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The problem with the OP statements toward democracy is that he/she obviously doesn't understand how they work.

I don't know if teaching political science to someone with a second rate education will work, so I'll just attack his/her points in the posts.

Hah, For having born and raised in a so-called democratic Western European country for over 28 years with a master degree in a reputable university, I guess I do know what and how politics is working in the Western European countries. Do you neccesary need to resort to personal attacking the members here or do you want to open a flaming debate calling names and so on?

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For one, the French President hardly went crawling to China's forgiveness. This is how you repay an act of kindness, calling it feeble?

You call it an act of kindness, I call it an act out of self-benefits. The so-called kindly act was the results of the stunning increasing anti-Carrefour protests (Note: Which I condemn) and where the French interests were being felt. It's just again business, without the pressure of the business elites in the top of the French society, you can bet Sarkozy would never have sent his guys to China offering apologies or inviting JinJing to Paris. IF he was sincere, he would have done the condemnation and apologies IMMEDIATELY after the Paris. He had plenty of time to do that, but only when the Anti-FRENCH protests was widely felt, he acted politically as usual to protect and help his business buddies.

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Second, the reason the French mayor endorsed the Dalai Lama even as the French President was trying to calm tensions was because he could. The Mayor doesn't have to follow whatever political line the President is doing, he can act completely independently within the scope of his power as an elected official. The French President could've said he did not support endorsements of the Dalai Lama: that doesn't mean others still cannot embrace him.

Totally agree with this point,  and this is WHY these are clear examples of the flaws of so-called democracies. This socialistic Paris mayor is fully aware of what his president was doing, which is the best thing he could do for the best interests of France in total. However the Paris mayor deliberately and purposedly tried to sabotage all Sarkozy's efforts to soothen the tides with China, for his own political game and to win short-term popularity votes neglecting all what the consequences could be between two NATIONS.

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As far as short minded politicians, you think that is exclusive to democracy? I can point out many African dictatorships that had the same problems, and the same goes for Mao Zedong, a former ruler of China. Hell, despite banning plastic bags, China's air pollution continues to rise as its biggest environmental endeavor, and so far not many measures have been implemented beyond standard crowd pleasing ones. Beijing is having dire water problems on the horizon, not much is being done. Like in the West, its not going to be until the shit hits the fan that its probably fixed.

So what is your point here? Did anyone state here that China is living in a perfect system? That China is an utopia compared to the democracies? I have no clue where you live, but if you live in China you might have noticed that the authorities do try to work on the environmental issues. We need a green unpolluted environment to maintain a sustainable growth of our under-developed developing country. Did you even know that China recently banned all free plastic bags at retail shops and supermarkets causing thousands of plastic bags manufacturers to close their doors? That is the power of execution under a system determined to maintain a good balance of short-term achievments and long-term sustainable growth. What we need to do over here is give the death penalties to all those and ANY convicted CORRUPTED officials, who are sabotaging the policies of the Central government with their corrupted self-enriching dispictable acts.

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As far as money to political campaigns, John McCain was lagging in revenue for months behind his Republicans competitors, and now he is the nominee. He still doesn't have the money of Obama.
And Hilary just pulled off a victory in Pennsylvania, and she has $10 million in debt and now $14 million in cash. Obama has nearly $50 million. Under the doctrine that "more money = victory," Hilary should have already lost.
Whats more, Obama didn't have the most funds until the recent months. He was considered a long shot for a long time, and had half the funding of other candidates until his big wins during Super Tuesday.

Wow, that is news, and clear up how the election industry works. Guess it is giving a lot of jobs too for the people, innit? Yes, a degree of sacarsm is used here. What is your point  exactly here besides for showing to the world how many millions is wasted in these elections? It's a political money game with powers behind it influencing the results, big businesses for the elites. I always wondered what the actual mandate is for the coalition governments in Europe or the extremely low-voting-rate of USA.

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If you do not understand how democracy works, I'd suggest you read up on it first. Try Wikipedia, the English language one wasn't blocked by Chinese censors last time I was there however I wasn't able to access all pages of the Chinese one. A few were blocked by censors

I sincerely hope you do not rely all your prejudiced and biased views on a site like Wiki and believe that Wiki is the ultimate truth on the Net. There are plenty of alternative (less biased, more independent) sources besides the mainstream media to get your information from my buddy! And I sincerely hope that you get out of your own well and see the world in a broader sense, maybe YOU will know how your own democracies work and how your politicans are playing the political game sacrificing the people and bringing your economies at the brink of collapsing. Amen.

ChinaChina
One China One China

[ Last edited by IchiNiSan at 27-4-2008 13:39 ]

Indeed high living standards and well developed economies. Yet, what you see in all these Western economies is that the poor get poorer and the rich get richer, the middle class is an extinct race. Nonetheless even the poorest in these well-developed economies are still having a better living standard than over 95% of the Chinese people in China. (Note: over-exegeration, will look up statistics if I have time). However, I always wondered if this is the achievements of the so-called democracies or the results of the colonial empirialistic period and wars by these Western countries.

My apologies for coming over harsh, but many of these so-called democracies is still living off their heritaged wealth from the colonial period and new wars, and even up untill today still get's the Colonial & Warring nett dividends poured into a hugeload of industries and economies. Without that period I'm not so sure "how succesful the Western democracies" would have become, just be reminded that even the most succesful so-called free democractic nation started off being a republic and participated and is still partiocipating in the colonial period to enrich themselves.

EDIT:
Ps. I will not get into the "peacekeeping" comment, because that is too ironical for you to mention.

ChinaChina
One China One China

[ Last edited by IchiNiSan at 27-4-2008 13:59 ]

The middle class is not dead or dieing. Then again our definition of middle class would be different to that in China, I would assume. However your comments I believe are valid for the United States and possibly Britain.

Australia, New Zealand do live off the colonial period, only in that these nations are constructed on territory previously inhabited by others. Call it stolen wealth, but these lands lay 98% unused for the duration of history up until the arrival of settlers.

To call America the most successful Western democracy is subjective - it excels in some areas, yet fails miserably in others.

P.S. Please do get into the peacekeeping comment...our forces in Iraq are token.

Well for one, I would have to admit that once in a while great leaders are being elected in democratic nations. Kevin Rudd is one of them , who is cleaning the mess up caused by his predecessor and achieved widely respect by many Chinese (like me) for showing up in Beijing and found the right way of communicating to the people. His firm stance against any violence for the Canberra torch relay unlike some half-heartedly efforts like in France make him an even more respectable man. My hope is that Rudd and Australia can become the lobbyist between the West and East and soothen the tides between everyone.

I was referring most succesful to become the most powerful and only superpower left in the world. And my comments definitely count for USA and Europe mostly regarding the middle class. Well stolen wealth or not, I have no intention to judge that, I just want to express that the colonial period has still her legacies and is felt all over the world, and depended from which angle you look at it, it can turned into positive or negative.

ChinaChina
One China One China

Great post
^_^

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Original posted by Hexane at 27-4-2008 11:43
New Zealand, Australia, Canada? All have incredibly high living standards as a result of Western democracy.
Criticize our actions in Iraq all you like, but we're little more than peacekeepers.

New Zealand, Australia, Canada:
1.  These countries did not start with democracy. They were British colonies.
2.  The Europeans, mainly Britons, went there to grab land and resources from the free-of-charge!

These country became prosperous NOT as a result of western-style democracy! Before they started with western-style democracy,they were already prosperous as a result of FREE land and resources as well as FREE (or almost FREE!) labor.

I would say that the greatest thing America (and maybe other western countries, I don't know for sure) have to offer are the protection of friends, most importantly speech, religion, assembly, press, and petition. Of course these are sometimes restricted (such as the false "FIRE" in a theater) but for the most part they are protected and cases will go to court. Also, the right of due process (fair trial) is also essential. I think any government should have these rights, but they definitely don't have to be democracies to do so, nor do democracies have to provide these rights (if 51% of the population wants to deny these rights, than theoretically they can).

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Original posted by Hexane at 27-4-2008 11:43
New Zealand, Australia, Canada? All have incredibly high living standards as a result of Western democracy.
Criticize our actions in Iraq all you like, but we're little more than peacekeepers.

The Iraqis don't want you there, the government US help to setup in Iraq also don't want you there.

So get out!

Jigong> Ruled by Britain which was and still is a Western style democracy (Monarchs are basically powerless). When Australia & New Zealands own democracies took over, the economy grew exponentially regardless.

Of course it was a land grab. A grab for land that was improperly used..just like the communist forces did to the rich peasants & landowners. =P Free labor was present initially due to the forced migration of convicts. I will not even try to defend the actions of Imperialists against the native inhabitants, it just can't be done.

Just a question - do the Chinese believe the West played a role in exposing the weakness of the Qing dynasty, thus making way for the resulting revolution and improved standards of living?

neomugen> That's the plan.

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Original posted by Hexane at 28-4-2008 20:43
Just a question - do the Chinese believe the West played a role in exposing the weakness of the Qing dynasty, thus making way for the resulting revolution and improved standards of living?

Come on, Hexane! I supposed you know that British forced opium onto millions of Chinese! Various western powers and Japan curved China into pieces etc. and robbed China of huge sum of money in terms of gold and silver as well as land, huge chunks of land! That is called 'played a role in exposing weakness of Qing Dynasty'? You talk as if Qing Dynasty was the only Dynasty China went through before the western powers arrived!

The resulting revolution plunged China into chaos and absolute poverty while the western powers continued to squeezed China and the Chinese dry and opening up huge cracks for Japan to launch their attack.

When CCP defeated KMT, they 'inherited' China with NOTHING except absolute poverty. No infrastructure (but ruins! No bridges, no proper roads and railway lines), no industries, no money (KMT shipped whatever in the national coffer to Taiwan!),no economic system (many bankers etc moved their money and operations to Hong Kong during the war and civil war), no proper educational institutions (people had no money to eat! How to pay for education?), etc etc. The only friends who offered their help for a while were the Russians. All western powers isolated China completely!

'improved standards of living?'???
Do you know that for decades there were many families in China who have to share the same pair of pants and take turns to go out? Do you know what type of poverty and hard lives millions of Chinese went through? Do you know that before the western powers came to China, people all over China were having reasonably good life and that China's GDP was top in the world?

I can't help but think that you are speaking like the colonial masters who always claim that they have done plenty of good deeds in helping their colonial subjects!

[ Last edited by Jigong at 29-4-2008 13:05 ]