Consider that this November, 2010, voters in California will be asked to legalize marijuana in America's most populous state, and as an enducement to push for this perverse drive to push for expanding the envelope for more "freedoms" and so-called "civil liberties," proponents of the voters' initiative are offering to tax marijuana as a panacea to fix California's fiscal mess.
California's current fiscal budget hole has skyrockted to over US$ 20 billion, and growing as this once great state implodes from within. Given the deep economic recession resulting from America's overall collaspsing financial institutions and economic infrastructures, with joblessness, home foreclosures, personal and business bankruptcies exploding all over, it is desperation and lunatic times in America's biggest and most populous state.
As American pundit and the late President Ronald Reagan's speechwriter Peggy Noonan aptly put it, " We (Americans) are living under times of collaspe, with collaspsing institutions from government, churches, jounalism etc." How perilous but on point indeed.
This latest piece of marijuana news originating from California exemplifies the depth and breath of drug and alcohol abuse in the West, with London in Europe, and Los Angeles serving as metaphors of a decaying West.
Go visit any major American and European cities.... from London to San Francisco, New York City to Vancouver, Paris to Philadelphia, the sights of drug addicts, alcoholics, social miscreants, panhandlers, beggars, crazies wallowing in these cities' mean streets are telling and shocking.
In the L.A. Times today, the L.A. City Council reportedly has decided to put a grip on the proliferation of marijuana purveyors passing as "medicinal cannabis clinics.
By latest estimate, there are more than 1,000 to 1,200 of these dope houses operating in Los Angeles. Check out the link below:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100119/ap_on_re_us/us_medical_marijuana_los_angeles
Over a century and a half ago, China and its people went through the scourge of Opium. And the pejorative diss words, "The sick man of Asia" was aptly ascribed to China. That "sick man" insult continues to haunt China and its peoples today.
It is now historical "deja vu." History has a way of repeating itself. Empires rise and empires fall. Are Californians at the precipice ?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Monday, January 25, 2010
When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order by Martin Jacques
A book authored by British author Martin Jacques which has just been released late last year has evoked much debate and controversy around the globe.
In particular, this book posits many perceptive thoughts which question and dispute the heretofore European-Western orthodoxy about democracy, human rights (Europeanized defined; and look at China's emergence as a counterfoil to Western hegemonistic hold in the world of ideas, politics, and culture.
Let's debate the contents of this book.
Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred ideas contend.
A small flicker may light a prairie fire. Without a doubt, the re-emergence of China in the world stage ushers an era whereby a sense of direction, and that big over-arching vision of where and how the Chinese people are going to pursue modernization and to what extent should this process incorporate Western values and embodies Western culture, with its good and bad.
For an Amazon.com link to Martin Jacques' book, click on the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=when+china+rules+the+world&sprefix=When+China
Click on the hyperlink below for the link to Bevin Chu's "China Desk."
Bevin Chu's blog sets forth a brief intro to Martin Jacques' book, and you are invited to post your comments and thoughts if you wish to debate and sound off on the subject:
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2010/01/when-china-rules-world.html
In particular, this book posits many perceptive thoughts which question and dispute the heretofore European-Western orthodoxy about democracy, human rights (Europeanized defined; and look at China's emergence as a counterfoil to Western hegemonistic hold in the world of ideas, politics, and culture.
Let's debate the contents of this book.
Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred ideas contend.
A small flicker may light a prairie fire. Without a doubt, the re-emergence of China in the world stage ushers an era whereby a sense of direction, and that big over-arching vision of where and how the Chinese people are going to pursue modernization and to what extent should this process incorporate Western values and embodies Western culture, with its good and bad.
For an Amazon.com link to Martin Jacques' book, click on the link below:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_10?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=when+china+rules+the+world&sprefix=When+China
Click on the hyperlink below for the link to Bevin Chu's "China Desk."
Bevin Chu's blog sets forth a brief intro to Martin Jacques' book, and you are invited to post your comments and thoughts if you wish to debate and sound off on the subject:
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.com/2010/01/when-china-rules-world.html
Friday, January 22, 2010
The GOOGLE-AMERICA ARROW ACROSS THE BOW -- WHY CHINA and ALL GLOBAL CHINESE MUST STAND STRONG and FIGHT BACK
The gauntlet has been thrown first by Google from Mountain View, California last week-- followed by yesterday's high-profile public excoriation by the U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton against Chinese officials on the issue of internet access and freedoms, and allegations of cyberhacking traced to China.
The biased Western news media such as the New York Times has spun and orchestrated a torrent of "bad-mouthing," China-bashing, Chinese demonization,and disinformation alleging that China has censored, and put up a firewall to suppress dissident views in the internet piped in through Google.cn and its search engine.
Coupled with this attack, the biased Western news media has spun an unsubstantiated story, without clear and convincing proof, or even by a preponderance of evidence, or the higher criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt, that cyberhackers, at control, and direction of the Chinese government, has engaged in cyberattacks and pilfered intellectual property and source codes which are proprietary to Google.
What kind of poppycock is this ? And why is this rhetoric and saber-rattling being orchestrated now, at this time, and at this moment ?
For all global Chinese (Huarens) who have been observing Sino-U.S.-West relations, the writings on the wall, and the signals being calibrated to poison and destabilize China and China's colossal growth by the West and especially by America and Western Europe cannot be clearer.
The Google attack is pretextual. It is a conspiracy which has been hatched, scripted, staged and directed from the West, designed by the China bashers and demonizers to destabilize China and Chinese society, and a sinister attempt to foment "luan" among the naive, growing segment of Chinese netizens who are quickly and exponentially surfing the world wide web and taken on the information highly with must gusto, much enthusiasm, albeit also with much naivite.
