and she has just won an all expenses paid vacation to....: a Re-Education Camp!!!!!!

China is still concerned about its exploding population.  These people will be lucky if they only win a trip to a reeducation camp.

orangeplus wrote:

I disagree, I see the beginnings of Lockian civil society

Maybe Hobbes too, but I have to agree.  Almost half have cell-phones and a lot are online.  The cat is out of the bag.

Tang, a pigtailed, 30-something cosmetology major, had never considered herself the activist type.

So, let's see: She is 30 and still in beauty school. She would fit in perfectly with most of the "protesters" here in the USA. And Ill bet she could do a better job for much less money. Let's just outsource the protest racket, too.

Hers is the 3,943rd signature on the list that has swelled to more than 8,100 from across China.

Wow, Ill bet the administration is really scared of that 0.0006 % of the population.

Taint wrote:

GooberMcNutly wrote:

Hers is the 3,943rd signature on the list that has swelled to more than 8,100 from across China.

Wow, Ill bet the administration is really scared of that 0.0006 % of the population.

You joke, but I'd bet money they are.

Given that the original document had people hauled in by the authorities, that's a pretty good guess.

The funny thing is, though, while a lot of Chinese people that I've spoken to want a more democratic society, they don't all necessarily want the government to change quickly.  They would rather that it change organically.  This is seems unlikely, of course, given that their actual voting power mostly consists of which of the Party's members they would like to have in charge, except for the very lowest rung of elections. 

Then again, some of that has to be tempered with the fact that over all they absolutely do not want ANYONE from the West telling them how they should run their country.

Then there are the propaganda people.  They'll pop up in any large discussion of Chinese politics, and it's hard to tell the difference between people who are intentionally spreading propaganda and those that actually really like the current system some times.  I mean really, some of them will keep you guessing, and if I didn't know for sure that it was a real person I was talking to I would suspect some kind of government intercept.  When they start saying that their government is just as democratically elected as any other country and there is freedom of speech in China, the students that were killed in Tienanmen Square were the fault of the student leaders who should have taken everyone and left, and instead stayed there when they should have known what would happen, etc.

orangeplus wrote:

I am of the opinion that the Chinese are freer, more democratic and far more prosperous than they have ever been in their 2000 year history. Since the death of the
Gang of Four, they have seen slow and steady progress in all three areas.

All true.  The state of China is often over-exaggerated.

orangeplus wrote:

Tiananmen was horrible, but it was 20 years ago and a lot has changed.

Yes and no.  The example I gave above was from today.  The fact that history has been able to be re-written so completely that many Chinese are not even aware that it happened and out of those that are, many believe the government propaganda shows that while things are improving, the very foundations of Democracy are freedom of speech and information, and these are being corrupted completely wherever possible.  The fact that the government reluctantly set up "Free Speech Zones" at the Olympics far away from the actual event and still couldn't risk giving out a single permit to the people requesting one, and in fact sent the people who did request permits to re-education camps regardless of age shows that the development of a Democratic China will not necessarily be something that can bloom unattended.