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China: the New Global High-Tech Power
Andy Tai writes "This three-part news.com special report shows how mainland China has become the focus of high tech business opportunities during the global recession. The article compares today's China to 19th Century America as "a booming nation starved for products and driven by a new generation of entrepreneurs", points out China's "sheer numbers and ambitious work ethic are producing thousands of engineers--and U.S. companies are recruiting the best of them," and concludes "that this may eventually be known as China's high-tech century. " Another good article looking at China's rise as a global power can be found here."
Anyway, back to persecution, so why they these people run to a country that was controlled by the British until 1901? The legacy of this is still apparent, see flag, see head of state.
Problem is... not being anti-British involves not being anti-English/Scottish/Irish/Welsh, you can't pick and choose.
Indeed, I think Alex Chiu's insight can help shed some light on this topic. This is somewhat-lucid prose from his year-old /. interview:
"I think the Chinese government is doing a great job right now. I support population control. I think USA should do the same. If you want to have more than 1 kid, you should pay more tax. The enemies of China always use "human rights issues" to attack China. But if USA has 1.3 billion people, USA would have the same human rights problem just like China. You cannot expect so much freedom in a land of 1.3 billion people. Chinese government is doing such a great job that China not only feeds its own people, it also feeds most of the Russians. Most of the food imported to Russia came from China. You guys always talk about human rights. But why can't you guys mention about "government rights"? Chinese government has the right to do whatever it must do to protect China. That includes population control and the liberation of Tibet. Do you know that before Tibet was liberated, you can buy and sell slaves in Tibet? In the old Tibet, you can have slaves, you can marry 4 wives, but you cannot take a bath for 1 whole year, and you cannot meet a foreigner. You can skin your slave alive, and you can kill your slave when ever you desire. The entire Tibet is ruled by a bunch of religious idiots. You can't take a bath for the entire year, and you can't trade with foreigners. Cummunists don't allow that! Liberated Tibet and kick out that stupid Dalai Lama, whatever that moron's name is. You guys don't know how much Tibet has changed. Most families in Tibet now has electricity. TV, VCR, stereo, micro-wave, you name it. Everything's made in China! They have shopping malls and super markets there. There's stock market brokers there. In fact, Tibet is one of the most popular European tourist attraction of asia. If Dalai idiot is still around, you be buying and selling slaves there right now! Everywhere would stink like hell because nobody teaches you the importance of taking a bath. If you say Tibetans are not Chinese because they have their own language and culture, let me ask you this: Is Hawaii part of USA? Is Okinawa part of Japan? Okinawa people have different language and culture than the Japanese. So should Okinawa gain independence from Japan?"
Hello USA (and many other 1st world countries),
How about getting the following:
2)-fair judicial system
5)-uncorrupt governance
7)-freedom of expression
The US seems to be doing well as a technology leader without the above traits. China will likely do even better than the US because they are more likely to cater to the big businesses than the US is (although the US government does do a good job whoring themselves out to big business).
In order to succeed (in big business) they would be better off with a corrupt government that had a slanted judicial system and the lack of freedom of expression. It works over here quite well.
Envision this scenario:
China, over the next 40 or 50 years, becomes an enormous economic juggernaut. With cheap labor, high tech industry, and a huge population, China begins to develop most of the world's goods for dirt cheap prices. World consumer choice is at an all time high.
Because of the political system in place within the country, the average standard of living doesn't increase significantly.
People are not stupid. The Chinese people will see how the majority are not benefiting from the economic prosperity and attempt to change the political system. The government in place will put down initial unrest, but a civil war could occur the likes of which we have never seen in the world. The world economy that has come to depend on the Chinese government for goods.
With the ensuing economic collapse of China during the civil war, the world is plunged into a depression comparable to the late 1920's and early 1930's. The US Federal Reserve could not handle the removal of a huge portion of the world economy from the picture.
Following the civil war, a democratic government is created in China, and the economy becomes similar to many western countries, with a higher standard of living and increased wages. The economic playing field is now leveled.
Either that, or everybody nukes everybody. Whatever happens, I'll be dead by then. Oh well.
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
China is the principal threat to US hegemony in
several ways. By 2010 pentagon force projections
estimate that they will have more nuclear warheads
targetted in the US than will Russia. The US is
legally bound to the defense of Taiwan against
attack. Because they abort their female fetuses
in large numbers (and female infanticide is endemic)
they have a large surplus male population at
cannon-fodder age. Their economy is growing at 9%
annually while the US economy is shrinking. They
have the benefit of the balance of trade, which
gives them increasing cash reserves, and a consequent
ability to manipulate capital markets.
Calling the CCP "Communist" is like calling
scientology a religion -- it's a gross abuse of
the denotative meaning of the term. The CCP
is a collection of warlord factions not unlike
the KMT in 1910, or any of a hundred other
examples from Chinese history.
The CCP may well be the most powerful organized
entity on the face of the earth today, and it
is utterly ruthless. It has imposed an hereditary
caste system on the Chinese people, utterly
crushes any sort of labor organization, in fact
maintains a gulag system of millions of literal
slave laborers, forces hundreds of thousands of
abortions on unwilling women every year, and has
a history of wild oscillations in policy that
result in mass starvation, brutalization, and
dehumanization.
Really, it's not very unlike the U.S. government,
except that it's violence is directed inward,
against the peasants and workers and intelligentsia,
instead of outward, against swarthy people who
have oil. Both systems represent an intense
concentration of power under the domination of
one autocratic ruler. Both systems use political
parties to exclude meaningful dissent. Both
systems manipulate law to funnel funds into the
hands of crony feudal barons. Both systems
exercise strangling control over the mass media
to preclude meaningful democracy.
But the Chinese nukes are pointed at *me*, while
the U.S. nukes are pointed *away*, so I prefer
to see the U.S. hang on to its global empire
for a few more decades, please.
Oh, and we are selling them shit. Such as VSAT
technology (Hughes/Loral) and missile technology
(McDonnel and TRW), thanks to the millions funnelled
by the "People's Liberation Army" into the
Clinton/Gore campaigns.
The chinese people are wonderful, and the
chinese culture is amazingly deep and beautiful,
as is the language. But the chinese state is
perhaps the single greatest source of human
evil on the face of this planet, and as such
it should be given all the respect one gives
a rabid predator. That dragon is not a mascot
or a pet. It breathes fire, and it is waking
up from a long sleep.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
The devil is in how you define 'prosperity' and for whom. The growth of the American economy might look great in macro terms and for large investors, but the loss of jobs hurts very much the poor working stiffs like me. You might point to unemployment figures as refuting the loss of jobs, but if you carefully consider in which sectors jobs were created and lost, you will see my point. For labor, skilled positions paying enough to support a family are few and far between compared to ten years ago and a world apart from 25 years ago. The sector that gained most positions is the service industry (read: unskilled or less skilled labor). End result is the greater separation between rich and poor, but hey, as long as Warren Buffett is happy, everything is ok right?
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan