Hi, all, I am new to this Board.
I can't finish this discussion at one go, so i will divide it into several parts, and updated as I go.
Also, English is not my first language, please let me know if you need clarification.
Any comments welcome, but not words bashing please.
2008 so far has been a rather busy year for China and the world. Computer screen is filled by big news everyday, sky-rocketing fuel price, 135USD/barel now. Price for Coal, Iron, Gold and all sorts of non-ferrous metals have also gone over the roof like there is no tomorrow. In contrast, US dollar has been enjoying its biggest depreciation, some poor countries kept on getting social-unrest due to the world wide food shortage, and the share market, jumping up and down like a jack-russell gone made.
Among all of these, however, the most significant event so far, has to be the riot in Tibet and the world wide Olympic torch relay for 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, which has ignited the confrontation between two sides, the East and the West. Hysterical western media and deeply angered Chinese people are everywhere, from London to LA, from newspaper to online forums. Honestly, except Africa where it has almost been forgotten and those who living there can keep a cool head, everyone else one this planet has been dragged into this big debat between East and West.
Cold hard facts are so clear and black-and-white, but stance are completely opposite, why? Are we missing something here in this world wide debate? Could it be the different economic environment? What about the distinct social backgrounds? or it's politicians' game again?
ONE, THE EPOCH AND ITS BACKGROUND.
If we zoom out of the history, use time as X-axis, space as Y-axis, it paints a picture of the world we live in.
1. In terms of social system, among the 200 countries in the world, the majority of them uses capitalism and private ownership, only handful of them are under socialism, that number is less than 10. In that large number of capitalist countries, the typical ones are the US, old European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and so on. The countries still in the run and have the prospects to become the next developed capitalist countries include Russia, east European countries, India, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. The rest poor countries in that group, because their social and political structure is not stable and mature enough yet, such as Venezuela, I classify them as the atypical capitalist country.
Socialist countries on the other hand, include China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea, the country in the lead is China. Also, there are a few countries in the apparent transition to socialism, such as Laos, and Mongolia. Having said that, based on Marx's theory though, China and Vietnam can no longer be categorized as socialist country anymore, so I think there are only atypical socialist country left in the world.
Apart from the two major camps I mentioned above, the rest countries on this planet have all sorts of strange social systems, monarchy, stratocracy, tribalism or the mix of many. These countries has absolutely no say in the world's current affair, as known as "no rights of speech", I will neglect them in this discussion.
2. In terms of ideology, we can divide the world into 3 camps too. The capitalism camp, lead by the US and Europe. The communism camp, lead by China. The rest are what I call "fence-sitter" type, where the 3rd world countries are. Judging by the current state, the capitalism camp has reached its peak, its political influence and economic dominance is felt everywhere. The socialism camp has been having very hard times in the global battle with the opposition, their influence is weakening from the aggressive attacks of the capitalism camp, and their lives have been made extremely difficult as the result. As for the "fence-sitter", they are a big mess. They don't really care about building a peaceful, modern and powerful country, and they have no idea how to achieve that either. There is no hope for their people, they are boats in the sea with no direction to follow, tomorrow is just another day for them.
3. In terms of economic development, there are also 3 camps. Camp one, including 30 to 40 odd countries(excluding those dependent on selling natural resource), leaded by the US, average GDP per person exceeds 10000 USD, with population of 700 to 800 million. Camp two, representatives are the likes of BRICs, average GDP per person is circa 800 USD. There are 80 to 90 of them world wide with population of 3 to 4 billion. The rest are the poorest 3rd world countries in Africa and Asia, with population of 1 to 2 billion.
4. The last, but also the most important, in terms of civilization and culture, apart from many tiny indigenous culture world wide who are lingering out a living like a candle in the wind, the majority of the world is still in 3 camps. Christian civilization lead by the US and Europe, Islamic civilization lead by the Arabic countries and the Confucianism and Buddhism civilization lead by China and Thai. Islam is the typical wolf-like culture, they are about using violence aginst violence, whereas Confucianism and Buddhism is the typical sheep-like culture, they are about using kindness against resentment. Christian civilization, if only talking about the US and Europe, it basically can be described as wolf in the sheep skin - you were sold by them without even knowing it.
