Part of the problem with cheap labor is "you get what you pay for." Labor is cheap in China, but productivity is low. What the laptop situation is showing is that the PRC with a lot of outside help, is moving up the value chain.
One reason that the laptop factories are in Suzhou and not Fujian is because of the nearness to Shanghai. Shanghai is home to a huge number of universities that is putting out large numbers of electrical engineers and CS people. These people aren't manning the assembly lines, but you do need a ready supply of mamagers and skilled people to oversee things.
Also, the Chinese government is being really, really nice to Taiwanese businessmen. The PRC figures that this is going to help unification. By contrast, Taiwanese businessmen have had big problems in the Philiphines and even more so in Indonesia.
Siting a laptop factory requires a lot of trust that things won't explode political. The Chinese government might be many things, but it's not unstable and it's also not particularly stupid.
Whereas the United States is the land of racial lynchings, serial killers, and snipers.
Yes, I know that this is a distorted view of the United States, that there are a lot of nice things about the U.S. and you get into very misleading stuff, if you look at the worst about country.
Something about China is that averages are misleading. For example, you have about 20 percent of the population being something like middle class, and that it itself is a market that is about the size of the United States.
Something else that is missing is why wages in China can stay low. Something that people miss about China is that is better to think of it as 20 interacting economies. Most of the people who are in the assembly lines are migrants from the interior where there are few job prospects.
You need to separate design from marketing. Most of the design of the laptops are by Taiwanese companies. The marketing gets done by Western companies.
The article was very confused as far as geography. Suzhou is a city in Jiangsu province. I can easily believe that laptops make up 40% of the revenue of Suzhou, but there is no way that laptops make up 40% of the revenue of Jiangsu.
Also, its a common mistake to think of China as one big economy with 1 billion people. It's more accurate to think of it as 20 or 30 interacting little economies which can be very different from one another.
This is total nonsense. If you visit one of those plants, they are big industrial parks like things with air conditioning and lots of workers in an assembly line. The pay is low by Western standards, but its a huge amount locally.
There isn't even a consensus as to whether there is a "'92 consensus" to be agreed to.
Wait a moment. You say below that until recently the KMT believed in "one China".
No. Beijing's preconditions for talks is agreement to (not "acknowledgement of") Beijing's definition of the "one China" principle. After all, until recently, the KMT still believed in "one China" (albeit with the ROC at its head), yet Beijing refused to sit down at the table anyway.
This is simply incorrect. Beijing *was* willing to negotiate on a semi-formal basis with Taiwan under the Koo-Wang talks. Those talks were broken off only after Lee Tenghui issued his two states declaration. If Taiwan were to return to the situation before Lee's declaration of two states, it's likely that Beijing would return to the talks at the level of the Koo-Wang which would be enough to at least negotiate trade and transport links.
I could think of many "forms" of "one China" I'm sure Beijing would not accept, such as, say, making Beijing an SAR of Taiwan.
But if Taiwan were to put them on the table, then would allow talks to begin.
But why should Taiwan even want to negotiate while being forced to stare down the barrel of Beijing's gun?
Because without normalized trade relations with the Mainland, Taiwan's economy is likely to get worse and worse over time.
Beijing's preconditions for talks is acknowledgement of some form of the one China principle, and would probably be satisfied with the "one China, many views" or even the "one China, two governments" that Lee Tenghui himself proposed before the two states theory.
Surely you would not have me believe that there is zero support for agreeing to the '92 consensus as a precondition for talks about the three links. Even the concept of "one country, two systems" gets 5-10% support (I'm guessing mainly old Mainlanders).
One more thing. I may be defining pro-PRC differently than you. I am *not* defining pro-PRC is meaning stating that "Taiwan should be a part of the PRC" of which still there is no support within Taiwan. I am defining pro-PRC to mean agreeing to Beijing's terms of one China for opening political discussions on the status of Taiwan.
First of all, I am not associating pro-unification with pro-PRC. The point of my article is that before 1998 or so there was *no* significant pro-PRC political support on Taiwan. Today there is a *small* (i.e. 10%) amount of pro-PRC political support on Taiwan. The PRC has managed to get the "hard" support of the old mainlanders, and it is in the process of getting the soft support among businessmen. Before 1995, "hard unification" were the strongest opponents of the PRC, and the fact that the PRC now has some support from "hard unification" is very significant.