Since over a decade ago, from my "third space" perch, then at Huaran.org, I have written about the megatrend of globalization and the consolidation of media and information behemoths in the new frontiers of the internet and the information highway.
In and of itself, the internet is a tool which can do much good, and at the same time do much evil. It is the content and control of content which have become critical. As I predicted, content and software is the name of the game.
Whoever control and dominate the content in the internet and can shape and dominate content can control and shape the minds, and in shaping the minds, they can become the masters over the slaves who are being bombarded and "brain-washed" by this content.
Without a doubt, those of us who are ethnic Chinese living overseas in the Chinese Diaspora know and experience the West and especially America in its rawest, most banal, most perverse side. The picture does not look very good.
We have seen the "armpit" side of the West and especially in London, in San Francisco, in New York City, in Vancouver, in Toronto, in Sydney, in Paris, all across many inner cities in the West and especially in America.
Alcohol and drugs..... moral degradation, predatory behavior, sociopathic and nefarious activities are skyrocketing and running out of control. In short, the West is crumbling from within, not by what the non-West is doing to it, but by what Westerners are doing within and to themselves and to each other in a morally degenerating, puerile, and vulgar environment.
China and all Chinese, whether inside or outside China, must learn from the mistakes of the West.
China's economic growth has been stellar; but at this time, there are storm clouds in the horizon. Aside from robust economic growth demonstrated by statistics and numbers, China and all Chinese must watch out for the real honest-to-goodness growth of its civil society, its moral and social underpinnings. China and all Chinese cannot ape the West and absorb hook, line, and sinker any Western and smells chic Hollywood.
I know. I have lived in the West for the greater part of my life.
Believe me.... "The Western Moon is Not Rounder." "The Westerner's Fart does not Smell fragrant."
Sad to say, Western-European imperialism and colonialism may have left China; but the "Western colonial mentality" and blind worship of the Western Moon and the Western fart have not left China and in the minds of many of its people, and especially in today's post-Mao Zedong era, and post-Deng Xiao Ping youth.
In my opinion, China's most formidable challenge is CULTURAL POLLUTION, and the POISONING OF THE MINDS from the toxic content being spewed from the WEST, not just through the internet, but through social-cultural seepage and contamination resulting from a more open society, more open borders, and more travel by "lao wai" visitors from abroad.
The good side of it is more exchanges and interfaces with "lao wai" brings about more understanding and knowledge. The bad side of it is, if not mindful of the toxins, China and its youths, naive and ignorant as many are, because many have not been exposed to the West, may end up becoming "yellow monkeys," apes of Western depraved values of hyper-selfishness, self-indulgence, hypermaterialism, aggressiveness, lack of "li," and downright vulgarity and perversity.
Already, drugs and pornography have reared their ugly heads in China's cities, towns and villages.
Even in prestigeous Peking University, China's elite university, there are anecdotal stories of marijuana use among students, and most of these "bong parties" and bongheads are Westerners who have brought in the passion, obsession, and binges vis a vis pot use, drug use, and alcohol use and abuse.
China's firewalls, we all know, can be circumvented. Like the Great Wall built by Emperor Qin, designed to blockade the intrusions from foreign invaders, it was not an effective wall nor could successful stop invasion, but nonetheless a symbol.
It is symbolic of Chinese civilization and its sense of itself, and speaks to the Chinese people's awareness that we must be ourselves, cannot be other than ourselves, with a historic civilization rooted in our people's consciousness, and that we must vigilant to do the right thing for our society, our civilization, and our culture, not by Westeners' rules or their standards.
If modernization is equated as westernization; if the West insist on their perverted, warped, "Europeanized" notion of democracy, or human rights, or internet freedoms, of drug use, of "one man, one vote," of "freedom to cavort, get drunk, get sex, get high,"...... all Chinese must resist and refuse to accept.
Let a hundred flowers bloom. Let a hundred ideas contend.
But for China and all Chinese' sake, don't let Google or the West dictate, control, or dominate content and the information highway, unconditionally, or according to what the West and the Googlers want, by their whims, and on their own terms.
China and all Chinese must fight. We should fight back. We should stand firm on Tibet, Xinjiang, and resist the "compradores" and those among us who still naively believe that "The Western Moon is Rounder" and that "The Western Fart is More Fragrant."
En Garde. En Garde.
The gauntlet has been thrown. And let the line on the sands be drawn.
As Mao Zedong declared on Oct. 1, 1949, "The Chinese People has risen."
The Dragon awakes.
The biased Western news media such as the New York Times has spun and orchestrated a torrent of "bad-mouthing," China-bashing, Chinese demonization,and disinformation alleging that China has censored, and put up a firewall to suppress dissident views in the internet piped in through Google.cn and its search engine.
Coupled with this attack, the biased Western news media has spun an unsubstantiated story, without clear and convincing proof, or even by a preponderance of evidence, or the higher criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt, that cyberhackers, at control, and direction of the Chinese government, has engaged in cyberattacks and pilfered intellectual property and source codes which are proprietary to Google.
What kind of poppycock is this ? And why is this rhetoric and saber-rattling being orchestrated now, at this time, and at this moment ?
For all global Chinese (Huarens) who have been observing Sino-U.S.-West relations, the writings on the wall, and the signals being calibrated to poison and destabilize China and China's colossal growth by the West and especially by America and Western Europe cannot be clearer.
The Google attack is pretextual. It is a conspiracy which has been hatched, scripted, staged and directed from the West, designed by the China bashers and demonizers to destabilize China and Chinese society, and a sinister attempt to foment "luan" among the naive, growing segment of Chinese netizens who are quickly and exponentially surfing the world wide web and taken on the information highly with must gusto, much enthusiasm, albeit also with much naivite.
