China

[the iron horse]

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8VEV31O0&show_article=1

 

[vaz02]

What is your opinion on the matter ?

I think the west should boycott the games and support those who need our help the most, fighting for their freedom.
This is are chance to have some bargaining power over the Chinese.

 

[4U2Play]

Boycotting Olympic Games is a waste of time. If anything, it will only serve to fire up Chinese nationalism even further among its media blacked-out, terribly propagandized populace (good job, Yahoo!)

If athletes wish to show their support for Tibet or Taiwan or Sudan or political prisoners or any other China issue, maybe they can wear a flag or photo of each country or person in question, or stage some sort of silent protest during a medals ceremony, a la Smith and Carlos in '68. However, I believe even these token acts will prove fruitless.

China will not stop doing what it is doing unless someone takes it to them militarily, or the Communists give way to non-nationalist democrats. Fat chance on either.

 

[melon]

I think we forget here that, to every nation in the world, China is not an official enemy, but, instead, a legal trading partner. Official boycotts against China are probably not in our economic interests currently, as we are too intertwined with them. In some cases, they have an upper hand too, in terms of being flush with cash and a heavy investor in certain cases.

So, sorry to say, our greed over a nation of cheap trinkets and even cheaper labor has made it very difficult for us to try and take the moral high road now.

 

[vaz02]

So, sorry to say, our greed over a nation of cheap trinkets and even cheaper labor has made it very difficult for us to try and take the moral high road now.

Aye myself and everyone in this forum are guilty of this but i find it hard to picture are life without it.

 

[butter7]

It depends how you see it.

I just hope the whole mess could have wake the Chinese government up and go change their policies for other ethnic groups. Connivance won't do any good to the nation, but rather stew the hatred among the Han chinese and people from other 55 ethnics.

4U2Play, the Han people, who take up to more than 95% of the over all population pre-Mao era, and now dropped to 90%. Because you didn't live in this country, you don't know what all it about. Just an example, the one-child policy, is only apply to Han chinese. Imagine if the same thing ever happen in America, and all white people are only allow to have one kid, and all other people can have up to 3. What would you likely to do?

The nationalism communist government you talked about, gave independence to Mongolia by a peaceful agreement. There are reasons why Tibet couldn't gain indenpency when the Mongolian did.

It's a lot more complex than nationalism, but I wanted to stick to the topic. If your guys really wanted to know more about the history background of the Tibet, try to check this book:

A History of Modern Tibet, 1913-1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State by Melvyn C. Goldstein

PS,
I saw quite a few people posting their stories about the riot, and some of them are really really touching. Women burned to death, monks broke into stores, protesters walking with long knife and stone civilians....It's pure horror.

However, the Chinese government was trying to limite the effect of the whole thing, and most of these stories just got deleted few hours after by "keyword checking".

I feel really really sorry for the people who has lost their families and friends in the riot, mostly Han and Hui people, and someone also said that the protesters burned one of the muslim temple, so far, I haven't see any pic or video evidence, and probably would never see it due to the media block.

 

[Pearl]

I don't think the Olympics should be boycotted. Not because of trade reasons, but for sports reasons. The athletes who are preparing for the Games have been training nearly their entire lives for a once in a lifetime opportunity. How does killing dreams punish a country?

 

[the iron horse]

The freedom of expression and the internet in China:
http://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/asia/china-bck-0701.htm

 

[4U2Play]

4U2Play, the Han people, who take up to more than 95% of the over all population pre-Mao era, and now dropped to 90%. Because you didn't live in this country, you don't know what all it about. Just an example, the one-child policy, is only apply to Han chinese. Imagine if the same thing ever happen in America, and all white people are only allow to have one kid, and all other people can have up to 3. What would you likely to do?

Not sure what your point is here... how does this relate to the Tibetan uprising or boycotting the Olympics?

And, just because I don't live in China does not mean I am not aware of the population shifts in that nation. However, Chinese Communist Party statistics are hardly reliable, so how does anyone know for sure that the Hans dropped from 95% to 90% of the population? Where did you dredge up that stat? And, even if it were true, China is still the most homogenous large country on the planet, totally dominated by the Hans and their government.

For Hans to cry about demographic threats from China's various minority groups while simultaneously committing cultural genocide against those same groups is laughable.

But, since you asked -- if I lived in a backwards communist dictatorship like China that told me how many children I could have, I would try to emigrate.

 

[butter7]

For Hans to cry about demographic threats from China's various minority groups while simultaneously committing cultural genocide against those same groups is laughable.

I think you don't have a clear understanding about Chinese culture. Han people are the one got genocide to a level that this ethnic group doesn't have it's own ethnical cloth style. But it is a self-initiative behaviour, rather than a forced one. Just like putting English as a compulsory subject nowadays, from primary school to university level. What's happening in the other ethnic group are pretty much the same. Usually when a Chinese people referrs to Chinese culture, it means the culture of 56 ethnic groups live in this country. Interestingly, culture genocide is a new term that comes together with sexual harassment, homosexual, racism, television, chocolate..etc, from the western world.

About the one child policy, if all the Han chinese do emigrate, I think the world would cry the bloody hell for that.
But yes, quite a few people did it. Not a bad idea for individual, but would be a disaster if 1.3 billion people try to do it.

Since the Han chinese referr themselves as the third class citizen in the country (1st class, the minority groups, 2nd class, foreign tourists) in a joking way, what happening in Tibet would probably actually cause a stir of nationalism among the Han, which originally do not exist. I don't want to see it happen, and I hope the condition would be undercontroll as soon as possible. Violence couldn't solve anything, really.

 

[4U2Play]

The fact that Mao's government policies led to the death of tens of millions of Han Chinese is completely irrelevant to today's Tibetan uprising and possible boycott of the Beijing Olympics. I don't think you understand how to stick to the subject.

