Just to let you know, I saw the previous post, but I'm not sure what kind of opinion I have on the matter.
I never really got the impression that Beijing was particularly polite either (by Western definitions of polite). Whether thats due to the size of the city, the classic "To the people of Beijing, everyone else is a subordinate; to the people of Guangdong, everyone else is a northerner; to the people of Shanghai, everyone else is a country bumpkin." atitudes, or something cultural I couldn't say.
On one hand, the archetypes of the loud and boisterous Beijing cab driver and the straight-forward plainspoken hutong dweller populate many a expats book or blog. On the other hand, I really wouldn't know if Beijingers were more polite, say, during the Cultural Revolution, during the Qing dynasty, or during the Ming.
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(separately, while I've watched many a Hong Kong film and feel I have a good coverage of at least the 1980s+ films, unfortunately my mainland viewing is still pretty modest due to recent available time)
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I'm trying to find a thread there used to be about Chinese language. My search fu isn't working.
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It was one BlackBlade set up for studying and practicing. Spacepook is taking Mandarin and I'm along for the ride.
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quote:Originally posted by pooka: It was one BlackBlade set up for studying and practicing. Spacepook is taking Mandarin and I'm along for the ride.
I cannot for the life of me find it either. :\
If you'd like to setup a new one, I'd be happy to participate. Also, if spacepook or yourself wants time practicing, I'd be happy to talk over Skype, or else respond on facebook or some other platform. Honestly the biggest obstacle to learning Mandarin is having opportunities to practice speaking/writing.
Though to be completely frank, I think the first two years should be dedicated to speaking only, with not a character in sight, beyond maybe 100 basic characters.
People who insist on learning both congruently usually end up doing neither very well, and I include myself as exhibit A.
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She missed the first day of class due to still being asleep when it started. Well, maybe we should have a thread over on sakeriver since she's registered there. Or GC, Annie is somewhat more regular there.
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Link. I didn't stick with it too long, but I'll get characters functioning from work and I'd be happy to go back to translating posts into Chinese. I absolutely need the practice.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade:
quote:Originally posted by pooka: It was one BlackBlade set up for studying and practicing. Spacepook is taking Mandarin and I'm along for the ride.
I cannot for the life of me find it either. :\
If you'd like to setup a new one, I'd be happy to participate. Also, if spacepook or yourself wants time practicing, I'd be happy to talk over Skype, or else respond on facebook or some other platform. Honestly the biggest obstacle to learning Mandarin is having opportunities to practice speaking/writing.
Though to be completely frank, I think the first two years should be dedicated to speaking only, with not a character in sight, beyond maybe 100 basic characters.
People who insist on learning both congruently usually end up doing neither very well, and I include myself as exhibit A.
On the other hand learning congruently through the James Hesig Method but applies to Hanzi characters has been known to be very effective with some people. Because you can mnentically learn *alot* of characters in a relatively short amount of time and the learning to speak it helps memorizing learning to write and read them.
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I respectfully disagree with Mr. Hesig. Learning to identify characters can certainly help with your vocabulary, but it won't do anything towards helping you learn proper grammar, and pronounciation.
Further it's just as easy to become proficient as a conversationalist and then when you start learning the characters you can just match them to the words you've learned.
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You learn the characters first all at once (like say in blocks of 500) so that when you do work on pronunciation and grammar the two methods of learning complement and reinforce each other.
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Blayne: How does my knowing what a character looks like and mean help me when I'm actually using it in a sentence? Sure it's great if I learn a character means "cat", it's easy to point to one in China and say, "貓！" and while technically true, most people would wonder why you sound funny. You would almost always say, "一只貓" or "貓咪" The character "只" would say "only" and "measuring particle for animals" as in "我只有一只貓" (I've only one cat), to use both senses in a sentence. You wouldn't even see the character 咪 on any character list. All that effort to remember 只 just another character with a box and two lines beneath it should be spent on understanding the stupid word. Otherwise it's a nightmare to differentiate 何 可 阿 啊 呵 when your pen is on the paper, even if you know how to use each one properly. Or 很 and 良, 水 and 永, or trying to remember how to write 謝. You know darn well what it looks like in your head, and you say it all the time, but who can remember all those bloody parts?
