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Forgot the US, Lyrhawn. Something like half the world's military budget? being spent to arm less than a twentieth of the world's population?
Commoners who make up those commonly agreed upon figures also lie, TomDavidson. Consider the "Kuwaiti babies killed in their incubators" of the GulfWar, or the WoMDs of the IraqWar. Just cuz PatRobertson and RushLimbaugh sez it's true don't make it so.
"Okay," Sopwith, "who are the bad guys surrounding" the US "from every side, brandishing great and scary weapons?" Cuz China shares common borders with two expansionary powers, India and Russia. Sits across a sea from another, Japan. And sits across the ocean from the greatest naval power of all time, the most powerful military power of all time: which does make a habit of using its power to intimidate and/or replace the governments of other countries; which has been at war with three of China's close neighbors, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam; which isgiving a nuclear warhead delivery system to one state sponsor of terrorism, Pakistan, and offering to sell the same nuclear warhead delivery system to another state sponsor of terrorism, India, who both incidentally have border disputes with China; and which is currently engaged in war in Iraq while occupying Afghanistan. Both countries farther away from and across more borders from that greatest military power than China.
Meanwhile, China has about a fifth of the world population and is spending less than a fifteenth of the world's military budget.
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THANK YOU! I was worried I was the only one. It gets lonely argueing something when your outnumbered argueing it.
Next, what I mean about those figures that official accounts from foreign witnesses are unconfirmed, a Spanish newsreporter estimated that the death toll was only around 200-300, The New York times estimated it at about 400-800, The Red cross around 2100, and a spattering of garbed accounts upwards of 8000, this is what I mean when they're aren't any agreed upon official figures and not even inside Tianamin Square. And when compared to the number of gun murders in the United States (11,000~) is really a small number.
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Nah, BlayneBradley, I was slacking cuz I thought you were handling your end of the discussion more than adequately.
If "over 10billion sold" McDonalds were as dedicated to remaining ignorant of other folks' perceptions as most Americans are, they'd still be a long ways away from selling their first million burgers.
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If China wants to arm, ultimately we can't stop them.
My point, is that thinking they just want it for defensive purposes, and that they don't harbor ANY sort of aggressive tendencies is both irresponsible and ignorant of history.
And aspectre, Japan and Russia are hardly expansionary powers. Russia's armed forces are in shambles, and their economy is in such bad condition, they can barely bake bread, let alone prosecute what would be the greatest land war of all time. Japan doesn't even HAVE an army, or a real navy to move it anywhere.
As for India, they'll invade Indo-China before they try to tangle with China itself. It makes more sense. As far as America goes, the last time a major naval war was fought in the Pacific was after extreme provocation.
Using American military might as a pretext to arm themselves is a smokescreen. America won't be invading China anytime soon, or for that matter, probably ever.
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quote: You do realize that you've probably done 0 research on the subject, to be fair in the great leap forward he did resign the position of Chairman and took the blame for it, dispite the fact that in the 50's a series of some of the greatest natural disasters in history struck China.
Blayne, while you were still dribbling your juice boxes on your underoos, I was watching every moment of the Tianamen Square debacle. I was also finishing a minor in Asian Studies to go with a History Major that, strangely enough, centered greatly around Asian History.
I also spent years working with Chinese immigrants (both from Taiwan and the PRC). Over the years, I've kept some of those contacts and also paid attention to the news on the PRC.
But beyond that, you're right, I've done NO research or have ANY idea of what I'm talking about. Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: This practice is morally WRONG. There must be a line drawn where we say, "We will not cross this, no matter how *practical* or even *necessary* it may seem. So they have 1.3 billion people? Why not just kill a few million, then? Mao certainly did his best at *that* brand of population control."
Ok wise guy tell me how would solve a population problem? Isn't it better to abort those who aren't even considered as full human beings yet then grown up human beings? Its one thing to complain its another thing to give a solution.
Consider this for a moment: just because you have a solution doesn't mean it's the one that should be implemented. I mean, would you say that to solve world hunger, you should just kill all the people who are starving around the world? Of course not.
Posts: 143 | Registered: Sep 2005
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
The PRC is doing what is the most efficient means of curbing a rising population and insuring living standards will go up not down, and you still haven't come up with a better solution, the only other REAL solution would be to invade Russia, but then again Hitler prooved that would be a bad idea.
Fine, Sopwith you know something about what you're talking about, but your still not giving me the respect I deserve and your not taking fully into account my side of the arguement. In Tianamen Square the most neutral account gave about 200-300 as the final figure for deaths and these didn't even happen in the damn square but outside when tanks crashed over roadblocks in the street.
"If China wants to arm, ultimately we can't stop them.
My point, is that thinking they just want it for defensive purposes, and that they don't harbor ANY sort of aggressive tendencies is both irresponsible and ignorant of history.
And aspectre, Japan and Russia are hardly expansionary powers. Russia's armed forces are in shambles, and their economy is in such bad condition, they can barely bake bread, let alone prosecute what would be the greatest land war of all time. Japan doesn't even HAVE an army, or a real navy to move it anywhere.
As for India, they'll invade Indo-China before they try to tangle with China itself. It makes more sense. As far as America goes, the last time a major naval war was fought in the Pacific was after extreme provocation.
Using American military might as a pretext to arm themselves is a smokescreen. America won't be invading China anytime soon, or for that matter, probably ever."
And I keep saying that China has rarely if ever invaded another country, they have attempted peace keeping when Vietnam invaded Cambodia but couldn't have been happier to go back home when it turned out disasterous.
Russia's economy/military isn't as in shambles as you'ld think, they repaid their debts and have developed some pretty awsome new stuff recently and are reorganizing.
