5 ms·

Well, you implied in your comment below that you weren't interested in a simple "discussion of how evil a regime is". Very understandable and I agree with you.

by temphn 14y ago

Well, you implied in your comment below that you weren't interested in a simple "discussion of how evil a regime is". Very understandable and I agree with you. Yet the thing is that without this context Americans just don't understand why the Chinese military would get involved on a negative story about a leader. It seems like a gross overreaction. Indeed, without understanding the context it just seems "evil". Until you realize that undercutting popular support for a leader is step 1 in the PNAC handbook for democratic change. We accuse them of atrocities, we accuse them of holding WMDs, we accuse them of suppressing freedom of speech, we get their population to believe that they are illegitimate by funding "democracy" movements. Then the fighting starts and we drop off weapons with the rebels, even if we know full well this could result in something worse ("Obama administration clearly was worried about the consequences of its hidden hand in helping arm Libyan militants"). Now half a dozen countries are burning across the Middle East in the name of setting up US-controlled democracies. Yet most Americans don't get why the Chinese would defend their leaders reflexively or why the Chinese military would hit out. The view goes something like this: Sure, Wen Jiaobao may have skimmed some money off the top, but politicians are constantly caught in scandals and China has gotten richer while the US has gotten poorer. So China's corruption isn't fatal to growth, while America's bank/Fed chimera may well be. And yet America wants to set China on fire just like it has so many other countries in the world, first with words and then with guns. So, yes, I do believe this context is relevant. You don't need to agree with their views, but you do need to understand why they see this as self-defense against US imperialism.

