60 years of communist china

[Jimbeaux]

superkartracer said:

Talking with a few Chinese friends today (i have business interests that import from China) work stops from 1st to 9th Oct, they all get pissed up and have some fun, they seem more than happy with life and are very positive people, unlike 99% the UK! now why is that?

These are highly intelligent people that live there, have the option too live abroad but don't.

I'll take their word rather than what you read in the media.

EFA:

"These are the priviledged few that live there; the rest have no option too live abroad."

[Jimbeaux]

yli said:

superkartracer said:

Talking with a few Chinese friends today (i have business interests that import from China) work stops from 1st to 9th Oct, they all get pissed up and have some fun, they seem more than happy with life and are very positive people, unlike 99% the UK! now why is that?

These are highly intelligent people that live there, have the option too live abroad but don't..

I'll take their word rather than what you read in the media.

The thing is people like your friends who have a option to live in China or abroad are very likely to belong to the privilleged class(not all of them but I am pretty sure to say the majority of them). Why would they want to live abroad when in China rules can be bent for their interests or advantage can be gained over other people?

It was reported a while ago that over 70 percent of the warefare is controlled by only 0.4 percent of the Chinese population and nearly 91 percent of them are familiy members of high rank officials of the communist party. This reporst was later to be dimissed and banned in China.

We understand that Yli; Superkartracer is obviously easily blinded by other's light. You hang in there my friend.

Edited by Jimbeaux on Friday 2nd October 02:12

[Jimbeaux]

Frankeh said:

China = worlds new superpower.

So it seems that communism kind of does work sometimes.

Yet another stupid statement. You are consistent, I will give you that.

[T89 Callan]

I can't be the only one who enjoyed the women in the big parade slightly too much.....

[XJSJohn]

yli said:

I drive a Ford focus manufactured by a joint venture. The drive is good but the quality is not.

off topic but interesting ... so a China built focus.

we get a lot of China made Geeley's and Chery's here so wonder if the Focus' on the road are China or European made...

[superkartracer]

Jimbeaux said:

yli said:

superkartracer said:

Talking with a few Chinese friends today (i have business interests that import from China) work stops from 1st to 9th Oct, they all get pissed up and have some fun, they seem more than happy with life and are very positive people, unlike 99% the UK! now why is that?

These are highly intelligent people that live there, have the option too live abroad but don't..

I'll take their word rather than what you read in the media.

The thing is people like your friends who have a option to live in China or abroad are very likely to belong to the privilleged class(not all of them but I am pretty sure to say the majority of them). Why would they want to live abroad when in China rules can be bent for their interests or advantage can be gained over other people?

It was reported a while ago that over 70 percent of the warefare is controlled by only 0.4 percent of the Chinese population and nearly 91 percent of them are familiy members of high rank officials of the communist party. This reporst was later to be dimissed and banned in China.

We understand that Yli; Superkartracer is obviously easily blinded by other's light. You hang in there my friend.

Edited by Jimbeaux on Friday 2nd October 02:12

Jim - read some of the posts on here -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/a...

[excersizer]

XJSJohn said:

yli said:

I drive a Ford focus manufactured by a joint venture. The drive is good but the quality is not.

off topic but interesting ... so a China built focus.

we get a lot of China made Geeley's and Chery's here so wonder if the Focus' on the road are China or European made...

I would imagine that they are European, and the China built ones are for domestic use only?

[yli]

excersizer said:

XJSJohn said:

yli said:

I drive a Ford focus manufactured by a joint venture. The drive is good but the quality is not.

off topic but interesting ... so a China built focus.

we get a lot of China made Geeley's and Chery's here so wonder if the Focus' on the road are China or European made...

I would imagine that they are European, and the China built ones are for domestic use only?

Yes. Foreign car manufacturers are not allowed to build cars solely by themselves unless they form a joint venture with a Chinese partner. I believe most of their products are bought by domestic consumers.

[XJSJohn]

yli said:

excersizer said:

XJSJohn said:

yli said:

I drive a Ford focus manufactured by a joint venture. The drive is good but the quality is not.

off topic but interesting ... so a China built focus.

we get a lot of China made Geeley's and Chery's here so wonder if the Focus' on the road are China or European made...

I would imagine that they are European, and the China built ones are for domestic use only?

Yes. Foreign car manufacturers are not allowed to build cars solely by themselves unless they form a joint venture with a Chinese partner. I believe most of their products are bought by domestic consumers.

i.e. someone who does nothing except take the money - a nice little earner for party memebers.

They have similar in Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia (and others i am sure) too!

[excersizer]

yli, I've somehow gotten the impression that Chinese people are nationalistic and very proud of their country. How true is this?

