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eSports Chaebol
Feb 22, 2005

Yeah, actually, gamers in the house forever,

Farecoal posted:

They tried to keep him from gaining power, by bombing the poo poo out of Cambodia during the Vietnam War and killing roughly 400,000 civilians. Why would they support someone they considered a communist?

Like a bizarro-Kerry, we were against Pol Pot before we were for him, when the Khmer Rouge was the opposition to the Vietnamese-installed People's Republic of Kampuchea.

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Grotz
Apr 29, 2009

zero alpha posted:

Anybody want to give me some background on why China attacked Vietnam in 1979, and tell me if there was more to it than Marxist-Leninism vs. Maoism?

Several factors here.

1) China wanted to show Vietnam that the Soviets would not come to its aid in a conflict. This is probably the #1 issue here, because at this point China was worried to death about Soviet encirclement. If I recall correctly, the Soviets were very interested in using Vietnamese submarine and naval bases, and China wanted to make a point that the Soviet Union was not a reliable ally. China was successful in this objective.

2) China wanted to prevent the fall of its Cambodian ally. Vietnam was attacking Cambodia due to border frictions, and China wanted to prop up its ally. China was not successful in this objective.

3) China wanted to demonstrate its regional superiority over Vietnam, much like the Sino-Indian War of 1962. In many ways this war was planned as a limited operation more along the lines of a show of force rather than total war. The goals were to destroy the enemy forces so utterly that resistance would seem impossible. So they followed the formula of defeating the enemy forces and then withdrawing back across the border, as the had done in India in 1962. China was partially successful in this objective. While it did defeat Vietnamese forces in the region, these forces were not Vietnam's best troops and the Chinese took more losses than necessary for a complete victory.

4) There are a few other minor factors, like the persecution of ethnic Chinese in Vietnam, the Spratley Islands, the encouragement of the US. But I think they weren't as central as the first 3.

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!
May 31, 2006

theres a fwiggin' genocide going on acwass da borda, why dont we do sumfin..? pweeez no votey for joe biden uWu

Farecoal posted:

They tried to keep him from gaining power, by bombing the poo poo out of Cambodia during the Vietnam War and killing roughly 400,000 civilians. Why would they support someone they considered a communist?

Because the enemy of my enemy is totally my friend forever. See also: Hussein, Saddam; Bin Laden, Osama; and Zedong, Mao.

(admittedly those last two are more we-funded-the-people-who-funded-you as opposed to we-funded-you-directly, but the principle stands. America's kind of bad at this whole meddling in Asian politics thing.)

french lies
Apr 16, 2008
Yessss give me more of those rumors. The bizarre the better. People are now saying that Bo Guagua, Bo Xilai's son, is missing and that his (apparently male) nanny was murdered by his mother in Chongqing. See what happens when you don't give people information? They make poo poo up.

Wenxue City posted:

(my translation) Caijing reporter Yang Haipeng revealed on her Weibo today that the "English nanny" of Bo Guagua, Bo Xilai's son, died in Chongqing. The person in charge of the investigation at the time was Wang Lijun (written as "Wang Lijuan" here - Weibo innuendo). The cause of death was not revealed, and the body was cremated immediately afterwards.

Shortly thereafter, Southern Weekly reporter Chu Chaoxin leaked this on his Weibo: At five in the morning on February 15, a text message was received on a number used exclusively to contact Wang Lijuan. The gist of it was that Neil Wood, an Englishman, was murdered in Chongqing. Wang Lijuan's investigations pointed at Bo's wife. This was why he was put on vacation-style medical treatment, and entered the US consulate. Yang Haipeng posted a similar weibo from Shanghai today: The deceased: Guagua's nanny. Nationality: English. Location: Chongqing. Case handler: Wang Lijun. Cause of death: Wang was not allowed to investigate. The body has not been preserved, it was cremated immediately. No way to confirm, seeking a debunk.

Moreover, after Bo Xilai stepped down, nothing has been heard from Bo Guagua, the son of him and his current wife Gu Kailai. In her Weibo, Yang Haipeng revealed that "Information concerning Gu's corruption problems have already been circulated among officials of sub-provincial level and over". An informant on the net said there have been rumors that Bo Guagua has not been attending his classes at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government since his father was removed from his position on March 14, and Gu Kailai was isolated for questioning by relevant authorities in the central government.

A few Chinese friends of Bo Guagua have tried to contact him on his cell phone, and they have not heard anything from him either. It is said that the whereabouts of Li Wang, Bo Xilai's son from an earlier marriage to Li Danyu, are also unknown.

More trouble in the South China Sea (as good as a time as any to post Sinica's discussion on the topic). Just wait till they get those aircraft carriers.

AFP posted:

HANOI China said Thursday the detention of two Vietnamese fishing boats and 21 crew near the disputed Paracel Islands was lawful, after Hanoi demanded their "immediate and unconditional" release.

Hanoi has said the March 3 arrests "seriously violated Vietnam's sovereignty" and that China must stop its "hindrance of Vietnamese fishermen".
Beijing maintained that it held "indisputable sovereignty" over the islands in the South China Sea.

"The actions of the Vietnamese fishing boats violated China's sovereignty and maritime rights. The actions taken by Chinese authorities were valid law enforcement actions," Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters.
Hong further urged Hanoi to "manage and educate" its fishermen and end "illegal poaching" in Chinese waters.

Today is D-day for HK's "democratic" (plutocratic?) elections. Looks like ordinary people aren't all that excited to see which one of the two Beijing-approved rich guys that get voted in by the establishment. Can't say I'm waiting with bated breath either.