The Japanese Self Defence force is alot more potent then you know as well dispite spending only 1-2% of their economy of it. Though true it can't do much offencively but they can still hard China and possible be used as a spring board.
If someone tried to beat you to death and almost succeeded even if he lost alot of his muscles you'ld still be nervous around him.
While their last major war in the pacific true was only at extreme provocation but remember tat their recent wars were with little provocation and evidence to support said war (cough Iraq) were fabricated. The there's the dozens of little interventions against peaceful elected governments in central amrica...
"Using American military might as a pretext to arm themselves is a smokescreen. America won't be invading China anytime soon, or for that matter, probably ever."
Just as you say I couldn't know China's real attentions how would you know America's? Everything I read point towards a country [China] that is pursueing a peaceful means of development and simultaniously doing some restructuring and upgrading for their armed forces.
They are not building UP their military only making it smaller, if you saw the PLA growing then you'ld be more plausible, but its not they're dismantling their older stuff and demobilizing troops.
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quote:Consider this for a moment: just because you have a solution doesn't mean it's the one that should be implemented. I mean, would you say that to solve world hunger, you should just kill all the people who are starving around the world? Of course not.
Exactly. Note, also, that in China "abortion" can and often does mean "stab the baby in the head with a needle as it crowns". And we're not always talking about induced labor, but full-term pregnancy. Much, much cheaper that way, you see. When the line between "not even considered a full human being", as you put it, and a living human being is a few seconds and a breath of air, you are no longer on a moral slippery slope but in a full-out free-fall.
And besides, no government should EVER have the right to force a medically unnecessary surgery for "pragmatic" reasons or for "the greater good of future generations". I am pro-life; I am against abortion on any terms except when the mother's life is threatened, in cases of rape and incest, or when the fetus would not survive past birth. But at least in the States when the abortion is performed it is the mother of the child that makes the choice.
Give the State-any State-this sort of power, and they WILL abuse it. And hideously so.
The Beloved Wise Benevolent Chairman Mao Zedong was a monster, as bad as any other who ever lived so far as I'm aware, and the current PRC government is still the child of the twisted, hideous child he spawned that cut its teeth on the blood of millions in the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. A few concessions to capitalism and some lessons learned in public relations has not changed that fact. This is not the Middle Kingdom. The Cultural Revolution, in fact, was Mao's attempt to *actively stamp out* much of what was good and noble and wise in ancient Chinese culture.
I also have met a good number of Chinese immigrants. These people are willing to come over in CARGO CONTAINERS, packed in like the slave ships of the 18th century. I know several who simply will not talk about their trip, or who begin to openly weep whenever their family in China is mentioned, and the latter, in Chinese culture, means more than I think a Westerner can even really comprehend.
China has no freedom of speech, precious little freedom of religion, not even the pretence of the right to vote, and although they are allowing more and more free enterprise under the old "it matters not whether the cat is white or black, so long as it catches mice", make no mistake; the State owns you, body and soul, property, children, womb, life, everything, and can give or take at its whim.
It is argued that their socialist system makes them more "secure" as there is "free health care and education" which often translates to "free infections and indoctrination". And no one whose life can be ended at any moment on the whim of a corrupt bureaucrat or military officer is really "secure" in any meaningful way.
Communism offers to trade freedom for security and ends up giving neither. It claims to perhaps "break a few eggs" for the greater good, but in the end cares only for the good of its ruling elite. The inherent and fatal flaw of socialism and its authoritarian cousins is this: no individual or group, no matter how smart or well-intentioned or educated or enlightened, can EVER be trusted with the amount of power over their fellow man that the creation of "social justice" inevitably requires. The genius of the Constitution is that it is designed to mitigate the inevitable mistakes and abuses that all leaders will inevitably commit, if not themselves then their successors.
Posts: 1631 | Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:The PRC is doing what is the most efficient means of curbing a rising population and insuring living standards will go up not down, and you still haven't come up with a better solution, the only other REAL solution would be to invade Russia, but then again Hitler prooved that would be a bad idea.
Efficient, yes, the way the Germans or Japanese in WWII were efficient. Ruthlessly efficient.
Provide decent living standards? How about funneling less money to the military and more toward that goal? How about losing their deathgrip on the economy so people can freely trade and prosper? I'm not buying the population argument. Huge portions of China are relatively uninhabited, and Japan crams a much denser population into a much smaller space while maintaining a standard of living that is *exponentially* better than China's.
You want to keep the population under control? How about trying to CONVINCE your people? You know, reason with them, offer incentives besides the current "not getting shot in the back of the head" and "not having a needle jammed into your baby's head"? How about trying SOMETHING BESIDES FORCE? Japan has very effectively stabilized their population without resorting to such draconian measures. So has Europe. They convinced people that they would be better off with smaller families. Dialog with its people, however, is not something that the PRC's leaders are able to comprehend. They still use the Chinese word that corresponds to "peasant" for anyone who isn't one of the elite. Don't tell me nothing else will work. China's government hasn't TRIED anything else. They see the "peasants" as their own personal property and playthings. They take the measures they do because it's cheaper and more convenient for the ruling elite, and any kind of dialog with the people, any concession of autonomy, threatens their power and likely their lives in the event of a revolution. Remember, these people were installed through revolution, and they still fear it. He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. They have become more corrupt and uncaring than Chiang Kai-shek ever even dreamed of being, and having created an even worse regime than their old masters they fear sharing an even worse fate.
There are plenty of alternatives. They do what they do not out of some sort of desperate, absolute necessity unless that necessity is to maintain the power and privilege that they have built over the bodies of millions of Chinese. They will not hesitate to pile up more if that macabre foundation ever seems to weaken.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Yank reread some information on Mao's life and the circumstances in which he came about, retouch upon your history of the Chinese civil war. Do that and then I'll consider replying. Also reread about the China's geography and tell me if that "uninhabited area" can be habited.
