India - China: Relations And Developments-2

Bodhi · (This post was last modified: 12-17-2006, 05:19 AM by Bodhi.)

QUOTEChina becoming another imperialist power?
By M.V. Kamath

History repeats itself in strange ways. Towards the end of the 18th century Britain was not much of a power. As late as 1870, Florence Nightingale, the nurse who made history, was to write: âBombay at this time is healthier than London, Calcutta though not healthier than London is healthier than Manchester or Liverpool!â But it was in business and was spreading out from as early as the 17th century.

The East India Company came to India to indulge in trade and ended up as rulers. One wonders whether what Britain did in India is currently being repeated by China in Africa in another context. China started with wishing to gain influence in Africa and has so far done a great deal to win it over. It started with supporting African liberation movements in the 1950s and 1960s, helped build railways for the newly independent countries, bringing in Chinese labour in large number to complete the jobs undertaken. It even encouraged African students to study in China and did whatever possible to win African favour. Now, it has opted for trade with Africa on a massive scale.

In a way, it is a reversal of the British or even European role in Asia where Europeans came to trade and set up their factories whether in India, Indonesia or South East Asia, only to end up as rulers. In the present case, the Chinese approach to Africa is the other way round. It went there to seek influence but is now actively engaged in raising trade possibilities. Trade between China and Africa was around $ 3 billion in 1995. By 2005, in just about a decade, that trade has risen to $ 32 billion. By any reckoning this is a steep rise. It is competing with the European Union(EU) and the United States in a determined way. EU-Africa trade is declining but China seems determined to push it further down. Beijing seems to be in a hurry. It has one advantage over the European Union and that is that it can produce goods at a much cheaper price. In this matter no European nation can compete with China and it has been pushing its influence with a determination which is awesome.

Early this year in January, Chinaâs Foreign Minister, Li Zhaoxing, âswept through West Africaâ to use a phrase originating in a British journal. Three months, later, in April, President Hu Jintao visited Nigeria, Morocco and Kenya. He was followed in June by Prime Minister, Wen Jiabao who, in turn visited seven other countries in the continent. It has been a kind of âdiplomatic invasionâ never before seen. In the first week of November, China hosted more than thirty African leaders for the first-ever Sino-African Summit in Beijing. The Indian media, it would seem, has not taken all these Chinese moves seriously. It had better. Meanwhile, State-owned Chinese companies have also been active.

Around 1991 there were 300 Chinese living in Zambia. Now, according to one guess, there are over 3,000. What are they doing there? Buying and selling, thatâs what. The Chinese are in the civil engineering and construction business. Having done well in Zambia, the Chinese are apparently planning to move to neighbouring Angola and Congo. Primarily, Chinaâs eyes are on raw materials available in Africa, just as European eyes in the 17th century onwards were on spices in the East, with a foreign exchange reserve of $ 1 trillionâan unbelievable figure-China is spreading out to buy raw materials to sustain its growing economy, anything from minerals, farm products, and timber to oil and more especially oil. For China, oil is what it needs most to sustain its industrial development. 

According to the The Economist (October 28), China alone is responsible for 40 per cent of the global increase in oil demand between 2000 and 2004. Just as the European powers, especially Britain and France and later the United States kept a keen eye on middle eastern oil, China is now coveting African oil to sustain its rapidly growing industry, even while word is going round that it would like to co-opt India in its oil exploration efforts.

CNOOC, a state-owned Chinese company, paid in January $ 2.7 billion to get a minority interest in a Nigerian oilfield. Nigeria, needless to say, is Africaâs biggest oil-producer. China, similarly, has secured exploration rights in four Nigerian sites. And a Chinese companyâobviously state-owned, has become a partner in local firms, exploring oil in several blocks in Angola.

What on earth is India doing? Angola, incidentally, has now overtaken Saudi Arabia as Chinaâs biggest single supplier of oil. China seems to be spreading its tentacles to other African states such as Sudan, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Congo Brazzaville. The last named already sells a third of its annual output to Chinese refiners.

The Economist provides even more fascinating information on Chinaâs interest in Africa. China, for example has now taken over 70 per cent of Sudanâs exports, compared to 10 per cent a decade ago. In mid-1990s, Burkina Faso hardly sold anything to China. Now it sells a third of its exports to China, mostly cotton. Chinese companies are building bridges, roads and other civic amenities in Angola and as payment is taking oil. Smart deal. With its firm foothold in Africa, China is undercutting scale of European goods, whether it is textiles of plastics or electronic equipment to a point that the developed world is sitting up. It has to, considering that by now China has invested as much as $ 150 million in Sudan alone.