Since over a decade ago, from my "third space" perch, then at Huaran.org, I have written about the megatrend of globalization and the consolidation of media and information behemoths in the new frontiers of the internet and the information highway.
In and of itself, the internet is a tool which can do much good, and at the same time do much evil. It is the content and control of content which have become critical. As I predicted, content and software is the name of the game.
Whoever control and dominate the content in the internet and can shape and dominate content can control and shape the minds, and in shaping the minds, they can become the masters over the slaves who are being bombarded and "brain-washed" by this content.
Without a doubt, those of us who are ethnic Chinese living overseas in the Chinese Diaspora know and experience the West and especially America in its rawest, most banal, most perverse side. The picture does not look very good.
We have seen the "armpit" side of the West and especially in London, in San Francisco, in New York City, in Vancouver, in Toronto, in Sydney, in Paris, all across many inner cities in the West and especially in America.
Alcohol and drugs..... moral degradation, predatory behavior, sociopathic and nefarious activities are skyrocketing and running out of control. In short, the West is crumbling from within, not by what the non-West is doing to it, but by what Westerners are doing within and to themselves and to each other in a morally degenerating, puerile, and vulgar environment.
China and all Chinese, whether inside or outside China, must learn from the mistakes of the West.
China's economic growth has been stellar; but at this time, there are storm clouds in the horizon. Aside from robust economic growth demonstrated by statistics and numbers, China and all Chinese must watch out for the real honest-to-goodness growth of its civil society, its moral and social underpinnings. China and all Chinese cannot ape the West and absorb hook, line, and sinker any Western and smells chic Hollywood.
I know. I have lived in the West for the greater part of my life.
Believe me.... "The Western Moon is Not Rounder." "The Westerner's Fart does not Smell fragrant."
Sad to say, Western-European imperialism and colonialism may have left China; but the "Western colonial mentality" and blind worship of the Western Moon and the Western fart have not left China and in the minds of many of its people, and especially in today's post-Mao Zedong era, and post-Deng Xiao Ping youth.
In my opinion, China's most formidable challenge is CULTURAL POLLUTION, and the POISONING OF THE MINDS from the toxic content being spewed from the WEST, not just through the internet, but through social-cultural seepage and contamination resulting from a more open society, more open borders, and more travel by "lao wai" visitors from abroad.
The good side of it is more exchanges and interfaces with "lao wai" brings about more understanding and knowledge. The bad side of it is, if not mindful of the toxins, China and its youths, naive and ignorant as many are, because many have not been exposed to the West, may end up becoming "yellow monkeys," apes of Western depraved values of hyper-selfishness, self-indulgence, hypermaterialism, aggressiveness, lack of "li," and downright vulgarity and perversity.
Already, drugs and pornography have reared their ugly heads in China's cities, towns and villages.
Even in prestigeous Peking University, China's elite university, there are anecdotal stories of marijuana use among students, and most of these "bong parties" and bongheads are Westerners who have brought in the passion, obsession, and binges vis a vis pot use, drug use, and alcohol use and abuse.
China's firewalls, we all know, can be circumvented. Like the Great Wall built by Emperor Qin, designed to blockade the intrusions from foreign invaders, it was not an effective wall nor could successful stop invasion, but nonetheless a symbol.
It is symbolic of Chinese civilization and its sense of itself, and speaks to the Chinese people's awareness that we must be ourselves, cannot be other than ourselves, with a historic civilization rooted in our people's consciousness, and that we must vigilant to do the right thing for our society, our civilization, and our culture, not by Westeners' rules or their standards.
If modernization is equated as westernization; if the West insist on their perverted, warped, "Europeanized" notion of democracy, or human rights, or internet freedoms, of drug use, of "one man, one vote," of "freedom to cavort, get drunk, get sex, get high,"...... all Chinese must resist and refuse to accept.
Let a hundred flowers bloom. Let a hundred ideas contend.
But for China and all Chinese' sake, don't let Google or the West dictate, control, or dominate content and the information highway, unconditionally, or according to what the West and the Googlers want, by their whims, and on their own terms.
China and all Chinese must fight. We should fight back. We should stand firm on Tibet, Xinjiang, and resist the "compradores" and those among us who still naively believe that "The Western Moon is Rounder" and that "The Western Fart is More Fragrant."
En Garde. En Garde.
The gauntlet has been thrown. And let the line on the sands be drawn.
As Mao Zedong declared on Oct. 1, 1949, "The Chinese People has risen."
The Dragon awakes.
HAITI EARTHQUAKE CATASTROPHE --- The Urgency for Chinese to Declare a Truce Across the Taiwan Straits and Do the Right Thing
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Talk about more heartbreak in the aftermath of a horrific catastrophe in the poorest, most impoverished "basket case" country in the Western hemisphere.
More than a week after the giant tremors demolished the capital of Haiti, Port Au Prince, and brought deaths to over 200,000 Haitians, 3 million displaced and rendered homeless, in a country with a national population of 9 million, Haiti remains at the crosshairs of geopolitical rivalry, back-biting, fights, incompetence, corruption, opportunism, fear, reprisals.... and all the nasty things about human society.
I am not trying to take away the selfless, heroic, magninimous giving and sacrifices rendered by aid workers on individual personal levels, from doctors to nurses, social workers to ordinary blokes from the streets.
But there is no question that Haiti and the aftermath of the earthquake rescue and relief efforts have been disastrous and speaks to the corrosion of government as we know it, as a safety net. Instead, what the world saw was not Sichuan but headless chickens running around with their wings flapping, with little coordination and organization in Haiti.
Across the board, the chaos, the anarchy, the infighting, posturing, leveraging has made ordinary Haitians the "Sad Sack" stories of today's uglier, unkind, brutal world.
