Is China different? Yes but also very much the same. Very repressive. Extremely polluted (you got to grow and not worry about pollution until later…so why can’t we do that now mentality). Very opportunistic — the land of the counterfeit anything from clothes to handbags to music and movies to software. No scruples at all about making a buck/yuan any way they can. Every time I’ve been there over the past few years the pollution is exponentially worse. The crowding is unbelievable. But what strikes me the most is that the people seem joyless.

As a Canadian ,Pierre Elliott Trudeau opened our relations with China in the late 60s andth he and has sons Justin and Alexandre aka Sascha travelled there extensively Sascha has a book out detailing his trips there with his father and his father’s trip there in the early sixties. Toronto was in the running for the 2008 Olympics when Beijiing won them. We always thought it was ‘political’ and frankly I think that’s why Canada got the 2010 Olympics as a kind of payback for not screaming too loudly about Beijiing. I agree with Whoopi, same country new olympics. And I’m doing everything I can to show my displeasure with the Tibet situation. I now check to see what I am buy is NOT made in China and if it isn’t I buy it. I also don’t plan on watching any of the Olympic coverage unless I really want to see something and I won’t buy from the ’ sponsors’. My little form of protest, if we all did this maybe the message would get across to the Olympic rights committee that the world IS not pleased.

china is a danger to us both militarily and economically. if we don’t get our economy and budget in order their ownership of our debt will put them in a commanding position that obviates the need for military action. we’d be helpless in the event they moved against taiwan or any other ally. thanks Bush and the Publican party for really screwing us up.

My 15 y/o daughter is participating in National History Day this week. Last year her subject was the struggle in Tibet and this year her exhibit is on Ping Pong Diplomacy. Of course, this history is not taught to our children, though they should be learning mandarin and spanish in school. I would prefer Bush stay home everyday. Instead of punishing our athletes, we should all turn over our iPods are notice that they were designed in California and made in China. We need to teach our children to buy with a conscience. It’s easy to talk about clothes made in sweat shops but our computer, electronic and gaming hunger is currently sated by China.

Sucking up to a country like China is further proof that in the United States, money talks and integrity walks.

Yes, I believe China has changed since 1989. In 1989, China could not feed its large population. The people of their baby boom generation (born in the 1950s) lacked education and skills because of their cultural revolution. For most of its history, China was ruled by a strong central government – an emperor or a party chairman. The needs of the individual held less importance than the needs of the government. Choice was usually not an option for the average Chinese citizen. Today China is an emerging economic power. Some of the restraints on a state-controlled economy have been relaxed. I agree with the statement that the internet has opened a door. Younger Chinese who are benefiting from the fruits of the economic boom and better educated than their parents and more aware of the outside world are more likely to expect greater personal freedoms. Most of the population does not live in large cities; they still live in rural areas. On a recent trip to China, I experienced a gracious welcome, first class accommodations, knowledgeable guides, wondrous and exotic sights, cultural treasures, delicious food, companionable fellow travelers, and reasonable costs. Those young tour guides were open and aware of their county’s problems with pollution. They also seem optimistic about their future and happy they have more choices than their parents. I don’t believe that the US or other nations will change Chinese policies. Since our economy is now tied to China, we need to communicate. We should encourage our young people and business leaders to learn to speak and write Mandarin Chinese. Our future depends on China’s ability to handle their pollution issues. I don’t see that a boycott of the Olympics is likely to help the situation in Tibet. The occupation of Tibet happened long before the Olympics was awarded to China. I don’t believe the Olympic Boycott in 1980 changed Soviet polices but it did hurt US athletes. I know it sounds naive, but let the Olympics be an athletic event.

