So, I was about to go to bed when major news regarding Google and China hit my browser. Google has stated on its blog that after a number of attacks upon Google’s servers, and attempted cracking of GMail accounts from Chinese human rights activists, the company is thinking of ceasing its operations in China. Google will, in any case, cease censoring search results on Google.cn.
Google’s David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, made the big announcement on the Google blog. As it turns out, Google discovered that what first appeared to be a random cyber attack on the company, was actually a concerted effort against several companies.
In addition, and far more worryingly, Google claims that the primary target of the attack was the GMail accounts of Chinese human rights activists from all over the world. “We have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective,” Drummond writes, “Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.”
“As part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties,” he added, “These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.”
Drummond further details that Google is not happy with the Chinese government’s attempts to further limit free speech on the web, and that the above facts combined force Google to rethink its operations in China.
“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all,” Drummond writes, “We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”
This is major news, of course, and I have to say that if Google sticks to its guns on this one, then I most certainly applaud their course of action.
Well, they may be annoyed at being double-crossed by the Chinese gov’t, having censored their search results but still getting cracked by what are likely gov’t agents.
But being behind Baidu in the Chinese search market might also have something to do with it — this just may have simply been the proverbial straw.
Spot on analysis. After all that’s why MSN pulled out of the American market after getting served with federal subpoenas for user data, because they were running behind Google anyways and figured it wasn’t worth it anymore.
?????
MSN is Live Search is Bing now.
AND Google has 25% of the chinese market, which is still nearly as many users as they have in the US. So the stock holders won’t be happy.
IMO Google has balls.
What planet are you living on? Hypnos is right on here, Google is just being pissy they can’t rule China and so are taking their ball and going home.
This happens all the time with large companies; if you’re losing in a market and somebody gives you an opportunity to save face you take it and fold up. 30% of the Chinese market is worth nothing if your competitor has 60%. People spinning this into an ethical event are clueless as usual.
My point still stands: the same thing happened in 2006 when the federal subpoenas went out. MSN balked, then pulled out of the American market in order to save face. Google, being the market leader, naturally complied completely with the subpoenas, turned over all user data, then turned over all user names it considered suspicious to the government and helped in the investigation.
I am deeply committed to my cynical opinion and historical interpretation on this.
You underestimate the nationalistic (and ethnic) sentiments of the Han majority in China. Go to a cybercafe in Beijing and ask somebody there why exactly it is the average Chinese citizen dislikes their pro-democracy activists. The answer might surprise you. Government incentives are not needed, just the government’s acquiescence.
I highly doubt it. I don’t want to be too cynical, but personally I think this should be seen in light of Google’s recent marketing slip-ups (regarding the privacy of their users). Their will be some small changes in China’s censorship policy, Google looks good, and business will be as usual.
There is however a deeper issue here. We in the ‘free and democratic world’ tend to have a somewhat overly romantic image of the power of information and access to information in authoritarian countries. Even if the Chinese government would stop those ‘inelegant’ censoring efforts, it’s far from sure that the then available information would lead to any societal changes. I would not be surprised if it would actually lead to an even harder oppression of dissenting voices, because the dissenting voices would still be minority voices and as such are only proof of the necessity of the authoritarian sentiments. Only if those authoritarian sentiments fade, does free information have a chance of changing anything.
(For another interesting point of view: http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/11/how-dictators-watch-us-on… )
That’s also a gross simplification of people’s sentiments in China. Otherwise, terms like “harmonized”, “50-cent party” and “very erotic, very violent” wouldn’t be so popular on Chinese forums (and not just forums discussing politics and news).
Yes, I’m familiar with those terms, but distrust of government and a preference for clear authoritarian societal structures are not mutually exclusive. Very few Chinese took issue with Jackie Chan’s remarks regarding the ‘chaos’ in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Or to put it in perspective: most GOP members profess a profound distrust for anything government, but seem to have no problem with increased spending for a ‘secure’ (the Chinese government would call it ‘harmonic’) society.
Edited 2010-01-13 15:48 UTC
The Han are not the only people in China, don’t you get it! Of course the Han will agree, they’re on top oppressing the rest of their minorities – or didn’t you know that? As others have pointed out, we form the opinions based on what is presented to us by our media. This is why the censorship in China (and elsewhere) is actually a big deal. Of course people side with their government if they’re being presented with a particular point of view (reinforcing cultural tendencies to defer to authority) – it allows unscrupulous governments and businessmess to exploit this.
If you read my post again, you’ll see we’re in perfect agreement on this. No need to accuse me of ignorance, I’m very well aware of the ethnic make-up of China.
Not quite, the interesting point put forward by ‘someone’ is that most or many Chinese are very well aware of criticism on their local and national government and in many cases even subscribe to this criticism. The ‘they are ignorant, we enlighten then, all will be well’ line of thought doesn’t explain, let alone change, anything.
It’s not a matter of enlightening them. It is a matter of removing most of the censorship so they can be properly informed. They can then decide their own future based on better information than they have now. That is the whole point of this discussion. But someone had to say that the censorship was good because it resulted in a stable China – that’s where the fuse was lit.
Personally I don’t have a problem if China has a communist government. I can see the possibility that it could work better than alternatives (eg. US style elections). However at the moment it doesn’t appear to be.
But my point was not that there should be direct “regime change” but that the people should know what their government is up to without the government controlling what gets reported. The label of the government matters far less than what it does.
If independent courts and media were allowed in China there would no doubt be a corresponding reduction in corruption and improvement in governance. Would this not be better for the Chinese citizenry and also the rest of the world?
Google’s stand (for selfish reasons or not) is a step in the right direction.
Google is basically forcing the Chinese gov to show their hand.
This should be interesting to see how it plays out.
It would work better if others follow, that is MSN, Yahoo!, Twitter, Facebook, etc. That will put some pressure on China.
Chinese government likes the money a free market system brings, but doesn’t want the other freedoms that come along with it. It’s time to let them know it’s all or nothing.
Nice try. As if China would give a shit about MSN (already not there any more), Facebook, Yahoo. Or even Twitter.
Nobody does. They have their own search engine (Baidu) which is probably the real reason #1 why Google is comfortable with letting the chinese market go. They have their own (controlled) other services as well.
They just don’t need it and propaganda in China will simply tell that Twitter & Co is evil and forbidden. Problem solved for China.
Next idea? Probably not to lend money from China anymore — U.S. government would be f–ked then; not to import steel from China anymore (50% or so of Steel market is in Chinese hands) — economy would go to a halt again. Etc. These would be the real deals, not some lame social networking service.
What makes you think that one necessarily equates the other? Frankly, a free market economy has absolutely nothing to do with political freedom, as Iran and China have shown.
You wouldn’t happen to be a US citizen by any chance? Frankly, Americans can be forgiven for thinking such fallacies are true considering the vast amount of control the capitalist have over eduction and the media in their country.
It is unlikely you can develop a robust market economy without a viable middle class, which cannot stabilize without political freedom — that is to say, political power.
Otherwise you can’t get the innovation and consumer confidence you need to drive market expansion; people hoard under political stress and that’s exactly what China’s saving rate indicates is going on.
China’s gone very far by developing raw resources, bringing in foreign companies and engaging in industrial espionage, but eventually they’ll have to stop borrowing from Western political and cultural capital and develop their own “free market of ideas” if they want to take the next step to a mature economy.
But feel free to ignore me, I’m just a dumb American.
First off: How does what you just said actually answer my question? Do Iran and China have or not have free market economies? The answer there is, yes they do and no, one does not necessarily equate the other.
Secondly: Every time I’ve seen a true open market economy in action, it has led to corruption and monopoly thereby directly favouring an oligarch elite. How else do you explain WorldCom, Enron and the countless follies of the two Bush administration, not to mention the riots under Thatcherism in the UK? And keeping that in mind, how do Oligarchy and monopoly favour a middle class? You can have it one way or the other but you can’t have both.
Market economists and capitalists keep repeating that when left alone, the market will sort itself out but in reality, if we don’t exercise control and regulation of our markets, we get f*cked by greedy people and corporations. I dare say that eventually the market would sort itself out but at the cost of how many broken lives?
