Welcome to "The Angry Chinese Blogger"

1. a reader left...

Wonder if you might have comments on the issue of WalMart's effects on China. I make the argument that liberals who increasingly oppose WalMart ignore that by pushing so aggressivly for lower cost suppliers, big retailers like WalMart push development into the hinterlands of the 3rd world, especially in China. The discussion is at:
http://alwayslowprices.net/ and I'd be most pleased if you'd add your perspective. Thanks, Dave Meleney

Dave Meleney [bonsaidave1776@aol.com]

2. a reader left...

I'm interested to know your view about Falun Dafa. Is it a government conspiracy or is someone or group actually in fear of an ancient Chinese discipline/philosophy/religion of higher moral and spiritual values?

alex [olde_dominion@yahoo.com]

3. The Angry Chinese Blogger left...

The problem with the meditation group in question (I know it by a different name, maybe there are two?) was that it spoke out against the government and told people that they were right and the government was wrong. This is a very bad thing to do in China. When they openly opposed Beijing and called for change, and held public protests, they caught Beijing’s attention in a big way and brought a lot of what happened afterwards on themselves.

The Chinese government is not actually ‘afraid’ of followers, at least not in the sense that they check under the bed for them every night, but what it is afraid of is that any one group might gain sufficient support among the people for it to become a force for change or that it might cause people to question the way that the government works. I don’t think that it is the values or practices that Beijing doesn’t like, it is that the group is large and disagrees with it over several things

Beijing doesn’t tolerate anybody who disagrees with it and won’t allow groups to build up that could challenge it. It is the same with trade unions and workers’ rights groups as well as pro democracy activists.

If something looks like it could gain public support, and it doesn’t agree with Beijing, then Beijing will act against it.

Unfortunately for this group, they are a ‘religious’ and they are ‘different’ so it is very easy for Beijing to brand them dangerous. China is a very superstitious country and the last couple of generations have grown up with almost no structured religious influences, so it is easier to brand this group based on its meditation activities than by saying it is a counterrevolutionary group or that it is sponsored by a foreign power to destroy China.

There are a lot of horror stories coming out of China about what is happening to followers, don’t believe them all. Yes, bad things are being done, but like any group that is out to promote itself, there are exaggerations involved. Be a sceptic on this and only trust things that are coming out of reputable organizations, e.g. the UN, the Red Cross/Crescent, and Reporters without borders, and not amnesty international or any group that is fundraising based on human rights abuses.

Visit me @ http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/

4. a reader left...

Dear ACB,

I would like to support the view that both you and FYI expressed on the Peking Duck website recently, in response to the "Murder in Mosul" story, baked by Richard on December 21st. What follows is my response to those who try to justify the US occupation of Iraq on what I believe are fraudulent grounds:

Now that the die has been cast, Saddam’s regime deposed and the coalition forces are occupying the country of Iraq, how should we regard those who are still attacking the occupiers who are targeting anyone they consider to be assisting the United States? This seems to me to be what is at the heart of the matter – to be what is at the heart of this debate.

What I am about to argue I suspect will upset and anger many people, but it is a view which many people who regard themselves as humanitarians currently hold, particularly outside of the United States. What I am about to argue is the position held not only by the Noam Chomskys and John Pilgers of this world, but also of so many other observers – “ordinary” people who come from a wide diversity of professions and backgrounds, and whose views can be found printed in large numbers in the letters to the editor section of many of the world’s mainstream newspapers, like The Guardian of London, or The Sydney Morning Herald, and so on. It is the view of Terry Jones (of Monty Python fame) just as it is the view of the majority of people who reside in the Middle East.

What all of these people just mentioned above maintain, and it is what I also maintain, is that the present Iraqi “resistance" is incredibly important and that the world now depends on it to win. If the US military machine and the Bush administration can suffer something like a defeat in Iraq, then they can be stopped – they can be stopped from invading other countries, other possible targets, like Iran or Syria for example.

What we have in Iraq right now is, I suppose, the equivalent of a kind of Vichy Government being set up. And historically, resistance to this type of situation has always been atrocious, has always been bloody. It has always involved terrorism.

