Linux Use in China - a View From Beijing

Xiong Jiang sent this to us from Beijing. We're running it exactly as he wrote it, without a single word changed: The curiosity from the world on Linux and China is so high these days. :) Yes, I am a Chinese and I am curious on other parts of the world, particularly, the Linux world, as you are never the less curious on China. :) These days the business of Graphon Corp. with some China companies makes a tremendous fuss on slashdot and LinuxToday." (More --->)

Warning from RM: be careful following the links in this story. They all seem valid (tested) but some of them are extremely slow and others are "China only." Netscape in Linux may either crash or hang on many of them.

Linux in China
-by Xiong Jiang

I just read the GraphOn press release on yahoo and found out it is still a very early step into China market. The "initial use of GraphOn Bridges is expected to begin in November 1999 at the Beijing Concord College of Sino-Canada, a 1500-student Beijing-based private school serving grades 10 through college". And "if successful, Chinese private enterprise and government sectors may be expected to follow..." So, it is obviously a PR from GraphOn, instead of a substantial explanation of fact. Not to mention that the China cooperators with GraphOn mentioned in the PR are even unheard to me. Maybe their English names are too different from their Chinese names ? :) OK, I just read the web of Sundiro, maybe it is a great start-up, but I really didn't hear any former success business case, and the counter on its web is 4690 this moment.

Leaving further investigation of this event to other more professional guys (I have some friends more deeply engaged in China IT industry but I am not), I would share my Linux experience as a Chinese graduate students with you, and hope you could have a better vision of Linux in China, and China itself. :)

My first touch of Linux dates back to April, 1996, when I was a graduate student in the EE department at University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), one of the top five universities in China. At that time, our campus network has just been built up, and the campus network center was helping every department set up Linux email servers. I had an account on our department email server, so, I began to use it. :) Soon, there was a campus BBS. From BBS, I got to know there was already Linux on our campus network, downloaded by our network center staff through the new-born CERnet (China Education and Research network) from the Internet. Just as most of you in the beginning era of the Internet, I am very curious about Linux, and Internet, and even email. I had never heard it before. We only had Windows, 3.1 mostly, and a few very old VAX, Sun3, and Sun4, in a lab not always open to all.

So I began to look at it. From BBS, I got to know the ftp site on campus where I can get it. We have 100M FDDI campus backbone and 10M LAN for each department, so I easily download the necessary files: INSTALLATION documents and image files. After sitting in front of a 486 66 (16M RAM) for nearly a half day diving into the document, I installed my first Linux system with slackware, kernel 1.2.13.

The learning process was very pleasant. I found out that I can almost find anything I want to know about Linux, from README, man pages, and BBS. As most of the programmers of you, "Undocumented DOS Interrupts" and "Undocumented Windows" had been my top-secret reference books in DOS/Windows era. But on Linux, everything is open. Terrific! I've got to use it. :)

Few months later, I set up a Linux masquerading gateway on a 486 100 (32M RAM) for our lab colleagues, so we only need one IP to connect the lab LAN to the campus network. We have tens of PCs but my advisor didn't have so much money for so many IPs, though it was very cheap, maybe $20 per year for each IP. Linux desktop was quite ugly at that time, no KDE or GNOME still, but we saw its power ! Many campus email servers are set up with Linux on PC. In our network center, even Sun Sparc is running Linux.

I should talk about more country-wide Linux activities instead of my own experiense. Addition to our USTC BBS, we have several other hot Linux BBS or forums. The most prestigious are freesoft newsgroup (if you can't access it, here is the mirror on linux.net.cn, the SMTH BBS (domestic access only) at Tsinghua University (top 1 in China), and ihep BBS, where the main developers of TurboLinux (China) took off.

There are several GNU software archive: freesoft, wormwang's new silk road, and Tucows Linuxberg mirror at Quanzhou, Fujian Province.

There are three main Chinese Linux distributions now: TurboLinux, XteamLinux (with win98-alike GUI installation), and BluePoint Linux (with console Chinese support employing framebuffer in kernel). They are all real free software programmers that respect GPL. They are making more and more efforts to merge their work into global Linux developemnt.

There are several individual projects that cooperate tightly with the global developers, such as KDE i18n by Lark Wang, Linux Virtual Server project by Wensong Zhang(English page). There are also some GNU/Linux related web forum, such as China Linux Forum, China DigiTribe, and our LinuxNet Forum. We have a fascinating report on Richard Stallman's recent visit to China (English page) with photos taken by myself. You may have read it on LinuxToday.

Inevitably, most of the above mentioned web pages are in Chinese. As more and more Chinese now can read English on web, either via some dictionary tools or they could speak English themselves, I hope in the coming 21th century, more and more Chinese web can be read by English-speaking people, via some dictionary tools (for example, KingSoft PowerWord) or not. :)

And thanks Robin "roblimo" Miller for give me this chance of writing on Slashdot. Though he told me to write on SOFTWARE, but not politics, I still want to point out only one thing: as American people don't necessarily think in the same way with their governments, Chinese people also enjoy this freedom. Please update your vision of China from the horrible "10 Red Years", on which we have also introspected with great regret and overcome it more open-minded since the reformation brought by Mr. Xiaoping Deng. (I speak for myself, not the government, though you may feel there is some similarity. :)

Comments

Propaganda

[debrain]

50 years of propaganda dies hard -- I've seen evidence to suggest that many people critize Communism without due cause, or reasonable background in the subject. There are *real* problems with communism, but there are *real* problems with capitalism as well, and I do not think that any of us should judge either until we have sufficiently experienced both.

Some of my closest friends hail from Yugoslavia and Russia. Those with justifiable animosity towards Communism, generally have valid critism of Capitalism as well. Those who like either, tend to like both. It is more a sign of the person, than what they speak of, when expressing opinion without investigation.

Not to go biblical on you :), but it is true: judge not, lest ye be judged.

Re:Propaganda

[debrain]

Lol.

When it comes to politics, we as nations should *want* to be judged, with the harshest criticisms possible, afforded by a free press and free speech.

I stand corrected. This is completely correct, and it is something that I am ashamed to have overlooked.

Judge not, lest ye be judged is applicable to flamboyant hyppocracy, well founded ignorance, and unsightly uneducated opinion. When one party stands for any of these, their arguments are preemptively undermined. Otherwise, they are genuine. Genuine tends to be good.

Finally

[Mudhiker]

Something good about China on slashdot...
not that the guys on top have done anything wrong, quite the contrary ;-)
But the recent story that mentioned China and Linux brought a swarm of very negative anti-chinese comments. Get a clue people. Westerners (particularly us United Statesens) could learn a lot from the rest of the world. Get over the whole Communist / Government / Propoganda thing and learn about the people!!!
Sheesh.
I am disgusted sometimes by what I read on /. but, there's enough good stuff here and some honest, cool opinions, so I keep coming back, every day. This here article just made my day. Cool! A glimpse of China.

okay. nuff ranting.

And the United States doesn't?

[Wakko Warner]

We have a long, sorry history of human rights abuses; we really shouldn't be lecturing other countries until we've perfected our *own* rights issues. Stop trying to sound like some righteous sage champion of freedom and start looking around at the way peoples' rights in the U.S. are slowly being eroded.

It's fine to be concerned about China and their admittedly bad record on the matter, but please don't act like the U.S. is some sort of shining example.

Now, I believe the man was talking about Linux use in his country. Do you have anything constructive to add to the conversation with regards to that?

- A.P.
--

"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad

Re:And the United States doesn't?

[Firinne]

We have a long, sorry history of human rights abuses; we really shouldn't be lecturing other countries until we've perfected our *own* rights issues.

Human rights issues in any country will never be "perfected", but you're right, Americans should be working on their own human rights abuses, which include economically supporting governments which routinely, brutally suppress protests and calls for political reform (such as China).

Re:And the United States doesn't?

