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detention of artist Ai Weiwei

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  1. #21

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    China don't want a repeat of Tibet in '08 and Xinjiang in '09 they are striking now before whatever the problem is gets out of hand.


  2. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by virago:
    China don't want a repeat of Tibet in '08 and Xinjiang in '09 they are striking now before whatever the problem is gets out of hand.
    So what is the problem that they are afraid of?

  3. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by drumbrake:
    So what is the problem that they are afraid of?
    Very good question! As I said, whatever the problem is which I don't really know.

  4. #24

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    Quote Originally Posted by drumbrake:
    So what is the problem that they are afraid of?
    Their own population.

    It's a sad state of affairs when a great country cannot tolerate a peaceful opposition.

  5. #25

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    Quote Originally Posted by bookblogger:
    He is clearly an outstanding guy whose intent is to change China for the better, not escape it for his own safety.
    I don't disagree, but wonder if he could not do more good outside the country and free rather than inside and locked up? Although the act of getting detained may indeed be the catalyst needed, if only the folks in China get to hear about it.

  6. #26

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    Quote Originally Posted by MovingIn07:
    I don't disagree, but wonder if he could not do more good outside the country and free rather than inside and locked up? Although the act of getting detained may indeed be the catalyst needed, if only the folks in China get to hear about it.
    Instead of Ai WeiWei (now blocked), Chinese 'twitter' users are using 'ai weila' - love the future.

    See The Guardian.

  7. #27

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    Quote Originally Posted by MovingIn07:
    I don't disagree, but wonder if he could not do more good outside the country and free rather than inside and locked up? Although the act of getting detained may indeed be the catalyst needed, if only the folks in China get to hear about it.
    Well it tends to be that those who escape China then disappear into obsolescence. Staying within China seems to alert people more to their cause, Li Xiaobo (Nobel Prize), Zhao Lianhai (parent of baby made ill by tainted milk and jailed - then released), Ai Weiwei and many, many others.

    If you're an unknown and disappear, nobody cares, it's just everyday life. If you are well known the whole world knows. That is the sacrifice these activists are willing to make to alert others to what they believe in. If they were not in China you'd probably never know who they were.
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  8. #28

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    The bravery of some of the activists in China is incredible. Ian Buruma's book Bad Elements gives an insight. He talks to and about activists who have served sentences in Chinese jails. They are been given the option to be released if they publicly renounce what they have said and it's incredible that many resist the temptation to do so, knowing that everybody they know will understand why they have done it and that most people in China are not even aware that they have been imprisoned. Bear in mind that we're not talking about a cushy prison life either, political prisoners in China are often kept for years in cells not large enough to either stand up or lie down in with constant pressure and maltreatment to psychologically break them. Some have come out after years in prison and immediately spoken out again and gone straight back into jail.

    The human will is astounding sometimes.


  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by MovingIn07:
    I don't disagree, but wonder if he could not do more good outside the country and free rather than inside and locked up? Although the act of getting detained may indeed be the catalyst needed, if only the folks in China get to hear about it.
    Moving, there has already been a good response to your (completely reasonable) question, but I would add that Chinese in general do not approve of those, especially Chinese, who criticize the Chinese government from the outside - they are seen as being "anti-China" rather than "anti-communist". It does no good to try and argue that the only real way to criticize the government is to do it from the outside, that any open dissent within China is quickly muffled, and that that attitude simply plays into the hands of the dictatorship; that is the attitude Chinese people have. Probably because of the Confucian nature of the culture and not airing their "family's" dirty laundry in public. We see this a lot on the internet, where it is difficult, sometimes, to tell the government-paid commenters from ones who are sincere, but simply lacking in the ability see the issue in any other way.

    In the movie, "Dr. Zhivago" there is a similar question where the poet is advised, quite wisely, to get the hell out. His response is something like, "How can you say that? I would never leave Russia". People who love their country to such a degree are pretty easily dispensed with, I'm afraid.

  10. #30

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    Actually there have been many stories across the world of semi-exiled folks returning triumphantly to their place of birth so it is true that someone outside can still do some good. Of course, when you have family back in the nation you leave they too can be subject to all sorts of problems so leaving by yourself might not be an option.

    If I have any sense of the priorities of the PRC government and what their flash points seem to be it is these three things:

    1. The economy.
    2. Social stability and harmony - such as not deter economic growth.
    3. Taiwan - this I can't explain but if it seems to me that the PRC see TW as a huge issue and want them in the fold.


    #2 is where you get dissidents being locked up as the PRC laws are very, very strict versus looser laws in places like Canada and the USA where people can say quite a lot.

    We know what happened in the USA during the McCarthy era where simply being accused of being a communist ruined careers. In Canada they are still trying to get the government to release the security files on Tommy Douglas who in 2004 was voted as the Greatest Canadian! He was a socialist who brought in single payer health care (now a national model for all of Canada) and set up gov't insurance to raise investment monies for his province (Saskatchewan) as NY financiers etc never heard of the place and at the end of WW2 they needed to build schools and hospitals.

    At my university in the late 1960s they had cops on campus and files on student activists. This is not fancy but facts. The joke when the Communist Party of Canada was in its zenith days there were more members of the CPC who were in the RCMP Security Service than actual real commies.

    The RCMP SS no longer exists but in on case they infiltrated a motorcycle gang and their operative was so good they made him their leader. I know this stuff from friends who were there in the RCMP SS and were involved in this stuff. Even they thought it was stupid at the time. They also broke the law at times in famous events like arsons.

    The PRC are not right in what they are doing to activists and dissidents but my sense is that it is the incredible size of the population and diversity across the regions and the fact that not all are sharing in the economic growth that motivates the PRC to maintain tough laws and crackdowns which to me seems unnecessary.

    If you look at the Wiki posts on Deng Xiaoping Theory you see some reasons why old habits die hard in China and also why they will never admit that someone did wrong in the Tiananmen and took lives wrongly and needlessly in 1989. There seems to a long link back to Mao that makes them never look back and criticize it seems.

    The outrage across the world is from the usual nations as it is good knee jerk politics to condemn China but I think they should take a quieter role and act more like the Australians and those who do a lot of business in China as hectoring and lecturing the Chinese seems to have an opposite impact than intended.

    No nation on earth is lily white. Not one. Not even today!

    Last edited by Football16; 07-04-2011 at 01:19 PM.
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