One China Policy?

Miss Fluff · 28-02-2008 06:56PM

slipss wrote: »

Perhaps they simply don't know much about the situation apart from the Chinese states version of events. I remember seeing a documentary about the fella that was in that photo standing infront of the tank during the student protests and they interview several chinese people that wouldn't have been alive at the time. Most of them didn't reckognise the photo at all (one of the most famous ever taken) and when asked questions about the protest itself the majority of them relayed the standard party line the chinese gouvernment gave out in relation to the number of deaths (a fraction of generally estimated international figure) and why they occured. Its not like they can go to a libary or log online and read different sides of the story in relation to the Tibet issue.

Exactly. While living in China I visited Tibet and when I asked colleagues about how they felt about the whole Tibet situation, they hadn't a clue what I was talking about. Any historical/political references online to the likes of Tibet or Tianenmen or blocked. While there You Tube was blocked for around six weeks because it showed that Chinese searches for Tianenmen had ranked high. When it comes to Taiwan they are much more vocal and see it very much as part of China.

Thirdfox · 28-02-2008 07:00PM

See my post above on why they believe it is part of China (a view that I subscribe to too). Youtube isn't blocked in China (at least not since the last 2 years when I was living there), BBC is blocked (surprising since Fox News is freely available to be read) - in China I go to the NY Times for my news. (Irish Times is viewable too, just a tad slow).

conor2007 · 28-02-2008 09:32PM

irish six counties - not independence as such - re integrated more like

dsmythy · 28-02-2008 09:33PM

conor2007 wrote: »

irish six counties - not independence as such - re integrated more like

Against the wishes of the majority? I'll take it you were against Kosovar independence?

Mweelrea · 28-02-2008 09:49PM

berliner wrote: »

Kosovo is as much part of Serbia as Munster or Leinster is part of Ireland.Shocking unjust to Serbia.

or connacht or ulster,

Its terrible i think, Imagine muslims became the majority in leinster and then they decided to break leinster away from Ireland and set up their own independant muslim state.

The serbians must be furious

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar · 28-02-2008 09:51PM

imagine if a groupf of muslims moved into leinster and became the majority, then the native Irish started butchering them. Then you might get a few more similarities.

AckwelFoley · 28-02-2008 09:54PM

Taiwan is too big an economy for china to let go.

Tibet on the otherhand im unable to comment on as i dont know of the history behind it.

AckwelFoley · 28-02-2008 09:58PM

"The majority " is a misleading term with regards to Kosovo.

Its like if all the residents of Mosney voted in Favour of an Independent state.

seraphimvc · 29-02-2008 01:05AM

baztard wrote: »

Pro Kosovo
Pro Taiwan
Pro Tibet

China is a huge bomb waiting to explode. 1.5 billion people will begin to learn about democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion etc, the more and more they get exposed to the free world. In 50 years time there won't be one PRC, there'll be fragments of it all over the place.

hope i can see that before i die:)honetsly tho,communism is killing that country spirit!

btw,just a statament that a taiwanese can be said more chinese like,cause' they actually know more of the history,cultures stuffs,their books are way better than China people...if ya know the way of their government controls the flow of info...

seraphimvc · 29-02-2008 01:08AM

gerTheGreat wrote: »

The Chinese education system, (history & geography) has been modified to teach the children that Tibet, etc are and always have been part of China, as submissive provences. Often, many of the documents that they use for their arguments have been misquoted, misinterperuted, etc to make 'facts' fit. Futhermore, many have had long standing trade alliances, others have had religious ties, (Tibet had a priest - patron relationship for centuries.)

Long story short, this information is distorted and the truth is not common knowledge. It's not the people's fault. It's their government.

and maybe people one day will know that people from china have no idea about LOTS of facts out there...information is distorted and the truth is not common knowledge,fact.and maybe worse than you can ever imagine.

dsmythy · 29-02-2008 01:37AM

seraphimvc wrote: »

hope i can see that before i die:)honetsly tho,communism is killing that country spirit!

btw,just a statament that a taiwanese can be said more chinese like,cause' they actually know more of the history,cultures stuffs,their books are way better than China people...if ya know the way of their government controls the flow of info...

Generally countries that fall apart do so in violence and China is a big bloody country with a lot of people. Personally i hope not to see China fall apart in my lifetime.

Cunny-Funt · 29-02-2008 05:26AM

Thirdfox wrote: »

If I were to give my opinion on this ......

Just like to say, excellent post there thirdfox. I learned a lot from it and I can see where the Chinese are coming from in the situation now. I'm surprised everyone seemed to pretty much ignore it. Very enlightening.

However thats only one topic.

What about Tibet?

FunkZ · 29-02-2008 06:04AM

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

Just like to say, excellent post there thirdfox. I learned a lot from it and I can see where the Chinese are coming from in the situation now. I'm surprised everyone seemed to pretty much ignore it. Very enlightening.

However thats only one topic.

What about Tibet?

3rdFox is great alright!

