Beware China! They are not our friends!
China is a country that needs to be watched very carefully. We simply can not trust them. Too often we give a country the benefit of the doubt for trade purposes. China is a prime example of this. We need to maintain communication with them, but we simply can not turn our backs on them. Communists will always have an evil agenda no matter how they try to hide it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3809067.stm
***** Please note that this is a commentary of the Chinese leadership, not Chinese people !
[edit by Amorph: Changed "the Chinese" to "China" in thread title to clarify that]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3809067.stm
***** Please note that this is a commentary of the Chinese leadership, not Chinese people !
[edit by Amorph: Changed "the Chinese" to "China" in thread title to clarify that]
Comments
***** Please note that this is a commentary on Common Man, not humans!
"Beware the Chinese! They are not our friends!" is as stupid to say as "Beware the Americans! They are not our friends!" or "Beware the French! They are not our friends!"...
You should be less afraid of old-school communism and cold war antics than the day they straighten up and play hardball economically. They'll make Japan's embracing of capitalism (and becoming a fierce competitor) look like a drop in the ocean.
Either way, China is a nation on the rise and you'd be well advised to learn about them as a people and drop the nationalistic xenophobia.
Once they are a democratic capitalistic society (which is inevitable) you will look back at the communist China with fondness, back when it was a fortified isolated country you could easily ignore.
The only way you can stop or slow them is to help perpetuate the status quo (communism), or kill a bunch of them off. Hm, that sounds like familiar U.S. policy.
What do you want China to be? If they are "America East" we'll only see even further investment and outsourcing to them. As it is we are barely manufacturing anything ourselves. Merely stopping shipments would cripple us, with nary a bullet or missile fired.
And we'd only have the greedy capitalist CEOs and shareholders (i.e. ourselves) to blame.
They will take center stage, they will dominate resource consumption and it will only be thanks to the U.S. way-of-life writ large China-style. Get used to it.
Meanwhile, go out and make some Chinese friends. They don't bite.
Originally posted by Common Man
China is a country that needs to be watched very carefully. We simply can not trust them. Too often we give a country the benefit of the doubt for trade purposes. China is a prime example of this. We need to maintain communication with them, but we simply can not turn our backs on them. Communists will always have an evil agenda no matter how they try to hide it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3809067.stm
***** Please note that this is a commentary of the Chinese leadership, not Chinese people !
Are you sure you're not from the 50's?
or at least change the title. instead of Chinese use China... By saying Chinese you kinda mean the people as a whole, not the government.
Originally posted by Common Man
Communists will always have an evil agenda no matter how they try to hide it.
You do realize, a lot of people can make that same arguement about the Bush administration.
Originally posted by Common Man
My point is that we canNOT ignore China as a world threat. We spend too much time worring about the middle easy, Cuba and N Korea and too litlle thinking about China. China is potentially a huge threat to us and the free world.
So what do you want to do about "them"?
Either contain them, which means we are oppressing them by proxy via a knowingly-failed/failing but propped-up communist regime, or we let them play "our game", which just makes them our "mega-me" and they'll lead the pack in consumerism and expending resources.
The problem is thinking that it is an either/or problem between communism and ultra-capitalism.
Capitalism isn't eternally sustainable either, it just will fail last of the current options. If China makes the same mistakes that the U.S./West made/are making, the Earth will a veritable desert/landfill. Speaking in terms of scale, not intent.
The U.S. wants the cheap slave labor, plus untapped market to sell things to. We give a rat's ass about democracy or even communism. Communism is a plus in fact, to maintain the status quo. Same as how we let/are responsible for the Saudi royalty maintain power. It suits our needs. Democracy? Please. You can't drive the kids to soccer practice with a SUV gastank full of democracy.
We're all at each other's throats over scarce resources. All will have the chance to be evil to all the others. I'm not talking moral equivalency. China's government and certain aspects of the society are repugnant, but America has its horrors too.
As resources dry up, you'd be wise to not trust anyone over anyone else, particularly fellow so-called Americans.
Do you love and trust Enron execs? Walmart? Ford?
There's nothing inherently more to be wary of China about than say, France or Canada or Mexico or Russia or the E.U...even Britain. Someday Blair will not be in office and Britain will be much, much different than you will be comfortable with. Better to make friends now than enemies. We'll all need to cooperate far more in the future. We can LEAD BY EXAMPLE and still be a strong secure nation.
Or we can kill 'em all and let God sort them out. But "they'll" be doing it to us (your kids and grandkids) by then. Enjoy.
What are you worried about?
they are in the same exact place we were in the beginning of the 20th century.
when were you in china last, common man?
