What's your general feeling about China?

[Peyote&Syrup]

Mixed feelings towards China.

The extreme push for ultra-capitalism is something I dislike, but then again capitalism in general is not something I'm a fan of. But that's a different debate.

In terms of human rights abuses we can look at it from two different perspectives. One, look at Chinese culture. The Western ideas of human rights are quite a lot different from the Eastern ideas, and especially in China where you have Confucian ideas of community as a fabric with each citizen as a thread. There is a strong sense that one should care for their community the most, and not much for those outside it.

I'm not saying this is right. I'm going by knowledge of philisophy and studying under Dr. Hagen, a guy who's written a book on Confucianism and stuff.

Of course you could also look at it from the perspective of Universal rights and wrongs.

Can anybody really defend shooting monks for crossing an invisable line? For cutting holes in the cheeks of people and filling their stomaches with feces for believing something different? (Check out the torture of Falun Gong members http://www.flghrwg.net/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=50&Itemid=) How about hours working in sweatshops and factories for little pay? And god, don't get me started on abuses by American companies with factories stationed there (I'm looking at you, Wal-Mart).

But of course, China is massive. The urban capitalist class is actually a minority, as the majority of Chinese still live very rural farming lives. It's a very interesting situation.

But, my opinion on China? Politically I'm confused, and not sure why it calls itself communist but acts capitalist and is democratic and authoritarian and....it's it own thing. Economically it's booming away, but at the cost of massive oil and gas issues...But in the end who's to say a Chinese citizen can't drive a car when almost every American does? (And SUVs and Hummers...please...) Human rights are piss poor and inexcusable, regardless of whatever culutral arguments you can make.

Though, maybe not shockingly, China is far more committed to maintaining peace and stability throughout the world then the USA. For example, they wished for outer space to remain neutral. But guess which country has said it's all theirs, and have begun to invest in massive outer-space missile systems and doo-dads that would make Ronnie Regan wet himself?

 

[GOD]

Poor fuckers !!!

How unlucky that they got tortured instead of being hung up naked by their feet and water boarded and beaten up in a concentration camp called Guantanamo bay .

How unlucky for them that they didnt get kidnapped from foreign countrys and flown to syria and moroco to have electric shocks aplied to their balls and their bones broken while on LSD .

How unlucky for them that they didnt get fucked in the arse in Abu Graib .

How unlucky for them that they didnt get held for years in a concentration camp with no evidence against them exept for what the torturers say they admited .

How unlucky for them that they werent given a secret trial with no legal representation after the world has been told that they are guilty and that the only just sentance is that they should be executed .

How unlucky for them that they didnt eat the same dead animals as some chinese do .

How unlucky for them that they didnt land in an electric chair or a gas chamber .

How unlucky for them that they werent black in a civilised world where black people are treated like they are subhuman .



Lets run away from our problems and blame the Chinese .

Lets make them all wear stars on their chests and gas them .

Lets say they are a threat to world peace and that we have to protect ourselves from them and declair war on them .


The world is full of totalitarian governments and there are no democracys . Totalitarian governments come on a scale from bad to worse . If we look at history the chinese come off better than the british empire and its follow on systems like america .

There are only two choices , democracy means that the people decide and totalitarianism is when a small "elite"/mafia/gang decide for us .

Where does fashism start ? It starts in our heads when we start to run away from our own rersponsibilitys , when we stop being fair , when we start to blame others for our "problems" .

Thats is why i didnt join in the fitna thread .

 

[magickmumu]

Where does fashism start ? It starts in our heads when we start to run away from our own rersponsibilitys , when we stop being fair , when we start to blame others for our "problems


facisme starts when you turn your head. When you don't speak up when people get killed.

 

[HeartCore]

removed the troll food

 

[st.bot.32]

Democracy is still totalitarianism when it usurps its boundaries. As an example in the first half of the 20th century when the majority hated gays, the majority ruled. True democracy taken to the extreme means 50.1% of the people tell the other 49.9% how to live their lives.

Governmental power of any kind has the potential to be abused... I would hope that this thread at its heart is about inexcusable abuse of government power, not about hating a particular ethnicity.

 

[GOD]

There has never been a real democracy . Part of a real democracy would be that the people are educated to think for themselves and learn the benefits of being objective and fair . In those days like now public opinion was controled by vested interests , the church and the press .

 

[st.bot.32]

There has never been a real democracy . Part of a real democracy would be that the people are educated to think for themselves and learn the benefits of being objective and fair . In those days like now public opinion was controled by vested interests , the church and the press .

Yes, here where I live the separation between church and state didn't happen until rather late in the 20th century.

Even now the separation between church and state is a joke, as obviously when people believe in their religion to the point where they "know" they are right and everyone else is wrong, they use politics as a tool to push their beliefs on everyone else.

 

[drk]

Crazy poeple! They do not respect the people, the tibet! They had to accept the train construct by the chinese. (so even for the future of the nature in tibet)

The contaminating blood, the yan tsé barrage, the exploitation of their poeple! Too much contamitate by the profit and the performance. Even If they have a marvelous civilisation and some pretty nice phylosophy they are to much individualist! Or there is a to big difference between the "2 classes"


For the Olympic games... no comment!

like most of the world you would say, but we try to make europe, united nations, etc... The next step is to help the third world now and respect our planet! make it green again!

 

[tryptonaut]

It seems like this thread is still going on...