The 4 points above gave a rough outline of today's world. 20 years ago, Deng Xiaoping concluded that peace and development is the target of the era. Over this long period, the target has always been in the process of quantitative change little by little, that is until now, in the Spring of 2008, under the effect of a series political and economic developments inside and outside China, it has become more and more apparent that the target that Xiaoping outlined 20 years ago is going to have a qualitative change. Ideology, racial, class, civilization and all sorts other conflicts have surfaced spontaneously like balloon, the world has never been so un-peaceful.
So, is this the end of peace and development?
Although there is no easy answer to it, the complex and intertwining relationship and conflicts between countries have been the source of many potential conflict and even full-scale warfare, casting its shadow all over this planet. Towards the end of last century, in the late 60s and 70s, there has been hardly any voice against war on other country. The US and European people has never been more belligerent like now. For what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and so on, honestly, are they really war of justice? Why did so many western people give their support to the government to wage the war on foreign soil?
Now is year 2008, like it or not, war threat has moving fast towards Asia. The conflicts between the east and west have jumped to the top of the world's trouble list. Among that, boss of the east, China, and the boss of the west, the US, do not live together in any of the camps that I listed above. The conflicts between them are so sharp and intense that they will never be able to live next to each other. It's fair to say that the trouble between China and the US will remain as the trouble of the world, that will unfortunately be the case for a very long time.
So far, east and west conflicts have been observed in many layers. On the outer-most layer, it's economic conflict. The manifestation is competition in market, technology and productivity. One layer down is the political conflict with manifestation of democracy, human-rights, freedom and so on. If even deeper, you get conflict in ideology, that's about capitalism or socialism. The deepest layer, which is ofter rather obscure to see, the conflict between civilization. When you are arguing with a westerner or an easterner, and none of you can convince the other, and both of you call the other "brain-washed", that's most likely from the conflict between civilization.
So it seems impossible to reconcile the conflicts, now what?
TWO, CONFLICTS BETWEEN CHINA AND THE WESTERN COUNTRIES.
It starts from the different view of ideology. In China, it's the Communist Party that runs the government, following the lines of socialism, its next state will be communism, which is completely opposite to what the western countries are having - capitalism. Now, Marx had told the world 100 years ago in black and white, that proletariat will be the grave digger for bourgeois and capitalism will be replaced by communism. While that replacement taking place, it is not going to be peaceful, violence will certainly be involved. This is a fight for life, it's an either you or me type of thing. So no wonder why those capitalist countries have been taking such a good care of it since the first communist movement appears in the public. They have been tirelessly attacking communism since it was born, it's fair to say that as long as the last communist country still exist on this planet, the western countries will never rest in peace.
Next, if we look at the issues more specifically, it's clear that if the conflict in ideology can be concluded as the conflict in the way of living, then the conflict in economic development should be concluded as the conflict in territory. Unfortunately, China again has taken the opposition against the US and other western countries. This is a very long topic, but long story short, the limited resource on earth is not enough to give everyone high standard of living. In another words, everyone wants to live like the Americans do, that's a good idea, but our planet can't handle that much demand on the resource.
So, since Americans love the earth so much, they said let's divided entire human race into several levels. Because western countries have become so much developed than you Chinese, we get to live in the top class. There are so many of you Chinese, you get to live in the low class, you Chinese are already used to live in the harsh conditions anyway. Of course, there is nothing wrong with slight improvement on your living quality now and then, we are all humans after all, we should treat everyone with equal chance. But hey, don't even dream to live like us Americans, the planet will be doomed if you do so. Having said that, why did you go after that communism anyway? If your standard goes up, ours will go down. Don't dare me, or I will exclude you from the earth! China say: for what?! How come you get to live like a king but we have to bag for living everyday? I refuse to accept! the US say: OK, looks like someone need to teach you a lesson! China say: come on! Dare out! So there it goes the never ending conflicts. In the early years, China was hiding behind others as lack of confidence and power, whereas in the recent years, she has reluctantly come out to the front stage.