I don't doubt the results of your survey, but you are asking a totally different group than the one that I was referring to. When I meant youth, I meant people in the 25-35 range. Among people my age, I've noticed a significant softening of attitudes toward the PRC in the last two years. Much of this is due to the fact that they now see their economic future as being linked to the PRC. Something that changes a lot of minds is just spending time in the PRC and finding out that things are not nearly as bad they expected. Sentimentally, they might be attached to the idea of an independent Taiwan, but economics is overwhelming sentiment.
And, yes, I'm using "old mainlanders" in the same sense that you are. The old KMT soldiers that I know are now pretty solidly not just pro-unification but pro-PRC. They didn't like Mao, but Mao is dead and they consider Chen Shuibian and Lee Tenghui to be worse. The PRC is being far more friendly to old KMT soldiers than the Taiwanese government or for that matter the Taiwanese general public.
The shift happened only after the 2000 elections and was pretty dramatic. This is actually causing a huge national security headache for Taiwan since significant numbers of old KMT soldiers are now defecting onto the Mainland.
And geopolitically Beijing is *not* stuck in the Dark Ages. Part of the problem of pro-independence on Taiwan is that they are vastly overestimating Beijing's stupidity and vastly underestimating Beijing's ability to change in order to get its objectives. Beijing is not going to drop the threat of force for the very simple reason that if it did Taiwan would declare independence tomorrow. It *does* realize that the threat of force is insufficient to cause unification now, so it is following a three prong strategy of modernizing its military so that it can invade Taiwan in 30 years if it has to, not causing an immediate crisis, and to get the support of some sectors of the Taiwanese population. It has the strong support of the old KMT soldiers and it is now working on getting the support of the business community.
Pro-independence does not have many options. The most viable strategy is to try to cause a crisis now before the PRC gets stronger and starts getting the support of more Taiwanese businessmen. The trouble with that is that the PRC has already enough military power to keep Taiwan from declaring independence now and the United States has made it clear that it will not like Taiwan starting a crisis.
That leaves the option of independence of somehow hoping that the PRC will either magically recognized Taiwan independence because of some magic spell or that the PRC will self-destruct.
Taiwan has past the point of no return. It hasn't shown up in the opinion polls but it will in a few years.
Then you know the wrong family. My wife's family also has strong economic connections to the mainland (Shanghai), but there's little favorable sentiment toward the PRC.
Well maybe we just know different families. What makes you think that your family is more representative than mine?
The heavy investment of Taiwanese on the PRC is changing political opinions.
Maybe not among the people that you know, but it is changing them among the people I know. Again, what makes you think that your sample is more representative than mine.
which is why the PRC is not about to drop that threat.
Beijing *has* figured out that using too much stick and too little carrot alienates people in Taiwan. Why do you think that Beijing was so quiet when Chen made its one side/one country statement or that it has said nothing about first lady Wu's trip to the United States.
Beijing's dilemma is that if it drops the threat, Taiwan will declare independence, but if it keeps the threat it alienates people from Taiwan. It's dealing with this dilemma by keeping the threat but using it quietly.
Really? Tell me, how many "old mainlanders" do you know?
Plenty. My wife's family is native Taiwanese. My family is old mainlanders. Basically, Chen Shui-Bian has made it impossible to be pro-U and anti-PRC, and given the choice, the old mainlanders are choosing pro-PRC. They aren't being loud about it.
Ah yes, the PFP -- another rising Taiwanese political star. The PFP would be dead as well, if it weren't continuously propped up by the KMT.
Actually, the PFP is propping up the KMT.
Seems you have a thing or two to learn about Taiwanese politics. Ten years ago there was only the KMT in Taiwanese politics, which therefore got to do precisely what it wanted without concern for political consequences.
Ten years ago (1992), the DPP was already active and was getting 20 to 30% of the vote. Also, calling the KMT "unification-minded" is a bit simplistic. Chen Shuibian appears to be to be far less independence minded than Lee Denghui.
Increasing PRC sentiment? I don't even know any Taiwanese who like the mainland, let alone want to join it. As I said, not in this universe, sir.
I know at least three under the age of 40 who disliked the Mainland, but changed their minds in the last year. Again, we are talking to different groups of people, but it's far from clear that your sample is more representative than mine.
I should mention that my wife is native Taiwanese and most of my opinions are based on knowing people in her family.
