Has China got the perfect system.....

[david dissadent]

Inflation haunts China now. It is not a pretty site. 800 million still desperately poor and prices skyrocketing.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IK20Cb01.html

The 'core inflation' argument
Given that stark fact, it is a betrayal of reality for analysts such as Yao Jingyuan, the Statistics Bureau chief economist, to hide behind technicalities, claiming the 10-year record jump in prices is not "full-blown" inflation and that the CPI is still within the "safe zone" because the main contributor to its increase is the 17.6% jump in food costs while non-food price gains, which reflect "core inflation", are steady at 1.1%.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

You have to join the party to succeed, and then you have to toe the line. So you can be a dirty capitalist, but only if you're their dirty capitalist.

Nope. It's not really like that... I have some friends who are a model success story, definitely not party members (well I hope not, I was drunkenly ranting at the male half of the couple about Tibet the other night)

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

China seen through western eyes is a very misperceived nation. I personally know how much shit is written about the country i live in (thailand) from my own experiences. From slightly more indirect experiences i can confirm there's loads of shit written about china too.

Anybody thinking the people are all living repressed oppressed lives are barking up the wrong tree. At least relatively the country is barely recognisable to the nation of 25 years ago, and totally different to the one 40 years ago.

It seems so easy and so lazy to write the nation off by zeroing on its capital punishment policies or its autocratic ways. The latter is typical of just about the whole of asia, and in the former they have very good company, eg america and iran.

True. And my wife was very disappointed with Britain when we visited in the summer.

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

Go on then... In the US (and the UK) bloggers aren't harrasessed and arrested for posting their views on the Govt...

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article728898.ece

What about Nick Griffin getting arrested for what he said at a private meeting? Whatever one might think of his views, it's not that different...

 

[upsidedownwalrus]

So do the Chinese still have the whole gwailo thing going on? I know from people that went a few years ago that much like Japan, while there's a lot of surface politeness, lots of old attitudes to foreigners persist.

Gwailo is hong kong/guangdong. For most of the country we're laowais or waguoren. You will hear people talking about you thinking you don't understand, usually migrant workers/peasants though.

 

[kyser_soze]

What about Nick Griffin getting arrested for what he said at a private meeting? Whatever one might think of his views, it's not that different...

Arrested on the basis of a film the BBC made of him, and he eventually got off after 3 court appearances. And he was being a racist prick.

 

[jæd]

What about Nick Griffin getting arrested for what he said at a private meeting? Whatever one might think of his views, it's not that different...

How are they "not different"...? Nick Griffin is a Holocaust denier + leader of the BNP and was cleared after his arrest. Li Zhi was arrested for "...trying to join the China Democratic Party, which is a banned organization in communist China, and for criticizing corruption...".
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Zhi_(dissident))

He hasn't been cleared and faces eight years in a Chinese gaol...!

 

[Gmart]

no rights at all in fact.

From the OP. Actually China is following the UK model, where they give as few rights as needed to assuage the population, while pushing them in the 'right' direction.

They actually have a constitution, which gives their population rights. That link is a bit old actually because there has been recent movement on land rights, see here.

One up on us! It all seems very familiar if one knows UK history. Our government fought against true democracy for many years, only giving in when revolution looked to be probable, and when it was politically necessary.

 

[Rock Bottom]

Regarding the media. I grew up with the BBC and the old VoA glued to my ear. Wherever I went in the world, I had my little short wave radio with me as I had to have my daily doses of BBC News. Not until I came to live here did I start questioning the objectivity and even honesty of the BBC. Now I do. I still listen to it daily (in fact, I am listening to it now) but the sad part is that now I listen to it more critically. I no longer accept what they say at face value.

A very interesting report on BBC was one broadcast in December 2006. Their correspondent in China (and I can not remember his name now) left China to go back to Britain after a number of years living in China. They had an interview with him picking his brains on his years in this country. The most revealing statement he made on this programme was that, in all his years in China, he filed ONE positive report. One. He lived here for years, and he could find ONE positive thing to report on about this vast country? One has to question that.

