John W. Williams II: China

Taiwanese Politics

Tue, 02 Nov 2004 06:26:25 GMT

It seems that most people in Taiwan don't want to be reunified with the People's Republic of China. 43% of Taiwanese (pro-independence plus pro-status quo forever) don't want it at any price; and another 40% don't even want to consider it until the Peoples Republic of China has changed into a democracy. In an oblique way, this misfortune of history reminds me of the joke about an old Russian man answering a series of questions: Question: "Where were you born?"
Old Man:"St. Petersburg."
Question: "Where did you study?"
Old Man:"Petrograd."
Question: "Where did you work?"
Old Man:"Leningrad."
Question:"Where did you retire?"
Old Man:"St. Petersburg.
I've been told that if you want to understand Taiwan's politics, you need to talk to the Taxi Drivers. I've also read that some expats living in Shanghai think that Taiwanese are actually running the show on the Mainland. It seems both the Taiwanese and the Mainlanders will be "living in interesting times" for quite some time to come.

Sat, 26 Jun 2004 12:48:15 GMT

Calling Temple Grandin It was strange enough to see a cow wandering alone, well after dark, down the main street of Deqin. But when it walked up to a butcher shop, I really started paying attention

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 23:39:54 GMT
China has shutdown 8600 Internet cafes in two months, in a campaign to reaffirm Communist party control over media and publishing in China.

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 08:37:55 GMT

[Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "32060928" hasn't been defined.] Via "OsaruTaru", I have now become aware of The Notorious MSG - Sort of a Guandong Chinese American Beasty Boyz, laying down beats as punishing as Bruce Lee on his Guailo students, these guys embrace all the U.S. stereotypes about Chinatown culture and turn the FOB lexicon into badass raps.

Llasa Prostitution

Sat, 27 Mar 2004 08:05:06 GMT
Lhasa (Tibet) has the largest concentration of prostitutes in the world? Deliberate policy to suppress resistance of Tibetan youth?

Sat, 27 Mar 2004 02:51:27 GMT

Sites inaccessible in China - RadioShack.com???

Reading Tea Leaves, while eating Kimchi

Tue, 03 Feb 2004 01:27:05 GMT

What follows is pure speculation:

North Korea is behaving badly.

The U.S. looks to China, South Korea, and Japan for help in dealing with the North. In the absence of reasonable negotiations, the only Four options to cope with the North are:

Give in to North Korean demands (which only encourages them, and postpones the problem.)

Confront the North aggressively (decapitation strike?)

Get the Chinese to exert pressure

just wall off the North and wait for the inevitable collapse.

China frequently declares that it does not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. (Unlike the U.S., which has turned this into an art (the modern, abstract messy kind.)

BUT, China doesn't have a problem interfering (or threatening to intefere) with other nations on its borders if it can declare that those nations are in fact historically a part of China. (Tibet, Taiwan, Senkaku/Diaoyu islands, Spratly Islands, Paracel Islands.) (And let's not forget the "punitive" (punishing) attacks made by China into Vietnam in 1979.)

China has been funding the"Northeast Progress"project, a state sponsored development effort in the North Eastern region of China. Part of this project includes a research project to prove that the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo (Kokuryo) was historically part of China. The Guangming Ribao, a daily scholarly publication of the Chinese Communist Party, claimed that "Goguryeo is part of China." (Have you heard this line before? Hint: "Taiwan is part of China")

Goguryeo is one of the historic kingdoms from which Korea draws its lineage. In fact the "Go" or "Ko" in Goguryeo / Kokuryo is what puts the "Ko" in "Korea". Historically, Goguryeo occupied a territory that spanned both Northern Korea and large parts of North East China / Manchuria. Some Chinese emperors may have had bloodlines traced back to royalty in Goguryeo (but then again, European royal bloodlines were extensively mixed...)

Goguryeo is part of China. North Korea was part of Goguryeo. E.G. DPRK is part of China. In the event of a DPRK collapse, or outbreak of hostilities between North and South (and therefore U.S.) - China could stake the claim to pick up the pieces, based on history.

For a more restrained view, see this AATimes opinion piece

Wed, 09 Jul 2003 08:31:15 GMT
Stefan Landsberger's Chinese Propaganda Poster Pages
This site is dedicated to the Chinese propaganda poster as it has been produced from 1949 till the present day. So-called propaganda art has played a major supporting role in the many campaigns that were designed to mobilize the people, and throughout the People's Republic, the propaganda poster has been the favored vehicle through which art conveyed model behavior. I've been collecting these Chinese political posters for many years now, and have brought together quite a nice collection of some 1,400 titles, spanning five decades of Chinese poster production. From time to time, new sections will be added, devoted to the political, social and economic movements and developments that have found their way into visual propaganda over the years.

