The olympic, arguments and rebbutals

Politics International Politics
1

I’ve been following this olympic thing for a while now and would like a place to vent/test my counters to certain arguments put forward by some Chinese. Any input/criticism/flaming/piss taking much appreciated. :smiley: I want to make sure i know what I’m talking about/my argument are sound.

the Dalai lama is a terrorist and a splittist
The dalai Lama has clearly said he doesn’t want independence from China just autonomy.

The western media is biased!
Of course it is! So what? At least we generally get get to learn about most things unlike the xinhua which tells you only what the government want you to hear.

Sports and politics shouldn’t be mixed
I agree, so when are you going to let Taiwan enter as ‘taiwan’? Also, if you believe that, why did China boycott so many olympics in the past? what about the 2000 Asia cup finals when you guys booed the Japanese players because of politics? what about 2004 when you guys tried to hospitalize their players?

You should not boycott the beijing olympics
why not? china boycott most of the previous olympic games. Though I do agree a boycott would not serve any purpose it seems a bit hypocritical.

Tibet was/is/will always be always part of China
What based on the fact you ‘said so’ for the last 1,000 years? Why no include outer monglia too, isn’t that also part of China?

China saved Tibet, it used to be ruled by cruel Lama who made people slaves
wait a minute…wasn’t Tibet ‘part of China’? so doesn’t that mean that this was a result of YOUR bad rule? huh? i’m realy confused now.

the anti-tibet protestors were violent, violent protest is wrong
oh rly? What about when Chinese smashed up shops and in anti-Japanese protests? What about the Japanese family who got roughed up for holding Tibet flags in Malaysia? What about the threats on Grace wang’s family? Doesn’t sound like you’re taking your own advice here!

The west is just using the olympics to bully China, as always!
yes! that was the point of giving them to you, remember? Remember those promises you made about press freedom and humans rights? You want to be on the ‘world stage’? Get used to to taking criticism then.

You talk about Mao and people that’s old history in China, that stuff doesn’t matter now!
Wow, weird how ‘old history’ like Mao doesn’t matter yet Nanking still seems erally kind of important huh? you guys are even still upset about the opium trade andwhatsmore you use ‘history’ to back up your claim on Tibet…so which is it?

cheers for reading this nonsense. :wink:

2

Rightly or wrongly,

China had treaties dictated to it by western countries.
Western countries wiped out civilizations and subjected people to being second class, American Indians, Black people, Aborigines
Western countries invade foreign countries i.e Afghanistan, Iraq
Western countries wave their righteous fingers at China, but yet do little to stop what happens in Sudan and what happened in Rwanda
Western countries benefited from the industrial revolution, dumped loads of C02 into the atmosphere. Now its wants China to tightened the belt, because western countries historically overdid it
Chinese people feel that western countries don’t really care about Tibet, while judging the Chinese to be tyrants and despots. Western countries use this as a opportunity to demonstrate their compassion and humanity, and pat themselves on the back for doing it

Boycotting the Olympics would do little good, except maybe make the Chinese feel humiliated. China will be a big player in the world in the future. Its cooperation is needed on things like nuclear proliferation and global warming. To the Chinese boycotting the Olympics could be further interpreted as western countries attempting to deny China its right to be a player on the world stage, and a refusal by western countries to grant China the FACE and RESPECT it deserves for all its achievements

3

I don’t disagree, but they were mostly things that happen in the past and not things that the people in those countrise are proud of or happy about, this is certainly a contrast, isn’t it?

There’s quiet a difference between ‘not helping’ and actually supplying arms to the people who aer doing it.

This seems slightly skewed. Obviously the industrial revolution occured before people knew about the effects. It was also nothing like on the scale it is these days. There was nothing stopping China from having it’s own industrial revolution and it’s not unreasonable to ask China to ‘tighten it’s belt’ as Chinese people will suffer the effects of global warming as much as westerners will.

