Upsetting China
Two Chinese diplomats have applied for asylum in Australia, saying that they're fed up with the government and that it has around 1,000 spies in Australia. Maybe this is one of those moves towards Democracy I said we haven't seen? The regieme of course denies all of this and says the stories were made up because these diplomats visas expired and they don't want to go home.
This is ironic because on Monday the US released it's report of human rights violations around the world and slammed China in particular. China's upset, not outright denying anything, but upset. They said, "This kind of report will do nothing good for the improvement of bilateral relations. It will do no good to improve mutual confidence in each other". Thanks for putting it bluntly. It's hard to have much confidence in a government that still won't admit that the Tiananmin Square Massacre might have been a little harsh.
China also came back at the US like an angry 2 year old, saying that they're going to release their own report crticizing us (so there!) for "invasions into other countries and the mistreatment of foreign inmates". All I know is that here in the US, I won't get arrested for publishing a blog that criticizes my government, and however wrongly we may sometimes act overseas, my government is not legally authorized to torture me. The same cannot be said for China.
More on China's intolerance of dissidents .
posted by RJ @ 7:51 AM
17 comments
17 Comments:
It takes action on two fronts to democratize a country: you need a few generals, politicians and businesspeople to say damn the power I have, it's time for change; and you need hundreds of millions of Chinese peasants to refuse to be arrested for taking the wrong number of breaths per minute. It's going to take blogs, diplomats, politicians, riots, legislation, human rights reports, arguments, and lots of tea and sympathy before China liberalizes.
The people of China need to stand up and put a stop to the government's rewriting and whitewashing of history. The US does plenty of it as well, but there is always a countervailing force here.
Order Out...
Well said, Chuck. It's not as if the US is immune from corruption or a perfect nation - just that in this country, the freedom to openly challenge those forces is held as one of the most important aspects of our society.
How often do you check? Are you getting these replies from Cpt. Obvious via your super secret decoder belts? Are you going to reply to every comment anyone ever posts on here?
Chaos,
When in the last decade has the US government deliberately attacked the civilians of any country?
I think I managed to completely miss the sarcasm. Darn lack of written communications skills.
I'm not that sure that China will transition to a democracy any time soon. The Chinese have a culture with vastly different values than our own, and no history of democracy. I would not be surprised if they remain a pseudo-capitalist autarky for decades to come.
Yeah, I think he was being sarcastic.
I don't know that it will be "anytime soon", but I tend to think it will have to happen, to some extent, eventually. Their country is just too big and growing to be too powerful to maintain such and oppressive government for long. Conflict with other countries will lead to increasing international crticism, and they'll have a hard time keeping 1.3 billion (at least last time Chaos checked) people brainwashed well enough not to get upset about it.
The western world could easily unite ideologically against China the way it did against Russia, but China's economic ties to the rest of the world being what they are I suppose it'll be quite difficult to push them too hard. It will be interesting to see what happens as China continues to emerge as the only anti-democratic first world nation.
I think China still has quite a ways to go before it can be classified as a first world nation. However I just have not heard anything about even the beginnings of a movement that will overthrow the Chinese government and institute democracy. Their government has shown in the past that they are more than willing to suppress even peaceful opposition with an iron boot. I don't think that peaceful protests will unseat the 'communist' government and they have managed to provide enough economic growth that I do not believe a violent insurrection is imminent.
Also I have zero faith in the effectiveness of international criticism as a tool of transformation. Cuba and pre-invasion Iraq show that despots can flaunt world opinion for decades and maintain power.
Be that as it may, international opinion is much more important to China. Unlike Cuba, China's established itself as both a major producer and consumer of goods world wide. The Chinese economy is much more dependent on the rest of the world than Cuba ever was or ever could be. China is more like the Soviet Union, where economic sanctions and political pressure helped create enough instability to let the government collapse. I don't think China can flout world wide criticism the way Cuba has. The bigger question is when and if it will ever come. Being so closely allied to the economies of every other powerful 1st world nation, it's hard to see any one of us really putting pressure on China any time soon.
