For people who have wondered why the Chinese government cracks down on the FLG, supposedly a ‘spiritual movement,’ well, the following Tweet from reporter Rob Schmitz says it all. Marketplace from American Public Media is one of my favorite shows on NPR that I listen to. Schmitz has been in the news more, lately, because he exposed Mike Daisey’s lies about Foxconn. Anyways, Schmitz reports out of Shanghai for Marketplace. China politely and quietly takes this nonsense as the National Endowment for Democracy sponsors such political opposition. “WTF” is indeed the appropriate response, though Schmitz may not be reacting as broadly as I am.
Hidden Harmonies China Blog
As China Re-Awakens, Finding New Harmonies in a Brave New World...
FOARP says
Chen Guangcheng to Wen Jiabao: “Lolwhat?!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycMCdAtgeu0
Raj says
Nice video, but such a shame things like this need to happen. Lets just hope they happen less and less.
Or is this the face of a running dog, an Anti- Chinese person???
pug_ster says
Looks like those lame trolls from Stuffed Duck site making irrelevant comments.
Raj says
This is very relevant, if you care about China and her people.
Cat got ye’r tongue Pugsy??
I read an interesting article on Global Times lately. It was pondering on what to do about the increasing numbers of Chinese looking to emigrate, and why they do it.
Interestingly the single biggest reason related to the lack of security they feel in China. Is this the kind of thing they mean?
Let me ask some of the posters here if this lack of security really is a driving factor is wanting to move away from China?
pug_ster says
@Raj
Gees, smartass. If this guy is so relevant, then how come you don’t see hundreds or thousands of ordinary Chinese protest outside his village?
Besides, this topic about WTF issue with FLG. Unless CGC has something to do with it, it is not relevant, troll.
silentchinese says
I am sure Mr Chen Guangcheng is a nice guy. and whatever mess he is in is regrettable.
But you people who are arguing over this (As well as the FLG people who spammed Rob Schmitz, who are imho nothing but bunch of nihillist anarchist who has a score to settle with current leadership, i am sorry some of their own spoutings are just laughable. ) are ***missing*** the *** big ***picture ***. seriously.
none- of these things matter in the long run. what matters for 1.x billion chinese and the planet 20-30-40-50 years down the road is that is to carry out the necessary and robust reforms at all levels that will put inplace the foundation for robust growth in the future. doesn’t matter if it is the party or not the party. some one (sane, hopefully reformists centerists) will have to do it. This is a make or break time for china. if china can not transform its economy into a more technology driven economy then chinese is permanently stuck.
Raj says
So you are saying its necessary to illegally detain this man in order to “carry out the necessary and robust reforms at all levels that will put inplace the foundation for robust growth in the future.”??
Or are you saying we just shouldn’t be talking about these kinds of things?
Sorry, I dont see the relationship and its a shame you consider it “regrettable” but “necessary”
silentchinese says
No
I am saying it doesn’t matter he is detained or not.
IT IS IRRELEVENT to the future of China and the humanity.
As anyone who has done anything real in real life could tell you,
One has to learn to seperate the irrelevent and relevent and focus on the relevent.
The tragedy of one man in a age of turmoil however the media would like to focus on it, IS comically IRRELEVENT. If he is “Free tomorrow” or if he dies tomorrow, china would still be china, its problems would not go away.
colin says
Raj and all the ducks minions, get off your high horse. Your countries are abducting people, holding prisoners, torturing, etc etc all the time. Your countries and governments are just better at hiding it, or outsource to governments willing to do the actual physical act.
These expat activists and NGO’s love to grab at anyone who could possible be played as a victim, play them up and fund them as david figures against the “evil” chinese system.
colin says
There are victims of injustice everywhere. The only place where western governments and NGO’s actively use them to attempt to over throw a government seems to be in China.
