China Bans Game Recognizing Taiwan Independence 892
OhioJoe writes "MSNBC is reporting that China has banned a soccer game that depicts Taiwan as independent. Violators are threatened with $1200 fines. From the article: "The game, 'Soccer Manager 2005', contained content that harmed China's sovereignty and territorial integrity and violated Chinese law, the Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday."
Re:War on China (Score:1, Informative)
(X) Makes huge number of manufactured goods that we rely on and for which we've shuttered/decommissioned our factories here.
(X) Can actually fight back (i.e. has nuclear ICBMs)
Basically:
Remember the old theory that democracies don't start wars? Well, it was predicated on the idea that "the people" won't generally invite the necessary hardship and risk to do it. This is pretty much accurate, it just breaks down when the scales of power are so disbalanced that there's no effect on the homeland (as per Iraq: we're not exactly rationing materiel here to keep up that fight). It works just fine when we're faced with an opponent whose defeat would require (gasp!) sacrifice and discomfort.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
Because most of China's leaders keep legitimacy by maintaining that Taiwan is part of the China still. To lose Taiwan would almost certainly lead to a Communist over-throw in China.
Also, if Taiwan declares Independence the by-product would be war. Right now, China has an awful lot of weapons pointed at Taiwan and they have yearly drills on how to invade Taiwan.
So, the best thing for China and Taiwan is to maintain the status quo. Taiwan continues to operate as it is right now, China talks of the future when the two entities are one. Any suggestions that Taiwan is independent is pretty harmful to both countries at this time. It is also the reason that the United States and many other world leading countries refuse to recognize Taiwan as a country.
Re:From the Article (Score:3, Informative)
Tibet is also officially part of China -- and so is Taiwan in the official opinion of many countries.
This is why Windows went from 'country' to 'region' in all it's i8n settings.
Free Software too.. (Score:4, Informative)
Herbert Xu, a Debian Developer and maintainer of the Debian Linux Kernel package, resigned from Debian in May 2004 due to a dispute over the use of a Taiwanese flag.
Resignation on debian-boot with references to context [debian.org]
start of thread on debian-devel [debian.org]
-molo
Taiwan is China (Score:1, Informative)
But there are two Chinese states, both of which claim to be "China".
The first one is the People's Republic of China [wikipedia.org] (PRC), which currently occupies the mainland China (capital: Beijing), and the Republic of China [wikipedia.org] (RoC), which is currently limited to Taiwan, with the capital in Taipei.
PRC says Taiwan is a rebelious province of the PRC, and RoC says mainland China consists of many rebelious provinces of the RoC.
Both the PRC and RoC claim to be "the real China".
Only one of the Chinese states can be recognized at the same time. E.g. if your country recognizes Mainland China/PRC as the Chinese country, it can't recognize Taiwan/RoC, and if your country recognizes RoC, it can't recognize PRC.
Re:but great employees (Score:2, Informative)
The post wasn't talking about a Chinese ruler.
Re:So many peanuts, so little gallery. (Score:5, Informative)
Westerners really don't understand the Chinese mentality. Chinese thinking is cyclical and long-term. As the famous line in Three Kingdoms goes,
"Domains under heaven, after a long period of union, tends to divide; after a long period of division, tends to unite." Division and reunification are important elements of how Chinese believe the world works. Many Chinese don't see the current situation in terms of the present, they take the long-term view which for Chinese is that the Han Chinese on Taiwan will eventully be reunited with China because that's how it has always worked in the past. It is true that many times splinter kingdoms of Han Chinese have broken off and were reunited by military force. Anyway, the point is the Chinese on the mainland think that reunification is inevitable. It might not happen soon but it will happen. This puts a cramp on negotiations as you can imagine. The most important thing to remember is that Chinese often see present events as filtered through thousands of years of Chinese imperial history.
The second thing is that to Chinese division is seen as bad and unification is good. (I suspect this comes from the misery of multiple civil wars). Hence there are strong elements of "using force for their (the Taiwanese) own good". There is a strong belief amognst mainland Chinese that the reunification of Taiwan with China will actually *benefit* the Taiwanese because the horrible division will be healed and the Han Chinese can act together as one unit to take on the world stronger than ever, together. They will cite China's growing economic and military power as signs of how the Taiwanese will benefit with joining with China. There is a belief that most Taiwanese support reunification and it is interference of a few mischief makers and US interference that is stopping the masses in Taiwan from joing with China. They take me aside and tell me that patriots in Taiwan are stealing technology secrets and passing them to China as a sign of their loyalty. A similar but different attitude can be seen in regards to places like Tibet. It is believed that before the Chinese takeover, the people of Tibet where barbaric savages living horrible miserable little lives where they are starving and oppressed. Now the Chinese government is taking over, the wonders of Chinese civilisation is being brought to them and they are now becoming educated civilised people who are capable of living in the modern world and are much happier than they were before.
