Why "the West" gets China wrong

I won't get into this further because there are overwhelming amount of evidence of photos and videos on youtube which suggested violence and deaths and tanks running over people, but also videos suggesting perhaps major massacre didn't take place within the square. It could be true, or something occurred inside and the eyewitness didn't catch the sight. Either way, eyewitnesses aren't reliable sources, and it's far from conclusive. Only thing is for certain is that government troops did fire on protestors, and both the killing of people and the way of managing the situation was totally wrong.

solarz said:

Pierre Elliot Trudeau sent tanks into the streets of Quebec. Does that mean there was a massacre?

Western media did not begin covering the protests on the eve of the incident. In the weeks leading up to the incident, the students in the square were being supplied by western ....

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AssassinsMace tried to deter this, and then Darth Vader himself warned it should stop as a moderator.

This is one of the topics that is not supposed to be raised here specifically for this reason.

There is no sense in it and it always leads to arguements and hard feelings, and differences that cannot be resolved...on top of that, it is not related to the purpose of the forum, and the forum rules specifically indicate to not discuss it.

I suggest you all heed Popeye's warning!

Jeff Head said:

AssassinsMace tried to deter this, and then Darth Vader himself warned it should stop as a moderator.

This is one of the topics that is not supposed to be raised here specifically for this reason.

There is no sense in it and it always leads to arguments and hard feelings, and differences that cannot be resolved...on top of that, and is not related to the purpose of the forum and is specifically indicated to not discuss.

I suggest you all heed Popeye's warning!

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EXACTLY ^^^ The discussion of the events in 1989 in Tiananmen Square are a forbidden subject in this forum. I've already posted that reminder. So.. If you want to get banned for three months keep discussing that forbidden subject. Return to the subject of this thread!

bd popeye super moderator

I just came across a very interesting article:



Putting aside the writer's obvious bias and resentment in some passages, there are good points raised here. Particularly salient is the tendency to blame the government for everything.

That is especially apparent in the complaints about housing prices: people keep blaming the government for high house prices all the while potential mother-in-laws (often in the same breath) demand their daughter's name on a house deed before agreeing to marriage.

solarz said:

I just came across a very interesting article:

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Putting aside the writer's obvious bias and resentment in some passages, there are good points raised here. Particularly salient is the tendency to blame the government for everything.

That is especially apparent in the complaints about housing prices: people keep blaming the government for high house prices all the while potential mother-in-laws (often in the same breath) demand their daughter's name on a house deed before agreeing to marriage.

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OMG yes..... this needs to be translated and spread on the Chinese forums. I'm bloody sick of the relentless cynicism of the Chinese population against the government. The government taught the population discipline in 89, now they need to teach them morals.

An excellent piece, very thoughtful and full of good ideas, probably the most balanced you are ever likely to find published in the english language with a real sincere sympathy and understanding for China's situation without any hint of superiority or contempt.

I'm gonna start reading that blog regularly.

jobjed said:

OMG yes..... this needs to be translated and spread on the Chinese forums. I'm bloody sick of the relentless cynicism of the Chinese population against the government. The government taught the population discipline in 89, now they need to teach them morals.

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The problem is the government isn't exactly a shining example of morality. There is still much corruption and amorality to be rooted out.

That being said blaming the government is something that is overly played out particularly by the Liberal and Western Media. A lot of the problems are more of a problem of its bureaucratic systems itself and its inability for to push forward policy non-economic policies.

I believe the next step really should be legal reform. There is a bit more of economic reform to be had, but legal reform is much more pressing and would work to stimulate economic reforms. Having a dictator or authoritarian gov't. doesn't mean its good or bad, its just a form of governance: they are good emperors and bad ones. However, without having any accountability or form of self-regulation tends to lead to corruption and abuse of power.

IMO legal reform must come before political reform, look at India or S. America. Many of nations are democracies but every regime is a bad as the previous. Look at England and US. They both had law well-established and a high function legal system before they had political representation. England through common law and property rights push forward to the Magna Carta and eventually created the Parliament System. The U.S. had a strong legal system before they were able to gain independence and have "representation for taxation." And they were great Superpower England and US dominating the 19th and 20th centuries.

Having choice is one thing, but if its a pile of dung vs. vomit, its becomes pretty irrelevant who you elect as they will be as a corrupt and incompetent as the previous regime if there is no accountability.

I'm not really surprised by that article. I'm more surprised (not really) if anyone else thinks their ethnicity or their citizens act appropriately enough to make a blanket judgment and then judge others.

The people of Hong Kong have complained about the behavior of Mainland Chinese mentioning things like how they talk loud or eat on the subway when they're not suppose to. That apparently crosses the line. I warn the people of Hong Kong to never go on the BART MTR system in the San Francisco Bay Area. People on BART trains have sex, oral and intercourse, they urinate and defecate on the seats and floors of the trains, and talk loud and eat.. all when the trains are full of people.

Do you think someone from Hong Kong will use this fact to be vocal and spread prejudice towards Americans like they do with Mainland Chinese? I bet they won't even bother to think about it because the reason for complaining is not at all about appropriate behavior in general.

AssassinsMace said:

I'm not really surprised by that article. I'm more surprised (not really) if anyone else thinks their ethnicity or their citizens act appropriately enough to make a blanket judgment and then judge others.

The people of Hong Kong have complained about the behavior of Mainland Chinese mentioning things like how they talk loud or eat on the subway when they're not suppose to. That apparently crosses the line. I warn the people of Hong Kong to never go on the BART MTR system in the San Francisco Bay Area. People on BART trains have sex, oral and intercourse, they urinate and defecate on the seats and floors of the trains, and talk loud and eat.. all when the trains are full of people.

Do you think someone from Hong Kong will use this fact to be vocal and spread prejudice towards Americans like they do with Mainland Chinese? I bet they won't even bother to think about it because the reason for complaining is not at all about appropriate behavior in general.

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Great point! It's obvious that the writer of that article is suffering from culture shock in China.

Still, that does not change the fact that the article had some pretty insightful points. I really hadn't thought about it until I read it, but Chinese society does have a tendency to blame the government for their own problems. Take corruption for example. *Everyone* in China complains about corrupt officials, but guess what they do in their everyday life? Bribe teachers to pay more attention to their own kid. Give "red pockets" to doctors before a surgery. Give "gifts" to their boss. Expect gifts from their underlings.

The writer makes a great point. Taken individually, these actions seem like victimless crimes. However, when everyone does it, the society ends up with a big problem. The most common refrain we hear is "we have to do it". We have to bribe the teacher or our kid won't get good grades. We have to bribe the doctor or he won't pay attention to the surgery. We have to give gifts to the boss or we won't get promoted.

When *everybody* thinks this way, what are the chances of a politician thinking differently?

Well I'm not arguing with what was written. I'm just surprised that he's shocked by it. Which begs the question why would he need to advertise it since he's proven himself ignorant? A lot of bad behavior is because of circumstances. The behavior isn't going to change until those circumstances change. I live in the US and plenty of Asians will backstab other Asians just to get ahead. Why does backstabbing other Asians get you ahead? Gordan Chang backstabs the Chinese because the US media rewards Asians who say the ugly things they want to be said but can't say it themselves because they would be called a racist. So how do you bypass being called a racist? You let a self-hating Asian do it for you. A culture of self-hatred has been created because you can gain personally from it. It's ugly but I bet someone like Gordan Chang gets more from hating than not. And that's why someone like him and the other self-haters don't see what's wrong with it and that's why they have that behavior.