80 killed in Tibet, Chinese will be kept in the dark

hzy33

daithicarr wrote: »

if everyone did that, China shouldnt get the olympic games because Mao killed 20 million or so of hos own people back in the day.

Things change

I saw other places people claim over 30 million was killed, just can't believe how ridiculous that such claims was taken for granted. at that time the population of China was about 400 million, if your claim is true, that means on average every 13 ~ 20 people there was someone killed, that's roughly one death in each family. I'm from a village in central China where the population was around 4000, no one in my family was killed, in fact, no one in the entire village was killed. I went to a university in another province when I did my degree, I talked to many other people from different areas and I didn't hear anyone saying someone in their family was killed.

I'm not trying to justify that things like cultural revolution is good, in fact I believe it's a big mistake and there were a lot of people suffered and even killed, but make up figures is not a good thing to do, AND, that's why I think a lot of people in the west just simply buy into whatever the propaganda say about China.

BTW, take a look at how many chinese were killed during world war 2, and compare the figure with your claim:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:WorldWarII-DeathsByCountry-Barchart.png

remind you in China the war was between 1937 ~ 1945, there were brutal killings on a daily basis and massacres like 'Rape of Nanking'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_of_Nanking

irishmilk

wes wrote: »

1979: China invades Vietnam

China's War with India

So. You mean US invaded Japan, and russia invaded german in WWII. You should find out who started the war before you post these on. please.

wes

irishmilk wrote: »

So. You mean US invaded Japan, and russia invaded german in WWII. You should find out who started the war before you post these on. please.

Yes, the US did invade Japan and the Russian did invade Germany. People refer to both of those as invasions. Invasion does not mean a war of aggression.

You can launch an invasion against an aggressor and having said that I am certain the Indians would consider China's war against them as aggressive.

carsonsunhao

oh my god wes, your words just flies out from your mouth, I beg you study carefully the difination of 'invade'.:(

wes

carsonsunhao wrote: »

oh my god wes, your words just flies out from your mouth, I beg you study carefully the difination of 'invade'.:(

From FreeDictionary.com

in·va·sion (n-vzhn)
n.
1. The act of invading, especially the entrance of an armed force into a territory to conquer.
2. A large-scale onset of something injurious or harmful, such as a disease.
3. An intrusion or encroachment.

From MSN Encarta:

in·va·sion [ in váy'n ] (plural in·va·sions)


noun
Definition:

1. attempt to conquer: a hostile entry by an armed force into a country's territory, especially with the intention of conquering it

2. arrival in large numbers: the arrival of large numbers of people or things at one time
an invasion of tourists

3. spoiling: a spoiling of something by interfering with it or taking some of it away

4. spread of something harmful: the arrival or spread of something that causes damage or harm

5. medicine spread of disease: the spread of disease-causing organisms or malignant cells in the body

6. botany aggressive spread of plant: the aggressive spread of a plant species in an area, stifling the growth of preexisting species

[15th century. Directly or via French< late Latin invasion-< Latin invas-, past participle of invadere (see invade)]

So as can be seen by the 2 definitions, an invasion and a war of aggression are not necessarily the same thing.

edanto

Thirdfox wrote: »

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I'll repeat:
"Also I would really appreciate it if you could address my main question which was - what do people think of all the people who support the Olympics/government? Do you have an opinion of why people are thinking like that?"

Fair play to you for sticking to your issue. Persistence is honourable. Let me try and give my opinion on your question. Frankly, I put a lot of store in the fact that so many average Chinese people are vocally supportive of their governments stance.

But what is very surprising is how the Tibetan point of view is never covered on Xinhua - only the government permitted opinion. This pervasiveness of a single point of view is dominant in my experience of the English language Chinese media - I'd be interested in any studies that you know of that look at the Tibet issue. Something like this that analyses a Taiwan/China point of view difference. I found that through Google scholar. I tried to look at google.cn to see if the study would turn up behind the Great Firewall, but I don't understand Chinese. Can you give me a direct link to the .cn version of Google scholar?

My point is that the Chinese people I meet generally regurgitate a pro government line which may be because they believe it or it may be down to meme repetition. I distrust because I don't see the same variety of opinions in Chinese thought. This is more a reflection on my sceptical nature than any kind of evidence though.

If the Chinese government is so people-friendly, why did they close down Tibet to journalists and foreigners? Why do they use trumped up charges against those that dare to speak out against the government instead of engaging in a dialogue? Why are there people that walk up and down internet cafés in China watching the screens?