The heavy investment of Taiwanese on the PRC is changing political opinions. Give it another few years and you'll see some major shifts. I agree that Taiwan would overwhelming choose independence today if it were not for the PRC threat, which is why the PRC is not about to drop that threat. The hope of pro-independence groups is that the PRC will self-destruct and that the PRC will be unable to continue the military threat. The problem with that strategy is that if that doesn't happen, and the PRC grows military stronger, Taiwan will be forced to choose within two decades as to whether to fight or compromise. If Taiwan is sufficiently interlinked with the mainland so that fighting would kill the economy, then there is a good chance that people will choose to compromise.
The DPP is officially pro-independence, but it has to moderate its stance considerable to stay in power. In the most recent national elections the KMT was hindered by accusations with secret collusions with Beijing, but it was not the kiss of death as it would have been ten years ago. Being seen as favorable to the PRC is still seen as a political liability, but it is no longer political suicide.
The New Party is dead, but that's because all of the New Party people figured that the PFP is a better bet.
And your assessment of the "old mainlanders" is wrong. Most of them have become disenchanted with the pro-independence policies of the Chen Shuibian government and are now quietly but actively supportive of the PRC. They aren't very loud about it because they don't want to be accused of treason, but if you talk to any of them in private conversations you will find out that a shift has occurred.
Pro-PRC sentiment *is* increasing. It's not widespread, but it is there. Ten years ago there was no significant segment of the Taiwanese electorate at all that was pro-PRC. It's now a small minority. It is an electoral liability for a Taiwanese politician to say that they agree with Beijing, but it's no longer political suicide.
One more thing. Some of the most pro-unification Taiwanese that I've met (and the people who are probably most responsible for shift in public opinion) have been young semiconductor engineers who have worked on the Mainland. I've actually personally witnessed working on the PRC cause huge shifts in attitudes in Taiwanese, and these attitude shifts have a huge multiplier effect. An engineer working in Shanghai who starts talking about how wonderful the place is starts influencing the opinions of their friends and family.
Just as an example. I know of one semiconductor engineer who loves Shanghai because in Taipei he is competing with the smartest people on Taiwan. In Shanghai, he finds himself competing with the smartest people in the PRC, along with a lot of smart people from Taiwan, along with a lot of smart people from Japan and the United States. He finds the intellectual competition much more intense and the level of competition much higher than in Taipei. This enthusiasm for Shanghai spills over to his wife, his kids, his mother, his brother, his aunts, his uncles, all of whom vote in Taiwanese elections.
True, but somewhat incomplete. Having taken lots of trips to Taiwan, I've noticed that pro-China sentiment (especially among young people) has increased considerably in the last two years (particularly in the last year).
The numbers right now are about 70% status quo, 15% independence, and 10% unification, but there does seem to be a noticable shift from status quo to be "more" unificationist.
One *really* big change in the last three years is that in the past, pro-unification Taiwanese were also strongly anti-communist and anti-PRC (remember that the pro-unification Taiwanese were mostly KMT who were expelled by the Communists). Within the last three years, the PRC has started getting the support of the pro-unification Taiwanese.
So the number of Taiwanese who are pro-PRC is about 10-15% which doesn't sound like much except that it was essentially zero five years ago, and it really changes the characteristics of Taiwanese politics. Imagine how different the Cold War would have been if 10-15% of the American public were openly and loudly pro-USSR.
Invading Taiwan is unnecessary. All of the major Taiwanese semiconductors are moving their plants to be near Shanghai. There's also a massive brain drain as Taiwanese companies are moving all of their key personnel onto the Mainland.
I have a friend who works with a Taiwanese semiconductor plant who thinks that in five to ten years, all of Taiwan's fabs are going to be in the Mainland where the cost of labor and land is hugely cheaper.
And people are missing the PRC's *real* strategy for taking over Taiwan. It figured out that threats and weapons are ineffective, so it's offerring investment credits, huge markets, and business incentives to encourage Taiwanese businesses to relocate to the Mainland. There was a PRC official who was quoted as saying that the PRC's strategy now is not to invade the island but to buy it. That strategy appears to be working.
The Taiwanese government has not come up with any effective countermeasures. Trying to restrict trade with the PRC act
ually makes things worse, because it doesn't stop the outflow of capital and brains, and insures that none of the benefits flow back to Taiwan. Removing restrictions to trade, will mean that brains and money will flow back to Taiwan, but it will make Taiwan extremely dependent on Mainland capital and make the "buyout of Taiwan" much easier.
No one in Taiwan seems to know what to do, except take advantage of the PRC's incentives.
