Westerners - divert your money away from China and in to India. You may make 18% instead of 20% p/a, but you won't be implicitly supporting a monstrous totalitarian regime. The Chinese Communist Party has consistently showed its utter contempt for human rights, and demonstrated that it will pursue glory at any cost. I understand the importance of stability to the Chinese, given the chaos in China in the last century. I know that Chinese need to manage the possibility of their progress being de-railed by severely disruptive social problems. But Chinese leadership has conducted itself despicably.
Chinese often wonder why the events in and around Tiannenmen's square remain such powerful images in the minds of many Westerners...
-- Hundreds of millions of peasants that toil fruitlessly toward the glory that the CCP promises them have their homes demolished without notice or compensation, and, should they protest, they are beaten and jailed. There are too many people for fair trials. The media and political opposition are strangled in China, foreign investors have ridiculous restrictions placed on them, and may at any moment have their assets confiscated without recourse to legal action.
-- Chinese officials packed people infected with SARS into ambulances and drove around for hours just so that the WHO wouldnt know the truth of the extent of the infections and the inability of the health system to contain them.
-- Falun Gong members and their families are kidknapped, and often used in live organ forms. Outspoken members may be sent for "re-education", which is the Chinese government's way of saying they will labor all day to build the infrastructure to support this enormously overpopulated country. These measures against Falun Gong and other minorities are widely supported.
-- Govt officials decided not to tell 8 million residents in Hunan province that they were drinking poisoned water, while they scrambled to fix the problem.
-- The Chinese government maintains a "Great Firewall of China", censoring vast portions of the Internet which it feels undermine their iron grip over the contents of citizen's minds. The concept of freedom of speech, or expression in appearance, sexuality, profession etc just isn't taken seriously in China.
-- The Chinese, bent on a glorious image, snatch 5 year-olds from their families to be machine-trained for 7 hours a day in order to win gold at the Olympics. Yao Ming, the 232cm basketballer, was the product of government "matching" efforts between two tall people.
Etc. Think about it, the West sucks in many ways that China does not, but do you really see the above happening in countries such as France, Australia, Canada?
The Chinese are a proud, intelligent, hard-working people with an incredible history. They will form a very useful counterbalancing force to the USA et al. However, I'm worried about what China may look like when it has eclipsed them. Will Chinese citizens have rights by then? Or will tyranny be exported elsewhere?
The Chinese I meet who haven't been outside of China for long have huge walls in their head. This can appear sweet/cute, in native, naive Chinese girls in their 20s, but can also seem very ignorant. China (NOT people of Chinese origin) is socially and institutionally inferior in many respects to Western countries with long histories of wealth and stability. Also, it's great that China's politicians are often scientists and engineers rather than hacks like here, but they need to realise that Chinese cannot innovate to the degree required in today's information economy if they are brainwashed and taught not to think for themselves.
Unless China reforms, internal instability may cause its downfall, even without the demands for change that powerful Westerners are likely to start to call for. Float your currency, China.
India has many of the same problems as China, and it approaches many issues less scientifically and analytically. But it does a better job of balancing its development with justice, democracy and human rights.
******
This guy was so in love with this girl, that when he was away from her, he sent her a love letter every day for 500 days. On the 500th day, she married the postman.
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2 comments:
I emphatically, absolutely, totally agree with you.
The way the West has poured its money into China,funding a cruel and despicable tyranny, is absolutely horrifying.
I bought an Easter cookie the other day, and reading the label, found that it had been made in China. A cookie! I guess its cheaper to bake a cookie over there and ship it to the US, than to make it here anymore.
Perhaps, though, it will take China becoming a superpower, treating the rest of the world as it treats its own citizens, for everyone to stop painting the US as the devil of the planet.
What do you make of Google's entry in to the Chinese search engine market, and their compliance with government censorship regulations? Do you feel that they should be praised on the balance for probably bringing more information to Chinese citizens, or that they should be mostly criticised for their complicity in the censorship machine and the effects it might have on Chinese attitudes towards their own government?
I agree with your last comment. Sure, elements of US policy affect many overseas very badly. But I think there is an inevitability that superpowers will alienate large segments of the world population. Also, often, there's little substance in the anti-US rhetoric overseas, it's just a case of finger-pointing. Overseas governments and their populations delight in blaming the US for all their problems, ensuring local stability by shifting responsibility from themselves. And the hostility that people have for Americans is approaching ridiculous proportions.
I suppose Chinese wages will rise slowly, and perhaps one day they won't be baking our cookies anymore. By then, that task will probably fall to someone in Kazakhstan or something.
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