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The US, as a young nation with a highly-fragmented political system, is stuck in a cycle of thinking in blocks of four years; the minimum time frame for the start and stop of a presidential administration. You set a plan for four years, with a possible further four-year plan after that, and anything further is just speculation. The goal is to get as much of the party's business done in those four year blocks as possible, because you're only guaranteed that amount of time after you're elected.
China's political party has been in office for nearly 70 years, and it's not going anywhere. They have the luxury, and the power, to think in much larger blocks of time. This whole surge of growth has basically been four decades of planning coming to fruition: an inconceivable amount of time for the US but what Chinese leadership deemed was necessary for its success.
I particularly agree with this. Everyone seems to think one party is bad and free voting is natural right. But the advantage of China's political system is that the government is able to focus on long term growth, rather than just short terms just to secure votes in 4 years. Most of China's impressive growth was based on careful long term planning, and good and consistent continuation of public policies focusing on nothing but economic development and improvement of living standard.
Is the US government capable of long term planning? of course, but they don't have the luxury because who knows what the next government might choose to do, so nobody is able to look beyond a four year horizon.
I live in Toronto, and here municipal leaders simply can't even agree on something as small as building a subway, and always try to postpone it to the "next election". As a result, Toronto which is larger than Chicago now as North America's fourth largest city, has 2 subway lines. If the government had the power and were able to make long term planning without the disruptions (we actually started a subway which was cancelled by the next mayor and the already digged holes were filled), we would have much better infrastructure today.
Yes, it is the other way round. Chinese admires Korean culture due to the Korean wave. But not Koreans liking China. The trend in our world is often developing countries admiring developed countries.
Chinese prefer Korean popular culture, not Japanese culture due to deep-rooted hatred of Japan. Korean stars are earning a lot of money from the Chinese for their cultural export to China.
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Originally Posted by gamer612
You must not be familiar with the political situation in Asia. Let's just say, China is not popular with anyone right now, except for maybe the Koreans
I traveled to Tibet from Nepal stopping off at many cities and towns from Changdu to Gyantse and finally onward to Lhasa, stopping off at Milarepa's Cave along the way.
By talking to ordinary Tibetan people and witnessing signs first hand of the destruction and desecration of Buddhist temples and monasteries there I have come to the conclusion that it is you who have been brainwashed by the Chinese Communist Party. HH the Dalai Lama did not own slaves ... he is a Buddhist monk ... Buddhist monks live simple lives and do not own slaves.
When the Chinese invaded Tibet they killed many people and committed attrocities. Buddhist nuns were raped. Holy places where robbed of sacred objects and destroyed.
I heard, through my Chinese/Tibetan interpreter, horror stories of the oppression and persecution
Tens of thousands of Tibetans fled as refugees ... many to northern India. There is a Tibetan government-in-exile, which is elected democratically, by the way, in Dharamsala, India. Have you ever been there? I have.
Here in Philadelphia we have thousands of Tibetan refugees; many live in my neighborhood. I am astonished you fell for the lies that try to justify the Chinese conquest of an independent country. Please don't lecture me on the subject ... I have been there and know far too many witnesses of what really happened.
I am a second generation Tibetan. Utterly bs and lies. My parents left Tibet because of local feud with noble class. Please stop spreading the lies, there were no oppression and persecution. If there was, i bet it was for the "noble class" and we liked it.
I am no Asian expert, nor am I a China scholar. But I do have to say that, in general, one does not take full stock the gibberish hogwash that comes out of a bunch of disenfranchised exiles. The truth in Tibet is probably somewhere between the whining of Free Tibet freaks and droning Chinese propaganda.
As for how much China is looked up to, I will have to say that most people in Asia fear and respect China's hard power, but its soft power (cultural, pop culture etc) is still weak. It is a huge country with more than a billion people. There are clean places and there are dirty places. But at least it is on the whole much cleaner and far more developed than the world's largest democracy, India! This in itself is a huge accomplishment for a communist and authoritarian country, and it directly contradicts the Western narrative that aligns democracy with economic/technical success and social development. China and India prove that this narrative is ridiculous and wishful thinking at best.
