Posted on 09/30/2008 9:33:34 PM PDT by robertvance
Today is National Day in China. On this day, 49 years ago, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party of China founded the People's Republic of China with a ceremony at Tiananmen Square. For most Chinese people, however, this day is not about Chairman Mao nor is it about the triumph of the Communist Party. Today is a day of rest in China; this national holiday is an opportunity to travel or to spend time with friends. While the day may be politically charged in Beijing and some other big cities, most Chinese people that I know are not so interested in looking back 50 years in Chinese history...
(Excerpt) Read more at teachabroadchina.com ...
don’t bother
the poster is an apologist for the Chicoms
he sees what he wants to see (or what his Chinese handlers - who are appointed to be his “friends” - want him to see)
see example of his “newthought” on China
at, for instance: http://www.teachabroadchina.com/china-communist-communism-society-deng-xiaoping/
As you can see, coming out of America’s academic elite, you get to make up your own definition and meaning of terms like “communism” and “socialism”.
see example of his “newthought” on China
at, for instance: http://www.teachabroadchina.com/china-communist-communism-society-deng-xiaoping/
As you can see, coming out of America’s academic elite, you get to make up your own definition and meaning of terms like “communism” and “socialism”.
Interesting how opinions are formed, isn’t it? I went to the Robert Vance article and would have to say I agree with most of it.
OK, for those who believe they are experts on China, Chinese and such, I will call myself a comrade, communist sympathizer and such so you will not have to.
I do not deal with the government in my daily teaching and living experience here in Sichuan. What Mr. Vance says, however, is true in my “listening and interacting with the local Chinese” experience. But who am I? Just another one of those elites you are talking about, right? You do not agree with me so - give me one of your appropriate labels.
Come one, conservatives. We are supposed to be better than that. Here are statements that I challenge anyone on this forum or any forum on the internet to refute:
In its 4000 years of continuous civilization as a country, the common peasant of China today is better off than anytime during this 4000 years. The number of middle class in China far surpasses anything in its history.
Guess I really am a good little comrade, huh? Of course, I still request that my students search after truth no matter where that takes them. Most, if not all, have bought into this request. Have you?
Thanks for the link.
My Chinese handlers? Why don’t you take a look at some other articles that I have written that strongly criticize the Chinese government? You are a Chinese hater which is your right but I just because I write something positive now and then about the country of China does not mean that I am an apologist for the Chicoms.
I have never been apart of America’s elite, whatever that means unless attending a public university automatically makes me so. Why don’t you explain exactly what America’s elite means and how it applies to me?
The BBC article I linked to above.. you tell 'em they are lying. You're the expert. You got the proof not me. I just go by what I read in what appears to be reliable sources.
BTW, sources please proving that the BBC, et al are lying -- you are no doubt a nice honest person but I'd like to see the proof. I have always said, truth is more important than my ego. Thanks.
Never said I was an expert. I said, however, that I have lived in China for more than a year, have been married to a lovely Chinese wife for more than thirty years and have had a passion for all things Chinese since graduating from the Defense Language Institute in 1972.
I deal with students daily and the university staff. There are no government officials posted at every corner watching my every move. This is not a police state. The students here are given, even expected, to make their own way through the academic environment.
I find it rather ridiculous for people to bad mouth the government for the melamine thing yet not see the same thing that is happening in the US with the financial markets. Businesses are run by people. People are the cause of the problems. Greedy people make immoral decisions daily. The government’s job is to insure that these greedy people pay for their greed and deter others. The Chinese government does that quickly and without mercy.
Please do not quote BBC as one of your sources as I have long given up on it and refuse to accept it as a reliable source of anything. I have yet to meet a BBC reporter or any Western reporter near here or any other rural area I have visited. Most of the time, I am the first western these people have seen.
There are problems in China as there are in all countries. How would you like to be governing around 1.4 or so billion humans as an authoritarian with your word as the final say. It is not an easy job. The current Chinese government is made up of a bunch of pragmatic technocrats who have the biggest headache in the world. Couple this with their natural paranoia about power and . . . well, I am amazed that the whole place is not in complete turmoil.
I have not called any one a liar. I said - in my experience. I am just saying that we, as conservatives, need to get away from calling people names just because we have a different view. I told my students about the last time I got on here and was called a comrade. The gentleman’s comments were pretty ugly toward all things Chinese. If only he or you or anyone could be in the class with me for one session, your minds would be changed. These are just a bunch of university kids trying to figure out what is going on in the world. They are decent, hardworking moral kids who have very few thoughts about politics. Those who do think about politics . . . well, sometimes I have to calm them down and remind them where they are.
