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Taking My Freedom With Me to China?
Solo Han asks: "I'm considering a move to China next year, and while I have just as many problems as y'all do with the government, I still like the freedoms afforded me, especially when it comes to access of information. Chinese citizens, however, do not have the same freedoms, as we are constantly reminded here on slash-o-dot. Pr0n, mp3z, and games aside, what are the things that those of you in the Celestial Kingdom know you cannot access, and specifically, what are the websites, search engines, news sites, and other sites that are classed as potentially 'dangerous' material? This brings me to my overall question: is the censorship that real, that hard to get around, and how do you do it? What methods and technologies are you aware of or use to circumvent the Great Firewall of China?"
Whoa! Did he just ask for people to openly admit what technologies they're using to bypass a strict government firewall? Granted on Slashdot you'll end up with a lot of theories, but actually phrasing you question in a way meant to try to get Chinese law breakers to not only admit that they're breaking the law but to also share the method being used to break the laws......the mind boggles.
I traded all my mod points for these magic beans.
Obviously some people break the rules, use outside proxies not yet blocked by the government, and get access to prohibited information. I've been there, three times. I know some of this. And I don't recommend it. If caught, and lucky, you'll just be thrown out of the country. It can be worse.
The question you should be asking yourself is: Just how much do I want to have a long, happy, and enjoyable time living in the PRC?
Why not try living like a real Chinese citizen for a few months just to see what it's like? Why else go, if you're only trying to live your Western-style life just in a new location?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Instead of moving to Mainland China, move to Taiwan?
P: What kind of problems? Did you sell military secrets to the Chinese?
Wait... so, he says he has just as many problems with the government as you do, and you ask him if he's committed espionage and treason?
What did you do?!
When you're in a foreign country, you're obliged to obey their rules. Accidentally violating some custom/rule and winding up in jail is one thing, but when you go to a country and violate their laws willfully and with premeditation there is no reason at all why the US should expend its diplomatic resources saving your sorry ass.
If you don't like their rules, don't move there.
If you engage in that sort of thing, then you are pretty much accepting that sort of relationship. The question is whether your deported immediately, held for a time, then deported, or put in prision for a long-time.
What I think people need to get past is the idea that their political culture and ideas are both acceptable and compatiable with other cultures. The United States and other western countries all have very incompatable world views when it comes countries like China. The only reason that the United States and China can get along is due to the trade relationship.
There is only one place in China that you enjoy the freedoms that your looking for -- Hong Kong. When China assumed ownership of Hong Kong there were fears that the financial strength of the former British colony would suffer. Hong Kong was granted certain freedoms that the rest of China does not enjoy.
However, when traveling to another country you must RESPECT that country. You are a guest, just as your a guest in someone's home. Failure to obey the rules of that country is rude, inconsiderate and frankly, you deserve whatever punishment is given for violations. It is arrogent to assume that you have the same rights and priveleages that you enjoy here in another country. Further, if you really want to enjoy such privelages, then stay. Part of leaving for that job is the cost of losing some of your freedoms. And just because your a citizen of XXXXXX doesn't mean that your country will bail you out in the event of a problem.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
I know someone in China who is from the U.S. He has been there for several years now. He has found that they censor a LOT of sites, many that don't really make sense to censor. So he uses proxy servers to get around this limitation. A lot of people over there do that. Supposedly its not a big deal.
A simple unencrypted squid proxy. I live in China, and some sites are blocked (BBC News, Miami Herald, etc). I set up a proxy on a linux box in the USA, and I use it whenever I encounter a blocked site (hit F12-x in Opera to toggle).
It's also useful when there's simply a bad connection or slow speed. Often, I can't get a good connection to some site or other, and it's not blocked, I know it's up, but the crappy infrastructure here drops my packets. So, even if there were no Great Firewall, I'd still have my proxy handy. The Great Firewall isn't too concerned with English language websites. As far as I know, only Chinese and English language sites are blocked...any other nationalities get off scot-free.