"You must not be familiar with the political situation in Asia. Let's just say, China is not popular with anyone right now,"...
Well, there are more than a billion Chinese who hold the view of their government when it comes to those territorial disputes, especially the ones with Japan. I am pretty sure no one in China cares what "anyone" thinks about them. China is putting a lot of resources in its military, and that's what counts. The US pivot back to Asia is looking more and more like hot air by the day.
I am a second generation Tibetan. Utterly bs and lies. My parents left Tibet because of local feud with noble class. Please stop spreading the lies, there were no oppression and persecution. If there was, i bet it was for the "noble class" and we liked it.
I went to school with a lot of Tibetan kids in Cambridge, MA. Most of them were into the whole "Free Tibet" movement, but none of them could personally recall any hardships that weren't simply related to the third-world poverty that affected most Chinese at the same time they were growing up. They would recount stories of PLA members killing monks or things like that, but they were all the same stories that the Beastie Boys were telling; none of them had ever seen it.
I ultimately don't have a dog in the fight; I can see why it is that plenty of territories the world over would look to autonomy, and I can also understand why it is that nations would seek to prevent this from happening. As far as it goes with China, for the most part ethnic minorities are treated with relative indifference by the government so long as they're not involved in any salacious activities, which is also how it goes for the Han majority.
FWIW, there were huge ads up in the GZ metro encouraging people to donate winter clothing to people in Tibet.
If you look more closely, you can check out the very preferential treatment that the Tibetan minority and others minorities get relative to the Han majority. They include everything from policies concerning number of children, to college entrance scores, to higher retirement pensions. All of this is meant as a form of Chinese "affirmative action", though I don't understand why the Chinese government would do this because the Han majority has never enslaved or exploited any of these minorities within China's borders historically as the American South had done with the Africans and their later descendants.
My opinion is that, the more preferential treatment these minorities get, the more they become entitled and brazen. Affirmative Action policies only heighten ethnic differences and actually stir more resentment from all sides.
My one encounter with these overseas Free Tibet people was only once, several years ago, on the street corner in front of the UN building in NYC. Some white kid was filming while a bunch of wailing young Tibetan women cried and beat their chest, screaming about "genocide" and how much they hated China. Then, a few minutes later, they all stopped as the film person gestured for them to move to the next street corner. Once they relocated to the next street corner, the wailing and self beating started all over again with much drama. I am sure the resulting "documentary" got lots of hits on YouTube from the gullible Free Tibet college crowd....Who knows, maybe even a nomination from the Academy and a rich endorsement from the Brad/Angelina Bleeding Heart club too.
If you mostly read English language news, it is all about how neighbouring countries view China as a "threat", which is not surprising. Even between China and Japan, they make it sound like China is always the more aggressive party, when China has never engage in any sort of military invasion of Japan.
I honestly do not know why the US and the UK, who have been so beligerent on world affairs meddling with so many countries' internal affairs are in a position to judge whether a rising power is a threat, a threat for their dominance, maybe. Of course it fits their interest for the UK to vilify China so that it can keep controlling East Asia (Japan, S Korea, Taiwan, Singapore), who wants a competitor?
It is the fact some developed countries such as US and UK regard China as a threat for their dominance to the world.
It is the fact some developed countries such as US and UK regard China as a threat for their dominance to the world.
This is why it's so important to know other languages, least of which is the ability to see different perspectives. The 24 news cycles of the US media is all about repeating a similar (and approved) message over and over again, interspersed with colorful pop-culture news that attract and hold a semi-literate and barely awake audience that is more interested in where Angelina Joli got her nails done, and who won the latest round of sing-off competition on the Voice....
Of course the US worries about China, which is far more powerful in an all-around sense than Russia will ever be. The UK is just a guard dog of the US, much like Japan is.
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