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

It is not an analogy.

 

Deckard,

I always consider you a genuinely nice and passionate person. Coming from a "nubie", this comment may surprise you somewhat but I actually joined the board when Yao Ming was selected by the Rockets. Somehow I lost my privilige to post when members here started carrying the label "contributing members"...

To make a long story short, I've been reading posts here for quite some time and it's always my opinion that you're one of the nicest person around. The reason I'm saying all of this is that I'm deeply saddened to see that even people as nice as you're have failed (refused?) to spend a moment looking at these issues from a different perspective. In a sense my frustration with nice people like you is similar to the frustration expressed by Reverend Wright over genuinely nice people failing to understand the anger of the black community. You have to think like an African American to fully understand his or her anger. You have to think like a Chinese to fully understand his or her "stubborn" beliefs. Well, you may of course accuse me of committing the same crime, but I can assure you that I actually have done that - that is, looking at things from a different angle. I was once a (quasi) dissident. I was in Tianmen Squre in 1989. I hurled stones at PLA tanks on the night of June 3. I carried a dead body from the street and later fled home with blood of that dead body on my shirt. I threw a book in the face of my boss, a party member, and resigned from that state-run company. I almost had a physical fight with my dad, a party member for 60 years now, over whether the stuff being reported by CCTV was genuinely true. I was so fed up with the system and wanted to live a free life so much, that I eventually came to the States in 1995.

Over the years, I've chatted with people on welfare, but also sat in the same car with FDIC chair; attended speaches by major Chinese dissendents, but also participated meetings by pro-China scholars; done charity work, but also engaged in profit-driven activities; worked with plaintiffs, but also helped defendants. In a word, I've dealt with many many different things from many many different angles. 19 years after Tianmen Square and 14 years after living in the freest country in the world, however, I must admit that I am a changed man. I may disagree with some of the Chinese posters here on some technicalities but agree with them in principle. I'm not going to go into details here on why my positions have changed, but would be very much interested to start an in-depth dialogue with you and everyone else that I know have a genuine interest in promoting peace and mutual understanding. Currently I'm fumbling around trying to finish my dissertation on Socially Responsible Investing but would soon become a college professor in a state boarding Texas (I know, Texas is huge, lol). I hope one day we may have a chance to sit down and have a nice discussion about everything. I'm closer to your age than most posters here (sorry no age discrimination intended), so rest assured that you're not going to hear any youthful anger vent that's been poured into the streets lately. I for one would be all for overnight political change to happen in China, if it were possible. On the other hand, I also have no interest whatsoever in engaging people who post on a billable hour basis. (Trust me, I hold highest regard for posters like MadMax).

I'll start by pleading you to watch the following YouTube video clip. It's a propaganda piece, but not by the CCP or angry Chinese youngsters. It was produced by the U.S. War Department during World War II. We may be wrong in believing some of the stuff we believe, but this video clip will at least help you understand why we have such beliefs in the first place. Once again, please note that I'm not asking you to believe what we believe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tOtVQ7cNWY

For a better world.
James

 

By the way, "qiao" in Chinese means "bridge".

 

hey, i was 8 and half in 1989. i am just wondering do you have any regrets? what's your position now? just curious. i never wanted to talk to dissidents. but since you are 'quasi', that's that's fine.

 

Go home, I do not talk to kids

Regrets? You bet. I recommend that you watch this PBS documentary titled "The Gate of Heavenly Peace" (the meaning of Tiananmen):

http://www.tsquare.tv/film/

Years later, when I heard Chai Ling, one of the student leaders in 1989, say (paraphrase) to the reporter in a remote and safe hotel room while students and other demonstrators were dying on the street, that people had to sacrifice their lives for the sake of China's democratice process but she couldn't be one of them because her life was too valuable (once again, the above was a paraphrase), I was outraged.

We were definitely manipulated by an invisible hand (hands?) behind the scene. I was given a loud speaker that was so advanced at the time that it could only came from certain sources. Too bad we didn't know better. But once again we were only a bunch of unsophisticated college kids and the only thing we had was passion. I think we had and still have too much "Bushism" in our blood, that is, you're-either-with-us-or-agains-us kind of thinking. People who think that way can be easily manipulated. In our history it's never been an honorable thing to comprise. But politics is all about comprise, an concept even many people in this country start to forget. Just listen to how Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Fox News talk about the democrats and the Clintons, and how New York Times and Stephanie Miller talk about Republicans and the Bush administration.

