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China forgets manners as Rice visit touches nerves (racism)
The Herald ^ | March 26, 2005 | Hamish McDonald

Posted on 03/25/2005 4:06:48 PM PST by Michael2001

"How come the United States selects a female chimpanzee as Secretary of State?"

"This black woman thinks rather a lot of herself."

"She's so ugly she's losing face. Even a dog would be put off its dinner while she's being fed."

The 5000 years of civilisation on which the Chinese pride themselves were not so evident this week in the comments on Condoleezza Rice's visit to Beijing posted on the internet site "New Tide Net".

As monitored by the media analyst Liu Xiaobo, the overall tone of the 800 postings was hostile and about 10 per cent were racist, sexist or both, reflecting what Mr Liu calls a pervasive phobia here about dark-skinned races.

Similar undercurrents well up in neighbouring South Korea and Japan, which Dr Rice also visited on her introductory Asian tour as Washington's foreign minister.

Although Dr Rice's public comments here about the touchy subjects of Taiwan, North Korea and China's domestic freedoms were restrained, the visit capped a frustrating episode for the leadership.

The "Anti-Secession Law" passed by the rubber-stamp Chinese parliament this month, designed to quelch moves towards formal independence in Taiwan, has boomeranged on Beijing.

On Saturday afternoon in Taipei, President Chen Shui-bian will orchestrate a massive protest against the law and its threat of "non-peaceful means" should Taiwan's politicians step beyond the law's ill-defined markers.

International opinion, especially in the democratic countries where Beijing needs to improve support for its Taiwan policies, has been generally critical of the law, with Dr Rice calling it "unhelpful".

Most embarrassing of all, the anti-secession law has slowed and possibly derailed the push by Germany and France to lift the European Union's arms embargo on China, imposed after the 1989 massacre around Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

The law was cited by the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, as a new obstacle. Britain had been supporting the lifting of the ban, but this week signalled that it wanted to postpone a decision because of US concerns.

Several other European states are also opposed - including Italy, Sweden and Belgium.

The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has made it clear his government would back a lifting of the embargo only if a strong code regulating arms sales to China had already been adopted. President Jacques Chirac of France, who has been arguing that lifting the embargo was a face-saver for Beijing rather than clearance for large-scale military exports, may be kept to his word.

The backlash will be all the more galling for Chinese leaders because they genuinely seem to feel that the anti-secession law is a moderate document rather than a sabre-rattling threat, as it has been widely interpreted.

The idea of such a law was first mentioned in August, in the wake of Mr Chen's re-election as president last March and with the prospect of his ruling party gaining a majority in the Taiwan legislature in December elections, helping its prospects of passing constitutional changes that the Chinese fear would amount to de jure independence.

Mr Chen's Democratic Progressive Party actually flopped in the December election. But by then so many drums had been beaten in Beijing about the anti-secession law it may have been seen as impossible to drop it without great loss of face.

Some analysts see the final version as actually intended to give the Chinese President and Communist Party leader, Hu Jintao, a lot more flexibility in his dealings with Taiwan than under the policy straitjacket left by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin.

The law is noticeable for not explicitly pushing a "one country-two systems" settlement, and its main article about talks and negotiations does not set the condition that Taiwan must accept it is part of "one China" - although the one-China principle is mentioned elsewhere.

The authorisation of "non-peaceful means" as a "last resort" is also seen as tipping graduated sanctions rather than an abrupt use of force.

However, what works in the byzantine political milieu of the Great Hall of the People and the nearby Zhongnanhai leadership compound does not always sell itself in the outside world.

This week, China's official media were reduced to reporting solemnly that support for the anti-secession law had come from such statesmen as Sonatane Tu'akinamolahi Taumoepeau-Tupou, Foreign Minister of Tonga, and Abu Bakr Abdullah al-Kurbi, Foreign Minister of Yemen.

Hence, perhaps, the dark thoughts Beijing has allowed to surface on the internet.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; geopolitics
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To: sure_fine

I agree - that's probably where they got the idea!


41 posted on 03/25/2005 6:33:15 PM PST by CyberAnt (President Bush: "America is the greatest nation on the face of the earth")
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To: pixelboy
Oh, jeez louise, another one...

What's the matter, boyo, that moonbat cesspool over in DUmmyland not rancid enough for you tonight?

42 posted on 03/25/2005 6:39:34 PM PST by A Jovial Cad ("I had no shoes and I complained, until I saw a man who had no feet.")
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To: All
The Chinese, like the French, believe that the sun rises and sets upon their culture. Their natural response to feeling inferior to modern cultures is predestined by this self-absorbed bias.


So we should not be surprised when they are confronted by the following reality:



43 posted on 03/25/2005 8:36:58 PM PST by StoneGiant
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To: Michael2001

Proving one of my favorite maxims...

...you don't have to be white to be trash.


