How many years did it take for France to establish a stable democracy? A century? And how good was that democracy, getting trumped by the Germans twice in half a century? The point is, a weak democracy that changes its policies and cabinets as often as a woman in period changing her mood is no good for a country, especially for a developing country like China. A developing country of China that has 1.3 billion people to feed whose average annual income floats around 1000 USD a year cannot afford a weak democracy. All the blah blah blah on why China should dive into major political change now is just theory. History showed that drastic changes in political system often results in an even longer wait for a better system to take hold in contrast to a gradual and slow approach. Countries like South Korea and regions like Taiwan are fine examples of economy development first then political change later. The Russians lost out like a raped girl by believing in drastic changes and trying to tackle the economy and political development at once. The Chinese face more complexities right now than the USSR from the immense pressure to keep developing the economy to provide enough jobs each year for the millions of new borns, to provide social welfare to hundreds of millions when China is already taking steps towards an old society, from the entangled fact that the People's Republic of China, established by Marxists might lose its legitimacy to exist, to the unkown destiny of sixty millions CCP members once it happens. It's in the Chinese' best interest and need to solve problems one by one, first the economy, then the rebuild of their belief, then the system change. Right now China is in the first and second stage and rightfully so. For the benefits of Chinese, they must ensure they establish a strong democracy from the get go, they have only one chance, one bullet. That may come after Chinese stop worrying about economy and have a relatively unified outlook in their mass belief, and after the CCP figures out how they are gonna solve their hidden identity crisis.When China has only one bullet, she must be patient and wait for the most opportune time to fire it.
on the flip side a lot of foreign mnc---Boeing, Coke, CitiBank, GE, Catepillar, etc---are ringing the cash register. the opposite is true
Depends on how you look at it. For instance, back in the old days, becoming a CCP member was difficult, if not impossible, for someone who didn't have a "clean" family background, as CCP was trying to maintain its status/image as the sole representative of the proletariat class. One's education background and technical expertise were hardly on the priority list, if at all. Nowadays, significant percentages of officials at various power levels of CCP are highly educated technocrats, and the scope of CCP appears to be all the more inclusive. For one, CCP would love to have entrepreneurs to become its members and join the ranks. I am wondering how much one can complain about a party's stranglehold on power when one is or has the opportunity to be part of the establishment? Yallmean is right. It's definitely easier said than done. Are judicial personnel going to be appointed or "democratically" elected? Who gets to appoint "independent" judicial appointees, btw? Are they life-timers? Or bound by term limits? Independent judicial system and full-fledged democracy go hand in hand, without one the other is hardly sustainable. What's interesting is if Zhao Ziyang, then PRC Premier known to the sympathetic westerners as the *chief reformist* who in turn appeared to be sympathetic to the "pro-democracy" student demonstration, had survived the political upheaval and granted the wishes of the students by setting up an independent judicial system, his own great son, who was one of the main figures in many of the CCP corruption rumors in the 1980's, would have been the lead subject in one or more case studies and ultimately the first casualty. Methinks Premier Zhao would be too smart to allow that to happen. Sure it needs to try hard to justify its existence. Today's party platform of CCP bears little resemblance to that of decades ago, in large part due to its adaptation, volunteer or forced, to the ever changing domestic and international climate. Like it or not, there is some undeniable truth to those propagandas. No disagreement there. Freer press is much more feasible than independent judicial system. Simple, because they were hotheads. That, and the fact that some of them were acting as tools of infiltrations by foreign powers spelled their doom. Not sure I'd agree with you the country is a step backward. PRC's economic ascension is there for everyone to see. Politically, for one, the People's Congress is no longer a rubber stamp. As far as personal freedom goes, it's almost day and night. Back then, changing job and/or applying for passport to study abroad when you are fresh off college were almost as easy as getting JVG to play VSpan, but now, you are at liberty to go wherever you want. Look, the students and many other Chinese in 1989 were unhappy that they had no opportunities to get their pieces of the pie -- only elite CCP members and their kins had the monopoly, now the economic upward mobility is wide open to everybody. How can you say this is not a step forward? One of the things that did take a step back is the miserable health care reform in PRC. It's about as corrupted and immoral as it can be. Ironically, it was started in the 90's by another reform-minded Premier Zhu Rongji, who rushed to force the state funded public health care into a market driven (eh, profit driven, to be more precise) system, thanks to copycatting unchecked capitalism.