Aside from the gross incompetence and chaos shown by American troops who poured in with assault weapons, lots of military equipment, but not enough medical supplies, make-shift hospitals for emergency care, tents for temporary housing, heavy equipment to dig through the rubble.......
Consider that the rivalry across the Taiwan Straits has now also resulted in a tussle in Haiti between Beijing and Taipei. Beijing and Taipei officials can do better.
The spirit of Sichuan, demonstrated under the leadership of Uncle Wen Jiabao was absent in Haiti. Why ? Where's the age-old Chinese humanity and civilizational trait of altruism without politics and the spirit of "Datong" ?
Is it once again "checkbook diplomacy" ? Or should this be one where across the Taiwan Straits, all Chinese must cut the b.s. over whether Haiti should have diplomatic relations with Beijing or with Taipei.
As an ethnic Chinese, I am angry and aggrieved by this nonsense in the face of a calamity which has brought about such disastrous consequences upon a country and a people in the Caribbean, without a functoning government, if at all, living in utter despair and desperation.
Cut that out..... please. The officials in charge of relief work from Beijing and Taipei must stop "politicking" and stick to doing the right thing. Plain and simple. Read the following Al Jazeera story:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/01/2010122691841411.html
Talk about more heartbreak in the aftermath of a horrific catastrophe in the poorest, most impoverished "basket case" country in the Western hemisphere.
More than a week after the giant tremors demolished the capital of Haiti, Port Au Prince, and brought deaths to over 200,000 Haitians, 3 million displaced and rendered homeless, in a country with a national population of 9 million, Haiti remains at the crosshairs of geopolitical rivalry, back-biting, fights, incompetence, corruption, opportunism, fear, reprisals.... and all the nasty things about human society.
I am not trying to take away the selfless, heroic, magninimous giving and sacrifices rendered by aid workers on individual personal levels, from doctors to nurses, social workers to ordinary blokes from the streets.
But there is no question that Haiti and the aftermath of the earthquake rescue and relief efforts have been disastrous and speaks to the corrosion of government as we know it, as a safety net. Instead, what the world saw was not Sichuan but headless chickens running around with their wings flapping, with little coordination and organization in Haiti.
Across the board, the chaos, the anarchy, the infighting, posturing, leveraging has made ordinary Haitians the "Sad Sack" stories of today's uglier, unkind, brutal world.
Aside from the gross incompetence and chaos shown by American troops who poured in with assault weapons, lots of military equipment, but not enough medical supplies, make-shift hospitals for emergency care, tents for temporary housing, heavy equipment to dig through the rubble.......
Consider that the rivalry across the Taiwan Straits has now also resulted in a tussle in Haiti between Beijing and Taipei. Beijing and Taipei officials can do better.
The spirit of Sichuan, demonstrated under the leadership of Uncle Wen Jiabao was absent in Haiti. Why ? Where's the age-old Chinese humanity and civilizational trait of altruism without politics and the spirit of "Datong" ?
Is it once again "checkbook diplomacy" ? Or should this be one where across the Taiwan Straits, all Chinese must cut the b.s. over whether Haiti should have diplomatic relations with Beijing or with Taipei.
As an ethnic Chinese, I am angry and aggrieved by this nonsense in the face of a calamity which has brought about such disastrous consequences upon a country and a people in the Caribbean, without a functoning government, if at all, living in utter despair and desperation.
Cut that out..... please. The officials in charge of relief work from Beijing and Taipei must stop "politicking" and stick to doing the right thing. Plain and simple. Read the following Al Jazeera story:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/01/2010122691841411.html
Saturday, December 26, 2009
LIU XIAO BO - Righteous Dissident or Traitor -"Han Jian"?
Critics of China ought to know the line which must not be crossed.
There is more than meets the eye in the high-profile trial, conviction, and meting out of an 11-year sentence of Liu Xiao Bo, the Chinese intellectual dissident who had been the "brains" befind Charter 08, a naive, simplistic "Western Moon is Rounder" promotion of a purported Manifesto which sought to ape and transform China into a "Western Model" of democracy.
The glove of Western-style democracy, as naively propounded by Charter 08, simply does not and cannot fit China, in my view.
The context by which this trial and conviction of Liu Xiao Bo has to be gauged from a Chinese perspective, based on Chinese values and priorities, its history, and its state of civil society, which is clearly defiant and resistant to foreign, especially Western interloping, meddling, and interference.
The more the heads of states of Europe hector and insult China and its officials, the more stiffened and defiant China and its peoples are against the West.
Gweillos from the West are naive if not ignorant if they spin the case as one predicated in unbriddled freedom of expression and the rights to ideas, which under Western "Europeanized" notions of basic fundamental freedoms, brooks no infringement by the state.
Liu Xiao Bo was not simply convicted by his ideas and writings, but by the fact that in expressing these ideas, he manipulated, machinated, and used the West and especially Western media and official institutions, whether as an actor or a tool, to destabilize and attempt to overthrow the Chinese government, over its substance of one-party rule.
This is a path of divergence which clearly placed Mr. Liu in the path an "irreconciliable critic" of China acting in bad faith,and serving as a bludgeon on behalf of the West.
This is a devious subterfuge by the West, and by coat-tailing behind Western China bashing and Chinese demonization, Liu Xiao Bo is a "han jian, " i.e. a traitor, a "colonial."
No matter how unhappy or critical a Chinese national is about Chinese governance or about its officials or about its system of one-party Communist Party rule, in the eyes and honest view of a Chinese citizen, a line must not be crossed and the principle of national sovereignty and Chinese dignity must not be abriged in and by "coat-tailing," or riding the waves of the West, especially its media and official institutions, as a bludgeon and hatchet to attack China from the outside.
Liu Xiao Bo understood this as a Chinese yet he sided with the West, and sucked up to the West by betraying this basic fundamental tenet which all Chinese understands.