And the very help these misguided expats and ngo’s attempt to give to these select victim in the end dooms the victims. How would the US or UK feel if some foreign NGO was funding people and groups trying to overthrow their governments?
colin says
And how is Chen Guangcheng related to the original post? Classic example of these expats and NGO’s using fallacies and slight of hand to distort the issues. They use emotion and demonization to shift the argument.
momo says
童话故 事- 鸭国两个小丑
Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu!!! Namaste! Welcome to China…Raj? And..Fo-RAUD? You mean, FOARP. Whatever. (*Mental note to self: silly English names*)
We are honored by friends from afar! You are all slime-y, dirty and smelly? Not at all, darlings!! (*Yikes, looking worse than dog food, really* )
You are from the Land of Peeking Dork? Oh, that explains it then: I hear they are all the same like you, marvellous! ( *Crap, wonder if they are like Michael Moore’s book Stupid White Men, arghh!*)
And Raj brought me a present…from India? A…Giant Vintage Fire-cracker? Built from a little design from the 1980s, for li’l old me? Mmm…wuahh!
Where can I put this huge, uh, toy? Well, I’ll ask Benigno to handle the thing. (*Swoooshh!! Boom! Sound of Big Explosion from Manila* )
There, that’ll keep Benny quiet for a while. The poor boy’s late mother was from Fujian province, you know, darlings. The mentally-challenged child runs around with his godmother Billary but *sigh* rumour is that she’s a gangster’s moll, Big-time!
She’s always leading the pack, busting into nice homes or shaking down someone, somewhere around the `hood!
We need weapons!! But you can put your little missile away, Fo-RAUD, I mean, FOARP. We are among friends!
Huh? Let me borrow some glasses from that handsome Chinese man in your
Video and have a REALLY CLOSE look at that tiny thing you have tucked down there.
It’s not a Miniature firearm? YOU ARE JUST GLAD TO SEE ME? *Blush, blush!!*
Well, REAALLLY!! There’s a time and place for THAT sort of thing, you know.
Please, behave, guests! You know what happened to that Englishman who didn’t know his place, don’t you? Poisoned by drink!
Have some tea before you leave this world, I mean, place, then. Mine is perfectly safe,dears. Now, Raj, your question: why are people migrating from China?
Well, there are just too many….Raj? Raj? Fo-RAUD, uh, FOARP? Now you know: too many people in China. Now, minus two.
Xiaojun, Xiaojun! I mean, Pugster, Pugster! Remove these smelly bodies at once!
What do you mean, even the Tibetan Mastiffs won’t eat them?
Throw them back to that Dork kingdom they came from then! They can always be…BAKED!!
Mm-wuahh, BISOUS!!
silentchinese says
The bigger tragedy is that the whole discouse on the future of china is being dragged into these personal stories (however tragic), as if the outcome of those determined wether or not the future generation of chinese would be stuck in middle-level-income poverty or relative prosperity of modernity.
That’s the real tragedy. a real debate can not happen because it is being filled A) by western media pumping dissidents human focus stories, and narcassistic expat bloggers gulping it down and ask for seconds, and b) FLG robo-calls calling for revolution and distabilization of china but obvious has no idea will happens if what they avocated for happens.
This whole farce and a tragedy all rolled into one has a striking parallel which is the political discourse of U.S. at the very moment. i.e. media focus on trivialities but avoids teh big and important questions, and extremists using robo-calls and mass-marketing to push their brand of vindictive politics.
may be western media bio-sphere and the people who live in it are not bad people after all, they are just too stupid to realize what is going on.
may be that’s what Huntsman meant when he said “take china down”… China is going to be taken down the same way American political discourse and therefore the effectiveness a country make choices, gets taken down by the same type of petty discourse and extremists mass marketing.
May our children live in gutters and be free.
pug_ster says
Leave it to the Duck Dodger Trolls, want to derail the thread.
silentchinese says
in ourlife time biotechnology and genetic engineering has the potential for doubleing or even tripling human life-span
electronic and software can potentially make humans and machine consciensness interface with each other and extensively enhance human’s natural intellectual and physical ability.
mean while the carbon and emissions intensive later 20th century americana way of life is pushing this planet onto the cusp of massive enviornmental disaster.
and we are talking about what? FLG robo calls? dissidents?
give me a freakin break. or, exactly, #WTF.
hehe says
Another infamous Peking ducker is on the troller move, must be really bored with talking with all their “faithfuls” all the time in the morality pond.