All you need to do is looking at all the truly stable and successful economies in the world today; they are all mixed economies, bar non.
What makes you think I would label you dumb? Being deluded and being dumb are not the same thing at all. I think you, sir, are far too quick to misunderstand what I’m saying.
The free market doesn’t work. Neither does ‘pure’ socialism. The approximations to them do goive better results. For the market you need regulated entrepreneurship – which is close but does have protections from monopolies. For government you need the rulers to answer to the people (either through the ballot box or some other way) plus the government to be responsible to the sick and poor while still being businesss friendly (many governments around the world have this more or less). And, you an independent judiciary to impartially enforce the rule-of-law, free press, and regulated private enterprise. How you do those things is up to you, but they seem to work best (look at the countries that have those vs those that don’t, there is a reason why those countries prosper today [ok, they were exploitative in the past but the growth of the last few decades wasn’t due to that]).
This is high comedy. The most outrageous bit of humor is that you believe Iran and China are free market economies and the rest of the world are mixed economies. While I am sympathetic to the point there is no “true” free market either due to regulation on one hand or trusts and collusion on the other hand you have the tendencies backwards.
The rest is just… It’s like you’ve been waiting to get into a debate with an American libertarian over examples you’ve pulled out of a macro economics textbook, and my response wasn’t the one you were waiting for.
You are not talking with a laissez-faire capitalist. Property and law are the foundation of the mature economic system China wants its citizens to participate in, but this participation is hampered by the denial of access to law or even basic human rights.
The free political process is essential precisely due to the evils you mention; the consumer without political power cannot support a free market, because that will dissolve into your “oligarchy” of powerful corporations that have accrued all the capital, and the Thatcherian riots you mention are symptomatic of a healthy process, one which Chinese citizens don’t get to participate in.
Again, as the technological espionage Google uncovered demonstrates, China is starving for innovation and ideas. The government doesn’t want foreign corporations to leverage their expertise into owning the whole pie: understandable. Yet it also doesn’t want to give its citizens the rights and freedoms necessary for them to spontaneously create and innovate their own IP and independant companies.
Consequently they steal this stuff from companies created by Western societies that allow individuals much greater political and intellectual freedom, which creates the IP that creates new marketplaces. Thus the point that free markets are conjoined with political freedoms, China is just borrowing the fruits of that second bit from other places.
The one thing China wants more than anything — other than a healthy middle class that can suck up some more consumer goods and put more of that vast population into employment in manufacturing and (especially) services — is the university/venture company relationship that’s been driving virtually all the major breakthroughs in the West for the past century. They fly school deans and officials in from Europe and America and ask “How do we create a Silicon Valley?” Then every time students start to demonstrate (or look at porn, those poor computer science students) they put the brakes on the whole thing and reinforce the status quo.
Edited 2010-01-13 20:23 UTC
A quick look on wikipedia in relation to China:
“China’s economy is mainly characterized as a market economy based on private property ownership.”
Frankly, I don’t see how redefining the meaning of free market economy is in any way helping you prove your argument.
I have regular debates with both American and European Libertarians so I’ll just state here for your benefit, your assumption is again only that, an assumption. Frankly I couldn’t care less if your a Libertarian or not, it’s of no consequence to this argument.
I would agree with you entirely if it where not for the display of sheer ignorance on your part. China has a very well developed legal system and human rights are guaranteed by it’s constitution. I’ll grant you that those rights are thrown out the window any time a Chinese citizen come up against the state but I fail to see how your definition of a denial to access to law and basic human rights has anything to do with the rest of the world’s definition of a free market economy.
Repeating your definition of a free market economy does not suddenly make it true. Again, from wikipedia:
“A market economy is economy based on the division of labor in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system set by supply and demand.”
I agree that a free political process is essential, but not to a free market economy. It’s essential to the development of a progressive and healthy society and the only way you are going to make sure your economy is healthy enough to support that society is when your curtail the excesses of greedy individuals and entities, at least when talking about capitalism. But all of that is completely off topic as it has nothing to do with a how everybody else defines a free market economy.
All of what you say could very well be the case but I’m not going to waste my time talking about something as off topic as this. Please see above for an answer if you haven’t already guest.
Again, you display a shocking level of ignorance when it comes to China. China has a large middle class that has very little respect for the Peasant classes, something it seems the government shares. Again from wikipedia “..a farmer has to pay three times more in taxes even though his income is one sixth that of the average urban dweller.” Welcome to a free market economy.
WTF? Regardless what the constitution says, if human rights are thrown out the window constantly, THEN THEY ARE NOT GUARANTEED. If the legal system can be co opted by the government to allow it to ignore it’s own constitution, then IT DOES NOT HAVE A WELL DEVELOPED LEGAL SYSTEM.
Your statement is ridiculous.
I agree with you whole heartedly but you miss the point of what I was trying to say. My point is that a free market economy does not automatically equate a free political environment. China is the perfect example of this.
Oh and by the way, what you seem to be missing is that China defines human rights differently than we do. I personally find what the Chinese call human rights to be far to little, but that does not mean that those rights are not upheld in courts of law.
The last time those Civil liberties where whole heartedly thrown out was during the protests in Tianenmen Square in 1989 but to describe a massacre that happened almost 21 years ago to “human rights are thrown out the window constantly” is just crazy.
Now tell me who’s statement is ridiculous?
Tibet? That’s ongoing, it’s not 20 years ago. There are bound to be others, christ, hacking the email accounts of Activists isn’t a human rights issue? I call that persecution for political beliefs.
How are we going to hear about human rights abuses when China does a pretty good job controlling information flow in and out of the country.
Just because China “defines” Human Rights differently then the west does not mean that “Our Definition” isn’t being violated weekly/monthly/daily.
We just don’t know.
I agree whole heartedly with all your statements there. Personally I’m a member of Amnesty International and stand against the state executions of prisoners as well as the brutal oppression of Tibet but you fail to understand my point. It’s their legal system! Their definition of what is legal and what is not legal counts when talking about upholding the law! Just because you and I disagree with those laws does not mean that the law of the land is not being upheld. You’re reaching if you expect your last statement to suddenly invalidate that.
International law is in exactly the same situation. China has Veto power in the UN so any UN resolution on the question of Tibet is instantly thrown out. That doesn’t mean that I agree with how they oppress Tibet, far from it! It just means that there is no official way of putting international pressure on them.
Yes, our definition of human rights is being constantly violated in China but that does not magically invalidate China’s status as a free market economy. What is it about that statement that you fail to understand?
Trust me. You don’t want to free Tibet. I don’t want a new WWIII between India and China because of freeing Tibet. Dalai Lama is also a loyal CIA agent.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6530
Edited 2010-01-14 00:52 UTC
Erm… at the danger of feeding a troll…How would a free Tibet cause WWIII. Surely another buffer nation would be a good thing?
Frankly I don’t see what China gained from Tibet and the only thing they lose is admitting that in the past they were monumental d**cks in annexing the region
Edited 2010-01-14 01:10 UTC
A Free Tibet will encourage territory wars against China’s Sichuan border regions (Tibetans don’t only live in Tibet) and northern Pakistan. There will be more conflicts with Turkic Muslims up north. It’ll likely dwarf Nepal and Bhutan. Also, Tibetan exile politics is already saturated with Indian political influence and when Tibet becomes free, Tibetan politicians will have to fight domestic influences from China and India at the same time.
The Tibetan plateau links 50% of Asia’s region and it’s not a good buffer zone to begin with.
Edited 2010-01-14 01:27 UTC
Not once have you recognised the fact that perhaps Tibet belongs to the ethnic Tibetans! China always cries that the West meddles in it’s sovereign affairs but China feels no compunction to extend this to other nations. Hypocracy that is moving the Tibetans towards extinction, not integration.
It is a suprise the Tibetans have any voice left considering official government policy is to promote heavy Han migration there (and in Uighur territory) ensuring the original inhabitants become powerless minorities in their own land.
China is officially a multi-ethnical country. The earliest modern flag of China also represents Tibetans. And yet, Tibetans and Uighurs are everywhere in major Chinese cities.
