that is a fact that is undeniable. It's also undeniable that quite a few chinese are much better off materially today than they were in the past 100 years or so. Again, make of it what you will, but that's a fact.
I would think that most people would think these are good things -- in the sense that if it were the reverse, that would be bad thing.
Do they want more? Should there be more freedoms? My opinion doesn't really matter, and neither does yours. All I am trying to do is understand the issues, which are deep complex and not subject to glib statements that indicate superiority.
yes and no. First, many comment that China is far more capitalist than we are in the US.
When I first went to China, every tech company had a communist party member on the board of directors, and it was wholly or partly owned by the party. Today, that is much changed. So yes, they are getting out of the way.
Second, the communist party has been spending billions on education, infrastructure and on develeping their tech sector. As a result, China is poised to become one of the leading tech regions of the world. It would not have happened to this extent or this quickly without the support of the communist party. They build entire cities for 1-3 million people, containing universities for 50,000 from scratch in a matter of 5-7 years. This could simply not be done without the party mandating it, and that is what is helping to fuel their success.
I spoke with a World Bank official, and he stated that China actually is one of the few countries where gov't investment has proved to be sustainable. So at least for now, the party is doing something right.
Is this perfect? Of course not. To build this vast new cities, they had to kick off the farmers, and we never hear about them.
I did a google, which showed such a centrally planned city near Shanghai which was still in the planning stages. are there other examples in the nation that one could point to as centrally planned successes?
We are talking about building the equivolent of office space of an entire us city, such as Baltimore, Buffalo, St. Louis or Seattle within 5-7 years. And they fill up almost as fast as they can build them. There are not mere 'housing projects' -- they are entire cities, with housing, office space, recreational space, exhibition halls, public transport. Remember -- the concept of suburbs is virtually unknown in China.
I bring many technology professionals on delegations to China, and even though these are sophisticated and knowledgable people, theire jaws drop at the scope and scale of activity. right now, about 500,000 students graduate each year with a degree in software engineering. how many in the US? Just a tiny fraction. Now perhaps that's too many, but what else would you have them learn? 19th Century British fiction? I doubt it.
China has many challenges, and many of those challenges are created by the communist party. but to think it's some sort of stalinist or even moaist country out of the 1950s just isn't true. They do have some successes, and those successes are often ones that we agree are good.
I mean, geez, someone sneered because they lifted 100 million people out of poverty in just 10 years. The communist party isn't in any current danger of being overthrown any time soon. that's just a reality we have to live with. Whether we like this reality is really beside the point. We can try our best to change reality to our preferences, but sometimes it's best to work with reality than to ignore it in preference of our fantasies, don't you agree?
you can have central planning by the gov't, or you can have central planning by developers. But no matter how you slice it, you have central planning. You simply can't build a new city from scratch for one or two million people within a few years without it.
And you know what's really cool (to me at least?) After the roads are laid, the very next thing that gets put in is all the landscaping. Almost mature trees, double rows, with bushes inbetween on all streets. so by the time the buildings are finished, you have mature landscaping creating an almost solid wall of greenery down every street.
Would that we were so smart in the US!