Posted on 07/25/2008 2:46:56 AM PDT by robertvance
While Mao’s body has been amazingly preserved since his death in 1976, it seems that his spirit has not survived the test of time. He may lie in eternal peace inside his Mausoleum but the world around him has changed considerably; China is no longer the gray and drab country that it was during Mao’s time. It is now a place where people can dream and then go out and make that dream come true. It is not like the old days. People other than just high government officials can drive cars. Chinese people can do business and store up wealth for themselves. Peasants can go to the university now; finding food to eat is no longer such a grave concern. Just around the corner from where Chairman Mao lies in State, the American restaurant chain McDonald’s is full of Chinese people enjoying greasy food and a cool environment. Inside homes, people can watch Western movies on DVD and even occasionally on state owned television. The world is just a mouse click away for the millions of Chinese people who have access to the Internet. Friends and family are no longer afraid of discussing politics with each other. It is even acceptable to criticize the government behind closed doors. All this is happening as Chairman Mao sleeps peacefully at Tiananmen Square. If only he knew.
(Excerpt) Read more at teachabroadchina.com ...
What are you trying to tell me? Honestly, how can you make this argument? Border wars with Russia, there has been peace and discussion between the two countries. Same with India and with Vietnam. Some disagreements continue (such as Spratly Islands with Vietnam), but hardly engagements to the level of the past. Even disagreements with Japan has subsided.
What does made public mean - it was shown at an airshow? Spare me the Chinese lies.
Not at an airshow. But I'm satisfied with claims that some of the individuals made in regards to their misunderstanding of security. Those that got 30 years. I still stick to my original claim. We are in the McCarthy area in regards to China. Not Russia anymore, but China.
We have not, however, given Pakistan nuclear weapons plans.
Is China still doing that? How long ago did that occur?
Wait - isn't that *our* own government? I forget - you're a US citizen who considers himself first and foremost a Chinese national.
I give you credit for your ability to side step my comment. But, yes, you're right, "our" government. I have in the past used that term when speaking of the US and some thought I was speaking of another, so I wanted to avoid the confusion. And I will continue to do so to avoid confusion.
China has three, and is in the process of building more. But the point is that the Cold War is over.
I believe China only has one SSBN that is active. Whatever China does have, it will for the next two decades be less than what Russia has or will have. Russia recently annouced the building of 5-6 carriers starting in 2012. Russia will without a doubt, be spending a higher portion of her GDP toward military than China over the next couple of decades. That, I can gurantee you. And it will be Russia and not China that make military overtures toward the US in the future. Though, on the FR, China will get more attention for her military.
Neither side ought to be propping up dictators. China is propping up dictators in North Korea, Burma, Zimbabwe. (Note that during the 70's, Chinese Red Guards were on hand to help Cambodia's Khmer Rouge carry out its Year Zero purge that killed just under 2 million Cambodians (including large numbers of ethnic Chinese).
I will agree with you to a point. In that if it was Russia alone that was propping up dictators, it would not receive that much flak on the FR. But since China has some influence, it gets a dispproportionate amount of attention.
Rumsfeld was unwrapping freshly made Chinese weaponry captured from the Taliban, over six months after 9/11. The Chinese incentive is secondarily to profit from arms sales, but primarily to weaken what China sees as its main enemy.
Once again, are they still doing it and if a rogue segment of the government or people inside of China do these activities, is it a representation of China?
China has spent most of its two thousand years of existence conquering and slaughtering its way across Northeast Asia. China is what Japan failed to become - an continental-sized empire built at the point of a sword. Japan is now quiescent. China isn't.
I've never felt Chinese communism to be the problem for either us or China's neighbors. The problem has always been a Chinese will to universal empire, whether under communists or non-communists.
That's a very far reaching conclusion you are making.
That's ridiculous. We're not uncomfortable with Japan. The main problem with Japan was its protectionism. They exported to us and slapped all kinds of restrictions on our exports to them. The problem with China is the same. They export to us, but we can't export to them without having to pay high tariffs. I think the main problem with the Chinese is that they see themselves as racially superior and not subject to rules like other inferior peoples.
Tariffs exists between all countries. If they didn't, then a business could just ship their products no questions asked to another country including the US. But tariffs do exists. Products like bicycles, rifles, etc. that are shipped into the US are subject to tariffs.
I'm not naive nor unaware of what people say or think in America. I have, afterall worked in and around blue collar workers for over two decades. I can hear what people are saying (and not saying). I can only conclude, that industrialization of a non-Western nation is unacceptable to some Americans. Not the Ivy Leaguers that run this country, but the guys that Toby Keith speak to.
Nub to nub, self to self?
Do you think you invented that scam?
All this is happening as Chairman Mao sleeps peacefully at Tiananmen Square burns in hell alongside Hitler, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane and Stalin. If only he knew.
There, fixed that.
So just because a country has political prisons, they are communist? Thanks for enlightening us.
Not true; look at Japan. Or do they not count?
Americans are uncomfortable with an amoral, growing potential military enemy that has zero respect for human rights.
Animosity towards Japan was fairly strong back in the 1980's. Then the reality of the 90's struck and it became clear that Japan isn't going to grow indefinitely. And I think the reality of a nation less than half the size of the US became apparent as well. And China is now here, so the focus is off of Japan. But I can guarantee you, had Japan kept growing economically and China stayed in the doldrums, animosity towards Japan would still be here and few would pay attention to China.