As The Economist put it: âWhen American and Canadian oil companies packed their bags there, China quickly stepped in, drilling wells and building pipelines and roads.â In the circumstances, one can well understand the warning put up by The Economist to the effect that what is happening is âa warning to Africans that this new interloper in their continent is no more altruistic than its predecessorsââpresumably meaning the French, the Belgians and the British. They, all went to Asia first to trade; then, to protect their trade, they got into politics. And to safeguard their politics, they sought to take over power. The United States is as much guilty of such behaviour in Latin America as elsewhere. Hasnât China learn anything from history? Havenât the African nations? But then, does it matter? All powerful nations, in their own way, are alike. Politics and amorality go hand in hand. One suspects that they are even compelled to, by time and circumstances.

In the past competition between trading nations often led to war as between France and England or England the Netherlands until each nation carved out its exclusive geographic boundaries to keep others out of bounds. Does one see a repetition of the old game? Is what we are witnessing a re-run of history in a different context? One can only wait and see. Meanwhile China is marching ahead. True, as of now its share of African trade is only around 2.3 per cent of its total trade. But one must begin somewhere, shouldnât one? And who knows where it will end? Power is always beguiling.

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.p...pid=161&page=22


Should not India work actively for trade and influence in East asia, and Latin America?

12-24-2006, 08:37 PM

<img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/argue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='argue.gif' /> What is there for India to do?
HindustanTimes.com Â» India Â» Story

Tibet's interest is to remain with China: Dalai Lama

Press Trust of India

New Delhi, December 24, 2006

Related Stories [X] close

Nov 22: Dalai Lama should accept Tibet is part of China: Hu Â»
Nov 18: Hu urged to meet Dalai Lama in India Â»

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Sunday said Tibet's interest is to remain as a part of China and asked India to play a role in achieving the goal to make the region a "zone of peace".
Seeking "political freedom", he asked Beijing to stop "cultural genocide" in Tibet and adopt "compassionate approach" and conciliatory measure for the resolution of Tibet issue.

"To remain with the Peoples Republic of China is in our interest," the Buddhist spiritual head said delivering ML Sondhi Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.

"But we are seeking political freedom to preserve our culture and environment and are opposed to cultural genocide being promoted by China due to increasing influx of the Han people and spread of Chinese language in Tibet," he said.

Describing the increasing Chinese Han population and deployment of Peoples Liberation Army in Tibet as main "hindrance towards attaining political Autonomy of Tibet", the Dalai Lama asked Bejing to downsize military and stop shifting mainland Han Chinese to Tibet.

"This will help achieve our goal to make Tibet a 'zone of peace' free from nuclear weapon", he said and asked India to play its role to help realize this goal.

Bharatvarsh · 12-28-2006, 11:40 PM

QUOTEWhy I will protest Hu Jintao's visit

November 17, 2006

http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/nov/17spec.htm

01-01-2007, 12:51 AM

The dragon vs. the tiger: China and India reshape the global economy

India and China will vie for economic and political dominance on the world stage. Here's an assessment of the two nations' short-term and long-term prospects. 
The Futurist
July 1, 2006
Davies, Owen

In Asia, an economic, social, and geopolitical revolution is under way. Dirt-poor just a generation ago, China and India are turning their economies around; they are now the dragon and the tiger of global commerce, experiencing growth rates that no other large country can match. The impacts are reverberating around the globe and will continue to be felt for many years to come.

Economically, both China and India have emerged from poverty to become prosperous trading nations. China is the world's third-largest trading nation, the second-largest partner for the European Union, and the second-largest partner of the United States and Canada. India ranks far smaller--it is Europe's ninth-largest trading partner, for example--but is growing rapidly. China already is critical to the well-being of the global economy. India soon will be.

Militarily, China and India are working hard to expand their power within the region and, in the case of China, beyond. Both are modernizing their armies. Both are building blue-water navies. China is developing nuclear-capable missiles with intercontinental range. If these two countries achieve their goals, it will represent the first major shift in the balance of the world's military power since the end of the Cold War. This also will raise the stakes in any future confrontation between India and China or China and Japan.

Diplomatically, both countries are currying influence. Both are beginning to provide aid for poorer lands. India is participating in international military and rescue operations. China is building bilateral ties with many other lands, using its economic power to further its political ends. India covets a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council; China recently blocked a move to grant it.