And don't worry about getting clubbed in the head by the cops, or anything stupid like that. China is just like everywhere else...you mess with the bull, you get the horns. Hell, we smoke joints openly on the street. Nobody knows what it smells like. We went out on a lake, and the boatman asked, "why are you 6 people sharing one cigarette...you don't have enough money to afford cigarettes for everyone?"
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Our company has employees in China, and their work requires that they be able to access our corporate systems. So, they've got a VPN connection through the GFC, that VPN connection also includes unfiltered Internet access. From what I'm told by our Network Admin, unfiltered access is something of a status symbol over there.
Black and grey are both shades of white.
I've taken a few trips to P.R.C. since my wife is from there. I had a few problems trying to upload photos from a digital camera to a server back home (yes, I used disposable passwords). First I attempted to FTP the files directly to the server. I found that the FTP connection was dropped after transferring about 8k bytes. Next, I tried http put to my web server with a similar result. Finally I tried to send each picture as an e-mail attachment. This also failed. It seems that China does not want any unauthorized information going OUT of the country. I finally tried running an FTP server locally on the dynamic IP (163.net) and connecting to it from outside (after telnetting to my US based server). Amazingly enough it worked! Files can be moved out of China from an internal server but not from a client.
As far as free access to information goes, good luck. They seem to have several layers of control. The first layer is DNS. Just about any US based radio or TV domain name will not resolve. You might be able to get to the site if you can get the IP address (perhaps using a method similar to above). Many sites use the hostname in the http query to determine which site to serve, in these cases you're out of luck. There may be DNS and web proxies that you can use but these are fleeting.
--
Sigs are a waste of space
I think Solo Han may be chanelling Mao. You are basically asking people to explain how to circumvent their government's controls, when that government is known to do some rather painful things to those that subvert the government?
I call Shenanagins, the question is either just troll BS, or the the guy asking it is too dumb to utilize the answers.
Face it, would anyone comming to the US really ask, in a public forum, how do I get around the US's stupid drug laws? (Please don't answer this, I'm trying to nurture a little faith in humanity)
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Sure, you lived there and supported the country. You could have found an instructor here who came from China because HE wanted to be free and teach his art. Where you learn martial arts is not important. 'Who' matters more than anything. And don't tell me we don't have ang good instructors here.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
Well, knowing people working in Cuba, exceptions are made for the Ex-Pats, including lesser filtering on web content (or more likely, access to lightly filtered web content, as opposed to no access). Also, over in the Middle East, other sorts of accomodations with regards to local laws/customs are made for Ex-Pat's (especially within compounds).
Have you looked into the situation you are moving into in China? I assume that you are going in as an Ex-Pat with a formal commercial relationship, in which case they may try to accomodate you.
There is a very strong anti-Chinese movement within the US, in particular, that tends to dramatically misportray the way things are there.
/. are examples.
There's also a very strong anti-USA movement within the US that tends to dramatically misportray the way things are there.
Many of the posts on
What was her crime? He wanted to mail copies of publicly available news articles to her husband residing in the USA. The articles dealt with the plight of women in Chinese society. She is serving an 8 year prison sentence, starting in 2000.
Is anyone angered by this incident? I was infuriated when I received the documents from AI. Visiting China may be "safe" for foreigners, but should we not express our moral outrage by boycotting China and its products?
I agree with points 1, 3 and 4. The third one, though - what on earth gives you the idea that democracy is a "basic right"? It's a governmental system - one never implemented in the real world, at that! Democracy seems wonderful to us, but it's certainly not the only way to do things. Other major ways to organize "nations" (or companies, or any other organization really) are:
-Despotism - Not so good. There can - and have - been good despots, though I can't think of any. Typically a despot creates something, and maintains direct control over it.
- Monarchy - Again, not so good. This time the right to rule is typically passed down to people. Under a good (or powerless) ruler, the nation can thrive (see modern-day britain - you did know they had a queen, right?); under a bad one the nation can suffer.
