It is only naïve US that intentionally does NOT want to see China’s game.

China’s aim is to weaken US influence as fast and as much as it can.

That is why China continues to prop up North Korean regime while pretending to work with US on containing North Korea’s nuclear program when it is China that helped created that North Korean nuclear program to begin with. Afterall North Koreans are NOT geniuses who can invent nuclear triggers or ballistic missiles. Pakistan and North Korea would NOT have dared to swap Pakistan’s uranium enrichment technology for North Korea’s Chinese ballistic missile technology if China would have strongly objected since China is an indispensable ally of both.

So China will engage with US on its own terms. China is NO pushover like India that US can pressure to achieve its political goals.

An earnest second cold war has already begun even if US and China do NOT want to acknowledge it. Creditor China has a upper hand against debtor US in this second cold war unlike the first one between US and Soviet Union.

I think Dr. John Lee of The Centre for Independent Studies is good at deciphering the mind of the Chinese communist leaders. I found his 'Authoritarian China won't bow to US policy' interesting. It is available at http://www.cis.org.au. Unnan City, Japan

The U.S. Government will collapse under the weight of corruption and parasitism by 2035, corresponding with Whites being a minority ethnic group. Treasuries/goods will will be sacked; city-states will emerge protected by private militias.

God help us.

I do admire European’s enlightenment. And I have to admit that Chinese did not create the word “ enlightenment”. I feel sorry about this. But this does not means Chinese were completely ignorant of human reason. If we look at the core of enlightenment, there are number of components around the word:

- There are laws that govern the nature world.
- There are laws that govern human societies, those laws are based on reason, not religion beliefs.
- Human beings should strive for improving their livings constantly according to the laws that govern the human socities.

If we agree on the these core components of enlightenment, I should point out that Taoism(2000 years ago) was the Chinese version of enlightenment. Although Taoism was formulated in an essay style, the core meanings are:

- There are laws of nature and human societies; those laws, even you try to define them, are likely to change over time; even when you write the laws down, the laws could already change already.

- The govermnent should not meddle those laws of nature; The government should let the laws exert their effects.

- One who has muscular strength, can be called powerful; but the one who know himself, is more stronger than the muscular one.
……

I don’t want to repeat those wise observations of human nature. As a Chinese, I have to say: we did made many mistakes, we probably will make mistakes in the future as well; but, we are evil people. There are evil people outside.

Clearthinker1 pooped:
"But some systems like... chinese culture are nowhere close to providing the cultural foundation for democracy."

Taiwan, Hong Kong, and various overseas Chinese communities called.

They want to know why you are so full of crap.

Clearthinking1 pooped:

"That is why the Chinese talk with pride of the methodical destruction of Tibetan culture. They are jealous of the reputation of the Tibetans as a spiritual people."
---
Chinese General 1: "Look at those Tibetans and their meditating. Damn that just pisses me off for some reason."
Chinese General 2: "You think we should, like, invade them or something?"
Chinese General 1: "Yeah, that'll teach them D-bags. Think they're better than us with their postive karma and achieving nirvana and whatnot."
Chinese General 2: "Death to Hippies!"
Chinese General 1: "DEATH TO HIPPIES!"

"The pluralism & tolerance inherent in Hindu culture provided the proper foundation for modern democracy."

India is not a real democracy for obvious reason. Democracy is about empowering people by giving them the right to vote. In India, the ones who vote are the one that are most disenfranchised.

Worse, India is an expansionist country that bullied her neighbors, including China. Listen to this podcast:

http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/podcasts/India_China_Border.mp3

and read up on this link:

http://www.gregoryclark.net/redif.html

Gordon for president and John Lee for prime minister of Australia. This will make us and Australia in a always-win position, at least psychologically.

There is no ambiguity in our basing strategy and interests in keepin North Korea as an excuse to have Korean bases. No ambiguity in ignoring Japanese resistance to our bases. No ambiguity in why we wanted to take over colonial rule of Vietnam. No ambiuguity in why we want to use military relations to spy on their capabilities and no ambiguity in why they could care less.

