crellston

Sorry, but what does this have to do with travel??

pat

Why would we owe an apology? The skies have been mostly smoggy, and even with the recent clearer days, due to measures taken, that`s not the norm for Beijing. Do I owe Greece an apology for noting the smoggy skies over Athens? What is your point?

Tapply

What's more concerning is what will happen after the Olympics. Is this just a red herring for the litany of problems China will face (and is currently facing)? Here's an article reviewing some of these:
http://chinatravelwire.com/2008/08/c...oad-from-here/

coolcamden

Pat - My point is your snooty attitude. On 8/3 "you had to surpress a laugh" when someone mentioned blue sky over Beijing. I retorted that I'd been to Beijing 3 times in the last 3 years, and saw plenty of blue sky and I wondered if you'd been to Beijing lately, if at all??? Blue sky has been over Beijing in more than 50% of the time during this Olympic. Perhaps you can see something for its merits rather than imposing your prejudice.

coolcamden

crellston- what does this whole thread have anything to do with travel? Rather it's been a trashing of Beijing and China as a whole. Did you read the thread?

coolcamden

Q: What country is the largest source of global warming pollution?
A: The United States. Though Americans make up just 4 percent of the world's population, we produce 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution from fossil-fuel burning -- by far the largest share of any country. In fact, the United States emits more carbon dioxide than China, India and Japan, combined. Clearly America ought to take a leadership role in solving the problem. And as the world's top developer of new technologies, we are well positioned to do so -- we already have the know-how.

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.asp

Neil_Oz

"Is this just a red herring for the litany of problems China will face (and is currently facing)?"

Tapply, are you suggesting that the Chinese bid for the Olympics (originally, if memory serves, some time before the 1996 games) with the sole purpose of distracting attention from their problems for a few weeks?

That makes no sense. Try the simpler explanation: they wanted the Olympics for the same reasons that Spain, the USA, Australia, Greece, Britain et al. wanted them.

Drawing attention to genuine human rights abuses in China (and elsewhere) is fine. Mounting a scattergun assault on everything and anything Chinese, as the anti-China brigade has been doing, is myopic, counterproducive and foolish. If everything is bad, nothing in particular is bad.

And the critics would have more credibility if they could bring themselves to give credit where credit is due. In less than one person's lifetime, and with some mis-steps along the way, one quarter of humanity has been brought from a position of endemic famine, disease and civil war to a position of peace and relative prosperity, and is poised to become the world's dominant economic power. Literacy is near-universal and the position of women has massively improved.

Balance those achievements against the undoubted repressions practiced by the government and proceed accordingly.

But bear in mind that most Chinese, while well aware of the problems of pollution and corruption, don't consider themselves oppressed. Reportedly the Pew Research Institute has found that 85% believe their country is heading in the right direction.

filmwill

What does any of this have to do with AMERICA? I don't see A) anyone who's criticizing in this thread identifying themselves as American, but B) if they are, then no one has even laid claim to the fact that America doesn't have it's own issues to deal with.

When on Earth, coolcamden, do you get the gall to imply that anyone here has said that America is better than China in regards to this?

If anything, I think observers here (of all nationalities--thanks for the generalization, though!) have merely commented on the fact that it's slightly ironic for a much less-than-perfect nation to put on a heirs about their perceived perfection...China has got a boatload of problems. and they are ABHORRENT when it comes to human rights (of their own people.)

So waving flags in the air and replacing ugly cab drivers with handsome ones and ugly singing girls with pretty ones and seeding clouds for rain to pretend their isn't a MAJOR pollution problem doesn't take away the fact that they have an abundance of issues that keep them FAR from being perfect.

All I'd appreciate is some humility from the pomp and circumstance of their self-aggrandizing. Much in the same way that I hate George Bush (so please don't use America as a scapegoat again.)

But, hey, that's just me. Now move this thread to the Lounge before I get banned from Fodor's again.

coolcamden

Hey, it is just you all right. And my gall is fine thanks for asking. My gall lets me imply or shout out on top of the mountain anything I want. But is is not about my gall or so you said now, is it?

Where is the gall of people on this thread started out by saying the event is a travesty? You of all people with your condesending remarks... replacing UGLY girls, UGLY cabdrivers; to your ubiqutuous and unilateral flipant remarks to Binthair.

I did not imply nor explicitly said anything about America, other than the fact that I raised about the U.S. to be the worst polluter in the world, when everyone is pointing the finger at the Chinese. Did it strike a little close to home for you? How's your carbon footprint?