- Oligarchy - This one isn't really any better than the others, save that it allows for more inter-government wrangling than others. A good example is the UN.
- Republic - This is the best we've gotten. The United States is the most democratic republic in the world; unfortunately, it's also the most oligarchal republic in the world. Incidentally, almost every company and other organization falls under the categories of Oligarchal republic or republican oligarchy; the only major exception that I can think of is in the open source world, which is mostly controlled by good despots like Linus Torvalds. (The main kernel is under his control, but he will allow forks.)
Encryption in China is illegal, but the general rule of thumb in China is that foreigners are not handled very roughly.
That said, I've set up people who want to have decent access to news outlets and generally anonymize themselves on the TOR network, which is a great project from the folks at the EFF.
TOR (http://tor.eff.org/) uses onion routing to bounce you around within their cloud of secure servers, which makes it very difficult to see who you are, where you're going, and where you came from. You can tunnel almost anything over it, and it's open source.
I've found it to be very fast (even on China's slower internet connections), and those who use it love it.
$45 per U Colocation Special
Likewise, the dutch are not all pot head pornographers that kill babies for fun.
In fact, I've never met more potheads anywhere in my extensive travels than i did in the rochester area. This was AFTER a two hour delay trying to get through customs at the airport... (long hair! trenchcoat! flew in from amsterdam! DEALER ALERT!)
I'm pretty sure, that as long as you don't go around rabble-rousing and trying to engender a revolution, you'll be fine. And the worst they'd probably do to you in china as a foreigner, is deport you. It's the sensible thing to do.
Machine9dotNet
Oh, lucky you. Over here, that only works for teddy kennedy.
Seriously, though, bribery only works in the 3ed world and black africa. Trying a bribe in north africa will get your hand cut off. It might work in china if you have enough money for them to be intersted.
Sound like you are one of the rich and privliged classes who can buy your way out of trouble.
I guess you don't care about the poor people who don't have the money to buy their way out of trouble.
I notice a lot of people are saying to forward all traffic through an ssh tunnel. That's all well and good, and would probably conceal whatever you're doing on the net, but is it legal? I know in some other countries encryption is considered illegal; does anyone know what the legal status of encryption in China is?
For my personal interest, could you expand on your comment.
Especially "...was immediately after the attacks on 9-11 when the TV news channel that I was watching got shut down."
- Jax
Ah yes, Japan... A bastion of human rights and equality.
Technically Japan is a free democracy. But human rights? Equality? They are given lip service at best.
Don't believe me? Ask the two Kurdish Turks just deported even though the UN had declared them refugees.
Or perhaps the nurse who was denied a promotion because she does not have Japanese citizenship. She was BORN in Japan! She *only* speaks Japanese! Her mother was Japanese, her father Korean, and this is the source of her problem. At the time she was born having a Japanese mother did *not* get you Japanese citizenship. (Having a Japanese father would have though.) So her passport says "Korea", and thus she is denied a promotion. The kicker? This decision was just *upheld* by the Japanese Supreme Court!
Yep, Japan... A bastion of human rights and equality.
Some people are like slinkies--basically useless but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.
As I wrote about in some of my previous posts, tell that to Harry Wu. I heard him and Dan Picouda, the US Consular Officer who worked to free him, speak. It was both an enlightening and frightening experience.
The most salient point is that in China, the authorities wield absolute, arbitrary power over you. This means that, more likely than not, your experience will be like that of the parent poster. If not, the Chinese government can more or less do whatever it wants to you.
That's absolutely the opposite of the truth. Specific articles are not blocked (with the exception of the local version of Google News, which just doesn't list them), but the Google Cache is banned. BBC News was still inaccessible as of the last time I was there (July), but most other major English language news sources are available.
To be honest, the Great Firewall is more of a nuisance than a threat. It's really only sites relating to FLG and Taiwan independence that they stop you from getting at - the only time you're likely to run into it is when you have to open a PDF file instead of using Google's 'view as HTML' option.