[Fnkmaster]

I sympathize with you, but the problem is that the people in charge see foreign policy and domestic policy as entirely separate issues. Foreign policy seems to inherently be pursued in a Machiavellian, self-benefitting, and crass manner. Why? Because there are no laws or governments (with enforcing power at least -- the UN is just way too weak) to keep governments from behaving as if they are in the wild state of nature. That's what is really needed to prevent the countries with the biggest guns and most money from swaggering around wielding their power (in a sometimes constructive and sometimes destructive manner).

Why don't we have such an international governing body? Because it seems also inherent in human nature that organization on such large scales can only come by force: people naturally prefer smaller geographical levels of organization. Cultural homogeneity enables larger governmental organizations. We may eventually see this. Honestly, it wouldn't be such a horrible thing. It would prevent countries with big money and big guns from wielding that power in an unregulated potentially unjust fashion

Note: I don't blame the big bad US alone for this as many international ./ers and other netizens seem to. The US just has the most money and most guns right now and hence is in the situation to be criticized the most for this sort of behavior. Howeverthis has really been a constant through the years. Nothing new here. Only the players change over time.

The Internationalization of Linux

[Effugas]

It's somewhat strange talking about Linux "becoming" international--we're talking about an OS with core kernel developers both coming from and living in almost every corner of the globe. (Mysteriously, although a Pengiun is our mascot, we have no Antarctic representation. ;-)

However, I still wonder if there will be a time when Linux development will be so decentralized that consensus on a development language could become difficult to achieve.

No, not C, C++, Java, Basic, Etc. I mean English.

After all, while English is rather standard as a second language throughout most of the world(for better or worse--damn picky language!), and the kernel is *now* written in the language(variable names, comments, keywords, etc.), the high density of immense programming talent in countries such as India and China that do not primarily speak English could create an altogether new kind of code fork.

Is code obfuscated if it's rewritten in an unfamiliar, maybe even two-byte language?

What if I so obfuscate some GPL code? Do I have the legal obligation to release a non-obfuscated(read: translated) version?

I actually honestly doubt anything onerous would come between the Tower of Babel.h and the GPL. But I could see some confusion sooner or later--I've gone through more than my fair share of code written in french, and it ain't too fun ;-)

Other stuff:

Only Stallman Could Go To China. (After ESR's well-intentioned but rather brutal slapdown of China's ethical policies, one actually has to pause and notice the irony--RMS The Diplomat, ESR the Firebrand?!)

as American people don't necessarily think in the same way with their governments, Chinese people also enjoy this freedom. Please update your vision of China from the horrible "10 Red Years", on which we have also introspected with great regret and overcome it more open-minded since the reformation brought by Mr. Xiaoping Deng.

An interesting way to look at things. However, Americans are pretty used to hearing stories about people getting jailed for being in the kind of small, powerless political parties that Americans have a long history of mocking without mercy for being ineffectual and unprofessional.

The thought of people going to jail we prefer to laugh at is rather alien to Americans ;-)

Of course, your point is extremely well taken--You Are Not Your Government. It's stupid thinking like that which gets civilians killed in wars for no other reason but that they obviously support The Enemy. (Then again, it's relatively easy for citizens to unify under their government in times like, say, when an embassy or a federal building gets bombed.)

Keep us posted--political issues aside, I'm extremely interested in those small, university level projects to add genuinely new and cool stuff to Linux.

Thanks for the update!

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Re:The Internationalization of Linux

[Jonas �berg]

RMS was at Tsinghua University in China to speak about free software in October.

Re:The Internationalization of Linux

[henrik]

An interesting way to look at things. However, Americans are pretty used to hearing stories about people getting jailed for being in the kind of small, powerless political parties that Americans have a long history of mocking without mercy for being ineffectual and unprofessional.

Americans go to jail for having sex before 18. And you talk about freeedom. My ass.

Re:The Internationalization of Linux

[Effugas]

Americans go to jail for having sex before 18. And you talk about freeedom. My ass.

No, Americans go to jail for being well over the age of 18 and having sex with someone well under the age of 18, usually around 15 or 16.

There's a very conscious effort in American society to segregate Underclass High Schoolers, Upperclass High Schoolers, College Kids, and New Workers--thus, driving ages, smoking ages, and drinking ages. But most of the effort is directed towards social constraints, which are amazingly effective in this image based society.

There are some arguably strange legal occurances, to be sure--if I remember right, California Penal Code 620.9 is written such that two 16 year olds having sex could both go to jail. However, it's never enforced in that manner, most likely due to privacy violations and judges losing respect for DA's.

Incidentally, a good friend of mine was getting molested in one form or another by her next door neighbor since the age of 13--after five years of it, lets just say she's not exactly where she should be in terms of sexual knowledge. Trust me--you don't want old guys going after really young chicks--it genuinely does fuck things up.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com

Re:The Internationalization of Linux

[Pratmik]

Good comments, especially the RMS-as-diplomat irony. But we don't need to worry about source code forking into other languages. India is a programming powerhouse, as you said, but all the Indian programmers are fluent in English. Everyone in India who graduates from high school speaks basic to decent English, and every college grad speaks good to excellent English. I spent half a year in India in '93 and the Indian Edition of PC Magazine (in English) was very popular. At that time DOS was starting to give way to Windows 3.1, and Unix was well established.

English is one of 2 national languages in India. There are about 32 "official Indian languages," spoken in the various states and regions of India. This makes it necessary for professionals in India to communicate and practice their professions in English. Otherwise they could not avoid the problems of communicating across linguistic regions. Also, using English connects Indian professionals to the world community in a way that Hindi (India's other national language) would not. That is why Indian medical journals are all written in English.

China doesn't have the history of English colonialism that India does, but English is the language of technology and it is the language that connects China to the world. China also has many regional languages. If anything, proficiency in English will increase in China, as it is everywhere else.

So there is little reason to think that Chinese and Indian coders will fork the code into local languages, since those languages isolate people from the other people that they need to be able to communicate with, like other programmers. The only solution is to use a regional language to talk with friends or family, and use English for the professions and technology.

Aside from these language issues, China and India have economic issues that make free software *much* more attractive for financial reasons than it is in the affluent west. As much as you might hate Microsoft, you probably don't suffer financially from the few hundred dollars a year it takes to stay current with MS products. In India and China it is a very different story -- one hundred dollars is a lot of money for an average citizen. Also, the cost of labor in these countries is much lower relative to the cost of technology (hardware and software) than it is in the west. This also supports the proliferation of open source software, because the software is free and you pay for service, which is less expensive due to low labor costs.

All in all, few people in the OS community appreciate the impact that OS software can have in these two countries. China is the most populous country in the world (1.25 billion), and India is number two (1.0 billion). As open source software explodes in these countries, the installed base of Linux will become huge. These countries have a lot of poverty, but are far more technologically sophisticated than you might expect. The average young people in these countries are reasonably well educated and hungry for technology.

So regardless of how much market share Microsoft can maintain in the US, Linux could easily dominate the market in India and China within five years. The open software genie is out of the bottle in every country, and it might behave differently in some countries than it does in the US. Do not underestimate the resentment that many people in developing counties feel towards the Microsoft Expensive-Western-Technology-Empire. It reminds them of colonialism. They are very proud of their countries and they want industrial and technological autonomy. OS software gives them that possibility.

For information on Linux in India, a good place to start is Linux-India.org.

Re:The Internationalization of Linux

[the eric conspiracy]

One thing that has escaped internationalization has been programming languages. The keywords in every such language I have seen have been in English.

The fact of the matter is that English is the standard language in many fields where picking a standard is necessary. All airline pilots are expected to communicate with air traffic controllers in English. Scientific journals with international distribution are published in English. If you visit a technical library in Europe you might be very surprised to see how much of the contents are in English.

the high density of immense programming talent in countries such as India and China that do not primarily speak English could create an altogether new kind of code fork.

My suspicion is that probably in India, and maybe in China programming is taught in English.

English has become an extremely important language in India because of the many dialects that are first languages there, a unifying common language is needed to hold the country together. English is not quite as important in China, partly because of its much less developed than India.