@FOARP
zack says
@silentchinese
China today is in a ‘make it or break it’ period, and there are far too many foreign nations who would love nothing better than for China to ‘break’.
Charles Liu says
So what is this US-based group, China Aid, that helped the blind guy pull a “Wang Lijun” US embassy asylum bid?
– China Aid, a group that makes religious persecution charge against China, is on US government payroll via NED grants.
– It’s leader Bob Fu defended two underground churches in China, The Three Grades of Servants and Eastern Lights.
– Guess what, Three Grades and Eastern Lights were involved in a bloody turf war over membership, killing each other.
This is the true face of so-called human rights activism. Someone please post these facts on PKD, as I have been boycotting PKD for years.
colin says
Watching the expat blogs and western media light up in a frenzied circle jerk over this guy’s supposed escape. Of course, the taint of foreign influence and aid has already doomed this guy.
If he really was that important, who thinks the authorities really would have let him escape? And now that he’s international news, the benefactor of forces seeking to destabilize China, how can he be left to his own devices? Sigh… truly a victim and a puppet.
zack says
so let me get this straight, somehow someone who turns traitor and defects to a foreign state that has made no secret of its desire to ‘contain’ and subvert the country, will miraculously find wholehearted support with your average Chinese?
Who are these fools kidding?
traitors and defectors lose all credibility, the moment they turn.
Raj says
“so let me get this straight, somehow someone who turns traitor and defects to a foreign state that has made no secret of its desire to ‘contain’ and subvert the country, will miraculously find wholehearted support with your average Chinese?”
Who are you talking about? If you are talking about Chen Guangcheng then what evidence do you have that he has “turned traitor”, or “defected to a foreign state???
And given how his own state was treating why would you blame him from trying to defect?
You people really seem to be frothing at the mouth over this “irrelevant person”
Charles Liu says
As I recall, Hu Jia is also on Uncle Sam’s payroll.
Anyways, back on the FLG WTF op. According to Adam Minter, the origin of last month’s “Beijing coup” online rumors was Falun Gong’s propaganda outlet Epoch times, who mis-represented a 2010 parade prep photo as troop movement:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-21/chinese-coup-rumors-run-wild-online-then-disappear-adam-minter.html
Of course the FLG minions pumped up the story online, plus robo calling paid for by who-knows. And this isn’t the only rumor attack FLG organized. On 3/2 Epoch Times also published a fictional “Wang Lijun Confession” penned by another NED-paid shill Jiang Weiping. Of course on 3/2 Wheelers flooded the forums with this story, convienently omitting the fact it’s fake.
zack says
@Raj
what charles liu just said.
tell me, “raj”, do you actually doubt that Chen Guangcheng has really defected? what do you suppose he was doing at the American embassy? having a nice cuppa with the missionaries?
and if he hasn’t then what’s stopping him from going to the Chinese authorities and sorting all of this out?
If you’re so insistent on wearing your rose tinted glasses, or given your posting history, your sinophobic glasses, then you’re really lost to reason after all.
Raj says
Do I doubt it? I have no idea and won’t believe it until I see it in Xinhua or Global times- after all anything else is just rumors…
“and if he hasn’t then what’s stopping him from going to the Chinese authorities and sorting all of this out?” That would be funny if it wasnt so sad. His case has already been raised with Grandpa Wen several times, so if he can’t help from him, who would you expect him to turn to? Where would you turn to for help if you were being held illegally by the local authorities and couldnt leave your home? What the shame of it is, is that this man has to turn to a foreign government to seek protection from his own. Amazed that you can’t understand that someone wouldn’t be that happy to live under illegal home detention and get themselves and their family beaten up regularly.
