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China Bans Game Recognizing Taiwan Independence
OhioJoe writes "MSNBC is reporting that China has banned a soccer game that depicts Taiwan as independent. Violators are threatened with $1200 fines. From the article: "The game, 'Soccer Manager 2005', contained content that harmed China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and violated Chinese law, the Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday."
"China Bans X" or something similar.
Thanks.
"People's" Republic indeed...
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
The Falun Gong Tigers...
What's the harm in a game that has Taiwan listed as a country? Nobody's going to say "hey, Taiwan's independent! Kill China!" because it's listed in one lousy game.
503 Sig Unavailable
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Viva La Revolucion!!
This is the China that everyone here on Slashdot loves so much. You don't hear about this kinda stuff happening in the US.
I'm going to blow those fuckers up at some command and conquer now.
We Fight From High Place!
Great Britain has banned all references to the "United States" and insists that any software produced in "the colonies" or elsewhere reflect this view.
Yeah? Well I think you're overrated too.
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
Yes, I can imagine that's what proprietors of Chinese franchises of EB Games will be saying when customers come inquiring for Soccer Manager 2005.
China, Taiwan, what's the difference? Half the God damn world is made in Asia anyway.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...you can make some pathetic attempt to hold 'em back in the virtual world.
...tha game plays you
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
Seriously, what's next? Banning references to an independent Tibe- >>
$6.21 is the number of the beast before sales tax. Meh.
...UK doesn't ban a soccer game that shows England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland as separate entities...
Here, I thought our "leaders" had too much fscking free time.
Thanks, China.
is it any wonder every factory owner want to built there - no pesky problems with free thinking laborers, just govt controlled menial units toiling away for emporer and Wal Mart.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
This is still a country with a Communist government (modified, granted, but still not democratic) who has never recognized the independence of Taiwan, who
blocks its citizens from portions of the internet at the national level, and brutally rolled over demonstrators in Tienaman (sp) square. What do you think they would go?
The worst part of the whole thing is that China is a capitalist's dream, cheap labor, who have no chance to redress grievances. No wonder we can't compete.
To those who say that economic capitalism leads to democracy, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm not holding my breath.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
can you find it on acoona?
China: Giving new meaning to the phrase 'It's just a game.'
This isn't really suprising considering China's (belligerent) stance on anything and all things Taiwainese. Last weeks West Wing had a good example of these types of 'affronts' (although on a bigger scale) towards China regarding Taiwan.
-Teiresias
You are assuming that the Chinese government allows its citizens to access this site.
I would think that if they had any power to do so, slashdot would *definately* be one of the sites they would block. Way too many opinions that conflict with the official CN views.
It's utterly silly that PRC continues with this stand, which by my reckoning pushes Taiwan further away. While China's economy was ~ 40th in the world this year, it's still growing, while much of the world stagnates and it seems there will be economic extortion when an economy can dictate recognition of a state or entity by the strength of the yuan.
Meanwhile, off the coast of Brazil is a sunken ship with amphorae from the the eastern mediterranean, which conflicts with the beliefs of the Brazilian government, so they've buried until dredgings to bury the truth.
I wonder if I wrote a video game, Archeological Diving of South America, which featured this ship, would it be banned in Brazil?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I read slashdot for the sigs...
I doubt you'll get the Chinese opinion. The government has probably banned citizens from looking at Slashdot.
Just then the floating disembodied head of Colonel Sanders started yelling Everything You Know Is Wrong!-Weird Al
I thought the headline meant that China recognized Taiwanese Independence by banning a game. That headline could have been phrased a bit better.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/01/opinion/01kristo f.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
China's Donkey Droppings
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
For the last century, the title of "most important place in the world" has belonged to the United States, but that role seems likely to shift in this century to China.
So what are China's new leaders, Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, really like? Are they visionaries who are presiding over the greatest explosion of wealth the world has ever known? Or are they ruthless thugs who persecute Christians, Falun Gong adherents, labor leaders and journalists in a desperate attempt to maintain their dictatorship?
There's some evidence for both propositions, and they are probably both true to some degree.
When Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen rose to the helm of the Communist Party two years ago, many Chinese hoped they would bring a new openness to a nation that is dynamic economically but stagnant intellectually. Instead, China has become more repressive.
The repression has now engulfed a member of The New York Times's family. Zhao Yan, a researcher for the Beijing bureau of The Times, has been detained by the authorities since September and is not allowed to communicate with his family or lawyers.
Mr. Zhao is accused of leaking state secrets, a very serious charge that could lead to a decade in prison. China's government may believe that he was behind the September scoop by The Times's Beijing bureau chief, Joseph Kahn, that China's former leader, Jiang Zemin, was about to retire from his last formal position.
While The Times's policy is, wisely, never to comment on the sources of articles, my own private digging indicates that Mr. Zhao was not the source for that scoop. He is innocent of everything except being a fine journalist who, before joining The Times, wrote important articles in the Chinese press about corruption.
(In fairness, sending journalists to prison for doing their job is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon. Several American journalists - Jim Taricani of NBC, Judith Miller of this newspaper and Matthew Cooper of Time - may be sent to U.S. prisons in the next month or two for refusing to reveal their sources.)
Mr. Zhao's case is depressingly similar to that of another Chinese journalist, Jiang Weiping. He is serving a six-year sentence for "revealing state secrets," even though his real crime was exposing corruption.
"China has changed so much economically, but not politically," Jiang Weiping's wife, Li Yanling, told me. "It's a puzzle to me."
The authorities ordered Ms. Li to keep quiet about her husband's arrest, and detained her when she didn't. The couple's daughter, now 15, was traumatized at losing first her father and then her mother to the Chinese prison system. When Ms. Li was finally released, the daughter called her constantly from school to make sure that she had not been arrested again.
Mr. Zhao's arrest is just the latest in a broad crackdown in China. The Committee to Protect Journalists reports that 42 journalists are now in prison in China, more than in any other country.
"There was a period of openness, a period of hope, when the new leaders first came to power," said Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University. "But now they've consolidated power, and everything has closed up again."
Mr. Jiao should know. He wrote an essay this year denouncing censorship, and it was immediately censored. Now the government has banned Mr. Jiao from teaching.
I've felt this cooling as well. I was planning to visit China this month, but the government has declined to give me a visa. It's the first time I've been refused, and the State Security Ministry may have worried that I would write a column about its unjust imprisonment of Mr. Zhao.
I love China, and I share its officials' distaste for those who harm it. That's why I'm angry that hard-liners in Beijing are presenting China to the world as repressive, fragile, ty
This is not an isolated case. Back when Windows 95 was released, Microsoft had problems in India because the timezone worldmap (when setting date & time) wouldn't highlight Kashmir as part of India. To deal with that problem, they just removed country highlighting for good.
They'll probably just release an updated version of the game without Taiwan and move along.
Today the United States announced that they, too, are banning "Soccer Management 2005" on the grounds that it recognizes Canada as a separate country, when it is *obviously* just part of the United States.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
The Chinese government must be pretty insecure if they're making such a big deal out of a video game.
(Disclaimer: This is not a troll, I really think it's on-topic, and worth discussion)
Please remind why America is not at war with China? My knowledge on this subject is limited, but my checklist (based on the precedent set by the "justifications" for the war on Iraq) suggests that they should be:
(X) Totalitarian government
(X) Autocracy government
(X) Possesses Weapons of Mass Destruction
(X) No human rights
(X) Unstable, Irresponsible leadership
(X) Inhumane treatment of its people
(X) Government oppression and censorship
If these are the valid reasons, could someone please explain why America is not at war with China?
what is this country's problem?
you know, in the american colnial times it seemed it was much simpler to revolt against an unjust power.
nowadays the advancement in media communication has allowed propaganda to grow to such a sophisticated level that suppression of a populace can nearly be done with a wizard.
look how effective Saddam was ruling his country through mis-information.
of course, this media also allows for the rebels to propogate thier ideas as well, so perhaps it's actually a level playing field after all.
how long will the chinese and tawainese take this for?
then can we lobby to ban anything that depicts Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson as talented?
...must be banned in China by now.
Thinkin' Lincoln - a web comic of presidential proportions
At first I thought, this is gonna be hell for all those sports game manufacturers that still have Taiwan listed with its flag before it was seemingly banned from the Olympics. I mean, there's an ENORMOUS customer base for sports games (especially related to soccer) in China. But then I realized, wait...most software in China is pirated anyway! So really, no big loss here folks.
It was one of those new-fangled sexy beach type soccer games and Taiwan was depicted as independent from any clothes.
Difficult to take a government seriously when they complain that a video game damages their sovereignty.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
I know it's a dead issue since we hear so much about it but why do we business with these people? Big corporations have one moral - make money - and now the U.S. is just a big corporation. At least that's the way it's gone. And we are back in the bad guilded age of "the business of America is business." Too bad. Support repressive regimes? Who cares! It makes us money. YUK!
Because in America we just readily accepted that the southern states could secede from the Union... and moved on with our lives. Why do we have a double standard?
I work for a publishing house in Germany. Whenever we are going to produce a book with maps, which may include Taiwan, we can not print it in China. The Chinese government insists on Taiwan beeing printed in the same colours and font size as provinces of Mainland China. They take a tough line in order to not erode their position in this conflict.
Now, if one can not produce material like that for export, how can one dare to sell this on the Chinese domestic market?
to convince the mainland Chinese govt to recognize Taiwan as an independent country. How many similar places in History are like that? North and South Korea, maybe? North and (former) South Viet Nam? Ireland and Northern Ireland? To what extent can accommodations be made? Probably none so long as powermad mainland Mao-wannabes think they have a right to enslave first everyone who speaks Chinese, and later everyone else. Maybe we should give Taiwan a nice big quantity of intermediate-range nuclear-tipped missles, and then leave them to duke it out. (Could also end up with more jobs returning to US, hmmmm?)
has never recognized the independence of Taiwan
Who's the Ambassador to Taiwan? Trick question, nobody. The US doesn't recognize Taiwan as independant. What do you think "One China Policy" means?
who blocks its citizens from portions of the internet at the national level
Are you talking about what's happened with indymedia.org and the Patriot Act?
Sigh. Only in America would someone reference a fictional TV show as a source of information on something like this.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Taipei has told both Japan and the Philippines to back off from the Senkaku Islands and the Spratly Islands because these Islands are supposedly "Chinese territory". Taiwanese high schools teach that Tibet is rightfully part of China, and the Taiwanese constitution insists that Tibet should be integrated into "One China".
The West is the most popular destination of Taiwanese emigration. The second most popular destination is mainland China. (reference: "Los Angeles Times")
Taiwan has -never- been under the yoke of the communist dictatorship ruling the Chinese, Tibetan, Manchurian and east Turkmen mainland.
In fact, if there is a legitimately elected government of China, it is on Taiwan.
You twit. This is about national pride. Learn some contemporary chinese history.
Taiwan was occupied by fleeing KMT (Kuomintang in 1949, when the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) drove them from their last coastal refuges in the mainland. Lacking any kind of navy the CCP couldn't hope to pursue and fight any kind of battle to complete the toppling of the former republican goverment, which had been largely run by the Green Gang (to whom Chiang Kai-shek was merely a puppet and a poor military commander.) Even after generations the CCP still view the revolution as incomplete, willing to overlook most of the people running the island republic and living there are descendents and have less to do with the original KMT.
In a nutshell, it's a matter of pride, stupid certainly, but memories are often long in the east and far east.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I've had no problems accessing /. from our offices in Shanghai...
And you're assuming that anyone in China, in the government or otherwise, has even heard of slashdot.
Quite a move by the video game maker(Sega). Perhaps this actually is their sublte way of pushing for Taiwan's independence. Kids see them separate so when they grow up they see a separation they'll say "Uh... weren't they already?" rather than take up arms. In the end the video game companies profit by Taiwan becoming independent. Thats probably something along the lines of what the government was thinking. Its a win-win situation for the game makers. China does nothing, free propaganda spread. China reacts and they're hated for censorship. Good work Sega.