WHO IS ANYONE OF YOU TO JUDGE OTHER PEOPLE? Are you really that much better than anyone else? For every humanity problem you may be told by your media that China has, there's torturing civilians and violation of the Geneva convention that the US repeatedly committing... Illegal wiretapping that violates everyone's civil right in America. Who are you to judge?

hawaiiantraveler

We are AMERICANS and darn proud of it for good reasons too many to relate to the ignorant and bigoted!

No fault of ours if you are obviously envious and hate all that is American.....look within yourself for the answers.

coolcamden

I would invite you to look within yourself to see how proud you are passing judgement on other people without knowing much about them other than media fed info. You're attempting to pass judgement on me and you know nothing about me. Why would I be envious of American?

None of my messages, in anyway, disrespect American as a people. I do question why there is so much prejudice.

PeterN_H

I'm very reluctant to contribute to a debate which seems to have nothing to do with travel in Asia, but it is dangerous to leave some statements made here unquestioned for fear they might end up as 'common knowledge'. For many of these statements context is everything, and to make them look positive it is necessary to use a distorted measure provided by the Party itself in which you are invited to consider very carefully selected parts of the economy and only over the last 20 years or so. To accept this measure is, I'm sorry, to be duped.

> In less than one person's lifetime, and with some mis-steps along the way,

This needs to be re-thought. Between 30 million and 70 million starved or murdered under Party rule. Some 'miss-steps'. I think we might use different language if these were Western nations and I think if my parents had been murdered, tortured, imprisoned, or banished during the Cultural Revolution I might find this casual dismissal absolutely unforgivable.

> one quarter of humanity has been brought from a position of endemic famine,

Context is everything. Despite many years of war and civil war, the Party nevertheless managed to drive the economy even further into the ground than it was when they took it over, and then when it showed signs of recovery to twice drive it back down with collectivisation and the Cultural Revolution. During both periods not only did millions starve, but cannibalism became commonplace in some rural areas (in addition to the 'revenge cannibalism' of the CR).

> disease

The Party's record on providing health care is unenviable, and still leaves the overwhelming majority of the populace unable to afford treatment, and living in fear of illness. The hospital system is monstrously corrupt, with miss-prescription of expensive medicines (which give larger kick-backs) a leading cause of death. Those who cannot pay are routinely turned away however critical their condition. The Party's attempts to cover up SARS, which caused many deaths, and bird flu, hardly say much for its approach to treating disease. And that's before we get into the business of condemning whole villages to death from AIDS through buying blood using uncleaned equipment, and the further distribution of that blood, and the imprisonment of those who blow the whistle on such matters. In short, you could hardly pick a worse issue on which to praise progress in China, except that there's so much other choice.

> and civil war

The Party was a participant in the civil war, which ended when it won. It doesn't exactly seem right to give it credit, therefore. It might also be pointed out that it has participated in fighting and violent repression at intervals ever since, notably in Tibet and Xinjiang, has invaded Vietnam (and been roundly defeated doing so), and continues to threaten Taiwan (which it would call civil war if it came to it, but others would not).

> to a position of peace

At the point of a gun. Without that gun many disputes over territory, ethnicity, mineral rights, water usage, and so on, would erupt.

> and relative prosperity,

Relative being the important word. The oft-seen claim of 300 million brought out of poverty is provided by the Party itself and uncheckable, and therefore false, not least because in order to claim that even the Party admits to using a much lower measure than is accepted internationally. There's more running water, electricity, and tractors down on the farm, but for two thirds of the population life is structurally much the same, with the added difficulties of a massive increase in disease from pollution, half the country (conservatively) lacking clean drinking water, chemical discharges from factories, the despoiling of farmland by factories, uncompensated grabs of farmland by officials, and so on. Relativity is everything.

> and is poised to become the world's dominant economic power.

Only in the minds of fantasists and on the basis of false and internally inconsistent figures provided by the Party, and which many economists completely discount (in two senses). This one has definitely become a meme, but a closer examination of the figures tells a different story, and there are many disasters just round the corner the Party is incapable of facing up to or tackling. These include more than 300 million people over 60 by 2050, most of them with no pension at all; massive hidden costs in terms of pollution-caused ill-health and environmental damage; more than half foreign earnings coming from foreign production within China, not Chinese production, and so on. In per capita terms China's economy currently sits in 109th place according to the IMF. China's graphs will continue to go up, as they always do (unlike those of every other country), but the truth is likely to be very different.