And finally, this isn't even the topiv of discussion the discussion is about whether a sovereign nation that the oentagon doesn't like has the right to modernize its army or not.
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Basically, I wrote up a whole rant about Blayne here, but honestly, it just isn't worth it.
It's like trying to explain to Beavis and Butthead that Evil is a bad thing while they are trying to watch a Slayer video.
Blayne, go on with your PRC fanboy deal, it's something that must, somehow, work for you. Rock on dude, score with the chicks, wave the Red Flag and Mao you're lil heart out.
You're probably right that forced abortions, the conquest and societal absorbtion of a neighboring state, the starvations of untold millions of rural people, the "re-education" of millions of urbanites, an oppressive society where protesting the government leads to your death, all are good things. We should laud and praise them.
Heck, maybe we should be like them more. Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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And by the way, the Pentagon isn't saying that the PRC can't modernize their army. They're just saying they can't do it with our stuff.
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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[quote}Yank reread some information on Mao's life and the circumstances in which he came about, retouch upon your history of the Chinese civil war. Do that and then I'll consider replying. Also reread about the China's geography and tell me if that "uninhabited area" can be habited.
And finally, this isn't even the topiv of discussion the discussion is about whether a sovereign nation that the oentagon doesn't like has the right to modernize its army or not. [/quote]
I sincerely hope you're not defending Mao Zedong.
If I have made historical errors I would be delighted to be enlightened. I have studied modern Chinese history at some length, and would love to know more. I also own a copy of The Little Red Book. More coherent than Mein Kampf, but no less despicable.
As to the the "topiv of discussion", the answer is no. A great deal of blood could have been spared had Germany and Japan not been allowed to "modernize" their armies. And Japan is still not allowed to completely do so.
As to China's lack of imperial ambition, they would dearly love some lebensraum in Russia. And would love nothing better than to turn the islands of Japan into sea-faring ash. They have some very good reasons for the latter sentiment, and Asian cultures tend to have long, long memories. Besides, no culture is likely to soon forget the sort of thing Japan inflicted on China during WWII.
And then there's Taiwan, the "rogue province." I think what really infuriates them about Taiwan is that even at a fraction of the mainland's population and natural resources they are *still* more prosperous by orders of magnitude. No one can pretend they don't have designs on Taiwan. Not even the *Chinese* pretend they don't have designs on Taiwan. The whole "rogue province" thing is essentially what they used for Tibet too: "Well, historically, it's ours."
Mind, I don't think they're about to try to invade California, but an invasion of Russia or an attempt on Japan at some point in the future wouldn't surprise me. They could gain enormous popularity points with their "peasants" simply by turning Japan into a radioactive mass. With Japan it's not invasion they want; it's revenge.
And then there's the simple principle that powerful weapons in the hands of an evil (yes, I'll gladly use that word for the PRC government) and totalitarian regime is a Bad Thing no matter what their current ambitions may or may not be.
Smiling on their military "modernization" is like watching blithely as the inmates of a maximum-security prison raid an Army Depot. We may or may not be the world's police but we really shouldn't be willfully reckless.
Posts: 1631 | Registered: Sep 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Yank reread some information on Mao's life and the circumstances in which he came about, retouch upon your history of the Chinese civil war. Do that and then I'll consider replying. Also reread about the China's geography and tell me if that "uninhabited area" can be habited.
And finally, this isn't even the topiv of discussion the discussion is about whether a sovereign nation that the oentagon doesn't like has the right to modernize its army or not.
Blayne, if you want to debate someone, you shouldn't condescend them and be so presumptuous in how you deal with the other people on this forum. You have no idea how much or how little the other people here know about China, and treating them in the manner that you have demonstrated here doesn't promote the idea that you want to have a hearty debate but that you're being a child who wants to be treated as such. I'm not saying you are a child, but you should approach this with more respect than you've demonstrated here.
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Blayne Bradley
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Mao is a man who intented everything for the best and did so with the best intentions, to say he was a monster is just plain wrong, alot of what happened in the GLF and the GPCR was done voluntarily by MILLIONS of people, and it was mostly because of natural distasters that millions died in the GLP (assuming millions did die there is alot of doubt on that), and in the CR because of the dislocation of a large amount of transportation and other infastructure.
The purpose of the CR was to destory certain parts of Cunfucian thought the "3 Main Evils" that descirbed the wifes role to the husband, the peasants role to the minister, and a third one that I don't remember.
Mao sacrificed everything he had so he could Unify China and do his best to liberate the workers and peasants, in his youth he helped organized dozens of strikes that improved worker condictions and increased wages and effectively destroyed the role of the guilds.
As for Taiwan, puh-leez, as far as the rest of the world is concerned it is China's, they simply don't want China to go to war over it yet.
Yank, your post is based alot off of speculation and wihtout proper knowledge, your assuming that the CCP is as authoritan as you think it is, your assuming that everything was the fault of Mao or the CCP, your assuming things would worked out the other way.
Your also assuming that China will lob nukes at Japan, your assuming alot of things.
And geuss what, if most of those things were true it would've happend by now.
The government in China is a rational body that is planning out a peaceful development course for China's future, that is modernizing its Army is simply part of the process and is only involving alot of dual technology and less then 4% of its total economy.
Mao made mistakes and admited them, the CCP admited them and broke off from those policies as soon as it could restore order, and Deng Xiopeng did his best to improve China's economy.
They are doing something that to all rights and purposes works why should they not do something if it works?
As your momma use to say if it ain't broke don't fix it.
