“I remember before tianamen square, you used to see young chineese student congregate at parks to practice their english with foriegn tourists. You dont see that kind of thing anymore. “

LOL Mixtec. You always show yourself as another who spout opinion and yet actually never been there.

In major Chinese cities today, including Chengdu who is best known for it, as well as even in Beijing today, this is still happening.

At least, that used to be before the SARS crisis….

Originally posted by mongu
So you’re saying Australia should be given back to the natives?

I think that is not a valid comparison. There, one culture moved in at the expense of another far less developed culture. In the case of Tibet, China was not really any more developed than Tibet: just bigger and more powerful.
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LOL.

Whose skin (and I mean WHO, not WHAT) do you think Tibetan drums are made with?

Too many questions regarding the incident. The most likely accident was something that could have caused toxic fumes to escape into the sub’s atmosphere. This is horrible since this is the equivalent to an underwater gas chamber.

Authorities themselves might want an answer as to what is the nature of the accident and what caused it.

Perhaps the ship is in a training mission which is why it had more people than it was supposed.

There isn’t anything to suggest it’s a type fault but maybe you’re dealing with old equipment. This might force earlier retirement of old subs and spur acquisition of new replacements.

Also, PLA Navy ships, especially the old ones, have a genuine problem with regards to safety measures and damage control. It’s traditionally has been the poorest budgeted and most neglected of the PLA services. During a visit to Hawaii, one of the PLAN destroyers, I believe one of the Luhus, had a breakdown on the water filtration system. The US Navy sent people onboard to bring supplies of fresh water to the ship and offered assistance, and while there, observed that the Luhu had very poor safety and damage control.

The incident is sure to send shockwaves to the PLA and the CCCP leadership that may force them to reevaluate safety standards aboard the ships and hurry even more the replacement of old equipment.

To understand how China is ruled and governed, in Chinese culture and spiritual belief, there is something called the Mandate of Heaven. Even today, even with Communism, this belief still exists. The current government has that Mandate and it must work to preserve that.

However, no matter what kind of government you are, democratic or autocratic, capitalist or communist, native monarchry or foreign, once a government loses the Mandate of Heaven, it’s time for a change.

Civil unrest, peasant unrest, natural disasters, death of a leader, war and defeat, even portents from the sky, they can be taken as signs of Heaven’s displeasure, and the Mandate taken from it. Thus the government must keep its people happy, maintain peace, order and security, and must do its duty in order to preserve that Mandate. If you lose that Mandate, no matter what you do, Change will come as inevitable as the tide.

You know what Mixtex, you’re full of crap. I ‘m not even a teenager. When a person has enough money to go around many countries in the world to do business, no, they’re not teenagers.

And what are you? You seem to be nothing more than a punk.

You are like all these others, who like to judge things from afar when in fact, you haven’t seen them, maybe can’t afford to, because you’re just a teenage punk living on your mom’s allowance.

So grow up.

The fact that they can build something, that their country has an economic growth rate of nearly 10%, has pushed itself to the top five trading nations, has managed to feed more than a billion people, perhaps that irritates you, compared to what you see around in your neighborhood.

As far as speech in China goes, they’re free to say anything except when it comes to sedition. There is a lot of criticism domestically about the Chinese government handling of the SARS case, especially in the domestic Chinese press. For the first time, the Politburo made a public apology, something that would have been inconcievable even 10 years ago.

You seem to think that Chinese students are oppressed, and things like that. How far you know the truth. Today’s young Chinese are proudly nationalistic, even spoiled, and mix that with rock and roll (Chinese TV is one third CCTV, one third MTV, one third soap drama). If Chinese government didn’t keep a lid on things, they would have been massively protesting against the US and the war. In fact they’re so nationalistic, they even scare me. So don’t talk about free speech—because you won’t like what you will be hearing. YOu need the current Chinese government, because regardless of what you think they are, they are exceedingly moderate and practical, and frankly they are the best friends the US got in China, the ones the US can count to put a lid on things—and you won’t like the alternatives.

Also the PVA did beat the KMT in land battle. They only didn’t have the navy to chase them to that island.

Yes, China is making transports now. It’s not even with the US aviation industry now but who knows in the future. By the way, China already supplies parts and plane sections to both Airbus and Boeing.

With regarding Cuba, face it. I am just following based on trends that dominate that region. Can you give me a reason why and how it would arise from that pattern? The US-World Bank-IMF prescribed pattern of development, which is generally spoon fed to Latin America, hasn’t exactly worked, leaving many countries in the region even poorer before they started off, even desperate or in financial crisis. I don’t see how Cuba would be any different. It would have inevitably fallen into the same pattern of development with its fellow Latin countries—wrongly following the policies of the World Bank / International Monetary Fund. Same thing happened to another former American colony that prescribed the WB-IMF approach in a different part of the world—the Philippines.

I challenge you to go to the Philippines, and then go to Vietnam, then tell me who exactly is doing better now.

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The interesting thing about Asian politics is that ideology are foreign concepts and there are a lot of experimentation between.

India for example, is a democracy with a Soviet style central planning system.

China is an autocracy that allows for highly autonomous economic units, each accountable for their own successes and failures.

Hong Kong, never a democracy (from a British governor to a Chinese governor) is probably the world’s most freeist state in terms of business and economics. Milton Freidmann often uses HK as an example to illustrate his economic beliefs.

Philippines is a failed attempt trying to merge capitalism with socialism, creating a dictatorship full of cronyism.

Singapore is a highly autocratic city-state, and yet one of the very best places to do business. This city has the best high tech infrastructure in the world, better than Tokyo in my opinion. Pundits often market Singapore as the prototype of the future high tech city-society. Its government is basically a meritocracy.

Malaysia is an attempt to create, at least in Mahathir’s vision, what he thinks as prototype for a successful Moslem state capable of competing in a high tech world. This Moslem country clearly shows you don’t have to have oil to be rich and successful, and at the same time, able to demonstrate that Moslems and non Moslems are able to harmoniously live together and jointly work towards their country’s development.