Just a quick respond to Capt_Spoogy
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Originally posted by capt_spoogy:
CW - Don't assume ALL the west is moulding China into an enemy.
I admit you are quite right in terms of politics, but it seems to me that subconsciously, Chinese somehow seems to be looked down as "second class" people by most westerners. I hope you can tell me I'm totally wrong.
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While I agree that China could make use of a better government system, it seems rather strange that people not even living in the country is pushing for a change harder than the Chinese themselves.
Perhaps it's because they get mowed down by tanks or just plain disappear when they do...
That is not the primary reason at all. As I said before the leadership in China has been changed since the incident in 1989, and I really doubt that they will do the same thing again if a similar situation occurs again. Besides, using tanks to crush a protest is an over-kill!
If you think the government in China is still a true and honest Communist government then you have got it totally wrong. Ever since the 1970 the place is becoming more and more of a capitalist world, that's why they had those hugh corruption cases involving PRIVATE Chinese coporations running into billions of dollars. As you guys living in Canada might have heard, the prime suspect for one of the largest corruption case in modern China is currently being detained in Canada.
Nowadays the top aganda for most people in China is the economy. They are A LOT more money-minded then they were 30 or 40 years ago when China was still running under a true Communist system, and politics has somewhat taken a second place since. Try going to Beijin and give the local people a lecture on Communism doctrines, they will tell you to get a life!
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In some ways I'm glad they got the olympics - but it worries me that the people who control China will use it as a propaganda display saying there's no problem with their country during those 16 days...
In my opinion, the reason for Beijin's Olympic bid is much more economical than political. Besides, the local citizens want the Games themselves. This is a matter of nationalism or patriotism or whatever you want to call it. Bad government or not, China IS their mother country, this is more of a Chinese cultural thing than government propaganda as some of you suggested. Even if the Chinese government does try to use the occasion to tell the world they have a great system, will you believe it? Do you really think they want eggs all over their faces?
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I think in this day and age that should be moving towards democracy a lot faster than they are. If the majority of Chinese know what the west was really like (as oppossed to the propaganda fed to them) - what lifestyle would they choose?
First of all, do you think the Chinese government is still actively feeding propaganda about the west? That would be a rather silly thing to do nowadays. They wouldn't have done that AND let thousands of students travel overseas to study every year. I admit that they still try to censor things but it is already much more open then it used to, and I'm sure it will continue to change for the better. As to the pace of change, what are you basing your judgement on? What is slow and what is fast? Every country or culture has its own unique charateristic, it is simply wrong to apply one set of "rules" to another. Taiwan for example only had their first real general election Last year or the year before, and the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) finally got kicked out of office after some 90 years in power. I bet nobody in China would want to see any political reform rushed, the current governemnt in China is perfectly stable and if that changes you might end up with a collapsed economy like Russia. In fact if you look at Zhu Rongji's speeches in meetings inside China, the first thing he talks about most of the time is how he is going to control corruption, which is currently unfortunately everywhere in China, an unwanted by-product of the economic reform. That is THE biggest headache-causing problem for the government right now instead of any political unrest in the country or any so called "politically incorrect" people.
As to choosing between the current Chinese life-style and western style, of cause they will choose the Western way! The key question here though, is WHY? Ever since the reforms in the 1970s and 80s, the people had their first real taste of wealth, or in too many cases the lack of it. For the thousands of migrants and boat people leaving China each year, how many do you think is really for political reasons? For the great majority of so called "IIs" (Illegal Immigrants) sneaking into Hong Kong after the 1970/80s Reform, they were looking for a better life. Though from what I saw their definition of "better life" had little to do with the political side of things.
My own family moved to Australia from Hong Kong in 1994. My parents, like a lot of others during that period made their decision due to the worry about the possible government instability after the "handover". But above all, they were worrying that the instability would ruin the economy and way of life in Hong Kong. If you look at the figures, there is a peak of people leaving Hong Kong due to the Tiananmen Square aftershock the few years immeidately after the event, but the number of people leaving each year gradually went down and now we are actually seeing people moving back. My own family will probably do the same too after I graduate from university.
The thing I want to point out here is that things in China is nowhere near as dramatic as many of you think.
[This message has been edited by CW (edited 17 July 2001).]