[reversal] China caves to int'l pressure, will meet w/D. Lama reps

they can't track everything actually. and they don't really care about people talking crap, unless you are trying to organize something real. this site is allowed in China. i used it there last year.

as for my multiple responses earlier, i just changed my mind after i read the article early in the morning. that's all.

 

If you are living in a theocracy that has improved your life by like 5 times in the past 20 years, you would feel quite proud of it too...

Seriously, if Bush hadn't been such a failure in economics, his approval rating probably would have been much higher.

 

Live video of Chinese decision to meet with Tibetan leaders has been smuggled out of the motherland...

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You read my mind

What would people on this board rather have?

Limited freedom, but a full belly when you go to sleep at night?

or

All the freedom in the world, but you cant sleep due to hunger?

 

It tends to work the opposite way in reality.

 

In many other countries

YES

in this specific case

No

 

There will be a time coming soon to decide whether you will choose to act with a full belly or whether you will pretend that the belly can never be full. I don't know if you've read 1984, but its authoritarian state chose to force shortages rather than relinquish its control over its people.

Governments take a life of their own. If what you say is the rationale behind the social contract with the CCP, then isn't it in the government's interests for their people to always stay hungry?

 

I would like to think and I do think that the CURRENT chinese government is far from the one 20 years ago

Firstly, due to globalisation and all that jazz, it is harder for them to impose there will freely as they have done before, also because they want to be seen as making progress by the western media

Secondly, the current government , put it simply doesnt have the balls, to do what they want when they want.


Is everyone happier that now the soviet union separated into all these different countries who "got there freedom?"? is everyone now much happier? Are they much richer?

My friends who have come from that background says no.

 

I don't think anyone disagrees, nor would they mind a similar progression in relaxing all freedoms, personal and economic, in the next 20 years.

China has the infrastructure to clamp down any time. So does the US, except our military is voluntary. If your middle class explodes from ~150 million to 600 million in the next 10 years, would you still want the same current level of government?

Many of the smaller states ended up fine economically with a free market system. Some are petitioning to join the EU or NATO. Russia did not fare too well from its transition from a market economy to a free economy. China does not have that transition to make. It doesn't and most likely won't sell its companies and industries for dimes to the dollar.

Plus, China's change could be as similar as S. Korea's or Japan's when they jumped from a martial rule to a voting based system. There a plenty of good examples from China to choose from and they can recognize the mistakes from the USSR's collapse.

 

Unfortunately, thats not going to happen in the near future. We all know this, so we dont even bother thinking about it. Nothing we do, you do will change that, thats just the way it is.

 

The concept of hunger and rationing of everything from toilet paper to cloth to soap to toothpaste really have no meaning to the people in the United States because they have never come close to experience that. Only if you have truely experience hunger where you are always looking for food can you understand why so many people place full belly way ahead of democracy.

 

Actually China has no army. PLA is controlled by the Chinese Community Party. So their Secretary of Defense has no real power. PLA currently is also a voluntary force but due to PRC's sheer population, it is not hard to imagine they can field such a huge army. You can check these facts at wikipedia.

 

It's an interesting strawman, the connection between keeping the CCP in power and imminent hunger with a democratic China. They should be commended for redistributing wealth to poorer areas, and improving the quality of life by raising a billion people above the UN poverty threshold.

Do you think that connection will last as Chinese become more prosperous?

 

As people get more prosperous, their need and priorities will change, so will the Chinese government (at least that is my opion).

 

Hate to break it for you, but Jack Cafferty and his fan boy CommieWin beg to differ.

I think you are confusing the military service in Mainland China with that in the Province of Taiwan.

 

Pretty much my first thoughts. Pure PR move.

Chance of anything to actually come out of these "talks"? Zero.

Countries simply don't freaking give up a piece of their land for no reason. History has proven this OVER and OVER and OVER.

And there's absolutely no reason why it would suit China to let Tibet be independent.

 

some of you guys should realize that all these officials are human beings. they come from the common people too. they are not out there to get you. they are not trying to control you. it's not a big mean machine. some (not all) of them are really trying to do their best to help people. of course, there are bad apples trying to get money, women, money too. but that happens everywhere. vast majority of the government have real jobs that serves the society. there are branches that monitors the activities of certain groups, but that happens in other country too. bottom line, these people didn't grow up to oppress others.

 

Dali Lama isn't asking for independence, just a means to preserve Tibetan culture and way of life. I hope he is able to return to China and live in Tibet.

Frankly, if I were him, I'd return to Tibet anyway. He's an old man, if he is afraid of death or prison in sacrafice of his life time goal, what sort of leader is he?

 

Its all speculative but if given that there are already problems with the PRC, such as an inequal distrubution of wealth, disparities between the provinces and vast environmental problems its not as though there aren't issues that could be devestating to the PRC model of central control. Whether the leaders of the PRC believe it or not the idea that they can maintain that high a degree of centralized control over an entity as large and complex as the PRC is one that is bound to be problematic.

 

History hasn't proven that over and over. Czechoslovakia was dominated by the Czech's for centuries but they voluntarily gave up the almost half of the country to form the Slovak Republic. Many predicted that the dissolution of The Soviet Union voluntarily gave up the Baltics and even many of the central Asian states that didn't even want to become independent. The US voluntarily gave up the Philipines and the Canal Zone. Heck in the PRC's backyard the UK voluntarily gave up Hong Kong even though the treaty that was based on only applied ot the New Territories and not Hong Kong Island. Portugal gave up Macau. Following closer to the Tibet model proposed by the Dalai Lama the UK has voluntarily ceded more autonomy to Scotland and Wales.