Should China respect sanctions on Iran?

Engineer said:

No. When you make a claim, then the burden of proofs lies on you. bladerunner have already retracted his statement with regards to hundred of media outlets making the same report, so I don't know why you insist on keeping this particular argument alive.


We all know that it is impossible that you (or anyone) could have read news articles from hundreds of different media corps. So, it isn't that you don't want to waste time to backup the claim; it's that you can't.
Thanks for playing though.


Ahmadinejad either said it, or he didn't. Having a lot of media reporting that he said he wants to "blow up Israel" doesn't miraculously make it true. Imagine if I could muster hundred of peoples to say that you, s002wjh, claim that Israel should be blown up. Would that actually mean you've said it? Clearly not.


Exactly. People can and do criticize the government without having to go to jail.


CCTV isn't the only source of news in China, and there are newspapers that criticizes the government. Southern Morning Post (if I translate it correctly) springs to mind. People's Daily and Xinhua have also done it on a few occasions.


What Chinese media do does not make Western media any less bad.


If CCTV does it then they are at fault for not verifying their information. It doesn't alters the past and makes Ahmadinejad made the comment.

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really so those human right activitist in jailed are not realy in jailed? like i said before, i'm not gonna spend time to dig up Ahmadinejad comments.

western media is much better when report issues under its own governments. Its not prefect but its not like government mouth piece like CCTV.

there is a difference between criticize chinese government on thusands website with tens thousands thread vs public criticizing the government. why don't you go to a public place to protest about the government and see what happen. even if you criticize the government on internet, if you caught their attention, ill bet you gonna have one of those "tea meeting" with a police officers.

i'm not claming read hundreds news, i'm claming i read xinhua, cctv, cnn, cbs etc. you just don't won't to look it up, cause you know what blade said was true. :Even if i dig up news on Ahmadinejad comments, you just gonna discredit since its western media etc." You mind already set on what you want to believe vs facts.

btw blade probably give up due the fact he can't get his opinion into your head. you just brush away even if its a fact.

so when is xinhua criticize the government for force relocation, when did it mention tiananmen protest issues, what about jailing of different human right activists? did xinhua or cctv or any chinese media, put a headline says "chinese human right activists was jailed" or "xxx number people was shot during tiananmen square protest"

Before everyone goes too far off into the deep end, it should be reiterated what the rules of this forum are. Issues concerning Tibet, Taiwan, etc.. don't have a place on this thread or in this forum. I am new, and I agree to abide by these rules.

As previous more senior members have mentioned, the Iran sanctions issue is as political as it should get here. The only reason it is probably allowed to continue is that Iran seems to be crucial for China's energy and thus defense.

We obviously cannot force other members to any particular viewpoint, so endless discussions about "fair media" has no place here either. If a member cites a news-source others question, it is better to cite counter news sources and leave matters of "truthfulness" up to the readers.

Let's move the discussion forward and not get sidetracked from the Thread's subject line.

jantxv said:

Before everyone goes too far off into the deep end, it should be reiterated what the rules of this forum are. Issues concerning Tibet, Taiwan, etc.. don't have a place on this thread or in this forum. I am new, and I agree to abide by these rules.

As previous more senior members have mentioned, the Iran sanctions issue is as political as it should get here. The only reason it is probably allowed to continue is that Iran seems to be crucial for China's energy and thus defense.

We obviously cannot force other members to any particular viewpoint, so endless discussions about "fair media" has no place here either. If a member cites a news-source others question, it is better to cite counter news sources and leave matters of "truthfulness" up to the readers.

Let's move the discussion forward and not get sidetracked from the Thread's subject line.

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yea you are right, shouldn't derailed the topic.

I don't think china want a nuclear power IRAN either. but iran is a card that china can used aginst US. The US government try to find an oil source for china, so china can play along with US.

s002wjh said:

really so those human right activitist in jailed are not realy in jailed?

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Whenever one gets jailed, Western governments would complain and demands his/her release. This shows that the human rights activists are agents for these western governments, and for this, they deserved to be jailed. This is however, severely off topic.

s002wjh said:

like i said before, i'm not gonna spend time to dig up Ahmadinejad comments.