I label myself a "quasi" dissendident in that as a student I partipated in almost all the anti government demonstrations from 1986 to 1989. But I was never a professional dissendent and will never become one. I'm of the opinion that I can make better contributions by discussing solutions rather than by pointing fingers all the time. As for China's political future, I'm with the school of thoughts that structural change will come in due course but we'll have to "cross the river by feeling the stones" like we did with our economy for the past three decades. It has always been my firm belief that we have to find our own path to freedom rather than copying the western model. China is so big, so complex and has so much historical baggage that we simply can't afford to have half the country hate the other half. Eventually, every relevant party in our society needs to look at what happened in the past with a reconciliatory attitude because we do not need another revolution. As for the small number of professional dissendidents living in the west who want to become China's future ruling class, well, they can continue to enjoy their dream but if they don't clean up their act and start to rule themselves in a democratic way, I suspect that their number will continue to dwindle.

 

It was a pleasure to read your posts, hope you can post more often.

 

The passion of youth is the most genuine emotion of your lifetime.

Pragmatic wisdom is just a weary compromise.

-Dubious-

 

Sorry about the numerous typos in my previous posts. Normally I do frequent spell check when writing stuff but since this is a bball bulletin board...

 

Spell checks are for wimps! Real man spells anyway he want!

 

I know it's not; that's why his argument didn't work.

It was, however, clearly an attempt at one.

a·nal·o·gy
1. a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based: the analogy between the heart and a pump.
2. similarity or comparability: I see no analogy between your problem and mine.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/analogy

 

I hear ya. But you know, I had heart when I was young; since I'm older now, I want to have a brain, too

 

Qiao

I'm just saying don't regret your youthful passion and don't forget it either.
Nobody will ever know 'truth'. Were the protestors directed by outside forces? Are the revisionist making it look that way? Probably both, but we will never know the extent of either.

But you know what you felt, China needed to change and it wasn't the old grey beards that were going to change it. I would venture to say that the protest did have a huge effect in bringing about the capitalistic changes on China. The event happened, change happened; are they not linked?

Are the passions of Chinese nationalism we see on this board being directed by outside forces? Or are they the real passions of our youthful Chinese posters. The reality is what they feel.

I just like to poke them with a stick and rile them up so that they will think; with me or against me, I just think it's a healthy exercise.

 

ok, this is my opinion. i think China was going to change regardless of the demonstration at the time or not. the demonstration, probably, in my view, slowed political change in China. the leadership saw the "danger" of it, therefore, moved to focusing on economic development with adequate freedom. i have no problem with that. but i would say, the demonstration "backfired" in some way. but that's my opinion.

 

That is probably true, some of the leaders at the top such as Zhao were receptive to political change. However, by forcing the hands of the elder generation (Deng) the political reform has slowed in the last twenty years.

You try to do things one step at a time, not shooting for the moon in one leap.

 

If you're going to dream, dream big.

I had this concept back when I was a young radical. Public opinion is like a heavy pendulum, with a lot of inertia. To move it a little bit you have to go way out on the end and exert a lot of effort. You don't get any leverage by pushing in the middle.

More physics: Nothing changes until it's acted upon by an outside force. Without the fear of the mob turning against them, politicians will choose to do nothing.

 

if only if you are already in a **** hole with nothing to lose. there is too much to lose for everyone in China if that happens.

 

Well Yuantian, you've already said you never want to leave the teat of the state.

Life is not that scary.

 

True. Political dialogue, even heated ones, is a prerequisite for China and for the world as well to move from a static equilibrium to a dynamic one, where different opinions interact with each other actively and peacefully.

As to what really happened in 1989 and what have been the (positive and negative) aftermaths, I say things happened the way they happened and there's no way we can relive history. Let's remember the past but focus our attentions forward-looking. I don't want to become a revenger or an apologist. I want to become a problem solver.

 

So will you go back or find a way to work within Chinese politics?

 

Why do you care about the political change in China, what is in it for you?