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Empire State Building to go Red for PRC 60th Anniversary

Discussion in 'BBS Hangout: Debate & Discussion' started by rocketsjudoka, Sep 30, 2009.

  1. bingsha10

    bingsha10 Member

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    China turned around when Mao died and Deng Xiaoping changed the direction. Simple as that. China is still basically 10 to 15 years behind Taiwan in terms of development.
     
  2. meh

    meh Member

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    I don't get what this has to do with the Republic of China NOT being a Republic. You can bash all the terrible things Mao and communist China has done over the years, but it's no secret that the government in China before the communist were much, much worse. I was just annoyed that SamFisher somehow thinks that the Republic of China under Chiang Kai Shek was some sort of democratic haven where everyone lived happily, which the great big bad communists brutally destroyed. In fact, living conditions got noticeably better under the new regime.

    Anyway, in response to your post,

    Republic of China = Elitist society where regular people are treated like crap(mainly lord/peasant relationship)
    People's Republic of China = Society where everyone's a regular joe... although eventually the educated became persecuted. But it really didn't affect most of the people.

    Sure, communism set China back a few decades in terms of technological advances and modernization. But it's not as if that in of itself determines the livelihood of regular people.

    And BTW, since you're making the comparisons to Russia and N. Korea, are you implying that the Russian monarchy and the Japanese rule of Korea were benevolent "republics"? Because otherwise the analogy makes non sense. I was debating relative evil here. Not absolute.
     
  3. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    Then you don't understand the definition of the word "Republic."

    If you are trying to make the argument that the PRC is a representative democracy with a popularly elected head of state in any practical sense you are wrong. Autocratic one-party dictatorships w/no suffrage are not representative democracies, no matter the self-nomenclature

    the ROC today however does meet that definition.
     
  4. meh

    meh Member

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    Stop putting words in my mouth please. When did I say that?

    ROFL! So this is your argument? Nice.

    I'm glad to know that all sins of the past can be swept under the rug if only the government is a republic today. I need to use more of this retroactively absolving of blame in my arguments more. And I'm sure the millions of Chinese who lived under the oppression of the old RoC will fully agree with you and start celebrating Oct. 10 as National day.
     
  5. CometsWin

    CometsWin Breaker Breaker One Nine

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    Repulsive.... do they go red for the Bolshevik Revolution too?
     
  6. SamFisher

    SamFisher Member

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    You said you didn't understand why I kept saying the PRC wasn't a real republic. I explained why. Because it's not.


    I ain't saying anything about the sins of the past - the KMT has some and the CCP has a hell of a lot as well - that doesn't change the fact that ROC has a true republican form of government, while PRC does not.
     
  7. across110thstreet

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    goof points. for the record, though, the Brooklyn Bridge was recently lit green to support the situation in Iran...
     
  8. across110thstreet

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    I'm sorry, I meant GOOD points :D

    still waiting on that trusty edit feature from the gentle moderators
     
  9. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    True they haven't but the history of China is very bloody of many people and peoples killed and subjugated. Through most of Chinese history peasents and the poor have been exploited. It just happens that the coincindences of history allowed relatively resource poor Europeans to develop technology to spread out and exploit the rest of the World while the Chinese empires were content to exploit their own people and immediate neighbors.

    It certainly sounds to me like you are engaging in the condeming the West shtick. YOu are basically saying that the West did some awful things, no denying that, but China did kill that many people so we should lay off them. There is no denying that the conquest of the Americas and European colonialism was terrible but at the same time that doesn't excuse what has happened in China in its rise to modernity. One can say that while the West's rise took place over a about a hundred years while the Chinese rise was in about 50 year but if you look at how much blood was shed and destruction of the environment took place in that time that the Chinese rise was as bad as what happened in the West.

    Further while the West for about the last 100 years has been working to redress the destruction of peoples in the environment the Chinese are still struggling to get to that point. To the credit of the PRC they are moving in the right direction but they still have a long way to go and even now there still is a national debate regarding environmentalism and / or the treatment of minorities. In fact many Chinese cite the same argument that you are that since the West got to exploit and destroy on the way to the top why shouldn't the Chinese.
    Sure India should be criticized for things like the castes system, destruction of the environment and nukes but that still shouldn't insulate the PRC from scrutiny either.
     
  10. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    My dad is pro-PRC but he isn't from a KMT family. His family fled the mainland for Hong Kong in 1949 but I think that primarily had to do with fleeing the fighting than any political view. My dad got very disillusioned with the PRC in 1989 but since then has changed his views.