Bloomberg posted:

Stephen Chung gave up on buying an apartment in Hong Kong after realizing it would take him 10 years to save the $115,000 deposit for a two-bedroom box in the northern part of the former British colony. He isnt expecting any help from the citys next leader.

In this place there are only two kinds of people -- those who can afford to buy a home and all the good stuff, and those who cant, said Chung, 25, who quit his advertising job last year to start a tourism firm. Theres no more middle class.

Chungs bitterness reflects a broader disillusionment with the citys leadership ahead of a March 25 election, which will see a 1,193-member committee of billionaires, businessmen, lawmakers and academics choose a new chief executive for the next five years. While Chinas tacit approval is seen as necessary to win, the campaign -- with two candidates dogged by personal scandal and conflict of interest allegations -- has exacerbated public discontent over collusion between business and politics and fueled accusations that leaders are out of touch with regular people.

The new chief executive will inherit a city with the biggest wealth gap in Asia, which has been spawned by an influx of money from mainland China and eight years of rising property prices that have made Hong Kong the worlds most expensive place to buy a home. At stake is the citys ability to maintain its status as the best place to do business and as a gateway to the worlds fastest-growing region, as the new leader tries to balance Chinas demands for stability with the aspirations of Hong Kongs 7.1 million residents.

:siren: UPDATE :siren:

Leung Chun-ying has won the election with 689 of 1193 votes.

french lies fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Mar 25, 2012

ReindeerF
Apr 20, 2002

Rubber Dinghy Rapids Bro

zero alpha posted:

Because he and China were opposing and sabotaging USSR aligned movements after the Sino-Soviet split? Not sure, I'm just trying to remember if something weird went down with the USA and Prince Sihanuk or whomever that inadvertently destroyed the resistance to the Khmer Rouge. Some NPR story from a long time ago I think, but I could be mixed up.
So far as I know, the US kept its boner for Lon Nol from the time they began supporting him as an anti-KR puppet regime until that regime's inevitable fall. The only story that comes up in terms of our support for the KR tends to be post-Vietnamese invasion and it's fairly strained in some areas. The Chinese and the Thais definitely conspired to arm and quasi-shelter the KR via the Thai border and the many refugee camps there, with China giving direct material aid. There's a claim you hear bandied about a lot that the US was giving material aid in the same fashion, but as I recall when you trace it back from all the places you see it, it ends up coming from a totally unsubstantiated account by one guy who spoke to Pilger or somebody on one occasion. Given all the horrible poo poo we did in SE Asia for which there is evidence, a lot of us find the claim suspect at best.

Prior to Lon Nol Sihanouk was playing as careful a game of double agent as he could between the non-Communist powers (US and allies) and the communist powers (China and allies) with the US, China and Vietnam being the primary actors and the Thais as the regional US proxy (to a degree), but with pressure on all sides from all countries there was no way he could keep that up. He basically kept Cambodia independent and out of the war for as long as possible, then a domestic political rivalry and Chinese stupidity brought and end to his rule. He says the CIA conspired with Lon Nol, but again there's no proof of this (though given Lon Nol's politics and the US opinion of Sihanouk it sounds plausible) and Lon Nol was an elected politician with long-term ambitions against Sihanouk and for independence against the Vietnamese. It'd be nice to think that the US was the primary actor here and there's no doubt that the Vietnamese war as the backdrop was the event that drove all other action, but localizing just to the specific events surrounding Sihanouk's rule, the coup and Lon Nol's administration it seems pretty clear that it had been internal political squabbling coupled with China being incredibly hardline at the time and demanding so much of Sihanouk that he could no longer deliver without alienating too many of his fellow Khmer. Recall at the time that Vietnam and China had basically forced him into allowing them to use his country as a military base and supply route.

There's that old Ho Chi Minh quote, "The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French poo poo for five years than to eat Chinese poo poo for the rest of my life." In Cambodia, so far as I can tell from discussions, the US is viewed a lot like that. They came, they lost, they left but the Vietnamese were still next door and eventually occupied the place. The Chinese are viewed more favorably at least compared to the Vietnamese simply because A) they're the emerging power and B) they didn't occupy Cambodia for a decade. So while we all know the lesson about how devastating and stupid our involvement in the breakup of Indochina was, the lesson most people miss myopically is how stupidly the Chinese behaved at the time - Pol Pot was one of Mao's protege's and the Chinese were their patron during the Year Zero days until sometime after the Vietnamese invasion. If they'd simply adopted a more pragmatic attitude toward Sihanouk they could have helped on their part to avoid a genocide and, as importantly, would have had an allied state. Unfortunately, as I recall, China was in the throes of one of its extremist ideologue tantrums at the time and that extended to foreign policy.

What they ended up with was a Vietnamese occupation in Cambodia and, eventually, the Vietnamese puppet ruler seizing control during the uncertainty of the UNTAC-era election. He remains in power today and while he's pragmatic and will deal with anyone, you'll notice very quickly here that the primary wealthy regional patrons are the Japanese and Koreans (thus far) and not the Chinese, with the Thais and Vietnamese doing tons of business here. And America, of course, whose currency is the currency of this dollarized economy and who gives special garment-related quotas to the country in return for some love from Hun Sen.

ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Mar 25, 2012

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Sort of as a reply to that Bloomberg article about buying an apartment in Hong Kong I'd like to make a point about the continuing hysteria over young people being unable to buy property in large cities and thus being unable to marry: this is a cultural problem. That it's a problem at all is insane. In no other country (that I know of) in the world do people have this idea that single mid-20s white collar office workers should buy property in metropolitan areas. It's a farcical notion on its face, and I think it's really strange that property ownership has become such a litmus test in urban Chinese culture. Sinica pointed out on a podcast quite a while ago that this is a relatively recent cultural phenomenon as well, since private property ownership is a recent development.

Maybe when people get more used to the idea of property markets they will understand how unfair and maddening it is to expect young workers to own an apartment in a major city before considering them responsible adults. People are still apparently flabbergasted by the concept that property prices can actually fall so clearly this is not a mature market. Hopefully as the market matures urban China will work its way out of this weird headspace they've managed to work themselves into.

hitension
Feb 14, 2005


Hey guys, I learned Chinese so that I can write shame in another language
It's really quite sad. Financially speaking, renting is often a wiser choice if the terms of the mortgage are such that you'd pay a higher mortgage than rent, especially if the property is not likely to rise in value. Average wages in Shanghai are about 1/5 what they are in my city (where most young people don't even consider renting an entire apartment without roommates, let alone buying one), yet Shanghainese are desperate to buy a house.
It's interesting to hear that that is an issue in HK, too. It always baffled me that mainlanders would describe buying a house as essential because it's so "stable / 稳定"... the land is really on a 70 year lease to the government, how is that more stable than renting?

Preoptopus
Aug 25, 2008

Три полоски,
три по три полоски
Excise me but is there a Chinese translation thread somewhere?

CAPS LOCK BROKEN
Feb 1, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

Preoptopus posted:

Excise me but is there a Chinese translation thread somewhere?

You might want to check science, academics, and languages.

Pro-PRC Laowai
Sep 30, 2004

by toby

hitension posted:

It's really quite sad. Financially speaking, renting is often a wiser choice if the terms of the mortgage are such that you'd pay a higher mortgage than rent, especially if the property is not likely to rise in value. Average wages in Shanghai are about 1/5 what they are in my city (where most young people don't even consider renting an entire apartment without roommates, let alone buying one), yet Shanghainese are desperate to buy a house.
It's interesting to hear that that is an issue in HK, too. It always baffled me that mainlanders would describe buying a house as essential because it's so "stable / 稳定"... the land is really on a 70 year lease to the government, how is that more stable than renting?

Because there are no property taxes, renovations belong to you, and the ability to evict from a primary residence that you have a mortgage on is shockingly hard unless you actually have the capability to pay and choose not to.

That 70-year lease issue still has a loooong ways to go as well and no one has any idea of what it will result in. One speculation is that it means paying the transfer tax again (which is minimal), while in reality the place will most likely be redeveloped long before it becomes an issue, in which case there is typically massive compensation for it in the form of multiple new apartments and cash.

Not having a landlord means no jacking up rents, no begging for things to be fixed, the place can't be sold out from under you and when you are running around registering things in your name, it means you don't have to update the addresses every year or two (typically every year).

That's where the value in it all is. Don't have an apartment that you own? Good luck getting married to anyone who wants some stability. Lose your job? You're out on the street. Not to mention it impedes the acquisition of "stuff", seeing as you need to stay somewhat mobile.

It's also sometimes just a waiting game until the landlord discovers 隔间 and your loose contract doesn't say they can't do it. Now you have 7 other people living with you and your own option is to move.

Owning property in a city that you are a migrant to is also one of those things that could possibly open up a Hukou transfer for, or at least making sure your kid has a local one. If not officially, it gives you a stronger case. Residents don't tend to rent here. They'll live at home for free until they have a downpayment plus some family money saved up. The other quick path to this is working at a major SOE out of college. There is typically company housing provided and there tends to be some sweetheart property buying opportunities that pop up.

Housing prices skyrocketed not simply due to speculation, but also due to demand. There is an absolutely massive demand for housing in the cities here. In HK it is compounded by the fact that mainlanders with money can buy up property as well.

Infrastructure development also is playing a key role. New subway goes in? Prices for everything around the stations are going to jump. If it's an intersection station, even more so. Clamping down on how many properties can be purchased is also pushing the upper end of the market which can have the potential to drive up surrounding land prices. As such, they have clamped down on new developments of high-end. Requiring higher down payments also limits the size of the potential market.

To look at this from another perspective, sure, it's a lease-hold, not free-hold. A good number of countries have that system in place. In other countries however, you also get hit with property taxes, which if you don't fork over, you quickly discover you don't actually own anything at all.

The low-income housing that's going in on the mainland *should* help to alleviate the worst of the situation. Not sure what's going on in HK though.

Farecoal
Oct 15, 2011

There he go

Arglebargle III posted:

Maybe when people get more used to the idea of property markets they will understand how unfair and maddening it is to expect young workers to own an apartment in a major city before considering them responsible adults. People are still apparently flabbergasted by the concept that property prices can actually fall so clearly this is not a mature market. Hopefully as the market matures urban China will work its way out of this weird headspace they've managed to work themselves into.

Hmmmm, why does that sound so familiar?

Throatwarbler
Nov 17, 2008

by vyelkin
Property prices fell 40% in HK during the Asian financial crisis, that was less than 15 years ago. Isn't most property in HK either some kind of government subsidized development or owned by Lee Ka Shing? The property "market" is just a cabal of big real estate developers in cahoots with the government and has been since the days of the British.