Let he who is without guilt cast the first stone

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so tired of people ranting about the human rights abuses of the chinese. Have any of you ever even opened a history book? Your high and mighty stand on human rights can't be supported no matter from what country you hail. Embrace the attempts of the oppressed people of the world to better their condition. Linux represents the freedom to innovate, to think, to take responsibility - in short, to live! Anyone who fails to support the efforts of any group of people to improve their lot is nothing more than a bigot and a hippocrit. May you drown in the freedom you deny to others.

Reform?

[Firinne]

Mr. Xiaoping Deng was the man who ordered the massacre of hundreds of unarmed protesters, and that's the man you point to for reform?

Americans' views of China are heavily influenced by the Tiananmen Square massacre, and I just can't see how someone who murders, and then vilifies political protesters was a very reform-minded individual.

Re:Reform?

[drix]

Not to mention wresting Germany from the largest depression in its history. Hitler was a crack leader and savvy economist, but that tends to get overlooked for completely correct reasons.
--
"Some people say that I proved if you get a C average, you can end up being successful in life."

from a taiwanese's point of view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm a taiwanese, i know you guys don't care about what my opinion is, but i'm going to give it anyway.

I have had a conversation with a chinese PhD students on the subject of software in China. Basically the situation is, the govn't has no mean of protecting copyright simply because, well, as the guy told me, "you can take my life but i ain't got no money," You see, it's quite useless to prosecute anyone who has no money to pay for the copyright. Copyright violation is so wide spread that it is taken for granted.

The universities started using Linux purely because of budget constraint. Unlike US colleges, big name unix workstations like Sun and HP are rare, but they do have PCs. (after all, Shipping those Pc stuffs from Taiwan isn't that expensive is it? :)

One peculiar thing about China is, that since there are so many people and so little resources, those who get to go to college are usually extremely bright... If you went to some of the top engineering schools you know what i mean. And those students are so damn good at Math and Science, it's amazing that they are completely clueless about computers. I even have to show them how to install MS Office on thier computers (not to mention linux) They have very little exposure to PCs, if any. But gosh, thier good coders are very damn good.

I expect a lot of good coders starting to pop out from China in the next decade. and it's a VERY good news that Linux seems to get ahead in China.

One thing i'm concern about, tho, is that Chinese govn't have a very big thing against freedom of speech, needless to say, that means internet blockages. I havn't had any info on that matter, maybe someone can tell me?

one side note: one of the thing that we can do to help unix market share is to stuff those students' computer with unix. They never had thier own box before, and you seems to be such a geek they would just do what you tell them to. I have "force fed" a Kanyan friend of mine a Sparcstation LX, only a few weeks after he came to me and said he wanted to buy a PC with microsoft on it. He's happy cuz he only paid 1/3 of what he expected.

Re:Hmmm

[DarthSmeg]

>Okay, sure, like YOU weren't secretly thinking it, too.

Well, sure. Okay, so I was ;)

Maybe we could get a communist Linux distro..
It would feature dynamically allocated resources and decent surveilence tools.
we could call it Lenux or Stalix :)

--
Tarald - The Lord of Smeg

Possible Interview???

[moonboy]

Hey Roblimo, what would you (and the rest of the readership) say to an interview with Xiong Jiang? I'm very interested in China, it's culture and its current political/human rights climate. I would like to know if human rights have in any way improved recently and has the addition of Honk Kong done anything toward making China a more "open" country?

----------------

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein

Re:Possible Interview???

[moonboy]

Did you stop to think that there may different kinds of nerds? Who says a nerd has to be ONLY a techno-nerd? What about "math nerds", "political nerds", "science nerds", "literary nerds", ad infinitum. I personally consider myself some of each of the above (and more.) Also, I like to think that other members of the Slashdot community have more on their minds than writing code, microprocessors and hard drives 100% of the time. Get a life!


As far as actually going to China, I'd love to. Unfortunately, I don't have the fundage. I don't suppose you would like to cough up the necessary plane fare and spending money, would you? I consider instances like this to be a large part of what Slashdot and the Internet are about. Finding out about things outside of our own experiences. Wouldn't you agree?

----------------

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein

Re:china: human rights

[finkployd]

every country we've bombed without U.N. permission

We are a soverign nation, we do not need UN permission. Nobody in the US voted for the UN or their leaders, therefor, they hold no "power" over us.
That said, I agree that we should not have bombed many of the countries we did, but for different reasons. I'm sick of Clinton killing innocent people every time another scandal pops up to divert the news away from him. I know it sounds crazy, but the timing has been perfect for years.

inhumane prison conditions

Yes, Why I've even heard that some of our prisons only have BASIC cable!!! How do they live like that.
Seriously, I don't think THAT is one of our problems, I'm way more concerned with conditions in our schools and cities.

Finkployd

Economic vs political systems

[jpatokal]

I've met many people from behind the Iron Curtain (e.g.: Russia, Romania, etc), not ONE would rather live in communism--most hated it. Futhermore, the problems with the USSR were about a lot more than just their economic system, it was their political and military ideology. Living under constant threat from the secret police is not just a minor difference in opinion, it violates human rights. Capitalism, despite its flaws, has many supporters. So please don't give me this moral relativism crap.

Hogwash indeed. Why is it so difficult for most Americans to distinguish the theory of communism from the dictatorships run under the name of communism? North Korea calls itself a People's Democratic Republic, is this a valid basis for critizing democracy?

Repeat after me: capitalism and communism are different economic models. Democracy and dictatorship are different political models.

There are dictatorial capitalist states, eg. Singapore, but there has never been a democratic communist state, and due to flaws in the otherwise admirable* theory it seems unlikely there will never be one. There have been some bona fide attempts, most notably Cuba, but of course the United States did (and continues to do) all it can to hamper this challenge to capitalism -- and these days Cuba has mostly abandoned its ideals.

* Yes, communism is an admirable theory. From each according to ability, to each according to need is a wonderful principle, it's just a shame that making it work on a large scale appears to be impossible. Capitalism works on the opposite principle: from each according to need, to each according to ability. Wonderful? Not if your need exceeds your ability.

Cheers,
-j.

Re:Economic vs political systems

[w3woody]

I hate to disappoint you, but it turns out that there are a number of examples of a communist-like environment thriving in the world today. None of them are behind the iron curtain, of course--the best is the communist-style interrelationships between various Israeli farming cooperatives who (at least as of the 80's when I studied such things) were the best example of the cooperative spirit promoted by the theory of the Communist "ideal" state theorized by Marx et.al.

Of course these cooperatives exist within the context of a capitalist state, and so interface to the outside world using capitalism. But then, the same could be said about the self-proclaimed Communist states: they didn't exist in a vaccuum, but traded with other nations in a competitive capitalist world market.

The problem with people who would criticize capitalism is that they don't understand the nature of valuation or the nature of risk: if you don't understand risk valuation, it's easy to see a capitalist world as filled with fat cats who do nothing but live off the hard work of others. (Don't worry--Marx made the same mistake, and he was a bright social philosopher, so if you don't see how risk valuation works, you're in good company.)

As to your comment that capitalism and communism are economic models, while democracy and dictatorships are different political models, well there are those who believe that the two are intrinsically linked. That is, with a few notable exceptions such as Singapore, capitalism cannot exist unless it exists in a democracy, while "communism" (actually socialism, as none of the self-proclaimed communist states were really communist economic models) cannot exist unless it exists in a dictatorship. And there are those, including some very notable folks in Washington DC, who believe that capitalism necessarly leads to democracy--meaning that for a dictatorship to survive, it must eventually force socialism on it's people. Personally I don't buy it: the freedom to buy or to work as you choose doesn't necessarly translate into the freedom to choose the politicians who oversee the system. But that's just me...

I've rambled enough.

Re:Economic vs political systems

[debrain]

Can you explain for me why someone who has ability should be made the slave of someone who has less ability?

