China Quake: 10.000 or More Dead

[A_Wanderer]

No I don't think they are from poor families, and that is the point.

A middle class with disposable income and education will expect more from the state than poor masses, and political liberalisation is a consequence of that.

It remains a detail that a fraction of a population over a billion is a lot of people.

[butter7]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
No I don't think they are from poor families, and that is the point.

A middle class with disposable income and education will expect more from the state than poor masses, and political liberalisation is a consequence of that.

It remains a detail that a fraction of a population over a billion is a lot of people.

*yawn* it's 1am here, and I'm really tired.

In rural village, the head of the village are elected directly by the people, even they are what you think are the people who would expect the lest of political freedom. And the people who got more money, and education, are having their head of the local government set up by the central government. And both of them are generally happy about it.

In China, it's a tradition to change the government entirely when the living condition become unbearable. That's exactly why that democratic ROC government ended in Taiwan.

[Irvine511]

Originally posted by butter7




This is the first post that used the word "nationalism" in discussion in this thread. I had no idea what the relationship between the earthquake with nationalism either. May be the original owner of the post could give you a better explaination?

i wanted you to explain this:

[q]The direct translation for "Nationalism" in Chinese, is a 100% positive word, it's equal to call someone a hero.[/q]

and, i wonder, does this give you permission to take one post in this thread and then expand it to make a sweeping generalization about the intelligence of 300m Americans?

you rightly resist broad generalizations about China, it's people and government. and i am certain it's far more complex than any of us who aren't Chinese could possibly understand.

but understand that other countries are just as complex as yours.

so we share. and we learn. and we all move forward.

[A_Wanderer]

From a bloviating wanker but it raises the point of the demonstrations

The other memorable image of this "Journey of Harmony" was the torch being run past brawling protesters, many bused in by the Chinese Government, while a dogfight broke out in the skies above. Somehow a battle with a newly muscled China was being staged on our soil, with China's regime even mobilising troops.

Some 50 buses, we've learned, were laid on to take thousands of aggressively pro-Chinese supporters from Sydney and Melbourne to Canberra, where they were deployed to drown out and intimidate people protesting against China's record on Tibet and human rights.

Indeed, Uighur, Tibetan and other protesters yesterday claimed they'd been howled down, abused, punched and kicked by some of the pro-China demonstrators, several of whom were arrested.

So who were all these people singing patriotic Chinese songs and waving huge red flags for the cameras? Who formed this insta-crowd that filled the TV screens and allowed China's Xinhua newsagency to report back home the bright news that "tens of thousands of spectators, many of them enthusiastic Chinese expatriates and students, had lined both sides of the streets . . . chanting support for the Beijing Olympics"?

They were mainly students from China's elite, it appears - students who, as a condition of their visas, had actually signed agreements promising "not (to) become involved in any activities that are disruptive to, or in violence threaten harm to, the Australian community or any group in the Australian community".

And who paid for their free buses to Canberra, and issued all those Beijing Games T-shirts and Chinese flags?

Ask Zhang Rongan of the Chinese Students and Scholars Association, who helped recruit the pro-China protesters, and said the Chinese embassy in Canberra "is organising buses, food and places to stay".

Whoever did organise all that sure impressed Ted Quinlan, head of the committee in charge of the Canberra torch relay, who admitted: "(It is) obviously a well co-ordinated plan to take the day by weight of numbers."

Well co-ordinated is right. There was even a plane trailing a "Go Go Beijing Olympics" banner that reclaimed the skies from the plane hired by the Greens to sky-write "Free Tibet".

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23596730-661,00.html

The author is a hypocrite, but the point holds.

[butter7]

Originally posted by A_Wanderer
From a bloviating wanker but it raises the point of the demonstrationshttp://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23596730-661,00.html

The author is a hypocrite, but the point holds.

I payed part of the Canberra buses as a donation, because I have to work on that day, and can't go with them. All the student who want to take the bus would have to pay as well.

