Business in China

[DaShi]

Originally posted by Mao
I didn't say you were. You said that you posted positive things about China too, and pointed to the girl-power and the interviews as an example. At least that's how I interpreted it. *shrug*

I don't see why I need to worry about whether a thread is positive or negative about China. If it interests me, I post it. People can agree, disagree, or ignore. They can also attack the poster, but I disagree with that approach.

I don't know if you do. I never said you did. I said other people appear to have the iimpression that you do...a lot. Maybe they make some sense? I don't know. But to dismiss them all as crazy is...well...a bit counterproductive for a "discussion" isn't it?

That's my problem. I don't believe that I do. Know one seems to be able to show me where I do. Posting articles about China, good or bad, only shows that I am interested in the subject. I suppose if I posted articles that truly said that China was evil or horrible, then they might have a point. But I haven't. They seem to have drawn that conclusion on their own based on what they read. So here I am, confused by all this hostility. To me it does seem a bit crazy and biased.

[DaShi]

I suppose there is only one solution.

[mindseye]

I think stories like this are more common than people realize. I was just reading another about a British businessman in Shandong province being held against his will at a factory. He claimed he couldn't pay his Chinese supplier because the supplier broke his exclusivity contract, and began selling directly to the Brit's customers, ruining the fellow's company.

Some guy showed up at the factory where the Brit was held, and insisted he sign a paper surrendering his assets to his Chinese partner, or else go to prison. He refused, eventually got some legal help, and went to trial. There, he recognized the man who came to the factory to insist he sign over his company. The man was the judge.

It's hard to say that the problem is Factor X because there's not really just one cause. It's quite a number of interlocked, mutually-reinforcing factors. The primary ones would have to include: lack of independant legal system, unaccountable political system, the impotence of the national gov't in ruling the provinces, the ubiquitousness of corruption in all corners of the economy, and a business culture in which "cheating" (breaking contracts, fake products, "dirty tricks", etc) is too often considered acceptable practice as long as it gets you money, or you don't get caught.

I suppose you could throw in gov't control of the media as a contributing factor.

It seems to me almost impossible to make much difference to any of these factors as long as the others exist. That's what makes serious reform so daunting here.

I think most Chinese just accept it as "the way things are", and do their best to play the game by its rules, such as they are.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Tingkai


Come on Kuci. You're smart. I shouldn't have to explain this to you.

Mao was complaining that even though he is American, people think he is a foreigner. They see him as Chinese, rather than Chinese-American, or American.

You said bullsh!t.

In the next message, you then described all the ethnic Chinese as simply Chinese.

Because they ARE ethnic Chinese.

The precise term is ethnic Chinese. In the context of this discussion, if you say someone is Chinese then you're saying they are Chinese citizens.

No I'm not. You just wish I was.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by VJ
Yeah, well drop us a line when you grow up, start working on your own and move out from the suburbs of D.C.; then we'll know when is the time to start taking your world-views seriously.

LOTM seems to think I'd have more experience and knowledge about interactions between whites and Asian-Americans...

Originally posted by lord of the mark
Kuci attends an elite science and technology HS in Northern Virginia. So hes certainly had a chance to witness interaction between whites and asian-americans among a section of Americas youth. How representative that group is, is another matter.

And why would a Finn's views be meaningful at all?

[Mao]

Originally posted by DaShi


I agree. I don't think there has to be warning signs placed everywhere just because of one extreme incident. But I do think that a lot of businesses are blinded by the dollar signs in their eyes when it comes to China. Also, I don't think these type of incidents are justified because they should have known better. If that's the case, no one should deal with China.

Ah...so their greed blinds them. That's a problem too. I'm totally not saying that it's justified at all. I agree that's it's not.

The next generation is truly important. They will soon be the one's making the big decisions for this country. It's hard to say what they will be like. Unfortunately, there isn't a system here where the people have a means of peacefully sueing for change. They either have to hope their leaders will do it on their own accord or resort to riots to try to coerce them to make change.