There was a report breaking down the changes in household net worth in the US since 2008 by ethnicity. Asian Americans experienced a significantly larger decrease in net worth than other groups because everyone knows real estate always goes up! :rolleye:

EDIT: It's not all bad. All land ultimately belongs to the People. :unsmith:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/world/asia/harassment-and-house-evictions-bedevil-even-chinas-well-off.html?pagewanted=all

quote:


The neighborhoods 32 holdouts, who note that their homes are dozens of yards from the road, suspect a land grab by local officials eager to cash in on Beijings stratospheric real estate values. We thought these things happen to peasants in the countryside or voiceless city people with no education, said Wang Jilin, 56, a retired pediatrician whose elderly parents and brother also built homes in the complex, which until recently had 41 households.

Throatwarbler fucked around with this message at 23:43 on Mar 25, 2012

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Farecoal posted:

Hmmmm, why does that sound so familiar?

This was pointed out by a Sinica guest and there happened to be an economist on the show at the time, who made the excellent point that in America we should have known better. China has a good excuse in that everyone is naive about property markets because they came into existence so recently. In America people should have known better from the periodic mortgage crises and all-too-common urban property value decay that we have experienced as a mature market.

PRC Laowai gives some good reasons why one might want to buy property, but the real problem is property prices up to 80 times yearly income even for white-collar professionals. Sure people would like to own property given the choice between renting and owning in a vacuum, but owning is simply not within most people's means. The idea that somehow it should be is a cultural phenomenon and appears at this point to be the main thing driving the continuing housing bubble.

Lots of people are waiting for prices to come down because everyone knows they are overvalued, but because of this cultural pressure there are still people buying at absurd prices and delaying the impending correction. These are the people who are out protesting price drops. The tragedy is not that the price is falling, because it has to fall for people to afford housing, the tragedy is that these people bought at such a high price for reasons which are really cultural.

Ardennes
May 12, 2002
Granted, Australia is just now having a very similar crash to 08 and they really don't have any type of excuse.

Everyone was saying it was going to happen, but there was no attempt at course correction.

That said, I wonder if China's "soft landing" will eventually have to become a "hard landing" due to the fragility of both the global export market and world finances period. Even with a decrease in prices, and plenty of equity wiped out in the stock market, there is still plenty lower to go especially if Europe continues to slide into recession.

I guess they could simply turn on all the taps again and then hope for the best, for monetary and (real) energy inflation coupled with stagnant (for China at least) manufacturing growth could very well led to stagflation.

Anyway, the situation in Hong Kong is interesting, because Beijing was forced into a somewhat significant course correction because of public opinion. Tang was obviously their man, although Leung is obviously going to keep things relatively as they are. Although, I guess he might be a little more economically to the left of Tang. Maybe, this is how managed democracy will actually function, the elections will be rigged but the government still has to find a way to make people happy and has to find someone at least palatable.

It seems they rising economic and consumer expectations on the mainland would eventually led to the same situation at some point, a token opposition would exist but the CCP would still have its ear close to the ground.

Pro-PRC Laowai
Sep 30, 2004

by toby

That's some great spin there. It's illegal construction, they are lucky they are getting any compensation at all. The prices given were dirt cheap for the area (because it was illegal construction), they are getting 160w a pop for their stuff and 2/3rds of them paid less than 50w.

http://soufun.com/news/2011-12-03/6502393_2.html

It's in a damned park that was never meant to have any housing in it at all.

Soy Division
Aug 12, 2004

Arglebargle III posted:

This was pointed out by a Sinica guest and there happened to be an economist on the show at the time, who made the excellent point that in America we should have known better. China has a good excuse in that everyone is naive about property markets because they came into existence so recently. In America people should have known better from the periodic mortgage crises and all-too-common urban property value decay that we have experienced as a mature market.
Chinese cities also have a lot of crap housing that needs to be replaced, and they need added housing stock to deal with growth. So it makes sense for there to be a boom in housing construction. The scenario is totally different from the US where you had subdivisions being put up in the exurbs without economic justification.

Soy Division fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Mar 26, 2012

Oceanbound
Jan 19, 2008

Time to let the dead be dead.

Ardennes posted:

Anyway, the situation in Hong Kong is interesting, because Beijing was forced into a somewhat significant course correction because of public opinion. Tang was obviously their man, although Leung is obviously going to keep things relatively as they are. Although, I guess he might be a little more economically to the left of Tang. Maybe, this is how managed democracy will actually function, the elections will be rigged but the government still has to find a way to make people happy and has to find someone at least palatable.

I don't know if it's because of public opinion, or whether it was because Tang showed that he couldn't be trusted by Beijing, after he claimed that Leung had suggested using riot police against protesters in 2003. Combined with rumours of Leung being an underground communist party member, and China putting pressure on people to vote for Leung, it's not surprising that Leung's popularity has become disastrously low since then. A mock vote held a day before the election saw around 220,000 people participate, and 54% of the votes were protest votes. A large proportion of the voters were probably relatively pro-democracy, but still. The guy isn't even in office yet and a significant part of the population already view him with either skepticism or outright hostility. That's worse than any of his predecessors.

Now that Leung is in power, the expectation is that he'll be asked to press ahead with unpopular measures like Article 23, so it's hard to see how his popularity is going to get much better. I laughed when I read the WSJ article described him as a "charismatic politician". He's not charismatic. Everything he says seems like it's being read from a script.

french lies
Apr 16, 2008
Remember those rumors I posted about? Turns out they had some punch to them. They got the name wrong (it's Neil Heywood, not Neil Wood), but someone did die in Chongqing, he was connected to the Bo family and he was English. My guess is we'll still be hearing about this case months from now.

