lpc1998's comments

@JamieS wrote: Mar 7th 2011 9:13 GMT

"The real question is whether Chinese leadership can maintain that clear thinking despite all the nonsense nationalistic rhetorics . . .
and what the world should do if they plunge head-long into some kind of self-immolation exercise due to domestic political pressure."

A government’s constitutional duty to defend the integrity of country’s territory is not “nonsense nationalistic rhetoric” and this is true of any country including China. The Vietnamese had fought for their country. So are the Afghans. The Chinese would be no difference. So would be the Americans or Australians. Or are you suggesting that the Americans and the Australians would not defend their country’s territorial integrity?

The Taiwan Region is constitutionally Chinese territory:

"Q10. Washington Post: (Taiwanese) President Ma (Ying-jeou), you recently said that Taiwanese should not call China by any other name but "the mainland" or "the other side of the strait." What do you hope to accomplish by that name change?

President Ma: Actually, what I said originally differs from what you just described. What I said was that the government in its official documents should refer to mainland China as "mainland China," "the mainland" or "the mainland area" rather than as "China." Why? Because the ROC Constitution defines mainland China to be the "mainland area of the Republic of China." As public officials, therefore, we must draft our official documents in accordance with the law. We have not required that people outside the government follow this convention.

This distinction between the Taiwan area and the mainland area was already established in the Constitution 20 years ago when we amended it. For us, this is a very important distinction. As president, I must follow our Constitution and must also ask our public servants to do the same when conducting official matters. I believe some people in the private sector also use this kind of name differentiation, but I only request our public servants to follow this usage in the context of conducting public affairs.

In fact, this terminology was set 20 years ago; former President Lee Teng-hui and the subsequent Democratic Progressive Party administration during its eight years in office did not change it. ….."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/17/AR201102...

No, the world should not wait until the latent Chinese civil war spirals out control because the world’s superpower’s interference keeps it going. If you think it will only be a Chinese disaster, you will be grievously wrong. And Indian ultra-nationalists who dream of Indian global hegemony after a Sino-US war would also grievously wrong. The world should now work for a peaceful and non-violent conclusion to the Chinese civil war. It has dragged on far too long.

After more than 60 years of US interference in the Chinese Civil War ever since the civil war broke out years before 1949, it is high time for the sake of the Chinese, American, Australian (the Australians want to die with Americans, if need be) and other peoples of world, that the US should phrase out her such interference speedily, but orderly basing on the Hong Kong Model of one-country-two-system. One more Taiwan crisis could be one too many. The Chinese, like any other people in the world including the Americans, will fight to defend the territorial integrity of their country and Taiwan is Chinese territory:

"Q10. Washington Post: President Ma (Ying-jeou), you recently said that Taiwanese should not call China by any other name but "the mainland" or "the other side of the strait." What do you hope to accomplish by that name change?

President Ma: Actually, what I said originally differs from what you just described. What I said was that the government in its official documents should refer to mainland China as "mainland China," "the mainland" or "the mainland area" rather than as "China." Why? Because the ROC Constitution defines mainland China to be the "mainland area of the Republic of China." As public officials, therefore, we must draft our official documents in accordance with the law. We have not required that people outside the government follow this convention.

This distinction between the Taiwan area and the mainland area was already established in the Constitution 20 years ago when we amended it. For us, this is a very important distinction. As president, I must follow our Constitution and must also ask our public servants to do the same when conducting official matters. I believe some people in the private sector also use this kind of name differentiation, but I only request our public servants to follow this usage in the context of conducting public affairs.

In fact, this terminology was set 20 years ago; former President Lee Teng-hui and the subsequent Democratic Progressive Party administration during its eight years in office did not change it. ….."

***

For those who are still unfamiliar with China’s current dual representations:

China (ROC) = China as represented by the Republic of China Government, established since 01 January 1912. The Government of China (ROC) was recognized by the UN and the international community as the sole legitimate government of all China until 25 October 1971 when the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek were expelled from the UN and its organizations by Resolution 2758. It is the government in effective control of the Taiwan Region of China and is also known as the Taipei Government. So the assertions that Taiwan split from China in 1949 following the defeat of the Kuomintang on the Mainland or that Taiwan is an independent country are mythologies.