I have to chime in again because I think the arguments that the US doesn't behave any better than China aren't really good arguments...
By the way I do think that the USA, albeit Guantanamo Bay and other things, are on a better way than China, because when they do bad things they try to conceal them - that makes me think they know what they shouldn't be doing - as where in China there doesn't seem to be any bad conscience about it.

About the age-old culture, well... Europe descended from the Roman Empire. If we were still living the values of the Roman Empire then we had slaves and we would crucify criminals or feed them to lions in a public arena. I was not ever to critizice the ancient Chinese culture. I just think the modern Chinese world view (imposed by the government onto the people) is rather fascist and could be dangerous if accepted too easily under the terms of global acceptance.

I know the big capitalist players love China a lot because they would like to impose the modern Chinese view on the whole world. China is a gold mine for capitalism because the individual has no rights unless they have power (that is money). The western culture has fought a long way to eliminate that rule and give people individual rights and freedom even if they are not rich. My concern is that by accepting too easily China as the new star on the capitalistic horizon, we will all lose our rights again and end up like poor Chinese workers again - with no rights and no freedom.

 

[restin]

my thoughts to this topic.

1. The west hates China because it became so powerful. Same as with Russia/Soviet Union. Also the west hates communism, well it's in the genes.

2. About tibet: well first of all, there wasn't a "democracy" in tibet before the chinese came. The monks were basically ruling over the rest. It was rather a dictatorship. Who is demonstrating against china? Monks, the aristocracy of the old culture. Also Tibet is an autonomous region and a tibetian has more rights than a chinese, as e.g. the children restriction.

I have to chime in again because I think the arguments that the US doesn't behave any better than China aren't really good arguments...

That's the third point. ALthough it is not a reason to do bad because the others do too, America and all the West should better watch out on their own hands.

The contaminating blood, the yan tsé barrage, the exploitation of their poeple! Too much contamitate by the profit and the performance. Even If they have a marvelous civilisation and some pretty nice phylosophy they are to much individualist! Or there is a to big difference between the "2 classes"

China is now developing to a capitalistic country. It lives through industrialisation. Individualism is only arising.

The Eastern Philosophy is actually very sociable. Read "What does it mean to be human?", interesting thoughts about East/West.

like most of the world you would say, but we try to make europe, united nations, etc... The next step is to help the third world now and respect our planet! make it green again!

The UN is the funniest Joke the US has ever made...the EU is the funniest joke Europe has ever made...Please, you can't take them serious!

Yes, here where I live the separation between church and state didn't happen until rather late in the 20th century.

The US/Canada, the East never had the Enlghtenment Era. This is an important reason why the US e.g. still has such a strong Church.[/quote]

 

[GOD]

"The UN is the funniest Joke the US has ever made...the EU is the funniest joke Europe has ever made"

I agree that they are both bad jokes / farces .

 

[psm]

My general feelings toward china?
neutral.

my feelings in detail?
mixed


I like their achievmnets and their food. I like their philosophies and zen. I think the country is beautiful and full od wonderful weirdness.

politically? it is right next to russia, the usa and north korea. a country that was abused politically by some real bad motherfuckers.

but china (unlike the others) always had a certain way of dealing with such things. it just takes a while...

Soon after Kublai Kahn, the grandson of Genghis Khan, at last conquered China and became the Emperor, he realized, that it was not China, that turned mongolian, but it was him, turning chinese.
Each and every invasion of china ended the same way. Whoever came, became chinese. Same thing happens here. The revolution was a struggle, but in time, it will be only another resemblence of chinese perfection to assimilate every cultural influence and turn it chinsese. Yes, they are rude, harsh and unmerciful, but not more so then other countries. They are just a little bit more alien and as such, peopel do not as easy relate to them as to france, america, russia ect.

What they do economically is disastrous, but they do it, because they have to. It's inevitable.

 

[magickmumu]

http://falunhr.org/index.php

 

[psm]

http://falunhr.org/index.php

I see no difference to any other aggressive country...


Sure they do bad things. So does the US, Russia, most Countries in Africa, India, Pakistan and what not...
And propaganda works for both sides.

 

[magickmumu]

There is no difference

 

[restin]

There is no difference:

"In Mexico and US border, around five thousand people have died or been killed trying to cross the border in the last thirteen years, according to a document created by the Human Rights National Commission of Mexico, also signed by the American Civil Liberties Union Between October, 2003, and April, 2004, 660,390 people were detained by the United States Border Patrol as they tried to cross the border."

 

[magickmumu]

There is no difference:

"In Mexico and US border, around five thousand people have died or been killed trying to cross the border in the last thirteen years, according to a document created by the Human Rights National Commission of Mexico, also signed by the American Civil Liberties Union Between October, 2003, and April, 2004, 660,390 people were detained by the United States Border Patrol as they tried to cross the border."

what has this to do with China???

 

[psm]

There is no difference:

"In Mexico and US border, around five thousand people have died or been killed trying to cross the border in the last thirteen years, according to a document created by the Human Rights National Commission of Mexico, also signed by the American Civil Liberties Union Between October, 2003, and April, 2004, 660,390 people were detained by the United States Border Patrol as they tried to cross the border."

what has this to do with China???

It shows, that china is not particular worse or better then any other state.

 

[magickmumu]

It's not about who is better or worst. Is about people being killed and tortured.

 

[GOD]

"It's not about who is better or worst. Is about people being killed and tortured."

Thats what the comment about america was about .