Now before you laugh at this, please compare the Chinese attitude to the US attitude to Iraq.
As for Tiannamen. Many Chinese believe that the government was right in doing what they did. The students were threatening to bring down the government and hence in the interests of stability the government had to act to ensure that the country remained intact. The students were no more than a filthy band of rebels who were trying to take power as has happened many times in Chinese history. It's sad that the Chinese government had to use force but really the students' brought it on themselves.
There is really very little support for Communism BTW. Most of the support is based on (1) Nationalism (2) Paranoia towards the west derived from Western colonialism in the 19th century (3) Traditional Chinese political values and Confucian principles and (4) Desire for a stable government for peace and prosperity. I sense very little desire for democracy and freedom. As I have been asked, "What will democracy do for us?"
Re:So many peanuts, so little gallery. (Score:3, Informative)
I've been unable to pull up the English version for the past two weeks whereever I've tried. It either redirects to the Chinese version or just fails.
Re:Game has flaws too (Score:2, Informative)
Re:War on China (Score:5, Informative)
My ex-girlfriend was Chinese. There were some interesting things that came out of that:
Re:This is the China (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Single handidly working to get /. banned in Chi (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"Self hating whites?" (Score:3, Informative)
Back in the 1780's, the slave and "free" states were roughly evenly divided. But by the 1850's, the slave states were significantly outnumbered by the states that had banned slavery. The southern states were demanding a limited federal government to prevent the growing anti-slavery movement from enforcing a ban on slavery anywhere in the country (both in the slave states themselves and in the non-state territories).
The immediate cause of the American Civil War was the election of Abraham Lincoln, who ran on a platform of (among other things) banning slavery in all non-state territories and preventing any new states from permitting slavery. At the time, he did not advocate abolishing slavery in the southern states where it already existed.
And so, once the fighting broke out, the immediate goals of the war were focusing on the issue of States' Rights versus federal authority. It was only after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued two and a half years later that the issue of slavery was once again brought to the fore.
Please note that I do recognize that many people who fly the Confederate battle flag (which is not the same as Confederate national flag that was known as the "Stars and Bars") today are not necessarily advocating slavery or racism, but rather some nebulous ideal of the Southern way of life. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, save for two points: (1) the Southern way of life at the time of the Civil War was largely supported by slavery and relied on forced labor, and (2) the vast majority of people today view the Confederate battle flag as a symbol representing a government which fought for the continuance of slavery. (For another good example of a symbol where a modern interpretation has completely overwhelmed previous meanings, read an article about the swastika [wikipedia.org].) Therefore, although I realize that the Confederate battle flag represents more than slavery and racism for some people, I generally disapprove of its use because of the much more common interpretation of today's society.
Re:War on China (Score:1, Informative)
Counting only communist China: multiple wars with India, and they're still occupying part of India (they've been in perpetual "negotiations" for decades, but still hold the place by force of arms).
Major participation in the Korean war (China is essentially the ONLY reason North Korea still exists).
Participation in the Vietnam war.
The conquering of Tibet and ongoing crushing of Tibetan culture.
Constant threats of invading Taiwan. Currently massive numbers of missiles are aimed at Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.
General meddling in the affairs of their other neighbors (I apologize for the lack of citing specific sources here).
Border wars with the Soviets.
Further, depending on interpretation, large sections of the present day Chinese border provinces, while of the Chinese race, were not part of the Chinese nation until conquered by direct military force.
You may recall other recent incidents of highly warlike behavior by the Chinese military. Such as hounding planes over international waters, eventually leading to RAMMING one and taking its crew hostage for a time. Another such incident involved the intrusion of a Chinese sub deep into Japanese waters, which is highly suspicious, considering the distance (check out a map) and China's claims that its submarines are purely for close patrols of their harbors.
The West may not hear much about China's activities, purely because they are strictly regional affairs, but the history of China's current government has always been militant.