Hidden Harmonies China Blog

As China Re-Awakens, Finding New Harmonies in a Brave New World...

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This is an area where we welcome readers to give us feedbacks, tell us what they want to read, or to simply to share off-beat thoughts with each other.

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  1. Hi guys. Can you tell me exactly what the deal is? Is this a reincarnation of Fool’s Mountain? Or is Fool’s Mountain still at large? I want to know because I don’t want the stuff I wrote for Fool’s Mountain (some of which is also on my own blog) to be duplicated a third time. I can’t check for myself because FM is blocked in Tianjin.

    If FM is gone (or if HH is replacing FM), then fine, no worries. Thanks!

  2. Almost missed the announcement about this new blog on FM. Best of luck and look forward to more insightful information from you guys!

  7. You may already been following the news for longer than me. It is reported in China, UK, and I am sure pretty much everywhere.

    “2010 ELECTIONS: Lien Chan’s son Sean Lien shot in face at KMT campaign rally”
    http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2010/11/27/2003489532

    Btw, I was reading a report in the Guardian. Another reminder I simply find the ‘Western’ reports sub-par; they have a penchant for polarization and disrespect for ‘truth’.

  8. The following has nothing related to this blog. However, if you can save some tax, please send a small percentage to this blog to support their effort.

    —————–
    The long-term capital gain tax (the stocks you have them for over 12 months) could be the lowest in 2010. Now it could be the best time to sell these profitable stocks and you can buy them back right away.

    If your adjusted income is $67,900 or less for joint return, you’re in the 15% bracket in 2010. Then your long-term capital gain tax this year is 0 according to Wikipedia I glanced thru briefly.

    Transfer some profitable stocks to your children (ok to transfer them to me :)) if they can take advantage of this no tax rule.

    You can transfer a limit of $13,000 this year. You and your wife can transfer $13,000 each to each child tax free. If you have more children and grandchildren, you have more to transfer. The limit is on cost basis, so if you bought the stock at $13,000 and now it is $26,000, it is ok to transfer all the stocks. Check the minor clause if your children is under a certain age.

    If you are above this income limit, you should still have a break this year. Consult Wikipedia under US income tax for details.

    Consult your tax lawyer to confirm. Please verify.

  10. @TonyP4

    However, if you can save some tax, please send a small percentage to this blog to support their effort.

    Thank you very much. We certainly appreciate your sentiment. You have given me a good reminder to let our readers know about our China Charities page, accessible via the top of this blog. We would be happy if our readers donate to them and leave a message on that page’s comment section telling us which charity and why.

  11. Question: is there a way for users to edit or delete-and-replace posts? Or is moderators the only ones with that ability?

  12. @HermitCrab

    We have a really good spam filter to get rid of junk comments, but it is not very good at dealing with duplicate posts.

    There is no support of user editing or deleting their comments. So please keep that in mind.

  13. I see. Are you or is there a moderator that can edit posts then? I know SOMEONE or SOMETHING dealt with my duplicates 2 times already.

  15. I understand without being a forum setting that the chances of having/allowing editing features are slim. I wish it wasn’t that way so I can edit my comments without bothering moderators or admins. However, being that isn’t so, how can I request a post to be edited and/or deleted (other than making a post about it)?

  16. @HermitCrab,

    YinYang and I will look into the feature of giving users some power to edit their comments (I liked FM’s ability to allow edits within 20 mins of edit, for example). The problem is that it’s one more plug in for us to maintain when we update….

    I did delete a couple of comments that were repeated. Not sure if I ever deleted yours. I don’t think either YinYang or I have deleted / modified others’ comments on HH though…

    Allen

  17. Thanks for the info Allen.

    For now, do you guys have an email or private message that I can request deletions/edits of my comments at the moment?

  20. Everything on this blog (posts and comments) prior to Feb ‘2010 is identical to FM. We’ve trimmed some materials we didn’t care too much for, and that’d be the only difference. For more details, you can refer to our announcement back in Feb ’10:

    https://hiddenharmonies.org/2010/02/welcome-to-hidden-harmonies/

    Admin at FM will continues to shepherd FM along. We are sibling blogs. Since our launch, our focus here is more back to FM’s original roots – which is to elicit Chinese perspectives, as they are still sorely missing in the West.

  21. @Rhan,

    FM is not ending. The recent outage was due to us moving to another server. We didn’t rush with the migration since we knew the blog is not currently active.

    At the worst, FM will be around for a long time as an “archive” of the many interesting and important discussions we have had. At the best, other bloggers will step up and reactivate the blog.

    HH and FM are the same in the sense that we are both dedicated to articulating a Chinese perspective. Where we differ is that FM is established to emphasize dialogue. In that context, perspectives deemed antagonistic to Chinese interests are sometimes featured. HH is dedicated foremost to articulating what we consider to be Chinese interests. Of course, we welcome perspectives from all sides in the comments, but will not shy away from exerting editorial control in the main posts. Given the amount of pro-Western, anti-Chinese perspectives on the web in English, we figure it is only appropriate for us to be focused.

  23. * Shanghai kids are doing great in maths. and science, and is no surprise to me. China should break into the top 100 colleges soon – I believe Hong Kong U. is in the top 100.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8187967/Shanghai-students-ranked-best-in-the-world-at-maths-and-science.html

    * China jets. From copycat to producing a complete fighter jet including the engine. It needs a lot of support from many industries like fast computer for simulation, so it is not a small success.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJDNGQByu8k

  27. Congrat. to Li Na for making to the final of Australian Open. She is the pioneer. She is the only Asian, male or female, to make it to a grand slam single final in tennis.

  29. I would decline the nomination, if I was him.

    It sounds like a setup.

    As a Chinese American, he would be an easy target for scapegoating for any mistakes or failures.

    As a politician, he would get none of the credits and all of the blames.

  30. I’m definitely going on record to say that it would be a mistake for Gary Locke to take that job.

    His job as the Secretary of Commerce is secure enough without much risk. And he has made a good deal of progress in the Commerce department as a Chinese American.

    The post of US ambassador to China carries too much risk at this point in time.

    (BTW, Locke is the 1st ethnic Chinese American, also the 1st Asian American, to be nominated to the post of Ambassador to China, in all of US history. Previously, all Caucasians. Similarly, all US ambassadors to Japan are Caucasians.)

    So one wonders why NOW of all times, nominate a Chinese American to be Ambassador to China?

    (1) Obama is playing up diversity in his ambassador posts?
    (2) Obama is playing up diversity as a card in dealing with China?

    Either way, there is a race card in this nomination. And I would say, AVOID it, don’t play that game along with Obama. It’s too dangerous of a gambit.

  31. @rv – I can see your point for caution. Nevertheless even though Obama is probably using Locke for his own purposes, it doesn’t me Locke can’t leverage the opportunity for something more. Given the delicate but vital relationship between China and U.S., having someone as ambassador who understands China and who has been actively involved with China since the early days of China opening up can only be a plus.

    On a side note, this NYT article on Locke’s nomination has a short blurb about his professional ties to China, which – among other includes, include running a “China Practice”.

    Now that’s a real China Practice!

  32. http://iphone.chinadaily.com.cn/statics/201103/09/39038.html

    Chinese experts said Locke’s appointment does not herald any major policy changes.

    Zhou Shijian, a senior fellow at the Center for US-China Relations at Tsinghua University, said the nomination “fully shows Obama’s determination” to double exports in five years – a policy in which Locke has been a key cheerleader.

    China is vital for Obama’s policy to succeed, Zhou said, noting that Locke has experience in China trade.

    Obama views boosting US exports as a key foundation for growth and job creation as the economy continues its slow recovery.

    The appointment will be good news for China as Locke understands the trade relationship, according to Zhou.

    …

    But Tao Wendao, foreign policy expert with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: “We need not overemphasize Locke’s Chinese origins.

    “He can’t even speak Mandarin Chinese.”

  33. Maybe Locke will succeed in removing a lot of the trade restrictions on high tech exports. The U.S. has been silly in this regard, because Japan and Europe have been much more open. (I think) it is common knowledge, for example, Japan sells a lot of high tech semiconductor equipment to China.

  34. With the US-China conflicting interests on multiple fronts, and US seeing itself in decline, the issue of US-China relationship is now in the hand of the Congress.

    Locke will have virtually no powers to do anything, other than reporting troubles and progresses back to the Congress.

    If this was a risk WITH opportunity type job, then I would agree with Allen.

    However, all signs point to that this is a job with ALL the risk and NO opportunities whatsoever.

    As I said, a setup for failure.

    I may be pessimistic, more so than usual, but that’s because I have seen other Chinese Americans get shafted with the same kind of “promotions” in the past.

    Rumor is, some in the administration from both parties are jealous of Locke’s position as Commerce Secretary, where he has made some progress in terms of making the Patent Office more efficient.

    Locke’s potential replacement as Commerce Secretary is Ron Kirk, who as US trade representative has a long list of agenda focused on confronting China’s trade policies, especially regarding internet censorship.

    A potential to get Locke out of the way for someone who is more willing to be confrontational with China on trade? (Not that Gary Locke was that friendly with China. He was quite vocal in criticizing China’s trade policies, but Mr. Locke is likely more pragmatic about limits of pushing China. Ron Kirk might be a different story).

    Possible, remember, ambassadors don’t set trade policies, but Commerce Secretaries influence them with the President.

  35. Here is USA Today on China’s take on Locke as Ambassador. If anyone sees an interesting editorial / blog post in Chinese about Locke, let us know.

    BEIJING — In one corner of south China, where farmers tend rice paddies and everybody boasts relatives living abroad, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is a local hero.

    “All of us here in Taishan are very proud of him, he really loves his hometown,” enthuses Li Zhaoming, a teacher at Shuibu primary school in Guangdong province.

    Tapped as the next U.S. ambassador to China, and the first of Chinese descent, Locke paid for a new, concrete road through his grandfather’s village of Jilong, near Shuibu town, in 2006, says Li, who saw the then-governor of Washington state during Locke’s first visit in 1997.

    If he achieves Senate confirmation, Locke, 61, a third-generation Chinese American, will swap Washington for Beijing and the often rocky path of U.S.-China relations, among the world’s most important — and complicated — bilateral relationships.

    As Commerce secretary, Locke fielded many complaints from U.S. businesses frustrated over Chinese trade policies. He’s led delegations of U.S. companies on trade missions to China, where U.S. exports were up 34% last year.

    “When he’s in Beijing, I know that American companies will be able to count on him to represent their interests in front of China’s top leaders,” President Obama said in announcing Locke’s nomination Wednesday.

    The welcome should be warm in a nation that takes pride in its overseas diaspora and has come to know Locke, the USA’s first ever Chinese-American governor, through his many official visits here. Wednesday, several Chinese newspapers featured news and photos of Locke.

    The Beijing Morning Post repeated well-known stories such as his rags-to-riches rise to the Governor’s Mansion, 1 mile from where his grandfather worked 100 years earlier as a domestic servant. His use of a helicopter in 1994 to display a banner declaring love for the lady who became his wife drew several admiring posts on the popular Sina micro-blogging site.

    Some Chinese expect Locke’s ethnic background to influence U.S. policy toward China.

    “I think he will be more moderate towards China” than other U.S. officials, says Li Yan, 37, a newspaper vendor.

    That’s wishful thinking, says Sun Zhe, director of the Center for Sino-U.S. Relations at Qinghua University in Beijing. Though the man in the street may hope otherwise, China’s leaders “know that, No. 1, Locke is an American minister-level official who must follow American policy to protect American interests,” Sun says.

    In two years as Commerce secretary, Locke has made a strong impression in Beijing and cultivated useful ties, Sun says.

    “He talks in a positive way, even when he’s talking tough policy, and gives hope that this is a guy you can deal with,” he says.

    Locke brings ample experience of trade issues, a key area of relations, but will soon face the perennial challenge of explaining Washington’s position on issues such as arms sales to Taiwan and human rights concerns.

    “I hope he’s a quick learner,” Sun says.

    Back in his grandfather’s hometown, Locke serves as an inspiration.

    “We teach our pupils to learn English, go overseas and be as successful as Gary Locke,” says teacher Li, 58, whose eldest daughter works for a U.S. pharmaceutical firm in New York.

  36. Well, as commerce secretary, Locke wan’t really that easy on China. I can see his appointment as a way to get tougher with China.

    Asians in elite political seats have been fairly non-political (Gary Lock, Elaine Chao), this will be interesting.

  37. Saw more news of the quake and tsunami that hit Japan. My heart goes out to them. Has China offered assistance?

  38. yes, some offer of assistance.

    Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is being considered by Obama as candidate for next Commerce Secretary.

    Eric Schmidt is largely known for his business pragmatic approach in dealing with governments in US and in China. (He was rumored to have opposed Google’s confrontation with China on the firewall issue).

  39. Hey guys have you heard or saw this movie called 康定情歌 or Kangding Love Song? The trailer is below

  43. @Bob March 22nd, 2011 at 09:42,

    Well, you actually brought up a few points.

    1. How can the DL retire from politics when he has always been just a “religious” figure?

    2. Does “retiring” mean retiring Gaddafi style – i.e. he holds no “official” title is but an “international leader” – who has gazillions stashed and can hire mercenaries to do his bidding?

    3. Some have asked, why Chinese gov’t doesn’t allow “freedom of religion” to which I have always replied because DL does not abstain from politics. If DL really wants to move toward a true separation of church and state in Tibet – which is possible, though it will be a break from tradition – then he should announce not just a temporal retirement now that he is weak and feeble, but a permanent retirement from politics in all future reincarnations. Whether he means it, and whether anyone should believe him is one thing, but since he’s already at the political circus, why not be complete – taking a stance on principle for once? No?

  44. DL is still the head of the Yellow Hat Sect, which can elect/appoint about 1/4 of representatives in the TGIE parliament, according to the Constitution of TGIE.

    The New TGIE Constitution has not be drafted yet, according to DL. So I make no opinions on that, but I doubt it will change much. Religious Sects, mostly the 4 dominant Tibetan schools of Buddhism will make up majority of the “representatives”, making TGIE still very much a “theocracy” by definition.

  45. Good point raventhorn2000. By the way, a limited democracy – whether limited to a particular gener, religious group, ethnicity – is fundamentally contrarian to the spirit of openness, tolerance and harmonious prosperity that China seeks for its future.

  46. It’s long an open secret within the Tibetan Exile community that only the “connected” people get to leave the Religious Utopian hell hole that they call Dharamsala in India, where there are very little job opportunities, poor health care, (high infant mortality even by Indian standards).

    That means, relatives of high Lamas, connection through bribery, etc., can go to Europe, US, Australia, while the others remain poor and destitute in Dharamsala.

    Perhaps with DL’s death, there will finally be an end to his cult of personality.

    *Seriously, I feel for the Tibetan Exiles. They thought they were brain washed by Mao, but then they turn to DL. So much misdirected religious fervor and adulation for parasitic Monks.

    It’s way past praying for miracles. If DL was that magical, the New Constitution should have been a reality 20 years ago.

  49. Saw it on the news 5 elderly US dissidents peacefully protesting nuclear weapon with flowers and prayer at Banger Naval Base were sentenced. Government spokesperson said their action amounts to anarchy, and if everyone acted that way society can not function.

    Wow, so when US crackdown on peaceful dissidents, it’s legitmate, but when China does it under it’s law, it is crackdown/oppression?

  51. I am not a fan of Han Han, but I think his latest writing on Google and Baidu is, shall I say, hit the nail on the head? Sorry it seems there is no English version yet.

    “谷歌和百度还是有区别的，谷歌要脸，所以大家都想冲上去撕破它的脸皮，百度不要脸，大家一看没脸可撕，就四散了。”

    “百度赶上了一个正确的年代，因为只有在这个年代里，你可以肆意的对作家音乐家影视工作者侵权，当然，最关键的是百度赶上了一个正确的国家，只有在这个国家里，你对几乎全文化行业侵权了以后还能受到庇护。”

    http://www.acriticism.com/article.asp?Newsid=12545&type=1003

  53. US government is facing shutdown today. Partisan stupidity.

    Rationally, honestly, how can a government of a nation declare itself shutdown?(other than a total bankruptcy of the treasury)

    Seriously, that’s like stop breathing because my left side brain and right side brain can’t agree on what to have for breakfast.

    Rationally, can’t the parties just say, oh, let’s just spend the money that we already agree on, and keep talking about the money we disagree on.

  56. 郎朗與其父精彩的二胡—鋼琴二重奏《賽馬》

    Lang Lang plays duet with his father at The Carnigie Hall. He was on piano while his father was on erhu fiddle.

    中國大陸著名鋼琴家郎朗於卡內基音樂廳的鋼琴獨奏音樂會演出，更與與二胡演奏家的父親郎國任合奏二胡—鋼琴二重奏國樂《賽馬》。

    當日父子倆你來我往，演奏出了駿馬飛騰、鬃毛聳立之場面，全場掌聲雷動。

    他們用鋼琴交流對話，好像在告訴人們當年父親是如何教育兒子成長為一個一流音樂家的，場面溫馨美好，令全場觀眾耳目一新，叫好不絕。

    朗朗的鋼琴演奏太美了，BBC 讚 揚他可能是世界上最偉大的鋼琴家，看他一雙手在琴健上飛舞著，很難想像他如何能記著那麼長又複雜的樂譜，看到這樣的表演，真是佩服得五體 投地，真不愧為當代最偉大的鋼琴家！

    http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=7JLvbXGoicw

  60. “A recent survey by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China had some
    discouraging numbers about reporting conditions in the country.
    Ninety-four percent of journalists who responded felt the work
    environment had deteriorated over the last year. Seventy percent had
    experienced harassment or violence of some kind.”

    I am not surprised. Why? Many western reporters have the bad habit of violating Chinese law and they frequently bragged about their getting away from Chinese law. For example, Peter Hessler had written in his recent book “COUNTRY DRIVING” (page 27) the following:

    “And a foreign journalist was technically required to apply to local authorities before traveling anywhere in the country.”

    What did he mean by “technically”? Answer: Legally.
    What did he do to avoid the technicality, i.e the legality?
    “This was one reason I brought my tent– I hoped to avoid small-town hotels, which hand over their guest lists to the police.”

    According to his book, Mr. Hassler must be violating this and other “technicalities” many times. In addition, some also had the bad habit of consorting with foreign spies. Nicolas Kristof drew a vivid picture on what had been ongoing among western reporters and spies.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/06/opinion/06KRIS.html

    “I remember one spy who would call me up eriodically for lunch when I lived in China. He would pass on amazing inside tidbits about China’s top leaders and then ask for copies of classified Chinese documents I had obtained.
    I kept putting him off because I wasn’t going to share my documents but I did want his scoops. Unfortunately, I could never confirm them, so they were unusable. Finally, it dawned on me that he was simply. fabricating juicy tidbits so he would have something to trade.”

  62. The best in life.
    Yes, the best in life are free or almost free: fresh air and clean water (we do not appreciate them until we visit China and Hong Kong to a less extend), healthy food, a walk around the lake or in the park. We cannot buy our grand children’s beautiful laughter that makes our life so meaningful and enjoying.

    Also, I enjoy our current events besides the above. That’s why I post often here. It is my passion, my work that I do not get paid… otherwise life is too boring. My secret weapon in life is: I do not need expensive toys to make me happy, so money is not a big deal to me at least at this stage of our life. However, making money is fun, losing money is nightmare, loving money is the root of all evils…

    Did any of you act last week according to the prediction of the end of human race? We should eat all the unhealthy and tasty food and charge it with our Master cards. Seems to be a sweet dream and now we’ve to wake up and face reality – the extra pounds we gained and the Master card statement we’ve to pay. Too bad that life is not totally free!

  67. @Wahaha June 7th, 2011 at 11:05,

    Thanks for bringing this to our attention.

    I had read it over the weekend and had hesitated whether to write a response. (I only have so much time, and cleaning after other’s trash is not my best use of time).

    My short answer to Friedman:

    I agree that human dignity / happiness / justice (whatever you want to call it) does not consist of only improving people’s standards of lives. The human condition requires much more than that. China should not be just about economic development. By the same token, the U.S. should not be just about Western conceptions of democracy and human rights.

    One question I’ve always asked ideologues like Thomson is: are people happy in the West because they get to vote, live in a democracy? Or are they happy because they live in an economically developed society whose interests are backed by the most awesome military alliance the world has ever seen?

    When I see U.S. campaign ads – which reflect the substance of “political speech” in this country, at least as far as influence among the people is concerned – I just don’t see how human dignity and happiness is correlated with democratic discourse. Political discourse is about trash talking. Even going to the roots and Golden history of this country, one can’t help notice that the U.S. for most of its history was not a true democracy in the sense that it had limited suffrage. Even when it did extend universal suffrage, it is not clear whether people have been truly participating as citizens or only to seek special rights for themselves, being played the pawn by oligarchy – which has resulted in a highly partisan public.

    Bill Clinton’s adage that “It’s the economy stupid” for me hits the nail better.

    The bottom line of gov’t for most Americans is to provide economic prosperity. Once prosperity is delivered, gov’t should get out. The business of gov’t is business. Now, some people may want gov’t to do more (though it’s not unanimously agreed) – such as to provide this benefit and that benefit. But all that flows from having a prosperous society first.

    Democracy is only an experiment and can be strong only when participants understands the frailty of democracy. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand the human condition and human history.

    Naturally, China cannot be about economic development and nothing else, that would be a tragic demise of the Chinese culture and tradition. However, given the last two centuries, I kind of agree with the gov’t’s position that the priority today is economic development. To disparage that history is to disparage the history of the Chinese people.

    Maybe the U.S. and China ain’t that different after all – once you correct for their levels of economic development and differences in history.

  68. One question I’ve always asked ideologues like Thomson is: are people happy in the West because they get to vote, live in a democracy? Or are they happy because they live in an economically developed society whose interests are backed by the most awesome military alliance the world has ever seen?

    *********************************************

    Excellent question, Allen.

    and

    I have a post, please have a look to determine if it is worth a new thread.

    Thanks

  72. China Law Blog had an article from Washington Post about the issue of eating dog meat in China.

    I just say, why is this even an issue for China?

    Dog meat eating is legal in Canada and parts of US. It’s only a social taboo that people seem to frown on. That’s not that unusual.

    China Law Blog’s and Washington Post’s article seem to exemplify yet another stereotypical negative perception of China, that some how there is something bad/backward about China.

    Many Americans almost delight on telling how unbelievable that Chinese (and other Asians) might occasionally eat dog meat (actually most Chinese, including myself, probably find it equally taboo).

    *But just remember that next time you hear some American telling you “I couldn’t believe I saw people eating dog meat in China”,

    you should smile and turn to them and say, “I can’t believe you never knew that eating dog meat is also legal in Canada and many US states, where have you been? Would you like a traditional Swiss recipe for dog meat, including gedörrtes Hundefleisch served as paper-thin slices, as well as smoked dog ham, Hundeschinken, which is prepared by salting and drying raw dog meat.”

    🙂

  75. Hi folks,

    I noticed that I was getting hits on my site from here.

    Thanks to raventhorn2 for the good words.

    I think my blog and Hidden Harmonies are basically on the same wavelength. I need to find time in my busy schedule to explore HH a bit more. I hope in the future there can be more sharing and maybe even collaboration with our respective media outlets.

    When I get around to creating a Blogroll, I’ll definitely add Hidden Harmonies to it.

    Good work and good luck to the friends and comrades.

    Zuo Shou / Sweet & Sour Socialism

  77. http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20071538-17/report-u.s-senate-site-hacked-again/

    Hacker group LulzSec announced that they hacked the CIA website and the US Senate website. They also phone hacked the FBI.

    Who is LulzSec?

    Domain name trace of LulzSecurity.com, the hacker group’s website, indicates its registrant is located in the Bahamas. (But that means it’s just hosted in the Bahamas, could be from anywhere in the world.)

    FBI has yet announce arrests of the group members.

    US has not officially declared war on LulzSec.

    🙂

  78. Pakistan begins to choke off supplies to US military bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    Pakistan and US alliance seems heading toward total collapse.

  79. Democracy is a system of dictatorship where a minority group of individuals, in single or multiple factions, come together to convince a seemingly majority of citizenry to consent to the rule of the minority, usually by confusion, lies, cult of personality, scandelizing of others, and of course, force, intimidation.

    Lenin had a term for this system, “Democratic dictatorship of the People”.

    The alternative definition is “A form of government where the candidate is elected by popular vote but rarely or never actually enacts any policies that reflect the actual wishes of the constituency.”

    Look up US today, the definitions certainly fit.

  80. Europe experience E. Coli outbreak in contaminated vegetables.

    I guess food inspection isn’t all that great in the West either.

    But finally, Germany confirmed (somewhat) that the contamination came from Bean Sprouts from farms in the northern village of Bienenbuettel, according to genetic testing of the E. Coli strain that killed 33 and sickened some 3000 people across 14 countries. (China actually helped Germany conduct some of the genetic testing).

  81. 2 of the most famous hacker groups, Anonymous and LulzSec announced what amounted to a joint declaration of war against governments and banks.

    I see in my crystal ball, a “War against Cyberterrorism” coming.

  89. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-14141454

    Mumbai India, 3 blasts rock financial center.

    suspecting “local groups”.

    Possibly the “Golden Corridor” Naxalite rebels at work??! If so, a first major Naxalite attack on a major city in India, and first major attack by the “Golden Corridor” Naxalites on the Western territories of India.

  91. http://techland.time.com/2011/07/18/anonymous-incurs-google-ban-retaliates-by-launching-own-social-network/

    Hacker group “Anonymous” and its many accounts were banned from Google + and Gmail, for violating “Community Standard” of Google.

    Specifically,

    “Illegal Activities
    Google … should not be used for unlawful purposes or for promotion of dangerous and illegal activities. If found engaging in such activity, we may terminate your account, notify law enforcement authorities, or take other appropriate action.”

    Hm…. Google censorship certainly toes the US government line quite well.

  92. Glad Japan won the girls’ world soccer championship for the following 5 reasons.

    5. US are spoiled. Dumb nationalism is just dumb.
    4. Too much misery in Japan. Give them a break!
    3. Why US always want to be #1 all the time.
    2. Japanese are shorter, so they have to try harder to be even. They should change the rule on how to break the tie by the average height of the players.

    #1 reason. It is God’s decision otherwise the ball would not bump into the pole that many times.

    No matter the outcome was, we all enjoyed a great game with fun and excitement. We would have a better world if we only care to fight for #1 in sports.

  94. And Japanese are supposed to be American “allies” now.

    If this is the way they treat “allies”, I think China is safer as NOT an “ally” of US.

    At least if there is knife coming, it won’t be coming from behind. 🙂

    On a different note, I think China is a little too hesitant to call on US regarding its poor handling of economy.

    I don’t know why so many people buy into the “too big to fail” argument for US economy. China should dump some US treasuries, just to see who gets hurt more, and to prove a point.

    *But perhaps China is waiting for the right time to do it. Nothing wrong with that. US politicians are pretty shameless about exploiting China as political issue whenever it is convenient for them. So, logically, China should return the favor.

    Hey, Since they don’t care about pressing on issues to ridicule and embarrass China, why should China hold back?

  95. FBI and US prosecutors are considering charging News Corp of violating FCPA (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act), specifically provisions on keeping books and records straight (no slush funds).

    The legal implication of this prosecution/investigation is, US based companies/individuals, (if bribing foreign officials for indirect gains of business, and not direct government contracts), must at least KEEP the books/records straight.

    (Ie. by indicating on accounting books, entries like “bribing UK police for leads and tips, $2000”. LOL! Seriously!).

    The wider legal implication is, oddly enough, such a legal precedence would technically mean that MANY US-based China bloggers are also violating FCPA, by tipping for leads in China, since many of their “secret” sources may be government connections.

    LOL! Watch your back, Jack.

    *
    Also, US arrested a US based Kashmiri charity operator, as an “unregistered foreign agent”, merely because he’s receiving money from Pakistan.

    ODD part though, US known about this man’s connection for years. It’s just another sign that the US-Pakistan tie is escalating toward breakdown.

    And, also, Doesn’t this also mean that anyone paid by NED in China are also “unregistered foreign agents”, subject to arrest and prosecution, (and not merely deportation)?

    *As one can see, US appears to be on another binge of stretching legal terms to fit its new crisis, (as it did post-911).

  97. @raventhorn2000, I guess it’s time I do that much delayed post I’ve always wanted to do, pulling together all the materials we have here already on the vatican, and articulating my view of the vatican, separation of church and state, and the politics of religion… I’ll do that next week.

  98. C.Custer’s comments were stuck in the spam queue. I’ve overturned one of them. The other two were him wondering what happened.

    Folks – I am going to turn off the comment editing plug-in for the time being and see if this problem goes away.

  102. I found this study to be fascinating:

    http://news.rpi.edu/update.do

    Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have found that when just 10 percent of the population holds an unshakable belief, their belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society.

  106. US rare earth mineral company, Molycorp, tracing its finances.

    http://seekingalpha.com/article/283236-estimating-the-value-of-molycorp-s-grace-rare-earth-contract

    Molycorp’s largest (possibly only) customer is GRA (WR Grace), which uses rare earth as catalyst for processing petroleum for US government.

    GRA was sued numerous times for fraud by US government, and had filed for bankruptcy about 10 years ago, and yet continues to receive government contracts.

    Molycorp also recently signed a large construction contract with KBR (Subsidiary of Halliburton) to build its California mine facilities.

    Molycorp stock is anticipated to rise, in view of its “renegotiation of contract” with GRA recently.

    *Yes, it feels like Money Laundering.

  107. Daily Show Jon Stewart satirized that UK censored a segment of his show where he actually praised to a footage of the British Parliament debate.

    Why did UK censor that segment? Because of a British law forbidding showing of Parliament debate in context of “satire”.

    Free Speech eh?

  111. US anti-China politicians and lobbyists want to slash “aid to China”. Except, if you read the article, the “aid” doesn’t actually go to China much, it pays MILLIONS for US professors to conduct research studies in China.

    What a load of BS! Yes, PLEASE cut the “aid” to China, so that US researchers would stop boondoggling in the name of “China”.

    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/09/critics-question-us-aid-to-china-amid-debt-woes/

  112. Actually agree with Fox, cut them all, include funding to Falun Gong nutjobs, Free Tibet hippies, ETIM Uyghur terrorists.

  113. I agree with the cut, but let’s be clear, those “aid” are not for China, as very few Chinese citizen any part of that money.

    In that sense, China actually gives more “aid” to US, as China offers scholarship assistance to US students studying in China, in the tune of several million dollars.

    *come to think of it, lot of US’s claimed “aid” to other nations are in reality, boondoggle funds for US citizens and US funded pro-US NGO’s.

    It’s like giving a “loan” to your neighbor and then say, “I’ll spend the money for you.”

    It’s F*ING ridiculous.

  116. “not to “let any phony concerns about human rights get in the way.”
    — Cameron”

    OK, he publicly admitted it, he’s intending to violate human rights to get his “way”.

    Time to prosecute him in Hague for human rights violations, UK is a member of the Rome Statute.

    Or prosecute him in the European Court of Human Rights.

    What? No takers? What a surprise.

  118. @colin

    The report is not surprising. This trade deficit thing is overcounted against China. We’ve discussed this several times. In International trade, China adds a sliver of value in the form of assembly. But the high IP components have always belonged to the advanced nations. But trade is counted such that when a product – made from high value components imported from other advanced economies – is exported from China, the entire value is counted as if all originated within China.

    https://hiddenharmonies.org/2010/10/fighting-for-jobs-in-a-globalized-world/

    https://hiddenharmonies.org/2010/05/opinion-the-foxconn-incident-is-a-reflection-of-the-growing-pains-associated-with-china%E2%80%99s-traditional-mode-of-development/#comment-37809

    https://hiddenharmonies.org/2010/09/the-politicization-of-the-yuan/

  121. China media dubs new US ambassedor Gary Locke, the “Backpacker”, with some admiring his down to Earth non-aloof non-official appearance, and some others reminding that Locke represents US interests in China.

    There is an old US term oddly similar and appropriate to the “Backpacker”: “Carpet Bagger”.

  122. A very good PBS series by Tavis Smiley, China Week.

    This particular episode involves interview with a US African American Expat in China.

    He made a very good point that there is an THIN superficial amount of racial stereotype regarding African Americans among Chinese people, and it is because that racial stereotype was given (or imposed) onto the Chinese people by Western Media such as Hollywood.