As to those who think China can’t do without us as consumers, think. Chinese can immigrate here from the Mainland, go through the process for Green Card and Citzenship, receive U.S. citizenship and NOT lose their Chinese Citizenship. This was our BIG mistake. Do do this with Canada, Britain, France, etc. is wise. To do this with a country and culture so different in values and intentions in cooperation from ours was a massive mistake for us and just a beautiful coup for the Oligarchs on both sides. China is in Africa and S. America big time. It is China’s style to populate other countries and at least take over financially. This is to say, encourage emigration. To be naive enough to think China is not keeping track of their people who left China at the end of the 20th century, —is a very dangerous thought. China will have consumers probably better than we U.S.A.ans within ten years I suspect. Remember this is a culture that was under either an Emporor or Empress or Dictator machine for centuries, millennias! To expect them to think and understand as we do is negligent. This is a culture that has probably the greatest and oldest warring strategies in history both of arms and psychological. The Chinese are fickle. Love you today and absolutely hate you tomorrow. As much as we are propagandized to think how important family is to them and respect for the elders remember: This culture of young scholars in the 50’s and 60’s turned in parents and aunts and uncles and professors for not being as to what they thought a true Maoist should be. The Red Guard was bruttal as was Hitler’s Youth Brigaid. Fickle, fickle, fickle. As to their population, the PRC are experts at using this expendable commodity. They encourage emigration and they mobilize the mainland people within accepted forms of propaganda. Something about the Chinese mind that is well suited to propaganda, even more so than us. The Chinese people could not possibly move toward some form of democracy within our lifetime. They don’t have one historical application of freedom for the people to relate to. The closest would be I think would be to Japan’s. But they absolutley hate the Japanese forever without end. Let me state, for it is important, I am speaking only as to the Mainland Chinese from the PRC. This has not been my experience with the people from Tiawan, at all. Sharp folk with a wonderful intelligent working democracy. A businessman from Central Asia of Russian ethnicity said to me: “The Chinese lie!” I reminded him this may be called lying by European and Western standards but by Chinese standards it is called clever, and highly respected, and rewarded. A man, a scholar, came back to my home for his first visitation back to the Mainland since T. Square. His family and mine lived together. Bought a home together to do business. He had in ‘99 a whole bunch of Mao buttons. I laughed thinking of it as how a kid collects this stuff (like his young son collecting stickers). He was offended at my laughter judging it as negative and said to me quite angry. “It was the West that ruined China!” I looked at him, he in his early 40’s and me in my beg. 60’s and said: “Yes, but remember it was the crooked greedy officials in China who betrayed their own people for this to be able to happen. As I’ve always said to you, all governments are bad!” and I laughed to try to lighten a heavy subject that held a big language and cultural gap between us. An agricultural specialist from the mainland in the U.S. with a Green Card on the way to citizenship with the help of a U.S. company was sent each year to the Agri seminar of the state at the company’s paying. 2 days. He would go to the hospitality booths the first day and collect all the brochures outta our universities as to their products and research and then pack them up and send them to China. He did not attend the seminars that his employer expected. A businessman, a mech. engineer, went to China to build a million $ juicing plant in the 90’s. The beauty of the juicing equipment was it could run practically on it’s own and invented by a man in my area. My friend came back and said there were Chinese climbing all over it working this and that. He said he told their supervisor it just wasn’t necessary, the machine didn’t need all this labor. And he finished saying they didn’t listen. I said to my friend this is because what they were doing, most likely, is teaching themselves how to make it and they’ll never buy another one from your company! And they didn’t. The Chinese are not to hate. Where does this get us? What we need to do is one of two options as I see from my 12 years of living with the Chinese and looking at the experience as a microcosym of China and Chinese relationships: either get better at their game (4 dimensional chess) or design a new game and force them to play it. Our game they will beat, soon. We worry about the fundamental political muslim cells. Hahah. Think. The Chinese are all over the world and in contact with the Fatherland even though they may not want to be. This would not include the pre-1980s Chinese Americans, who are true Americans and have given much to our culture. There is not an aspect of business and trade and development and design that they are not participating in. I often wonder if we said to the immigrating PRC Chinese since the 80’s, “We are allowing no more dual citizenship between U.S. and China. You must choose one or the other. If not your U.S. citizenship is removed. ——I bet we would lose a lot of PRC Chinese! But we do need to not allow duel citizenship with countries that do not have the freedoms of the Western world. I don’t mean the same kind of democracy, I do mean freedom. However, we must each realize, the G-8 one percent and other greedies will do whatever they can to get the most of the best as fast as they can. They can go anywhere for safety can’t they? No change is possible through the governing republic. Too much money being pocketed. The right change must come from the democracy, us, intelligently, as a mass. It’s all down to us all of a sudden isn’t it? We’re all we got. If we don’t I’m afraid the Phoenix will rise and the Eagle will fall into the fire, soon.