Beside the bus, the author fail to mention student in Brisbane hired a air plane to go for the event. And they only have to pay $20 dollar each, the rest of the money is come from America Chinese society's donation, when the torch passed San Francisco. They founded the students in othe cities to go to San Francisco by air. Two small air planes in San Francisco, dragging the banner for the pro-China part, one is rented, 1k/3 hour, another one is completely for free, because the pilot himself is a Chinese. All the money that haven't spend, from the San Francisco went directly to Australia.

The events was organized using internet forum. Just to name a few: mitbbs.com, powerapple.com, 6park.com, dolc.de.

For Melbourne & Sydney in particular, because the Chinese national flag was sold out in the two cities at that point of time, so the student called for help, and received donations from UK and US. Initially these flags were come from donation made by the flag-seller in taobao.com. Because the huge amout of flag flow, France and Japan actually made a flag ban in their Custom, to stop Chinese students from getting flags from overseas.

[butter7]

Originally posted by Irvine511




i wanted you to explain this:

[q]The direct translation for "Nationalism" in Chinese, is a 100% positive word, it's equal to call someone a hero.[/q]

and, i wonder, does this give you permission to take one post in this thread and then expand it to make a sweeping generalization about the intelligence of 300m Americans?

you rightly resist broad generalizations about China, it's people and government. and i am certain it's far more complex than any of us who aren't Chinese could possibly understand.

but understand that other countries are just as complex as yours.

so we share. and we learn. and we all move forward.

Well, well, about the last sentence, I'd put "and pay copyright" in it.

Okay, first, when I say "China", I mean the people and the land. If I want to refer anything to the government, I use "CCP government" or "PRC government". Simply because we never officially wrote the full stop to the civil war. Strickly speaking, there are two governments in China, both claim they have the full right to the country. One is the PRC government, aka CCP government, have the right to the country, but in fact, can't do much things about Taiwan; another is the ROC government, aka the loser in the civil war, claim they have the right to the country, but in fact only effective in Taiwan. Therefore, it's very important to clearly distinguish the two.

Second, when I talk about Chinese people and American people, I wasn't generalize everyone who live in the two country, but rather refer to the people who hold the mainstream idea. For example, the phrase "America is a great powerful nation" for sure won't be 100% agreed by everyone on this planet, but if majority of the people agree with this phrase in some extent, I'd take it as the mainstream idea, and say "people on this planet think 'America is a great powerful nation'".

Am I made it clear now?

Okay, let's move to your question.

First, the definition for nationalist in Chinese is something like this: One person that loves his motherland unconditionally, and willing to sacrifice his personal interest for the interest of the majority group without any selfish thought for his own nation.

So, to qualify the nationalist title, there are two criterias: 1, love the motherland; 2, put others in front of himself. Generally speaking, the criteria 2 is the defining one, because it's "what you do".

Now I'll give you some example:

1. Mao Zedong (the CCP leader, winner of the civil war) called Jiang Jieshi (the ROC leader, the loser of the civil war) a nationalist, for the contribution he did in the WWII in defence the Japanese invader and the silent permission for letting the CCP navy warships went pass Taiwan channel in full load when southern sea got some problem.

2. The doctors and nurses who also have family members died in the earthquake, and they didn't even have time to make a phone call to the survived family member or to find the body of the dead ones. But work selflessly to save the other victims that send in to the hospital. Their behaviour was called nationalism.

3. The art students who painted the banner for demonstration had to work 2 days non-sleep due to the workload, and he was called a nationalist on the internet forum.

4. The disabled beggar, picked up the 100 note that a foreign tourist dropped in his little box, went straight to put the money in the donation box for the earthquake victim is called a nationalist.

5. The hundreds taxi driver who volunteerly transport wounded people from Du Jiangyan (a heavily damaged city) to Cheng Du (a much luckier city in comparison) hospital for treatment are called nationalist.

6. When a foreigner did something that could fit in the nationalist standard, we give him the title "internationalist". Dr. Henry Norman Bethune had this title.

Is it enought to explain your confusion now?

[Irvine511]

thank you for your post.