    I highly recommend this series of interviews on China, because 1 thing unique about this series is that it emphasizes on an African American point of view, featuring Professor Cornell West of Princeton, (renouned for his work on history and problem of racism).

    http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/interviews/china-%E2%80%93-the-hip-hop-culture/

  130. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._National_Memorial

    Controversy

    Fees to King familyIn 2001, the foundation’s efforts to build the memorial were stalled because Intellectual Properties Management Inc., an organization operated by King’s family, wanted the foundation to pay licensing fees to use his name and likeness in marketing campaigns. The memorial’s foundation, beset by delays and a languid pace of donations, stated that “the last thing it needs is to pay an onerous fee to the King family.” Joseph Lowery, past president of the King-founded Southern Christian Leadership Conference stated in the The Washington Post, “If nobody’s going to make money off of it, why should anyone get a fee?”[35] Cambridge University historian David Garrow, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography of King, said of King’s family’s behavior, “One would think any family would be so thrilled to have their forefather celebrated and memorialized in D.C. that it would never dawn on them to ask for a penny.” He added that King would have been “absolutely scandalized by the profiteering behavior of his children.”[36] The family pledged that any money derived would go back to the King Center’s charitable efforts.[20][37][38] The foundation has paid the fee since 2003. By 2009, King’s family had charged the Foundation $800,000 for the use of his words and image in fund-raising materials for the memorial.[20]

    [edit] Conflicts among federal agenciesFurther delay was encountered in 2008, due to a disagreement among the three federal agencies which must approve the memorial. The memorial design that was approved by the CFA and the NCPC was not approved by the NPS, due to security concerns. The NPS insisted upon the inclusion of a barrier which would prevent a vehicle from crashing into the memorial area. However, when the original design was submitted to the other two agencies, including such a barrier, the CFA and the NCPC rejected the barrier as being restrictive in nature, which would run counter to King’s philosophy of freedom and openness.[39] Eventually, a compromise was reached involving the use of landscaping to make the security barriers appear less intrusive upon the area.[40] The compromise plan was approved in October 2009,[40] clearing the way for construction of the memorial to begin.[20]

    [edit] Sculptor and stone choice
    Sculptor Lei Yixin’s signatureIt was announced in January 2007 that Lei Yixin, an artist from the People’s Republic of China, would sculpt the centerpiece of the memorial, including the statue of King[41] and the “Stone of Hope”. The commission was criticized by human rights activist Harry Wu on the grounds that Lei had sculpted Mao Zedong. It also stirred accusations that it was based on financial considerations, because the Chinese government would make a $25 million donation to help meet the projected shortfall in donations. The president of the memorial’s foundation, Harry E. Johnson, who first met Lei in a sculpting workshop in Saint Paul, Minnesota, stated that the final selection was done by a mostly African American design team and was based solely on artistic ability.[42]

    Gilbert Young, an African American artist known for a work of art entitled He Ain’t Heavy, led a protest against the decision to hire Lei by launching the website King Is Ours, which demanded that an African American artist be used for the monument.[43] Human-rights activist and arts advocate Ann Lau and American stone-carver Clint Button joined Young and national talk-show host Joe Madison in advancing the protest when the use of Chinese granite was discovered.[44] Lau decried the human rights record of the Chinese government and asserted that the granite would be mined by workers forced to toil in unsafe and unfair conditions.[45] Button argued that the $10 million in federal money that has been authorized for the King project required it to be subject to an open bidding process.[46]

    The memorial’s design team visited China in October 2006 to inspect potential granite to be used.[47] The project’s foundation has argued that the quality of the Chinese granite exceeds that which can be found in the United States.[48]

    Young’s King Is Ours petition demanded that an African American artist and American granite be used for the national monument, arguing the importance of such selections as a part of the memorial’s legacy. The petition received support from American granite workers[49][50] and from the California State Conference of the NAACP.[51][52]

    In May 2008, the CFA, one of the agencies which had to approve all elements of the memorial, raised concerns about “the colossal scale and Social Realist style of the proposed sculpture,” noting that it “recalls a genre of political sculpture that has recently been pulled down in other countries.”[48] The commission did, however, approve the final design in September 2008.[39]

    In September 2010, the foundation gave written promises that it would use local stonemasons to assemble the memorial. However, when construction began in October, it appeared that only Chinese laborers would be used. The Washington area local of the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsworkers union investigated and determined that the workers were not being paid on a regular basis, with all of their pay being withheld until they return to China.[53]

  131. It always has controversy in DC’s memorial monuments. The last one is Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial. Now, even the critics at the time admit it is one of the greatest memorial monuments ever if not the greatest. Every day, it has touched many and moved them to tears. The concept of touching the sky and the land is most likely a Chinese concept and most likely an idea from her parents.

    There should be no border in honoring a world-class hero. Is it racist that we did not complain on the Statue of Liberty which was built by French?

    To the Chinese bashers: There is no radioactivity elements implanted in the rocks that could kill every one in DC and no modern-day Trojan Horse.

  132. To many critics who say the pose of MLK statue is too “confrontational” and/or unrealistic:

    I believe it was based on this real photo of MLK (left of the linked photo).

    http://pardonmyhindi.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/mlk.jpg

    You compare to the statue: http://www.buzzoutthebox.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/MLK+STONE+STATUE.jpg

    Granted, the new MLK statue is different from the traditional MLK statue motifs (which usually have MLK in a pose with his right hand raised as he did when he was making his speeches).

    But one can hardly say that this new statue’s pose is that unusual, or it was a really unflattering pose for MLK’s memory.

  134. Wait, Google+ requires real name?

    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2392013,00.asp

    Isn’t this the same thing folks were b!tch!ng about with Sina, etc. Where’re the voices now? Potential human rights violation no matter who does it right?

    Or we are back to the “only we can avoid massacre by massacring people we don’t like” execptionalism?

  136. @Allen

    I always said most Westerners just don’t really understand the TRUE meaning of their own laws, especially on “free speech”.

    (Then again, most Westerners wouldn’t even know how to have a proper legal dispute over their rental properties, or traffic fines, let alone their MORE serious personal “RIGHTS”.

    I mean, if they just let their governments and police role over them without much protest, when it comes to $50 traffic tickets, and don’t even know how to dispute them, how do they possibly know what “speech rights” they really have??!

    They really don’t know their own laws very well.)

  137. @Charles Liu

    I think the only thing I would object about the MLK memorial is that it is YET another sign of commercializing noble ideals in modern society.

    Instead of MLK being a symbol that is free to All people on Earth, the MLK family is extremely litigious about anyone else using MLK’s name or image.

    Even for this PUBLIC memorial, the MLK family extracted some MILLIONS of dollars for the use of MLK’s name and image.

    Unfortunately, too many symbols of “freedom” and “democracy” in the Western world now have big dollar signs attached to them!

  139. As a side story about my days in Engineering and Google.

    Google talks about want to reduce secrecy and having free information, but in practice, Google is notoriously secretive and possessive about all the data it captures from the public.

    I was working on harddrive reliability measurement studies, and I called around different companies that have large servers that run harddrives, to ask if they could share some of their harddrive reliability data records.

    Note: I didn’t ask for user data, private data, or even company commercial data. I asked for their logged data of their hard drive failure rates (which they told me they logged).

    The Google Engineer very insistently told me that it was Google Legal’s policy for the whole company that they would NOT share such data.

    Oh, BTW, my company was partnering with Google at the time.

    It was like trying to pull teeth from a Lion.

    *This is why I don’t trust Google’s “free information” and “do no evil” motto, from a personal experience. They would smile and take data from the public, but they won’t give any information about themselves. (Because it’s all potentially their profit. If they control the data, they control the profit).

  142. @Allen

    I would change #1 in that article to “Don’t Have Lawns”, Lawns are water hogs by nature, and they don’t hold top soil very well. If one wants to make one’s land “green”, one should consider planting trees (and perhaps some bushes) for the appropriate soil conditions. Avoid using commercially sold top soil to cover the existing ground. There are lots of hearty trees and bush species that would survive in sandy soil.

    Over time (decades), the soil condition can change for the better, if you maintain the trees and bushes.

    Consider it a legacy you leave behind for the future generations.

  146. I read some comments from Netflix on China Heat, a Chinese movie made in HK 10 or so years ago. Some comments showed the the ugliness of the American public, ignorance, or at least a double standard. It is one of the many examples and comments reflect the general opinion of a country. Here are some:

    * Why all Americans in the movie speak Chinese?
    Do you think all the ancient Egyptians, Roman, Greeks in Hollywood movies can speak English?

    * It is just a low-budget movie.
    To me, especially 10 years ago, the budget is quite high compared to the average budget of movies made in Hong Kong at that time. How many foreign countries make movies in US and hire so many union workers?

    * I gave up the movie when they shot subjects 20 yards away with a pistol.
    Do you believe Superman can fly?

    —-
    I feel some American movies are biased and plain stupid but I’ve not expressed my opinion until now.

    * How fast you draw a gun.
    Even if you draw the gun 100 times faster than I, I can kill you at the back easily.

    * How do the Indians feel in John Wayne’s movies?

    Just relax and enjoy the movies. Keep our biases to ourselves and leave it a better world.

  148. It is US general opinion that China steals all the jobs from us. My response:

    How about the benefit of our farm products from China? If every Chinese buy a bowl of rice and a cup of soy milk from us, our farmers will be filthy rich! $20 wage just will never compete with $2 wage, no matter it is from China, India, Vietnam, Eastern Europe…

    China does not have natural resources/farm lands per capita than US. Population is not a resource but a liability and that’s why they have the one child policy. They have to work hard to survive from their lessons in last 250 years.

    We do not have enough PhDs in science and technology. It is not China or India’s fault. It is ours. It is easy to blame other countries like the politicians are doing as they cannot solve our problems.

    When the Chinese, Indians… work hard and maintain a low standard of living, what’s wrong with that? We should work hard and maintain a living standard we can afford.

    We have free trade with Mexico. Many Chinese products can compete with Mexico products even they have to pay a lot of shipping cost. Let the best products with the lowest cost win.

  151. I would say US was on the losing path, once it began its quest of global dominance.

    The goal is simply flaw and unsustainable.

    If you make it your personal business to beat down every Tom, Dick, and Harry who comes along to challenge your appearance of dominance, then sooner or later, you will be exhausted.

    Even business monopolies collapse over time, due to change in technologies, economy, people’s habits.

    A government trying to become global dominant? American fantasy.

  152. There was a recent commentary from a US media source, (which I believe is echoed by other US policy advisors), that “Arab Spring” was somehow a small victory for the West, because the protesters in Egypt and Tunisia demonstrated that they did something that the Islamic terrorists couldn’t do, ie. overthrow the local Middle Eastern dictators.

    It is yet another example of strategic short-sightedness and self-patting on the back talks in the West.

    The hard reality is the “peaceful protesters” in Egypt and Tunisia actually proved the Islamic Terrorists’ strategy right.

    The War on Terror so drained the West (particularly US) military resources, that US couldn’t even consider helping Mubarak in Egypt, at the high risk of more uncertainty in the Middle East.

    But in a strategic Defeat, US politicians put on a brave spin, to make sound as if they actually supported the Egyptian protesters, while basically sitting back and crossing their fingers that everything would work out OK.

    And in the end, Military Dictatorship took over Egypt under a different/same bunch, and US breathed a little easier.

    And just for kicks, to prove that they were still in the control, they turn on Libya’s Kaddafi, who had basically already surrendered to US several years back during Bush’s regime.

    But before US gloats too loudly, the protesters and the Islamic terrorists are not fooled.

    They can see that nothing really changed much in Egypt and Libya, but they can detect the wishy-washy-ness in US’s spin, and they know their violence made an impact.

    Still in their plans and works, are Saudi Arabia and Bahrain’s corrupt Royal families, where Osama Bin Laden’s LONG true aim of overthrow still holds for radicals and peaceful dissidents alike, reach out and maintaining the protests even from Bin Laden’s grave.

    US and West try to ignore the deaths over there, try to ignore Saudi’s desperate invasion to save Bahrain.

    But the Saudi’s know, Bin Laden’s Ghost is casting a LONG shadow. He may be dead, but his plan may be working. He exhausted the Western Military in Iraq and Afghanistan, his followers may now turn their attentions back home, working from within the “peaceful protests”.

    Violence afterall, was a necessity in any revolution.

  156. @raventhorn2000

    Relating to my own earlier comment above, Al-Qaeda’s new leader claims credit for bringing about the Arab Spring, and mocks US’s hypocrisy in its claim of support.

  159. Saudi Arabia plays hardball with US over looming UN vote on Palestinian Statehood.

    I guess the Saudi Royals finally grew a pair, after so many years of playing US’s lapdog.

    http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hDGkwlB2p6ypQ5iicov7nAerW3yg?docId=CNG.37f490980793ed822010b69c4858a6ab.311

    Looks like the Middle East (post-Arab Spring) is realigning power bases. Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, (now Saudi Arabia) are turning against Israel (and US by proxy).

    Well, I guess the phrase “Arab Spring” is living UP to the full meaning. The Arabs are rising, and they are emboldened. Now some of them have gotten the weapons from the West, and they might actually decide to use them to settle old grudges.

    Wow, I’m impressed and worried. I for one don’t like wars, they never end well for any one. But the West may have foolishly encouraged this “Arab Spring”, which might turn against their entire Middle East strategy.

    Perhaps that’s a good thing, we will see.

  160. I like to recommend a book

    ‘Asia, America, and the Transformation of Geopolitics’ by William Overholt. (2008)

    The writer has a very clear view of what’s happening in East Asia. Do check it out.

  161. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are both playing up their influences in the Arab League, recently regarding the Palestinian Statehood issue, vocally against US and Israel, why?

    The Turks are trying to move into the vacuum of Iraq after US withdrawal of troops, before Iran can extend its influence in Iraq. Saudis also see Iran’s influence in the Arab Spring, and are desperate to keep a lid on it.

    Both Turkey and Saudi Arabia are trying to rally Arab sympathies. Turkey, having its long history of persecuting the Arabs during its Ottoman Empire days, and Saudis being 1 of the US backed military dictatorships in Middle East.

    The Arab Spring showed Saudi Arabia (and Jordan, Bahrain) that their US sponsors were probably helpless and too weak to support them.

    Instead, Saudis took matters into their own hands, sent troops to Bahrain to stop the spread of Arab Spring. And to their surprise, US and Europe did not object. That meant that US was too weak to do anything, 1 way or another. And this emboldened the Saudis to unofficially downgrade their “alliance” with US, realizing that perhaps now, they have more leverage on the former US sponsors. (Afterall, and additionally, Saudi Arabia can now diversify its customer base to China and India).

    *That is why now, the Palestinian Statehood issue is becoming a hot button for Turkey and Saudi Arabia (and Jordan), whom previously had rather ambivalent relationships with Israel.

    Now more than ever, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are striking out their own influences in the region, as if to proclaim that they are the new big kids on the block.

  165. @zack

    I have said it before, China doesn’t need to bother playing US’s game on Taiwan.

    Respond by protesting diplomatically tit-for-tat. But at the end of the day, let Taiwan buy weapons, and bankrupt itself.

    US is charging Taiwan an arm and a leg for old weapons, and it is largely symbolic for the domestic politics of Taiwan and US, that they should keep up “appearances” of this alliance.

    But soon enough, Taiwan will realize that it’s just wasting money for nothing. If US wants to confront China over Taiwan, it will not be because of Taiwan, but because of US’s own interests. But Taiwan would be caught in the middle, regardless.

    If China really wants to respond, engineer an economic downturn in Taiwan, and that would get the point across.

    Not a collapse, just a small down turn. Squeeze the profit margins of the Taiwanese Rich, and we will see them complain about their taxes in Taiwan paying for the weapons.

  166. @raventhorn2000
    the thing is, the Taiwan government is always under pressure from its citizens to purchase the weapons, if they don’t their opponents would accuse them of compromising national security so they’re in a bind, really.
    THe problem is more the US government and its use of wedge politics for its own purposes; this must not be allowed to continue.

    Taipei, especially under the stewardship of the KMT are more cordial with Beijing these days but for a group that considers itself the rightful heirs of the Qing and therefore China, it’s an issue which the KMT and the CCP are going to have to compromise and negotiate lest they continue to allow Washington to continue employing wedge politics for profit.

    oh yeah, remember how impartial and objective Al Jazeera english are supposed to be? well as it turns out, according to cables from wikileaks, their editors and bosses frequently met with US officers to censor the news and cast the US in a favourable light:
    http://www.cablegatesearch.net/search.php?q=aljazeera+&qorigin=17920&sort=0

    i might also add that given how quickly the west turned on Gadaffi (when only a few years ago he was being wined and dined in paris), that China should always position itself to hold the West by the short and curlies.

  167. @zack

    Can you give a pinpoint citation (to the specific document) of what you refer to as Al Jazeera english “editors and bosses frequently met with US officers to censor the news and cast the US in a favourable light”?

  168. @Allen
    certainly,
    the exact quote from the cable was “Summary: PAO met 10/19 with Al Jazeera Managing
    Director Wadah Khanfar to discuss the latest DIA report on Al
    Jazeera and disturbing Al Jazeera website content. Khanfar is
    preparing a written response to the DIA points from July,
    August and September which should be available during the
    coming week. Khanfar said the most recent website piece of
    concern to the USG has been toned down and that he would have
    it removed over the subsequent two or three days. End
    summary. ”
    Source: http://wikileaks.org/cable/2005/10/05DOHA1765.html#par1
    plus an apologist’s analysis of aljazeeragate:
    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/09/19/what_wikileaks_tells_us_about_al_jazeera

  169. @zack

    Yes, as I said, US and Taiwan are driven by domestic politics to hype up the China threat, if for nothing else, they have nothing better to do (such as actually trying to improve their economies and less dependent upon China/Russia/etc.)

    And I agree, China needs to maintain some leverage hold on these “democracies”, because they are completely unpredictable and can turn on “allies” the minute they feel you are “growing too much”.

    The way China has always played this, and I agree with this tactic, is to make sure US and Taiwan don’t ever get 100% of what they want.

    As long as they want some thing big from China, such as support in dealing with North Korea, UN security council, or trade deals, they won’t go too far.

    But this stalemate can only go so long.

    But this is also moot, because US will soon get itself into hot water again, with this Palestinian Statehood issue.

    US has played delay tactics on this way too long, and now has effectively isolated itself in its support of Israel. (Even Britain has indicated that it supports the Palestinian Statehood vote).

    If a show down happens on this matter, regardless of how US deals with it now, it will lose Israel as an Ally, and lose “face” in the Arab League and in Europe.

    It will likely take US a long time to recover from this kind of disaster. It will have very little energy to deal with China then.

    Of course, it will likely continue to hype China threat as a diversion, but it will not have much teeth. Ie. it can say it supports “democracy” all it wants, very few will believe it (Not after it threatened to veto Palestinian Statehood vote in UN, when almost EVERYONE else wants the vote to go ahead, and now that most of Middle East are “democracies”).

  170. @raventhorn2000
    indeed, good points; i’d also add that US credibility is already much worn and much abused-having Hilary Clinton as the head diplomat to speak for America is appropriate since everything she says is hypocritical from Chinese investment in Africa to American interference in latin america and Africa.

    Have westerners already forgotten that Mubarak was ‘their man’, that Hilary Clinton and the rest of the USG did what they could to retain Mubarak in power until it became politically inconvenient such that the US had to betray Mubarak and position itself on the side ‘of the people’ and further cemented it with propaganda and an illegal war against Libyans? I don’t think i need to mention the betrayal of Bahrainis or the Saudis as they themselves were crushed with impunity by their own US-backed depots.

    Now regarding the Palestinean issue, i have no doubt the US ambassador to the UN and his/her staff are doing what they can to blackmail other UNSC members into either abstaining or turning down the Palestinean motion-only question is whether or not they’re going to use ban-ki-moon’s DNA and palm prints or the privy/bioloigical details of other embassies to do it (as wikileaks informed us,). The palestineans need 9 votes to acquire UN membership; so far they have 6 or 7 i can’t remember. Of course China’s vote is in favour of Palestinian membership, and every yr the US has the audacity and gall to accuse it of human rights abuses or aiding and abetting regimes that commit human rights abuses.

    oh and one other thing, i wonder if spielberg will quit hollywood projects out of protest at the United States Government’s support for Israel? no? he didn’t seem to have a problem when he made a brou-ha-ha over leaving the 2008 olympics over China and the Sudan. Hypocritical fuck.

  171. China used to play leverage on the Palestinian issue, when it was necessary, given that there was no need to force the issue “until the time is right”.

    By that, I mean, China saw the harm in confronting the issue too early with US and Israel.

    (Of course, China has no side to pick between Israel and Palestine. It was Israel’s own choice and its own fear that kicked out all those Palestinians to the neighboring countries, which would inevitably fester into a long term problem. Compare and contrast that to Chinese Tibet.)

    Isn’t it odd that a “democracy” would cause so much fear that so many Palestinians would choose to leave or were forced to leave over the years? Especially in comparison to a supposedly freedomless godless Communist China?

    By the numbers: Israel formed in 1940’s, had War with the Arab states, drove out Palestinians in mass exodus ~700,000 left. Communist China took over Tibet in 1950, ~80,000 Tibetans left.

    World wide population of Palestinians 10.9 million. World wide population of Tibetans 7 million.

    Palestinians leaving Israel per year ~21,000. Tibetans leaving China per year ~few 100’s.

    Palestinians living outside of Israel controlled territories, ~7 million. Tibetans living outside of Chinese controlled Territories, ~150,000.

    *I do not imply any kind of Israeli intentional policies at work, merely that such NUMBER (~7 MILLION) of Exiled Palestinians would be a HUGE problem for Israel inevitably, FAR more than the 150,000 Tibetans outside of China.

    Israel and US should have recognized this problem a MILE away, and yet US still get all huffy about China’s Tibet problem?! Get real already!

    US and Israel’s 7 MILLION Palestinian problem is at the root of terrorism and much more. They have ignored it FAR too long, and that’s 1 elephant in the room that doesn’t need Hollywood or a “Dear Leader/Dalai Lama Highness Holiness” to make itself visible.

  174. @Charles Liu

    I don’t need to repeat the fact that Hawaiians do eat dog meat, and it is completely legal to sell dog meat for consumption in Canada and many US states.

  175. so the news is out, China’s economy growing a measly 9.5% has gotten the green eyed Americans and Europeans fearful and desperately needing someone to console them about China’s faults, and i assure you, there’s not going to be a shortage of western ‘analysts’ feeding that need by reiterating the fallacy that a drop in western demand for Chinese products will result in a Chinese slowdown. Hilarious when u consider that China’s growth now is largely internally driven by domestic consumption.

    we now move onto the glaring fact that despite american/western attempts to destabilise China, the Chinese will outgrow and outcompete the West irrespective of the outcome:
    http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/216331/20110919/china-economic-dominance-2030.htm

  176. I personally dislike projections using some statistics. It’s pseudo-science.

    One can use similar kinds of statistics to show God’s mood.

    The projections don’t matter. China was once poor and in the dumps, that didn’t stop the Chinese people from holding onto the belief/faith in themselves.

    Superpowers may be great in numbers, but they may suffer crisis inevitably from their ego and arrogance.

    That is simply a pattern of history.

  177. 7 MILLION Palestinians live in Exile! Now, for those who LOVE to quote the UDHR, which has the “refugee RIGHT to return”, consider US and Israel the biggest violators of UDHR: 7 MILLION REFUGEES!!

  178. it’s common knowledge that The West will do whatever it takes to prevent power from fully shifting to the east, and especially to China; question is, to what lengths will they go to accomplish that?
    will they risk war with China just to prevent history from happening?

  179. @zack
    I have a slightly different take.

    The current world order was won and now led by the West. The U.S. being the dominant player in that. The U.S. will therefore try really hard to preserve it as things are tilting in her favor.

    If you look at the trend of the West trying to increase influence to the BRICS in the World Bank and the IMF, there is a real shift they are accepting/tolerating.

    To China’s credit, she is not saying lets destroy these unfair world institutions and build something anew. She is trying to work within the existing system to try to improve it.

    Given the political climate in the U.S., I can’t see how Obama is able to block weapons sale to Taiwan. Given the U.S. recognizes China’s sovereignty over Taiwan, what the U.S. is doing is wrong. She can do it because she has the military might to do it. However, I think China is getting stronger, especially economically. So the dynamics of the relationship will change.

    It is possible the hawks in the U.S. reverse the (in my opinion) over-all slow and improving normalization trend. But I hope things gradually improve.

  180. @YinYang
    Well, DW, remember Donald Rumsfeld’s Pacific theater readiness doctrine? Rumsfeld even sent secret envoy to Chen Shuibian to advocate independence, seemingly to instagate cross-straight conflict.

    That was squarely aimed at creating conflict with China. But thank Buddah 9/11 changed all that.

  181. @Charles Liu
    Very true. 9/11 changed it completely. The recent Japan tsunami changed all that ridiculous escalation of tensions near Korea too.

    I think it points to a tricky balance – between the hawks and the doves. I forgot where I read it – someone said we can’t see nation states as single actors. They are mostly bureaucracies of competing interests.

  182. infected canteloupes or rockmelons kill 13 ppl and infect 72 in the US; is there anything to be said about food safety in the US? is the United States Government also responsible for this?
    http://www.smh.com.au/world/killer-cantaloupes-kill-13-infect-72-in-us-20110929-1kxx3.html

    is this a reflection of the corrupt USG? failure on the part of the FDA? where’s the mass international orgy of schadenfreude over this?
    13 ppl dead, it’s still more than those 4 babies who died from the melamine debacle.

  183. you can practically hear the disappointment in the al jazeeraenglish reporter as he reports on China’s successful launch of the central module for Tiangong-1; no matter, success or failure, nothing will stop China’s march to progress and development.
    http://www.youtube.com/user/AlJazeeraEnglish?blend=1&ob=4#p/u/4/8zK8jHpLV9c

    prepare for more red scare/”oh woe is us” moments from the mouthpieces of the western elites in the next coupla months, especially if the docking is successful. if it’s not successful, brace yourself for the inevitable schadenfreude

  185. regarding the launch of tiangong I, i’ve noticed that amongst the disappointed tone in western media reporting (they would’ve preferred the launch to have failed), the journalists couldn’t resist pointing out how much russia has influenced China’s space program. Whilst yes, the Chinese do have Russian technology and expertise to thank for some parts of their program, it’s ignorant to claim as their articles imply, that the Russians should be credited as the driving force behind China’s space success to date. To do so ignores and even insults the efforts of hundreds of thousands of Chinese engineers who’ve toiled away to ensure any launch becomes as successful as the launch of Tiangong I.

    The Russians also advised and assisted, India, South Korea, and North Korea’s space program but you can hardly say any of those have been as successful as China’s space program to date. To assert-as so many journalists of the west do-that western (russia is a western country after all) influence should acquire credit for China’s achievements is evident that the West has never really let go of their racist views that asians-Chinese in this case-are ethnically inferior and would never have come up with such technonology if it wasn’t stolen in the first place. Same schtick applies in the case of the J-20 or Baidu

  187. @Rhan
    Don’t see any of your comments in the spam queue. Lately we’ve been beefing up our efforts in fighting spams. Try making sure the browser ‘busy’ status is no longer before you click another link – to make sure the comment went through. Email me if you are still having problems. Apparently, your Open forum comment went through.

  188. happy double tenth day everyone! i note that Dr Sun Yat Sen’s portrait has been unveiled in Tiannenmen square.
    of course this is what the honest and obviously impartial journalists at the Epoch Times call ‘China nervous about anniversary of 1911 revolution’.
    yes, right because the Chinese government was so nervous President Hu and the rest of the CCP honoured the Xinhai revolution and this obviously ‘low key’ ceremony was so low key that it’s everywhere on the Chinese news with Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao extolling and celebrating the Xinhai revolution.

  192. US gearing up a case for War against Iran? Same old story.

    http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/us-iran-tied-terror-plot-washington-dc-disrupted/story?id=14711933

    “The Iranian-American, identified by federal officials as Manssor Arbabsiar, 56, reportedly claimed he was being “directed by high-ranking members of the Iranian government,” including a cousin who was “a member of the Iranian army but did not wear a uniform,” according to a person briefed on the details of the case.”

    I like to know what the Heck is INS doing letting these guys into US, let alone become US citizens.

    Seriously?!

  193. Clinton and others in US leadership calls Iran having “crossed the line”.

    Looks like War talk against Iran is in full swing.

  198. Those who support Israel have their AIPAC and the more moderate J-Street. I’m thinking those who support a defense of China from unfair attacks in the media should form their own group or political action committee. Only this time, the defenses will be justified by the facts unlike they are for AIPAC. I’m looking for resources to start one of these committees. If you know of some, let me know.

    Thanks

  199. Chinese Engineers making plans for 100KM long land bridge for connecting mainland China to northern Taiwan.

    http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7185964.html

    I have seen some conceptual designs for this land bridge, which also involves building a HSR on the bridge, connecting Taiwan to the Chinese HSR network.

    Some have called this land bridge the “Great Wall on the Sea”.

    *of course, I fully expect some paranoid conspiracy theories from some NGO/security experts on this one.

  203. it’s clear that as all the pundits in the west put it: the US’ presence in Asia is stabilising.

    my arse it is, Manila knows it’s being backed up by the USG so they know they can push the envelope when it comes to China; i mean look at what happened last yr with that botched hostage crisis with those honk kong tourists. How insulting was it that the filipinos gave the terrorist a hero’s funeral?

    it’s clear that the more the USG continues to back all these ASEAN nations in order to ‘congage’ China, the more unstable the region will be.-which might i add, is probably what the USG wants after all, what can the USG offer asians but “security” under contrived threats

  204. I’m looking for a good story with a Chinese leading character. I was thinking about the guy that saved 32,000 Jews from the Nazi regime (so called Chinese Schindler). I was wondering if anyone had some English sources on this guy or other similar figures. I want to write a film script with a positive Chinese male character. Though no western production company will likely make it, some Chinese or foreign company might make into a film.

  205. I thought this was kind of funny – maybe even educational:

    http://www.onlinedegree.net/15-most-butchered-phrases-in-the-english-language/

    15 MOST BUTCHERED PHRASES IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

    “I couldn’t care less” — not “I could care less:”

    It should be noted that phrases do evolve, and the new way of saying them can become the accepted colloquialism. There is some debate as to whether or not that should be the case with “could care less,” which is recognized by the Oxford Dictionary. Even still, the phrase doesn’t make sense, as it means that you care at least a little bit. If you couldn’t care less, then you couldn’t care at all. There’s a clear difference.

    “A moot point” — not “A mute point:”

    According to Merriam-Webster moot means obsolete, essentially meaning when someone makes “a moot point,” it’s completely worthless to debate. The words sound alike and the incorrect phrase somewhat makes sense — if you can’t hear a point, then what’s it worth? — but it would be wise to mute the “mute” completely if you tend to use the phrase.

    “For all intents and purposes” — not “For all intensive purposes:”

    This phrase originated in 16th century England when King Henry issued the Statute of Proclamations, which was “to all intents and purposes,” allowing him to modify it at his discretion. Eventually it morphed into “for all intents and purposes,” meaning “in effect.” The use of “for all intensive purposes” has increased in the Internet era, though documented use of it occurred during the 19th century.

    “Nip it in the bud”– not “Nip it in the butt:”

    There’s quite a difference between stopping something before it flowers and biting someone’s bum. One refers to ending a problem before it grows into something bigger; the other is an action that would cause problems.

    “Without further ado” — not “Without further adieu:”

    Ado means “fuss.” Adieu means “farewell.” From those definitions, you can probably deduct which makes more sense. Think Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. It was much ado about nothing when you stayed up all night worrying about the results of the exam you eventually found out you aced.

    “Pique one’s interest” — not “Peak one’s interest:”

    Some may assume “peaking one’s interest” is correct because you’ve reached the highest point of their interest. However, “pique” is the correct verb in the phrase, as it means to excite or arouse. In this case, your curiosity has been stimulated.

    “Deep-seated belief” — not “Deep-seeded belief:”

    Something that’s “deep-seated” is situated far below the surface, according to Merriam-Webster. Of course, a deep seed would also be situated far below the surface. Grammarist.com states the correct phrase comes from horseback riding; not gardening or farming.

    “Champing at the bit” — not “Chomping at the bit:”

    When you’re “champing at the bit,” you’re showing impatience. But it seems that the authorities of the English language — such as Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary — have shown patience with the use of “chomping at the bit,” which is now more common than the correct phrase, despite the fact that the substitution is inexplicable.

    “Never ceases to amaze me” — not “Never seizes to amaze me:”

    “Seize” means “to take possession of,” “to attack or overwhelm physically,” or “to bind or fasten together with a lashing of small stuff,” according to Merriam-Webster, so it obviously doesn’t belong in this phrase. Nor should it replace “cease” in “cease and desist” or “cease fire.”

    “Reap what you sow” — not “Reap what you sew:”

    To “sow” is “to plant a seed for growth especially by scattering, ” according to Merriam-Webster. To “reap what you sow” is to get what you deserve — whatever grows is the outcome of sowing. A shirt or sweater would be the outcome of sewing.

    “Once in a while” — not “Once and a while:”

    “Once and a while” yields 6,320,000 results on Google and a handful of results on Google News. It’s a common error, but most people seem to recognize the correct phrase from the incorrect phrase, as “once in a while” yields a hefty 58,000,000 results.