You can imagine if Australia or American had been occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War, the kind of resistance there would have been, the kind of terror tactics that would have been employed. We've seen that all over the world. Now, I think the situation in Iraq is so dire that unless the United States is defeated there that we're likely to see an attack on Iran, and possibly even on North Korea, and so I think what happens in Iraq now is incredibly important. It is important for the United States to be defeated in Iraq militarily – and this, I know, is the outcome that most of the world is hoping for.

Let us consider who these “insurgents” really are. Are we talking about the remnants of the Baathist regime, or are we talking about foreign mujahadeen? Are we talking about anyone that's prepared to pick up a gun or to set off a bomb?

We should not, if we wish to remain logical and fair, employ a different standard of looking at what a resistance is in Iraq to anywhere else, as both ACB and FYI have quite rightly already pointed out.

The resistance to the US occupation, which is an illegal occupation, comprises of at least twelve groups. The US corporate media originally tried to tell the world that these “insurgents” were all Saddam remnants for a long time, and yet now that Saddam has been captured, the resistance has actually become intensified.

The truth is this: there are twelve groups, they are all very different, there are groups within the Shia, but what they're all united about, quite clearly, is getting rid of a foreign invader and occupier from their country.

And as I say, historically, be it in Algeria or in Vietnam, or France during the Second World War, it is going to be atrocious and bloody.

Now, are these resistance fighters all Baathists, as j.j., another contributor to the Peking Duck website, has already tried to convince us of?

Well, there's a great irony here because what the United States is doing right now is retraining, or rather rehiring, 10,000 of Saddam Hussein's most vicious security people. The CIA are training these people to actually put the finger on who the resistance are, so what you have going on in Iraq now is a kind of re-Nazification, the same sort of thing that went on in Germany after the Second World War. Noam Chomsky for one, has commented quite of a lot on this of late, and many others too, all of whom support this assertion with the weight of strong empirical evidence.

Many people might question the legitimacy of these resistance fighters to target young Iraqi men queuing up to join the Iraqi police. But once again, historically, all resistance movements have said if you're going to collaborate, then you are a target.

Now of course, the killing of innocent people can't be condoned under any circumstances, but in all resistances, it happens. And these young Iraqi men, who are out to join this Gestapo-like police force, are not really all that innocent are they? – in fact, they are among some of the most vicious people one could hope never to encounter.

The United States has singled out all of Saddam Hussein's top security and intelligence people. He ran one of the most effective security, yes, Gestapo’s in the Middle East. They've taken them and these people are now training 10,000, paid for by the CIA, to effectively do for the Americans what they did for Saddam Hussein.

Now, am I saying that those Iraqi men, who line up outside of police stations looking to be recruited to get a job in what is clearly a dire economic climate, are legitimate targets? The answer is no, I'm not saying they are legitimate targets. But, to a resistance, they are legitimate targets, yes.

But the resistance is nevertheless a resistance which I think we all depend upon. If the rest of us watching this war, those of us who worry about what a rampant United States is going to do next - and we should all be worried about that (Americans especially) - then we need to ask ourselves, and millions of people all over the world have asked themselves - how can that be stopped?

Well, one place where it is going to be stopped, or at least entrapped, or something will deter it, is, unfortunately, and I repeat unfortunately, in Iraq, because although Americans will be killed, most of the people killed are going to be Iraqis, and that is also what happened in Algeria and in Vietnam - especially in Vietnam.

O.K. I can already hear the protests of many! How can I possibly say, effectively, that the rest of the world now must depend upon a resistance which is prepared to send a truck bomb into the United Nations, which is prepared to bomb civilians who are celebrating on their holiest day in holy cities like Karbala, who is prepared to send suicide bombers to kill US soldiers while they’re sitting in a tent eating their lunch? How can I possibly take this line?