Meh. Just a thought.
china has their population brainwashed so well. i've met a lot of chinese who emphatically state that taiwan is part of china. there's seems to be no dissesion among them. so this is how they accomplish it. starting with the young and their games!
if they won't let this type of stuff slide, i wonder what they'll do to taiwan for olympics '08 in beijing.... maybe just ban the whole contingent haha
Regardless of the state of Taiwan's independence, it looks like that the game is indeed geographically incorrect. Hong Kong and Macau are both officially part of China. This would be similar to a game depicting Texas as its own country.
And I repeat: Of course they should ban the game. Nothing on this beautiful planet happends by shere chance if it has anything to do with politics. And sneeking into China anything that would hurt chinese national sovereignity should rightly be outright banned.
US of A has spent huge amount of money on overt and covert operations around the world, messing with other nations and provoking wars. Hell, USA is even destroying itself internally, when it comes to democracy and decency..
But why should China allow access to it's lucrative market to some ignorant game producer? Beats me, but I'd definetely throw them out and therefore make an empty space (read: create an opportunity) for a game producer that cares for facts, and even knows how to make a cash out of it..
What do you thing, will this hurt game producer financially? If I'd be chinese official I'd sertainly make sure that it does.
Those people put ants to shame. Hardworking do such a good job of doing whatever the overmind wants.
Before it passes unit testing!
If you think
Anytime an American citizen bitches about how America (or should I say Amerikkka) is become a facist dictatorship under the Bush Dynasty, I should refer them to stories like this. Sedition (which is essentially how Chinese authorities see this game) has long been unprosecutable in the United States, whether it is officially restricted by the Constitution or not.
We the People have more power than many of the more hysterical among us admit. The Chinese people have far less than most of us who grew up in the West realize. The prospect of a country with a billion-strong populace subservient to a fascist oligarchy scares the hell out of me. It should scare you too. Do what you can to introduce the Chinese people to the benefits of liberty, or I guarantee you China will be far more formidable and righteous a foe than the Soviet Union ever was.
[ home ]
Canada has banned all reference to Quebec and insists that any software produced in the "province"
or elsewhere reflect this view.
Taiwan is part of china, US of A got it independence long ago and it reconised world wide. witch is not the case for Taiwan or Quebec.
I tried to find more information on this game, but didn't have much luck. I guess it doesn't really exist.
- jiggity
...they will all be killed once and for all!
I don't think this tells us anything about China's government that we didn't already know.
See what I've been reading.
There is a lot of ignorance here about the difference between the Chinese and Western ways of defining, and thus changing, reality.
If a Western government banned a game or a particular statement, it would be a move against that particular game or statement. When the Chinese government does it, it's one tiny part of the general full-time business of defining the version of reality they want to be percieved (and which is percieved) as the canonical Chinese one.
China is a large country, containing large areas which were not China until quite recently and still have major anti-Chinese native populations, and large areas whose interests conflict with each other and with Beijing's interests. The Chinese machine -- 'leadership' is the wrong word because it is a culture-wide effort -- has therefore always worked hard to promote a unified pro-Chinese vision in which the answer to the questions 'Should we not be part of China? Can China do bad?' is an automatic, instinctive 'no', so automatic that the question cannot really be asked at all.
If you want to get a feel for this, try reading XinHua in parallel with your other news sources. At first you will note differences here and there but over time you will come to see two different, parallel world histories going on; the XinHua one and the 'real' one.
But the true effect is only achieved when the whole dialectic of discussion at all levels, not just of government-controlled news sources, assumes the artificial reality, and this effect has been achieved brilliantly -- although lately they have been resorting to extreme nationalism to keep it up. The abuse of foreign soccer teams, the constant rehearsing of Japanese, British and French crimes in schools, the scholarly books on how Tibet and Goguryeo (google it, I don't know the right romanization though) and this and that bit of India have been stolen away by evil foreign interests but have been returned to China by the force of truth and sincerity -- it's all part of one absolutely brilliant concerted effort of which the banning of this game is a tiny, tiny, tiny, part.
I think the creation of not merely a new Chinese history but a whole Chinese reality, basically in 5 short decades, is probably the greatest cultural achievement of the previous century.
Or not.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Difficult to take a poster seriously when his sig contains a link to a pyramid scheme.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
Does it surprise you that China is in the news as much as it is with no big evil power for the rest of the world to fight? Not to mention they do have a population of 1.5 billion so when the government decides to ban a game that doesn't follow state doctrine it makes the daily /. news.
the summary is interesting: why isn't it "asserting Taiwan's independence"? i have no interest in supporting either PRoChina's stance or actions here, but it's worth noting that the government in Taiwan does not "recognize" taiwan as independent. the fact that most of the people there, as well as most Chinese (of any variation) living elsewhere, do is another mater entirely.
a few years back, a coworker of mine, doing a database project containing short and long form country names, called the Taiwanese consulate (?) in the US to find the country names. it took several tries, and the answers were neither consistent with themselves nor with the published standards. after he published the DB on the internal network, using the values the consulate had provided, he and his manager received many angry phone calls from both Chinese and Taiwanese nationalists, separatist, and unificationists. in the end, he did what i think was the only sensible thing (in his position): punt to the standards.
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
They've really got a problem is a video game harmed China's sovereignty and territorial integrity. I would really hate to see what would happen to their sovereignty if they were attaked with sometime real like a weapon.
China, wake up! You are being ruled by a pack of brutal psychopaths that only care about their own pampered asses! Overthrow them and their corrupt government. You are many and they are few, only fear can keep you from the freedom to do, read, and think whatever you wish. Only the dictators that rule your contry are keeping you from taking you rightful place as one of the world's great nations! Remeber Tiananmen!
That should pretty much put an end to slashdot's Chinese readership. If a revolution starts in China tomorow, I get credit for starting it!
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
I happened to be in Shanghai last weekend. I could access Slashdot just fine.
Interestingly enough, I could also access Google News, which was reportedly blocked by Chinese censors.
Indeed, China is not "in a state of delusion". 17 years after the end of martial law, the Taiwanese continue to insist that Tibet should be an integral part of "One China".
By the way, if you want to see how true supporters of independence behave, then look at the behavior of the Lithuanians and the East Timorese. With the presence of huge battalions of Soviet troops in Lithuania, its people loudly declared independece. Also, with the presence of murderous Indonesian thugs in East Timor, its people resolutely voted for independence.
The Taiwanese? They are just a bunch of f*cking manipulators. After the West, the most popular destination for Taiwanese emigration is mainland China. The Taiwanese view rule by Beijing as an inconvenience, not a tragedy. The Taiwanese want Americans to sacrifice their money and lives for the prevention of this inconvenience; the Taiwanese don't do j*cksh*t.
Wasn't IBM pre-loading this game on all of their PCs?
mbbac
>
> Otherwise, all that dazzle is just a mirage. The Chinese leaders might recall an old peasant expression, "Lu fen dan'r, biaomian'r guang." It means, "On the outside, even donkey droppings gleam."
So, um, you really can polish a turd?
Funny how this seems to happen from time to time. Microsoft accidently made the Kashmir valley a part of Pakistan in a version of Windows and had trouble with India. Is this some diabolical plan to end the world? Perhaps there is some ungodly alliance of software engineers to start the "good war"?
In soviet russia, Games ban China!
Yes, the communist party has a firm grip on all things in China and is totally able to control all people and know what they are up to all the time.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Here are the Accoona results for "Soccer Manager 2005". It seems like a very generic name, so I don't know if it's the same as "Worldwide Soccer Manager". Xinhua is running an article with screenshots. It's quite likely this might be the title by Sports Interactive (or a bootleg of it), but unfortunately you need to be a member of their forums before you can search any information on their message board.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
(X) Possesses Weapons of Mass Destruction
(X) Possesses 200 Million Man Army
(X) Possesses Cheap/Slave Labor
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Is it just me, or does TFA instantly crash firefox when I try to read it ?
Chinese citizens aren't allowed to have opinions.
Oh, please. /. is in English. You should know most Chinese read in chinese?
A lot of Texans (at least jokingly) like to refer to Texas as a sovereign entity, and isn't a lot of truth said in jest?
Reference bumper sticker phrases like: "Texas: It's A Whole Nuther Country", "Native Texan", "I Wasn't Born in Texas, But I Got Here As Fast As I Could," and "F*ck Y'all, I'm From Texas"
Of course, Texas was a separate country at one point...
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
is if you replace China with the US in that then it would have been modded insightful. *sigh*
a Communist government (modified, granted, but still not democratic)
Would you PLEASE, for the love of all that is good and holy, learn the freakin' difference between "communist" and "totalitarian".
A country can be communist AND totalitarian, but that doesn't make those two things interchangeable.
The worst part of the whole thing is that China is a capitalist's dream, cheap labor, who have no chance to redress grievances. No wonder we can't compete.
To those who say that economic capitalism leads to democracy, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm not holding my breath.
See, China is moving away from communism, but not from totalitarianism. You've noticed that capitalism doesn't magically bring about the end of totalitarian states: Please adjust your vocabulary accordingly.
You can't take the sky from me...
Which hostility is that?
The Taiwanese aren't hostile towards China, though they are threatened by it.
Many of the city folk came over from the mainland with Chang Kai Shek in the late '40s, and don't like the government on the other side of the straights. Many of the earlier immigrants resented the newcomers, particularly since they behaved like bandit warlords in their first few years on Taiwan. There's a new generation running the show now, and most of those old strains are gone.
The Taiwanese seem to be slowly realising that culture and nationality are separable; thus the independence movement. Someday, maybe, they'll have that same epiphany about culture and nationality and race. The Mainlander government still doesn't distinguish between culture, race and nationality. More to the point, they need an external enemy on which to focus their populace's hatred and discontent. Separatists in Taiwan serve that purpose wonderfully.
A friend of mine who teaches in a military college in Taiwan says that the tensions between the two countries will die out with the passing of the current old guard, in about 20 years. I guess that assumes that they don't go to war in the mean time.
As for the other side of the straights, I'm sure that the people believe whatever they hear on their radio and TV. If their government believes that they need to channel some public dis-satisfaction into a harmless-to-the-government direction, the people of the Mainland will hate the Taiwanese for a few weeks. The rest of the time, if they think about Taiwan at all, they're probably scheming how to get across the straights and blend in.
See what I've been reading.
I've been here long enough to have been brainwashed to know that any problem, anywhere in the world, is the fault of American Republicans.
Bush is all like, evil and stuff.
This is a fucking game, not the state department of the US. This isn't the US saying taiwan is independant, it's not even iceland saying it. It's fiction. It's a fucking game.
At least half of that statement could describe most governments of the world. Which half is left to the reader to decide.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
Well, the whole first paragraph minus the last sentence goes for the USA as well.
You are being ruled by a pack of brutal psychopaths that only care about their own pampered asses!
Yup. Think Halliburton.
Overthrow them and their corrupt government.
And Enron?
You are many and they are few, only fear can keep you from the freedom to do, read, and think whatever you wish.
Patriot Act?
Only the dictators that rule your contry are keeping you from taking you rightful place as one of the world's great nations!
Also Patriot-Act, 2 botched elections no one's doing anything about (compare this to Ukraine where the people really want a democracy), religion meddling with the state..
So what are you going to do about it?
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Sorry for my bad English... For some of you guys joking about this news here, China is not your home country, so you don't have to stand in my side. But please repect me and other people from China visiting this website, as some words are harmful. I have my relatives in Taiwan, I love them and vice versa. Just like they always want to come back to my big family, we also want Taiwan come back to China. If the independent of Taiwan really happens, it will hurt a lot of people just like me deeply. And for sure China government will not allow that. I am sure there are a lot of Taiwan people don't think in this way, and I think this is essentially because of the education and promotions they have been receiving since they were born. Some of you might say it is possible I have been receiving the opposite education and promotions since I was born for insisting Taiwan is part of China. So I might incorrect for what I am saying. But I am sure one thing on which I am correct, which is that, people from wherever they come from should get along with each other peacefully and friendly, instead of attacking each other by words and weapons. I love China, so I love Taiwan.
Ignorance is when you willfully IGNORE facts in front of you. Red China likes to hide facts, limit access and censor speech.
Chances are the people who have the knowledge you want lack the access or the freedom to tell you.