"And then there's the simple principle that powerful weapons in the hands of an evil (yes, I'll gladly use that word for the PRC government) and totalitarian regime is a Bad Thing no matter what their current ambitions may or may not be."
They have had said weapons for decades and have not once used nuclear weapons in war, have not once used any other WMD in war and in the few wars they had only used a small percentage of their armed strength and ended the engagement asap. In fact the Chinese have proven themselves so responcible with said weapons that the US government had brought them into the 6 Party talks to disarm North Korea.
China is a Market economy obeying consumer demand and is under limited controls from the CCP to make sure growth points in the right direction.
Economically a Chinese citizen can buy what he wants, own what he wants and sell what he wants, that is economic freedom as you can have in any other country. They even play MMO's like Eve and World of Warcraft. The only game I heard banned is Hearts of Iron 2 cuz' "it doesn't accurately dipict Chinese history" which does make a certain kind of sense from my experiances playing the game.
"Mind, I don't think they're about to try to invade California, but an invasion of Russia or an attempt on Japan at some point in the future wouldn't surprise me. They could gain enormous popularity points with their "peasants" simply by turning Japan into a radioactive mass. With Japan it's not invasion they want; it's revenge."
Really? If so then why did they allow Japanese soldiers to serve in the PLA and treated them well? Why did Manchurian born Japanese citizens enlist into the PLA? If so then why didn't China nuke Japan by now if they are as monsterous as you think they are?
The fact that the Japanese government is doing things that aren't really politically correct (visiting controversal war shrines, history text books that water down their war crimes in WWII etc) who can blame the Chinese PEOPLE when tens of thousands of students protested against the Japanese?
Currently any sabbre rattling vs the Japanese is just for show because the PRC makes billions every year off of trade and want to keep it that way, in fact Japanese investment have GROWN reaching some 31 billion $.
The Chinese won't invade California just as America doesn't wish (I hope) of invading Manchuria. American debt is being financed by China and China is making billions off of the trade deficit, reaching some 850 billion $ of foreign exchange.
In fact Hu Jintao and GWB seem to be doing their utmost to help improve relations dispite some comparable sabbre rattling from the Pentagon.
In fact Chinese PLA students from the Military Academy of Sience (Beijing) have even recently visited WestPoint.
80% of China's 1 Million villages are democratic with grass roots democracy being instituted upwards.
Liberties and freedoms have been increasing since 1978/1989 and dissent as long as it isn't directed against the CCP itself is tolerated esp if its constructive critism about economic and foreign policy.
No liberal western democracy could or would possibly reach the same kind of growth with the same kind of circumstances, Japan has a history of being small with a dense population, China has mostly known large space and the ability to expand into uninhabited territory.
"And by the way, the Pentagon isn't saying that the PRC can't modernize their army. They're just saying they can't do it with our stuff."
Who says their doing it with your stuff? They're developing their own hardware or buying it off of Russia or Israel, infact you are implicitely changing your story, before you didn't want them to even so much as modernize now your saying you just don't want to do it with your stuff.
Ranting about me, mocking my arguements, and mocking my sources and not listening or mislistening to my arguements won't convince me that I may or may not be wrong.
As for Germany and Japan, regardless of what they did they still did have a right to modernize and if the victorious entent had realized it 20 years earlier WWII may have been prevented, and even then in 1938/39 if England and France had listened to above all things SOVIET RUSSIA'S ADVICE! Most of the Facsit expansions could have been stopped.
In fact it eventually encouraged Russia to make a deal with Germany since all signs at the time pointed to the West trying to turn Germany eastwards, infact if even Poland or Czechoslavakia had agreed to allow Soviet troops to come to their aid when the USSR;s hearts was in it Nazi aggressoveness could have been prevented.
Then there's the cold shoulder Russia received again and again when suggestions of a defencive pact against Germany were suggested.
Japan's warpath may also have been prevented with some better diplomacy.
Now lets try to limit what we argue please I don't want to have to argue this again and again on 20 different threads esp if your the only people bothering to read it.
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Blayne Bradley
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Eldrad the point is if they don't know alot about China then why do they demonize it on shaky premises?
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Don' know much about China, duz ya, Yank? If'n ya did, ya'd know that infanticide is an old old old Chinese method of birth control, which Maoism made illegal along with the comparatively new-fangled fad of footbinding. Any infanticide which occurred during China's "OneChild" phase was strictly an illegal re-adoption of an ancient rural custom.
Like I said: just cuz PatRobertson and RushLimbaugh sez so, don' make it true.
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Blayne, the point is that you don't know how much other people do or don't know about China, just as we don't know exactly how much you do; you haven't seen the other people on the thread refusing to listen to you based on some unsubstantiated idea that they know more about China than you do, and so it doesn't promote a good debate by doing that very thing yourself.
As for something that pertains to the topic at hand:
"80% of China's 1 Million villages are democratic with grass roots democracy being instituted upwards."
If this were true, why has the Chinese government banned, for example, internet searches on what they view as democratic ideals? They continue to do it to this day. If the Chinese government were as good as you're making it out to be, they would have nothing to fear by allowing their people to read about such things. So what is it that the Chinese government does fear by banning such topics?
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Blayne Bradley
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Look at Hong Kong, Hong KOng politicans representing a prodemocracy movement have been visiting CCP leaders for some time now.
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You forget that Hong Kong is the exception, not the rule; until five years ago, they were still under British rule, and China's been content to allow them to continue as if not much has happened because the people there are already used to having freedoms that most Chinese are not. If the Chinese government tried to impose the same restrictions on Hong Kong as they do across the rest of the country, one of their most profitable and technologically advanced territories would be up in arms, something few, if any, Chinese politicians are eager to see.