In these changes, some economists, political scientists, and historians see a shift in the world's center of gravity from the industrialized West to the industrializing East. According to Goldman Sachs, India's economy could be larger than Japan's by 2032, while China's could be larger than that of the United States by 2039. 

Capitalism Rises in China 

China's brand of capitalism remains highly regulated and often corrupt. Yet, this oddly mixed economic system has proved remarkably successful. Between 1978 and 2000, China's GDP quadrupled. In 2005, per capita GDP reached $6,200. The nation now accounts for more than 4% of the world's economic output.

China remains one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. In 2005, China's GDP expanded by 9.2%, according to official figures. That growth flows from manufacturing, which provides more than half of China's GDP. In 2005, industrial production grew by an amazing 27.7%. The lowest wages of any major industrial nation have made China the low-cost producer in fields from textiles to telecommunications to auto parts. Distributed through discounters like Wal-Mart, Chinese products are credited with lowering the U.S. consumer price index by as much as 2%.

This is only the beginning. In 2007, entrepreneur Malcolm Bricklin plans to begin importing cars from Chery Auto to the United States. (Some industry experts say it will be 2010 before Chinese cars can meet U.S. emissions and safety standards.) Retail prices are expected to be 30% lower than comparable models from other makers, an advantage that is likely to kill the frail Italian auto industry and decimate competitors around the world.

Economic power always translates into political and diplomatic power, and so it is in Southeast Asia. China wishes to lead its region and become a significant player on the world scene, and its growing wealth is making this increasingly possible. Often, it has chosen to support underdogs in confrontations with the United States.

For example, China has been selling weapons and providing military, economic, and infrastructure aid to Myanmar (Burma)--about $3 billion in all--in return for using ports there to rest and refuel its naval ships. When the United States used trade sanctions to promote democratization in 2003, it cost Myanmar an estimated $200 million; however, deals with China brought in roughly $1 billion that year, and the loss of U.S. trade went almost unnoticed.

Similarly, China's oil and gas deals with Iran have irretrievably undermined the Bush administration's attempt to bring that country to heel through economic sanctions.

Chinese ties with Sudan are, if anything, even stronger. Sudan supplies nearly 5% of China's oil, and China has invested $2 billion to develop Sudan's oil resources. It also supplies weapons to Sudan's armed forces and blocked a U.S. attempt to obtain UN sanctions against the country for its slow genocide in the Darfur region.

China also is building relationships with U.S. neighbors, thanks to its economic muscle and ferocious demand for raw materials, as well as to Washington's neglect. For example, China has concluded an agreement giving it access to Canadian oil sands and uranium. In November 2005, it announced massive new investments in Argentina--$20 billion for offshore oil and gas exploration, railways, construction, and even communications satellites. China also has bought oil assets in Ecuador and signed deals to invest $350 million in Venezuelan oil fields and $60 million in a gas project there.

Sino-Latin trade has grown by an astounding 900% in the last five years. Brazilian exports to China doubled in 2003 alone, to $4.5 billion, and China is now Brazil's second-largest trading partner. It is Chile's largest export market. In all, China's trade with Brazil, Argentina, and Chile amounted to $14.6 billion in 2003, including imports worth $10.7 billion. In 2004, nearly half of all Chinese direct investment overseas went to Latin America. Chile signed a free-trade agreement with China in November 2005, and Brazil has announced plans to negotiate one.

For China, this rapidly growing trade has two benefits: First, and most importantly, it provides another source of much needed oil, raw materials, and foreign exchange profits. Second, it may serve to lure the 12 Latin American countries that still support Taiwan toward Beijing's one-China policy.

India Today: Crouching Tiger? 

India's late start in building a modern capitalist society has left it far behind the Chinese dragon, but the tiger's economy has made major improvements in a surprisingly short time. A decade ago, more than 35% of Indians lived in poverty. Now, 300 million belong to the middle class, a third of them having risen from poverty. At the current rate of growth, a majority of Indians will be middle-class by 2025--a rate of social progress no one else in the world can match. 

While China continues to be largely a manufacturing economy, India leads as an emerging service economy. India's fastest-growing and most-profitable service sector is high technology, and yet little more than 1% of India's citizens own a personal computer; some 50,000 villages lack even a single telephone. India views its skill in information technology not just as the basis for a profitable export industry, but also as a force multiplier to improve its military. By making India an indispensable component of the global high-tech economy, this dominance in IT is a route to greater influence in world affairs. India wants to be a Great Power, and IT is the tool by which it hopes to achieve that goal.

