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Feb. 14th, 2006 09:53 pm
china & the intarweb
Mark is sick, so not much going on tonight. Last night's Daily Show was hilarious. That isn't the only news story I've been following, though. I've been keeping track of the China&theInternet stories for the past few weeks, shaking my head, going, "Are you fucking kidding me?" for both the American and Chinese responses. Long list of links below, mostly taken from Slashdot.
This BBC Op-Ed from Bill Thompson claiming that Google's self-censorship in China makes sense. Business sense, that is. And for some reason, everyone else should be behind that because hey, there's censorship everywhere else, why not? I exaggerate, but really, what the FUCK?
Here's the thing that really annoys me about these arguments about the issue of censorship - that the idea that self-censorship is somehow more desirable or less dangerous than regular, state-enforced censorship.
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco invited to Capitol Hill for a meeting on U.S. business practices and censorship in China.
US tech firms that abet China censors face scrutiny
Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, took the rare step of standing up for arch-rival Google today as he argued that state censorship was no reason for technology companies not to do business in China. This quote just about killed me: "Software piracy is a problem that will likely be solved over time, because as Chinese-made technology evolves, the country’s respect for intellectual property rights will improve, he added." - Hey, has he seen the movie industry there lately?
US congressmen have condemned major IT firms including Microsoft and Google for helping China censor the internet.
The Justice Department asks a judge to approve Patriot Act e-mail monitoring without any evidence of criminal behavior.
Net-savvy outfits are finding ways to let citizens see banned sites - "The company distributes software, called FreeGate, which disguises the sites a person visits. In addition, DIT sends out mass e-mails to Chinese Web surfers for clients such as VOA, which is banned in China. The e-mails include a handful of temporary Web addresses that host off-limits content and springboards to other forbidden sites."
Executives from Google Inc. and other Internet companies head to Capitol Hill next week, where they will become feature players in an awkward debate: Are U.S. companies giving in to China too easily?
"I was asked the question the other day, do U.S. corporations have the obligation to promote democracy? That's the wrong question," says Rep. Chris Smith, the New Jersey Republican and chairman of the House human-rights subcommittee that is holding the hearing. "It would be great if they would promote democracy. But they do have a moral imperative and a duty not to promote dictatorship."
Ironically, the controversy comes as Google, Yahoo and others are fighting for "Internet freedom" in the U.S. Google is resisting a Justice Department request for information on user searches to help prosecute violations of a federal child-pornography law. Meanwhile, the company has joined competitors to resist plans by telephone and cable companies keen on exerting more control over Internet lines, which has led to concerns about discrimination and content blocking.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is drafting a bill that would force Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to keep vital computer servers out of China and other nations the State Department deems repressive to human rights. - Good luck, Smith.
Chinese authorities are determined to stop "harmful information" from spreading through the Internet, but the controls it places on Web sites and Internet service providers in mainland China do not differ much from those employed by the United States and European countries, a senior Chinese official responsible for managing the Internet said today.
Ok, I've had enough of this. I'm going to sleep. Read Glutter for better coverage.
This BBC Op-Ed from Bill Thompson claiming that Google's self-censorship in China makes sense. Business sense, that is. And for some reason, everyone else should be behind that because hey, there's censorship everywhere else, why not? I exaggerate, but really, what the FUCK?
Here's the thing that really annoys me about these arguments about the issue of censorship - that the idea that self-censorship is somehow more desirable or less dangerous than regular, state-enforced censorship.
Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Cisco invited to Capitol Hill for a meeting on U.S. business practices and censorship in China.
US tech firms that abet China censors face scrutiny
Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft, took the rare step of standing up for arch-rival Google today as he argued that state censorship was no reason for technology companies not to do business in China. This quote just about killed me: "Software piracy is a problem that will likely be solved over time, because as Chinese-made technology evolves, the country’s respect for intellectual property rights will improve, he added." - Hey, has he seen the movie industry there lately?
US congressmen have condemned major IT firms including Microsoft and Google for helping China censor the internet.
The Justice Department asks a judge to approve Patriot Act e-mail monitoring without any evidence of criminal behavior.