The Government of Tibet in Exile: http://www.tibet.com/
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
Almost (I say almost because I'm sure somebody will have a counter-example, but I can't think of any) every stable democracy resulted from an internal revolution. There may have been external pressures, but very rarely did the outsiders incite or run the revolution. (Lafayette, of course, trained American revolutionaries, but only after they asked.)
Until the majority of them want it enough to fight for it, forcing it upon them usually doesn't work - people are comfortable where they are.
Assuming you're on a Linux machine, do PPP over SSH. Plenty of people will say it's slow, but I've been using it very successfully for several months on high speed connections (> 2Mb/s). The only time I've had problems is when the connection goes down, but hey, that's the problem. :)
:)
/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
/etc/ppp/options on either the server or the client.
;
/dev/pty$d\n";
/sbin/route delete $localip"; /usr/sbin/pppd passive\"";
/dev/tty$d defaultroute local proxyarp ktune";
I found this script somewhere on the 'net, and made adjustments. It's not perfect, but it works for me, so I have no grand plans for making more changes.
You'll need to have SSH keys set up between where you are, and a server on a 'friendly' network. This will route *ALL* of your traffic, over SSH, through the remote host. Nothing you do will be seen. It'll all be encrypted SSH traffic. I use a different port for SSH, so it's not even recognized as SSH traffic. For all they know, it could be music streaming or something.
--- begin rc.firewall (for the server)
#!/bin/tcsh
# not all of this is necessary. Play with it a bit.
#!/bin/tcsh
# A simple rc.firewall to start NAT.
echo 1 >
iptables -P FORWARD ACCEPT
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT
iptables -P INPUT ACCEPT
iptables -F INPUT
iptables -F OUTPUT
iptables -F FORWARD
iptables -A INPUT -i lo -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i eth0 -o ppp+ -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
iptables -A FORWARD -i ppp+ -o eth0 -j ACCEPT
iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -j MASQUERADE
--- end rc.firewall
--- begin ppptunnel.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# there should be no
#
$localip="1.2.3.4"; # first ip on net
$localmask="255.255.255.0"; # 16 ips
$remoteip="1.2.3.5"; # other end of link
$ssh="/usr/bin/ssh";
$pppd="/usr/sbin/pppd"
$sshuser="my_vpn_user"; # The remote user, who has SSH keys set up.
$sshhost="1.2.3.4";
foreach $maj ("p".."s") { # adjust this to the ptys you have
foreach $min ("0".."9", "a".."f") {
print "Trying $maj$min\n";
&tryopen("$maj$min");
}
}
die "Couldn't alloc pty\n";
sub tryopen
{
local($d)=@_;
if (open(PTY, "+>/dev/pty$d")) {
print "Opened
$pid=fork;
defined($pid) || die "can't fork";
if ($pid) { #parent
print "Parent...\n";
open(STDIN, "<&PTY") || die "reopen stdin";
open(STDOUT, ">&PTY") || die "reopen stout";
close PTY;
print STDERR "running on tty$d; ssh=$$, pppd=$pid\n";
#system $ssh, "-vt", "-l$sshuser", "vpn", "sudo
#-f -x -t
$c = "$ssh -tx -l$sshuser $sshhost \"sudo
print STDERR "Executing $c\n";
exec "$c";
die "exec $ssh: $!";
} else { #child
print "Child...\n";
close PTY;
sleep 5;
print "Modifying routes\n";
$old_def_route = `route -n | grep ^0.0.0.0 | cut -c 17- | cut -f 1 -d ' '`;
chop ($old_def_route);
$c = "route add -host $sshhost gw $old_def_route";
print "Route: $c\n";
system("$c");
$c = "route del default gw $old_def_route";
print "Route: $c\n";
system("$c");
print "starting pppd\n";
$c = "$pppd
# exec $pppd, "/dev/tty$d", "defaultroute", "local", "debug", \
# "netmask", "$localmask", "$localip:$remoteip";
exec "$c";
die "exec $pppd: $!";
}
}
}
print "Switching default route back to it's original\n";
$c = "route add default gw $old_def_route netmask 0.0.0.0 metric 1";
system("$c");
--- end ppptunnel.pl
If the link comes up, you'll see a ppp0 device on your machine (not the server). Do some traceroutes to verify you
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
It's hard to defend morally, and it's hard to stomache, but forcing people out from the yoke of a tyrant doesn't work - the best you can do is convince them that they want to get out from under that yoke.