> Literacy is near-universal

False, I'm sorry to say. The arguments here get even more technical than the economic ones, but this claim is made, unverifiably, by the Party, and so should be discounted from the outset. It is based on considering recogniition of 1500 characters adequate for literacy in the countryside, and 2000 characters in the city. If that weren't odd enough, consider it takes 2500 characters to read a newspaper, and 3000 is better. Nor does this have anything to say about the ability to write the characters. Even the government doesn't claim 'near-universal', however, but only 85%. Other disinterested observers suspect it may be as little as 50% in reality.

> and the position of women has massively improved.

As with everything else above, the measure starts from a very low point (although perhaps not in this particular case one driven lower by the Party itself) so improvement is not hard to engineer, and while there is undoubtedly improvement the situation remains one that could easily be corrected and that we should all find deplorable.

> Balance those achievements against the undoubted repressions practiced by the government and proceed accordingly.

Indeed: Look at the reality of the situation, realise that the Party's sole interest is, and always has been, its own continued existence in power, and that much of its claims to progress are based solely on its own doctored accounts, and on doing U-turns away from its own disastrous policies to start with.

Awarding the Olympics to Beijing has given support to a bloody-handed and murderous regime, and was done partly as a response to a bribe that human rights would be improved as a result, an utterly revolting and entirely preposterous proposition that surely only the Olympic committee could be naive or corrupt enough to swallow. It surprises no one familiar with China that it failed to deliver on any of its promises on rights or openness, and probably surprises few that the Olympic officials have become mute, limp-wristed parties to oppression rather than offend the people writing the cheques.

The original post doesn't belong here, and neither does this reply (apologies to all). But the original post is entirely correct, and 'outrageous' is the right word to describe the situation.

Peter N-H

hawaiiantraveler

Very well said Peter, thanks.....did I say that?

easytraveler

Of course Peter is correct. He's always correct.

Better that China should have remained as a semi-colony of the Europeans and Americans. Better for the Chinese to lose control over important parts of their country so foreign powers could set up their own type of government in their "concessions". Better that the Europeans could build themselves a nice European style garden in Shanghai and put a sign at the garden entrance: "No Chinese nor dogs allowed" - so much better not to have the Chinese control these concession lands. Better that the British could continue without any restrictions whatsoever to sell opium to the Chinese so British companies could make millions. Better that the corrupt KMT with Chiang Kai-shek, having risen out of the Shanghai "mafia", had been supported as the puppet head of the Chinese government. Better than millions upon millions of peasants starve to death because controlling natural disasters was beyond the ability of the corrupt puppet KMT government. Better that the Japanese could invade China and take over a vast swatch of China and brutalize the Chinese. Yes, of course, better that millions of Chinese die at the hands of the Japanese invaders than by the hand of their own countrymen, the Chinese Communists - much better.

I've learnt in my old age that there's one thing that I truly hate in my gut and that's the brutality and the prevarications of dictatorial systems, whether it's Nazism, Communism, or whatever other -ism. Yet, as I look back over China's recent past, I cannot have the all-negative view of the Chinese leadership which Peter seems to have. I therefore agree with Australian Neil's much more optimistic view rather than the bitter British view of Peter. Much be hard to know that the sun has finally set on the British Empire.

thursdaysd

I've been staying out of this (although I do agree with afterall's outlook, but on human rights, not pollution, grounds) and I know Peter is perfectly capable of standing up for himself, but really! Suggesting that finding fault with the Chinese Communist regime equates to support for opium colonialism and the atrocities of the Japanese invasion is too breathtaking a leap of illogic to let pass unremarked.

PeterN_H

I should have known to stay out of this.

It's a shame to dignify with a response a posting so childishly and spitefully ad hominem (and even xenophobic), and one so lacking in both logic and in accuracy.

But as with the posting on which I elaborated earlier, it contains some commonly circulated falsehoods and half-truths which ought not to be allowed to go unquestioned, although it's difficult to know where to start with apologists for the murders of tens of millions of innocents. These murders are for the most part not even denied by the perpetrators, although they are in many cases simply written out of histories or 'justified' as being supposedly for the greater good.

At this point surely most of us would be satisfied that the case is closed. The rest of the detail of 50-plus years of oppression hardly seems relevant when the first charges ought to guarantee enough consecutive life sentences to last until the sun goes super nova.

