Comments on: 1972, 1984 and 2014 (and those poor Chinese still don’t have the vote, human rights or a free press – just commerce and money)

By: J Abela

J Abela — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 01:35:25 +0000

At least back then, when China was striving for acceptance, Mintoff was treated like a king.

Today, I’m feeling that the Chinese are relishing the fact that someone who they might have treated as a king a few years back, out of desperation, is now their lapdog who’s begging for a small fraction of their spare cash. And they oblige because for them it costs them nothing and they see it as little indulgence to feed their ego.

By: H.P. Baxxter

H.P. Baxxter — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 22:16:11 +0000

In reply to etil.

The cynical answer would be the standard one: Because those European countries want to make maximum profit.

But there is a deeper reason. It’s the belief in social progress through economic development, and economic development through free markets and trade. The idea itself is very old, about two centuries or so.

Me, I’ve never believed it for one minute. For my pains, I get called racist and other nasty names.

I oppose free trade with China. Let’s build tariff barriers so high they will drive China right back to the middle ages (isn’t that their Golden Era?) And let’s stop believing that propaganda about how they invented everything. They never even got round to the knife and fork, so there.

By: H.P. Baxxter

H.P. Baxxter — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 17:37:29 +0000

In reply to La Redoute.

That’s an interesting point, because even there, the Chinese LIE. In the vernacular, anke hawn ifottu. The population of China is officially 1.3 billion, give or take a few million. The real number may be closer to 2 billion. Two fucking billion. Because census figures are dabbled with by government officials, and bribes are rife, especially in the countryside, where no one actually sticks to the one-child policy.

You know, and this one’s for my reminiscing colleague Jozef: as a youth I remember walking down Republic Street beneath the giant poster saying EWROPA = ABORT.

Er, so China equals what?

By: La Redoute

La Redoute — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 14:36:50 +0000

There are upwards of one billion people in China. Approximately one million have the sort of money worth talking about. A handful have what are considered good jobs. The rest scrabble around for a living, unless they’re pushed out of their shabby homes or decimated in the name of progress.

By: Jozef

Jozef — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 14:25:49 +0000

In reply to etil. Companies are pulling out of China, no signs of an internal market, promised for decades, yet.

By: etil

etil — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 14:00:54 +0000

Whilst agreeing with you about the situation in China. Why are European countries setting up manufacturing concerns there ? They should show their disapproval of the human rights and free press situation by not doing so. After all they will be employing Chinese persons at the lowest of salaries and not good conditions of work. Same as for India where poverty abounds and yet their government has money to purchase armaments from the British (recent news).

By: Jozef

Jozef — Wed, 09 Jul 2014 13:54:10 +0000

The result was a generation lost to sweat shops, sewing jeans against the stopwatch and a huge pile of unsaleable carpets.

And that if you were lucky.

Most of those who thought this was the nature of work still hover around every village square, usually on a ‘boarded out’ pension.

As the prime minister flies in a private jet once he can’t be arsed to check in on time.

I say the best is yet to come. The PN needs to take the ‘tal-qalba’ spiel seriously, before the internet goes down.