Dont listen to what half the the anti-communist conservatives and media say about China. Yes its true human rights are trampled when in the states interest...BUT and that was a big but for a reason, the Chinese have a totally different attitude about policing their citizens than American police. As a criminal justice instructor I am very interested in these difference.
In china the situation is much different, their saying is "its only illegal if you get caught" Which has a deeper meaning than many understand...many times the police are not looking to arrest people for petty matters, they are more interested in social order...or as they refer to it "harmony". However this cultural view of harmony represents tome things we consider unpleasant. But the upshot is that unless the government is interested at that point in time in cracking down on something...it is usually just ignored...for example it is illegal to manufacture or distribute bootleg cds and dvds, but when my girlfriend and her family were in china right when you get off the bus...and the government doesnt care. Many people go to banned websites, download illegal things, hell half the banned games in china can be bought off a store shelf! The point is remember when those cybercafes got busted, that was a crackdown. Chinese policing usually let things go for a while then crackdown to show it is illegal...then let it go again...remember they have limited resources and are more interested in maintaining their fragile power structure than concerning themselves with if your watching porn...which you can totally get in china, easily..as well as hookers but both technically illegal.
That wouldnt happen in america,
In many ways american police are much more facist than chinese police, in that if you are breaking a rule they will arrest you. If it were illegal to sell pornography in america, no stores sell it..but it is illegal in china but still sold out in the open in many places..DWI check points are a perfect example...people who are over an arbirtrary legal limit but still in control of their vehicles get the same punishment as those who are swerving all over the road because they cant handle their liquor. This over emphasis on enforcing every rule is due a great deal to the colletion of fines, which police departments in America use to fund themselves...ever notice why they go after drug dealer so aggressivley but if you aparment gets burglarized they dont even dust for prints?
Almost (I say almost because I'm sure somebody will have a counter-example, but I can't think of any) every stable democracy resulted from an internal revolution.
Which revolution installed a stable democracy in Britain?
("The English Civil War" is not the correct answer: that installed a republic that was neither more nor less democratic than the monarchy it replaced, lasted only a short time, and had no major consequences for the system of government of the country.)
The government of the Native Nations... in exile in their own land: http://www.aimovement.org/
The difference?
In China, all the freedoms they enjoy are granted to them by the government -- and while they may be quite laissez-faire at the moment, their freedom can be revoked at almost any time for almost any reason.
In the United States, our freedoms are held to be innate and self-evident. That means if our government wants to take our freedoms away, they have to move slowly enough that we don't notice.
*DISCLAIMER* I am not a historian, but a few things bother me about this post since I tend to study this time frame.
We could have dominated the world, and who would have opposed us?
Quite a few people. I agree the America was most generous and possibly the most moral country that once ever existed (until maybe the 21st century), but...
The peasantry of China?
They opposed 2 million Japanese troops since 1927 with nothing but militias. The Chinese handed us our rears in Korean War
The decimated demoralized Soviets?
Stalin dictated the post war terms directly through Molotov to the Allies. The Allies agreed to every term! The Soviets had almost 10,000,000 troops in the field with more factories and tanks than us to boot and millions of readily available free slave labor (German Pow's, Ukranian Freedom Fighters, and Russian dissidents in gulags... not to mention the Soviet People themselves). The Red Army was inefficient, but it was far from being defeated. They would scoff at the poor quality of US tanks that the Americans sent them as aid and nick named them coffins compared to super IS-2 tanks that could knock out Tiger tanks with ease much less a thinly armored Sherman tank. He mostly lacked a Navy and Atomic bombs. Had he not died in 53, it was speculated he was gearing up for a war with the US.