If that’s the case, I hope the Chinese government divide New Zealand by illegally supporting the Maoris. Ban English in New Zealand for Chinese dialects and other Asian languages.
Ah! now this is where you have no idea about the history of another country. The colonisation of this country was different (wasn’t a direct invasion of an existing sovereign nation). However, putting that aside, there is a Maori separatist movement and it gets a free voice (usually shouting through a megaphone). The government here practices ‘positive discrimination’ but funding/compensating tribes and putting resources to revive the national language. A treaty was signed with the natives and while there is debate about what it means there is no doubt that descendants of the natives (including myself) have ancestral rights. The flag of the separatist movement (‘Tino Rangitiratanga’) can be shown in any public place and a recent ruling allows it to be flown with the national flag on some official occasions.
Do you think the Tibetans have the same rights? Can they speak freely about what their views on the situation? Don’t think so.
China may be big, rich, and very powerful but the rest of the world will see it as a giant panda sized equivalent of central american ‘banana republic’ until it treats its minorities well (including free speech, always upholding the law without political interference, and customary rights for them).
People in the West are wary of China because they see how ruthlessly Chinese citizens are treated and realise how badly they and their own countries would be treated once China completes its rise. They don’t fear ‘co-opertition’ at all since the rest of the world has been doing that for ages. In case you didn’t know.
I don’t respect a CIA-supported movement like Free Tibet.
You know it’s more ironic that the minorities are treated BETTER than the Han Chinese. No subjection to the one child policy, better treatment of pursuing for higher education, and having less economical burden. Just to let you know, my grandfather of my father’s side is a Chaoxian (Koreans living in China) and he always praises the Chinese government even he moved to South Korea.
Keep saying the mantra “China is evil, China is evil!” blindly. Let the Chinese (and Koreans) laugh at your opinion. You don’t know China or Korea.
Democracy in Asia is a threat. A pure threat, in case if you don’t know.
China is not inherently evil. Your political system is (and damned corrupt as well). There’s a world of difference there. We are not against you, we are saying, “surely it would be better for most people if your government was more open and less oppressive?”. You seem to have a much simpler view of how outsiders think. We don’t claim to know your thoughts perfectly but we give you a lot more credit than you give us.
But will they ever be able to govern their country in their own way as it was before it was invaded (“peacefully liberated”, lol – as if the Tibetans wanted it, what a lie) in 1950? Saying it is part of China because of some historical invasion doesn’t make it Chinese (if so, then Kuwait becomes part of Iraq by the same reasoning and Italy can claim Spain, North Africa and a large chunk of Western Europe).
I’m not going to waste any more time debating with someone who thinks a thoroughly corrupt and evil system of governance should be defended and preserved. Good luck to ya.
China had tried democracy after the end of the Qing dynasty until 1949 (for 4 decades) under the Kuomintang. Guess what? It failed and KMT imposed the military martial arts for decades until 1987.
China has been ruling Tibet through Mongolia for 400 years. Tibet is already an integrated part of China. Just like how the Panchen Lama should be decided by the Chinese authorities in Beijing.
How rude for a person who is blindly worshiping democracy.
Edited 2010-01-14 22:43 UTC
Democracy may not be the political system you want — and your method of governance is your choice — but please, describe how it could possibly ever be construed as a threat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism
That’s… not really a satisfactory answer.
Let’s try this again. In what way would a democratic system of government damage or degrade Asian civilization? What concrete harm would it do to the average Chinese citizen? How would his life under a democratic government be both different and worse than it is presently?
China, Korea, and Japan aren’t still firmly under the Rule of Law, but the West is fully under the Rule of Law. Also, ostensible individualism is a bane of existence in Confucian thoughts. This isn’t the case in the West.
As a Korean, I don’t know why Westerners wouldn’t learn the Chinese or Korean perspective.
For those that have an inkling of that perspective we reject it – simply because our cultures have already been there, done that, and got the scars to remember it.
It was Roman Cathoic Church dominance that enforced conformity in early Western Europe and part of its creed was obiedience to authority (supposedly ordained by God). Individual liberties were not as important as the maintenance of society, and most people were too busy staying alive to contest it.
Only a few (loonies?) in Europe wants to return to the way things worked in those old days. Some of us know your Confucian philosophy, saw how parallel thinking didn’t work in many territories (they weren’t considered ‘countries’ as we would), and don’t believe that the Confucian tolerance of repression practised in China really makes your society superior – in fact we see it as quaintly backward (since it is something Europeans mostly evolved out some time ago).
It’s not we don’t understand it. It is just as if someone from the Ming dynasty came to you and suggested the strong rule of an Emperor was the best way to govern as it kept the country together. Regressive thinking really from a more modern point-of-view.
Apologies to you since you thought I was being intentionally rude with my earlier comment.
Edited 2010-01-15 02:20 UTC
The Chinese government has NOTHING to do with feodal and religous things of the west.
That almost doesn’t mean anything. You’re seriously trying to convince me that korea and japan don’t have rule of law? Really? No functioning government, no operating legal frameworks, no body of common law enforcement? So, I could just do whatever I want, and no laws would apply, and no law enforcement would intevene if I did something crimianl? And this total collapse of government came about without anyone in the West noticing?
And you have comically still not actually answered my question. What. Concrete. Harm. Would. Democracy. Cause?
You’re premises are wrong since all of these countries aren’t collapsing. No offense but your way of thinking is more dangerous than I expected.
I answered it fair and square. You have a limited view to understand it. Learn that there are worlds BEYOND the West and you’ll be fine.
Yes, I know those countries aren’t collapsing. That was my entire point: they obviously do still have functioning governments, and, since there’s no rioting in the streets, they obviously do still have a functioning legal system, and therefore, they have rule of law. If you have a government that makes laws, a body of extant law, a police force that enforces law, and a court system that interprets law to settle disputes… then you have rule of law. Or are you telling me that both Japan and South Korea lack at least one of those things? If you are, for God’s sake, tell me which one[i].
No, you didn’t. You’ve said repeatedly that “it’s [i]bad” in the abstract, or “it’s not compatible with Confucian culture.” But those aren’t concrete, tangible harms. You have not once told me what would go wrong in the average citizen’s life under an Asian Democracy.
I’ve clearly and unambiguously asked you repeatedly to tell me what would actually be worse, and you have yet to do so. I don’t know how I could possibly word the question more clearly, and with your English being as strong as it clearly is, I’m pretty sure I’m not dealing with a language issue. I can reasonably conclude that you are aware that you simply have no valid answer to the question.
I’m starting to think that I am getting comically and grandly trolled.
As a final note, I’m not attempting to tell you that Asian nations cannot elect to reject democracy: you can obviously choose your own form of government. But I find the claim that Democracy would be harmful to be patently ridiculous: that assertion requires support, which you have not provided.
A pandemic of activist judges in America makes me think that the Rule of Law is BS over there.
You’re a Westerner. Think like an Asian.
If you want to impose Western political values, you must turn the whole material and non-material cultures into Western. Then you’ll see intergenerational conflicts, changes of economic values (like using credit cards which is still taboo in Asia), and self-hating of one’s own traditional cultures and values.
Think of yourself living in America that slowly turns into a Chinese-style socialist country (could be possible). You’ll objected the same how I object Asia turning democracy.
I hope you could speak an Asian language instead of this pesky English.
No, not trolling. It seems that you can’t envision yourself an extreme cultural shock. Don’t worry, a lot of people can’t do this. I can’t blame or dislike you.
Democracy would lead to tyranny. Read Plato. And then you tell me; “but it works in the US, bla bla bla”. It isn’t a democracy and doesn’t work.
Heh, OK. Republics — elected governments — seem to work pretty well in Europe.
Actually, it just occurred to me… how are you claiming that’s a bad thing, since the alternative to Democracy — at least in the comparison to China — is tyranny now?
Nobody is saying China is evil. I believe that most are saying is that whilst generally the Chinese GOV’t has good intentions. Repressing it’s own citizens is counterproductive internally and externally.
