No democracy for `uneducated' HK

Politics International Politics
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[quote]No democracy for `uneducated’ HK

AP , HONG KONG
Saturday, Apr 29, 2006,Page 4

A senior Chinese law expert has said Hong Kong isn’t ready for full democracy partly because the community lacks a consensus on the issue and people need better patriotic education, local media reported yesterday.

The comments were widely reported in the media because leading Chinese legal academics are believed to serve as the spokesmen for the communist leadership.

The remarks were made on Thursday at a conference in Beijing about Hong Kong’s mini Constitution, or “Basic Law.” by legal scholar Wang Zhenmin (王振民).

“I believe Hong Kong can achieve universal suffrage one day. But we need to conduct research and measure carefully how to approach it,” the South China Morning Post quoted Wang as saying.

Wang, deputy dean of Tsinghua University’s law school in Beijing, also said Hong Kong needs an anti-subversion law. The measure originally drew intense opposition when officials tried to initiate it in 2003, reported Ming Pao Daily News.

He said there was a lack of civic education that inspires patriotism, the Post reported.

Wang also said Hong Kong’s political culture needed to be more mature, the pro-Beijing Wen Wei Po reported.

He said the legislature’s defeat of the government’s political reform package last year was a sign that Hong Kong wasn’t ready for greater reform.

Pro-democracy lawmakers defeated the bill because it didn’t include a timeline for when Hong Kong would become democratic.
taipeitimes.com/News/world/a … 2003305183[/quote]

Does this mean HK needs new teachers?

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A lack of civic education that ispires patriotism?

That’s like the lack of education that causes poverty I guess.

Or the lack of equality and human rights that causes people to look for heads to cut off.

Anyway…

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It tickles me pink when foreign investors believe China when it says things like “our GDP is this” and “we have x million of the other” and take it all at face value. Because this is the same crowd who write things like “people need better patriotic education”!

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I’ve got the grammar dizzies just now but doesn’t that sentence actually say that there is a lack of civic education “and” that that lack of civic education causes partiotism?

I guess it depends on whether you think that “that inspires patriotism” modifies “a lack of a civil education” or whether you think that “of civic education that inspires patriotism” modifies “lack”.

Hence…

There is a lack of education that causes poverty.

There is a lack of civic education that inspires patriotism.

See what I mean?

In the first sentence “that causes poverty” modifies “lack of education” and the sentence makes sense.

Anyway that statement is wrong on so many fronts it makes your head spin. For starters how on earth can people be educated and it would still be predictable what they would think? Isn’t that the opposite of education?

Anyway, fuck it…

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Still, I’m sure the PLA vanguard led by CCtang and crew will attempt to spin it into a positive sign of things to come on Taiwan’s eventual, or rather essential, reunification.

By the way, how much “democracy” do you suppose the good Dr Wang has experienced? Is he fit to comment? :laughing:

Poor old China. Moving ahead in so many areas but still ham-strung by some of the world’s laziest academics.

HG

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I have been wondering about China’s true GDP growth for years. How come nobody in the media is seriously doubting those numbers? It’s China, with a long history of manipulating statistics, AND a totalitarian Communist regime.

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I have been wondering about China’s true GDP growth for years. How come nobody in the media is seriously doubting those numbers? It’s China, with a long history of manipulating statistics, AND a totalitarian Communist regime.[/quote]

Nobody knows. There is real research done into it, but government figures are ignored. Proxies exist for GDP and suchlike, electricity consumption, net raw material imports, and other things which I forget. Another factor of China’s GDP is how much of it is actually Chinese. GNP would exclude re-exports, for example. Is China really adding the value? And what about government spending? Wild guesswork. Makes pinning the tail on the donkey whilst tripping on acid look like Olympic archery. Here’s an article (pdf).

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If HK is too uneducated for democrazy, then what about the rest of the mainland. To wait for the masses there to be on level with or higher educated than Hong Kong, I think democrazy in China will have to wait till hell freezes over.

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no no, their “patriotic education” is first rate! examine the grass roots democratic system which china proper has adopted (motto–“define it, i double dare you!”) and you can see the clear connection between these concepts.

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Ohh, I understand better now;
Education = Brain Wash

Then Hong Kong got a long way ahead of it before it is “educated” - or so I hope.

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[quote=“X3M”]
Then Hong Kong got a long way ahead of it before it is “educated” [/quote]

I think that is the general idea