But China and India is the reason there should be an autonomous Tibet with the Dalai Lama and Tibet as intermediary as the one who really understands them both and the need for a buffer is real. The US will never be that.

chine will be a super power in world sikis

(No matter which REPLY key I click, I don't get the passage to which I'm trying to reply, sooo, here's this separate post....)

When I first arrived in East Asia in 1996, in South Korea, I expected to find, well, South Korea. Finding a Starbucks there didn't change the fact that S Korean culture remains Korean culture. Same for Thailand (which is cursed by having an anticonstitutional/extraconstitutional monarchy) and ever more so presently in the PRC.

As the article above indicates, the Chinese are predictable in their thinking and in their behaviors. The days of the horrible and ugly, cultural and intellectual cliche' of the Chinese/Asians as being "inscrutable" are happily gone, beneficially gone...and gone forever. If anything, the author overstates the abilities of the Chinese to continue to use ambiguity as a principal component of their strategy of dealing with Westerns especially.

While Chinese ambiguity can sometimes remain frustrating, especially to US diplomats and corporate types, the Chinese only fool themselves with their tired old, easily anticipated approaches and thinking. The Chinese continue to regard and treat the foreign devils of the West as if we were the naive Brits just now stepping out of a small craft from our wooden warship anchored in the bay. The Chinese are certain we are stupid - all of us - and can be manipulated and tricked in the same ways the elites of the Middle Kingdom easily have always outsmarted their peasant populations of past millenia (not much of an accomplishment, frankly).

The Chinese elites continue to invent (incredulous) tales and stories to make their point or to try to get we who live and work in the PRC to do as they wish, professionallly or personally. Their tales are immediately recognizable as such. We immediately dismiss such approaches, yet the Chinese don't learn and come back again with another tall tale. The absurd cycle is never ending.

I recall several years ago when Adm. Dennis Blair (ret) and recently of the Obama Administration was CIC of US forces/Pacific. He'd been in Beijing for several days conferencing. At the conclusion of the first day, when he met with the media, Blair was asked what was accomplished. Blair said, "I'm not sure. They talked a lot about animals." The wit and irony of Blair (not to mention sarcasm) went well and far beyond the old "inscrutable" cliche', expressing instead a sophisticated knowledge and understanding of the predictable Chinese mindset and approach to we who are foreign devils.

The Chinese are culturally spent in their tired and predicitable thinking and behaviors in dealing with the West. The hound long ago caught the hare.

But I see you don't, which is something I'll need always to keep in mind in any possible responses to you.

If I see a purpose in referring to the article at the top of the page in any discussion with you, or with anyone else here, I'll continue to do that, thank you. The author's points concerning ambiguity in the PRChina's diplomacy relative to the US is the text. Illuminating discussion of the Chinese anywhere relative to democracy is a relevant but not material subtext. Accordingly, some perspective is suggested.

Moreover, failed attempts at genetics baiting seems to have produced (randomly) the above particular "scolding" of the "white man."

On democracy and religion, Clearthinking is on the mark in many ways, save his belief that the hocus pocus religions of India past or present are positive influences towards democracy there, even on balance. Buddhism from India to Thailand (Theravada) where 95% are Buddhist, intertwined with a decrepit Thai monarchy and hyperactive military has created the the extant dysfunctional Thai state, increasingly violent society and its irreconcilably ominous future. That Indian democracy managed to survive Indira Ganghi's rule by decree is not attributable to religion, which itself eventually killed her.

But the discussion started by Clearthinking on the limitations of Chinese culture, which I responded to, which you voluntarily participated in, is on the topic that is tangential to the main article. The participants (including me) don't have to respond to arguments made not relevant to the discussion at hand.