I am going to modify my original contention: all chinese are ready for self-determination with the exception of wnes, who lacks the facilities to do so himself. If all chinese were as paranoid and defensive as him, it truly would be a billion e-baghdads. I can only imagine the posts of mass destruction that would singlehandedly DOS tha interweb.
All hail SamFisher, as the official spokesman of a billion of Chinese who cannot speak for themselves. Afterall, if we do not agree with SamFisher, we would be paranoid and defensive. Sam truly has the Mandate of Heaven with him.
At least Sam has been there. I've only been to Hong Kong, when it was a Crown Colony. Loved it. D&D. Replicant Voter.
I am from Hong Kong, and I've been to China on quite a few occasions (though not recently). While I do not condone their actions against the students, I think Sam's ideas may be a bit radical for China right now. In fact, I think Sam is being a bit paranoid and defensive himself by forcibly claiming democracy is the only way to improve the quality of life in China. Sam, wnes and myself can pretty much agree that China needs to empower the general populace, and I am not doubting his sincerity on that matter. However, this becomes a debate of what policy is the best to take. He preaches suffrage as the key, while I believe education and economic prosperity as being more important. The perfect scenario would be to have all three, but I doubt China would have made the same progress in education and economy in the last 20 years under a democracy. China is emerging out of 3rd world status, and there are growing pains. However, there is positive momentum and the machine certainly isn't broken. So why tinker with it?
why would chinese care? From what people in this thread say they need people to make decisions for them, they feel that they are not prepared to collectively make rational choices on their own. Sam didn't say anything remotely resembling that in this thread.
Well, if you are one of the countless people being displaced by the Three Gorges Dam, and have no recourse, as well as having to deal with the incredible corruption associated with the displacement caused by it's construction, you might like to have a larger voice in the government. Sam and I have different styles and sometimes different takes on things, but I agree with him regarding China a lot more than I disagree. As I've said a few times in this thread, the very fact that China has such a long history and a large population works to the advantage of the ruling class, the CCP. It is an enabler for their control of the country. Whenever anyone complains about how something is being done, disagrees with Party policy, says anything that can be taken as critical of China, they (and some here) say, "You just don't understand... China has a 5,000 year history and 1.3 billion people!" Implied is that there is no need for further discussion, not if it involves anything that would weaken or end CCP dominance, because "China has a 5,000 year old history and 1.3 billion people. So put a sock in it! Besides, you just don't understand. The Chinese people can't handle free elections and the right to form political parties. The very notion is radical. Go buy an iPod or something and leave us alone!" Now, I'm exaggerating for effect, but not much. India, a country I've spent some months in, with all its faults, with the need still to have English as the language of the educated, because there are so many languages and dialects, with different ethnic groups, different religions, a bizarre, but ancient, class system... with all those faults, as well as the corruption China suffers from, it manages to have free elections. I see no reason China couldn't do the same without "blowing up," except for one. The CCP doesn't want it to happen, and will do, ultimately, what is needed to keep itself in power. So change in the distribution of political power will takes decades, when decades are not needed, in my opinion. D&D. Replicant Voter.
Why would chinese care? Well, China would probably still be an illiterate 3rd world country like India if you spoke for us. Even the best of leaders sometimes have to make unpopular choices in order to achieve a greater good. Perhaps I've misinterpreted what you've been trying to say, why do you insist on the necessity of installing a democracy in China?