You see what you want to see. I would much rather work for someone who deserved to be my better, rather than the incompetent son of some rich bugger, thank you very much.

You tout ignorance out the ying yang, and directly epitomize my original post. Opinion without investigation is the pinnacle of ignorance. A wise man said that. Express your problem with communism in a way such that we can make up our own mind as the reader. Don't try and brainwash indiscriminantly, even if it was done onto you.

Re:Economic vs political systems

[Stonehand]

Fine. If you need primary sources, there's the decent collection "Essential Works of Socialism", edited by Irving Howe, which should enlighten you as to the intent of Marx and friends.

In a capitalist system, ability tends to be spotted. Those who take risks may quite often fail (as do most new businesses), but usually not catastrophically; some find that they can provide new services (such as Federal Express, an idea mocked by the professor who graded the paper...), goods, and so forth, and thrive. Others take relatively few risks, and their station in life may remain fairly stable -- but that's their choice. For instance, if I wanted to, there's nothing in any governmental system here that prevents me from leaving grad school and trying to found a startup. It might fail, leaving me worse of fiscally but possibly wiser; or it might leave me significantly wealthier, and with more resources to continue in that direction. That's my choice.

In a Communist system as per the original works of Marx and Engels, there is no such incentive because *equality* is woven so massively into its canvas. The collective is intended to provide for all equally, meaning that those who might nominally try harder get absolutely nothing extra in exchange; those who shirk, get nothing less. Particularly on a national scale, there's thus less reason to achieve unless sufficient others do as well. How, then, do you propose to find those of better ability?

That's correct even if you accept Marx's premises, which I do not. He assumes that capitalism leads to concentration of wealth combined with a lack of mobility; but do we not see economic mobility today, even in the US (one of the nations closest to the capitalism of Smith)? We see individuals becoming wealthy... or poor, depending on their actions, and it's not even tied to their politics.

Instead of a dichotomy between a proletariat and a bourgeousie, we have had and still have a genuine middle-class that has every reason *not* to revolt, thanks to this mobility. Examine, if you will, a Forbes list of the richest folks in the nation. There aren't that many scions of the wealthy who maintain their fortunes despite incompetence or laziness, versus having actually made or expanded their holdings.

We also have the *creation* of wealth, instead of plain circulation; this reduces the effects of concentration. We see this in that inflation appears to be minimal at the same time that the national economy is booming enough that having a little more unemployment would actually cheer the stock market... much to the detriment of those who felt the two were irrevocably, inversely bound.

That's why.

Re:Economic vs political systems

[debrain]

That's very informative, and quite interesting. However, it does not address the issue that people with money, make money. I'm not capable of a rebuttle to this (I don't particularly disagree with any of it), but my initial point was not on the topic of communism and capitalism, but on the indiscriminant bashing of communism.

I have seen both good and bad billionaires, good and bad dictators. People who are billionaires, like those who are dictators, have a tendancy to have a preoccupation with those priorities conducive to their respective situations.

I'm not fond of either of these priorities. It's all about incentives. :) Proletariat in one society tend to be similar to proletariat in other societies. So long

Alas, despite being interesting and informative ... it's getting offtopic . . . :)

Moral relativist garbage

[Brian Stretch]

Sins committed by America pale in comparison to what the Chinese Communist dictatorship has done (60 million murdered by Mao, millions imprisoned since then, see this article by Harry Wu about the Laogai, the Chinese Gulags). The simple fact that millions try every year to immigrate to America (and over a million per year succeed), many of them fleeing China, says enough as it is.

The main problem with capitalism is that it's rarely followed. Ironic that the nation closest to unadultered capitalism is Hong Kong. The economic freedom and prosperity invading from HK and Taiwan will eventually overrun the ChiCom dictatorship, so long as the PLA doesn't do anything particularly antisocial in the meantime (like invade Taiwan, which in MacArthur's words is "an unsinkable aircraft carrier").

Re:Moral relativist garbage

[jilles]

Taiwan was/is a dictatorship. I'm not sure about the current political situation but only a few years ago they had a dictator. I think taiwan is the ultimate capitalist country, lots of money that gets distributed over its people very unevenly.

Places like hong kong, korea and taiwan are semi democratic. On paper the people get to elect a president but the country is really ruled by the big corporations that are owned by the same old families that have ruled for centuries.

What will happen in china is that there will be a few geographical spots where lots of money will be made: Hong Kong, Bejing and a few other places. The rest of the country will serve as a resource of cheap labor. Probably keeping the communist/dictator political model is more beneficial on the longer term for the chinese so I don't think it will go away.

The chinese made a clear choice at the beginning of this decade, they didn't want the chaos that currently exists in eastern europe. And somehow I think that was the right choice. The people in russia gained freedom of speech but lost everything else (including their dignity). The chinese have nothing to gain from chaos.

From a human rights perspective, I think it will be interesting to see what happens in the poor and uneducated regions in china. Places like Tibet are not fun places to be at the moment.

Probably china will be the first capitalistic/communist state. Communist in the sense of ideology not economics and capitalist underneath. It is the ultimate failure of communism.

The Linux and Open Source People

[resonance]

One wonders what could happen when the generation of people living with open source development and Internet (i.e. open) communcations start filtering into political positions of power (and corporate for that matter). We may start to see a slow change from the traditional closed business model to a more open and flexible one, and also a similar change in the political views of all the world's countries.

Now, us Americans generally think of China as a more closed country, whether this is true or not. Us Americans are also known to make comments without being very informed beforehand! But it is not only the 'traditionally' closed countries that would benefit from being a little more open; all of them would. Do you think America would up and give away military secrets for the good of the world or open development? I don't think so. And I'm also not saying we should right now.

What I'm getting at is the slow change in the world that will be brought about by all this wonderful technology. Corporations have seen the potential for this (and seen it as a threat to the corporate way of life), and have already moved to squish it quickly, with little success. Ditto with the government, although we have to be a little more concerned there with an entity that can make laws. It seems that this technology has the potential to forge change towards an open world, and it seems to be in many ways unstoppable.

I love hearing from people in other countries that have taken on a love for all this technology, and that are in their own small way a part of changing the world! With enough effort aroun the globe, some good shit is gonna happen!

--forgive me if this sounds weird in any way; i wrote it as i just woke up and my brain is still booting... =)

Computer languages not based on English...

[Anonymous Coward]

An even more subtle feature of computer languages is that their logic and structure is influenced heavily by the logic and structure of the language of the author who created the language. Simple things like the word "if" which may not have a direct equivalent in another language could cause a non-english derived programming language to be structured differently. Where in an english-based language we might have code of the form:

if a is greater than b, then do something. => if (a>b) do_something()

In another language, say Japanese, the same concept might be specified:

b yori a ookii ka nanika suru => (b<a)oo ka nani_o_suru();

While this may seem insignificant and dismissed as simple syntax shuffling, it becomes profound when you realize that we all think in language. And the structure of our own language influences how we perceive problems and design solutions. Anyone who has learned a sufficiently different second language can attest to this. Learning a new language is learning a new way to think and to see things; and that a concept difficult to specify and grasp in one language might be easily stated and understood in another and vice versa.

So far, though, computer languages remain an English only derivation. Much benefit could come from a new non-english computer language with a fresh POV.

Re:Computer languages not based on English...

[ebradway]

There are many languages that aren't inherently based on English, and more importantly, approach programming for very different points of view. Ever try forth? C++ provides operator and function overloading that could be used to create a non-English sublanguage.

But that's not the problem. Computers are procedural devices. Or rather, computers based on current CPU design are procedural. The processor executes one instruction, and then the next, and then the next. There are certain operations that this model requires: loops, branches, etc. Whether you call them "while", "for", "djnz", or something else, you still have the same basic concept. Even SMP and Massively Parallel systems are procedural - they just do more than one thing at once.

This is not an English thing. Changing the names of the commands won't change the way we write programs.

If you want to play around with a truly different programming paradigm, try neural networks.

And another note: I've worked with non-English speaking programmers. They tend to misspell variable names, but do it consistently!