    “In layman’s terms” — not “In lame man’s terms:”

    A layman is someone who lacks specialized knowledge on a topic. If you’re discussing football, and a layman enters the conversation with useless opinions, then it would be totally lame, man. But it wouldn’t be correct, or nice, to label him a “lame man.”

    “In the midst of” — not “In the mist of:”

    The distorted version of “in the midst of” is a mondegreen, a term for when someone mishears or misinterprets a word. “Midst” and “mist” sound very much alike, but obviously shouldn’t be substituted for one another. “In the midst of” means “in the middle of” or “in the process of,” and has nothing to do with getting wet unless water or mist is inserted after the phrase.

    “Off the beaten path” — not “Off the beat and path:”

    Venturing away from the path most taken can be an offbeat move, but you’re not venturing “off the beat and path.” That little bed and breakfast 20 miles south of the interstate is “off the beaten path.”

    “Out-of-body experience” — not “Outer body experience:”

    You can go into “outer space” or have an “out-of-body experience,” a sensation in which you float outside of your body, but you can’t have an “outer body experience.” Keep that in mind if you ever choose to retell the tale of your traveling soul.

  208. I find it curious that Ambassedor Ho was issuing Chinese visa’s to Jewish refugees in 1938, while many of them were refused assistance from other nations’ embassies, (perhaps even the US embassy, as hinted in the 2nd article).

    Remember that in 1938, US was not at war with Nazi Germany. That means, the US government in 1938, through its embassies, knew that Jews in Germany were being rounded up, and were requesting help, but simply stood by and watched the Nazis hauled the Jews into concentration camps.

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

    Out of 31 nations met at the conference in 1938, only Dominican Republic agreed to accept Jewish Refugees wishing to leave Germany. US and UK both refused to accept Jewish Refugees.

    *That episode is an interesting parallel to the “Bystander effect”, isn’t it?

    100,000’s of Jewish people being rounded up, and 30 nations agreed to do nothing, and let 1 Dominican Republic to try to save a few.

    And, US and UK get outraged only when they are attacked.

  209. @raventhorn
    To be fair that was over 60 yrs ago. At that time, a ship filled with Jewish refugees was refused port of entry in US and then Canada. They were sent back to certain death in Nazi Germany. Hence a big reason why US/Europe support founding of Israel is due to guilt complex. However, the irony is that the idea was first proposed by the USSR.

  211. @raventhorn

    Thanks. I’m also thinking of writing script around a partly fictional account but based on the Wen Ho Lee case. I’ve already read his book written with Zia but I’d like it to be partly fictional.

  212. i cannot believe it’s now become acceptable to speculate about denying resources to China’s billions (who’ve been lifted out of poverty) at one’s own gain; i can’t believe ppl would be so blatant about such an unapologetic zero sum worldview:
    http://www.dylanratigan.com/2011/10/20/red-scare-our-economic-war-with-china/#.TqB0aBzLzhM.reddit

    malaysian professor, Danny Quah even addresses this disturbing attitude by westerners:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1sy8skjA1Q

  214. Here’s a decent article about Zheng He
    http://alumni.berkeley.edu/news/california-magazine/fall-2011-good-fight/eunuch-admiral

    One interesting part is:

    Zheng’s fleet, the most lethal in existence, will ply the seas for three decades without conquering a single foreign state or annexing a sliver of territory.

    In the words of the late Franz Schurmann, another legendary Berkeley sinologist, the vision behind the mammoth enterprise is “a world of exchange, rather than a world of conflict.” An inconceivable world, by the standards of Western imperialism, which takes the stage a century later.

    Overall a decent article but the ending paragraph is a little meh.

  215. @JJ
    von Glahn mentioned that he teaches world history in UCLA, and that all world history texts mention Zheng He. The problem with these texts, von Glahn continued, is with the presentation. The tendency is to offer counterfactual arguments; in other words, to emphasize “China’s missed opportunity.” The “narrative emphasizes the failure” and pays insufficient attention to what was accomplished.

    n a word, von Glahn continued, “Zheng He reshaped Asia.” Maritime history in the fifteenth century is essentially the Zheng He story and the effects of Zheng He’s voyages. For instance, Malacca, on the Malayan peninsula, and Zheng He’s most important port after those in China, in the fifteenth century became the great port and hub of a trading network that extended across Southeast Asia and up to China.

    Von Glahn emphasized that Zheng He’s influence lasted beyond his age. Zheng He, von Glahn suggested, may be seen as the tip of an iceberg: He was prominent, but there is much, much more to story of maritime trade and other relationships in Asia in the fifteenth century and beyond. The conferences that Professor Jin Wu is planning in conjunction with the 600th anniversary of Zheng He’s first voyage will, von Glahn stated, show this.

    —
    Chinese did not colonize the discovered land. It is quite different from the Europeans at the time. In his records, he did not go further than East Africa. However, I suspect some of his ships could go far further. Columbus and his peers could have used the maps made by Zheng’s sailors. The legendary Sambo character in Arabian world could be Zheng He.

    If he traveled to Europe, Chinese history could be changed for the better.

    Any one visited Zheng’s museum in Nanjing? I passed by one in SE Asia a while ago.

  216. * The Congress is looking at why so many Chinese females giving birth in US for an average cost of $30.000.

    * Looks like the inventor is a Chinese PhD in Stanford. If he is, why we do not have similar inventions in China.
    http://pursuitist.com/tech/lytro-light-field-camera/

    * The Chinese stocks have been doing great today. The STP I just bought is up almost 20% today. However, it could be the peak as the EU problem will not be resolved that easily.
    http://tonyp4idea.blogspot.com/2011/10/market-today-from-my-crystal-ball.html

  217. China looks like it may bail out the EU…for a price, of course; the Chinese government still needs to have somthing tangible to show their ppl rather than becoming a source of ‘dumb money’ for profligate western countries, as the spokesman said.

    And as the author here notes as well, the time when China may have to bail out the US may well be upon us, sooner rather than later:
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/china-lays-out-conditions-under-which-it-will-bail-out-europe-does-not-want-be-seen-source-dumb

    it’s from an article from the FT.com which you need a subscription, but the guy paraphrases from the source; if anyone can post the article from FT, that’d be great

  218. @zack
    Frankly, unless the EU can recognize China’s market economy status, Lift arms embargo or increase China’s voting right, it is not going to happen. China might buy some bonds but “Bail out” is too strong a phrase.

  221. Two Chinese are buying Saab at bargain-basement prices. Chinese will learn a lot from Saab and Volvo bought previously. Most likely the bus division in Volvo was not part of the deal. The failed deal with Hummer is good for China as 1. there are too many politic hurdles to go thru and 2. Hummer is an assembly of many products from other GM divisions, so you do not learn much.

  223. Some recent political humor:

    (1) Angry Tea Partiers, either a really bad Reality TV show that got cancelled before airing, or a new iPad game involving launching Republicans on giant slingshots into matchstick version of the US Congress building and the White House.

    (2) Occupy Wall Street. Shouldn’t that be “Retake Wall Street”? Since Wall Street is technically already “occupied” by the Rich 1%, and the 99% are trying to take it back?

    (3) Israel. Worst “Holy Land” Theme Park Franchise, EVER. Seriously, no offense to the religions, but from a pure business point of view, it would be like me spending $MILLIONS trying to build a Mouse Mascot amusement park in Orlando Florida, next to Disney. I mean, Islam has got the “Holy Land” franchise in the Middle East, forever now, and they are really good at it! You don’t go compete head to head with that, I don’t care how much you are willing to spend! It would be like me going knocking on the door of a Jehovah’s Witness family, to discuss the Bible.

  224. I was recently watching Al Jazeera English interview the Tibetan exile “prime minister”, and they were discussing the result of the Dalai Lama’s death and whether the Chinese government would have a say in the naming of his successor. To justify his argument that the government should not, the exile guest repeated clichés about “atheist government”, and quoted Mao as saying that “religion is poison”.

    Although I saw this quote many times in articles about China’s religion policy, I decided it sounded too stereotypical to be true, so I tried to investigate its origins. Dramatized scenes showing Mao Zedong saying “religion is poison” to the Dalai Lama were among the most memorable in the 1997 Hollywood blockbusters Seven Years in Tibet and Kundun, but this dialogue is not attested to in reputable third-party histories of Tibet, of Mao, or of China. Indeed, all sources indicate that the quote comes from the Dalai Lama’s autobiography, which is counterfactual in so many ways to suggest that the Dalai Lama made up this quote too.

    HH regulars with an interest in Tibet may not be scandalized anymore by the constant TGIE lies about Tibet, but it was so mind-blowing to me, so scandalous, that the Tibetan exiles could so successfully rewrite Mao Zedong’s biography, put words in his mouth, and shape mainstream perceptions of the foundations of the Chinese state. People who care about China need to pay more attention to the Tibetan issue, because the Dalai Lama’s international power has reached a point where whatever he says – even about China’s own (non-Tibetan) history – is regarded as absolute truth.

  225. @Naqshbandiyya

    Very good points. I really ought to spend more time on Tibet issues, but there is just so many other interesting things in life – and refuting lies and slanders ultimately turns out not to be too interesting for me. Still I admit it is important work. I consider it a fallacy that I don’t spend more time on it, but to each on; I have to set priorities.

    A more interesting take is on China’s religious policies – how they are misunderstood in the West – or even how the West misunderstands the true meaning of freedom of religion. That I will work on … when I get time.

  226. The way I see it is that the Dalai Lama and TGIE are joining forces with segments of Hollywood or various NGO’s in the West who have some sort of ax to grind with ‘China.’

    Patrick French, former director for London based Campaign for Tibet, once wrote that the TGIE cause has been hijacked by those very people they collaborated with. They have separate agendas. French cautioned the TGIE to sincerely seek rapprochement with the Chinese government.

    Anyways, I sensed French didn’t feel there was any hope in that, because (I presume) the Dalai Lama has gotten used to the new image created for him in the West.

    Chinese should know that not all of the West take such ‘anti-China’ positions.

    In my opinion, the FLG has now been hijacked too by the same elements. If you look at organizations like the Epoch Times or whatever is associated with it, those residing at the helm are not FLG adherents nor are they Chinese.

    So, when the DL is gone and the TGIE wanes, there will be other concoctions from the same types of people in the West.

    On the whole, I think the Western public is just not very interested in these issues. They have been exposed only to one side’s perspectives. And I continue to urge people to seek truth, for truth is usually easier to explain. The Western public simply needs more exposure from the ‘Chinese’ perspective.

    And I think that’d be the trend. As an example, as China becomes richer, she will make more movies, especially those with a global reach. She will challenge the narratives in Hollywood through movies of her own.

  227. The standard line response that Naqshbandiyya mentioned about the “prime minister” as giving is based on a common confusion. One can be an atheist and not respect, in some sense of the word, religious beliefs and yet still protect religious institutions. I don’t respect Christian beliefs. I also don’t respect Islamic, Jewish and Tibetan Buddhist beliefs but I will go out of my way to defend and protect Christian art, and the right to practice certain religious functions (celebration of Christmas e.g.).

    Now the Dalai institution means a lot to some people inside China. Thus, the Chinese government has an interest in protecting and continuing such an institution because it seeks the wellbeing, spiritual or otherwise, of its citizens. Thus though it may (or may not) view religion as “opium”, its views on the practice of certain institutions is another story that is unrelated. Those views be positive.

    This distinction is made all the more obvious when one has come into acquintence with certain practicing but non theistic people such as many Jews. I’ve once met a atheist Jew who does not believe in the claims found in the Bible or Talmud but still practices many of the customs. He does so for cultural and family reasons. It plays a social function for him.

  228. It’s no secret that east asia is the fastest growing region on the planet, so President Obama has been trying to create a FT zone centred on the US; the Americans are trying to insert themselves into this region of fast growth in an attempt to remain relevant in the 21st century.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/world/asia/obama-sees-an-opening-on-china-trade.html

    tbh, there’s really little or nothing the US has to offer the region; the US is not going to open their own markets to foreign investment or trade if they feel they’re on the losing end (as the experience of the solar companies is any evidence). Notice the 8 other countries in Obama’s plans are lesser powers with even less bargaining power vis-a-vis the US.

    All this really is, is a declining superpower pulling all stops at trying to get a foot in the door of its last chance to remain relevant this century, and they may well succeed considering how much discord they’ve sown in the region.

  229. i was musing the other day, how often western nations, most of whom are caucasian tend to stick together when certain issues arise; sure they may bicker over some things but when any threat to caucasian primacy is postulated, they all band together;

    can the same be said for Asians? where, i wonder, is the Asian solidarity? i see Vietnamese and Philipinos willing to endanger their own countries and families for the sake of the national security of their white masters in the United States, i see Indians willing to sacrifice lives for the sake of their puppet masters in Washington and London. The game of divide and conquer is very much alive and well in the 21st century.

    Thusly, the white man shall endure as master of all.

  230. Taiwanese “diplomat” in US arrested for “abusing” her Filippina domestic servant.

    Taiwan claims “diplomatic immunity”?

    http://www.taiwannews.com.tw/etn/news_content.php?id=1757730

    According to the FBI’s indictment against Liu, she has not just short-paid her housekeeper and abused the Filipina mentally and physically, but also has a record of maltreating a previous housemaid, leading to the maid suffering from depression and anorexia. The FBI’s main charge against Liu is her suspected violation of the criminal code regarding “fraud in foreign labor contracting,” according to the indictment. The indictment quoted a director-level official in Liu’s office as disclosing that the Filipina was paid only US$620 a month, while her contract says she should be paid US$1,240 per month. Another senior consular official, who had worked at the Kansas City office for more than two years was quoted as confirming that he was told by Liu to pay the maid only US$220 every two weeks, plus US$70 for grocery purchases — far below the contracted amount.

  232. For all the Western Media reports of Chinese Government corruption, here is a bit of news that’s NOT heard much:

    A NPR panel discussion on G20 summit had 1 commenter let loose a bit of news: During the G20 summit, the Chinese delegation spent less money for the diplomatic trip than the US and French delegates!!

    take that for your own interpretations.

  233. Have you watched 60 Minutes last night? US has the unique way of corruption. It is less corrupt in the profit amounts and it could be exposed on TV. Most congress men make more money than their low salaries by trading stocks with insider’s info. legally.

    In addition, many start new jobs in the companies they gave favors to when their tenures are over. US presidents are usually not corrupt, but they make a lot of money in their books, speeches…

    So corruption is a global problem. It is the mutual beneficial ‘co-operation’ between those who have power and those who have money.

  234. @raventhorn
    strange, i could’ve sworn it was the US that was in dire financial straits with a possible second recession on the horizon.
    @TonyP4
    have you forgotten, democracies’ own rules don’t apply to white man democracies; why? because the white man is simply superior, everyone knows that. morally superior, especially after being so nice as to decolonise and giving them natives back their independace (which they took away in the first place)

  236. Some factoids, that got lost on the conversation:

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2011-11-13/south-carolina-debate/51186850/1

    Huntsman corrected Romney on 1 point: WTO doesn’t involve “currency policies”!

    That’s right, and that means, Chinese “Currency manipulation” based upon flimsy assertions from US and the West is (1) not a trade issue under WTO, and (2) if “illegal”, only in US, if it could be proven, which it hasn’t.

    News flash, some things may be legal in 1 country and illegal in another. Big deal. Nothing in WTO trade pact said Chinese currency policies must follow US laws. End of story.

  240. Just watched an English-language report by CCTV on young Tibetans balancing traditional culture and material wants among globalization and westernization. It’s part of the “Rediscovering China” series, that explore changes in China since the reform period from foreigners’ point of view.

    Having watched many such reports about Tibet from the Western news networks, it was so shocking and so refreshing not to have to hear about the Dalai Lama or about Tibetan independence in a report about Tibet. Here they interview ordinary laborers; not just disgruntled monks, and they show normal Han people; not just soldiers. And there’s discussion of Tibetan Buddhism and language that’s frank but civil, without epithets like “cultural genocide” and “brutal suppression”.

    Good grief. I knew abstractly but never so viscerally experienced how incredibly propagandistic the western media is on Tibet was until I saw the contrast. I hope that someday, all media will treat Tibet like this (like they basically do now with friendly places like Bali and Bhutan): sympathetically and with curiosity, but not with a nonstop aggressive political angle.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS7g5Xictn8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XbWejys-H8

  241. @Naqshbandiyya
    good find, naqshbandiy

    i should probably add with respect to that young monk who self immolated most probably at the exhortations of his Brother Superiors that encouraging someone to commit suicide is still considered a crime in many countries, irrespective of whether or not religion is invoked. Perhaps these buddhists believe in reincarnation and that their lives mean nothing; well it is their life to do as they wish but if they wish to burn themselves then naturally they ought to be stopped from such self harm. Any civilised society would naturally stop this act from going ahead.

    on the other hand, if anyone is so persistent on suicide via self immolation then i suggest they do so in the privacy of their own cell.

  242. It has come to my attention that Shaun Rein – Managing Director of CMR and frequent contributor to Forbes – has just finished a book called “The End of Cheap China”. In the book he interviewed Chinese billionaires, senior government officials, migrant workers and even prostitutes to track China’s evolution and how its changes will affect the rest of the world. It is meant to be a fun, entertaining yet informative read. It hit #37 earlier this week on Amazon’s best seller list for economics books even though it is still in pre-order stage.

    http://www.amazon.com/End-Cheap-China-Economic-Cultural/dp/111817206X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316638994&sr=8-1

    Ambassador Nicholas Platt (President Emeritus for the Asia Society) along with others like legendary investor Anthony Bolton (president of Fidelity) and Professor William Kirby (Harvard Business School professor and former Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard) endorsed the book.

    Ambassador Platt has been quoted to say: “The End of Cheap China is an indispensable guide to the rapid changes in China’s economy and society. Shaun Rein has observed at first hand the developments that shape the attitudes and behavior of his own coming generation. His firm has analyzed, as well as helped shape, the markets he describes. A practical, must read for anyone dealing with China, doing business there, or simply trying to understand what is going on.”

    Shuan has promised to make a copy available to me when media copies are ready. I will eagerly look forward to it. I will share my thoughts – and perhaps do an interview with the author – in the coming weeks. In the mean time – keep an eye out on the book – or better it, reserve your pre-order today!

  243. Congrats to Shaun, good accomplishment, and I also look forward to getting a copy.

    Better than some sobbing feel-noble hobby docu-drama scam.

  245. @raventhorn
    i hope this serves as a wakeup call to our fellow Taiwanese that the US doesn’t give a shit about Taiwan-thatn it’s only interest in Taiwan is only as leverage against China in negotiations-and that the citizens on Taiwan would be better served by throwing their lot in with their Chinese brothers and sisters across the Strait. Why let the white man divide Chinese against Chinese, as they did before?

  250. While I know how biased NY Times articles can be, these incidents just make me sad:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/world/returning-to-china-engineer-finds-jail-and-then-limbo.html

    I know all too well that sometimes in China, connections can make or break you. And of course I know it happens in the US as well, but at least in the States the rules seem to be applied more fairly in a lot of cases.

    I really hope the Chinese government can step up their efforts can crack down on this type of stuff.

  252. @JJ

    JJ, case closed, it’s from Andrew Jacobs:

    – I really doubt Hu doesn’t know who’s suing him. Among Chinese manufacturers overseas Chinese are infamous for taking goods but don’t pay. The travel restriction during business dispute is due to litigant’s propensity to flee.

    – Jacob’s claim on the Rio Tinto corruption case is false. The trial is very much public. Baidu these terms:

    力拓 间谍门

    Here’s a special page dedicated to the Rio Tinto Spy-Gate where price fixing and bribery were involved (FYI Stern Hu himself decided to not appeal the conviction) :

    http://www.china.com.cn/economic/node_7071549.htm

  253. Agree with yinyang. Many of the stories coming from NYT or Western media in general are tragic stories of individuals suffering from a supposedly unjust and despotic government. The Western reporters in China are paid to write such stories. The real truth is another matter, and really not that important for them.

  255. @YinYang and @Charles Liu

    Thanks for the extra info! Hopefully, this really is the case.

    And yeah, I definitely know how biased NY Times can be, but the only reason this article resonated with me is because I have personal knowledge of these types of 官商勾結 behavior.

    I have friends and relatives that do business on the Mainland who have been “encouraged” to use certain companies for specific needs. Of course most of them are more than happy to do so, as it helps them build the connections, but I have personally witnessed these types of behaviors and it left me feeling disappointed.

    Of course I’m not stupid enough to blame all of China on this but I still do realize that in some cases, you really are left with very few options.

    Anyway, I really do wish the best for China which is why I feel it necessarily to point out the flaws so people can work to change them.

  256. I blog for the purpose of improving China’s image and changing the wrong adversary view on China. It seems China’s image has been improved in last several years. We do not see too many articles against China’s human rights or Tibet recently.

    My comment on Tibet as follows received many objections most likely from Tibetans overseas several years ago. Recently my same comment received more than 300 ‘likes’. I do not know whether China’s image has been improved or just more Chinese reading comments.

    http://www.economist.com/node/21538173/comments?sort=3#sort-comments

  257. On the Iran front, Iran claimed to have shot down a US stealth drone, US admits that the drone was down in Iran, but not shot down. Will China get to buy the wreck for study? Likely.

    Also, Iran reported multiple mysterious blasts, suspecting US and Israeli covert strikes, Iran placed its military on high alert. (Some have rumored that this is the beginning of an escalating covert war against Iran, with Iran likely to retaliate using covert/terrorist means.)

    Chinese general promise to “protect Iran” even if it means WW 3. But it is vague as to what he meant by “protect”. It could be something simple as UN Security Council Veto.

    http://presstv.com/detail/213760.html

  258. I wonder if Iran will take the attacks to the UN, or if there will be UNSC action on such a blatant violation of Iran’s sovereignty?

  260. @Charles Liu
    the West always wants to mould the world in its image, even down to something as trivial and ridiculous as gay rights. Now i’m not saying that gays shouldn’t have rights-all peoples are entitled to rights-but to export ones cultural values onto another as the US is now doing is nothing less than 19th century style imperialism of ‘wanting to convert the natives to christianity’ or the ways of the white man.

    copying the white man will not make him more accepting of you, if anything they’ll resent it and fear you and want to bring you down<-actual quote.

  261. @zack
    The idea that the violent persecution of gay people has any root in indigenous African, Asian, or Chinese culture is ignorant bullshit. Homophobia is a distinctly Abrahamic barbarism that was spread with European, and particular British, imperialism and Christianity.

    Good on the Americans if they want to reverse this historical mistake. Would you oppose British efforts at drug eradication, after their opium-ridden history, just because it was the British doing it? I’m on board with opposing NED and regime change, but supporting Iran’s murderous policies in this regard is quite literally supporting genocide. The systematic killing of people based on arbitrary, congenital, and immutable characteristics is inhuman, inexcusable, and certainly not “culture”.

  262. @Naqshbandiyya
    you misunderstood me; i wasn’t condoning the ‘persecution of gay people’, i was criticizing the patronising interference and meddling in other countries’ affairs-to the point of expecting other countries to morally and culturally align with the United States.

    There are some universal human rights yes, and then there are championing those same rights for the sake of realpolitik.

    why, for example doesn’t Washington subject Saudi Arabia to the same pressure as it applies to China?you’d think that being such a close ally (and protector), Washington would be able to get the Saudis to “conform” but do they do that? no, they go after countries like China whose citizens exercise more freedoms than Saudi Arabia, for the sake of realpolitik and cynical hypocrisy. Do the private media stations who are often in cahoots with the USG ever bother to apply the same frequency and pressure as they normally do with ‘China’s human rights record’?

    and Saudi Arabia’s just one example; don’t even get me started with Israel or India or Mubarak’s Egypt.

  263. @Naqshbandiyya

    Agree. My point is we are probably exploiting it as as foreign policy implement/tool to destabilize Iran. IMHO that does not further the cause, and at the same time very disgenuine.

  265. Guys, get this: Iran performs more sex-change operations than any other country in the world, apart from Thailand! Gender re-assignment was sanctioned by Ayatollah Khomeini and re-affirmed by the current president Ahmadinejad. Almost hard to believe, isn’t it,what with the relentless tide of Western propaganda against an Islamic country that refuses to knuckle under to Western demands?

    It’s all there on Wiki, tho. Heck, they even get to watch T&A oldies like BayWatch in Iran, which is banned in holier-than-thou countries like Malaysia! The same Wiki article cites UNHCR 2001 report on the tolerance of homosexuality in Iran so long as they don’t parade their pinkness on the streets. That probably means, ahem, no Gay Pride parades like London or Sydney!

    So the so-called global gay rights fund is more likely another American attempt @ foreign subversion.
    Start with your own backyard – there’s likely more gay-bashing in the MidWest and South than in many other countries where homosexuality has still not been decriminalized.

  267. * Pearl Harbor memorial day *

    Japanese suffering from the 2 atomic bombs are TOTALLY JUSTIFIED. Most died in dignity at least. Without the two bombs, US would invade Japan and many innocent folks would die.

    The two atomic bombs should have dropped on the imperial palace whose master (now becomes the parasite of society) started the invasion, and some smaller bombs should drop on the ‘shrines’ of war criminals, who invented the term ‘comfort women’, raped women and even killed babies.

    It seems heartless to say the punishment from God on Japan should start 50 years earlier as most of these war criminals have passed away. Consider the millions of Asians were killed, raped by these war criminals, the head cutting competition on innocent Chinese and the river of flood, and you’ll agree it is TOTALLY JUSTIFIED.

    The rewrite of Japanese text books on invasion and worship the ‘shrines’ of war criminals will fool no one but the fools who acted cowardly to cover their conscience and sins.

  268. @TonyP4
    very disturbing is the tacit approval the US has when it comes to Japanese war atrocities since realpolitik dictates that they must keep the japs on side as a hedge against rising Chinese power. The Chinese, indeed former allies of the US (both Nationalists and Communists) who have grown too powerful for the American elite to feel comfortable. THat’s why you’ll see a lot of western media stations downplaying Japan’s war crimes and attempting to dismiss Chinese protestations against things like the jap PM visiting Yasakuni.
    so long as Yasakuni honours the war criminals, there can never be peace. To his credit, the former jap PM, Hatoyama initially wanted to set up a nanjing massacre museum close to the Yasakuni-doing so would’ve done much to forge bonds between japan and China but right now tokyo is in the hands of right wing hawks like seiji maehara who wish to kowtow to their american masters and war on their fellow asians, as they did 60 yrs before.

  269. @zack
    At the end of WW2, China was pretty much bankrupt and continued so until Deng’s policy and US played China card against Russia and opened the market. If not for the American bombs, Chinese would suffer longer.

    * Americans had not paid royalty to the Germany’s invention :).

    * I wonder why Chinese did not follow the Jews to track down war criminals and now most have passed away.

    * America gained cosmetic research from the Jap as part of the negotiation. The Jap used live Chinese for research. I do not know how true it is.

  271. @colin
    Great debate and thanks for the link.

    It is refreshing to see the audience voting on the “for China” side after the debate. The “anti-China” side (in my opinion) were so full of ideological babble and not grounded in much facts at all. The two teams clearly represented one side on the know and another side clinging unto ‘democracy’ and “human rights” as cult religion.

  272. @colin
    China and Africa should be good trade partners. When there is money available, corruption follows. It happens in most developing countries. Human right is better with better economy in most cases. Hence, China’s improving their economies would improve the human rights in theory.

    Being a developing country, it is not China’s responsibility to fight for the human rights/freedom of their trade partners, but their own citizens’ – did the world learn on foreign intervention from what Bush did to the Middle East?

  273. @YinYang

    I don’t see there is a “For China” side. It is more a “Why Not China” side, ie. a neutral side.

    That side does not strongly favor China for any thing, merely against the “anti-China” policy circles.

    There has been such great discriminations against China and Chinese people in the policy debates, some do not even realize how ridiculous they are sounding when harping on the “Pro-China” side or the “Chinese Nationalists”.

    Let’s get this straight, the “For China” side and the “Chinese Nationalists” are not out to give China more rights and more favoritism than other nations. They are merely rejecting the Western scheme of things. They are not proposing some hegemonic view of their own to be propagated through out the world.

    By analogy, slamming the door on an annoying door-to-door salesman does not make one a Communist.

  274. @TonyP4
    Agreed. In fact its more than theory. As one of the panelist said, since China started building infrastructure, hospitals, and schools, Africa has clearly grown, whereas prior to China’s involvement, things were much more stagnant.

    @raventhorn
    You are right. “Why not China” side is a better label (but harder to say, lol).

  275. @YinYang

    Notice that both speakers on the pro side mentioned Tibet and implicitly made an analogy that China will “colonize” Africa like they have done so in Tibet. Right off the bat, you know these two goons are paid CIA stooges.

    I did notice that only one side brought facts. The other side, simply rhetoric and slogans. The irony is that China may be the greatest democratizing force in Africa today with their diplomatic and economic policies in Africa.

  277. @melektaus

    I agree that the NED sponsored narrative to portray China as the new “colonizer” is just nuts, and it shows continual Western imperialism/colonialism mentality.

    Let’s get this straight: Yes, there are a lot of Chinese migrating to Africa to do business, but so there were a lot of Chinese who migrated to US (and many other countries in the world) to help build railroads/mine gold/open shops/etc.

    Racists in America used to point to the number of Chinese immigrants and call it an “invasion” of the “Yellow Horde”.

    But number of migrants is not evidence of “colonizing”, Western powers didn’t need to send massive numbers of people to Africa, when they became colonial masters. (They just used superior weapons technologies and imposed their own “government” over the Africans).

    That’s the key difference: Chinese migrants do businesses under the laws/agreements of the host nations.

    For NED/Clinton/etc. to continue to portray Chinese migrants as some “colonizers”/invaders obviously shows the lingering tinge of racism in the West.

    IE: Racists often defend their own abusive policies as defense against “invasion”, to further justify their racism.

    So, in fear of China’s “colonizing” of Africa, the West bids to re-assert their former colonial policies on Africa, to “counter” China, including supporting friendly dictators, funding to topple unfriendly governments, even if democratic, embargos, sanctions, regime changes, etc.

    Let’s put it this way, It’s akin to the “1%” complaining that the “99%” has taken over the world and most of the jobs. It’s MORONIC.

  278. @melektaus
    Tibet is really a convenient excuse to dismiss any Chinese opinion and excuse any Western crime: even retroactively! Hearing that speaker, I was reminded of Pierre Bergé, who holds bronze heads that were looted by invading British and French forces before they burnt down the Summer Palaces in Beijing. In 2009, Bergé said that he would return the stolen art only if “they [the Chinese] are going to apply human rights, give the Tibetans back their freedom and agree to accept the Dalai Lama on their territory”. Since of course it was the Dalai Lama who exiled himself and refuses to return without his political demands met, he can be said to promote cultural genocide against the Chinese people.

    The first speaker in that China-Africa debate is unbearable. The way he said that he is “talking about the Communist government, not the people”, when it is so obviously insincere, and how he uses such language as “they don’t really like black people”! NED or not, he’s simply vile. I rather like the point that the second speaker makes: that Western countries love to do business with China while warning Africa against doing business with China. I also like how she refutes various myths, such as that China only does business to extract resources (China does business wherever it makes money), that China only associates with pariah states (China prefers and invests more in stable governments like South Africa), or that it uses Chinese workers in its African projects (African workers are not willing to work at Chinese wages), directly and with concrete examples.

    I notice that on this website, and on discussion boards in general, that we accept uncritically certain premises: like that China is colonizing Tibet, or that China is extracting African resources, and then we base our – sometimes very good – arguments off of them. Still, while pointing out Western hypocrisy has its place, and so do remedial discussions on sovereignty and history, it is cheap rhetoric. Doing the research to disprove the conventional wisdom on China is difficult, such as the speakers on the “why not China” side did, but it is ultimately more rewarding in serious policy debates.

  279. @Naqshbandiyya
    irony of ironies, perhaps the Chinese premier Wen Jiabao, should ask that Britian and France should return all those stolen art treasures, extract and apology for those governments (and pierre wotshisface) before any sort of bailout for their respective economies.

    doesn’t matter anyway, both france and britain are doing their best to suck China’s cock if they still want to be around this century. i don’t think we’ll be seeing the same level and frequency of China bashing as we saw in 08 or even ’10 once the PBOC has uk and France’s money by the balls

  281. @JJ
    Looking at the second comment in the linked article you provided, I can only conclude that person is a racist against the Chinese people. The U.S. media’s overwhelming negative spin towards everything ‘China’ brews this kind of mindset:

    China rescue 178 children in trafficking bust, Drink was deleberately poisoned in northeast China, Little girl rammed over by trucks and now another by SUV. woman barbecuing puppy in public. milk powder, coca cola mixed with poison. What other kinds of evil those China people would not dare to commit. All kinds of wicked acts are happening in China. The devil is in control of this sinful country.

  282. i say let the West have their BS stories, it’s what they need the most in an era where their societies and governments are obviously in decline and eventually, even the Americans are going to have to come cap in hand to the PBOC to respectfully ask for money.

    it’ll be interesting what’ll happen when the Chinese people en masse protest quite strongly against any future PBOC purchases of US soverign debt. won’t that make the USG look like stupid little shits.

