Douche bag comes in all size, shape and color, here are some: Yuantian, Wnes and the rest of the China apologists!
Did you seriously join the counter demonstration? My Dad is about as big of a Chinese nationalist (small "n" not big "N" as in KMT) as they come and even he was moved by the student movement and dismayed at the crackdown. Like many of the Chinese though he says now that the PRC's development has been more important than the democractic movement.
I disagree with those guys on a lot of things but they are correct that most of the PRC has forgotten June 4th and many of that generation have become more concerned about making money. At the sametime the younger generation has become more focussed on Chinese nationalism than in the abstract ideas of democracy.
I spent some time in Chile during the first post-pinochet election campaign (Patricio Elwyn won), this was fall of '89 IIRC. stayed in the hotel that served as the "model" for that where Jack Lemmon stayed in Missing. It faced the presidential square and palace, which jets strafed during the coup. I got up on my high-horse about the evils of Pinochet and human rights, and my hosts a Dr. friend of my old man, got quite serious, and said "is not a job a human right, is a good a economy not a human right?" feelings about Pinochet in Chile were surprisingly mixed, Sting notwithstanding. another interesting anecdote, this was during the US grape boycott, and there were tons of vendors on the street corners selling...raisins.
Obviously the PRC has been very succesful in delivering a better material quality of life and has consistently argued that democracy needs to take a back seat to deveopment so I'm not surprised many agree with that. I personally feel that that can only get you so far and a country or people can only survive following Maslow's Hiearchy for so long. At the sametime economic development can only progress so far under a system of centralized political control. I can't say for certain that 1989 was the right time for the PRC to democratize but eventually I believe they will have to.
Can't tell whether you (and Sam) are serious about not-understanding what wnes said. "Driving the tank" (as articulated by Sam) would have been called anti-demonstration, which was clearly not something wnes did 20 years ago. I was there 20 years ago well (not a member of the military, mind you), I have not forgotten anything about it, but I do hold a different view than people who only saw brief reports from western media. If you are serious about understanding China and interested in the well beings of all the Chinese people, there are tons of Chinese language blogs out there offering critical thoughts and opinion from people who was part of the greatest student movement in China in last half of 20th century. Do not pretend to understand what Chinese people are thinking from English only interwebs.
Slightly off topic, When I went to Macau, I noticed that there is a restriction for people from mainland china to go there, but people from hong kong can go anytime. is that right? plus the people in macau were cool.
When Chinese have the same standard of living as in US and Europe do you think Chinese won't be able to democracy like they do in Korea? There are plenty of poor nations with democratic governments, do you think the people in those country would rather live in China or a democratic nation? China was just dirt poor 30 years ago, the transformation of the country during the last 30 years is nothing short of a total miracle. To be able to provide decent living for 1.3 billion people is a great testment to the competency of the Chinese government. There are tons of problems with the current Chinese government, but I doubt a democracy could have brought China out poverty better during the last 30 years. The first order of business for a government is provide for the people, when you are hungry who cares about democracy. People here talk about democarcy in their comfortable homes with air condition and heating. Do people really care about the lives of Chinese or any other poor country in the world? All we can offer them is democracy, does democracy bring food to the table? Educat the young people? It is still early but we will have a much better idea about the Chinese experiment in 50 years, but the evidence so far have been extremely positive. Oh I did not support the use of armed force on the students, I believed Zhao was right and should have been allow to handle things his way.
Yes, China does not allow mainlander to go to Hong Kong and Macau freely, evne though they are part of China.
You can, but you have to get some kind of a pass I belive it is not super hard to get. There are tons of people who want to go live in Hong Kong and the local government does not want that, you must have a residency permit to work and go to school in Hong Kong I think.
Without the freedom of access that is being denied to the Western Press it will be hard to ever portray an accurate picture of what is going on in China.
The massacre seems to mean more to Americans than it does to Chinese. I think the suggestion that the Chinese have forgotten about it because of government censorship and/or affluence is condescending. They live it a lot more tangibly than we ever have to. It's easy for us to be intellectual misers about it, cast a judgement and not worry about the intricacies.
It really depends where. While certainly everyone wants to materially better themselves self-determination is also important. If it was just about material betterment than the Israelis could've just bought off the Palestinians something they tried. Consider even in the PRC itself would a Uighar or a Tibetan rather have a democracy where they can get a say in self determination or continue to live under the CCP even while it has improved things materially? Completely agree but the question is how long can that model be of economic prosperity with centralized government be continued? Japan, Korea and Taiwan all went through similar patterns and eventually the ruling party found it couldn't maintain control. At the sametime democracy hasn't hurt their economies. In India the hi-tech boom didn't take place until after the Congress party's hold on the country was broken. While the CCP has done a good job the problem with maintaining centralized political control is that you are dependent on having wise leaders and without the check of democratic elections you are also potentially subject to terrible leaders with no way of getting rid of them. As far as saying that having an authoritarian government as being the way to get out of poverty that is true that without the messiness of a democracy things can get done faster but that cuts both ways. More often than not a corrupt leader finds it easier to use the tools of an authoritarian state to suppress and rob the people. Chinese history itself is replete with cautions about what can happen when a corrupt emperor takes power. You're painting the alternatives as either starvation or authoritarianism when that isn't the case. Democracy has its problems but so does authoritarianism. As noted under good leadership authoritarian rule can bring prosperity but more often than not it brings corruption. I would suspect that if you look at most countries in the world you are likely to find that those with authoritarian rule are worse off than those democractic. It has in the last 30 but prior to that it was a disaster, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution and etc... I agree though that the PRC is very complex and from seeing what happened to the Soviet Union can understand why they don't want rapid democraticization. My own view though is that trying to maintain central control is a problem in the long run especially for a country as large and as diverse as China. I agree Zhao had the right idea and what the CCP should've done is coopt the students. All they needed was to embrace some of the rhetoric of the students, regarding freedom and democracy, and only made minor changes and the May 1989 movement might've gone down as one of the greatest moments in the PRC's history. Also if I recall correctly by June 4th the protests were dying down and if the authorities had waited them out they probably would've completely died down.
That may be true in some cases, but most of the Chinese prefer living better than empty democracy at least that's my experience with Chinese both in China and in the US. India and China are two good example to follow, when China reaches the same level as Kora Japan, etc I will have no problem with a democratic government, I beleive it will happen even before then. That is a very real problem. I am not saying authoritarian is always better, but since China is doing very well at the moment, let the things continue its course. Democracy or authoritarian does not make a country great, it is the leaders and their vision. Currently China has very competent leaders. How many real poor countries became rich just because they became democratic? It still all comes down to leadership and Mao was an idiot when it comes to running a country.
While the post 80's generation in China know far less about June 4 than they should, American who think they know more about the event than the Chinese are kidding themselves. Then throw a chronic liar like SammyFisher into the mix... The comparison between the perceived ignorance between the younger Chinese generation to Japan's denial of WWII war crimes is equally ludicrous. In China, at a minimum people who care about the subject know something awful happened on that day. Nobody thinks the 27th got together with the students at TAM, started a bonfire and had tea. That's a far cry from routine Japanese apologists. One has to go slide a lot further in the scale to being from ignorant to outright lying about something.
Hardly. You are of the opinion that they don't know it because they are brainwashed. The truth is they don't know it because they don't care. But whatever floats your boat...