Exactly, there are programs (at least one) that make people think about morality, rule of law, playing by the rules, etc. And these are need to be what's encouraged. This, with enough support, will change China. It's peaceful and it's a "non-threatening" way to change them. How can programs like these be encouraged?

In this case, they should be demanding the return of their citizen with some admonishment for the action. Beyond that, I think it would be good if they helped Apex to pay off some of the debt to try to ease tensions between the two countries.

Yeah, where the hell is the US Consulate/Embassy on this???

I don't see why I need to worry about whether a thread is positive or negative about China. If it interests me, I post it. People can agree, disagree, or ignore. They can also attack the poster, but I disagree with that approach.

I didn't say you did. I just thought you said the interviews were a positive example, maybe you didn't mean it that way, I don't know.

That's my problem. I don't believe that I do. Know one seems to be able to show me where I do. Posting articles about China, good or bad, only shows that I am interested in the subject. I suppose if I posted articles that truly said that China was evil or horrible, then they might have a point. But I haven't. They seem to have drawn that conclusion on their own based on what they read. So here I am, confused by all this hostility. To me it does seem a bit crazy and biased.

*shrug* Let people think what they will

[Bosh]

So? I get "what kind of a name is _____"

Well Boshko confuses a lot of people, I've had people think it was Italian or Basque

if your view seems so negative (which Bosh also acknowledges), why would you stay there voluntarily?

I love Korea silly, but I constantly ***** about the stranger aspects of it with my whitey colleages. Back before I had whitey colleages I was friendly with I posted more things about Korea on 'poly and 99% of them were negative (mostly on the lines of "look how bizarre Korean pop culture is!"). In addition the Koreans I deal with are much more westernized than the Chinese that Dashi deals with and the SKorean governmetn is far less odious than the Chinese government, which gives me less reason to have to resort to 'poly to let off steam. If I lived in China I'm sure I would enjoy living there a great deal and I'm sure I would post as many negative threads about it as Dashi does.

There is a strain of people who live in foreign countries just to get money/***** and generally despise country in general and most of its people. Nothing that Dashi's ever posted has indicated to me that he's part of that crowd. He's always very logical and reasonable about things and his criticism is always centered on the (evil) Chinese government rather then on the Chinese people.

Hey Kuci, have you ever used an Asian toilet?

Aaaaaaargh! They ****ing suck! Especially the ones that don't have any TP in the stalls just in the main room. Thankfully Seoul's are almost all western. Tip: if you want a clean toilet, Starbucks is your friend. They're the only chain that will ALWAYS have clean and western toilets.

I never understood the whining migrants. We get them in Hong Kong. They're constantly *****ing about the place, the people, the food, everything.

Which Dashi doesn't do. All of the complaints that I've ever seen him make are very reasonable. People like you describe do exist though, and they're the scum of the earth. For some strange reason most of them seem to be Kiwis

Ah...so their greed blinds them. That's a problem too. I'm totally not saying that it's justified at all. I agree that's it's not.

I've dealt with Korean businessmen and there is a HUGE tendency for them to have very little respect for contracts and from everything I've heard this applies even moreso to Chinese businessmen. This can be very very painful when you're on the receiving end of this (as I have).

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by DaShi


Describe how hostage taking is perfectly legitimate.

Alright, I'm pretty much done with this conversation, and especially your ****ty attitude. I simply pointed out that you seem to have a very negative view of China, borne out by a pattern of threads you've started over time, which led me to wonder why you stay there. I guess to you, that means I am now defending China/calling you a racist and gives you carte blanche to act like a dick.

In the future, you may try to work towards some reading comprehension and/or not assuming that someone who questions you is attacking you. In specific response to the above quote, I meant that the negative stories were legitimate, not that the actions they describe are legitimate. Perhaps if you were less concerned about countering my non-existant defense of Chinese practices, you would have noticed that I explicitly said that I don't dispute what you post.

[Barnabas]

Isnt the catholic church still outlawed in China? and the underground priests/bishops often kidnapped, sent to jail or killed?