[yli]

superkartracer said:

Jimbeaux said:

yli said:

superkartracer said:

Talking with a few Chinese friends today (i have business interests that import from China) work stops from 1st to 9th Oct, they all get pissed up and have some fun, they seem more than happy with life and are very positive people, unlike 99% the UK! now why is that?

These are highly intelligent people that live there, have the option too live abroad but don't..

I'll take their word rather than what you read in the media.

The thing is people like your friends who have a option to live in China or abroad are very likely to belong to the privilleged class(not all of them but I am pretty sure to say the majority of them). Why would they want to live abroad when in China rules can be bent for their interests or advantage can be gained over other people?

It was reported a while ago that over 70 percent of the warefare is controlled by only 0.4 percent of the Chinese population and nearly 91 percent of them are familiy members of high rank officials of the communist party. This reporst was later to be dimissed and banned in China.

We understand that Yli; Superkartracer is obviously easily blinded by other's light. You hang in there my friend.

Edited by Jimbeaux on Friday 2nd October 02:12

Jim - read some of the posts on here -

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/a...

The most disgusting piece in that article was the unshameful advocation for personality cult for the political leaders shown by carrying the portrait of those politicians. They ingnored the fact that it was the personality cult for MAO that drove China into the great leapforward movement and starved over 30 million people to death.

The most ironic piece was the democracy float and the slogan that only socialism could save China. I am soon to turn 30 and I've never been given the chance to vote. If socialism is so good(I want to point it out that socialism in China is fundamently different from that in West. Same word but definitely different interpretation.)then why China needs the reforms both economically and politically?

[yli]

XJSJohn said:

yli said:

excersizer said:

XJSJohn said:

yli said:

I drive a Ford focus manufactured by a joint venture. The drive is good but the quality is not.

off topic but interesting ... so a China built focus.

we get a lot of China made Geeley's and Chery's here so wonder if the Focus' on the road are China or European made...

I would imagine that they are European, and the China built ones are for domestic use only?

Yes. Foreign car manufacturers are not allowed to build cars solely by themselves unless they form a joint venture with a Chinese partner. I believe most of their products are bought by domestic consumers.

i.e. someone who does nothing except take the money - a nice little earner for party memebers.

Oh no no no. You exaggerated too much just like some jounalists.

Firstly the purpose of the joint venture is to learn from western companies so hopefully someday in the future Chinese companies could compete against their rivals. It is not the case that someone does nothing except taking the money. Many Chinese workers get trained to learn userful skills. The management people learn how to organise production things and manage the corporation. In a word the Chinese side learn from their partners on every aspects of the modern car manufacturing process. Otherwise you cannot explain how Geeley and Chery(the former is a completely privatilised company) could be able to build cars. Actually the CEO of Chery used to work for a car joint venture and then went on to establish Chery.

Secondly it is not the case that those joint ventures are just a nice little earner for party memebers. Surely there are party members at the top level of those joint ventures. But I would say nowadays they are there just to signify that the party still can exert its influence just like every other important industry and government offices. More like a gesture arrangement. The primary goals of those joint ventures as I said above are to learn from western companies.

Finally I think you made a mistake about the communist party in China. You looked at it through a black or white perspective. Either it is a evil or it is a angel. The real situation is much much more complex. The communist party is more like a mixture of them both. Personally I think it is more an evil than an angel. But that does not mean the party has done nothing correct though.

[XJSJohn]

fair enough, I was relying more on my working experiances with this process in Indonesia and Thailand where 9 / 10 times its just a cash cow or a way to push family companies as the sole supplier etc.

I suppose the other view is the famous reverse engineering situation (or learning how its made ... )

[XJSJohn]

I guess my "nice earner for the party member" comment was more a crack at how the higher levels are actually very "capitalist" in their own way.

Regarding learning lessons from western manufacturers, i know a few Chinese companies that do produce fantastic work at a very high standard and quality, but much of it is all done well but with one step missing, quality control.

Mate of mine has just had to reject $1.5m of preasurised pipe because it was not built to quality specs. (just as well they went and checked themselves before it left the factory)

anyway ... definitely going off topic now!

Edited by XJSJohn on Friday 2nd October 09:23

[RichardD]

XJSJohn said:

...
I suppose the other view is the famous reverse engineering situation (or learning how its made ... )

Are there any intellectual property laws in China currently? If it is still "no" then why any need to learn - just do a straight copy !

[yli]

excersizer said:

yli, I've somehow gotten the impression that Chinese people are nationalistic and very proud of their country. How true is this?

This is a very very complex issue. Personally I think it is probably more suitable to replace nationalistic with patriotism(my understanding of English tells me these two words are slightly different. I may be wrong though). I also think about this issue from time to time and here are my PERSONAL views. I know many Chinese would not agree with me. But here we go.

