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-- Who can stop the rise and rise of China? The communists, of course
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Who can stop the rise and rise of China? The communists, of course
I'd have to agree with the below article.
For years now we've been hearing that China-iz-dat-shiznat but do people actually realize what they're saying?? 
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Who can stop the rise and rise of China? The communists, of course By Mark Steyn (Filed: 12/06/2005) Seventy years ago, in the days of Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan, when the inscrutable Oriental had a powerful grip on Occidental culture, Erle Stanley Gardner wrote en passant in the course of a short story: "The Chinese of wealth always builds his house with a cunning simulation of external poverty. In the Orient one may look in vain for mansions, unless one has the entr�e to private homes. The street entrances always give the impression of congestion and poverty, and the lines of architecture are carefully carried out so that no glimpse of the mansion itself is visible over the forbidding false front of what appears to be a squalid hovel." Well, the mansion's pretty much out in the open now. Confucius say: If you got it, flaunt it, baby. China is the preferred vacation destination for middle-class Britons; western businessmen return cooing with admiration over the quality of the WiFi in the lobby Starbucks of their Guangzhou hotels; glittering skylines ascend ever higher from the coastal cities as fleets of BMWs cruise the upscale boutiques in the streets below. The assumption that this will be the "Asian century" is so universal that Jacques Chirac (borrowing from Harold Macmillan vis-�-vis JFK) now promotes himself as Greece to Beijing's Rome, and the marginally less deranged of The Guardian's many Euro-fantasists excuse the EU's sclerosis on the grounds that no one could possibly compete with the unstoppable rise of a Chinese behemoth that by mid-century will have squashed America like the cockroach she is. Even in the US, the cry is heard: Go east, young man! "If I were a young journalist today, figuring out where I should go to make my career, I would go to China," said Philip Bennett, the Washington Post's managing editor, in a fawning interview with the People's Daily in Beijing a few weeks back. "I think China is the best place in the world to be an American journalist right now." Really? Tell it to Zhao Yan of the New York Times' Beijing bureau, who was arrested last September and has been held without trial ever since. What we're seeing is an inversion of what Erle Stanley Gardner observed: a cunning simulation of external wealth and power that is, in fact, a forbidding false front for a state that remains a squalid hovel. Zhao of the Times is not alone in his fate: China jails more journalists than any other country in the world. Ching Cheong, a correspondent for the Straits Times of Singapore, disappeared in April while seeking copies of unpublished interviews with Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party general secretary, who fell from favour after declining to support the Tiananmen Square massacre. And, if that's how the regime treats representatives of leading global publications, you can imagine what "the best place in the world" to be a journalist is like for the local boys. China is (to borrow the formulation they used when they swallowed Hong Kong) "One Country, Two Systems". On the one hand, there's the China the world gushes over - the economic powerhouse that makes just about everything in your house. On the other, there's the largely unreconstructed official China - a regime that, while no longer as zealously ideological as it once was, nevertheless clings to the old techniques beloved of paranoid totalitarianism: lie and bluster in public, arrest and torture in private. China is the Security Council member most actively promoting inaction on Darfur, where (in the most significant long-range military deployment in five centuries), it has 4,000 troops protecting its oil interests. Kim Jong-Il of North Korea is an international threat only because Beijing licenses him as a provocateur with which to torment Washington and Tokyo, in the way that a mob boss will send round a mentally unstable heavy. This is not the behaviour of a psychologically healthy state. How long can these two systems co-exist in one country and what will happen when they collide? If the People's Republic is now the workshop of the world, the Communist Party is the bull in its own China shop. It's unclear, for example, whether they have the discipline to be able to resist moving against Taiwan in the next couple of years. Unlike the demoralised late-period Soviet nomenklatura, Beijing's leadership does not accept that the cause is lost: unlike most outside analysts, they do not assume that the world's first economically viable form of Communism is merely an interim phase en route to a free - or even free-ish - society. Mao, though he gets a better press than Hitler and Stalin, was the biggest mass murderer of all time, with a body count ten times' higher than the Nazis (as Jung Chang's new biography reminds us). The standard