Pro-China bias?

[Joe]

Re: Pro-China bias on SOTT?

China is not off limits to legitimate criticism

No one ever said that.

 

[Niall]

Re: Pro-China bias on SOTT?

Those who compare Ukraine with Tibet or Taiwan seem to be blinded by your own ideology.

Most Westerners are "blinded by ideology", that of liberalism. (Here I'm not referring to liberalism as in 'liberals vs conservatives' in US politics, but something broader which incorporates both 'sides'.) This ideology is so omnipresent that it is seamlessly integrated into the fabric of their lives via their education and upbringing. They have no idea of its existence and no historical memory as to how they got where they are today (facing utter catastrophe on the material plane, and soul-smashing - as per the Cs - on the spiritual plane). They're like fish in water saying, 'What water?'

You have a hammer but then you mistakenly see everything as nails. I suppose you would also view Taiwanese as separatists and the elderly surviving KMT as people from China against their own motherland.

You suppose correctly, but not because the hammer dictates it so. A detached reading of Chinese 20th century history leads you to this conclusion. It also happens to be the Chinese narrative of the situation which, naturally, is far more objective than the US-Western version.

 

[Mal7]

Re: Pro-China bias on SOTT?

It also happens to be the Chinese narrative of the situation which, naturally, is far more objective than the US-Western version.

China has moved on from the Maoist period of the Great Leap Forward, which was I think a text-book case of the heavy-handed use of propaganda. So in that respect, if official Chinese views today are more objective, I would regard that as a welcome change, rather than what one should "naturally" expect. I think all modern sophisticated governments continue to use propaganda, in the form of "soft propaganda", such as influencing the media (easy to do if it is state-owned), putting a "spin" on stories, cultural programmes, and other methods of "public relations". This is really just normal operating procedure for a government in the process of advancing its own interests, or (more charitably) doing what it thinks is best for its own people or the world at large.

On the subject of the Kuomintang, this 2013 article has some good news about how the surviving members of this army who didn't leave mainland China are now entitled to receive government pensions:

http://thediplomat.com/2013/07/the-kmt-soldiers-who-stayed-behind-in-china/

The news about China’s KMT soldiers has unsurprisingly also attracted interest in Taiwan. One report in the Taiwanese media outlet United Daily News says the turnaround reflects increasingly warm relations between mainland China and Taiwan across economic, political and social spheres. On June 13, Taiwan’s Honorary Chairman of the Nationalist Party Wu Po-Hsiung visited Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time since Xi took office, in search of “new navigation for the two sides of the Taiwan Straits.”

(The Kuomintang defeated the Manchu empire in the early 20th century, held power in mainland China for several decades in the first half of the 20th century, fought against Japan in the Sino-Japanese war of 1937-1945, and then lost to the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, after which two million Kuomintang moved to Taiwan.)

 

[Niall]

Re: Pro-China bias on SOTT?

China's Xi Jinping unveils new 'four comprehensives' slogans
_http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-31622571

Chinese leader Xi Jinping has unveiled his new political theory, distilled into four slogans known as the "four comprehensives".

Among other things they call for a more prosperous China and deeper reforms.

State media celebrated the launch with a front-page editorial in the People's Daily that said it had "great weight".

Similar slogans have been put forward by his predecessors, including Hu Jintao's Three Supremes and Jiang Zemin's Three Represents.

Mr Xi denounced political jargon as "empty words" during a speech five years ago.

However, he launched his leadership in 2013 with the idea of the "Chinese dream", a concept many say is still ill-defined.

Critics say the Communist elite's obsession with jargon alienates them from plain-speaking Chinese citizens.

Anti-corruption campaign

The People's Daily summed up the Four Comprehensives as:

• Comprehensively build a moderately prosperous society
• Comprehensively deepen reform
• Comprehensively govern the nation according to law
• Comprehensively strictly govern the Party.

The first three "comprehensives" are familiar territory for Chinese leaders, but the fourth seems a specific reference to the current anti-corruption campaign being prosecuted by Mr Xi.

Some of the party's most senior leaders have been snared in anti-corruption investigations.