Posts: 143 | Registered: Sep 2005
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You have some screwy reasoning there Blayne.
"If it was going to happen it already would have happened" is just plain silly. Acts like that are all about timing. You don't do something like that just because you can, not in today's world. That's the kinda thing Rome or Carthage would have done.
Why didn't the US invade Baghdad during Desert Storm? It certainly could have, but we waited more than a decade to do it. That right there defies your premise, along with hundreds of other examples of nations waiting to do something until the time was right.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
No, thats not the it, you make it sound like that the CCP are some monsterous evil and insane cartoon villains, and if they wanted to nuke Japan they would have done so by now because such people would not care about the consequences.
Because the CCP does care about their actions because they do care about what happens to millions of China, and because they are a rational leadership that understands the rules they won't nuke Japan esp if Japan practically gives them a blank cheque each year.
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I don't blame China for wanting to build up their navy. In all honesty, they probably should be. The Pacific is at their backdoor, and Japan will one day be a great naval power again, it's only a matter of time, they might as well have a blue water navy in the works. Besides, they'll need that much to protect the Straits of Malacca and other small channels their fuel supplies move through coming from the Middle East.
But I also think they are being a bit wreckless, and they are posturing just as much as anyone else is. They've built 12 new amphibious assault craft for moving tanks and troops short distances across water, and with Taiwan and Japan being the only real opponents separeated by water, you can imagine why this makes some people in the world nerbous.
Further, Iraq has more of a historical claim to Kuwait than China does to Taiwan, and Iraq didn't get away with trying to claim it.
China should be spending more time working on renewable energies and more than anything else, healthcare. They have plenty of room for their population, and for an expanded population. Maybe if they spent more time working on AIDS research, avian bird fly, SARS, and a dozen other diseases plaguing their people, less people would call them heartless. The population could be taught smarter ways of population control than abortion, which is brutal, and forced on their women. But it's easier to abort a baby than to embark on a massive education program and healthcare revamp.
They have bigger problems than their land based military that they should be focusing on. And that kind of carelessness makes me wonder why they are rushing to improve their military so fast, at the expense of the people.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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1a) India has already been engaged in a direct war with China. In fact, the Chinese would argue that they absorbed their traditional tributary state of Tibet because the Indians were intending to conquer it. The intent demonstrated by India's embargos against other independent principalities/etc along its borders and funding&arming of "communist guerillas" to destabilize their governments, then subsequently absorbing those formerly independent states since the British granted Independence. They armed the "communist"TamilTigers in SriLanka, and probably the "Maoist"guerillas in Nepal. Bhutan's insularity provided a shield against a similarly "native" terrorist "rebellion". India is a nuclear power. 1b) India has satellite launch capability -- ie InterContinentalBallisticMissile capability -- which is how the Soviets originally spooked the US into joining the SpaceRace.
2a) Russia's nuclear capability still outweighs China's by more than ten times in strategic warheads and ICBMs, more than a hundred when comparing tactical nukes.
2b) Russian warhead delivery capabilities had ~40years of lead-time over China's inregard to tested precision targeting. How much of that technological lead remains won't be known until the Chinese decide to release the landing coordinates for their astronauts before they land; which is a good measure inregard to ICBM accuracy. While the "civilian Man in Space program" made a great headline for public consumption, the US scared the snot out of the Soviet general staff when a Gemini capsule almost landed on top of the US aircraft carrier assigned to lead the astronaut recovery team; and that was with uncontrolled parachute drift. Russian submarines and SubmarineLaunchedBallisticMissiles are commercially used to launch satellites.
2c) Russian aircraft might even be able to go toe-to-toe with the US. Every time the US gets a newer Russian model, its capabilities surprise the heck out of friendlies during mock-combat at TopGun. While their electronics and software is behind the US, Russian aircraft tend to be more over-structured than a brick outhouse. Of the ones the US has acquired, a Russian fighter can survive target-acquisition and evasion maneuvers that would cause a comparable generation US fighter to either flameout, spinout, or fall apart.
2d) Russian missile intercept capabilities They've had an operational anti-ICBM system protecting Moscow for ~30years. As well as combat-theatre interceptors for nearly 50years.
2e) If there has been a decrease in the difference in quality between Russian and Chinese aerospace technology, a LOT of the decrease is because the Chinese bought Western technology -- including US technology -- from US allies such as France and Israel, or directly from the US itself.
2e) Russia's submarine fleet is second only to the US. And while their anti-ship weaponry may not be as reliable, the torpedos and missiles are faster. Which counts a bit in a quick-draw competition.
2f) However the US would probably trash the Russians in submarine combat, because US subs are a LOT quieter and a LOT stealthier. And because the US SOSUS network and SeaInt satellite system can pinpoint any submarine bigger than a large orca, medium-sized whale which is travelling walking-speed faster than current-drift speed. Except possibly US submarines: like I said, they are incredibly stealthy. I have my doubts about even drifting submarines and US submarines evading US detection due to the relatively newly-installed full-ocean active sonar used to ping submarines travelling under the thermocline. As for travel above above the thermocline, SeaInt probably watched that recent SeaWolf submarine collision with the Pacific seamount in real time, or close to. 2g) But the US naval brass either knows that it can protect aircraft carriers from submarine warfare, or they are being stupid. I prefer to think that the carrier fleets aren't vanity projects comparable to the postWWI battleships. I prefer to think that when a US carrier fleet has sailed into the Straits of Taiwan during China-Taiwan flareups, the sailors weren't being treated as fishbait.
2h) While it is true that the Russian submarines and the Russian naval battle groups mostly stay in their home ports, there really ain't much point to keeping the submarines on "secret" patrols when the US will know where they are. Might as well save money by keeping them where the US knows where they are.
