Comments on: Now that’s what I call the right attitude

By: It-Tezi a' Mario

It-Tezi a' Mario — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 23:15:58 +0000

In reply to fautdemieux. What are Malta's interests in China and how are they best served by turning Malta into China's vassal state?

By: Ian

Ian — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 22:13:06 +0000

Bit rich coming from an Australian minister, talking bout civil liberties, considering what Australia does to asylum seekers. What wonderful liberal values – turn back boatloads of starving poor people. They recently claimed that they even ‘checked their papers’ while actually bobbing about at sea, and then deemed them not worthy asylum seekers. Yeah, like hell.

By: Hallelin

Hallelin — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 05:59:57 +0000

In reply to Hallelin. Mintoff, dak il-mahmug, kellu l-istess politika li ghandhom ic-Cinizi llum. Ipprova jassar l-haddiem bil-minimum wage halli l-kapitalist jista jiffanga. Sfruttaw din is-sitwazzjoni skjavista hafna fabriki barranin fis-snin sebghin u tmenin. Mintoff kien jobghod lil Malti.

By: M

Mon, 14 Jul 2014 21:56:19 +0000

In reply to Toni bajada. When did the Labour Party ever show its hand?

By: Toni bajada

Toni bajada — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 21:31:47 +0000

And its not the world’s biggest or most dynamic economy. That is the USA – China’s role is to use its enslaved masses as cheap labour and to steal and spy to make up for the fact that oppressed corrupt people are not very creative.

Because when it comes down to it, democracy (which we have never experienced in Malta) will always trump totalitarian states.

By: fautdemieux

fautdemieux — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 20:04:57 +0000

I’m all for personality – particularly in a political context within which it is all but lacking (except where one notices what passes for personality in Malta in those political actors who deserve nothing but contempt.) But it seems intellectually dishonest for Baxxter to try and describe a place (in this case, China) by highlighting only the most negative aspects of life therein while saying nothing to his audience about the opportunities that it contains. (Has Baxxter been to China beyond Beijing/Shanghai/Hong Kong?) By all means, highlight corruption, the lack of rule of law, systematic abuses of human rights, etc., – keep true to our values, in other words – but at the same time use your brain to at least try and understand the argument for seeking to advance your interests in the place as best you can (even though we’ve left it very late to work to attract interest from China (students, tourists, etc.) when other countries have been at work at this for years, and when most Chinese, to the extent that they’ve heard of the country ‘Malta’, often mix it up with the Maldives.

[Daphne – Why would a Chinese student come to the University of Malta? Anybody who can get out of China and who has the money to do so is going to be aiming a little higher than that. That’s why Europe’s and North America’s top universities have plenty of Chinese students, and not because Britain and North America go out of their way busting a gut to attract them there. Yes, they want the fees Chinese students pay, but Chinese students want what they get in return. You miss something here: Chinese culture is intrinsically highly competitive. There’s no value in a university place they can get without beating off competition from a few hundred others. Lots of Maltese feel like that too about our university, incidentally. Ditto tourism. If you haul yourself all the way from China, why bother visiting Malta instead of, say, Rome, Paris, London, Stockholm, Milan, Berlin…? Would you fly to the Far East and waste your time trawling through poxy villages instead of visiting the key cities?]

By: it-Tezi ta' Mario

it-Tezi ta' Mario — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 18:28:12 +0000

In reply to R Vella.

Why are you surprised? Chinese companies are doing that in China, beating, stabbing and shooting peasant farmers in the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEy9fddxX5s

By: it-Tezi ta' Mario

it-Tezi ta' Mario — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 18:25:40 +0000

In reply to it-Tezi ta' Mario. On both occasions, Muscat spoke in Malta's name, even though he was in opposition in 2010.

By: Makjavel

Makjavel — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 18:18:56 +0000

In reply to R Vella. And apparently Chinese are being sent there to run the farms.

By: Hallelin

Hallelin — Mon, 14 Jul 2014 16:57:39 +0000

Il- Kapitalizmu qed jaghmel xalata fic-Cina. Utopija perfetta. Fejn ma hemmx demokrazija, bla drittijiet tal bniedem u tal-haddiema. Politika totalitarja stalinista.