Taj Mahal pollution plea President Clinton has used the majestic setting of the Taj Mahal to make a plea for greater efforts to combat environmental pollution. During a tour round the mausoleum and gardens with his daughter Chelsea, President Clinton said it had been a lifelong ambition to visit the Taj. But he also said that pollution had managed "to do what 350 years of wars, invasions and natural disasters have failed to do. It has begun to mar the magnificent walls of the Taj Mahal." He said that a constant effort was needed to save it from degradation. Speaking a short distance from the monument, he announced a series of joint environmental initiatives with India: $200m in US credit guarantees to fund clean energy projects. $20m to extend a programme that seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through energy efficiency and the use of cleaner fuels. $25m for a programme that promotes the use of energy efficient technologies and services in India. Mr Clinton also repeated a plea for more work to combat global warming, saying the US and other countries bore a special responsibility for this. He said the risks of not taking action would be especially acute for developing nations like India. Taj in trouble The Taj Mahal - constructed in the 17th Century by the Mughal emperor Shah Jehan - is a dazzling edifice of marble, jade, turquoise, lapis lazuli and other precious stones. But its gleaming walls have begun to fade under the effects of pollution from factories and workshops in nearby Agra. In a bid to preserve it, restrictions have been imposed on industrial activity and on motor vehicles in the vicinity. However, President Clinton drove to the Taj Mahal in his regular black limousine - although other vehicles in the presidential motorcade were electric-powered. Other tourists were also kept well away from the presidential entourage. The marble facade is beginning to discolour One report said the local authorities even opened the underground chamber where the remains of Shah Jehan's wife, Mumtaz Mahal, are. It has been closed since 1991. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/687017.stm D&D. Replicant Traveler.
China's Underpopulation Crisis India has one, too. By Ian Bremmer Posted Tuesday, March 7, 2006, at 1:16 PM ET China's vast supply of cheap labor and India's army of capable engineers have attracted enormous flows of foreign investment to their countries over the past several years. Analysts have dubbed the result the "Asian miracle." But beneath our assumptions about the future of economic growth in these two countries lie important questions about how long these trends can remain quite so miraculous. Between 1978 and the end of 2004, China took in $563.8 billion in foreign direct investment, more than 10 times the total that Japan amassed between 1945 and 2000. India, meanwhile, now accounts for almost two-thirds of all the information-technology work off-shored from the United States, and the resulting revenue is expected to nearly quadruple over the next five years to around $60 billion. The advantages of investment in China are well-known. Less well-understood is a looming demographic challenge that could undermine China's ability to grow rich before its population grows old. Emerging-market investors in search of an alternative should note that India faces a demographic challenge of its own. Recent reports from researchers at Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs suggest that China's workforce may begin to shrink sooner than we thought. According to Deutsche Bank's analysis, the percentage of working-age Chinese in the population (those aged 15 to 64) will peak around 2010 at 72.2 percent. Over the next 40 years, that number will fall steadily to just 60.7 percent, according to U.N. forecasts. The steep drop is due in large part to China's one-child policy, first implemented in 1979. Also, many Chinese retire before they are 64; China's current retirement age is 50 for most women and 60 for most men. There are two reasons this shift will put considerable strain on China's economic performance. First, the country's explosive economic growth over the last several years is due mostly to its plentiful supply of cheap labor. When the working-age population begins to drop five years from now, China's appeal to international investors may begin to fall as well. Second, by 2050, every 10 Chinese workers will support seven Chinese who are too young or too old to work, according to Goldman Sachs. Even that projection is based on the optimistic assumption that the central government will soon persuade its citizens to work until they are 64. The Deutsche Bank study includes a warning from the International Monetary Fund that the transition from the current pension system to a more sustainable one could cost developing China $100 billion, not including the financial burden on local governments. The population is aging in Japan and in many European countries, as well, but these states are already wealthy. The financial stresses on China, where the average per-capita income remains a fraction of those of developed states, will be much more difficult to bear. Then there are the health-care costs. No one can forecast with confidence what it will cost China to care for the 265 million citizens who will be over the age of 65 by 2020. The worst of the crunch is many years away. But the new reports suggest that the shrinking of China's