@menace3society: if you have read wawlam's posts, you would actually learn that chinese government banned slavery from tibet!!

menace, that view of the civil war as only nominally a war fought over slavery seriously ignores the actual history of the united states. slavery was, as southern slave owners understood it, much more than a way to produce agricultural goods. in addition, moral opposition to slavery was by far the prevalent attitude among people. the two entrenched attitudes, moralities, etc., these incompatible moralities are the center of the civil war.

i mean chris :P

Alamothe, that is only partly true. The chinese abolished serfdom, which tied the peasants to the land they worked, but they have also made it difficult for Tibetans to leave the autonomous region, to get permits to operate businesses, and in some cases even to get jobs. Turkic Uyghurs (another restricted racial minority) in China have begun moving into Lhasa and elsewhere because it is easier for them to find jobs or run businesses there than it is for Tibetans in Tibet or themselves in their own land--which incidentally, is called in Chinese "New Territory", which makes a lie of any claim to historical sovereignty.

Additionally, there are also strong measures in place to enforce the adoption of Han chinese culture and language, to the detriment of the Tibetan. Even if you leave aside freedom of religion, the Tibetans are getting a raw deal.

So, who is worse; China or America?

i agree with menace,
wamalm, alamothe, i dont think it is valid to point out what a bad situation tibet was in before being invaded by the chinese communists. yes most tibetans were serfs and the country was a religious monarchy. same with japan- 60 years ago the japanese thought the emperor was a god and had a strict caste system. that is neither here nor there in the debate about tibet now in my view. we are talking about what the people of tibet want now, or might want if they had the freedom to choose. do you honestly believe given the choice between more han chinese immigration, loss of culture, destruction of temples, limited religious freedom and a general process of hanization on one hand and independence on the other that the vast majority of tibetans would choose to stay with china?? if you are so sure why doesnt the communist dynasty give them that choice? because they know the answer already.

i also worry about china becoming a super power when a lot (but not all hooray for hongkong, emily lau etc and the democrats) chinese have a quite limited ability to distinguish between criticism of the state and attacks on the people . if i attack the policies of the current dynasty in power in beijing that is not the same as attacking the Chinese people. americans can accept that. one can attack bush, large american oil companies etc etc and most americans will not have a hissy fit and call you anti american (sure a few right wing nutjobs might confuse state and people but the majority wont)

im also confused about tawain.
if western australia decided to break free from australia...well i dont really care. good for them. if thats really what the people who live there want well ok then. its not up to me, who lives thousands of miles to the east and has never been there to decide their fate. i wont scream and cry if they talked about becoming a separate entity.

oh and i like the fencing

China puts in prison people that don´t thinks like the goverment wants, so don´t deserve an Olimpic Games.
China kills Chinese citizens that are against of Goverment.
And why don´t invades China the us army?

um....coz they never pick fights they would lose?

And Irak, US army is winning at Irak?
And Vietnam? What happened?

China is a big economic one, so USA don´t invades it, cause economics interests.

eh the us could have won in vietnam. i think this time around the us will stick it out and win in iraq.

I don´t think so. USA is ruining Irak so they must retreat the troops.
No more imperialism.
USA don´t is the owner of the world

the us isn't the owner of the world but it is the leader of the world's free societies, and we all have an obligation to see to it that a democratic and free government be established in iraq. this is not negotiable.

The Olympics moves around. That can't be changed- if the olympic commitee decides that Beijing is going to get the 2008 games, then it is going to be in Beijing.

Even if China has many faults on its human rights side, and many other failings, the Olympics are the Olympics. It is an international sporting event of the highest prestige- and whether the host country deserves it or not, at least China is doing its very best to make the Games itself something spectacular, and as good as the Olympics should be.

Criticise China all you want, even though many Chinese I know don't give two hoots about the problems know being publicised- for China has actually lifted more people out of poverty and backwardness in 30 years than in America's entire history. Most people have it much better than their parents could ever dream about- and they're not complaining.

The Tibetans perhaps are motivated by the fact that the Dalai Lama has been in exile for years, and perhaps China is occupying their homeland- but on the whole China has been making a heck of a lot more progress than any western country.

Anyway- The olympics are a sporting event, one which is eagerly looked forward to by millions, and the athletic elites of our world- it is a show and a test of the limit of human performance, and also one of peace, prosperity and a brighter future. That was Pierre de Coubertin's dream.

Even back in Ancient Greece, Wars and politics STOPPED for the Olympics; which were a celebration and ritual to honour the God Zeus. Any state which protested would itself be "boycotted".