But who needs a P4 to connect to the internet? Instead of looking at the latest and greatest, look at the price of a basic system which lets you connect to the internet and run apps.
The Great Chinese Firewall and the restrictions on internet cafes are largely a joke. Coverage is spotty, and it takes about 30 seconds to figure out how to circumvent it. Ironically, I found the e-mail spam filters in the United States to be a far more annoying problem than the Chinese Firewall.
Ironically, I found internet access *easier* to get in China than in the United States. It's dirt cheap. Most cities have a public access PPP dialup server which means that you don't need to fumble around getting an ISP and dialup account.
In China there are about 30% of the population who can afford a computer. 0.30 * 1.2 billion = more computer users than the United States. Also, China is wildly diverse economically, and the eastern coastal provinces are at the point where most of the people in them can own computers. The typical person in China might not be able to afford a computer, but the typical urban dweller in an eastern coastal province certainly can, and we are talking here about tens to hundreds of millions of people.
Also, ASCII isn't an issue. PC's handle Chinese characters perfectly well.
I just got back from China and your numbers are wildly off.
Computer parts in China cost roughly what they do in the United States, and you can get a mom and pop shop to put together a basic system that will connect to the internet and run basic applications for about 2000 RMB or US$160 which is the cost of a barebones internet ready system in the United States. Keep in mind that this computer will have all pirated software which removes several hundred US dollars off the list price.
The fact that you state that almost all computers in China are assembled by legend and ibundle suggests the reason for your mistake. I know of no Chinese consumer who buys a system from a name brand. The major brands market to businesses and really high end consumers and ironically they are priced out of the home computer market by the fact that the branded computers don't have the ability to use pirated software the way that the mom and pop shops do. Most of the 8000 RMB you quote consists of the Microsoft tax.
The average person in China probably does earn about 1000 RMB month, but there are huge numbers of people and regions in which the typical salary is 2000 RMB/month. A major chunk of that goes to food but food is still very cheap by American standards. Housing is company subsidized for a huge number of people.
The net result is that most every urban family that I know of with a person under the age of 30 has a home computer, and a large fraction have ADSL broadband into the homes.
On the other hand. Given a choice between a government controlled Chinese router and no router (and no internet) at all, I would argue that the ethical thing to do is to provide the router. Cisco and American internet companies simply do not have the leverage to force the Chinese government to stop censorship. The only choice they have here is to help build the Chinese internet with the Chinese government's rules, or not build the Chinese internet and have either someone else do it or to not have it done at all.
There is an huge ethical problem with the "clean hands" doctrine that you are espousing. Yes, Cisco and Yahoo is getting its hands dirty here, but I would argue that keeping its hands clean would result in more evil (i.e. no internet for China). Yes, it's a bad thing that China is censoring the internet, but it's a less bad thing (a ***MUCH*** less bad thing) than China not have internet at all.
Lets organize an internet boycott to keep any internet companies and sites from linking to China. The Chinese government wants to keep people from reading a few internet sites. So I say the logically thing to do is to get mad at the companies that are helping China build the internet so that the whole country is cut off from all sites!!!!! That will show them!!!! Let's force the internet companies to stick up for freedom!!!! By demanding the the Chinese government get rid of all censorship immediately, we'll have the Chinese government kick them all out, and then China will have no internet and so there will be no more articles on Chinese internet censorship.
Who cares about the fact that 98% of the stuff gets through and most of the blocks are laughibly ineffective!!!! We're talking moral prinicple here. It's better that the Chinese have no internet at all than to have government censored internet!!!! If the Chinese government won't put up with 100% uncensored internet, it's better that they have no internet at all!!!!
And while we're at it, lets cut off all economic ties with China until they have a government that is 100% good!!!!! We want the Chinese poor with no interest in maintaining good business relationships with the United States!!!! After all, if they are isolated they'll be poor and angry with no interest in cooperation with the United States and no way to communicate with the outside world!!! And if they are poor, isolated, and angry, they won't worry about trying to get really rich, and instead will have plenty of time to listen to people with kooky religious ideas!!! And the United States can completely ignore China just like it ignored Afghanistan two years ago!!!!
What a great idea!!!!!
Note to the sarcasm impaired: The preceding was sacarism.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the correction.
Part of the problem with cheap labor is "you get what you pay for." Labor is cheap in China, but productivity is low. What the laptop situation is showing is that the PRC with a lot of outside help, is moving up the value chain.