labor force will begin by the end of this decade. What's more, as China's economy has grown, so has the level of social unrest within the country. The number of what the Chinese government calls "mass group incidents" has risen by about 10 percent a year for more than a decade. In 2004, that number reached 74,000 and involved some 3.7 million people, according to the Chinese security minister. That's more than 200 protests across the country per day, involving an average of 50 people. China's growing demographic problem may persuade some foreign investors—already wary of the opaque, authoritarian political system and the increasingly well-coordinated and violent protests—to further diversify their portfolios away from risks in China. Perhaps some of that investment will flow toward India, the rising economic star that is today in China's considerable shadow. India's democracy, its relative transparency, and its commitment to economic liberalization offer enormous advantages for investors who are concerned by the Chinese Communist Party's long-term ability to contain steadily growing social unrest. India's workforce will continue to grow for the next several decades and will likely surpass China's by 2040. So, there is good reason to believe that India is the safer long-term investment bet. But India has a demographic problem of its own. If China's comparative advantage in attracting foreign investment lies in its enormous supply of unskilled labor, India has profited from its considerable pool of skilled workers, many of them English-speaking, who have filled the country's growing number of high-tech and service-sector jobs. But that pool is in danger of reaching its natural limit, as well. According to a report released in December by McKinsey & Co. and the Indian IT trade association Nasscom, if the flow of service-sector jobs continues to grow at its current rate, and if India fails to enact substantial reform of its education system, the country will face a shortfall of 350,000 business-process staff and 150,000 IT engineers by the end of 2010. As the shortage of qualified workers grows, the expansion of India's service sector could shift into reverse, at an enormous cost to the country's still-fragile economic development. India's world-class IT and engineering schools are not the problem. In fact, India already graduates five times as many engineers each year as the United States. The real problem lies in India's universities and in its woefully uneven level of primary education. The McKinsey-Nasscom report suggests that only 25 percent of India's university graduates have the basic skills—including the minimum level of spoken English—needed for work in the sectors that have fueled India's recent growth. The percentage of Indians who leave school by age 10 is 40 percent. Not coincidentally, 40 percent of Indian citizens are illiterate. The most formidable obstacle to Indian efforts to reform its education system is that local governments control education policy. As a result, development of a coherent solution to the shortage of qualified faculty, inadequate educational infrastructure, and the current system's inability to produce the skilled workers its fast-changing economy demands will be both profoundly difficult and time-consuming. There's very little chance that China and India can quickly solve these problems. It will be decades before China can redress its demographic deficit, particularly given the central government's deep reluctance to ease immigration restrictions. In the short term, India's education system can be improved at the margins, but the country's factionalized politics ensures that the level of policy coordination between the central and regional governments necessary for broader reforms is unlikely to develop anytime soon. For the next several years, China and India will continue to profit from large inflows of foreign investment, but investors in these states will do well to remember that past performance is no guarantee of future results. Ian Bremmer is president of the Eurasia Group, a global political risk consultancy, and author of the book The J Curve: A New Way To Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall. http://www.slate.com/id/2137680/ D&D. Replicant Traveler.
Deck, I understand why you posted this article, but this particular line just gives more fuel to the side that claims China doesn't need a democracy.
I agree with you on this point. However, while the construction forced the relocation of 1.13 million people, their voices hardly amount to anything in a country of over 1 billion even in a democracy. I am not a proponent of the Three Gorges Dam, and the relocation is absolutely tragic. You also need to bear in mind that a plethora of ancient Chinese artifacts is trapped under the dam. While I can certainly see your point that CCP has used that argument to be an enabler for their control, but their control of the country is what dug China out of a very deep hole. I agree. Those aren't valid arguments. It took many years for India to learn how to function as a democracy. I don't know too much about their history, but wasn't the 60s, 70s and 80s filled with political strife which led to a stagnation of progress. I agree with you that CCP most definitely want to keep the power, but CCP itself is gradually becoming more liberal. It may take decades for CCP to make the changes, but why must they expedite the changes?