The Wall Street Journal posted:

U.K. Seeks Probe Into China Death
BEIJINGThe U.K. has asked the Chinese government to launch an investigation into the death of a British businessman who claimed to have close links to the family of Bo Xilai, the Communist Party leader whose downfall has thrown Chinese politics into turmoil.

The mysterious death of Neil Heywood in the Chinese city of Chongqing last year is emerging as a key element in the drama surrounding Mr. Bo, who was sacked as Chongqing's Communist Party chief this month.

Mr. Bo was brought down after his former police chief, Wang Lijun, triggered the political drama by seeking refuge from Mr. Bo in a U.S. consulate in the nearby city of Chengdu. Chinese police cars surrounded the building after he went inside on Feb. 6. After spending the night, he was taken away by Chinese security agents the following day and hasn't been seen since.

Mr. Wang claimed to have fallen out with Mr. Bo after discussing his belief with his boss that Mr. Heywood was poisoned, people familiar with the case said in interviews with The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Wang also claimed that Mr. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, was involved in a business dispute with Mr. Heywood, according to one of those people.

Old news by now, but if you didn't catch it last week: China's law enforcement agencies can now legally "detain" (essentially kidnap) people for six months without informing their relatives or closest kin, so long as "national security" calls for it.

Want China Times posted:

China legalizes secret arrests, 6-month detention without charge

China's rubber-stamp legislature, the National People's Congress, approved Wednesday a revision to the country's Criminal Procedure Law that contains a controversial article empowering the police to make secret arrests. The approval was gained through a vote of 2,639 to 170 and 57 abstentions.

The new rule is certain to come under fire from the governments of other countries and human rights groups as a blatant pretext for silencing dissenting voices within China.

The revised Article 73 of the Criminal Procedure Law will take effect from the beginning of next year. It relieves the law enforcement department of the obligation to inform the closest kin of arrested suspects within 24 hours of their arrest if the individuals are suspected of crimes against national security or of terrorist acts, or if informing relatives would impede investigations.

In other news, state-run media outlets are now calling the Dalai Lama a nazi.

The New York Times posted:

China Attacks Dalai Lama in Online Burst

BEIJING As the Chinese governments relationship with the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader, has gone from bad to worse over the years, Beijings propaganda machine has churned out increasingly florid descriptions of him. He has been called a jackal, a wolf in sheeps clothing and, routinely, a splittist.

On Saturday, the state-run news media sought to equate the Dalai Lama, a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, with the Nazis and their genocidal war on European Jews.

The commentary, posted on China Tibet Online and carried by the official Xinhua news agency, said the Dalai Lama was advocating policies that would result in the expulsion of ethnic Han Chinese from traditionally Tibetan parts of the country.

The remarks of the Dalai Lama remind us of the cruel Nazis during the Second World War, it said, adding, How similar it is to the Holocaust committed by Hitler on the Jews!

It also called him a tricky liar skilled in double-dealing.

The editorial is here, for those who want to read it. It's built up as a series of questions to the Dalai Lama, including such gems as "Why did you build up a Berlin Wall of national antagonism?". Oh state propaganda, what won't you do? :allears:

french lies fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Mar 26, 2012

Fiendish_Ghoul
Jul 10, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 190 days!

Pro-PRC Laowai posted:

while in reality the place will most likely be redeveloped long before it becomes an issue, in which case there is typically massive compensation for it in the form of multiple new apartments and cash.

Really? Because my family had their spacious house torn down on the orders of the local government with promises of help getting a loan (a loving LOAN) to rebuild. Which they then reneged on.

Benagain
Oct 10, 2007

Can you see that I am serious?
Fun Shoe
I bet you're a nazi buddhist like the Dalai Lama.

french lies
Apr 16, 2008
All this forced demolition chat made me think of the Fuzhou bomber last year.

From Wikipedia:

quote:

In 1995 Qian Mingqi's home was demolished by government authorities to make way for a highway. He then saved up enough money to build a second home, which was also shattered by a second forced demolition. His second house cost about 500,000 yuan, and the authorities paid him only half of that for compensation. Because of the lack of compensation, he posted slogans to resist the demolition. According to his neighbors, Qian's wife was then hung upside down by the demolition team. She died a few years later from gall bladder disease. From the police report of the Fuzhou Police, Qian's wife has been dead for several years.
What this summary fails to mention is that he had made renovations on the new house totaling at least a million yuan. It all added up to two million yuan of lost value for him by his own account. But you know what the funny thing is? His second home was also demolished to make way for a highway. And not only that, it was the same highway.

french lies fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Aug 27, 2013

rscott
Dec 10, 2009
Reminds me of the Chinese version of Roadwork by Stephen King.

Abilifier
Apr 8, 2008

french lies posted:

All this forced demolition chat made me think of the Fuzhou bomber last year.

From Wikipedia:

What this summary fails to mention is that he had made renovations on the new house totaling at least a million yuan. It all added up to two million yuan of lost value for him by his own account. But you know what the funny thing is? His second home was also demolished to make way for a highway. And not only that, it was the same loving highway.

If that happened to me, I'd be out there bombing some poo poo too.

Then it turns out the highway never ended up being built. Man, no wonder he went nuts.

Throatwarbler
Nov 17, 2008

by vyelkin

french lies posted:

All this forced demolition chat made me think of the Fuzhou bomber last year.

From Wikipedia:

What this summary fails to mention is that he had made renovations on the new house totaling at least a million yuan. It all added up to two million yuan of lost value for him by his own account. But you know what the funny thing is? His second home was also demolished to make way for a highway. And not only that, it was the same loving highway.