Those are both good points. The problem I see right now is that with the exception of the UK and Australia almost all of the first world nations are defining themselves by being in opposition to the US. The EU very nearly resumed weapons trade with China several months ago. Getting stabbed in the back by the french is simply accepted as matter of course in our attempts to pressure rogue nations. If we can't build a coalition to pressure Iran, we don't have a chance of building one to pressure China.
There are three scenarios right now that I think could spark a regime change in China. If China invades Taiwan on Bush's watch, a major chinese depression, and a conflict in North Korea. All three of these seem to be entirely plausible in the near term.
Wow, this is a very good discussion/debate, both making very good points. I actually don’t know too much about burgeoning democracy attempts in China, but I did want to take issue with one thing that redhurt said explicitly and something that I think virtutis hasn’t questioned yet: “they'll have a hard time keeping 1.3 billion...people brainwashed well enough not to get upset about it.” My understanding of the history of Chinese communism is that there was very little brainwashing at all in the early stages – mostly because it wasn’t needed. Those attempts more recently (1960s) are thought by most historians to have been the result of paranoia on the part of communist leadership and not actual ideological breakdown with the people of China. Chinese culture has always promoted individual sacrifice for common good to the point of devaluing the individual almost entirely. It seems more likely that those vocal opponents of communist ideology are “Westernized” rather than the “Communisticizationality” of the silent majority. In as much as the average Chinese don’t like their daily life, I am not sure they have the intellectual resources, traditions, and vocabularies to understand that as anything other than good, or at least unavoidable. I am also not sure that they want them.
Re: j. morgan's comment. I agree--Eastern culture in general tends to devalue the individual, as can be seen in religion, politics and culture. Whatever is intrinsic about human nature, though, that fact it not; it has to be passed down from generation to generation. We need to get blogs, credit cards, ice cream, iPods, jeans, books, pens, and laptops into the hands of those Chinese peasants. HOWEVER, they can't be taught "real" history if it doesn't exist anywhere in the country; pretend Germans still lionized Hitler across the board. What would you do?
You make an excellent point, J. Morgan. Taking this into consideration, I still believe that if information about the government were more available the people would be upset at it. The government of China, by working to allow a select group at the top of the food chain to live very well with lots of power, and the absolute oppression of the people does NOT fit neatly into any cultural ideal of the east other than "don't rock the boat".
Communism in practice has ultimately proved to be little more than a Western dictatorship under the covers. It's only by manipulating public perception of their actions through control of information outlets (media, schools, etc.) that the Chinese government is able to disguise itself as selfless, working for the people, Eastern. I believe that daily doses of manipulated information praising the government keeps enough of the people placated enough to maintain a stable government. China's culture of non-individualism might make it easier to pull off, but that doesn't change what it is: brainwashing.
Fair and well said.
I doubt very many chinese peasants are guillable enough to believe that their government is composed of selfless heroes toiling for the public good. Although I agree that the chinese government does do its best to keep the people's minds off their troubles with propaganda. I think they are using the issue of Taiwan to attempt to mobolize nationalism and deflect criticism. It is always easier to blame your problems on someone else, and people accept a lot more government intrusion when there is an enemy to defeat.
I think that chinese communism is more Eastern autarky than Western dictatorship. The difference in fundemental values that J. Morgan points out has a lot to do with why it has worked so long.
Charles, I agree that blogs, or rather internet access that allows average chinese to learn about individualism and democracy will be a pushing force for change. However I'm less certain that widespread chinese access to consumer goods will help, because happy people don't usually rebel.
Good point, virtutis. It's not so much that we need to airlift these things into the country--it's that the creation of an infrastructure capable of supporting them almost always leads to more, and not less, freedom.
"I doubt very many chinese peasants are guillable enough to believe that their government is composed of selfless heroes toiling for the public good."
I don't. Half the population (I'm making that up) is heavily isolated and rural. Many of them have no idea what's going on in the outside world besides the scraps of news brought back every 9 months by the men returning from work in the cities, and even they barely have any free time to read with. Most of the population is isolated and working so hard they have no idea what the government is doing other than what their media tells them. It's very restrictive. In a situation like that, I'd believe it too.
Why do you even write stuff like that?
Post a Comment
<< Home