Another example if I saw the character 怎 like in my post above where I said "怎麽辦？" (what can be done?) a dictionary or website would say the character means "what". But that character is almost never used by itself to mean that word. If you didn't understand somebody you would never say, "怎"?
You'd also see the characters 什麽, would also have the definition "what" next to them, but that is more or less useless. Because while it means what as in, "What did you say?" The grammar is all wrong, you'd say literally in Chinese "You said/saying what?"
There's also the concept of "no" in Chinese, in that traditionally you would never say just "no". You could say, "不對" "不可以" "不可能"
(not correct) (can not (as in you do not have permission)) (impossible) respectively. Knowing the character "不" means "no/not" and is also a general negation particle does very little when it comes to applying it properly. To make it worse many people today *are* using "不" to simply mean no, since it's a convenient concept loaned over from English. But you'd only pick up on that nuance by listening to people talk. All that work first learning characters IMHO does not set you up with some winning strategy for speaking.
My father often talked about learning Chinese as a college student, and one particular interesting case was a Chinese woman in his class who could read ancient Chinese texts in classical Chinese which is a sort of seperate coded language from the Chinese the commoners spoke. She was a genius at interpreting characters and translating them into English. She could not however pronounce the words, or speak almost any Chinese.
Knowing characters is great, but I am convinced that a different part of your brain handles recognizing characters than the part that recalls how to write them. Many Chinese people are lousy at writing the characters, though they can easily recognize many thousands.
When testing, Chinese courses always ask you to write responses rather than simply asking questions that test whether you can identify characters. I'm a much bigger fan of oral exams and say multiple choice questions if we are going to add characters to the equation. Asking people to remember how to essentially recreate hundreds of pictures along with everything else is just less effective.
quote:This, however, was no movement of frustrated migrant workers or disgruntled peasants thrown off their land, but an orderly, 12,000-strong crocodile of China’s new well-to-do; smartly-dressed and smartphone-savvy, texting pictures of their defiance all around the world. China’s authorities deal with a 100,000 'disturbances’ a year, but the protests in Dalian last weekend were different, forcing the local government to announce the closure of the Ł950m factory that generates Ł200m of tax revenues a year.
quote:“Sure, I got the warning message [from the university authorities],” a 21-year-old student who agreed to meet on Dalian’s seafront, obscured in a bustling crowds of tourist said. “But I ignored it. It was right for people to go. As citizens we must have courage to express ourselves. It is our duty.” Joshua Rosenzweig, honorary researcher at Hong’s Kong’s Dui Hua foundation who has been chronicling dissent in China for almost a decade, says the Dalian-style protesters differ from traditional dissidents like Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel peace prize winner who was jailed for 11 years for writing and circulating the Charter 08 petition attacking one-party rule.
“Over the last five years activism has taken a new direction in China,” says Mr Rosenzweig, “There had been a move away from the classical mode of attacking the system itself, to more issue-based causes like this chemical factory in Dalian, that people can identify and sympathise with much more directly.” China’s rulers might take little comfort from this distinction, since participants at the Dalian rally seemed clear that they were using an issue that has widespread public support to attack the system while avoiding serious charge of 'subversion’.
“It was like a carnival, everyone was so excited. People were coming out of the restaurants to give us tea and water, they were doing it spontaneously.
It felt like there was revolutionary atmosphere. It was the most exciting thing I’ve ever done,” added the student.
“People were talking about 'June Fourth’ [the date of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989],” he added, “There were some officials walking in the Square, saying if you don’t disperse, the square will be cleared by force, but the people said it’s different now.