Third, it is to do with big gap between the two civilizations which inevitably determined the unavoidable conflicts. There is an old Chinese saying, as long as you are not one of us, your heart won't be one of us. Regardless which civilization, it always shows its mutual-exclusivity, which means it will either assimilate or destroy. Based on the characters of both civilizations, the chance for assimilation is closing to zero.
China's "sheep" type culture has already assured its peaceful rising, even if China has the absolute advantage, invasive rising will never happen. Throughout Chinese history, only two emperors, Ying Zheng in Qin dynasty and Liu Che in Han dynasty had conquered some states, even that was mainly in the effort to unify and defend the country and the lack of immaturity of Confucianism and Buddhism. When time reaches Ming dynasty, where both Confucianism and Buddhism were highly developed widely spread, it's a different picture. Zheng He, who lead a series of seven naval expeditions across the world, discovered Africa and Australia, 80 years earlier than Colombo. He never thought to acquire the land that was beyond China. In bright contrast to what Zheng He did, many decades later, the era of the Christian naval expedition started. Started off Holland, then it was Spain and Portugal, followed by Britain and France. They were all over the place, burn, kill, rob and prey everywhere they go, they were looting the world. Black Africans were sold world wide as animals boat after boat, local aborigines were slaughted tribe after tribe to their extinction. Now the whites look dignified, gentle and cultivated, but deep down, they are still the same as their ancestors. I don't think this is to do with race, but rather the culture and civilization in which it resides. Alghouth the Christian civilization encourage kindness and suppress violence, it naturally deem human beings are sinful, preaching that it's ok to do bad things and committing crime, as long as you confess everyday, you will be forgiven and you will be in heaven! Isn't that a good encouragement for people to do bad things?
From discussion above, it is clear that the conflicts between the two are fundamental, many westerners have already pointed that out too. Then why didn't it break out until 2008? It all begins with the China's super fast development in recent years.
THREE, CHINA'S FAST DEVELOPMENT IN RECENT YEARS.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
I can't finish this discussion at one go, so i will divide it into several parts, and updated as I go.
Also, English is not my first language, please let me know if you need clarification.
Any comments welcome, but not words bashing please.
2008 so far has been a rather busy year for China and the world. Computer screen is filled by big news everyday, sky-rocketing fuel price, 135USD/barel now. Price for Coal, Iron, Gold and all sorts of non-ferrous metals have also gone over the roof like there is no tomorrow. In contrast, US dollar has been enjoying its biggest depreciation, some poor countries kept on getting social-unrest due to the world wide food shortage, and the share market, jumping up and down like a jack-russell gone made.
Among all of these, however, the most significant event so far, has to be the riot in Tibet and the world wide Olympic torch relay for 2008 Olympic games in Beijing, which has ignited the confrontation between two sides, the East and the West. Hysterical western media and deeply angered Chinese people are everywhere, from London to LA, from newspaper to online forums. Honestly, except Africa where it has almost been forgotten and those who living there can keep a cool head, everyone else one this planet has been dragged into this big debat between East and West.
Cold hard facts are so clear and black-and-white, but stance are completely opposite, why? Are we missing something here in this world wide debate? Could it be the different economic environment? What about the distinct social backgrounds? or it's politicians' game again?
ONE, THE EPOCH AND ITS BACKGROUND.
If we zoom out of the history, use time as X-axis, space as Y-axis, it paints a picture of the world we live in.
1. In terms of social system, among the 200 countries in the world, the majority of them uses capitalism and private ownership, only handful of them are under socialism, that number is less than 10. In that large number of capitalist countries, the typical ones are the US, old European countries, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and so on. The countries still in the run and have the prospects to become the next developed capitalist countries include Russia, east European countries, India, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa. The rest poor countries in that group, because their social and political structure is not stable and mature enough yet, such as Venezuela, I classify them as the atypical capitalist country.
Socialist countries on the other hand, include China, Vietnam, Cuba and North Korea, the country in the lead is China. Also, there are a few countries in the apparent transition to socialism, such as Laos, and Mongolia. Having said that, based on Marx's theory though, China and Vietnam can no longer be categorized as socialist country anymore, so I think there are only atypical socialist country left in the world.