That being said, you have consistently failed to address any of the points I've made in my previous posts. That culturally sino-centric societies are the only non-white societies to achieve the full definition of modernity. That East Asian societies are identifiably East Asian with some adoption of Western ideals (though you did show a measure of concession on this point in your previous post). The existence of East Asian modernity shoots down Clearthinkings original claims that legalistic, spiritually-deprived Chinese/Confucian culture is incompatible with Western standards. The only other explanation, if it is not the culture, is genetics.

But I guess I will respond to your previous point, because I admire your tenacity. I think the ambiguity of Chinese policies towards the West come from the social and political ambiguity of the PRC itself. Mainland Chinese society is not really Chinese, it is a transitional society. The Chinese world-view is a heterogeneous mix of socialism, capitalism, ethnic nationalism, populism, neo-Confucianism, while trying to escape from the legacy of Marxist-Leninist-Maoism and resist (at least by Party elites) pressures to politically reform. Transitional societies by their nature will be contradictory, which is why China doesn't have a unified message beyond "harmonious society" (translation: "we got to keep this boat from sinking").

Of course there's a lot of Westerners that "get" China, as there's literally millions of books written by "experts" on China and Chinese thinking. And all of them are right. And all of them contradict one another. It's the blind men in a room with an elephant. All these mountains of academic studies and personal anecdotes of China, and the legion experts on China, have not translated into a consistent and quantifiable policy towards China. No grand strategy, not even a consistent view-point since Nixon (Strategic partner? Future rival? Couple in a loveless marriage? "Frenemies"?). But that's no knock on the West, because it is a natural response (or non-response) to a messy situation. You are giving the Chinese way too much credit. If befuddling Westerners was some Chinese master plan, then the Chinese are as clever and Westerners are as stupid, as you claim the Chinese believe, because it is working.

The thought of Chinese society being some kind of Lovecraftian horror that drive men insane by mere explanation makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.

Your description of mainland Chinese is accurate, but there is more. Your valid analysis of the mix of mainland Chinese must needs be put aside because, beyond your sophisticated insights, there is a powerful unifying identity predicated on nationalism and being Chinese that is superimposed over all else.

Indeed, there exists in the PRC the identiy that if you have a pulse and speak some sort of Chinese language/dialect, you are Chinese - that you are directly connected to a continuous 5,000 year old culture that is flowering yet again, this time as a globally unstoppable juggernaught (in due time). There isn't any natural ambiguity about it - China is China and if you meet the two qualifcations (a pulse and a language/dialect) then you are Chinese.

This is the superimposed Party dogma, and it is pervasive, it is powerful and it is successful. Not only do the people of the mainland buy the dogma, they eat it up (like a Dragon Boat Festival dumpling). When I asked my university Freshman students (in Guangdong) which movie star they'd like to marry, one young gal stood up and said Hu Jin Tao.

One 5,000 year old truth is that when the herdsman does his herding, the herd of sheeple follow. There isn't anything inscrutable or ambiguous about it, but there is a certain cleverness to it.

One vital and significant distinction you omit is the cultural differences, rooted in history, between the North and the South of the PRC, respectively. Accepting your descriptions of the multifactorial inheritances and the multifaceted demographics of the various mainland populations taken as a whole, one necessarily needs to point out and to discuss to some meaningful extent the cultural divide between the two mainland Chinas which reasonably are delineated by the Yangtze River.

Would you dispute, for instance, that the North is traditional and, in too many instances militarily belligerent in their thoughts and private discussions towards the US and Japan (long term, presently biding their military time), while the South is more accepting of (foreign) devils, more influenced by the West, far less traditional and conservative, more materialistic and money grubbing (and thus exploitative of economic migrants from the low socioeconomic provinces of the West and central China); and, in highly developed places such as ShenZhen city adjacent to Hong Kong, now making public the salaries of government officials for all to see, as the new SZ middle class demand because they want to see a more open government to, among other important matters, compare and contrast the lifestyles of local Party bureaucrats/officials relative to their official income?

You don't include the two mainland Chinas in your analysis of Chinese democracy or culture related thereto.