“Back then, they sent tanks in to clear the square, but people said they wouldn’t dare now, the slaughter would be too much.” Perhaps, but it is clear from the frantic attempt to censor news and pictures of the protest in the Chinese media, that the government is doing everything in its power to stop other cities getting wind of Dalian’s big news: that a street protest in China has actually won the day.
quote:Both the beating of the reporters and the missing CCTV program generated furious speculation in Dalian, with blogs and tweets going up faster than censors could contain them: What were residents not being told? What higher hand was protecting the factory from scrutiny? Was the danger so much worse than anyone imagined?
The former party boss whose tenure coincided with the project's approval, Xia Deren, was widely despised in Dalian as corrupt and inattentive to popular will -- in marked contrast with his predecessor, the charismatic and beloved Bo Xilai, who had effectively positioned himself as the people's champion. Did some scandal involving Xia explain why the factory had landed in Dalian? In the absence of credible facts coming through the media or other official channels, dire scenarios circulated online: Contact with contaminated seawater would kill you within eight minutes; a generation of Dalian children would be born with severe deformities.
In retrospect, the sense of existential peril was a bit exaggerated. A campaigner from Greenpeace East Asia, who was not involved in organizing the protest, noted the actual potential impacts, most likely skin or eye irritation, were somewhat less than those feared. Yet there was a real risk, and the people of this otherwise safe and comfortable city had no regular, trusted channel to press the issue. And so they marched.
Thought this was interesting, though not immediately pressing. I think it touches on a number of issues, how the lack of trusted news sources causes people to over-react and use non-scientific/sensationalistic sources, how a real threat to the CCP will not be from over-hyped dissidents but "patriotic" protests, and how knowledge about June 4th is transmitted.
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quote:China to cut income tax for 60 million people China's government is attempting to boost spending and fuel sustainable economic growth though income tax cuts. Only 8 percent of Chinese will now pay income tax.
I don't understand the extreme animosity the Chinese gov't feels toward these Tibetan protesters. Is the idea of a self-sufficient, Buddhist Tibet really that threatening? Or is it because to back down in the face of protest would be to lose face?
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quote: A man convicted of murder in what he called an assisted suicide was sentenced on Monday to 20 years to life in prison in the death of the New York motivational speaker who hired him.
I don't understand the extreme animosity the Chinese gov't feels toward these Tibetan protesters. Is the idea of a self-sufficient, Buddhist Tibet really that threatening? Or is it because to back down in the face of protest would be to lose face?
Probably more of the later. If you back down, then you have just defined exactly how much determination protest groups need to demonstrate so as to get their way. Not to mention China is having more and more difficulty with it's Western citizens. They are lagging behind economically and in educational opportunities. They also tend to be more religious, which in part goes hand in hand with poverty, and culturally they have less ties to Beijing than many other parts of China.
You can either make a concentrated effort to assist them into reaching parity with the East coastal parts of China, or you can slap their hands when they try to reach for the door handle.
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The comparison to assisted suicide doesn't seem particularly apt. They're not accused of lighting the match, or even helping him douse himself with gasoline, but simply harboring him while he died. I think there's a fairly significant moral and legal difference.
BB-
It's an interesting question of how far a gov't should go to enforce cultural integration. I'm sure the central gov't believes their harsh tactics are employed in the interest of domestic harmony and will be ultimately beneficial for the people of Tibet. But to me from a liberal Western viewpoint it seems like a form of cultural imperialism enforced through brutal police actions and arbitrary imprisonments.
Outside of a small nativist movement in Hawai'i, I can't think of any substantive cultural secession movements here in the U.S. Perhaps that's because the U.S. has no culture (or at least that's what people in Europe always used to tell me).
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I don't think so. It also specifically says that they plotted the self-immolation and instigated it. It wouldn't have happened without them.
If you're assisting in an assisted suicide here, I don't think you're going to get off the hook if you instigate a suicide, conspire to get the right materials and opportunity, but simply let the suicide "press the button" as it were.
