Chinese General news resource thread

[xiabonan]

There's an old Chinese saying, "it's easy to conquer the nation, but difficult to run it".

Before the CCP came to power, people too held great hopes and back then they were much, much more enthusiastic than today's Hong Kong people. Millions sacrificed their lives in the process, until the last moment of their lives they still believed that they died for the right cause--to build a better China, a better future, a communist utopia that's free of hunger, exploitation, corruption, warlords, and full of happiness, joy, fulfillment.

I think what happened after that is very familiar to us. That utopia didn't come, instead it was pretty much the opposite case.

It took an entire generation people's suffering, a catastrophic political disaster, and some luck combined with Deng and his peers' vision, to save China from the shithole it was in and moved towards the right direction.

The same story has happened again and again and again, even today, even before our very own eyes. It is always easy to summon people under a righteous cause, "in the name of freedom and democracy!", they said. As if these slogans are magic words that somehow promises a better future. Based on past and recent experiences, I highly doubt so.

Look at Libya. Look at Egypt. Look at Tunisia. Look at Russia after the fall of the USSR. Look at the Eastern European countries. Look at Taiwan.

Taiwan is probably a better case. It, too, was one of the most promising economies in the world, and one of the envies of Asia before the democratic change. Four Asian tigers, remember? When people elected Chen Shui-bian, he was once the "son of Taiwan", then what happened? Huge corruption. Fraud. Tried, jailed.

Then there came Ma Ying-jeou. But today as I browse through Taiwan's forums, there's NONE praising him. Some even said they were "blind" enough to vote him and felt ashamed.

Almost 20 years have passed. Taiwan's economy is still stagnating. Young people's pay isn't rising, but everything else is increasing. When I was in Taiwan last year, my guide was telling me with a very worried face, "we could only choose the less evil and corrupt from the two evil and corrupt." It took the Taipei City's government to build 4km of metro lines in 8 years. While during that same amount of Time, China build 10,000 km of high-speed rail and thousands of kilometres of metro lines all over the country.

Look at the US. Obama came to presidency with his famous slogan "YES WE CAN". Where's the change he promised?

Don't get me wrong, I can fully emphasize with the ordinary HK people. Today's protests aren't just a protest to fight for "democracy" and "freedom", it is a protest for hundreds of thousands of HK people to vent and express their anger and frustration, and to fight for better future--or at least as they would imagine so.

I'm neither bashing democracy. This system has many many good points and I think all governments of the world need to ultimately become one that's based on democratic principles.

What I'm saying is, do the people of Hong Kong really understand and know what they're fighting for? Is there a clear plan, or strategy, that's carefully and thoroughly crafted, that suits the realities of Hong Kong and anticipates changes in the world, that will make ordinary Hong Kong people's lives better?

Or do they simply want democracy and true universal suffrage for the sake of it, but unsure or unclear of what to do next? And just believe that somehow, in one way or another, HK's economy will revive, and ordinary Hong Kong people can finally afford a proper apartment after "true democracy" is established?

 

[airsuperiority]

and if you guys don't believe me, think about how or why Hkers and Asians around the world are rallying in support of what's happening. you won't think they are all ranting and rallying for the wrong reasons would you?

 

[bd popeye]

I opened a thread specifically for the discussion of the Occupy Central demonstrations in Hong Kong Lets keep the discussion about Hong Kong in that thread. I'm moving 124 post to the new thread. If your post is missing that is where it is located.

Do not quote or comment on this post.

http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/members-club-room/hong-kong-occupy-central-demonstrations-7050.html

bd popeye super moderator

 

[Blitzo]

Three words: I am impressed

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Dealing With the Scourge of “Schadenfreude” in Foreign Reporting on China
Stephen Harner, Former US State Department Official
October 3, 2014

Why are we so often disturbed by Western media reporting and analysis of China? Why does reading commentary of China’s economy, foreign relations, politics, and society leave us feeling emotionally abused, injured, or even angry and resentful?

I believe our reactions are a response to the pervasive, ugly, and malevolent, but largely unnoticed element of schadenfreude in this commentary. It is our natural revulsion to writing and thinking that is anti-humanistic, hostile, and harmful.

Schadenfreude is a German-origin term defined by the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary as “a feeling of pleasure at the bad things that happen to other people.” Schadenfreude is rarely expressed plainly, or in relation to a specific event or situation. Rather, it is an attitude and bias that disparages achievements, discredits sincerity, and hopes for failure.

We see this vile sentiment often in Western media coverage of news events, in reporting on Chinese business, and particularly in analysis and commentary on policies, plans, and initiatives of the government and the Communist Party.