Once the Soviets had the bomb in 1947, America did not have that option to dominate the world even if they wanted to. That's only two years. Mind you that General MacArthur bemoaned on the state of the military by the Korean War.
Great as America was, it's military might was not really as great then as it was and is since the 1970's as it was tested in the Vietnam war. Of course the prevailing thought at the time was that there was no need for a standing army since the US could defend itself with the Bomb.
Not to say America has great freedoms, but neither was it a lone super power until 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.
However China is slowly catching up...
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
We established a home land in the middle east for the Jews out of compassion and remorse for a crime we did not commit.
Actually, what we did is basically break down the door to the home of some muslims and say "here you go Stein, this is your new home".
No one cares what your captcha was
Houston TX, USA
A revolution obviously took place it's just that it took place with very little bloodshed and over a long period of time because both the people and the rulers largely agreed moving towards democracy was a good thing. The rulers and the people probably went through phases of being more or less enthusiastic about the whole thing but it seems to have worked out all right in the end.
The point is that the decision to become a democracy was made internally and achieved by the hard work and negotiations between the people and the monarchy.
Redefine revolution and all the square pegs fit nicely into place!
Anti-social? My code is just platform-specific.
By and large they don't see that having a controlling government is a problem, because it makes the right decisions. That's the thought process. She had never seen that image of the student in front of the tank in Tiananmen square. Never. And she was happy they didn't show it in China, because it could reduce the stability of the country.
When you can understand and respect that reasoning without trying to change it, then you are ready to go into that culture.
dominionrd.blogspot.com - Restaurants on
"Simple things, like sending knives through the mail, are impossible to do."
I'm sorry, but I don't think I would consider mailing knives a "simple thing". A hat, sure; a weapon, no.
This is not the greatest sig in the world, this is just a tribute.
I think it's important to note that China's government uses the censoring and the punishment of circumventing that censoring for different goals.
By censoring they try to keep the masses uninformed. Currently a bunch of websites is blocked and search engines are limited in their results. These messures can be avoided, but most users dont know how.
Cracks in the Great Firewall
Probing Chinese search engine filtering
In the punishing of circumventing these messures however, the government has simply found another excuse to put people who they don't like in jail. The people actualy being prosecuted for and convicted of these "crimes" are either members of the Falun Gong or the China Democracy Party.
List of People Detained for Internet-related Offences in China
With a bit of effort, you could probably enjoy everything the internet has to offer, logging in from China. And probably nothing will ever happen as a result. But when the authorities decide they don't like you they are going to hold it against you. Current sentences range upto 12 years or "unknown", while even capital punishment is a possibility.
interesting timing, no?
-'fester
-'fester
For the same reason why Europeans think we're a country of hicks driving around in a pickup with shotguns
From the city, are ya? I'm in Los Angeles now, but all my relatives live in either Texas or Idaho, and not always in the big cities. I know an awful lot of people who do, in fact, drive around in pickups and carry shotguns.
In fact, if you are one of the millions of people who live or work in the country, on a ranch, on a farm, or go hunting, you're describing basic tools of life.
The U.S. still has a lot more "wild" urban acreage per capita than tha majority of European nations. So sure, the whole country isn't toting guns in a pickup at any one point, but enough people are (relative to european nations) that the stereotype may in fact have some merit.
who elected a idiot to office
There's a stereotype with 100% merit. (Well, 51% per-capita)
While it may sound like the Chinese police force operate a Gestapo-like regime but that's far from the truth.
Are we talking about the country that ran over student protestors with tanks, or not? The Gestapo wasn't breaking down every door to oversee every activity, either -- still the vast majority of Germans were "good citizens" with jobs etc. and had no hassle from the police. (Otherwise how would they have managed to fight a war?) The critical difference was that they used brutal tactics for the people they *did* oversee.