  283. Western societies are breaking apart. From today’s news:

    “Based on a survey among more than 34,000 people, the commission estimated that one in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of [sexual] abuse. The number doubled to 20 percent of children who spent part of their youth in an institution — whether Catholic or not.”

    Where were the parents of these abused children? Why were they not protecting their kids from sexual abusive by Church personnel? Did their devotion to the Church made them blind to the reality? Where was the Dutch government? What did it do to preclude such abuses? Such abuses not human right violations? May be. Nevertheless, widespread sexual abuses by the Church indicates a society breakdown.

    As for western journalists, they are trying to balance their reports. That is, if they report bad things in western societies, they have to report bad things about China, real or imagined. Else, his report is not balanced.

  285. hi, Charles. Yes I am.
    I agree with Zack’s point that “their societies and governments are obvious in decline…” The more the decline, the more western journalists will need to demonize China. This is the only thing they could do. In addition, they need to sell the paper.

  287. Here’s another one. The Egyptian woman who’s beaten by police and dragged away couple days ago was on TV last night, she didn’t have a scratch on her face.

    Must not have been that bad after all, they wouldn’t have to beat her at all had she not resisted arrest or interfered with policy duty.

  288. No Nativity Scene?
    I got a email from my congressman as follows:

    The Supreme Court has ruled that there cannot be a Nativity Scene in the United States’ Capital this Christmas Season. This isn’t for any religious reason. They simply have not been able to find Three Wise Men in the Nation’s Capital. The Search for a Virgin continues. There was no problem, however, finding enough asses to fill the stable.

    My reply:

    Beg to differ. All congressmen including yourself are wise men if you compare your bank account before your term and after.

    You can find a lot of virgins but you’ve to lower your age requirement or change the definition of a virgin. For definition, borrow the example from Clinton’s no smoker policy: As long as you do not exhale, you’re a non-smoker. Change the word ‘exhale’ with many words I can think of but they are not too polite to write them down here – just in case Sister Teresa is reading my blog.

    It appears to be a fact that there are more mouths kissing asses than asses available to be kissed. Hence, we really have a short supply of asses.

    —
    The first part is from my friend instead of a congressman, and I wrote the second part (my reply) for fun.

  291. New Prototype Chinese High Speed Train unveiled today which can reach 500km/hr, although its optimal speed is still a world breaking 300km/hr:
    http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/usa/china/2011-12/27/content_14334409.htm

    good to see that despite the tragedy of that one train crash (out of how many operational trains and trips?) progress and development in China’s railways is going ahead. Needless to say, HSR is a much greener method of transport compared to oil guzzling planes (although Chinese companies are still maneuvering to dominate that sector as well)

  292. Another reason why the US is a racist country and don’t ever, ever join the US armed forces.

    In fact the entire anglosphere is racist. Anglo Saxons are the most despicably racist group of people to ever have walked the earth. Even around Europeans like French, Germans, Italians, even if they are politically incorrect -as are the chinese, you simply don’t feel the same racist undercurrent as one does around Americans, Australians, British etc.

    The other reason why a Chinese should not join the US armed forces, is not just because of the chances of being severely bullied or assaulted. Why join a white man’s war machine to fight for the interests of a small minority of white people, to enrich them, through killing non-white peoples who have never harmed the hair on the head of a chinese person? That sounds utterly immoral to me.

  293. @Wayne

    I wouldn’t go as generalized as you do.

    There are many personal reasons why any one would join a military, even if one doubts the morality of that military’s objectives.

    Most just thought they could “do some good”, in spite of the military system. (Foolish reasoning, perhaps).

    But I would also note that most “racists” believe that they are just “doing some good” for some people.

    On that note, most “immorality” begins with the notion of “doing some good” as a justification.

    *Thus, good morality does not begin with “doing some good”, but rather “do no evil”.

  294. raventhorn :China to draft new laws to crack down on illegal foreign workers.
    http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2011-12/26/c_131328086.htm

    To further note: China plans to include legal requirements to record “biological identification information”, including/not limited to fingerprint, blood type, DNA, etc., for all foreign visitors. (This requirement is similar to what is already implemented for US and most European countries).

    My comment: It’s about time China cracks down on some foreigners who routinely abuse the already lax Chinese immigration laws, and those who enter China under false pretenses to undermine the rule of law in China.

    I’m not talking about the poor immigrants to come to China to do business, on short stay visas. As far as I know, most of them are quite careful about renewing their visas, and following the rules/laws in China.

    I’m talking about the ones who go to China to “work”, and then stay on to make a name for their blogs, as if they are on Mission NED Possible.

    As far as I’m concerned, these guys need to have their visa renewals denied, and kicked out of China.

    (A), whatever money they are making on their blogs/articles from China, they are not paying taxes on them. For that 1 reason at least, they should be fined and kicked out.

  296. @zack
    US is furious on by-passing USD. It happened before exchanging oil with another currency other than USD. At one time we bet Euro would be the reserve currency and it turns out false. Yuan has a good chance in the future. Euro has a chance too if the crisis is finally fixed.

    The US gas reserve is waiting to be tapped and with that USD may turn around.

  297. @TonyP4
    the US gas reserves/keystone pipeline, despite official marketing won’t mean the USG ceases interfering with the rest of the world; it simply means the USG is able to interfere with the rest of the world *with impunity*. Being immune to energy prices whilst sparking conflagrations across the globe to disrupt China’s quest for resources.

    China isn’t just sitting around waiting for this to happen though; they’re going to build pipelines from Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan/Central Asia and will cooperate with the Russians to ensure the US military doesn’t have a foothold in central asia (where the CIA can spark insurrections to disrupt gas/energy transport as can be seen currently in kazakhstan).

    with respect to Australia, it really breaks me heart because i am myself Chinese Australian and it pains me to see our leaders bringing back old racist policies with a view to contain China via hosting a base for US troops.

  300. @Wayne

    Another reason why the US is a racist country and don’t ever, ever join the US armed forces.

    In fact the entire anglosphere is racist. Anglo Saxons are the most despicably racist group of people to ever have walked the earth. Even around Europeans like French, Germans, Italians, even if they are politically incorrect -as are the chinese, you simply don’t feel the same racist undercurrent as one does around Americans, Australians, British etc.

    The other reason why a Chinese should not join the US armed forces, is not just because of the chances of being severely bullied or assaulted. Why join a white man’s war machine to fight for the interests of a small minority of white people, to enrich them, through killing non-white peoples who have never harmed the hair on the head of a chinese person? That sounds utterly immoral to me.

    What about Chinese living in the U.S. I’d say 99.9999999+% of Chinese are law-abiding citizens. They work and they pay taxes – taxes that are siphoned off to fund unjust wars around the world.

    It’s not just a problem of Chinese living in U.S., but all conscientious, law-abiding U.S. citizens. They feel that injustice everyday.

    What should be done when your money is used this way?

  301. Allen, although I am not a US citizen, however I understand what you mean.

    What Chinese can do is to work for changes to the balance of power in the world, so that China is stronger and can one day provide an effective counterbalance to the US (she is starting to now).

    We did do this in the past. It was the Chinese Peoples Volunteers which inflicted the first defeat on US imperialism, and we supported and even provided direct military support to the independence struggle of the Vietnamese people. That was when China was poor.

    When China is rich, we will be able to do so much more. And we should.

    As a start we can try and educate people about the way the world is ordered in an unjust way. On a personal level try and win people over to your way of thinking. Perhaps this website is a start. We should also behave in a polite, respectful, and dignified way, and always remember that as a racial minority, we are ambassadors for China. How we behave personally affects the way people view China. If we come across well on a personal level, then it is much easier to change peoples minds.

    So yes, there are inconsistencies in our lives. Every time I eat KFC or Macdonalds (I love Western fast food), I am helping some US corporate. But there is no limit one can go to maintain consistency, to the absurd. And in the end maintaining consistency for consistencies sake is really just self-indulgent and self-serving.

    But volunteering the US armed forces is another step up when it comes to supporting US imperialism. You are actively taking up the gun, to kill innocent people, or people fighting for their homelands. This is completely different from paying compulsory taxes, much of which fund, not only the armed forces, but essential services domestically.

  302. @Wayne
    i’d say that if Chinese students were ambassadors to their host countries, they’re doing a very good job; i’ve rarely if ever heard of any Chinese students running amok or raising hell or any sort of trouble for the authorities of their host countries.

    i do agree with you about the extent of aiding and abetting the US imperiallistic military-industrial-corporate-media machine; i enjoy corporate goods as much as anyone else but i draw the line at spilling blood (mine, or anyone else’s) just so a bunch of a old white men who never served when they were required to under the draft laws, can pretend to be some sort of neo-napoleon or metternicht around the globe.

  304. Speaking of Chinese lending money to US for the pointless wars. I suppose that’s why Europeans blamed their problems on the Jewish people for lending them money.

    http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/religion/jews/middleages.htm

    “Because Christian laws said that Christian people could not lend money out at interest, and yet most kings and queens need to borrow money, the Jews played a big role in the medieval economy as moneylenders. But lending money to kings is risky. Sometimes the king paid the money back, and the Jews made some money.

    Other times the king found it easier to just throw the Jews out of his kingdom, or to make a new law saying that Christians didn’t have to pay Jews back the money they had borrowed. King Edward I of England, for instance, solved some of his money problems by throwing all the Jews out of England in 1290 – and they were not allowed back for more than 300 years.”

    Racism? You bet.

    Ie. you don’t take responsibility for YOUR problems, but blame the “money lenders”.

    Speaking of which, Western history of how they cheated on their “loans” should be sufficient to show their trustworthiness as a culture.

    Now, I’m glad that Japan and China are both trying to alleviate their loans to the West by closer economic cooperations.

    Because let’s face it. How did Westerners pay the Jewish people back for their “loans”? Kicking them out of Europe, calling them names, make up racist stereotypes against them, etc., for centuries.

    And look at Mr. Bone here, he’s blaming China for lending money to US?! So Chinese are to be the new “money lenders” to be cursed by Westerners?

    Isn’t that just proof in the pudding that Westerners haven’t changed?

  306. Incidentally, the word “Currency Manipulator” originated in part from a racist label used by Western Europeans and Americans on the Jewish people.

    attributed the cause of the American Revolution (sometimes mis-cited as being from Benjamin Franklin, but nevertheless appeared in early American Patriotic literatures):

    “The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.”

    the “Money manipulators” referred to, was the Rothchild’s Bank in Europe, which belonged to the Jewish Family of the Rothchilds.

    *How interesting it is that now, that same label is being revived for use against Chinese people as a nation.

  307. In recent examination of anti-Semitism history in the West, I see a similarity of behaviors of anti-Semitism and the recent anti-China propaganda in the West.

    Namely, Chinese are being targetted in similar fashions, ie. called currency manipulators, portrayed as devious, soulless, greedy, conspiratorial, etc., (and/or part of some ethnic based global organization out to dominate world power and control all people).

  308. @raventhorn
    the only difference between the experience of the Jews and modern Chinese is that the Chinese have a LOT more leverage when it comes to their loans; USG getting too dickish devaluing your investments in Treasuries along with idiot economics like Peter Morici proposing forcing China to revalue its currency and effectively take a $400bln hit on its investment in Treasuries? Beijing’s response? liquidate holdings of US Treasuries and form two large mega Soverign Wealth Funds dedicated to investing in material assets such as firms, commodities etc etc In the meantime, Americans continue to delude themselves with having ‘trapped’ China in a relationship where they have to loan them money, little realising that the Chinese would take steps to prevent a repeat of the white man cheating him.

    so there’s not going to be a repeat of the pogroms against Chinese in indonesia or elsewhere, especially with the Chinese Navy becoming more and more capabel; if in the near future, there were massive American pogroms against ethnic Chinese in san francisco, it’d be a small matter for Chinese carriers to pull up and evacuate those civilians and if Indonesia is any example, after the Chinese were forced to flee, the local economy tanked so bad analysts even factored in the probability of balkanisation.

  309. “That’s the only difference between Jews and Chinese?”

    Zack wrote “the only difference between the EXPERIENCE” of the Jews and modern Chinese.

    Sure, re-direct your sarcasm to your dyslexia and lack of context.

  310. yo, what Raventhorn said; if you can’t be bothered reading what you’ve got before your eyes, there’s no point even attempting to reason with you

  311. btw, last Thursday, the Chinese released their white paper on space projects outlining aims to further develop their presence in low earth orbit via space stations and boosting the constellation of satellites including research satellites close to the sun.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-16361389

    They’re even offering a service where you can mail someone a letter by asking them to reroute an email through Tiangong 1 and printing it out and posting it with a special postage stamp.
    http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/242647/scitech/technology/china-space-post-office-sends-mail-from-orbit

    of course that hasn’t stopped those fair and balanced mouthpieces of the USG such as the NYT from portraying the move as ‘China’s challenge to the US’ and how ‘this is our new sputnik moment’ and basically exhorting the ppl to get on board with a new space race. The fact that the US still excludes China from the ISS despite other countries wishing to cooperate with China in space (France, UK, Germany and Brazil as well as Russia of course have formed ventures and partnerships with the Chinese, the germans have an experiment inside tiangong 1 right now) is going to bite them on the arse, mark my words, gents.

    All Congress is doing is really shooting themselves in the foot when they retain cold war mentalities regarding space when it comes to the Chinese, i say let them carry on as is; you reap what you sow, and who knows, when there’s a Chinese moonbase and tech suite on the moon and low earth orbit empowering the Chinese space sector to world leadership, their grandkids can come begging to the Chinese for a piece of the tech pie

  312. @zack
    Thanks for the links. If you hear Chinese official position on CCTV, it is to collaborate where-ever there is win-win. China is still taking a very pragmatic approach despite all the politics from the U.S.. If the U.S. at some point down the road cooperates, I think China will still be willing.

    The Europeans also blocked the Chinese from key decisions in Galileo forcing China to pull out of that project. Despite that, China collaborated with Germany on Tiangong 1 as you have pointed out.

    China is also helping poorer countries launch satellites into space much more economically. Talking about humanity.

  313. @YinYang
    pleasure, love your work, btw YinYang; great site as well.
    indeed, with respect to the europeans, they’re not exactly China’s best friends but some interests do converge (such as France’s desire for a new european hegemon independant from Washington’s leadership); of course the europeans bitched and moaned for China’s COMPASS taking their frequency but fuck ’em i say; China was originally a partner in GALILEO but the europeans kept screwing the Chinese over and dragging their feet so the Chinese did what they had to do and got stuff done.

    it is also indeed a great pleasure to hear China helping out its friends and potential allies; for eg Pakistan’s new satellite as well as Venezuela’s were more or less Chinese gifts and they would do wonders for their respective economies and commerce. Same with Nigeria; even 20 years ago, an African country with its own satellite would be more or less unthinkable since none of them would’ve been able to afford the exorbitant prices which the US and european space agencies mandated

  315. @jxie

    Good piece. The sad thing is the Chinese government never really supported all those companies that made it big, be it Huawei, ZTE, Sany, Geely etc. They all made it despite great odds. However, to outsiders all those companies made it because they were supported by the government.

    This is why I am so optimistic of China and the development of its market, as it is truly market driven despite government owning the controlled portion.

  316. Han Han’s latest blog generates backlash from Ai Weiwei, and others, some openly accusing Han of accept bribes from Chinese government.

    http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/12/han-han-finds-a-new-crowd-to-irritate.html

    My view: Welcome to my club, Han. I remember I was all gunho about “democracy” when I was young. I didn’t “change”, any more than Han did. I just wised up to the reality that “good ideals do not generate good results”, no matter we wish it to be, we cannot change some conditions of our world, but our “good ideals” can be changed by our world.

    My ideals are very much the same as when I was young: I wanted everyone to be free and to be happy.

    But as much as I wanted my ideal to be true, and I wished the world well, I know it cannot be. There are always human limits.

    Han wrote recently, “Politics should not be dangerous”. We all wish it so as an ideal. But we all know that is simply not possible in today’s world.

    *
    Chinageeks also published a response/critique of Han Han’s recent works. http://chinageeks.org/2012/01/han-han-and-the-suzhi-argument/

    My critique of Chinageek’s article: so you think China can start its path to “democracy” by the conditions of an 18th century US, I grant you that is certainly possible, but I doubt anyone TODAY in the Western world would consider a 18th century US (with all the slavery and inequities) as a “democracy”.

    So China could possibly start down that path, with all the chaos, inequities, etc., with 1.2 billion people, cross 12 Billion fingers (~10 fingers each), hope that this experiment will work out the same way as it did for US, WHILE at the SAME TIME, still having others accusing China of NOT being a true “democracy”.

    Perhaps Chinageek missed Han’s point entirely, Han was not saying that Chinese people lack the “quality” for Democracy, Han wrote that the lack of “Quality” would determine the superficiality of “democracy”, that it would NOT be a real “democracy” in any case.

    On that point, 18th century US proved Han’s point exactly.

    Chinageek wrote, “Hindsight, of course, is 20-20, but I don

  317. @raventhorn

    You didn’t even finish your own comment…

    Anyway, if one has to define what the current Chinese system is, the “one-party” system, as Han correctly pointed out, is a misnomer. It’s more like, when you turn to a responsible age, you get a chip of the society. Throughout the rest of your life you work with the system, maintain good relationships with others, increase your merit score, and expand the chip count accordingly. If you are good and lucky, you get to Hu’s position, you may own 2% of the total chips; if you are one of the top 9 (a Political Bureau Standing Committee Member), you may own 1% of the total chip; one of the top 25, 0.5% of the chips; so on and so forth.

    Is the current system ideal for China? I don’t know. But it surely for the time being, suits Chinese well since China leads all other nations by a country mile in buying in the system (the Pew surveys). Moreover, this seems to be a natural extension of the national systems in Tang/Song/Ming sans early Ming. The only element being taken out is the Power of Emperor, which is hereditary in nature.

    See, if you turn the “suzhi” argument around, your typical Westerners will exhibit very low “suzhi” to fit in such a system, because culturally they are not comfortable in it.

    Each one of us, at an individual, organizational, or national level, should seek our own inner voice.

  318. Oops, browser sometimes cuts off mine comments. Oh well. 🙂

    As I was saying, and I agree with you, and the real question is, what kind of “democracy” is the current self-proclaimed “democracy” in the West?

    I think Han’s comment should be qualified, as the current condition of China would not be possible generate a “democracy” like in US or Europe.

    Because simply, US’s experience in history was unique, cannot be duplicated to close to what it would consider a “democracy”.

    China’s “democracy” will come from its own historical experiences, and whatever inequity in that system, it will be “Democratic” in its own sense of the word.

    *If we are to all use our own opinions, US might not be sufficient as a “democracy”.

  320. @raventhorn
    that’s rich, to hear the likes of Ai WeiWei-a man who has knowingly and admitted for the record to having received money from American NGOs committed to armed insurrection within China-accuse HanHan of ‘being paid by the CCP’, simply for stating an obvious fact which contradicts his beloved narrative.

    in my view, the Chinese system functions more as a meritocratic technocracy; modern China strikes me as having 2 “Presidents” as opposed to one single figurehead as you would have in most Liberal Democracies, seeing as how the Chinese President is involved with foreign relations and defence and the Chinese Premier is involved with home affairs and the economy, and then you have the 9 members of the politburo which function as a ‘cabinet’ plus the State Council.

  321. @zack

    Actually, Ai just said HanHan sounded like he was “surrendering”. It was 1 of the other Democratic blogs that accused HanHan of being paid by the CCP, as “stabilization fund”, aka. 50 cents.

    Which proved HanHan’s point exactly. None of these people knows how to treat Politics as “non-dangerous”. (HanHan wrote, “Politics shouldn’t be dangerous”.)

    If Ai treats his politics as a war, and the others consider an unfavorable opinion as result of Bribe/corruption, then the fundamental condition in China is that people still consider politics to be “dangerous”, and/or even corrupt.

    Ai with his own words proved that he does not have the “Quality”, for a civilized “democratic process”.

    *But on that note, perhaps we can never be ready for true “democracy”, and nor should we be.

    It would be self-deception of the highest degree to say that one is worthy and ready for “democracy”, when it is the innate human condition to have corruption/violence in politics, (just look at the history of “democracies” in the West).

    Thus, it is better “not to proclaim oneself as King, when one is not yet a Hegemon”, as was said during the Warring Nations period.

    Why put up the pretension of calling oneself a “democracy”, when one is far from its ideals?!

    Some say China doesn’t have a political ideological identity any more.

    I say NO, China believes in Meritocracy, as it did for 1000’s of years, as it believes in development, peace, stability.

    Systems are political rituals, put up for the superstitutions of the ignorant, and self-pretension of the ruling elites.

    As rituals go, we Chinese have already had enough for 1000’s of years.

    Now, we desire minimalism and efficiency. We don’t need a Congress of 2 parties debating for days about whether to aid the incandescent light bulb industry.

  322. raventhorn :
    I say NO, China believes in Meritocracy, as it did for 1000′s of years, as it believes in development, peace, stability.

    Yeap. I think the Western liberalism has brainwashed too many people into thinking that achieving Western Style democracy is the end in itself, rather than one way to improve the lives of its citizens. Democracy should be a natural process rather than a forced one. In this regard there is no such thing as a nation “deserving” or not “deserving” democracy. When China is ready for it it will come whether certain people want it or not. This is what realism is all about and I think Han Han is a realist himself.

    I would like to note that Han Han’s critics in this round generally avoided arguing directly against Hans points and instead engaged in numerous lame person attacks. “Intellectuals” telling Han Han to go to Harvard and study before he should talk about democracy reek of elitism and IMO jealousy. No wonder most of the US media avoided the coverage of this altogether. The thing is, Han Han’s newest critics (some of them darlings of the western media) are no better than Han Han’s old critics in the CCP.

  323. @raventhorn
    “Thus, it is better “not to proclaim oneself as King, when one is not yet a Hegemon”, as was said during the Warring Nations period.”

    This is fascinating, can you tell me what the exact quote was and where I can find it? Is this part of a Confucian/ Legalist debate of old?

    It seems that the ancient Confucian discussions appear to have more depth than simply ‘an ideology to fool/control the masses’ as portrayed in western popular culture.

  324. @Nihc

    I think the more literal translation was,

    “Kingdom is not yet strong, how can I dare to attempt to claim such pretentious title (of a King)”.

    It was attributed to King Wulin of Zhao Kingdom 321 B.C..

    I think there was another similar quote earlier by another King, but I can’t recall when or who.

  326. @Bob

    Yes. Very, very upset about it. Besides what’s so special about the foods pictgured: you can get the equivalent of every one of the foods pictured at my local Costco.

  329. @raventhorn
    ““Kingdom is not yet strong, how can I dare to attempt to claim such pretentious title (of a King)”.
    It was attributed to King Wulin of Zhao Kingdom 321 B.C..”

    Truly wise and humble, unlike the Manchu Emperors during the centuries of humiliation.

  330. @Nihc

    “国力不强，何敢求此虚名。”

    – 赵武灵王 321 BC. (enthroned 325), forbade his subjects from proclaiming him “King”, when all 6 other Kingdoms in the Warring Nations period proclaimed their rulers as “Kings”.

  331. @raventhorn

    In this post-modern era, I think “Democracy” has become a “虚名”, empty pretentious name, with the biggest liars and the wealthiest elites paying lip service to it.

    As we well know from Chinese history, it is the usurpers who often prop up the Kings/Emperors, and then rule in their name.

    What we have today, is a new kind, but same kind of usurpers of power and authority.

    The Elites of Western “Democracies” proclaim their loyalties to “Democracy”, or the People’s rights and authorities, but then rule in the name of the People to corrupt the very system and undermine the authority of the People.

    “Democracy” in its pure form has nothing theoretically wrong with it.

    But “Democracy”, like a King’s authority, can be usurped and corrupted. And that is what is wrong with Western “Democracy” today.

    Today in the West, the People do not sit on the Throne, but a group of professional liars. The People, like a naive young King, wearing the title of “democracy” in name only, is confused and unsure of himself. While he instinctively knows that he is not the true Ruler, he is captive to the Usurpers, who tells him that the world outside want him dead, and the Usurpers are only there to protect him.

  333. Brzezinski is always interesting to read. His latest in Foreign Policy, After America, & 8 Geopolitically Endangered Species.

    Not so long ago, a high-ranking Chinese official, who obviously had concluded that America’s decline and China’s rise were both inevitable, noted in a burst of candor to a senior U.S. official: “But, please, let America not decline too quickly.”

  335. @jxie
    Brzezinski, for all his apparent appearance of being reasonable shouldn’t really be trusted IMHO; this is the same guy who masterminded the soviets’ own ‘vietnam’ in Afghanistan and who, after the 08 GFC proposed that the US and China ‘should work closely’, except his idea of working closely in a form of G2 would’ve meant China becoming the second fiddle to American foreign policy, some of which included China sending troops to Afghanistan and/or absorbing the fallout of America’s self imposed bleeding by opening its markets to more American made produce.

    so yea, Brzezinski is a cunning old Cold Warrior who should be regarded as such; of course if the American offer of alliance is offered it should be accepted assuming the terms are equal but the terms between superpower are rarely equal, if ever.

  336. @zack
    I put Brzezinski as a commentator up there with Patrick Buchanan & Henry Kissinger. You often can find their points debatable to disagreeable, yet you don’t often find them lack of clarity, with judgments clouded with wishy-washy ideas like this.

  337. @jxie

    I disagree with Brzezinski because I disagree with his core premise that the U.S. is providing a common good.

    Another consequence of American decline could be a corrosion of the generally cooperative management of the global commons — shared interests such as sea lanes, space, cyberspace, and the environment, whose protection is imperative to the long-term growth of the global economy and the continuation of basic geopolitical stability. In almost every case, the potential absence of a constructive and influential U.S. role would fatally undermine the essential communality of the global commons because the superiority and ubiquity of American power creates order where there would normally be conflict.

    To what extent has the U.S. treated interests such as sea lanes, space, cyberspace, and the environment as a common asset? My take is that the U.S. treats these assets as its own. The world has been forced to cooperate with the U.S. or at least accept its hegemony – anyone asking for a fairer shake risks its ire. That’s how today’s world really works… Why else do you need a military budget that dwarfs the rest of the world combined? How else can you justify polluting by an order of magnitude on a per capita basis?

    I do agree that a hegemony does provide one good – it suppresses conflicts. But whether suppression of conflicts produces a net good depends on how fair the hegemony treats the rest of the world.

    For me personally, that is an answer that future historians have to answer. We live too much the shadows of a U.S. (Western) hegemonic world to have a good sense what is possible for the world, what is true justice for the world…

  338. @Allen

    You are absolutely right. He is not unlike all self-respected statesmen or former statesmen, who treat the narratives of their nationstates above everybody else.

    Other than his candor, another reason why his works are must-read (not must-agree) is because he went back to teaching after the Carter administration. He has had major influence over generations of those making and executing of American foreign policy.

  339. This is so messed up:

    When Pvt. Danny Chen was sent to Afghanistan he was tormented and abused by his follow soldiers:

    They singled him out, their only Chinese-American soldier, and spit racial slurs at him: “gook,” “chink,” “dragon lady.” They forced him to do sprints while carrying a sandbag. They ordered him to crawl along gravel-covered ground while they flung rocks at him.

    And on the night when he died they,

    …forced him to crawl, with all his equipment, across some 100 meters of gravel in order to return to the tower so he could start his shift. While he was on the ground, two other superiors pelted him with rocks. And once he reached the tower, a superior grabbed him by his body armor and dragged him up the steps.

    From: http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/danny-chen-2012-1/

  340. @JJ

    Well JJ, what did he expect? He should have known that whites, particularly anglo-saxon whites hate and despise chinese. Most white males when seeing us want to kick our ass.

    But we kicked theirs, most recently in Korea and Vietnam.

    Danny Chen was young so perhaps he can be forgiven for being an uncle tom, for wanting to fight the white man’s wars, which enrich the white man.

    The fact is this. Whites hate us. They are appalled by the idea of a rich and powerful China. It not only scares them, but makes them grind their teeth and think —“those uppity chinks!”

    There is a race war coming soon. You don’t get to choose sides. Your side is chosen by your skin colour.

  344. First time I have had a look at this site, and crikey – what a pack of maladjusted social misfits!

    You live in the US, and enjoy the benefits of living in a country created by white people, and enjoy using technology created by white people, while at the same time trashing the West.

    Face the facts. You are fighting a losing battle. The West will prevail over the East. I have just returned from a business trip to Shanghai and Hong Kong, and you know what? I was treated like a fucking king – so much so that I am now a ‘sinophile’ 🙂

    Most Chinese, it would seem, aspire to be like us, want even to look like us.

    Proof?

    Just walk through Shanghai and Hong Kong. Look at the billboards and advertising. How many feature white faces and how many feature Asian faces?

    And to really make your day…..most chinese women (especially the good looking ones) would prefer to have sex with me than any of you lot 😀

    [Note: IP address detected from a known dedicated Comment SPAM server, http://www.forumpostersunion.com/showthread.php?t=14542; Allen will occasionally override and approve for readers to see the true colors of many of our spammers]

  345. Foreign investment fueling speculation in Chinese real estate market. (If there was a bubble in it, it’s coming from foreign “hot money”).

    China is passing new regulations to curb the inflow of the foreign hot money into the Chinese real estate market.

    It is estimated that some $650 Billion of foreign investment poured into China in the last 10 years, with about 23% of that going into the real estate market in China, about $150 Billion.

    Undoubtedly, it’s causing some speculation heat in the market, which now Chinese government is trying to curb.

  346. @raventhorn
    the Chinese gov. did successfully deflate the housing bubble, if i’m not mistaken; the real losers in such cases would be those selfsame speculators, rather than genuine homebuyers as most Chinese buyers of home are, and given that there’s still a large demand for housing, real estate isn’t going to collapse overnight.

    furthermore, given how much foreign expats have benefited-to the point of exploitation-from working and living in China, it’s high time they started paying their fair share into the Chinese social services system; which was why i was pleasantly surprised to hear of extra taxes foisted on foreign workers. No more lording it over, thinking you’re better than them dirty, dirty natives, old chap, oh no. i have not felt more disgusted at any particular group of human beings than i have felt for the expat crowd who come to China/Asia to ‘find themselves’ and/or ‘go east, young man to make money’.

    anyway, Beijing is in a strong position to get these uppity foreign expats to contribute to the same system they’re exploiting for free. good on ’em. If they don’t like it, i’m sure they can always find work in the booming economies of their home countries.

  347. @zack

    I agree, but I also think that China needs to curb the “outflow” of these “hot money” as well.

    Ie. if they are already in, they should be locked in.

    Shouldn’t allow speculators jumping ship to cause losses to Chinese consumers.

  350. the “not at all trying to exclude and contain China” TPP is encountering the first of many and massive roadblocks; this from last week with japanese farmers protesting over US agri goods flooding the market, needless to say, some of these will be monsanto GM products with all the fun that that entails (just ask some indian farmers, the ones who didn’t commit suicide that is)
    http://www.nst.com.my/opinion/columnist/deep-divide-over-trans-pacific-partnership-1.29627

    but even more sinister is that the TPP could well be the USG’s version of SOPA applied worldwide:
    http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111023/00191416469/us-trying-to-force-governments-to-pay-much-higher-prices-needed-drugs-through-secretive-tpp.shtml

    it’s a scam alright; own the copyrights and force ppl to keep paying you to use/make the goods and that’s how you stay numero uno. given that this will affect Australia’s own pharmaceutical benefits scheme, i’m wondering why the fuck isn’t out america cocksucking PM taking issue with this? is Canberra full of traitors and american sleeper agents? the desire amongst white people to continue white supremacy might bite them in the ass.

  351. @Antioxidants

    I haven’t look at the site carefully, but this concerns me:

    However, I have discovered a few media outlets that report unbiased news and information of China such as Al Jazeera English and Foreign Policy Magazine, and I sometimes rely on them for the posts I write.

    Al Jazeera English is pretty biased in my opinion. In most important topics it simply parrots the dominant Western narrative on China. This is not surprising, given that it is staffed mostly with ex BBC reporters and its efforts to promote its own agendas. I mean, it has been noted here:

    “Al Jazeera makes a living blaming most problems in the Middle East on the USA and Israel,” Bill O’Reilly of Fox News has pointed out. “And any Arab leader who supports America is barbecued on the network, while those who hate America are praised.” He added: “Any fair-minded person who follows Al Jazeera knows it is anti-American and anti-Semitic. Only on the far left can it find acceptance.”

    Yet.