And if you think it is sad that the rest of the world lacks knowledge about China it is because they are closed society by their own design.
True they are now owned by their own creation, but tough titties, thats what you get for going commie.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
This kind of stupid nationalism effects Free Software too.
Herbert Xu, a Debian Developer and maintainer of the Debian Linux Kernel package, resigned from Debian in May 2004 due to a dispute over the use of a Taiwanese flag.
Resignation on debian-boot with references to context
start of thread on debian-devel
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Don't forget to tell them to watch A Bug's Life.
mbbac
Imagine that Hawaii suddenly declares itself independent. Would the American government stand for that? Or just let it "slide"
Currently in Spain, the ETA wants to separate their Basque region for the rest of Spain. Should Spain say yes you can go and let them off?
Taiwan has never been recognized by China as an independent state.
Offtopic a bit but the Taiwanese parliament is famous for their fights.
Its been covered here before that they focus on chinese language sites.
Sorry, wrong. Practically every country in the world gets everything they know about the US from fictional TV programs. They see an episode of Cops or The Bachelor and then they think we are a brutal police state where everybody gets married on TV shows.
Anyways, back to topic, there's not much you can really make up about Chinese brutality and censorship because chances are they've done most all of it. Alas, the US just makes a better target for these totalitarian and ignorance jokes than China, regardless of reality.
I'm native Chinese from Beijing. Chinese people are very very sensitive to Taiwan's issue. IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT. It doesn't matter with communist party at all. If China has US kind of democracy, I don't think China's government can stay long simply because of soften stance on Taiwan's pro-independent movement (no military action so far). Actually, it's communist party try to suppress the Chinese people outrage over Taiwan's independent movement. What a bummer! Just imaging Quebec from Canada and Ireland from British. I can image the ban of this game make lot of sense in China. Response to other replies on possible ban on this site or some others like CNN, blar blar. Why Chinese want to access this English site? Do you guys want to read Chinese site? It doesn't matter it's banned or not since no real Chinese in China are going to access them at all, period. Sorry for inappropriate words if any. A Chinese.
Sigh. Only in America would someone reference a fictional TV show as a source of information on something like this.
--
Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
- Reverend Lovejoy
And if someone from any other country referenced their own pop culture or literature, they would be praised for bringing multiculturalism to Slashdot.
"Wow, it's not American, so it MUST be high culture!"
Sigh. Only someone jingoistically anti-American would post a comment criticizing someone's reference to an American TV show, AND include a reference to an American TV show in their post.
However, I don't think it's just Bush, it's the American leadership. I don't think this attitude towards China would change under any administration.
Honestly, what else can we do. China is huge, and we have to play nice becuase in a decade or two they are going to be in a position of power.
They've got a _lot_ of people. Once those people start getting momentum... not much is going to stop them. It's like a huge boulder on a low hill; it takes a lot of effort to start it rolling, but once it does start rolling, it takes quite a bit to slow it down.
However, this game has a number of errors. I quote from the article:Get real. Macau and Hong Kong are not independent countries, and Tibet hasn't been one for fifty years. The only country there that has some international standing is Taiwan, and that's by virtue of the United States assistance. This game is another case of designers that didn't bother to check their facts, or were intentionally trying to piss of the People's Republic of China. If China wouldn't ban it based on Taiwan, your damned right they'd ban it based on Tibet, and probably just laugh at the notion of an independent Macau. I am certainly not endorsing the actions of China, and regard the invasion of Tibet as a travesty, but sometimes people have to respect political realities.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
I am currently taking classes from an online school, and one of my fellow class mates is currently residing in China. We were just speaking about the "One China" plan which has much to do with this. Here is a quote from her:
"Thats basically it, china wants the money from taiwan, and america doesnt want china to have it, so thats why america keeps siding with taiwan and selling them weapons, china hates that. China wants to do to taiwan the same thing they did to hong kong. All together i think its just that the chinese want more power...dont get me wrong, they're still a developing country and a big portion of its citizens live poverty. China builds up as much as they can city by city, starting with beijing and working their way over, so they can still classify themselves as a "developing" country. Thats how they get to pollute so much more than other countries. The air quality here is VERY bad, almost everyday is foggy, and thats not just humidity, its dirt, and debris, and lots of smog. They dont have smog restrictions on any of their vehicles. i'm betting there will be a "China-sized" hole in the o-zone by the year 2030. If China had to abide by the international pollution treaties or whatever, there would be a huge halt in production because they have so many diesel trucks going everywhere. So they wanna get taiwan, before they become classified as, "Developed", so they dont have to slow everything down... And by America standing by Taiwan, thats thwarting their plans. And now china is starting to get even more peeved, because Bush is letting the dollar sag, and china and america have a "deal" where the dollar is always worth 8 times more than the chinese yuan. And as the dollar decreases so does their currency. but they still have to pay the same price for all of our exports."
So how do they recognize Taiwanese independence? Do they just list Taiwan as one of the countries who's team you can play? That doesn't seem to be recognizing independence really, just recognizing that Taiwan has its own soccer team (Which I don't think China can deny). Does Taiwan's soccer team compete with other national teams?
China needs to learn to pick its battles.
Thanks a million. Push Start to replay.
You are assuming all Chinese people reside in China.
You forgot Poland.
(X) Possesses Weapons of Mass Destruction
You are allowed to Criticize the USA and the worst that happens is we criticize back.
Good luck pulling off the same in China!
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
People in China are not blind and stupid. It's just that for many, the priority of making the big bucks and making it big in the cities trumps martyring for "democracy." Really, China has been un-democratic for the last 5,000 years. It's widely recognized that progress is underway, albeit slowly. But it is agreed that slow progress will be better off in the long run than revolutionary giant-steps (i.e. Russia)
On the threads here, I see that many US (or at least first-worlders) assume that Chinese are completely oblivious to things like Tiananmen, Tibet, or Taiwan. But all my H1-B colleagues from Beijing are knowledgeable about these topics. They know about the government dishonesty, but they're just not about to put their necks on the line for things that are just not a priority for most Chinese. They, like us in the US, recognize that politicians will always hold power over the masses and there isn't much you can do about it. People in the US, like in China, participate in local elections (before the flames ensue, think about the electoral college). Citizens of both countries really have no say in government unless you have business or political clout. Sure, we can say whatever the hell we want and get away with it, but is that really what matters anymore? Can speech alone dictate governmental policies?
For US readers - would you risk traveling to Cuba and protesting in front of the Guantanamo base for humane treatment of prisoners? Can you?
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
In fact, Taiwan is just an island which is part of China. Even the Taiwanese say that. :)
But there are two Chinese states, both of which claim to be "China".
The first one is the People's Republic of China (PRC), which currently occupies the mainland China (capital: Beijing), and the Republic of China (RoC), which is currently limited to Taiwan, with the capital in Taipei.
PRC says Taiwan is a rebelious province of the PRC, and RoC says mainland China consists of many rebelious provinces of the RoC.
Both the PRC and RoC claim to be "the real China".
Only one of the Chinese states can be recognized at the same time. E.g. if your country recognizes Mainland China/PRC as the Chinese country, it can't recognize Taiwan/RoC, and if your country recognizes RoC, it can't recognize PRC.
Wow. Flamebait, hypocritical, vacuous and false all in one sentence. Modded +5 insightful. Most impressive.
Taiwan is a Chinese democracy but is not a Western democracy. In 1984, Taipei became the first and, so far, only foreign government to commit an assassination in the USA. Taipei killed an American living in Daly City, California. The murder was so horrific that then President Reagan himself ordered Taipei to arrest and punish the killer. Taipei promptly complied.
"The game, 'Soccer Manager 2005', contained content that harmed China's sovereignty and territorial integrity
And Intel thinks they're the king of paranoia....
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
+1, Insightful.
Really, guys. Just because he doesn't agree with your views, doesn't mean he can't provide insight.
After all, he _IS_ chinese! If his opinions are not *insight*, i don't know what they are.
At least in the PRC they're more upfront about it. Here in Redneckistan they just leave it up to 'private' groups to narc you to the gubmint.
Because they outnumber our soldiers 10:1
US, wake up! A Chinese can go anywhere safely on this Earth without worrying about terrorist issue at all. Can you guys do that? Only in Western world, ah!? Even so, I still doubt it. Does this tell something? Don't condemn others all the time. You are NOT GOD. Chinese say: only the stupidest people never see his/her mistake and feels superior to others.
This is like the US banning a game for referring to an independent Iraq.
"Live Free or Die." Don't like it? Then keep out of the USA
You mean...
/ g
s/China/USA/g
s/Tiananmen/Ohio/g
s/Chinese/US
USA, wake up! You are being ruled by a pack of brutal psychopaths that only care about their own pampered asses! Overthrow them and their corrupt government. You are many and they are few, only fear can keep you from the freedom to do, read, and think whatever you wish. Only the dictators that rule your contry are keeping you from taking you rightful place as one of the world's great nations! Remember Ohio!
That should pretty much put an end to slashdot's US readership. If a revolution starts in USA tomorow, I get credit for starting it!
Game companies should just add small Taiwan references to all the latest Evercrack, Doom, Halo, etc, and watch China try to ban all the games. (Not that game companies would have the guts, but then again, how much actual sales vs piracy do they get from China?)
Your right, no one in the US ever gets pissed off about things like the confederate flag or some other separatists nonsense.
Once again, stating something anti-American even if it's not true gets modded up. People don't get pissed off over the confederate flag or separatism in the US. The reason the confederate flag pisses people off (and by people I mean blacks, and self hating whites) is because to them the confederacy represents slavery and the US civil war was over slavery in the minds of these people. (When indeed it was truly over settling the larger issue at the time of states rights and how big the federal government should be.)
The view of the people who are against the confederate flag isn't one that is against separatists, it's one that is against slavery.
I hope this American has educated you.
The Mainland is of course right to recognize that they have not yet managed to break free from Taipeh's claim to be the rightful capital of ALL of China.
Can we talk about Tibet now?
Well I am Chinese though I was not raised in China. Most Chinese I know from the mainland support the reunification with Taiwan. According to Taiwanese, about half of Taiwanese support China and half don't. It's rather funny as there is one Taiwanese here who does support China and the other doesn't and they hate each other's guts. The other funniest moment in the Taiwan debate was in a Chinese forum where I saw someone from the mainland accuse the Taiwanese of being a "Han traitor" (I thought that no-one used that term anymore outside of period dramas. Then again I know mainland Chinese still read classical poems).
Westerners really don't understand the Chinese mentality. Chinese thinking is cyclical and long-term. As the famous line in Three Kingdoms goes,
"Domains under heaven, after a long period of union, tends to divide; after a long period of division, tends to unite." Division and reunification are important elements of how Chinese believe the world works. Many Chinese don't see the current situation in terms of the present, they take the long-term view which for Chinese is that the Han Chinese on Taiwan will eventully be reunited with China because that's how it has always worked in the past. It is true that many times splinter kingdoms of Han Chinese have broken off and were reunited by military force. Anyway, the point is the Chinese on the mainland think that reunification is inevitable. It might not happen soon but it will happen. This puts a cramp on negotiations as you can imagine. The most important thing to remember is that Chinese often see present events as filtered through thousands of years of Chinese imperial history.
The second thing is that to Chinese division is seen as bad and unification is good. (I suspect this comes from the misery of multiple civil wars). Hence there are strong elements of "using force for their (the Taiwanese) own good". There is a strong belief amognst mainland Chinese that the reunification of Taiwan with China will actually *benefit* the Taiwanese because the horrible division will be healed and the Han Chinese can act together as one unit to take on the world stronger than ever, together. They will cite China's growing economic and military power as signs of how the Taiwanese will benefit with joining with China. There is a belief that most Taiwanese support reunification and it is interference of a few mischief makers and US interference that is stopping the masses in Taiwan from joing with China. They take me aside and tell me that patriots in Taiwan are stealing technology secrets and passing them to China as a sign of their loyalty. A similar but different attitude can be seen in regards to places like Tibet. It is believed that before the Chinese takeover, the people of Tibet where barbaric savages living horrible miserable little lives where they are starving and oppressed. Now the Chinese government is taking over, the wonders of Chinese civilisation is being brought to them and they are now becoming educated civilised people who are capable of living in the modern world and are much happier than they were before.