Edit to add: The other way of thinking about it is that this isn't remotely harsh. Capital punishment is often applied in China to even non-violent crimes, like say smuggling, accepting bribes, poaching, etc. In that perspective, a little over ten years (which isn't even life sentence) is pretty light punishment for getting a guy killed.
A much larger sentence would be required to send a message that this isn't just business as usual.
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quote:Under Canadian law, it's illegal to counsel, aid or abet a person to commit suicide, and anyone convicted of the offence could be imprisoned for up to 14 years
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On the "assisted suicide" issue: I didn't immediately go into your 20 year sentence link. Having looked it over now, I can't imagine a worse comparison. A guy hiring a killer to help him commit insurance fraud seems worlds removed from not only what is usually thought of as assisted suicide let alone the case of self-immolation as political speech.
To give more context, Jack Kevorkian, indisputably the most famous proponent of assisted suicide in the U.S., served eight years for directly aiding in over 135 deaths.
On the issue of China's death sentences for non-violent crimes, I can't disagree. From that perspective, I guess these monks should count themselves lucky. At least they won't become involuntary organ donors!
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: A guy hiring a killer to help him commit insurance fraud seems worlds removed from not only what is usually thought of as assisted suicide let alone the case of self-immolation as political speech.
Huh? It's suicide. It's assisted. How on Earth is it remotely removed from assisted suicide?
As for the latter, I just think that if "you do the crime, you do the time." Other forms of political protest may very well involve burning cars or breaking windows, but you have no get out of jail free card when it comes to sentencing.
Peaceful protest is one thing, but I cannot condone violence and death.
Edit to add: Incidentally, Keverkian was initially sentenced to a 10 to 25 year sentence, worse than the monks. He was paroled after 8 and we have no data on when these monks will be paroled.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: A guy hiring a killer to help him commit insurance fraud seems worlds removed from not only what is usually thought of as assisted suicide let alone the case of self-immolation as political speech.
Huh? It's suicide. It's assisted. How on Earth is it remotely removed from assisted suicide?
I did say "what is usually thought of as assisted suicide." The term is predominantly invoked in cases where someone has an incurable disease and someone else provides them with a medical method for ending their life. The motivation and the participation of the hired killer in the case you cite go pretty far beyond what I think a reasonable individual would construe as "assisted suicide." You could also check out the (fairly strict) guidelines in Oregon and Washington (where assisted suicide is legal), none of which would have been met in the case you cite.
On Kevorkian: again, for the deaths of 135 people, including participating on a significantly more personal level than the monks seem to have (including providing lethal drugs and participating in administration of those drugs) and pursuant a far different goal.
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Kevorkian wasn't sentenced for 135 deaths. He was sentenced for one death. Kevorkian didn't instigate the assisted suicide either, apparently the suicide contacted him first.
In any case, I think you're under a more serious misunderstanding. When it comes to the legal prohibition on assisted suicide, at least in Canada, there's no requirement that the assisted suicide match "what a reasonable individual" thinks is assisted suicide when it comes to sentencing. That is probably the case in China and most places where its illegal.
For example, "Every one who ….(b) aids or abets a person to commit suicide, whether suicide ensues or not, is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years"
The law is simply blind in this respect as to whether there's an incurable disease at play.
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Condominium falls over. I suppose we should be glad it fell over in the direction that it did.
To be fair, the concrete they used didn't fail in this case, it was just water that turned the foundation into mud.
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Liao Yi Wu's, (廖亦武) account of leaving China.
Good for him. Now if we can just get Ai Wei Wei out. Unfortunately I think Mr. Liao might have done others a diservice by profiling exactly how he got out. You can bet China is going to plug those exits up, though of course new ones will arise.
Edit: Reading his story prior to escaping is an exercise in remaining composed.
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quote:The United States has long imported its food and fuel, its cars and clothes. Now the faltering economy has sparked a push for another type of import: shoppers.