    But now, as a result of what is happening in Egypt, Al-Jazeera and its media allies are leading a “Demand Al-Jazeera in the U.S.A.” campaign, as if the channel’s coverage is somehow objective and worthwhile. Newsweek gave valuable column space to Wadah Khanfar, director-general of Al-Jazeera, to argue that U.S. cable and satellite providers should make a special allowance for Al-Jazeera English to be carried in more media markets so that “alternative viewpoints” can be presented about “the human realities of war” in the Middle East. He complained about the Egyptian government-owned satellite company having blocked Al-Jazeera’s broadcast signal after turmoil emerged in that country without noting that Al-Jazeera is itself owned and financed by an Arab regime in Qatar that is just as authoritarian as Egypt’s. The channel is notorious for sparing Qatar’s ruling monarchy the scrutiny it selectively applies to other Arab regimes.

    In any case, relying on what is effectively Qatar’s royal mouthpiece to learn about China – to me – is laughable.

    As for Foreign Policy Magazine, I am a frequent reader. I find a lack of any Chinese perspective in there. It is dominated by various Western schools of foreign policy thinking – and trying to learn about China through them is also – to me – laughable.

    But be that as it may be, the site will stand by itself, even if it relies on wobbly sources of information. I’ll take a look when I get time. I’ll just leave it at that for now…

  352. I gotta agree with Allen here. Al Jezeera is just as biased against China as the western media sources. that’s not a surprise because they largely parrot the reports from the west. Foreign policy is EXTREMELY biased against China. It is a neocon rag. Once it was a legitimate academic source but now it writes tabloid papers by intellectual lightweights such as Daniel “Shadow government” Twining (who has a huge anti-China bias) as well as lots of other writers that are downright sinophobic. Take a look at this screed written by a knuckle-dragging stooge advocating militarism against China.

    http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/10/02/time_for_india_to_play_hardball_with_china

    In my experience, these types of articles are the norm, not the exception from FP.

  353. @Allen, melektaus,

    I know what you are talking about, and I agree with you. I don’t usually go to Al-Jazeera although I remember reading something there and I remember I was having the same opinion as you guys regarding the piece I was reading. Same for Foreign Policy. Having said that, the reason I shared the site here is because I feel the owner of the site is doing it in good faith and there are some good information there. I don’t expect I will agree with everything in that site (I don’t agree with everything on this site either), but so long as the the opinions are based on honest judgment rather than malicious intent, I have no problem with that. This is one of the few sites about China I came across that are not tainted by the usual cynicism so typical of Westerners. The owner of the site seems to have a genuine interest in promoting an image of real China as he sees it rather than regurgitating the usual holier-than-thou rant. According to him, he has no problem with people point out his error. So may be you guys can enlighten him a bit?

  354. “I gotta agree with Allen here. Al Jezeera is just as biased against China as the western media sources. that’s not a surprise because they largely parrot the reports from the west.”

    Could it be because Al Jezeera provides a balanced picture of middle eastern/ palestinian/ islamic affairs, to counter the West, and they want to provide this alternative viewpoint to a largely Western audience, and at the same time appear reasonable and moderate, they simply cannot afford to have too much coverage which differs from the Western mainstream when it comes to China.

    If they want to get their point out about the Middle East, that is hard enough for a Western audience to swallow as it is. And then if they top it off with what seems to be a pro-China angle, the Western audience will reject the entire message, and not even bother chewing things over.

    The anti-china angle moderates their image somewhat to a Western audience, and facilitates getting their main message across to the West.

    All the above is conjecture of course, and I could well be wrong.

  355. @Wayne

    That’s one possibility. Or it could just be that Al Jazeera is lazy like 90% of journalists and simply repeat what has already been said by western sources. Their audience will not allow them to repeat western narrative on the Middle East issues so they are more critical here but everything else is just a carbon copy or near one of western media reports.

  356. Anyway, I’ve just wacthed AJ’s interview with Zhang Weiwei, author of The China Wave: the Rise of a Civilizational State, he offers a robust rebuttal of critics, especially in the West, who keep emphasising China’s shortcomings. As usual, the interviewer keep harping on multi parties election system and human rights issue. Zhang gave a rare insight of how China’s politburo member is selected.

    http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/talktojazeera/2012/01/2012114143938654345.html

  361. @zack

    A 2010 Chinese film “Aftershock” in my book is one of the top 3 films worldwide in the last decade. It entered last year’s large pool of the foreign language films in Oscar, but couldn’t make it to the final 5. I’ve queued up 2 of the final 5, “Biutiful” and the final winner “In a Better World”. I somewhat doubt the latter 2 are close to the overall quality of “Aftershock”. Personally wasn’t too surprised that “Aftershock” couldn’t find major acceptance in the Western world. The biggest complaint was the positive depiction of the “Red Army”. If the film maintains the same family story line but distorts the backdrop of the post-earthquakes rescue efforts to largely negative, I bet it would be a shoo-in winner. Speaking of awards, as expected “the Flowers of War” had a very subdue reception is the Golden Globes Award. I am paraphrasing a quote by Jiang Wen: while China’s heard and mind are wide open to the outside world, the West’s are totally close.

    Well, the Chinese language movie market size is about 1/4 of the America’s, but with a much faster growth rate. If the automobile market was any guide, within a decade, the former may overtake the latter. Methinks Chinese producers and directors first and foremost should make films for Chinese.

  363. @Charles Liu
    i wonder who the bright spark in the USG thought it was a good idea to send an ethnic Chinese American as ambassador to China; what sort of message is that sending to have a rather obvious hanjian as your government’s mouthpiece? and i’m saying this in the context of the current relationship between China and the US, where the latter has been on record as overtly and covertly attempting to foment colour revolution in the former.

  366. China may become a member of the Arctic Council, with Denmark’s assistance, meaning it’ll be able to access all those minerals and strategic access around the north pole. Expect heavy American objection, but seriously, if those bitches think it’s ok to muscle in onto the East Asia Summit despite not even being an east asian country, where the fuck are these same numbnuts getting off saying China shouldn’t be a part of the arctic council?
    http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2012/01/18/china%E2%80%99s-new-strategic-target-arctic-minerals/?mod=wsj_share_twitter

  367. @zack

    There is some loss in translation there. Denmark supports China to be a permanent observer, not a full member in the council. Currently even Poland, which consumes about 3% of the electricity as China consumes, is a permanent observer. It’s highly doubtful any one of the existing 8 members would want another full member in the council.

  370. “Iran shows America the middle finger.”

    Is that $4 toy replica of the drone made-in-China? Talk about adding insult to injury! Just saying.

  372. It may soon be a crime in France to deny government-recognized genocides.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/world/europe/french-senate-passes-genocide-bill-angering-turks.html

    Hmm…

    So let’s say the gov’t gets something wrong (I assume no gov’t is immune to making a mistake, including even the French), and I want to protest – by bringing evidence, for example, that what is listed as “genocide” is merely war that killed (disproporately perhaps) a particular ethnic group, I would be committing a crime because I’d be denying the existence of a genocide.

    Whatever drives the French gov’t to want to pass such a law, I am sure it’s done with the best intention. But isn’t it kind of draconian? Mere questioning a government’s political assessment of historical events can soon be a crime in France.

  373. http://news.xinhuanet.com/local/2012-01/24/c_111459984.htm

    新华网成都１月２４日电　１月２３日下午两点左右，四川省甘孜州炉霍县发生聚集、打砸事件，在有不法分子“将有３名僧人自焚，不能把遗体交给政府处理”造谣煽动下，上百名藏族僧俗群众在县城聚集，部分人员手持刀具，并向值勤民警和武警投掷石块，冲击公安派出所，砸毁２辆警车和２辆消防车，打砸商铺和银行取款设备。

    Xinhuaweb Chengdu 1/24 wire – On 1/23 around 2pm, a mass incident occurred in Luhuo County, Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan, where assailants used “can not turn over self-immolated body to the government” to incite hundreds of Tibetan monks and citizens to gather. With some wielding knives and throwing rocks at police deputies and riot police, sacked a police station, destroying 2 police cars and 2 fire trucks. Some shops and ATM were destroyed.

    事件造成５名公安民警受伤，不法分子１死４伤，伤者已送医院救治。经过做工作，聚集人员于当日１９时许陆续散去。目前，炉霍县城秩序已恢复正常。

    The incident caused injury to 5 deputy police. Among the assailants 1 died and 4 injured were sent to hospital. By 7pm the crowd have dissipated, downtown Luhuo has returned to normal.

  375. @Wahaha

    I think some of these HK “natives” are a bit too self-righteous, and have nothing better to do.

    But Kong is taking his view a bit extreme as well, why make a bigger deal out of this by tying into “colonialism”? Every Chinese city have some “natives” who thinks they are better than the “country folk”.

    But back to HK “natives”: Get a life already. If you see a kid eating on your clean train/bus, you want to say something about it, go ahead. If you make it into an argument, you have no life. (I like a clean train/bus as much as the next guy, but I’m not going to get into someone’s face over it).

    And HK “natives”, recall back may be 50-100 years ago, HK wasn’t that clean either, and a lot of you “natives” families were just recent immigrants to HK. Do you think it would have been right for some uppity HK old “natives” to get you a public shaming??

  377. @Antioxidants

    Read the story. Also browsed through his site. I like that Randall guy …

    But I do whole-heartedly agree with the Professor though. Please note, he is criticizing Chinese Hong Kong, not white people in Hong Kong. I love white people in Hong Kong. It makes Hong Kong what it is. But I don’t like snobby (with respect to their own race, to people of lower stature, people of lesser means, people with lesser education, whatever) Chinese in Hong Kong – for in that case – anywhere.

  378. @Allen

    Speaking of the Armenian genocide, the Turkish government is one of the most despicable governments in the world. It has accused the Chinese of “genocide” in regards to the Uyghurs (false) yet denies the Armenian genocide which it did commit. So even though I agree that it is a draconian law to criminalize false historical revisionism, I can’t help but feel a bit gleeful at the Turkish government getting upset over this.

  381. @wwww1234

    Interesting. I am going to cite it in a couple of other threads.

    Regarding 1. Hmm – so much for the stereotype that Chinese are all thieves and cheaters.

    Regarding 2. Hmm – I thought China was a police state!

  384. We had updated some pluggins related to comments yesterday. However, it looks like the system is now holding a bunch of comments for moderation. I have approved 40 comments from the last 24-48 hours just now. Please be patient. We will sort the issue through soon. Email YinYang or me if your comments do not show up immediately.

    Thanks,

    Allen

  387. The edit feature should be working. We have set a 20 minute time window for edits. Please let us know if you see a problem.

  388. I wanted to remind people that tomorrow (Feb 4) will be the 90th anniversary of the date that sovereignty over the Province of Shandong was agreed by Japan to revert back to China pursuant to an agreement with the United States at the Washington Naval Conference of 1922.

    Wikipedia describes it thus:

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

    “The Shantung Problem (simplified Chinese: 山东问题; traditional Chinese: 山東問題; pinyin: Shāndōng wèntí) refers to the dispute over Article 156 of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, which dealt with the concession of the Shandong peninsula.

    During the First World War, China supported the Allies on condition that Germany’s concessions on the Shandong peninsula would be returned to China. In spite of this agreement, the Article transferred the concessions in Shandong to Japan rather than returning sovereign authority to China. Japan was allowed possession of the province because of secret agreements signed with European powers. One of the excuses the Japanese used was that Duan Qirui had borrowed money from Japan to strengthen his army, this now being repaid with the concession of the Shandong peninsula. The Chinese ambassador to Paris, Wellington Koo, stated that the Chinese could not concede Shandong, which was the birthplace of Confucius, a highly important Chinese philosopher, as much as Christians could not concede Jerusalem, and demanded the returning of sovereignty over Shandong, to no avail. Chinese outrage over this provision led to demonstrations and a cultural movement known as the May Fourth Movement and influenced Wellington Koo not to sign the treaty.

    China declared the end of its war against Germany in September 1919 and signed a separate treaty with Germany in 1921. The dispute was mediated by the United States in 1922 during the Washington Naval Conference, and the sovereignty of Shandong was agreed to be returned to China on February 4 of that year, while Japanese residents in Shandong were given special rights.”

    During this period of history, the United States was one of the few foreign colonial powers that helped China to protect its sovereignty and resist invasion and dismemberment. Although the US was pursuing its own interests, as it would be expected to, its interests did align at that time with protecting Chinese sovereignty.

    In my view, this is a fine moment of alignment of interests between the two countries that should be commemorated.

    Some more details here:

    “In addition to the multilateral agreements, several bilateral treaties were completed at the conference. Japan and China also signed a bilateral agreement, the Shangtung (Shandong) Treaty, which returned control of that province and its railroad to China. Japan had taken control of the area from the Germans during World War I, and then it maintained control over the years that followed. The combination of the Shangtung Treaty and the Nine-Power Treaty was meant to reassure China that its territory would not be further compromised by Japanese expansion. Additionally, Japan agreed to withdraw its troops from Siberia and the United States and Japan formed agreement over equal access to cable and radio facilities on the Japanese-controlled island of Yap.”

    http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/naval-arms-control-1921.htm

    We should also remember to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Nine-Power Treaty, which was signed on Feb 6, 1922.

  392. TonyP4 :
    Recent conflict between citizens in China and Hong Kong.
    http://tonyp4idea.blogspot.com/2012/02/locusts-and-dogs.html

    These conflicts are nothing new and the reasons are always the same: The outsiders are rude, doesn’t respect and cannot assimilate to the local culture, or the wealthy outsiders like to show off their newly acquired wealth in front of the locals. Within China you get the same conflicts between citizens in Shanghai/Beijing bashing migrants who live in these big cities. In Canada the locals actually have been bashing the immigrants from HK. IMO it’s a bit ironic that the people of HK who have gone through the samething from the Canadians are doing it to the Mainlanders, but at the same time it makes sense. Chinese are conservative in general.

  393. @TonyP4
    strange, the impression given by the NYT and LAT and SMH was that the hong kongers were ready for bloody revolution to secede from China proper; guess it still remains true that media has become a source of self affirmation for their audiences, rather than information

  394. The conflicts among HKers and Chinese mainlanders have been for a long while. To me, it is a natural development. I hope mutual understanding and acceptance will resolve the conflicts. The BJ professor using dogs to describe HKers (the worst for Asians to be called dogs) and the locust ad by a HK company bought the conflict to the next level. Both of them have to be blamed for spreading hatred.

    There are many the leaders can do like limiting the number of births in HK by mainlanders, taxing goods bought in HK, improving food quality in South China… I do not live in HK and I’m sure there are many easy ways to resolve conflicts.

    The NYT, LAT… have their own agenda and their description is far from reality.

    —
    My old classmate wrote the following. Use Google to translate if you cannot read Chinese.

    張愛玲洞悉香港焦慮
    張愛玲參與《南北和》電影編劇，以機智的喜劇，化解語言與文化的衝突，對今天帶來啟示。

    語言是她的魔術。沒有人會低估張愛玲小說的文字魔力，但卻很少人會記得她對香港「語言衝突」的反思，也沒想到她會舉重若輕，以幽默和詼諧的喜劇，化解那些族群文化的衝突。

    這是香港文化史上被遺忘的一頁。一九六零年，張愛玲的好友宋淇（林以亮）擔任電影懋業公司的製片主任，就主導了《南北和》系列的電影。張愛玲負責了第二部《南北一家親》和第三部《南北喜相逢》的編劇。內容都是以香港本地廣東人和來自北方的「外江佬」的衝突為主線，交織愛情與生活的傳奇，由粵劇紅伶梁醒波與著名諧星劉恩甲演出對手戲，彼此因為語言與地域文化的衝突，勾心鬥角，勢不兩立，但沒想到他們的兒女卻是私下大談戀愛，如膠似漆，終至談及婚嫁，而與父母不斷鬥智鬥勇。但這不是羅密歐與朱麗葉的悲劇，而是王爾德式《不可兒戲》的喜劇。

    這三部「南北和」系列的電影，都是針對香港的語言矛盾所產生的獨特語境，也發現彼此不打不相識的場景。張愛玲借用好萊塢的風格，用美女俊男來包裝地域之爭的荒謬，穿插了種種情景喜劇的橋段，加上諧星梁醒波的即興「爆肚」對白，讓觀眾看得如痴如醉。

    在上海長大的張愛玲，曾在香港大學唸書，她對於廣東話和大陸其他方言與普通話的互動，都有深刻的體會，也了解不同語言的交叉滲透與交纏，都會帶來巨大的戲劇張力。她的喜劇對白，充滿了王爾德式的機智與嘲諷，讓香港人在觀賞過程中，看到自己的傲慢與偏見，也看到那些扭曲了的歧視影子。

    而電影除了梁醒波與劉恩甲之外，還有丁皓、白露明、鍾情、張清、雷震等明星，橫跨了國語片與粵語片的圈子。

    也就是在這樣戲劇化的提煉與昇華中，香港五六十年代的族群之爭與語言衝突，就在一片笑聲中化解於無形。這位文壇的祖師奶奶當年可以做到，為何今天的香港文化界和媒體不可以做到？

    事實上，這次「陸港之爭」的引爆點，也是源於facebook與youtube的傳播，而事發時各方用iPhone來拍攝現場情景，捕捉了那些稍縱即逝的鏡頭，也不斷在社交媒體上討論。

    不過這些眾聲喧嘩的聲音，往往流於碎片化，只是滿足於抓住一時的眼球，而沒有對這問題作出深刻的思考。

    因而這樣的衝突，剛好是一部好電影的劇本草稿。活生生的題材，活脫脫的人物，火爆的場景、火爆的動作，可以拍出比好萊塢更好萊塢的片子。

    但關鍵還是張愛玲那種「因為懂得，所以慈悲」的情懷。她了解不能像「孔慶東們」那樣，用民粹和刻板印象來挑撥離間，分裂中華民族。她所深愛的香港是一個可以出現《傾情之戀》的城市——讓浪漫取代暴戾，讓溫馨取代粗野……■

    邱立本 [email protected]

  397. Well, he’s writing for the new yorker, not new york times. I guess editorial direction has a lot to do with the end product?

  399. the abc finally has a good article that actually lays the smackdown with respect to over suspicion over Chinese investment in Australia whilst waving the Americans through:
    http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3816204.html
    sampled quote:

    The problem with China is that they don’t pretend to be our best friend or close relative. Business dinners in China are quick and the negotiations are hard. Their children study hard and their lives are focused on climbing out of a society that literally destroyed the old China without creating anything to take its place. In contrast, the Americans are charmers. The trouble is that the next time you go to America for discussions they have forgotten that you were there in the first place.

  400. @Ray
    Yes, he happens to be in my same grade in high school in Hong Kong. I do not remember him after so many years but we do have e-mails circulated among classmates including him, so I assume he was not in the same class as I but we graduated in high school in the same year.

  403. Lin will be in ESPN 8 pm ET in Knicks against Lakers. He is in a no-loss situation. If the Knicks wins, it will be the biggest upset of the year of all sports. Chinese parents prefer their children to go to ‘safe’ careers. He is a pioneer and he has to double his effort to make the grade.

  405. good on Lin; but i’m still holding out hope for real sexualised Asian American action movie stars in hollywood. Then and only then will Hollywood and American society have proven itself to fully and truly accept Asians as equals, rather than being degraded as stereotypes and sexual competitors.

  407. Is Lin a descent of Chinese or Taiwanese?

    Their parents migrated to Taiwan and then to US. Lin is a ABC, American Born Chinese. More than 80% (some say 90%) of Taiwanese were from China or the parents were from China.

    In the 60s or so, KMT wanted to fight back and conquer the mainland. At that time, they thought they’re Chinese. Today Taiwanese realize it is not possible. What do you think?

  408. Singaporeans or Americans of Chinese descent will call themselves ‘Chinese.’ People not wanting Chinese descent in Taiwan to be called ‘Chinese’ means these people are playing identity politics.

    Jeremy Lin has given interviews with Chinese television and referred to himself as Chinese.

    Tony – everyone wants to be identified with the winner. It’s human nature. So, as long as China remains stable and continues to grow economically, it bodes well for eventual unification.

  409. about the recent accounts of young impressionable lamaist monks setting themselves alight, i wonder is this the latest in the form of propaganda attacks against China masterminded by the TGIE in Dharmsala? with the need to keep the tibetan independance movement going once the charismatic tenzin goes, it’d certainly make sense to bolster the new DL’s (successor picked by the dalai clique) credentials with an anti China stance.

  410. Originally published in Nguoi Viet. Wayne is gonna love this. Go for it, boy!! Snarl.l.l….

    Why Jeremy Lin matters – Asian male image in US media

    By KY-PHONG TRAN

    Since he burst into the national consciousness just a week ago, basketball sensation and New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin has proved that he’s just not any old underdog story. His is a very specific one. It leads me to a scene in the film “White Men Can’t Jump” where Wesley Snipes tells Woody Harrelson, “You can listen to Jimi (Hendrix), but you can’t hear him.”

    Because to “hear” the story of Jeremy Lin, you have to go back to 1984 ― four years before Jeremy was even born ― and a beloved film by John Hughes called “Sixteen Candles.” It’s a cutesy high school drama with quintessential 1980s actors Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall.

    Except, for no reason other than as racist comic relief, Hughes inserts the nightmare image of an Asian male foreign exchange student from an un-named Asian country (and thus all of them). The character’s name is Long Duk Dong, and he alternates between being goofy, accented and clueless, but always, always, always lusting after “American” girls.

    To truly appreciate and understand the joy of what Jeremy Lin is doing right now, to know why so many of us Asian American males are wearing his jersey and chanting his name, you had to have cringed as that gong sounded whenever Long Duk Dong came into a scene. You had to be called his name at school and pretend it didn’t hurt and then laugh along with your “friends.” You had to let that shame burn inside you until it bordered on self-loathing.
    You had to bear the cross of the “Donger.”

    And what is that cross? Historically throughout American pop culture, it alternates between never being depicted and thus never existing OR being depicted in the most humiliating and emasculating light possible.

    It means you can never be the lead but always the sidekick (Kato, Sulu, Mike Chang).
    To create an import culture car and film franchise only to be relegated into a prop or a villain (The Fast and the Furious).
    To never front a band but maybe strum along at stage left (Smashing Pumpkins and Airborne Toxic Event).
    It means to never be depicted as handsome or suave or a lady’s man. (Or a gentleman’s man for that matter).
    It means to never get to kiss the girl. (In “Romeo Must Die” Jet Li does not kiss Aaliyah and in “The Replacement Killers,” Chow Yun Fat does not kiss Mira Sorvino. I despised Hollywood for a very long time after those transgressions).

    Of late, there has been some breakthrough. In sports, we have Ichiro and Yao, but since they were still deeply entrenched in their Japanese and Chinese cultures, that distanced them from our American identity. Recently, the rap group Far East Movement has been the first Asian American pop music group to get consistent air play. And pretty much everyone now knows that many Asian American guys are talented dancers due to reality TV shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” and “America’s Best Dance Crew.”

    Of course, we do have one icon in popular culture ― probably the last Asian American guy who made us proud to be who we are and look how we do: Bruce Lee. I suspect that some of us deep down inside thought to ourselves, “Yeah, he’s great and all, but does it have to be at martial arts? That’s not exactly breaking stereotypes.”

    Before Jeremy, Asian American males were akin to vampires. We’d look into the mirror of popular culture and see nothing ― or negativity. Now 26 years after “Sixteen Candles,” Jeremy Lin arrives to play basketball on its biggest stage and in doing so, to declare that we not only do we exist but that we can succeed as a professional athlete in one of the big three glory ESPN sports. That’s the power of popular media, right? For all 300-plus million of us Americans to see one collective new image.

    And what an image that is. Through his play, Jeremy has already shattered some pretty heavy and burdensome stereotypes of Asian American males. He is neither short nor weak. He was born in the United States and does not speak with an accent (not that there is anything wrong with that). He is emotional and demonstrative. He has a swagger and flair to his game. He is at times flashy. He does not back down on the court.

    He is a winner and best of all (and this is what makes sports so wonderful) he is a bonafide star strictly due to his abilities (not his looks, marketability, or pedigree).

    In “White Men,” Snipes concludes his argument by saying, “Just because you’re listening to him doesn’t mean you’re hearing him.” And trust me when I write this: We Asian American males hear every single thing Jeremy Lin’s crossover dribbles, pinpoint passes and smooth swishes say about us ― and that’s that we too can be athletic, daring and heroic.

    All are welcome on the Jeremy bandwagon, but there’s a VIP section for Asian American males. And since we’re a cool bunch, even Long Duk Dong can come along for the ride.

  412. Don’t forget Linkin Park’s Hann and Shinoda. Also the Jeremy Lin’s of the tech industry have been dominating for many years.

  415. About the discrimination on Lin, discrimination is a human nature. In Hong Kong, we’ve class discrimination and in US we have racial discrimination.

    The black boxer has his discrimination against Lin. It hurts more as we try to fight for the discriminated against discrimination and the discriminated discriminated.

    It is a bad human nature but try to keep it to ourselves and never pass this bad human nature to the next generation. We all have discrimination. How often do you walk to a black ghetto at night?

  418. @raffiaflower

    Thanks Raffiaflower for that awesome article.

    I am not a basketball fan, and in fact know little about American sports. I like what Americans call ‘soccer’.

    But man, I have been watching this guy over and over and over again….especially the last seconds of that game against the Toronto Raptors.

  421. E-mail circulated to me:

    聯合國正式定義 (粵語) 為一種語言，此乃全球近1億2 (Tony: 120 millions in English) 千萬粵人的大囍事！ 在所有華語中只有（粵語和普語）被聯合國承認定義為語言！！！
    粵語，英文為CANTONESE，正式被聯合國定義為語言，並且認定為日常生活中主要運用的五種語言之一（LEADING LANGUAGES IN DAILY USE），僅次於中國的官方語言普通話。 所以，粵語不是“鳥語”。 每種語言都有其用法、發音上的特點。 我們尊重國家有關推廣使用普通話的政策和要求，但是語言往往不是孤立地存在的，語言是文化的載體，有其超越一般溝通功能的意義，所以推廣普通話與保留、使用、保護方言並不矛盾。

    粵語者，南方第一大語種（含廣東白話，廣西白話) 通用於港澳及海外華埠及兩廣大部分地區，由西江流域上溯至廣西南寧，保守估計有一億左右人口日常使用粵語交流。 有研究的人都應當瞭解現在的“嶺南人” (基本上說的是兩廣了）並不是唐宋時期的嶺南原住民，而是唐宋時期而後逐漸的從中原往南遷居的原中原人，一通帶去的還有那個時期的文化習俗語言。 因此，在某種程度上，粵語繼續了唐宋文化的傳承。

    粵語俏皮話歇後語 ~ 粵語當然值得保留..
    今日只用粵語的歇後語俏皮話為大家小小的通式一下，以後看官們在看粵語原版的影視時就更能心領神會了。

    笑騎騎　－　放毒蛇（字面意思一邊微笑一邊給你下毒手，笑裡藏刀也。)
    識少少　－　扮代表（懂的不多，又喜歡出風頭)
    周身郁　－　扮忙碌（鬱者，動也；假裝忙碌。)
    有早知　－　冇乞兒（有預知能力就不會有討飯的了，形容世事難料。)
    靜雞雞　－　認低威（靜悄悄的認栽給人賠禮道歉)
    出嚟威　－　識搶咪（出來混 要懂的把握機會上位)
    趁佢病　－　攞佢命（字面是趁他生病的時候要他的命，趕盡殺絕。)
    印印腳　－　等人約（引音近奀，是形容動詞，把腿翹起來一晃一晃 的樣子，形容無所事事。等人家來他玩)
    人工高　－　冇秘撈（秘撈，秘密地去做兼職也。不用做兼職也可以 賺很高的工資)
    吹吹水　－　唔抹嘴（吹水，口沫橫飛大吹牛皮。 意思同吹牛不打草稿)

    以下的歇後語，很多是有民間典故的，不詳細說了，有想知道的可以跟帖問
    鐵木真打仔──大汗DUP細汗（DUP 廣東話 打人）
    阿茂整餅──無果樣整果樣（沒那種款式偏要做那種款式，形容多此一舉)
    水瓜打狗──唔見緊桷 (意同肉包子打狗）
    年三十晚謝灶──好做唔做（年30晚灶君是要上天庭向玉帝告狀的，實在不應該多謝他）
    星公吊頸──嫌命長（火星人都知道）
    陳年中草藥──發爛渣（抓狂）
    灶君跌落鑊──精（蒸）神（蒸、精，廣東話同音）
    阿崩叫狗──越叫越走（可從字面理解）
    賣魚佬──有聲(腥)氣（聲氣，消息也，指某事有成功的希望了）
    賣鯇魚尾──搭嘴 （搭訕）
    細佬哥剃頭──就快就快 （快了快了）
    肥著笠衫──幾大就幾大（笠，套起來，笠衫，套起來穿的衣服，其實就是T恤，幾大就幾大，放手一搏，同人死卵朝天，不死萬萬年）
    神台貓屎──神憎鬼厭
    南無佬跌落糞坑──無囇符（南無佬，民間的法師巫師，無囇符，符都沒有了。
    意思就是無計可施了）
    屎忽窿生瘡──無眼睇（屎忽窿，P眼也，睇，看也。無眼睇，不想看下去了）
    咸蛋滾湯──心都實曬（心都哇涼哇涼地呀）
    瓦簷獅子──叻到滿（叻，LIE 厲害的意思，屋簷的獅子，忒厲害也就是個裝飾）
    跪地喂豬母──睇錢份上（看錢份上忍受委屈）
    床底破柴──撞曬大板（破柴 砍柴也，碰大釘子了）
    老婆擔遮──陰功（公）（陰功，陰德，無陰功咯，不積陰德啊，咁無陰功，真沒陰德）
    火燒豬頭──熟口熟面 （字面意思）
    天堂尿壺──全神貫注 （字面意思)
    老公潑扇──淒（妻）涼
    撒路溪錢──吸引死人 (溪錢，冥幣，小白條也，吸引死人，死在這?是強烈助語，
    太TMD吸 引了）
    黃皮樹了哥──唔熟唔食（不熟的不吃，意思是專賺熟人的便宜）
    亞聾送殯──唔聽你支死人笛（聾子去送殯是聽不到哀樂的，死在這?也是強烈的助語，
    意思是不再聽你TMD的指揮了）
    濕水棉花──無得彈（無得彈，無得頂，贊到了極點，無可挑剔）
    狗上瓦桁──有條路（瓦桁，屋簷屋脊，有自己不為人知的路數）
    十月芥菜──起曬心（有了那份心思，意思近搭曬糖，對某事物起了心思，搭曬糖專指起了色心）
    肥婆坐屎塔──TUPTUP撼（屎塔，馬桶，TUP形容詞，意思是結實，密實，牢固）
    紙紮下巴──口輕輕（說的話沒分量，或輕易許諾不可靠）
    屎坑關刀──文（聞）又唔得，武（舞）又唔得
    鼎湖上素──好齋（鼎湖，廣東肇慶名勝）
    火燒旗杆──長歎（炭）（字面的意思是火在旗杆上燒，人無可奈何，其實廣東話歎在大多數 時是享受，如歎世界，長歎也就是有很長的時間去享受）
    飛機打交──高鬥（通常形容女人眼界高。 高傲）
    海底石斑──好瘀（魚）(瘀，沒面子）
    雞食放光蟲──心知肚明（雞吃螢火蟲，心知肚明）
    山草藥──UP得就UP （UP，說、講。 講話不負責任，滿嘴跑火車）
    番鬼佬月餅──悶極（MOONCAKE）（中國式英文）
    非洲和尚──乞（黑）人憎（僧）（討人厭）
    潮州二胡──自己顧自己(GEGEGUGEGE) （GEGEGUGEGE拉二胡的聲音潮州話說出來意思，剛好是自己顧自己）
    斷柄鋤頭──無揸拿（沒有把柄掌握，沒把握了）
    貓兒洗面──系甘意（小小的意思一下下）
    棺材鋪拜神──想人死（字面意思）
    阿蘭嫁阿瑞──類鬥類（自己人打自己人）
    周身刀 ──無張利（有很多技能，但沒一樣精通）
    神仙放屁──不同凡響
    生蟲拐杖──靠唔住（靠不住）
    番薯跌落灶──該煨（自找倒楣，自討苦吃，自己摞來衰）
    老公潑扇──淒（妻）涼
    和尚擔遮──無法（發）無天
    單眼仔睇老婆── 一眼睇哂（獨眼龍相親，一目了然）
    水兵對水手──水鬥水（也是自己人打自己人)
    隔年通勝──唔值錢 (過期貨，不值錢）
    幡杆燈籠──照遠唔照近（燈下黑，照，也指關照，有時指不會做人關照疏遠的人多過
    關照親近的人）
    三元宮土地──錫（愛惜）身（相傳三元宮的土地神像是用錫鑄的，愛惜自己的身體）
    陸文庭睇相──唔衰螺黎衰（肆意也是自找倒楣了，陸文庭此事，也是有典故的）
    年晚煎堆──人有我有（煎堆，廣東過年食品，舊時過年每家每戶必備）
    廚房階磚──鹹濕（同上解）
    秀才手巾──包書（輸） （保准輸定）
    十月蔗頭──甜到尾（好事到頭了）
    倒掛臘鴨──油嘴滑舌
    抬棺材甩褲──失禮死人（字面好理解，死在這裡也是加強性的助語）
    雷公劈豆腐──穩軟的來蝦（蝦、欺負，專挑軟弱的來欺負）
    魚片粥──岩岩熟（岩岩、剛剛好，剛剛好熟了）
    火麒麟──周身癮（周身癮，某人渾身散發著王八之氣，很囂張很欠揍的樣子）
    阿超著褲──穀住來（行不通的硬來）

  423. Sun yat sen is a truly patriotic Chinese. Had he lives longer, China would have been a developed country by now. The Communist basically lost first thirty years of development time.