Internally corruption and abuse of power has no counter force. Citizens have no recourse to fight back. You could say that corruption and abuse of power happens everywhere,but, there are ways to object and bring it out in the open. Citizens stop objecting to the ruling power further enabling abuse.
Externally,there is always a suspicion that china is up to nefarious business, with this article being Case in point (there is no concrete evidence that the chinese gov’t is behind this).
I imagine India and Japan are really suffering under the cruel yoke of Democracy.
In Confucian-influenced Asia.
Government = People
This mentality is still alive, unlike the West. Don’t criticize an Asian government because you will also unintentionally criticize the people, and vice versa.
In this part of the world, people don’t understand criticisms from the West. It’s mainly due to the different style of interactions and thinking.
I don’t know about India but Japan is famous for its dysfunctional government and zaibatsu companies have more actual power than the government.
government != THE people
even the us gov’t (which is supposed to be of the people for the people) isn’t THE people.
If the chinese people were in the loop, e.g. they are well informed of events like tianenmen square and still accepted their gov’t then fine then that is fine, but unfortunately the people that are ignorant of the actions of their govt are merely cattle (some might be sheep dogs).
Sure Japan has a dysfunctional gov’t. That charge is leveled and true of EVERY single gov’t in the world, the question is how free the society is and eventually something has to give.
Confucianism like Socialism is an ideal the cannot ever be attained. One has to recognize and keep a realistic attitude. Confucianism assumes that the gov’t is ideal and that it generally is leading by example. The chinese gov’t is merely side stepping anything negative by hiding it. Which is a poor example in any nation.
Societies thrive on the free exchange of ideas. Without them they shrivel up and die.
That’s the Western definiton. Please keep it to yourself when you discuss about Asian politics.
As ideal as Democracy(TM).
Then let’s stop saying that democracy is for every people on earth. It’s not. China failed democracy during the heyday of the Kuomintang dominance.
Every nations do that.
That’s the only the West.
Anyway, I can see that we can’t exchange ideas because of our different bipolar beliefs.
If you can’t read what you want, if you can’t make choices about what you buy, If a government bans trade unions so you can’t afford to buy the things you make at your job, If a government doesn’t put controls on a business’s workplace standards, Then you might not live in a free economy.
There is a difference between a free economy and a free market economy. From wikipedia:
“A market economy is economy based on the division of labor in which the prices of goods and services are determined in a free price system set by supply and demand.”
Again, what is it about my above statement that you fail to understand? If it’s the difference between what you call a a free economy and what is called a free market economy, then I think I may have just cleared that up for you.
By the way, modern China has it’s roots in Marxist doctrine. To claim that the Chinese ban trade unions is completely absurd! In fact, the largest trade union in the world, ACFTU, is Chinese and since 2008, by law every company that employs people in China must open a chapter within the ACFTU.
A completely different question is how effective a state sponsored trade union is at representing the needs of it’s workers but that is so far off topic it would be a total waste of time discussing it in this thread.
I’m curious. Does that mean the only legal trade union is the ACFTU and no other trade union can represent the workers? If that is so then the ACFTU is an arm of the government and hardly a ‘trade union’ as would be recognized elsewhere. Compare the ‘soviet’ (not the ‘USSR’ meaning, the original meaning) type of trade union in Poland versus the Solidarity movement. Completely worlds apart in objectives and whose interests they were representing.
I don’t really know enough about it to be able tell you but I doubt it’s got any political ambitions so no, I don’t think it’s the old soviet style. It was disbanded during the cultural revolution and it does pre-date the Marxist revolution but in it’s modern form, I’ve no idea about it’s objectives. I do think it’s the only legal trade union but again, I’d have to look it up.
They are not real unions, it’s co-opted by the government.
What about the recent uprisings in Tibet or Urumqi. Or suspension of rights in the thousands of daily riots in the country (yes that’s right, apparently there is constantly trouble all over the place as disaffected people chafe under the rule of the Party – particularly away from the rich East and towards the poorer west and south).
What the f–k are you talking about? You think China is starving for the ‘click to buy’ concept, or yellow buttons on web pages? They’re just spying like every other freaking nation in the world. When Boeing sells a plane to the Chinese government, they stuff it with bugs everywhere.
This is extremely naive. Most breakthroughs in the west come from the military, state sponsored research and yes, espionage. You think the NASA invented the satellite? No, it was the USSR government who conquered space and the US spied on them. The corporations then come, put patents on military research and profit from it. I concede the ‘free entrepreneurs’ invented the ‘click to buy’ concept themselves.
Now about china, remember they were a third world country for the most part of last century. They’re not ‘sucking up’ your beloved intellectual property. They’re just getting better and better and the westerners freak out about not being able to rule the world anymore.
Edited 2010-01-14 10:33 UTC
I’d just like to mention that a Western science fiction writer invented communication satellites in a novel.
The remainder of your argument stands as strong as before, I’m certain.
I strongly disagree with your position here. Most breakthroughs in the West, I would say, come from either (possibly government-sponsored, if we’re talking about a state school) academic research, or private research. The military is only very rarely a driver for generally-applicable technological development, and I’d be real surprised if we’d exported any significant technology by espionage in the last ten years (or, at the very least, if we don’t home-grow more than 20x as much as we might ever import through espionage). Private research and academic research are huge drivers for innovation o’er here in the West, probably contributing more than most other sources combined.
But, that’s just a guess, mind. Based on the fact that most articles and press-releases seem to come either from universities or private firms with long-standing, known research efforts.
Edited 2010-01-14 16:28 UTC
I Wish I Could Mod You Up
I’m sorry don’t take this as a personal attack but I really have to say: I don’t know what surprises me the most… your comment or the fact that you have +5 mod.
Do you really think in your wildest dreams that pulling Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, The Mickey Mouse Blog or whatever, out from China, is going to put even the slightest bit of pressure on the Chinese Gov?
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, now that was pressure and look how it ended! Social networking pressure? That’s almost insulting…
Either you were being sarcastic or you are really naive.
That’s a big issue for a private company to deal with – state espionage. I’m sure this kind of thing goes on all the time, and I’m sure the US gov’t has done this kind of thing themselves (or more) – but going public was a very strong action to take, and I agree with them. The very nature of the attacks are a serious accusation, and I doubt the current administration wants to make a claim of this sort until things are investigated further – but Goggle’s not bound to the same diplomatic conditions as the government. Yikes.
Go Google!
Even being targeted at activists, it may not be government employees or even government sanctioned but simply government allowed. It wouldn’t be the first time that self motivated crackers had attacked other nations while the gov turned a blind eye. Code Red wasn’t gov after all, just gov permitted.
Google would be mad to exit a market as large as china based on a few hack attempts.
It’s simple as the Chinese ISPs block the Google search engine in few weeks. Google China just killed itself.
Mad ? Perhaps, or maybe Google has a conscience after all.
EDIT: More info –
“gossip inside google China is gov hackers found infiltrating google source code repository; gmail attacks an old issue.”
http://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/7688415363
Edited 2010-01-13 01:46 UTC
You’d move house if it kept getting broken into.
Only if you just look at the money and want endlessly more, but this move makes google way more sympathic to me, Google does fine without China and as long as they can keep Microsoft at Bay will also in the future. The problem with the US mentality is the never get enough thing, you can find that in most corporations, the US currently sells out big time to other nations because US corporations never have a limit of what they think is the right they can earn. Googles move is more along the lines of having higher priorities than endlessly rising profits for the sake of everything else. Not quite the US corporate mentality but I applaud them for this.
Maybe internal politics at Google is pushing back against a corporate mentality in favor of a more activist one.
I certainly hope Google does make a stand in this matter, and I would certainly hope other companies, such as Microsoft would take notice as well and reconsider their approach on dealing with the People’s Republic.
China cannot become a economical powerhouse while at the same time denying freedom to its citizens; whether in is individual, religious, or cultural, it will be doomed to failure.
China’s already an economical powerhouse. Look at South Korea decades ago when Park Cheong-Hee (America-based military “borderline socialist” dictator) made South Korea into a economical powerhouse through denying human rights in the past.
I might offend people because of saying this. As for the internet censorship in China, I couldn’t care less. China needs good stability in this rapidly changing world and censorship is at least helping China.