In the case of Liu Xiao Bo, he was deliberately calibrating, dribbling, leaking, massaging the Western news media as a shill, an amplifier, a broadcast disseminator to attack and destabilize China from the outside. In so doing, he insulted not just the national sovereignty of China, but also collectively caused the collective Chinese people "lose face" in the outside world.
Given China's horrific history of Western imperialist meddling, bullyng, and extra-territorial occupation and carving out of Chinese soil, heaping insults upon the Chinese peoples, metaporized by the insulting street signs at the gates of foreign concessions and colonies, e.g. in Shanghai, a century ago, with "No dogs and Chinese allowed," the stiffening resistance an anger of the Chinese peoples over the "nefarious" acts of Liu Xiao Bo must be understood.
In the eyes of the gweillos and Western news media, Liu Xiao Bo is a "dissident," a victim prosecuted and persecuted for his ideas.
In the eyes of the Chinese peoples and its officials, Liu Xiao Bo is a "han jian," a traitor, an Western ass-licker, a "Western Moon is Rounder" compradore, a naive, craven "Western Fart is more fragrant" colonial, who worships "Western-style" democracy, which has proven to irreconcialiable, unworkable, and impossible under the unique circumstances and conditions of China.
"Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred ideas contend"....... but please, don't use, ride, or be used by the West as a weapon or tool, wittingly or unwittingly, to try to destabilize, demonize, and bash China, especially on the outside.
To all Chinese, this is a "no-no." Comprende ?
Conider one of the perspective from a Western expat in China, who sees this in context, yet refused to get off his "high horse" from a white knight's perspective. His blog at Huffington Post is set forth in the link below:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-doctoroff/a-chinese-dissidents-conv_b_403766.html
There is more than meets the eye in the high-profile trial, conviction, and meting out of an 11-year sentence of Liu Xiao Bo, the Chinese intellectual dissident who had been the "brains" befind Charter 08, a naive, simplistic "Western Moon is Rounder" promotion of a purported Manifesto which sought to ape and transform China into a "Western Model" of democracy.
The glove of Western-style democracy, as naively propounded by Charter 08, simply does not and cannot fit China, in my view.
The context by which this trial and conviction of Liu Xiao Bo has to be gauged from a Chinese perspective, based on Chinese values and priorities, its history, and its state of civil society, which is clearly defiant and resistant to foreign, especially Western interloping, meddling, and interference.
The more the heads of states of Europe hector and insult China and its officials, the more stiffened and defiant China and its peoples are against the West.
Gweillos from the West are naive if not ignorant if they spin the case as one predicated in unbriddled freedom of expression and the rights to ideas, which under Western "Europeanized" notions of basic fundamental freedoms, brooks no infringement by the state.
Liu Xiao Bo was not simply convicted by his ideas and writings, but by the fact that in expressing these ideas, he manipulated, machinated, and used the West and especially Western media and official institutions, whether as an actor or a tool, to destabilize and attempt to overthrow the Chinese government, over its substance of one-party rule.
This is a path of divergence which clearly placed Mr. Liu in the path an "irreconciliable critic" of China acting in bad faith,and serving as a bludgeon on behalf of the West.
This is a devious subterfuge by the West, and by coat-tailing behind Western China bashing and Chinese demonization, Liu Xiao Bo is a "han jian, " i.e. a traitor, a "colonial."
No matter how unhappy or critical a Chinese national is about Chinese governance or about its officials or about its system of one-party Communist Party rule, in the eyes and honest view of a Chinese citizen, a line must not be crossed and the principle of national sovereignty and Chinese dignity must not be abriged in and by "coat-tailing," or riding the waves of the West, especially its media and official institutions, as a bludgeon and hatchet to attack China from the outside.
Liu Xiao Bo understood this as a Chinese yet he sided with the West, and sucked up to the West by betraying this basic fundamental tenet which all Chinese understands.
In the case of Liu Xiao Bo, he was deliberately calibrating, dribbling, leaking, massaging the Western news media as a shill, an amplifier, a broadcast disseminator to attack and destabilize China from the outside. In so doing, he insulted not just the national sovereignty of China, but also collectively caused the collective Chinese people "lose face" in the outside world.
Given China's horrific history of Western imperialist meddling, bullyng, and extra-territorial occupation and carving out of Chinese soil, heaping insults upon the Chinese peoples, metaporized by the insulting street signs at the gates of foreign concessions and colonies, e.g. in Shanghai, a century ago, with "No dogs and Chinese allowed," the stiffening resistance an anger of the Chinese peoples over the "nefarious" acts of Liu Xiao Bo must be understood.
In the eyes of the gweillos and Western news media, Liu Xiao Bo is a "dissident," a victim prosecuted and persecuted for his ideas.
In the eyes of the Chinese peoples and its officials, Liu Xiao Bo is a "han jian," a traitor, an Western ass-licker, a "Western Moon is Rounder" compradore, a naive, craven "Western Fart is more fragrant" colonial, who worships "Western-style" democracy, which has proven to irreconcialiable, unworkable, and impossible under the unique circumstances and conditions of China.
"Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred ideas contend"....... but please, don't use, ride, or be used by the West as a weapon or tool, wittingly or unwittingly, to try to destabilize, demonize, and bash China, especially on the outside.
To all Chinese, this is a "no-no." Comprende ?
Conider one of the perspective from a Western expat in China, who sees this in context, yet refused to get off his "high horse" from a white knight's perspective. His blog at Huffington Post is set forth in the link below:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-doctoroff/a-chinese-dissidents-conv_b_403766.html
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Analysis - Barack Obama's First China Trip - Why the West just Don't Get it about China's Own Path
Martin Jackques, a UK based writer, has the following take on President Barack Obama's first trip to China. His analysis is one of the few rare ones from Westerners who grasp China and seek to understand the civilization.