Well, look, let make one thing very clear here. I most certainly do not want to see American or British solders killed in Iraq. What happened to those soldiers in Mosul for example, while they were sitting in their tent eating their lunch, represents not only a terrible tragedy for those individuals, in that their lives have been sadly cut short, but of course it is also a terrible tragedy for their families and friends, and it is a terrible loss and tragedy for America; for the world even. But it is equally tragic when Iraqi civilians are blown to pieces by falling bombs while they are sitting in their homes, eating their meals. A few months ago, researchers writing for The Lancet (the world’s most prestigious medical journal) estimated that at least “100,000 Iraqi civilians” have died as a result of either US bombing or of having been caught up in the crossfire.

The litany above is truly awful and horrifying, yes. But you cannot fail to miss the source of all this violence. And the source of all this is the invasion and occupation itself, an unprovoked and illegal invasion and occupation, and a bloody one, by the US and Britain which has caused the deaths of, in the latest conservative estimate, of 100,000 Iraqi civilians - which is right now causing the deaths every month of an estimated 1,000 children from cluster bombs, which is causing the most pervasive contamination from a variety of toxic weapons such as depleted uranium - which will go on destroying people's lives for generations to come.

This is the source - this is the main violence in Iraq. Surely nobody can seriously try to argue against that.

I mean, sure, there is all of this horrific violence that is occurring against anyone who is perceived to be in any way supporting the US occupation, but all of this violence is a reaction to the occupation. We need to look more at the source of all of this violence, and that, quite clearly, as I just said above, is the US invasion and occupation itself.

I’m not saying that two wrongs make a right. I’m not suggesting that anybody ought to rise to the call of a revengeful God. And I know what you might be thinking – that there are other forms of resistance. There is peaceful resistance, to start with. Mahatma Ghandi did not resort to bombing, right?

But tell me - how do you mount a peaceful resistance to an invading force, which Human Rights Watch a few months ago described as out of control, as rapacious, which has bought a kind of murderous street fighting, which killed, in their ‘Shock and Awe’, up to 55,000 people? – and that occurred before the real occupation even began!

Robert Fisk, the independent correspondent, claims that something like between 500 to 1,000 Iraqis are killed indirectly as a result of the American presence every week in that country.

Now, how can anybody say that they should all just sit down in the middle of the street and say to the Americans: "Sorry! But you must go."

At any rate, there are also a lot of people actually opposing the US occupation peacefully, but this is never reported. It is deliberately censored. If you follow the reports of many of the human rights observers in Baghdad, you will read that there is an enormous amount of peaceful resistance going on, but on the other side of the resistance - and it's one resistance - there is also fire being fought with fire.

I’m not saying that I approve of this method of fighting fire with fire. In fact, I can't approve of, under any circumstances, the killing of innocent people.

But you have to understand why it happens.

American and British troops who are in the occupying forces, are for the resistance, legitimate targets (regardless of whether they are eating their lunch or not) because the American and British troops are illegally occupying their country. Any foreign occupier of a country, military occupier, be they Germans in France, Americans in Vietnam, the French in Algeria, wherever, the Americans in Latin America, I would have thought, from the point of view of the local people - be they Americans in America - if America had been invaded and occupied by the Japanese, then the occupying forces, from the point of view of the people of that country, are legitimate targets.

Richard – I’m sorry, but I just cannot accept your view that the United States has invaded and is occupying Iraq “for noble purposes”. Very few Iraqis will see it this way, and I can assure you, that most people throughout the rest of the world do not see it this way either. The attack on Iraq had been long planned. There just isn't an excuse for it. Since George H.W. Bush failed to unseat Saddam in 1991, there's been a longing among the extreme right in the United States to finish the job. The war on terrorism (fuelled by September 11) gave them that opportunity. The logic provided by Bush and Blair for this war of course, is convoluted and fraudulent.

The United States (with help from Britain and Australia) invaded Iraq so that it could further secure for the developed world the flow of oil from that country, and they wish to occupy it for quite some time so they can establish a system of government that they can be confident will protect their corporate interests. They are most definitely not out to introduce any real democracy to the people of Iraq. If they were, then they wouldn’t be trying to replace Saddam Hussein with somebody similar. The current regime in Washington also wants to make certain that all of the lucrative reconstruction deals that they have awarded mostly to US companies, are actually going to be able to reach fruition. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is all about plunder. Nothing else. I see nothing “noble” in this Richard.

