Here I have to disagree with shmj. A government, elected or not, is there to serve the people and not the other way around. I fail to see how banning possible faults in society from open discussion and criticism could benefit anyone?

For example, if the Communist Party in China could not cope with migration and environmental issues, would it be better just to pretend those do not exist?

on the issue of websites being blocked... it has been my experience that sometimes there is simply no rhyme or reason to it. Sometimes for instance I have been unable to access nwa.com, which I can see no reason for the great firewall to block. Then other times I can access cnn.com or bbc.com, sites that are often blocked. Now when I can not access something that I need to access I just use a proxy and it works fine.

As far as discussing politics with locals goes... I try to avoid these discussions as much as possible as I have found that sometimes they can get quite emotional and unnecessarily animated. I also have found that viewpoints tend to be pretty standard and universal, but then again I can't blame them, their opinions are formed by the limited access to information they receive. So amongst my friends I prefer to avoid these kind of discussions which can be quite upsetting to them. Only with close enough friends will I attempt to help them gain a different perspective on an issue.

Curious about another topic and whether/how it is discussed in China: Tibet.

I ask because my son visited his Chinese tutor (the one from Beijing) a couple of days ago and he brought up Tibet as he's been reading a couple of books about it. He was a bit surprised by her take on it, which was that Tibet should be a part of China, in part because the Tibetan people speak Chinese, which I think would be a surprise to most of them (in that they are forced to study it). :eek:

This tutor is fairly critical of Mao, so he was a bit surprised to hear the "party line" regarding Tibet.

Thanks in advance for any insight.

LOL!

So...what was that whole "Warring States Period" about? :D

Too bad I wasn't in China during those peaceful, tranquil days of the Cultural Revolution. :rolleyes:

Tibet is a rather sensitive issue and you are not likely to hear any other view than the one you mention from Chinese. The fact is that most Tibetans even will not share their true feelings and would rather not discuss it. But in observing body language you can learn alot from their interactions. To say that the Tibetans speak Chinese... that is only partially true. Most of them do to some degree because they are forced to study it in school but for the most part amongst themselves they use their native Tibetan. There are still quite a few areas where most of the population does not speak Chinese.

But most Chinese know little about Tibetans and Tibet. I have talked to Chinese friends who after returning from a Tibetan area are simply amazed at the differences they see and how much they do not fit in. But they have no way of knowing anything other than what they have been told, that "Tibet always has and always be a part of China." They will argue that any other viewpoint is based on falsehoods.

Once again, I'm not interested in policits, but I definately know more about Chinese history than you. As all people know China has 2000 years long history and 11 biilion population, I wonder how many westerners did learn about what was happening in the long history in such a large country, but not just the figure. But it's understandable non ir few westerners knew some of the long history, because all the books about it are written in Chinese, actually most books are not written by modern writters but ancient politicians, historians, strategists and biographers ... How many dynasties, emperors existed in the long history, most of the Chinese even can't recall exactly. This long history was full of wars, slaughters, destroy, the country went through splitting and merging again and again, but the only victim was ordinary people who suffering big conomic loss, losing home and family, hard to find a shelter to keep their lives... So from the Chinese peoples heart, peace is most important to lead a happy life. I do believe most Chinese care improving living standard more than the politics issue, as I also think in a socirty when many people would like to take part in social politics then this is a higher level society. As to the banning, it's not a main issue to most Chinese, even most of them would never heard or used banned sites or blogs. The foreigner travellers or expats felt unacceptable, yes, because it's different with your value point, but I think the China would not change this only for minor number foreigners' complaints as the most important thing is to improve the living standard. Hope we will live someday the Chinese people rich enough to take part in the government management to comment which should or should not be done, plus the complaints about the banning would disappear.

While I can't speak for mosburger, I am pretty sure that I have a better understanding of Chinese history and politics than you. In college, I studied under the late Michael Oksenberg (you can google him), who really knew his stuff. As Peter N-H pointed out, top western scholars have a much better understanding of China than their Chinese counterparts because: 1) they have access to more information and 2) they are well paid. Regarding #2, in general highly skilled academics do not work for Chinese universities because they can fetch much more money in the private sector.