What about Jingjing and Chacha? Isn't a bit freaky that the government always reminds you that they are watching what you type? (in this paragraph - 'you' is pointed at carsonsunhao and wangmuyuan) If someone doesn't want you to ask questions about governance, is that a good sign?

When Liu Xiaoyuan wanted to post on Sina, he got a message back saying "We are very sorry to inform you that due to certain reasons this blog post is not suitable to be publicly shown and has been locked down". Are the libel laws that strict in China or was his post hidden for more nefarious reasons? Are you free to ask why? That is the kind of freedom the Dali Lama is asking for, and the kind that the government are denying.

Unpossible

hzy33 wrote:

I saw other places people claim over 30 million was killed, just can't believe how ridiculous that such claims was taken for granted.

These tolls are usually for all of Mao's reign and include the great leap forward and the various famines caused by mis-management (such as the incident when they killed a lot of sparrows which resulted in the crops being over run by pests). They don't (or at least should not) refer to the amount that died in the cultural revolution alone.

yawtin

SkepticOne wrote: »

I watched a fair bit of the live coverage on the BBC and it did show the pro-Chinese protests. It did not get the same level of coverage as the Tibet protesters because the pro-China group weren't as spread out along the route and there wasn't a group interfering with the torch procession itself.

OK I accept your point. But they interviewed "Free Tibet" guys, did they interview Pro-China people? What about the over 10000 Chinese supportors on street in San Francisco? I did not watch it but many Chinese at the scene have confirmed that BBC was desperately looking for "Free Tibet" demostrators and try to avoid the Chinese demostrators.

Have you heard of "anti-cnn.com"? It is a website that collects all the misleading reports about China and Tibet, sinces the 14th of March. It is now hacked and closed down.We thought CNN was bad, but apparently BBC is even worse. There are just too many exemples of their misleading report. They never even apologized.

Shame on BBC for claim it is fair media.

leninbenjamin

yawtin wrote: »

OK I accept your point. But they interviewed "Free Tibet" guys, did they interview Pro-China people? What about the over 10000 Chinese supportors on street in San Francisco? I did not watch it but many Chinese at the scene have confirmed that BBC was desperately looking for "Free Tibet" demostrators and try to avoid the Chinese demostrators.

Have you heard of "anti-cnn.com"? It is a website that collects all the misleading reports about China and Tibet, sinces the 14th of March. It is now hacked and closed down.We thought CNN was bad, but apparently BBC is even worse. There are just too many exemples of their misleading report. They never even apologized.

Shame on BBC for claim it is fair media.

i notice pro-Chinese constantly criticise the BBC for bias, but never show any links. care to supply any of these biased articles?

yawtin

edanto wrote: »

My point is that the Chinese people I meet generally regurgitate a pro government line which may be because they believe it or it may be down to meme repetition. I distrust because I don't see the same variety of opinions in Chinese thought. This is more a reflection on my sceptical nature than any kind of evidence though.

Thank you for at least bother to talk to Chinese about it. Believe it or not, Chinese people have a lot of complain about our government, and we actually publicly critisize about lot of things happening in China. In general the government blocks anything that they consider as politically sensitive and may destabilize the society. It is very very annoying but understandable.

Consider if 0.1% of the population holds a radical point of view, and through control free internet these people can be united together easily.

Would they have much impact in Ireland? 4.2million*0.0001=420 people. I don't know.

But in China this population = 1.3billion* 0.0001=130,000 people, more than the entire population living in Cork City. Is it a good enough reason of some sort of control in China?


There are a lot of similarity between Irish and Chinese culture. But there is also big differences. According to Geert Hofstede's culture dimension, Chinese have very stong collective characteristic and long-term orientation , which came from our Confucius culture. Irish are quite the opposite on those two issues.

Cultural Dimensions:
http://www.geert-hofstede.com/geert_hofstede_resources.shtml


So we do have a collective view and we think in the long run let the Chinese Communists reform is better than radically change our political structure.

If you respect that people from different culture may view things differently, would you please consider the possibility that the Chinese you have talked to are actually not brain-washed?

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

It is very very annoying but understandable.

see that's the problem right there. It's not understandable, it's not justified. It's wrong.