line of Sinologists is that, while still perfunct-orily genuflecting to his embalmed corpse in Tiananmen Square, his successors have moved on - just as, in Austin Powers, while Dr Evil is in suspended animation, his Number Two diversifies the consortium's core business away from evildoing and reorients it toward a portfolio of investments including a chain of premium coffee stores. But Maoists with stock options are still Maoists - especially when they owe their robust portfolios to a privileged position within the state apparatus. The internal contradictions of Commie-capitalism will, in the end, scupper the present arrangements in Beijing. China manufactures the products for some of the biggest brands in the world, but it's also the biggest thief of copyrights and patents of those same brands. It makes almost all Disney's official merchandising, yet it's also the country that defrauds Disney and pirates its movies. The new China's contempt for the concept of intellectual property arises from the old China's contempt for the concept of all private property: because most big Chinese businesses are (in one form or another) government-controlled, they've failed to understand the link between property rights and economic development. China hasn't invented or discovered anything of significance in half a millennium, but the careless assumption that intellectual property is something to be stolen rather than protected shows why. If you're a resource-poor nation (as China is), long-term prosperity comes from liberating the creative energies of your people - and Beijing still has no interest in that. If a blogger attempts to use the words "freedom" or "democracy" or "Taiwan independence" on Microsoft's new Chinese internet portal, he gets the message: "This item contains forbidden speech. Please delete the forbidden speech." How pathetic is that? Not just for the Microsoft-spined Corporation, which should be ashamed of itself, but for the Chinese government, which pretends to be a world power but is terrified of words. Does "Commie wimps" count as forbidden speech, too? And what is the likelihood of China advancing to a functioning modern stand-alone business culture if it's unable to discuss anything except within its feudal political straitjackets? Its speech code is a sign not of control but of weakness; its internet protective blocks are not the armour but the, er, chink. India, by contrast, with much less ballyhoo, is advancing faster than China toward a fully-developed economy - one that creates its own ideas. Small example: there are low-fare airlines that sell �40 one-way cross-country air tickets from computer screens at Indian petrol stations. No one would develop such a system for China, where internal travel is still tightly controlled by the state. But, because they respect their own people as a market, Indian businesses are already proving nimbler at serving other markets. The return on investment capital is already much better in India than in China. I said a while back that China was a better bet for the future than Russia or the European Union. Which is damning with faint praise: trapped in a demographic death spiral, Russia and Europe have no future at all. But that doesn't mean China will bestride the scene as a geopolitical colossus. When European analysts coo about a "Chinese century", all they mean is "Oh, God, please, anything other than a second American century". But wishing won't make it so. China won't advance to the First World with its present borders intact. In a billion-strong state with an 80 per cent rural population cut off from the coastal boom and prevented from participating in it, "One country, two systems" will lead to two or three countries, three or four systems. The 21st century will be an Anglosphere century, with America, India and Australia leading the way. Anti-Americans betting on Beijing will find the China shop is in the end mostly a lot of bull. |
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| The 21st century will be an Anglosphere century, with America, India and Australia leading the way. |
allso canada they wont be in the 21st cent
Now some points
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| If you're a resource-poor nation (as China is), long-term prosperity comes from liberating the creative energies of your people - and Beijing still has no interest in that. If a blogger attempts to use the words "freedom" or "democracy" |
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| because they respect their own people as a market, Indian businesses are already proving nimbler at serving other markets. The return on investment capital is already much better in India than in China. |
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| Mao, though he gets a better press than Hitler and Stalin, was the biggest mass murderer of all time, with a body count ten times' higher than the Nazis ( |
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| Russia and Europe have no future at all |
It was still an interesting read tho despite some minor flaws. He does have a really good point about a lot. I think the western world should put more pressure on china, since they rely so heavily on us we could probably get them to change if we tried.