Re:Computer languages not based on English...

[philg]

Though your point is taken, this sort of thing could be eased if we abstracted logic away from language. To take your example, the relationship "If a, then b" could also be stated "a implies b", or a->b in the logic classes I took. So:

if (a>b) do_something()

could be:

(a>b)->do_something()

(Understanding, of course, that this syntax infringes horribly on existing conventions in, e.g., C and Perl. But you get the idea.)

Beyond symbolic logic and loop/flow-of-control constructs, programming is just nouns (variables/properties/objects) and verbs (functions/methods), right? What individuals choose to name variables and functions may be problematic (though no more so than having to understand "clever" code written in one's own language), but to internationalize standard functions, it seems like a single library could be created to substitute the names of built-in functions, variables and constants with something appropriate to a given language ("write()" becomes "ecrivez()", perhaps). The syntax is already abstract from a given language -- function([param1..., paramX]).

(Of course, even writing this, I can see problems -- how well would this work with non-alphabetic languages, for instance? It would also compound the work required for adding new libraries, if everyone also has to add translation modules for each supported language. Then again, you could release the libraries in your own -- maybe a few other -- languages, and let other developers with an itch to scratch add translation modules themselves. Oh yeah, and the language would be harder to learn for, say, English-speakers than an English-based language.)

I thought a tiny bit about how one would do this with Perl ("use French; direz 'Bonjour, le monde!';"), but while Perl is ideally suited in some ways, it is ideally unsuited in many, many others. Plus, my skill with other languages sucks, as the above example probably illustrates. :)

phil

My history teacher was right

[extrasolar]

Usually when different people are separated they don't get along to well when together. Us people in the United States don't think to highly of China and that is mostly because we don't know or see any Chinese a lot. And I would hate think of what the Chinese have to think about us.

Now reading the above comments I notice that there are many respectful comments posted here. Virtually all respectful comments. Good. This means the internet is doing its job.

Because the internet is an international medium we talk to foreign people on a daily basis. My history teachers says the best way to do away with prejudice is bring these people together. That is exactly what is happening.

Oh! What a great world we live in!

I just wanted to point this out.

***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!

Re:Could Linux be a tool of political change?

[w3woody]

Is it possible that Linux, the Open Source Movement, and the Internet could change a country?
Yes, though China is fighting it tooth and nail. As the cost of transfering information across international boundaries decreases, it is inevitable that the people across those boundaries will come to undestand eachother, and come to appreciate the traits of those on the other side.

For example, it really supprises me the number of comments here about how "wow, the Chinese seem like really nice people, dispite their government." That sort of stupid, obvious comment can only come from those who have never dealt with a Chinese person before. My parents, on the other hand, have traveled to China, and my father is extremely fascinated by the people living there. The people my parents met were extremely courteous, friendly, and just downright nice people. Note that my parents were granted permission to leave their tour group and go, unescorted, through various parts of China, including areas which are traditionally "closed" to foreigners--so they weren't just seeing some sort of propaganda. (Also note that my parents saw some of the worst living conditions they have ever experienced. My parents are builders, and I know my father would jump at the opportunity to go to China and teach the people who live in the smaller villages there how to build more modern housing than the mud huts covered with corrogated aluminum they're in now.)

Knowledge is power--and if that knowledge permits an entire country improve their lot in life, I'm all for it.

Re:Oh hogwash

[sjames]

The question is, did you meet them by going there, or by them moving to where you are?

The point is, when you talk to people who have chosen to leave a place, you will find a high proportion who did not like where they were living. The rest most likely like where they moved to better (or had better opportunities at least). That's why they moved!

an opinion from a Hong Kong student now in USA

[plan9ken]

I'm a 3 years Linux user from Hong Kong. I start to install my first Slackware Linux 3.2 package from Walnut Creek 3 years ago.

I really do not want to stay in Hong Kong anymore. It's true that to a certain extent, university students in HK can do some protests. But noticably after the handover, the government is biased to Beijing. Some eggheads of the top government officials do not like to admit the fact of June 4th. Worst probably is the Democracy Party is always seemed to be minorities and unfairly represented in the government. Hong Kong is not the place for geeks anymore. That's what I feel.

Personally I hope the opensource movement can creat more bright programmers and inspire more people about democracy. Linux OS is the best option for most China industry. At least it is no long need to pay to Redmond anymore should there is a truly great Chinese End-user Linux distribution.

One more thing, do you know that making a Chinese search engine is much more difficult than a simple PERL search engine scripts you saw at www.cgi-resources.com ? Chinese Big-5 and GB codings are much more complicated and there's still not a standard way to sort Chinese words !

Welcome to comment on my words. Thank you.

Engineers & public figures

[sumana]

I *do* believe that the open-source/free-software ideology/belief system *can* help create greater openness, open up people's minds to the possibility of cooperation.

But note: Engineers who try to apply engineering concepts to public life/human nature can be mistaken. And engineers aren't as politically involved as, say, writers, in general. There are exceptions, especially in OS/FS, but changes in engineering practices don't always affect politics.

There are exceptions, of course. The Progressives at the (last) turn of the century were Taylorists, believing in "scientific management" by professionals; note the "city manager" position, previously nonexistent. But overall, only really big movements in science/engineering have affected public life -- and that's IN THE US.

From what I know of China, economic freedom increases as political freedom stays low. But hey. Tiananmen students faxed out their protests. Xiang here can write us sorta freely. There's no way for the Chinese gov't to suppress EVERYTHING on the net....unless those top-notch Chinese coders help them...hmmmm...

Which means it IS important to get some alternative modes of thinking into their realms of possibility. GPL respect in "Red China"? I'm all for it.

Re:China doesn't have the worst track record

[w3woody]

I hate to pop the tiny little bubble you're living in, but Shell Oil (refered to in the article you provided a pointer to) is Dutch, not American. It's clear the writer of that little piece of propaganda was trying to target the "big bad" Americans in that article by focusing on Cheveron--because of all the oil companies in Nigeria, only Cheveron is American.

Or did you think that all Multinationals are American?

If you start digging into international affairs and all the "America-bashing" that goes on at that level, you'll find three things. (1) Most people criticize the United States for things that are also being done to a greater extent by multinationals owned and operated out of other countries. (I'll note that US law is more strict on the behavior of multinationals operating out of the US than other countries are.) (2) People do this because they are either ignorant of things like the fact that the Royal Dutch Shell Company is called that because it's Dutch, not because of some anacronistic Madison Avenue type deciding that the name was cool. (3) People tend to target the United States because as we have the largest economy in the world, we're more likely to simply step in and write a large check. (The amount of money the US gives out in foreign aid grants is larger tha many countries's total GNP.)

Best to dig into the propaganda and find out what's really going on, rather than speak out of ignorance and contribute to the problem.

Ask yourself, had oil not been found in Nigeria, do you think the Nigerian Dictatorships that have repressed its people would have never formed, or would have turned power over to a Democracy? Absolutely not. Further, before criticising the Dutch for their "evil company" (oh, excuse me, that should be "American," as we are the root of all evil in the world today), note that multinationals are generally operated locally by local citizens--in fact, most multinationals simply act as holding companies for companies incorporated in the nation where they do business. So when the Nigerian dictator put to death a half-dozen folks for criticizing Shell, was it an American who was responsible for ordering their deaths? No; it was a Nigerian. That is, it was Nigerians killing Nigerians over money. The fact that the money came from a Dutch company doesn't make it the fault of the Americans. (Oh, excuse me, Dutch--but it can't be the Dutch because it's the Americans who are evil; the Dutch only make good chocolate and dance around in funny wooden shoes. Oh, hey; it's all confusing--let's just pretend Shell is an American company. No, wait--let's blaim Cheveron! That's a good answer: we'll blaim Cheveron even though Ken Saro-wiwa was criticizing Shell; Ken Saro-wiwa must have made a typo and must have really been criticizing Cheveron, not Shell, as Cheveron is American and Shell is Dutch. That's it!)

