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nonfamiliar

Listed below are comments made by nonfamiliar between Thursday, 7th August 2008 and Friday, 22nd August 2008.

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China's Olympic highlights 01:03am on 22 Aug 2008 My highlight has been the Jacques Rogge's stupefying performance, both preceeding and during the games. Debasing all the olympics' moral currency was no mean feat - but defending the indefensible in front of the largest audience imaginable very nearly did it. Giselle Davies was effective in playing her role; stoic, if a little brusque. But when Rogge turned around and criticised the most electrifying athlete in recent memory for how he celebrated his wins - well, that tipped it over the edge for me.

He has surely scaled previously unthinkable heights of self-interested spinelessness, and presents a shining example for all eurocrats with titles attatched to their names.
Chinese applaud Taiwan 'warlord' 00:46am on 21 Aug 2008 londonlurker wrote:

"The dispute of the mainland and the island should be decided by Chinese people alone, not by the meddling of the west."

Absolutely not. The fate of Taiwan should be decided by the Taiwanese.
Staying in power 01:23am on 20 Aug 2008 it's not reasonable to ask china to follow the western-style multi-party system. it's an imperfect system which has some very good ideas at its core, but the reality of western politics is pretty far removed from the ideals it was built upon - just look at all the misinformation and dirty tactics taking place in the current US presidential race. globally, the idea of democracy has lost quite a bit of its sheen in recent years, and not without justification.

i don't think the chinese people are hostile to the idea of political reform - xinhua's constantly reporting various CCP initiatives on corruption, economic policy, environmental management and so on. and if they are suspicious of change, it's with good reason, given what history has shown them about rapid political upheaval.

i agree with many posters here that adopting a western system would be a disaster for china. i think government accountability and transparency would not be impossible to introduce into a one-party system in other ways, and i hope that's what the CCP aspires to do in the long term.
Filming me, filming you 09:59am on 15 Aug 2008 so why are they filming the news crews?

are they just thoroughly documenting the event, are they building dossiers of the journalists? what are they going to use the footage for? to build a case? to use in patriotic propaganda films? or is it just an intimidation technique?

frankly, it looks a tad dodgy from over here.
Filming me, filming you 06:45am on 15 Aug 2008 good to hear you didn't get walloped, james.
Chinese lose... at sabre fencing 01:24am on 15 Aug 2008 judging by yesterday's events in the media centre, BOCOG should be awarded the gold in sabre rattling.

from what i can gather, the international press are getting really slammed by the powers that be - but hang in there, james. and let's hope some decent stories escape the police state's bony grasp at the end of this all.
Not quite what we thought 04:58am on 14 Aug 2008 to demonstrate how trivial this CGI fireworks debate is, british reporter john ray has been roughed up and detained by beijing police in the course of doing his job. it hardly seems likely that the police are a law unto themselves in china. the most plausible scenario is that they are operating under a directive they disrupt, delay and intimidate foreign journalists who attempt to cover "sensitive" issues, and apparently feel free to use physical force to that end.

the protest parks remain empty, journalists aren't allowed near them, and people who apply to protest are apparently just 'dissappearing'. this is of far greater concern to me than a lip-syncing tween, or the startling revalation that BOCOG had measures in place to ensure the opening ceremony came across perfectly on TV.
Not quite what we thought 00:33am on 13 Aug 2008 It's standard for countries to massively over-engineer and fail-safe big public events, often it's as simple as protecting their ($20bn) investment.

The fireworks and the lip-synching singer (and the dummy piano) don't really bother me as much as the number of empty seats we're seeing in the venues. even people who travelled all the way to china to see family members compete are not being let into venues. my mate is staying at a hotel that's virtually empty ("like the hotel in the Shining," he says,) there's a massive military and police presence on the streets, sections of the city are closed off, etc.

there does seem to be a sense that more effort is being put into making the games safe and efficient than making it fun. what are they thinking, stationing a tank directly outside the media center? scary.
8th of the 8th, 2008 04:58am on 08 Aug 2008 about bush's comments - the oppressor has no right to speak on behalf of the oppressed. his administration has done its best to tear down precisely the same rights he champions for china.

bush would be best advised to keep his mouth shut - it tends to conspire against him at the best of times. he has no credibility on human rights, and in criticising china, he only highlights his own insincerity.

it's very exciting time for china! i can't wait for the opening ceremony.
A cup of tea with China's police 05:42am on 07 Aug 2008 "China does not want to be patronised by the liberally-minded. Perhaps they understand who supplied the opium all those years ago under the guise of free trade?"

obviously the chinese people who profited from smuggling and distributing opium throughout their own country can't be entirely free of implication in that particular series of events. is it even relevant? the CCP doesn't seem to take much exception to myanmar's huge opium production industry these days.

while i don't dispute colonialism's many crimes, the propaganda taught in chinese school is far from a complete education in history. the chinese ruling class have spent centuries perfecting the art of blaming external forces for china's problems, but this view of history is not often supported by the real events.

indeed, often the opposite can be shown to be true - for instance it would be hard to argue china's current prosperity would have been possible without opening up her economy to the global trade. nor would the olympics have been granted her without considerable goodwill on the part of the international community.

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