Apart from the two major camps I mentioned above, the rest countries on this planet have all sorts of strange social systems, monarchy, stratocracy, tribalism or the mix of many. These countries has absolutely no say in the world's current affair, as known as "no rights of speech", I will neglect them in this discussion.
2. In terms of ideology, we can divide the world into 3 camps too. The capitalism camp, lead by the US and Europe. The communism camp, lead by China. The rest are what I call "fence-sitter" type, where the 3rd world countries are. Judging by the current state, the capitalism camp has reached its peak, its political influence and economic dominance is felt everywhere. The socialism camp has been having very hard times in the global battle with the opposition, their influence is weakening from the aggressive attacks of the capitalism camp, and their lives have been made extremely difficult as the result. As for the "fence-sitter", they are a big mess. They don't really care about building a peaceful, modern and powerful country, and they have no idea how to achieve that either. There is no hope for their people, they are boats in the sea with no direction to follow, tomorrow is just another day for them.
3. In terms of economic development, there are also 3 camps. Camp one, including 30 to 40 odd countries(excluding those dependent on selling natural resource), leaded by the US, average GDP per person exceeds 10000 USD, with population of 700 to 800 million. Camp two, representatives are the likes of BRICs, average GDP per person is circa 800 USD. There are 80 to 90 of them world wide with population of 3 to 4 billion. The rest are the poorest 3rd world countries in Africa and Asia, with population of 1 to 2 billion.
4. The last, but also the most important, in terms of civilization and culture, apart from many tiny indigenous culture world wide who are lingering out a living like a candle in the wind, the majority of the world is still in 3 camps. Christian civilization lead by the US and Europe, Islamic civilization lead by the Arabic countries and the Confucianism and Buddhism civilization lead by China and Thai. Islam is the typical wolf-like culture, they are about using violence aginst violence, whereas Confucianism and Buddhism is the typical sheep-like culture, they are about using kindness against resentment. Christian civilization, if only talking about the US and Europe, it basically can be described as wolf in the sheep skin - you were sold by them without even knowing it.
The 4 points above gave a rough outline of today's world. 20 years ago, Deng Xiaoping concluded that peace and development is the target of the era. Over this long period, the target has always been in the process of quantitative change little by little, that is until now, in the Spring of 2008, under the effect of a series political and economic developments inside and outside China, it has become more and more apparent that the target that Xiaoping outlined 20 years ago is going to have a qualitative change. Ideology, racial, class, civilization and all sorts other conflicts have surfaced spontaneously like balloon, the world has never been so un-peaceful.
So, is this the end of peace and development?
Although there is no easy answer to it, the complex and intertwining relationship and conflicts between countries have been the source of many potential conflict and even full-scale warfare, casting its shadow all over this planet. Towards the end of last century, in the late 60s and 70s, there has been hardly any voice against war on other country. The US and European people has never been more belligerent like now. For what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and so on, honestly, are they really war of justice? Why did so many western people give their support to the government to wage the war on foreign soil?
Now is year 2008, like it or not, war threat has moving fast towards Asia. The conflicts between the east and west have jumped to the top of the world's trouble list. Among that, boss of the east, China, and the boss of the west, the US, do not live together in any of the camps that I listed above. The conflicts between them are so sharp and intense that they will never be able to live next to each other. It's fair to say that the trouble between China and the US will remain as the trouble of the world, that will unfortunately be the case for a very long time.
So far, east and west conflicts have been observed in many layers. On the outer-most layer, it's economic conflict. The manifestation is competition in market, technology and productivity. One layer down is the political conflict with manifestation of democracy, human-rights, freedom and so on. If even deeper, you get conflict in ideology, that's about capitalism or socialism. The deepest layer, which is ofter rather obscure to see, the conflict between civilization. When you are arguing with a westerner or an easterner, and none of you can convince the other, and both of you call the other "brain-washed", that's most likely from the conflict between civilization.
So it seems impossible to reconcile the conflicts, now what?