Edited 2010-01-13 04:10 UTC
Yes, very often censorship does help those doing the censoring.
That is indeed an offensive comment for its shortsightedness and craven cowardlyness. You must be young and possibly rather self-absorbed.
Yes China needs stability but crushing the opinions of its own people isn’t the way forward. Sure, there needs to be some limits on what people can say (no hate speech or racial discrimination) but the Chinese government suppresses legitimate dissent of the masses so as to not ‘lose face’ even in episodes such as:
1) Corrupt overnment officials allowing a Chinese diary supplier to put melamine in milk to pass protein tests. This resulted in the deaths of thousands of Chinese babies and the supression of all independent reports, resulting in a long time until it was corrected.
2) Corrupt government officials pocketing the money intended for those made homeless by the Three Gorges Dam. Then jailing all dissidents.
3) Racist government policies that discriminate against Tibetans and Uighur in their own states (or occupied country in the case of Tibet).
4) The killing of student demonstrators in Tianammen Square in 1989. Yes the students were rowdy, but did they need to be killed with tanks? Hardly?
We won’t even talk about business corruption or the State Security apparatus expecting it’s citizens to commit economic or security espionage while overseas.
Let us hope the ordinary Chinese people learn and fix these failings (no they’re not the only country with problems but we are discussing China in this thread). Unfortunately those people will never get a chance to improve their humanitarian conditions since they’ll never learn of all the bad things the government does to their fellow citizens, thanks to the suppression of dissent which you endorse. Perhaps when you mature you can reconsider your position. The rest of the world hassles China about human rights not because they want to humble China, but because the rest of the world feels more fraternity with the Chinese citizenry than the government of China does (given its continuedactions).
Nah, I’m from a country (South Korea) where democracy and free speech failed completely. Democracy and free speech don’t mean anything to me anyways. You know what they say in Seoul. “Democracy is more of a religious folk belief than a political belief”.
Assuming that you are a Westerner, I apologize I have a very different view of the world.
I disagree. South Korea might not be a perfect democracy but it’s a darn sight better than either of your northern neighbors. Nowhere has perfect democracy but does that mean that democracy is worthless and we should be ruled by a feudal elite with no say by the people of what goes on?( doesn’t matter whether they gain their power by birth, political views, connections, or coup d’etat).
Do you really think totalatarian control of the press is better than a ‘free’ press – or at least, a press free enough to call your government to account without you and your family hauled off to prison or worse. A a free enough country that you can jest at, “Democracy is more of a religious folk belief than a political belief”, without worrying that you’ll be imprisoned or shot?
Anyway, I don’t pretend to understand the complexities of your country or China, and don’t mean to offend you either. I just disagree that total censorship improves the plight of the ordinary folk.
Peace amigo
No offense, but your view of the world is rather bipolar. It’s either democracy or totalitarianism. Either feudalism or democracy. Actually there are a lot of other political systems than just those two.
You’ve been raised to think that democracy is the always best form of government. And that all other political systems are totalitarian. And you have a specific definition of democracy that actually means ‘rule by the market’. You think that democracy equals freedom and you think that freedom is the lack of government.
Actually, the world is much more complex than that. Freedom is a relative term. You are free from something. If you are free from the government, then you give up other freedoms. “Religious freedom” means that the religious leaders can raise you to follow them, or you can be free FROM religion. You can have free market, or you can be free FROM the market. Having no government and starving, being “educated” by religious leaders and beaten to death by thieves is no freedom!
Thank you. It has been a long time since I hadn’t read such a simple but profound defense of the ‘free speech system’ we have in many places around the world. I can’t add any more valuable words to what you have said.
It’s funny how you tell someone that he is thinking wrong about his own country and that you know the truth better.
Rly.
It is funny you cant read. The guy was from South Korea not China.
Disregarding that, what you are saying also has flaws. You are saying that how dare an outsider point out the injustices of a government other than their own. Yeah, I know this riles up the local inhabitants, but to stay silent is to be complicit in the crime.
It’s funny you can’t understand I was talking about Korean guy.
Sorry to say that as a westerner, democracy is not perfect, in Europe we also have a lot of gripes with our governments, the best working democracy, all over europe, is the one they have in Swizerland where the people have to vote for everything, but yet that also does not work perfectly, but it has been working well enough for hundreds of years now for them. But as I said no system is perfect, but what are the alternatives, just look at your north neighbour. Ok that is an evil example, but it comes down to that, at least you can vote bad rulers out in a working democracy, in anything else you cannot. Every government system can work if the rulers of the system really work for the people and dont expect it vice versa, but history has shown over and over again, that power in most cases is misused and the people have to pay the bill for it.
This is highly debatable. In countries where campaign budgets correlate with votes, is this real choice, or more a tyranny of the wealthy?
But anyway, even if in a so called working democracy, a “bad ruler” can be voted out. This means the mass of public opinion decides what/who a “bad ruler” is. Then it becomes a popularity contest because as we have all seen (from all the “bad” people who end up leaders of democratic countries) the mass of public opinion is not particularly good at consistently picking “good rulers”.
Agreed.
Btw: This is probably getting slightly off topic
In western countries, the “ruler” is not the one you think. It does not matter who is elected by the votes actually. They will all tell you that the market decides and that they are powerless anyway. “I can’t tax the rich or they will move elsewhere”. They will act according to what the real rulers say. In the west, the rulers are those who have the money. the westerners call that a democracy, but actually it is an oligarchy.
Edited 2010-01-13 09:28 UTC
Excellent point
I’m been really fascinated reading your opinions.
Like most over on here (judging by some of the knee-jerk -1’s you’ve received) I do believe in democracy. However, being rather cynical, I do believe that most democratic countries have a broken system for democracy:
* the press (who have their own agendas) often rule public opinion,
* bigger budgets are awarded more exposure (so “honest” politicians with small budgets will often go unnoticed
* rather than dealing with real (and potentially unpopular) issue that genuinely need addressing – politicians are usually just after quick fixes for headlines knowing full well the whole system will collapse once they’ve left power
* the public often seem more obsessed with celebrity culture than real issues – and this rubs off with the quality of the broadcasting on politics
* (in the UK) rather than each political party representing a moral stance (left wing, right wing, etc) – these days they all flip-flop between opinions depending on what’s most popular. So you ultimately left with a party that doesn’t actually represent anything (and then people wonder why nothing ever happens)
* and even in democracy, the government is corrupt. Politicians have their fingers in so many proverbial pies that most of their big decisions end up having a financial reward for them – be it extra income for a company they’re on the board for or whatever.
I’d love to have the power to rewrite the rule book for democracy here in the UK. But I guess, ironically, that would make me a dictator hehehe.
But yeah, to quote a later comment you made* – this is off topic, but a fascinating read** none-the-less.
* “This is probably getting slightly off topic
** for me at least
You could be a Despot instead. (now where did I leave my shiny sword..)
While I agree that political problems (like corruption, or ineffective government) do exist in a Democracy, I think that they are more limited than in pretty much any other form of government — and equally, that the problems with Democracy are highly over-stated.
Speaking as a U.S. citizen, there have certainly been some highly visible recent events where my government has failed… but there’ve also been lots of recent events where U.S. democracy have worked quite well. The people do exert at least some control over the government here in the States: the Republican party got mauled for it’s recent sins, loosing control of Congress and the Presidency (and I hold that up as an example of the success of Democracy, even as a Republican myself). Both Net Neutrality and moderate health-care reforms may be put into effect by that new left-leaning administration, against the wishes of entrenched corporate interests, because of a strong desire to see those things put into effect by more than half of the populace of the country (and those plans may well be moderated, to be endurable by the slightly-less-than-half of the country that doesn’t like them). While the process may be messy and slow, I think it’s producing good results, and I think it’s working a damned site better for me than Communism is working for the average Chinese citizen.
Some good points there but while you may sing the praises of US democracy, how many years of terrible presidents (and of who some didn’t even receive a nationwide majority vote) did you have to endure before you got your current one?
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not out to undermine democracy. I just look at it a touch pragmatically.