It is not just reporting mainly “bad news,” like tainted milk powder or cooking oil scandals, although this feature is common too, particularly in blogs and the popular press. Rather, it is reporting only of the facts that support a narrative of endemic amorality or immorality and government social irresponsibility, with a subliminal message that the Chinese people or system are immoral, corrupt, and will or should fail.

The commentator most identified with schadenfreude in writing on China is Gordon G. Chang. Chang, author of The Coming Collapse of China, released in 2001, has turned apocalyptic predictions and ill-wishing into a best-selling “brand.”

On cue, writing on Forbes.com after Alibaba’s world-beating IPO in New York, Chang was quick to predict, and seemingly to hope, that the company’s ambition to surpass Walmart as the world’s largest retailer would be unrealized.

Indeed, at every major juncture on economic and social China’s development path, from WTO accession, to coping with the global financial crisis, to economic and financial system reform, to the current anti-corruption campaign, Chang has been predicting, and seemingly hoping for, massive failure and systematic collapse.

Chang has been consistently wrong on matters large and small. Instead of failure and collapse China was achieved successes, advancing to a new, higher level of development and prosperity. Chang’s errors reflect a fundamental incapacity, and psychological unwillingness, to understand China and its people, their feelings, aspirations, and loyalties.

Chang’s brand is emblematic of the negative bias toward China, tinged with schadenfreude,that is more common than uncommon in the Western press.

Today this bias informs reporting and commentary on China’s top leadership’s two towering visions and initiatives: realizing a “China Dream” and rooting out endemic corruption. Both visions, and the actions being pursued toward their realization, typically receive cynical, unsympathetic, skeptical, or derisive treatment in the Western media.

The success of the anti--corruption campaign is of existential importance to China’s future, which is to say to the safety, security, and prosperity of the Chinese people. So is the vision of the “China Dream.” Yet in publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and The Wall Street Journal, the sincerity, or even the moral authority, of China’s leaders in pursuing these visions is regularly impugned or denied. Some reporting has seemingly aimed to undermine the authority of leaders, so as to complicate or derail related initiatives.

The government of China has felt obliged to protect the people’s vital interests by blocking publications like The New York Times that had acted as though its purpose was to sabotage those interests. This point was made by former Shanghai mayor, and now deputy head of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, Xu Kuangdi, in answering a member of the America Chamber of Commerce after the speech by former president Jimmy Carter in Shanghai on September 9.

That the government of China should take measures is understandable. That China has blocked such internet search portals as Google (while affording open internet access to its citizens through portals like Sohu.com) is also understandable and justifiable from the standpoint of the interests of the Chinese people.

China’s citizens nevertheless enjoy essential access to a range of domestic and foreign media that has not adopted an anti-China bias. Such unbalanced reporting is itself a expression of a biased, schadenfreude media mindset.

A pervasively biased Western media unfortunately plays into the hands of persons seeking to characterize China as posing a security “threat” to its neighbors or to the United States. Possessing an attitude of schadenfreude, the media not only dismiss, but would seek to impugn and deny China’s leaders’ sincerity when they express the Chinese people’s vital need for and yearning for peace and harmony with their Asian neighbors and with the United States.

China’s actions, often in reaction to provocations of other countries (notably with Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, and with Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea) are described as “aggressive”--therefore requiring counterforce--when in fact they are defensive. The reality of China’s long-standing policy of patience, restraint, and dispute resolution through bi-lateral negotiations is never mentioned.

What to do about foreign media schadenfreude toward China? It is too serious, malevolent, and potentially harmful a problem to ignore.

The most important counter-measure is to shine a light on this vile attitude, to sharpen readers’ and listeners’ perception of its presence. The second is to call out and condemn instances (and their authors) that are clearly malevolent in intent or effect.

The third is to join with and to support, through loyalty and goodwill, the efforts of persons in China and the United States, within and without government, working to further peace, harmony, mutual respect between our countries, and better lives for both our citizens.

Stephen M. Harner is a former Foreign Service Officer (U.S. Department of State), international banker, and consultant in Japan and China. He is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).

 

[JayBird]

My respect to Mr. Harner for his understanding and speaking the naked truth in this article. I didn't expect a former US State Department Official to write such a honest article on China.

 

[Blackstone]

Ivana Karásková and Alice Rezková from the Association of International Affairs in Prague wrote a good summary of why HK "Occupy Central" failed, and what the naive children could do for better results in the future. The writeup is well reasoned, and surprising free of Old World finger wagging and condescension.

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Although the Chinese government has tried to frame the Hong Kong protests as a local issue, the reality is that the key to resolving the recent crisis is in the hands of the leaders in Zhongnanhai, as well as the Occupy Central movement itself. If the protesters can hold their ground, authorities in Beijing (via the local ones) will eventually have to deal with them.