Good post, Johey. I had exactly the same thoughts about the BBC, having always been proud of its objectivity. However, the China reporting, representative of much Western media, is abysmal.

To echo what Fela said earlier, being here on the ground truly does provide a perspective completely divorced from media reportage. Everything seems to feel like surface understanding - comparable, maybe, to a non-English speaking foreigner writing a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide to England.

This of course, begs the question. Can the internal workings of a country really be assessed through casual first-hand observation? Well no. At least, not directly. It does, however, give you a very accurate indication of the mood of the nation, which is enthusiastic, forward-thinking, practical, and optimistic - not really the traits of an oppressed people.

 

[fela fan]

Good post, Johey. I had exactly the same thoughts about the BBC, having always been proud of its objectivity. However, the China reporting, representative of much Western media, is abysmal.

To echo what Fela said earlier, being here on the ground truly does provide a perspective completely divorced from media reportage. Everything seems to feel like surface understanding - comparable, maybe, to a non-English speaking foreigner writing a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide to England.

The interesting thing to explore is how the bbc have actually come to be seen as objective in its reporting by just about every briton.

What i found amazing at the time (after having moved to thailand to live) was when i discovered that what i read in the british media was totally conflicting with what i actually saw happening. I've seen it lie about thailand, and also simply get things wrong, this thread and others and my own experiences have shown me the same is the case with china, so it is worth asking just how much shit they put out over other countries. Certainly just about the only news they ever bring you about africa is negative and portrays a ghastly poverty-stricken barbaric place.

The world is so different to the place portrayed by the bbc.

 

[Yossarian]

"People in some places living happy, peaceful, lives without war, famine, disease making much of an impact" isn't exactly newsworthy though, is it?

 

[Yossarian]

There's plenty of news on the BBC Africa page today that *isn't* negative coverage - although I'd still reckon the heavy fighting in Chad to be a bigger story than the tentative EU overtures on tariff reductions for East Africa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/default.stm

 

[fela fan]

"People in some places living happy, peaceful, lives without war, famine, disease making much of an impact" isn't exactly newsworthy though, is it?

No it's not, not the way humans have become conditioned with regard to news. They seem to need their daily fix of negativity. I've often thought it might be something to do with seeing others in a worse off state than oneself, thereby lending credence to their own lives.

I mean, why does 90% of news have to be negative? The effect it has on people must be quite something, although i've never seen any kind of study looking into this.

How's life anyway mate? My memory tells me you're still in hong kong, or even just back there. Or were you in south america?! Nah, i'm pretty sure you went back there to live...

 

[fela fan]

There's plenty of news on the BBC Africa page today that *isn't* negative coverage - although I'd still reckon the heavy fighting in Chad to be a bigger story than the tentative EU overtures on tariff reductions for East Africa.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/default.stm

Yeah but to be fair that's from the internet. I assumed the convo was about the tv news in general from the bbc.

And the latter story is not going to make the telly news...

 

[Yossarian]

Things are pretty good over here in Hong Kong, cheers - though I'd rather have been in Thailand for Loy Krathong on the weekend!

 

[fela fan]

Things are pretty good over here in Hong Kong, cheers - though I'd rather have been in Thailand for Loy Krathong on the weekend!

Ahhh! I had my best one yet. On the saturday night i was on the 22nd floor, on the rooftop of one of the old hotels where they do bbq and jugs of draft beer. It's a great spot anyway, but for loy krathong it was full. And to see so many, literally, thousands of the hot air balloons all floating serenely through the night air on their 'march' southwards was an unforgettable sight. Never mind the view of the river and all the fireworks. If you ever get over to thailand for it mate, just be sure you are in chiang mai, those balloons are unreal.

And we have got hong kong and china air making things a wee bit cold at the moment...

 

[Yossarian]

Yep, I had one unforgettable Loy Krathong in Chiang Mai and I want to repeat the experience - although next time I think I might opt for some serene beers on a rooftop rather than the riverfront craziness!