The simple fact of the matter is: there’ll ever be a “perfect” governing system as each individual has their own opinions on the way a the country should be run. eg:
Sometimes it makes sense to take a majority vote on their opinions – and other times you can’t expect the general public to be experienced enough on said subject to make an informed decision.
Edited 2010-01-14 23:29 UTC
True, but I think you can somewhat pragmatically assess the quality of government: while none are perfect, some are good, some are mediocre, and some are bad; some are good enough, some aren’t; and some are better than others.
I don’t need to claim that US democracy is perfect; obviously, it’s not. But, for most people most of the time, it works pretty damned well, seeing to the stability of society in a way conductive to individuals living their lives and conducting their affairs. I really don’t believe the same can be said of the government in China, where enforcement of laws is iffy and violation of human dignity is not uncommon (NPR tells me that a system remarkably similar to the industrialized version of Slavery that was used in the pre-civil-war North is used in China now).
Compared to China, the US does look good. But compared to many Western European countries – I don’t think the US shines so well.
And that was the point I was trying to make.
While comparing yourself to the worse examples makes you look good – it’s not really a true indicator of performance.
Well, I’d say there are probably more nations than not whose citizens are worse off than the average U.S. citizen.
And equally, I somewhat suspect that the standard of living and degree of political enfranchisement enjoyed by, say, your average German is pretty close to what I’ve got here, in the U.S. We’d probably both have roughly comparable incomes and standards of living, perhaps similar job opportunities, we’d both elect our governments, we’re both governed by federalized republics, we both have functioning systems of reasonable, enforced law… the biggest difference are probably that the German would benefit from socialized, state-provided and guaranteed health-care, while I don’t, and his consumer protection laws would probably be stronger — but I don’t consider those to be huge differences, at least not in comparison to what we’d have in common.
Yeah, life is good in the US. The US won WW2 without paying the human price (or so little when you compare it to China) and imposed the dollar at the WTO. It secured oil resources for itself and profits from cheap labor from all other the world. The massive deficit is not important because they can afford to print more dollars at the expense of the whole world. The system works pretty well. The people can enjoy their freedom to watch TV and eat their oversized burgers without having to think about such things as feeding themselves or clothing themselves, they just buy it.
China is doing well too. Not so well as the US, but they are progressing faster.
Edited 2010-01-15 11:16 UTC
You are… seriously turned around there. The U.S. is a primary enabler of China’s growth: who do you think is essentially paying for it? You sort-of brush up against that point, by mentioning that the U.S. economy operates at a deficit — I assume you meant the trade deficit that we have with China? Realize that that means that more resources leave the States and head into China than leave China and head into the states. Realize that a lot of jobs exist in China to provide the U.S. and its other Western friends with manufactured goods. Also realize that, while Chinese labor is pretty cheap, a crappy, low-paying job is probably a lot better than no job — and, make no mistake, if China weren’t doing the brisk trade with Western states that it is, there’d be a lot fewer jobs over there, and a lot less money to go around.
The U.S. and Chinese economies are very inter-connected. We’re not taking advantage of the Chinese any more than they’re taking advantage of us.
I’d never claim that the U.S. is the perfect promised land, it’s obviously not. But I think it’s a pretty good place to live.
And on China’s progress, bear in mind that they still have a very large, very poor and completely disenfranchised lower-class. It remains to be seen if China can sustain its growth over the long run, and if the benefits of that growth will ever make it down to the huge lower class.
Yes. China can’t grow at this rate forever (historically witness Japan’s amazing growth in the 1980’s and subsequent collapse – fortunately Japanese society is more coherent that Chinese society) and all the problems being masked over now will surface if they’re not headed off now (like improved freedom for the ‘middle classes’, consistent application of the law etc).
Edited 2010-01-15 18:32 UTC
Never get a chance to improve their humanitarian conditions? Are you kidding? Do you realise how many years China has been growing its GDP and to what degree (from memory, 2009 was 9%). And you don’t call this “improving humanitarian conditions”?
Oppression of free speech is one aspect of this. When its used to maintain stability and indirectly helps promote a wealthy economy then its a means to an end and arguably justified (depending on your morality, which is subjective). I’ve heard this same thing several times from Chinese people I knew while I was it university.
All sounds good until it is your wife or brother or son who is unfairly imprisoned for trying to publicise injustice and corruption. Economic progress is not the only measure of civilisation.
“The end justifies the means” is a well-known phrase that invokes revulsion in anyone with an understanding of history. It has been used throughout the ages to perpetrate tyranny and injustice on anyone whose point-of-view differs from either the establishment or the anti-establishment. It is hard to recognize evil if it doesn’t look like a Hollywood villian, but easy to recognize if see if you judge a government or society by the deeds it permits (usually to minorities, the poor, or the weak).
Yes, the Chinese people I’ve talked with also agree with dispensing of “troublemakers” to maintain societal harmony. Of course you would believe this if any dissenting view telling the actual facts is squashed. I’m sure many North Koreans would also agree and yet their regime can clearly be considered evil if you examine the known facts.
I’m glad Google has made a stand on this issue (even if it is probably economically driven). At least their hands are clean, “No blood for dollars”.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
Edited 2010-01-13 08:44 UTC
Totally agree but neither is free speech the only measure of a civilisation. As I said oppression of free speech is one aspect.
Well I have read quite a bit of history and philosophy and I am not revolted. There are just as many examples in history where you could argue the end did, indeed, justify the means (of course, again, depending on your morality).
Although I do not in any way agree with the self-serving regime of North Korea. This kind of blanket statement “…can clearly be considered evil…” sounds suspiciously like the kind of justification a government might use to justify oppression of activists. Who decides what is evil and what is not?
Common sense. Bad/evil actions are not debatable. If I punch you in the face and then steal everything from you, is that a good thing or not? (Hint: it’s clearly not)
What about Robin Hood? didn’t he punch the king of Notingham (don’t know how to spell it) and steal everything from him? Is he good or bad? (Hint: it clearly depends on your point of view/cultural experience and what kind of propaganda is brain washing you)
In this case, you sympathize with Robin Hood, because you know him. He is the central hero of the book. You’ve been told that the man is good.
Edited 2010-01-13 12:45 UTC
Thank you for discovering “context.”
That has no bearing on the OP’s point. He meant, I’m sure, the perpetration of the act on someone “minding their own business” and in possession of “legally and morally acquired wealth” (i.e. they worked hard for it and didn’t trample on others to get it).
Now, can you honestly suggest a system of morality whereby punching this person in the face and taking their wealth is acceptable?
Such a situation does not exist. There is always a context. What is morally acquired wealth anyway? It all depends on your point of view. And yes, I can imagine a system where it is acceptable to take the wealth of the people and punch them if they resist.
Edited 2010-01-13 19:27 UTC
Thinkers from before 300 BC would disagree with this.
If I intended to kill your family and had a bomb to do so, would you punching me in the face and stealing the bomb from me still be a bad thing? (Hint: not so clear now is it).
The People should not fear government.
The Government should fear the people.
Yes. It is still clear. Your attempted obfuscation by changing what was clearly the implicit basis of his question (if not, through omission, explicit)does nothing to make it leass clear to those reading without an adenda.
Adding context is not attempting obfuscation. It is (among other things) testing the statement that was first made based on Kants’ categorical imperative, which I would suggest you read.
Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily agree with any of Kant’s arguments (but they are compelling).
Edited 2010-01-14 09:05 UTC
Emm, no.
Having a motorcycle instead of bike, having car instead of motorcycle, eating meat more often then one time per week – this all totally outweighs that someone somewhere got under pressure.
That poor sob surely did something silly and unreasonable.
Of course you would believe this if any dissenting view telling the actual facts is squashed.
Nah, it’s all the matter of interpretation. All the matter of subset of facts which is used. The battles are fought solely around it.
Say, Nazis used Katyn as a propaganda, Poles use solely Nazis interpretation and noone cares about 20-25 thousand of Soviet POWs that died in Polish camps in 1920.
Sure sounds different from that Stalinists killed 20 thousands of Polish POWs in 1939?
It is not the war of facts, it is war of interpretations.