Anyway- the whole notion of boycotting is flawed- for if the western powers say that Beijing should be boycotted because of political reasons, then the East can come back and say exactly the same for London 2012 because of its involvement in Iraq. Should we boycott every Olympics because of politics?

Even if "a country"- not just China, has problems, the Olympics should not get involved in all thsi crap...

Who has named USA leader of the world?

And if you are the leaders sign Kioto protocol, dismantle Guantanamo, abolish death punishment, and start to respect the human rights, cause you signed the Human Rights Declaration.

i would personally prefer china as the next world leader than us. the us won't be getting any international respect until they withdraw from iraq. i don't see china invade a foreign country and make a chaos there just so some presidental candidate would win the elections. having protestors in front of white house doesn't really make up for killing hundred thousand civilians in iraq

Wombat, you state that China has brought more people out of poverty in the last 30 years than America ever has; this is not so. What happened is that, after the absolute disaster that was Mao's great leap forward, economic liberalization allowed people the ability to bring themselves out of poverty. You can argue that land reform helped to bring the peasant landworkers out of poverty, but I suggest to you that firstly the plight of the farmers not been helpfully alleviated due to, among other things, corruption and a desire to bring food as cheaply as possible to the cities, and secondly that land reform in the 60s and early 70s consisted in the main of killing or imprisoning people.

There's a lot we don't know about the state of affairs in China, because the news agencies massage all the figures to look better and the ones they can't massage they don't release.

oh christ. first, wombat, the only two things i'll say is, first, china is using the games for political purposes already, so its not necessarily logically inconsistent for others to politicize it negatively, though obviously it is stupid. second, china has not lifted more people out of poverty, that is nonsense, any lifting of poverty was done by international capital, because china certainly wasn't lifting people out of poverty by way of its own communist policies and certainly wasn't lifting people out of poverty when running them over in tanks in tiananman square. i am sure china is a very nice place but it is nowhere near as nice and not at all heroic like the communist propaganda has it.

viola, leader of the world? no, leader of the community of free societies. lots of countries will acknowledge this, though obviously not the thugs in russia and china, but it is because america is the only country strong enough to stand up for the principles of individual freedom. not only is america the leader of the free world, it must be, or the free world will crumple. you say america should respect human rights, yet you have no idea how bad the world would be without 2 centuries of america standing up for individual freedoms. the universal declaration of human rights is something that is inspired by the freedoms guaranteed in america - they are the basis of the very concept, so to say america needs to adopt them shows a profound ignorance and hatred of my country.

alamothe, if you would prefer china as the world leader you should save yourself the wait and head to china and enslave yourself now. i suggest you have an ethical obligation, if you are so excited to see a world lead by china, to live as most chinese people do - in chains - go right ahead and get on with it now. of course doing so is buttfuckingly stupid, but then again, saying that you would like to see china as the strongest nation is buttfuckingly stupid anyway.

oh and one more thing. the difference between chinese propaganda and american propaganda is that american propaganda is on the side of truth and right - while chinese government propaganda is fundamentally wrong, and likely immoral. to compare china and america is like comparing spain under franco and spain today. only a masochist would choose the former.

América is the leader of the free world, America is not free, all the american citizens are controlled by lot of mechanisms,
You are free to get a gun, and shoot kids in the school, this is your only liberty

these days its hard for any one thing to be the stupidest thing i've ever heard, but that is pretty stupid.

I agree with fwanco, americans are probably the least-controlled people in the entire world. For example, you are perfectly free to be openly racist or Nazi or fascist in America, which you can't in most of Europe, and Europeans have been convinced that this lack of freedom is a good thing.

Judging by their track records for falling for dictators, they're probably right, too.

And to have a lot of weapons, and to teach your childrens to shot, and kill between theirselves in the school.
What a country!!

It´s pretty stupid, true fwanco?
Is that happen just now in your free country

@fwancophile: i don't have a problem with american society. if americans think it's great, how could i? i do believe there are much greater democracies in europe, with tradition several times longer than your pitiful two centuries, but that's not the problem here. the point is, it does not make an excuse for shitting all over the world! the greater you are, the greater should be your responsibility, and the us is actually the most irresponsible country in the world

Yes, great true.
Americans think that world is a farwest film

shitting all over the world? irresponsible? that is the opinion of the uninformed. if policymakers actually disagreed with you, they would change european policies. which are completely in line with the united states. so i guess that makes you a collaborator, and equally irresponsible?

given the track record of saving the world of the nightmares of fascism and communism and afterward setting up a just peace, i'm going to go ahead and say american knows what responsibility actually means, and understands the world isn't a fairy tale in which you never have to make hard choices.

Were all Americans like the people who are criticizing the United States in this topic, their criticisms would be justified.

Is that ironic? I'm never sure.