Now before you laugh at this, please compare the Chinese attitude to the US attitude to Iraq.
As for Tiannamen. Many Chinese believe that the government was right in doing what they did. The students were threatening to bring down the government and hence in the interests of stability the government had to act to ensure that the country remained intact. The students were no more than a filthy band of rebels who were trying to take power as has happened many times in Chinese history. It's sad that the Chinese government had to use force but really the students' brought it on themselves.
There is really very little support for Communism BTW. Most of the support is based on (1) Nationalism (2) Paranoia towards the west derived from Western colonialism in the 19th century (3) Traditional Chinese political values and Confucian principles and (4) Desire for a stable government for peace and prosperity. I sense very little desire for democracy and freedom. As I have been asked, "What will democracy do for us?"
Also, most of Taiwan's hi-tech production facilities is located in mainland China. China would also offset the loss of Taiwan.
What the USA gains by severing ties with Taiwan is (1) autonomy for Tibet, (2) free passage of North Korean refugees through China, (3) all the special treatment (reduced taxes, accelerated approvals for projects, etc.) that Beijing had given to Taiwanese companies, etc.
In Communist China I play banned gam....
Evolution is banned from textbook.
At least the left in the code that runs over any team that beats China with the Tiananmen tanks.
Taiwan *IS* independent.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
though not nearly a scientific study, I thought these were great queries to do a side-by-side comparison with
"tenzin gyatso" (His Holiness, the Dalai Lama)
"panchen lama"
"tenzin delek"
"tibet"
"taiwan independence"
etc etc etc.
My findings are not surprising, in any way. To China, that which is not in agreement with their version of the world either does not exist, or (for acoona at least) is diametrically opposed to what Google has to say.
I would hate to see acoona supplant google as the world's most frequently used search engine. The chances of this happening are very slim, I'd think, but the possibility does exist.
From a certain point of view, China and the US Government are in lock-step with each other, as long as mutual respect is shown. That which our power-caste doesn't want the people to seek, would simply not exist in acoonaworld.
So. . .some of us whites "hate" ourselves because we don't like a flag that represented a racist state that wanted to keep other human beings in bondage? Whatever.
The game, 'Soccer Manager 2005', contained content that harmed China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and violated Chinese law
Hah, if only they knew what I did to them in C+C.
"Hey, stop talking about China that way! They are just killing all the capitalist pigs! I watched the Moore's fraudumentaries and I see how bad Bush is. Well, I have never researched a single shit about it, but hey, it's Moore!"
I'm not even from the USA, but the giant differences between USA and China are SO fucking obvious I don't see how people compare them.
Let me explain:
1) You complain about Bush. You release a documentary about him. It's full of bullshit, you have to be an idiot to believe it. You say Bush = Hitler, he is bad. What happened to you? Nothing
2) A chinese says communism isn't good, and said it loud. He says he hates the Chinese government. He will be jailed, at best.
Koreans who accept Japanese citizenship perform well in Japanese society. Representative Arai of the Liberal Democratic Party was elected to the Diet by an overwhelming majority of voters in his district. (His ethnicity was reported in the Western press after he committed suicide due to his involvement in a financial scandal.) His grandparents came from Korea.
Put up or shut up. Give 100 names of 2nd generation Koreans who applied for citizenship and were refused.
Why is there so much news about China in slashdot, followed by so many ignorant comments by people from outside of China or tourists?
Personally, I'm surprised I haven't spotted this troll posting comments in this story yet.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They're busy taking over the world, no time for posting on slashdot.
It is kind emotional unacceptable to claim Taiwan an independent country. My grandfather resisted Japanese invasion when he was young. Several of his brothers died during that war. My roommate's grandfather was born in Taiwan, fought with Japanese in Taiwan during the 1930's and 1940's. At last, we got Taiwan back after we beat the Japanese in WWII. And now some of the Taiwan politicians claim they are Japanese and claim Taiwan an independent country. It's outrageous.
We Chinese are peace people. We don't have too much ambitious. We enjoy our food and tea. But we don't like Japanese grab our land, or some "want to be Japanese".
I am not a communist, I don't like communism, we Chinese people don't talk about it much anymore, though US government classify China as a communism country. But I love my country, my nation, just as you guys love yours. I won't allow my country broken. We won't, just like US won't allow the southern separate from the Union, and Canada won't allow Quebec claim independence.
There is always culture difference between portions of a country, but this doesn't mean the country should be broke into parts.
As the presidency of Taiwan, Jacky Chan said my words, "the biggest joke in the world."
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
Since 1949, the Chinese government has rather consistently done everything it could to eliminate any references to Taiwanese independence. This includes a pledge to go to war against Taiwan if the island declares complete independence (renewed this year when a Taiwanese presidential candidate threatened to do just that). It also includes seemingly superficial things like this game. In other words, they have a consistent zero tolerance policy on this issue.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
this has nothing to do about the legal state of their citzenship... I'm talking about how they are treated by the Japanese culture as a whole.
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
Is it just me, or does the China/Taiwan situation remind anyone of the stalker boyfriend who just won't give up?
It's like Taiwan broke it off years ago but China keeps coming by late at night, drunk, saying "Come on baby, we can make this work!" and no matter how often Taiwan calls the police they keep saying they can't do anything until China actually gets violent.
"That Hong Kong floozy doesn't mean anything to me! It's all you, baby! Come baaaack!"
-Denor
It seems that SEGA is just following FIFA here.
I've played the game..although I only looked at the European teams, it basically lists all the countries that FIFA recognizes.
You can be a manager for English, Scottish, Northen Irish and Welsh teams because they have their own leagues even though they are all technically the United Kingdom. Hong Kong has it's own team and so does Macau. From what I can see, Hong Kong may even have it's own football league. The game tries to put you in the shoes of a real world manager..if the leagues and teams are separate in real life, then the game puts them this way. China seems to be trying to alter reality here..they should be going after FIFA if they have a problem with this.
You were probably accessing the site through the network of a foreign company. Internet access for foreign companies is more expensive but much less censored. I've noticed huge differences in the accessibility of sites dependong on what network I'm on.
I've been unable to pull up the English version for the past two weeks whereever I've tried. It either redirects to the Chinese version or just fails.
We can access this website from China. Although I am in US now.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
From my experience, the majority of Chinese people readily accept their government's view. This is regardless of social status or educational level. I am half Taiwanese and my wife is a full-blown mainlander. There is no such thing as civil discourse with this issue! :-)
A friend of mine who teaches in a military college in Taiwan says that the tensions between the two countries will die out with the passing of the current old guard
not necessarily. as a taiwanese studying in the us i have seen many chinese newcomers who surprisingly hold similar viewpoints as the old guard. they are like pre-recorded boxes of propaganda.
the interesting thing is they believe earnestly in reunification and some get emotionally riled up because they think its holy one way or another. asian version of manifest destiny
Oddly enough, the search engine that was recently endorsed by Bill Clinton, Accoona.com, makes no mention of the game, while Google pulls a ton of sites right up.
The Chinese Propaganda Ministry reads and posts to Slashdot! Can I have your autograph?
I think it does a lot of damage to equate the real serious problems in China with minor hiccups in the U.S. Our government is not corrupt. We do not abuse our citizens, control what they hear and see. There are people out there who don't have the freedoms that we take for granted and that's a real tragedy. Bush might be an idiot, some fishy things might have happened with Halliburton, and the Patriot Act is a travesty, but don't pretend this is even within an order of magnitude of what goes on in China.
Introducing Microsoft Vacuum 1.0 The first Microsoft product that doesn't suck.
I just wish I had some mod points right now so I could do it myself.
Ok, I will probably get flamed or modded down, but I just wanted to point out some interesting facts.
Currently, the U.S. foreign policy is to support the One-China policy. Under this policy as supported by mainland China, whose government is a communist state. The U.S. as of October 29 as stated by Secretary of State Colin Powell that the U.S. is against the independence of Taiwan, whose goverment is a democratic state with free elections.
It is kind of ironic that the United States would 'liberate' Iraq, a nation ruled under tyranny to establish and promote demoracy, but support the foreign policies of a nation (China) whose main objective is to denounce democracy and free speech of a 'rogue' province/nation/state (Taiwan) which is already an established democratic state simply because China is good for business. Oh wait, I forgot, Iraq has oil and China also has oil reserves in Manchuria.
In one hand we claim to support democracy while in another we support the downfall of a nation who is already democratic and support its integration with a communist state.
Another interesting fact is if you visit CIA's website on Taiwan, from the drop down list, all the countries are listed in alphabetical order, except for Taiwan. It is listed last, behind Zimbabwe. Coincidence?
Just thought I would point out a few interesting things. Then again, I could be mistaken or misinformed.
As for America, slouching towards its own socioeconomic collapse (largely brought on by unsustainable entitlement spending and a colossal trade deficit), China is merely the beta test site, from which we can learn what works and what doesn't, as we modernize our political system.
You had me at "unsutainable entitlement spending"!
I don't respond to AC's.
...and his family gets charged for the bullet they shoot him with, now that is some entrepreneurship!
And just a note, Taiwan isn't an official soccer time. It's not a member of FIFA (the governing soccer body). Even Palestine is a member.
Get on the ball, Moderators!
What the hell was I supposed to be doing? I was going to do something, and now I'm on
Politically, Taiwan in 1984 was a very different place from Taiwan in 2004.
The power of the KMT has been steadily deteriorating and at the same time the country has been approaching democracy.
Let's not kid ourselves. The KMT were fascists. The USA, as always, chose to ally themselves with the fascists over the communists.
Democracy was never a concern.
Still, Taiwan has always had a market economy, and its democratic reformation has progressed faster and further than that of mainland China. That's always something.
alternate perspective
...compared to usa... does anybody the person representing usa know what he is doing? i mean besides following his gut?
china has a huge farming population who dont know what the heck voting is. even if you teach them, they will probably be confused as hell and would give into any candidate promising a tiny compensation.
straight out insult or not, i think affinity for corruption flows in the chinese blood. same holds for taiwan. the politics there is simply unbearably stupid.
back to the subject, the current form of control might be the optimal way of keeping everything in place and making sure the country continues to solidify and grow amidst all foreing influences.
what do you think would happen if the chinese find out about the taiwanese indpendence movement? if they agree?
surely at the cost of justice (if there is such thing at all), a chinese official would want to stifle voices that would bring chaos to the country. its not so bad to have a superpower in the east which knows what it is doing (well, even if only a few people know what they are doing, as long as they can make everybody think like them...)
He said a news item in the US till IIRC the late 90s.
You said you didn't see anything about the Kashmir until the 90's.
He said "in the US", not "in my eyes". He said exactly what he meant and said it well. You read what you wanted to read and said it silly.
Infuriate left and right
LET IT GO. Just please let it go. Taiwain declared it's independance decades ago, just because you are crying up and down and complaining doesn't mean it's still somehow yours. That is all.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
... why oh why can't you kiddies learn html? Come on! you can either use the a-href std or use the autolink thingie please! linkie
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
China has an airforce - a BIG airforce. And nukes.
as a Taiwanese-American, I can appreciate the olive branch that you're holding out to us, and trust that you're being sincere. However, when your government holds out that similar olive branch with its right hand and holds a gun with its left hand, it's very hard for it to engender trust among us Taiwanese. Back in the 60's when the Kuomingtang was a brutal totalitarian government like yours is, my parents dreamed of unification with a seemingly people-oriented government of the PRC. Now that my relatives in Taiwan are free and elect their own government, they have a lot to lose by unification. And because of the threats and the sporadic missile lobbing, my parents absolutely hate the mainland. if the PRC was truly democratic and our freedoms were absolutely, unconditionally guaranteed, I'd have no objection to unification and to calling you a brother. robin
Here is an editorial from Taiwan that gives some perspective on this issue:
Taiwan SovereigntyTaiwan is a generally accepted* de facto sovereign nation. However, most other national governments (including the United States) decline to "officially" recognize Taiwan as fully sovereign. On going attempts by China to refute the sovereignty of Taiwan are perceived as pretext for Chinese economic warfare and military action against Taiwan.
