China: good, bad, ugly, or all of the above?

ElMuertoMonkey

It's been a while since China's appeared on this board, so I figured I'd bring it up.

So, what are your opinions on China? Is China a threat? A competitor? Or just a large country where the people don't speak English?

As for me, I'm gona have to say that China is no more a threat than we make it. If we mind our p's and q's, don't do anything stupid (like lob a missile at them or support Taiwan's hare-brained schemes for declaring independence), and try to not to provoke them, China will, for want of a better example, just be like one big France: not really a friend, far from an enemy, and with self interests that may or may not coincide with our own.

Maybe I'm Sino-phillic, but I dig the Norinco SKS, love Hong Kong action movies, and more or less respect the people and culture. Sure, their government isn't perfect, but hey, throwing stones in glass houses and all that... us accusing others of having a corrupt government would be high comedy if it weren't so tragic.

So, your thoughts and opinions? And please, keep 'em within the realm of civility.

powdersmoke

China has definitely taken the road to capitalism. Like all of her endeavors it will have that China slant to it. In other words they won't do it our way. China is our competitor and in many ways colleague. We are partners like it or not.

It's not a one nation economy anymore, it's global.



When you wrestle a 'gator, there ain't no good end!!

"Molon Labe!" Spartan General-King Leonidas

jjmitchell60

China can be a great ally to the U.S. if we allow things in China to develope as they always have, slowly! While I was there 5 years ago I talked to a lot of Chinese college students who are finnally figureing out that democracy is something that does not happen over night. If we look back over the years, each new President of China is relaxing the controls that the Chinese Government puts on its citizans. Eventually some of the students that want democracy will come to power in China. It may be in a hundred years from now but it will happen. Chinese people are all about saving fqace in the eyes of others and as long as we respect their culture, they will respect ours as well as be an ally. As to Taiwan, there was a group of college students from Taiwan at one of the Universities that I visited and we managed to spend a weekend with them. They relize that they as well as main land China share the same heritage up until the late 1940s. They do not want a war nor do they want out right independence. What they want is to be accepted as chinese and just to get along. You will find that most of the Taiwanese that want independence are from the older generation that followed Chang Kai Chec. I still have some close friends in Beijing and one is a devout communist so to speak. She wants things such as democracy to develope naturally rather than by force. Like I told her a democratic life is all I know being I am an American but it took us over 200 years to get to where we are now and by no means is our form of democracy perfect. China deserves it's own 200+ years to develope a democracy and hopefully they won't make some of the mistakes we have over the years. I will say this, after seeing how the average chinese person lives, if we were to go to war with them, we would not prevail without a great loss of life. More than we would stand for. The opening of China to capitolism is a hard thing on many chinese. They are finding out what real poverty is now. Many are losing government subsidized housing and jobs. I saw a lot of homeless chinese while there. Some time I will post some pictures of some of Chinas greatist sites as well as some of their every day lives. Just my 2 cents worth about a very beautiful nation and culture.

ElMuertoMonkey

Well said, the both of you! I admire the Chinese for a great many reasons and see no reason why our nations can't get along. A little more patience, acceptance, and tolerance on both sides of the Pacific will go a long way in smoothing things out. Nobody in their right mind wants another Korean War.

longhunter

You got that right EMM>........

mark christian

Although I've been to many communist and former communist nations, I've never been to China. My mother (now retired) was a nurse for many years and took a LONG sabatical there in the mid 1990's. She made quite a few Chinese friends and came away with this impression: The Chinese are not a people to be rushed into anything. China has been around for over 2,000 years and with over 1 billion citizens, people living their know full well that they are not going to change anything very quickly! Almost all of China's histroy is filled with strife and struggle and the past 500 years were packed full of foreign intervention...not a pleasent subject among Chinese! Americans are always in too big of a hurry for change and with less than 250 years of independence under our belts other peoples of the world are less than impressed with our own ideas of what a nation should look like according to our own "vision".

