A Blog For All - Comments - Keep it civil
You seem generally hostile to the Chinese? Your latent prejudices need updating. It's no longer the Cold War, pal.
Generally hostile to the Chinese? Not at all. I have nothing against the Chinese people. I have everything against the Chinese communist government, which props up totalitarian regimes around the world, supports the Sudanese government that engages in genocide and ethnic cleansing; regularly seeks to shut down opposing views by restricting Internet access to content (as in Tienanmen Square videos and photos), etc.
The Communists are also engaging in destroying the environment on a scale we haven't seen before.
What about religious and cultural suppression in Tibet?? People have no fundamental rights in their own land. People in Tibet require an identification number to log on into internet. Thats a mere example of human rights abuse.
Any Uighur resistance will be painted by Beijing as Islamic terrorism.
Many in the West sympathize with the Tibetans.
Few have heard of the Uighurs.
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Be skeptical whenever the ChiComs attribute bad stuff to Islamic terrorists. They know that line plays better in the West than any other, so will use it to justify suppression of any opposition to the Central Committee. Sometimes it's true. Sometimes not.
Hyperbolic nonsense. China does not "prop up totalitarian regimes around the world". It just doesn't choose to interfere in the domestic politics of other countries. In that regard, the United States is actually the worse offender, and has had a long history of "propping up totalitarian regimes around the world" - from supporting Pinochet's Chile to Baathist Iraq to propping up the Shah of Iran. One has to have a lot of cheek to be citing China's policy of non-interference as a kind of crime.
So, stop spouting the typically myopic American viewpoint: e.g., that China is "destroying the environment on a scale we haven't seen before". On a per capita basis, the U.S. is again, the far worst offender. Britain, when it industrialized, was a morass of pollution with smog so thick you could drink it like soup. The United States was similarly plague with pollution problems until the introduction of the Clean Air Act. Inference? Obviously for most developing countries, pollution is the norm rather than the exception. That you expect what is essentially a third world country to conform to your current standards of regulatory cleanliness is cultural arrogance and historical myopia of the highest order.
It wasn't so long ago that the West had similar problems, and only cleaned up the mess as it became more advanced and industrialized. Try tempering your view of China with less of the 'red-scare' talking points. You'll find yourself taking a more nuanced and less confrontational view of the "chicoms" (another term that tells me the person who wields it is clueless).
And no, I'm not a liberal. I swear, talking to China hawks about China is like talking to liberal imbeciles about Iraq. Both take the most predictable, hackneyed views of a country from the standpoint of narrow ignorance.
Anon:
"Hyperbolic nonsense. China does not "prop up totalitarian regimes around the world". It just doesn't choose to interfere in the domestic politics of other countries." Want to ask the Koreans what they think of that statement? What about the Vietnameese? China is a major supporter of Il Sung Kim. Chineese weapons have been found in the hands of the Iranians, North Koreans, etc. China has involved itself on the wrong side of every major conflict in the last 50+ years. China opposes economic sanctions against the Iranians. China involves itself, deeply in the domestic policies of other nations.
"Obviously for most developing countries, pollution is the norm rather than the exception." Again, not a true statement. The early industrial revolution may have been plagued with environmental polution, but technology exists, is readily available, and is widley used elsewhere, that would prevent developing countries from being a destroyer of the environment. China has taken no such steps, because it pursues a "me first" attitude. It has no regard for the environment, unless it suites its own purpose.
But I throw this one back at you. What about the Chineese view on human rights? China has one of the worst records on human rights. Need I go further than Falun Gong (Dafa) or Tienaman Square.
Personally, I think its a disgrace for the IOC to have awarded the Olympics to China. China is the opposite of all the games stand for.
I rather thought the Chinese stopped supporting Kim Il-sung after he died in 1994. Kim Jong-il might be a different story.
I agree with anon., though. Chinese relations with Vietnam and Korea are not good indicators of its general policy, because there is a lot of history there, not to mention shared borders. But you'll find that the Chinese policy these days is one of non-interference - though we in the West would often like them to interfere. That non-interference is important to China because it wants to stress that no other nation has the right to interfere in Chinese domestic affairs. If it went out and got heavily involved somewhere else, that might be tantamount to inviting foreigners in.
The falun gong/falun dafa thing is interesting - though definitely tragic, it is clear why the Chinese government finds the existence of the groups so threatening. Major changes would have to take place in the internal climate of Chinese politics for that not to be the case.
Most people blogging on China don't really know that much about it, I find. It's a tricky, complicated place. Sometimes I treat the ability to spell Tiananmen correctly as a litmus test for how much attention an individual has been paying to Chinese issues over the years.
My own view is that whenever I see the Chinese referred to as the "Chi-Coms" or the "Chinese Reds" I ahve re-entered the twilight zone of the early John Birch 1960's. I don't see how anyone who has spent any time on the mainland or read a single book about the Chinese-Taiwanese situation could comment as you have here and made such a major point about the "communists".
There are "communists" running China today in the same way that Putin is a doctrinaire Marxist. Corrupt thugs desperate to hang onto power, yes. Misguided idiots who fear religion even when opening up freedom to worship would vastly benefit all of the society, yes. Scared men trying to prop up a rickety stock market that is inflated by manipulation, yes.