Thirdfox · 29-02-2008 08:43AM

Cunny-Funt wrote: »

Just like to say, excellent post there thirdfox. I learned a lot from it and I can see where the Chinese are coming from in the situation now. I'm surprised everyone seemed to pretty much ignore it. Very enlightening.

However thats only one topic.

What about Tibet?

I wouldn't be the most up to date with all the history and facts behind Tibet. Researching Taiwan has taken priority since it seems to be the biggest issue (by the way I believe there's also a potential issue in Xin Jiang but the western media don't seem as interested). Also inner Mongolia too (but I'd almost say this was this is the most successful SAR - semi-autonomous region set up in China, the others being Hong Kong, Macau, Tibet and Xin Jiang as far as I know.) This is potentially what the Chinese government wants to set up in Taiwan (basically everything except for foreign policy and maybe defence will remain in the control SAR region).

I can say however that historical fact was that Tibet was not "part" of China a few thousand years ago but that sovereignty in Asia is slightly different compared to European ideas. Tibet (and many others) recognised the supremacy of the "Middle Kingdom" and was classified as a tributary country, in that their King was granted legitimacy by the Chinese Emperor. They provided soldiers to defend China and got soldiers in time of need. It was also the last "state" to stop giving tributes and giving supremacy recognition (the Japanese by this time was the supreme Asian power and forced China to relinquish its hold on many of its orbital countries as old unchanging China was too weak to fight the modern Japanese army).

I'm sure there are many facts that I'm leaving out (simply because I don't know them) again for those who are interested the internet can be a great source of information. To get the Chinese side of things you may have to look that bit harder as obviously not many Chinese write in English.

I'm just asking people to keep an open mind and look at both sides of the story. Unfortunately I'm not confident enough of my own knowledge of Tibet to give a full description on which people can make their own minds up.

FunkZ wrote: »

3rdFox is great alright!

Hopefully that's not sarcasm?

If someone were to ask me whether I think that Taiwan should be allowed to break off then I personally wouldn't wish it. But I wouldn't go to nuclear war over it either. We share the same culture and language (with a slight difference since the government adopted simplified Chinese over tradition Chinese a few decades ago) and are essentially the same people. It's not even a situation similar to Kosovo, there was only internal migration of people some of whom now want to be independent. But as always a situation is neither black nor white and there are good reasons for either views.

I wouldn't want them to break off but I wouldn't go to nuclear war with the US over it either (and I'm betting neither do the Americans).

SimpleSam06 · 29-02-2008 09:38AM

Thirdfox wrote: »

If someone were to ask me whether I think that Taiwan should be allowed to break off then I personally wouldn't wish it. But I wouldn't go to nuclear war over it either. We share the same culture and language (with a slight difference since the government adopted simplified Chinese over tradition Chinese a few decades ago) and are essentially the same people.

This raises an important point and one of the main reasons I think that Taiwan should remain seperate. Many elements of the historic Chinese culture were wiped up by Mao in his "great leap forward", and replaced by jingoistic nationalism and allegiance to the party. This traditional or "real" Chinese culture remains preserved in Taiwan today. Is it worth wiping that out just to have neater lines on the map?

Thirdfox · 29-02-2008 09:52AM

I would argue that these cultural things have not been "wiped out" - certainly many physical things were destroyed (and are people all over China regretting this now) but Chinese people on the mainland still have buddhist temples to go to and all works of art etc. are now carefully preserved in the many museums.

The culture is still very much alive (and carefully gaining acceptance in society again). Of course this must be carefully controlled to make sure it isn't used for nationalistic purposes (something I have heated discussions with my Chinese friends over). I also genuinely want to know what elements of "true" culture remain in Taiwan that isn't present in China anymore? (Not trying to attack your post, I don't know much about this area and would like to be informed).

On a sidenote - my thanks to the people who told me that my post was actually useful. I was starting to think that I wasted my time trying to give a balanced view and that this thread was just for China-bashing.

SimpleSam06 · 29-02-2008 10:25AM

Thirdfox wrote: »

I also genuinely want to know what elements of "true" culture remain in Taiwan that isn't present in China anymore? (Not trying to attack your post, I don't know much about this area and would like to be informed).

For want of a better source, Wikipedia supplies...

Mao Zedong Thought had become the central operative guide to all things in China. The authority of the Red Guards surpassed that of the army, local police authorities, and the law in general.

China's traditional arts and ideas were ignored, with praise for Mao being practiced in their place. People were encouraged to criticize cultural institutions and to question their parents and teachers, which had been strictly forbidden in Confucian culture. This was emphasized even more during the Anti-Lin Biao; Anti-Confucius Campaign. Slogans such as "Parents may love me, but not as much as Chairman Mao" were common.

The status of traditional Chinese culture within China is also severely weakened as a result of the Cultural Revolution. Many traditional customs, such as fortune telling; paper art; feng shui consultations; wearing traditional Chinese dresses for weddings; use of traditional Chinese calendar; scholarship in classical Chinese literature; and the practice of referring to the Chinese New Year as "New Year" rather than "Spring Festival"; had been virtually wiped out in China.

