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tiananmen square 20 years on...

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8080437.stm

how can the chinese authorities still be getting away with this utter abuse of power? i know that they are seen as a super power, but what does it have to take to get higher forces to intervene and stop the countless human rights abuses happening in china??

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8080437.stm

    how can the chinese authorities still be getting away with this utter abuse of power? i know that they are seen as a super power, but what does it have to take to get higher forces to intervene and stop the countless human rights abuses happening in china??
    If by higher forces you mean the top countries in the world, nothing will make them intervene in too strong terms (i.e. threat of military force). Combination of China being a nuclear State and a usuful trade partner.

    They could and should certainly restrict trade with China and all countries with such appalling human rights records- but of course, as always, money talks...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    how can the chinese authorities still be getting away with this utter abuse of power? i know that they are seen as a super power, but what does it have to take to get higher forces to intervene and stop the countless human rights abuses happening in china??

    Because they're delivering. And when a government increases people's standards of living, they tend to ignore the odd human rights abuse.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    And given where China is compared to twenty years ago (and twenty years before that under Mao) it is vastly improved and its in the long term interests of the Chinese people that China is treated as a serious player, rather than sent into isolation.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I visited Tiananmen yesterday- had my passport and visa checked although my friend's wasn't. Obviously I look like a journalist or student activist! They also checked drinks bottles etc, all like the airport checks nowadays.

    Getting into the actual square, and the atmosphere was... different to normal to say the least. There was definite tension in the air, and also anticipation. There were also not only a high profile number of police, security and army (although no guns visible), but also various groups of others, grouped in coloured t-shirts who appeared to be just milling around, but we suspect were actually volunteers drafted in to keep an eye out.

    I've never seen so much security around the square, or had such rigorous checks- normally they just require you to put your bag through the x-ray machine. It was quite different.

    As for higher forces... The Chinese for a long while will not rise up against the government as they are taught to thoroughly believe it. And in some ways, it's good for China currently. The country needs radical change due to its population size and its intense need for rapid development. At the moment, a single-party government is the only way to make these changes happen as quickly as they need to.

    However, I am in no way in agreement with a non-democratic state and the corruption rife within it. Yes, it does need to wipe-out human rights abuses and quickly. But for democracy to come to China, the whole country will need a complete reeducation, and that is not likely to happen within this generation and perhaps even the next.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    All countries' Governments abuse their power, to a greater or lesser extent. China isn't a whole lot worse than the United States, certainly under Bush, in terms of exploitation and human rights violations.

    China was always different to the other countries caught up in the 1989 revolution, in that it's much more coherently one country than the USSR ever was. There isn't the same nationalistic fervour that powered the 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe and the USSR. But if the political climate allows it I think things will change, and probably quite quickly when it does. The 1989 revolution was unthinkable five years before it happened, but Gorbhachev's glasnost caused it to snowball out of control.
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