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In other words, you have no proof.

s002wjh said:

western media is much better when report issues under its own governments. Its not prefect but its not like government mouth piece like CCTV.

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I agree that Western media is much better at reporting (manipulating the masses). I mean, it can overtly spread lies and still people would come to it defense. Obviously, it's not perfect because some of us still manage to see through its lies, but yeah you are right -- its propaganda skills are indeed light year ahead of CCTV.

s002wjh said:

there is a difference between criticize chinese government on thusands website with tens thousands thread vs public criticizing the government. why don't you go to a public place to protest about the government and see what happen. even if you criticize the government on internet, if you caught their attention, ill bet you gonna have one of those "tea meeting" with a police officers.

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In other words, people can criticize the government and not get jailed, which contradicts your original claim that anyone who criticizes the government is jailed. To put it more bluntly, you were spreading lies.

And since when is Internet not public? And what do you refer to those tens of thousands of protests a year if they are not protests? You should stop splitting hair.

s002wjh said:

i'm not claming read hundreds news, i'm claming i read xinhua, cctv, cnn, cbs etc. you just don't won't to look it up, cause you know what blade said was true. :Even if i dig up news on Ahmadinejad comments, you just gonna discredit since its western media etc." You mind already set on what you want to believe vs facts.

btw blade probably give up due the fact he can't get his opinion into your head. you just brush away even if its a fact.

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No. It is your mind that has already set on what you want to believe, which is that Western media is infallible. But if Western media is really infallible, you would have looked up what Ahmadinejad actually said to prove I'm wrong. There wouldn't be any need for you to keep on side-stepping the issue.

s002wjh said:

so when is xinhua criticize the government for force relocation, when did it mention tiananmen protest issues, what about jailing of different human right activists? did xinhua or cctv or any chinese media, put a headline says "chinese human right activists was jailed" or "xxx number people was shot during tiananmen square protest"

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Why would it needs to criticize the government for the handling of Tiananmen protest? That's like saying if a person done something right, he should be criticized as a reward. You make no sense. But allow me to use this as a lead to get back on topic. So far, the discussion with regards to sanctions on Iran is based on the right-and-wrong defined by the West. That is, what have been discussed prior to the off topic debate is whether China should respect Western views. If we really want to find out the answer to the title of this thread, then we need to look at Iran from Chinese's perspective.

s002wjh said:

really so those human right activitist in jailed are not realy in jailed? like i said before, i'm not gonna spend time to dig up Ahmadinejad comments.

western media is much better when report issues under its own governments. Its not prefect but its not like government mouth piece like CCTV.

there is a difference between criticize chinese government on thusands website with tens thousands thread vs public criticizing the government. why don't you go to a public place to protest about the government and see what happen. even if you criticize the government on internet, if you caught their attention, ill bet you gonna have one of those "tea meeting" with a police officers.

i'm not claming read hundreds news, i'm claming i read xinhua, cctv, cnn, cbs etc. you just don't won't to look it up, cause you know what blade said was true. :Even if i dig up news on Ahmadinejad comments, you just gonna discredit since its western media etc." You mind already set on what you want to believe vs facts.

btw blade probably give up due the fact he can't get his opinion into your head. you just brush away even if its a fact.

so when is xinhua criticize the government for force relocation, when did it mention tiananmen protest issues, what about jailing of different human right activists? did xinhua or cctv or any chinese media, put a headline says "chinese human right activists was jailed" or "xxx number people was shot during tiananmen square protest"

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just so u know, my prof, who came from china and is a baby boomer, told us about what it's like there.

today, speaking out against the government is allowed. it's even a family table topic. the only thing will be you're not allowed to discuss the really sensitive stuff. if someone has something they wants it to be heard, they can bring it to their local representative, who then bring it up at the meetings or something.

that's how it works. so the "speak out against the government in public gets you shot" isn't true. the only 2 problems will be 1. the system works that way, but the integrity of the officials is another question
2. corruption


as for cctv and all, the chinese public clearly knows what's going on. heck, they grew up and lived there. im quite sure they knew about it much better than us.

No, you can't say anything you want in China. Anything that threatens the legitimacy of the CCP is forbidden ground.