It’s probably true, in many cases. But the important question is do Chinese people care about Tibet? It seems, from what I’ve read, they care about owning tibet, as they care about owning Taiwan and this has some kind of great importatance to them. Whether the people living in those places are happy, or want to be part of China, doesn’t seem to be top of their list of priorities. Didn’t China suggest nuking Taiwan if they tried to be independent?

[quote]
Boycotting the Olympics would do little good, except maybe make the Chinese feel humiliated.[/quote]
I agree

[quote]
China will be a big player in the world in the future. Its cooperation is needed on things like nuclear proliferation and global warming. To the Chinese boycotting the Olympics could be further interpreted as western countries attempting to deny China its right to be a player on the world stage, and a refusal by western countries to grant China the FACE and RESPECT it deserves for all its achievements[/quote]
I’m sure it would be viewed like that, but isn’t that largely the fault of a population who seem almost entirely unable to find fault with themselves/their government. I find the arguement that, as China is gettnig more powerful, we shoul dbe nice to it, a little odd. No one seems to see a need to be particularly nice to America and they are the most powerful country. Human rights abuses in the US get a lot of attention, they get criticised in the US by Americans and by the US media and neither of these groups are jailed for it. They also get criticised (quite rightly) by foreigner countries, so I fail to see why China is a special case in this regard?

4

Well, The USA is different, and entirely worthy of criticism.

But, China. China is the Middle Kingdom.

How dare you criticize China?

5

Well, The USA is different, and entirely worthy of criticism.

But, China. China is the Middle Kingdom.

How dare you criticize China?[/quote]

Yeah thats a problem right there. While respect is always welcomed, and criticism though not desired can be accepted, the Chinese have it the other way round

They expect respect, and will not except criticism.

A bit childish, immature, and demonstration of insecurity really. You can say whatever you want about me as long as its good, and if you criticize me then I’m not responsible for how I react

6

[quote=“yamato”]Tibet was/is/will always be always part of China
What based on the fact you ‘said so’ for the last 1,000 years? Why no include outer monglia too, isn’t that also part of China?

China saved Tibet, it used to be ruled by cruel Lama who made people slaves
wait a minute…wasn’t Tibet ‘part of China’? so doesn’t that mean that this was a result of YOUR bad rule? huh? I’m realy confused now.
[/quote]

Short answer to these two questions.

Tibet is part of China because 1) China controls Tibet, and 2)other countries all recognize that Tibet is part of China.

And Tibet was self ruled before the 50’s(thus the cruel lamas).

7

[quote=“yamato”]

The western media is biased![/quote]

A lot of the Western media and governments are biased too strongly in favour of China in my opinion. With newspapers writing glowingly about the China market and with immigration policies allowing boatloads of PRC citizens to become permanent residents and citizens (something that is not reciprocated in any shape or form in the PRC), they are given a free ride most of the time IMHO.

Personally, I wish the media published more stories about how foreigners are lied to, cheated, and discriminated against in the PRC . And how many Western governments and politicians are more than willing to dirty their hands (e.g. the former Canadian multiculturalism minister [ethnic Chinese] that owned Canadian schools in China that abused the human rights of Canadians). Or how a lot of “Made in China” goods are really made (an interesting point since all of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Olympic line are made in China).

I realize that any good global businessperson has to do business in the country, but I prefer a low-key approach. It’s too bad journalists don’t write as many balanced reports. For every one article I read that criticizes China, there are at least nine or 10 that praise it without knowing the true facts (particularly in the European media).

8

[quote=“Tigerman”]Yeah thats a problem right there. While respect is always welcomed, and criticism though not desired can be accepted, the Chinese have it the other way round

They expect respect, and will not except criticism.

A bit childish, immature, and demonstration of insecurity really. You can say whatever you want about me as long as its good, and if you criticize me then I’m not responsible for how I react[/quote]

Perhaps this is more due to the fact that the Chinese don’t have such an advanced concept of separation of the Government and the People. An attack on CCP policy is an attack on the Chinese. I reckon this was the greatest success of Chinese Communism, it managed to completely convince its masses that they need pro-China media and that a heavy handed policy is acceptable. A leftover from Maoism, which was highly nationalistic in nature and stated that anyone disloyal to the party is rejected as a member of “the people”. We can only blame ourselves, Western dominance in the 19th century compounded with the Treaty of Versailles and foreign support of the KMT gave birth to this terrible beast.