2i) The above doesn't mean that the Chinese have an defensive&offensive advantage comparable to the US. Unless the Russian navy is a LOT worse off than reported by the intelligence news magazines such as Janes, and the Chinese navy is a LOT better than reported, the Russians would win in naval combat with China. Even considering China's advantage in shorebased aircraft, the Russians can take out the airfields with SLBMs, ship-to-shore ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles...for the short term, without going nuclear.
posted
So Blayne, what are your credentials? What makes you the expert you believe you are about this?
Posts: 2848 | Registered: Feb 2003
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Having spoken to people from China both online and offline, read very many books from neutral unbiased sources, magazines, encylopedias.
Some of these sources include: Mao A Life
and China! Inside the People's Republic The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: 1500-2000 Politics and War from Philip the Second to Hitler.
quote: Yes, he [Philip Short] acknowledges, Mao was a tyrant, but then China always has been run by tyrants; it never has had a tradition of democracy. And Mao was also an idealist: the deaths of millions was, as he saw it, the price that his country had to pay for being dragged from a state of medieval servitude--perpetually on the brink of famine--to that of a modern, industrialized, self-sufficient nation, in the space of a single lifetime.
Publishers Weekly
quote: By Short's reckoning, Mao's megalomaniacal ambition led to such disasters as the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), the collectivization and production drive that ended in apocalyptic failure as 20 million Chinese starved to death, and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969), during which hundreds of thousands were tortured, arrested or executed.
Oh, well, if he was an idealist. The ends do justify the means, right? What if the end leads right back to the beginning for large percantages of the population?
quote: Though Short describes Mao as a "visionary, statesman, political and military strategist of genius," he also points out that Mao's rule "brought about the deaths of more of his own people than any other leader in the history of any country in the world." And yet he concludes by distinguishing Mao's culpability from that of Stalin and Hitler, evoking the distinction in Western law "between murder, manslaughter, and death caused by negligence."
The tortures and executions were but negligence?
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quote:Yes, he [Philip Short] acknowledges, Mao was a tyrant, but then China always has been run by tyrants; it never has had a tradition of democracy. And Mao was also an idealist: the deaths of millions was, as he saw it, the price that his country had to pay for being dragged from a state of medieval servitude--perpetually on the brink of famine--to that of a modern, industrialized, self-sufficient nation, in the space of a single lifetime.
Publishers Weekly
quote: By Short's reckoning, Mao's megalomaniacal ambition led to such disasters as the Great Leap Forward (1958-1960), the collectivization and production drive that ended in apocalyptic failure as 20 million Chinese starved to death, and the chaos of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1969), during which hundreds of thousands were tortured, arrested or executed.
Oh, well, if he was an idealist. The ends do justify the means, right? What if the end leads right back to the beginning for large percantages of the population?
quote:Though Short describes Mao as a "visionary, statesman, political and military strategist of genius," he also points out that Mao's rule "brought about the deaths of more of his own people than any other leader in the history of any country in the world." And yet he concludes by distinguishing Mao's culpability from that of Stalin and Hitler, evoking the distinction in Western law "between murder, manslaughter, and death caused by negligence."
The tortures and executions were but negligence?
And finally also remember that in the great Leap Forward China was struck be a series of natural disaster the flooding of the yangzti river along killed more then 3 million.
And finally its a matter of perception, many will say that history will not forgive those who leave the state weak, how many old rulers, kings and governors have there been that historians savagely attack for weakening the state or not doing enough to make the state strong?
Those millions are dead, complaining about it does not bring them back, figure out a way how complaining can bring them back and then maybe they'll listen to you.
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Saying that floods killed a lot of people doesn't rebut the fact that Mao was responsible for the deaths of millions. This isn't 'complaining,' Blayne; this is recognizing that China has had some pretty tyrannical leaders throughout its history and remembering this so that it might be prevented in the future.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
But you aren't recognizing what good did happen, you aren't recognizing his accomplishments, and you aren't acknowledging that Mao was the one primarily responsible for holding back the Japanese, Chiang by all accounts was planning to make a a peace treaty that would've left China weak.
And it wasn't just floods, there were many enviromental factors at work that all contributed to it, what Mao did was encourage the creation of tens of thousands of communes that were generally as far as I can tell formed voluntarily in a massive effort by most of agricultural China that had reduced the overal effort into agriculture, saying Mao was responsible it it is technically true yet theotecally false, he didn't cause the starvations, the weather did and played foul at a really bad time, infact even that overall death toll is in doubt, considering "The Rise and Fall..." by Paul Kennedy China's overal food imports increase by a vast amount of help ease the famines, compared to Russia which forced collectization and EXPORTED food inorder to pay for heavy machinery.
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Folks, he's in full fanboy mode. He won't understand as long as he has the stars (red) in his eyes.
Blayne, someday, you'll understand.
(One quick note Blayne, about Mao's giving up what he had for the revolution, for the people... There's was this young Austrian fellow who gave up what might have been a modest career as a painter to rise to world prominence. He styled himself a great leader as well. Wrote a nice little book that inspired a generation as well. The similarities go on quite a bit.)
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posted
Evil is a lot like the band Chicago, a lot of their greatest hits sound pretty similar...
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Blayne Bradley
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There is a world of difference between Hitler and Mao, Mao was not in any way evil, and quite frankly I think this arguement is over when you result to a condenscending atitude and think it gets your point across.
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While it's true that Blayne was pretty condescending earlier, that doesn't make the whole "you'll understand when your older" schtik any more palatable.
Blayne, on a somewhat related (to the general topic of discussion) note, have you ever read Maureen McHugh's China Mountain Zhang? I don't know how well you'd like the book as a whole, but I suspect that you'd find the world it's set in an interesting one.