I didn't go to Tibet, so I don't know the local peoples political opinion. But I do know Tibet is one of the autonomous regions in China, it does belong to China from the history, it's a fact well known by the world. I don't need to prove it, but I want to question you, what's your prove and where is your start to claim Tibet should not be? If the poor issue leads to the result of that point I have to say it's drifting away your good will to help local people out of poor status. It's like when you help a child from a poor family, donate money to him for education, ... but at the same time you ask the family to leave the child alone or with you, if I was the child's father, I would not agree, I can't sell my child as it's like it. The Child's response, I think some will eager food or higher condition to discard the family, some will not, but the decision should be made by the father of the family. I don't think the Chinese government didn't do anything to improve Tibet's economy as it takes time to get to a kind of lever as the basis is so weak.

My opinion, when you are onlooker not insider of a country or place, better leave the main issues decided by local people, you can offer help but never try to take over as it's over done.

I just know here in mainland many people are forced to study English, some will but some do by career pressure.

Are you really half Chinese? :confused:

Since you know how chaos during "Warring States Period" and Cultural Revolution, you should believe as any Chinese would love peace and cherish the peace time!!

I just remember when Bush claimed he is a peace-loving guy, my face was :confused:

This make me feel you are a trying to act like a psychologist who is helping the patient for their mental disease, but I don't think you can learn about their political opinion as deep and exact as what you feel from there body reaction.

Here in China, educational mode is different with western, the children are foced to learn a lot of basic subjects which are really useful, their parants accept this way also, only in particular case the parents would get their children out of school for home education.

If you know how many minority nationalities and their own languages you would stop all this fuss.

If you are Chinese, if you are Dongbeiren, you may know nothing about Sichuan or Yunnan, hope you would not think which part should not be a part of China.

I don't know if really but I'd like to hear that you said you know much more about Chinese history than me. As my major is not Chinese history, but since I was a kid I read numerous Chinese history books. But in my mind the best part and most part of Chinese history should be from those Chinese professors and experts. If you have studied the outcome by both ancient and present experts on Chinese history, you would find info treasure on it, but it too hard to understand ancient Chinese Language to a westerner.

If you knew Chinese universities, colleges and institues very well better have read their articles you would change your mind. I can see you have less contact with Chinese counterparts.

From where to get exact Chinese history info? All modern info should be from ancient documents and books, did they read the original one in ancient Chinese language or translation? Money or payment can be a factory, as the Chinese scientists are more welcome by the professors of other fields, such as Chinese history, who would pay extra money to hire experts in Chinese history? Not many people are interested in it.

I have never once bragged before on FT, but I am going to do so now to prove a point. I went to Stanford University. Beida and Qinghua may be more seletive, but Stanford is still bettter because it has enough money to hire people like Michaal Oksenberg. I'm not as smart as him, but some of his knowledge rubbed off. Until Beida and Qinghua can pay their teachers real money, I will continue to be better informed than you.

I'm sure you do, although I do have a little background in Asian studies... ;)

But then I wasn't really referring to the political system or similar, more on issues that affect peoples daily lives. If your kids get sick because of environmental pollution or are at risk of being kidnapped and sold by criminals, can you just shrug it off as the price of stability? These are issues I have had Chinese managers take up at the dinner table.

Another beautiful day coming up here in Eastern China. ^

Darn, when you said "PRC" I read that as People Republic of California.

My bad, sorry.

I am not qualified to render opinion about which university is superior, as I have never attended class in any of these three prestige institutions. However, I do not see a direct correlation between the size of payroll and the competency of the faculties. The professors in Beida & Qinghua probably earn less than instructors in some community colleges; I seriously doubt you believe a community college instructor is academically superior to a Beida or Qinghua professor. Besides, until recently, throughout the Chinese history, it would be consider as a great insult to any Chinese scholar if anyone told him that he is a great scholar because he is well-paid.