And Richard, even if the United States really did invade Iraq with such “noble” intentions as to introduce to them glorious “democracy”, then so what? They nevertheless have no right to do so – legally, or morally. This idea that you can justify an invasion of another country as part of a civilizing mission to introduce to them “democracy” is an outrageous one, and one which most of the world is quite rightly horrified by and concerned about. I have already mentioned elsewhere on this website just how stupid and unrealistic is the idea of being able to implant a Western-style parliamentary democracy by force into a developing country which has no history of such democratic traditions, and which for centuries, has been governed by a series of tribal clans based around religious and ethnic identities. The sheer arrogance of the Bush administration is both frightening and dangerous, as is their level of stupidity and ignorance.

Finally, I need to comment in support of something else that FYI has quite rightly noted: that “self-righteousness and American exceptionism are the key factors that contributed to Bush’s re-election and to the mess that is seen in today’s Iraq.”

We all know that corporate journalism in the United States preaches "objectivity" and scorns those who take the side of the dispossessed and disenfranchised. But the mainstream media in Britain, which is noticeably less censored than in the United States, makes for a few allowances. As I said early on in this piece, the argument that I have expressed here is common to the pages of The Guardian and The Independent in Britain, and to the pages of The Sydney Morning Herald, and in the mainstream newspapers of Canada and New Zealand and no doubt many other countries too. But I doubt whether any of America’s mainstream newspapers would print, on their front pages, articles that would dare to suggest that the Iraqi “insurgents” ought to be viewed instead as “freedom fighters.”

Like something out of George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth, journalistic “adjudicators” working for such organizations as the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the US tend to censor such viewpoints. No wonder then, that so many Americans have had their emotions and viewpoints so heavily manipulated on such issues as the Iraqi War and occupation. No wonder then, that so many Americans are duped into believing that they are in Iraq with “noble” intentions. The images that America’s corporate media displayed to the world of smiling Iraqis cheering them on with flowers throughout the early days of the occupation was a totally unconvincing piece of propaganda – a small minority only, who turned out to welcome on the arrival of US tanks, blown up and sensationalised to help legitimate the illegitimate.

When US soldiers are killed by suicide bombers, the good folks back home are encouraged to empathise and to sympathise, but when Iraqi civilians are killed in their homes while eating their dinners by falling US bombs, well, such tragedies and atrocities are barely even mentioned. People certainly are not encouraged to empathise with such victims. In fact, when Iraqi civilians die at the hands of the US military, they are often dismissed as “collateral damage.” The pilots who drop these weapons that kill and maim innocent civilians while they’re sitting in their homes are never labelled as “terrorists”. Nor are the politicians in Washington who are responsible for orchestrating such war crimes.

Enough of the dangerous ignorance. Enough of the inexcusable evangelical arrogance. And enough of the double standards.

Best Regards,
Mark Anthony Jones

Mark Anthony Jones [majones03au@hotmail.com]

5. The Angry Chinese Blogger left...

The thread and it has been re opened it so that you can reply. I want to close this thread now, so please don’t bring up anything new or controversial. I understand what you are trying to convey and why there are such strong feelings, and I don’t deny Japanese atrocities; I just don’t want this to become a forum for discussing them. It’s far too emotional an issue, and when tempers flair it’s impossible to have a civil thread.

I closed the thread because comments that include Japanese people were taught that they were the victims; make me angry, because they aren’t. Only a minority of right wing people actually believe that Japan had any right to do what it did.

I wanted the thread to be solely about the shrine and I made this clear at the end of the article, I was looking for educated replies on whether it was right or wrong to target people en mass to get at the real criminals and similar ideas. I let the thread run because people were remaining civil, when that stopped, the thread stopped.

I have a very good understanding of the China-Japan situation, though my view is that China is not going about things the right way if it wants to promote reconciliation. A calm approach from China is more likely to get a constructive approach from Japan.

Visit me @ http://angrychineseblogger.blog-city.com/

6. a reader left...

My eyes are hurting, the font is so tiny. Is there a way to make the font bigger. It looks like this might be an interesting blog, but the font it is about 4 point on my computer screen at 1600x1200 resolution. Problably looks fine on an 800x600 screen, though.

