The sometimes scary thing about discussing things online is that everything you’ve ever said stays around, unless you’re quick enough to edit/erase’em before someone makes a copy.
So with that in mind, if she wants to start this conversation over and ignore the back and forth, I am personally willing to do just that.
[quote=“zeugmite”]
What is your point? This?
First of all, none of your poop dumps after that backs up this claim. Back up this claim.[/quote]
i guess i need to repeat myself:
…With the economy in good shape, many expected even fewer people this year, but Chan and others drew a distinction between economics and politics. “The fact that the economy is now on a strong path does not mean that the voice and the aspiration for universal suffrage and for democracy is any less,” Chan told reporters before the march. “I would say that without democracy one cannot really have sustained economic growth.”
…Benjamin Leung, a 40-year-old elderly care worker, said that while Hong Kong was performing strongly on the financial front, life for ordinary people was no better. “Of course the Heng Seng (stock market) index has reached new highs, but for Hong Kong people, things are not improving,” he said.
No, you need to stop repeating yourself and instead back up your claims. Let me break it down for you in teensy weensy steps. You made four major claims:
Let me be the first to say that this is an intriguing thesis if true. But you flunk because not only do you repeat yourself and dump poop all over the place, but the poop which you dump is irrelevant – nay, even contrary – to some or all of the claims above.
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060704_2.htm
Hong Kong University Public Opinion Programme:
[b]In 2005
“The Chief Executive of Hong Kong SAR shall be elected by universal suffrage in 2007”
“The Legislature of Hong Kong SAR shall be elected by universal suffrage in 2008”
In 2006
Hong Kong is ready for universal suffrage
Do you agree with universal suffrage to elect Chief Executive as soon as possible?
Do you agree with universal suffrage to elect Legislature as soon as possible?
Saturday, 25 March 2006
scare tactics are affecting the HKers’ psyche:
Hong Kong says democracy could cost citizens dearly
DPA , HONG KONG
Friday, Mar 24, 2006
The Hong Kong government yesterday faced a barrage of criticism for suggesting that introducing democracy would lead to a welfare state and higher public spending.
In a paper to be presented to a government committee today, the Hong Kong government warned that there could be a sharp rise in welfare spending if universal suffrage was allowed.
The paper also says Hong Kong’s investment and economic environment might be adversely affected if free elections were introduced too quickly.
The discussion paper sounded the warning as it reported on views it had gathered around the city over the best way forward for constitutional development.
“There were views that as Hong Kong had a narrow tax base, if universal suffrage was implemented … Hong Kong might become a welfare state,” the paper said.
“There are also views that in other economies with full democracy, governments provide a relatively high level of welfare protection but at the same time they are also capitalist societies,” it said.
The paper will be presented today to the Committee on Governance and Political Development. The government says it supports universal suffrage but only in the long term.
Pro-democracy legislators accused the government of trying to scare people away from universal suffrage by suggesting democracy would cost taxpayers more.
“It is absolutely absurd,” said Civic Party Legislator Ronny Tong. “The government is trying to equate people who want democracy as people who are opposed to the capitalist system.”
“Ninety nine per cent of people in Hong Kong support the capitalist system but also want democracy. It doesn’t mean that if we have one-man-one-vote, we will necessarily turn into a socialist state,” he said.
However, the government’s secretary for constitutional development Stephen Lam defended the paper, saying democracy overseas had led to budgetary pressure.
“Overseas where there are systems of universal suffrage and direct elections, political leaders face rather serious public pressures for implementing more public services,” he said. “That will have an effect on fiscal prudence and the government’s budgetary process.”
scare tactics are affecting the HKers’ psyche:
China official warns Hong Kong to beware of Hitler-style democracy
Apr 28, 2006, 5:18 GMT
Hong Kong - Hong Kong’s chances of achieving universal suffrage appeared to have diminished Friday after Chinese experts set conditions for democracy and warned about Hitler-style politics.
Two academics appointed by Beijing to rule on the former British colony’s constitutional development made it clear in remarks Thursday that Hong Kong may have to wait years for free elections.
One of them, Wang Zhenmin of the Tsinghua University law school, set out six roadblocks to universal suffrage in Hong Kong, including the fact that there was not enough ‘patriotic education’ in the city.
