tocharian's comments
Advertisement
Most commented
- Charlemagne: No time for doubters
- This week's caption competition: Caption competition 7
- America’s security commitment to Taiwan: From keystone to millstone?
- Turkey and Europe: Mr Erdoğan goes to Germany
- Far-right populism: Tea parties and a Party for Freedom
- Japan's earthquake, the day after: The nuclear threat
- Defence budgets: Military ranking
- Lexington: Muslims and McCarthyism
- Charlemagne: The divisiveness pact
- Tragedies of the commons: The world is his parking spot
Over the past five days
Most recommended
- Oil and the economy: The 2011 oil shock
- China's economy: Bamboo capitalism
- Mormons in politics: When the saints come marching in
- A special report on property: Building excitement
- The Tata group: Out of India
- Defence budgets: Military ranking
- Psychiatry: Therapist-free therapy
- An earthquake in Japan: When the earth wobbled
- Israeli politics: A pointed resignation
- Asia's talent market: Locals first
Over the past seven days
Advertisement
Latest blog posts - All times are GMT
- First impressions
- From Babbage
- Group mentality
- From Babbage
The Economist on social networks
Keep up-to-date and interact with fellow readers via your preferred social network:
Twitter
Follow us @theeconomist for article updates, events and offers. For more detailed subject channels search for ‘The Economist’
Facebook
Join over half a million other fans and share your comments
Tumblr
Visit for popular charts, cartoons and videos as well as some of the best quotes from the newspaper and blogs
Linkedin
Become a member to connect with fellow Economist readers, view job postings and receive article updates
The Economist. On your iPhone and iPad
You can read and listen to The Economist on your iPhone & iPad. The apps are free to download and subscribers receive full access
Ask the Economist
Which emerging technologies are worth watching in 2011? Ask Tom Standage, editor of this week's "Technology Quarterly" in a live Q&A event, Tuesday March 15th, 4pm GMT. Pose questions with #askeconomist on Twitter
Advertisement
Since the Communist system of laws with Chinese characteristics has been established on schedule and there are beneviolent laws to govern basically every sector of life, behaviour and speech, law-enforcement authorities must fulfill their duties to ensure that laws are strictly enforced and law-breakers persecuted. Law-enforcement officials must strengthen study to grasp the essence of the Scientific Outlook on Development and the Confusion Way to Hegemony and Perspirity.
For millennia, Han Chinese have viewed the periphery as populated by barbarians and it is a mark of Chinese history to “civilize”, “pacify” and “sinicize” these regions (bring them under Chinese cultural, political and economic control). Chinese society is convinced of their cultural superiority, especially over those lazy backward neighbouring "tribes". They might view the "West" as a "worthy adversary" that they have to compete against but Southeast Asians are not looked upon by the Chinese as "equals". South China Sea, Singapore and parts of the Indian Ocean (like the tip of the Andaman islands that belongs to Burma) are considered a "string of pearls" that China should control (core interest is here the word). China has long-term political and economic goals and they are hungry for natural resources. The goal is to make China a dominant global power, within this century.
History ultimately is always written by the “conquerors"(unfortunately).
Why should I listen to these guys who think they are dumber than machines (well pretty soon at least). I don't believe that, so if they want to say something to me, they should let a smart machine do the talking. Perhaps they should also give up their cosy little jobs soon, since they believe a machine can soon outsmart them (but not me!) LOL
I like your picture.
Bamboo forests grow very quickly on a thicket of interwoven roots (infrastructure or guanxi?). However bamboo forests also exhibit the strange phenomenon (botanists still don't know exactly why) of simultaneous mass-flowering and fruit-bearing (would that be an inflationary bubble?) which then causes the rodent population to explode and the forests to die quite rapidly (but new shoots will sprout after the rodents die out)
Of course, in China, the Communist Party will take care of the well-being of the people and such "disharmonious" events are not allowed to happen.
As Sun Tzu said in "The Art of War": "Let the barbarians fight each other".
The US and Canada can "fight" about legalities while China is getting the natural resources it needs (lumber, iron ore, oil-sands) from Canada (I do believe that the Canadian government is almost powerless against the lobbying of lumberjacks and the Chinese business community in BC)
What is there to protest in a "harmonious society" where Big Brother CPC is taking care of you and letting you enjoy an annual GDP growth of 10% (correction, it's 7% for the next 5 years!). These hippie-types should just "chill", get an MBA and let the "foreign-workers"(Filipinos?) do the dirty jobs.
Conspicuous Consumption (Chateau Lafite?) and Cash is the Crown and Content of the great Chinese Civilization and the Climax and Culmination of the great Confucian Culture. Down with Democracy and Dylan-type Dissenters!
I agree with Miss Alice!
