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Apr. 16th, 2005 08:32 am
China is going crazy
China and India should work together to dominate the world's tech industry, bringing together Chinese hardware with Indian software, China's prime minister said Sunday.
"Cooperation is just like two pagodas, one hardware and one software," Wen said.
That's a really funny analogy.
China's Internet Filters Strong, Subtle - I think Websense should probably take a page from the Chinese. Not that I want them to.
"China is much more subtle than that," Palfrey said. "You don't know what you don't know. It's more effective than if you see it but know you can't access it."
Taiwan marches for freedom from China. - about 2 weeks ago.
If you were to map an emotional topography of China, the valleys of grief and resentment would run deepest in the rubbish-strewn alleys of Fengtai, near South Beijing railway station. This is particularly true in March - the most politically sensitive time of year - when Beijing hosts the National People's Congress. China's 10-day annual parliament is a tiny window of opportunity for petitioners, who try to have their cases heard by state leaders and the 3,000 local representatives. But, as is the case every year, the police have rounded up tens of thousands of petitioners. Many have been sent home.
Hundreds of giant pandas in western China could die from starvation because the bamboo plants they eat have begun to flower and die back, it was revealed yesterday.
China's growing influence is being felt as never before on the internet, where in less than a month 16 million people have signed a petition against Japan's attempt to get a permanent seat on the UN security council.
"This is one of the reasons why their leaders' claim that China would emerge as a peaceful power is not matched by deeds," Mr Tsai says. Within five to 10 years, China could overhaul Russia as the second largest military power after the US, he adds.
A spate of suicides, deaths by exhaustion and legal disputes about virtual possessions have been blamed on internet role-play games, which are estimated to have more than 40 million players in China.
Japan claims an exclusive economic zone around Okinotori stretching hundreds of miles in every direction under the 1982 Law of the Sea. The total area is bigger than the whole of Japan.
But China says Okinotori is just a rock. In its view, Tokyo's attempt to control a vast area of the Pacific and its potentially rich seabed and fishing resources on the basis of a couple of wet boulders has no legal bottom.
Speaking in Tokyo last month, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, appeared to gloss over the China challenge. "America has reason to welcome the rise of a confident, peaceful, prosperous China," Ms Rice said. Washington wanted Beijing as a "global partner", not a strategic competitor.
Such statements, coupled with the recent US refusal to condemn China's human rights record before the UN commission in Geneva, have left China-watchers wondering whether Washington understands how high the stakes really are in east Asia's 21st century great game.
Like the Japanese in Okinotori, they say, a distracted and complacent US risks being caught between a rock and a hard place.
Testy relations between China and Japan were further strained yesterday when Tokyo signalled its intention to explore gas fields in the contested seabed between the two countries.
Silence, sulking and suspicion have crept into Sino-Japanese relations as the two nations struggle for supremacy.
As a result, attempts to restore diplomatic relations with its neighbours was based on top-level compromise rather than grassroots penitence. Instead of paying compensation - which would imply guilt - the government offered trillions of yen of economic aid. So much, in fact, that Japan was the world's biggest overseas development aid donor for most of the 1990s, with the bulk of its largesse going to China.
But while this pleased the communist leaders in Beijing, who used the money for dams, bridges and airports, the Chinese public was left largely unaware that in the past 25 years their economic growth had been financed to the tune of 3 trillion yen by Tokyo. Instead, they read newspaper headlines about elderly "comfort women" and the relatives of germ warfare victims being denied justice in Tokyo's courts. So, despite numerous apologies by its leaders, Japan is still seen as the country that cannot say sorry.
Excuse me? Numerous apologies??? BULLSHIT.
Arrgh. There are many things to dislike about China, but blaming them for being victims of the Japanese is not one of them. Japan has never admitted guilt, never took the blame, nor apologized or paid reparations for its role during the war, and until it does at least one of these things, the bitterness will fester for years. Did Iris Chang kill herself for this? To have all the other nations say, "Why can't China just move on?" Would the survivors of the Holocaust be able to move on, if Germany just said, "It's all in the past anyway, who cares?" and referred to the Holocaust as an "incident"?
The European Union will postpone the planned lifting of its arms embargo on China until at least next year, and require China to act first by improving its human rights record and seeking a peaceful solution to its dispute with Tawian, it emerged last night.
Jonathan Watts reports from Huankantou where protesters angry at corruption and poverty repelled 1,000 riot police. But now fear is replacing euphoria.
The Chinese authorities are bracing themselves for further anti-Japanese protests which could become one of the biggest displays of people power there since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989.
Internet activists are calling for demonstrations in more than a dozen cities this weekend, prompting the US embassy to issue safety warnings to its citizens, and raising doubts whether the communist government is riding or being swamped by the rising wave of nationalism.
Hmm...wow.