Beijing for example keeps a huge army garrison in GuangZhou City, which you know to be the old Canton and capital of the hugely prosperous GuangDong province (which as you further know includes ShenZhen). (It's for sure the huge garrison isn't there to protect against invasion by the Philippines! Or Australia.) Could this be because there is increasing sentiment in GD province to separate, to democratize and, horrors, to model itself consistent to Taiwan? After all, GD province sends a huge treasure in taxes to Beijing in return for little more than thank you notes and ever more Party commands. It's of significant note that the GD Party officials often ignore Beijing, are an aggravation to Beijing because of their (relative) independence contrasted to leaders of other still struggling provinces. It's revealing that GuangDong provincial officials know and accept that their positions there are not a route to power in Beijing.

First off, if that young woman wants to be the First Lady of China, good for her. So she wants to be the Chinese Michelle Obama, more power to her then I say. Secondly, a national identity is not national policy. The fact that all you need is to speak a Chinese dialect to be considered Chinese speaks volumes of the inclusiveness of Chinese society, a bonus for democratic-compatibility.

But identity is not policy, no country will craft their overarching trade or foreign policy based on another countries' street jingoism. The fact that Chinese (both the elite and common folk) want their country to be a modern superpower is one thing, getting them to agree on how to get there is another. To get from A to B, you need to fill in some blanks. I personally don't think the Politburo have a really good (or coherent) strategy to bring China into modernity, it's more of a "winging it and hope for the best" kind of thing. And the West aren't better at guessing Chinese modus operandi (if they can find one). Westerners aren't consistent about China, even the Chinese aren't consistent about China. If all of these policy inconsistencies are an elaborate Chinese Punk on the West, then Westerners are as gullible as Asian people can't drive.

On replying to you second post, you are generally correct. The stereotype goes that Southerners tend to be shorter, outgoing, better looking (at least the women), and good at business. The Northerners are taller, paler, more proud, and more represented in military officers (i.e. better leadership qualities). The only exception to this is Shanghai, which everyone outside of Shanghai can't stand, and is considered the place where China historically dumped all their douchebags. It's like a whole city full of hedge-fund managers. I had a discussion about this with my (Northern) cousin about the whole militarism/nationalism thing, and he thinks it might be the mingled "barbarian" (read: Manchu, Mongol) blood running through our veins. Though, as someone with both a Northern and Southern parent, I guess I am only half good at business, and half as militaristic :-/

The thing about the garrison, well, I don't think the Politburo loses sleep on Guandong secceding, compared to real problem areas like Tibet and Xinjiang. The South (GD included), are still politically in-line Beijing, especially considering that Mao was a Southerner, and that the policies of Ziang Zemin (the previous president) greatly benefited places like Guandong by setting up SEZs in the first place. The garrisons are there (and they are all over the Mainland) is to make sure that if the central government collapse, the military can step in and make sure some warlord can't rise up and carve out a personal fief for himself. This actually happened during the Taipeng Rebellion and the Warlord era.

Make no mistake BobChen, your points about the confusion and the contradictions among the Party and government leaders in Beijing are well taken. It is difficult for them to present a consistent line to the West, a line that is coherent or thought through. Even domestically, those in Beijing who promote 'market socialism' in fact haven't any more than a vague notion of the meaning of the term which itself was pulled out of the air in the effort to justify the radical advent of experimental private ownership/development in some certain areas of the PRC, the SEZs you reference in particular.

However, ask almost anyone of any point of view, in the PRC or elsewhere in the world, because they confirm to one extent or another the October 1, 2009, 60th National Day military focus and display as OTT nationalism/militarism designed to coalese the population as a whole behind the benevolent CCP and the protective government in Beijing. The mainland people themselves became clear from the occasion that they are pleased the PRC can now defend itself (against invasion by whom?!?) Since the threshold occasion, Beijing became arrogant, aggressively assertive (Google et al) and less cooperative internationally, witness Copenhagen to cite one such instance.

