>>Yiwu, I am curious, and this has nothing to do with the SARS discussion, is there anything about the government of China you don't like?<<
of course, I disagree plenty of Chinese gov. has done or is doing, although comparatively speaking (one has to compare before juuding anything), I still have to say this is the best gov. yet over the long Chinese history.
But I think there is a difference bet. Complaining to foriegners and complaining to my own countrymen. One reason I seldom complaining about Chinese gov. with foreigners is that it won't help the matter because only Chinese people have the power to change whatever the Chinese gov. does. No matter how much the US complains, it does not help the matter, and may even back fire. Another reason is that because of the cultural difference, my complaining would more likely end up more misunderstanding between China and the West. This is just like within a family, the parents may do something wrong, or unreasonable, and it has no use to complain to the people outside the family except maybe make one feels a little better.
But since you sounds really curious, then I will tell you something I often complains about the Chinese government.
1. the Chinese government should set some normal/legal means for people to rant about the government, and this is essential for the social stability, and it won't result in any danger like overthrown the gov. Some of these means include, setting up a national public TV channel and a national radio program (just like CSPN and NPR in the US), for the regular people to complain about the gov. and knowing what is going on in the gov. Having said that, the gov. still should ban any organization/assoication who takes money from outside/foriegn powers, including Taiwanese gov. (yes, even if those Students who demonstrated in TianAnSquare in 1989 had been funding by CIA and Taiwanese gov.). Because this will cause politic instability and the social chaos.
The bottom line is when people have some normal means to complain, the people will feel much better even if these complaining does not necessarily change any gov. doing. Although now the Internet helps a lot, people who use it can generally complaining about a lot of thing, including cursing the naitonal leaders. TV and Radio will help those who do not use the Internet.
2. China should do more about environmental protection. Not only this will help China, but the world.
3. The Chinese gov. should put more stress on ethnic standard when promoting leaders. don't just promote those who know how to butter-up the boss.
4. the Chinese gov. should give equal treatment for Chinese nationals and foreigners within China. Believe or not, foreigners in China, whether they are diplomats or not, can usually enjoy more privitage than local Chinese. And a lot of Chinese complaining about it. And should give equal treatment for all Ph.Ds, whether they got their degrees from Western countries, or from China. And ever since the founding of new China, the people who got Ph.D from the West got better treatment and higher pay/ranking than those who got Ph.D in China.
And this is one reason that plenty of Chinese, including me, think if now China has a democratic election for the national leader, the person who hold the most extreme nationalism would win. Yes, anti-Americanism is very popular in China, like in a lot of other countries.
5. As a woman, I definitely think Chinese gov. should do much more and set up the law against the discrimition of women. Generally speaking, after 1949 and before 1978, Chinese women enjoyed pretty much eqaul status as men, at least in cities. But after 1978, under the market economy, or maybe I should say, the capitalism in the earlies form, women have been discrimated just about everywhere. Even if for college entry examination, female students have to have 5% higher score than male students in order to enter the same ranking universities. And the root for the discrimination of women goes back to Confuciouism. Funny that never heard Westerners talk about Confucious in this respect.
6. The gov. should set a much sounder tax system, and invest much more in public education, and health system (SARS proves this).
The list can go on and on. However, put everything in perspective, China has a huge population and very limited resources (22% world population with only 7% world arable land), it is a struggle just to feed everybody. And the Chinese gov. has also realized a lot of above-mentioned problems, but only lack of financial means to do them.
And about democracy system: China has a long long non-democratic history, and culture die hard. And this kind of transaction takes time, forced change would yield very bad result. And if you pay attention recently, it is changing, bit and bit, but it will adde up.
>>And on a related note, I had been hoping that some of the Chinese readers would use this forum to discuss China's foreign policy (both pro and con). Why is it that you shy away so much from discussing this? <<
Not shy away, just do not have that much of the time. And also I don't think we can talk about Tibet issue as foriegn policy issue, since I believe Tibet belongs to China.
But generanlly speaking, China's foreign policy is not that hard to understand. It is pretty consistent. It is practical/pragmatic, and China tries its best not to interfere others domestic affairs, and by the same token, would like others keep their nose out of China's domestic affairs. All the border issues with neighboring countries should be solved peacefully by negotiation, and if cannot negotiate among the current gov. then let it sit for the next gov., or even generation. By and large, what China does internationally, can be explained by practical/pragmatic. |