One reason that the laptop factories are in Suzhou and not Fujian is because of the nearness to Shanghai. Shanghai is home to a huge number of universities that is putting out large numbers of electrical engineers and CS people. These people aren't manning the assembly lines, but you do need a ready supply of mamagers and skilled people to oversee things.
Also, the Chinese government is being really, really nice to Taiwanese businessmen. The PRC figures that this is going to help unification. By contrast, Taiwanese businessmen have had big problems in the Philiphines and even more so in Indonesia.
Siting a laptop factory requires a lot of trust that things won't explode political. The Chinese government might be many things, but it's not unstable and it's also not particularly stupid.
No, I'm talking about China. I have the slight advantage of having been there.
The Party likes to wave red flags, but it's not communist in any meaningful sense of the word.
Whereas the United States is the land of racial lynchings, serial killers, and snipers.
Yes, I know that this is a distorted view of the United States, that there are a lot of nice things about the U.S. and you get into very misleading stuff, if you look at the worst about country.
What was your point again?
Something about China is that averages are misleading. For example, you have about 20 percent of the population being something like middle class, and that it itself is a market that is about the size of the United States.
Something else that is missing is why wages in China can stay low. Something that people miss about China is that is better to think of it as 20 interacting economies. Most of the people who are in the assembly lines are migrants from the interior where there are few job prospects.
You need to separate design from marketing. Most of the design of the laptops are by Taiwanese companies. The marketing gets done by Western companies.
The article was very confused as far as geography. Suzhou is a city in Jiangsu province. I can easily believe that laptops make up 40% of the revenue of Suzhou, but there is no way that laptops make up 40% of the revenue of Jiangsu.
Also, its a common mistake to think of China as one big economy with 1 billion people. It's more accurate to think of it as 20 or 30 interacting little economies which can be very different from one another.
This is total nonsense. If you visit one of those plants, they are big industrial parks like things with air conditioning and lots of workers in an assembly line. The pay is low by Western standards, but its a huge amount locally.
Cost of vodka: $50.00 / gallon
Cost of gasoline: $2.00 / gallon
There isn't even a consensus as to whether there is a "'92 consensus" to be agreed to.
Wait a moment. You say below that until recently the KMT believed in "one China".
No. Beijing's preconditions for talks is agreement to (not "acknowledgement of") Beijing's definition of the "one China" principle. After all, until recently, the KMT still believed in "one China" (albeit with the ROC at its head), yet Beijing refused to sit down at the table anyway.
This is simply incorrect. Beijing *was* willing to negotiate on a semi-formal basis with Taiwan under the Koo-Wang talks. Those talks were broken off
only after Lee Tenghui issued his two states declaration. If Taiwan were to return to the situation before Lee's declaration of two states, it's likely that Beijing would return to the talks at the level of the Koo-Wang which would be enough to at least negotiate trade and transport links.
I could think of many "forms" of "one China" I'm sure Beijing would not accept, such as, say, making Beijing an SAR of Taiwan.
But if Taiwan were to put them on the table, then would allow talks to begin.
But why should Taiwan even want to negotiate while being forced to stare down the barrel of Beijing's gun?
Because without normalized trade relations with the Mainland, Taiwan's economy is likely to get worse and worse over time.
Beijing's preconditions for talks is acknowledgement of some form of the one China principle, and would probably be satisfied with the "one China, many views" or even the "one China, two governments" that Lee Tenghui himself proposed before the two states theory.
Surely you would not have me believe that there is zero support for agreeing to the '92 consensus as a precondition for talks about the three links. Even the concept of "one country, two systems" gets 5-10% support (I'm guessing mainly old Mainlanders).
One more thing. I may be defining pro-PRC differently than you. I am *not* defining pro-PRC is meaning stating that "Taiwan should be a part of the PRC" of which still there is no support within Taiwan. I am defining pro-PRC to mean agreeing to Beijing's terms of one China for opening political discussions on the status of Taiwan.
First of all, I am not associating pro-unification with pro-PRC. The point of my article is that before 1998 or so there was *no* significant
pro-PRC political support on Taiwan. Today there is a *small* (i.e. 10%) amount of pro-PRC political support on Taiwan. The PRC has managed to get the "hard" support of the old mainlanders, and it is in the process of getting the soft support among businessmen. Before 1995, "hard unification" were the strongest opponents of the PRC, and the fact that the PRC now has some support from "hard unification" is very significant.
I don't doubt the results of your survey, but you are asking a totally different group than the one that I was referring to.