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I wonder how you can make that argument. What is your definition of "evil?"
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Malice, making decisions based upon malice, hatred, prejudice.
Mao was never any of these, he never hated anyone, he was possibly angry with his father (but who isn't?), he probably hated Chiang for what he did to his family (tortured and killed his second wife, dug up the graves of Mao's parents).
But in general? His order weren't based on hate, but on traditional idealism and socialist thought that he had adapted for practicality within China.
As for my atitude earlier I am generally under the impression that people when they argue about China don't know and haven't researched what they're talking about, this applies in reverse as I have equal intolerence for people who argue in Defence of China but also don't know that they're talking about. (example; "China has enough people for a 300,000,000 man army!" when of course while they may have 300 mil capable of joining the armed forces they're are not enough Ak47's to arm all of them).
As for China Mountain Zhang no I have ot heard of it I'll google it up, if you say I'll find it interesting I'll look into it.
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How isn't Mao evil? Even China admits that approximately 20 million people died due to policies that Mao tried to implement, and this is generally considered to be a lower-end estimate. Mao's 'practicality' ranks up there with some of the worst atrocities in human history; I would tell you to ask the dead, but dead men tell no tales. As for those who aren't angry with their fathers, I'm one of them. I consider my father to be the greatest man I will ever have had the honor of knowing.
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Blayne Bradley
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Yes, failed policies that they admit but they will also day that Mao was a great man who made some great mistakes. You can have it both ways with politics.
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Huh...Mao was a politician who made some mistakes with the best of intentions. Some would say the same of Hitler. After all, in his eyes he was doing what was best for mankind, so that makes it ok, right?
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posted
I would place much more faith in people within the PRC saying that Mao was a great, honorable man and they are satisfied with their government and wouldn't wish it replaced...
If they couldn't be locked up for saying so. But you'll deny that, explain that they need to make China strong, that "complaining about the millions of people Mao's (at best) negligent stupidity slaughtered won't bring them back, so quit whining", that they're getting better, ad naseum.
The People's Republic of China does not work to protect the civil and human rights that you yourself enjoy, Blayne Bradley. It treats its citizens in a way you would find horrifying were your government behave even mildly similar towards yourself. It enacts policies that are negligently stupid, and if you speak out too publicly against them, well then you're locked up. It runs over people in tanks for protesting. It forces its people to have abortions. It does not permit democratic elections. It does not permit a free press. It does not permit individuals free access to the Internet. It does not permit individuals to enter and exit the country as they desire. It routinely "disappears" individuals and tortures them. It routinely beats and imprisons people for practicing religion.
All of these things I've said-every one-are facts, they've been documented primarily in history books, news reports (not just American), and by organizations such as Human Rights Watch. Explain away, apologize, temporize, and marginalize the people of this nation you claim to love so much all you like, they are facts, Blayne Bradley.
You have the freedom to be publicly religious if you like. You have the freedom to speak out publicly against your government. You have the freedom to vote in open, free elections. They don't.
posted
So, Mao's policies that killed tens of millions are NOT evil.
The Japanese in Manchuria however, those policies also killed tens of millions, but I'm guessing you consider them evil.
There's a thin line between assigning evil to the act, and to the reasoning behind the act. Some acts are just evil, regardless of the thought or intention behind them. And some reasoning is evil, regardless of the outcomes it brings.
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posted
I take it back, I'm not washing my hands of this quite yet.
We can talk of millions dying, of the hopelessness of the people under a communist regime, of the lack of freedoms we consider to be the most basic of human rights. But Blayne won't understand. He can't put himself in the position of one of the workers or peasants, he can only see it from the position of a Communist party's elite.
But that's the problem with so many of those who espouse Communism -- they never see themselves as the person who works ten hour shifts seven days a week at a factory to keep the machinery running. They are never the ones who are moved from their family homes and placed to work at the collective farms. They never see themselves waiting in line for 12 hours to get a roll of toilet paper.
They speak of putting the workers to work and making the farms more efficient. They speak of the need for a unified political voice. They speak of giving up freedoms for the greater good. But they never think that they are the ones who will have to pay the bill.
They speak of peasants and workers, not as a different class, but as a different species -- like animals that need to be made to work. They eat the sausage but haven't the guts to see it made. It's just peasants that die and workers that toil for no reward.
It's a lack of empathy and the uplifting feel of commiting to an ideology. It's the work report of a person who has never truly bent their back to labor. It's a person who has never had those above them take away what they have worked hard for.
Communism appeals greatly to the disaffected lay about, a person to whom personal achievement and personal effort are happily traded for a stipend and an anonymity of self and spirit. If that stipend comes at the suffering of untold others, who cares? As long as the supporter isn't the one who has to suffer.
It's Karl Marx seeking warmth in the public library that others paid to have built. It's the well-fed Stalin while people in Leningrad starved to death. It's the military parades in Pyongyang while the poor starve and freeze in the Korean winter. It's Mao's smiling face on a poster plastered anew on the only wall left standing in a Yalu River village where the last person just starved to death.
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posted
Sopwith, I wonder, do you see the people who strongly espouse Capitalism or most of the leaders of U.S. companies as any different?
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There's a difference, Mr. Squicky. With capitalism-even pure, unadulterated capitalism-the thing that motivates those in power to succeed and be efficient (be they government or robber-barons) is greed and competition.
With those two motivators, progress is assured. It's guaranteed, because those who do not progress will be overwhelmed by those who do. Communism has no such guarantees. It competes against...well, not even against itself, really. It relies less on what works and more on what is politically acceptable.