Outsourcing services to India is hot, as its skilled workforce takes on functions such as telephone support and payroll processing for companies in the United States and Europe. Around 400 of the Fortune 500 companies now outsource IT-related services to India, and most of the rest at least intend to experiment with outsourcing. An estimated 3.5 million U.S. jobs will migrate to Indian outsourcing firms by 2015.

Internationally, India has only two worries and one major goal--but they are big ones.

China, its economic rival to the north, might someday become a military rival as well. The two countries are the largest and most powerful in the region; they are natural competitors for regional and world influence, and they have a longstanding dispute over their mutual border. Though there is low probability that China and India will go to war again, the potential impact of such a scenario would be so enormous that military planners cannot ignore it. Much of the restructuring now being carried out by India's armed forces is designed to counter this eventuality. India has turned this into an asset, designing modern high-tech weaponry and joining with Israel and South Africa to build a profitable arms-export industry. The more immediate issue militarily is Pakistan. The armed standoff over Kashmir has flared into numerous skirmishes since the two countries gained independence in 1947.

India's great goal is to win status in the world's eyes as a Great Power. In practical terms, that means being granted permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council. That seat was proposed and denied in 1971, when the People's Republic of China replaced Taiwan, and the wound still festers in the Indian heart. Britain, France, Germany, and the United States all support India's claim to a permanent seat on the Security Council. However, China--uninterested in having another global power in its back yard--recently blocked an attempt to grant India's wish.

The Near-Term Outlook 

Clearly, China today is vastly more important to the world's economy than is India. Its insatiable demand for raw materials makes for an almost inexhaustible market for lands with commodity-based economies. For the developed world, it is a source of inexpensive consumer goods. But which of the two nations will be the dominant player on the world stage in the future?

To many executives and investors, the answer seems easy to see: China is the largest, fastest-growing economy in the world, with the biggest supply of potential consumers. Within the year, its trade with Southeast Asia is expected to reach $100 billion; soon thereafter, it will surpass the $120 billion in trade that the United States does with that region. Given a choice between China and India, China is the obvious place to put your money now.

But based on our analysis at Forecasting International, we are not convinced. China is clearly ahead at the moment, and probably will remain so for the next five years, but India has some long-term strengths that China lacks. We therefore believe that India will be Asia's economic leader by 2015. Dragons may fly, but tigers can move fast when they want to. And India wants to move fast. 

In some of his most influential work, Harvard economist Robert Barro identified four key factors that make for economic growth: education, macroeconomic stability, predictable and efficient institutions, and openness. So let's see how China and India compare according to each of these four success factors.

Success Factor 1: Education 

One year of additional schooling in a population adds an estimated 0.3% annual GDP growth over a 30-year period, and Beijing clearly has been doing a better job than New Delhi of delivering a basic education to its people. The universities and technical schools that train the Indian elite are irrelevant to the vast majority of the country's people. India claims that some 60% of its citizens are literate, but this is based on a lower standard of literacy than the international norm.

In contrast, about 91% of Chinese can read and write well enough to be considered literate under UNESCO's standards. India is working hard to expand its educational system, using the Internet and satellite transmissions to bring classes to outlying villages that often cannot be reached by road. To the extent that India succeeds (and Forecasting International believes that it will), China's advantage in this realm will not last more than another generation.

As a direct result, better education will ease two of India's heaviest burdens. India has always suffered the compound handicap of overpopulation and the wasted resource of large numbers of women who are uneducated and confined to the home. Those problems are likely to ease in the years ahead. According to the 2001 census, 54% of Indian women and girls can read and write, up from only 40% a decade earlier. In several relatively prosperous, urbanized states, the official number is higher than 80%. As a result, women are getting out of the house, getting jobs, and winning more control over their lives. This process invariably reduces fertility in developing countries. We expect India's birthrate to drop by about 35% over the next decade. As Indian families shrink, their prosperity will grow. So will the nation's productive capacity.

Success Factor 2: Macroeconomic Stability 

China has at least a temporary advantage over India in key economic factors. Low deficits, minimal inflation, and viable exchange rates all add to macroeconomic stability, and China has the advantage in two out of three--debt and inflation. China's public debt amounts to about 29% of GDP, while India's is roughly 80%. And China's inflation rate in 2005 was only 1.9%, compared with India's tolerable 4.4%.