*for example, per Wikipedia's "Countries of the World"Comment removed based on user account deletion
The United States recognizes Taiwan. Why does China continue to engage in trade with the United States? They don't believe in this sincerely enough, do they? They ignore the issue where it doesn't suit them.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
There's a world of difference between a state controlled propoganda machine and a free press that defaults to partisan bias. Quit being an apologist.
damaged by dogma
I can't help but disagree with most of the responses to this point. In my opinion China is rapidly improving in many ways - just look at their progress within the last decade.
Their technological improvement in the past ten years has been enormous. They are building advanced transportation systems, including monorails in some cities They are also beginning to build a plethora of pebble-bed nuclear reactors . It's a shame that some of these technologies can't be implemented in the US or other countries due to public outcry over anything nuclear.Arguably the two biggest problems facing their country - overpopulation and pollution - are slowly coming to an end (still decades though). What makes this case interesting is that the same government that has censorship to retain control can swiftly implement strategies to solve problems. By limiting families to one child by law - the population is remaining manageably steady at 0.57% growth (2004 est). Not that I'm promoting communism - but if the US suddenly faced a problem of overpopulation how long would it be before protesting and ignorance tapered done enough for our government to implement an obviously necessary law?
That said I agree it would be best to here the opinions of someone who had lived in China for the past decade rather than a US citizen.You are NOT GOD. Chinese say: only the stupidest people never see his/her mistake and feels superior to others.
Yeah well this American says get back in your mud hut until it's time to go to the factory and make me another T-Shirt for 50 cents an hour. Make it XL also, I've got a bit of a gut from eating steak everynight. That happens when you aren't raised on dirt and rice cakes.
I'm native Chinese from Beijing.
;-)
;-)
You replied to my post about overthrowing the government. While I was making a joke about how the Government of China has a tendicy to censor websites that it doesn't like, It is wonderful to get a Chinese citiczen's perspective on things. Hello, it is a pleasure to chat with you.
Chinese people are very very sensitive to Taiwan's issue. IT'S NOT THE GOVERNMENT. It doesn't matter with communist party at all.
Why is that? Do your people feel that strongly that the people of Taiwan shouldn't be allowed to be their own country?
Since the Communist party has control of all the sources of Media, such as Televisions and News Papers, how can you be certain how the people really feel about Taiwan? If the party wanted to stir up passionate feeling about the subject, they could quite easily, couldn't they?
Here in America, we are quite devided about president Bush being re-elected. Half the country loves him, and half the country hates him. The only way I can say that I know that, is because anyone who wants to can say, 'George Bush sucks, and ought to be thrown out of office'. If he completely controlled the media, he could supress stories that were critical of him. If the government of China really wanted to keep Taiwan, wouldn't it be in it's interest in making sure that everyone though that it was the people and not the government that was outraged?
I can image the ban of this game make lot of sense in China.
If it is really a hot topic that bothers people, then why bother to ban it? In America if a video game was in really poor taste, most people simply wouldn't buy it.
Why Chinese want to access this English site? Do you guys want to read Chinese site?
Actually, yes. I find China to be a very interesting country. I wish I could read Chinese, so I could surf sites other than ones that were translated. I study Shaolin Kung-Fu, and I find Chinese history and culture to be facinating.
It doesn't matter it's banned or not since no real Chinese in China are going to access them at all, period.
This is true. However, more people in China will be able to read them if they aren't banned. If Slashdot was banned, you wouldn't have been able to chat with me, would you?
It just shows that the Government of China is scared that people will be exposed to other culture, and perhaps decide that Communisim isn't a good idea. Karl Marks had some wonderful sounding ideas, but to date, all the communist governments have had to control their people with force, and restrict information that they get. If Communisim is so great, why should they have to worry about restricting things? Wouldn't people be able to decide for themselves?
I'm not saying that the USA is a perfect country. Far from it. My goal isn't to taunt China or make fun of the people. From the outside, it appears that you guys are getting screwed over in a big way by your government's behavior. I'd just like to see you have the freedom to choose what you watch and read, and the freedom to decide who leads you.
And, by the way, your English isn't bad. You speak it at least as well as half of America...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Makes good sense that way. None of my inlaws seem to worry about it much, but they're farmers, and don't seem to worry much about things outside their control, like weather and war.
See what I've been reading.
.... in the U.S. Our government is not corrupt.
LOL
This is no worse than the US government arresting people for modding game consoles.
At least this serves a perceived public interest (as wrong as that might be).
I'm not defending this action, I'm just saying our house is too far out of order to criticize the Chinese.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Using a proxy
210.75.35.10 8080 anonymous China
From http://www.stayinvisible.com/index.pl/proxy_list
I was able to get to slashdot. Unless this proxy is somehow bypassing their great firewall...
I've met a few of them here, too. The mainlanders we meet here are generally from wealthy or politically-connected families, I think, so that may have something to do with it. Another point to remember is that a lot of the mainlanders we meet here won't be going back, ever, if they have any choice in the matter.
See what I've been reading.
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Tone down "Brutal Psychopaths" and it applies to way more than just half the world.
Damnit. I was chuckling all the way to the last paragraph. I was waiting for some sarcastic remark about how this applies to the US population... :/
Bot Assisted Blogging
A younger Taiwanese chemical plant operator put it very succinctly for me. He said that he believes in the mainland Chinese "One China Policy" . . .
But his version is "One China and One Taiwan."
Well, the whole first paragraph minus the last sentence goes for the USA as well.
While I don't like the current political leadership of the country, I don't think it's quite accurate to compare the Bush presidentcy with say, a communist totalitarian dictatorship. Halliburton may be packed with selfish and greedy individuals, but I don't equate them with a Communist death squad.
What am I going to do? For one, I am not going to compare the leadership of the country with Mao, Hitler and Stalin, becuase it makes one sound like a paranoid alarmist, and causes people to disregard your otherwise worthwile observations.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
(X) Holds Enough Of Our National Debt To Cause Us Major Problems If We Try Anything They Don't Like
(X) Source Of Most Of Wal-Mart's Low Priced Everyday Goods Which Means Wal-Mart Would Use Economic Clout To Prevent It From Happening
Someone you trust is one of us.
ROFL
They're a little touchy. I'm surprised they haven't banned futuristic games where the nations of earth are united as one. I hope they don't think that if that scenario were to happen, China would be at the center of it all. "Taiwan and the mainland have been politically separate for 55 years but Beijing considers the democratic island of 23 million people a rebel part of China's territory and has vowed to unite it with the mainland, by force if necessary." Honestly, I'm not up to date on what the heck is going with Taiwan on except mass production stuff and every immagrant from there is touchy about the fact that Taiwan is a separate nationality. However I will say this, if I were some communist nation and I had "rebel territory," I wouldn't let it stay like that for 55 years. DUDE, it's been 55 years; I don't think it's going to be united unless you do use force. Then you're going to piss off a whole lot of people.
Since the western news agencies don't regularly report on the political situation in the far east, most of you probably don't know that it is currently election season in Taiwan and tensions are running high from some of the political rhetorics coming out of Taiwan's President Chen Shui-Bian. He is a strong supporter of Taiwan's independence movement, and he wants to amend the nation's constitution so that the official name of the country is "Taiwan" rather than "Republic of China". This effectively gives up territorial claim to China (which you would think should make China very happy). However, China views this as a move towards Taiwan's independence, and threatens to invade if Taiwan changes its name, flag, or territorial map, either through a public referendum or parliamentary acts.
So China wants to start a war over an amendment to a constitution of a government entity they don't recognize? C'mon! But this is no laughing matter, because many people (including many in the US) believe that a military conflict between China and Taiwan will result in a third world war. China has no qualms about taking actions to back up their words so the world will take them more seriously (much like how the Bush administration justified the war in Iraq), and Taiwan's own military analysts said it would only take 5 days in the best case scenario for China to overrun Taiwan. And there is no doubt that the US will get dragged into this war, so the US government tries to avoid conflict at all cost by reaffirming our commitment to China and applying pressure on Taiwan (hence Collin Powell's statement that Taiwan is not a sovereign and independent nation).
So is China over-reacting? Well, that's the only way they know how to deal with things, to suppress dessenting voices anyway they can. Is it working? Not really. The problem is that Taiwan has never been under the communist China's rule, and the Taiwanese like their new found freedom in speech and at the voting booth (it has been truly free for only about 10-15 years, and the polls still get about 90% voter turnout). In short, they are addicted to democracy, and they are not willing to give it up just because China demands them to do so. But yes, the Taiwanese are afraid of war, and they are quite torn about how to proceed in this no-win political scenario.
Such is the tragic story of 25 million people who has a democracy that the world will not recognize, while we spend billions of dollars and thousands of lives giving a different 25 million people in Iraq a democracy they don't want. If only Taiwan had oil...
There was a war on China. But it was forgotten. Or not.
As an aside, I went to China for a week over the summer and got to talk with college students at Tianjin, about 2 hours south of Beijing. The students there, 22, 21, they've never heard of the massacre at the square. Not only that, but they don't believe it happened, and are quite certain that if it did happen, their government would have told them.
What the USA gains by severing ties with Taiwan is (1) autonomy for Tibet
What color is the sky on your planet?
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Cheap Labor
Reminds me of last week's West Wing episode about how upset China got over a little Taiwanese flag the president accepted as a gift.
this might be silly of me but isn't $ the symbol of the US Dollar?
now this is just a question, but is the fine the equivalent of 1200 USD or is it 1200 Chinese money(??)?(I hate to admit that I don't know what the currency is in China)
By the time I got to this there was well over 400 comments
I'd Tell you all my secrets but I lie about my past
otherwise known in asian circles as an American Born Chinese.
My father's family sided with Chang Kai Shek during the war and fled to taiwan as they were defeated.
Emotions definitely run very high over this issue among the people in China, taiwan, and even the chinese over here. My ex gf for instance strongly believes that Taiwan is not only an independent nation, but that she is not to be called Chinese--she wants the label "Taiwanese"
Although Taiwan has been self governing for a number of years, I do believe that they are Chinese people.
To give the other people, particularly americans some perspective on this..
It would be about the same as if California called themselves an independent nation, taking offense to being called Americans, and insisting on being known as Californians for their distinctive culture and self governance.
Obviously, most americans would feel extremely strongly against this, absolutely refusing to compromise...although there would be a small minority who would say...why is everyone being such a baby about this--if they want to be their own independent nation, let them be.
Hello Troll, so we meet again. Still spouting the same old garbage huh?
How does that FUD constitute propoganda any less than the Chinese variety?
If you've been adequatly indoctrinated, you are blind to the propaganda you have assimilated.
The most effective propaganda is insidious, it's the propaganda that is not a stand alone statement, but something pervasive that is included into so many unrellated pieces of information that it becomes ubiquitous, to the point where you can't see the forest of propaganda for the trees it's made of.
Like having Saddam Hussein become the pop culture icon of Evil Incarnate. For years, in countless movies and TV shows, to the point where seing his face produces a feeling of irrational hatred in a large portion of the population. That kind of propaganda (how many of the soldiers in Iraq have seen Saddam as the bad guy in movies for as long as they can remember? Lots would be my guess).
Or my personnal favourite: Adding "and the American Way!" to the list of things Superman fights a nevernding battle for. Before 1942, he simply fought for "truth and justice".
Banning worldviews that differ from that of the state is a crude way to go at it, but sometimes crude methods are the ones that work best for a given purpose. If no Chinese growing up ever see a map that has Taiwan as a separate entity, they'll reject as absurd any map they see later on that does.
You can't take the sky from me...