This is not to say I'm a fan of unadulterated capitalism. I'm not. It rewards naked exploitation of both workers and consumers, and it seeks to place the individual a little too close to the jungle for my tastes. Nor is this to say that communism always must be inefficient and noncompetitive. I suppose it's possible that communism could be both things.
But it sure as hell hasn't been so yet.
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posted
Progress for whom? Right now, it seems like many of our companies are outsourcing their labor needs to workers in countries like China specifically because of results of the the oppression of the workers that you are complaining about. The progress that comes out of this, from my perspective, goes to the people who own capital in these companies (as per the capitalist system) and to the oppressive Chinese government. It's not, however, going to the workers, Chinese or American. And, if China enacted the democratic and workers' rights reforms that you seem to be saying that they should, many American companies would, following market capitalism, pull out of China in favor of countries that still heavily oppressed their workers.
edit: Or consider the U.S. government's and businesses' dealing in Central and South America. We've fought very vigorously against workers' rights even to the point of setting up the sort of brutal dictators you're decrying and training his minions in using terror and torture against those who oppose him. I don't know who you think that the U.S. created Banana Republics wre progress for, but I don't see how in the light of the initial criticism about worker's rights could see as different in a better way from China.
If you want to argue which system is more efficient, that's one thing, but I don't think that focusing on worker's rights and related topics or the moral nature of the people who run the system is going to show how Communism is much worse than other economic systems.
posted
The difference between Russian and Chinese Communism is the leadership, in Russia many leaders like Lenin were exiles or were out of touch and when revolution came about with the return of said intellectuals, these intlllectuals readily took power.
China is different, a good majority of the leadership are like Mao Zedong, a peasant to the roots and who have adapted Marxism and created a flair of it with Chinese characteristics, eventually becoming Maoism.
In fact Mao did in the early 30's a very deep study of the life of peasents of a few villages and its surounding areas in which could be applied to most of China, essentially a detailed study of one area with a more basic study of the rest to provide the clearist picture.
It was 60,000 words long and the plight of women and prostitutes got a good portion of it.
You talk about the suffering of the Chinese people, but you willingly forget about the even greater suffering they endured BEFORE Liberation pre-1949 which I had got into at length previously either in this thread or another one.
The CCP did these:
Unified Mainland China, restored Chinese pride by forcing the Americans to endure the longest retreat they have ever faced in the Korean war, universal sufferage at age 16-18, a secular education system that (post 1978) was free until college where competition between students was encouraged for greatest output of productivity.
China's emergance as a great power had been assured by the CCP with 20-50 years it will become a super power as it switches from an exporter to a more service based importer economy. Economically, militarily and politically China as the PRC is far stronger now then ever before since the Han and Qin Dynasties.
The "plight" of the people is shacky at best, they're lives are far greater and more prosperous now then ever before, and to th average person they see progress, and thats all they need, for as long as the lives of their ancestors was worse and the lives of the children and grand children they know will be better then they will continue to support the CCP which they see as the legitimate government of China.
I'm a realist in these matters, what good is complaining about someone who broke a cup if you don't suggest a means of fixing it? And also, wat good is complaining about someone to lose weight faster when doing so would do more harm then good?
Stop complaining about what a sovereign nation does behind its borders, if the lives of the people are unacceptable then its bad, but if said lives are the best that can be given possible given circumstances and the lives ARE improving then what are you complaining about?
Mao was not an evil man, he was an idealist, who hoped to create communism with Chinese characteristics, who spent his whole life fighting for the good of China, he made mistakes, he's not god or buddha but he still did great things. The Great Forward was encouraged by the CCP under Mao, but it was carried out by the enthusiastic will of hundreds of thousands to millions of people who did it voluntarily, and from there natural disasters struck at a time when the state of agriculture due to the Civil, Sino-Japanese, second civil, and Korean wars.
The Cultural Revolution was meant to transform chinese society on a scale never attmpted before or after in any other socialist nation, it was meant to be an excersize of political thought and revolutionary action by the students associations to critize local CCP leadership, corrupt bureaucrats and petty functionaries, and to attack and destroy traditional forms of Cunfucian and Buddhist thought that was felt to have imprisoning effect on the average chinese thought and unduly oppressed women and the average people.
But it is also true it went to far and spun out of control Deng Xiapeng later known as the "Last Emperor" after his death in 1999(?) (I was reading about it in the paper) and with the help of the PLA the party restored order and soon enough after Mao's death the CCP arrested and executed those who had wished to continue it, otherwise known as the "Gang of Four".
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Just to reiterate, I did say I was no fan of unadulterated capitalism.
That said...there's a reason workers in those countries take the jobs they're given by USA outsourcing, and that's because they're better than the jobs they've got. That means more money for the worker, and thus a better standard of living, and a chance at better educating their children.
Governments like the brutal tyranny of the PRC don't last forever under such pressures. They must make substantial changes or be replaced.
Yes, the most progress, the most money, the most efficiency, goes to the owner. But don't you realize that there's a reason that you stand a good chance of hearing an Indian on the phone trying to sell you something? Those jobs they're taking, being paid too little for, are better than what Communism (in the example of the PRC) offers them.
Morally speaking-and I didn't bring this up, you did-there is little difference in my opinion between the CEO who outsources jobs to people he'll pay pennies a day and knows they'll take because they're desperate, and the Politburo who decides, "You all are going to make steel in your homes and we'll pay you pennies for it." Of course, in the first case, the CEO at least is not compelling workers to work for him, he just knows it'll happen because they're desperate. If you don't make the steel for the Politburo, you get shot and your family pays for the bullet.
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Societies that embrace capitalism do not always respect and protect the rights of the worker and the individual, it's true. But societies that embrace communism as a whole never do so, at least on a nation-state scale. At least it hasn't happened yet. That's why it's worse.
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