That subject is barely ever treated in the media, like they dont care, Cuba always gets condemned in the UN for the human rights in the islands, does the same happen to china?

[Mao]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Isnt the catholic church still outlawed in China? and the underground priests/bishops often kidnapped, sent to jail or killed?


That subject is barely ever treated in the media, like they dont care, Cuba always gets condemned in the UN for the human rights in the islands, does the same happen to china?

Human rights is a whole other animal...and a start to a lot of other topics. "Human rights" also isn't something as easy as a soundbyte as people would like, it's a very complicated subject (including what is a human right? Who grants it? Who deserves it? etc. etc.) which is actually very interesting to me. China doesn't get condemned much in the UN for probably the same reason the USSR didn't...*shrug*

Catholic Church? I'm not sure, China has it's own official Catholic Church that doesn't recognize the Vatican. However, for the most part, it appears that the government seems only to care about the spread of religion in cities, watching closely while not paying attention to the countryside. No one's done actual studies on this, but some believe there to be a big religious movement in the countryside that the government doesn't seem to care about, others say that's bull. It's kinda like Tibet, no one actually knows what's going on there politically.

[Barnabas]

dude, the roman catholic church is illegal,

if the official patrotic catholic church doesnt recognize the pope, then, they are as catholic as the anglicans.
the patriotic church priests for example cant teach against abortion.

"
August 20, 2004

SHANGHAI, China --Police in northern China detained eight priests from the underground Catholic Church in a raid on a religious retreat, a U.S.-based religious monitoring group reported.

Priests Huo Junlong, Zhang Zhenqian and another identified simply as Father Huang were among those held following the Aug. 6 raid on the village of Sujiazhuang in Hebei province, the Cardinal Kung Foundation reported.

The names of the other five priests weren't immediately known, said the group, which is based in Stamford, Connecticut. It said two seminary students were also detained in the raid.

All are being held at a detention center in the city of Baoding, it said. A man who answered the phone at the city's police bureau said he had no information about the report.

China broke ties with the Vatican in 1951 and demands that Catholics worship only in churches approved by the state-controlled church group that does not recognize the pope's authority.

Many Chinese Catholics, however, remain loyal to Rome and risk arrest by worshipping in unofficial churches and private homes. The state church claims 4 million believers, but the Cardinal Kung Foundation said the unofficial church has 12 million followers.

The foundation said Huo and Zhang were priests in the Baoding diocese, whose underground bishop, Su Zhiming, and auxiliary bishop, An Shuxin, were arrested in the late 1990s and haven't been seen in public since.

At least 19 clergy from the underground church are now in detention in China, the foundation said. Most are from Hebei, a stronghold of Catholic activism
"

[Mao]

*shrug* OK, I didn't say it wasn't illegal, I said it wasn't sure.

[Bosh]

My main beef with the Chinese government is that whenever it catches North Korean refugees it automatically deports them to the north. I don't care how you look at it, there's no other way to describe that but evil.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Bosh
My main beef with the Chinese government is that whenever it catches North Korean refugees it automatically deports them to the north. I don't care how you look at it, there's no other way to describe that but evil.

I agree its evil, but if they let people in there will be a flood of refugees. China is in a no-win situation.

And that's true for many countries. The US routinely turns back Cuban refugees. Most countries reject refugees.

If you have a viable situation, great.

Life sucks.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Because they ARE ethnic Chinese.

The precise term is ethnic Chinese. In the context of this discussion, if you say someone is Chinese then you're saying they are Chinese citizens.

No I'm not. You just wish I was.

Jesus Christ, Kuci.

I know you got brains, but stop being pig headed about this.

You smart enough to understand what I'm saying.

Mao is saying he gets pissed off by people who think he is a foreigner. It happens too many times. It's happened to me. The only difference is that now I don't give a **** about those idiots.

If you call an Chinese-American Chinese, then you are insulting them. They're not Chinese. They are Americans of Chinese descent. It's that ****ing simple.