9

[quote=“ABC”][quote=“yamato”]Tibet was/is/will always be always part of China
What based on the fact you ‘said so’ for the last 1,000 years? Why no include outer monglia too, isn’t that also part of China?

China saved Tibet, it used to be ruled by cruel Lama who made people slaves
wait a minute…wasn’t Tibet ‘part of China’? so doesn’t that mean that this was a result of YOUR bad rule? huh? I’m realy confused now.
[/quote]

Short answer to these two questions.

Tibet is part of China because 1) China controls Tibet, and 2)other countries all recognize that Tibet is part of China.

And Tibet was self ruled before the 50’s(thus the cruel lamas).[/quote]

so how is that different from mongolia?
And how can China claim to have ‘saved’ a country from bad rule when they allowed that bad rule to exist?

10

[quote=“yamato”]so how is that different from mongolia?
And how can China claim to have ‘saved’ a country from bad rule when they allowed that bad rule to exist?[/quote]

China doesn’t claim outer Mongolia.

And it was the imperial dynasties that allowed the bad rule to exist. PRC was founded only in 1949 remember? They went in and corrected the mistake as soon as they could.

11

I think it is more because the CCP move 300 million of them into the middle class over the last decade that they support the CCP rule over the mainland and are sensitive to criticism when it is clearly inaccurate.

Similarly the Republican and Democratic party moved about 12 million people into mortgage default, thus they are fair game for plebian criticism.

I’m just waiting for CCTV to criticise the USA monetary policy for making US citizens homeless. Americans are famous their math skills, etc., etc. Unfortunately bias reporting like that never makes into the Chinese news outlets.

12

[quote=“Myotis”]
Perhaps this is more due to the fact that the Chinese don’t have such an advanced concept of separation of the Government and the People. An attack on CCP policy is an attack on the Chinese. I reckon this was the greatest success of Chinese Communism, it managed to completely convince its masses that they need pro-China media and that a heavy handed policy is acceptable…[/quote]
There are a lot of CCP policies that the Chinese don’t agree with, and frankly, Chinese people wouldn’t have protested the way they did(or at all) if the west was only attacking CCP policies, but that wasn’t the case. Ever consider the possibility that Chinese people protested because they have a legitimate grievance, with the bias, attacks, and distortion from the western media and all.

And consider this, if it was the Chinese government who managed to convince its people to be pro-China and to go out and protest, how do you account for the large number of overseas Chinese who similarly protested? Those are the people who not only live abroad, some of whom are foreign born and educated, including people from Taiwan! How do you reconcile that?

[quote=“TNT”]
Yeah thats a problem right there. While respect is always welcomed, and criticism though not desired can be accepted, the Chinese have it the other way round

They expect respect, and will not except criticism.

A bit childish, immature, and demonstration of insecurity really. You can say whatever you want about me as long as its good, and if you criticize me then I’m not responsible for how I react[/quote]
There’s a difference between criticism and deliberate distortion. China gets criticized all the time on a number of issues, human rights, environment, foreign policy, etc. It’s only in the last few months leading up to the Olypmics with all the rampant media bias, deliberate distortion, and broad attacks from the western media did the Chinese people begin to counter protest.

.

13

[quote=“ABC”]how do you account for the large number of overseas Chinese who similarly protested? Those are the people who not only live abroad, some of whom are foreign born and educated, including people from Taiwan! How do you reconcile that?

[/quote]

Anyone Chinese who protested and wasn’t a citizen of the country they protested in should be deported as far as I’m concerned. That’s what the Chicoms would do to any foreigners assembling in China with political matters on the agenda.