Net-savvy outfits are finding ways to let citizens see banned sites - "The company distributes software, called FreeGate, which disguises the sites a person visits. In addition, DIT sends out mass e-mails to Chinese Web surfers for clients such as VOA, which is banned in China. The e-mails include a handful of temporary Web addresses that host off-limits content and springboards to other forbidden sites."
Executives from Google Inc. and other Internet companies head to Capitol Hill next week, where they will become feature players in an awkward debate: Are U.S. companies giving in to China too easily?
"I was asked the question the other day, do U.S. corporations have the obligation to promote democracy? That's the wrong question," says Rep. Chris Smith, the New Jersey Republican and chairman of the House human-rights subcommittee that is holding the hearing. "It would be great if they would promote democracy. But they do have a moral imperative and a duty not to promote dictatorship."
Ironically, the controversy comes as Google, Yahoo and others are fighting for "Internet freedom" in the U.S. Google is resisting a Justice Department request for information on user searches to help prosecute violations of a federal child-pornography law. Meanwhile, the company has joined competitors to resist plans by telephone and cable companies keen on exerting more control over Internet lines, which has led to concerns about discrimination and content blocking.
Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., is drafting a bill that would force Internet companies including Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to keep vital computer servers out of China and other nations the State Department deems repressive to human rights. - Good luck, Smith.
Chinese authorities are determined to stop "harmful information" from spreading through the Internet, but the controls it places on Web sites and Internet service providers in mainland China do not differ much from those employed by the United States and European countries, a senior Chinese official responsible for managing the Internet said today.
Ok, I've had enough of this. I'm going to sleep. Read Glutter for better coverage.
Oh hey, Disney decided to drop shark fin soup from their menu. Confession: I *LOVE* shark fin soup. It is delicious - mild, but rich, nice texture; we hardly ever have it anymore, mostly because we've run out of relatives who are getting married, and it's pretty expensive. It is infinitely preferable to bird's nest soup. This is the one thing I don't get about how the Chinese use their sharks, though - why do they throw the rest of the body in the water? Is the meat bad or something? I mean, we use up every part of the other animals, why not the shark?
Anyway.
Chinese Eatery Sold Donkey in Tiger Urine
Suicide theme park proposed for Hong Kong island
Pickled fetus head fuels art furor: Berne's Museum of Fine Arts removed the piece from a Chinese art exhibition earlier this month after a complaint that it was disrespectful to the dead, and following concerns its grisly appearance might traumatize visiting schoolchildren.
The piece, named "Ruan," stole headlines in Swiss newspapers when artist Xiao Yu confirmed that the fetus head was real.
Now the museum's management will decide next week whether to reinstate the work, which sits pickled in a jar of formaldehyde.
Chinese company makes soy sauce from human hair.
A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.
What is the next "Chinese people are crazy/fucked up/weird" story?
Anyway.
Chinese Eatery Sold Donkey in Tiger Urine
Suicide theme park proposed for Hong Kong island
Pickled fetus head fuels art furor: Berne's Museum of Fine Arts removed the piece from a Chinese art exhibition earlier this month after a complaint that it was disrespectful to the dead, and following concerns its grisly appearance might traumatize visiting schoolchildren.
The piece, named "Ruan," stole headlines in Swiss newspapers when artist Xiao Yu confirmed that the fetus head was real.
Now the museum's management will decide next week whether to reinstate the work, which sits pickled in a jar of formaldehyde.
Chinese company makes soy sauce from human hair.
A Chinese cosmetics company is using skin harvested from the corpses of executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe, an investigation by the Guardian has discovered.
What is the next "Chinese people are crazy/fucked up/weird" story?
Jul. 28th, 2005 09:00 pm
interesting
Let's see how this plays out: More than 1,000 villagers in inner Mongolia took the local communist party chief hostage yesterday in the latest land dispute to rock the Chinese countryside.
The protest in Qianjin is at least the third since April in which locals have fought, and - at least temporarily - beaten public security forces.
In June six peasants were killed in Shengyou, Hebei province, during a battle with thugs employed by a power company to force them off their land. The government recognised the validity of their dispute, sacked the mayor and promised the villagers that they could keep their property.