    My mom's family was KMT and my grandfather served in the KMT legislature. With the passage of time they are no longer bitter towards the PRC but ambivalent. My mom travels to the PRC often and has even pondered moving there but her political attitude is ambivalent and while not openly anti-PRC isn't pro either. She considers herself very pro-Chinese in terms of culture and ethnicity but not for the government. She tolerates it rather than endorses.

    A good friend of mine's family is also a KMT family who fled from the mainland in 1949 and even though they have lived in the US for more than forty years and children have grown up her are still very anti-PRC. While that attitude doesn't seem very prevalent it seems like there are still groups of KMT loyal and/or generally anti-PRC Chinese Americans. In fact even in the Twin Cities there are two separate Chinese Associations with their own Chinese language and dance schools with Taiwanese and KMT Chinese Americans refusing to deal with the main Chinese association because they feel it is pro-PRC.
     
  11. hz10

    hz10 Member

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    Well, this is from an "outsider" who first benefited and then suffered, all because of the revolution.

    <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9i84yXoPnFw&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9i84yXoPnFw&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
     
  12. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Member

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    China's human rights records is pretty atrotious. But we have had our fair share of atrocity against people. Slavery, indentured servants, exploitation of the poor, the Native Americans, poisoning people....it's all part of our history. So I can see why the Chinese posters here have an annoyance at our self-righteousness. By the way, I apologize for antagonizing many of the posters here from China or of Chinese descent in the past.

    In any case, China is simply an evolving nation. Any nation that goes from a rural to industrial is going to have a lot of hardships on it's people. I don't think it's possible without it. India is the same way. The U.S....who didn't read what..the grapes of wrath or whatever? Poor people get exploited. This is the nature of all gov't.

    Most of our resistance to China is a farce. To maintain a facade of anti-communism pro-freedom. Fact is, China will soon be our biggest trading partner, exceeding Canada. Amazing for a country that is on the other side of the planet.

    The U.S. and China's fate are intertwined. Our standard of living is built upon the PRC. How many of the things in our homes...from furniture to items in the kitchen, to electronics and computer components, to whatever, have some piece manufactured in China. All of us are directly tied to this. Our economy, our loans, our bankings system, our companies. All tied to China.

    Why shouldn't the empire state building honor China? I mean, heck, without China, we'd all be worse off. That's the cold hard facts. We may not like a lot of things about China, but the reality is that China is a soverign nation that isn't a rogue state. They aren't looking to war with us. And they are taking on a more global view and becoming a lot more of a positive nation to deal with. Still got a way to go, but they are headed in the right direction.
     
  13. pirc1

    pirc1 Member

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    Very well put Sweet Lou
     
  14. rhadamanthus

    rhadamanthus Member

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    I'm not sure why this is being celebreated here. I don't really care, but it's weird.
     
  15. yuantian

    yuantian Member

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    when did you piss off chinese posters? i didn't see anything negative from you. were you New Yorker before? if so, that's a big change in view. :D
     
  16. rocketsjudoka

    rocketsjudoka Member

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    I agree and good post. That said I don't think we should turn a blind eye though to the PRC's problems and point out where they could do better. Yes the US did some awful things on its way to the top but because of things like the information revolution the PRC has the opportunity to advance without having to rely upon the heavy industrial model that the US and UK did or make the mistakes that they did.

    I don't think it is enough to say that "well the US exploited people and raped its environment to industrialize so why shouldn't we." There is a lot that the PRC can do better given what we now know.
     
  17. Ottomaton

    Ottomaton Member
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    It doesn't, and I guess I'm not sure why you think it did. In fact, I thought I made it clear that I was only addressing your specific claim about you getting "A LOT OF flak for talking badly about communist government and Mao".

    My only point was that when old people revere Mao and "the good old days", it doesn't speak to the intrinsic quality of his leadership or the intrinsic value of what he did for China.
     
  18. Qball

    Qball Member

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    Can't have a thread on subject of China without a Sam Fisher vs PRC supporters debate.
     
  19. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Member

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    I did - and I did it intentionally. I was New Yorker before. Honestly, I was a troll just having fun to get a rise out of people. Boredom would be my excuse. Would have stayed retired, but it was rocketsjudoka that convinced me to come back and just post what I thought without trying to mess with people's heads.
     
  20. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Member

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    No I am not advocating turning a blind eye. We need to put pressure on China regarding it's human rights record. If China can't demonstrate a modern world civility to it's own populations, how can it become a nation that is to serve as an example on how nations should be? How can China be a leader unless it reforms some of these citical problems.

    The U.S. could easily help China be a cleaner, leaners, and more advanced economic machine. But the U.S. is still to afraid. Irony is that our enemies are much closer to home. China has no interest in doing anything that will stend the markets craching.

    Right now, it's up to Prez Obama to leader the military to a higher awayness and skill level.
     

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