SkepticOne

yawtin wrote: »

Have you heard of "anti-cnn.com"? It is a website that collects all the misleading reports about China and Tibet, sinces the 14th of March. It is now hacked and closed down.We thought CNN was bad, but apparently BBC is even worse. There are just too many exemples of their misleading report. They never even apologized.

I saw that site. I think it is quite right and healthy for people to point out mistakes and biases in the media. But there seems to be an assumption that the media in the West is some sort of monolithical entity whereas in fact it is composed of thousands of unconnected companies and organisations acting for the most part independently of any government control.

Naturally if you scan through all the news sources available you are going to find errors in some. This is to be expected. I don't think this amounts to a systematic bias against China.

I saw on that site, for example, the German TV, mistaking rioting in Nepal for rioting in Tibet. I can see why this mistake might have happened. There were protests going on in several countries at the same time. The wrong picture was used to illustrate the story. The German news people are unlikely to know the difference between a Nepali police uniform and a chinese one and in the pressure of producing the news got the picture wrong. I have heard that they have since appologised.

Yet the some see this as a big conspiricy. I think the reason for this is that in China there is heavy control of the media therefore it is assumed that similar control exists here. For the first time many of them are accessing some foreign news stories that are not wholy complimentary of China and its conduct in the world. The reaction is predictable.

Here's how the situation could be improved if the government of the PRC is interested: 1. Allow foreign reporters into Tibet to see what is going on with their own eyes. Not "selected" reporters. And allow them to travel where they wish. 2. Allow full access to foreign media to the chinese population. Let them learn to discriminate between reliable and unreliable media. Let people in China get used to the idea that there's a multitude of media out there.

hzy33

Unpossible wrote: »

These tolls are usually for all of Mao's reign and include the great leap forward and the various famines caused by mis-management (such as the incident when they killed a lot of sparrows which resulted in the crops being over run by pests). They don't (or at least should not) refer to the amount that died in the cultural revolution alone.

We seem to have reached at least some consensus - cultural revolution itself did not kill '20 ~ 30 million' or even more like a lot of people appear to believe. the chinese official figure is around 2 million in CR alone, again, you may not take it for granted - me neither, but I can only tell you what i know from my older generations in my family/village, and other people I discussed with, by analyze the information (a good spread of samples from rural to cities, in my view), we may get some ideas - the one which is likely to be closer to the truth.

I will post again to tell you what I know about great leap forward, and the 'sparrows incident', as well as communism during that period, I don't know how many people here studied communism? - please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to promote it here or myself believe it, just my opinions.

Unpossible

hzy33 wrote:

but I can only tell you what i know from my older generations in my family/village,

As I understand it most of the purges happened in the large cities*, villages worked on food production and city teenagers were sent there for work experience (or they joined the army)

I will post again to tell you what I know about great leap forward, and the 'sparrows incident',

I wasn't suggesting you didn't know about it, infact I assumed you did which is why I didn't try to describe it


*edit: and was mainly done to party members

Tomas_V

SkepticOne wrote: »

Yet the some see this as a big conspiricy. I think the reason for this is that in China there is heavy control of the media therefore it is assumed that similar control exists here. For the first time many of them are accessing some foreign news stories that are not wholly complimentary of China and its conduct in the world. The reaction is predictable.

I agree with this insight and would wonder if in the Chinese languages there is an understanding in the difference concepts of rival, critic, sceptic, opponent and enemy. It seems to me that anyone who does not accept official PRC statements is automatically an 'enemy'.

Official Chinese communications mostly resemble an unrelenting artillery barrage.

We want to be convinced, not conquered.

hzy33

Unpossible wrote: »

As I understand it most of the purges happened in the large cities*, villages worked on food production and city teenagers were sent there for work experience (or they joined the army)

there maybe some confusion here, in my previous post I did mention i traveled to another province to do my degree, it was a big city and I discussed this issue with people I met then, some of them were from cities and some of them from rural place. sorry for the confusion.

I wasn't suggesting you didn't know about it, infact I assumed you did which is why I didn't try to describe it

I will need some time to write because english is not my first language, I'll try to avoid confusions as much as i can. in fact what I said was I will try to tell my own stories, like what my parents/grand parents told me, being working on the farm part-time until I was 22 years old, I think I know a lot more than you do about food shortage during those years, why was that happened, it that fair to blame Mao for all these things? and people's feelings about communism, do they support them? what's the benefit the farmers got .....

if you have the mindset that I dont know about this and just trying to fabricate things up to make my point, then I don't think there is any need for us to communicate at all.