The other, Xu Chonde, who helped draft Hong Kong’s post-handover mini-constitution, warned against ‘blind worship of universal suffrage’ which he described as ‘just one kind of democracy.’
Xu, quoted by Friday’s South China Morning Post, said fascist dictators Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini came to power through elections and were ‘experts at inciting people’s emotions.’
He added: ‘Even in the United States, which has 200 years of democratic history, most of its presidents were only of mediocre caliber. There have been few outstanding or talented ones.’
The remarks were delivered at a Beijing seminar Thursday on Hong Kong’s Basic Law, the mini-constitution by which it has been governed since it reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
In his speech on roadblocks to democracy, Zhenmin said that apart from the lack of patriotic education, there was no community consensus and no law governing political parties in Hong Kong.
The other three roadblocks were a lack of equal participation in politics, the fact that an anti-sedition law had not been passed and finally that it was too soon for a redistribution of economic power in the former colony.
The speeches by the influential academics are seen as an indication that Beijing is far from ready to allow for greater democracy in Hong Kong.
Government officials in Hong Kong meanwhile dismissed newspaper reports earlier this week that the territory’s chief executive was pressing Beijing to allow universal suffrage by 2012.
Hong Kong currently has partial democracy with half of its 60 legislators chosen in free elections but no direct elections for the position of chief executive.
More than 500,000 people took part in a pro-democracy march in 2004 but Beijing ruled there could be universal suffrage in the territory at least until after the legislature elections in 2008.
Persistent demands for a timetable for democracy have been resisted by both Beijing and Hong Kong chief executive Donald Tsang who was appointed to a two-year term as the territory’s leader by China in June 2005.
you guys might want to take your argument with this dude http://simonworld.mu.nu/who is more of an expert on hong kong than i. he has loads of evidence that you demand - links to surveys, charts, graphs, polls, articles, think tanks, websites, etc.
thyrdrail,
If your fixated on HK, why not move to HK to study Chinese.
Guangdong is the mecca for proper Mandarin. All the HK stars study Mandarin in HK. Look at Faye Wong and Jet Li. If its good enough for them it should be good enough for you.
:help: What are you looking at? From a statistical point of view, there are no long-term trends in this graph. There are some short-term fluctuations, but I’d suspect most of that is well within the confidence interval. How does this prove anything?
:help: What are you looking at? From a statistical point of view, there are no long-term trends in this graph. There are some short-term fluctuations, but I’d suspect most of that is well within the confidence interval. How does this prove anything?[/quote]
Don’t read the numbers, see it spacially.
If you look closely enough, you’ll see it takes the shape of a dragon.
Thank you. This is the right answer, but only people who will come and help Taiwan develop should have it.
Hi Quirk- I like your new avatar. The polls show overall satisfaction- but protests continue. Is this contradictory? Has anyone challenged the credibility of the polls? Are the sizes of the protests significantly large enough to reflect discontent in the general populace? What would be a significant number? For every protester out on the street, how many are sitting at home sympathizing? There has to have been some social science research done on this question- at least as it applies to western societies. But I’m not aware of it.
And thyrdrail did make her points clear to me. Respected HK journalists are being fired or are resigning because of a hostile climate. Self-censorship/softening reporting on sensitive Chinese issues is increasing. If the quality of reporting is deteriorating in this manner, then the quality of information getting out to HKers is also deteriorating. Therefore, without high-quality info, the populace can not have well-formed opinions. It is probable that with better quality reporting getting out to HKers, the poll numbers could shift, at least somewhat. Certainly if the quality of reporting goes down quite a bit in the future , poll numbers would definitely be affected.
PS On your journey to ‘self-discovery’ as one poster put it, thrydrail, I think you’ll find that we all get stimulation from conflict, but when conflict for its own sake starts to compete with intellectual exchange, it gets tiresome. You haven’t developed the ‘mean poster’ habit and I hope you never do.
On another note, it seems the PRC government is trying to satisfy the popular will as best if can without having to implement one man-one vote. It seems to respond to protests (the removal of Tung). If I were an HKer, this would encourage me to continue using street marches as a way to influence policy. I guess this influence is benign enough to be acceptable to Beijing. And maybe 6/4 taught Beijing a lesson about not overreacting to popular protests. Then again, are there other recent protests around China that have been put down more violently that we don’t hear about? PPS I’m trying to be very positive in my postings now. I must say, z, that your fecal references really tickled my funny bone!
v,
Welcome back! You’re asking very fair and reasonable questions. I’ll take a shot at answering them with, as usual, my perspective on things.