Patriotism has been with Chinese for god knows how many years. Probably it has been with us since the first day when China as a nation came into being. We got countless literatures, poems and stories on patriotism in our history just like every other nation. There is a well known idiom in Chinese culture which basically says it is every man's responsibility to contribute to the nation's prosperity and every man should be accountable for the decline of the nation(this Chinese idiom is very concise and impressive in Chinese language.My English is not good enough to completely convey its meaning but you get the picture).I believe generations and generations of Chinese have been brought up in this way:a man could and should give everthing he has when his nations needs it because there is nothing more valuable than the nation's interest.

Then it was in the 19th century that China suddenly found itself lagging behind the Europeans. And China learnt it through hard ways: three wars lost to UK, then every main power in the world and in the end lost to Japan as well. After the war some of the parts of China were colonized. Treaty was signed to compensate huge money to the western powers etc. Every horrible and negative things you know about what the imperialism had brought to the locals happened in China at that period of time. China had been defeated by other races before the Europeans came. But never did China found itself at the edge of being destroyed both in terms of military power and culture. In particular culturally destroyed by another culture was very very hard to take because in the past Chinese culture had melted every foreign culture and successfully integrated them. But not this time with the western. It was a time that many believed China reached a critical point of its course: either militarily, economically and culturally become a colonized attachment to the West or the opposite. Since then many intelligent people including the communist party have been striving to achieve the latter. Many things happened and millions of people died for that reason:notably the unprecedented economic and political reforms, half proactive and half being forced, to adopt western ideas only to be ended with bloodshed(some even advocated completely culturally westernizaiton), eight-year war against Japan and then the civil war ended with the communist party took the power.

So how did patriotism come into play during this struggling piece of history? Personnaly I think those humiliating losts to the West reinforced patriotism among Chinese. What else could be better than patriotism to call for a nation to fight? Nagative things about the imperialism of the west powers were taught in history lessons to keep people remembering what would happen if China fails again. Achievements in the long history of Chinese culture were used (in some cases were exaggerated) to demonstrate that China was capable of, is capable of and will be capable of becoming a leading power again. Examples of the distinguished people who fought for China were repeated again and again to remind people that you should sacrifice everthing you have when the nation needs it etc. That is how I was educated. I don't know if things have changed now. But given the history of Chinese culture I doubt it will change.

So my personal view towards the patriotism shown by the Chinese (and in my eyes many of them always mix the patriotism to the nation with the patriotism to the government) is that it is a mixture of long history of culture(generations and generations of people were brought up this way), struggling piece of this nation and a propaganda of the ruling class.

[yli]

XJSJohn said:

I guess my "nice earner for the party member" comment was more a crack at how the higher levels are actually very "capitalist" in their own way.

Regarding learning lessons from western manufacturers, i know a few Chinese companies that do produce fantastic work at a very high standard and quality, but much of it is all done well but with one step missing, quality control.

Mate of mine has just had to reject $1.5m of preasurised pipe because it was not built to quality specs. (just as well they went and checked themselves before it left the factory)

anyway ... definitely going off topic now!

Edited by XJSJohn on Friday 2nd October 09:23

Yes quality control is no good here. I am not an expert on this issue. But I think they are due to the following:

1,China still is a relatively poor nation. Most of the people just cannot afford better quality products because better quality usually means higher price (not necessarily though) and higher price means less sales. As a result affordable price and average quality or even below average level is more suitable than the opposite to meet the consumers' demand.

2, China started the real large scale of industrial production (someting like the industrial revolutino in UK) only after the communist party took the power in 1949 with the help of USSR. So it is really not that long enough for Chinese to get things done correctly. China is still way behind the west and Japanese who started probably two or three hundred years ago?

3, The competition on the supply side is really intense. Coupled with that is the fact that the consumers prefer to purchase cheap products. The result is quality is secondary to price.

[Frankeh]

Jimbeaux said:

Frankeh said:

China = worlds new superpower.

So it seems that communism kind of does work sometimes.

Yet another stupid statement. You are consistent, I will give you that.

China will get there. In 10 years I wont be at all surprised if they're more influential than the USA.

[Spiritual_Beggar]

The one, undeniable FACT about China, depsite the various issues with the country and communism, is this;


They are one of the few with a Positive Cashflow!!! They are the ones WE are borrowing off. They are the ones the US are borrowing off.


I'm not advocating communism, far from it; But it is an interesting position the Chinese find themselves in at the moment....when all the other 'Powers' have huge debts, they are sitting on a very comfortable bank balance.

[RichardD]

Frankeh said:

...China will get there. In 10 years I wont be at all surprised if they're more influential than the USA.

A projection I heard was that if current growth levels are sustained, in 30 years time, the economy of China would be bigger than the USA, Europe and Japan - combined ! But this was an academic (US one actually) speculating ...