If that happened to me, I'd be out there bombing some poo poo too.

Maybe he'll think twice about doing all that illegal construction in the future. :smug:

Seriously that's probably what it was. Same with the people in the NYT article. The "problem" is that so called 小产权 houses make up something like 1/3 or more of the housing stock in many urban areas.

french lies
Apr 16, 2008
Details are emerging on Neil Heywood. He was connected to the Bo family mainly through his wife, and had done various jobs for them, with some suggesting that he played a role as a low-level fixer. Others are saying that he was entrusted with taking care of Guagua at various points, corroborating the rumors that he was a "nanny". Maybe butler is a more apt description?

Wall Street Journal posted:

Briton in China Advised Intelligence Firm
BEIJINGThe British businessman whose death has emerged as a key element in China's biggest political scandal in two decades periodically consulted for a British strategic-intelligence firm founded by ex-spies, a spokesman said Monday.

Neil Heywood, who was found dead in a Chongqing hotel room in November, wasn't a full-time employee of the firm, Hakluyt & Co., and wasn't involved in projects in Chongqing, the spokesman said. The work was apparently one of several jobs Mr. Heywood held. The level of sensitivity of his projects wasn't clear.

The revelation adds a layer of intrigue to the scandal, which increasingly appears to mix the worlds of international diplomacy and corporate sleuthing with China's shadowy domestic security apparatus and opaque politics.

Mr. Heywood's death is one of the events in the drama surrounding the fall of the Communist Party chief in Chongqing, Bo Xilai, whose dismissal this month has thrown Chinese politics into turmoil.

Suspicions about Mr. Heywood's death were raised by Wang Lijun, the former Chongqing police chief who triggered the political drama, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday. Mr. Wang, who sought refuge from Mr. Bo in the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on Feb. 6, claimed to have fallen out with Mr. Bo after discussing with him his belief that Mr. Heywood was poisoned, according to people familiar with the matter. He also claimed Mr. Heywood had been involved in a business dispute involving Mr. Bo's wife, Gu Kailai, according to one of those people.

The British government said Sunday it had asked China's central government to investigate the case fully in light of fresh suspicions about Mr. Heywood's death, and that Chinese officials promised to "take it forward."

The new revelation about Mr. Heywood's work with Hakluyt suggests he might have been engaged in activities that are considered highly sensitiveand sometimes dangerousin China.

Gathering business intelligence and investigating Chinese firms is a growing industry here, and inevitably those engaged in it often delve into issues of corruption, nepotism and vested bureaucratic interests.

More bear chat, and it ain't the sexy kind. Many analysts are predicting a hard landing may be imminent, some even say it's already begun.

China Digital Times posted:

CDT Money: More Signs of a Slowdown
Despite suggestions last week that the yuan exchange rate had reached equilibrium and hints of possible liberalization in its trading range, officials at the Peoples Bank of China set the yuans U.S. dollar reference rate at a record high on Friday as macroeconomic concerns continue to mount.

The move by Chinas central bank reflects an effort to mitigate selling pressure after the release of preliminary but disappointing manufacturing data, as a number of global currencies sensitive to Chinese growth fell against the dollar on Thursday when an unofficial reading showed that Chinese factory activity had hit a four-month low. Following dismal trade data for February, including a record trade deficit, the 48.1 level indicated by the HSBC flash purchasing managers index (PMI) frightened global markets.

I won't pretend to understand even half of what's in there, but what I do know is that most of the bearish predictions so far have tended to be premature and overblown (ref. The Coming Collapse of China, where Gordon Chang predicted that China would collapse in 2006). I'd be happy if someone with more economic know-how than me took a look through the links in the CDT article and gave some input on this.

At this point it's probably unnecessary for me to mention that a slowdown, if it really happens, will result in a worst-case scenario of civil unrest and a lot of bloody crackdowns. This is probably why Wen Jiabao is out there right now giving lip-service to popular issues like corruption fighting and political reform: The government is trying to be pro-active in staving off any coming waves of discontent.

french lies fucked around with this message at 09:12 on Mar 27, 2012

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

I honestly know very little about the Chinese economy beyond what I hear on Sinica, but export taking hard hits isn't difficult to understand. The developed world has hosed itself for the next 10 years with ridiculous macro policy and China's export markets can't escape the drop in demand any more than anyone else can. China's workforce is due to start shrinking next year, I believe, which may sound impossible to people who only know the standard Western narrative about China but is a very real phenomenon that will have serious implications for the Chinese labor and export markets, and for inflation.

Ronald Spiers
Oct 25, 2003
Soldier

Arglebargle III posted:

I honestly know very little about the Chinese economy beyond what I hear on Sinica, but export taking hard hits isn't difficult to understand. The developed world has hosed itself for the next 10 years with ridiculous macro policy and China's export markets can't escape the drop in demand any more than anyone else can. China's workforce is due to start shrinking next year, I believe, which may sound impossible to people who only know the standard Western narrative about China but is a very real phenomenon that will have serious implications for the Chinese labor and export markets, and for inflation.

You do realize there are markets for China to sell to besides the developed West? China can actually cushion falling demand from developed nations by shifting toward developing and emerging markets, including China itself. I think China will do just fine, it is the West that I worry about.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Wow, you make economic re-balancing sound so easy! Everyone agrees what China should do in this scenario, it's blindingly obvious if you've ever cracked an econ 101 textbook. Actually doing it is infinitely harder than saying that it should be done. China has a lot of complicated and difficult work to do on economic re-balancing, a lot of distracting changes it's going through while trying to do it, and some serious entrenched opposition within the state. Worse, a great deal of the macro challenge will be altering the average person's economic habits, which the Chinese government can't simply solve by fiat.