Tue, 01 Jul 2003 08:56:41 GMT
Protesters Burn China Communist Flag Before HK Rally

Mon, 02 Jun 2003 08:12:38 GMT
China's Monumental Gamble
River Halted by Dam That Will Bring Power, or Untold Destruction

China begins to fill the three gorges dam resevoir...

Sun, 11 May 2003 08:40:50 GMT
SARS exposes holes in China's health care
This article demonstrates a fact well known to Americans: market based reforms for health care systems result in degraded health care (not to say that this makes Americans smarter, to the contrary, it proves that dogmatic loyalty to market based systems as a solution to everything may result in dismal failures, which American's don't know how to solve (because, we don't want to be COMMUNISTS! DO WE?.) Ironically, healthcare in China was better under the old communist system than it is today. (Are you listening, America?)

Thu, 08 May 2003 08:31:00 GMT
70 dead in Chinese Submarine disaster
[Macro error: Can't evaluate the expression because the name "32060928" hasn't been defined.]

This is somewhat old news, but I thought I'd record it here. 70 persons (on a boat that normally carries 50?) were lost due to a disaster which has not been clearly explained onboard a (PRC) Chinese submarine. The sub was a diesel-electric type sub - a copy of a Russian design - which is a copy of a WWII era German design. Although "diesel-electric" sounds pretty archaic compared to the modern Nuclear powered submarines used in the U.S. navy, it turns out that the older type of power is more stealthy (and therefore deadly) when running underwater on battery power. Of course, there are more limitations on range and endurance, but if your goal is to defend the area around your coast (and or interdict U.S. Naval forces coming to the rescue of Taiwan), those limitations probably aren't as much of a factor. The Chinese "Ming class" subs are pretty old though, and may not be as good as modern "diesel-electric" attack subs (which are still being built by other countries even today.) China is said to be spending more money and putting more effort into training and retaining experienced crews to improve its submarine forces. (SARS may be a speed bump in this process.)

If you want to read a GREAT book about the U.S. submarine force's cold war adventures (where many heroic and unbelievable actions took place that most people never even heard about), I recommend reading the non fiction book Blind Man's Bluff. One can only wonder if the U.S. submarine forces are playing the same tricks on the Chinese that they used to play on the Russians.

Thu, 08 May 2003 08:10:16 GMT
"Strategy Page" 's "military news about China" section reports that the economic impact of SARS in China will force reductions in military spending. (The Chinese military is trying to modernize, especially the Navy, which is seeking to create a Navy capable of engaging the U.S., and perhaps sufficent to secure and defend a successful invasion of Taiwan.)

Fri, 02 May 2003 21:18:47 GMT
China says submarine accident kills 70 sailors

Wed, 02 Apr 2003 19:42:10 GMT
The Big Story Everyone Missed
December 30, 2002

People who were whipped into a frenzy about the 'Chinese peril' must wonder what happened. But Washington's shift in attitude is a return to sanity.

Sun, 16 Mar 2003 08:29:56 GMT
The Korean Crisis: China Maneuvers behind the Scenes
03-12-2003

By Tom Knowlton

History teaches us that small wars are invariable precursors to much larger conflicts. The path to the cataclysmic First and Second World Wars can be found in the smaller Boer War, Russo-Japanese War, Spanish Civil War, and Italian-Ethiopian War.

It is a credit to the governments of the United States and the former Soviet Union that none of the post-Second World War conflicts erupted into a full-blown conflagration between the two superpowers.

The dangers posed by Iraq and the saber-rattling North Korea likely herald the beginning rather than an end to new cycle of warfare. While the arsenals and maniacal leaders of both nations pose a global threat, neither nation can be construed as a global power.

The same, however, cannot be said for the nation that has been operating behind the scenes as a macabre puppet master instigating the brinkmanship of both Iraq and North Korea communist China.

China has long believed that it possessed a manifest destiny to establish a political and economic hegemony over all of eastern Asia. In the mind of many Chinese policymakers, China's "rightful place" as overlord of Asia has been hindered by foreign powers dating back to the 19th century, when Japan, the United States and the Western colonial powers divided China into "spheres of influence" and later crushed the nationalist Boxer Rebellion in 1900.

Fri, 14 Mar 2003 02:10:18 GMT
Chinese military blasts confusion at the top
BEIJING - Military deputies attending the ongoing annual meeting of China's supreme legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC), have launched a broadside at the state of confusion at the top hierarchy of the country.