China (PRC) = China as represented by the People’s Republic of China Government, established since 01 October 1949 and has existed concurrently with China (ROC). The Government of China (PRC) was recognized by the UN and the international community as the sole legitimate government of all China since 25 October 1971 when the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek were expelled from the UN and its organizations by Resolution 2758. It is the government in effective control of the Mainland Region of China and is also known as the Beijing Government.

Both the Beijing and Taipei Governments are Chinese governments in control of 2 regions of China in an ongoing civil war.

Both Chinese governments uphold the "One China Policy or Principle": "that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China". The international community, without any exception, also uphold the "One China Policy or Principle" in support of the position of the two Chinese governments.

It all depends on the time frame. If the concern is primarily for the next 3-monthly financial report for the financial markets, the China’s current high-speed rail development plan could be disastrous. One the other hand, if it is meant for the China’s needs in 30 years, then it makes much sense:

1 It would certainly cost much less to build the high-speed rail system (and other basic infrastructure) now, than, say, in 10 years’ time when the financial, social and political costs would be much higher than it is.

2 Eventually, the appreciation in the prices of (mainly stated-own) land would more than off-set the costs of the infrastructure development.

3 A few years down the road, the established high-speed rail ticket prices could be substantially lowered by a congestion-levy on private car ownership in the cities. The political wizards in ZhongNanHai could transform an unpopular levy needed to control the private car population in the congested big cities into a much popular high-speed rail and other public transport subsidies.

4 The management, running, maintenance and R & D of the high-speed rail would create millions of good paying jobs;

5 The management expertise and technological innovations gained from the operation of an incomparable large high-speed rail system could give the Chinese railway companies an unassailable commercial advantage in the global high-speed rail markets; and

6 In time to come in the post-oil world, the system has the potential of morphing into a Euro-Asian-African high-speed rail system supporting an enormous economic region of trade, development and prosperity.

Devils Advocate_1 wrote: Jan 5th 2011 12:32 GMT

“And they also produced a J-20 prototype way ahead of the time Uncle had allowed for. The Chinese REALLY do not know how to play fair with the rest of the world!”

J-20 is the joke of 2011. You see, the Chinese cannot innovate at all. They are only good in stealing other people’s technologies, especially by hacking computers over the internet. This explains why their government is so willing to invest so much money on promoting the internet in China, and then thoroughly censor it for not-approved uses. Now with 450 million Chinese on internet, no computer in the world that is linked to the internet is safe from being hacked by the Chinese and valuable information and data stolen.

So J-20 must be developed with stolen technologies. The Chinese not only they could not innovate, but they are also hopelessly incompetent. They got the stolen data and information mixed up. So the J-20 looks a bit like the American F-22 and F-35 and the Russian T50. To make matter worse, it has the size of the US F-111 bomber, making it too big for a fighter.

Moreover, Chinese peasants are extremely wicked. They in their hundreds of millions enthusiastically left their young children and old folks at home in their villages for the big cities and purposely worked for 1/12th the pay of US workers, causing 10% unemployment in the US. They dare to dream of having household appliances like the washing machines, electric cookers and fridges, and hand phones, computers, modern transport and better schools for their children. They never have these things in their 5 thousand years of history and now suddenly they want them, knowing full well that they are going to cause global warming and destroy our beautiful Planet Earth.

Caution: In order not to misread this post, it should be read with my earlier post Jan 5th 2011 10:38 GMT.

The day when China’s GDP overtakes the US in US$ terms will come suddenly like the biblical thief in the night when the utterly mismanaged US$ collapses. With the US working so hard to debase the US$ in the false hope of promoting US exports, it probably would occur within the next 5 years. Like the Old Testament God, the FEB is causing the Great Dollar Flood through a series of “quantitative easings” with many nations, investors and others beginning to try to save themselves by scrambling aboard the RMB Ark. At today’s GDP figures, the exchange rate is about 1 US$ = CNY2.60 (37 trillion yuan/14.3 US$) for China’s and the US GDP to be equal in dollar terms. With the China’s GDP growth, that exchange rate is growing by the day.

Besides the Great Dollar Flood by the FEB, the US Congress and the Obama Administration have simultaneously been doing their utter best to inflict maximum pain on China to abandon her staunch support for a stable US$ needed for her foreign trade and investments. As the result, China has been scrambling to lessen and eventually minimize her dependence on the US$ for her foreign trade and investments by promoting the RMB for trade and investment settlements. She is preparing for the day when she could no longer support a stable US$-RMB exchange rate and let it float freely against the RMB. When that day comes, it could be, as an irony of history, the US’ turn to peg the US$ to the RMB and enjoy to her heart’s content what she now thinks the single biggest Chinese trade unfair practice.