Not that I think the "Gestapo" metaphor really is apt for China, but you seem to have a misunderstanding of it.
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
"The mountains are high and the emperor is far away."
I've lived there and seen it for myself.
/. :-) )
I lived for 4 months in Baoji and then for 2.5 years in Shanghai. My girlfriend lived for 2 years in Baoji working in University and Middle Schools and for 6 months in Beijing. So, I've seen and experienced probably more than you.
Living in China made me realize how much freedom we have in the west. Yes, many people speak quite openly about what they dislike. As do most people still believe Mao was the greatest person on earth (put some "70% good, 30% bad" in it to water it a bit down). But you realize how much freedom is missing when people criticize the government and keep looking over their shoulders if no strangers are listening. Can you imagine bashing Bush in Central Park in New York or bashing Blair in London and worrying that someone might hear it and get you into trouble? Privately and with foreigners they don't risk too much by being honest.
The worst thing about China in my experience is the utterly useless and terrible media (because of the extreme censorship) and the non-existing legal system. So, theoretically many people have rights. But when a street with its buildings gets completely destroyed outside the university (as happened in Baoji) to make room for a wider road, then theoretically all the shop owners and restaurant owners get compensated for losing their main source of income. But they don't and they don't even think about going to court because it's useless.
It's true about the police, but only because the police actually has little rights. The communist party is the ruler and they take care of things. But aside from that Chinese are in most cases very decent people (much more than in the west) because of peer pressure to not lose face for the family and other reasons.
Go there for a longer period of time and you'll see what the real deal is. Most people only go for some weeks or months and haven't even scratched the surface. The Chinese people are very good at making you believe things are great and only later you find out that things actually aren't great.
(Not often that I see the precious chicken (Baoji) mentioned on
If there is a riot in downtown Seattle, I expect the military to come through and clear the streets and remove the rioters, using WHATEVER FORCE IS NECESSARY.
Yes, and lets hope that every single person in power has the same definition of "riot" as you do.
I have lived in Shanghai for 4 years (U.S. born, white male). Life in Shanghai is very easy. Its simply a very large city...other than that, there is nothing that a normal U.S. citizen would find "oppressive". If you are a person who is compelled to stand on street corners in the U.S. and stir up a riot over government policies, then neither the U.S. nor China are for you at the moment. But if you are a normal person who isn't interested in stirring a revolution, China is simply not an oppressive place. You can have small group and one-on-one conversations about anything you want (even politically sensitive issues). You can access almost any content you may desire over the net (some porn sites have been blocked...some chinese political content (in Madarin, so you couldn't read it anyway) has been blocked)...but google works as you would expect and most any business which requires internet access can be conducted fairly easily. Sure, doing things like extending your visa requires going to a gov building and waiting in line, but how often do you do this? Its not much different than going to a U.S. gov office. Other services are mostly private/free-enterprise and are very easily accessed; your largest barrier is language. As with almost any travel around the world, an open mind and a friendly smile will do lots to improve your experience. In terms of the Internet...it is very slow to access non-China servers. This is caused by two major issues: 1 - the "Great Firewall" and 2 - enormous amounts of local traffic (lots of it due to infected PCs). Best guess is that its item 2 that is the biggest problem with traffic, since the content filter isn't real-time (or so it would appear). MS's recent announcement to not continue to security patch unlicensed copies of Windows will no doubt add to this problem. As to other places besides Shanghai, well this is the top city China for westerners to do business so its the easiest...for anywhere else you can scale down your expectations on services from here; but freedom of expression, movement, etc...are all pretty smooth so long as your not here to stir up trouble. Good luck to you...
No, it's not OK now. The world is a patchwork of territories, with every one of the major players having claims all over. When the western world became "civilized" (debatable), the territories were left as-is. The Brits have the Falkland Islands, the US has Pear Harbour and Guantanamo Bay (another wierd one) and so on.
I'm not really worried as much about military bases as I am about whole countries of people being forced to live under a government they don't support. No one actually lives in Guantanamo Bay except for some prisoners. Pearl Harbor is part of Hawaii, which IIRC voted to join the USA.