For the first time, lawmakers, businesses and even White House officials are courting consumers from cash-rich countries such as China, India and Brazil to fill the nation’s shopping malls and pick up the slack for penny-pinching Americans. They are wooing travelers with enticements such as coupons, beauty pageants and promises of visa reform. The payoff, they say, could be significant: 1.3 million new jobs and an $859 billion shot in the arm for the economy over the next decade.
quote:That’s because even though foreign shoppers are spending money in the United States, their purchases are counted as exports on the country’s balance sheet. This year, their spending is up 13 percent compared with last year, to nearly $87 billion.
quote:Guo Hui, 37, who lives in Beijing, recently returned home from a two-week tour of Yellowstone National Park, Houston and Los Angeles. He estimated he spent $2,000 to rent a car and pay for gas and lodging for himself and his wife. Then there was the Ed Hardy T-shirt, the Apple laptop, the HP laptop, even baby food and formula for his child, totaling an additional $6,000.
Still, Guo said prices are significantly cheaper than in China — a pair of Adidas sneakers costs only $25 at a U.S. outlet mall.
“For that price in China, you can’t even buy counterfeits,” he said.
quote:Last week, Rep. Joseph J. Heck (R-Nev.) introduced a bill aimed at cutting the time it takes to get a tourist visa to 12 days, citing waits at consulates in key markets that can stretch to more than 100 days.
The State Department has pledged to reduce wait times for appointments to 30 days, and a spokesman said it is adding a “significant” number of staffers in Brazil and China to keep up with demand. The bill is awaiting a committee hearing.
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Got to talk with a Chinese overseas students over at my university (as in he's only been here for three years and to study), it was roughly a two hour conversation where I got to talk about the last roughly 8 years of development of my understanding of Chinese politics, history and foreign relations and he was visibly impressed he found someone who was in his words "very knowledgeable". I probably talked about 90% of the conversation but he was cool with it he said he liked listening, he asked to add me to facebook.
What's interesting here is that this is my first encounter in person really with a Chinese national, and one of the very definate pro-homeland viewpoints that I see growing on the internets.
Makes me curious about the switch in perspectives, for a while it really seemed that the Chinese overseas community was more anti-china/anti communist but with the opening and the reforms and the growing numbers of youth going overseas to study and then return home to bring their expertise to the Chinese economy it really seems to have done a 180 here.
I started the conversation mentioning I was writing a paper on the balance of power, eventually it turned to China, he asked my opinions about Taiwan.
Drawing upon my newfound knowledge of international law from my experience in my UN class I mentioned that it really depended on the time period, post 1949 it was well within the PRC's rights of self determination to unify with Taiwan. As the UN Resolution (1450 XI?) declared the right of self determination "paramount" and states like India used it as a justification to invade Portugese Goa, which they considered "a state of permanent aggression by Portugal against the Indian People" and seemed during the KMT that the right to pursue self-determination on behalf of the Chinese people rested with the PRC.
It was with the democratization of Taiwan that things become muddled and that to an extant they gained enough of a right of self determination that military solution short of a unilateral action by Taiwan as to be unacceptable in todays political and international climate. Making China's current policy of economic incentives of reconciliation the most optimal outcome which appears to be working.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: Makes me curious about the switch in perspectives, for a while it really seemed that the Chinese overseas community was more anti-china/anti communist but with the opening and the reforms and the growing numbers of youth going overseas to study and then return home to bring their expertise to the Chinese economy it really seems to have done a 180 here.
Well, that's half true, half not.
The problem is that there is no real one "Chinese overseas" community. Rather, you have a bunch of perspectives from immigrants from Hong Kong, from Taiwan, and from the mainland. Each of these has different perspectives on the situation and different cultural backgrounds. There is less of a shift in perspective than a shift in the proportions of the immigrants (and as you imply, this person probably won't even immigrate).