Two months earlier the residents of Huankantou, in Zhejiang province, fought off more than 1,000 riot police during a protest about a chemical plant.
Countless other demonstrations go unreported. According to the Ta King-Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper funded by the government, 3.76 million people took part in 74,000 protests last year. They are a symptom of China's growing pains as the one-party political system struggles to keep pace with a supercharged economy.
I hope the villagers win.
The protest in Qianjin is at least the third since April in which locals have fought, and - at least temporarily - beaten public security forces.
In June six peasants were killed in Shengyou, Hebei province, during a battle with thugs employed by a power company to force them off their land. The government recognised the validity of their dispute, sacked the mayor and promised the villagers that they could keep their property.
Two months earlier the residents of Huankantou, in Zhejiang province, fought off more than 1,000 riot police during a protest about a chemical plant.
Countless other demonstrations go unreported. According to the Ta King-Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper funded by the government, 3.76 million people took part in 74,000 protests last year. They are a symptom of China's growing pains as the one-party political system struggles to keep pace with a supercharged economy.
I hope the villagers win.
Jul. 27th, 2005 12:46 am
it's too hot for coherence
I am slightly freaking out about China's growing economic power. I do not want China to take over the world, especially in its current state. But then I am paranoid like that. And I would really like the U.S. to get a clue, any day now. All that bitching about China not pegging their yuan to the dollar? Hello, hypocrites, you profited off of their cheap labor, and you're surprised they want their money back?
I reread Wild Seed yesterday. Octavia Butler is still one of my favorite writers. There are few people who could write so vividly and concisely, with so many original ideas. I love the way she is one of the few sci-fi writers who incorporate racial realities into her stories; people like LeGuin do it, but they never really go in depth the way Butler does, in harsh lighting, and awkward realizations.
I was thinking (a dangerous thing in this heat) about how with some writers, I forgive them their faults or I don't. For example, I read Piers Anthony for way too long a period in junior high. I liked the escapism of Xanth, and then eventually all the puns and naked 15-year-olds got to me. So I don't really read him anymore. Occasionally I reread The Martian Chronicles, but ever since I found out that Ray Bradbury [Bush]He's wonderful. We needed him. Clinton is a shithead and we're glad to be rid of him. And I'm not talking about his sexual exploits. I think we have a chance to do something about education, very important. and We need enlightened corporations to do it; they're the only ones who can. All the great malls have been built by corporate enterprises. We have to rebuild cities with the same conceptual flair that the great malls have. We can turn any bad section of town into a vibrant new community. I found that I couldn't forgive him for saying those things. And it ruined the rest of his books for me.
On the other hand, I read about Roald Dahl's anti-Semitism, and I found I still enjoyed Matilda as much as I did the first time I read it. Ezra Pound, too. Maybe it's because they're dead that I can sort of brush those things aside. I tell myself that they lived in another time, and they were still considered pretty progressive for that era. Maybe it's because they're better writers.
I don't know; I feel kind of betrayed by Bradbury's views, but when I re-read the Martian Chronicles a few years ago, I should have realized that all those views were there. I just hadn't looked hard enough.
I prefer my literary cranks to be cranky like Kurt Vonnegut.
That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you’ll be asked to repay.
Maybe they should meet. I'd pay to see that fight go down.
I can imagine it:
Kurt Vonnegut: "Bring it on, bitch!" (Insert random rants about the state of America, about how Bush sucks, etc. Quote stolen from Scrubs.)
Ray Bradbury: "You should learn to read and write before you even mess with me." (Insert random rants about about the state of America, and bitching about the tyranny of affirmative action .)
Vonnegut: "Have you even seen my books? I am more prolific than you are!"
Bradbury: "Oh yeah? I just wrote a short story five minutes ago! Beat that!"
Like I said, heat produces incoherence. Time to go.
I reread Wild Seed yesterday. Octavia Butler is still one of my favorite writers. There are few people who could write so vividly and concisely, with so many original ideas. I love the way she is one of the few sci-fi writers who incorporate racial realities into her stories; people like LeGuin do it, but they never really go in depth the way Butler does, in harsh lighting, and awkward realizations.