I was remiss in not stating explicitly.. It ain't the people! It's the Communist Party!
IMO, it's Deng's version of Lenin's New Economic Plan tricking our "useful idiots" into "free tradin'" away our intellectual property and technology -- either outright as a condition of access to "cheap labor" of by theft.
Every atrocity since Mao started shooting "landlords" was a contemporaneous event for me. I read in the newspapers and saw on that new fangled TV thing the "great leaps forward" -- landing mostly on the backs of millions of citizens killing them.
What is a "safe" source of information?
My comments are "ugly" but the comments are about the commies. No apologies.
Who said anything about the BBC lying? No one is claiming that life is heaven in the countryside in China. There are many challenges facing those peasants who have chosen to remain there.
Nonetheless, those would deny that China has made incredible progress in the last 30 years deny history and reality.
“In its 4000 years of continuous civilization as a country, the common peasant of China today is better off than anytime during this 4000 years. The number of middle class in China far surpasses anything in its history.”
Man cannot, ever cross the street, a big car is blocking his path. Another man comes and moves the big car out of the way. The first man is supposed to say thank you wonderful sir for doing what no one else ever did - move that big ugly car.
Well, the sad truth of the apologists of this myth is - yes apologists - that from 1949 until recently the man who so miraculously finally moved that car is the same man who placed it there in the first place and the system he used to place it there is still in place, still under his sole control.
So, forgive us for noticing that yes the privileges now granted are a big improvement, because fundamentally they are still privileges, not rights; the benefits of those privileges were experienced in Taiwan and Hong Kong, long before they were granted in Beijing, fully displaying that they were never unattainable without the dictators’ system in the first place; so therefore why should that system be praised for what was achievable long ago and without the monopoly control of those who control those privileges now? It shouldn’t.
Yes, it is “apologist” because it succumbs to the very nature of the hijacking of native nationalism of the Chinese people by the communists, to serve their ends, to serve their control and to convince the people that all they have was impossible without their dictators.
Sorry, it is apologist, regardless of your inability to help your Chinese friends face it - they never needed the dictatorship of the communists and they do not owe them for their current gains; they were due them long ago and would have arrived long ago, with concurrent rights, without the communists.
..uh I think he did.
inthaihill: "Please do not quote BBC as one of your sources as I have long given up on it and refuse to accept it as a reliable source of anything."
Yes, those who have been trained by our American academic elite - our colleges - have been trained to believe they have gained something and have something unattainable without that elite’s training - a superior understanding; superior to what can be obtained without that training.
But, you see, we have seen that smug elite attitude from you in the past here, in spite of the fact that all that training failed to ingrain in you the meaning and the importance, found in our government and society, between rights and privileges. It must be taught.
And, your elite American training has even made you ill prepared to demonstrate the meaning of the difference in those terms and their importance, to your Chinese acquaintances. Like them, the new “freedom” of the bountiful shopping experience looks more and more like “the west”, to you, every day.
Yea, “looks”.
What is your point of all of this? No one is praising the communist party least of all the people here. Where are you coming up with all of this? All I am pointing out is that things are better here than they were 30 years ago. Is it because of the great deeds of the Communists? No. It is because reform has been and is still taking place. The hope is that in the future, these ‘privileges’ will in fact be rights but people like you who hate everything about China aren’t even willing to give the people that chance. I believe that people such as yourself hope that China remains in its present state (or even goes back in history 30 years) so that you can continue to bash this country because you seem to find pleasure in doing so.
Do you think I need you to tell me that dictators were not necessary to bring about improvements in China? No. And Chinese people don’t need you to say it either because most recognize that some horrible mistakes have been made by the communists. Why don’t you come over here sometime and see for yourself what is going on. You won’t find too many people anymore bowing and praying to pictures of Chairman Mao. People know better now...
We almost got to mark yesterday as American Communist Day, sorry Nancy.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2094322/posts
“You are a Chinese hater”
Sorry, I love the Chinese people so much more than you that I will not pretend for them that their dictators were ever necessary to obtain what they have now. Nor will I pretend for them that what they have, even economically are rights, when, do due the nature of the rule they are under, they are but privileges granted, no more.
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