Regarding this particular discussion thread, a reassessment of our foreign policy regarding every nation we engage with is not something we can ignore. But given China’s continued reluctance to equip its people with the infrastructure and ability to follow the rule of law and its reticence to conform to international norms, conventions and standards despite bald-faced promises that it does indeed do so, a reassessment of our foreign policy regarding China is past overdue. Historically, trade relations between the US and China in the 90s have been likened to a game of international chicken with each threatening and backing down and only watered down compromises being reached. The time is long overdue to stop playing Chicken and set down some hard lines regarding cooperation with international standards.

Regarding revolution and the fall of the CCP, given the repression of the media and the internet within China, I harbor serious doubts that any reform will be internally driven. However, China continues to export its intellectual talent to foreign universities and many of them have refused to return to China. Further, the children of Chinese intellectuals driven out of the country during Cultural Revolution (or political dissidents who skipped the country at any other time) have been educated in foreign universities and employed in international corporations, cooperatives and organizations. Point being, I suspect any reform will be when these people return and seize control of their country.

Finally, regarding China’s military dominance or lack thereof, it appears to me to be a matter of military technology. China was, at one time, ascendant technologically, but was dominated in recent history because it fell behind in terms of technological capabilities. I suspect a large measure of that is China’s relative lack of a navy during the colonial/expansionist periods of Western Civilization. Considering the amount of money China has poured into its military and tech sectors, it’s not inconceivable that the gap in technology has been closed or even eliminated. And China certainly has the underutilized manpower to dominate any western nation on that front.

Read Revelation 13:16,17. They already given mark to all Chinese, and an digitalized monitoring and control system is almost at its final stage of full application.

Looking at their new campaign to clean internet,you can realize what it is meant for our Chinese in the verse: Anyone without mark, no buy and sell.

We already have a Digitalized ID card system and no one is allowed to use internet without Identified your personal ID,and in some major cities,such as Beijing, you have to be photo-ed When you want to use internet on internet cafe.

“Brave New World” is coming to every countries on this earth.
How should we to describe the best society on this earth?
It will not be called Democracy or dictatorship anymore ,but A digitalized or not society in the nearest future.

The hardware parts of this society is almost ready, with introducing of US100 -200/unit or less Netbook from China from End of Last year.

The software system to apply them? It is all ready and tested in China over last 15 years,with the help of Western IT giant.
Now the most advanced public application of monitoring and control system has been set up in China.

All those evil idea to control and manipulate individuals will have a great a Achievement in China,even though non of them,such as Communist ,Industrialization,globlization ,digital filtering and monitoring ,etc are originated from Chinese mind.

Jian and Hu just the same individuals as our fellow Chinese,they are the same slavery minded as our Chinese. Non of those dictators have any brain,but animal nature to keep themselves in power .Non of those dictatorship figures will not performance as worse as those evils happen and happing in China ,without the cooperation and participation of all our Chinese.

No one should have be optimized for the future of this earth, the darkest and worses days is coming.

There will be “peace ,harmony and stable” all over the world,but without any moral justice, families, and real care and love between individuals, no any personal feelings about others,lost tracing on family relationships history , and worship only the authority ,the most powerful ,….

Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ is coming.

I bet that our Chinese will never have a Democracy society on this earth, till Jesus come again, and end of the world and time.

http://www.youpai.org/read.php?id=2787

http://www.youpai.org/read.php?id=2797

By the way, the Communist Party is responsible for resurgent nationalism and xenophobia. If you want someone to blame, try Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. They did a lot to stir the pot.

The larger point, though, is China’s military modernization at the present moment. There are many more soldiers than philosophers in today’s China.

In either case, there is a huge reservoir of ignorant, propaganda-fueled xenophobia waiting to be tapped by anyone cynical enough to do so.

The CP regime, for all its faults, *has* kept a lid on this – from a selfish desire for self-preservation.

I worry a lot about democratisation. In principle democracy is a wonderful thing. In practice, mass movement of peoples from the countryside to the cities, the advent of mass literacy and mass media to service same tends to drive entire populations insane by obsessing them with things like Alsace Lorraine (or, closer to home, The Washington Naval Treaty) – and we all know where that got us.

The democratisation of Europe was achieved at the cost of an ocean of blood – a lot of it not European. I do not wish to die in a nuclear wasteland so that 200 years hence Chinese can be where the French and Germans are today… and ironically peace in Europe has been achieved by the most complete and utter perversion of the ideal of Democracy under the EU blanket.

The CP has a foul history of murder and mayhem behind it. I just worry that the price of legitimacy for any replacement might be too much for the rest of us to bear. I am no Pangloss, but I am not sure we want this can of worms to be opened. No doubt you disagree, and I’d be interested to hear you argue how the CP might be replaced with something nicer – without another Yuan Shihkai, another Taiping Tianguo, or various other frightful unintended consequences.

On a slightly different topic, and one which you might be following more closely – it’s going to be interesting to see what happens at CNY – I suspect a lot of Guangdong factories are going to be firing and paying off (if lucky) their migrant worker employees with just enough time for them to get on the trains/buses to make it home for New Year. That way they won’t stick around in Dongguan or wherever and riot.

My guess would be the Warring States period. A civil war that lasted 400 years before the Ch’in (often considered no more Chinese than the Hsung Nu (I’m not sure of the spelling, but they were northern barbarians circa. 209 B.C.) unified China. The Ch’in dynasty only lasted about a dozen years before it fell. China has been sacked over and over again. Their main defense against outside invaders has been to allow the invaders to conquer China and then assimilate them over the course of a few generation (examples would be the Mongols and Manchus).
China has traditionally been unified because the Yangtze and Yellow rivers run through the entire country and regions have had to co-operate for the sake of water management. That’s why China has been a unified territory that is as large as Europe.

Europe, by contrast has been at war within itself for centuries. This has created European cultures that are much more warlike than China has traditionally been.

I have no idea what successful military tradition you’re talking about. To say we must fear China because of the example of the Ch’in would be the same as saying we should fear the Italians because of the Roman Empire.

I’m assuming you know as much Chinese history and philosophy as I do (undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto) so if you can name one revered Chinese warrior I will name eight Chinese philosophers.

What you say is important, but the new PLA is impressive. And although China for the past 1,000 years has been losing battles, we have to remember there is a succesful military tradition. After all, how did China get so big to begin with?

I think it’s nice that you read and respond to the comments made about your essays. I do not share your fear of Chinese aggression, here’s one reason why.

Name a military situation where China has emerged victorious. The Mongols conquered them with a few hundred thousand horsemen. The British overcame huge problems of geography to defeat the Chinese and ensure the freedom to sell opium. The Japanese weren’t defeated by the Chinese in World War Two. The Japanese were defeated by geography and the A bomb.

China might point to their stalemates in Korea in the 50s and Vietnam in the 70s as victories, but I am being generous calling them stalemates.

In fact, as I rack my brain all I can come up with as far as Chinese military victories are concerned is Tibet 500 years ago. This is not the track record of a dangerous belligerent state.

China has little military tradition. China has always strived to be the cultural center of the world but has had few if any military ambitions. Their folk lore has many legendary philosophers but no famous warriors.

But then again perhaps you feel that if China has abandoned Kung Fu Tzu on mercantilism it can buck the lack of a military tradition. But given the ferocity of America and the relative pacifism of China I would not worry about the Chinese.

Yesterday Larry Flint Asked for $5 billion to bail out America’s porn industry. If the American people don’t rush to support the USA’s last export to the world China will dominate the pornography industry. Now that’s something to worry about!