| Many of the comments here, especially the earlier ones, seem to frame China and its needs for development from a "Western" POV. While I understand that indeed Europe and North America have achieved tremendous lot in many areas, is it necessary to pinpoint the standard of developments to mimic those two areas'? While I do think that China need to develop and improve itself, I don't see why China needs to go full-throttle toward western ideals. Read Adbusters# 79 volume 16 number 5 (September/October 2008); civilization of the west is "dead": the new generation people of the west are stuck in "hipster" culture, rendering themselves narcisstic, vain, empty and obsessed with anti-authority notions even if it means they're going against themselves. The west is like ADHD case rampant in double-talks; that's the result of mishandling of "freedom". Is China supposed to be like that and just mimic whatever mistakes the west has done just because it smells of "more freedom and liberty"? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @jo: the criticism you address toward China should first be addressed toward the USA. Why does the world now dump all those behaviors toward China first rather than the US or Europe? You're practically looking at your Chinese friends and made a hasty-generalization that all Chinese will be like them or that no one of your own country is doing similar thing. I'm not arguing that either China or the US is perfect or that either China or the US is totally at fault. I'm arguing that biases are floating around: 1. Who were causing major stock-market crashes throughout the 20th century? Chinese? Nope. 2. Who's the worst polluter per-capita? China? Nope. 3. Who installed Guantamo Bay and , Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki to oblivion and became one of the starters the nuclear-armaments race? China? Nope. There are many other points, but in short: all of the blames you put on China is disproportional to the whole picture, plus you're forgetting so many contemporary actions by USA, Europe and others. The blame isn't supposed to be on China alone; China isn't even the main player of the crimes you stated. The whole issue and topic is not even supposed to be a blame game at all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ @ecodelta: Yes, democracy is "government of the people, by the people, for the people" however, what form would it take shape as? European social-democracy? Canadian/UK parliamentary government? American? As for "democracy" as usually thrown around in the media, it's American democracy and look at how it turns out to be. USA only have about 1/4-1/5 of PRC's population but USA have 5 times more pollution per capita than the newly developing PRC. Imagine if such "freedom" and "liberty" are handed out to Chinese people...imagine all the added numbers of cars. The world is currently squinting to tears because of what China is doing; imagine what the world would do if indeed "democracy" is installed hastily to the current generation of Chinese --the world would scream to death and find a pretext to dump all the global warming discussion solely upon China (as the media is currently doing) and escalate many other issues regarding China; that's on top of the possibility that China will be further subjugated under external and internal influences, which have first created the modern gap between the rich and the poor, the polluter and the polluted for centuries. "Democracy" is indeed ideally a "government of the people..." but "communism" is "temporary dictatorship of the proletariat" which in spirit (not in practice) wouldn't be that much different; the practice of the government would still depend on the person on top as well as the people governed, plus the rich, the religious/fundamentalist and the media. Each government still advertise itself as the vanguard of the people, thinking of the people's short-term and long-term benefits. Thus, I lean toward K. Wang's argument to a degree: China will need to chart its own course and learn to adapt, adopt and improve its own cultures and "nature". I seriously doubt the notion that PRC leaders don't know the contradictions and paradoxical nature of their government. I think the PRC's approach can be summarized in Deng's famous words: "It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice." It simply is just impossible to be coherent all the time when handling a government: just look at all the double-talks of democratic governments...no one actually adheres to democracy all the time (eg. look at what MI6 and the CIA are doing around the world). Let's hope that the stream of discussion between China, USA and Europe will continue on increasingly better terms; as it is now portrayed in most public discussions, the differences between those countries' will only heighten the sense of alienation and antagonism. --------------------- Hmm, come to think of it: Isn't it funny how many of the comments in this thread is usually both: addressing PRC's deeds as wrong, but at the same time also addresses PRC as wrong if the PRC isn't doing what it's doing as well? (eg. China is the worst polluter and it's wrong to have so many cars in China, yet, at the same time, it's also wrong not to give Chinese people freedom-- to buy cars--?). Why isn't such paradoxical correlation between individualism/freedom, social responsibility and consequences addressed? Another one that floats around in public psyche is that China is wrong for having so many population but China is also wrong and "apartheid-like" at implementing "one child policy" --so what should China do? Just gulp down all the blame, racism and mockeries while not curbing down its population and environmental problems within its capabilities? It's like no matter what PRC does, it's always wrong and evil, just because it doesn't use the label "democracy" and just because it opt to more pragmatic approaches rather than subtle lullabies for the masses. Do people really think they can handle the governance of China better? It's too simplistic an argument, I say. |
What's Wrong with China?