Who turned this man into a “dissident”, ask yourself?
colin says
Looks like Ai Wei Wei has some fierce competition for next year’s (ig)Nobel. I mean, seriously, how to you top a blind guy escaping house arrest? And then sticking his tongue and cheeks at the leader of the oh-so-horrible monolithic oppressors. And on youtube none the less!
You couldn’t write a script like that!
Or maybe you could, with a few hundred thousand in funding from the NED and others. Hmmm….
No wonder AWW’s trying to get PR however he can, like resorting to putting himself up on webcams.
Sigmar says
@FOARP #1
“Chen Guangcheng to Wen Jiabao: “Lolwhat?!”
Actually, CGC is making 3 requests to Wen. A cursory glance at the title will reveal just that. You fail at understanding. This video has nothing to do with the topic at hand. You are exposed as a troll and spammer.
@Raj #2
“Nice video, but such a shame things like this need to happen. Lets just hope they happen less and less.”
Yes, it’s a shame that blatant trolling attempts like #1 needs to happen. Let’s hope they happen less and less.
@Raj #4
“This is very relevant, if you care about China and her people.”
Strawman argument. People care about China even if they don’t follow what agenda you want them to follow. In fact people care about China, hence the creation of the thread known as ‘Rob Schmitz to FLG, “wtf”’. What’s at issue here is that another topic is forcefully interjected here without permission (evidence of spamming/trolling).
@Raj #24
“Do I doubt it? I have no idea…”
You have no idea about things and you wish to speculate? Sorry this thread is not the platform for you to make wild guesses and spam/troll.
Mods, trolls reported. It’s a busy day at Trolland…
perspectivehere says
When looking at the FLG, it’s hard not to think of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the religious/political movement in the nineteenth century that caused the deaths of more than 25 million people in what is considered the most destructive civil war in modern history.
There, Hong Xiuquan, an otherwise ordinary individual who had failed several times in passing the imperial examinations, had feverish visions and comes to believe he is the younger brother of Jesus Christ after studying pamphlets given to him by a Protestant missionary. He converts his relatives and leads them in destroying idols in his village and surrounding villages. He comes under the influence of a American Southern Baptist missionary, Issachar Roberts. Hong is hailed by many American and British protestant missionaries as a great leader who would bring about a Christian revolution in China and liberate China from the evil Qing imperial government.
Roberts wrote: “Behold, what God hath wrought! Not only opened China externally for the reception of the teachers of the gospel, but now one has risen up among themselves, who presents the true God for their adoration, and casts down idols with a mighty hand, to whom thousands and tens of thousands of people are collecting!”
Hong leads a rebel army (supported in part by Western mercenary military leaders and arms), and millions die as the Taiping rebel army conquers Nanjing. His cousin, Hong Rengan, who had been in exile and studying with Western missionaries in British-controlled Hong Kong, then rejoins his cousin in Nanjing and is elevated to the title of Prime Minister of the now-renamed God’s Heavenly Kingdom.
Meanwhile Hong Xiuquan invites his former teacher, Rev. Issachar Roberts, to Nanjing to be a spiritual advisor. But after arriving at Nanjing, Roberts denounces Hong Xiuquan as “a crazy man, unfit to rule” and accuses Hong Rengan of murder and robbery, charges which are later admitted to be false. However, British newspapers seize upon the denunciations as evidence that the Taiping rebel leadership cannot be trusted and were not really Christians after all. Western military forces then back the Qing government and destroy the Taiping rebels.
Fourteen years of civil war in the wake of the attempts by Hong Xiuquan’s followers and supporters (Chinese and Western) to establish a uniquely Chinese version of a Christian kingdom left more than 25 million dead, and much of Southern China a wasteland, and millions of Chinese migrating overseas, many as coolie (poorly paid slave-like) laborer.
Given this history, it’s not hard to understand why China would want to avoid a repeat.