So how fast that day of US-China GDP parity comes, depends more on how diligent the US Government does to debase the US$ and how painful it inflicts on China to abandon supporting the value of the US$ because of her current need for a stable US$-CNY exchange rate.

The Economist is right that on that day the Americans would still be much richer with a GDP per head more than four times that in China. China could have a bigger GDP at that time simply because China has a bigger population. Does anyone wonder in disbelief why China shits 4 times more than the Americans?

Over the past few years, increasing criticism has been leveled at Tibetan Buddhism, the history of Lamaism, conditions among the Tibetans in exile and the XIV Dalai Lama himself, criticism which is not from the Chinese quarter. Historians from the USA have begun questioning the widespread glorifying whitewash of Tibetan history (Melvin C. Goldstein, A. Tom Grundfeld). Critical Tibetologists have raised accusations of deliberate manipulation by official Tibetology (Donald S. Lopez Jr.). Tibet researchers have investigated the "dreams of power" that are activated and exacerbated by the "Tibet myth" nurtured by Lamaists (Peter Bishop). Prominent politicians have had to admit the evidence of their own eyes that the Chinese are not committing "genocide" in Tibet, as the Tibetans in exile continue to claim (Antje Vollmar, Mary Robinson). Former female Buddhists have condemned, on the basis of personal experience and with great expertise, the systematic and sophisticated oppression and abuse of women in Tibetan Buddhism (June Campbell). Psychologists and psychoanalysts have investigated the aggressive and morbid character of Lamaist culture (Robert A. Paul, Fokke Sierksma, Colin Goldner). From within the Dalai Lama’s own ranks, overwhelming evidence of his intolerant, superstitious and autocratic nature has been amassed since 1997 (Shugden Affair). Lamaism’s rituals have also been subjected to strong criticism. The humanistic, peace-loving, tolerant and ecumenical intentions of the Kalachakra Tantra and the Shambhala myth it contains have been interrogated in a comprehensive study (Victor and Victoria Trimondi). Biting criticism of the XIV Dalai Lama and his system founded on magic has also been broadcast in German, Swiss and Austrian television (Panorama, 10 nach 10, Treffpunkt Kultur). In Munich, on the occasion of a visit by the Tibetan religious potentate (in May 2000), there was even a split in the SPD, whose "pro-Dalai Lama" wing had invited the Tibetan "God-King" to a gala event. The media as a whole has been equally divided: the Dalai Lama has been accused of, among other things, having an undemocratic and autocratic leadership style, suppressing any political opposition, acting to repress religious minorities; letting policy be determined by possessed oracles rather than through dialog and debate, deliberate falsification of the history of Tibet, maintaining uncritical relationships with former members of the SS and neo-nazis, defaming critics and conducting misogynist rituals. Felix Austria – this criticism seems to have floated by the beautiful mountains of Austria like a slim cloud that hardly turns a head.”

http://www.iivs.de/~iivs01311/SDLE/Annex.htm

The Economist:

“But more subtly, it was also a shot across China’s bows. ....”

It looks like for the domestic political reasons (votes), Obama is handing China over to Osama. That is what it is when a US-China military conflict breaks out. An equipment failure, a human mistake or a crazy person or an interested third party like Al-Qaeda could fire the igniting shot in the tense military stand-offs. In such an event, hundreds of millions of people or even billions may eventually perish.

One most probable immediate consequence of the surprise US military intimidation of China would be a steep rise of the actual Chinese defence budget. Deng Xiaoping’s theory of economic interdependence and no war with the US would have to be abandoned. China’s 400 or so nuclear warheads and 20 long-range nuclear ballistic missiles and a couple of ballistic nuclear missile submarines (as estimated by the Pentagon) have been proven hopelessly inadequate as a deterrent against US military threats, especially in view of China’s no-first-use-of-nuclear-weapon-under-any-circumstance policy. Theoretically, if only 10% of the Chinese nuclear deterrence survives a surprise US nuclear strike, the Chinese would need a nuclear force 10 times larger than the US and her coalition of the willing.

This may explain why the Pentagon is trying so desperately to talk the Chinese into disclosing the strength and location of the PLA’s nuclear forces (transparency). For the sake of their national security, the Chinese have shown the US absolute lack of co-operation on the matter. So long as the Pentagon does not have reliable information on the Chinese nuclear forces, it could not limit or estimate reliably the extent of damage in a Chinese nuclear retaliation, after a US surprise nuclear strike.