Understanding ChinaThe West has gotten it wrong on China for decades -- even as it embraces a market economy, it has shunned Western-style freedoms. And its power is only growing.
By Martin Jacques
November 22, 2009
The dynamics of President Obama's trip to China were markedly different from those evident on visits made by President Clinton and President George W. Bush. This time the Chinese made clear that they were unwilling even to discuss issues such as human rights or free speech. Why? The relationship between the countries has changed: America feels weak and China strong in their bilateral ties. This is not a temporary shift that will reverse itself once the U.S. has escaped from its mountain of debt. Rather, it is the expression of a deep and progressive shift in the balance of power between the two nations, one that is giving the Chinese -- though studiously cautious in their approach -- a rising sense of self-confidence.
Nor should we be surprised by the Chinese response. They may have appeared more conciliatory on previous visits by American leaders, but that was largely decorative. The Chinese have a powerful sense of their identity and worth. They have never behaved toward the West in a supplicant manner, for reasons Westerners persistently fail to understand or grasp.
Ever since the Nixon-Mao rapprochement, and through the various iterations of the Sino-American relationship over the subsequent almost four decades, there has been an overriding belief in the West that eventually China would become like us: that, for example, a market economy would lead to democratization and that a free media was inevitable. This hubristic outlook is deeply flawed, but it still prevails, albeit with small cracks of self-doubt starting to appear.
The issue here is much deeper than Western-style democracy, a free media or human rights. China is simply not like the West and never will be. There has been an underlying assumption that the process of modernization would inevitably lead to Westernization; yet modernization is not just shaped by markets, competition and technology but by history and culture. And Chinese history and culture are very different from that of any Western nation-state.
If we want to understand China, this must be our starting point.
The West's failure to understand the Chinese has repeatedly undermined its ability to anticipate their behavior. Again and again, our predictions and beliefsabout China have proved wrong: that the Chinese Communist Party would fall after 1989, that the country would divide, that its economic growth could not be sustained, that its growth figures were greatly exaggerated, that China was not sincere about its offer of "one country two systems" at the time of the hand-over of Hong Kong from Britain -- and, of course, that it would steadily Westernize. We have a long track record of getting China wrong.
The fundamental reason for our inability to accurately predict China's future is our failure to understand its past. Although China has described itself as a nation-state for the last century, it is in essence a civilization-state. The longest continually existing polity in the world, it dates to 221 BC and the victory of the Qin. Unlike Western nation-states, China's sense of identity comes from its long history as a civilization-state.
Of course, there are many civilizations -- Western civilization is one example -- but China is the only civilization-state. It is defined by its extraordinarily long history and also its huge geographic and demographic scale and diversity. The implications are profound: Unity is its first priority, plurality the condition of its existence (which is why China could offer Hong Kong "one country two systems," a formula alien to a nation-state).
The Chinese state enjoys a very different kind of relationship with society compared with the Western state. It enjoys much greater natural authority, legitimacy and respect, even though not a single vote is cast for the government. The reason is that the state is seen by the Chinese as the guardian, custodian and embodiment of their civilization. The duty of the state is to protect its unity. The legitimacy of the state therefore lies deep in Chinese history. This is utterly different from how the state is seen in Western societies.
If we are to understand China, we must move beyond the compass of Western reality and experience and the body of concepts that has grown up to explain that history. We find this extremely difficult. For 200 years the West, first in the shape of Europe and then the United States, has dominated the world and has not been required to understand others or The Other. If need be it could always bully the latter into submission.
The emergence of China as a global power marks the end of that era. We now have to deal with The Other -- in the form of China -- on increasingly equal terms.
China, moreover, is possessed, like the West, with its own form of universalism. It long believed that it was "the land under heaven," the center of the world, superior to all other cultures. That sense of self, which has engendered a powerful self-confidence, has been persistently evident over the last 40 years, but with China's rise, it is becoming more apparent as the country's sense of achievement and restoration gains pace. Or to put it another way, when the presidents of China and the United States meet in Beijing in 2019, with the Chinese economy fast approaching the size of the American economy, we can be sure that the Chinese sense of hubris will be far stronger than in 2009.
But long before that, we need to try and understand what China is and how it behaves. If we don't, then relations between China and the United States will never move beyond the polite and the formal -- and that will be a bad omen for the future relationship between the two countries.
Martin Jacques is the author of "When China Rules the World: the End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order."
_____________________________________________________________________
Here's another link to Martin Jacque's blog:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-21/why-america-must-learn-to-bow/
Understanding ChinaThe West has gotten it wrong on China for decades -- even as it embraces a market economy, it has shunned Western-style freedoms. And its power is only growing.
By Martin Jacques
November 22, 2009
The dynamics of President Obama's trip to China were markedly different from those evident on visits made by President Clinton and President George W. Bush. This time the Chinese made clear that they were unwilling even to discuss issues such as human rights or free speech. Why? The relationship between the countries has changed: America feels weak and China strong in their bilateral ties. This is not a temporary shift that will reverse itself once the U.S. has escaped from its mountain of debt. Rather, it is the expression of a deep and progressive shift in the balance of power between the two nations, one that is giving the Chinese -- though studiously cautious in their approach -- a rising sense of self-confidence.
Nor should we be surprised by the Chinese response. They may have appeared more conciliatory on previous visits by American leaders, but that was largely decorative. The Chinese have a powerful sense of their identity and worth. They have never behaved toward the West in a supplicant manner, for reasons Westerners persistently fail to understand or grasp.