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| Originally posted by metalgearsolid allso canada they wont be in the 21st cent Now some points resource poor? we should see? they have a labor force of 700mill and they are all cheap. Also they have a lot of natural resources and the food they grow may not be enough but its enough rice for them. |
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| yeah mao killed some 40+million of his own ppl but hey it was all progress for the country |
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| Russia no future? they have a lot of oil and they are the biggest country in the world they have a future just for being so damn big. |
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The thing is man ppl have been counterfeiting products from other nations for long back. It wont ruin China but might make them less interesting if they don't fix it. |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r I sure hope you're joking with that opinion... |
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| Originally posted by metalgearsolid no..i am really not joking. look what we americans accomplished from doing forced labor like china. We became the worlds richest country. If china wouldve kept on going like that they would have been the richest country in the world by now. Just imagine a landlord controlling about hundreds if not thousands of ppl without having to pay them. Their would be some really rich ppl and an even richer country. so in order to progress some need to suffer but in the end it will always come out ok |
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| Originally posted by metalgearsolid no..i am really not joking. look what we americans accomplished from doing forced labor like china. We became the worlds richest country. If china wouldve kept on going like that they would have been the richest country in the world by now. Just imagine a landlord controlling about hundreds if not thousands of ppl without having to pay them. Their would be some really rich ppl and an even richer country. so in order to progress some need to suffer but in the end it will always come out ok |
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| Originally posted by metalgearsolid no..i am really not joking. look what we americans accomplished from doing forced labor like china. We became the worlds richest country. If china wouldve kept on going like that they would have been the richest country in the world by now. Just imagine a landlord controlling about hundreds if not thousands of ppl without having to pay them. Their would be some really rich ppl and an even richer country. so in order to progress some need to suffer but in the end it will always come out ok |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r Actually it's due to the fact that America didn't have taxes until...the 1st world war? (Someone can correct me on that time frame plz) and businesses flourished because of it; hence the country became wealthy. When (disclaimer: legitmate businesses) businesses do well, everybody wins. (Unless you're Enron but that's a whoooole different issue) |
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| From the article China is (to borrow the formulation they used when they swallowed Hong Kong) "One Country, Two Systems". On the one hand, there's the China the world gushes over - the economic powerhouse that makes just about everything in your house. On the other, there's the largely unreconstructed official China - a regime that, while no longer as zealously ideological as it once was, nevertheless clings to the old techniques beloved of paranoid totalitarianism: lie and bluster in public, arrest and torture in private. |
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| From the article Kim Jong-Il of North Korea is an international threat only because Beijing licenses him as a provocateur with which to torment Washington and Tokyo, in the way that a mob boss will send round a mentally unstable heavy. This is not the behaviour of a psychologically healthy state. |
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| From the article It's unclear, for example, whether they have the discipline to be able to resist moving against Taiwan in the next couple of years. |
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| From the article China hasn't invented or discovered anything of significance in half a millennium, |
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| From the article I said a while back that China was a better bet for the future than Russia or the European Union. Which is damning with faint praise: trapped in a demographic death spiral, Russia and Europe have no future at all. |
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| Originally posted by metalgearsolid Russia no future? they have a lot of oil and they are the biggest country in the world they have a future just for being so damn big. |
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| Originally posted by metalgearsolid Why did the article miss jap? huh are they not important? |
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| Originally posted by occrider Actually what made America rich was the industrial revolution which had very little to do with slavery and more to do with a variety of other factors including an abundance of natural resources, technological innovation, large labor pool, etc. Furthermore, what made America REALLY rich was due to the massive economic capitulation of the European economies following WW 1. |