I was thinking (a dangerous thing in this heat) about how with some writers, I forgive them their faults or I don't. For example, I read Piers Anthony for way too long a period in junior high. I liked the escapism of Xanth, and then eventually all the puns and naked 15-year-olds got to me. So I don't really read him anymore. Occasionally I reread The Martian Chronicles, but ever since I found out that Ray Bradbury [Bush]He's wonderful. We needed him. Clinton is a shithead and we're glad to be rid of him. And I'm not talking about his sexual exploits. I think we have a chance to do something about education, very important. and We need enlightened corporations to do it; they're the only ones who can. All the great malls have been built by corporate enterprises. We have to rebuild cities with the same conceptual flair that the great malls have. We can turn any bad section of town into a vibrant new community. I found that I couldn't forgive him for saying those things. And it ruined the rest of his books for me.
On the other hand, I read about Roald Dahl's anti-Semitism, and I found I still enjoyed Matilda as much as I did the first time I read it. Ezra Pound, too. Maybe it's because they're dead that I can sort of brush those things aside. I tell myself that they lived in another time, and they were still considered pretty progressive for that era. Maybe it's because they're better writers.
I don't know; I feel kind of betrayed by Bradbury's views, but when I re-read the Martian Chronicles a few years ago, I should have realized that all those views were there. I just hadn't looked hard enough.
I prefer my literary cranks to be cranky like Kurt Vonnegut.
That chief and his cohorts have as little to do with Democracy as the Europeans had to do with Christianity. We the people have absolutely no say in whatever they choose to do next. In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve already cleaned out the treasury, passing it out to pals in the war and national security rackets, leaving your generation and the next one with a perfectly enormous debt that you’ll be asked to repay.
Maybe they should meet. I'd pay to see that fight go down.
I can imagine it:
Kurt Vonnegut: "Bring it on, bitch!" (Insert random rants about the state of America, about how Bush sucks, etc. Quote stolen from Scrubs.)
Ray Bradbury: "You should learn to read and write before you even mess with me." (Insert random rants about about the state of America, and bitching about the tyranny of affirmative action .)
Vonnegut: "Have you even seen my books? I am more prolific than you are!"
Bradbury: "Oh yeah? I just wrote a short story five minutes ago! Beat that!"
Like I said, heat produces incoherence. Time to go.
Tags:
Jul. 25th, 2005 11:48 am
this is so funny
This article is critical of the Tibet art exhibit because it's being sponsored by China. Note the ad at the top of the page.
As for this statement: "Politics and art need to be kept separate," she (Terese Tse Bartholomew) says. "The Chinese government would definitely close the show" - it's one of the most ignorant statements I've ever read. Most art IS political, even more important, most GREAT art is political. She's never heard of Guernica?
As for this statement: "Politics and art need to be kept separate," she (Terese Tse Bartholomew) says. "The Chinese government would definitely close the show" - it's one of the most ignorant statements I've ever read. Most art IS political, even more important, most GREAT art is political. She's never heard of Guernica?
Jun. 23rd, 2005 08:06 pm
Iris Chang
So China is going to build two statues for Iris Chang. It is probably a good idea, but China needs to get to work on "dig(ing) up the historical truth" on itself first.
I just noticed this sentence: Wang Hongzhi, president of the Nanjing Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute and undertaker of the project, said he wishes to present the demure beauty of oriental women in the statues.
Ok, this is a statue dedicated to Iris Chang, right? Who had to fight governments and censorship? Who worked like a madwoman for the rights of her people? Who had to fight people who were the equivalent of Holocaust deniers? Where the hell does "demure" enter into any of this? Yuck, and ew.
We will be eating at Cajun Pacific for dinner this Friday. Anyone wanna join us? They mostly cater, but open the restaurant on random evenings. I was supposed to go last time, but I was sick.
I just noticed this sentence: Wang Hongzhi, president of the Nanjing Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute and undertaker of the project, said he wishes to present the demure beauty of oriental women in the statues.