I don’t think these two observations are at all contradictory. Think of the largest, most violent protests in the United States… be it on the issues of Iraq or WTO/globalization. The fact that a significant % of people are passionate and vocal about the issue does not mean all share their opinions. I think combining both observations gives you a logical and (in my opinion) accurate understanding of Hong Kong society:
Note that for nearly two decades, Hong Kong has been continuously bombarded with doomsday predictions about their future under Communist rule. Hong Kong was predicted to die as a city, with its social and economic freedoms eliminated every night. Many were wondering how long it’d take before the PLA started arresting political dissidents. The British colonial system left behind a significant group of Oxford/Cambridge-educated leaders who oppose everything the Communist Party represents on principle alone. In other words, many in Hong Kong were about as excited about the prospect of living in a “Communist” nation as you or thyrdrail would be.
It’s been 10 years since HK’s reunification with the mainland. It’s economy has, after a painful period, again thrived; many recognize the very friendly policies Beijing has implemented in this regard (look up CEPA). On the political front, shadowy allegations aside, no one in Hong Kong has been beaten down by the “boot” of PLA oppression. Indeed, I’m reasonably sure more journalists have been arrested in the US than Hong Kong over the past 9 years.
Note that the most notable political debate over the last 10 years was the illegal abode issue… in which Beijing intervened in a legal gray area, and proclaimed that Hong Kong would remain protected from a flood of mainland immigrants. The political ideologues in Hong Kong that fear/detest Beijing with a passion protested against the decision; the vast majority of Hong Kong’ers breathed a sigh of relief that their economy.
The lack of a clear road-map for the structure of Hong Kong’s future adds uncertainty. No one knows for sure that the current enlightened leadership in Beijing will be around for another 10, 20, or 40 years. This uncertainty fuels many of the on-going protests… but with every year that passes, Hong Kong’ers are coming to trust that Beijing will continue to treat Hong Kong fairly and carefully.
How do you objectively gauge the “quality of information”? There are hundreds of critical articles, especially in the Chinese press, published every day in Hong Kong. The Apple Daily originated in Hong Kong, and continues to thrive there.
Jasper Becker, Willy Lam. These two people left the South China Morning Post, a newspaper read by the English-speaking elite in Hong Kong 5-6 years ago. That’s an indisputed fact. What does this imply about the nature of the press in Hong Kong? What does this imply about press freedoms? It makes no sense to me that the ambiguous job status of these two people can permanently define press freedoms in Hong Kong.
At the end of the day, I can’t alleviate anyone’s concerns about some shadowy conspiracy; there’s no way to prove that one doesn’t exist. I’d just call on common sense.
I think you’re very correct about the first line. But I don’t understand the assumption you make here: why would the people have to actually march on the streets before government understands and anticipates their demands? Government exists for the purpose of satisfying the will and desire of the people; a good and wise government doesn’t wait for anger to build up before being “forced” into doing so.
Why would you assume that government and “the people” must be on opposite sides?
taipeitimes.com/News/editori … 2003330766
Taiwan’s poor need some more miracles
…
Sixteen out of the 23 counties in this county have reported a decline in their average household disposable income, with Hualien County the worst, falling by NT$80,000 to NT$663,000. In March, to make sure its 3,000 elementary students could drink milk twice a week, the Taitung County Government had to turn to the China Development Financial Holding Corp for help. Meanwhile, some parents in Taipei worried over whether or not their children would eat imported foods.
…
China’s and the rest of the world’s impoverished populations seem to have fallen at almost the same speed. China’s impoverished population dropped to 180 million people in 2002 from 380 million in 1990 and 630 million in 1981. If China’s poor population hadn’t dropped, the rest of the world’s poor population would have remained practically unchanged. The global impoverished population has dropped drastically to 19.4 percent of the world’s population in 2002 from 27.9 percent in 1990 and 40.4 percent in 1981, a remarkable achievement.