Unpossible

hzy33 wrote:

if you have the mindset that I dont know about this and just trying to fabricate things up to make my point, then I don't think there is any need for us to communicate at all.

I don't really understand the point you are trying to make here, it looks like you think that I was suggesting you are making things up. I was not, I was simply trying to let you know that I was not suggesting that chinese were kept in the dark about that.

hzy33 wrote:

I will try to tell my own stories, like what my parents/grand parents told me, being working on the farm part-time until I was 22 years old, I think I know a lot more than you do about food shortage during those years, why was that happened, it that fair to blame Mao for all these things? and people's feelings about communism, do they support them? what's the benefit the farmers got .....

I'm certain your family know the country situation more than I would or even my in-laws would because they all lived in the cities at the time. Also I haven't talked with them too much about that time period simply because it didn't come up and I am far more interested in older chinese history
I am actually quite interested in hearing what you have to say about that period, but this thread might not be the place to discuss it.

BelieveYourself

Here is something different from RTE.

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20080326_1.htm

Don't believe what I said! Don't believe what RTE said! Don't believe what he said!

Go to China and learn it from yourself first if you want to say something.

SkepticOne

BelieveYourself wrote: »

Go to China and learn it from yourself first if you want to say something.

Why can't reporters from outside China travel around Tibet unhindered? What is China trying to hide?

humanji

They're obviously trying to hide how brilliant Tibet is and how happy and free all the Tibetans are.

edanto

BelieveYourself wrote: »

Go to China and learn it from yourself first if you want to say something.

But access to Tibet is restricted. Any foreigners in that area that attempt to engage people in political discussion are escorted to the border.

We have discussions here all the time about places that we have never been to. That doesn't stop us saying something.

Yawtin, I'm amazed at your thought process in the post above.

In general the government blocks anything that they consider as politically sensitive and may destabilize the society. It is very very annoying but understandable.
Consider if 0.1% of the population holds a radical point of view, and through control free internet these people can be united together easily.

If you are conscious of and accepting of the governments actions in controlling expression, then you must think it is a good thing. Can you explain why that is, and maybe convince me?

BelieveYourself

edanto wrote: »

We have discussions here all the time about places that we have never been to. That doesn't stop us saying something.

I'm not trying to say who is right, who is wrong. Everyone has rights to show his opion about something.

What I'm trying to understand is: Why media use lies to attack a lie, if they think Chinese government is telling a lie.

edanto

Stop focussing on isolated examples (e.g. anti-cnn.com) of where individual reporters/photograph captioners made mistakes. That is not a sign of bias.

Google words like 'content analysis' 'media studies' and see what you can learn about the media.

Why did the Chinese government have a news and access blackout of the Tibet region during the protests? Please try and answer the questions we are posing instead of ignoring them and raising straw men.

BelieveYourself

I think there is nothing to argue if you already choose what is isolated examples by yourself, then ignoring them and raising straw men, isn't it?

It's really waste time to discuss something both of us already choose isolated examples and ignoring them and raising straw men.

Thirdfox

edanto wrote: »

Fair play to you for sticking to your issue. Persistence is honourable. Let me try and give my opinion on your question. Frankly, I put a lot of store in the fact that so many average Chinese people are vocally supportive of their governments stance.

But what is very surprising is how the Tibetan point of view is never covered on Xinhua - only the government permitted opinion. This pervasiveness of a single point of view is dominant in my experience of the English language Chinese media - I'd be interested in any studies that you know of that look at the Tibet issue. Something like this that analyses a Taiwan/China point of view difference. I found that through Google scholar. I tried to look at google.cn to see if the study would turn up behind the Great Firewall, but I don't understand Chinese. Can you give me a direct link to the .cn version of Google scholar?

My point is that the Chinese people I meet generally regurgitate a pro government line which may be because they believe it or it may be down to meme repetition. I distrust because I don't see the same variety of opinions in Chinese thought. This is more a reflection on my sceptical nature than any kind of evidence though.

If the Chinese government is so people-friendly, why did they close down Tibet to journalists and foreigners? Why do they use trumped up charges against those that dare to speak out against the government instead of engaging in a dialogue? Why are there people that walk up and down internet cafés in China watching the screens?

What about Jingjing and Chacha? Isn't a bit freaky that the government always reminds you that they are watching what you type? (in this paragraph - 'you' is pointed at carsonsunhao and wangmuyuan) If someone doesn't want you to ask questions about governance, is that a good sign?