The biggest challenge for the protesters, then, is getting their strategy right. It is increasingly clear that the civil movement will fade away and eventually crumble if it cannot get the support of Hong Kong’s economic elite. From day one, the movement’s core supporters and organizers have been university students. They were later joined by Hongkongers from other segments of society who were appalled by the police’s use of pepper spray and tear gas against non-violent protesters. However, in recent days the movement’s support has been dwindling in the face of the lack of progress and growing fears of a violent government crackdown. Crucially, the movement has also so far yet to win the backing of the Hong Kong’s economic elite, who also double as the city’s political elites.

If history is any guide, this is a recipe for failure. Indeed, historically speaking, successful nonviolent protest movements have shared a number of crucial traits, such as having broad-based support and using highly adaptive strategies and tactics. A good example is Solidarity, the anti-communist movement in Poland, which in the early 1980s began adopting new tactics like large-scale demonstrations, boycotts, and strikes. These new tactics not only increased pressure on the communist government, but also helped Solidarity to expand its base of supporters to include trade unions, workers and intelligentsia. Ultimately, this brought down communism not only in Poland but also in neighboring Czechoslovakia, which replicated the model Poland had used.

Unfortunately, the Hong Kong protests don’t have a broad base of support and their tactics and strategy have been rather static. The movement’s lack of broad base support is best seen in the nearly non-existent support it has in the business sector. Indeed, the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce, the Federation of Hong Kong Industries, the Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong and the Real Estate Developers Association of Hong Kong have all condemned the Occupy Central movement. Compounding the issue, the protests has hurt many local businesses even as the broader economic environment has been barely affected by them, as evidenced from the quite stable performance of the Hang Seng index.

Unless the movement can woo the city’s economic elite, it’s clear that the current protests will burn out quickly. To be sure, getting the city’s economic elite to defect from Beijing and join the protesters is going to be difficult in light of the mainland’s enormous economic appeal. At the same time, Hong Kong’s elites are well aware that their future fortunes are threatened by the People Republic of China’s effort to transform Shanghai into a prominent regional financial center, which would come at Hong Kong’s expense. Moreover, they also recognize that Hong Kong’s main comparative advantage over Shanghai is its unique combination of openness, commitment to the rule of law, and free society. There is little chance that Hong Kong will be able to remain a prominent regional financial hub, especially in the face of Shanghai’s rise, unless it retains these qualities.

These realities could be enough to co-opt the city’s economic elite to reconsider its opposition to the Occupy Movement. This will, however, require strategic realignment on the part of the movement. If the key to success lies with the economic elites, they must be drawn on board even if it means sidelining the ideology which drives the Occupy Central activists. The movement can choose between failing alone, or reining in its own radicalism to have a chance of success. The message for protest leaders is simple: tone down the anti-rich rhetoric, focus on the shared values dear to all Hongkongers and engage in an active dialogue with the city’s elite.

 

[Doombreed]

It is increasingly clear that the civil movement will fade away and eventually crumble if it cannot get the support of Hong Kong’s economic elite.

Here's where the article falls over. The protests were actually aimed against the economic elites if anything else. The aim really was to sway Beijing from the elites to the everyday people. That was the subtle background battle that was waged.

But the no strategy part was right on the money. They don't really know what they wanted and what they can achieve. And it all fell apart.

 

[Blitzo]

"The message for protest leaders is simple: tone down the anti-rich rhetoric, focus on the shared values dear to all Hongkongers and engage in an active dialogue with the city’s elite."

That is hilarious, there was barely any "anti rich" rhetoric, it was mostly anti HKSAR and anti China/CCP rhetoric.

And of course, the central government were the ones who needed to be engaged in active dialogue, not the elite.

 

[Blackstone]

"The message for protest leaders is simple: tone down the anti-rich rhetoric, focus on the shared values dear to all Hongkongers and engage in an active dialogue with the city’s elite."

That is hilarious, there was barely any "anti rich" rhetoric, it was mostly anti HKSAR and anti China/CCP rhetoric.

And of course, the central government were the ones who needed to be engaged in active dialogue, not the elite.

Hong Kong, as in most cities, business and government elites often run hand in hand, so if OC HK can't build a bridge to the social and business elites, it would fail with the government too. In the aggregate, a movement based on a gaggle of college kids, lead in part by a 17 year-old child, might delight delusional Westerners, but not most people in Hong Kong.

 

[broadsword]

Parhat from Xinjiang, the runner-up in the China Voice 2014 competition which concluded a few days ago. Great dude and hugely popular, he refused to raise his hand in victory when he beat competitor Wang Zuo.

More here :

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