More recently, the Party in Beijing has been able to step back to reassess its post 60th anniversary boldness, but more for practical and tactical reasons. Its Asian neighbors have been taking note of the new bullying by Beijing, as has the West and the so-called Global South. So now Beijing is cooperating on the most recent UNSC resolution concerning Iran's nuclear projects, Iran being a close trading partner, strategic friend and bretheren authoritarian cousin historically as well as recently. (The PRC population are told the Republic of Iran is a friend of China, but the word "Islamic" is entirely omitted from the equation.) The China chummy PM of Japan had to quit after the PRC took no action in response to the unprovoked N Korean sinking of the S Korean naval warship, an action by Pyongyang which also assured and cemented the continued status of US bases on Okinawa. Another result is a needed and renewed confidence in Washington in such East Asian capitals as Taipei, Bangkok, Manila, Canberra and in others.

Recall when early in the Clinton presidency he brought David Gergen into the White House amid a flood of calls for an 'adult' to be of influence in the administration. Beijing's problem is that there aren't any adults in all of China for them to bring into the jurga-like councils of the Party or of the government. For all of Beijing's propagating that electorates of democracies produce maddening inconsistencies of policy to it over 8-12 year cycles, the continuing and, indeed, increasing lurching and pitching of the PRC state, its whimsical (or diabolical) laws, its excesses then retractions do make the PRC look a bit less than organized - because it indeed is a disorganized place.

However, it's disorganized under one flag and one Party.

I guess their location means that China has neighbors and other things to consider that we are not necessarily so much a part of the promorewards that maybe they are and so there are considerations to balance in the longer term.

The developing East Coast slice of the PRC is producing huge numbers of GDP and all of the rest of the quantitative measures of progress yet Beijing likes to continue to hide behind the skirt of being a developing economy and, therefore, according to Beijing, the world is being unrealistic, unfair, inappropriate in calling on Beijing to participate in the myriad challenges that exist to global peace and security, as well as economics.

Beijing has cried this developing economy wolf too many times, and now must ante up to take responsibility in its sphere of influence, which includes N Korea, Iran, Pakistan Taiwan and the like, and globally as well. The longer term, relative to the growth of the PRC's developing segment of its economy, means taking a responsible role in fostering and in promoting global peace, security and economic stability and equity.

In economics and finance, Beijing finally has been pressured to revalue its currency. The secret that Beijing pleads exemption from global responsibility because it is a developing country is blown by the sheer size of its development, even if the development is confined to the eastern and urban areas of the country. Beijing has a global and regional role because of the size of its growth, the rate of growth, and the impact on the world economy of China's growing development given that the numbers involved are large and will become huge.

Amazing, isn't it, how a the presentation of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. There's an impressive amount of detail we read above concerning the geopolitics of the PRC, particularly toward states like North Korea, Iran, and other regimes unfriendly to the West. This, I suppose, and like comments is intended to imbue a rather harsh evaluation of China -- including its people and its culture -- with an aura of legitimacy, and one supposes that this is all wonderful as a matter of debate. But one may well reconsider comments that accuse the Chinese as being a nation of "sheeple" -- a phrase used by right-wing ideologues in the United States against many of those who whom they disagree or despise -- or "soulless." One wonders if such language would be tolerable if used against, say, the populations of African countries, or Latin Americans, or anyone other than members of the "yellow peril." And one may consider how truly amazing it is that the national policies of the current Chinese government are examined as though they arose ab initio, without considering the historical development of Western interests and adopting with hardly a critical eye the view that the West is, and always has been, the aggrieved party in these matters. One should hardly be fooled by intellectual-style talk that misses the forest for the trees. Every country views the world within its own framework, but it is seems a proclivity of the Westerner that accuses others of being docile, "soulless" people somehow not as fully realized as human beings as they. And to top it all off, there is the apotheosis of India and other "democracies" as the model of the future, as if fractious and caste-driven India doesn't have its own, quite serious issues and conflicts. It's time, perhaps, to draw back from one's myopia and cultural bias. It's time to accord the other side the same measure of humanity as one accord one's own.