When I meant youth, I meant people in the 25-35 range. Among people my age, I've noticed a significant softening of attitudes toward the PRC in the last two years. Much of this is due to the fact that they now see their economic future as being linked to the PRC. Something that changes a lot of minds is just spending time in the PRC and finding out that things are not nearly as bad they expected. Sentimentally, they might be attached to the idea of an independent Taiwan, but economics is overwhelming sentiment.
And, yes, I'm using "old mainlanders" in the same sense that you are. The old KMT soldiers that I know are now pretty solidly not just pro-unification but pro-PRC. They didn't like Mao, but Mao is dead and they consider Chen Shuibian and Lee Tenghui to be worse. The PRC is being far more friendly to old KMT soldiers than the Taiwanese government or for that matter the Taiwanese general public.
The shift happened only after the 2000 elections and was pretty dramatic. This is actually causing a huge national security headache for Taiwan since significant numbers of old KMT soldiers are now defecting onto the Mainland.
And geopolitically Beijing is *not* stuck in the Dark Ages. Part of the problem of pro-independence on Taiwan is that they are vastly overestimating Beijing's stupidity and vastly underestimating Beijing's ability to change in order to get its objectives. Beijing is not going to drop the threat of force for the very simple reason that if it did Taiwan would declare independence tomorrow. It *does* realize that the threat of force is insufficient to cause unification now, so it is following a three prong strategy of modernizing its military so that it can invade Taiwan in 30 years if it has to, not causing an immediate crisis, and to get the support of some sectors of the Taiwanese population. It has the strong support of the old KMT soldiers and it is now working on getting the support of the business community.
Pro-independence does not have many options. The most viable strategy is to try to cause a crisis now before the PRC gets stronger and starts getting the support of more Taiwanese businessmen. The trouble with that is that the PRC has already enough military power to keep Taiwan from declaring independence now and the United States has made it clear that it will not like Taiwan starting a crisis.
That leaves the option of independence of somehow hoping that the PRC will either magically recognized Taiwan independence because of some magic spell or that the PRC will self-destruct.
Taiwan has past the point of no return. It hasn't shown up in the opinion polls but it will in a few years.
Then you know the wrong family. My wife's family also has strong economic connections to the mainland (Shanghai), but there's little favorable sentiment toward the PRC.
Well maybe we just know different families. What makes you think that your family is more representative than mine?
The heavy investment of Taiwanese on the PRC is changing political opinions.
Maybe not among the people that you know, but it is changing them among the people I know. Again, what makes you think that your sample is more representative than mine.
which is why the PRC is not about to drop that threat.
Beijing *has* figured out that using too much stick and too little carrot alienates people in Taiwan. Why do you think that Beijing was so quiet when Chen made its one side/one country statement or that it has said nothing about first lady Wu's trip to the United States.
Beijing's dilemma is that if it drops the threat, Taiwan will declare independence, but if it keeps the threat it alienates people from Taiwan. It's dealing with this dilemma by keeping the threat but using it quietly.
Really? Tell me, how many "old mainlanders" do you know?
Plenty. My wife's family is native Taiwanese. My family is old mainlanders. Basically, Chen Shui-Bian has made it impossible to be pro-U and anti-PRC, and given the choice, the old mainlanders are choosing pro-PRC. They aren't being loud about it.
Ah yes, the PFP -- another rising Taiwanese political star. The PFP would be dead as well, if it weren't continuously propped up by the KMT.
Actually, the PFP is propping up the KMT.
Seems you have a thing or two to learn about Taiwanese politics. Ten years ago there was only the KMT in Taiwanese politics, which therefore got to do precisely what it wanted without concern for political consequences.
Ten years ago (1992), the DPP was already active
and was getting 20 to 30% of the vote. Also, calling the KMT "unification-minded" is a bit simplistic. Chen Shuibian appears to be to be far less independence minded than Lee Denghui.
Increasing PRC sentiment? I don't even know any Taiwanese who like the mainland, let alone want to join it. As I said, not in this universe, sir.
I know at least three under the age of 40 who disliked the Mainland, but changed their minds in the last year. Again, we are talking to different groups of people, but it's far from clear that your sample is more representative than mine.
I should mention that my wife is native Taiwanese and most of my opinions are based on knowing people in her family.