Hidden danger behind Three Gorges dam John Gittings in Xiangjiaba, Yunnan Friday May 30, 2003 Guardian As the huge reservoir behind China's controversial Three Gorges dam begins to fill up this weekend, an urgent rescue operation is being launched further upstream to save the dam from being choked by silt. The final go-ahead has been given for a new generation of four dams which are supposed to trap the silt on the Yangtze river's longest tributary, the Jinsha (Golden Sands) river. The scheme has been almost completely ignored so far in China and abroad. Alarmingly, it lies on the edge of a recognised seismic zone, a potential danger not mentioned in the few published Chinese accounts, the Guardian discovered during a visit to the site. At Xiangjiaba, the site of the furthest downstream of the four dams, the height of the dam will be 160 metres: an even larger one upstream at Xiluodu will reach 270m. Work on Xiluodu will begin this year. Both dams are scheduled for completion before 2020. Two smaller dams are also planned. However, the Jinsha river lies on the edge of a recognised earthquake zone - identified by the global seismic hazard assessment programme - stretching from the western edge of the Sichuan region to east Yunnan. "The Jinsha has bad geological conditions, and there is a more severe seismic area upriver from Xiangjiaba," said a Chinese geologist in Sichuan. He added that near this site, dam projects "should not be encouraged". Headache China's state council has given a definitive go-ahead to the project, even though the feasibility studies for Xiangjiaba are "still being written up", according to a statement. The Jinsha river is the main tributary of the Yangtze, flowing more than 1,200 miles from Tibet to enter the Yangtze at Yibin in Sichuan province, not far below the Xiangjiaba site. Xiluodu's planned hydroelectric power output of 12,600 megawatts will make it "second in world rank", it was announced in March, equal in size to the Itaipu dam on the Brazil-Paraguay border. The Three Gorges will be the world's largest, with a generating capacity exceeding 18,000MW. However, official statements admit that the primary motive is to solve the silt problem facing the Three Gorges dam. The Jinsha project will be built and funded by the same company responsible for the dam. "Top officials have a headache," said a report from the Three Gorges headquarters, "how to deal with the problem of sed imentation ... The best way is to build more dams upstream to block the silt from entering the reservoir." The Jinsha river produces more than half the sediment that will enter the Three Gorges reservoir, at an estimated annual rate of 330m tonnes. If unchecked this will seriously reduce the reservoir's lifespan and threaten the operation of the dam's turbines. It is claimed that Xiluodu alone will cut the silt deposit by 36%. Objections that the reservoirs behind the four new dams will in turn fill up with silt are brushed aside. There is plenty of "dead storage" room to take care of the sediment, the Three Gorges' manager, Lu Youmei, claimed. At Xiangjiaba, construction will take place right on top of a thermal spring that wells up from a mile and a half underground. The dam will displace the thriving Hot Springs resort built only a few years ago. A statue of a water nymph looms over the swimming pool, the hot baths and the chalets, all dwarfed by the canyon wall. A little way upstream, villagers still wash down their packhorses on a spit of sand. "It will be just like the Three Gorges - everything will disappear," said an information officer at the resort headquarters. Upstream from Xiangjiaba, life continues undisturbed for now. Farming women in blue aprons carry their goods to market, and their babies in circular wicker baskets. Men carry heavier loads strapped to a frame of crossed poles on their backs. In farmhouse gardens, screened by bamboo stands, the peach blossom is in flower. Sand is being dug from the river bed; stone is quarried. In the small town of Xinshi, 31 miles upstream, a restaurant serves its speciality - little "golden sand fish", in a rich soup. Unlike the Three Gorges region, the population is sparse along the Jinsha so the project will attract less attention. Local people do not know how high the dam will be, whether they will be affected, or whether the little fish will survive. Critics argue that the project is another example of grandiose planning by a powerful political lobby that puts energy first and the environment last. "It provides the [Three Gorges] project corporation with another golden opportunity to develop, so that it can become a power giant in China," said Mu Lan, editor of the Toronto-based Three Gorges Probe research project. "The corporation is a pet of top leaders such as [the former premier] Li Peng, so it is no wonder that the state council has allowed profits [to be used] from power generation at the Three Gorges to build the new dams. Almost every story put out by the corporation just focuses on the positive aspects of its dams, while ignoring the dark side." Mr Lu has announced the formation of a firm to "develop the Jinsha and speed up preparatory work" for the first two dams, with an initial budget of nearly one billion yuan (£80m). The Jinsha is described as "a magnificent river with development potential", but environmentalists fear it will be the death verdict on one of China's last untouched natural resources. Cao Wenxuan, an aquatic life specialist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has warned of the danger to the Yangtze river's ecosystem. "If the Three Gorges dam does not succeed in driving certain rare species to extinction, constructing more big dams will finish the job, fragmenting the river into several parts." There is also talk of 12 hydroelectric schemes, eventually - on the Jinsha producing five times Xiluodu's output. Another huge project involving a "cascade" of eight dams is already beginning in Yunnan province on the Mekong. The big dam ideology is still alive and well in China, say the critics, and the hidden cost has yet to be added up. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,966654,00.html D&D. Replicant Lusting after Young Cuban Ladies!