Does it bother you how stupid all of this "Evil American multinational corporations" bullshit is?

What's the point? I'm evil, because I'm a native american--no, wait, I'm one of the "repressed people" so I mustn't be evil--in fact, why I'm not out on the front lines picketing Cheveron because some activists were put to death for the actions of Shell in Nigeria is beyond me.

I'm confused. Am I a good guy or a bad guy? And am I supposed to be friendly to Dutch people, or should I be throwing my Dutch chocolate out the window in protest? And should I be...

Ah, the hell with it. I'm going to read some cartoons at http://www.userfriendly.org instead.

China's record is bad but not the worst

[elflord]

Read the Amnesty International reports. Other countries are considerably worse than China. There is no comparison between, say China and Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, who have prison staff whose full time job is to rape prisoners, and launch military attacks ( at times using chemical weapons ) on their own civillians. Or numerous other military/religious dictatorships.

Yes, China are not terribly good, but are they the worst ? Hell, no.

What Chinese think of the US

[ToastyKen]

And I would hate think of what the Chinese have to think about us.

I can tell you from experience (I was just back in Shanghai a few years ago) that people do two things to the US in China:

1) Bash the US politically for being pompous self-appointed world police who think everything they do is right.

2) Mimick the US as much as possible in terms of everything else, from stock market to television shows to fashion to nightclubs to more casual sex (and thus more STDs).

Actually, the moderation works okay

[ToastyKen]

Occasionally, bad moderators moderate stuff down unfairly, but it seems that usually gets compensated with some upward moderation.

Moral relativism

[ToastyKen]

Thanks for posting that. There seem to be an awful lot of moral relativists in denial.

Funny thing is, although I posted that, and you're thanking me for it, I AM a moral relativist. But being a moral relativist hardly means you have no morals. I think the Tiananmen Square massacre was a horrendous thing, but even so, I don't think any issue is that clear-cut.

I mean, the party-line.. that it was for "stability".. DOES have some merit. If you look at Russia, you see what happens when a country makes big changes too quickly. Stability IS definitely important.

Now, I happen to think that in this case, it was utterly wrong to kill those students.. especially since they posed (imho) no really significant threat of revolution. But what if they did? What if they could have cause massive nationwide chaos? Imagine what would happen if 1.3 billion people were thrown into anarchy. It would NOT be pretty. And in that case, I think the decision would be less clear-cut. Would it be right to kill a few hundred to save the lives of the thousands of lives which would be lost in such anarchy? I'm don't know.

Nothing in the real world is pure black and white, and that's why we need moral relativism. The danger, of course, is to doubt TOO much. We should contemplate what we do, but we have to draw the line somewhere so we can go out and DO something. And that's why we have simplified morality.

The hard part is deciding where to draw that line.

No...

[FallLine]

No, not just people who have moved here. My experiences include students (exchange programs, college, etc) , athletes (traveling here to compete in tournaments) , businessmen, engineers who are working on a visa, and my own travel to eastern europe. Futhermore, if you talk to virtually anyone who has traveled to these communist states in their hayday (even today), they'll describe just how depressing they are...it is a certain joyless/dead existence. This is particularly true for those who've had the pleasure of traveling through berlin, they're polar opposites. It is more than just poverty too, Mexico and much of Latin America is equally poor, yet you don't see the same behavior.
The arts, religion, fairs, and other social activities are all crushed in the name of the "people". These observations are decidely one way too. (e.g.: Western travelers are sickened by communisms effect on the people, while Easterners invariably are impressed by capitalism)

Re:No...

[dufke]

...has traveled to these communist states in their hayday (even today), they'll describe just how depressing they are...it is a certain joyless/dead existence.

(the emphasis (sp?) is mine)

I find it interesting that you say this. Having lived in Hungary and the Czech Republic for 3 and 2 years respectively, my immediate reaction is: 'No way!'. Anyone describing these countries as grey and dull today are normally greeted by the words 'check my website, dude' by me. (Sure, it only deals with lack of physical greyness, which is not the point here.)

My experience of the people in these countries today, is that the majority are living lives little less colorless and interesting that the majority in my home country Sweden. Sure, their houses are colder, their healthcare less good, and their beer cheaper ;-) but overall, not that bad.

But, I also know that there are people who are living very poorly. And, importantly,, note that my experience is from two of the countries are best off in this region. I'm sure you are right in the case of Romania, Bulgaria and not to mention Albania, which a stream of Kosovar refugees to make things worse.

The arts, religion, fairs, and other social activities are all crushed in the name of the "people".

This is certainly not true anymore. Prague arguably has more of an arts community today that Stockholm will ever have. :-) But yes, I agree on that it was done, just not that the effects are still in place.

Sorry about the lengthy rant, take it as a paper on the possibility of recovery from communism or something. :-)


-

Re:A very SMALL percentage even have computers.

[ToastyKen]

Sure, but they certainly ARE affordable. And just as some upper-middle class families here have to buy a new car every few years due to wear and tear from commuting, an upper-middle class family in China can afford to get a new computer every few years, which is pretty much how often families here get a new computer anyway.

And remember: Never underestimate the amount of money Chinese parents are willing to spend on their kids.

That number is bullshit.

[FallLine]

100m my ass, there we were never 100m indians in America, they simply couldn't sustain populations that size.

Re:That number is bullshit.

[ToastyKen]

Well, if you consider that that 100 million doesn't have to be all in the same generation, it's possible...

It IS Chevron, NOT Shell, and other rebuttals

[ToastyKen]

Yes, Saro-wiwa was protesting against Shell, but the people killed in the incident the article was talking about were not.. they were protesting against Chevron. The article was using Shell as background information and for comparison. The article was NOT about Saro-wiwa. It was about people who were protesting against Chevron on a barge who were shot at by Chevron-paid (see below) troops.

Please read the article before bashing its inaccuracy next time.

Pacifica even interviewed Chevron officials and a Chevron contractor (from ETPM Services, a UK company), who said some pretty disturbing things ON RECORD.

My favorite (from Bill Spencer of ETPM): "Life is tough here. And people you often hear it said that life is cheap here. I guess it is . It's looked at a little differently. I think that that's something that doesn't happen in our society. Life is a little more maybe precious or something. I think here or any of these developing countries it tends to be a little cheaper."

So when the Nigerian dictator put to death a half-dozen folks for criticizing Shell, was it an American who was responsible for ordering their deaths? No; it was a Nigerian. That is, it was Nigerians killing Nigerians over money.

Well, I don't know the details about the Shell case, but in this Chevron case, the Mobile Police forces (who killed two protestors) were paid by Chevron and flown in to the barge via a Chevron helicopter. I think that makes Chevron rather liable.

As for the multinational thing, sure, all big countries do this sort of thing. I know that. If you'll notice, in one of my other posts, I even bothered to mention other Western European countries.
The reason I was talking about the US in particular was because most of the people bashing China are American, and because this Chevron case involves an American company.

In general, people often criticize Western European countries and the US because we have this tendency to take a moral high ground with other countries, telling them what's right and wrong when we don't even care when you look at our actions.

As a final note, I should mention that I know Pacifica's reports are made with definite agendas, but that article in particular has sufficient direct quotes of people from both sides that its integrity seems pretty good in general.

Re:China doesn't have the worst track record

[Harvey]

Out of fear of communism, the government has supported so many atrocious regimes.

What were the alternatives to those atrocious regimes? If the US was fighting against Communism, they were trying to prevent more Chinas and Cubas from appearing, neither of which are shining examples either.

--
Harvey

Unicode Linux?

[wilkinsm]

I am a currently student of Japanese, and I work with double-byte systems daily. I have a question:

There is talk about different distributions being customized for different languages - rather, I for one would love to work on a distribution that supports all languages simultaneously, perhaps it should have all the resources stored in unicode. As it stands, I cannot at present even find a single free unicode font that implements most of the major character sets of the world.