Hi CC, I don’t have time to read your post in depth right now- just wanted to check in. I just bought an award-winning book by Doris Kearns Goodwin about Lincoln called Team of Rivals. I hope it can give me some insight into why preserving the Union was so important and how eradicating slavery fit into the picture. Talk to you tomorrow. 
v,
Wasn’t slavery just a propoganda motivator to the USA civil war. The real underlying reason behind the war was the economy of slave labor States and political representation slave population gave Southern States.
It is kind of silly to use “slavery” to view Taiwan situation. Since by all real measures Taiwanese are not being oppressed in any way, shape, or form. Sure they claim oppression, but anyone who studies the situation comes to the neutral position that it is only self declaration of oppression and nothing real.
The standard historic view of Lincoln is that he passionately believed that preserving the Union was of ultimate importance (as an ideology) and he had enough long-term vision, leadership, and pragmatism when it was needed, to see that through, even through a Republican Party (his party) that cared more about slaves than anything else, a war that wasn’t going anywhere for the first couple of years, and high casualty towards the end.
He famously said something like, my interest is to preserve the Union, any other ancillary cause isn’t my interest. If I could preserve the Union by keeping slavery I would do it, if I could preserve the Union by freeing all the slaves, I would do so, and if I could preserve the Union by freeing some of the slaves and keeping others as slaves, then I would do that.
He also said something like he wanted to preserve the Union with peace if possible, but if he could only do it with force, he had a duty to use that. And he really didn’t like the death of his own countrymen, but he thought it was the only way. On and on. It’s clear that his thoughts were very much like pro-unification arguments, perhaps even less democratic. And of course, he suspended habeas corpus. Lots of people especially in the South probably thought he was the evil satan. The Confederate States of America – it was already a country with its own system of government set up, let’s not forget – was invaded, and they really thought of it that way. A captured Southern soldier was asked why he fought. He said, becasue you are here. This is my home. He didn’t own any slaves.
It is also true that both sides stumbled into the war. The South thought Lincoln was the last straw and that the North was out to get their slaves. This wasn’t true with Lincoln, obviously, but it was with his Party, but the South really pulled the SI (southern independence) trigger on that one prematurely and got in less than 4 years the opposite of what they wanted and what they have tried for a long time to prevent, along with an economic set-back from which they have still not fully recovered. Ironic. They should have asked for One Country Two Systems, lol
Please excuse my inabilty to do the quoting thing right.
cc said: I don’t think these two observations are at all contradictory. Think of the largest, most violent protests in the United States… be it on the issues of Iraq or WTO/globalization. The fact that a significant % of people are passionate and vocal about the issue does not mean all share their opinions.
v now says: The dynamic between number of protesters and number of people that share the same view staying at home is probably something very complex that depends on a lot of factors. Some people are angry but think that marching is useless. That percentage is probably very high in a society without one man one vote. But, in any event, we have the polls that are backing up your view. I also communicated with an intelligent person living in HK, and anecdotally he feels that the majority of HKers are satisfied with the present situation mainly because they are making money. Also he feels that HKers are also identifying with the concept of CHinese nationalism. He thought that HK was parallel to Singapore in that the populace is happy with the government as long as the economy is good. He didn’t mention anything about Singapore and Chinese nationalism, though. Do you have any thoughts about that?
CC said: Indeed, I’m reasonably sure more journalists have been arrested in the US than Hong Kong over the past 9 years.
v says: ???Jouranlists arrested in the US? I know there is one case of an Iraqi photographer working for a US newspaper (news service?) who has been arrested (I heard the news about a month ago, but I don’t know what his current status is). The US military is suspicious that he may be an insurgent sympathizer. That is definitely a scary case, but I haven’t heard of any others- could you give me some examples? In the US many in the media said that self-censorship was an issue because people wanted to get behind a war president and becase of the emotional impact of 9/11. That wasn’t a failure of the American system- that was the failure of individuals which is now coming to light and hopefully being rectified. But obviously while the media practiced self-censorship, Americans were (are?) getting poor quality info that negatively affects our ability to form good opinions.
cc said: The lack of a clear road-map for the structure of Hong Kong’s future adds uncertainty. No one knows for sure that the current enlightened leadership in Beijing will be around for another 10, 20, or 40 years. This uncertainty fuels many of the on-going protests… but with every year that passes, Hong Kong’ers are coming to trust that Beijing will continue to treat Hong Kong fairly and carefully.