1. Nations are stupid. 2. People are scary and powerful in large numbers. 3. No one wants to take responsibility for anything. 4. The US, right now, is the dumbest nation ever.
"Cooperation is just like two pagodas, one hardware and one software," Wen said.
That's a really funny analogy.
China's Internet Filters Strong, Subtle - I think Websense should probably take a page from the Chinese. Not that I want them to.
"China is much more subtle than that," Palfrey said. "You don't know what you don't know. It's more effective than if you see it but know you can't access it."
Taiwan marches for freedom from China. - about 2 weeks ago.
If you were to map an emotional topography of China, the valleys of grief and resentment would run deepest in the rubbish-strewn alleys of Fengtai, near South Beijing railway station. This is particularly true in March - the most politically sensitive time of year - when Beijing hosts the National People's Congress. China's 10-day annual parliament is a tiny window of opportunity for petitioners, who try to have their cases heard by state leaders and the 3,000 local representatives. But, as is the case every year, the police have rounded up tens of thousands of petitioners. Many have been sent home.
Hundreds of giant pandas in western China could die from starvation because the bamboo plants they eat have begun to flower and die back, it was revealed yesterday.
China's growing influence is being felt as never before on the internet, where in less than a month 16 million people have signed a petition against Japan's attempt to get a permanent seat on the UN security council.
"This is one of the reasons why their leaders' claim that China would emerge as a peaceful power is not matched by deeds," Mr Tsai says. Within five to 10 years, China could overhaul Russia as the second largest military power after the US, he adds.
A spate of suicides, deaths by exhaustion and legal disputes about virtual possessions have been blamed on internet role-play games, which are estimated to have more than 40 million players in China.
Japan claims an exclusive economic zone around Okinotori stretching hundreds of miles in every direction under the 1982 Law of the Sea. The total area is bigger than the whole of Japan.
But China says Okinotori is just a rock. In its view, Tokyo's attempt to control a vast area of the Pacific and its potentially rich seabed and fishing resources on the basis of a couple of wet boulders has no legal bottom.
Speaking in Tokyo last month, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, appeared to gloss over the China challenge. "America has reason to welcome the rise of a confident, peaceful, prosperous China," Ms Rice said. Washington wanted Beijing as a "global partner", not a strategic competitor.
Such statements, coupled with the recent US refusal to condemn China's human rights record before the UN commission in Geneva, have left China-watchers wondering whether Washington understands how high the stakes really are in east Asia's 21st century great game.
Like the Japanese in Okinotori, they say, a distracted and complacent US risks being caught between a rock and a hard place.
Testy relations between China and Japan were further strained yesterday when Tokyo signalled its intention to explore gas fields in the contested seabed between the two countries.
Silence, sulking and suspicion have crept into Sino-Japanese relations as the two nations struggle for supremacy.
As a result, attempts to restore diplomatic relations with its neighbours was based on top-level compromise rather than grassroots penitence. Instead of paying compensation - which would imply guilt - the government offered trillions of yen of economic aid. So much, in fact, that Japan was the world's biggest overseas development aid donor for most of the 1990s, with the bulk of its largesse going to China.
But while this pleased the communist leaders in Beijing, who used the money for dams, bridges and airports, the Chinese public was left largely unaware that in the past 25 years their economic growth had been financed to the tune of 3 trillion yen by Tokyo. Instead, they read newspaper headlines about elderly "comfort women" and the relatives of germ warfare victims being denied justice in Tokyo's courts. So, despite numerous apologies by its leaders, Japan is still seen as the country that cannot say sorry.
Excuse me? Numerous apologies??? BULLSHIT.
Arrgh. There are many things to dislike about China, but blaming them for being victims of the Japanese is not one of them. Japan has never admitted guilt, never took the blame, nor apologized or paid reparations for its role during the war, and until it does at least one of these things, the bitterness will fester for years. Did Iris Chang kill herself for this? To have all the other nations say, "Why can't China just move on?" Would the survivors of the Holocaust be able to move on, if Germany just said, "It's all in the past anyway, who cares?" and referred to the Holocaust as an "incident"?
The European Union will postpone the planned lifting of its arms embargo on China until at least next year, and require China to act first by improving its human rights record and seeking a peaceful solution to its dispute with Tawian, it emerged last night.
Jonathan Watts reports from Huankantou where protesters angry at corruption and poverty repelled 1,000 riot police. But now fear is replacing euphoria.
The Chinese authorities are bracing themselves for further anti-Japanese protests which could become one of the biggest displays of people power there since the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989.
Internet activists are calling for demonstrations in more than a dozen cities this weekend, prompting the US embassy to issue safety warnings to its citizens, and raising doubts whether the communist government is riding or being swamped by the rising wave of nationalism.
Hmm...wow.
1. Nations are stupid. 2. People are scary and powerful in large numbers. 3. No one wants to take responsibility for anything. 4. The US, right now, is the dumbest nation ever.