(There's also a difference between anti-China and anti-CCP which I think is more accurate)
In my grandfather's time, you're looking at people that had to leave China due to land reforms and the Communist revolution, that generation will never forgive no matter how much the CCP tried (and they did).
In my parents's time (60s and 70s), immigration is dominated by a Cantonese-speaking diaspora from Hong Kong. Growing up with access to a free press, they won't be too CCP friendly, not during the cultural revolution, and not after Tiananmen Square.
Toss in the Chinese citizens that are immigrating because they're poor (and want to work hard in a new life) or because they're being persecuted (Falun Gong) and you're going to get a community which is not CCP friendly.
As we move into the current day, you hit the post-90s generation, who literally grew up after Tiananmen Square, didn't grow up with access to a free press through Hong Kong, are from the mainland, and most insidiously, usually aren't poor but are instead well-off and politically well-connected.
In a way, Canadian immigration policy has backfired. Instead of welcoming hard working poor immigrants, we've cranked up the bar. Example: instead of giving bursaries to poor students we've cranked up tuition fees for international students and look to them as a revenue source rather than as an investment.
So in increasing proportions, we get the sons and daughters of corrupt CCP members and well-connected businessmen that can afford to send their children abroad in order to establish a safety net for themselves and for their ill-gotten gains. That is not to say that we don't still get a lot of very talented and skilled people, but the quality has definitely gone down.
In this section of the population, you're a lot less likely to see criticism of the CCP because a) they may very well *have* to go back b) they have relatives that benefit from the current policies of the CCP
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What Mucus said. Also, realize that you are talking to a Mainlander. Many, if not most people, are going to be pleased to hear a positive assessment of their country and how they are doing. His statement that you are well informed should also be taken in the light that that sort of compliment is very much in line with, "Oh, your Chinese is very good."
He might completely mean it, but he also might just be polite and letting you do all the talking. Many Chinese believe Westerners love to hear themselves talk, and so will listen patiently and act as if they are interested, nodding their head and smiling frequently. Again, he might have actually been excited to hear your ideas, but you should be careful.
My rule of thumb is, if you can get the Chinese person to talk 35% as much, if not more than you, then they really enjoyed the conversation.
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Blayne Bradley
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He *did* bring up the topic and asked for my facebook/msn and expressed interest in talking more
Regarding anti-china vs anti ccp, I think pre-1990's this isn't too much of a meaningful distinction to make, but in a way I have some difficulty expressing. More like, a general feeling of dissatisifaction in how the country and society as a whole has turned/transformed to where I'm more using 'china' as a geographical vague generalized shorthand. In which they're not just criticizing party elites, but the feeling the society has embraced it as well.
In much the same way people in the states say "screw this country I'm moving to X".
Now "ill gotten" I consider a little unfair, its not like being a Russian kleptocracy of where the former intelligence members became oligarchs in the Ukraine or wherever (generalizing), plenty of well off or affluent in China were dirt poor themselves before the Deng Xiaoping reforms and probably at least a majority contributed to the economic growth in the process of becomming millionaires. People who got rich say, by being the brother of a party member and got access to land where he built a factory that provides jobs or something for example; unethical as hell sure but that's the trade off for something good from it.
Compared to say Enron where CEOs made dozens of millions from betting against their company and depriving their workers of billions in benefits and pensions when it went bankrupt.
Not that there aren't any who did probably use wholly illegal means to get rich or become politically affluent and have "ill gotten gains" but I would personally like some hard numbers to see what the proportions are before I would generalize the situation.
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Blayne: Perhaps articles discussing that China and Russia were recently rated the most corrupt places to do business would be of use. Also statistics on China's billionaires/millionaires and the percentage that are members of the CCP.
I'm glad he apparently enjoyed the conversation, did he offer you *his* facebook, or did he ask for yours?
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Blayne Bradley
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The problem here is that I accept a certain level of nuance in what is acceptable vs unacceptable corruption, partly regarding moral relativism of where China, being a gift giving culture may account for a large part of it.