Yet some aspects recovered fully, and some still survived in some forms in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other overseas Chinese communities, notwithstanding the impacts of Western culture on those communities. The traditional Confucian concepts of harmonious social interactions has been displaced by the early 20th century Western modernist social Darwinist belief of "survival of the fittest" in mainland China today.

The popularization of scientism as the default worldview for mainland Chinese today may be traced back to the Cultural Revolution. A number of Chinese cultural scholars and commentators, such as the late Chien Mu, To Kit, and Martin Oei believe that China ceased to be culturally Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, that today's China is a place "Chinese by geography and race, but foreign by culture", leaving the Chinese diasporas upholding the more traditional expressions of Chinese culture.

I wouldn't welcome the loss of those cultural elements to the monolithic bloc that China represents today.

Pompey Magnus · 29-02-2008 12:07PM

Tranny wrote: »

imagine if a groupf of muslims moved into leinster and became the majority, then the native Irish started butchering them. Then you might get a few more similarities.

The Albanians are not quite the poor innocent victims in this story. When the Ottoman Empire was persecuting the native Serbs and driving them from their homes the Albanians came in and stole the land. Also whilst Serbia may have acted unjustifiably during the 1990s the Albanians were no angels either. They too were involved with ethnic cleansing and forced a quarter of a million Serbs in Kosovo to leave the region.

meditraitor · 29-02-2008 01:24PM

Depeche_Mode wrote: »

The Albanians are not quite the poor innocent victims in this story. When the Ottoman Empire was persecuting the native Serbs and driving them from their homes the Albanians came in and stole the land. Also whilst Serbia may have acted unjustifiably during the 1990s the Albanians were no angels either. They too were involved with ethnic cleansing and forced a quarter of a million Serbs in Kosovo to leave the region.

Be carefull with the truth, some people might find it unpalatable... If this was in the politics forum you would be demonised for such a statement.

Miss Fluff · 29-02-2008 01:52PM

Thirdfox wrote: »

Youtube isn't blocked in China (at least not since the last 2 years when I was living there),

YouTube was blocked in the week leading up to the Party Conference in Beijing in October and for five weeks after.

Thirdfox · 29-02-2008 02:18PM

SimpleSam06 wrote: »

For want of a better source, Wikipedia supplies...

I wouldn't welcome the loss of those cultural elements to the monolithic bloc that China represents today.

"The status of traditional Chinese culture within China is also severely weakened as a result of the Cultural Revolution. Many traditional customs, such as fortune telling; paper art; feng shui consultations; wearing traditional Chinese dresses for weddings; use of traditional Chinese calendar; scholarship in classical Chinese literature; and the practice of referring to the Chinese New Year as "New Year" rather than "Spring Festival"; had been virtually wiped out in China."

I would not agree with that statement at all. Come down to a Chinese wedding and you'll see the traditional red Qi Pao being worn, peanuts and sweets being offered to guests.

We love our "New Year" celebrations, classical literature (including the 4 great works of art: Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Hong Le Meng and Shui Hu Zhuan are known by everyone) Paper folding etc. etc. have all recovered in my opinion. Of course China has been influenced by Western culture (they've learnt the dangers of not evolving along with the times) but apart from the crazy time of the Cultural Revolution I do not believe that many important cultural things have been lost (physical things certainly but the culture is still alive and kicking

)

SimpleSam06 · 29-02-2008 04:11PM

Well yourself and those scholars cited above will have to agree to disagree, so.

Thirdfox · 29-02-2008 05:02PM

I'm afraid so. Since I was not alive before the cultural revolution I do not know if huge amounts of "culture" has been lost and replaced by Western ideals/nothingness/Communist whatever but I do know that the examples of "culture" stated above are commonly found in the China of today.

The Hong Kong scholar and broadcaster used in Wikipedia may not be in the best position to give an objective view on what China's current situation is. (Nor can I, I freely admit) So I can only judge by what I see and experience while living for that one year in China.

29-02-2008 05:18PM

Cheers for all this useful info Thirdfox. I studied history and never touched this stuff so nice to get enlightened

.

berliner · 29-02-2008 05:35PM

Mweelrea wrote: »

or connacht or ulster,

Its terrible i think, Imagine muslims became the majority in leinster and then they decided to break leinster away from Ireland and set up their own independant muslim state.

The serbians must be furious

So unjust to Serbia.The media in Ireland has been useless telling the full story.

Thirdfox · 29-02-2008 07:00PM

KaG1888 wrote: »

Cheers for all this useful info Thirdfox. I studied history and never touched this stuff so nice to get enlightened .

Got to say though - don't trust me (or anything you see on the internet) without getting sources. I know I'm telling what I believe to be the truth but you can't be sure.

Make sure if you want to make sure you know the "truth" or at least the closest thing to it to do independent research on issues. Challenge everything (my law professors hate me for doing this

)

I grew up in Ireland so just learnt European history in school too. Funny incident when my teacher told me that the Chinese weren't an ancient civilisation (nor the Aztecs) acceptable for my history essay

but it's quite right that in Ireland we focus on Irish history and European history. In China I'm sure they know nothing about De Valera and in the US they know little about the Ottoman Empire.

One China Policy?

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