Where China is at a disadvantage to India right now is in the area of exchange rates. It will be at least 2008 or 2009 before the yuan is fully convertible to other currencies. Problems may arise as China discovers that opening itself to foreign-exchange markets is extremely painful. Allowing the yuan to float to its natural level is likely to slow both exports and economic growth.

China will have to face one more problem as well. A critical asset for any would-be capitalist country is a strong, transparent banking system. China's banking system is, simply put, a mess. By Western standards, none of China's major banks is solvent. Over the years, a combination of cronyism and corruption has saddled Chinese banks with nonperforming loans estimated at $500 billion. Central government officials, determined to salvage the situation, have recapitalized about two-thirds of the banking system and are working to recover as much as possible of these lost funds. However, at the local level this process is reported to be foundering on the same kind of pocket-lining and sweetheart deals that caused the problem in the first place. Thus far, it seems that China's banks will be as bad off five years from now as they were five years ago. This can only undermine the country's efforts to modernize its economy. It was exactly this problem that mired Japan in recession for most of a decade.

Success Factor 3: Institutional Efficiency 

India and China both suffer from bureaucracies that are horrendously entrenched, rigid, and corrupt, but India is doing a better job of fixing the problem. China occasionally cracks down on corrupt officials, but for every one whose misdeeds are too flagrant to be ignored, thousands more quietly carry on business as usual. The common practice among local officials of confiscating peasant lands for their own benefit was a major factor igniting China's estimated 87,000 riots in 2005. In January 2006, the Communist Party's Central Discipline Inspection Committee announced that grassroots officials would be required to undergo more anticorruption training, while procedures for their selection would be tightened. In announcing the new measures, President Hu Jintao warned that "the fight against corruption is a long-term, complicated, and arduous task."

It is a task that India has well in hand. Nearly a decade ago, New Delhi established dozens of "vigilance commissions" to root out corruption at all levels of government and industry. The Central Vigilance Commission headed by N. Vittal has managed to clean up the banking industry. This is no more than a start, but it's a good one. Ten years from now, India's economy will work much better than it does today; unless things change unpredictably, China's will not.

Success Factor 4: Openness 

India's commitment to information technology gives it another advantage over China: openness. In hitching its economic future to information technology, India has exposed itself to the kind of intellectual cross-pollination that makes for a vibrant, creative, and economically productive culture. China, on the other hand, has not yet taken best advantage of IT's opportunities.

Raw statistics make it seem that India is at a marked disadvantage when it comes to Internet use. According to the most recent figures available, India has about 50.6 million Internet users, while China has 111 million, plus about 4.9 million in Hong Kong. Yet, India has managed to put at least one public Internet connection in every village in the country. Through those connections, even the most-remote villages are quickly being opened to the flow of ideas throughout the world.

In contrast, Beijing heavily censors the Internet. With the aid of Western technology companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft, it filters out ideas that the government considers destabilizing. In fact, China has good reason to fear the Internet. Beijing's leaders worry that any force promoting a quick transition to democracy could set off the kind of chaos that allowed the formation of a "kleptocracy" (government by thieves) in Russia. They may well be right, but in trying to avoid political chaos, Beijing's Internet censors have also cut the country off from much-needed intellectual stimulation. In the years ahead, this may slow China's development of industries that require creativity and offer high added value, with profits to match.

One other force for openness is the World Trade Organization. As China integrates itself into the WTO over the next few years and further opens to foreign investment and trade, it will be necessary to loosen many internal controls as well. These could include its restrictions on the Internet. Until those changes are well along, India will find it easier than China to develop new ideas and new business.

Other Forces of Change in China and India

* Wealth gap. One factor that Forecasting International weighs heavily in evaluating the stability of any country is the income gap between its rich and its poor. The wider the gap between the most prosperous and the least well-off tenths of the population, the more likely it is that political chaos, and even violent revolution, lie ahead. This was one of several factors that, long ago, allowed us to predict the fall of the Shah of Iran two years before the revolution that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power.

Both India and China are well within the stable range, according to the latest data available. India's richest tenth has an average income only about 9.6 times as large as that of the poorest tenth. In China, the ratio is about 12.7. Unfortunately, the most recent data available are ancient; they date from 1997 for India and 1998 for China. This is before India's high-tech wealth began to filter through the economy and before massive development began to drive Chinese peasants from their land, leaving an estimated 125 million former farm workers to wander aimlessly from one city to the next in search of work. Since those data were current, India's poor have begun to escape from poverty, while many of China's poor have lost what little security they had.