Simply being a part member isn't really a guarantee of a silver spoon, I recall that a millionare interviewed in the "China Rising" program talked with one who was a member of the red guards originally but was poor and obscure. I'ld consider his success, even if it involved using political connections to help leverage his way there as acceptable since it brought tens of thousands of jobs with it, and as part of the cherry on top the dude apparantly took relatively good care of his workers.
Its something that happens in every country and every political system, if your friends, related, or connected to the political system, and it helps you become wealthy, but in the process of doing so helps people and increases the economy, then I consider the gains acceptably albeit unethically gotten.
Using political connections to say illegally bulldoze a neighbourhood to build factories is something I am not so tolerant of however.
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Acceptable corruption? Is that like acceptable losses? Being a gift giving culture doesn't figure into it as much as you are asserting. Sure the Chinese give each other money (more especially children) during Chinese New Year, and the buy beautiful things to give as house warming gifts. They also have a less stringent sense of nepotism. But corruption is corruption, and they are not stupid. Just because culturally they don't find corruption so bad, doesn't change its effects one iota. Saudi Arabians have a stronger sense of patriarchy in their dealings, doesn't mean it's OK they keep women down on the way they do, no matter how OK the majority of the populace feels about it. It certainly changes a feminist's strategy if they were operating out there, but it doesn't mean that corruption isn't bad for the economy and infrastructural development.
Who cares if a CCP senior member, embezzles money and picks up lucrative government contracts, greases the wheels with bribes to local officials, cuts corners on material, creates some jobs, and creates a shoddy product that is dangerous for consumers? It's bad.
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Well your kinda strawmanning there through, as I said, in of itself I don't think having political connections to get ahead is so unacceptable, everyone does it all the time.
Ever had a dad who had a friend on the review board of some Ivy league school get you in even if your marks weren't quite in the top percentile or whatever to get in?
Happens all the time and really, I don't really care, if you look throughtout history its kinda the norm that only recently started getting frowned at.
China is still a developing country, it *knows* that there's *too muc* going on I'm certain its working on clamping down on it. But lets not jump on all and any forms here, focus on the bigger fish like the dudes who move to canada for tax evasion purposes.
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Blayne: It's not a strawman, that actually happens all the time. Why do you think there are real legitimate fears on their high speed rail lines? And no, I've never been afforded special privileges in employment or getting into college because my parents pulled strings. I wouldn't ask them to either. Knowing somebody who is on the admission board, who recognizes you will be a good investment is different than sending them a chunk of change and they then pull the strings and that becomes the norm. Does that happen here in the US, yes, all the freaking time, but it's just as wrong.
It's not only recently this has been frowned on, throughout history there have been people who believe merit ought to be the prime consideration in admitting a candidate, just as there have been corrupt officials in every civilization.
The CCP clamps down on corruption when it blows up in their faces, they do damage control. They don't do nearly enough to prevent it because not enough people are willing to stop it. When enough people are harmed by poor standards and a lack of something comparable to the EPA, then you will see real solid improvement in the quality of goods and infrastructural development coming out of and in China.
If you think the guys moving to Canada are the real big fish, you really haven't read some of the biographies of China's billionaires. I have, and a lot of them have a story that goes like this.
"Opened up a business selling recycled parts and repairing air-conditioners, business began to thrive, bought out by a bigger company, made their first few million, founded an electronics company, multi-billionaire status within 2-5 years."
That does not happen without corruption, but I'll accept outliers. The fact it fairly closely describes several billionaires and that so many millionaires in China become so incredibly rapidly speaks to corruption at all levels of government.
Not to mention that when they do ding somebody for overt corruption, they often are not arrested, just dismissed, and they take much of their money with them after paying a slap on the wrist fine.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:throughout history there have been people who believe merit ought to be the prime consideration in admitting a candidate
Ironically, ancient China is actually famous for this, being given the credit for civil service exams.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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