v says: With every year that passes they can trust Beijing, but their original fear that the current enlightend leadership might not be around forever is a valid one. What are HKers going to do if some hardline faction comes to power in Beijing? But then again even if HK had one man one vote, HKers still couldn’t do anything if the situation changed in Beijing and hardliners came into power. The hardliners could wipe out everything that had been given to HK and the international community really couldn’t do anything since it would be an internal matter. Better to hurry up and foster the attitudes/skills necessary to produce good citizens capable of selecting good leaders. Then give everyone in China one man one vote so an enlightened populace won’t let harsh dictators come to power in the first place. Notice I did not say give everyone in China the vote now. But how do you change a culture where the prerequisite principle for democracy- a belief in working for the common good- does not traditionally exist?
v said: And thyrdrail did make her points clear to me. Respected HK journalists are being fired or are resigning because of a hostile climate. Self-censorship/softening reporting on sensitive Chinese issues is increasing. If the quality of reporting is deteriorating in this manner, then the quality of information getting out to HKers is also deteriorating.[/quote]
cc said: How do you objectively gauge the “quality of information”? There are hundreds of critical articles, especially in the Chinese press, published every day in Hong Kong. The Apple Daily originated in Hong Kong, and continues to thrive there.
v says: Are there now lots of articles in HK critical of the depose Chen movement? The Apple Daily doesn’t have a good reputation among expats who can read Chinese well (not me). They are said to be sensationalist and often get their facts wrong. I guess HKers who are smart enough can always get good info from certain blogs. I know a lot of English language bloggers writing about Taiwan that are giving better analysis than the local/international English media (like the blogs Taiwan Matters or The View from Taiwan).
cc said: Jasper Becker, Willy Lam. These two people left the South China Morning Post, a newspaper read by the English-speaking elite in Hong Kong 5-6 years ago. That’s an indisputed fact. What does this imply about the nature of the press in Hong Kong? What does this imply about press freedoms? It makes no sense to me that the ambiguous job status of these two people can permanently define press freedoms in Hong Kong.
v says: I could only debate with you on the issue of press freedoms if I could read Chinese well. Then I could read through the major papers in HK and decide for myself. Since most papers are commercial enterprises first, they need to appeal to a broad customer base. If they have a broad base of discerning readers, their analysis will have to be discerning. If they have readers who cannot detect bias or strange omissions/contradicitons, then the quality of reporting will probably not have to be high since no one will be dissatisfied with what they are getting. Thus we have the situation in Taiwan where press freedom does not equate to generally high quality reporting.
cc said: At the end of the day, I can’t alleviate anyone’s concerns about some shadowy conspiracy; there’s no way to prove that one doesn’t exist. I’d just call on common sense.
v says: I am never swayed by the argument to go on ‘common sense’- too intuitve/gut reaction. I like things to be spelled out as we are trying to do.
cc said: I think you’re very correct about the first line. But I don’t understand the assumption you make here: why would the people have to actually march on the streets before government understands and anticipates their demands? Government exists for the purpose of satisfying the will and desire of the people; a good and wise government doesn’t wait for anger to build up before being “forced” into doing so.
v says: But then tell me how Beijing anticipates the demands of the laobaixin HKers since there is no one man one vote and the legislature is filled with appointed people. Does Beijing construct policy with an eye to polls? How often do they poll? Every month? Every week? It’s sort of funny. Why have a democracy where voting is sort of like a poll when you can just do the poll period?! Because in a democracy you have to follow the results, whereas with polls you could theoretically not report the outcome or just disregard the result if you think it reflects the stupidity of the populace. Just like in my classroom or home- I let the little ones have their say, but if I think they made the wrong decision, the teacher/mama is going to do what she wants to do!!
ac and z, I’m reading that book first of all so I can understand my country better, and second of all because cc and now z have said that Lincoln’s pro-unification stand was similar to Chinese prounificationists. From CC I understand that unification is about national strength first and foremost. I want to see if Lincoln felt that the US would be weakened and possibly threatened as a country if the South seceded. If he did in fact feel that way and that was his reason for going to war, than that would be parallel to the China unification situation. So I have to finish the book first to know how he felt. Do you have any other books to recommend re Lincoln’s motivations for shedding blood to preserve the Union?