What "she" said is especially true in universities (academia), where we have tons of Chinese and other Asian professors, teaching assistants, whose English skills are way below par but we let them teach our undergraduates, in the name of equal opportunity, diversity and multiculturalism. Of course, nothing is perfect in the West and corporations are greedy by nature, but at least Western societies are open to immigration and strive to overcome racial boundaries. I don't think many Asians, especially in China, Japan and Korea appreciate such "decadent Western values". Obama is president of the US and one of his daughters is learning Mandarin. Chinese, Japanese and Koreans do try to learn English but I wonder whether they care about letting in immigrants from Africa or learning other Asian or African languages (don't they feel superior to other non-whites?)
The primary goal of most corporations and many governments in Asia is to make money and they certainly do not feel that they are morally obliged to foster the development of a tolerant, diverse and multicultural society. Besides, many Asians subconsciously are quite ethnocentric and feel (now that they have more economic clout) that it's time for "revenge" against the "evil colonial West" for their "historical sins".
Well, "dog fart may not blow down a giant tree" but a dragon fart can definitely bring down a house of cards.
Many students cheat because they see that that's the way to succeed in this greedy world. They see it happening in the financial world (Wall Street, investment banks, advertising, ...) in the political world especially on an international scale (doesn't China cheat by not respecting copyright laws?).
If you don't want our children to cheat we have to totally overhaul societal values. Kids learn from grown-ups.
The Turks came to Germany in the early 60's as "Fremdarbeiter" (= foreign worker). "Gastarbeiter"(= guest worker) is just a politically correct "Verschönerung" (= beautification) of the original term. It was supposed to be a short-term solution for labour shortage problems in Germany. Unlike North America, Germany (at least in those days) never thought of itself as an "Einwanderungsland" (= immigration country). Things are different nowadays, but I do remember the following incident when I was living in Germany during the 70's: an upper-class educated Turkish father complained to me that there were too many "un-educated Turkish kids (he said from Anatolien)" at his kids' school and so he moved his children to a private school, "Waldorf school", because the kids there were mostly German. Now that I live in North America, I also notice that some young second generation Turkish-Germans, when they come here for a visit, are quite proud of the fact that they are from Germany, which they insist is a much nicer place to live than the US for example (they would say that to me in German of course!). So it's not only about religion.
If Germany still has any labour shortage, perhaps they can recruit guest workers from the USA!
Well it's not impossible that the reluctance of the US to send the latest weaponry to Taiwan is perhaps based on the US "apprehension" of more "military-technology transfer" to mainland China. I don't know for sure but I can sense that Taiwan could be an active hub for industrial and military espionage between China (PRC), Taiwan and the USA. I'm just speculating!
Düsseldorf is spelled with an Umlaut.
By the way, both Germans and "Türken" love their Umlauts and "Dönar Kebab", so what's Erdoğan complaining about?
Orwell's timing was a bit off but China today is very much like Orwell's 1984. Big Brother is watching you, so just be happy and consume harmoniously. The Party knows best what's good for you!
Rule Zhong Guo,
Zhong Guo rules the waves!
I thought Schadefreude's German was bad but his English is even worse "Embarressing" LOL
Mao said: Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom (but not Jasmine).
For most Americans (including a large number of Canadians), climate change (or AGW) is considered a purely political (or even a theological) issue and not a scientific one. Taking a stand on climate change, one way or the other, defines your ideological (and moral) values.
For many Europeans, climate change is more a scientific (and ethical) issue. Politics is just a mean to solve a global problem (affecting the whole world, especially for our children).
For most scientists, there are no black and white reasons for complex phenomena. Complex problems are cause by different factors, with different weights, and a variety of strategies are required to resolve such problems.
For most Chinese, all this is just "Western universal value propaganda"
I am a scientist trained in Europe, living in North America (and I am not Chinese!)
Casino Chicks Champaigning and Cheering in Chingapura
It might be geo-strategically a better idea for the US to start supporting ASEAN (excluding Singapore), politically and militarily, more than it does Taiwan (China is part of Taiwan according to Taiwan and Taiwan is part of China according to China, so there!).
Most countries in ASEAN are at least aware and "wary" of becoming client-states of China because China does have a long-range strategic plan called "string of pearls" to make sure that they "rule the waves" in the Shining Shina Sea (stretching to the Persian Gulf?)
It's all C's in China!
The Cunning Confucian Capitalistic Communist Chinese regime rule by Coercion, Control and Corruption.
Who cares about the D's:
Dumb Democratic Dissidents Demonstrating and causing Disturbances?
Consumption and Cash is the Crown and Content of everything and the Climax and Culmination of Civilization and Culture.
Down with Dogs, Dissent and Democracy!
So C's beat the D's clearly, but what about Cairo, Deng, Dim-sum and Chaos?