Ok, this is a statue dedicated to Iris Chang, right? Who had to fight governments and censorship? Who worked like a madwoman for the rights of her people? Who had to fight people who were the equivalent of Holocaust deniers? Where the hell does "demure" enter into any of this? Yuck, and ew.
We will be eating at Cajun Pacific for dinner this Friday. Anyone wanna join us? They mostly cater, but open the restaurant on random evenings. I was supposed to go last time, but I was sick.
Tags:
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.
Mar. 25th, 2005 09:01 pm
China - the expanded edition
James Fenton on artistic exchanges between Europe and China
China bans sexy satire on Mao - "Set in 1967 - at the peak of the Mao cult during the Cultural Revolution - the novel tells the story of the bored wife of a military commander who takes advantage of her husband's absence to seduce a young peasant soldier."
Is that literature or pornography? I have to confess - I don't find modern Chinese literature all that great. Maybe the translations I have suck, but the stories seem to fall into two categories: depressing morality tales with no hope, or or tales about the revelations of free love, sex and drugs set in the present that's meant to be "subversive" but are really trite and unrealistic and comes off more like bragging than real exploration.
Chinese Hip Hop - "Hi-Bomb - composed of Lionel "Little Lion" and Shang Hao - rap in English, Mandarin and the Shanghainese dialect."
ShanghaiNing
Chinese women with bound feet - "Strange to think it was an erotic thing," the boss Li Wanhong says to me as we watch. "To us, the smell of rotting flesh would be unbearable. But back then men wrote poems about the rich smell."
THE BODY AS ATTIRE: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China
The Clash of China's Generations NYT article - "Face" is a new movie about an interracial relationship between a black guy and a Chinese woman. Hilarity ensues, I'm guessing. (Also, major validation for me, and would be interesting to get my parents to watch it. I remember telling my mom about who I was dating, and her reaction was, "At least he's not black." You may consider this racist and prejudicial, which it is, but it was also a sign of progression on her part.)
"Q. But do you think Asian cultures are particularly sensitive to the notion of shame?
A. Perhaps. The Chinese are not very expressive. We don't tend to say, "I love you," even to our families, and we're not physically affectionate. And when Chinese people eat out, when the bill comes, you have to put up a good fight to pay it, even if you don't have enough money. Old-school Chinese never go Dutch." - Too true - watching my parents duke it out with cousins for the bill takes about half an hour, under normal circumstances.
Where cabbies are cheery but skint
Wang Xiaodong remains an outspoken champion of the Chinese nationalist movement. He tells Martin Jacques why his country must not trust the US. Why anyone would trust the US, I don't know.
"His main target has been what he calls "reverse racism", or the widespread attitude among Chinese intellectuals that denigrates China and looks to the west for the country's future and salvation. In fact, this kind of attitude is far from unusual in the Asian tiger countries: as they have exploded into economic growth, they have invariably looked to the west, at least initially, as their model and their vision."
Once again, I ask - who the hell are these political intellectuals and how much real power and influence do they actually wield? Also, I don't think Wang is using "reverse racism" in the sense that it is meant in America.
"When it comes to the problem of the national interest, China's liberal faction stands unconditionally on the side of other countries, mainly the United States. They submit unceasingly favourable reports about the United States: that we don't need vigilance towards the Americans, nor should we develop our national industries. We should place our full confidence in the United States for recovering Taiwan. This is nonsense."
Hmm...
EU leaders seemed ready to postpone lifting the arms embargo on China last night, responding to Beijing's adoption of a secession law designed to prevent Taiwan's moving to independence.
Mao's children seek their fortune. Wish that they would note that capitalism =! democracy.
With mobsters jailed and foreign investors pouring money into its gaming industry, Macau is enjoying a spectacular boom. "It seems to be a particular feature of Chinese culture that people can't help but gamble," said David Green, a Macau-based analyst for PricewaterhouseCoopers. - So unfortunately true.
China's legislature adopted a tough law authorising the use of military force against Taiwan yesterday, prompting a furious reaction in Taipei and concern among neighbouring countries.