The heavy investment of Taiwanese on the PRC is changing political opinions. Give it another few years and you'll see some major shifts. I agree that Taiwan would overwhelming choose independence today if it were not for the PRC threat, which is why the PRC is not about to drop that threat. The hope of pro-independence groups is that the PRC will self-destruct and that the PRC will be unable to continue the military threat. The problem with that strategy is that if that doesn't happen, and the PRC grows military stronger, Taiwan will be forced to choose within two decades as to whether to fight or compromise. If Taiwan is sufficiently interlinked with the mainland so that fighting would kill the economy, then there is a good chance that people will choose to compromise.
The DPP is officially pro-independence, but it has to moderate its stance considerable to stay in power. In the most recent national elections the KMT was hindered by accusations with secret collusions with Beijing, but it was not the kiss of death as it would have been ten years ago. Being seen as favorable to the PRC is still seen as a political liability, but it is no longer political suicide.
The New Party is dead, but that's because all of the New Party people figured that the PFP is a better bet.
And your assessment of the "old mainlanders" is
wrong. Most of them have become disenchanted with the pro-independence policies of the Chen Shuibian government and are now quietly but actively supportive of the PRC. They aren't very loud about it because they don't want to be accused of treason, but if you talk to any of them in private conversations you will find out that a shift has occurred.
Pro-PRC sentiment *is* increasing. It's not widespread, but it is there. Ten years ago there was no significant segment of the Taiwanese electorate at all that was pro-PRC. It's now a small minority. It is an electoral liability for a Taiwanese politician to say that they agree with Beijing, but it's no longer political suicide.
One more thing. Some of the most pro-unification Taiwanese that I've met (and the people who are probably most responsible for shift in public opinion) have been young semiconductor engineers who
have worked on the Mainland. I've actually
personally witnessed working on the PRC cause huge shifts in attitudes in Taiwanese, and these attitude shifts have a huge multiplier effect. An engineer working in Shanghai who starts talking about how wonderful the place is starts influencing the opinions of their friends and family.
Just as an example. I know of one semiconductor engineer who loves Shanghai because in Taipei he is competing with the smartest people on Taiwan. In Shanghai, he finds himself competing with the smartest people in the PRC, along with a lot of smart people from Taiwan, along with a lot of smart people from Japan and the United States. He finds the intellectual competition much more intense and the level of competition much higher than in Taipei. This enthusiasm for Shanghai spills over to his wife, his kids, his mother, his brother, his aunts, his uncles, all of whom vote in Taiwanese elections.
This is how PRC plans to take over Taiwan.
True, but somewhat incomplete. Having taken lots of trips to Taiwan, I've noticed that pro-China sentiment (especially among young people) has increased considerably in the last two years (particularly in the last year).
The numbers right now are about 70% status quo, 15% independence, and 10% unification, but there does seem to be a noticable shift from
status quo to be "more" unificationist.
One *really* big change in the last three years is that in the past, pro-unification Taiwanese were also strongly anti-communist and anti-PRC (remember that the pro-unification Taiwanese were mostly KMT who were expelled by the Communists). Within the last three years, the PRC has started getting the support of the pro-unification Taiwanese.
So the number of Taiwanese who are pro-PRC is about 10-15% which doesn't sound like much except that it was essentially zero five years ago, and it really changes the characteristics of Taiwanese
politics. Imagine how different the Cold War
would have been if 10-15% of the American public were openly and loudly pro-USSR.
Invading Taiwan is unnecessary. All of the major
Taiwanese semiconductors are moving their plants
to be near Shanghai. There's also a massive
brain drain as Taiwanese companies are moving
all of their key personnel onto the Mainland.
I have a friend who works
with a Taiwanese semiconductor plant who thinks
that in five to ten years, all of Taiwan's fabs
are going to be in the Mainland where the cost of
labor and land is hugely cheaper.
And people are missing the PRC's *real* strategy
for taking over Taiwan. It figured out that
threats and weapons are ineffective, so it's
offerring investment credits, huge markets, and
business incentives to encourage Taiwanese
businesses to relocate to the Mainland. There was a PRC official who was quoted as saying that the
PRC's strategy now is not to invade the island but to buy it. That strategy appears to be working.
The Taiwanese government has not come up with any effective countermeasures. Trying to restrict trade with the PRC act
ually makes things worse, because it doesn't stop the outflow of capital and brains, and insures that none of the benefits flow back to Taiwan. Removing restrictions to trade, will mean that brains and money will flow back to Taiwan, but it will make Taiwan extremely dependent on Mainland capital and make the "buyout of Taiwan" much easier.
No one in Taiwan seems to know what to do, except take advantage of the PRC's incentives.
