Reason Number 41 - A Nation of Health Terrorists

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 79

"Spitting in public is an extremely common phenomenon in China, along with related health dangers such as public urination and ejection of nasal mucus by forcible expelling of breath through the nose. For example, the Shanghai Patriotic Sanitation Committee monitored spitting at ten public spots in the city. In just one of these spots, it recorded 164 people spitting in half an hour. The city government’s response to this was to impose a new regulation. ‘Spit sacks’ were attached the city’ taxis for both passengers and driver to spit into should the need arise (it is very common for taxi drivers to spit out of the window of their vehicles). 

After the pilot scheme was introduced, the Sanitation Committee monitored the same public spots again and found ‘just’ 46 people spitting in half an hour. Spit sacks, the government says, will now be attached to all taxis in the city’s fleet.

Spitting, nose picking and coughing without covering the mouth, even in crowded and congested areas such as public transport, are common among Chinese travelers, according to the Spiritual Civilization Steering Committee of the Communist Party." 

Terrorism – what a buzzword! Used to justify American retrenchment on civil liberties and Britain’s vast network of surveillance cameras, spying, monitoring, judging the population. And used by China, of course – a good apprentice to Western corruption – to repress and shackle its captive possessions of Tibet and Xinjiang.

But what about China’s own terrorism? The way China spreads true terror, real terror? The thousands of terrified Chinese parents, fearful their children have been terribly harmed by the latest milk scandal – the terror of rotten, poisonous food, of factories dumping poisons into the land; what of that, what of China’s environmental terrorism?

What about the terrorism of SARS, Beijing’s very own dirty bomb? And SARS was just a warm-up for the big one – for H5N1, for bird flu. The Black Death wiped out maybe a third of Europe. What percentage of the world will die if H5N1 mutates to human-to-human form – a mutation which China, with its intensive farming practices combined with a routine culture of lying and cheating, is providing the perfect conditions for? 

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 80

“Though China still has a relatively low number of AIDS sufferers (about one person per 2000), the disease is increasing fast – at 11% a year – due to widespread ignorance of the transmission of HIV. A survey in one of China’s northern provinces found that almost 60% of government officials lacked even a basic knowledge of AIDS. And along with ignorance, fear is widespread. Nationwide, about 50% of the population feel that AIDS patients have no right to work or study.

One survey among more than 400 homosexual men found that only 15% of them understood that they were at risk of contracting HIV. Another survey of more than 200 men found that only 20% used a condom, and yet another report found that 80% of gay men said they knew nothing about how HIV/AIDS was transmitted. Up until 2004 homosexuality was classified as a ‘psychiatric disorder of sexuality’ in China. 

The picture for the future looks bleak. Professor Jing Jun, a member of the AIDS Policy Center at China’s prestigious Tsinghua University, said, in April 2007, that ‘I think China is entering a stage of AIDS fatigue. Now officials are questioning how much more should be invested in the field, and some scholars working on AIDS have now transferred to other fields. … There was roughly 3 billion yuan (US$388 million) invested last year, which is 20 kilometers (12 miles) of expressway in Beijing.’”

Reason Number 40 - Party Capital & Sino-Cash

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 77

“Perhaps the biggest admission of the failure of Chinese Communism came in 2002, when then-president Jiang Zemin delivered the keynote speech for the 16th Party Congress.

Jiang said that ‘the CPC should admit into itself advanced elements of other social strata who accept the Party’s program and Constitution, work for the realization of the Party’s line and program consciously and meet the qualifications of Party membership following a long period of test, in order to increase the influence and rallying force of the Party in society at large,’ reported media.

Behind these rather bland, anodyne words lies something truly startling, for the ‘advanced elements of other social strata’ that Jiang was keen to allow into the Party were in fact private businessmen – in other words, capitalists, in this case Chinese citizens with cash. The most exclusive working club in the world opens its door and finds a long line of rich citizens salivating to get in. Men with money welcomed by men with power.”

Who believes in communism? Does anyone still believe China’s rulers seek equality and fairness? Does anyone believe China’s rules really believe a single word of the political philosophy they claim to follow? Cash is king. Greed and power, that’s all that matters.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 78

“But perhaps the real reason behind admitting businessmen into the Party was less altruistic and more to do with control and greed. In today’s China, the Party wishfully attempts to control everything. Rather than persecuting private businessmen as it once did, it now welcomes them with open arms – after all, it is new money that provides the fuel for the economic engine, and new money is the new god in China. 

A clear example of the change in official attitudes to businessmen is illustrated by the case of Yin Mingshan. Yin, said state media around the time of these changes, is ‘listed in Fortune magazine as one of the top 50 millionaires in China, is chairman of the Chongqing-based Lifan Hongda Industrial Group and vice-chairman of the General Chamber of Commerce of Chongqing Municipality. He is also a member of the National Committee of the CPPCC.’

What media failed to mention was that for much of Yin’s life he was ruthlessly persecuted by that same Party. He was expelled from high school in 1960 for making ‘rightist’ remarks and, three years later, he was jailed. He remained a social outcast, spending many years laboring on a farm until 1979, when the Party informed him his punishment had been a ‘mistake.’ He did not receive any apology for the nearly two decades of his life that the Party had wasted. However, when he built his firm into one of the nation’s leading motorbike manufacturers, the Party was suddenly keen to hear what he had to say. Money and success mean far more to today’s communists than morality, and indeed more that individual freedom itself. 