Coincidence Theorist

7. a reader left...

My blog pretty much set for 1020*768 user. You can however tell internet explorer to enlarge the fonts for you automatically. Look for text size under the view menu.

I actually use a 10pt font most of the time, which might be a bit hard to read on a high definition screen.

ACB

8. a reader left...

check out what this blog has to say about a certain Chinese ambassodor's comments.. http://blog.pff.org/
read: Declaration of Very Few Principles

Chazz

9. The Angry Chinese Blogger left...

Cheers for the heads up, but I think that China has an ulterior motive on this.

China has been clambering for its own DNS server for years, these servers are a vital part of the internet as they convert between machine generated addresses and human readable addresses, and tell computers where to look on the web.

If China had a DNS server, it wouldn’t need its to use IP hijacking etc any more to keep people off of ‘unhealthy’ web sites, it could simple corrupt the DNS list on its server, and automatically redirect people on the Chinese side anywhere they wanted tem to go.

Instead of simply presenting people with a file 404 error, a Chinese DNS could redirect a user to a page that logs their IP address and location, or that tricks them into thinking that they are at one site, when they are in fact at another.

China shouldn’t be allowed to get its claws into the internet. The pressure that China could excert would be a serious impediment to the freedom of the net, particularly since there are so many Chinese internet users and since much of the world is looking to trade with China.

Just look at the debacle with Google, it sold out on freedom of speech to get a piece of te Chinese search engine market and kowtowed to Chinese demands to prevent users from searching firewalled websites.

Do you want to see China being able to do this through a world organization?

10. The Angry Chinese Blogger left...

Cheers for the heads up, but I think that China has an ulterior motive on this.

China has been clambering for its own DNS server for years, these servers are a vital part of the internet as they convert between machine generated addresses and human readable addresses, and tell computers where to look on the web.

If China had a DNS server, it wouldn’t need its to use IP hijacking etc any more to keep people off of ‘unhealthy’ web sites, it could simple corrupt the DNS list on its server, and automatically redirect people on the Chinese side anywhere they wanted tem to go.

Instead of simply presenting people with a file 404 error, a Chinese DNS could redirect a user to a page that logs their IP address and location, or that tricks them into thinking that they are at one site, when they are in fact at another.

China shouldn’t be allowed to get its claws into the internet. The pressure that China could excert would be a serious impediment to the freedom of the net, particularly since there are so many Chinese internet users and since much of the world is looking to trade with China.

Just look at the debacle with Google, it sold out on freedom of speech to get a piece of te Chinese search engine market and kowtowed to Chinese demands to prevent users from searching firewalled websites.

Do you want to see China being able to do this through a world organization?

11. Sarah Smith left...

Dear ACB,
Since I cannot send you e-mail, I'm sharing this article with you this way. I just had to pass it on, it made me sad and angry and horrified all at once.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A64486-20 05Mar24?language=printer

12. The Angry Chinese Blogger left...

I agree that this story is truly heartbreaking, and I feel deeply for the family involved. Not only have they lost their daughters, but they have been denied peace of mind as well.

I have no personal experience or background information on this case, but it is a tragedy, and it sounds all too plausible given Chinese thinking.

Thank you for forwarding the link.

13. THM left...

How the hell do I send you an email?

Visit me @ http://thehorsesmouth.blog-city.com

14. Sarah Smith left...

I have often wanted to send you email also, but my guess is that you wish to maintain privacy. Sometimes there is a comment I'd like to make to you, but not publicly.

Visit me @ http://www.journalscape.com/rhubarb/

15. a reader left...

The Chinese govt is behaving in a totalitarian fashion. Also remember they supported the genocidal Khmer Rouge and are in away responsible for the dath of over 2 million Cambodians. Anybody wanting to know more about it, I am willing to mail a free VCD of the 1984 movie "The Killing Fields". Let me know.

Nathan Daniels [nathandaniels@consultant.com]

16. a reader left...

Wow!

I normally avoid blogs like the plague, but this one rules!

I represent an active online forum full of members I thought were pretty jaded about China...until I came to this site. I am awed and impressed.

