I wouldn't say that the chinese stopped the exploration because of lack of immediate benefits, you must realise that the whole point of Zheng Ho's voyages were not to conquer or trade with new people's but to "show" off the majesty of chinese civilisation.
When a new civilisation was encountered, the chinese would often demand tribute, the chinese weren't really interested in trade with other nations at all. So really it was more a situation not dissimilar to the US space program, more like been there, done that, lets move on.
you see, giving saddam chemical weapons was cleaning up our own mistake, that mistake of course being the Shah in Iran, who was overthrown by islamic fundamentalists.
See it's like debugging messy code, every time you fix something, something else gets broken.
while North ryde maybe be the silicon valley of sydney, most people who work there do not live there, if anything of greater danger to John Howard is the increasing migrant(asian) population in his electorate, witness his huge campaign last election amongst the chinese community.
actually the IBM corporate anthem is over about 70 years old, it was created some time in the 1930s. The rendition you hear is one of the employees being led by a manager. rumour is that the sales team used to sing it at conferences and is probably where it was recorded.
You can tell by the references to Thomas Watson who actually started IBM back in the day. You can actually find it on IBM's own site.
Democracy is very overated, it's not just a matter of changing the political system, it's about changing the mindset of every single person in that country.
The same reason that communism didn't work in some many countries, the working class didn't want equality, they wanted to become the ruling class.
That is why there are so few successful "noveau" democracies.
i won't begin to tell you how many members of mine family were killed by communists, capitalists, monarchists, etc... China has a long history of killing its own people, this is nothing new.
However, i'm not about mindlessly believing that China should convert to a democracy at the drop of a hat. People saw what happened to Russia and they are scared as shit that the same will happen to China if the Communists go.
what type of government has to be afraid of a 2000 year old book ?
mmmm, look at all the f*cked up countries in the world and tell me how many of them were formally colonised in the name of "a 2000 year old book".
I'm quite amazed at the level of anti-china sentiment and the level of paranoia surrounding china and the chinese government. A lot of you seem to believe that the Chinese are somehow an expansionist race ready to take over the whole world.
Let me assure you that this is not the case, on the contrary, the reason that China is so blatantly anti-American is because they fear America trying to take over China. Read your history books about China to see that throughout it's history China has continously being invaded so that this fear is really quite genetic.
Also to those of you that have been in china and would like to think that you have a good understanding of what it is like to live in CHINA as a typical chinese person. Let me assure you that it is practically impossible for you to grasp ANYTHING about CHINA or CHINESE. This is not to belittle your intelligence or sensitivity. But if you don't look like CHINESE and speak with a FLAWLESS ACCENT, you will be treated like a foreigner which means that you will be pampered, people will talk to you differently, you have next to no chance of really understanding what it is to live like a CHINESE.
Finally to those that repeatedly refer to TIANMEN SQUARE "MASSACRE", please watch a documentary called "The Gate of Heavenly Peace", it tells a different story than those traditionally told by western media.
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I wouldn't say that the chinese stopped the exploration because of lack of immediate benefits, you must realise that the whole point of Zheng Ho's voyages were not to conquer or trade with new people's but to "show" off the majesty of chinese civilisation.
When a new civilisation was encountered, the chinese would often demand tribute, the chinese weren't really interested in trade with other nations at all. So really it was more a situation not dissimilar to the US space program, more like been there, done that, lets move on.
you see, giving saddam chemical weapons was cleaning up our own mistake, that mistake of course being the Shah in Iran, who was overthrown by islamic fundamentalists.
See it's like debugging messy code, every time you fix something, something else gets broken.
while North ryde maybe be the silicon valley of sydney, most people who work there do not live there, if anything of greater danger to John Howard is the increasing migrant(asian) population in his electorate, witness his huge campaign last election amongst the chinese community.
because public key encryption is bloody slow as molasses, that's why WEP was used in the first place, because it is fast.
actually the IBM corporate anthem is over about 70 years old, it was created some time in the 1930s. The rendition you hear is one of the employees being led by a manager. rumour is that the sales team used to sing it at conferences and is probably where it was recorded. You can tell by the references to Thomas Watson who actually started IBM back in the day. You can actually find it on IBM's own site.
Democracy is very overated, it's not just a matter of changing the political system, it's about changing the mindset of every single person in that country.
The same reason that communism didn't work in some many countries, the working class didn't want equality, they wanted to become the ruling class.
That is why there are so few successful "noveau" democracies.
i won't begin to tell you how many members of mine family were killed by communists, capitalists, monarchists, etc... China has a long history of killing its own people, this is nothing new.
However, i'm not about mindlessly believing that China should convert to a democracy at the drop of a hat. People saw what happened to Russia and they are scared as shit that the same will happen to China if the Communists go.
what type of government has to be afraid of a 2000 year old book ?
mmmm, look at all the f*cked up countries in the world and tell me how many of them were formally colonised in the name of "a 2000 year old book".
I'm quite amazed at the level of anti-china sentiment and the level of paranoia surrounding china and the chinese government. A lot of you seem to believe that the Chinese are somehow an expansionist race ready to take over the whole world. Let me assure you that this is not the case, on the contrary, the reason that China is so blatantly anti-American is because they fear America trying to take over China. Read your history books about China to see that throughout it's history China has continously being invaded so that this fear is really quite genetic. Also to those of you that have been in china and would like to think that you have a good understanding of what it is like to live in CHINA as a typical chinese person. Let me assure you that it is practically impossible for you to grasp ANYTHING about CHINA or CHINESE. This is not to belittle your intelligence or sensitivity. But if you don't look like CHINESE and speak with a FLAWLESS ACCENT, you will be treated like a foreigner which means that you will be pampered, people will talk to you differently, you have next to no chance of really understanding what it is to live like a CHINESE. Finally to those that repeatedly refer to TIANMEN SQUARE "MASSACRE", please watch a documentary called "The Gate of Heavenly Peace", it tells a different story than those traditionally told by western media.