Originally posted by: BoomerD
For all the Chinese apologists...Are you IN China? Do you LIVE there or are you of Chinese origin?
If you're not currently living IN China, (an emmigrant) why not?
IF China is this great country, why do so many people leave to come to the USA? Why do so many Chinese people do anything they can, including being smuggled into the country in sealed shipping containers, just to get OUT of China?
I'm old school, from the age of "Kill a commie for your mommie," or "Better dead than red," so I have a "built-in" dislike or possibly even hatred for anything Communist. I don't dislike or hate the Chinese people, because IMO, they're just people, the same as anyone else, trying to get through life one day at a time...but the Chinese government? Fuck them.
I'm Chinese American. My family has visited China last year (I declined because I have some bitterness about how I felt I was raised -- why explore my past roots when I don't see a real future for me?). From their description, much has changed over there. Many cities of China look like any other modern city in the world. For the most part, if you aren't political, then it's pretty much like living anywhere else in the western world:
You go to school. You have friends and family. You have crushes on girls. You go shopping. You get a job. You watch TV and go on the (censored to pron and anything negative about the government) internet. You play video games. You fall in love and marry. You have children. You have hopes and dreams for a better life. It's not like they are all cowering under their beds, working as slaves with guns to their heads and hoping someday that someone will rescue them.
Why do Chinese people want to emigrate to the US? Cause we're still the best country in the world.
Same reason why people from Canada emigrate to here. It doesn't mean that Canada is a cesspool and it doesn't mean that China is a cesspool.
China has improved greatly in the last 30 years -- so much so that many parts are almost unrecognizable to my parents when they returned there to visit.
As for the commie part -- We won and they lost. The Communist ideology is pretty much dead over there. The Communist government there is in name only. China is more capitalist than most countries now. There is still much to improve upon over there with regards to human rights and freedoms but it's not like in North Korea where their people are starving and think their leader is a god. In China, there can be some criticism of the government (for example, there has been criticism of building standards and corruption from the last earthquake). In China, there is more freedom to visit other countries. I've met plenty of graduate students from China but have never seen a North Korean graduate student. The fact that China allows it's people to visit other countries is proof that there is more personal freedom now in China. And even though the internet is censored I'm pretty sure that most Chinese are aware of the protests that have occurred during the run-up to the Olympics.
My hope is that China can be an example of a stable transition from a communist government into a free democracy as the old leadership is replaced by younger western-educated members.
Sometimes it seems that many in the US won't be happy unless we bomb a country to ruins (destroying their sewage, electrical and water systems), replace their government, standby as an insurgency blows up and beheads innocent people, and say, "Enjoy your new found democracy and freedoms!".