Comparing the cultural genocide of the Tibetans to "chocolate" and "homosexual" as simply "a term from the western world" is strange. I realize English is your second language, but perhaps you could expand on this pearl of wisdom.

Your claim that nationalism among the Han "originally do not exist" is funny. The Chinese are among the most nationalistic people on the planet, in my experience. This idea of yours that the Han are "victims" is true only in the sense that everyone in China is subject to a brutal, repressive regime that brooks no dissent. However, for the Han to view Chinese minority groups as "first class citizens" is simply ignorance on their part. Any Han who knows the basic facts of what is happening to the Tibetans, Uighurs and others would never trade places with them.

Violence solved the Japanese Imperialists in WW2, really. Lucky for China.

 

[butter7]

The fact that Mao's government policies led to the death of tens of millions of Han Chinese is completely irrelevant to today's Tibetan uprising and possible boycott of the Beijing Olympics. I don't think you understand how to stick to the subject.

Comparing the cultural genocide of the Tibetans to "chocolate" as simply "a term from the western world" is strange. I realize English is your second language, but perhaps you could expand on this pearl of wisdom.

Your claim that nationalism among the Han "originally do not exist" is funny. The Chinese are among the most nationalistic people on the planet, in my experience. This idea of yours that the Han are "victims" is true only in the sense that everyone in China is subject to a brutal, repressive regime that brooks no dissent. However, for the Han to view Chinese minority groups as "first class citizens" is simply ignorance on their part. Any Han who knows the basic facts of what is happening to the Tibetans, Uighurs and others would never trade places with them.

Violence solved the Japanese Imperialists in WW2, really. Lucky for China.

Is there anything related to Mao? I don't think I made any reference to him...

If you know how much people in China still hated Japan somehow, and how some Japanese people still try to deny the terrible crime they commited, you probably won't say violent have settled them down. It did solved the urgent issue, but it didn't change the nature of the nation.

About the culture genecide and chocolate, I didn't mean to make any comparison, it was only a list of things come from the west that initially didn't exist in China, and not everyone good at applying them in their daily life. I'm sorry, if that phrase caused your confusion.

Culture genocide, have never been considered as a problem, even the emperor probably had done it many times. Took Qing dynasty as an example, the Qing was ruled by Manchu, and emperors has forced down Manchu cloth, hair style..etc aross the country. Western people definitely would say it's a genocide to the native Chinese culture. However, Manchu integrated with Han people, and the Chinese language itself gained a new development by adopting quite lots of new words which was initially from Manchu language. People see it as a development of both ethnic culture. Therefore, when western people throw terms like culture genocide to criticise the modern development in Tibet, ordinary Chinese people were like ""

And in China, people can openly discuss the strengh and weakness of different human race, which probably would make a westerner very nervous and uncomfortable, but for Chinese people as long as the discussion was objective, no one would ever consider it as racism.

Actually, a lot of Han Chinese did trade their place with people from minority groups by changing their ethnic group information on their ID. I was unfortunate enough to born in a place that only 3 hours drive away from Confucius's home town, and high school kids from my province will have to face the highest entry requirement of the entire country in the state wide University entry exam. With the huge population base, 5 marks would put down hundreds, however, if one are from the minority groups, he can have 10 extra mark added to the final result. And the entry requirement is vary from province to province, Tibet has the lowest entry level. The kid in Tibet who can go to the best Uni in China would have no chance to do any higher education at all, if he was born in my province. *sigh*, the year I went to Uni, two kids commit suicide in my city, one day before they got the result of the exam. Guess if they had a chance to choose the place they were born, where it would be?

Anyway, I think without spending reasonable amount of time living (not just a sight-seeing tourist) in China, it's really hard to for you to understand the whole culture thing. Even the foreigners who lived in China for 5-6 years, sometimes got all confused and misunderstood sometime.

However, if you wanted to see and experience the country, welcome.

Back to topic:
Tibet problem has a already messy enough history, now with more and more involvement of Tibetan Youth Congress, who's president shamelssly admit that he doesn't care about the cost of life, and would use any way, include terrorism to fight for the independency of Tibet. And he also expressed his dissatisfaction with Dalai Lama's peace approach. It seems that the condition have the potential of getting out of control, from both Chinese government to Dalai Lama. I think Dalai probably somehow related to the riot, but he might didn't expect the see the violence. He send his representitives to talk to beijing in a quite often routine, for the time and effort he spend in the dialogue, it just doesn't make any sense if he now order someone to screw it all up.

 

[deep]

Bush: Politics not a factor in Olympics

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer 18 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The White House said Thursday that China's crackdown in Tibet is not cause for President Bush to cancel his attendance at the Beijing Olympics.


At the same time, the administration interceded in behalf of Tibetan protesters and requested a firsthand look at how Chinese police were dealing with them.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke to Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi Wednesday night for about 20 minutes, urging restraint and also Chinese talks with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetans' spiritual leader.

Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush's position was that the Olympics "should be about the athletes and not necessarily about politics."

Is Bush right?


The answer is:

yes. 100%

 

[butter7]

"should be about the athletes and not necessarily about politics."

Typical America or typical bush? Always to find some glorious covery for doggy behaviour?

At least the French PM dare to admit it's all about economy.

 

[Needle_Chill]

Nothing says world unity and free will through sport like indentured and slave labor...

The athletes may go to the games of their own volition, but what about the people building the facilities they're playing in?

 

[the iron horse]

Nothing says world unity and free will through sport like indentured and slave labor...

The athletes may go to the games of their own volition, but what about the people building the facilities they're playing in?

Well said Needle_Chill



"We are the world, we are the children....."

I'm not singing that mantra.