magicalist 14y ago
Again, all you've done is repeat the same explanation for the Great Firewall and censorship of news as soon as it starts to appear to be capable of "fomenting dissent". It's worth noting that many in China do not share your view, and we have the weibo messages to prove it. While there is certainly a good bit of animosity aimed at the US (both well-sourced and born of invented stories), it's ridiculous to claim that even a large portion of the populace believes that they need to be protected from revolution brought about by american psyops in the news. Assuming that of them certainly sells the people of China short, not to mention the complete lack of agency you seem to believe the people that actually live in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, etc had in deciding to revolt in the first place. It's not clear what your personal belief is here (you're only reporting on the "context", after all), but you've repeated the libya arms thing enough that I'll assuage your fears: look back through history. Nation building by rebel proxy does not work as intended. You only have to look at your so called new "US-controlled democracies" to dispel any idea of US control. Meanwhile, the new york times reported on corruption in those around Wen Jiabao, and the Chinese government hacked into their systems apparently so they could find out who provided information to the reporters and how they got the information that they did. It's a silly strawman to suppose that "without this context Americans just don't understand why the Chinese military would get involved on a negative story about a leader." No, it's extremely clear, and I think few here were very surprised.
- temphn 14y ago
  the complete lack of agency you seem to believe the people that actually live in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, etc had in deciding to revolt in the first place. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/21/barack-obama-arab-spring-cairo-speech http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/21/barack-obama-ara... Egypt's revolution provided the first hurdle. Obama was criticised for backing stability as the drama of Tahrir Square unfolded. But on 1 February came his call for Mubarak to step down "now". As the New York Times wrote: "Obama upended three decades of American relations with its most stalwart ally in the Arab world, putting the weight of the United States squarely on the side of the Arab street." As for this: look back through history. Nation building by rebel proxy does not work Nation building doesn't work. Revolution by rebel proxy sure does. Governments don't overthrow themselves. As for history, the American Revolution succeeded because the French were pumping in money. The Vietnamese beat off the Americans because they had the Chinese and Soviets in their corner. The Afghans repelled the USSR with the help of the US and the Stinger missile. You will be hard pressed to find a revolution that won or even began without the intervention of foreign powers; where are the armaments coming from in the first place? The record shows that the Arab Spring was caused by US training, funding, armaments, and media support. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewante... “We learned how to organize and build coalitions,” said Bashem Fathy, a founder of the youth movement that ultimately drove the Egyptian uprisings. Mr. Fathy, who attended training with Freedom House, said, “This certainly helped during the revolution.” At one time the United States financed political reform groups by channeling money through the Egyptian government. But in 2005, under a Bush administration initiative, local groups were given direct grants, much to the chagrin of Egyptian officials. The Egyptian government even appealed to groups like Freedom House to stop working with local political activists and human rights groups. “They were constantly saying: ‘Why are you working with those groups, they are nothing. All they have are slogans,’ ” said Sherif Mansour, an Egyptian activist and a senior program officer for the Middle East and North Africa at Freedom House. When their appeals to the United States government failed, the Egyptian authorities reacted by restricting the activities of the American nonprofit organizations. In the face of government opposition, some groups moved their training sessions to friendlier countries like Jordan or Morocco. They also sent activists to the United States for training. Further documentation on this topic is not hard to find. But feel free to minimize the explicit, acknowledged support of the most powerful country in the world for violent democratic revolution in favor of local "agency". As for whether this article on the #2 leader in China was printed at random, The New York Times has a track record of coordinating with the US government: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/asia/22pakistan.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/asia/22pakistan.html... The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold information about Mr. Davis's ties to the agency at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk. Several foreign news organizations have disclosed some aspects of Mr. Davis's work with the C.I.A. On Monday, American officials lifted their request to withhold publication, though George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined any further comment. http://www.salon.com/2011/02/21/nyt_16/ http://www.salon.com/2011/02/21/nyt_16/ It's one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives. But here, the U.S. Government has spent weeks making public statements that were misleading in the extreme -- Obama's calling Davis "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- while the NYT deliberately concealed facts undermining those government claims because government officials told them to do so. That's called being an active enabler of government propaganda. ... Following the dictates of the U.S. Government for what they can and cannot publish is, of course, anything but new for the New York Times. In his lengthy recent article on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller tried to show how independent his newspaper is by boasting that they published their story of the Bush NSA program even though he has "vivid memories of sitting in the Oval Office as President George W. Bush tried to persuade [him] and the paper's publisher to withhold the eavesdropping story"; Keller neglected to mention that the paper learned about the illegal program in mid-2004, but followed Bush's orders to conceal it from the public for over a year -- until after Bush was safely re-elected. In other words, whether under Bush or Obama, the NYT has an acknowledged track record of coordinating with the US government on stories that could result in international incidents. A hit piece on one of the top people in the Chinese government might not have been done at the State Department's request, but it certainly would not have been published over the State Department's objection. The fact that its effect was to sow discontent with China's leadership is not unnoticed by anyone skeptical of US-exported democratic revolution.

by temphn 14y ago

magicalist 14y ago

Again, all you've done is repeat the same explanation for the Great Firewall and censorship of news as soon as it starts to appear to be capable of "fomenting dissent". It's worth noting that many in China do not share your view, and we have the weibo messages to prove it. While there is certainly a good bit of animosity aimed at the US (both well-sourced and born of invented stories), it's ridiculous to claim that even a large portion of the populace believes that they need to be protected from revolution brought about by american psyops in the news. Assuming that of them certainly sells the people of China short, not to mention the complete lack of agency you seem to believe the people that actually live in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, etc had in deciding to revolt in the first place. It's not clear what your personal belief is here (you're only reporting on the "context", after all), but you've repeated the libya arms thing enough that I'll assuage your fears: look back through history. Nation building by rebel proxy does not work as intended. You only have to look at your so called new "US-controlled democracies" to dispel any idea of US control. Meanwhile, the new york times reported on corruption in those around Wen Jiabao, and the Chinese government hacked into their systems apparently so they could find out who provided information to the reporters and how they got the information that they did. It's a silly strawman to suppose that "without this context Americans just don't understand why the Chinese military would get involved on a negative story about a leader." No, it's extremely clear, and I think few here were very surprised.

