Chinese Citizens REVOLT in Wukan!!

Obcession said:

Now tell me trying to starve out an agricultural village after the harvest is a good idea.

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plawolf said:

Kindly cut the condescending attitude. If you have a point to make, how about you actually make it?



From this response, it looks like you only have the vaguest idea about how the Euro crisis has been mismanaged to the current unholy mess that it is in.

I do not wish to get too sidetracked, so if you are interested in this subject, you can go read up on the background in your own time.

It is telling that when the chips were down, the EU forced out the Greek PM because he wanted to hold a referendum on the austerity measures the EU demanded Greece commit to, and replaced him with an unelected technocrat who could have been cast from the same mold as China's leaders.

It is also amusing that your hallowed markets cheered and rewarded Italy when their democratically elected President resigned, and another unelected technocrat took his place.



That is a load of baseless speculation that you are trying to pass off as facts. These are not facts. Just your own views.



Funny you didn't seem to seem to see it that way when you launched into your rant against China's one party system and told as multi-party democracy was the only hope.



Ah, such an elementary trick to play. You cannot effectively argue with the points that I put forward so you wanna change the subject.

You were the one who was harping on about how China needed a multi-party system to deal with this issue, so how about you actually show us what you meant by that as well?

Your question also betrays your utter lack of thought about how best to deal with this issue.

If I was in charge, the first thing I would have done was to censor the news of this incident. Because that is the only way I, as the Central Government, would be able to step in and give these people the best chance of getting what they really want.

If the story had not broke, the government would have had much more leeway to give ground and compromise. But now that the eyes of the nation are focused on this village, the government has to also consider how their actions will look to the rest of the country, and that will significantly limit the scope of things that can now be offered on the negotiating table.

Also, it is completely nonsense to suggest that just because the few foreign reporters hanging around hotels haven't heard anything means Beijing isn't doing anything about this.

Now that the story is out, Beijing is almost certainly busy doing research to see what the cause of this stand-off is, and how the legal case of everyone involved stands.



So what happens when people show you how your fabled rule of law doesn't work so fantastically in real life? Are you going to just throw a trademark 'well the rule of law isn't perfect' line out there and move onto the next subject?

Because the rule of law is far from perfect. Again, you only need to look across at India who is supposed to have an independent judiciary. Hows that helping them with corruption, injustice and abuses of power?

Even the rule of law in developed countries like the US and UK are far far from perfect and is hardly an ironclad check against official abuses. Just ask those Occupy Wall Street protestors how well the rule of law was protecting them when The Law was pepper spraying them in the face.

Hell, the legal system of the US and UK are massively biased to the point where it is effectively two systems. One for the rich and one for the poor. The law doesn't look so awesome if you haven't got the cash to afford a good defense lawyer, and rich clients routinely get away with murder (all too often literally) or can win cases they would never had a chance of winning in court by bankrupting their plaintiffs with endless legal paperwork before the case ever goes to trial.

So far from bringing equality, a western legal system would actually almost certainly add to inequality because the rich and powerful can afford the best lawyers.



Swop 'Wukan' with 'Tottenham' and 'Beijing' with 'London' and would you still agree with that sentiment?

Many of the London rioters undoubtably thought that they had legitimate grievances that could not be properly addressed through the proper channels, so do you support their actions?

These people may well have suffered great injustice, for which they have my deepest sympathies and I hope that they can find justice, as any normal, moral person would.

However, the way they have gone about raising their issues and trying to pursue their interested cannot be condoned, just as the London riots were unacceptable behavior.

And like the London rioters, these people have gone about it all wrong, and the way these people have gone about this has massively damaged their cause.

It is telling that instead of trying to find out some facts like Finn, you immediately jumped on the side of these villagers to blame it all on Beijing. Yet on the issue of the London riots, you were unequivocal with your denunciations of the trouble makers and demanded stiff punishment iirc. Very consistent and rational behavior indeed.



What are you talking about? It is not a matter of absolutes. China is in the process of reforming and improving. It takes time, but already, there have been many important laws passed on legal property protection.

The usual China bashers and haters never acknowledge the progress made, and only harp on about how far is left to go. It is a process, and if you rush it, things will go wrong. Or maybe that is exactly what the bashers and haters are secretly hoping for.



Yes, I'll get right on the phone to President Hu and ask him.

What a pointless question.



There is no obsession, India just happens to be the closest example of what a China-sized country following all the rules and advice of the west looks like.

Funny you are so desperate to look at other countries because the reality on the ground contrast starkly to how you think things should be.

India has followed all of the rules and advice the west has set for them, the same ones you are insisting China cannot do without, yet it is worse off compared to China in almost every way measurable.

If you were a car dealer you would be a cowboy, and your advice would be a lemon.



Since when did I ever claim otherwise? Are you resorting to strawman arguments already?

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i.e. said:

BTW,

alot of those people around those area made their living early 80s by Smuggling.
and they would set up road blocks in their villages just to charge a hefty toll on outsiders driving by. sometimes even on state highways.

back in the 80-90s I knew of instances (yours truly may or may not being involved in one particular instances) where the locals stopped long distance buses by offering fuel (cheaper smuggled diesels of course) and food, leading the unsuspecting bus driver into a court yard. and then closed iron gate behind the bus. everyone in that bus was forced to "eat lunch" of rice and cabbage, and each charged (cleaned out) with couple hundred RMB (in 1980s RMB!), all with implicit threat of violence provided by local young man milling about.

for reference, an average engineer in a state owned factory earns about 100-200 RMB in middle of 1980s.

I am sorry if this offend anyone they are one nasty bunch of people. knowing what I know, it is pretty hard for me to muster any sympathy for those people. as those who allegedly doing the bad stuff (corrupt officials) are also the locals.

I am sorry, call me whatever you guys want, but I just can't sympathize.

P.S.
In the old days of martially inclined Emperors he would dispatch his troops and force the entire population into indenture servitude and ship them off to Hotian to farm some deserts, for things like local penchant for piracy and smuggling and gangsterism.

Communists are relatively soft in this regard.

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airsuperiority said:

Always loved reading your responses. Although the works of your argument isn't rocket science, but very profound one. Kinda surprised though, that the likes of some other members, who seemed will never improve despite their lengthy time in this forum, just keeps on asking the same stuff over and over again, applying the same useless condemns for every different stories that arises.

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Mr T said:

Engineer said:

Foreigners refer to people who don't live in China, and people don't live in China don't actually care about what's going on in China... plawolf is simply calling out it by pointing at facts.

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That's nonsense. Do you realise how many people on this forum live outside China? I could be wrong, but I think plawolf is one of them.

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Engineer said:

Foreigners refer to people who don't live in China, and people don't live in China don't actually care about what's going on in China. They aren't benefited in anyway so there isn't any incentive for these people to do so. The foreigners only care about inflating their own egos by trying to make China into their own image. plawolf is simply calling out it by pointing at facts.

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Mr T said:

The government should not be reporting any news. It should let the media get on with it. And when the government starts censoring news like this it just encourages local officials to crackdown more and more, because they think if Beijing is forced to choose it will prefer to keep things quiet than side with the victims and punish the wrongdoing officials.

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Mr T said:

Except that the government isn't lying, it's stopping others from discussing what's happening. And we all know that sometimes government makes things worse by lying - SARS is just one example.

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