Remember, the US did not make the deals with China last year, in 2000, in 1990, but has made the deal to trade with them since 1970's. Because the US wanted them to help defeat the Soviet Union. You get what you want, should you pay as promise.
Like all other countries, we deal with others not because we are nice nor naive, but because we have something to ask for.
Finally, for most people who care about their every day life much more than ideology, the value of democracy is questionable. Buddy, look around the world. Are many (most?) ''democracies'' -- India, Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, The Philippines -- better than China in dealing with any matters that count: equality, education, health care/education, standard of living, environment, crime, corruption? The answers are no. Many are worse in many areas. Maybe the USA is an exception. Or is USA really better too?
Democracy is an ideal, just like communism. For the last 30 years, people in China have mostly decided to pursue better living as the ultimate goal, and not ideology.
While you have identified the differences, it is really not China vs. Western world.
The western world did not care about ethical, safe, manageable, legal, and controlled from the beginning. These have been driven by growing income, market consolidation (to the large companies,) as well as efforts of your beloved politicians and lawyers.
Similarly, all third world countries are practicing "rapid, fluid and prone to appropriate and adapt any idea that fits the bill."
The same trend is undertaking in China but at a pace you can't easily notice. Come back 30 or 50 years, you will see the differences.
Having abundant foods had little to do with life expectancy. For thousands years: a person got bitten by a bad mosquito, died; a woman having trouble delivering labor, died; an infant caught a fever, died. None of them got a chance to develop aging diseases.
Maybe one day, one can replace every failed organ but few will afford to do so repeatedly.
Also, nobody wants to die but having people live too long is like, well, giving mortgages to people who can't afford. We are taxing the system too much.
While modern nutrition-rich dietary habit may be a factor to the "modern epidemics", do you know what the average life span was in the good old days? When people died in their 30's from variety of infectious diseases, how could they have times to develop cancers, heart diseases and diabetes? Not to mention, in the good old day, People died without knowing what they got.
And if people had a "better quality of life," that's because they died faster once catching a disease.
All we need to do to solve most of the health problems is to support euthanasia.
I did some math on 41 US cents, 80 hours/week, and using the old exchange rate of 8 Yuan to a dollar. That works out to be 1043 YUAN. The factories there provide foods and dorm, so you could say it is about 1500 YUAN / month. From what I know, this is about the pay level for factory workers over there. Office works don't fetch too much more, either. (Experienced engineers can fetch over 100K YUAN in comfortable working conditions and 40 hours work week.) Most of these factories are in Shenzhen where a BigMac or a plate of fried rice costs about 5 YUAN. But an average condo costs about 700,000-800,000 YUAN, that's about $100K, easily beating house prices in many places in the US.
Still flocks of people will work for these factories, because there are simply too many people looking for work. Recently with the economic crisis, even college graduates will apply. As far as I know, nobody forces them to apply for those jobs and they know very well what they will get.
Before you condemn the pay in China, in the U.S., San Francisco bay area, if you don't know English, your pay is usually minimum wage ($8) + equivalent cash pay (no double pay) for OT, often with no break time either. That's about $2000 working 60 hours week. But employers don't provide any housing, food or transportation.
Is the U.S. doing much better? Now, you can make some informed judgment.
China has enforced the law to require all new cell phone to use standardized USB power adaptors since last year, to cut down adaptors in landfill. Why is democratic, earth-caring nation dragging its feeds?
I heard a case in China: someone claimed to be a lawyer calls a software company accusing them using illegal copy of JBuilder (still remember that) even though the company was using Eclipse. (One must figure out from the company website that the software is written in Javan and therefore must be using JBuilder -- the IDE of choice for many CChinese Java programmers, because it can bought from pirate market.)
In China, everything can be faked; Even lawyers and policemen may be faked. And if someone telling you he knows some high official to solve your problem, watching out; that guy likely knows nobody.
For the PR and covering up of their own incompetency, the best strategy is always to stick bad things to the biggest public enemy. Israel? Their people run this country; who's dare to accuse their own bosses. Russia, nobody remember them much any more. China, of course, everybody hates it. Other countries, who care.
Talking about problems will get you fired, beaten up, locked up or even killed.