TWO, CONFLICTS BETWEEN CHINA AND THE WESTERN COUNTRIES.
It starts from the different view of ideology. In China, it's the Communist Party that runs the government, following the lines of socialism, its next state will be communism, which is completely opposite to what the western countries are having - capitalism. Now, Marx had told the world 100 years ago in black and white, that proletariat will be the grave digger for bourgeois and capitalism will be replaced by communism. While that replacement taking place, it is not going to be peaceful, violence will certainly be involved. This is a fight for life, it's an either you or me type of thing. So no wonder why those capitalist countries have been taking such a good care of it since the first communist movement appears in the public. They have been tirelessly attacking communism since it was born, it's fair to say that as long as the last communist country still exist on this planet, the western countries will never rest in peace.
Next, if we look at the issues more specifically, it's clear that if the conflict in ideology can be concluded as the conflict in the way of living, then the conflict in economic development should be concluded as the conflict in territory. Unfortunately, China again has taken the opposition against the US and other western countries. This is a very long topic, but long story short, the limited resource on earth is not enough to give everyone high standard of living. In another words, everyone wants to live like the Americans do, that's a good idea, but our planet can't handle that much demand on the resource.
So, since Americans love the earth so much, they said let's divided entire human race into several levels. Because western countries have become so much developed than you Chinese, we get to live in the top class. There are so many of you Chinese, you get to live in the low class, you Chinese are already used to live in the harsh conditions anyway. Of course, there is nothing wrong with slight improvement on your living quality now and then, we are all humans after all, we should treat everyone with equal chance. But hey, don't even dream to live like us Americans, the planet will be doomed if you do so. Having said that, why did you go after that communism anyway? If your standard goes up, ours will go down. Don't dare me, or I will exclude you from the earth! China say: for what?! How come you get to live like a king but we have to bag for living everyday? I refuse to accept! the US say: OK, looks like someone need to teach you a lesson! China say: come on! Dare out! So there it goes the never ending conflicts. In the early years, China was hiding behind others as lack of confidence and power, whereas in the recent years, she has reluctantly come out to the front stage.
Third, it is to do with big gap between the two civilizations which inevitably determined the unavoidable conflicts. There is an old Chinese saying, as long as you are not one of us, your heart won't be one of us. Regardless which civilization, it always shows its mutual-exclusivity, which means it will either assimilate or destroy. Based on the characters of both civilizations, the chance for assimilation is closing to zero.
China's "sheep" type culture has already assured its peaceful rising, even if China has the absolute advantage, invasive rising will never happen. Throughout Chinese history, only two emperors, Ying Zheng in Qin dynasty and Liu Che in Han dynasty had conquered some states, even that was mainly in the effort to unify and defend the country and the lack of immaturity of Confucianism and Buddhism. When time reaches Ming dynasty, where both Confucianism and Buddhism were highly developed widely spread, it's a different picture. Zheng He, who lead a series of seven naval expeditions across the world, discovered Africa and Australia, 80 years earlier than Colombo. He never thought to acquire the land that was beyond China. In bright contrast to what Zheng He did, many decades later, the era of the Christian naval expedition started. Started off Holland, then it was Spain and Portugal, followed by Britain and France. They were all over the place, burn, kill, rob and prey everywhere they go, they were looting the world. Black Africans were sold world wide as animals boat after boat, local aborigines were slaughted tribe after tribe to their extinction. Now the whites look dignified, gentle and cultivated, but deep down, they are still the same as their ancestors. I don't think this is to do with race, but rather the culture and civilization in which it resides. Alghouth the Christian civilization encourage kindness and suppress violence, it naturally deem human beings are sinful, preaching that it's ok to do bad things and committing crime, as long as you confess everyday, you will be forgiven and you will be in heaven! Isn't that a good encouragement for people to do bad things?
From discussion above, it is clear that the conflicts between the two are fundamental, many westerners have already pointed that out too. Then why didn't it break out until 2008? It all begins with the China's super fast development in recent years.
THREE, CHINA'S FAST DEVELOPMENT IN RECENT YEARS.
[TO BE CONTINUED]
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