But who needs a P4 to connect to the internet?
Instead of looking at the latest and greatest,
look at the price of a basic system which lets
you connect to the internet and run apps.
Having actually used the internet from China.....
The Great Chinese Firewall and the restrictions
on internet cafes are largely a joke. Coverage is
spotty, and it takes about 30 seconds to figure out how to circumvent it. Ironically, I found the
e-mail spam filters in the United States to be
a far more annoying problem than the Chinese Firewall.
Ironically, I found internet access *easier* to get in China than in the United States. It's dirt cheap. Most cities have a public access PPP dialup server which means that you don't need
to fumble around getting an ISP and dialup account.
In China there are about 30% of the population who
can afford a computer. 0.30 * 1.2 billion = more
computer users than the United States. Also, China is wildly diverse economically, and the eastern
coastal provinces are at the point where most of
the people in them can own computers. The typical
person in China might not be able to afford a
computer, but the typical urban dweller in an
eastern coastal province certainly can, and we
are talking here about tens to hundreds of millions of people.
Also, ASCII isn't an issue. PC's handle Chinese
characters perfectly well.
I just got back from China and your numbers are
wildly off.
Computer parts in China cost roughly what they
do in the United States, and you can get a mom and
pop shop to put together a basic system that
will connect to the internet and run basic applications for about 2000 RMB or US$160 which is the cost of a barebones internet ready system in the United States. Keep in mind that this computer will have all pirated software which removes several hundred US dollars off the list price.
The fact that you state that almost all computers in China are assembled by legend and ibundle suggests the reason for your mistake. I know of no Chinese consumer who buys a system from a name brand. The major brands market to businesses and really high end consumers and ironically they are priced out of the home computer market by the fact that the branded computers don't have the ability to use pirated software the way that the mom and pop shops do. Most of the 8000 RMB you quote consists of the Microsoft tax.
The average person in China probably does earn about 1000 RMB month, but there are huge numbers of people and regions in which the typical salary is 2000 RMB/month. A major chunk of that goes to food but food is still very cheap by American standards. Housing is company subsidized for a huge number of people.
The net result is that most every urban family that I know of with a person under the age of 30 has a home computer, and a large fraction have ADSL broadband into the homes.
http://www.astronautix.com/ has more than you ever wanted to know about the N1 at http://www.astronautix.com/articles/thepart1.htm
a government controlled Chinese router and
no router (and no internet) at all, I would
argue that the ethical thing to do is to
provide the router. Cisco and American
internet companies simply do not have the
leverage to force the Chinese government to
stop censorship. The only choice they have here is to help build the Chinese internet with the Chinese government's rules, or not
build the Chinese internet and have either someone else do it or to not have it done at
all.
There is an huge ethical problem with the "clean
hands" doctrine that you are espousing. Yes,
Cisco and Yahoo is getting its hands dirty here, but
I would argue that keeping its hands clean
would result in more evil (i.e. no internet
for China). Yes, it's a bad thing that
China is censoring the internet, but it's a
less bad thing (a ***MUCH*** less bad thing) than China not have internet at all.
internet companies and sites from linking
to China. The Chinese government wants to
keep people from reading a few internet sites. So I say the logically thing to do
is to get mad at the companies that are
helping China build the internet so that the
whole country is cut off from all sites!!!!!
That will show them!!!! Let's force the
internet companies to stick up for freedom!!!! By demanding the the Chinese
government get rid of all censorship immediately, we'll have the Chinese government kick them all out, and then China
will have no internet and so there will be no more articles on Chinese internet censorship.
Who cares about the fact that 98% of the stuff gets through and most of the blocks are
laughibly ineffective!!!! We're talking moral prinicple here. It's better that the
Chinese have no internet at all than to have government censored internet!!!! If the Chinese government won't put up with 100% uncensored internet, it's better that they have no internet at all!!!!
And while we're at it, lets cut off all economic ties with China until they have a
government that is 100% good!!!!! We want the Chinese poor with no interest in maintaining good business relationships with the United States!!!! After all, if they are isolated they'll be poor and angry with no interest in cooperation with the United States and no way to communicate with the outside world!!! And if they are poor, isolated, and angry, they won't worry about trying to get really rich, and instead will have plenty of time to listen to people with kooky religious ideas!!! And the United States can completely ignore China just like it ignored Afghanistan two years ago!!!!
What a great idea!!!!!
Note to the sarcasm impaired: The preceding was sacarism.