A great book to read on this is God’s Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan.
perspectivehere says
Sorry, this hyperlink under “most destructive civil war in modern history” is broken. It is should be corrected as follows:
“When looking at the FLG, it’s hard not to think of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the religious/political movement in the nineteenth century that caused the deaths of more than 25 million people in what is considered the most destructive civil war in modern history.”
LOLZ says
It appears that FORAP and Raj are mastering the technique of thread-jacking and trolling. The irony is that on most of the other Chinablogs they would be banned for pulling stunts like this.
silentchinese says
What those who wish for china to “break” don’t realize that, not only the human tragedy that in worst case scenario will bring millions and millions of death and life-span cut short (see collapse of former soviet union x 3, cultural revolution II, early 20th century chinese civil war, all role into one ) , no, I don’t presume those people who are wishing for “break” has any shred of real sympathy and kindness for those victims of their desires.
no, if that’s not bad enough…
If china fails to find an enviornmentally sustainable way forward to generate a moderny lifestyle for its newly minted urban middle class….Then there is no hope for humanity, we all might as well prepare for enviornmental apocalypse. why? because rest of 3rd world is looking for models, and they are waiting for china to forge a path forward with alternative lifestyle models (to later 20th Century fossil fuel driven and planet killing “american dream”) and technology-yet-to-be-deployed to sustain it.
because, who else but china can do it?
America is meanwhile talking about more Frackin’ and Oil Sand as if it will bring another industrial revolution to america, obviously has given up on any I mean ANY, sundary attempts at carbon energy cutbacks via alternative energy. europe could careless they are in deep recession and they are done.
Japan is democraphically dead.
India could not get its house in order and it is looking at the abyss as far as population explosion and oil goes.
Brazil is sitting on oil and looking to cut down the rest of amazon to grow soybeans and cane sugar.
Russia is all about oil and gas. nothing more.
China mean while , will build about 100 nuclear reactors, plus pebble beds reactors, plus triple double quadrupal solar, wind, anything that doesn’t use oil in the next coming decade. also first real drive in electric cars in any modern economy.
If china can’t figure it out. no one on this friggin planet will. and we are all doomed. leave it to walstreet and canary warf? the silicone valley types who is trying to figure out how to have their next big IPOs so they can be a billionaire? those dissidents like Ai Wei Wei who role around in feces for art, they have the intellectual capacity to figure it all out? yeah. right.
so,
if china succeeds, it will be inspite of not because of all these geopolitically motiviated; nihillist/anarcharist/extremest beating the drums. and their children will have to grudgingly *** thank *** those ruthless commies in beijing that they can have the technology to sustain standards of the living they will have to have the luxury of sitting around talking about things like freedoms and human rights.
Let me put it this way.
The man made enviornmental disaster (thanks oil guzzlers and Americana way of life! ) we are heading towards today is like Hitler’s Onslaught in 1940, you better pray and hope the commies in Beijing is as ruthless and effective as Stalin.
zack says
@silentchinese
i honestly believe that the Elites in the West are racist enough to destroy the world than live in a world where they even have to consider acknowledging a non caucasian race as their superior; look at how irrational and vicious the West became when they realise China’s economy would supplant those of the West, look at Obama’s plan to insert itself back into Asia so as to prevent China’s rise-a knee jerk reaction at trying to preserve a status quo that’s long dead.
,
Shcmitt says
I remember the last time someone thought they came from a superior race. That didnt turn out too well. Shame people don’t learn
silentchinese says
The elite-in-the-west don’t have a f**kin’ clue as to how to solve the problem. they either 1) don’t believe the data. or 2) wave it off as “some body smart” can come up the solution. or 3) damn the poors.
They are inbred stupid bastards.
Sleeper says
FLG will never miss any chances of pissing on China, never hesitate to use every dirty word they know to advocate the inferiority of China and her children. Those mind-twisted maniacs have already embedded the “duty” of insulting, defaming and destroying CPC and China in their DNA. The ultimate solution for these guys are utter, completely obliteration of their existence……I guess.