Although we do a lot of trade with China most of it is our importing of their manufactured goods. China's imports of our own products tend to be sophisticated items that can be obtained only from the U.S, Russia, or the EU. American consumer goods can be found in the major cities and are considered a status symbol among middle class Chinese. The typical Chinese worker (factory or agracultural) has no real hands on experience with American products because the cost of even a Coca Cola is prohibitively expensive for these folks. I think Monkey hit the nail on the head when he said that China is pre occupied with its own self interests and they may step on our toes once and a while in the process.

Mark T. Christian

BlackieBooger

Our corporations are turning China into a giant industrial power while our unemployment lines grow. Bill Clinton and Al Gore gave Communist China most favored trade status in exchange for campaign donations, and now China is "eating our lunch".

"Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, not liberty to purchase power."
Benjamin Franklin, 1785

beachmaster73

I had a Chinese friend who told me that we Americans were too concerned with personal rights and personal freedoms. He explained to me that the Chinese believed in power, simple power. Their emphasis on face and saving face is directly attributable to their need to maintain power. I've never forgotten his words. Their economy right now is wrapped around the United States. They depend on us for the mountains of hard cash that flows into their country. That's not to say they admire, like, or even enjoy doing business with us. Right now it pleases them and they make a profit off of us. Thier factories are predominately owned by officers in the Red Army and other Communist officials who use these factories as their golden parachutes after active duty. While there may in fact be the germination of some concepts of democracy in that country those current warlords(right now the Communists) who control the country will be just as ruthless as thier predessors in eraticating anything they see as a threat to their way of life. China has had flirtations with democracy in the past and that is what they remain...just flirtations. When the Communist party falls it will possibly be replaced by some capitalist taipans...but they will still be warlords at heart. We can learn a lot from the simple adage "Know your enemy." The Chinese know us....but do we know them? Beach

Rawhide Pete

The bible clearly states that the meek/Chinese shall and will inherit the earth.

beachmaster73

Chinese and meek seem like mutually exclusive terms. Beach

redcedars

Gotta agree with Beach on this one.

It is difficult for us to appreciate the threat pose by Red China, in large part because our fundamental perspectives on the world are so different. We tend to have a very mechanistic view of the world. Things are black or white, up or down, right or left. We view the world as a series of interconnected but discreet items and events; one thing leads to another.

The Chinese viewpoint (and that of many eastern cultures) has a fundamental difference. They view the entire world and everything in it a singularity, one thing, one process. The yin and the yang are both part and parcel of this singularity; right and wrong, black and white, yin and yang, simply describe different aspects of this one thing, the only thing, it, the world, reality.

An example: The saying "might makes right". To us, it expresses a conflict in terms, might cannot make right, an action is either right or wrong, and simply having the power to take an action does not make it right. But from the Chinese perspective, "might makes right" is simply an accurate description of the world, it is the way of the world. They do not attach moral significance to it.

These viewpoints are inherent in the thinking of the ruling class in Red China. From their standpoint, our failing to understand that they are in a constant state of warfare with all of their rivals is a weakness. Of course they will do everything in their power to diminish our strength and enhance their own. They will destroy our power and overwhelm us if they can. If they can convince us otherwise, and make us believe they mean no harm, and get us to lower our guard, then it only goes to show how stupid we are. Conversely, they believe that we too are attempting to destroy their power and subjugate them. They believe us to be the same kind of duplicitous, deceitful liars that they themselves are. Isn't everybody? It is all a constant, neverending state of war, declared or undeclared, and there are no rules. The ends justify the means. The winner is the winner, and right or wrong doesn't enter into winning and losing.

Red China poses the single greatest threat extant to the future of this country. They have stupendous untapped human and natural resources, and they are developing them both. To them, we are the enemy, and it would be unnatural for them not to attempt to defeat and subjugate us. From their standpoint, they would only be trying to do to us what we must certainly be trying to do to them.

I realize I paint with too broad a brush here, and I do not mean to speak of any individual. I am speaking in the broadest of terms of cultural values and world views. We ignore these differences at our own peril.

redcedars