> Better that China should have remained as a semi-colony of the Europeans and Americans.

No statement on this point was made or implied.

The description of China as a 'semi-colony' of Europeans and Americans is, however, inadequate. The statement also fallaciously implies that foreign influence or the Party were the only choices (and nor is it to be imagined that these objections in any way support the less savoury aspects of colonialism).

> Better for the Chinese to lose control over important parts of their country so foreign powers could set up their own type of government in their "concessions".

No statement on these points was made or implied.

But again, the choices available were not between the Party and the continuing existence of the treaty ports. These were handed back voluntarily by various powers to the KMT well before the Communist Party took power, and so the Party cannot be given credit (and I'm not aware that it even tries to take it, to be fair).

> Better that the Europeans could build themselves a nice European style garden in Shanghai and put a sign at the garden entrance: "No Chinese nor dogs allowed" - so much better not to have the Chinese control these concession lands.

No statement on these points was made or implied.

Again a fallaciously limited choice is offered (and again, the foreigners voluntarily handed back control to the KMT, not the Communist Party) but in this case between widely propagated propaganda myth.

A sign did exist in a Shanghai park that listed numerous prohibitions, amongst them against dogs and Chinese except for amahs, and no less regrettable than similar signs found in the colonies of all nations around the globe, but not baldly equating dogs and Chinese as the lies suggest.

And before there are any more ugly displays of anti-British prejudice perhaps it should be pointed out that the sign was in the International Settlement, for which the Americans and other nations with footholds in China (except the French or the Japanese), shared responsibility.

> Better that the British could continue without any restrictions whatsoever to sell opium to the Chinese so British companies could make millions.

No statement on these points was made or implied.

Again a fallaciously limited choice, and historically inaccurate, and containing logically weightless prejudice.

Several nations sold opium to the Chinese, including the British *and* the Americans, who all 'made millions', not that that excuses any of them.

But again context is important and it is utterly naive to swallow the 'foreigner bad, Chinese good' line of Party-controlled histories.

The Chinese had been using opium for centuries before the arrival of foreigners, both that from Yunnan and imported from neighbouring countries. The foreigners, led by the British, saw an opportunity to reverse the flow of silver into China (mainly for tea and ceramics) by providing a better quality product for which the Chinese were willing buyers and distributors (making vast profits for themselves, too), and consumers.

Furthermore, while the recreational consumption of opiates may horrify us today (although very widespread), at the time that foreign powers were bringing better quality opium to China, more powerful products still were available over the counter for the asking in Britain, for instance; including a potent mix of opium and alcohol called laudanum which was in common use, and Turkish opium actually sold to the UK by American dealers.

Does any of this excuse any party involved? Indeed not: but it does give the lie to the Party-proposed view that foreigners just showed up and turned the Chinese into a nation of junkies at the point of a gun, although it was at the point of a gun that the Qing empire was later forced to compensate foreign nations for the destruction of opium stocks, and to allow trade to start again, Americans and everyone else playing a role.

How it can possibly be argued that foreigners would still somehow be both willing and able to continue to peddle opium to China into modern times, or even beyond the Second World War, even had the KMT taken power, is hard to understand. We don't sell it to anyone else, do we?

> Better that the corrupt KMT with Chiang Kai-shek, having risen out of the Shanghai "mafia", had been supported as the puppet head of the Chinese government.

No statement on these points was made or implied.

Again, the choices are not limited to those of the corrupt Party or the equally corrupt KMT. Although they were as big a bunch of mindless goons as the Communists, it's impossible to assess how things would have gone under the KMT, not that that is remotely relevant to arguments made. But one can say for sure that while there would have been murder and oppression on some scale or other (and things were brutal during the early years of KMT rule in Taiwan), China wouldn't have had to wait thirty years for Deng Xiaoping's 'opening and reform' but would have seen foreign trade and investment expand rapidly and to heights far beyond that yet achieved by Deng's KMT-like but still overly restrictive policies, perhaps giving many Chinese a standard of living to match that achieved in KMT-run Taiwan even before the arrival of (a slightly faulty) democracy there.

Overseas travel would have been permitted, lunatic campaigns based on text-book politics would have been avoided, and there would have been freedom of religion (for whatever that's worth). It might also be noted that in contrast to China the KMT is currently in power in Taiwan because it was elected to office.