Blood and coal: the human cost of cheap Chinese goods
Someone explain the logic of this claim to me: China's Currency Policy Leading to Housing Bubble in U.S., Says JBGLOBAL LLC
The People's Republic is on the fast track to become the car capital of the world. And the first alt-fuel superpower.
China tightens rules for online chat rooms.
China bans sexy satire on Mao - "Set in 1967 - at the peak of the Mao cult during the Cultural Revolution - the novel tells the story of the bored wife of a military commander who takes advantage of her husband's absence to seduce a young peasant soldier."
Is that literature or pornography? I have to confess - I don't find modern Chinese literature all that great. Maybe the translations I have suck, but the stories seem to fall into two categories: depressing morality tales with no hope, or or tales about the revelations of free love, sex and drugs set in the present that's meant to be "subversive" but are really trite and unrealistic and comes off more like bragging than real exploration.
Chinese Hip Hop - "Hi-Bomb - composed of Lionel "Little Lion" and Shang Hao - rap in English, Mandarin and the Shanghainese dialect."
ShanghaiNing
Chinese women with bound feet - "Strange to think it was an erotic thing," the boss Li Wanhong says to me as we watch. "To us, the smell of rotting flesh would be unbearable. But back then men wrote poems about the rich smell."
THE BODY AS ATTIRE: The Shifting Meanings of Footbinding in Seventeenth-Century China
The Clash of China's Generations NYT article - "Face" is a new movie about an interracial relationship between a black guy and a Chinese woman. Hilarity ensues, I'm guessing. (Also, major validation for me, and would be interesting to get my parents to watch it. I remember telling my mom about who I was dating, and her reaction was, "At least he's not black." You may consider this racist and prejudicial, which it is, but it was also a sign of progression on her part.)
"Q. But do you think Asian cultures are particularly sensitive to the notion of shame?
A. Perhaps. The Chinese are not very expressive. We don't tend to say, "I love you," even to our families, and we're not physically affectionate. And when Chinese people eat out, when the bill comes, you have to put up a good fight to pay it, even if you don't have enough money. Old-school Chinese never go Dutch." - Too true - watching my parents duke it out with cousins for the bill takes about half an hour, under normal circumstances.
Where cabbies are cheery but skint
Wang Xiaodong remains an outspoken champion of the Chinese nationalist movement. He tells Martin Jacques why his country must not trust the US. Why anyone would trust the US, I don't know.
"His main target has been what he calls "reverse racism", or the widespread attitude among Chinese intellectuals that denigrates China and looks to the west for the country's future and salvation. In fact, this kind of attitude is far from unusual in the Asian tiger countries: as they have exploded into economic growth, they have invariably looked to the west, at least initially, as their model and their vision."
Once again, I ask - who the hell are these political intellectuals and how much real power and influence do they actually wield? Also, I don't think Wang is using "reverse racism" in the sense that it is meant in America.
"When it comes to the problem of the national interest, China's liberal faction stands unconditionally on the side of other countries, mainly the United States. They submit unceasingly favourable reports about the United States: that we don't need vigilance towards the Americans, nor should we develop our national industries. We should place our full confidence in the United States for recovering Taiwan. This is nonsense."
Hmm...
EU leaders seemed ready to postpone lifting the arms embargo on China last night, responding to Beijing's adoption of a secession law designed to prevent Taiwan's moving to independence.
Mao's children seek their fortune. Wish that they would note that capitalism =! democracy.
With mobsters jailed and foreign investors pouring money into its gaming industry, Macau is enjoying a spectacular boom. "It seems to be a particular feature of Chinese culture that people can't help but gamble," said David Green, a Macau-based analyst for PricewaterhouseCoopers. - So unfortunately true.
China's legislature adopted a tough law authorising the use of military force against Taiwan yesterday, prompting a furious reaction in Taipei and concern among neighbouring countries.
Blood and coal: the human cost of cheap Chinese goods
Someone explain the logic of this claim to me: China's Currency Policy Leading to Housing Bubble in U.S., Says JBGLOBAL LLC
The People's Republic is on the fast track to become the car capital of the world. And the first alt-fuel superpower.
China tightens rules for online chat rooms.