No, you won't get hauled off to jail if you bitch about the government to your friends, neighbors, or even complete strangers who ride your cab. I've heard cabbies dissing the CCP back in 97.

Yes, you *will* get hauled off to jail if you keep distributing anti-CCP material on the internet or start an anti-CCP organization.

Yes, you are likely to get beaten up, marginalized, or both, if you say things that people in power don't like (and who happen to overhear you). China's rule of law sucks.

I hope that this summarizes the issue on Chinese freedom of speech. Now back to our regularly scheduled thread topic.

solarz said:

No, you can't say anything you want in China. Anything that threatens the legitimacy of the CCP is forbidden ground.

No, you won't get hauled off to jail if you bitch about the government to your friends, neighbors, or even complete strangers who ride your cab. I've heard cabbies dissing the CCP back in 97.

Yes, you *will* get hauled off to jail if you keep distributing anti-CCP material on the internet or start an anti-CCP organization.

Yes, you are likely to get beaten up, marginalized, or both, if you say things that people in power don't like (and who happen to overhear you). China's rule of law sucks.

I hope that this summarizes the issue on Chinese freedom of speech. Now back to our regularly scheduled thread topic.

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oh yea
the sensitive stuff like june 4th are not allowed
as for bringing issues up to your local officials, i usually mean stuff such as needs
and if you're lucky, u can speak to the right person to complain about stuff that are bad, whether it be someone doing something illegal in the party or whatever

the thing will be 1. you're lucky enough to find the right person, or you'll be screwed
2. the person is powerful enough

Iran is to China what Mexico is to USA?

Here is the actually the special CCTV did on sanction on Iran?



It pretty clear, China's position is to seek peaceful solutions, will not support sanctions, but will not oppose it either....

But if you check CCTV program people actually watch such as these:






Nobody in China gives a damn about Iran, most of the Iran talk are either on cctv-4 or cctv-9 which are aimed at foreigners。 (who don't watch to begin, with it's aimed at nobody) In domestic media, there is only It's quite negative on Iran too It praises the new US-Russia START treaty and US nuclear posture review, though with a lot of suspicion.
As for media, sometimes CCTV create really good investigation reports such one on , best report anywhere on that subject, including phoenix tv.

edit: fixed some typos and grammar

I think a nuclear Iran might actually be a good thing.

For far too long Israel has been the only nuclear power in the region. Coupled with their American supplied conventional superiority and a perverse sense within successive Israeli governments that Israel is above international law, and we have one of the most aggressive, violent and vindictive regimes anywhere in the world.

Even America seems powerless to exert much influence to curb their excesses and all the other major powers have too much vested interest to be bold enough to do what is right and bring Israel to heel. So that leaves Iran. The pariah, the outcast the only country willing to stand up to Israel. If they also gain the means to do so, then the two may balance each other out and establish a forced peace in the region.

All this drummed up accusations that Iran plans to wipe Israel off the map is nothing but a deceitful smokescreen designed to try and deflect and confuse the real reason Iran seeks the bomb - deterrence and nuclear parity against Israel.

Obviously China cannot come out and support Iran's nuclear ambitions, and it would be highly costly for China in the short run because as soon as Iran formally goes nuclear, China will be forced to cut ties and impose sanctions and that will greatly damage Chinese interests. But it could present China with an enormously beneficial opportunity in the medium and long run if Iran did go nuclear.

As soon as Iran goes nuclear, the western powers will sanction it and isolate it. But they will not dare attack it. That leaves China and Russia as the only remaining neutral powers. China is far more heavily invested in Iran then Russia, and would be the natural first choice as mediator.

China could negotiate for both Iran and Israel to disarm their nuclear weapons in exchange for lifting of sanctions and normalization of ties between Iran and America. Once this happens, Chinese companies would get first pick to help develop Iran. China may also get some arms sales to re-equip the Iranian military and could even set up a naval base in Iran in the long run.

Thats the best case scenario and a lot of things may go differently. Chinese leaders certainly have the patients and vision to play such a long term game, the only uncertainty would be if they had the confidence to seize the initiative if and when the opportunity presents itself.