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| Originally posted by TheNobleEu One of the big factors never seemingly discussed in the news is that means of delivery is a much more crucial factor than simple development of nuclear weapons. The bit with North Korea has been escalading largely over their having developed an ICBM called the Taepo-Dong II, which is capable of striking the western coast of the USA (but telling that to the US public would create a lot of panic). |
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When North Korea fired off its ICBM the USA shit its pants and ordered the nuclear-Carrier battlegroup the USS Kitty Hawk offshore of North Korea (modern parlance of gunboat diplomacy). This was later withdrawn for the second Gulf War, but just a week ago American presence was reestablished by stationing a squadron of Stealth fighters in an American airbase in Japan. |
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This sort of thing produces chuckles in North Korea, not fear. If there is any country in Asia the US understands the least, it is definitely the DPRK. The USA will never bully the North Koreans into agreeing on the colour of the sky, and the sooner they learn that the better. (They learned little from the Korean War of 1950, it seems). |
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Not unclear at all. As long as Taiwan doesn't proclaim independence, China won't act. Taiwans knows this and is biding its time. |
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America got rich on the industrialization that was the direct result of both World Wars. They were essentially back then (and still are) the arms dealer par excellence, who was very badly needed to continue the war efforts. |
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| Originally posted by occrider Huh? The Taepo-Dong II's supposed threat to the US has long been public knowledge. |
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| Originally posted by occrider Add these two factors together and you have a very inefficient, inaccurate, and untested ICBM. |
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| Originally posted by occrider And this is the exact response needed to counter N. Korea's brinkmanship dimplomacy. |
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| Originally posted by occrider Of course the US understands N. Korea the least. NOBODY understands N. Korea. Even China is flustered by N. Korean behaviour. The US won't be able to bully N. Korea, but the intent is to NOT be bullied by N. Korea ... hopefully a little was learned from the 90's. |
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| Originally posted by occrider If China attacks unprovoked, and the US responds, Japan is treaty bound to aid the US/Taiwan. It more or less draws a thick line in the sand to counter the line in the sand drawn by the Chinese anti-secession law. |
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| Originally posted by occrider America's wealth and industrial might, not just potential, were well entrenched long before both wars however. For example, America overtook Great Britain as the world's manufacturing powerhouse in the 1890s, well before both wars: |
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| Originally posted by TheNobleEu "Huh?" You mean the Taepo-Dong II the mainstream media claims can only hit Hawaii? |
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While testifying at a Senate committee hearing in Washington, CIA Director George Tenet was asked whether North Korea had a ballistic missile capable of reaching the U.S. West Coast. Before answering, Tenet turned to very quickly consult with aides sitting behind him. "I think the declassified answer, is yes, they can do that," Tenet said. . . . The estimate is not new -- it was laid out in an unclassified CIA document in December 2001-- but Tenet is the most senior U.S. official to say so publicly. The 2001 report said North Korea's Taepo Dong 2 missile may be capable of hitting the West Coast of the United States, as well Alaska and Hawaii. |
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Probably, you hope. Guidance systems are a notorious bugbear. This must be what generated your source's comment that: "Today, this missile represents the single greatest nuclear threat to the United States." |
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They don't practice "brinkmanship diplomacy." They practice "I'll pretend I'm a threat so I can get fed" diplomacy. |
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Oh? Such as...? The DPRK is hardly a bully to the US -- it's crying out to be rescued from its crack habit. |
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You really think the US would respond against China over Taiwan? BTW did you see this? http://www.spacewar.com/2005/050605033647.nq079zm7.html |
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During an earlier interview with ABC television, Bush said he would do "whatever it takes" to defend Taiwan from any Chinese attack -- comments that appeared to change long-standing U.S. doctrine toward China and coincided with rising tensions between Washington and Beijing. Bush said he did not consider his comments a change in policy, though no other president has made such an explicit commitment to the defense of Taiwan. "Our nation will help Taiwan defend itself," he said. "At the same time, we support the one-China policy, and we expect the dispute to be resolved peacefully." http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOL...bush.taiwan.03/ |