Ever since the Nixon-Mao rapprochement, and through the various iterations of the Sino-American relationship over the subsequent almost four decades, there has been an overriding belief in the West that eventually China would become like us: that, for example, a market economy would lead to democratization and that a free media was inevitable. This hubristic outlook is deeply flawed, but it still prevails, albeit with small cracks of self-doubt starting to appear.
The issue here is much deeper than Western-style democracy, a free media or human rights. China is simply not like the West and never will be. There has been an underlying assumption that the process of modernization would inevitably lead to Westernization; yet modernization is not just shaped by markets, competition and technology but by history and culture. And Chinese history and culture are very different from that of any Western nation-state.
If we want to understand China, this must be our starting point.
The West's failure to understand the Chinese has repeatedly undermined its ability to anticipate their behavior. Again and again, our predictions and beliefsabout China have proved wrong: that the Chinese Communist Party would fall after 1989, that the country would divide, that its economic growth could not be sustained, that its growth figures were greatly exaggerated, that China was not sincere about its offer of "one country two systems" at the time of the hand-over of Hong Kong from Britain -- and, of course, that it would steadily Westernize. We have a long track record of getting China wrong.
The fundamental reason for our inability to accurately predict China's future is our failure to understand its past. Although China has described itself as a nation-state for the last century, it is in essence a civilization-state. The longest continually existing polity in the world, it dates to 221 BC and the victory of the Qin. Unlike Western nation-states, China's sense of identity comes from its long history as a civilization-state.
Of course, there are many civilizations -- Western civilization is one example -- but China is the only civilization-state. It is defined by its extraordinarily long history and also its huge geographic and demographic scale and diversity. The implications are profound: Unity is its first priority, plurality the condition of its existence (which is why China could offer Hong Kong "one country two systems," a formula alien to a nation-state).
The Chinese state enjoys a very different kind of relationship with society compared with the Western state. It enjoys much greater natural authority, legitimacy and respect, even though not a single vote is cast for the government. The reason is that the state is seen by the Chinese as the guardian, custodian and embodiment of their civilization. The duty of the state is to protect its unity. The legitimacy of the state therefore lies deep in Chinese history. This is utterly different from how the state is seen in Western societies.
If we are to understand China, we must move beyond the compass of Western reality and experience and the body of concepts that has grown up to explain that history. We find this extremely difficult. For 200 years the West, first in the shape of Europe and then the United States, has dominated the world and has not been required to understand others or The Other. If need be it could always bully the latter into submission.
The emergence of China as a global power marks the end of that era. We now have to deal with The Other -- in the form of China -- on increasingly equal terms.
China, moreover, is possessed, like the West, with its own form of universalism. It long believed that it was "the land under heaven," the center of the world, superior to all other cultures. That sense of self, which has engendered a powerful self-confidence, has been persistently evident over the last 40 years, but with China's rise, it is becoming more apparent as the country's sense of achievement and restoration gains pace. Or to put it another way, when the presidents of China and the United States meet in Beijing in 2019, with the Chinese economy fast approaching the size of the American economy, we can be sure that the Chinese sense of hubris will be far stronger than in 2009.
But long before that, we need to try and understand what China is and how it behaves. If we don't, then relations between China and the United States will never move beyond the polite and the formal -- and that will be a bad omen for the future relationship between the two countries.
Martin Jacques is the author of "When China Rules the World: the End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order."
_____________________________________________________________________
Here's another link to Martin Jacque's blog:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-11-21/why-america-must-learn-to-bow/
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Barack Obama's First State Visit to China - Form over Substance
Here's my maverick "3rd space" blog about the first state visit of Barack Obama to China:
My read of BARACK OBAMA (BO), after ten (10) months in the White House, is that his strength and forte is in the domestic front. And on the international arena, he is not up to par with say a Richard Nixon.
I gauge his international trips since he became President. There's quantity but little quality. He reportedly made more foreign state visits in the brief period since he took office at the White House than his predecessor, W. Bush.
Obviously, compared to Dubya, BO is a lot smarter and savvier; but that is a very low bar.
Compared to Bill Clinton, BO is less agile and nimble on the affairs of international politics and diplomacy. Bill Clinton can knock your socks off with his charisma and Southern bubba charm. Bill Clinton can drink your booze, steal your wife, undress her, go to bed with her, take your money, and you would still applaud him and yell, "Ding Hao ! Ding Hao."
In comparison, BO appears to be "over-programmed," stiff, professorial, and went by the teleprompter, and go by scripted plays.
He did not exude the "cool" or "folksiness" of a Bill Clinton, a real "charmer" who can look you straight in the eyes and say, I never had sex with your wife..." even though his hands are in her crotch. :-)
BO clearly needs to practice with foreigners, especially Asians, short of his limited experience as a Punahou High kid.
That Town Hall meeting in Shanghai, was designed more for the Amerikan domestic audience back home. It fell flat, not only because on the Chinese end, the pool of students selected to serve as the audience and the visual backdrop, were over-programmed, lack spontaneity, and worse, too dumb, timid, and "ke-qi" to be effective to ask the right overarching questions about US-China relations, some of which we have argued and debated here among us.
And unfortunately, by my experience doing "Amerika Watching," and astutely observing the nuances, demeanor, and symbolism, I think BO succeeded on this first foray into Asia-Pacific to the extent that he tried to project that he is ready to re-set the button in Amerikan international relations, yet could not come up with anything "concrete" by way of substantive change.
The following issues were unresolved:
1. The issue of Okinawa and removal of Amerikan troops from its forward base in that island.
2. The issue of Amerikan trade sanctions against Chinese tires and steel imports to which Chinese premier Wen Jiabao called "protectionism" which was placed at the front-burner.
3. The issue of colossal deficits that Amerika is strapped with, with no end in sight, and the reverberations and adverse consequences in the global financial system and its stability.
