*OT Politics which makes it on topic because Q! is a political football and sales to China will be vital*
Jill, Yes China has been ditching Communism since good old Deng reckoned that it didn't matter whether a cat was black or white as long as it caught mice. There is a lot of private industry in China, especially when we include Hong Kong and Taiwan, both of which are generally considered to be closely affiliated with China by the people living in those areas.
Communism is usually defined as being the state-owned means of production and property. Private property has been growing in China for well over a decade and with Zhu Rongji, and Zemin running the show, you can expect that trend to continue. Tiananmen Square riots were about a broad group of people wishing to usurp state control from another group. That was nothing to do with Communism. It was to do with whether a pluralistic democratic method of government would be adopted and whether restrictive government edicts would be reduced.
Repressive, authoritarian, dictatorial regimes based on power rather than elections are not correlated with communism so much as a lack of democracy. Think Hitler, Franco, Pinochet, Mussolini, House of Saud, The Husseins of Iraq and Jordan [one a nice guy, one not nice at all] for examples of these with no democracy and DEFINITELY no Communism.
The suppression of the Tienanmen Square occupation was about state power, not communism. Think about Kent State. Think about Chicago. Think about Waco. We have IRA, Maoris, "Native" Americans, Negroes [USA, South Africa] all of whom were suitably repressed when their interests conflicted with the state power of the democratic, pluralistic, controllers in those countries. No countries allow challenges to their 'legally constituted authority systems' and that has nothing to do with democracy, communism, fascism, kingdoms, republics or federations. Even democracies are not averse to quite a bit of vicious repression - you won't need to look far to find it. Democracies simply replace the tyranny of the rulers with the tyranny of the majority. Which doesn't have much to say for it if you are in a repressed minority. Slavery existed in the USA for quite some time. Homosexuals were illegal. Heck, they still are in the military, which is pure discrimination. Women didn't have a vote. Personally, I believe women should be treated as human, but that was not the case in the USA all of this century.
Tomorrow, the USA is going to stop NZ from selling sheep meat to Americans. You probably think the USA is a Free Trade leader. Think again! Sure, it is passably free, especially compared with many of the countries on this cute little planet, but consult the Libertarians in the USA if you retain any fantasy that Americans are free. No, there is nothing wrong with our sheep. They are nuclear free no less. Grown in the clean, green pastures of this southern paradise [which is a slight exaggeration, but sounds good]. Farmers in the USA are whining that their captive market prefers to buy better and cheaper from aliens.
Your explanation of your accusation of treason was pretty thin on the ground. The USA sells armaments to many countries. That's not treason. Anything the USA sells to China or elsewhere will help China's military strength because China benefits from world trade and can buy their own military power, which is more robust if they develop it from their own resources. USA sells NZ a computer, NZ buys most stuff from China, China buys cdmaOne stuff from Korea, Korea buys stuff from Japan and Japan buys stuff from USA. It's going round! You can't stop it.
The Clinton administration is not doing anything treasonable. If your explanation of the treason is all you've got, you are stretching a point so far that you'd be sued for defamation in New Zealand.
Your own National Security Agency/Council uses 1992 road maps to conduct wars - they are not fit to decide anything. Schwarzkopf of Gulf War fame, along with Gorby, was here yesterday. Schwarzie was very disparaging of the Nato effort and the casualties. He thinks they should stop and do some talking.
Patriots make me queasy. Refusing to allow a missile defense system might be good economics. The idea would be loved by those in the business, but it might be totally impractical. Star Wars with nuclear-powered lasers was a mad joke perpetrated by Edward Teller and his mates. I'm an atheist, but I prefer the Christian concept of universal love to patriotism, greed and xenophobia.
I'm sure if we all thought about things a lot more, there would be not that much that we disagree on. That's the benefit of jaw, jaw, instead of war, war. Zhu Rongji will keep things on the straight and narrow, with Zemin lending a hand.
CDMA will do fine. Let's not threaten our customers with violence and stop people selling sheep to the USA. It's a big ask, to coin a phrase, but I'm sure the USA is up to the task.
Mqurice
PS: Some of my best friends are women, homosexuals, Chinese, Maoris, people with different abilities, children, men, tall people, short people, fuller figured, slight, religious and having various creeds [whatever creeds are - I better check the dictionary]. I think at least some of them should be considered human.
Okay, rant switch shut down for a while [I'll have to adopt the Valueman strategy] |
