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Helping Other Big Brothers Go High Tech
Dino writes "BusinessWeek has an interesting article about the export of high-tech equipment to China's security forces, and the dilemma that it creates. On the one hand, there is the desire to increase exports to a country with which there is a trade imbalance. On the other hand, we face a situation in which the technology can be used to track dissidents and unauthorized religions. Restrictions have been enacted since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre to prevent exports intended to the Chinese security forces. However, the restrictions have been applied narrowly, and effectively prevent only low-tech exports such as handcuffs, helmets, fingerprint powder, and tear gas, while DB software, two-way radios, DNA analysis gear, and video probes, are allowed."
However, they do care about how they are are perceived to be acting because negative press can get in the way of other sales, so they might not sell to Chine etc if they think that might hurt selling to a more lucrative market. Don't for a minute confuse that with genuine ethical feelings though.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Another carrot proffered naively by the US in hopes that China will "come around" and re-evaluate its currency?
An "unathorized religion" would be the Catholic Church instead of the official Chinese Catholic Church or small Christian groups that meet in people's home. These are not fruitcake organizations that you find in the United States, although I'm sure the Chinese have plenty of fruitcakes in the Communist Party. Any social group that requires people to gather is considered an "unauthorized religion" in China since they might overthrow the Communists someday.
It is interesting how much we blast China for not giving freedoms to its citizens. Do not US citizens realize the same thing is happening to them?
What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and in the end lose his very soul?
If you need an argument against secularization of the culture (as opposed to the government), then look no further than capitalism completely unrestrained by any influence from the Protestant Christian tradition that gave birth to it.
Or, as the Communists used to say, "the Capitalists will sell us the rope we will use to hang them."
David Koresh's cult didn't get in any trouble until it was thought that they were breaking laws. The existence of the cult itself was not illegal. If you rape children, force people to commit "suicide", or don't pay your taxes, Uncle Sam will come after you. Other than that, they don't really care. Sure, you can say there may be some aspect of some religion that is illegal and that it shouldn't be -- multiple wives, use of mind-altering substances, whatever -- but it isn't the religion itself that is illegal. Raeliens, despite being considered a cooky cult, have not been arrested simply for being Raelien.
That's the difference. In China, being a member of a certain religion, regardless of not having committed any other crime, is illegal.
Now I'm not one to appologize for the U.S., and I think "better than China" is damning with faint praise, but this really is a fundamental difference between the two nations.
The enemies of Democracy are
However, the restrictions have been applied narrowly, and effectively prevent only low-tech exports such as handcuffs, helmets, fingerprint powder, and tear gas
I'm sure that really makes a big difference. You know, since China is such a small country with few resources, there's just no way they could manufacture stuff like that domestically. Yeah, I know, it's the principle of it all (or, in other words, a bill a politician could sponsor to make them appear moral).
Unfortunately far too many laws are created so politicians can simply be seen doing something. Sort of like in our town, where a lady was killed in a car accident a few years ago (because her cat was loose in her car and she was messing around with it and pulled out in front of a truck), so the town quickly changed the intersection to a 4-way stop. Now hundreds of drivers are inconvenienced daily just because the local government wanted to do something the newspaper could write about.
Dan East
Better known as 318230.
while DB software, two-way radios, DNA analysis gear, and video probes, are allowed
And these items could also be very useful for disaster response and relief - in other words, humanitarian aid.
The poster seems to be struggling to make a political point where there is simply not enoungh evidence which clearly defines what these things will be used for.
The same would be true if I stood in the middle of a highway blocking traffic because I thought it would bring peace and happiness to the world:
- Am I allowed to think that doing so will bring peace and happiness to the world? Yes.
- Am I allowed to form a cult where my followers think that my standing in the middle of a highway blocking traffic will bring peace and happiness to the world? Yes.
- Am I allowed to actually stand in the middle of a highway blocking traffic? No.
- Is arresting me for doing it persecution of a religion? No.
- Is arresting my followers for trying to prevent the police from arresting me persecution of a religion? No.
What about this is hard to understand?Oh please. You can talk about companies all day, but all of the corporations in the world don't begin to measure up to what consumer whores regular citizens are. You know those hundreds of millions of people shopping at Wal-Mart? You think any of them know or care where their money is going. I'd wager on "no". Hell, Wal-Mart didn't have even a bump in their upward trajectory when they quietly dropped their "Made in the USA" schtick. People just keep buying, and buying, and buying...
And I'm not talking about Wal-Mart, I'm talking about every little thing that regular people buy every day. Hell, I've seen people beat the shit out of each other like animals so that they could save $100 on a laptop computer.
Remember, the only reason these companies are here is because people keep buying stuff from them.
Unless your name is Khomeni, he was probably a former ally of yours, too.
>What I really fear is the torture that Tibetans are going to endure before the Olympic games. They're gonna be looking for a platform and China is probably just gonna round 'em up.
You underestimate the Chinese. They're going to run a huge campaign where happy Tibetans in traditional-but-clean garments smile into cameras before magnificent Himalaya skylines and say how much better their country is after the Chinese helped them electrify it, and how the Dalai Lama and his guys are really just a bunch of old theocrats who want their dictatorship back. There'll be local representatives ready for interviewing, guided tours through Tibet (with really helpful translators so journalists can converse with the locals freely) and all sorts of helpful press maps/video clips/etc. After all, this is the perfect opportunity: the Chinese will, temporarily, have all the media in the World to press down the Party's version of the story in everyone's minds.
Unruly Tibetans aren't going to be rounded up before the games (because the World could find out), but will be temporarily arrested "to prevent violence" during the games, to be seriously rounded up a bit later when the World has grown tired of China for a while, and looks somewhere else.
blow your mind already