I’m sure many North Koreans would also agree and yet their regime can clearly be considered evil if you examine the known facts.
Most of North Koreans don’t know much about other countries (except from these that trade with China).
But, actually, noone needs them to be free.
South Korea does not want to carry the burden of supporting additionally half of it’s current population, does not want to expend trillions in making at least something from the North Korean industry.
North Koreans after a short moment of euphoria will feel that world sucks too – they are poor, their richer distant relatives treat them as beggars.
Edited 2010-01-13 13:13 UTC
A dare to differ – facts are just this – facts: talking about using Nazi interpretation in case of presence of this very document: http://pl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plik:Katyn_-_decision_of_… is ridiculous – I doubt there is a place for any interpretation here.
Trying to compare the fate of 19.000 polish POWs – soldiers of invaded country – killed with a shot in the back of their head in April and May of 1940 with a fate of 18.000 or 20.000 soviet POWs – soldiers of invading country – that died in several polish camps during the period of 3 years mostly because of epidemic diseases (with comparable number of polish POWs dying of the same causes during the same period in soviet camps) – is simply outrageous and abominable.
Or maybe for you “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic” and indeed it is statistics that you are trying to compare here?
Edited 2010-01-13 17:05 UTC
North Korea includes one metric I’d consider important when judging a government; can people willfully leave the country and seek a better life elsewhere. How many people choose to try and leave NK only to be caught by neighboring countries and returned for criminal prosecution by NK rather than forwarded on to an immigration friendly nation?
Yep.
Using wikipedia as an argument totally sums that up.
StaubSaugerNZ: “Let us hope the ordinary Chinese people learn and fix these failings…”
dude, you are a hopeless romantic. let me explain to you how the real world works in China… Survival is a much stronger instinct than the urge to say whatever you want. A typical chinese family is just trying to make enough money so their kid can get a good education, find a decent job and a good wife/husband.
Sure the political system in china sucks. i know cuz im from there. but how many ppl should die to create YOUR ideal system? why would i stand up against the government and possibly lose my life, when the alternative is a fairly comfortable living? That is in mind of every law biding citizen in china. it is everyone for themselves.
sure when a certain group of ppl gets the shaft (ppl near the dam, tibetans, muslims) they dissent and seek help from the western world. but the VAST majority of chinese are apathetic, and i cant blame them. your infatuation with a free world & poetic justice is as naive as communism.
pls write back and tell me im everything that is wrong with this world.
Edited 2010-01-13 15:01 UTC
Nah, he’s just at the top of the Maslow’s Pyramid.
And we’re at the bottom.
But he does not realize this.
You are no different than anyone else in the world. We can’t do it for you and I’m sure you wouldn’t let us if we tried. But until you rid yourselves of the system you have things aren’t going to improve.
I understand strong central government is needed and the dangers but China is hardly the first country to face this problem. Even Europe didn’t get itself together and (mostly) stop killing each other until recently (of course it’s not perfect by a long long way, but it is better, yes?).
Good luck. Your grandchildren will thank you for it.
You know nothing. You know nothing about China’s history, its people, its society, nothing.
Your view is also heavily biased, despite what you might think about “free press”. It’s almost entirely the Chinese fault for not being open about information, but you’re no better than Xinhua. Your “reality” of China is completely distorted by western medias, whose only source of reliable info are dissidents, because they aren’t allowed access to inside events. How is that better than the Chinese government? If anything, both are equally as “wrong”.
I’m not defending the Chinese govt actions though, mind you. Almost all they do are despisable (then again, not like other big countries are shining selfless freedom knights). I’m all for people’s freedom. But I do not wish for China to crumble or the government to be thrown out because I do think that they’re evolving, slowly, towards the right direction. Stability in a country this size, sporting 1/6 of the world’s population, is more important than Google.cn results.
Civil war would be horrible. Countless people would die, the country would explode and the small countries and ethnies would be broken for years (once again, not like this is some new scenario). How could you wish someone that in the name of immediate freedom? Let’s just be realistic here. Pushing diplomacy, even if it mostly fails, is the least bloody path. I for one advocate anything avoiding civil wars in countries that size.
I’m sure you are in contact with Chinese people somewhere. Try and talk to them, understand them, especially overseas students. Be the advocate of free speech by showing them that you’re allowed to talk, and that through that education you’re LISTENING and open to people’s opinions and debates. Show them how good it is. Show them what democracy gives you and make them take it back home. This is the most productive thing you can do. Meeting Chinese and bashing them for 1989, Tibet or w/e is counter productive at best.
Consider China’s heavy insecurity since the mid 1800s (I’m looking at you, United Kingdom) until the end of Mao, censorship is at least helping to preserve a stable rule.
If you think about it, this justification of (internet) censorship in China is more from a historical reason, not from a political reason.
One could argue that the reason Western powers could so ruthlesslessly exploit China’s weakness was due to the information advantage held by the West. It was terrible of the West for sure – I wish we could say we’d totally grown out of it – but that is the past and doesnt justify the current oppression of the people by the government (permeated by corruption and business interests).
This does not justify the censorship practiced at the moment. The censorship is couched as maintaining stability but this just means allowing continued governance of the Party no matter how badly, oppressively or corruptly they rule. This censorship conveys certain advantages for maintaining the ruling elite but actually prevents healthy debate and release of public dissatisfaction. At some point some issue will inflame the public anger and it will boil over since there is no legal way to vent or change things and *that* is the real threat to stability.
I’d like to not see that happen as it is not good for anybody. Pregressive freedoms for the burgeoning middle class could defuse. Otherwise the Party will have to become more and more oppressive to try and prevent the people gaining the natural freedoms they see others enjoy.
Part of this censoring to maintain power does result in a weaker, less-innovative China. It is a shame.
Edited 2010-01-13 23:25 UTC
It still justifies China’s position to mistreat the West today.
I wasn’t enjoying democracy when I lived in South Korea. Democracy is not a “one solution fits all” thing in real life.
In truth, China’s wishing to indirectly rule America. It’s not a bad thing since America is relying too much on China and now America’s relying China’s foreign policy to deal with North Korea. A democratic country like America is relying a socialist country called China to handle its own partial foreign policy?
No matter what people say, china is not a socialist country. At least not any more….
And frankly North Korea is a problem for everyone in the region including China.
Edited 2010-01-14 01:01 UTC
As a citizen, I don’t think an international factory is a true powerhouse, at least such economy do not benifit to average Chinese.
Poeple do complain, trying to stop this will only build up a bubble, when it breaks, everything is too late. Let people speak, fight for their own rights, can release the stress, the right way to stability.
Edited 2010-01-14 04:50 UTC
Now all China’s goverment has to do is block google.com, brilliant.
I bet they already do.
I once (a few years ago) read about a site called elgoog.com; it was some php? hack that reversed the letter order of all input and output giving you a Google Mirror (right down to typing in backwards into a right-justified box). Yeah, the entire site was a bad pun.
The sites’ creators discovered it was amazingly popular in China, because it was a way to access Google/the internet that the Chinese government didn’t know about.
Edited 2010-01-13 02:14 UTC
Not just yet. But if they proceed with pulling out or insisting on going unfiltered, I’m sure they will, which is terribly unfortunate.
Great! thanks to you they now know about it :-p
They have to get Baidu back up again, heard it was hacked by the “Iranian Cyber Army” today.
“attempted cracking of GMail accounts from Chinese human rights activists”
This, to my ear, makes it sound really like the human rights activists were the ones trying to crack the accounts, rather than – as far as I can tell – the victims. Could this be rephrased?
I was going to say the same thing… “belonging to Chinese human rights activists” would probably work better there.
Exactly. Having read the first paragraph on the main page, I was pretty confused about why Google would cease censorship after a hacking attempt by human rights activists. I thought it must be some sort of a reverse psychology-thing.
The text was misleading. Google are upset because the Chinese Government is usibng it’s cyber warfare units to hack the activists accounts in Google systems (the Chinese government is actively practicing large scale cyberwar at the moment, just as the US is practicing a small-scale one too).
Yeah,i noticed that too with a “WTF, that’s not how it is”.
“from” should be replaced with “of” in that sentence.