The middle Kingdom of China for thousands of years has been closed to the foreign 'devils' and, consequently, has a culture that is inborn, inbred, ingrown, ignorant. China isn't the only such place, it is however the most visible such place in the modern world and of the greatest impact in myriad ways globally.

As the Chinese worship and glow over their traditional medicine, for example (homeopathy), the Chinese fail to generate the thought or realization that traditional medicine is that which existed in all societies before the development of modern medical science.

Marxist social science is a worshiped value and entity because that which the CCP calls Marxist social science and socialism long ago was polluted by the harsh totalitarianism/authoritarianism of Leninism and, to China, Maoism; the great market reformer Deng Xiao Peng ordered Tianaman Square. The social democratic political parties of Europe, especially, and elsewhere are not acceptable to the CCP because to the new emperors of the CCP sociopolitical, multiparty democracy is from another universe and not suited to the PRC any more than it was to its predecessor forms of government.

Because of its ingrown nature, China always has been culturally self-limiting. In contemporary China it is PROHIBITED to have global cable-satellite tv ('foreign television' as it's called in the PRC by the CCP) - there instead is the party line tv of CCTV and its 44 channels of the same-same ideological programming. Access is PROHIBITED to social websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter etc.

The PRC has its own internet system, QQ, which is a closed, domestic only system that keeps the internet population talking only to itself. Discussion of politics or religion is PROHIBITED as is criticism of the established order. Classes of political ideology are given throughout the still traditional educative system.

(Did I mention ideology is a brain disease, always has been, anywhere, everywhere? The Birthers in the US are a prime example of the CCP mentality at work in an actual free society.)

The Chinese people know nothing of India except the CCP line which presents only India's many Old World self-limitations, to include of course the modern prohibition that India should be a democracy.

Half the population of the PRC continues to live in terrible poverty, on USD $2 a day or less - that's 700 000 000 people. The gap between rich and poor in China is enormous and obscene. The CCP ideologues in Beijing haven't any clear idea of what market socialism is or means - it's a handy-dandy term that helps keep the authoritarian autocrats in power and in the money in Beijing and throughout the provincial capitals.

May I suggest to any interested persons to Google the title "A Nation of Sheep" and where one can find numerous authors in the United States over the past 50+ years writing critical analyses of the population of the US and of the US itself. For various reasons and purposes, this popular title in book after magazine article calls the US population sheep, and US society as a herd of sheep. This is done without respect to a particular ideology, but there is a slight bias among the many authors who choose to use this title to write critically from the Right, or as Libertarians of some sort.

The most notable book of this title however came from the left, by author Wm Lederer, a former US foreign service officer and a navy veteran, who also co-wrote "The Ugly American" critical of US policy in SE Asia, a virtually prophetic book which was published roughly contemporaneous to the Vietnam War. In either instance, whether from the Right or the Left, there isn't any attempt to dehumanize but, rather, to speak metaphorically of sheep-like citizens to make some political point.

Consequently, it could be advisable not to jump the gun to try to collate the use of the word "sheeple" with anything published in the "Capitalism" magazine ca 2005 by a wingnut named Walter Williams, or by anyone of the sort in any same or silimar publication. Rather, it might be helpful to all to be more discerning in one's reading and interpretations of the nature of comment, analysis and criticism of the PRC and the CCP herdsmen that rule it.

It's also the case that many of we who are natural born citizens of the United States and who see prayer in public schools as a violation of the non establishment clause of the Constitution are not soulless in the same sense as the disempowered and neutered cititizens of the PRC are soulless. Politically, the people of the PRC seem to be characters out of an art imitates life movie, namely "The Invasion of the Body Snatchers." In the case of the PRC, it's the snatching is of the mind especially, and of the spirit of a vital human aspiration to realize a voice in how and why one is governed, the processes by which one is govererned as well as by whom, and toward which desirable goals. Processes especially.

Deny, deny, deny.

Denial or avoidance behavior sometimes is necessary, but as a practice it's unhealthy.