  424. @Antioxidants

    Sun is a true patriot. But I am not so sure if China would be a developed country by now. There would still be the issue of Japanese aggression and WWII. Would there still be a civil war after Sun inevitably died – say in 1937 or 47? Would U.S. and China have remained allies if China turned more socialist – even under the KMT? Would a China allied with the U.S. – necessary for economic development (if nothing else than to have peace) – have to be a vassal state of the U.S. as Japan became after WWII?

  425. @Allen
    The Japs would still have invaded. I am talking about the period from 1949 to 1976 when the emperor from Hunan was alive. These are the lost years I was talking about.

  426. @TonyP4
    I saw two of them and cannot find the rest. After seeing the second one, my comments are :

    1. She was the sex bomb in HK.
    2. She had her biase against KMT due to her business in China.
    3. I believe the series in from TVBe at least 2 years old. She died two years ago. What a life!
    4. I believe the money she used to start the second business was from a very fishy source.
    5. I do not agree with her on education for profit. If they’re not supported by the government and/or alumni, you have to run it as a business.
    6. As a narrator, she had too much opinions – some I agree and some I do not. She
    should stay with the facts and let the readers decide. Being said, it is a good one if you understand Cantonese.

    —
    Sun was a true patriot. He did not have the energy and the courage to rule China – with no military might. He was in the middle of our centuries of humiliation. Mao was a great revolutionist but a poor governor. Could be a pastor boy in Peter’s Principle – promoting to a position one’s not qualified.

  427. @Antioxidants

    That’s a very simplistic and superficial way to read history. Why?

    Taiwan became prosperous by falling under the U.S. hegemonic umbrella. Mainland failed according to certain metrics because it was asserting its independence. If it had become a pawn of the U.S., it would have fared better initially – but as it rose, things will not scale. Because it has no independence, U.S. will impede its growth – like what happened to Japan in late 1980’s with the Plaza accord, etc.

    Anyways, no time to debate alterantive history in this open thread. Just want to point out that things ain’t so simple. To be clear, I am addressing narrowly your proclamation: if Sun lived longer, China would be developed. In my view, China would still be attacked, which would set China back as before; and when he finally dies, there is still a high chance for civil war, so there is more setbacks. Even if there were none or even if KMT wins, there is high chance it will be socialist in nature, which may create a rift with the U.S. Even if KMT controls all of China and U.S. backs China and economic development occurs, China will most likely not be dependent and more like a vassal state like Japan and South Korea are. Once China become moderately prosperous, without real independence, it will be trapped there – because U.S. will start making more demands on it. U.S. can’t afford a vassal state becoming stronger than it is. Maybe China would be like EU today – prosperous but politically impotent? I don’t think U.S. would ever shower the kind of goodwill on China as shown on Europe. It may have showered some goodwill on S. Korea and Japan – but that’s because they have served / serve the important roles of containing communism and China… – it’s a kind of cost to the U.S.

    The “failures of Mao” have many causes – including internal, yes, but also external (China was asserting independence against Western imperialism as well as an aggressive Soviet Union and fighting proxy wars on its borders). The costs of China’s march to independence were high – but independence – true independence (not the type of small-scale provincial, abdicate to current world order independence some Taiwanese are advocating) – may be worth fighting for.

  428. @Allen
    I hope you are not defending Mao. You are conjecturing the what if scenario if KMT is still in power in mainland. I am talking about the undeniable history under Mao’s rule. Are you saying that China will be better off nowadays if the man is still alive? If he is still alive, you would probably still be chanting long live Chairman Mao everyday, if China still exist.

  429. @Antioxidants

    Yes I am defending Mao – not for the sake of defending him, but because I see his role in history as heroic.

    As for the rest of what you wrote, you are guessing… as much as I was.

    I will write more on it in the future on this topic – maybe title it “China’s 30 lost years?” – we can then discuss. I don’t want to discuss much more because I have no time and can’t do it justice here.

  430. I agree with Allen, Mao made some mistake on economy policy but politically be it internal or external, he is much more alert and insightful than most. What make China can choose their own path today if not Mao daring to challege/defend China true independence. Chanting and idolised is just part of Mao strategy to make thing move, he is not that naive.

  431. Of course he is not naive. He is just wicked and willing to plunge China into chaos for his own personal power gain. Do you know that Mao persecuted many of his own colleagues? What did China benefit from Mao personally cultivate a personality cult? How many people suffered under his tyranny? He set China back for thirty years. I thought I am one of the more open-minded non-mainland Chinese that can look at things as it is, objectively. I am actually pretty impressed at the progress China made starting from Deng and has speak up for China on many occasions. But I just can’t see how can people look at Mao in a positive light. Are you guys suggesting that anybody but Mao will surrender China to Western powers? You may see his role as heroic, I see his role as a fu*king as*hole. I hope one of these days people will drag his stinking corpse out of the mausoleum and whip his stinking body for three days and three nights. By the way I have given up on you guys already. Keep on worshiping him. Bye.

  432. @Antioxidants

    As I said, I won’t do justice to respond to your accusations in a short comment, but please don’t lump Rhan with me. He disagree with me on many, many things…. Where he actually lie with respect to Mao I don’t know, but I suspect he will find things to disagree with when I write my post.

  433. @Antioxidants

    I am also a non-mainland Chinese, it just happens that I have a different understanding and interpretation of history pertain to Mao, nothing much to do with open or close mind. Mao started his ‘reform’ in a country that basically possesses nothing except the constant threat of KMT invasion back up by the West. Deng and the rest do not face a similar obstacle and intimidation, despite this, China under Mao achievement is still amazing. On persecute of colleague, what would you do if you are the paramount leader of today China? You join your colleague or you ‘persecute’ those that are corrupt?

    When I said I agree with Allen, I am referring to “true independence”, in fact, I often disagree with Allen in many issues except his idea on race.

  435. @pug_ster
    it’s really sad when these things happen; when terrorists and animals in human skin attack other people, doesn’t matter if they’re uighur or han chinese.
    expect the western media to turn this into a ‘evil china about to collapse soon’ story as they do.

  436. What is incredibly despicable about that article is that it said “many Uighurs are still very upset” while saying nothing about the sadness of the victims families. The nature of these jerks. They would put quotes around “evil forces” as if the Chinese government is not correct in labeling these terrorists. In the next breath, these jerks would talk about human rights. Incredible!

    The violence that started in July 2009 has now cost more than 200 people their lives. Another 1,700 people have been injured. Because of this, the security in the region has been very heavy. Many Uighurs are still very upset and angry over the people that have disappeared or that were arrested after the violence. The government, though, says that the violence is due to “evil forces,” such as terrorism and extremism.

  438. @melektaus
    amazing that the Economist believes a grudging apology given 170 yrs later somehow makes all the effects of its yellow journalism (war, devastations, depradation and rape) and crimes alright.
    No, the Economist can start making amends by actually doing real journalism as you stated, Melektaus, and perhaps making this apology more public than a teen tiny hidden away webpage on the internet.

  439. `amazing that the Economist believes a grudging apology given 170 yrs later somehow makes all the effects of its yellow journalism (war, devastations, depradation and rape) and crimes alright.”

    but that’s Western hypocrisy for you – as priceless, and as ageless,as it was, more than 150 years ago. Back then, it was gunboats & protecting their diplomats from savage Orientals, today it is drones to bring `freedom’ and `democracy’ to unwilling peoples. Never mind if we bump off and maim hundreds of thousands of you, and we’ll take all your oil for `liberation’ fees, thank you very much.

    But some years later – give a century or two – we discover, oops!, it was all a mistake/lie. *Slaps own face*

    It’s grotesque to read Thomas Friedman writing lines like “the (Iraq) war, which I supported”, without any sense of irony.
    Like it is some badge of honor and courage to ‘fess up to cheer-leading for an invasion that, hey, actually killed innocent women and children!

    Why, even our regular visitor Colonel Bluster (he pops up to stir the pot on behalf of his claque) has said that somewhere! “The war, which I supported”.
    Do we sense a trend here?
    Let’s cheer for invasions of Libya/Syria/Iran! When it all starts going wrong, we’ll just do a little schoolboy confessional and the dead/maimed victims of our war-mongering will forgive us.
    Bully for you,boys! How about a pair of gloves for nxt Xmas? There’s something on your hands that can’t be washed away just with a “The war, which I supported.”

  440. @raffiaflower

    Which brings to mind an ironic scene perfect for Friedman:

    “I am a peaceful man, because I really abhor and deeply apologize for all the wars that others have conducted in the past and present.

    I am a peaceful man, you can see how much I abhor violence,

    and therefore, the few wars I support, are really for good causes.”

    🙂 enjoy

  441. Thomas Friedman interviews Bill Gates on Future of America – with Gates advising that government needs to be more technocratic – realistic (i.e. less ideological) – and that he thinks – hopes – Democracy will find a way to do that.

  445. @YinYang

    @jxie

    @Allen

    “How a popularly elected body as the US government could be so unpopular”?

    Interesting question. Mathematically impossible, and yet somehow it is true according to the opinion polls.

    I guess that really does prove that “Democracy” doesn’t know what it’s doing.

    Either that or US needs recounting of the last few elections.

    Either way, “Democracy” fails MATH “epic”. No wonder US is behind in math.

    Oh, That’s what’s wrong! A functional “democracy” requires MATH, and Americans are bad a math! Afterall, how can they count their votes right?

  451. In october 2009 nigerian author chimamanda ngozi adichie gave a TEDtalk on “the danger of a single story”. She describes her experiences with conventional stories about places like Africa or Latin America, and how they create limiting and dehumanizing views (i.e. negative stereotypes). She says these “single stories” are related to power.

    This is one of the problems that Hidden Harmonies is trying to address is to present voices that are different from and challenge the one-sided stories we often see in the western media about China.

    http://kissthejoyasitflies.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/continuing-to-respond-to-kony-2012/

    This video is 19 minutes but well well-worth the time, and much more worth the time than the recent viral Kony video. Not to mention this lady is beautiful.

    There is another video by ugandan journalist and blogger rosebell kagumire also worth watching.

  453. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/reports-say-tibetan-monk-self-immolates-others-protest-against-china-in-neighboring-province/2012/03/16/gIQAHVhgHS_story.html

    So here is another story of yet another monk immolation in China. The source of information is of course again from somewhere faraway from the scene of the events – in this case “two Tibetan monks exiled in India said in an e-mailed statement.”

    Here is their account:

    Tsultrim was a monk from Aba’s Kirti Monastery…. The two monks were formerly from the Kirti Monastery.

    Tsultrim set himself on fire and walked along Aba’s main road, shouting slogans against the Chinese government, the exiles said. When armed police ran to stop him, he turned and ran back, and was knocked to the ground by a police officer, they said.

    Police extinguished the flames and put him into the back of a pickup vehicle, the statement said.

    Does this sound right to you? I can’t imagine someone who has immolated himself walking along the road and shouting slogans – and further when police ran to stop him, turning and running back….

    I know the DL clickque is trying to latch onto the powerful image of Buddhist immolation best symbolized by the immolation of Thich Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk from Vietnam, who had “burned himself to death at a busy intersection in downtown Saigon to bring attention to the repressive policies of the Catholic Diem regime that controlled the South Vietnamese government at the time … to grant Buddhism the same rights as Catholicism.”

    But these accounts are almost comical. And these steady stream of exile “reports” makes them targets of suspicion. If there are immolation that no one except they know about, are they orchestrating them? How much of it is true?

  454. @Allen

    “Does this sound right to you? I can’t imagine someone who has immolated himself walking along the road and shouting slogans – and further when police ran to stop him, turning and running back….”

    I guess he could have “immolated” himself by hold a shoe on a string, and setting his shoe on fire, and then proceeding to walk around and shout slogans.

    Or otherwise, I guess this Monk doesn’t catch fire very well, OR cheap as* matches made in Exile!

  455. @raventhorn

    Another issue is note the way by which the WASH Post established the credibility of its source … or not. So if you two monks in exile who gave an electronic statement of what happened. Hmm – why electronic? Are these messages released from the offices of the DL instead? And so what if the two monks came from the same monastery. Did they actually saw the immolation? Did they talk to Tsultrim after the immolation? If so – what’s the state of injuries? Note in all the stories of immolation, there have been little or no details about the state of injuries. I doubt if any of the reports are firsthand or even secondhand reports. Finally, did they talk to bystanders or witnesses of the immolation? If so – how many people were there? Why were the police always right there to stop the immolation? If the plan was to make a spectacle – how come there are so few details of eye witnesses?

  456. The police are always there probably because the Kirti monastry, like many in Sichuan, Qinghai, and Tibet are surrounded by security forces. Haven’t you seen the videos of this?
    You seem to have a lot of questions, of of which you expect the Washington Post to answer. What research have you done, if any, and which aspects of it contradict the WP story?

  457. These immolation are not even in question- they are happening. It has been confirmed in the local media and at the highest levels of the Chinese government. Why is it that these monks, who have lived their entire lives under the CCP, and who in theory have seen nothing but the much harped- on about economic miracle in China would choose to end their lives this way.
    Instead of looking at the root causes of these multiple tragedies you seem more intent on making fun of the victims. Maybe you people here had the chance to leave China freely, so perhaps you should have some sympathy for others who have no choice to live under the CCP when they also would rather not.

  458. @Don Knotts
    if someone wants to light themselves on fire, that’s their own concern; where it becomes an issue is when an active religious sect encourages their adherants to commit suicide in such a way to effect political pressure/change. Tell me, how is this any different to a suicide bomber detonating himself/herself on the streets of New York? You don’t think a human matchstick doesn’t pose a significant threat to passersby?

    Secondly, given the increased frequency of burnings, it’s plausible that the dalai clique and their CIA handlers are attempting to put pressure on the Chinese government or hoping to incite an ‘arab spring’ type insurrection within China given that China’s trajectory to hyperpower status rivalling and surpassing the US-is almost assured. It is panic and desperation that compels these terrorists to act the way they do and like terrorists who commit such crimes, they should be eliminated or neutralised in pentagonspeak.

    Personally, i got no problem with someone wanting to commit suicide; they’re more than welcome to it, but if a group of ppl-a cult, if you will- is brainwashing and encouraging a young impressionable acolyte to commit such an act of grievous bodily harm, then naturally those religious officials should be taken into custody and prosecuted.

  460. The radio show This American Life recently was forced to retract a series it had featured about Apple/Foxconn workers in Shenzhen. The reporter, Mike Daisey, described underage working girls with chemically-caused diseases, gun-toting guards and surveillance cameras in dorm rooms, and complacent Hong Kong reporters who would never think of interviewing Chinese workers, unlike this American hero.

    Except none of it was true, according to his translator: he never visited the dorm rooms, confused Shenzhen with Suzhou and fabricated people. These revelations came after over one million downloads and streams of his podcast, and a quarter of a million signatures in his petition drive against Apple.

    Evan Osnos of The New Yorker reflected on the story: “But China, it turns out, is not so far away. Daisey’s fiction was predicated on the notion that China is essentially unknowable, that reporters never go to factory gates, that highways exit to nowhere. And he might have gotten away with it twenty years ago. But these days, it’s no longer so far away at all…. [I]n overestimating his own ability, Daisey underestimated a lot of other people. He didn’t realize that podcasts are often followed by listeners with real knowledge on his subject… His story was initially a success because it satisfied so many of our casual assumptions about China and Apple.”

    Many of the tall tales of inhumane treatment cooked up by ethnic exile organizations, including the Dalai clique, rest on the twin assumptions from Westerners that (1) China is essentially unknowable and unreportable, and (2) China is a brutal and conformist society, because of its politics. But as more foreigners come see China for themselves and report back, less people believe their reports, hence the desperate increase in sensationalist stories like self-immolation.

  461. @Naqshbandiyya

    The sad thing China bashing is normal to the point where Daisey’s exaggeration of a report is accepted without question by the media outlets. The Media hardly does any fact checking anymore because you can get alot of eyeballs from people who producing this kind of propaganda.

    As I said, the problem with Daisey is the worst kind of person because he is profiting from other people’s misery. He stepped into China for a week, somehow he figures that he got his spheel to report on the ‘atrocities’ of Apple and the Chinese government in general. He is making alot of money appearing as a guest on talk shows and his monologue about Steve Jobs and Apple. All this while he doesn’t give a damn about the workers who have suffered as a result of making Apple products. Not just that, Daisey’s loss of creditability has hampered the efforts of other real labor rights advocacy groups like Hong Kong based SACOM (Students & Scholars against Corporate Misbehavior.)

  462. so what sort of disciplinary action can we expect for the likes of Daisey?
    barred from jounralism forever? a massive fine?

    his actions have, as pug_ster said, set back genuine labor rights advocacy groups for the sake of his own careerism and yellow journalism.

  463. @zack

    Um, not much, as the story and POV on China isn’t really changing despite of these revelation. Even the Osnos NYer piece defends the conclusion by backing up NYTimes reporting.

    BTW NYT’s Apple Foxconn report is total Echo Chamber; NYT never disclosed the fact their primary source, China Labor Watch, is on US government’s payroll and by extension a government mouthpiece beholden to our government’s agenda.

  464. I have a feeling that Western Journalists are overworked and underpaid, and that’s why Daisey churned out crap like that for his work.

    I went around several US newspapers and talked to dozens of “journalists” who told me that they are forced to work over 60 hours a week without overtime pay. They also face psychological abuse from their bosses to “get the story”, and hence so many of them turn to phone-hacking.

    It’s about time that NYT’s sweatshop be investigated and closed down.

    Hey, Just because I might be making up all this, doesn’t mean that a real problem with Western media doesn’t exist, right?! I mean, we all know the kind of shotty journalism that’s being practiced in the West.

    Think of what the terrible working condition at NYT is doing to all the mental health of the Journalists.

    So, I see Daisey as a symptom, and a VICTIM of the terrible working conditions at the Western media corporations.

    🙂

  465. @Naqshbandiyya

    The original Daisey program was aired on 1/6. The retraction came on 3/16. In mid-February Apple reportedly hired an non-profit outside organization to audit Foxconn’s labor practice.

    Remember the cases of Bob Dylan, twice? There were lots of passionate criticism of Dylan selling out, it ended up that his set list was not censored.

    If not for the likes of Apple and Bob Dylan whose own interests are on the line to speak out, the creative journalism on China will be just your typical everyday news. American media on world news (not just China) — I am feeling very charitable today — is very much substandard.

  466. @Allen

    Actually, so I did finally find a video of one Tibetan immolation (I saw it on youtube, but can’t vouch for the source).

    In any case – if this is true – why can’t the Dalai Lama self immolate? I mean – that would really make a statement, wouldn’t it?

    He can have a planned outing – with all the press recording – in HD or 3D. I’d pay for it.

    I’m not saying he should. But if he is really behind this most recent wave of immolation. If he is somehow behind – directly or indirectly – these immolation. Why not do the ultimate sacrifice – instead of sending out inconsequential monks and nuns to do his bidding?

  467. @Allen
    for the same reason terrorist masterminds don’t do the suicide bombing themselves, for the same reason American Elites who call for war (chickenhawks) invariably refuse to serve themselves or have any of their spawn serve.

  468. @Allen

    “protest against INFLUX of Han”??!!

    I thought the slogan was “Han out of Tibet”.

    But hey, maybe the TGIE educated nuns and monks can’t read directions well.

    “Wait, I thought the gasoline is supposed to flow AWAY from me, why is it flow ONTO me?”

  469. Look at those heartless bastards standing by doing nothing. No value for human life. That’s how the racist Tibetan independence movement rolls. They are motivated by a racist urge to purge and ethnically cleanse the area of anyone but their own ethnic group and they will use the most barbaric methods.

  470. @melektaus

    Yes. What the Dalai Lama, Tibetan activists, and their Western supporters advocate, is nothing short of apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

    The West use to attack the Soviet Union, precisely because the Soviet Union restricted freedom of movement, and had, I believe even an internal passport system.

    Yet these Westerners, who purportedly stand up for the human rights of the Chinese people, demand that the Chinese government restrict the movement of Chinese people within China, and what they demand is akin to asking the Chinese government to fence off an area approaching 1/4 the size of the total landmass of China from all of China’s population except for a privileged 2 out of 1350 people in China.

    Of course the likes of Richard Gere, Harrison Ford, etc, and their like will be welcome in this privileged area. Heck – they may even offer Gere a Tibetan princess and proclaim him joint ruler with the Dally Lama! (after all that is a common white man’s fantasy –look at their movies)

    But your ordinary Han Chinese (and other minorities of China), who simply want to make a meagre living and experience a unique and beautiful part of their own motherland – will be told to fuck off.

    That is what some of these racist hypocrites want.

  471. @pug_ster
    where Daisey’s exaggeration of a report is accepted without question by the media outlets.

    A similar unquestioned ‘truth’ is that the Chinese government has a deliberate policy of watering down the Tibetan population by encouraging or even forcing Han Chinese into the area to ‘sinify’ the region.

    Complete and utter bullshit without any sort of substantation….except of course the writings of other scurrilous Western writers, and Tibetan exiles.

  472. Looking at the video again, they weren’t just standing around doing nothing; the woman walking by was waiving the khata cheering her on. These sick bastards simply lack all traces of humanity.

    If something similar had happened when a Chinese person cheered on another when he was burning alive, whiteys would be screaming at how subhuman the Chinese were but when Tibetans do it like in this video, whiteys say that this is an expression of Tibetan “non violence” “compassion’ and “resistance”. Disgusting.

  473. Basically it comes from a debased religious outlook….that they see someone burning alive, someone starving to death, a master beating a servant, a capitalist exploiting a worker, an imperialist country invading a foreign country…..and the idea is to do nothing and just sit round playing with prayer beads….because what will be will be. Be ‘good’ in this life, don’t rock the boat, and next time round you may reincarnate as an aristocratic monk or whatever.

    Obviously a perfect belief system for a serf or slave society.

    Actually the reason why the West loves these guys? It is because that is exactly how the white man wants all Asians to be….which is ‘harmless’ – at least to the West. They want Asian men to be docile coolies or spiritual asexual gurus for white men, and Asian women to be the white man’s sexual playthings.

    That is the agenda of the West for China.

  474. When I heard the news reports about Trayvon Martin, the 17-year old African American teenager who was shot and killed by a George Zimmerman in Florida claiming “self-defense” when the reported facts seem to show otherwise, and who has yet to be arrested by the police, my thoughts went back to the sad case of Vincent Chin, a Chinese-American who was killed 30 years ago by disgruntled auto workers in Detroit, who blamed him for their troubles because they thought he was Japanese. The most galling part of the incident was that the murderers were let off lightly by the justice system after a trial. These incidents point to the underlying racism in American society, both in the violent hate expressed by the incidents themselves, to the relatively light treatment – little or no punishment – given to the perpetrators, who are white.

    I searched the web to see if anyone else had made this connection between Vincent Chin and Trayvon Martin.

    I found this remarkable essay. It contains a message that deserves to be widely read, and a perspective that I would hope becomes more widely understood. I hope you will find it enlightening.

    The Ramblesphere: Who Killed Trayvon Martin?
    http://ramblesphere.blogspot.com/2012/03/who-killed-trayvon-martin.html

  475. @perspectivehere

    Les we forget, who killed Danny Chen, the Chinese American soldier?

    The US military has dropped most of the serious charges against the soldiers who hazed Chen and taunted him with racial slurs, after their “investigation”.

  476. @raventhorn
    such is the nature of modern american society where the collective subconscious of predominantly white anglo americans believes in the inherent inferiority of life of the Asian as compared to the anglo.

  477. @perspectivehere
    I’m the author of that essay. I’m grateful to you for sharing it. I have a generally small readership, so I’m glad the ideas in the essay are making their way out beyond my usual readers. There is a link I provide in the essay to an article by Peggy McIntosh, called “White Privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack” that I wish was required reading in our schools. I’m hoping the people reading my essay will read that one, too–it does a better job than I did of concisely stating some painful truths.

  482. zack :
    @Naqshbandiyya
    good find, naqshbandiy
    i should probably add with respect to that young monk who self immolated most probably at the exhortations of his Brother Superiors that encouraging someone to commit suicide is still considered a crime in many countries, irrespective of whether or not religion is invoked. Perhaps these buddhists believe in reincarnation and that their lives mean nothing; well it is their life to do as they wish but if they wish to burn themselves then naturally they ought to be stopped from such self harm. Any civilised society would naturally stop this act from going ahead.
    on the other hand, if anyone is so persistent on suicide via self immolation then i suggest they do so in the privacy of their own cell.

    Western media began barraging the “Tibetan self-immolation = China in Chaos” stories.

    1 line consistently sticking out, “Tibetan self-immolation” = “Tunisia self-immolation” = Self-immolation by Vietnamese Monks, therefore, China is facing chaos of revolution.

    I like to call the “journalist” = Dumbass once again.

    (1) glaring difference, Tunisia, Vietnam both had self-immolation as protest REACTING immediately to whatever government policy that the protest was directed at! If these Tibetans really felt the need to self-immolate, why do it 60 years after whatever they are complaining about now??!

    (2) that points to brainwashing. Normal people do not just decide after 60 years, to just self-immolate. Lots of people have lived MUCH MUCH longer under RACISM without going self-combusting.

    (3) Watch the footage of Vietnamese monk self-immolation! Notice anything? they SIT down when they do it. They don’t run around in flames! If you run around in flames, you are a terrorist. TGIE is a terrorist organization, they have a history of bombing people and buildings. A terrorist setting himself on fire is not a peaceful protest, it’s just another terrorist threat. It says, you are crazy enough to set yourself on fire, and you might have a bomb on yourself, JUST LIKE OTHERS BEFORE YOU!! (If a cop see you set yourself on fire and running around near people, he might shoot you to put you down before you hurt someone. He’s not going to take any chances.)

  483. This may sound trifling. You are warned: don’t drink while you read the rest.

    Remember our friend SKC. He is calling the Pew Survey lack of scientific rigor, and “methodological garbage” at PKD. While polling/surveying isn’t rocket science, to understand it to the point of being able to critique its methodologies, does require up to college-level math knowledge. This is pretty funny because from what I can gather, SKC’s math skill can’t be better than 5th grade.

    Was traveling but I still read most of the comments, since personally I am quite curious of this topic: http://www.pekingduck.org/2010/12/maos-famine/. Sadly there is nothing much informative in the whole thread. However, you have to tip you hat to this piece of nugget (http://www.pekingduck.org/2010/12/maos-famine/#comment-126053):

    The way I see it, the population went from about 60 million to 540 million between around 1600 to 1949. That’s a 900% jump in 350 years, for an annualized rate of about 2.6%. That doesn’t take into account the increasing rate of population growth between 1600 and 1949. It went from 470 to 540 million from 1928 to 1949, which is 5.5 % annually. It then went from 540 to 1030 million between 1949 and 1982, which is 5.8% annually.

    In case you wonder, his math was: 540/60/(1949-1600)=0.026=2.6%, 540/470/(1949-1928)=0.055=5.5%, 1030/540/(1982-1949)=0.058=5.8%. With the same “methodology”, if year 1 population is 100 million, and year 2 population is 20 million, the population growth is 20/100/(2-1)=0.20=20%. To figure out compound rate of growth, one needs to know logarithm and exponentiation, which depends the places, are grade 7 to grade 10 materials. But geez, this is just crazily bad. I would be embarrassed if I did that at age 8.

    PS. FOARP, if you are reading this, for a survey of 12 people, if the margin of error is high enough, say 10%, 7 out of 12, is 60% (because 8 in 58% is an inexact digit). In case you don’t believe me, pick any survey reports, for instance this one: http://www.gallup.com/poll/153272/Romney-Santorum-Stir-Less-Enthusiasm-McCain.aspx?version=print. The sample size is 457 people, so 47% “means” 214.79 people? In actuality, it can be say 213 people, but 46.61% is rounded to 47% due to the margin of error.

    As to the quality of the Pew Survey, my advice is to leave it alone.

  484. didnt someone recently posted evidence on China’s mortality rate declining during Mao era?

  485. @Charles Liu

    To quantify the demographic data, make sense out of it, and compare to the peers, takes a much longer discussion. I am here only marveling how awful one’s math and analytic skills are. For instance,

    It went from 470 to 540 million from 1928 to 1949, which is 5.5 % annually.

    This is bad in so many different ways, other than the math. First 5.5% is extremely high for any society without net immigration inflow, let alone China during the wars and famines, which should prompt anyone with basic knowledge of the world to stop and double check the math. Second, math-wise at 5.5% compounding over 21 years, the population should be tripled — it’s actually not that hard to know something is wrong even one doesn’t know exponentiation, because it’s common knowledge for anyone who have planned for saving, or had a loan, or a mortgage that at 8% in 9 years, or 3.5% in 20 years, the aggregate compound rate is about 200%.

    [trifling mode off]

  487. US had over 100 cases of self-immolation during the Vietnam War.

    I guess Americans don’t feel as bad when their own people get suicidally depressed. (and no universal health care either).

  488. @jxie

    That’s .66% per year – compounded annually.

    So whoever came up with 5.5% is one order of magnitude off.

    By the way – besides the magnitude – there is also the issue of sensitivity of calculation.

    Let’s take it as fact that population grew from 470 to 540 million from 1928 to 1949, which gives a rate of .66% per year. But we know that every census has built-in margin of error.

    No one really know what margin of error the data in war torn China was, but if we assume 10% error, that means the population could be 470 +/- 47 million in 1928 and 540 +/- 54 million in 1949. That means, the range of error for the rate could be as high as 1.63% per year ((594/423)^(1/21)) and as low as -.29% per year ((486/517)^(1/21)).

    This is just to illustrate. The historical error (assuming 95% confidence rate that is the standard that social scientists – but apparently not the U.S. census today – demands) of census may be higher.

    To make things worse, now let’s project forward 21 years from 1949.

    Assuming 540 million growing at .66%, you get 620 million in 1970. No sweat.

    But taking into account the margin of error of 540 +/- 54 million people in 1949, and taking into account that the rate of growth can be anywhere between 1.63% to -.29%, the population in 1970 can actually be (assuming the world to stay perfectly static, with growth rate exactly the same as before) anywhere between 457 million to 834 million. That is an error of of 214 million on the plus side and 163 million on the negative side.

    You get this wide ranging possibility of predictions simply because of margin of error in the original numbers!

    A population of 457 million in 1970 does not mean that 163 million must have died or 834 million in 1970 that 214 million must have been saved. Sure, good and bad things could have happened during that time, but it’s hard to tell from our crappy and noisy data. All we know is that if bad things happen, they have to be really, really bad for us to have any statistically significant confidence in our theory. Because our original data is not good, much more than 214 million would have to have died if we are to draw any conclusion by comparing against our crappy data. Similarly if good things happen, they must be really, really good given our not so good data originally.

  489. @Allen

    “A population of 457 million in 1970 does not mean that 163 million must have died or 834 million in 1970 that 214 million must have been saved.”

    Yeah, that’s the same BS statistical population projection that the TGIE used to make up that BS story about 1.2 million Tibetans died during the Cultural Revolution.

    Anyone with a brain can see that the population curve of any nation fluctuates over time, and you can’t use % growth average to pin point an approximate projected population # in any 1 year, or even 1 decade. (For the VERY SIMPLE reason that the population growth may change drastically within less than 20 years, for no more reason than social trend).

  490. Hahahahahaha,,,,that crappy math was from one S K Cheung, a brown-nosing piece of turd.

    There is a certain M Clifton on the thread was yours truly (hahahahahahhahaha to get past Richard’s blocks – I added in some bs to sound like i was sort of a whitey saying these things hahahahahahhha —-I can actually pose quite successfully as a right wing blogger, a libertarian, or even a tea party person hahahahahhaahahhahaahahahahah) — I came up with the same 0.66% per year, but to Mr Cheung’s credit he accepted later he was wrong.

    Well I agree with Allen that there is a wide range of estimates of population size which can throw up all sorts of numbers the key thing is this.

    The PRC carried out its first census in 1953 the apparent population size was 582,603,417. A census carried out in 1982 showed 1,008,175,288. (there was also a census in the early 60s).

    If we assume a margin of error or 10% for both censuses (a reasonable proposition I believe), then the maximum annualised rate of population growth from 1953 to 1982 would assume as the starting point 90% of the 1953 figure rising to 110% of the 1982 figure. And of course the minumum annualised rate of population growth would consider 110% of the 1953 figure as a starting point rising over the years to 90% of the 1982 figure.