When Liu Xiaoyuan wanted to post on Sina, he got a message back saying "We are very sorry to inform you that due to certain reasons this blog post is not suitable to be publicly shown and has been locked down". Are the libel laws that strict in China or was his post hidden for more nefarious reasons? Are you free to ask why? That is the kind of freedom the Dali Lama is asking for, and the kind that the government are denying.

Hi edanto,

I must apologise for not responding to your post until now - I hope you didn't think I was ignoring your valid concerns.

The single point of view problem is a really serious problem. I'm sure many overseas Chinese are just as concerned about this as you are. But, what the people of the pro-Olympics protest were saying (amongst other issues) is that the free media is pretty much giving a single point of view across the board too. Two wrongs don't make a right, certainly. But to have the ability to moralise and sermonise I believe we must make sure our own house is in order first. If we are no better than them with our free press then why would they be inclined to adopt our system? (Although I still think we have the better system - this debate is evidence that our system no matter how flawed allows this kind of debate to take place - something I am very grateful for).

As for getting access to Chinese sites that discuss Tibet from the pro-independence point of view I'm sorry to say that my Chinese is not good enough to be able to do extensive research on the net (grew up in Ireland and whilst my cupla focal isn't as good as my Chinese I wouldn't want to have to write my debate in either language ) However if you could find a Chinese person and demonstrate that you genuinely do want to know more about the situation instead of just condemning before knowing all the views than I would hope that they would be willing to help.

This language divide is certainly a problem - I have argued with Chinese extremists in China quite a few times now but again my arguments are somewhat weaker due to my level of Chinese.

If the Chinese government is so people-friendly, why did they close down Tibet to journalists and foreigners? Why do they use trumped up charges against those that dare to speak out against the government instead of engaging in a dialogue? Why are there people that walk up and down internet cafés in China watching the screens?

What my parents and grandparents say is that - before you may have been killed just by voicing your opinion in your own home. That state of terror from 30+ years ago has gradually been replaced by more and more freedoms. Closing down Tibet to foreign media certainly is wrong - I would like to hear the explanation from the government for that too (I believe it was along the lines of you can't be trusted to tell the truth... chicken and egg situation). But the government has recently said that all borders will resume normality on May 1st. I look forward to seeing reports from there soon.

When I studied constitutional law in China (I'm a law student in Ireland) we were told that the constitution is spectacularly weak in China (Chinese professor by the way). In fact most of the law professors were all highly critical of the government in our university. Basically, the government is acting within the law as it is doing something for the security of the state - which is expressly provided for in the constitution. Something similar to Super Patriot Act or our own Offences Against the State Act. I don't like it, my law professors in China do not like it but we feel the changes have to come from within and through time. They have come a long way in 30 years, and I believe they are still improving. Like you said there are still instances where rights which we take for granted are not present in China - I look forward to the day when they will be - but I do not think that the kind of protests we see dogging the London/Paris relays and the calls for boycotts will go about effecting that change and progress.

Hopefully I have demonstrated to you that I am not a brainwashed card carrying communist (although I would be in favour of free healthcare for all etc. ) and that we seem to seek the same thing, but differ in how to achieve it.

pklq

jonny72 wrote: »

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7299212.stm

I'm not surprised, the Chinese said 10 died with their usual propaganda, when the toll is nearer to 80. The Chinese people will not even blink an eye, because a) they'll be fed utter lies, and b) they've been fed fake history about the region. Ask any Chinese person you know about Tibet, and ask them about Tianamen Square while you're at it.

i don't know what source did u get 80 death,from west media? or u saw 80 death in Tibet. there is almost 20 years from tianamen square, china may had human rights problem that time (i was 8 years old that time),but now the human rights situation is much better than u guys thought. personally i think that the improvement takes time, does any one guarantee the racism can disappear in 20 years or 100 years?china is multi-ethnic country, the ethnic problems have similarity with race problems in most west countries.
and i show some misleading by west media, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n90aNKGGGXQ&feature=related
this shows a Australian captured on 13th march.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSQnK5FcKas&feature=related
this shows some mistakes that west media made.

SkepticOne

BelieveYourself wrote: »

I think there is nothing to argue if you already choose what is isolated examples by yourself, then ignoring them and raising straw men, isn't it?