Analysts say it is often difficult to establish whether the campaign is more concerned with corruption or simply with the elimination of Mr Xi's political rivals.

It could be both: many of those rivals are probably criminals:

China executes mining tycoon Liu Han, guilty of running mafia racket - Former Party leader Zhou Yongkang is next

More on this "Chinese Dream":

Year of the Sheep, Century of the Dragon?

The Book of Xi

The extent and complexity of China's myriad transformations barely filter into the American media. Stories in the U.S. tend to emphasize the country's "shrinking" economy and nervousness about its future global role, the way it has "duped" the U.S. about its designs, and its nature as a military "threat" to Washington and the world.

The U.S. media has a China fever, which results in typically feverish reports that don't take the pulse of the country or its leader. In the process, so much is missed. One prescription might be for them to read The Governance of China, a compilation of President Xi's major speeches, talks, interviews, and correspondence. It's already a three-million-copy bestseller in its Mandarin edition and offers a remarkably digestible vision of what Xi's highly proclaimed "China Dream" will mean in the new Chinese century.

Xi Dada ("Xi Big Bang" as he's nicknamed here) is no post-Mao deity. He's more like a pop phenomenon and that's hardly surprising. In this "to get rich is glorious" remix, you couldn't launch the superhuman task of reshaping the Chinese model by being a cold-as-a-cucumber bureaucrat. Xi has instead struck a collective nerve by stressing that the country's governance must be based on competence, not insider trading and Party corruption, and he's cleverly packaged the transformation he has in mind as an American-style "dream."

Behind the pop star clearly lies a man of substance that the Western media should come to grips with. You don't, after all, manage such an economic success story by accident. It may be particularly important to take his measure since he's taken the measure of Washington and the West and decided that China's fate and fortune lie elsewhere.

As a result, last November he made official an earthshaking geopolitical shift. From now on, Beijing would stop treating the U.S. or the European Union as its main strategic priority and refocus instead on China's Asian neighbors and fellow BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and South Africa, with a special focus on Russia), also known here as the "major developing powers" (kuoda fazhanzhong de guojia). And just for the record, China does not consider itself a "developing country" anymore.

No wonder there's been such a blitz of Chinese mega-deals and mega-dealings across Pipelineistan recently. Under Xi, Beijing is fast closing the gap on Washington in terms of intellectual and economic firepower and yet its global investment offensive has barely begun, new silk roads included.

Singapore's former foreign minister George Yeo sees the newly emerging world order as a solar system with two suns, the United States and China. The Obama administration's new National Security Strategy affirms that "the United States has been and will remain a Pacific power" and states that "while there will be competition, we reject the inevitability of confrontation" with Beijing. The "major developing powers," intrigued as they are by China's extraordinary infrastructural push, both internally and across those New Silk Roads, wonder whether a solar system with two suns might not be a non-starter. The question then is: Which "sun" will shine on Planet Earth? Might this, in fact, be the century of the dragon?

 

[SeekinTruth]

Re: Pro-China bias on SOTT?

The shift of political, economic, and cultural influence has definitely been shift to the East. With the way things are going, the US and the West will certainly NOT be dominating the planet for much longer....

 

[Niall]

China angered after U.S. fighter jets land in Taiwan

Reuters, 2 April 2015

China's Foreign Ministry expressed anger on Thursday after two U.S. fighter jets landed in Taiwan, in a rare official contact between the militaries of the United States and the self-ruled democratic island.

Taiwan's Central News Agency said the two F-18s landed at an air force base in southern Taiwan on Wednesday after experiencing mechanical problems. It said it was not clear where they were coming from or where they were going.

"While this landing was unplanned and occurred exclusively out of mechanical necessity, it reflects well on Taiwan that they permitted pilots in distress to land safely," said U.S. Pentagon spokeswoman Henrietta Levin.

China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Hua Chunying, told a regular news briefing: "We have already made solemn representations to the U.S. side."

"China demands that the United States strictly abide by the 'one-China policy' ... and cautiously and appropriately handle this incident."