I agree some of your thoughts regarding the media control in China. I have to admit that there is strict control of all media in China. Freedom in media is good but not the most critical issue and everything has two blades in Chinese philosophy. I want to see more freedom in China as well but I also concern the stability and safety of China which is top priority. I have seen free information flow creating trouble in this world. Given few examples: certain disorders in this world are magnified to be the top stories in media which is creating unnecessary chaos. Culprit learns how to make weapon from Internet. Boy/girls can get everything from Internet which their parents don't want. And I don't believe any major media are entirely independent from government or big interest group in US (except radio like NPR which I like). I have seen American people are driven by American media which is totally different from rest of the World. Look at the rest of the world, hardly find any others are plausible over Iraq war. But all major America media do. People are controlled by media is same in everywhere. And media is controlled by government or national interests has no fundamental difference around the world, just matter of means, either this way or other way. Besides, I don't think Chinese in China can't get right information. My friends and relatives are all in China. They know all kind of news around the World and actually, they know more than I do in America since America media turn to report their own issues and don't care the rest of the World. American are more biased over world issues, trust me! Maybe I'm joking. I feel less freedom in America than in China since I have too many laws to obey. The culture in China is not law. It's moral, kind of Confucius. We don't need exhaustive law to tell people what can do and what cannot do. It's the believing to organize the people, sometimes individual has to sacrifice to achieve the long-term interests and benefits more people. We have this culture for 5000 years. You can't simply deny it even it's not good in Western view. Imaging 1000 years later, who will be on this Earth still living happily? America has only 300 years history. You guys built great country. I respect Americans. But don't force your believing or ideas to somebody else. Respect difference is very well maintained inside America but not outside of it. Your government tries to conquer the world with your believing. That may work in short term say 100 years. But that wouldn't work in long term (1000 years time frame). Human keep making same mistake all the time. Actually, the ancient Chinese had studied all those issues and strategies thoroughly 2000 years ago when 7 separate countries fought each other and unified by Qin kindom which last 15 years only. We are not smarter than ancient people. AChinese
At first I was mad that China kept making aggressive moves toward Taiwan, but once I read up on the history it makes perfect sense. Taiwan used to be part of CHINA!!! Taiwan being part of China is more valid than hawaii (mere 50 years in US) being part of the US. Yet what would happen if hawaii tried to defect? I don't think the US would allow that, do you?
Counter-argument: But Taiwan is democratic, China is communist and a human rights violator.
Answer: China isn't a true communist country. It's just corrupt like the USA (but more blatant). Plus, the legitamacy of China's historic hold on Taiwan doesn't change whether or not China is a human rights violator.
It seems to me that a lot of people here have been brainwashed into anti-China/pro-taiwan mentalities. However, countries defecting and reuniting are occuring all the time. US defects from Britain. Confederate defects from the USA??? In both cases the mother country uses force to reunite the countries. In one case it didn't work.
Point is: China has a legitimate claim of ownership over Taiwan.
This Troll has been particularly busy lately whenever the question of Tibet/China/Taiwan pops up and spouting the same old garbage. We should all just ignore him.
A day doesn't go by here when I don't see an article ctitical of China.
Has it occured to the writers here that the USA also censors things on a daily basis, bans political organisations, unduly influences the media etc, etc?
Let's see some more articles on the good old USA and the governments efforts to manipulate and censor the public.
This sort of meaningless and biased rhetoric reminds me of the crap that used to come out of the USA against the former Soviet Union on daily basis. I'm not buying it chumps - and neither should you. Arm the workers and burn the churches my friends, the revolution is at hand.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
I don't know if you realize it, but you basically proved what your parent article claimed.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
It's easier for the Mainlanders to spout the CCP propaganda than it is for the Taiwanese to swallow it, considering that any battle will largely be fought on the island of Taiwan. It's easy to believe in Manifest Destiny as long as your home won't be wrecked in the process.
I have no mod points left but PLEASE mod this up. Minutiaeman, thanks for (sorta) restoring my faith in Americans. He makes a valid point, clear and lucid on top of that.
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
... and Cuba is part of the Access of Evil but China was not made part of it. My impression is that China can pretty much get away with anything they want to do. The West will not try to curb them because nobody will want to miss the opportunity of reaching its huge consumer base. Do you want to sanction China because of Taiwan or Tibet? Go right ahead. Someone else will take advantage of the fact that you are not trading with them and jump ahead of you. I do not see any hope for Taiwan and Tibet in the future. Do you?
But not in any of the ways it needs to, e.g. becoming less fascist and totalitarian.
That already happened. The post-WWII Baby Boom was tempered by the Vietnam War, eliminating 60,000 or so American men in their late teens/early 20s. The "obviously necessary" law was military conscription.
At least according to some viewpoints I've heard.
"Once we've identified and embraced our sickness, we'll have strength...and that's when we get dangerous." - John Waters
The game violate the laws in China.
Guess what will happen if you sell a bottle of beer to a kid?
Lets use a sense of proportion. Kent state protesters = 3,000. Tiananmen square protests = >1 million. 4 * 1,000,000 / 3,000 = 1333.
I'd call that proportional overuse of force.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
Poor Noone! But they say Noone lives forever!? It's also strange, Noone doesn't seem like a very Chinese name...
Taken from Marc Duffy (Internet Dev/Head of QA) in the official SIGames forums.
Also, note it's Football not Soccer. ;)
Most Germans in the early 1900's supported "reunification" with Austria. We all know how that ended up.
Well, it's easier to criticize other people/countries than to criticize your own. The way I see it, China's been like that since the beginning of the current system, but the USA, which used to be a great respectable country is becoming more and more totalitarian, and that's the bad thing. Sure, call the Chinese to revolution, but I say you should also think about your own well-being and freedom (which I think is a different "freedom" to the one Bush would like to 'spread' like peanut-butter all over the world).
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
The Taiwanese voluntarily told both the Philippines and Japan to back off of the Spratly Islands and the Senkaku Islands because they are supposedly "Chinese territory". Beijing did not force the Taiwanese to act in this manner. They voluntarily support all of China's geopolitical objectives, except for rule by Beijing.
Our debt is based on the "full faith and credit of the United States." If we repudiate our debt no one is going to let us borrow any more, which means we can't finance Bush's insane deficit spending plan, which means a collapsing dollar and hyperinflation.
Plus, they hold enough of our debt that if we start saber rattling they can threaten to unpeg the yuan from the dollar and tie it to the euro or a basket of currencies instead. Now I'm not an international economist but as I understand it that would also send the US dollar into a tailspin.
Hell, the dollar is dicey enough as it is. We've recently hit new lows against the euro and the yen. Good for European visitors who spend money because it's relatively cheap here. Bad news for us who import just about anything but food.
As for Wal-Mart, they are intent on minimizing every last cent out of their costs they can, which is why they're so tied in with China. They can afford to sell to you at "Low prices always" or whatever their slogan is because they buy a massive percentage of their merchandise (over 80% I think) from China. You don't move that much industrial capacity in a heartbeat. Plus, if Wal-Mart did decide they wanted to move to Mexico their labor costs are going to go up by a factor of 4, which will be reflected in the checkout price. I imagine if Sam Walton's greedy heirs want to raise prices they would much rather the price hike went into their own pockets instead of some wage slave in Mexico.
Sorry, you just don't get it. We are too dependent on China right now to risk any kind of rift with them. They are also somewhat dependent on us, but they are working hard to lower that dependency by diversifying their markets into the EU and increasing their own domestic consumption.
Someone you trust is one of us.
Can you break a board in half?
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Ok, I vote Grishnakh for the position "Leader of the Planet Earth". He makes more sense than most other politicians I've heard. Who's with me?
As long as you speak the Chinese language and you write using Han characters, and you benefitted from when Jiang Jie Shi ran with the entire treasury of China over to Taiwan, you ARE Chinese.
It is disgusting to see you try to justify the Japanese invasion of many Asian countries by saying they didn't destroy your country. Isn't it bad enough that your country was invaded? Isn't it bad enough that the Taiwanese government was turned into a puppet? Have you no respect for your culture?
As long as the Taiwan elite claim Chinese traditional art, Chinese traditional calligraphy, and the entire former treasury of China pre-1949, Taiwan IS part of China.
Taiwan was an under-developed island of farmers before the Mainland Chinese came; now with the help of Jiang Jie Shi delivering the entire treasury of mainland China in 1949, you're a leading economic power.
Just to top it off, keep in mind that over HALF of the Taiwan populace supports re-unification. The Taiwanese constitution itself has the goal of reunification with the Mainland in it.
"And now we realize that half the people that came over weren't even educated or skilled in anything. "
This is total BS and you know it. Taiwan was unimaginaly poor and backwards before the KMT crossed over in '49; now it's an economic and technological powerhouse. I'd like to have seen that happen without the KMT and the hundreds of millions it brought over in gold and silver from the coffers of the Mainland Chinese people.
Just check out this pics - http://homepage.mac.com/ahaney/FlagBurnDance/Saved NewsPhotos/
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
I sense very little desire for democracy and freedom.
Well.. aren't you a good little Communist! Yes, yes.. The Chinese do not value freedom AT ALL. I mean, humans simply love to be under the rule of a small set of other humans without any ability to make their own decisions.
What is your penile percentile?
As soon as the Taiwanese President realizes that Taiwan is nothing without their heritage of 5000 years of Chinese Imperial history.
They have no law, no language, no history, no art.
THAT is what it means to be Chinese.
Oh, and the vast quantities of gold and silver the KMT stole from the Mainland Chinese treasury when they ran to Taiwan.
Few people here understand what it's like to be Chinese and/or live in China.
You judge the actions of the past 50 years without sufficient grounding in the thousands of years of history preceding it.
True, China does have it's problems. China censors the media, it has a terrible prison system, and has much to go in the way of democracy.
But the Taiwanese people share the same roots as China; we are of the same culture, we share the same love of calligraphy, we share the same love of poetry.
Would you abandon your country because of 50 years of turbluence? China has united and divided over the past 5000 years; are you going to abandon the culture of your ancestors over 50 years of pain? What about the future; China IS becoming a more free society. This may seem difficult to realize given the current abuses, but compared to 20-30 years ago, the China of today is far freer and more civil.
Give the land of your ancestors more time.
Now before you laugh at this, please compare the Chinese attitude to the US attitude to Iraq.
Both attitudes are based on a nationalist mythology that serve to placate the populace.
In the US, the corporate elite benefits, especially oil companies.
In China, the the corporate elite also benefits. But it is worse, because the corporations are all owned by sons and daughters of Communist Party members, established with the so-called People's Money, but benefitting only the elite.
Incidentally, in the US, the corporatations are also in bed with the banks, although not in such a blatant way.
"Instead, imagine the United States claiming that Cuba is part of the United States, because the United States never officially recognized Cuba after the revolution."
Do the Cuban people speak English?
Do the Cuban people write in English?
Do the Cuban people share 5000 years of cultural history with America?
Do the Cuban people possess treasure troves filled with American art spanning millenia?
Did the Cuban people take with them the entire treasury of America when they left?
Do the Cuban people have a Constitution that includes "reunification with the Mainland" as one of its' highest goals?
Do half the Cuban people WANT to reunite with America?
Can you cite examples of the Mainland's economic warfare against Taiwan?
It was my imperession that there're hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cross-straits investments that'd be devastated by economic crackdowns by the CCP.
It's to the benefit of both governments to maintain stable relations, with peaceful reunification as the eventual goal.
Isn't it amazing? A large group of people with one primary news source (their government), and they all have the same view on a variety of subjects. To be so blessed.
The US governemtn does NOT recognize Taiwan. The official position of the US is that there is one China.
Sectretary of State Colin Powell himself stated that Taiwan is unequivocally part of China. Check the MSNBC article for the last month regarding his statements.
It sent quite an uproar across Taiwan.
The scary thing is, what you said also applies to the US.
I am a brainwashed Chinese. If the government dosen't ban the game. I will ban it myself.
What?
The parent is kinda funny in a historical perspective. The comment you link to is an interesting but tin foil hat like comment about the Chinese censorship.
Again I say, What?
Look at the geography of North America and tell me the divisions aren't legacy politi-code waiting to be re-written.
Alberta and Saskatchewan (and to an extent Manitoba) occupants have more in common with the average occupant of Montana and North Dakota than either group does with their respective Federal Capitals.
The Coasts always have a different culture to the inland, and the Midwest and the Canadian Prairies probably share a lot of values.
Bits of British Columbia could easily merge with Washington, Alaska, and the Yukon. Or Alaska, the Yukon, NWT, and Nunavut could form one big Northern Block.
A friend of mine likes to term a sort of Oregonian North-South state 'Cascadia'. He feels the folks in low pop states with higher rural/urban ratios have more in common with each other than with the Left or Right Coasters.
