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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."
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.
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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.
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.
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.
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This is a country with a modernizing government who has never recognized the breakaway rebellion in the Taiwanese province, who protects its citizens from superstition on the Internet at the national level, and who defended the people against an uprising in Tienanmen square.
It's all in how you look at it. Mao was only half-right. Political power not only flows from the barrel of a gun. Reality itself flows from the barrel of a gun.
> To those who say that economic capitalism leads to democracy, we'll just have to wait and see. I'm not holding my breath.
When the Russian socioeconomic system collapsed, Russia tried freedom - and descended into anarchy before reverting to "managed democracy".
When the Chinese socioeconomic system was on the verge of collapse, China adopted policies which placed them on firm ground as the world's first stable fascist state. As a result of this decision ("It is glorious to be rich!"), its leaders remained in power, the Chinese middle class continues to grow, and standards of living continue to rise.
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.
And speaking as someone who lives in America, I'll take the Chinese solution over the Russian solution any day.
Pick one:
On the other hand, Japan would likely be one of the first countries to sign up as a US ally!
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.
> brutally rolled over demonstrators in Tienaman
> (sp) square
You know, I'm not very fond of China's Human Rights Record, but people need to stop citing this ad infinitum. The Chinese could just as well talk about how we killed our own citizens during the Kent State protests during the Vietnam war. The scale at Tiananmen square was clearly far larger; however, the protests were far larger as well (at their height, over a million people strong).
Furthermore, the Chinese did not "roll over" protesters during the Tiananmen square protest. The protestor in the famous footage actually stood his ground there for half an hour before an onlooker came and pulled him away. Noone was killed in the square, either; however, of the million or so protesters, conflicts with armed troops in the surrounding streets led to several hundred deaths.
Lastly, the motives of the protesters are often misrepresented. The initial group which started the protests (students and intellectuals) were pushing for further democratization reforms of the country. However, the largest numbers of protesters were urban workers, who thought that the reforms had gone *too far*; they were both united under the banner of stopping corruption. The main song sung during the protests was "The Internationale", a pro-socialism pro-workers unity song. The main problem in negotiating with the protesters was that there were so many different agendas of different groups (the government actually *was* actively negotiating with them). Gen. Sec. Zhao Ziyang was the leading force in the negotiations, while premier Li Peng wanted a crackdown to avoid the country returning to the chaos of the cultural revolution.
The human body can be drained of blood in 8.6 seconds given adequate vacuuming systems.
Better question is why does the European Union SUPPORT this country?
Why do Germany and France want to drop all economic sanctions with this country?
We can't go it alone with China. We'd need Russia and Europe in on this, and they'd never help. They're all getting fat rich off that dictatorship.
Blessed be he who reads this post, Cursed be he who tells my boss.
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."
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.
(X) Possesses Weapons of Mass Destruction
(X) No human rights (Patriot Act)
(X) Unstable, Irresponsible leadership
(X) Inhumane treatment of its people (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Patriot Act)
(X) Government oppression and censorship (Patriot Act, FCC)
>When the Chinese socioeconomic system was on the verge of collapse, China adopted policies which placed them on firm ground as the world's first stable fascist state. As a result of this decision ("It is glorious to be rich!"), its leaders remained in power, the Chinese middle class continues to grow, and standards of living continue to rise.
Funny, I had never before thought of it. But you _are_ right. By the definition of a fascist system, China seems to be much closer to that than communism.
Nationalism, market economy with strong government influence, highly authoratic government. All match perfectly, and only autocratism is something that the definition of communism does not exclude.
Maybe it is time for them to paint their flag black?
This really has nothing to do with love, but rather politics. I am also from China and have relatives living in both China and Taiwan. The issue has never been whether Taiwan is a part of China, but rather if Taiwan is a part of the People's Republic of China. And the answer is an emphatic NO. Taiwan independence movement occurred because Taiwan currently has no status. They cannot be a part of the UN, cannot sign trade agreements, and only a dozen countries in the world recognize them and have diplomatic relations with them. That is not fair to the millions of people living in Taiwan. But likewise it would not be fair for anyone to ask them to throw away their freedoms and liberties to join a post-communist fascist state. So the people of Taiwan is stuck between a rock and a hard place. One way out is to declare independence and claim themselves as a country. Of course, then PRC won't like that. I love to see the unification of China one day. But I would rather die than to see it occuring by the annexation of Taiwan by an undemocratic China. Democracy first, then unification. The problem is that people in China are apolitical (after being disenfranchised for so long you would be too), so no one worries about the politics of unification, but rather the emotions and economics of it.
"Glory is fleeting but obscurity is forever" - Napoleon Bonapart.
And China is far from sustainable: The pollution problems there are rampant and growing worse.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!