open Democracy News Analysis - china - Comments

Peter Sutherland on "China’s power, China’s people: towards accountability"

Peter Sutherland — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:48:17 +0100

fine article.

Dave Feickert on "China’s nervous transition"

Dave Feickert — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 23:46:20 +0100

Well, I suppose nothing sells books like articles that comment that China's crisis is growing and maybe terminal. I guess Kerry Brown's comments and others like them have been said a few times in the last 4000 years. But never more frequently than now.

It is difficult to see any evidence for the kind of peasant uprising that has convulsed China's history, happening at all soon, especially when one lives for extended periods in the country. There are crises, certainly, but as the response to the Sichuan earthquake showed, they can be handled magnificently. One has to be a little more concerned about the bastion of capitalism itself, given the socialism ever-present now in the US, for wealthy Wall Street bankers. George Bush as the deliverer of socialism invokes some slight ironies.

China seems perfectly able to handle its crises, perhaps because its leaders are well-versed in their country's history of periodic rebellions and past disharmony, the distance of central government from the provinces, the size of the country and its central place in the global economy. Let's hope China and other developing countries can carry a bit more than a third of the load of economic growth, while the western politicans and central bankers fix their own meal tickets first. Sadly, our much smaller lunches, for which we pay, are dependent on their free lunches. But then again, Marx and Engels may have prediceted these crises, but their followers have not succeeded in persuading many that they had a solution to them either.

opendemocracy on "One, two or many Chinas? "

opendemocracy — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 12:57:36 +0100

We do not yet, Hamed, but that is a very good idea. I will suggest it.

Tony

hamed on "One, two or many Chinas? "

hamed — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 07:39:39 +0100

It:s very nice for student . I have one question :
Do you have stories that read for listening purposes?

andreea123 on "Tibet: looking for the truth "

andreea123 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:24:08 +0100

The thing that I've always dreamed of was to go in Tibet, so see the tigers! Really, that's my dream! If it would be possible, I'd like to raise one. I saw a clip on utube, about a couple who raised a lion since he was little, but had to let him go in the wild, and afterwards they wanted to see his reaction after a couple of years.. and imagine what happened when they encountered.. the lion practically embraced them, it was a very touching scene..I guess it's gonna be a google massacre when people will start searching it.

batch on "The Beijing Olympics: the last award "

batch — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 07:42:52 +0100

Is anyone going to hold China to account on its promises, it said hosting the Games would improve human rights in China ... it seems more like the opposite happened ... look at the cases of Mrs Wu and Mrs Wang (pictured above) or the case of Gao Chuancai. Look at what happened to Zeng Jinyan. These are jut a few of the Chinese citizens who suffered because of the Olympics.

http://uncensor.com.au

Two Chips on "The Olympics: was China ready? "

Two Chips — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:32:25 +0100

Was it the right decision to award the Olympics to China?

Did China do a good job in presenting an excellent sporting showcase?

How have the Olympics been received?

Has it enhanced or hindered the perception of China around the world?

I don’t know what the thought processes of the individual members of the IOC were when they voted to award the 2008 Games to China, but I don’t think it was a bad or wrong decision. China is run in a way that is abhorrent to lots of people in the West, but then so are lots of other countries, even supposedly democratic and open Western countries.

The author is correct, the modern world expects an Olympic Games on the scale that only a small number of nations can host and pay for-China is one of them. China is advancing at an alarming rate and will become the world’s largest economy in the future. If it was not correct to have awarded them the Games then should we all stop trading with them as well? I do believe that the West is uncomfortable at the arrival of China on the world’s stage.

The Games seem to have gone well. Lots of records have been broken. We (Great Britain) have had our best Games since 1908. The Chinese seem to have pulled it off. The fears with regard to smog have not been mentioned since the start, although it must be remembered that factories were closed and cars were banned from central Beijing.

I believe the Games as a sporting spectacular have been well received. Some of the fireworks were computer generated images and the girl singing was not really singing, but then is everything in the West always as it seems?

I don’t think it has necessarily enhanced or hindered the perception of China around the world. I think if anything it has enhanced it, but only because nothing seems to have gone badly wrong. A number of demonstrations were stopped and a British journalist (Jon Ray) was arrested.