The New England States and the Maritimes would get along well together. Heck, someone started a tongue-in-cheek campaign in Vermont to become the 11th Province due to close cultural values.
Quebec? Well, its always been its own beastie and will continue to. Texas too could be independent, so could PEI who were tricked (arguably) into Confederation in the first place.
Hawaii could do its own thing too.
Ontario and Wisconsin and Michigan could start to form a nice little state.
Culture seems to be distributed as much East to West as political boundaries seem distributed mostly North/South.
And for all that Americans and Canadians lament our many differences, that's taking the sand in your eye and making it a mountain... we're 95% similar in terms of culture, TV, spending habits, consumption, values, etc. We like to focus on the 5% so we can feel independent and unique, but we largely ignore the 95%.
It's really a pity in some ways that a confederation of municipalities can't run things - then we could do away with these pesky national boundaries. I like visiting the USA, but it gets more painful by the day. And I'm sure the reverse is also true. If we were all one country with a common perimeter, it would solve a lot of problems. So, divide us differently or don't divide us at all... but the current system is a bit out of kilter....
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
CHINA CHINA LOL
It would be about the same as if California called themselves an independent nation, taking offense to being called Americans, and insisting on being known as Californians for their distinctive culture and self governance.
Alta California did call itself an independent nation, the California Republic, and left Mexico.
Same about Texas.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Well, he's taking the position that Taiwan is a willing accomplice in the butchering and subjugating of Tibet because the ROC (Taiwan) government officially recognizes Tibet as part of China. This of course does not take into account that changing the ROC constitution to remedy the situation may doom the island to a pile of radioactive rubble. And for that the U.S. should sever ties to the island and leave them to fend for themselves against the largest army in the world, the same army who subjegated his beloved Tibet. Yes lots of tin foil hat stuff on that website but since I can't believe anyone intelligent could take that seriously, or be so mean spirited to a loyal American ally, I'm inclined to call Troll. He deserves it.
Your comments are insightful, however you make a point of suggesting that I am forcing my ideas about personal freedom on others, and yet isn't this what the government of China is doing by censoring information in the press and on the Internet?
You make a point that the media is always controlled by someone, and that the person in charge will always have self interests, but wouldn't it be better to have choices as to where you get information? I can listen to the crazy right wing nuts on FOX news if I choose to or I can tune in to NPR. Each news agency is free to pursue it's own path. (You are quite right about how America centered the media is here in general, as I mentioned I like to read the news as reported by other contries to get their view of important issues.) Also, there is information that isn't appropriate for everybody, such as children and the Internet. But isn't it the responsability of children's parents to decide what they should or shouldn't see? I don't know about your government, but mine is packed with idiots. I can't trust them to buy lightbulbs without having to form a comittee, let alone decide what should of should not be available on the Internet.
China has avery long history, and interesting philosophy. I think that the US is somewhat short-sighted in it's thinking, and we could probably take a few lessions from China in that respect. But really when it comes right down to it, do you think that the communtist party has the 'mandate of heaven'? (Do people in china still use that phrase?)
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Great meaning large or immense, we use it in the pejorative sense!
Send lawyers, guns, and money!
"Remeber Tiananmen!"
Assuming they even know about it. My friend, who is tutoring a private school in china right now, says that most of his students have no idea what Tiananmen refers to, and everyone is told to stop talking about it if it is brought up. The funny part is everyone in China gets angry whenever they talk about how the Japanese government denies the Rape of Nanking ever happened.
It's not a sovereign independent state, not yet. But in a few more elections, it will be two states all in itself :)
fish and pipes
A couple days ago I was looking at an article about the Miss World contest (I watch it for the articles!). I was mildly surprised to read that although it was held in China, women from Taiwan and Hong Kong were allowed to compete as contestants from other countries. The Xinhua article I link to above mentions this explicitly in the first caption on the page. Perhaps this event is not widely publicized inside China and so is not considered a problem?
odd... i was there in february (actually also in tianjin for a while) and ended up during the course of several conversations with variouse people comeing accross the subject of tiananamen. i was never met with the clueless-ness u speak of... though ofcourse they did have a rather different view of it then someone born n raised on a strict diet of western media might.
Do any americans (i'm not 'merican or chinese) see the hyprocrisy in the NYT article? The US have hundreds of people locked up in a concentration camps in Cuba without trial, lawyers or contact with family. Because they are terrorists? Maybe some, but given that dozens have been freed after a couple of years of imprisonment - (whoops, they were innocent and not terrorists) then how does anybody actually know?
American's right to criticise other countries would sit better if they actually got there own house in order and stopped crap like special press visa to enter the US.
not all value systems are the same. though with the advent of the french revolution and later even more so, the US revolution, the west is based heavily on the freedom of the individual, this is NOT the case everywhere.
as the grandparent post explained in the (han) chinese value system stability (and thus in there view unity) is often more important then indvidual freedoms.
for that matter how often have u heard in recent times US citizens, when being interviewed about how the patriot act cuts into their freedom and privacy, say things along the line of "well, I'm willing to give some of that up if thats the price of safty". in other words safty has higher value then personal freedom to them.
why is it so suprising then that to many chinese stability is more important then personal freedom...? nobody is asking u to share the belief (in stark contrast to the US values.......)
(and as a side note there is alot more personal freedom in china then there was even 20, 15 or even 10 years ago.)
I'd call that proportional overuse of force.
Comparing proportion is a bad metric. A few jackass yahoo National Guardsmen with itchy trigger fingers can kill 4 people in seconds without consent from their immediate superiors. Killing 3000 people takes planning and significant leadership coordination.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
For wireless hackers with a real anarchist bent, one real crazy thing they might try to do is to get around the 5 or so trunk lines that China uses to connect with the rest of the world, beam uncensored interenet from Hong Kong or Russia or if they are really crazy across the Taiwan strait and setup a whole bunch of uncensored proxy servers. I do think that it's going to get beyond the ability of China to censor so much traffic at a certain point, but it'd be quite an interesting hack.
Yeah, right. It's not as if there are ever any references to the US in TV news coverage anywhere else in the world, right?
Of course non-Americans know more about American culture than vice versa because of their exposure to American television and films. But to say that "practically every country in the world gets everything they know about the US from fictional TV programs" is, frankly, a load of bullshit.
Tell me, how is it I know about everything from Christopher Columbus to George W Bush recent election victory? That I know about topics as diverse as the Mayflower, US War of Independence, the Gold Rush, the Alamo, the US Civil War, the Black Sox, prohibition, the Great Depression, Pearl Harbour, World War Two (which, by the way, began way before Pearl Harbour), the Manhattan Project, McCarthyism, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of JFK, the Apollo landings, Vietnam, Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis, Mount St Helens erupting, the Iran-Contra affair, the Gulf War, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Columbine, the Oklahoma City bombing, September 11th, Enron, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?
How is it I know who people as diverse as Peter Stuyvesant, Adam Smith, Brigham Young, Davy Crockett, General Custer, John Wilkes Booth, the Gipper, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Hoffa, Vince Lombardi, Rosa Parks, David Koresh, the Unabomber, Cal Ripken Jr are? How is it I know about the Thanksgiving, Labour Day or Veterans' Day holidays? That the Mason-Dixon line seperated Pennsylvania and Maryland? The significance of 40 acres and a mule? That it was Lou Gehrig's streak that Ripken broke? That Colorado is the state where most of the US's nuclear material comes from? That the state capital of California is Sacramento? That Peyton Manning is on course to smash Dan Marino's most passing TDs in a single season record?
Did I get all of that - that broad spectrum of knowledge, from New World to Brave New World - from watching Cops and The Batchelor? I don't think so but thanks for the completely inaccurate generalisms. You can keep them.
Just because your newspapers and TV news have next to no coverage of the world beyond your own borders, and just because your own history lessons covered nothing beyond your own heritage, don't assume that that's the case for everyone else around the world.
We don't think that the US is a brutal police state but we do know who Rodney King is. Similarly, we know that China's guilty of human rights abuses but, frankly, show me a country that isn't: wasn't it just a few days ago that I read about FBI agents who reported that they saw prisoners being mistreated and tortured at Camp X-Ray? No one's got bloodless hands when it comes to human rights, not China, not my own nation and certainly not the US, but at least the Chinese aren't hypocritical about these things.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
If you're a game developer, just involve some controversial issues in your game, and it'd be getting a lot of media's attention. Of course, it'd be banned or censored or altered in some regions, but, free advertising!
During the Civil War in America, the South formed its own government (the Conderation) and tried to break away from the North, to become an independent country. However, the US government sent troops to kick the Southerner's ar$e$. The North won, and the USA to this day remained to be just ONE nation.
It is the same underlying concept with China and Taiwan. Taiwan formed its own government and wanted to break away from China. Taiwan wanted to become an independent country. China could have sent in tropps to kick Taiwanese' ar$e$, and China should have. However, the USA interferes and protects Taiwan. So now we have a situation in which China wants to take back Taiwan but could not because the USA is covering Taiwan.
So now it has become a touchy issue. BY RIGHT, China should have taken back Taiwan. But then the US would not allow it (even though the USA itself had dealt with a similar situation with force.)
What happens if you put slashdot's IP in your hosts file instead of relying on DNS?
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
read all the threads above.only one thing come out inside my brain:Power is the priciple. I truely hope that China grow to be the strongest nation in the world as soon as possible.At that time,one one in china would care about what the american said(like today,no one in US would like to care about iraqi people). At that time,taiwan no longer a problem. At that time,true peace in this planet will come. At that time......
Do the Canadian people speak English?
> Do the Cuban people write in English?
Do the British people write in English?
> Do the Cuban people share 5000 years of cultural history with America?
Do the French people share a few thousand years of history with the Italian people?
Clearly, you are confusing culture with sovereignty.
> Do the Cuban people have a Constitution that includes "reunification with the Mainland" as one of its' highest goals?
Even if Cuba has a Constitution that lists "liberation of the U.S." as one of its highest goals, this does not diminish Cuba's sovereignty.
Similarly, if China desires reunification with Taiwan, does that mean China is not a sovereign nation?
Finally, the Taiwanese constitution is subject to revision. The reunification goal may be removed soon.
> Do half the Cuban people WANT to reunite with America?
The vast majority of people in Taiwan do not want to become citizens of the People's Republic of China.
In fact, the Taiwanese are willing to fight for their democratic society and defend their sovereignty.Every time I go to Taiwan, I feel more like I am in the US (except for the language) than anywhere else in the world - even parts of the US.
:)
I bet the communist would be {much} more supportive of Taiwan becoming the 51st star than letting the green party declare independence
I am living proof of the Peter Principle
... was banned in Germany.
Does that make Germany horrible?
I thought China had oil, which means that the whole question of Taiwanese will become irrelevant after bush invades China.
i think you know NOTHING about the sri lankan situation otehr than what you see on TV
this fight we are having is not a civil war.. its a political war in disguise. what both sides (the gubmint and the ltte) want is control over the tamil populace. most of the tamil population just want to be left in peace, as do the sinhalese.
its the uber psycho rightwingers that want separation.
i am sinhalese, my friends come from ALL races... if things work out, i may end up married to a tamil girl.. most of us just call ourselves "sri lankan"
a separation is the worst thing that could happen to BOTH sides. the politicals would love it, but the average person on the street would suffer heavily. imagine a more concentrated version of the 1942 division of india into india and pakistan.
anyway... it was an interesting post.. not exactly accurate, but interesting nonetheless
atb
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
I support reunification, and so do most people around me. In my relatively mild opinion, since we have always believed that Taiwan is a part of China ever since 1945, and even now this is widely recognized by big players of the world (including the U.S. government), it would be utterly embarrassing if the current government lost it, and I will not even think about the possible practical issues that can result, for Taiwan is an island with much military importance. As for which side is morally "right", if the evidence is not entirely for us, at least it is not totally against us, so the issue is worth some debate. Though some people here support a war with Taiwan if they declare independence (I don't know how many; this is the official opinion, and most people on mainland BBSs and online forums support wars, but they do not necessarily represent the typical Chinese opinion), I personally hate to have a war on this, for I do find Taiwanese people quite nice and friendly (though my parents generally regard them as evil capitalists, because some Taiwanese companies in the mainland do not treat their workers too well), and I don't want to see deaths of our people and Taiwanese people and possible economic collapse. Letting Taiwan declare independence in peace is not an option either, at least until most people significantly change their ways of thinking, because of the embarrassment factor etc. as mentioned above, and if the Communist Party does not do anything about it, it will probably get overthrown. Maybe we can just use money and influence and threat to prevent influential nations to recognize the Taiwan if it did claim independence, but if that does not work, the government probably will decide to go to war. Thankfully I don't have to make such a dreadful decision.