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I'd be interested in reading the article linked to the image (wikipedia?) but I couldn't get at anything at the base URLs. I can't think of anything relevant that was going on during the 1890s... Cheers, -Noble |
Al1TS2CDLMJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution+industrial+revolution+wiki&hl=en[/url]Re: Who can stop the rise and rise of China? The communists, of course
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| article: When European analysts coo about a "Chinese century", all they mean is "Oh, God, please, anything other than a second American century". But wishing won't make it so. |
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| Originally posted by Yoepus Truest words I've heard in a long time |
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| Originally posted by occrider Producing a nuclear warhead is one thing, mastering the minaturization it takes to make an effective ICBM deliverable warhead is quite another thing altogether. |
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| Originally posted by occrider What else would you call its defiance of the IAEA and subsequent withdrawal from the NPT despite the 1994 "framework agreement" to deliver food and fuel? |
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| Originally posted by occrider N. Korea, restarted its nuclear weapons programs in the late 90's in spite of its agreement to cease such activities. The DPRK is a bully to the region, and it's banking on its destabilizing effect to extort the rest of the world. Crying out to be rescued from its crack habit?? Please, it's estimated that N. Korea devotes nearly a third of its economic output on military expenditures. If the country were serious about feeding its people it would abide by international rules for the distribution of aid or make effort to eliminate the impedances of getting food to its people. |
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| Originally posted by occrider If it was an attack unprovoked by a Taiwanese declaration of independance ... probably. |
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| Originally posted by occrider Did Great Britain undergo its industrial revolution due to a war? No it was fueled by resources, technology, labor, etc., the same as America. |
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| Originally posted by TheNobleEu Actually, it's somewhat delusional. America's convinced it will retain preeminence forever... blah blah blah blah... |
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| Originally posted by Fir3start3r They may have some resources but it's either still in the ground or not even close to what they need. They have made major, major deals in South America for things such as ore, nickel, etc. |
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| Originally posted by Yoepus Yea, you just proved my point |
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| Originally posted by TheNobleEu Actually, it's somewhat delusional. America's convinced it will retain preeminence forever, when it's sun is aleady going down. The trade deficit is staggering, Dubya has ruined the American image in the global perspective, and she is already panicking over the incredible GDP growth rates of China and the rapidity with which it has shifted to a free market. There's a reason the USA is so heavily invested in China. Also, a sort of socio-psychological study could be done about how the US media depicts the EU. It tries very amusingly (but in a most uninformed/tongue-in-cheek manner) to play-down the fact that the EU has already emerged as a rising economic counterbalance to the US as sole superpower (and no, the EU is not particularly interested in being a military superpower just yet, if ever). The USA is already forced to observe the edicts of Brussels, and its CEOs have been stewing about it even since the EU Commission for Antitrust slapped e.g., Microsoft with a $600 million fine. Microsoft whined but complied, submitting its proposal for how it intends to comply with the EU verdict only the other day. |
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Oh, totally agreed. We have both commented on delivery systems being the primary obstacle. But you also probably know about the assistance the DRPK has been receiving from countries that do have advanced delivery systems... Facts remains that the DPRK technology is advanced enough to elicit panic in the USA, a nuclear and military deterent in response, deception in the public media about the capabilities and degree of the DPRK nuclear program, and diplomacy to isolate and pressure the DPRK into giving up its program and halting any further development. You can blithely dismiss the potential, but the thinktanks don't and neither does the White House. |
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Both the IAEA and the NPT are a giant farse, as you well know. Exclusive "us only, denial for anyone else"-clubs have a long history of total failure. Think after the DPRK, then Iran, that the US will move on to India-Pakistan? |
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Are you being deliberately obtuse? The DPRK curbed its nuclear ambitions under the caveats that: 1. The USA provide, install, and oversee the technology for nuclear reactors for the exclusive purpose of generating electricity; 2. The USA provide monetary, food, and infrastructural aid to relieve the economy and the population. The DPRK restarted its program and ejected the IAEA from its facilities when the USA summarily reneged on these commitments. |