There were demonstrations around the world during the Torch Relay, but I believe that those scenes would have been repeated in some way had the Games been hosted in Britain or the US. China felt forced to reopen discussions with The Dalai Lama and Gordon Brown boycotted the Opening Ceremony, but all in all I think there is a big vote of confidence in the success of the Games of the 29th Olympiad.

opendemocracy on "China changes itself: an Olympics report"

opendemocracy — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:18:55 +0100

A little less brutally than the commentator above, I do wonder what the implicit steps in this part of the argument:

"If its leadership does realise the blindness of the first option [the ret of the world is the problem] and the necessity of the second [help - technological and managerial - from the advanced industrialised economies], the immediate steps on China's upward path can begin. But this would mean also a continuation of perhaps the deepest change of all in the 2000s, one that the Olympics have both made clear and helped to further - that the Chinese people, complex and segmented and dispersed as they are, have and want a voice. Their demands for a bigger say in how their country is run are growing to the point where they will want far more than simply to trust all to the Communist Party and its inner divisions. The upward path that China's leadership has to take will face it with the need to start thinking about the greatest step of all - becoming a transparent, modern democracy. "[emphasis added]

Is this a hope, or is there a mechanism? Is it so clear that the message of the Olympics will be that ``deliberative dictatorship" and other managerial, authoritarian forms of exercising power have failed?

Tony

Not logged in on "China changes itself: an Olympics report"

Not logged in — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:19:19 +0100

I wonder why it is that the West constantly makes demands of China to conform to Western expectations of democracy?

Why is it that the West simply cannot mind it's own freaking business, for once?

Don't give me that whole "China's too important to ignore" garbage. If it's so damned important, then leave it the hell alone.

Francesco Sinibaldi on "China's Olympics: a view from Brazil"

Francesco Sinibaldi — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:06:14 +0100

Collection of flowers.

The right rose
appears in my mind,
and everywhere
shines when the
soft wind remains
in the light of
a flower; the cold
leaf is dead
and here there's
a shadow, the
delicate dark and
a loving profile.

Francesco Sinibaldi

ckke on "The Olympics countdown: Beijing to Shanghai"

ckke — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:24:49 +0100

The little girl who sang for the Olympic opening but was kept away due to her looks should sing and appear in the CLOSING CEREMONY. The Organiser should be proud or CHINA should be proud of this little girl. I can say for all Chinese from all over the world is proud to see the Olympics Opening on 08.08.08. Words can't describe the effort done and what a waste, that the young girl who sang the song is a FAKE. Please make up for the wrong done and get the Little Cute singer to SING HER song in the Closing ceremong.

Anthony Barnett on "China's Olympics: a view from Brazil"

Anthony Barnett — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:58:27 +0100

Great article!

Ashi on "The Olympics countdown: Beijing to Shanghai"

Ashi — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 06:52:44 +0100

Nice post. Btw were aware that the ancient Olympics captured the imaginations of the Greeks for more than a millennium until a Christianized Rome put a stop on the competitions in the fourth century AD. But the Olympic ideal did not die. Anyways which country do you think will win the maximum gold medals?

Alexia Simon on "One, two or many Chinas? "

Alexia Simon — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 22:04:07 +0100

I'm reading Bette Bao Lord's Legacies; a Chinese Mosaic. I've had the book since it was first published but just got around to reading it (I'm going through all my books, some hundreds of them and reading all the ones I have not yet read.)

I have not been able to follow most of the stories because I am woefully ignorant of Chinese history during the 20th century. Yesterday I began a study (online) of the status of culture and politics from 1889 to now.

It's been incredibly enlightening, fascinating, and fun. I'm thoroughly enjoying every word I'm reading. Thank you.

AndyinBeijing on "China’s digital nationalism: Kung Fu Panda under fire "

AndyinBeijing — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:53:32 +0100

An excellent translation. And an insightful article about the Chinese education system.

The author writes "As soon as these people are able to gain access to different sources of information and see different points of view publicly debated, the basis of their ideas collapses."

1. I think this optimistic premise depends on
a) a couple of useful anecdotes
b) three little words: "as soon as".

2. As to a), I too can produce anecdotes which justify an opposing point of view: that nationalism, whether American or Chinese or whatever, is the new opiate of the masses. Love of country is not logical, but faith-based. Patriotism poisons intelligent debate by its appeal to baser tribal instincts. The day after your conversation, that taxi driver will repeat exactly the same sentence about Taiwan. And if China invades, he will cheer on the liberators.

3. As to b) "as soon as" can mean tomorrow or never. If tomorrow, I will risk sharing some of the author's naive optimism about the power of open debate to temper dangerous enthusiasms. If never, then I suspect nationalism, with its unquestioning appeal to "my country, right or wrong" will tend to overcome better angels: it was public support for a re-elected George Bush that drove America's entirely unjustifiable War on Iraq.
If a country as deluded in its righteousness as America, through centuries of denial over genocide and slavery, can commit so much consistent violence both at home and abroad in the name of "liberty", then I see no reason to believe Chinese nationalism, with its culture of victimhood, will be any different.
As pitiful as those angry young men and future thugs may be, I think the writer needs to construct a more convincing argument to make me feel that Chinese nationalism will be any different to all the others.