A member pointed us to this site. It's going on our Links page, and I'm going to register if I can find a way to do so...

Wow.

Raoul
Raoul's China Expat Saloon
http://chinateachers.proboards17.com/index.cgi

Raoul [spamjiaozi@yahoo.com]

17. joeching left...

MONKEY ON MAO BACK

There has been a monkey on China's back for the last 200 years. Mao has finally took it upon himself to carry the monkey on his own back. During the Long March, the monkey's pet dogs chased Mao for 25 thousand miles. After finally pushed the dogs to an offshore resort island, Mao had to face the monkey himself head on in Korea and Vietnam. He finally outlasted the monkey's patient through querilla warfare and by keep the country in a state of constant vigil for future harassment by the monkey. He called his programs the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. These programs were mistaken as economic disasters. But they finally achieve their purpose in get the monkey off China's back, making the sufferings all worthwhile.

The little white ping-pong ball cracked open the nuclear fence around gorilla land. At Tzung Tse Tong's initiative but all other clueless Chineses and Chinese diplomats' objections, Mao finally received the long awaited message that the monkey is going to jump off China's back. And the rest is history.

But the monkey is still on Korea's and Japan's backs. The terrorama in Iraq presents a good opportunity to get it off their backs,too, so they could reactivate the millineum effort of Asian unification under the common Asian values. The world is counting on a new traditional Asia to lead us out of the doomsday quagmire.

18. ACB left...

I'm pretty certain that I detect both the use of sarcasm and word substitution here. Unfortunatey my English obviously isn't good enought to detect quite what this comment is actually getting at. Me thinks its anti America though.

I wonder our dear monkey is currently a republican.

19. JG22 left...

To the last poster: Let's see if I can word it a little better for you (no sarcasm here). He's basically denouncing the Oil Wars of President Select Bush the Chimp, saying they're Imperialist in nature, and that we also brought some money into the construction industry by bombing the living daylights out of a few cities (still doesn't compare to what Churchill did to Germany, in my opinion). He also says that the media is lying to you about it (what it's lying about depends on which political doctrine you've sold your soul to), and that it's all for *gasp* POLITICAL GAIN.

Hope this cleared everything up.

20. ACB left...

I studied European history for a while and even visited some of the battle sites there, so I know pretty well that both Churchill and the US administration engaged in blanket carpet bombing of axis cities, I also know all too well that the US delighted in firebombing Japanese cities and vietnames villages.

As for the reconstruction, Britian was firt poor after 5 years of war, much of the reconstruction money (including a good portion of that used to reconstruct Churchill's country) came form the US.

The again, the way that America said that only those who supported the Iraq war would be allowed to bid for prime contracts to rebuild was a very low move indeed.

21. JG22 left...

Oh, dang, man, I was referencing to Mark Anthony Jones' comment. Sorry. Ignore the above post. It was the "I wonder our dear monkey is currently a republican." that threw me off.

22. ACB left...

OK ......

MAJ is a bit of a marxist and a complete loose canon. he has been banned from about a million and one blogs in the last few months after launching a hate campaign against a PR executive who he fell out with. MAJ is now using Chinese government sites to spread had mail against aid PR guy. You'd do best not to engage MAJ, this is one of the comments of his that I've allowed to stay on my blog because I have no reason to dump it, but the righter is coockoo.

23. Debashish left...

Hi, Unbale to find an email ID I am writing this as a comment. I publish and online blogzine called Nirantar in Hindi. We would like to feature the state of Chinese bloggers in our forthcoming issue and would like to have your comments and interview for the same. If you can agree to this would be glad. Can you pl email us to patrikaa @ gmail dot com, if this interests you to enable us to send you questions.

Thanks

24. Hamish McIlwraith left...

Thanks for your comment on my blog, ACB. An interesting question you posed. I am not in the least surprised that your Chinese friends see cities as being the future of China, and that your foreign friends prefer the countryside.

I can answer your question very easlity. I empathise with your Chinese friends. My parents' background in Scotland is from the Gaelic speaking community in the Outer Hebrides. When I was young, we visited my mother's family every year. Forty years ago, there was no electricity, we relied on water from the local loch. The roads were potholed and sometimes impassable.