While maintaining lip-service to socialist goals, the government embraces any political strategy that will either enrich its members or cement its grip on power. The vast majority of Chinese citizens, those that are not Party members, those with limited finances, have just fallen farther behind.”

Reason Number 39 - Red China Crime

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 75

“Red China Crime is the best game in town – but you have to be a Party member to get a seat at the table. 

Forming the last element of the 4th Army of Instability, Red China Crime has been entrenched as the thing to do since even before the Party gained power. Favoritism and nepotism may not appear basically criminal in nature, but down the line the cash goes into someone’s pocket.

Today’s cadres (political functionaries) and Party officials mouth political perfection while devising new methods and policies, the best of which take tiny, innocuous slices of the pie from millions of unknowing citizens. Red China Crime creates headline stories in major Chinese newspapers and around the world. It includes theft of public funds, bribery, extortion, prostitution and cronyism, all of which are endemic among Party officials, including spouses, lovers, offspring and relatives. Corruption is simply a way of life for today’s government.”

The crimes of the Communist Party are unending. Corrupt and evil, the Communists have brought China nothing much but misery. 

But the people of China are complacent. They tolerate their leaders. They focus only on the ‘good’ the Party has done, even though that good has only been done by default, by the cessation of madness.

It’s the same tired refrain – ‘China is getting better’ – that allows government officials to keep their hands in the till.

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 76

“In 2006, 97,260 members of the Communist Party were disciplined for corruption, among whom 3,530 cadres were prosecuted, said Gan Yisheng of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. China’s first regulations to specify what punishment corrupt officials would receive went into effect on June 1st 2007.

Between 1978, when China began to open up to the West, and 2004, the country’s Ministry of Commerce said that about 4,000 Party officials suspected of crimes involving US$50 billion of public money had fled overseas.

These crimes would cause a freely-elected government in a democratic country to fall immediately. But in China, without the aid of independent oversight bodies, the bags of money will continue to walk out of the door.

On the face of it, the 4th Army of Instability’s Red China Crime element would seem to be the most evil. But with more than 70 million Party members, and with an enrolment system that sees that number grow by around 2.3 million a year, the ‘face of evil’ may become as familiar as the people next door.”

 

Reason Number 38 - The ‘Big’ Factor

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 73

"Every national entity, no matter what the size of land area or number of people, feels its particular national interests are significant, perhaps even unique. Even the smallest countries in the world feel their own problems are big. Certainly no exception, China, since 1949, has discovered its own unique set of big considerations.

China’s perception of itself as an emerging and developing nation has inherited many difficulties and paradoxes from its past history. But modern day leaders have in many cases exacerbated some of these ‘traditional’ problems, leading the country into a maze where they are forever trying to find the way out, often with a limited handful of solutions.

Part of the problem is that China wants development now. It wants modernity now. And it wants a technologically developed society now. But the breakneck speed at which the leaders are driving the country causes them to miss the road signs warning of danger ahead. A few of these warning signs, such as false claims of ‘growth’ which resulted in great famine of the 1950s, Mao’s encouragement of large families, and again Mao’s encouragement of students to become Red Guards, heralding the start of the ten-year ‘Cultural Revolution,’ show a lack of insight into the simple notion of cause and effect in China, which is often followed by big problems."

And most of all, China wants money now. That’s why there will be no end to the nation’s problems and scandals. You can’t ‘cure’ greed. You can’t slay cupidity.

That’s why China learned nothing from the 2004 scandal where hundreds of babies were hospitalized and many died after being fed substandard milk powder. There was a lot of fuss and hurried promises of serious action at the time – and then everyone forgot about it.

So here we are in 2008 and much the same thing is happening again, a company selling shit quality milk, eye on the profit and fuck the danger. More babies in hospital. More death. But more money too, and that’s the point. The same thing will happen next year, and the year after. 

Fault Lines On The Face Of China: 50 Reasons Why China May Never Be Great’ - Excerpt 74

"Per dollar of GDP, China uses five times more energy than the US average and an astonishing 11.5 times the Japanese average in its industrial production, countries that China wishes to emulate in order to establish its world-leader status.

Let’s put that in dollars and cents. As the China Economic Review explains, a single kilogram of coal used as energy to create industrial products in China earns only 36 US cents worth of GDP in China. The same kilogram of coal if used in the Japanese industrial sector would generate US$5.58 worth of GDP.

Even the most glorious of all resources is being eroded faster than nature can possibly handle. The Qinghai-Tibet plateau was once home to one of the world’s largest alpine wetlands. Yet in recent years, this area – also one of the planet’s most important areas in terms of biodiversity – has shrunk by 40% due to human activities. A single lake in this region, the Xingcuo Lake, used to span 469 hectares. Now it covers 10. Desertification is increasing at 12% a year, with another 135,333 hectares under threat of desertification. Laobuza, a Tibetan who was born and grew up in this area said 'There are now very few swamps in the reserve. I could ride my horse for 50 kilometers and not find one.'”