Another important point is that the export slump is happening. It is an extant fact that can't be waved away with advice about the future. Sure it's good advice, but reorganizing an export sector takes time, and meanwhile Chinese export firms will suffer. Redirecting capital from export industry to domestic markets and the service industry is even more difficult and time-intensive, and is therefore even more useless to the present situation, no matter how good it is in the long run.

The export slump exists, and it is a problem; what China "can" do in the future (actually its ability to do these things well is very much in question) doesn't serve to dismiss the current issue as you seem to have used it. Dismissing current pain with the prediction that eventually China, or anyone, "will do just fine," is a cardinal sin of economists everywhere. After all, to loosely paraphrase Keynes, if all you can predict is that things will be somewhat normal at some time in the future then you're not really saying anything useful at all.

The way you dismiss this large, current problem with a facile policy prescription is something that bugs me about economists, especially amateur internet economists, so don't take it personally if it seems like I'm going off on you.

Throatwarbler
Nov 17, 2008

by vyelkin
You're pretty opinionated for someone who knows "very little about the Chinese economy beyond what I hear on Sinica".

Deceitful Penguin
Feb 16, 2011

french lies posted:

Details are emerging on Neil Heywood. He was connected to the Bo family mainly through his wife, and had done various jobs for them, with some suggesting that he played a role as a low-level fixer. Others are saying that he was entrusted with taking care of Guagua at various points, corroborating the rumors that he was a "nanny". Maybe butler is a more apt description?

So what can the Brits do, other than ask? Is it likely for anything to come out of this at all or will it get swept under the carpet?

Throatwarbler posted:

You're pretty opinionated for someone who knows "very little about the Chinese economy beyond what I hear on Sinica".
Tsk, tsk.

Mc Do Well
Aug 2, 2008

by FactsAreUseless
So maybe there is a big rush to purge the government of Western influence? The Chinese know the writing is on the wall for neoliberal globalism, so there is a push for insulation/isolation.

That seems like the very broad sweep of it to me.

Ardennes
May 12, 2002

McDowell posted:

So maybe there is a big rush to purge the government of Western influence? The Chinese know the writing is on the wall for neoliberal globalism, so there is a push for insulation/isolation.

That seems like the very broad sweep of it to me.

I don't know how possible that is going to be since on a generational level people have grew up with neoliberalism. I mean a younger generation is going to take power pretty soon, then a even younger one after that, is it going to be possible to forget the rest of the world when you grew up in it's economy?

In addition, shifting to "emerging markets" is going to be difficult when they are desperately trying to out export China at the same time. I mean I doubt, Russia/India/Brazil/Turkey etc are really interesting in expanding Chinese exports... in fact they are probably desperate to limit Chinese exports as much as possible.

There is a very real possibility that the pessimists were right and China from 1990-2011 was caught in an export/industrialization bubble and eventually it is going to have declining returns. In addition, energy costs are going to heavily erode Chinese consumer spending since the price inflation will continue to go up regardless of what happens. Unless, China radically shifts its economy, I don't know how the Chinese are expected to be great consumers when they have to contend with rising energy prices, rising living costs and an inflated housing market with honestly marginal pay.

french lies
Apr 16, 2008

Deceitful Penguin posted:

So what can the Brits do, other than ask? Is it likely for anything to come out of this at all or will it get swept under the carpet?
Not much, to tell you the truth. The UK holds very little sway over China aside from absorbing a large amount of its elite student population. Cameron's visit to China in 2010 pretty much underlined how skewed the power balance is between them: His visit essentially boiled down to "please import our poo poo". Britain, remarkably, even had to beg to let Cameron wear a poppy on Armistice Day. Now, of course ostensibly this has to do with the Opium War and the countries' shared history, but the Chinese wouldn't have dared to ask if they didn't feel pretty drat sure about their position.

As far as the investigation is concerned, we'll get whatever details the party deems convenient for us to know. In this instance, the central leadership likely has an interest in killing domestic and international sympathy/support for Bo Xilai, so don't be surprised if we get some major dirt on him and his family a few months out from now. This kills two birds with one stone: The party appears tough on corruption by showing that no one is above the law, and it changes the story of the Bo ouster from one of party in-fighting to a purging of criminal elements within the leadership.

french lies
Apr 16, 2008
China Digital Times sums up the fallout from "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory", including Chinese/American reactions to the piece and its subsequent retraction. Lots of soul-searching, introspection and even some sweet burns from the Global Times:

Global Times posted:

NPR scandal shows US addicted to savior myth



In both [Kony 2012 and Mike Daisey's monologue], the locals were stripped of agency. Daisey claimed to have met Chinese workers who have never thought about how they would change things at their factory, and who saw the iPad as magic, like primitive tribesmen encountering a more sophisticated world. He imagined hordes of under-aged workers, flocking to Shenzhen factories to be chewed up in the gears of the machine.

But in reality, Chinese workers are increasingly opinionated, self-aware, and increasingly active in defending their own rights. There are under-aged workers at foreign-invested factories, but they're late teenagers posing as adults, using borrowed identity cards from other people in their home village in order to get an early jump on the job market. Meanwhile, the "Kony 2012" video portrayed Ugandans as helpless victims of Kony's rampaging forces, even though the Ugandan army long ago succeeded in reducing Kony's once-substantial militia to a few hundred men and drove him beyond their borders.