I had lived in China for years and managed a group of software developers. While I agree that they are less inclined to point out problem. That's more like a cultural / educational thing. (Even if I put up awards for filing bugs, they rarely did.) But "Talking problem... get you... killed." I found that exaggerated too much. I've yet to read of anyone get killed speaking out problems in a *factory*. Did you actually know of an example? Or you just make it up?
And outside of works, Chinese make a lot of complains from the cost of healthcare to the lack of... democracy... (though they don't really demand it desparately.) There are plenty of criticism against the government in the Internet too, just ask the 91589 people complaining about the lack of train tickets in one website.
You are either not living in China or you have a wrong perception of what happen around you.
You are incorrectly assuming many manufacturers still remained in Taiwan. good luck finding them there.
Seriously, though, "Made in China" is really more appropriately called "Assembled in China" because most of the valued components and material in "Made in China" products are really imported from US and other western countries. The design and more importantly, the brands, belong to U.S. companies. Finally, for most products, much of the retail values go to pay rents and sale people; the products themselves have little values. If those products are assembled in the U.S., they will assembled by workers whose salaries not better than fast food restaurant workers. Why, in most people's mind, that assembling jobs have high prestige than fast food servers? I don't understand.
Finally, why you complain about junk products "Made in China," in Chinese forums, many many users were questioning why China exports all those products for junk U.S. debts 9and they ask their government not to bail out the U.S.) hmm... junk products exchange for junk debts. No doubt the two countries are the best trading partners!
The new rules that went into effect Nov. 5 are aimed at cracking down on the use of pirated software, said Hu Shenghua, a spokesman for the Culture Bureau in the city of Nanchang.
Common mistake #1: assuming whatever a little municipal government says equal what the Chinese central government says. REALITY: in China, local governments don't pay a shit to upper government and just make up whatever rule they want.
Common mistake #2: assuming this has anything to do with national security, censorship, etc. REALITY: it is just a marketing maneuver some company trying to get people buy into their products -- by making it officially required.
Common mistake #3; assuming any people actually pay a shit to this. REALITY: if so, they would have obey anything from tax laws to traffic laws first before worrying about this.
Unless you personally know the finance operations of those big guys, it is hard to say they reinvest all their fortunate into other adventures. More likely, once they become a brand name; dozen of investors will be lining up at their doors for some deals that the famous guys can be profitable without much financial risks or hard works to themselves. (I knew indirectly one assistant to a famous writer; the assistant basically writes much of the works for that writer who has become famous.)
So you are right that they don't live off their royalties, but they may well live off their fame from the first masterpiece. I guess nobody would/should complain about that. And that's a main driving force for many FOSS contributors.
If the antitrust regulator blocks yahoo-google deal, why would they pass MSFT-YHOO deal? Remember, search is not the only business in the world. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have huge e-mail and portal businesses, while gmail is still trailing much behind; their union will become a monopoly in email service. You know it is harder to change your email address than switching search provider. So why should the same regulator OK that?
Microsoft likely knew that their deal wouldn't go through really. Their action was probably just trying to trash Yahoo.
Trusting the government to do the right thing was a way of life; for most people it was the only way they knew and they lived happily by it. Of course, the media usually projects the government in a rather positive light, but hey, it keeps the people happy. The only thing I dislike the Chinese government for is the education system, where nationalism and reverence of communist heroes were ingrained at an early age.
That shows you have never really lived in the country for more than a few weeks. In China, people all just ignore whatever government said and find ways to bypass whatever rules the government tries. They don't worry about "rights" because they just ignore rules (even as simple as traffic laws) whenever there is a fringe benefit. And if you get in trouble, find some connection in government to bail you out. That's why there are so many tainted products.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember, the US did not make the deals with China last year, in 2000, in 1990, but has made the deal to trade with them since 1970's. Because the US wanted them to help defeat the Soviet Union. You get what you want, should you pay as promise.
Like all other countries, we deal with others not because we are nice nor naive, but because we have something to ask for.
