As a followup the latest reports I have heard on the news is that while her movements are restricted is not in prison and has been able to communicate via Twitter. Also that she has met with Liu Xiabo and let him know he has won the Peace Prize.
Taiwan and South Korea, and to a lesser extent Postwar Japan, were countries though that were also autocratic and now have vibrant democracies. It is possible and I believe will eventually happen, that the PRC will also reform their politics and move towards a more democratic system.
That is a very interesting theory. I think that the US printing more money has little to do with trying to reduce the value of the dept to the PRC and more to do with keeping US capital fluid. I find it odd though that you say "The Chinese knew how the US pulled this stunt against Japan and Germany, and now, being the US biggest creditor, they will not be bullied into giving the US a free ride.", yet point out that they are not "b****ing" about it. My own read is that the PRC isn't saying alot is that they understand that if the US doesn't do something like that to keep the US financial and economic system going it will be very bad for the PRC. It seems to me that if the PRC didn't like US policies in this regard they could simply just stop purchasing US debt which they haven't done.
Ah, you the bear. I can't remember his name. I think it was Peter Schnell, but I can't find him through Google, so I probably remember it wrong. There is no link b/c he said it on newsline live. Basically, he said China may very well be on a schedule to reform politically( I think he is alluding to Wen Jiaobao's speech). He is afraid that this prize might have an effect to set back that effort (by the liberals in the CCP) b/c this is a big slap on their face and China does take Nobel prize seriously. Lastly, he said China needs to get out of its victim culture.
Smartly? We'll see. I keep reading about a huge real estate bubble in China and an over heated stock market. Sounds like some of the problems the States has had from time to time in its history, with damaging consequences. Ah, the number one excuse for the policies of the CCP and the oligarchy. China's huge population. I've lost count of how many times I've read that excuse being used for the oppressive policies of the PRC towards its people. I wonder what the excuse would be if the population were half that size. I suspect the excuse would be the same. And it is an excuse, just like the excuses politicians use in my country to attempt to explain policies that make little to no sense when examined with a dispassionate mind. "People yapping?" Typical dismissal of criticism of the PRC's governing oligarchy. Everyone else is "yapping," therefore the criticism is absurd, the PRC is misunderstood, the PRC is attacked because of racism, the PRC is attacked because of jealousy, the PRC is attacked without any basis in fact, the PRC is attacked by those who did terrible things to China almost two hundred years ago, the PRC is attacked by countries who did "bad things" to its own people at some point in their own history, regardless of how far in the past that might be. In short, anyone who "attacks" or, more accurately, simply criticizes China is wrong, and if "you don't believe us, look at what people did to us back in the Opium Wars!" If China bullies its neighbors, it is excused by saying "China "owned" that area back during the (fill in the blank) dynasty! We have every right to own whatever area we're being criticized for trying to snap up and put in our back pocket!" Every criticism is assaulted regardless of its basis in fact. We sit here and openly criticize our own government over and over again, free to do so, free to boot the government out of power in the next election if the majority decides it wants to, yet if we also are "daring" enough to slam the Chinese government for its policies, somehow we are singling China out, when the reality is that we do the same with France, Italy, Japan, and many other friends and allies of the United States. Somehow, China is "different." Criticism is not to be tolerated. Then we see the obligatory trotting out of the canard, "Yes, we have problems, yes, our government isn't perfect, yes, we still have a long way to go!" And, of course, "We have 1.4 billion people!" Followed by an ardent assault on anyone who "dared" to criticize the PRC, and a sigh at the "hopeless ignorance" of said person, organization, country. A "superior" attitude based more on insecurity, in my opinion, than anything else. I've seen it here over and over again.
While I frequently criticize the CCP there is a lot of substance to the argument that it is necessary to run an authoritarian state to develop a country the size of the PRC. Considering what happened throughout the USSR its obvious that rapid political reform can cause a lot of problems. I agree that a lot of this rhetoric comes off as insecure and also petty. Liu Xiabo is certainly against the CCP but jailing him would be analogous to the Obama Admin. jailing Glenn Beck. It is more about silencing a voice the state finds annoying rather than dealing with a national security threat. I have also stated this before that in regard to global standing the CCP's treatment of people like Liu harms their standing more than it helps. For a country that is clearly very concerned about its global standing, Olympics and World Expo. I find it petty that in regard to someone like Liu they would continue to jail him and villify him.
Read more about the guy. Not sure if this was part of the charge against Liu, but he and his organization PEN have received hundreds of thousands of dollars from NED. NED is funded by U.S. Congress to continue what CIA did covertly decades ago, i.e., interfere foreign regimes' politics.
Can I ask you a question, although anyone else is free to answer. Do you truly fear Liu Xiabo and if so why?
judoka, one of the top news today is Obama and Dems are accusing Repubs taking foreign money through Chamber of Commerce in this election. GOP of course vehemently denies the charge, which has not seen substantiated.
With the exception of Iraq the U.S. has not engaged in bullying of other nations for quite some time. Our military expenditure doesn't go towards building more nukes or battleships, but rather to maintaining a huge army and yes, continual development of high tech gear and production of that gear including arms, jets, etc. But for the most part, the U.S. plays a role of stability in today's world and I think the Iraq war is probably a good lesson as to why. Our use of military is primarily for POLITICAL purposes, not economic. This is the key differentiation between u.s. military use today and that of China's. China uses it's military to stake out claims and intimidate it's neighbors - both political and economically. Excercises of the coast of Taiwan, use of military ships to claim oil reserves, etc. The U.S. use of military is confined to defensive purposes - to ward of invasion of the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan. And yes, What China is doing to Africa is nothing short of the kind of imperialism Britain did to China. It's just as bad if not worse because it's happening in the modern world. Africans are getting nothing while the Chinese bribe officials so they can strip mine the continent of all it's resources. That's merchantilism at its worst. And I will tell you it won't be long before China's military gets involved in conflicts in Africa, and these Chinese don't have a free press back home to make people aware of what will go on. They will be ruthless and make what the U.S. did in Latin America look like child's play. The best thing for China would be the fall of the PRC. The U.S. is taking a weak approach to the growing belligerence of China and it's naive to think engagement will be in our best long term interest. Today's China's economy is heavily dependent on the U.S. and look how strained the relationship is. That won't always be the case, and I think strategically, the U.S. must push china to open up it's economy to free trade and letting it's currency float so that other countries with cheap labor can produce goods competitively...and put political pressure on china to go through civil rights reform. China is not Russia...Russia didn't collapse because of democracy, it collapse because of terrible economics. The only way to bring China in as a mature and responsible nation that participates on the global world stage is to steer it to democracy, and the foundation of that is a free press. We have to force that while we have the leverage too, before it's too late.
Hey, everyone come to see the brilliance of Sweet Lou junior's arguments. Too bad you don't do it although you are the big bear in the house
Yeah, the reason was so good that they had to block the Liu Prize news in China and hid the wife from the western media.
Vehemently denies? The Chamber of commerce (which exists pretty much by and for multinational corporations) has been setting up foreign branches for years, which primarily exist to take in foreign money, like the "US-Bahrain C of C" and then spend that money in Washington. This is all a matter of public record - it's about as substantiated as it gets.
Are you implying Uncle Sam spokesman the great Sweet Lou for two, who insinuated whoever does not follow the white house rule is irresponsible, and ipso facto, whose logic, reasoning and ability to draw conclusions from facts are below the standard of an elementary school student?