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One senior KEDO official estimates that KEDO will have completed a "significant portion of the [light-water reactor] project" by the first half of 2005, and will then be ready to receive key nuclear components. Under the Agreed Framework, North Korea must come into compliance with its IAEA safeguards agreement before those components are delivered. The original schedule envisioned conducting the inspections in the late 1990s and finishing both reactors by 2003--and the completion date could slip again. KEDO still faces tough negotiations with North Korea over several issues, including liability and the possible need to refurbish North Korea's electrical grid, which is in extremely poor condition. Although North Korea is expected to comply with its safeguards agreement, no one knows for sure whether it will do so. It has failed to cooperate with the IAEA on a range of verification issues, raising concerns that it may not be completely cooperative when the inspection process resumes. In addition to inspecting North Korea's known nuclear infrastructure, the IAEA will also have to verify the absence of undeclared nuclear sites or activities. As recently as October 17, the IAEA said it had not made any significant progress in verifying that North Korea had come into compliance with its safeguards agreement or that North Korea had not produced more plutonium than it declared in the early 1990s. IAEA Director General Mohammed El Baradei said in an October 17 Reuters interview: "We are still where we had been a year ago. We continue to verify the freeze of the existing facilities but we haven't really made any progress with regard to verification of the past program." In early November, however, North Korea said it would allow IAEA inspectors to visit the Isotope Production Laboratory at Yongbyon, a facility suspected of being involved in plutonium separation. Whether North Korea will allow the inspectors to investigate past activities at the facility remains unclear. Because inspections are tied to construction milestones, as things stand the IAEA may not begin the verification process until about 2005. The IAEA's director general and senior staff estimate that it will take three to four years to conduct inspections, so the inspections might not be finished until 2008 or 2009. If pressed, though, the IAEA could act more quickly and still do the inspections adequately. Such a delay could open the way for disruptions in the Agreed Framework's delicate balance, which could also impair the inter-Korean peace process. Mistrust of North Korea remains high in general, and from time to time the North is accused of having hidden nuclear weapons facilities (see "Under Mt. Chun-Ma," page 58). And what if the verification process were to fail? The IAEA can only determine whether North Korea is in compliance with its safeguards agreement if it cooperates. North Korea is still deeply suspicious of the IAEA. Given the timeline, it would be prudent for the Bush administration to try to help jump-start IAEA inspections. In his July 26, 2001 testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, Charles Pritchard, a senior State Department official, said: "Improved implementation of the Agreed Framework provisions related to North Korea's nuclear activities was one of the administration's top priorities. [North Korean] cooperation with the IAEA will become increasingly important. Although the date for delivering key nuclear components is still in the future, [North Korea] must begin active cooperation soon, to avoid serious delays in the KEDO project." http://www.thebulletin.org/article....f02albright_039 |
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Hmm, and the Crimean and Boer Wars? |
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| Thanks for the link, |
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| Originally posted by TheNobleEu America got rich on the industrialization that was the direct result of both World Wars. They were essentially back then (and still are) the arms dealer par excellence, who was very badly needed to continue the war efforts. Cheers, -Noble |
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| Originally posted by occrider How has the media been downplaying the economic circumstances of the EU? |
I want to ask, how reputable is The Telegraph?
There are soo many flaws in this guy's opinion.
1. Yes Mao accidently killed a lot of people but it was a mistake, it was wrong communist ideals. Hitler slaughtered people with intention.
2. North Korea's nuke problem is a card Beijing can play in the political arena. So does USA uses Taiwan as a leverage. It is politics.
3. Political freedom is supressed, doesnt' mean technoligical creativity is supressed. China has been luring foreign research centers, increased the salaries of all universitie's professors so that they don't work in US. What has recent Microsoft's censorship of their China blogs got to stiffling advancement in science?
And I could go on and on..........
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| Originally posted by xxxtasy 1. Yes Mao accidently killed a lot of people but it was a mistake, it was wrong communist ideals. Hitler slaughtered people with intention. |
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| Originally posted by St_Andrew ehm, hitler too had good intentions! |
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