The United States is obligated to help Taiwan defend itself under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, when Washington severed formal ties with the island to recognize the People's Republic of China in Beijing.

U.S. weapons sales in recent years to Taiwan, or indeed any formal contact between the two armed forces, have provoked strong condemnation by China, but have not caused lasting damage to Beijing's relations with either Washington or Taipei.

China views Taiwan as a renegade province and has not ruled out the use of force to bring it under its control.

While Taiwan and China have signed a series of landmark trade and economic agreements since 2008, political and military suspicions still run deep, especially in democratic Taiwan, where many fear China's true intentions.

China's military modernization has also been accompanied by a more assertive posture in its regional territorial disputes.

 

[Anthony]

Pivoting to Asia? Trying to encircle China, brilliant strategy by the US deep state, I'm
sure China couldn't see this one coming and isn't already well prepared. All in all it's
more of the same from the US, along with bringing chaos wherever they appear, they're
also probably trying to prop up their economy via the only item they can still export on large,
the weapons...

 

[SeekinTruth]

Pivoting to Asia? Trying to encircle China, brilliant strategy by the US deep state, I'm
sure China couldn't see this one coming and isn't already well prepared. All in all it's
more of the same from the US, along with bringing chaos wherever they appear, they're
also probably trying to prop up their economy via the only item they can still export on large,
the weapons...

Yeah, exactly. China, like Russia, is too clever for them though, and always keeps one or several steps ahead of them.

 

[hlat]

It doesn't sound like some of you know that the ROC Taiwan situation goes back to WWII, when China was ROC China and not the current PRC China.

 

[Niall]

It doesn't sound like some of you know that the ROC Taiwan situation goes back to WWII, when China was ROC China and not the current PRC China.

So? What's your point?

 

[hlat]

You bolded "U.S. weapons sales in recent years to Taiwan", as if since 1949 is recent. Other people reading that might have gotten the wrong impression, like 2013 Ukraine revolution recent.

 

[hlat]

Re: Pro-China bias on SOTT?

Do I have the right to control my body and family, or the government? Should the government tell me I can only have one child when I want more? What types of government actions and tactics are acceptable to enforce compliance with the one child policy? Forced inspections of my body? Forced insertion of devices? Forced abortions? Forced sterilizations? If you wish to ignore and disregard the past of CCP, fine; these questions are directed at the 2015 Chinese government.

Niall, how can you be pro-China when the current 2015 PRC Chinese government kidnaps Chinese women to conduct forced inspections, forced insertion of devices, forced abortions, and forced sterilizations?

 

[Renaissance]

You bolded "U.S. weapons sales in recent years to Taiwan", as if since 1949 is recent. Other people reading that might have gotten the wrong impression, like 2013 Ukraine revolution recent.

There's been a lot of discussion on the history of US expansionism and influence in Asia and everywhere else. It's central to the discussion in this thread as well, so I'm not sure what you're getting at either.

 

[Niall]

You bolded "U.S. weapons sales in recent years to Taiwan", as if since 1949 is recent. Other people reading that might have gotten the wrong impression, like 2013 Ukraine revolution recent.

What does 1949 have to do with recent US weapons sales to Taiwan?

https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL30957.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_arms_sales_to_Taiwan
https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/taiwanarms

There are recently-installed Patriot missile systems on Taiwan. Where do you think they're aimed at? Taiwan's US-built, US-programmed, and US-maintained military infrastructure basically renders Taiwan a strategically-situated hi-tech garrison on China's doorstep.

 

[Niall]

Re: Pro-China bias on SOTT?

Do I have the right to control my body and family, or the government? Should the government tell me I can only have one child when I want more? What types of government actions and tactics are acceptable to enforce compliance with the one child policy? Forced inspections of my body? Forced insertion of devices? Forced abortions? Forced sterilizations? If you wish to ignore and disregard the past of CCP, fine; these questions are directed at the 2015 Chinese government.

Niall, how can you be pro-China when the current 2015 PRC Chinese government kidnaps Chinese women to conduct forced inspections, forced insertion of devices, forced abortions, and forced sterilizations?

What are your sources for this parade of horribles?