    Lets assume the latter:

    i = (1,008,175,288 * 0.9 / (582,603,417*1.1))^(1/29)-1 = 1.21% per year at a minimum.

    This is still shit loads higher than at any point before 1949, I believe.

    So even assuming big margins of error we can get a range of realistic possiblities of population growth.

    What is also clear is that fertility dramatically declined over the same period (refer Banister etc)…this is easy to confirm because you are not just relying on data taken back in the time, but can also confirm with the current demographic age profile.

    Now fertility went down from around 6 to 7 kids per woman to less than 3 per woman at the end of the 70s. Yet this happened at the time of the biggest population jump in CHina’s history (or at least most rapid).

    So what happened? Well it is obvious mortality must have gone down significantly, and life expectancy up. In a big way. And this during the Maoist period (I suppose it is fair to say the Maoist period extended for a few years beyond his death).

    And in fact if you look round the net, you will find this is the conclusion of all your academic demographers out there, both Western and Chinese.

  491. In Hong Kong a youth soccer incident reignites painful memories of the ugly days of British colonial rule, when whites would routinely get away with violent abuse against Hong Kong natives without consequences.

    【英基U12暴力證據】傑志U12 VS ESF英基U12 (English Schools Foundation U12 VS KitChee U12)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMit6jQeY3Q&feature=related

    This viral video, which has gotten 2.3 million views since it was posted two weeks ago, has drawn attention for several reasons:

    First, a white player from the English Schools Foundation (ESF) team who delivered what appears to be a deliberate kick to the head of the opposing team player (who appears to be ethnically Chinese);

    Second, a ESF coach who seems to epitomize the worse characteristics of English soccer hooliganism and dirty play;

    Third, a lame attempt by the ESF lawyers to silence news about the incident from spreading by sending lawyers letters to parents of the opposing team to take down a video of the incident; and

    Fourth, English press reports which seem to suggest that the biggest problem was not the unsportsmanlike violent behavior of the English Schools Foundation player and coach, but “derogatory comments” posted by some Hong Kong Chinese about “gweilos”. Some of the news reports even seem to suggest that it is the Chinese player who did the kicking.

    The whole incident is enough to make your blood boil, but it is instructive as a typical example of institutionalized power structures that lead to unjust results whenever violence erupts between whites and persons of color. For too long in our history, when violence is perpetrated by whites against persons of color, the systems of ‘justice’ protect the white perpetrator of violence while the person of color suffers the consequences.

    During the British colonial rule days in Hong Kong, incidents of violence by British against Chinese were rarely punished; “the willingness of coroners’ juries to find verdicts of ‘accidental death’ or ‘justifiable homicide’ where Chinese died at the hands of Europeans within the colony probably suggested to Europeans that the colonial community did not consider such violence to be a serious problem.” (See Munn, Anglo-China: Chinese people and British Rule in Hong Kong).

    There are 2 silver linings in this story. (1) the video posted of the incident shows very clearly the ugly violence and bad sportsmanship of the ESF player and coach, which the lawyers letters were unable to silence; and (2) in this case the 10-year old perpetrator of the violence in fact had to face consequences – he was arrested(!). The parents of the injured child were unhappy with the way the ESF had rallied around the bully, and so reported the incident to the police.

    While it might seem like over-reaction to arrest a 10-year old, the fact is that neither the English School Foundation’s coaches or teachers appear to be giving any moral guidance to the 10-year old, whose violent behavior was unrestrained and unpunished. This is shameful. Perhaps the arrest will “scare straight” the kid, who needs to be taught that it is not right to kick opposing players in the head. The child needs to learn that it is wrong.

    Here is a report from Apple Daily (Cantonese only):
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pvUCR4wSvs&feature=fvwrel

    This blogger has a pretty comprehensive discussion of the whole incident:
    “An International School’s Football Team Sparks Class and Racial War Online”
    http://badcanto.wordpress.com/2012/03/14/an-international-schools-football-team-sparks-class-and-racial-war-online/

    Blogger BBCZeitgiest points out the way the story is twisted in the western press:

    “Reading western press articles, white journalists considered the term gweilo to be racially offensive by playing the race card. Its an attempt to negate the damage inflicted onto the Chinese boy by turning the issue into a race row, i.e the white boy is victimised because of his Caucasian ethnicity!”

    http://bbczeitgeist.blogspot.com/2012/03/esf-kitchee-hong-kong-racism.html

    And the most shocking headline is this one:

    “Chinese boy, age 10, arrested for kicking soccer player in the face”
    BY ARLENE CULPEPPER, ASST. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF – MARCH 21, 2012″
    http://theheatmag.com/chinese-boy-age-10-arrested-for-kicking-soccer-player-in-the-face/

    Shows that people can perceive a crime by a white person against a person of color as just the opposite.

  492. I was once was on a mini bus from Shaukeiwan to the south side of Hong KOng to work on a building site out near Stanley.

    There is this sort of one lane bridge or the top of a reservoir (I can’t remember exactly) because I have not been back for over 10 years.

    One chinese guy started to drive onto the bridge. This white dude in another car coming the opposite direction also took the bridge, just before the chinese dude. The white guy got out of his car, and strode stood there like some fucking big bwana and pointed to the chinese guy, and commanded “get back! get back! get back!”

    And the chinese car backed off.

    thats the attitude of whites in Hong Kong.

    Another time around the south side of Hong Kong, this white woman jogger complained about the site trucks parked on the footpath, inconveniencing this ugly sow from her daily jog.

    They sent a whole vanload of cops up to deal with it.

    Another time in this club called JJ’s. This white mother fucker just walks in and sees a chinese girl he likes, and goes up and kisses her. She is obviously unhappy but security does nothing about it. (i did not either sad to say —coz if i did security would definitely do me).

    Just a few incidents off the top of my head.

  493. @perspectivehere

    Notice at about 3 minutes into the video, the white coach rushes in yelling his fucken head off at the parents, like the bossy piece of shit white motherfucker that is so typical in Hong Kong.

    And then there is the case of Kelsey Mudd, who killed a HK taxi driver.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKscLFCE7ZM

    His raggression against a taxi driver caused the taxi drivers death. He was originally charged with murder, but they dropped it to manslaughter, then gave him just 4 years. If it had been a chinese guy doing the same thing, he probably would have got life.

    He got a light sentence of 4 years

  494. @Blanche Dubois (Comment #477)

    Thank you for dropping by and leaving the kind comments.

    (For some reason when I see your name, I always think of Marlon Brando and W.E.B. Dubois — an odd juxtaposition, but gives some insight in the way my mind works!)

    I really enjoyed your essay and appreciate your thoughtfulness and patience in “unpacking” and fleshing out your assumptions for the world to see. It exposes you to some criticism (as the comments in your blogpost seem to show) but my strong feeling is that your patient interactions with individual posters will help them to see what you see, or at least to question themselves a little.

    I saw this Asian American blog post today:
    An Asian American’s Thoughts On The Killing Of Trayvon Martin
    http://www.8asians.com/2012/03/28/an-asian-americans-thoughts-on-the-killing-of-trayvon-martin/

    In this posting the blogger laments what he perceives as the lack of Asian interest in African American issues. Actually I think it is untrue – there is a lot of Asian support for African Americans, but it perhaps is less visible.

    Personally, I believe that Asians and Africans generally (and Asian Americans and African Americans) have a lot in common, in that both have been victims of several hundred years of slavery, colonization, genocide, exclusion and exploitation by (predominantly) English / British business. The Atlantic African slave trade and the Pacific Asian coolie trade brought roughly 3 million Africans and 2 million Asians (Chinese and Indians) to the various plantations and mines of the “New World”, greatly benefiting the British economy. (My numbers are approximate so don’t hold me to them with rigor!)

    There was a lot of “mixing” of these peoples with those natives who survived the conquests. I’ve recently been reading about the extent of Asian, African and native american “mixing” in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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

    This blogger offers a personal perspective on the history of Asian-African interaction in the Americas:
    http://www.racialicious.com/2010/04/29/black-and-asian-and-jewish/

    “But, in spite of that, I still have to ask stupid questions like – how can Asian people be all pissed off about false stereotypes and depictions of Asians in the media and then completely buy into stereotypes about black people peddled by the exact same media? How can you read only the articles about black criminals or violence (in relation to Asian folks) and feel satisfied that you actually know anything about what’s really going on? Asian-American organizations completely dismiss or ignore the plight of black folks in this country – and then we get mad that black organizations don’t support us?! Flip all those statements (to regard black folks with Asians), and it’s all the same damn thing. Have we all gone mad?

    It’s a crazy, frustrating situation – where there’s so much reason to work together and fight against shared problems, but all this faulty history, all this brainwashing, all this careful manipulation by the dominant classes turns us into self-defeating hypocrites.

    And yet . . . and yet . . .

    There’s hope. Things can change. It will take a lot of work and a lot of understanding how the system created this infighting for us. But there is hope.”

    So Blanche, thank you for writing and giving us all hope!

  495. This article talks about the trade in “coolies” (Asian indentured servants) started by the British in the 1800’s to replace the African slave trade:

    “Replacing the slave trade: It was the British who started sending indentured Chinese workers overseas in 1806, with a shipment of 200 men to its colony, Trinidad, one year before it abolished the slave trade. By 1838, Britain had transported 25,000 indentured Indians to its new East African colony of Mauritius; it also sent them to other colonies.”
    …..

    “From 1847 to 1875, between 250,000 and 500,000 Chinese coolies were sent from Macao to Latin America and the Caribbean aboard the vessels of Western nations.

    Most never returned to their motherland, dying unmarried, poor and alone in a foreign land.

    Macao was the centre of this trade: peasants from Guangdong and other provinces were tricked or forced to the Portuguese enclave, from where the ships carried them across the Pacific to virtual slavery in plantations and the booming sugar, guano and mining industries.

    It is one of the darkest pages in the history of Macao. It was finally closed by international outrage over the treatment of the coolies and by the protests of the Chinese Government, forcing the colonial authorities to shut down this trade in human cargo.

    The export of coolies was part of an effort to revive an economy badly hit by the loss of the opium trade, which had been taken over by the British colony of Hong Kong after it was ceded by China in 1842.

    It was also a substitute to the slave trade, which had been abolished in the British Empire in 1833, and provided an alternative source of cheap labour to the Americas.”

    “Humans as Commodity”
    http://www.macaomagazine.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=129:humans-as-commodity&catid=41:issue-6

  497. @YinYang

    Thanks – yes I noticed that from her blog post. I really do appreciate it when people who are beneficiaries of white privilege can recognize it and acknowledge its existence. There are more people with such awareness than ever.

    As Blanche DuBois pointed out, the essay by Peggy McIntosh, called “White Privilege: unpacking the invisible knapsack” is a very powerfully written analysis that helps many people identify white privilege.

    Tim Wise seems to be one of the leading writers and speakers who are helping whites recognize the peculiarities of white privilege and the unconscious racial assumptions they make. See for example:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/09/12/781155/-Tim-Wise-on-White-Privilege

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/22/1076742/-Trayvon-Martin-White-Denial-and-the-Unacceptable-Burden-of-Blackness-in-America

  498. @perspectivehere
    Thanks for this comment and the one you’ve left on my original blog post. I’m pleased to hear that it offers some hope. I’m trying to adopt that same view (of hopefulness) but the more I read and hear in the media the defensive reactions from white society, the more discouraged I feel. For some I think it arises from anger and real hatred of other races, but for others I think it is defense mechanisms operating well below their awareness–which makes it in some ways harder to combat than the more overt variety. Awareness is a first step, then somehow one must engender a commitment to change.

    One thing that struck me, and that I mentioned in my post, is that with Trayvon Martin’s killing, this is the first time I’m seeing in the media widespread voices from the African American community, talking about their daily lives as parents–voices that sound familiar, voices that sound human, voices that sound, in short, just like me and my white family and friends. Not alien or scary, but very deeply human. I am someone who listens and reads, avidly, “alternative” sources of news. I’m a huge fan of NPR’s “Tell Me More” broadcast, which focuses on issues of concern to minorities in the US. Yet, even in light of this, it was only this past month that I heard black parents talking about the fears unique to their race–of sending their kids out the door into an often racially hostile and suspicious world. It’s not surprising; it’s even quite obvious that this would be the case, but it never entered my consciousness in a real and deep way; I was never forced to think about it. I have had black co-workers, a black employer, and live in the racially and ethnically diverse NYC metro area, yet this was a first. As a start, we need more people of courage to speak up about their experiences, and more media outlets willing to give them a platform. We need more human visions of “other” (i.e. non-dominant) groups, highly visible, and not just the usual stories that confirm stereotypes and re-affirm distorted beliefs about “those people”. Lately, we’ve seen the same in images presented of the Asian community, as the “Tiger Mom” proudly reinforces the stereotype of the cold, stern, inhuman and over-achieving Asian. Surely there must be other Asians and Asian-Americans writing books and living lives that don’t conform to a stereotype. Where are they in our mainstream media? Where are other aspects of culture visible?

    Would that I owned a media conglomerate.
    In the meantime, my little blog will have to do.
    Thank you for taking time to read it and to offer your comments. It is nice to know I’m not merely shouting into the wind.

    Oh, and I “borrowed” my pseudonym from Tennessee Williams, a favorite playwrite of mine. Blanche was quite a character.

  499. @Blanche DuBois

    Thank you for your comment. I agree – to hear the mothers’ voices and fears about their children’s safety is making people think about things in a different way. Maybe that’s one thing all people can share.

    Re Tennessee Williams – I read Glass Menagerie in high school, and saw the movie version of A Streetcar Named Desire. Interesting works and characterizations. Blanche was a handful.

    Re your comment about wanting to own a media conglomerate, by coincidence I just looked up WEB Dubois (which your name inspired me to do!), and noted that he and some like-minded people bought a printing press and started a newspaper in 1905 to spread their ideas about racial equality (which was called the Niagara Movement after their meeting at Niagara Falls) which were considered very radical at the time, as they contrasted with the “Atlanta Compromise” where blacks would accept a second-class citizenship in exchange for educational opportunities and jobs:

    “Niagara Movement: In 1905, Du Bois and several other African-American civil rights activists – including Fredrick L. McGhee, Jesse Max Barber and William Monroe Trotter – met in Canada, near Niagara Falls. There they wrote a declaration of principles opposing the Atlanta Compromise, and incorporated as the Niagara Movement in 1906. Du Bois and the other “Niagarites” wanted to publicize their ideals to other African Americans, but most black periodicals were owned by publishers sympathetic to Washington, so Du Bois bought a printing press and started publishing Moon Illustrated Weekly in December 1905. It was the first African-American illustrated weekly, and Du Bois used it to attack Washington’s positions, but the magazine only endured for about eight months. Du Bois soon founded and edited another vehicle for his polemics, The Horizon: A Journal of the Color Line, which debuted in 1907.”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois#Niagara_Movement

    So maybe you are on to something!

    You wrote:

    “Surely there must be other Asians and Asian-Americans writing books and living lives that don’t conform to a stereotype.”

    Have you heard of Grace Lee Boggs? I just read about her today as well, when researching the topic of Asian-Americans and African-Americans involved in activism. I wonder how many people have heard of her. She is an extraordinary individual which this interview on Bill Moyers from 2007 will show:

    http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06152007/watch3.html

    A brief bio which really does not do her story justice:

    “Born Grace Lee in Providence, Rhode Island, she was the Chinese-American daughter of a restaurant owner. Her mother acted as an early feminist role model. She studied at Barnard College on a scholarship and graduated in 1935 where she was influenced by Kant and especially Hegel. She received her PhD from Bryn Mawr College in 1940 where she wrote her dissertation on George Herbert Mead. Facing significant barriers in the academic world as a woman of color in the 1940s, she took a job at low wages at the University of Chicago Philosophy Library. As a result of their activism on tenants’ rights, she joined the far left Workers Party (US), known for its Third Camp position regarding the Soviet Union which it saw as bureaucratic collectivist. At this point, she began the trajectory that would follow her for the rest of her life: a focus on struggles in the African-American community.”

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

    The Bill Moyers interview show how she married James Boggs, and African American factory worker, and the two committed themselves to activism for four decades before he died.

    At the age of 93 this inspiring Chinese-American lady is still fighting the good fight.

    At about 10:57 in the Bill Moyers interview, she says, “I see a movement beginning to emerge, of hope beginning to trump despair”.

    This lady gives me hope!

  501. so apparently hollywood wants in on China’s massive film market, but they still want to cast white guys as manly heroes for the effminate chinese men.
    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203918304577239152267848104.html

    apparently with the joint production on the An Lushan rebellion, the role of An Lushan will be played by a western actor. Now my history’s a bit rusty, but i don’t seem to recall An Lushan being caucasian; wikipedia says he might’ve been of iranian (sogdian) and turkic blood but if someone could please clarify for us that’d be excellent.

  503. Zack Nihc, you seem very confused. One issue relates to the technical aspects of market access, while the other clearly relates to personal taste. Do you think it is reasonable or realistic to come up with market access regulations for China which include stipulations for how Chinese and foreign men should be portrayed in movies, or should we leave it to the consumer to decide what they want to watch and what they find distasteful?

    Please don’t let emotion cloud your reasoning as it makes you appear childish and petulant.

  504. @P.I.
    historical accuracy is one of those things that isn’t hollywood’s strong points but in the case of an actual case in Chinese history, i’d say that historical accuracy is a pretty big must, otherwise just make the film a ‘fantasy’; even wuxia films are based on some sort of history otherwise the audience will reject it (the chinese audience that is).

    Picture this, how accurate or respectful to British history would it have been to cast say Henry V as a han Chinese for a historical film? or Henry Bolingbroke? or cast a han Chinese for the role of Robert E. Lee for a film based on the American civil war?

  505. @raventhorn

    @Nihc
    Well, it is nothing new in the movie http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/55_Days_at_Peking
    The 8 nations alliance is the good guys.

    In the Tang dynasty, close to twenty percent of the population are non-Han. Even the the royal family of Shui and Tang dynasty are mixed blood. An Shi rebellion ended Tang domination of the silk road and western periphary region.

    The writing was already on the wall when the Korean Tang general Gao Xinzhi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gao_Xianzhi was defeated by combined Muslim forces in central Asia in 755.

  506. “Picture this, how accurate or respectful to British history would it have been to cast say Henry V as a han Chinese for a historical film? or Henry Bolingbroke? or cast a han Chinese for the role of Robert E. Lee for a film based on the American civil war?”

    Zack, so are you saying that Hollywood studios shouldn’t have more access to the China market because their films aren’t historically accurate? Thats absurdly unrealistic. Besides which if the Chinese audience “reject it” thats an entirely different matter than blocking them access to it, and is exactly in line with what I said before about letting the consumers decide. You appear to be flip- flopping, so why don’t you make it clear what you are trying to say?

    How can you not accept the fact that many films are partially reality and partially fantasy and accept them for what they are? And if you don’t like them, dont go see them, but at the same time let other people make their own choice..

  507. @P.I.
    No, the government is paying for the movie, it has a say in what movie is acceptable or not. Go make your own shit else where. Don’t expect it to be shown in China.

    As far as I can tell, the plot they are coming up will deflower one of the four ancient beauties of China with a white man. Disgusting. They really should have casted actual East Asians as the Dothraki in the Game of Thrones while Khal Drogo rape the fuck out of Daenerys. Even that will not be anywhere as racially degrading to what they are intending to do with this movie.

  508. @Ray
    the film in question concerns itself with some sort of love triangle between the Emperor, Yang GuiFei and An Lushan (the white guy). Naturally, with hollywood’s illustrious history of depicting non white races in equal light, this should not be a problem at all; no, having some sort of tragic love story where the chinese girl wants the more manly white cock is of course how hollywood considers itself and its inflated ego as ‘being respectful’ to the Chinese people.

    so my problem is that hollywood is not going to be respectful to the Chinese people and culture; they will persist in their unconsciously racist mindset and goal of depicting the white man as the hero, rebel general and the han chinese as backdrop and scenery and exotic sex object. Problem is that they’ll also be raping Chinese history whilst trying to get Chinese citizens to pay them for doing so.

  509. Dont be so precious guys, the biggest rapists of Chinese history and culture in the last 60 years are the Communist party, and they have done far more damage to Chinese culture than every Hollywood movie ever shown here. Why don’t you take your complaint to them instead of blaming on foreign influences?

    Im really not sure about your fixation on “white cock” either. Seems more than a few of the regular posters on this site have a massive inferiority complex. Rather sad. And the fact that so many of these posts boil down to comments about white men and Chinese woman make it pretty clear where the problem lays with many of you. Also sad. And pitiful.

    It’s also why some think that this site is frequented by sexually repressed weirdos, so try cutting down on them…

  510. @zack
    Well, unfortunately Hollywood is famous for making up faux story. I agree with your point. However, in long term I always feel that the truth will won out, the one making the propaganda will be exposed as clown.

    Yang Guifei and her extended family were very much dislike by the intelligentsia of the period. There are dozens of poems which survived today attacking the emperor, her and her family’s misconduct. What happened eventually? During the rebellion the soldiers refused to go on unless Yang was executed. An Lushan own kingdom lasted a year and he was assassinated by his own son.

    Tang was revived by a Confucian general named Guo Ziyi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guo_Ziyi It was also during this time that the Tibetan threat was neutralized and gradually absorbed under Tang.

  511. @zack

    An Lushan was a Turk (or more precisely a proto-Turk), so casting him with a “Western” actor isn’t that wacky. The talk is Tom Cruise may be on the top of the casting list. Now that’s a bad choice. An was tall and fat, and there was no record of his eye color, which typically means brown. If I got to vote, I would pick Javier Bardem.

    If you believe China has been, for the most part, a civilization-state — people from all tribes have eventually become what’s known as Chinese today, then your concern may be how much commercialism will bastardize that concept. An, through and through, was in his core a Chinese despite being born to families at both ends from proto-Turkic tribes. Had An won the rebellion war, he would have gone on and founded a Chinese dynasty that likely would be a more sinified version of Northern Wei or even Liao.

    Of course, you have the mass public in and out of China who are oblivious to the history. So long as this “white” actor doesn’t start speaking like William Wallace in Braveheart, I am fine with it. At worst, it will still have some educational values.

  512. Well, proto-Turks are East Asian. According to genetic studies Turks in Turkey are a mix of Greeks/Eastern Romans/Persian/Central Asians who assimilated into Turkic language after the conquest of Constantinople with a back drop of Persian culture. However you are correct that most Central Asians like the Uyghurs or the Kazakhs are pan-Asian with both Persian and Mongoloid characteristics. Han Chinese people from Gansu and Western China like Xi’an can have Central Asian appearances. They are not ‘white’ by any means though. Not any more than Arabs and Persians are ‘white’.

    I think China should still ban the movie if it gets made, and they should definitely not spend a dime contributing to such a project. No point letting these people make any money off China making stupid shits. Let them spend their own money and go broke.

  513. Ban it on what basis? What if other Chinese people want to watch it or do you not believe in free choice?

    Nihc, Ray, zack are you people even in the PRC, as it seems you are out of touch with the fact that Chinese people here like to go to the movies for entertainment, rather than to learn hard facts?

  514. Historical distortion, or any stupid excuses will do. Very simple, Thailand used this reason before for the ban of films that are unflattering to their royal institution such as Anna and the King. I am sure the CCP is creative enough to come up with something to screw them over.

    People who want to watch the film can pirate the movie, no one can stop them doing that. But they shouldn’t be paying for shit.

  515. @Nihc

    Geographically some of the proto-Turkic tribes were Central Asians, but that’s hardly the point. The people living in Tang, especially among those who were born outside of Han’s territory but inside Tang’s territory, didn’t all look exactly like the people living in the same place of China today. Some of the distinctive minority features have been diluted.

    If An was cast by a “white” actor, the hardest part for me at least, is in the movie you need to convince the audience that An was a Tang Ren, through and through.

  516. You clearly don’t understand who has the cards on the negotiating table. China only allow 20 foreign films to be shown in Chinese theatres each year. They are obviously already screwing with western corporations even as they queue up to get into China. How easy would it be for the censors to say that this film didn’t make the list because it wasn’t up to whatever standards they set. Seems to me it is you who lack intelligence.

  517. @jxie
    Jxie, it is not going to happen, An Lushan as portrayed by Hollywood will have more similarity to Tom Cruise in the Last Samurai. In fact it is better that he is not sinicized in any way, so he can truely play the role of the rebel hero. I can imagine it now, he is some minority that has been conquered by the evil Chinese empire (queue in themes of Free Tibet/Xinjiang), somehow he got captured Gladiator style but rise through the rank through his awesome martial skills. Yang Guifei falls haplessly in love with him. He found freedom for his people by breaking up the empire. Throw in a Ken Watanabe-like Chinese side kick figure so it doesn’t seem too racist. Better yet, make the Chinese sidekicks support his rebellion because they want freedom too. Collect $$$.

  518. The problem as I see it, is the overly sensitive racial concepts prevailing today projected back to the Tang era. Tang people didn’t have the cultural scars accumulated from the defeat of the Opium War on, many of us carry today. If the Chinese civilization is to be revitalized again, Chinese need to free ourselves from some of the self-imposed mental shackles.

    If one day human race is to sail outside of the Solar System, I care less if the ships were manned by people with blue eyes or Afro hair. My hope is that they can recite the ancient Chinese poems I love. My bigotry is that Chinese are a smart people, if not the smartest people. If we can free ourselves, there are so much more that we can achieve. In comparison, the height of the Western civilization — in a very crude way if that may make you happier, what the “white people” have accomplished — will be nothing.

  520. @Nihc

    If you read the WSJ article, the film was partially funded and co-produced by a Chinese state-owned entity, so what you described for sure wouldn’t happen. The Chinese film market is expected to be $5 billion in 2015, which puts China around half of the US market size, and much bigger than the would-be #3 Japanese market.

    Nowadays films like “Seven Years in Tibet” and “55 Days at Peking” aren’t likely made in Hollywood. If you ever make one, not just the film will be canned in China, but also the producer, director and the studio will be in the proverbial “little dark house” for a while. It’s just bad for business. Heck, even the “Red Dawn” villain was changed to North Korea. (North Korea invades America?)

  521. @jxie
    thanks for the clarification, Jixie; i feel a lot better about that, rather than seeing a famous Chinese story being turned into the equivalent of steven siegal’s abortive ‘ghengis khan’.
    i would hope that whatever actor they get for the role of An Lushan, they’ll have him speaking mandarin as An Lushan would’ve spoken back in the day.

    Tang was famous for being cosmopolitan and multicultural, and there are records of persian girls working at some nightclubs-or the closest equivalent to it, during the Tang dynasty

  522. @zack
    “Tang was famous for being cosmopolitan and multicultural, and there are records of persian girls working at some nightclubs-or the closest equivalent to it, during the Tang dynasty”

    It was the ancient cosmopolitan equivalent of being able to find white prostitutes in Bangkok.

    Persian girls are the ancient Chinese equivalent of “Yellow Fever”, there are many records of many emperors who had a fetish for Persian/Central Asian girls. There are even records of Sogdian slave girls being brought by Chinese owners. Even today, when discussing Xinjiang, it seems ‘their girls are hot’ came up a lot in my conversation with Chinese people.

    Even as recently as the Qing dynasty, Qianlong had a favorite Uyghur concubine known by the moniker of Xiangfei or the Fragrant Concubine. This is obviously quite a sore point with the Uyghurs, but it seemed Chinese television made a tv series about her anyway.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HILlUE7GazM

    Speaking of which, this movie should totally use white girls to play as Persian concubines in the Chinese emperor’s harem. As HBO has indicated, its easy enough to find white girls who are willing to strip naked on scene, rather than any real Central Asian/ Iranian girls willing to take on that role.

  523. “Nowadays films like “Seven Years in Tibet” and “55 Days at Peking” aren’t likely made in Hollywood. If you ever make one, not just the film will be canned in China, but also the producer, director and the studio will be in the proverbial “little dark house” for a while.”

    Yeah its a shame that politics intrudes and interferes with culture to such a large extent, particularly here in China. Just watch CCTV for a few hours to see how damaging it can be.
    Overall it is a great loss for any society or civilisation if they allow a few vested interests, albeit with power and money, to dictate and pervert the way art and culture develop to suit their own agenda.

  524. Well, Chinese audiences were complaining that they didn’t get to see Kate Winslet breasts in 3D in the latest rerun of Titanic. How could the Chinese censors deny them art.

    CCTV documentaries are great, can even be superior in production values to Discovery and History Channel

  527. I have observed a recent proliferation of trolls in this blog. It is not in this blog’s interest to let such posters linger. My advice is to invest in a programme that can track IP addresses. Granted, IP addresses may not be the best way to trace offending posters, but such a programme would definitely help in limiting serial offenders. Otherwise, it is very easy for just one troll to appear, spam in three different threads and derail the discussions within. Moreover, if this troll is revealed and blacklisted, he or she can easily come back under another, or even multiple, aliases to carry on disruptive activity.

    I understand investing in such a programme costs money. I advise the mods to source for donations; this blog itself is a good place to start. I believe there will be no shortage of donors, myself included. It will be money well spent to have the means to block out serial trolls and spammers, as seen by how well-moderated forums manage to do just that with an IP tracker.

  528. Cathy Graham and Navigator is the same person – same IP address. Folks, if you see trolling, you can help us by simply ignoring them.

    Allen, myself, and other authors will relegate them into the spam pile eventually when we are on the blog.

    Sigmar – appreciate your suggestion and your offer to help. We have a number of spam filtering features on the blog – they in fact catch a LOT of them. Will keep your suggestion in mind.

  530. @zack

    i would hope that whatever actor they get for the role of An Lushan, they’ll have him speaking mandarin as An Lushan would’ve spoken back in the day.

    It’s an ongoing debate on what 唐音 (Tang tone) was like. Personally am in the camp that it’s closest to today’s Hakka. A remarkable thing is that you can actually project Tang/Song tone by the marks they left in Japanese. Chinese Linguistics is one fascinating topic…

    I would let the main actors in the first minute speak Hakka with subtitle shown it as Tang tone, and zoom into one main actor’s mouth and start the remaining dialogues in modern-day Mandarin — sort of like how “The Hunt for Red October” treated dialogues that should be in Russian.

  531. Hi mods, seems that my IP address is marked as spam. I don’t know the reasons why. Is there any way for you to overturn this status of mine? Thanks.

  532. testing if I’m being filtered…

    Apparently not, how strange. I wonder why my comments in my normal browse don’t show up.

    I submitted a comment to “The idiotic “Why are you still in America?” fallacy” with my normal browser but it didn’t show up. When I resubmitted, it said it had already been submitted. Moderation going on?

  534. @colin @Sigmar
    Hmm, your comments were stuck in the spam queue. Not sure what caused it. Your IP addresses are not on our blacklist.

    One suggestion is to register on HH. When you want to comment, log in first. This way, our spam filters are less aggressive.

  536. @melektaus
    I don’t understand why P Morgan is even hosting a show on CNN. CNN took an unknown person to replace Larry King. I didn’t know who he was, what his credentials were, nor did I care. Part of the reason why CNN is facing record low viewership. They’ve become irrelevant, as the Chinese have found out. Such a shame.

  537. @colin

    Oops, forgot to even comment about the actual content of the interview.

    Dali Lama: “I love him[George W Bush]”.

    Pretty damning. Really not much to say here.

  538. There is a new book on the Taiping Rebellion. ‘Autumn in the Heavenly Kingdom’ by Stephen R. Platt.

    Ross Perlin at the Daily Beast does an interesting review of it.

    Perlin writes:

    “Although technically neutral, Britain, France, and the United States connived and stirred up trouble on both sides. An Anglo-American missionary contingent based in Shanghai, led by an “erratic and peculiar” Tennessee Baptist named Issachar Roberts, actively championed and negotiated with the Taiping. At the same time, an elite stratum of colonial diplomats, “China Hands,” and powerful merchants preferred the status quo and supported the Qing—despite having just unleashed the Second Opium War against them. The Taiping naively hoped for steamships and Armstrong guns from their fellow Christians; they were to be sorely disappointed. Instead, those weapons were ultimately used against them, first by the colorful Massachusetts mercenary Frederick Townsend Ward and his “Ever-Victorious Army,” a motley crew composed of Western soldiers of fortune and Chinese recruits, and later by commissioned British officers.

    This civil war had global dimensions, as Platt effectively demonstrates, citing editorials by Karl Marx, debates in the British Parliament, and contemporaneous events like Fort Sumter and Appomattox. The Taiping period presents tantalizing counterfactuals—imagine the consequences of a Christian Chinese dynasty, or of Jiangsu province under the rule of Queen Victoria—but Platt seems to overreach when he not only compares, but explicitly connects the Chinese and American civil wars. Britain remained narrowly neutral in the latter conflict, he argues, by intervening in China and making up its trade deficit there.