Finally, for most people who care about their every day life much more than ideology, the value of democracy is questionable. Buddy, look around the world. Are many (most?) ''democracies'' -- India, Mexico, Brazil, Thailand, Pakistan, The Philippines -- better than China in dealing with any matters that count: equality, education, health care/education, standard of living, environment, crime, corruption? The answers are no. Many are worse in many areas. Maybe the USA is an exception. Or is USA really better too?
Democracy is an ideal, just like communism. For the last 30 years, people in China have mostly decided to pursue better living as the ultimate goal, and not ideology.
in the long term, we end up thinking what they want us to think.
Think Different (TM)
This is exactly my configuration and what I try to improve. Thanks for the info!
While you have identified the differences, it is really not China vs. Western world.
The western world did not care about ethical, safe, manageable, legal, and controlled from the beginning. These have been driven by growing income, market consolidation (to the large companies,) as well as efforts of your beloved politicians and lawyers.
Similarly, all third world countries are practicing "rapid, fluid and prone to appropriate and adapt any idea that fits the bill."
The same trend is undertaking in China but at a pace you can't easily notice. Come back 30 or 50 years, you will see the differences.
Humanity is pretty much the same.
Yes, the investigation itself has been become suspicious widely by Chinese netizens. (Links in Chinese.)
The report of the investigation does honestly say that the police still not allowing them to see any real evidence or witness.
On the plus side, the case has been widely discussed in China's internet.
See this -- ~30 years up to recently.
Having abundant foods had little to do with life expectancy. For thousands years: a person got bitten by a bad mosquito, died; a woman having trouble delivering labor, died; an infant caught a fever, died. None of them got a chance to develop aging diseases.
Maybe one day, one can replace every failed organ but few will afford to do so repeatedly.
Also, nobody wants to die but having people live too long is like, well, giving mortgages to people who can't afford. We are taxing the system too much.
While modern nutrition-rich dietary habit may be a factor to the "modern epidemics", do you know what the average life span was in the good old days? When people died in their 30's from variety of infectious diseases, how could they have times to develop cancers, heart diseases and diabetes? Not to mention, in the good old day, People died without knowing what they got.
And if people had a "better quality of life," that's because they died faster once catching a disease.
All we need to do to solve most of the health problems is to support euthanasia.
I did some math on 41 US cents, 80 hours/week, and using the old exchange rate of 8 Yuan to a dollar. That works out to be 1043 YUAN. The factories there provide foods and dorm, so you could say it is about 1500 YUAN / month. From what I know, this is about the pay level for factory workers over there. Office works don't fetch too much more, either. (Experienced engineers can fetch over 100K YUAN in comfortable working conditions and 40 hours work week.) Most of these factories are in Shenzhen where a BigMac or a plate of fried rice costs about 5 YUAN. But an average condo costs about 700,000-800,000 YUAN, that's about $100K, easily beating house prices in many places in the US.
Still flocks of people will work for these factories, because there are simply too many people looking for work. Recently with the economic crisis, even college graduates will apply. As far as I know, nobody forces them to apply for those jobs and they know very well what they will get.
Before you condemn the pay in China, in the U.S., San Francisco bay area, if you don't know English, your pay is usually minimum wage ($8) + equivalent cash pay (no double pay) for OT, often with no break time either. That's about $2000 working 60 hours week. But employers don't provide any housing, food or transportation.
Is the U.S. doing much better? Now, you can make some informed judgment.
Then why do most young people in Chinese village go to be enslaved in factories in cities, while only the old people stay in the fields?
Wow... soon, I will be able to comprehend music and video at 7x the standard playing speed! Wonderful!
China has enforced the law to require all new cell phone to use standardized USB power adaptors since last year, to cut down adaptors in landfill. Why is democratic, earth-caring nation dragging its feeds?
No raids in China? Really... Really?
I heard a case in China: someone claimed to be a lawyer calls a software company accusing them using illegal copy of JBuilder (still remember that) even though the company was using Eclipse. (One must figure out from the company website that the software is written in Javan and therefore must be using JBuilder -- the IDE of choice for many CChinese Java programmers, because it can bought from pirate market.)
In China, everything can be faked; Even lawyers and policemen may be faked. And if someone telling you he knows some high official to solve your problem, watching out; that guy likely knows nobody.