"Multi-center means no center, which will lead to no achievement," uttered deputies Gu Huisheng and Ai Husheng after listening to a speech given by Jiang Zemin, the incumbent chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), as reported by Tuesday's People's Liberation Army Daily.

To make their point more figuratively, the two generals cracked Chinese characters. "One zhong and one xin together make one loyalty, but piecing two zhongs together to one xin gives one huan, a problem."ÊZhong meains "middle" and xin means "heart". Ê Zhongxin as a phrase means "the center".

On paper, China's top political boss is Hu Jintao, the general secretary of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The official order of precedence, however, puts Jiang above him as the CMC chairman. The question therefore hangs: who is superior, CCP or CMC?

Thu, 13 Mar 2003 21:25:44 GMT
China blocking major-power UN meeting on N. Korea
UNITED NATIONS, March 13 (Reuters) - China on Thursday acknowledged blocking major powers from discussing the North Korea crisis at the United Nations, saying it was pushing instead for a dialogue between Washington and Pyongyang.

Council diplomats said the United States, backed by France and Britain, has been pressing for the Security Council's five permanent members to get together to draft a council statement condemning North Korea for failing to meet its international obligations to prevent the spread of nuclear arms.

However China has objected to such a meeting, the diplomats said. The 15-nation council's permanent members are the United States, France, Britain, Russia and China.

Wed, 12 Mar 2003 08:54:13 GMT
Intruder in Reuters Beijing Bureau Arrested
Wed March 12, 2003 02:28 AM ET
By Benjamin Kang Lim and Michael Battye

BEIJING (Reuters) - A man who said he had a bomb burst into the Reuters news bureau in Beijing on Wednesday and held a number of journalists for about two hours before he released them unharmed. He was later arrested.

The intruder, complaining he had been wrongly diagnosed as mentally ill, demanded to be interviewed on camera about official corruption and other grievances. Around two hours after he freed the last of the Reuters staff, armed police arrested him.

Tue, 04 Mar 2003 07:32:35 GMT
Debate points to looser Chinese press censorship
John Gittings in Beijing
Tuesday March 4, 2003
The Guardian

A bold call for press freedom has been made on the eve of the official opening of the national people's congress - China's parliament - in Beijing tomorrow.

Senior journalists and academics have called on the government to stop trying to suppress "negative news", and to allow the media to satisfy "the needs of society".

Separately, a former official who opposed the 1989 Beijing massacre has issued his own manifesto saying that only more press freedom will stem the national tide of corruption.

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 19:34:16 GMT
China plans three-phase Moon exploration
13:51 03 March 2003
NewScientist.com news service

China has revealed further details of its plans to explore the Moon - the first unmanned probe could be launched by 2005, say officials. They also hinted that the motivation for the missions is to mine the Moon's resources.

The lunar program, named Chang'e after a legend about a fairy that visits the moon, would be in three phases. First an orbiter would be sent to the Moon, followed by a lander, and then finally a sample return craft.

"We will be able to embark on a maiden unmanned mission within two and a half years if the government endorses the scheme now,'' Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of China's lunar exploration programme, told The People's Daily

...Oberg adds that China has set itself a number of ambitious goals. "As with their manned programme, they don't intend to recreate the US and Russian programmes," he says. "They intend to go to the head of the queue in terms of capabilities."

Thu, 16 Jan 2003 19:31:28 GMT
China blocks bloggers' sites - New Scientist:
One explanation for the blockade suggested by a number of reports is that the entire site may have been blocked to prevent Chinese internet users reaching one blog in particular: dweb.blogspot.com. This site is has published lists of proxy servers that can be used to gain access to restricted web sites from within China.

Sun, 12 Jan 2003 01:47:43 GMT
Huge Demonstration in China, but Subject Is Traffic Safety
SHANGHAI, Jan. 9 - Some 10,000 people took to the streets in the eastern city of Hefei this week in what appears to have been the largest student demonstration since the Tiananmen Square human rights protests of 1989.

But the students had a much narrower agenda: traffic safety.

... (stuff omitted)

As a result of the unrest, students said, the driver of the truck was arrested and the city agreed to build the pedestrian bridge.

"We got results," one student said in a telephone interview. "People are satisfied."

Tue, 07 Jan 2003 06:58:48 GMT
China Blasts U.S. Charges against U.S. firms (the charges that Boeing, Hughes, and Loral aided the Chinese satellite launch program.)
Yep, just for propaganda purposes, the U.S. will levy charges and fines against some of the largest and most politically influencial defense industries in the country...

Sun, 05 Jan 2003 09:20:47 GMT
Chinese spacecreaft 'ready to land' - BBC News