44 posted on 03/25/2005 8:39:01 PM PST by RichInOC (In the end, the Chicoms care more about Beijing than they do about Taiwan.)
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To: Cyclopean Squid
Funny, that's the same way I felt (slighted) when I saw a Ben and Jerry poster. It said among other things (anti-gun) that we should learn another language...like Swahili. Not to further your education, mind you. But to school you in the New World Order. It was shocking to say the least. I wasn't a big B&J ice cream fan, but since I've hated the DemocRat shill group ever since.
45 posted on 03/25/2005 8:39:50 PM PST by endthematrix (Declare 2005 as the year the battle for freedom from tax slavery!)
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To: coosamtn
My first reaction is this is a totally bogus story ... made up by the MSM and the DNC to tar and feather our conservative black Condi. Can anyone prove otherwise?

I have a "memo" here that proves you are right.

46 posted on 03/25/2005 8:48:59 PM PST by spodefly (This is my tag line. There are many like it, but this one is mine.)
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To: Fast1
No wonder Genghis Khan wanted to kill them all!

Because they were racist and rude?

47 posted on 03/25/2005 9:57:18 PM PST by Constitutionalist Conservative (Have you visited http://c-pol.blogspot.com?)
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To: Constitutionalist Conservative
LMAO could be the old boy did not like them.
48 posted on 03/25/2005 10:33:16 PM PST by Fast1 (Destroy America buy Chinese goods,Shop at Wal-Mart 3/18/05 American was gone when I woke up)
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To: Michael2001

I'd like to see what a Chinese considers pretty, or sexy.

They're a second world country and they're already arrogent. Imagine them in 20 years. Uggh.


Condi won me over with those boots. She's impressive in her new role.IMO


49 posted on 03/25/2005 10:42:16 PM PST by Finalapproach29er (Open borders=National suicide)
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To: Billthedrill
"She's still the most powerful woman on the planet."

..and more intelligent than 10 or more Chicoms put together...

50 posted on 03/26/2005 12:31:03 AM PST by libs_kma (USA: The land of the Free....Because of the Brave!)
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Comment #51 Removed by Moderator

To: Michael2001
The author of this article needs to go back to school for some remedial writing instruction. It starts as a rather sensationalistic treatise on China's racism and then suddenly turns into a discussion of the anti-secession law and its international impact. Then at the end, and with the weakest of threads, it tries to tie the thesis up.

Interesting information, lousy article.
52 posted on 03/26/2005 4:16:02 AM PST by NCSteve
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I hope her feelings weren't hurt.


53 posted on 03/26/2005 4:45:12 AM PST by gentlestrength (A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.)
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To: Sonny M; coosamtn

"I would say your on target, this is an oppurtunity for the writer to say things they would not normally be able to say by using quotes attributed to others, sort of like wanting to call somone dumb, so you find somone else who called that person dumb and print it, its your ideas by proxy, a common media tactic thats been around for years."

Astute observation. Makes you wonder with whom and where these media types hang out. Guess they'll be quoting the KKK next.


54 posted on 03/26/2005 5:16:10 AM PST by Liberty Valance (Grateful Heart Tour 2005)
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To: Michael2001

One day, we will have to deal with these goofy idiots. They are backwards. They are unrefined. They are ignorant. They are violent. Most of all, they are communists, which proves that they have less intelligence than the average four year old. Stuff it China.


55 posted on 03/26/2005 5:23:07 AM PST by SALChamps03
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To: Liberty Valance
Astute observation. Makes you wonder with whom and where these media types hang out. Guess they'll be quoting the KKK next.

See Robert Byrd of Virginia.

56 posted on 03/26/2005 1:30:59 PM PST by Sonny M ("oderint dum metuant")
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To: Avenger
Asians in general have a strong prejudice against black people - there's no doubt about that. Furthermore, I think among the younger generation of Chinese there is a strong current of nationalism that many subscribe to that incorporates ideas of racial and cultural superiority of the Chinese. To them, the fact that we have a black secretary of state is only a sign of America's racial weakness.

Man are they in for a wake up call if Condoleeza Rice runs for president in 2008!

57 posted on 03/26/2005 6:33:44 PM PST by Paul_Denton (The UN is UN-American! Get the UN out of the US and US out of the UN!)
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To: Michael2001

China is an extremely racist nation.


58 posted on 03/26/2005 6:35:44 PM PST by Natural Law
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To: gentlestrength

I don't think so considering her childhood. I imagine the Chinese make her yawn and say 'whatever!'


59 posted on 03/26/2005 6:38:09 PM PST by cyborg (Sudanese refugee,"Mr.Schiavo I disagree with your opinion about not feeling pain when you starve.")
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To: Natural Law

Compared to what? Germany? Japan? Arab countries?


60 posted on 03/26/2005 6:42:28 PM PST by djr
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