4. The issue of mutual respect, reciprocity, and comity to which Asia-Pacific nations, not just in APEC, ASEAN, but the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
BO went with the following priority issues on Amerika's plate, hoping for China's cooperation:
a. Help in the Korean peninsula to denuclearize North Korea;
b. Help in Pakistan and Afghanistan in Amerika's fight against Al Queda and the Taliban;
c. Help in Iran with respect to Iranian nuclearization;
d. Help in balancing US trade deficits with more and more Chinese goods entering Amerika than vice-versa.
e. Help in Climate Change in terms of China's carbon emissions and greenhouse gas problems.
f. Help in Myanmar, Darfur, with regard to the issues presented by the domestic Gweillo human rights lobby.
g. Help to re-start the dialogue with the Dalai Lama over the issue of Tibet/Zizhang.
On a. through g. above, BO got very little substantive during this trip.
In legal jargon, it means, "no go;" an agreement to "talk further" down the line.
All in all, it was a trip to appease the domestic constituency.
To me, what is really very revealing about the First Family is the following:
I. The absence of Michelle Obama as a presidential spouse in this first Asia-Pacific state visit, relative to Michelle's presence in the European trip, with two daughters in tow.
II. The relative brief visit, relative to other state visits. Already, many pundits have criticized BO and Michelle's state visit to Africa, especially Ghana, as being tepid, lackluster, and lacking in empathy. It was a whirlwind "PR" tour without the heart and the guts. Clearly, the First Family's "uppity" outlooke remains "Eurocentric," focused on the gweillo "white people."
Will BO change ? Let's hope he is as smart and agile as Bill Clinton.
I miss the guy Bill Clinton. Even though I won't trust my wife being present when he shows up. :-) Bill Clinton can charm the socks out of you.
My read of BARACK OBAMA (BO), after ten (10) months in the White House, is that his strength and forte is in the domestic front. And on the international arena, he is not up to par with say a Richard Nixon.
I gauge his international trips since he became President. There's quantity but little quality. He reportedly made more foreign state visits in the brief period since he took office at the White House than his predecessor, W. Bush.
Obviously, compared to Dubya, BO is a lot smarter and savvier; but that is a very low bar.
Compared to Bill Clinton, BO is less agile and nimble on the affairs of international politics and diplomacy. Bill Clinton can knock your socks off with his charisma and Southern bubba charm. Bill Clinton can drink your booze, steal your wife, undress her, go to bed with her, take your money, and you would still applaud him and yell, "Ding Hao ! Ding Hao."
In comparison, BO appears to be "over-programmed," stiff, professorial, and went by the teleprompter, and go by scripted plays.
He did not exude the "cool" or "folksiness" of a Bill Clinton, a real "charmer" who can look you straight in the eyes and say, I never had sex with your wife..." even though his hands are in her crotch. :-)
BO clearly needs to practice with foreigners, especially Asians, short of his limited experience as a Punahou High kid.
That Town Hall meeting in Shanghai, was designed more for the Amerikan domestic audience back home. It fell flat, not only because on the Chinese end, the pool of students selected to serve as the audience and the visual backdrop, were over-programmed, lack spontaneity, and worse, too dumb, timid, and "ke-qi" to be effective to ask the right overarching questions about US-China relations, some of which we have argued and debated here among us.
And unfortunately, by my experience doing "Amerika Watching," and astutely observing the nuances, demeanor, and symbolism, I think BO succeeded on this first foray into Asia-Pacific to the extent that he tried to project that he is ready to re-set the button in Amerikan international relations, yet could not come up with anything "concrete" by way of substantive change.
The following issues were unresolved:
1. The issue of Okinawa and removal of Amerikan troops from its forward base in that island.
2. The issue of Amerikan trade sanctions against Chinese tires and steel imports to which Chinese premier Wen Jiabao called "protectionism" which was placed at the front-burner.
3. The issue of colossal deficits that Amerika is strapped with, with no end in sight, and the reverberations and adverse consequences in the global financial system and its stability.
4. The issue of mutual respect, reciprocity, and comity to which Asia-Pacific nations, not just in APEC, ASEAN, but the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
BO went with the following priority issues on Amerika's plate, hoping for China's cooperation:
a. Help in the Korean peninsula to denuclearize North Korea;
b. Help in Pakistan and Afghanistan in Amerika's fight against Al Queda and the Taliban;
c. Help in Iran with respect to Iranian nuclearization;
d. Help in balancing US trade deficits with more and more Chinese goods entering Amerika than vice-versa.
e. Help in Climate Change in terms of China's carbon emissions and greenhouse gas problems.
f. Help in Myanmar, Darfur, with regard to the issues presented by the domestic Gweillo human rights lobby.
g. Help to re-start the dialogue with the Dalai Lama over the issue of Tibet/Zizhang.
On a. through g. above, BO got very little substantive during this trip.
In legal jargon, it means, "no go;" an agreement to "talk further" down the line.
All in all, it was a trip to appease the domestic constituency.
To me, what is really very revealing about the First Family is the following:
I. The absence of Michelle Obama as a presidential spouse in this first Asia-Pacific state visit, relative to Michelle's presence in the European trip, with two daughters in tow.
II. The relative brief visit, relative to other state visits. Already, many pundits have criticized BO and Michelle's state visit to Africa, especially Ghana, as being tepid, lackluster, and lacking in empathy. It was a whirlwind "PR" tour without the heart and the guts. Clearly, the First Family's "uppity" outlooke remains "Eurocentric," focused on the gweillo "white people."
Will BO change ? Let's hope he is as smart and agile as Bill Clinton.
I miss the guy Bill Clinton. Even though I won't trust my wife being present when he shows up. :-) Bill Clinton can charm the socks out of you.
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