But you can't walk down Nanjing Road away from the Bund in Shanghai and convince yourself that anyone there believes in communism. The place these days is more like South Korea in 1965.
That nonsense unfortunately drowns out the real point, which is that there are indeed islamofascist terrorists breeding among the Uighurs.
LegalBgl. You're wrong on all counts.
The Chinese didn't enter the Korean war until MacArthur stupidly approached the Chinese border (meaning the Yalu river), something he was repeatedly warned not to do because the Chinese feared a cross border incursion. And indeed, that was PRECISELY what MacArthur was contemplating. so the Chinese acted only in self defence with the full acquiescence of the North Koreans (who of course appreciated the military support). They didn't "intervene" without the agreement of the host country.
And note that the Chinese stopped short at Seoul and at the 38th parallel. Even though the NKs would have loved to retake the whole peninsula, the Chinese were at the end of their logistical tail and thought their border secured. So the strategic aims were met, and they did not have to "intervene" in the South.
Vietnam was of course another cross border conflict. The Chinese fought a limited but bloody cross border war after years of increasingly violent border clashes, and then withdrew. Again, the fighting was territorial and arguably in self defence. This is not the same as "intervention" because the conflagration was over what each country regarded as its OWN sovereign territory.
As for Chinese weapons - get real. China sells weapons to others, so what. It doesn't mean they're "interfering" in the domestic affairs of other countries. America sells weapons all over the world as well. Does it mean that every country that has dealings with an American munitions producer or weapons seller is being "interfered" with? Of course not. It's just business between willing parties. So your claims are nothing more than sheer hyperbole. And very silly hyperbole at that.
China's opposition to sanctions is of course irresponsible, but is consistent with their policy of non-interference. Their logic is: Why should THEY forego trade with Iran just because the U.S. is annoyed with the Iranians? Voting for sanctions means to submit themselves to U.S. interference in Iranian affairs - and to allow their OWN trade relations to be dictated by U.S. interests. You don't like it. I don't like it either. But it's entirely consistent with their policy of non-intervention. Opposing sanctions is NOT "involving" oneself in somebody else's domestic affairs. It's actually STAYING OUT of it. That you can't tell the difference is itself, telling...
And you blather on about China's "me first" attitude. That's hilarious, since Americans are the number 1 "me firsts" on the planet. (And before that, it was Britain. Cf. the untrammeled Victorian mercantilism that so disgusted Marx.) Per capita, you consume more than any other nation on earth. You really have some cheek to be accusing a third world nation of being "me first" when all they're doing is trying to raise people out of poverty. Again, American cultural arrogance and historical myopia infects your thinking. Try broadening your intellectual horizons, ye
MO and Kurmudge "get" it, especially the rationale behind China's non-interventionist foreign policy.
Bottom line: China will change as they modernise. Being confrontational is counterproductive - Americans should be working *with* China, not sabre rattling. American policy, in general, must always be one of engagement with China. (This is not to say there will not be differences, only to say that treating China as some kind of implacable enemy or as an ideological challenge like the Nazis or Soviets is to completely misunderstand the beast.)
The Chinese leaders are rational. They're pragmatists, not ideological nuts of the Islamist kind or Soviet kind. Manage her rise properly and the United States has all to gain from it.
Thankfully American policymakers from Nixon onwards have been wise on that point.
Seems like my first comment was truncated. Here's the rest:
...intellectual horizons, yes?
As for China on human rights. Indeed. Atrocious. But they'll improve as they industrialize and cultivate a more advanced polity and the rule of law. Rome wasn't built in a day. The United States practiced segregation only two generations ago, genocided Indians in the past, and lynched racial minorities. So again, please get off the highhorse. If Americans like you knew your history better, you would be more humble, and less prone to ideological sabre rattling.
(American antiwar liberals are another deluded, historically illterate class of persons when it comes to Iraq and the war on terror. They don't "get" it. In the same way, China hawks don't "get" China. They're simply ideological creatures too intent on sabre rattling in the same way that the peaceniks are being pious about 'ending the war'.)
Personally, I think it's a disgrace that uninformed China hawks repeat anti-Chinese talking points without an ounce of reflection. And since the Olympics is an avowedly apolitical event (remember the black power salute for which Smith & Carlos were castigated as being against the spirit of the games?), staging it in China is PRECISELY what the Olympic games stand for: an APOLITICAL gathering of sportspersons from around the world. You might not agree with it, but it is what it is.
As far as I can tell you all are referring to me when commenting that my use of the term ChiCom demonstrates my ignorance and 'China Hawk' stance, yet I don't believe I made any statement in my brief comment to warrant that conclusion. I simply used it as a shorthand for the governing group in the country. Whether they 'are' Communist anymore is not the issue.
And I was not claiming any US righteousness or Chinese evilness - merely pointing out that the Chinese government (pragmatically) uses 'Islamist terrorists' as the label for many groups they feel threaten the control or function of their government - some of these are indeed Islamic terrorists, others are not. And that because of that it is a good idea to be skeptical about statements regarding actions by or crackdowns on Islamist terrorists.
I say this based on my discussions with a non-Islamist Uighur friend.
Power hungry Communist Chinese leaders are so insecure. They want to cover up all the social problems in China. Information is blacked out, citizens can't disagree the communist, worst of all no respect to human rights. It is all about trying to look good.
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