While some might argue that democracy came to Taiwan partly because there might have been no continued American cooperation in Taiwan's defence against the mainland without it, massive economic and political influence from the US and others might even have brought a KMT-run China to democracy by now; something that will never arrive under the Party.

> Better than millions upon millions of peasants starve to death because controlling natural disasters was beyond the ability of the corrupt puppet KMT government.

No statement on these points was made or implied.

Yet again, there are more than two choices. But is the Party's track record on natural disasters really so wonderful? How many floods of the Yangzi should we look back at? How about the response to the Tangshan earthquake: conservatively a quarter of a million dead and the Party's response to report only a quarter of that, and to hush it all up for a decade. Would the KMT have done as the Party did and refuse foreign assistance? Would the KMT have denied the existence of SARS (China would likely have had better hospitals and better-trained medical staff, and a much freer although not entirely free media)? When earthquakes shake Taiwan is it only the schools that fall down?

> Better that the Japanese could invade China and take over a vast swatch of China and brutalize the Chinese. Yes, of course, better that millions of Chinese die at the hands of the Japanese invaders than by the hand of their own countrymen, the Chinese Communists - much better.

No statement on these points was made or implied. And again there are more than two choices.

The implication here is that it was only or principally the Party that resisted the Japanese. That's certainly the view that the Party puts about. More recent examination suggests that the KMT did a great deal more to fight the Japanese than the Communists ever did, and that the Communists did secret deals with the Japanese just like the KMT. But even supposedly the Communists had single-handedly driven the Japanese out of China would that excuse tens of millions of subsequent murders?

The rest is not worth addressing, except to mention that the truth of an observation is independent of the person speaking it, whether he be 'bitter British' or Congolese; that attacking the man rather than the arguments is simple-mindedly fallacious; and that there is a logical difference between a 'view' and a simple statement of fact. But the main fallacy in all this is arguing that the Party is acceptable because things under the KMT would have been worse. The Party's very real and very murderous and oppressive track record is not excused by imagining what the alternatives might have been. It must be held responsible for what it truly has achieved, both good and bad, not for what it says it has achieved, or for what others might have done in its place.

Is it possible to continue to hold an 'optimistic view' in face of the facts? Apparently it is; but that doesn't alter the facts.

Peter N-H

mrwunrfl

<i>but not baldly equating dogs and Chinese as the lies suggest.</i>

That doesn't seem to be an honest (or maybe just not unbiased) reading of a sign saying &quot;no dogs or Chinese allowed&quot;. Certainly does seem to equate the two. But maybe the sign was meant in a nice way.

A lot of what y'all are discussing is old history. You just have to look at the Olympic gymnasts. The Commie government is responsible for endangering these little girls in the gymnastics competition and then lying to the world about their ages by issuing passports with bogus birth dates. It's not the murder of millions, but this government encourages the exploitation of these girls for the greater good of China. A simple small crime like that seems to me to be a good indicator of a corrupt government.

With all of the intense discussion on this thread I am glad that I held back a couple of weeks ago. I was going to suggest that the Commies could always order 400,000,000 people to walk out to one side and wave fans and huff/puff to clear out all the air pollution. I'm sure the govt could get it done. Glad I held back this thought, tho.

PeterN_H

&gt; That doesn't seem to be an honest (or maybe just not unbiased) reading of a sign saying &quot;no dogs or Chinese allowed&quot;. Certainly does seem to equate the two. But maybe the sign was meant in a nice way.

It helps to read what the posting actually says before commenting.

thursdaysd

From the Lonely Planet web site:

&quot;A notorious sign at Huangpu Park, then called the Public Gardens, apocryphally declared 'No dogs or Chinese allowed'. Although this notice never actually existed, the gist of the wording hits the mark. A series of regulations was posted outside the gardens listing ten rules governing use of the park. The first regulation noted that 'The Gardens are for the use of the Foreign Community', while the fourth ruled that 'Dogs and bicycles are not admitted'. Chinese were indeed barred from the park (as expressed in the first regulation), an injustice that gave rise to the canard.

The bluntly worded sign has however become firmly embedded in the Chinese consciousness. Bruce Lee destroys a Shanghai park sign declaring 'No Dogs and Chinese Allowed' with a flying kick in Fist of Fury and Chinese history books cite the insult as further evidence of Chinese humiliation at the hands of foreigners.&quot;

GypsyMaiden

afterall~Didn't watch it, either.