Fixed it for them. Take some of these
For the PR and covering up of their own incompetency, the best strategy is always to stick bad things to the biggest public enemy. Israel? Their people run this country; who's dare to accuse their own bosses. Russia, nobody remember them much any more. China, of course, everybody hates it. Other countries, who care.
Talking about problems will get you fired, beaten up, locked up or even killed.
I had lived in China for years and managed a group of software developers. While I agree that they are less inclined to point out problem. That's more like a cultural / educational thing. (Even if I put up awards for filing bugs, they rarely did.) But "Talking problem ... get you ... killed." I found that exaggerated too much. I've yet to read of anyone get killed speaking out problems in a *factory*. Did you actually know of an example? Or you just make it up?
And outside of works, Chinese make a lot of complains from the cost of healthcare to the lack of ... democracy ... (though they don't really demand it desparately.) There are plenty of criticism against the government in the Internet too, just ask the 91589 people complaining about the lack of train tickets in one website.
You are either not living in China or you have a wrong perception of what happen around you.
WARNING: It is useless to sue anyone posting warning labels.
WARNING: Posting warning labels offload responsibility from whoever post them.
WARNING: Mandating warning labels offload government responsibility from regulating those who post the labels.
WARNING... WARNING... WARNING...
Are there schools out there that won't take my work away from me if I discover TheNextBigThing(TM)?
Never make it as a class project, instead post it on /., and we will promptly advice you to make it into an open source project.
You are incorrectly assuming many manufacturers still remained in Taiwan. good luck finding them there.
Seriously, though, "Made in China" is really more appropriately called "Assembled in China" because most of the valued components and material in "Made in China" products are really imported from US and other western countries. The design and more importantly, the brands, belong to U.S. companies. Finally, for most products, much of the retail values go to pay rents and sale people; the products themselves have little values. If those products are assembled in the U.S., they will assembled by workers whose salaries not better than fast food restaurant workers. Why, in most people's mind, that assembling jobs have high prestige than fast food servers? I don't understand.
Finally, why you complain about junk products "Made in China," in Chinese forums, many many users were questioning why China exports all those products for junk U.S. debts 9and they ask their government not to bail out the U.S.) hmm... junk products exchange for junk debts. No doubt the two countries are the best trading partners!
The new rules that went into effect Nov. 5 are aimed at cracking down on the use of pirated software, said Hu Shenghua, a spokesman for the Culture Bureau in the city of Nanchang.
Welcome to China!
And here are the items from their "solutions":
the Government needs to issue more debt still, lots of it.
Unless you personally know the finance operations of those big guys, it is hard to say they reinvest all their fortunate into other adventures. More likely, once they become a brand name; dozen of investors will be lining up at their doors for some deals that the famous guys can be profitable without much financial risks or hard works to themselves. (I knew indirectly one assistant to a famous writer; the assistant basically writes much of the works for that writer who has become famous.)
So you are right that they don't live off their royalties, but they may well live off their fame from the first masterpiece. I guess nobody would/should complain about that. And that's a main driving force for many FOSS contributors.
If the antitrust regulator blocks yahoo-google deal, why would they pass MSFT-YHOO deal? Remember, search is not the only business in the world. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have huge e-mail and portal businesses, while gmail is still trailing much behind; their union will become a monopoly in email service. You know it is harder to change your email address than switching search provider. So why should the same regulator OK that?
Microsoft likely knew that their deal wouldn't go through really. Their action was probably just trying to trash Yahoo.
Trusting the government to do the right thing was a way of life; for most people it was the only way they knew and they lived happily by it. Of course, the media usually projects the government in a rather positive light, but hey, it keeps the people happy. The only thing I dislike the Chinese government for is the education system, where nationalism and reverence of communist heroes were ingrained at an early age.
That shows you have never really lived in the country for more than a few weeks. In China, people all just ignore whatever government said and find ways to bypass whatever rules the government tries. They don't worry about "rights" because they just ignore rules (even as simple as traffic laws) whenever there is a fringe benefit. And if you get in trouble, find some connection in government to bail you out. That's why there are so many tainted products.
Apple cannot forever rely on hardware sales alone. They should have their own portal.