You must have missed this part. THIS is what Americans despise. Chinese people? Cool folks. Chinese government? Needs to be overthrown, and its leaders need to be executed for their crimes.
No, I saw it. I just don't fully agree with it. I could give you stats about how it's military spending is proportionate to other countries or that things are getting better there, but I doubt I could convince you otherwise. I may try another day though.
“Have individual freedoms come a long way since Mao’s death? Sure have!”
This is a fundamental error that is often made by someone who has never lived under a dictatorship and does not fathom the true nature of their own freedom.
There has been no real advance of real freedoms in China, and the Chinese people themselves, better than anyone, understand this.
All the “new stuff” they are permitted to do are privileges granted by the dictatorship, not rights and true freedoms as we know such things to be here. Do those privileges make many things “better”, for now. Sure. But, as privileges, as opposed to rights and freedoms, they are subject to any level of revocation, whenever it suits an individual or general need of those in power; and, on an individual level they often are.
The Chinese serfs now have a more substantial, more elegant and tidy, healthier and more useful cage. Isn’t that great!!!!
Not what I said. I just used it as an example. How many will accept before you admit they are communist? 2,10,100 I have a bag full.
If there was a way to build a huge toilet...big enough to hold all chinese politicians and military....and a way for me to jump on the “flush” handle....I would give up my life’s savings to jump on the handle and watch their evil go down to be with their sibling Sh*t.
Have YOU ever been to Tibet, ChiCom?
Hey guys - watch the troll being exposed by multiple people on this thread. Very funny.
You’re exposing yourself as a CCP aplogist with every post and vanity thread of yours. Keep it up.
Go ahead and call me what you want. Anyone who bothered to read any of the other posts that I have made on the website would know that I am very critical of the CCP. I have written much on the dismal human rights situation here as well as other problems that I see going on. How this post about Japan makes me a CCP apologist beats me but you are welcome to your opinion.
Ponder Life - will you EVER accept that the CCP is a bunch of thugs. You always keep blaming America for the communists’ excesses, murder, and filth.
Honestly - I can’t understand why the mods let transparent trolls like you and the other one post one propaganda point after another here.
I’ll take back my comment; my apologies. You seem to be an honest person (unlike the two others who have posted rabid ChiCom talking points on this very thread).
I don’t agree with everything you say about the CCP and their minions but that’s fine. I can live with that.
No worries. If you take a look at the site you will see what we are dealing with. That is, a lot of angry Chinese people who are not happy with what I write about the current state of affairs in China. I do a lot of writing about the CCP and China in general and now and then it may seem like I am soft on the CCP but in reality I have never ‘let them off the hook.’ In fact, I would venture to say that much of what I have written could get me in some trouble should a government official get bored one day and decide to find out exactly who I am.
There is no question that these ‘new freedoms’ in China are very fragile as one would expect in a developing country. But really, when you think about it, any degree of religious and political freedom in any country is fragile. Even in the U.S., the bastion of freedom, we see threats to our personal freedoms from the government albeit they are quite small at the moment. I am not trying to compare the US to China but I do believe that in the next 30 years, we will see much more improvement in the area of freedom and human rights in China.
I disagree with you when you say that Chinese people understand that “there has been no real advance of real freedoms in China.” Most Chinese people that I know do recognize the important changes in China to the degree that many of them think that everything here is just ‘terrific now.’ Of course, I do not agree with that. As many have mentioned, China still has a totalitarian government that does suspend the freedoms that they claim to bestow upon the people quite frequently. China does have a long way to go but compared to 30 years ago, Chinese people feel a lot freer than now. That’s what they say, at least.
It has nothing at all to do with being a "developing country". There are plenty of "developing countries" that may (some) or may not (others) be progressing as well as China economically, but have already established political systems that are NOT dictatorships and where what freedoms and rights they have are foundational and not mere privileges that dictators agreed to give, for now.
But really, when you think about it, any degree of religious and political freedom in any country is fragile. Even in the U.S., the bastion of freedom, we see threats to our personal freedoms from the government albeit they are quite small at the moment.
Please, please go live and raise your children in a dictatorship. Maybe by the time they are ready for high school you will see the need to restore their lives to freedom. IF our freedoms are fragile, it is by our own doing that they have become so and yet we still possess the rights and the means to make them less so. In China, under the dictators "rights" are fragile by design, by intent and there is/has been zero progress in undoing that fragility or the intent for which they are fragile - giving up the dictatorship.
I disagree with you when you say that Chinese people understand that "there has been no real advance of real freedoms in China." Most Chinese people that I know do recognize the important changes in China to the degree that many of them think that everything here is just terrific now.
Shopping malls, new schools, new industries, cars, new homes, new amusements, travel DO NOT FREEDOM MAKE. "Changes" yes. Freedoms, NO.
Of course, I do not agree with that. As many have mentioned, China still has a totalitarian government that does suspend the freedoms that they claim to bestow upon the people quite frequently. China does have a long way to go but compared to 30 years ago, Chinese people feel a lot freer than now.
I disagree, and maybe that's because I know too many Chinese who seek real freedom for their country. Do the Chinese feel "better off" now, and more so than ever before? Yes, definitely. But "better off" is not freer.
The Chinese do not have a cultural tradition of Democratic Republicanism. Why should we expect them to be in accordance with your pipe dream (and that of other Freepers) of an American-style Constitutional government?
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