    Arguably, the more important context was the broader panorama of lawlessness and tragedy that was 19th-century China, perhaps the original failed state. Other major rebellions besides the Taiping were breaking out with equal ferocity: the Nien in the north, the Panthay in the southwest, the Dungan in the northwest. Forget the comparatively tidy American Civil War and consider a level of chaos more like the recent bewildering conflict in Congo, which ultimately seemed to be about everything.”

    How things have changed, and how things have stayed the same.

  539. @perspectivehere

    “but Platt seems to overreach when he not only compares, but explicitly connects the Chinese and American civil wars. Britain remained narrowly neutral in the latter conflict, he argues, by intervening in China and making up its trade deficit there.”

    Britain did not officially intervene in the American civil war, but British people, institutions and money supported the war – notably the slave-owning confederacy:

    http://www.theworld.org/2010/10/britain-involvement-us-civil-war/

    “LYNCH: Britain was officially neutral. Efforts to push a bill through Parliament forcing the country to officially intervene on the side of the Confederates stalled over the question of slavery. The British had abolished the practice decades before. But Sebrell says that didn’t stop supporters from raising vast amounts of cash through the sale of what was called the Confederate Cotton Bond.

    SEBRELL: So the Confederates release the bond in London, Liverpool, Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, all those markets. In London and Liverpool it is a huge success from the very beginning and the list of people who subscribe to it is absolutely astonishing. We know for a fact that in the first year of the Cotton Bond being on the London market, it raised over 3 million pounds. Today that is the equivalent of 135 million pounds. So, a lot of money.

    LYNCH: The equivalent of 215 million US dollars from, among others, two future Prime Ministers, the money was used to buy weapons, uniforms, even ships. Throughout the war, Abraham Lincoln made use of his own diplomats in London to successfully keep Britain at bay. Today, there’s little recognition of the southern support that swelled here during the war. No plaques or statues of Confederate heroes. Sebrell says Britain simply eradicated that history. For the young Britons on today’s tour, it’s a revelation. Do you think British people know much about what happened here during the Civil War? Did you know?

    BEN: I didn’t now. That’s partly what made me come here. I don’t know many people who know much about the American Civil War, but I just tend to think of it as American’s own business.

    CHLOE: I found particularly interesting the Anglo-American dynamics, the relationship within the Civil War. Again, I was quite surprised at the British alliance of the aristocracy with the Americans and, yeah, I didn’t realize there was this much British involvement in the American Civil War.

    LYNCH: Tom Sebrell’s tours may not sit well with everyone, especially those who deny there were ever strong pro-south sympathies. But he hopes people will take another look and see that the tension created during the civil war years, suggests the much storied “special relationship” between Britain and the United States of America wasn’t always so close. For The World, I’m Laura Lynch in London.”

    ******************************
    We don’t learn this stuff in school!

  541. @Nihc

    Pirated copy of Titanic had the boobies, so I’ve heard. BTW if anyone want to see Michelle Yeoh’s mad skills, Rain of Assassins is on YouTube full length.

    You’d figure YouTube would automatically notice a 2 hour clip is probably violating copyright, but it’s still there as of last night… um, so I’ve heard.

  542. There’s an interesting article at Counterpunch:

    A Time for Honest Self-Reflection
    The US Labor Movement and China
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/04/27/the-us-labor-movement-and-china/

    In it, the author Alberto Ruiz, described as “a long-time unionist, peace activist and associate member of the left-wing World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU),” gives some observations about a meeting between some U.S. labor organizers with Chinese labor law professors. The vignettes he gives are quite interesting:

    “Notwithstanding this dismal situation for labor rights in this country, the U.S. labor movement is fixated on vilifying China and its human and labor rights situation as a cover for protecting U.S. workers from competition from albeit much lower paid Chinese workers. Of course, U.S. labor has every right, and indeed a duty, to protect the workers it represents. However, the obsession with China as an economic rival – an obsession which sometimes devolves into a racist stigmatization of the Chinese people themselves — is a distraction from the real and most pressing problems of U.S. workers: the ever growing economic and power disparity between capital and workers in this country, and a legal regime in the U.S. which only encourages this disparity.

    This was brought home for me by a recent meeting at my union with visiting labor law professors from China. Very tellingly, it was our Chinese guests who were much more candid about the problems facing their working class than their American hosts.

    The master of ceremonies (MC) who led the discussion for the U.S. trade unionists – a quite typical labor leader who harbors profound anti-Chinese resentments — met in advance with all of us who would be attending the meeting to go over the ground rules, the primary rule being that, notwithstanding the shortcomings we know to exist in U.S. labor law, we were not to share those openly with our Chinese visitors lest they go back home and use this as propaganda against us.

    …..

    Meanwhile, the fascinating fact we discussed about China is the unprecedented strike and protest wave occurring throughout that country and being led by workers – 90,000 of such “mass incidents” taking place last year alone. And, as the labor professors from China explained, much to our surprise, these strikes are being led by workers with no unions at all, are indeed uncoordinated (leading our MC to candidly compare these strikes to those in the U.S. which were led by the Wobblies in the 1920’s), and are being tolerated by both the Chinese government and the ACFTU. The result of this is an increase in wages for workers in China. We also discussed, quite ironically, that if, as the labor professors do in fact desire, China adopts some type of U.S.-style labor law, it will be done for the very reason that the U.S. government and employers acquiesced to our labor law in the first place – because it will lead to “industrial peace” and quell the strike wave now impacting China.

    In other words, China needs a U.S.-style labor law, the argument goes, in order to control its workers better and to obtain the type of compliant and acquiescent work force we see in this country – a workforce which continues to see its standard of living drop further and further with barely a peep in response.”

  543. Anyone else think that America’s “pivot” to Asia really means it is ready to start “f*cking sh*t up” in Asia, a la Iraq and Afghan?

  546. @Robert Thomas
    We always appreciate that. You could:

    1. Suggest it here in the Open Forum
    2. Email – our contacts in the About page.
    3. If you write and would like to consider your article for publication, you can submit it to [email protected]

    That info is in the ‘essay submission’ section to the right navigation pane.

  547. @YinYang
    Thanks,

    One of your recent posts dealt with alternative media. In mainland China, I believe, Al Jazeera would qualify as alternative media. I would welcome a topic inviting users to share their views on the recent decision to revoke the visa of the reporter Melissa Chan.

  548. What Is the Chinese Dream?

    The Atlantic has an excellent excerpt out of James Fallow’s New book :China Airborne. titled:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/05/what-is-the-chinese-dream/256929/
    Now, I know some of the more rabid subscribers of this newsletter categorize James Fallows as one of those dirty slanderous china hands.
    Before passing judgement on him, and his views, I would like the readers to calm down, and just read the article with out judgement.

    at least, I think the titular question at least needs to be answered.

    I often find that at HH and webblogs such as HH, the struggle is always “against” something. not for something.
    while it is effective as protesting tool, not effective enough as a branding tool.

    I am aware that some of the purveyor of this forum are from the advertising industry. and I understand that in political campaigns attacks ads are effective at bringing your opponents down. but ultimately, if one wants to be successful, one has to have a positive and affirmative message.
    why is this product best, what does this candidate stands for…. what does “china” stand for? If slanders against china will fail, then this will be the central set of values around which china should define itself and defend itself. The moral high ground if you will.

    for the record I agree with much of what fallows said in that article. especially the analysis on Soft power. but not some of his conclusions. I often struggle to come up with the answer for that too. personally is leaning towards a answer that may turn the conventional thinking on universal value on its head.

    also, for the record,
    I work in the aerospace industry as some of you might know, and may or may not have an intimate knowledge of china’s aerospace industry. at least I have an keen eye on it.
    fallows is also big on personal aviation and general aviation, a field which he covers extensively, more so than any non-aviation specialist-main-stream journalists, a field I count my self as an insider as well as a rabid enthusiast. and on that aspect his primary interest intersect with my primary interest: general aviation and china.
    therefore i am biased for him. and I am aware of that bias.

    thanks.

  549. @silentchinese

    I think it is condescending and biased.

    “After China’s centuries of seeming to move backward as a society and its more recent decades of tragedy and turmoil”

    Why are the centuries of moving backwards (due to white imperialism) not lumped in as “tragedy and turmoil”, while Mao’s mis-steps are. At least the mao era tragedies were unintentional.

    He tries to sound unbiased and capable of understanding China, but falls into the same trap of repeating unimportant rhetoric used by the west. The fake issues run the gamut from Liu XB to simplifying China’s interactions with the developing world as bribery. Don’t see how this article makes any progress in bettering understanding on both sides.

  551. @silentchinese

    I often find that at HH and webblogs such as HH, the struggle is always “against” something. not for something.
    while it is effective as protesting tool, not effective enough as a branding tool.
    …

    what does “china” stand for?

    Why should China aspire to have a dream that resonate with the world? I don’t mean that to be a bad idea, just that the Chinese Dream is what it is – what the typical Chinese aspire to. If it doesn’t have universal reach, so be it. If it one day does, so be it as well. Just as one’s estimate of oneself should be caliberated internally, so should the Chinese Dream.

    Now I readily admit that it would be nice if the Chinese Dream have universal reach, does resonate with the world. But that’s not the goal… In any case, I much rather have a dream that we are honest about, that have substance – rather than fabricate a dream and present it in a way full of rhetoric but empty of results … (e.g. current liberal Western ideology) – even if it resonates with the world (as far as I am concerned, that’s their loss; and it is up to each culture to liberate each self from the choke hold of that ideology).

  552. @Allen

    If Fallows is trying to bridge understanding on both sides, he’s not just giving wrong answers, he’s not even asking the right questions.

    The lede to his article is “The nation may have larger-than-life ambitions, but it hasn’t figured out how to win over the world.”

    How can China win over the world, when the developed nations are actively libeling and maligning it every opportunity they get? This is the 800 pnd gorrilla he and most everyone else ignore, either willingly or unintentionally.

  553. @colin

    How can China “win over the world” when it’s still a poor country – when it’s still lagging the West technologically in almost facet of its industry?

    People are piling unrealistic expectations on China.

    China will be “moderately prosperous” (government’s term) – if all goes well – by 2050. It may achieve rich developed nation status by 2100 if no tragedies occur. This alone will make 21st century China’s century. But this doesn’t mean China will take over, win over, or rule the world. Even then, barring a collapse of the West (that can only be instigated by the West itself), China will be one among many powers, not the sole super power.

    I don’t think China will be “winning over the world” any time soon also for the following reason. As we all know, very rarely in International politics are relationships between nations based on “friendship” – they are based on power and interests. As discussed above, in terms of power, China is not in a position to forge new friends – at least not friends to the exclusion of the West (the context of Fallow’s article).

    And in terms of interests, China is not a revolutionary power, either. In fact, it has been aligning its interests with the West – to decrease the chance of armed conflicts between it and the West. To expect China to win over the world to the exclusion of the West, when most of its interests are aligned with the West, is preposterous.

    China will take a stance against Western hegemony in limited case such as in Libya and Syria – with the backing of other major powers (Russia, or in case of a split in the West, some members of the West). It will defend its core interests (e.g. territorial integrity), but short of that, it will get on with the program of the West. Its goal is to develop itself, not to “win over the world”…

    In that sense, Fallow’s lede “The nation may have larger-than-life ambitions, but it hasn’t figured out how to win over the world” is but a red herring. It is a straw man. It has no relevance…

    As for Fallows himself, I don’t think it’s his mandate or goal to build bridges. It’s his goal to write for a Western audience – provide what he thinks to be a valuable perspective – to help whoever he’s writing for sell papers / books. That’s all.

  554. http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/201222086791170.html

    An interesting article about how polling data suggest that many people – from Libya to South Asia – are wary of – or at least not that enthusiastic about – democratic systems.

    Polls and surveys are always hard to read – since the details is always in the details (sampling protocol, sample size, how questions are asked, etc.). Still, it’s interesting to see that despite the narrative of Arab Springs as a “democratic” movement – and how India is a bastion of democracy – the truth may be more nuanced.

  556. @Allen
    Interesting. Another important factor, which struck me when I was last in Shanghai, the public parks can get hopelessly packed with the high population density, and hence, people find it easier to just spend more time at home.

  557. is it me or has all the major western media stations stepped up their anti China barrage these past few months or so? it seems they’re all nitpicking and trying their hardest to portray China as collapsing or something-is there any specific reason why this attitude has increased in frequency around this time?

  558. In reference to allegations of trolling:

    Firstly, YinYang states that I am ‘not worth the time.’

    Was it not worth the time highlighting racist comments?
    Was it not worth the time pointing out that ChinaAid is not currently receiving any funding from the NED?
    Was it not worth the time pointing out that Lolz has drawn an incorrect conclusion from the Sina survey?

    Being new to this forum, would it be too much for other users to indicate if any of my comments/questions are not closely linked to the topic, rather than throwing accusations of red-herring, thread-jacking and trolling? How long would it take to write a comment such as the following:

    ‘That is an interesting question, but perhaps it is not really related to this topic. Why don’t you put it in the open forum or suggest it as a new topic?’

    If, however, after attempting an approach such as the one above, you still consider a user’s contribution to this forum as ‘trolling’ then cite examples, make a case, and report it to the moderators.

    HH, apparently, is about ‘fostering a community of intellectual and influential citizens from around the world interested in China to comment, discuss, praise or critique (as the case may be) a world that is fast-changing.’

    Is this how intellectual and influential citizens debate:

    ‘Are you purposely trying to be stupid or does it come naturally?’ (Melektau)

  559. @Robert Thomas

    HH already gave you plenty of bandwidth to raise your points and your complaints, MOST of them are old.

    If you keep repeating them, you are wasting bandwidth and going off topic. Other posters have the right to call you out on that, because your pattern of behavior coincide with what trolls have SPAMMED in this forum.

    Since you claim you are new, HH let you say what you want to say.

    But now you had your say, now move on. (Otherwise, you only prove that you are here to do what other trolls have done, or that you are 1 of those trolls).

  560. This person robert thomas is either a troll or so incredibly stupid that he is comments are a waste of bandwidth. either way he seems to degenerate the quality of discussion and I see no reason to allow his behavior of spamming this place with moronic rants.

  561. @melektaus

    RT is probably either some unemployed or expat with too much time on his hands, or is being paid by somebody to waste everyone’s time here. He sounds a lot like Custer. He’s effectively trolling, but do so in such language that does not trigger instant banning.

  562. Folks, I’ve deleted Robert Thomas’ account. Though, he may come back as another person.

    In general, ignore trolls like that if you can. Their trick is to get you to engage with their red herring. Then they continue with another red herring, adding nothing whatsoever to the discussion.

  563. YinYang :
    Folks, I’ve deleted Robert Thomas’ account. Though, he may come back as another person.
    In general, ignore trolls like that if you can. Their trick is to get you to engage with their red herring. Then they continue with another red herring, adding nothing whatsoever to the discussion.

    Good call. He had a good run as a troll this time. I am pretty sure he has other accounts here and was trying different things.

  565. @colin
    funny, NOW the British don’t want politics to play a part in their Olympics? Too bad they didn’t think the same way 4 years ago when they were harassing Chinese torch bearers around the world.
    douchebags.

  566. @YinYang

    Unfortunately in many Chinese forums, admins can do nothing to similar trolls just because of so called “freedom of speech”, which really pissed me off. I’m glad to see some meanful “media censorship”.

  567. I found something interesting. During last few months both Japan and Philippines messed with China at sea. I kept an eye on overseas Chinese media (without a doubt, some of them are emissaries of the west, such as FLG) by Google search news, wondering what they would like to talk about. However it’s the fact that they rarely spoke about the territorial sea conflicts, instead threw everything they had on Bo Xilai/Wang Lijun and CGC incidents, “possible coup” led by Zhou Yongkang of which could ONLY hurt CPC’s dignity.

    Well, considering their motivation, I just want to say what’s common in Chinese forums:

    “I smile in silence……(我笑而不语，which implys serious contempt)”

  568. Organizations like the HRIC, FLG, NDTV, and The Epoch Times are no longer ‘Chinese’ organizations. They are all anti-CPP political organizations funded by the U.S., Japan, etc.. It’s more accurate to call them American organizations. They are not about improving the conditions of the Chinese people nor are they for the national interest of China.

    That’s not saying that’s what the U.S.-China relations is all about. China obviously has many great NGO’s funded by the U.S. and other foreign sources. For example, there are those doing great work to encourage environmental protection or even those supporting China’s village elections.

    U.S. funded NGO’s that are political in nature are not unique in terms of interference in China. For example, in India, Russia Today recently had a report telling how some U.S. funded anti-nuclear power NGO’s were shut down by the Indian government. Russia Today suggested those NGO’s were trying to undermine Russia-India nuclear energy cooperation.

  569. A different question, is it not illegal for those Ray’s, Raj’s, RT’s to be using a VPN in China to avoid the GFW?

    And how does that speak to their ethics and morality in doing so?

  570. @colin
    Btw, the Ray you mentioned also happens to be an author on this blog. Hope you can strike the idea of lumping together with Raj or RT.

    VPN’s are integral for business travelers. For example, when I am on business in China, Japan, or whereever else, it’s crucial that I be able to use VPN to get into my company’s network.

    China wouldn’t crack down on VPN in general.

    Anyways, yeah, those trolls are using VPN to assume different IP’s when they comment. They don’t need to be in China. They can be in Britain or anywhere else.

  572. @colin

    Although VPN is not illegal in China, it’s generally not allowed to be used, sold (for example, Taobao, a e-bay like online shopping website, was forbbiden to sell VPN softwares and accounts), spreaded in public. Meanwhile, GFW also keeps updating its capability of intercepting any connection to webtsites on blacklist.

    Therefore it’s a game of cat and mouse. But just like many other cases in China, this “game” is not easy to define, for different people have different purpose of using VPN. It’s clearly that some lapdogs using VPN for contacting their masters abroad, meanwhile some weatern media injects anti-China information into China by spreading VPN and similar tools of which could break through GFW’s interception. However there’re also many people just would like to touch the world——such as surfing youtube for movies, fc2 based blogs for making friends, while they don’t intend to fight against the government.

    On the other hand, it’s interesting that the need of VPN seems not that imperative to young people. For exmple two of my cousins who’re born in 1990s don’t even know “breaking through GFW” for they don’t intend to touch the world nor “dig out the dark side of China”. Another young girl who’s 21 received a VPN few days ago from her freind, but she confused and told me she didn’t know what should her know about. Although facebook, twitter is banned by GFW, Weibo is getting popular that most people don’t intend to break through the GFW to communicate in those two communities mentioned before. Because Weibo IN CHINA could influence the government more directly. Meanwhile the governmnt also requires real-name registration of Weibo users to prevent Weibo from being a platform just for abreaction or even spreading hatred——perhaps it’s the best interaction between the government and massess?

    In a word, the situation is subtle, reflecting that the development of China has come to a crossroads.

  573. taobao noa able to sell internet account is more about telecom rules than forbidding vpn. also baidu ProxyHunter. some kid in a net bar showed me how to bypass the swiss cheese firewar. seems most school kids, boys, know how to get to porn.

  575. http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-57439734-83/fbi-quietly-forms-secretive-net-surveillance-unit/

    “Apparently, the FBI recently create a secretive surveillance unit called the Domestic Communications Assistance Center (DCAC) with one goal in mind: to create technology that will allow law enforcement to eavesdrop on Internet and wireless communications easier than ever.”

    Amazing how many of these human rights agitators are so “concerned” about so called abuses in China when their own houses are figuratively burning down.

  577. Sometimes I really hope the BIG SIX (authors) of this blog can master Chinese in a second, then I suggest you to have a look at Chinese blogs in ifeng.com and 163.com. You may find that there’re a lot more bastards to deal with in China than those in the West……their ugly influence continues to spread, for no one who knows the west well retorts them systematically and effectively.

  579. @YinYang

    It’s shameful that I knew nothing about this website until you told me……Well, its news is not so unique but really interesting, and I think the most delicious cheese should be in its forum. But…the forum is still closed. I’ll keep an eye on this site. Thanks for telling me.

    I always read portal sites because no matter what they talk about, ture or wrong, their words will be read by most people, which could be more influential. ifeng.com and 163.com that I told you before are such websites, and what’s worrying me is that many of those “bastards” are stationing in such websites.

  580. @YinYang

    Btw, those bastards always delete replies in their blogs which uncover their appearance of hypocrite, while leaving brutal abuse (you can imagine, many people can’t constraining themselves when encountering such bastards) against them to show how rude and fanantic their opponents are, and then to “prove” themselves how “dispassionate”and “rational” they are.

    I think even the western media could “learn a lot” from these guys.

  586. Good presentation on innovation in China. It gives a good sense of the momentum and energy at work in China.

    http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/madebetterinchina/

    I’ve always maintained that innovation and invention will not only come in due time, but will be an avalanche once certain milestones are reached. Some of these milestones are a) technology reaching sufficient parity after decades of absorption so that the cost of invention makes more sense vis a vis imitation, and 2) the creation of a sufficiently wealthy class to not only demand higher value goods and jobs but who has excess time to devote to higher value and abstract pursuits.

    While we all know China has many hurdles, such as upcoming demographic issues, this presentation affirms my believe that the process towards innovation/invention success are inevitable.

  589. A new book out looks very interesting.

    Tom Buchanan, East Wind: China and the British Left, 1925-1972 (Oxford University Press, 2012)

    “East Wind offers the first complete, archive-based account of the relationship between China and the British Left, from the rise of modern Chinese nationalism to the death of Mao Tse tung. Beginning with the “Hands Off China” movement of the mid-1920s, Tom Buchanan charts the mobilisation of British opinion in defence of China against Japanese aggression, 1931-1945, and the role of the British left in relations with the People’s Republic of China after 1949. He shows how this relationship was placed under stress by the growing unpredictability of Communist China, above all by the Sino-Soviet dispute and the Cultural Revolution, which meant that by the 1960s China was actively supported only by a dwindling group of enthusiasts. The impact of the suppression of the student protests in Tiananmen Square (June 1989) is addressed as an epilogue. East Wind argues that the significance of the left’s relationship with China has been unjustly overlooked. There were many occasions, such as the mid-1920s, the late 1930s and the early 1950s, when China demanded the full attention of the British left. It also argues that there is nothing new in the current fascination with China’s emergence as an economic power. Throughout these decades the British left was aware of the immense, unrealised potential of the Chinese economy, and of how China’s economic growth could transform the world. In addition to analysing the role of the political parties and pressure groups of the left, Buchanan sheds new light on the activities of many well-known figures in support of China, including intellectuals such as Bertrand Russell, R H Tawney and Joseph Needham. Many other interesting stories emerge, concerning less well-known figures, which show the complexity of personal links between Britain and China during the twentieth century.”

    OUP has posted an excerpt from the Introduction. I found this passage about the visit of British philosopher Bertrand Russell to China in the 1920’s quite insightful:

    “Russell was one of the leading progressive thinkers of his day, and a scourge of convention. He had been jailed for his opposition to the First World War, and he and Dora had recently returned (with some sharp criticisms) from a visit to the Soviet Union. Now, he relished the opportunity to discover a country that was not only home to an ancient civilization but was also a new Republic set on a modernizing course. The atmosphere, he wrote, was ‘electric with the hope of a great awakening’, and the students were eager to learn from the West. (Russell’s students apparently even included the young Mao Tse-tung.) For Russell, despite the fact that he almost died of pneumonia, these months in China were remembered with immense fondness and personal happiness. He was impressed by the intelligence, energy, and self-confidence of his students, and the wit of his hosts. He ‘had not realised until then that a civilised Chinese is the most civilised person in the world’, and the contrast with the boorish ‘Englishman in the East’ was stark. Russell found China a country ‘filled with philosophic calm’, whereas the weekly letters and newspapers from England seemed to ‘breathe upon us a hot blast of insanity’. It was precisely this fear for how an innocent China could survive the depredations of the West that informed his major work in this field.

    In The Problem of China (1922), Russell argued that there was nothing inferior about Chinese civilization, which had proved remarkably resilient in the face of many foreign challenges over the centuries. The difference between China and the West lay, instead, in terms of values. ‘Our way of life’, according to Russell, ‘demands strife, exploitation, restless change, discontent and destruction’. The ‘domineering cocksureness’ of the West was rooted, fundamentally, in its superiority in science (and, therefore, ‘greater proficiency in the art of killing’) and its will to power. The West—whether embodied in Imperialism, Bolshevism, or the YMCA—regarded mankind as mere ‘raw material’ to be moulded. The Chinese, by contrast, valued the intellect and a peaceful existence over ‘progress and efficiency’. They were ‘rational hedonists’ who preferred ‘enjoyment to power’. The average Chinaman was ‘happier than the average Englishman’ because his nation was built on a ‘more humane and civilised outlook than our own’. The Chinese ‘like our thought but dislike our mechanism’, whereas in Japan the opposite applied. For Russell, the problem was how China could survive without abandon- ing the cultural traditions which he valued so highly. A China that adopted nation- alism and militarism would soon embark on its own career of aggression: it would simply join the international ‘madness’ and perish in the coming world conflagra- tion. His prescription—one of orderly government, greater control by the Chinese state over its industrial development, and the spread of education—was intended to strengthen China to the point where it could defend itself, while allowing it to turn away from ‘materialistic activities imposed by the Powers’. Such a programme would allow China to play ‘the part in the world for which she is fitted’: to give mankind a ‘whole new hope’.

    Russell was aware that this was a tall order. As he told Lady Ottoline Morrell, ‘I would do anything in the world to help the Chinese, but it is difficult. They are like a nation of artists, with all their good and bad points’. In May 1924, however, he was given the opportunity to put some of his ideas into practice when Ramsay MacDonald, prime minister and foreign secretary during the short-lived first Labour government, appointed him to a committee set up to decide how to spend the ‘Boxer Indemnity’ funds. Russell wrote a memorandum arguing that education was the ‘sole purpose’ for which the money should be used. Soon after- wards he was removed from the committee by the incoming Conservative administration, but a substantial proportion of the money was eventually used in the manner that he had suggested. Russell’s ideas about China’s place in the world order were highly influential on the left, and helped to shape its perception of China in the interwar years. The image of a civilized, peaceable people cruelly attacked by a brutal neighbour wielding the weapons of modernity, which under- pinned the left’s profound sympathy for China in the face of Japanese aggression during the 1930s, owed much to Russell. Yet, at the same time, the exigencies of national resistance began to erase Russell’s vision of a race of peaceful hedonists. In a propaganda film of the late 1930s, the Communist party leader Mao Tse-tung demanded ‘shells, battleships, planes that fly like a bullet, bombs that can destroy a battalion of enemies…’. During the Second World War Hsiao Ch’ien, who moved within influential intellectual circles in Britain, publicly attacked Russell and other ‘well-meaning people who were trying to dissuade China from modernising’. The world was, in his view, far too dangerous a place for any country to neglect its material development and national defence. Post-war China would not be ‘built on marble balustrades with weeping willows swaying over the edge of their tiled eaves . . . [but] steel and cement’. The emergence of the People’s Repub- lic as a world power in the 1950s, and especially its acquisition of nuclear weapons, was very far from the outcome envisaged by Russell in 1922. Indeed, in 1963 he would describe China as an ‘obstacle to world peace’ for refusing to sign the Test Ban Treaty.”

    ********************

    Fascinating.

  590. http://news.yahoo.com/china-sends-first-woman …

    I tried to post the following comments on the site above, and it is censored:

    “you guys are brainwashed to treat government like a bitch, but remember:
    (1) Dont expect a bitch working for you.
    (2) There is no way a government with bitch’s credibility will be able to make long term plan.”

    I tried twice.

  592. see, this is what i was talking about; as China’s power grows, so too does respect. The Americans have finally apologised for the Chinese Exclusion Act:
    http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20120619/108474.shtml

    i eagerly await the day the Australian government apologises for the White Australia Policy.

    I highly doubt this would’ve even crossed the minds of anglo lawmakers if China wasn’t as powerful as she is today, and growing more powerful with every year.

  594. @pug_ster
    an official apology in the same vein as Australian PM Rudd’s Apology to the Aboriginals, would be more appropriate and more authentic.
    But given the current environment where the US Elite are committed to portraying the Chinese as the new Enemy (citing Melektaus’ article on collective defamation), we’re going to have to take every victory we can get. Those racist cunts aren’t going to go quietly, so they must be forced to acknowledge their own sins.

    The sins of the anglo empire (british empire) really must be brought into the light; there’s no reason why the british ought to get away with their colonial sins; i sincerely hope the Chinese film industry capitalise on their market potential and make films that reveal British crimes. To take a page from the playbook of the West, our media should take the offensive to win the hearts and minds of the anglos.

  595. I saw this on another site but this surprised me:

    China has more women in senior management positions (34%) than the US (15%).

    In addition, globally just 8% of companies with women in senior managerial positions have a female Chief Executive Officer (CEO). However the story is different in Asian economies, Thailand leads the way with 30% of companies employing female CEOs, followed by mainland China (19%), Taiwan (18%) and Vietnam (16%).

    http://www.gti.org/Press-room/Proportion%20of%20women%20in%20senior%20management%20falls%20to%202004%20levels.asp

    Many non-Asians (and I bet some Asians alike) have been brainwashed to believe that Chinese/Asian culture is sexist and yet here is proof that it’s the reverse.

  596. It may be another tough 10 years for China (the first one began from 1989), while this time the suffering happens on the sea……Japan and Vietnam, backed by U.S.’s strategy shift in Asia, are becoming aggresive. Peninsular and island coutries which are close to a continent, are always strategic areas for levering continental countries. China have to deal with these two minions for further development and expansion.

    I may foresee a new cold war in Asia. The future of rising China lies within.

  597. good news, the shenzhou 9 has touched down in inner mongolia province; naturally western propagandists like CNN have wasted no time in trying to turn this into their own ‘China bashing’ centrepiece of the week

  600. @YinYang
    yinyang, i refer to this quote:
    “With the Shenzhou-9 touching down in China Friday, expect the inevitable wave of propaganda touting its “model” citizens and scientific might.”
    by none other than CNN correspondent kristie lou stout:
    http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/28/world/asia/china-space-discovery-stout/

    sure the rest of the article isn’t exactly NTDTV material but that opening sentence might as well have been. When Americans can finally resolve their own individual inferiority complexes vis-a-vis China, then and only then can we perhaps see some real changes in the Sino-American relationship. Now taking Stout’s piece, was that initial preamble really necessary? it would’ve made for a nice article about China-an objective article for once for CNN- but it wasn’t. THat opening comment spoiled everything there was to be gained from it, because immediately Stout set the tone and context for the news event; China’s successful return of its Taikonauts was now to be seen as a ‘propaganda vehicle’ in conjunction with its Aquanauts, rather than the triumph of the human spirit that it really is.

    Interestingly, i note that the slowly dying NTY is attempting to revive itself with a Chinese language edition in HK and elsewhere. The Chinese soverign wealth funds should just buy up the NYT and the Globe and make moneymakers off them all. better yet, buy them up but sell off all the assets. wall street, raider style.

  601. @Zack
    All traditional mass media is facing shrinking subscription and advertising. It would be a bad move to invest in them, let them die a natural death. There have been quite a bunch, Newsweek, Businessweek etc are all part of the casualties list.

  602. I agree with Zack, that opening for the CNN article is uncalled for. Indeed, it just goes to show, when the Chinese rightfully want to celebrate some achievements, CNN would like to put them down.

  603. great article by Chinese American astronaut Leroy Chiao who calls for cooperation between China and the US:
    http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/29/opinion/chiao-china-space/index.html?hpt=hp_abar

    In the meantime, idiots in Congress like Senator Liebermann prevent any meaningful Sino-American dialogue in the sciences; as anyone in research can tell you, scientists readily communicate and shared ideas and experiences with each other. The American edict against this sort of co-operation is going to bite them in the arse, sooner rather than later.

  604. http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/06/28/china-ceo-idINDEE85R00V20120628

    great article by reuters on the famous Chinese builder who achieved fame for building a hotel in 2 weeks; he’s now going to break the Burj Khalifa’s record in 3-4 months.

    PS
    YinYang, is there anyway you can put the youtube vids or youku vids in some sort of ‘drop down’ spoiler function? the open forum has been getting so long, it’s taking a while to load on my old laptop;)

  605. @Zack

    Wow, great article!

    @YinYang

    I also have to concur if it’s possible to perhaps split the “forum” up a bit? This page is getting HUGE 🙂

    Since you’re using WordPress, maybe take a look at BBPress or something similar?

  607. i’ve noticed something when the western media refer to Asian political administrations, especially if they’re countries which could likely rival the Western powers, the western media often refer to such administrations as ‘ruling party’ rather than ‘the xyz administration’ which would be the term used for american or other western democratically elected parties. Naturally, the effect is to subtly imply that these Asians are by nature undemocratic, and so must remain neutered via the guiding hand of the West.

    If you want to get an idea of ‘the perfect Asian ally’, look no further than the Philipines; the country is beggared, neutered of any hope of becoming anything like an Asian Tiger, and slavishly follows the diktat of its colonial master, Washington.