Posted on 10/18/2001 10:02:07 PM PDT by super175
Most Chinese people - along with most of the international community - think the central Government's decision to side with the United States and its partners in the fight against international terrorism is Beijing's wisest decision in a decade.
President Jiang Zemin, who was among the first foreign leaders to telephone President George W. Bush after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, has handled the crisis well. He has condemned the September 11 assaults, expressed his shock and condolences to the American people, and reiterated his full support for the fight against terrorism.
In the past, Beijing has disappointed its people with poor foreign-policy decisions - for example, the central Government has been soft on Japan and stayed mute when Pakistan's military staged a coup two years ago.
The worst episode was in 1990, when Beijing abstained in the United Nations Security Council's vote endorsing the use of force to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait. China has been victimised by Japanese and other foreign aggression, so most Chinese are baffled as to why their government is sympathetic towards Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
China's unconditional support of the US-led war against terrorism is refreshing for the world and the people of China. A week after the attacks, Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan went to Washington on a trip that had been scheduled earlier to prepare for this weekend's summit between Mr Jiang and Mr Bush at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting in Shanghai. During Mr Tang's visit, the two countries agreed to share intelligence that might aid the Bush administration's war on terrorism. Soon after, Beijing sent a delegation of counter-terrorism experts to Washington to explore avenues of co-operation.
But for most Chinese, humiliations at the hands of America - for instance, the US-led Nato bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999, and the mid-air collision of a US spy plane and a Chinese fighter jet resulting in the loss of the fighter pilot in April this year - are still fresh in the mind.
Chinese people simply do not believe US claims that the embassy bombing was an accident because they think US intelligence systems are too sophisticated to allow such an error. As for the spy-plane incident, most Chinese are less concerned with the actual cause of the accident than with the fact that the US was spying on their country. Most insulting, in their view, is Washington's dismissal of its surveillance activities as "routine" and its resumption of such flights shortly after the accident.
Given this angry backdrop, many Chinese, although shocked, took some solace in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon because they revealed America to be as vulnerable as China. These people believe that to some extent the US Government's unilateral policies are to blame. That does not mean they think Islamic extremists are blameless or that ordinary American people deserve to be hurt, just that the US has reaped what it has sown.
There are plenty of reasons for Beijing to co-operate with the US-led international coalition against terrorism. This will burnish China's international image, improve its relations with Washington and legitimise its fight against terrorism in Xinjiang province, where pro-independence Islamic extremists periodically stage violent attacks.
Initially, Beijing might have attempted to link its co-operation with US support for its fight against separatists in western China and Taiwan, but it later decided this was unwise during such a crisis. But Beijing might still be concerned that US retaliation against Afghan-supported terrorist organisations could result in a long-term US presence in Central Asia and an expansion of Japan's military role.
Sino-American relations are at a crossroads. The US should stop demonising China, which cannot be a "strategic competitor" for the foreseeable future, even though Beijing prefers a multi-polar world. And China should initiate political reforms and abandon its policy of making the fight against US hegemony its security priority. In fact, the Chinese people and the American people are friends - it is just their governments that do not get along. One lesson to be drawn from the September 11 attacks is that it is much safer to make friends than enemies.
When Beijing and Washington drop their Cold War mentalities, they will find they are more constructive partners than strategic competitors. They will find a new world in which all people can live peacefully and co-operatively.
All the nations of the world - especially such powers as China, Russia and the US - are re-evaluating their foreign policies after the terrorist attacks. Most noticeably, Washington is co-operating more with the UN and its member countries and is involved more in the Middle East peace negotiations (the US has even come out in support of a Palestinian state).
The US-led military strikes on Osama bin Laden, who is alleged to have masterminded the September 11 attacks, and the Taleban regime harbouring him in Afghanistan have so far been proper and limited, although some hawks in the Pentagon want to expand the war.
These are signs that a new world is coming and Beijing and Washington should seize this opportunity.
Zhang Tianguang (zhangtianguang@yahoo.com) is a senior engineer who studied American Studies, as a civilian, at the PLA's Foreign Language University in Luoyang, Henan province.
Most Chinese people are slaves, and who cares what a slave thinks?.
---max
Although it was not 100% lock stock and barrel in line with the way ego-centric Americans want to believe, it was still democracy. Because it was 'foreign' and 'not exactly the way we Americans do it', therefore it must be wrong, according to some.
You said, "If you are saying that there is no objective criteria for "democracy," I disagree."
How in the heck did you come up with that?
So what are the basic principles of democracy?
I know what I think, but I want to hear your ideas.
For the time being here is mine (as best I can express them in just a few words)...
Basic human rights. Countries who function on a basis of basic human rights, intelect, questioning (and obtaining) information, freedom to question and speak the results.
That has to be the foundation, and not just for the upper echelon people, but for the masses too.
Democracies cannot put nation over people, because the people are the nation.
When those principles are manifest in a society first, and then in that society's political system, the basic roots of democracy are laid.
After that, the next step is devising a fair way to pick the leaders.
One more principle that I would mention is rule of law that applies equally to everyone.
It is a complicated issue, but those should get us started...
Your turn.
Right. The KMT was founded as a "revolutionary" party with the help of Russian advisors. Sun asked all members to sign a "loyalty" letter to himself. Huang Xing, second to Sun in the anti-Qing revolution and leader of anti-Qing uprising, opposed Sun's style of dictorship and left the KMT. Huang Xing was influenced by American-style democracy and wanted a true republic. He died in the US. When soldiers were fighting Qing's army to overthrow the dynasty, Sun was in Hawaii.