I think the issue of foreign reporting in Tibet is fundamental to this whole discussion. Without allowing this we are forced to choose between the official PRC version of events and reports filtering out through exiled Tibetans. Then we are criticised for not swallowing the PRC version whole. The third point of view and the only one that has some chance of being objective is foreign journalists freely travelling about like they do in most of the world. But the PRC has made this impossible. Naturally people are going to wonder what they, the PRC, are trying to hide.

GuanYin

Ok, let me be the Devil's advocate for a second (the Devil is great, you'd all like him).

Taking aside the fact that most people don't agree with China's policy on censorship. Let us ask a question, is western civilisation and democracy so good that China should aspire to this?

The West is a society based on greed, capitalism and corruption. Almost every level of every government in western superpowers is corrupt. From local council levels to the highest seats of office. If China wants to avoid this becoming their society, I think it is a reasonable aspiration. How they are doing it is clearly wrong, but I don't think trying to preserve their heritage from modern western society is a bad thing.

Corruption exists in Chinese government, but the Chinese government have been particularly harsh in dealing with those charge with corruption (and not in a you can resign to write books and do public speaking with all your money type of way, more in a "go to jail for a long time" kinda way).

The argument then becomes "its the people's choice". But is it really? Is consumerism really a people choice? Is it the choice of the profiteers in commercial and media corporations who tell us what we want and tell us what we need? Sure we're free to buy them or not, the government won't punish us, but society will. They tell us how we should look.

China is preserving its identity. It is doing it in a morally bankrupt way but the notion that they should aspire to be like the west in terms of democracy is laughable, because democracy doen't work in the west.

So the question becomes, if China wants to avoid being like the west, how does it operate? How does it introduce westen values (because that is what the west wants for China) without becoming another consumer nation?

Don't think for a second that the corporations who have ties to the media don't have their own interests in China and the 1 billion potential consumers there.

Thirdfox

Well PSI I'm not as pessimistic as your "Devil" is - not everyone in every government is corrupt. But you have hit on a really good point - not everyone wants to be like you. It really leads onto the question of clash of cultures - which is a really prickly pear.

Can Islam co-exist with "Western" values? Can the Chinese culture? Will Western values dominate the world in the end? Should it? These questions are deep ones that will probably not be answer on an online forum but it is important for people to realise that when we speak of cultural genocide what is the difference between it and globalisation/consumerism? Christmas is now celebrated in China (as a novelty consumer holiday) - if it replaces the Chinese New Year has a part of the Chinese culture been wiped out by foreign culture? Is it morally wrong to do that? Or in the end does the old doctrine of "might is right" prevail? Only in our case the "might" is now longer missiles but McDonalds...

As for white-collar crime in China - weren't many senior officials executed for bribery and emblezzement of public funds?

SkepticOne

PSI wrote: »

Ok, let me be the Devil's advocate for a second (the Devil is great, you'd all like him).

Taking aside the fact that most people don't agree with China's policy on censorship.

But that is the very subject of this thread. This thread is not about other aspects of china or the west. I think this has been the problem all along. People have been taking exception to specific criticism and mistaking it for a generalised attack on China's people and culture.

Let us ask a question, is western civilisation and democracy so good that China should aspire to this?

The West is a society based on greed, capitalism and corruption. Almost every level of every government in western superpowers is corrupt. From local council levels to the highest seats of office. If China wants to avoid this becoming their society, I think it is a reasonable aspiration. How they are doing it is clearly wrong, but I don't think trying to preserve their heritage from modern western society is a bad thing.

Corruption exists in Chinese government, but the Chinese government have been particularly harsh in dealing with those charge with corruption (and not in a you can resign to write books and do public speaking with all your money type of way, more in a "go to jail for a long time" kinda way).

The argument then becomes "its the people's choice". But is it really? Is consumerism really a people choice? Is it the choice of the profiteers in commercial and media corporations who tell us what we want and tell us what we need? Sure we're free to buy them or not, the government won't punish us, but society will. They tell us how we should look.

China is preserving its identity. It is doing it in a morally bankrupt way but the notion that they should aspire to be like the west in terms of democracy is laughable, because democracy doen't work in the west.

So the question becomes, if China wants to avoid being like the west, how does it operate? How does it introduce westen values (because that is what the west wants for China) without becoming another consumer nation?

Don't think for a second that the corporations who have ties to the media don't have their own interests in China and the 1 billion potential consumers there.