Democracy in it's current incarnation is a farce. Do you really believe that if the residents of a country wanted independance they'd get it?
I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but it's a lot easier in a democracy than other regimes. My whole argument was that if they want independence, they should be granted it; anyone who acts otherwise is immoral, as the USA and Turkey are doing with regards to the Kurds.
Bear in mind I'm sitting in Scotland here, where a large percentage of the population wants it, but there ain't gonna be a vote on it.
Excuse me? I'm just an ignorant American, but another poster just replied to this same message saying Scotland willingly joined the union, and that they even had a referendum in the 1970's for independence, and it failed, getting only 33% approval. While I'm all for independence for regions that want it, that doesn't apply if it's just a minority.
On the other hand, we have Yugoslavia, where a bloody civil war got nations their independance.
Unfortunately, that seems to be the usual way to achieve independence. It shouldn't be that way, and countries that have fought for independence should better appreciate what they have, and support other peoples who want the same thing, instead of oppressing them.
Tibet has been a part of China for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
Last time I checked, Tibet only became part of China after the communists took over in 1949. Before that, they were self-governing. Mexico is part of North America geographically, but they were never ruled by the USA.
The fact is that I don't have a clue about whether the Tibetans want independance. But I'm not going to blindly believe the usual anti-communist crap that the US has been spilling for years.
I don't think anyone knows what modern-day Tibetans want, but I don't think Tibetans in 1949 wanted to be part of China, or else China would not have had to take the country by force. That's like thinking the woman really wants it when she's screaming "no! stop!".
this has been a facinating thread. Talking about China and comparing USA to China. I was born and raised in Eastern Europe and lived there untill I was 18 under what was called a "communist" regime. I ate enough bullshot there to last me a life time or so I thought. I have lived in USA for the last 21 years. I have seen both sides of the coin. Now I KNOW much better and i can smell bullshit from a mile away. USA is no btter or worse than ANY other country in the world. US citizens live in a fantasy world. The majority are ill eduicated and ill equiped to do anything but to consume and consume some more. Shurb used the word freedom 29 times in his speech. USA loves to use words such a s freedom and democracy. Please. The expression "Money talks and bullshit walks" describes USA perfectly. In USA you get as much freedom as you have money. No money no "freedom". It is as simple as that. You think USA doesn't censore its news? You think USA doesnt monitor its citizen's Internet access? You think there is no such thing as wage slavery in USA? Ask the "native Americans" who are spending their years in jail for fighting the USA government. They are the political prisoners in modern day USA. There is a conciderable number of them too. Remember Wounded knee? Maybe not. Bush will be spending billions of dollars for Iraq and Aphanistan, while there is hundreds of mentally ill people in the USA who will be spending a cold night on the street in USA tonight. Freedom? Freedom to do what? Consume more of the world's resources? I have asked Americans what exactly they can DO that i cannot do anywhere else and they were hard to give me an answer. Most often I was told to go back where I came from if I dont like it in "here" meaning USA. What a logical responce. USA is just another bully today. Maybe 200 years ago it did stand for something special but no more. I hope USA goes down as fast as possible. I hope the countries of the world unite against USA and fight it economically so USA will learn just how irrelevent it has become. Go China, go!
Tibet has been a part of China for hundreds, if not thousands of years. It's status only came into question in the last fifty, thanks to the involvement of the CIA, during the cold war.
Tibet has been part of China before, it is true -- but not for thousands of years, and primarily (until recently) when China has been ruled by a foreign dynasty (the yuan and qing dynasties respectively). But it has been independent many times for longer (before Buddhism came to rule in Tibet they were considered a fierce enemy). So you could say its status has always been in question.
Not sure where the CIA comes into it. I don't doubt that they would have wanted contention in the area - but I believe the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan community in Nepal were contesting Chinese control after they invaded in 1959 quite outside of the CIA's involvement.
drain