Who lost China's Internet?

[Urban Ranger]

Re: Through the Looking Glass

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I forgot to mention the fact that people are sentenced to death for bringing Bibles of all things into the country.

I suppose misrepresentation is the order of the day after you ran out of bad things to say, eh? Shameful.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
Alinestra:
I disagree with this statement. What happened at Tiananmen is not even remotely comparable in motive or scope to what happened at say Kent State. I think The more relevant comparison is to earlier cycles in Chinese history.

That seems to be a myth that many Westerners believe.

Originally posted by Adam Smith
I agree with this. I think the reelvant comparison is not to the US or other western countries, but to earlier cycles of Chinese history. Chinese dynasties begin their reign with the promise and realization of reform. The whole system gradually becomes more unwieldy under the burden of trying to govern so many people. Chinese dyasties eventually became repressive or corrupt, and collapsed under their own weight, to be supplanted by a new round of reformers.

The regimes (dynasties) became more oppressive as time wore on. The Tang government is widely held to be the most open, and the Ming least. (With the exception of the ultra-repressive Yuan dynasty). The Qing government was initially more open - after the dust had settled down - but became more oppresive quickly.

[Adam Smith]

UR:

That seems to be a myth that many Westerners believe.

Are you saying that Kent State is comparable to Tiananmen? Given the number of people killed and the question of motive I don't see how you can defend that statement.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
UR:

Are you saying that Kent State is comparable to Tiananmen? Given the number of people killed and the question of motive I don't see how you can defend that statement.

The number of people killed is of course different.

The motives, however, are highly similar.

[KrazyHorse]

From what I know, Kent State mainly happened because a group of twitchy "soldiers" got a crappy order, got themselves into a bad situation and panicked. Tienanmen was a very different affair.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
From what I know, Kent State mainly happened because a group of twitchy "soldiers" got a crappy order, got themselves into a bad situation and panicked. Tienanmen was a very different affair.

Acknowledged.

Anyway I don't see how this is relevant to the discussion. Boycotting will only fuel more Tiananmen Massascres. The poorer the people, the more likely they'll demonstrate. The more desperate the government, the crazier things it will do.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't think there should be an out-and-out boycott, but I certainly don't think that we should have a completely open trading relationship with them either.

[ranskaldan]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
I don't think there should be an out-and-out boycott, but I certainly don't think that we should have a completely open trading relationship with them either.

okay....
which restrictions would you like then? i might end up agreeing with you.

[KrazyHorse]

I don't know...

Charge a higher import duty than on the more democratic countries, put a cap on imports, put potentially military resources on a "no-no" list (the last one is probably already in effect). Make future improvements in human rights a potentially profitable endeavor by promising to reduce tariffs if certain conditions are met...

This is basically the same sort of trading arrangement I think we should have with most of the world, with the specifics being dependent on which country we're talking about.

[Urban Ranger]

That is going to be difficult for a number of reasons.

Firstly, there's the WTO.

Secondly, this human rights business is nebulous and controversial. Whose definition of human rights is it going to be? Who gave you power to interfere in another country's sovereignty? On what basis do you make such criticisms - against some ideal utopia, or against your own country?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Adam Smith
Are you saying that Kent State is comparable to Tiananmen? Given the number of people killed and the question of motive I don't see how you can defend that statement.

I have a friend who was in Beijing during the whole thing, and his account is completely different from what you can see on Western (mainly US) media. Given that he has no motives to lie, and that Western media often has an axe to grind against the PRC, I would certainly give his account more credibility. [Just take the Washington Post's own spin of accusing Li Peng as behind the bugging of Jiang Jimang's airplane for example - that's just as silly as saying Kennedy's assassinated by the CIA]

Furthermore, I have a French documentary showing many of the events. It has more similarity to my friend's account than the CNN one, which seem to be the, *cough* authoritative *cough* version upon which lots of people rely.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


I have a friend who was in Beijing during the whole thing, and his account is completely different from what you can see on Western (mainly US) media. Given that he has no motives to lie, and that Western media often has an axe to grind against the PRC, I would certainly give his account more credibility. [Just take the Washington Post's own spin of accusing Li Peng as behind the bugging of Jiang Jimang's airplane for example - that's just as silly as saying Kennedy's assassinated by the CIA]

Furthermore, I have a French documentary showing many of the events. It has more similarity to my friend's account than the CNN one, which seem to be the, *cough* authoritative *cough* version upon which lots of people rely.

Sorry, UR but I've got a German documentary that says Tiannanmen was far worse than what the US media reported. But China and the US were on much friendlier terms at the time so it is not surprising that they would try to soften it a bit. Haven't you read the official document yet? Oh yeah, you don't rely on truthful or even real evidence to make your biased and racist conclusions.

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
That is going to be difficult for a number of reasons.

Firstly, there's the WTO.

Secondly, this human rights business is nebulous and controversial. Whose definition of human rights is it going to be? Who gave you power to interfere in another country's sovereignty? On what basis do you make such criticisms - against some ideal utopia, or against your own country?

Yay! UR won't talk about the US anymore!

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


That seems to be a myth that many Westerners believe.

This seems to be a myth only UR believes. I don't have to argue it. It's so obvious.

The regimes (dynasties) became more oppressive as time wore on. The Tang government is widely held to be the most open, and the Ming least. (With the exception of the ultra-repressive Yuan dynasty). The Qing government was initially more open - after the dust had settled down - but became more oppresive quickly.

On world scale, China's regimes have been highly repressive since the Chin, where the emperor happily threw lives away to assert his power (kind of like Mao) and support his quest for immortality. True, the Tang was the most open, but I wouldn't say anything bad about the local officials or the emperor for that matter. Plus, corruption was ramport with teh merit based testing for government officials. Actually China's politics and economy haven't changed too much since the Chin. The names have changed, but the systems had remained the same. Not until Deng XiaoPing's economic reform was there any significant change. This was an extremely positive step for China to break out of its cycle and move toward democracy. Sino-US relations improved dramatically as well. However, the emperor based system was still there. Deng clearly had sweeping power over the country, even though he was no longer president. You can see a similar role for Jiang. Look at Bush's recent visit to China. Bush as a modern western leader was comfortable dealing with reporters and the public, while Jiang, still a symbol of the old regime, was flustered and uncomfortable in the public light. However, Jiang was no where near as reclusive as Deng, and I'd imagine that Hu will be even less so. All this speaks toward a gradual and positive change for China's poltical system away from tyranical totalitism to a republican democracy, though starkly different from the US. The framework is there in China's constitution.

Sorry, UR, I know your not used to such lengthy arguments. Please feel free to post one line responses, if it makes you feel better.

[DinoDoc]

Re: Re: Through the Looking Glass

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
I suppose misrepresentation is the order of the day after you ran out of bad things to say, eh? Shameful.

Everything that I've posted to this thread regarding the freedoms allowed in China has been true, UR.