Would such a "Unicode Linux" distribution be technically possible now? Would it have too heavy of a footprint to be of any use? Is there an IME and text editor out there that could support this properly?

BTW: I listen to CRI and RTI almost every night, and Zhongwen is the next language on my list to learn, so I'm a bit biased.

A clarification...

[FallLine]

I do not believe that all these countries are the same today. Though most still bear witness to communist occupation, some of the greyness has lessed (more so in countries with shorter/weaker soviet rule). I believe that it will take a generation or two before things are back in shape. For capitalism to thrive it requires more than laws which allow for it, it requires: a people who are willing and believe in it, a government which is stable, a system of courts which support it, vital learning institutions, etc. I know some people who are (or who have tried) to conduct business in Russia, and other places, the majority of the people simply lack the necessary work ethic. It is very difficult to conduct business when you can't trust your own employees, let alone your suppliers (et. al).

Yes, it is bullshit.

[FallLine]

Their population wasn't anywhere even approaching 100million. Ignoring logistics, do your math. There is no way that many could have been killed over a period of so many generations. Furthermore, even if you assume they had populations that size which would enable it, it is still highly highly improbable.

Consider these:
a) Their populations were highly distributed--no cities. Makes for a difficult target.

b) A figure this size, over a period of a couple generations requires near holocaust devotion and efficiency. Remember, we lacked automatic rifles and what not at the time. Why would our relatively small populations want to eliminate them with such determination? Consider these facts, you would have to assume that it was the sole objective of the settlers, which is nonsense.

c) Western diseases and habits would have, and did, kill them far swifter than any group at that time could have hoped.

d) Because their mortality rates were too high, a small population could not have procreated that swiftly enough. Especially considering the fact that they're presumably being uprooted.

...I wish people would CHALLENGE what they hear, instead of just swallowing it whole and without inspection. 100million is a LOAD and a half.

Another guy who has no idea what China is like.

[tigerjiang]

The internet users in China doubled from 2 million to 4 million in only half a year(1/1999-6/1999), according to CNNIC(Chinese NIC). The largest computer company Legend Group(Mind you, not IBM, though a distant NO. 2)shipped about 1.4 million PCs and Servers and Notebooks. And yet here people are talking about 100,000 users of computers... People in America are really out of touch with MODERN CHINA.

I wanna be an American.

[EVuL_C]

The young man from China posted an excellent article about Linux and it's uses in his country. I applaud his efforts. I am glad to have heard his voice. I have never heard a oice from China before :)

The thing I do not understand is this:
Where do the agressive people get the right to slag him for living in China. Do these people know anything about China other than what propagana has been spoon-fed to them? Somehow I doubt it.

Since I moved to NY from Moncton, NB, Canada, I have seen this kind of ignorance and fear from many of the people I have met. I see it in many things that are done in this country. I thought this was supposed to be the 'home of the brave', I guess I was wrong. As opposed to sticking their necks out and learning something, many people would rather sit cowering in fear and point their fingers, jeering "Red Commie Bastard". Wow, that's brave. :)

The people talking about all of the bad things China has done in human rights. Do they know? Were they there? I doubt it. Here's the reason for my doubt:

Most of the people I have met here think Canada is a small insignificant country north of them somewhere. It has 2 or 3 major cities: Toronto, Montreal and some of them have heard of Vancouver.(note: there are professional BIG LEAGUE sports teams in these cities and they are therefore televised a lot.) I have had people from this country ask me if I see the sun in the winter! I explain to them that I lived just north-east of Maine and they still think that there's NO SUN for the winter months there. Yet there is in Maine. I guess the sun stops at the american border just like rational thought and good government. ;)

Unbelievable.

If these people are so un-informed about a country that borders them to the north... How could they have _ANY_ grasp of what occurs in China?

They know what they have been told by the media for the most part. Not much more.

From my studies in school I found China to be a 'mysterious' country filled with some beautiful art, music and an interesting history. It's probably over-crowded and I am sure there is a lot of poverty. But I don't hate them for it. They have a completely different set of beliefs than I and their system of government is so vastly different from mine that I cannot fathom how it would operate. So what? I _REFUSE_ to subscribe to the propaganda jammed down my throat about 'commies' and 'reds' from american television throughout the late 70's and 80's. I really don't think anyone who lives in a country who's leader is a manipulative 'playboy' has any right to go on about matters of good government. I will not hate these people until I know them myself and find reasons of my own. I don't believe that communism is any worse than 'American capitalism'.

Some people don't have the presence of mind to believe there's more than one way to live.

I hate to generalize and I hate stereotypes. These are just the things I have seen.

Many thanks to Slashdot for trying to bring stories like these to view. It's an excellen idea hosted by some very fine and humourous folks :)

Onward and forward with the free software movement! I hope it opens more eyes and gives me more opportunities to see and learn about my foreign planet-mates :)

It truly is an interesting time to be alive isn't it?

- Chris

Re:China doesn't have the worst track record

[smallpaul]

You have at least one important fact incorrect.

note that multinationals are generally
operated locally by local citizens--in fact,
most multinationals simply act as holding
companies for companies incorporated in the
nation where they do business.

Most of the people in high positions at Shell Nigeria are in fact foreigners, not Nigerians. My uncle was involved with the industry there so I know quite a bit about it. The people who lead the Nigerian subsidiary are mostly a mix of English, Dutch and American. Of course the people laying down the pipes are going to be mostly Nigerian.

Ask yourself, had oil not been found in
Nigeria, do you think the Nigerian
Dictatorships that have repressed its people
would have never formed, or would have turned
power over to a Democracy? Absolutely not.

You don't know that. Criminals go where the money is. In Nigeria it is possible for a nasty strong man to become a multi-millionare through the barrel of a gun. In most other countries there are easier ways to get rich than become politicians. Nigeria's economy is so dominated by oil (especially now) that the only way to get really rich is to control the oil or be "associated" with someone who does. The only way to control the oil is to run the government.

If foreign companies refused to invest, the monetary advantage would be gone and the dictator might decide to go do something more profitable. Or they might not. Some dictators are happy to rule over rubble -- others are in it for the dough.

We could play "what if" all day but it seems pretty clear to me that it is wrong to give a government large checks when you know that those checks will be used to buy weapons to oppress people.

Don't you think?

As far as Americans versus Dutch? Who cares: either government (or populace) could have influenced the situation through sanctions. The US loves sanctions whenever American interests are at stake...

Of course there is a HUGE difference between *supporting* evil elsewhere and *engaging in evil* at home. I have spent a big chunk of my life protesting (on street corners, when necessary) Westerner's behavior in Nigeria but I don't think it is as bad as Tiannamen Square or the recent arrests of "cult" members.

Paul Prescod

Here I saw stereotype again

[tigerjiang]

Since I am living in America and holds permenant residentship and am educated in an American university, I think my observation about China *must* not be viewed as *propaganda*, for I am not under threat or coercion of any kind. I had been living in China for 20 years and raised in middle class family, was like most Chinese kids and went to Chinese college and then came to America to get my graduate education in computer science. I guess my view reflects more or less what the educated Chinese think about Chinese government and America.

The communist government in China committed a number of atrocities in the past, which people in China accepted as facts, just like the American government systemetically exploited the African slaves in 18 century. Now all those people who used to inflict pain on Chinese people are dead and all my friends in China throw those stuff into garbage bin. They care more about how the current government runs the country. True. It's an totalitarian government. And there is little (but not "NO") democracy. But all my friends know that. However, contrary to the missionary-like preaching of American government and media, most Chinese, including educated ones, don't want democracy at this moment. Most of them spend more time wondering about how can he or she buy a new car, a new house or a new computer than about how to have an American-style general election. No, thank you, China has been doing fine for 5000 years without the preaching of Americans. It certainly knows how to handle its own business. And look at Russia. See how it is like after listening to America's advice. Sure, it has a congress and all the other bells and whistles of a modern democracy, but its people are starved. Fortunately, the collapse of USSR taught the Chinese a lesson. If that is the democracy America has been preaching about, I firmly believe 99.9% of Chinese will say, "No, thank you. we would rather have new houses and cars and TVs and air conditioners and computers and don't have democracy, than have all the democracy we could imagine and yet don't have the money to buy the next dinner." One of my friend participated the protest in Tiananmen Square in 1989.In retrospect, he admitted that it's a wise thing for government to crack down the protest. Otherwise, China will be Russia #2. However, Chinese don't want democracy now doesn't mean that they don't want it in the future. 20 years later, Chinese will want to have democratic government. Right now, all the conditions are simply not right. And things are much much much better than what used to be 20 years ago. And things will continue to improve.