temphn 14y ago
the complete lack of agency you seem to believe the people that actually live in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, etc had in deciding to revolt in the first place. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/21/barack-obama-arab-spring-cairo-speech http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/21/barack-obama-ara... Egypt's revolution provided the first hurdle. Obama was criticised for backing stability as the drama of Tahrir Square unfolded. But on 1 February came his call for Mubarak to step down "now". As the New York Times wrote: "Obama upended three decades of American relations with its most stalwart ally in the Arab world, putting the weight of the United States squarely on the side of the Arab street." As for this: look back through history. Nation building by rebel proxy does not work Nation building doesn't work. Revolution by rebel proxy sure does. Governments don't overthrow themselves. As for history, the American Revolution succeeded because the French were pumping in money. The Vietnamese beat off the Americans because they had the Chinese and Soviets in their corner. The Afghans repelled the USSR with the help of the US and the Stinger missile. You will be hard pressed to find a revolution that won or even began without the intervention of foreign powers; where are the armaments coming from in the first place? The record shows that the Arab Spring was caused by US training, funding, armaments, and media support. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/world/15aid.html?pagewante... “We learned how to organize and build coalitions,” said Bashem Fathy, a founder of the youth movement that ultimately drove the Egyptian uprisings. Mr. Fathy, who attended training with Freedom House, said, “This certainly helped during the revolution.” At one time the United States financed political reform groups by channeling money through the Egyptian government. But in 2005, under a Bush administration initiative, local groups were given direct grants, much to the chagrin of Egyptian officials. The Egyptian government even appealed to groups like Freedom House to stop working with local political activists and human rights groups. “They were constantly saying: ‘Why are you working with those groups, they are nothing. All they have are slogans,’ ” said Sherif Mansour, an Egyptian activist and a senior program officer for the Middle East and North Africa at Freedom House. When their appeals to the United States government failed, the Egyptian authorities reacted by restricting the activities of the American nonprofit organizations. In the face of government opposition, some groups moved their training sessions to friendlier countries like Jordan or Morocco. They also sent activists to the United States for training. Further documentation on this topic is not hard to find. But feel free to minimize the explicit, acknowledged support of the most powerful country in the world for violent democratic revolution in favor of local "agency". As for whether this article on the #2 leader in China was printed at random, The New York Times has a track record of coordinating with the US government: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/asia/22pakistan.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/22/world/asia/22pakistan.html... The New York Times had agreed to temporarily withhold information about Mr. Davis's ties to the agency at the request of the Obama administration, which argued that disclosure of his specific job would put his life at risk. Several foreign news organizations have disclosed some aspects of Mr. Davis's work with the C.I.A. On Monday, American officials lifted their request to withhold publication, though George Little, a C.I.A. spokesman, declined any further comment. http://www.salon.com/2011/02/21/nyt_16/ http://www.salon.com/2011/02/21/nyt_16/ It's one thing for a newspaper to withhold information because they believe its disclosure would endanger lives. But here, the U.S. Government has spent weeks making public statements that were misleading in the extreme -- Obama's calling Davis "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- while the NYT deliberately concealed facts undermining those government claims because government officials told them to do so. That's called being an active enabler of government propaganda. ... Following the dictates of the U.S. Government for what they can and cannot publish is, of course, anything but new for the New York Times. In his lengthy recent article on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller tried to show how independent his newspaper is by boasting that they published their story of the Bush NSA program even though he has "vivid memories of sitting in the Oval Office as President George W. Bush tried to persuade [him] and the paper's publisher to withhold the eavesdropping story"; Keller neglected to mention that the paper learned about the illegal program in mid-2004, but followed Bush's orders to conceal it from the public for over a year -- until after Bush was safely re-elected. In other words, whether under Bush or Obama, the NYT has an acknowledged track record of coordinating with the US government on stories that could result in international incidents. A hit piece on one of the top people in the Chinese government might not have been done at the State Department's request, but it certainly would not have been published over the State Department's objection. The fact that its effect was to sow discontent with China's leadership is not unnoticed by anyone skeptical of US-exported democratic revolution.