Edited 2010-01-13 18:43 UTC
I don’t know which system is best. I do know what a good system needs: it has to make sure everybody has enough money to spend in all cases, but give the people who do the hard work more to spend. Certainly that first bit is a major problem in the free market system.
I always try look at other systems with an open mind and in most systems you can find pros and cons. I’m happy to live in Belgium now, which certainly isn’t the worst country to live in.
Hi all.
I liked the part of discussion related to the freedom, democracy, human rights and so on.
I’d like to tell you my point of view. I live in the country, which got its independence 20 years ago, I was 16teen back then. Democracy and freedom was the “silver bullet” which was supposed to kill our past ghosts and lead us to happiness. And in fact it worked quite well – now my country is a member of modern world, we have (almost) nothing to afraid of, well may be ourselves
only.
As “freedom and democracy kids” we noticed that people of the free world tend to take their rights only and to forget about the obligations. Obligations to THINK, to QUESTION EVERYHING ((C) Discovery Channel), to BE TOLLERANT and OPEN-MINDED, to have enough COURAGE to SUPPORT freedom. On one hand, nations and countries which have stronger control (Singapore, S.Korea), they also have quite high living standards and majority of citizens are happy. On the other hand, free world countries have many “democratic” control mechanisms. So tell me which “free” is better? I’d say neither is better….
And the last thing about democracy – do you think it is ok when 51 percent can dictate everything for the rest 49 percent? I know, my example isn’t ideal, but still
. Let’s take a look few thousand years ago to Greece where the democracy was born. They had only hundreds or thousands citizens in each city (polis), so it was possible to get to the consensus with almost all and every person. That was real democracy where (almost) anyone could participate in person. But not these days, when we have mass media, PR and so on. The vote in the modern world is a market.
In my opinion the whole world should be looking forward to see essential solution of all problems (conflicts, economics, politics, climate change and so on), because existing free and “not-so-free” worlds have no common solution to it.
Edited 2010-01-13 14:55 UTC
These days, the term “democracy” is bastardized. It means that you vote, end of story. Actually, it is a little more than that. It is a state in which the people rule themselves. Just voting is not enough. Education and information is a key. If people vote but know nothing, they don’t rule anything. They are just puppets of the rulers. Actually, voting is not necessary in a democracy. In the western world, voting is a mean to make people shut up. You are not happy? Vote and shup up!
If we tick of China, where am I going to buy…..
EVERYTHING
Mexico?
Is china building a cyber great wall ?
I was reading some great info about China’s great wall and I could not help but see similarity on how China wants to build a cyber great wall,
to censor the rest of the world and only allow what it wants through its Internets… anyway, if you find the great wall fascinating here is the article I was reading earlier
link.
<a href=”http://ketiva.com/Education_and_Reference/unusual_legend_of_great_w…
Your observation is already bin made; it is called ‘the creat firewall of China’
The correct analogy is not The Great Wall, which was built to keep raiders out (similar to the contemporary Israeli Walls) but the Berlin Wall – to keep its own people in check. Quite a difference. Note that the Great Firewall of China is apparently pretty holey, I doubt it is much of a barrier to the NSA, but it does (mostly) stop it’s own people learning news from the rest of the world.
I’m sure that it must be annoying to have Chinese government agents trying to crack their services, but Gmail and other Google properties are being probed for weakness and attacked every day, by a wide range of adversaries around the globe. What’s slightly different in this case is that the Chinese government can more efficiently launch man-in-the-middle attacks, since they control the ISPs/proxies that all Chinese citizens must use. But none of these conditions completely explain or justify Google’s reported contemplation to leave China.
Google has a far bigger problem in China, in my opinion: Censorship. No, I’m not talking about Google spontaneously growing a conscience. I had to laugh when I read their public statement that they didn’t go into China for the money. As if. Google has been actively censoring content since it entered China on behalf of the government. There’s little doubt that Google has served as an active tool for the Chinese government in aiding surveillance, monitoring, data retention, etc.
No, the actual reason that Google doesn’t like censorship isn’t because of conscience or ideology or belief in freedom or anything like that. Google can’t get reasonable search advertising rates in China, because advertisers have no guarantee that Chinese citizens will even see the ads. Thanks to censorship. It’s a bitch. China practices one-sided protectionist policies near-constantly. It doesn’t want western countries to gain a foothold in its market. It has nothing but disdain for intellectual property laws. Oh, sure, there are occasional arrests in China when the BSA, MPAA, and others lobby the FTC to pressure the Chinese government. It’s just how they roll.
Couple that fact with the reality that Google hasn’t made serious in-roads against Baidu, and the business case for staying in China becomes a lot cloudier. But here’s the really obnoxious part: Rather than actually make a decision on staying vs leaving, Google floats a trial balloon — really, a veiled threat to the Chinese government meaning “leave us alone or we’ll remove some tech jobs from your country” — and waits for a response from the Chinese government. Meanwhile, they get laurels from the hippies and FSF devotees (I’m sorry for being redundant). Even though they don’t give a rat’s ass about Chinese citizens’ lack of freedom.
It’s just business, nothing personal, folks. Remember that.
In fact, it’s the Chinese government that is thanking Google. Google’s public stunt cost huge and China has a good justification to kick out Google.
Not sure about that. The Chinese government has had a policy since Nixon renormalized relations of inviting western companies to invest in the country — by building factories, opening offices, employing Chinese citizens — in exchange for access to its markets; then, after these companies made the investment, the Chinese government makes it very difficult for the western companies to extract any of the money that they made there. I think that the Chinese government would prefer to have Google remain, as long as they continue to employ Chinese workers, and as long as they don’t threaten Baidu.
But the last point is really just rhetorical: Google could never pose a threat to Baidu. The Chinese government has been redirecting Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft search queries to Baidu for a long time which guarantees them dominant market share.
http://www.searchenginejournal.com/china-netcom-redirecting-google-…
Um, no. Let’s not have any illusions here. The Chinese government is comprised of paranoid old men zealously guarding their power — by being brutally oppressive, actively imprisoning and killing people who speak out against the government, corruptly demanding payoffs and bribes to do business, and engaging in unfair trade practices — and they have little justification for ANYTHING they do.
If you want to blame Google for anything, blame them for not actually taking a definitive stand on China (no matter what they say, they didn’t make a definitive statement on China because they’re hoping that China will beg them to stay — WTF is this wishy-washy “we might leave China” crap), and propagandizing censorship and surveillance practices that Google has long been COMPLICIT in.
Frankly, both Google and the Chinese government make me want to hurl. They’re both corrupt.
Edited 2010-01-14 21:54 UTC
Kudos to google for at the very least making this public. Double Kudos if they follow through regardless of consequences. Perhaps this is in part saving face for Eric Schmidt’s comments some time ago regarding privacy. Regardless as to why though its a very commendable action on their part.
Wheres the evidence that the hackers were state sponsored?
Will non censorship stop hack attempts by state sponsored or non state sponsored hackers?
Is the U.S. deeply indebted to China?
What is the state of the U.S. economy?
Has the U.S. been selling arms to Taiwan?
Would the U.S. benefit from promugulation of information to the Chinese states that might otherwise cause unrest in the region?
Is Google closely allied to the United States and in particular the U.S. security services most of which have been historically shown to instigate wars in foreign nations for the benefit of the U.S. state?
America is famous for wrongfully accusing other countries, including her own close allies.
It’s interesting that the Tienanmen Incident encouraged tighter censorship later on. Why? This event almost led a huge civil war. Too much criticism against China by the West will make China collapse and the Chinese government knows this. I don’t think any Western country would risk this meaningless stunt.
It wouldn’t necessarily lead to a civil war. Just a change in government. There’s no need to defend a bad system just because you fear change.
Change in political systems happened recently and relatively painlessly in Poland, (East) Germany, Romania, Hungary, Czech & Slovak Republics, Ukraine, even Russia/Soviet Union. Only the Yugoslavian breakup was a particularly problematic but there were other underlying issues. If China decided to change it could be painless – it is only when the government resists the will of the people (which appears to be moving towards wanting more personal freedom) that you’d get problems.