Posted on 06/04/2005 10:18:45 AM PDT by dervish
Amid all the admiration and fear of China's emergence as a modern industrial power, it is easy to forget how old fashioned are the country's politics. China may have embraced capitalism, globalisation and free trade, but its 1.3bn inhabitants are still ruled by a secretive Communist dictatorship.
There are two related reasons for remembering this today. First, June 4 is the anniversary of the day in 1989 when party leaders launched a violent assault on the pro-democracy movement centred on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds of young protesters. Second, the party has recently begun a new campaign against freedom of speech in China, focused partly on those who tell the truth about what happened 16 years ago.
This week it emerged that the Chinese authorities had arrested Ching Cheong, the Hong Kong-based correspondent of the Singapore Straits Times, as well as two Chinese academics. Beijing accused Mr Ching - without producing any evidence - of spying for an overseas power. Zhao Yan, a researcher for the New York Times, has been held since last year, also on spying charges, and this week the government added an equally improbable accusation of fraud in order to prolong his detention without trial.
China's current rulers are particularly anxious not to allow their citizens to hear about Zhao Ziyang, a Communist leader who died this year having spent the latter part of his life under house arrest for sympathising with the Tiananmen demonstrators and opposing the crackdown. Mr Ching, it seems, was detained after seeking to obtain a document airing Zhao's criticisms.
Chinese officials, eager to clean up corrupt state banks and strengthen their increasingly capitalist economy, have tolerated and even encouraged investigations into financial misdeeds. They seem to think it is possible to promote transparency and honesty in Chinese corporate life while maintaining a wall of secrecy around the country's unaccountable political leaders.
This is a naive and dangerous policy. Admittedly, the security services have been surprisingly efficient at limiting the amount of uncensored information on the internet in China, but even so the Chinese today enjoy much more freedom to speak, communicate and travel than they did a decade ago.
It is inconceivable that tens of millions of well-educated and increasingly prosperous people will allow themselves to be kept in the dark much longer. The contrast between a modern, open economy and a Stalinist political system is too extreme, and something has to yield. The chances are it will be Communist politics that crumbles, not capitalist economics.
ping!
China is pretending to embrace capitalism, globalisation and free trade long enough to build it's industrial military complex, but it's still a secretive Communist dictatorship that will crash the global market as soon as it fits their long term strategy.
Fact is that capitalism is destroying the very fabric of China's communist agenda. Within 10 years, the communist goverment there will be overthrown and replaced with a capitalist-friendly government.
Even this could be too little and too late. With no mechanism to check government power abuse, banks turned into a piggy bank for connected ones. With official backing, they drew a huge loan, and take a cut, while pretending that they produce something and sell it for a profit. However, since their cut is ensured, they sometimes even sell below production cost, making goods really cheap. That will rack up sales volume. It all looks good on the surface. However, the business is hemorrhaging, and the whole cost would be passed back to banks whose huge loan cannot be recoverable. They change locales and keep running this scam as long as possible. Then eventually bail out to foreign countries with stashed money.
Aren't you a little over-optimistic? That strategy has been tried for 30 years and it's a failure. We're now dealing with a rabid North Korea acting as China's attack dog and bargaining chip, and even trying to deal with a reunification push between Taiwan and mainland totalitarians. In the meantime, our greedy politicians, lab managers, and businessmen have leaked neutron bomb and ICBM technology to China, which is better armed now than ever.
Just imagine yourself trying to justify economic engagement with Nazi Germany in 1935 as a means for containing fascism. Would state-managed capitalism have capitulated to western, representative democracy in Germany if we had "just engaged a little longer?"
No.
Wasn't germany way more of a neat little easily governed package than China is now? China seems more like a landfill in comparison. (no expert here)
And the banks get their funding from the savings of the workers.
Therefore, the workers in China are making goods for us at no charge. They don't know it yet, but eventually they may find out.
bttt
"Fact is that capitalism is destroying the very fabric of China's communist agenda. Within 10 years, the communist goverment there will be overthrown and replaced with a capitalist-friendly government."
China is today only Communist in name. But still it is a dictatorship were there is little to no room for opposition to the ruling party (i.e. the CCP.) Capitalism has not given the Chinese people freedom and democracy, instead it has given the CCP party a new mandate among the Chinese people - both in the PRC and abroad. In the 80's young educated Chinese admired America and longed for democracy. Today that same group despises America and are not at all concerned with democracy as long as China's power and prosperity is rising. Progress? No, I don't think so.
China's dark side
China has two dark sides not one.
CNN.com: Washington - "FBI SPY CHIEF ASKS PRIVATE SECTOR FOR HELP" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence David Szady, cited Russia, Iran, Cuba and North Korea among countries he said engage in espionage against the United States, but he focused heavily on activities by Chinese. "There are 150,000 students from China. Some of those are sent here to work their way up into the corporations," Szady said. There are about 300,000 Chinese visitors annually, and 15,000 Chinese delegations touring the United States every year, 3,500 of them in the New York area alone, he said.") (February 10, 2005) (Read More...)
NZHERALD.co.nz (REUTERS): Beijing - "CHINA GOES UNDERCOVER TO SWAY OPINION ON INTERNET" (ARTICLE SNIPPET: "China has formed a special force of undercover online commentators to try to sway public opinion on controversial issues on the Internet, a newspaper said yesterday. China has struggled to gain control over the Internet as more and more people gain access to obtain information beyond official sources. The country has nearly 100 million Internet users, according to official figures, and the figure is rising. A special force of online commentators had already been operating in Suqian city in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu since April, the Southern Weekend said.") (May 20, 2005) (Read More...) (Note: This url may expire.)
KEWL! Red Trolls make the best pink mist when zotted.
Pink mist...poetry in motion.
"It is inconceivable that tens of millions of well-educated and increasingly prosperous people will allow themselves to be kept in the dark much longer. The contrast between a modern, open economy and a Stalinist political system is too extreme, and something has to yield. The chances are it will be Communist politics that crumbles, not capitalist economics."
I doubt that the Communists will just give up to capitalism.
I'm not sure which period you mean, but the Wiemar Republic had a serious set of economic and political problems. It was in the middle of that mess that the Nazis took power, and then a technicality that followed which placed Hitler in the position of chancellor. I wouldn't call a leader appointed on a technicality, a depression, and a fractured and indebted nation "easily governed."
Does China have some of the same characteristics as Nazi Germany? Their views of race, foreign adventurism, and military expansion seem similar to me. You be the judge.
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