*if they play their cards right.
If you remember back a little ways I posted a link to an article that was about what a fiasco the war in Iraq was and the article ended on recent developments in Asia: namely, it pointed out that China recently said, in emphatic tones, that any move towards independance, or sovereignty on the part of Taiwan would now result in immediate military force./
This is a first for China: they have not stated this so directly and bluntly before. And, America has always said that we would use military force to protect Taiwan from any invasion or actions by the Chinese.
What has happened?
The Iraq war has shown that the 'Only Remaining Super-Power' can be held at bay by a buncha-guys with improvised bombs, we have shown that we need to pull troops from Korea to cover our asses, we have shown ourselves to be spread thin around the world, and, though we invaded with amazing speed and precision we also did not win-the-war-entirely-without-chaos: our tactics were great but our strategy was terrible and relied on a bad (rummy's notion) idea of a thin military presence. . . (China would never imagine such a thing as a thin military presence!)
The rest of the world watched what we did: many saw a bully lying to take land, others were watching our military capabilities for weaknesses.
China can go in several directions: it can get increasingly democratic (which I think it might do) or it will continue its own expansionism and take lands that it claims are rightfully its own . . . think about Tibet! There was a Chinese poster on these boards that felt that China was justified in its occupation of Tibet
They feel the same way about Taiwan . . . and Hong Kong too I'm sure . . . and who knows where else?!
I think the least we can do is make sure that we acknowledge that they are not just interested in filling the world with nice fluffy clouds, and we can take them for what they are: a very very powerful country that may or may not have its own interests in mind, interests held, perhaps, over and above the interests of 'democracy' and 'freedom'.
. . . think about Tibet! There was a Chinese poster on these boards that felt that China was justified in its occupation of Tibet
I wonder what became of that international task force that was assembled in 1956 by the international community to eject China from Tibet and liberate its citizens from brutal oppression?
Originally posted by Common Man
Those who interpreted this thread as racist are very off base. Agreed, I should have said "China" and not Chinese. As soon as I posted I realized that and added clarification at the bottom of my post. What should we do about China? We should continue to work with them and communicate with them. We should not shun them and we should not have any military action against them . Hopefully none of you thought I was advocating military action. We should, however, be very leery of the Chinese regime. We should not trust them without verification and we should not look the other way at their abuses for our own economic gain. China is changing, but it is still a very tuff place and its government is in many ways desperate. For too many years Americans have focused on Eastern Europe and the former USSR and latin America and been somewhat clueless of China. My point is that we should pay attention to China and its policies and we should pay attention to the way the US gov treats China.
Ease down Ripley!
I'm 51 and happen to know that China has been an unknown variable since long before you existed.
Possible friend, possible foe.
You see they've never played it with all their cards on the table. That doesn't autmatically imply they're our mortal enemy.
Back in the 60's when Star Trek was new on TV the Klingons were analogous to the Russians and the Romulans china. Mostly because we knew more about what the Russians were doing.
Like I've said this has been the situation for some time now so I don't know what you're trying to read into this. But it doesn't mean they are the big, bad enemy.
As a matter of fact if N. Korea gets out of line we might need their help.
Originally posted by superkarate monkeydeathcar
china is going to be the america of the 21st century.*
they are in the same exact place we were in the beginning of the 20th century.
when were you in china last, common man?
*if they play their cards right.
Yeah I heard recently that their economy is doing great and that they are modernizing their industry and lifestyles at an incredible rate.
but i think the government realizes that the toothpaste won't go back in the tube, when it comes to personal freedoms.
china's biggest concern for the future is probably ecological, a billion people moving from bicycles to motorcars in the next generation or two could be a nightmare.
I think the world needs a serious Manhattan Project of alternative fuels NOW!!!!
1) It's fun for the US to dodge Kyoto or the international court or whatever now, but they are missing out on an opportunity to raise the bar now that they can still do that.
2) We do benefit greatly from the status quo in China, and although i'm in favor of getting them more involved economically (hell, that will be the only way to contain them in the future) i don't mind for now that the communist party is in charge to keep things in check. Over a billion people discovering they can fight for their rights is a cool thing, but the transition could get very messy if handled the wrong way. The chances for peacefull self-implosion like in Russia seem slim to me.
3) Did i mention that the US should learn to accept that they'll become to China what, mmm, France is to them? Or even worse? And mayb find a more constructive way to deal with that?
(Side note: i remember having this conversation like in the early 90ies, and must say i xpected Chine to become more of a 'problem' about now than it actually is. Guess the beast is still asleep)