One thing amazes and also amuses me(this view is shared by all my Chinese friends in America)how out of touch some Americans are with current China. Even though they have never set feet on China, they always have tons of opinions about China. They always view China in a "red, communist, barbarian, etc, light" I got an American friend asking me if my family had a TV. Gee, my family has 3 TVs, not that my family is particularly rich or something. Most of my friends have more than one TV. The truth is: almost 9.8 out 10 people genuinely like Ameica and American people. They drink Coke, eat McDonald, watch Bruce Willis movie, listen to Doors and Bob Dylan, play Quake and Starcraft...The list could go on and on. They have no hard feelings about America at all. On the contrary, some Americans seem to have this innate fear of China, especially communist China, without knowing anything about it at all. The funny thing is that only after I have extensive access to American media did I realize how much the stereotype and fear is ingrained in American collective mind and thus all my idea of the so-called "objectivity" of American media is smashed. It seems to me that to some people the only "right" or "real" or "objective" comments about China should be only those that are negative. I just don't understand these people. And I guess all the Chinese students coming to America share my experience.

All in all, most Chinese want to be friends rather than enemies of Americans. But they want to be equal friends without being critized every day. All my Chinese friends, especially the educated ones, are sick and tired of the human right craps. They just want to live their lives unbothered. Could America take good care of its own problems(racial discrimination, drug, guns, crime...)before it preaches others? Personally, I would like to see Americans advocate Linux as fiercely as they advocate democracy. :=)

Re:China doesn't have the worst track record

[spasm]

"People tend to target the United States because as we have the largest economy in the world, we're more likely to simply step in and write a large check. (The amount of money the US gives out in foreign aid grants is larger tha many countries's total GNP.)"

The amount of money paid to the US by third world countries in interest payments exceeds the amount given out by the US in aid grants.

Hello.

[FallLine]

Hi, I'm curious, where do you live now? =)

...small world?

There is a huge difference.

[FallLine]

These acts were not committed by modern America. Furthermore, most of these deaths occurred as a result of DISEASE, which is NOT the same at all. Cultural Revolution on the other hand targeted huge sectors of the population in RECENT history.

I'm not going to claim that America is perfect, but to compare us to a bunch of thugs is a load of bullshit. America has simply never, as a country, executed whole groups of people (the Japanese internment is as close as you can get--entirely different). If you don't appreciate the difference you don't deserve to live in the US.

Re:Re-defining "poverty" to suit your agenda

[Tau Zero]

You might want to come down here to G.Bush Jr's ( alleged) home state o' Texas and take a look the poverty along the border, puts any definition of third world poverty right here in the lower 48...

Been there, though I have not made a point of hanging around the colonias (I don't speak Spanish). Even there, most families have their own vehicles and have electricity, TVs and VCRs. Since you are claiming that the USA is comparable to the third world, tell me where I can go to see families living in squatter villages where dwellings are built from mud brick and junk with corrugated iron roofs and electricity is a dream?

Try Detroit

Tried it. Overall, Benton Harbor is worse. Part of my family is from Detroit, and I've seen first-hand what has happened to the housing stock. But that only happened because it was abandoned; nobody lives there. Oh, parts of St. Paul (MN) are pretty bad too, as long as you're making a list.

The Vietnamese who were lucky enough to get to the US right at the end of the war got here (mostly) as a result of their ties to the US military, state department and the covert ops that were in place during the war.... Later, the boat people....the "common" people of Vietnam arrived, facing hardships unimaginable( think of setting yourself adrift in the south Pacific in an overcrowded boat for a couple of months to understand what desperation and courage are really all about....)

Thank you for quoting the examples that prove my point, that whatever the poverty in the USA, most people are far and away better-off economically (not to mention politically) than even the average in just about every country in the third world.

Ya sound like a pretty smart individual, but the poverty definition you espouse is right out of the Buchanan playbook.

"Ya" seem to believe that if a person is wrong about one thing, they're wrong about everything. Pat Buchanan is one of my least favorite people and his errors are legion, but to claim that this makes everything he says wrong is just ad-hominem fallacy. You compound your error by grouping someone (me) who happened to say something that Buchanan would agree with, in with the rest of Buchanan's views. That's bound to make you popular; no wonder you hide as an Anonymous Coward.

That $17,000 figure is a fucking wet dream to a lot of WORKING folks just trying to make ends meet.

And it's only $8.50/hour for a 40-hour week. If someone can't do any better than that, do they have any business starting a family, let alone having 2 kids and a non-working spouse? Sure there are people struggling on that, but they usually got into that boat because of a lack of life skills.
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Still absurd

[FallLine]

I suspect 1m is a lot closer to the truth.
The majority of Indians were still very much in the hunter-gatherer stage at the time. Agriculture was very primitive and rare, they lacked domesticated animals to plow the land. Where is the evidence of vast arrable fields and what not? Most of the land had to be cleared of trees by the settlers, and they didn't have to support 20m people on it even. Are you going to tell me that Western methods were less efficient? These claims go against more than just the statistics themselves, they go against everything we know about the development of agriculture.

The simple fact of the matter is that you can attribute the vast majority of these deaths to inadvertant spreading of diseases. A few cases of bounties (who paid out 100m X $bounty?), or doctors helping the spread of diseases does not justify these numbers. They are simply unnecessary. The Indians lacked simple sanitary and medicinal practices--any exposure could wipe out pockets relatively quickly. It is not that I believe that Europeans were totally benign, but rather there are far more probable reasons and conditions here--which exclude extreme malice as a cause.

Ummm...

[FallLine]

What does my email have to do with anything? What do you mean?

When I say "closer", I mean it follows with what I've studied (been a couple years--but it was supported), while your numbers have little support in anything other than certain liberal organizations with political objectives. However, knowing what I know about their general agricultral methods and having a grasp of history (just look at European populations at the same stage in agriculture) can lend itself to some reasonable approximations. Ignoring your so called mathematical models for a second, you mind telling me how they supported 20m people? The earliest settlers simply never did full population counts, it was largely guess work. Previous studies, the world around, have showed just how difficult it was to support populations on next to non-existant agricultural methods (there is no significant evidence to indicate otherwise).

Furthermore, It is a mistake to judge people so many years earlier on today's value system. Yes, I think genocide is a tragedy and wrong, but to say these people are "evil" across the board is a bit of a stretch, particularly when nothing more than a handfull of these murders can be confirmed. The Indians killed people too. That does not mean i'm going to write them off as "bad", no more than I'm going to say "dead white men" are evil. To further stretch this "moral shadow" across to modern generations is an excercise in futility, not to mention it's harmful side-effects. The fact of the matter is that its hard to look at any group and NOT see some huge human rights abuses in its past; holding it to people achieves no good end. We, Americans, do not extoll the virtues of our genetic or cultural makeup (we are not genetically any more benign than anyone else), in our laws and courts we hope to maintain a just society. In contrast, when I attack China, I am attacking their system of law (or lack thereof) and specific individuals that are still very much in power (e.g.: Tieneman square, Mao Tse Tung, Falung Gung (sic^3), etc). I have no problem with similar attacks on our justice system.

Re:China

[moonboy]

"And stop spitting out the typical yankee "we are right, and whoever's different is wrong" opinion."


Who are you referring to with this remark? I don't believe I said anything of the sort.

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"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." - Albert Einstein