As for the Communist Party, personally I don't really think it is communist any more. Communism may or may not work, I don't know, but the government is no longer going to experiment with it anyway, instead they want to make a more conventional captialistic society, and so be it. I support the Party for the most part yet disagree with them in some respects, for some of their propaganda is truly disgusting, but what they do is mostly reasonable. I don't want to comment on the Tiananmenn square incident, for I haven't investigated the issue yet.
HAH - only half?
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
And in the current climate with America being all "ooh terrorists are threatening us, we must pin down the whole world", we're just not in the mood for that talk coming from you, ok?
I'm not in the mood for this sort of generalization-ridden talk coming from you, ok? Particularly when all protestations to your ignorance are met with a deaf ear.
Governments do not always represent their people well.
Americans did this, Americans did that... Did you ever stop to consider that not all, even not most, Americans support what their government does?
As they say, all generalizations are wrong.
As you've said, China, like all totalitarian regimes, needs to focus its population's hatred outwards. They _need_ an enemy.
In Eastern Europe they even loved to wave the nationalism flag against their communist neighbours. Some of the silliness didn't go 40 or 60 years back, it went as far back as "but in the middle ages, those bastards occupied our mountain!" So if China stays its current course, I'm guessing that in 2500 A.D. it will still need to divert its people's attention towards Taiwan, Russia, Japan, and "what the English and Portuguese bastards did to us in the 19th century."
You know, it's not even a communism thing. The more piss-poor job a government does of its internal affairs, the more it tries to focus the people's attention outwards. You can see the same happening at least as far back as the 19'th century Europe, probably even before that. And, no offense, in some USA presidents too.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
I've gone through a lot of the posts here, and also followed the thread where one Debian maintainer quit because the installer had an option for Taiwan.
I can see the point of wanting unification (same people afterall), but I would have thought this is primarily an issue between the two governments and whether Taiwan is independent or not doesn't actually affect the day-to-day lives of anyone from China. I don't think the way of life for people living in China will be directly affected (suffer or improve) if Taiwan rejoins China.
It seems from my (admittedly uninformed) standpoint, the more pleasant/peaceful China is in working towards Taiwan rejoining, the more likely and easy it will be for the voters in Taiwan to vote in favour of rejoining China eventually. This also includes the attitudes of people of China towards people of Taiwan, not just the governments.
If it doesn't work out (at least not currently), why such extremist views like quitting a job, or even wanting to go to war? Wouldn't you just end up with resentful people? If that doesn't matter, then is this just a superiority complex thing?
Something that doesn't seem to have occured to the Chinese leaders is that if they are so keen on unity with Taiwan, why don't they just ask them nicely? As in "OK, we realize we suck. Our people is suffering, yours are florishing. Here are the keys. There can be only one."
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
As i read the posts in this thread, many refrences to tibet is made as an eksample of chinas evil past. I recently watched a interview with the dalai lama on danish television. msg was the same as allways with one major exception; he did _NOT_ say a single bad thing about china! in fact he seemed happy with chinas focus on tibet (and other areas in the region) when it comes to investing in infrastructure. in addition he stressed more then once that the china of today is not the china that invaded some 30 years ago. as i do not follow this issue to closely i was wondering if anyone here has a good link about this (as i see it) change of hart. (would google but i am at work and already spend to much time here on slash :) )
malsbert.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Denis Diderot.
... and it worked. The Soviet Union was beaten by out spending it to death on weapons. After the collapse of the USSR though, the US and the western world just lost their will to continue the battle through violent or treats of violence. People are weary of cold wars, so China is getting a new treatment. The theory is that if you blast China with enough Western consumerism and culture, they will end up becoming more like the west. I think in the long term it might work, but I certainly don't see happening in the next 50 years.
This new method has its perks and its drawbacks. The perks are that we don't need to kill millions with sanctions and both countries stand to profit greatly with business relationships. The obvious drawbacks is that contact with the west means a leg up on technology, weapons, and does nothing to cause their little empire to collapse in on itself like the USSR did.
I personally have no clue if engaging China is the right thing, but I think there is not much of a choice in the matter right now. The US and the EU are the two economic powers that matter. The US is probably the only one of those two that even begins to have the will try and isolate China. Even as we speak, the EU is working on new regulations to sell arms to China. The only obstacle they are running into is France. France's objection to the new regulations are that they want less transparency so that the arms trades can be conducted in secret... so obviously the EU isn't looking going to be the moral back bone to stand up to China. The US is slightly more antagonistic, but not much more so. The US won't be selling China F-16's any time soon, especially with the distance worry that we might rumble with China over Taiwan. That said, the US likes having access to China's markets and really won't do anything to rock the boat unless absolutely necessary.
So, the short answer is that, for better or for worse, the western world simply has no desire to engage in another cold war, and a cold war is exactly what you would get if you tried to cut off China's trade.
The difference is that I can watch O'Riely on Fox News, then switch over to CBS to watch Dan Rathers, go online and get a Libertarian news letter, and finish off the day at an ultra-left marxist website.
My girlfriend is ethnically Taiwanese but has only ever seen the place once when she was young. Her parents though are from Taiwan, visit often, and keep in good touch with their many relatives there. I have had the pleasure of talking to them on many occasions, and the simple fact of the matter is that Taiwan has no desire to be apart of China for good reason. Taiwan is scrapping out a relatively functional democracy. China on the other hand is far from democratic. These people have absolutely no desire to be apart of the PRC. They should be damn weary of the PRC for good reason. A simple look at Hong Kong makes the point abundantly clear. China has no desire to move towards democracy, and no desire to let formerly democratic territories keep their democracies in any meaningful way.
Granted, my evidence is antidotal, but from the relatives of my girlfriend that I talked to, they seem as fanatically opposed to joining the PRC as the US is to joining the USSR. So long as Taiwan is a democracy and China is not, the two will never reunite peacefully. Taiwan will defend itself (as they should) from violent reunification. Taiwan is a formidable foe thanks in part to that moat it has around itself (also known as the Pacific Ocean). Combine the fact that Taiwan could probably do a decent job defending itself with the fact that a thousand pound gorilla in the form of the US is sitting just behind it looking like it isn't going to let the fight go by unnoticed, and you can make a safe bet that the two are going to keep going their separate ways for the near future.
ouch.. my bad.. i stand corrected
atb
Suchetha
learn from yesterday, plan for tomorrow, party tonight
or one out of three ain't bad
The US had a war of secession, they did no "let it go", but when it comes to China, is seems like the only recognized Chinese goverment (by the UN, by most serious international organizations, and by the immense majority of countries in this planet) have to let it go as well.
Had the outside world let the Chinese in both sides of the divide sort this out, this would have been sorted. It is the foreign support for the goverment in Chinese Taipei (or Taiwan or whatever you want to call it) what has facilitated this impase.
And for those saying poor Taiwanese, they should be granted independence, I say think again. Actually the native Taiwanese are quite resentfull of the mainlanders that fled China and usurpated all spheres of political and economic power in the island.
The guy that went running to the US for help to mantain the defacto independence, General Chian Kai Sek, was a dictator and his "party", the Kuomitang had little to learn from some of the tactics of the Communist party in mainland China.
The only saving grace of the US support is that eventually Taiwan became democratic, and one of the first things they did is to get rid of the Kuomitang, the party that has caused all this mess in the first place.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I apologise for the somewhat off-topic comment.
>> (what a f***ed up name for a navy)
I have always wandered why the Bulgarian word (approximate transcription) "naroden" was translated as "people's" in English. It sounds ridiculous, almost as if the term "people's" (certainly not common English) was devised to show the meaning of an otherwise untranslatable term. You see, if you understand the meaning of that word in Bulgarian (or, at least, what it used to mean for us during the Soviet regime over eastern Europe), you will probably understand what it means for those Chinese people as well. While the word "narod" can be translated as "all the people that form some ethnic group", "narodna prikazka" is translated roughly as a folklore fairy tale. Indeed, almost every usage of "naroden" implies some relation either to the ethnic population or the folklore of an area or a country. The so-called "People's Liberation Army" probably just means something like "The army that sets all Chinese free". The navy's name probably means "The navy that usually goes with that army". I simply think it's just not supposed to sound so ridiculous and pompous. Thus explained, you will see why the so-called "communists" (because that was not really communism, it was state-controlled feudalism) do not find the term so f*d up and how it all makes sense in some kind of a nightmarish orwellian doublethink manner.
That sounds familiar. Politicians _NEED_ enemies to have people listening to them. When they want one, they usually can find one. If they don't find one, they creat one. And their followers blindly believes it and unite against the enemy. And the politicians can safely disregard all his own problems and stay in power indefinitely.
The same pattern happened again and again in every country and every once a while. In fact, the Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian was elected (his election is still in heated disbute among pan-blue and pan-green supporters. There were probably more flaws in that election the the recent Ukraine one.) by making the PRC an enemy and then portaiting his opponents as "Chinese collaborators", or traitors of Taiwan, much the same way the Bush camp used the war on terror to attack Kerry.
But, if you want to reduce the whole Taiwan Strait tension to governments' propaganda, you are ignoring the problem's deep history background and Chinese nationalism roots. Taiwan was ceded to Japan from China in her weakest time and won back after WWII. The seperation status is the direct result of a civil war(1946-49). US military interference after the Korean War made it last for so long. To the 1.3 billion mainlanders, the seperation is the deepest cut in the dragon's heart, only ultimate re-unification can heal it. It is not the CCP's makeshift propaganda but a spontaneous feeling rooted in Chinese nationalism. To modern Chinese, this is just as sacred as religion in other parts of the world.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
In military, they simply rely on the US to provide weapon and protection. Many pan-green supporters naively believe that they can drag the US into a Taiwan Independence war against the PRC, thus defeating the mainland to achieve their goal.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
I think that southern Arizona, Nevada and California ought to be reunited with Mexico, but I'm not going to censor a video game that depicts any other situation. Furthermore, I don't expect either country to carry this out by invading the other; I think it will hapen as a result of the democratic process in both countries.
and right now the IRA is being alot more reasonable then those same unionists.
Yeah, those Chinese can go wherever they want including, but not limited to, Tibet, Taiwan, Japan, Somalia, Uganda, Eritrea, Chechnya, and Iraq without a care in the world!
Only in Eastern world, ah!? You are NOT DRAGON.
I am no expert but IIRC the unionists are scots, not english. And scots are originally Irish, i.e. the Scots (an irish people) invaded scotland/caledonia/whatever, displacing the locals, and then (after taking over the english throne with King James 1/6) some of them went back to ireland. The english colonists were mainly around "the pale" of dublin.
I never studied that so would be happy to hear an improved version :-)
Perhaps you could split off scotland and ireland together :-) but that might not be so peaceful...
You could go down the route sadly used in new zealand and divide the country by watershed... teach the californians for building a 1000 square mile city in the middle of a desert.
There's a world of difference between a state controlled propoganda machine and a free press that defaults to partisan bias.
Oh please. If they didn't default to partisan bias, they would be state controlled. Your "freedoms" are an illusion. The U.S. and Europe can afford to more pragmatic as long as everybody pays their taxes. Any attempt at real change will be met with the same force as any dictatorship would apply. "Quit being an apologist." Indeed.
What?
The students were threatening to bring down the government and hence in the interests of stability the government had to act to ensure that the country remained intact.
Yes there are no examples in the world of successful countries that use democracy, and where different Governments come and go according to the will of the people. Nope. None at all.
Where do you stand on Tibet, sorry, Xzàng Zìzhìq?
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