It was even less developed when my mother was young. She grew up in an old 'Black House' (so named because the soot from the fire bellowed into the house before finding its way out of the small chimney in the centre of the roof). A neighbour in the adjoining croft had divided his house: one side for the people and one side for the beasts. Growing up, my mother's generation had a basic education in the local school. She walked three miles to lessons and three miles back. It was there she first started to learn English; at home she spoke Gaelic. Life was hard.

Life in the Islands is totally different now. The Black Houses are now museums. The roads are good. Everyone has electricity. The schools, hospitals and local government services (aprticularly for the elderly population) are excellent. But the visitors, say: "Oh, what a shame that the 'real' Island life has gone! There are no more 'real' Island people." This is rubbish, of course.

I agree with your Chinese friends. Life for many (though certainly far, far from all) is so much better than forty years ago - and even when I first went there twenty years ago. And I say that that's great. The day they pulled down the last hovel of a Black House was a wonderful day for the Highlands.

I was very familiar with the opinions that some of your foreign friends have. The people I knew had a highly romanticised vision of China. They wanted pagodas and happy peasants in the fields set against the picturesque views of Yangshao and Guilin.

But would they really want to live like some of the people I saw in the poorest villages and hamlets? Not a chance. No-one has the right to expect millions of people to continue to live in poverty just for the sake of preserving an illusion in the heads of unthinking outsiders.

25. Martin Ruddell left...

I would like to reply to the detailed comment by M A Jones concerning the situation in Iraq. I acknowledge that the passing of time allows me a different viewpoint.

In general, I would agree with the idea that the USA is far too willing to invade foreign countries. I recall feeling unsettled when they went in to get Noriega.

It may well be that the reason "dubya" went into Iraq was simply a deepseated need to finish a fight his father had started.

In my opinion, the USA is now less likely to invade North Korea for two reasons. One, the citizens of the USA are losing their wllingness to do so perhaps exactly because of the insurgency in Iraq; and Two, because the Chinese government has opted to attempt to negotiate. I doubt any further escalation of that situation unless Beijing washes it's hands of it.

Back to Iraq. The difficulty now, in my opinion, is the insurgency. The US does not wish to remain there. It may be simplistic of me, but are they not trying to rebuild infrastructure, train a police force, and facilitate self-government? Would there not be some benefit from calling a truce? The needed work could proceed without wasting money on "security", and the troops would depart sooner. The insurgents could join in the effort to rebuild while maintaining a public relations campaign critical of the invasion. Would that not be more productive than fanning the fire?

26. Kam left...

Hi, Can you write something on the Sino-Indian relationship especially pertaining to the 1962 border war? If you read India newspaper nowadays, you will find that the Indian believes the PRC stole their land (asai chin). I want to hear your take on this.

27. Question left...

I still haven't understood why China would view NK as an opponent. They are potentially each other's greatest ally in terms of location and idology.

On a different Note, why do people look up to Americans to solve problems? It's because of this that our Congress and President drag us into random countries and kill people. I would love to say, forget them, let's just build up a humongous nuclear deterrent and obliterate the middle east next time anything goes down. Americans live in a capitalist society, but the people's ability to influence public policy is comparable to that of any other population.

28. ACB left...

China doesn't really see NK as an opponent, but more as a liability. China is bound by its past decisions to support NK, but it is afraid that NK will become a source of regional instability and that it will bring trouble to China's doorstep.

Imaging if NK collapsed or went to war, the very first thing that would happen would be the assemblance of America's Pacific fleet right on China's doorstep. China doesn't want this. Equally, China doesn't want NK to collapse in on itself because it would bring a flood of NK refugees into China, and would bring White peacekeepers (Who esle? Certainly not Japanese and no Asia nation could do it on their own) into a county with a land border within spitting distance of Beijing.

29. ACB left...

"why do people look up to Americans to solve problems?"

1) Because America has a seat on the UNSC 2) Because America has a large army and the economic power to force a sollution 3) Because they also look up to many other countries such as the EU, Russia and so on, but you only hear about them looking up to America on Fox.