China Develops Democracy in Its Own Way

a big part of me has always belived that taiwan is a part of china. during the whole time i was schooled in taipei, i learned so much about china. i went back to the beginning of the beginning of the chinese history - from the dynasties that were never given official names to the very present-day moment. i was taught the name of every single emperor and what they did to make china a better place. i still remember some of the stories. i hope to tell them to my children one day. i also learned china's geography. i hated geography in high school because my teacher was a snob. i didn't hate the content. i learned about the great wall and where it was built. i learned about the significant yellow river and what it meant to the people. i used to be good at memorizing the name of each province. i wasn't always so savvy at memorizing which province had the most amount of cotton or corn or other resources but i made an effort. i've never ever been to china. such a shame! wait for the 2008 olympics! hello beijing! :)

i came across a news article about china's newest political reform. it's titled "China's Wen urges more reforms". i was surprised but delighted to be informed that many leaders of china are speaking of democracy now. it gives me hope that taiwan will eventually be recognized world-wide as a part of china. my concern is, however, the chinese government's preference for socialism. i don't know much about socialism but i think canada is a socialist country. there are pros and cons. our government - by "our" i mean canadian government (i'm a canadian citizen) - is very wealthy. it takes all citizens' money to its pocket. few of our people will ever be really rich. the tax is too heavy. 40% of our income is bound to be taxed away. how is this policy ever going to allow anyone to rise from the bottom to the top? the upper classes will always remain upper classes. the middle classes will just keep expanding their population. the lower classes will just be even "lower" in terms of their affluence. as a result, no one really wants to work. what's the point of working so much anyway when whatever you earn for those extra hours will be taxed away? such system produces lazy people, i tell ya. it would scare me to see china end up like this.... i shouldn't be worried, though. chinese people are born to be total workaholics. we've worked throughout our history. it's never stopped. i am proud to say that hard-working is definitely one of our chinese signatures!

i am curious to find out what the chinese government means by "china will develop democracy in its own way". i am not too fond of the sound of that. i am guessing they will have their own definitions of what constitutes as democracy. their definitions will probably different from other conventional definitions of democracy in western countries. i am particularly interested in how they will define "human rights" in their books of democratic reforms. it's time for a change for china. beijing was given the chance to host the olympics and it shows that the world is expecting china to be different from before. olympics is all about human rights and dignity. there were many debates over whether beijing had a right to host such powerful event that celebrates human excellence. china got the vote. it was definitely a positive gesture. don't let us down!

North Korea Gets to Keep Nuclear Weapon

As my undergraduate career is reaching to an end, I have decided that, starting the month of February 2007, I am going to tune in a lot more than ever for world's news articles. Not only that, I am going to make an effort to write a short response to every single piece just for the sake of brainstorming and applying the materials that I learn in school to a real-life setting. I read lots of things on the internet. Occasionally I read Canadian news. I mostly read Arts & Entertainment articles. That's got to change now since this blog is meant to be as intellectually stimulating as possible. So today's article is on "North Korea Gets to Keep Nuclear Weapons".

This is an opinion piece so the news discourse embedded in it might be different from other typical mainstream sources. However, one thing that the columnist does which resembles to many other mainstream journalists is that she follows the characteristics of the regime of journalistic "objectivity" by presenting stories of both sides. She gives a brief history of what American government has done about North Korea. She also talks a bit about the nuclear weapon activities engaged by the previous and current North Korea leaders. Because Hamilton Spector is considered a mainstream news source, its journalists tend to be as "objective" as possible. On the other hand, in an independent news source, usually the journalist does not bother to include stories of both sides. He/she would rather present what he/she believes is the accurate version of the story and then takes a stand on it. I am particularly interested in bush's remark on North Korea. I think what he says about Korea actually says a lot about himself. Calling North Korea "Axis of Evil" and yet still letting the country keep the nuclear weapons, bush, in that sense, is abetting the evil country. He is a partner in crime and yet he calls North Korea the evil one. I sense this huge irony. While bush is so obsessed with the Middle East and claims that America should tame this region of evilness and threats to mankind, he lets North Korea have it better?

I could be wrong, but I am guessing that America keeps North Korea close to them for one reason - to have some "back-up" in case in the future another nation catches up with the states - or even conquers the states economically. In my opinion, this fits Bush's mentality quite well. Of course not every other president is going to be so war-loving like Bush. I sure hope the next president is more peaceful. Again, this is just my two cents.