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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (8657)	6/2/1999 9:34:00 PM
From: Sam	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 9980

Larry, Are you suggesting that the current Chinese leadership is equivalent to Pol Pot? Sorry, I thought I did at least in outline say why I thought DMA's scenario was absurd. Maybe I'm wrong, it's happened plenty of times before. However, I have known a number of people who lived and worked in Taiwan in the past, though none of them live there now. At least in the mid and late 80s, they were not terribly concerned about a Chinese invasion. They were more concerned about Deng's health at that time, and what might happen in China after he died. Their greatest fear was that China would break up into 3 or 4 autonomous regions, and create enormous instability in the entire region. On the other hand, they wondered if the country was too large and had too many diverse interests to be ruled as one entity. They were more concerned with being able to exploit its enormous resources in relative safety than anything else. And they were encouraged to "unofficially" create and manage businesses there, which they did with great zeal and enthusiasm, though they had any number of difficulties given the official freeze between the two entities. I can't recall ever hearing the scenario that DMA raised as being a concern. I think it is more of a conservative American fantasy than a probability. This isn't to say that the people who I knew and spoke with were infallible, or perhaps they have changed their minds in the intervening years. Or that the Chinese leadership couldn't do something stupid and contrary to what I perceive as their business and political interests. Anything is possible, we only need recall such disparate events like Viet Nam or the massacre of Native Americans in US history, the insanity of Pol Pot, as you referred to, or what is happening in Kosovo to be assured of that. But I don't see it. I don't think that the Chinese leadership is either stupid or mad or evil.

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (8657)	6/3/1999 9:07:00 AM
From: Bosco	Respond to of 9980

G'day all - Larry, since you and Sam have struck a line of conversation within the stream of thought, I won't take up more bandwidth for him. My previous post merely alerts you to the fact that he did response - whether it is to your satisfaction, it is an entirely different matter. I am the last person to demonstrate etiquette [as my good and dear friend of mine, Michael Roebuck, has once reminded me, "Bosco, you know what we are, we are merely peasants pretend to be intellectuals." <VBG>,] but ignoring his response can be viewed by some cultures as "baiting" or "trolling." I am sure you simply missed that as a response [as you deemed it was not to your satisfaction,] especially Sam has a generous disposition, so I guess it is a wash <G>. Regarding the Pol Pot allusion, I don't know. As I ve paraphrased the late Eric Hoffer many times here, I don't think we can underestimate the human capacities for both good and evil. Incidentally, maybe you have missed my response in another stream of thought on this forum as I alluded to Albert Camus's "The Plague." [if you have read it a long time ago and forgot how fine a work it is, rereading it is highly recommended.] Anyway, Steve has spoken eloquently - a lot more eloquent than I could ever manage <sg> - on the difference between "probable" and "possible," I will leave it at that. Since I know a few tibetans and some of its histories, I think the circumstance is quite different. 1st, time is changing. 2nd, even the players in the China/Taiwan theater are changing. The old guards of both CCP and KMT are no longer the Power that be, if they are still alive. 3rd, regarding the Chinese/Tibetan problem, there was a lot of intrigues. Without going into nauseating <g> details, let's just say the seed of tibetan problem back in the 50s was sown in the 20s and 30s. Who knows what would happen if the tibetan officials then had followed the Great Thirteen [the previous Dalai Lama] edict. Speaking of history, as Mark Shield, a syndicated columnist who appears regularly on PBS NewsHour pointed out, the ghost of "who lost China" still haunts the GOP. One has to wonder what if the US administration of the time had listened to the career diplomats like John Service, who have lived amongst the CCP and the KMT main players, and thus with hands on experience. Instead, as they say, the rest is history when the US blindly took side b/c of a few people having fixated ideas devoid of human understanding best, Bosco

To: Liatris Spicata who wrote (8657)	6/3/1999 10:47:00 AM
From: Robert Douglas	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

Larry, Pulitzer Prize winning NY Times reporter, Schadberg(???) who, when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia, wrote so reassuringly how things under Pol Pot would not proceed in a violent manner. The Time's reporter you mention is Sidney Schanberg. His story in Cambodia and his ill-conceived assessment of the political situation was the basis for the movie "The Killing Fields". I haven't seen it for some time and think I will hop over to amazon.com and order a copy. -Robert