Leslie T. Chang (the author of Factory Girls) agrees and finds Daisey's underlying perception of Chinese workers to be insulting. IIRC this is also a big part of her book: She found that the Chinese workers she followed didn't really discuss their working conditions or their relative poverty to the people who bought the products they made. They were mostly interested in things like love, marriage and their own personal aspirations. The hard work they did in the factory was a way for them to actively realize their ambitions, not something they were forced into by capital and the circumstances of their life. You might of course discuss whether this was really the case, but that is how they perceived their own lives.

I also found interesting the parallels to 8964 and how that incident was misrepresented in the Western media. Jeffrey Wasserstrom has a pro-click piece about this that you all should read.

But what strikes me most while reading through the links in the article is the willingness of some people (Steve Wozniak, for example) to excuse Daisey lying because it was in the service of the greater good, meaning awareness-raising in this case. Setting aside the issue of him lying to his audience, what good is awareness when it's predicated on a set of false beliefs? Is there any point in me boycotting the iPad because I think it's made by Hexane-poisoned 13-year-old girls with lobster hands, when that is really not the case at all?

ReindeerF
Apr 20, 2002

Rubber Dinghy Rapids Bro
It's a very fraught topic. I've been dealing with it for about 7-9 years now, I guess, and I still don't have a grand, internally consistent opinion of any kind that gets beyond the basic fact of my having been born very lucky and their having been born considerably less lucky. One thing that's for sure, my opinions have changed a lot since having to live directly around the people who sew soccerballs for us. You do a lot less projecting some misplaced shame onto them for their lives once you see them as people and not just as piteous things in a newspaper article or on a TV screen. That doesn't make the wealth disparity palatable by any means, but it makes it more complex for certain.

ReindeerF fucked around with this message at 13:09 on Mar 28, 2012

Throatwarbler
Nov 17, 2008

by vyelkin
I would support the US government literally seizing Apple's cash pile and redistributing it to poor Chinese workers. What am I supposed to be ashamed of? :colbert:

ReindeerF
Apr 20, 2002

Rubber Dinghy Rapids Bro
Of redistributing it to Chinese workers instead of Americans :)

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Throatwarbler posted:

You're pretty opinionated for someone who knows "very little about the Chinese economy beyond what I hear on Sinica".

I would post the pyramid of responses here if it wasn't such a tall image. You've covered ad hom and responding to tone. Is there anything in what I actually said you'd like to address?

My saying I know "very little" is probably just the Dunning-Kruger effect rearing its head; I have formal education in Chinese history and politics, and economics in general. I do however have a gap in my current events knowledge starting at graduation and ending recently as I've started to pay attention to Chinese news now that I live here. So I know very little about some specific subjects but you're right, I am very opinionated because I have spent literally years of my life studying this kind of thing.

More on topic, Mike Daisey seems really self-serving to me based on his actions according to what TAL has published. I wouldn't put much credence in any argument he puts out to defend himself; you can go listen to the episode and hear how evasive he is and how willing he is to grasp at any shred of cover. I doubt he's sincere about the "missionary" defense at all; like the monologue, it's just another fabrication that plays well with the American audience. The man is a storyteller after all. He knows his audience.

CAPS LOCK BROKEN
Feb 1, 2006

by Fluffdaddy

McDowell posted:

So maybe there is a big rush to purge the government of Western influence? The Chinese know the writing is on the wall for neoliberal globalism, so there is a push for insulation/isolation.

That seems like the very broad sweep of it to me.

Would make sense except they purged Mao Jr. instead of any of the Shanghai clique

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french lies
Apr 16, 2008
If you haven't heard yet, commenting is now blocked on Sina and Tencent's Weibo services.

From The Jakarta Globe:

quote:

Beijing. Chinas two most popular microblogs, Sina Weibo and Tencent QQ, on Saturday blocked web users from posting comments on the sites, saying they were acting to stop the spread of rumors.

The Internet giants said the measure would remain in force until Tuesday. It came just hours after authorities said they had shut down Web sites they accused of spreading misinformation and made a string of arrests.

China has been strengthening its control of the Internet after being rattled by a flood of online rumors and criticisms.

Groundless rumors of a coup in Beijing began circulating on the Internet earlier in March following the dismissal of political star Bo Xilai.

Rumours and illegal, harmful information spread via microblogs have had a negative social impact and the comments contain a large amount of harmful information, said a message on Tencents Web site.

From March 31, 8:00 am to April 3, 8:00 a.m., Weibos comment function will be temporarily suspended, said Sina, which runs Chinas most popular microblogging service, Sina Weibo.

Authorities early Saturday said they had shut down 16 Web sites for spreading rumors of military vehicles entering Beijing and something wrong going on in Beijing, the official Xinhua news agency quoted a spokesman for the State Internet Information Office as saying.

Six people had also been detained for fabricating or disseminating online rumors, the State Internet Information Office and Beijing police said, according to Xinhua.
I seriously wonder how much longer the CCP can keep this poo poo up before people start to get pissed for real. Now it's not just a minority of netizens who get their posts censored - nobody can comment on anything, not even innocuous status updates. State propaganda is trying to shift blame for this over to "rumor-mongers", but as far as I can tell from my friends almost nobody buys this line of argument. They think the CCP has something big to hide and this measure is just making the rumor mill run even faster. Even people I know who aren't politically engaged are starting to talk about the Bo Xilai rumors, since now they're suddenly affecting them as well.

Nothing big is going to come out of this, but my guess it will add to the trickle of discontent that is slowly shaping into a big problem for the CCP.

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