14

why deport them? just round 'em all up and send them to reeducation (slave labour mixed with a little good old torture) camps. much cheaper.

mght also give some of those nations some hope that they could again compete with China in the manufacturing industries on a slightly more level footing. of course, they would also have to adopt some rather curious interpretations of the term “quality control” but nothing is insurmountable.

15

OK, if the Western press is biased and inaccurate, can someone more siding with the pro-China anti-Western perspective camp (other than AC) please provide us with some concrete examples? Links and quotes could be helpful. Later, when I have more time, I will provide some mainstream news stories that I think are not very biased or inaccurate, and see what you guys think.

In my mind, a story would show bias or inaccuracy in way relevant to this debate if it was in a major publication / news channel, and an apology and correction was not made.

16

Here are some links to BBC and NY Times stories. They are not editorials or opinion pieces, they are supposedly objective journalism, from two of the world’s most respected sources of English language journalism. I used the easiest articles I could find.

Both sides of the story: Bloggers respond to BBC
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/7340987.stm

Protests in Nepal
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7394672.stm

Tibet
news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/g … 0page1.stm

Sweatshops
nytimes.com/2008/05/10/world … ref=slogin

Tibet again
nytimes.com/2008/05/05/world … tibet.html

Could you point out any bias or inaccuracies?

17

BigJohn,

During the LA riots after Rodney King’s verdict came down from the court, which English language paper, referred to US actions as a “crack down?”

18

They did indeed have a legitimate grievance with the attacks of western media. Many news outlets went overboard. However, consider also that the western media have a legitimate grievance over the absence of fair reporting within China. During the Tibetan protests, how many reporters were allowed an alien travel permit? One has to speculate when so little information is received.

Regardless, the world would tear itself apart if thousands of protests sparked up every time a country came under fire. How many Westerners do you know that would hotly defend their government for all the wars and suffering we have caused? My point remains that we regard a distinct difference between our government and our people.

As you know, China has created an extremely introverted culture. Out of all the immigrants coming from the world, the Chinese integrate the least: practically every capital in the West has a China town! Of course they are going to head out and defend the country they originate from and the culture they live in. And as the most populated race on the planet, they are going to do it in thousands, with thousands more staying at home. But I believe they protest with more than a mediocum of naivety, this slogan “no politics in the olympics” would suggest that China itself has brought no political baggage to the games but nothing could be further from the truth. It was their insistance to send the torch on a grand world wide procession to show off their modern, democratic country that brought down western criticism. Any country that hosts the Olympics should expect the third degree with regards to their domestic policy. The difference is, China has much to hide.

19

The ecomonist had a cover last week of an angry snarling dragon and a story about how angry Chinese are about criticism and spouting off the same arguments listed in the 1st post.


http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=11293645

To date there are over 1830 comments on that story when their cover stories usually only receive a hundred or so.

Whereas I don’t agree that the dramatization of China Bullying Tibet that has been spun across the West, Chinese do seem overly nationalistic and outright belligerent when they are in the spotlight.

I don’t know how many buy the moral debates that the US likes to play. But it does seem like a load of hypocritical bullshit in comparison to the resource wars, Abu Grave, immigrant detention centers and our(U.S.) larger than ever prison population. It has never been about human rights or morality. The west seems pitted to paint China as a threat and a bully. And China seems pitted to treat criticism & dissent with even more anger. It appears that we all have have much to learn.

20

I think that’s an excellent example of anti-Chinese bias, in that it looks at the worst things, waves a wagging finger, and doesn’t mention the good points enough. It’s morally self-righteous and all too smug. If I was Chinese I would be pissed off. However, the people who wrote it are expressing their personal opinion. The Economist is notoriously smug about their “free-booting capitalist ways” and have always looked down on anything vaguely leftist. I can look at this opinion piece and hate it. I can read other pieces and like them. That’s called freedom of the press. There are many excellent articles about China. Let both sides be fair minded! The Western press is sometimes biased against China. Not always. And this article represents some Westerners view of China, not all.