Perhaps, the dilemma now facing the Pentagon is that a nuclear strike against a couple of large Chinese cities would surely invite Chinese nuclear retaliation against American cities (unlike what happened to Japan in WWII) whereas an all-out nuclear carpet bombing of China would guarantee a global nuclear winter that may end human civilization on Planet Earth, apart from the certain radioactive pollution of the Indian and Pacific Oceans and beyond.

In the last 30 years, China has been focusing on economic development, in the belief that economic interdependence with the US would remove the threat of war with US. So China maximizes scare resources on economic development and maintains a minimum nuclear deterrence at a leisurely pace. Events in 2010 may force a complete Chinese re-think of the strategic imbalance with the US.

Some western and Indian “strategic thinkers” recommend that the US encourages Japan, South Korea and, even, Vietnam to go nuclear. In such an eventuality, the next top Chinese export may not be clean energy technologies, high-speed trains, airports, ports and highways, but nuclear warheads complete with customized delivery systems. There are many enthusiastic buyers for such products: Iran may want 200 such warheads to match Israel’s reputed nuclear arsenal and forever shut up western nagging over the possible Iranian nuclear weapon ambition; Saudi Arabia may want 200 of them to match Iran’s; Venezuela and others may want 100 each so as to rid themselves of the recurring nightmares of US invasions; Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia and some others big countries may want a few hundred each for prestige reasons and boost their chances for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council; Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia would have nightmares unless they have their own nuclear arsenals to “balance” Vietnam’s and so on. The Chinese, with their proven mass manufacturing prowess, should be able to satisfy customers’ demands in good time. When most countries have their own nuclear arsenals, nuclear blackmail and intimidation will be a thing of the past. The US will then be just one country with nuclear weapons, and a “nuclear debt” to Japan having bombed two Japanese cities with nuclear bombs.

Former president Chen Shui-bian defied the US and crossed the American red line of not unilaterally trying to change the status quo in the Taiwan Strait by holding the UN Membership Referendum in March 2008 and taking the first step towards Taiwan independence. By doing so, he had harmed US national interests, and while overlooking the CIA dossiers on him that have information when leaked out could send him to jail for life.

This is a clear warning to all Taiwan secessionists: Do not cross the American red line and harm the US national interests.

The Economist:

“The demonstrations, particularly at their peak on September 3rd, were large and unusually blunt in a country where few normally dare to speak ill in public of senior party leaders. At one point Mr Wang emerged onto People’s Square in the centre of town to address the demonstrators, promising harsh treatment for the perpetrators of the stabbings. Residents say plastic water-bottles were thrown in his direction. ......”

The provincial government has clearly failed the Chinese citizens in Xinjiang. There is also a failure of the Central Government ethnic policies. The so-called “affirmative policies” are breeding parasites and worse, demons. The state unfairness inherent in these policies also breeds ethnic animosities, instead of harmony. These are common experiences of many countries in the world.

All Chinese citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion, should be equal before the law and are entitled to the equal protection of law. Disadvantaged citizens should be helped through non-governmental organizations; where necessary, they may be supported by the government. It will be good for the national unity when poor Uyghurs, Tibetans and other ethnic minorities are helped through voluntary donations from those Hans who are able to lend a helping hand, instead of such help being seen as a governmental obligation that entrenches the unhealthy sense of entitlement.

Ethnic autonomous regions that persistently engaged in secessionist or terrorist activities should lose their autonomy permanently and put under central government rule for time being until such activities cease when they should be governed as a normal province. Ethnic autonomy should be a privilege and not a right. Such a policy would once and for all put an end to some ethnic minority individuals’ criminal activities of terrorism to ferment ethnic tensions and conflicts in China for the purpose of achieving secession from China.

“Urumqi’s leaders had reached the same conclusion. On September 2nd posters appeared around the city saying that 418 people had reported being stabbed or pricked. It said this was “no ordinary political incident” but rather a “serious terrorist crime”. By the time The Economist went to press, the number of reported cases had risen to more than 600; 45 alleged perpetrators had been detained and eight charged.

The government, however, has produced no evidence of any terrorist link. .....”

Isn’t every one of the more than 600 victims is an evidence of the terrorism committed?