>>That's why you can see parallel structures even in the CCP & KMT today.
Actually the CCP used to be the left-wing faction in the KMT and was split from it in 1927.
>>Sun's life may seem paradoxical, but none of these various elements can be ignored in order to remain true to the historical record.
Sun is now a symbolic figure respected by both CCP and KMT. People don't know what Sun really was. There have been different versions of Sun, depending on what you want.
The US and Britain supported Sun Chuanfang, a warlord who controlled the eastern part of China, including Shanghai. After Chiang Kai-Shek's troops entered Shanghai and promised to protect American and British interets in China, America started suppoting Chiang. The US was not neutral in the Chinese civil wars.
>>He wrote specifically about not going radically from one system to another...
Sun tried more than seven times to use force to overthrow the existing governments, the central govt. in Beijing and the local governments in Guangdong, after ROC was established. Sun wanted power. Sun was not G. Washington.
Sun said to the communists in the KMT, "Three Peoples Theory IS communism". It is written in Sun's books.
>>There is no way that Sun, and ESPECIALLY Chiang were Communist.
Chiang used to the leftist in the KMT. Huang Pu Military Academy was established by Russians with Lenin-style Even today there are still political commissars in ROC's troops. Same structure as the PLA.
>>Conversely, Sun spent a great deal of time in America, being educated in America both throughout his teens and his university years.
Sun was not educated in the US. Sun was a political refugee in the US.
>>His Revolution was based on the American Revolution more than anything.
Not true. His slogan for the revolution was "Expel the Mongels and Restore Hans". Sounds like a racist.
>>He applied American ideology to his situation, thus creating a unique, third option.
He craeted different options for different people in order to get support and win the power.
>>Sun's ideas about Democracy were a mixture of European and American and a few other democratic based governments.
Sun's ideas about Democracy were a mixture of Chinese feudalism, American democracy and Russian communism. If Nazism had been out there, it would have been in his mixture.
Great remark. Great.
Sun never talked about "human rights". He was kind of racist, or greater-Han-ist.
Most of the records on what went on in China are still sealed to this day. However, this guy (a Mainland Chinese who teaches history in a US military academy) researched out a lot of what happened.
The conclusion I drew (and I have not finished yet), was that the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing.
One part of the OSS helped Mao, one part helped Chiang, and on and on...
America was not neutral at all. However if you are looking strictly at "Americans" they had a 'policy' of supporting everyone just about, at one point or another.
They were either supporting when they should not, or not supporting when they should.
Power and Liberty cross roads at some point.
The Boston Tea Party comes to mind. At that time the American tea market was largely controlled by smugglers (American merchants). England's East India Company was going bankrupt and needed to get rid of surplus tea...and at the same time take over the American market, and save their company.
Those American merchants found a way to deal with the competition...
Not to mention the British were abusing the people's Liberties with their policies...
Power in their case did not grow only out of the barrel of a gun, but out of the fatness of their wallets.
Can you believe those Americans? They started to believe they were equals with the crown...
They were two different reactions to the same type of problems...
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal...
In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, 1 serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.
The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.
As I know, Marxism was originated from Karl Marx's works in which he studied the European capitalism after the industrial revolution and concluded that there were probelms with the system that the system would not be able to solve. Therefore socialism would evantually replace capitalism and lead to communism, which Marx believed was the highest level of human society.
The Brits were very feudal. Religion was determined by the state, and became a state organ...hence the seperation of church and state in the US constitution...
Free speech was not allowed, thus our First Ammendment of the Constitution.
The Brits believed that royalty were literally "better people" of a higher class...thus "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal..."
Just about everything in the Bill of Rights stemmed from abuses from feudalism and feudal systems that everyone lived under up until that time...
People were arrested and jailed with no evidence. They were tried in unfair trials...They recieved excessive punishments...
No. Americanism is against colonialism and for capitalism. Communism is agaisnt capitalism and oppression, which means you can't buy or sell labor.
>>We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal...
That's right, the basis is "all men are created equal". However, according to Marxism, in capitalism or class society, men are not and will not be equal because of the private ownership of property. So the goal of communism is to achieve a classless society and public ownership.
In Marxism, Capitalism was viewed as an extension of feudalism...just a new way to keep the peasants down...
Capitalism was considered 'evil' for this very reason.
Marx advocated a general uprising so that the peasants could overtake their feudal masters...which they considered capitalists to be...
The Brits were the biggest capitalists that ever came around. We were not fighting against them to create a new system of business. We fought for fair and equal treatment. We fought them over their feudal abuses.
You are saying that 'capitalism' did not exist until the Americans created it. Thats not true!
If the Brits were not abusing their power, America never would have rebelled.
Read the Constitution. I provided a link to the Bill of Rights in post #57.
Each one is in there for a reason, and as a reaction to something. They did not put them in there for nothing.
As far as being 'equal' goes, it depends on what you mean by 'equal'. The royals in England thought they had divine rights to do whatever it was they were doing. America rebelled against that notion.
All men are created equal before God (and endowed with certain inalienable rights). It had absolutely nothing to do with who owned what.
In Marxism if I own more than you then we are not equal. In American-ism. If I am a billionaire, and you are a peasant, we are both equal before God and the law.
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