India clearly recognizes the dangers of the income gap. Shortly after coming to power, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the economist who set India on the path to economic reform in 1991, offered a guarantee that all households will get at least 100 days of work each year. Beyond that, the government has stated that it will not allow economic growth to fall below 7%-8% annually. With the exception of the employment guarantee, any social program that threatens to bring growth below that level will be tossed overboard. But when growth exceeds 7%, Singh promises to increase the budget for aid to the poor. These guarantees alone are a big advance for India's poorest.

Beijing, too, understands the danger of disparity and recently announced that its next five-year plan will contain extensive measures to improve the lot of its poor. Details are not yet available, but it is clear that China is starting later than India and has a longer way to go.

Over time, India's economic growth will have a greater impact on the lives of the country's people than seems possible for China. At an average of 6% growth per year, which India achieved throughout the 1990s and which it expects to see for at least the next 15 years, a majority of people in India's south, west, and northwest should have entered the middle class by 2025. Those in the poorer eastern states should catch up a generation later. And by 2068--admittedly a long time from now--India's people can expect per capita incomes equaling those of the United States at that time. It is difficult to see China matching that performance. Its growth is expected to slow to levels typical of the developed world by 2025.

* Democracy. India is a democracy; China is not, and it has no intention of becoming one in the near future. There is no need to go into much detail on this point. On average, democracies are simply more efficient than any other form of government, because elections provide a feedback mechanism that encourages the speedy correction of mistakes. Democracy does not guarantee that voters will punish their leaders' blunders quickly, but it improves the odds.

Democracy also gives people a stake in the management and future of their country. An old joke from the Soviet Union said of its labor system, "They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work." Such an attitude is much less likely to spread when national policy is set by freely elected leaders who can be held accountable for their actions.

Over a period of years, the incremental efficiencies of India's democratic government are likely to overcome the greater short-term efficiencies of China's command system.

Democracy also improves India's chances of achieving the global influence it so earnestly desires. Marketing itself as a democratic, world-oriented neutral can give India a route to its coveted seat on the UN Security Council. It may help also that India is working closely with the United States on terrorism security. At the moment, this is a sure route to U.S. support for India's goals.

* Use of English language. Widespread use of the English language is India's most-important advantage over China. India now produces more English-speaking scientists, engineers, physicians, and technicians each year than the rest of the world combined. And in the modern world of technology and business, there is no more useful tool. India's most recent "native" tongue has been its greatest asset in building a global IT and business services industry.

Of late, China is working hard to overcome that Indian advantage. Many Chinese are learning English in preparation for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. The Chinese government also has committed itself to training 100,000 new workers for the tourism industry by 2010, all of whom will be required to learn English. Additionally, a recent edict from Beijing, issued to improve the country's competitiveness in global markets, requires that all students learn English in primary and secondary school. If this new emphasis on English continues, India's future economic supremacy could be short-lived; in 20 years, China could easily regain the lead. Yet, preliminary reports indicate that progress in teaching English to Chinese students and workers is proving harder to achieve than the government had expected. At present, it seems that India is likely to retain its edge over China in this critical respect.

Summing Up: The Long-Term Outlook 

The key issues considered in this overview are just a few of the many factors shaping the future for China and India. Other important issue areas that should be examined carefully include energy, R & D, and tourism.

China is currently struggling to achieve energy independence, and its success or failure in that effort will help to determine its future economic growth. India has undeveloped energy resources that could give it an economic boost. Meanwhile, both countries are becoming low-cost providers for research and development, not just rote labor. The world's pharmaceutical companies are migrating rapidly to China, where technological sophistication is high, bioethics are largely unknown, and human test subjects are easy to find. Lastly, tens of millions of Chinese and Indian tourists are beginning to flood out across the globe, where they will be exposed to ideas that Beijing would prefer to avoid.

Taken together, all these trends lead to this conclusion: China and India will successfully meet all the challenges of economic development, social change, and national security that will face them in the years ahead. It will happen only with difficulty, but it will happen. Beijing and New Delhi will spend the next 20 years struggling to balance capitalist profit against rural need, environmental damage against development, military spending against domestic priorities, and the need for economic cooperation with their neighbors against the realities of trade and geopolitical competition.

This will be a difficult balancing act for both the dragon and the tiger. But in 20 years, both these countries will be stronger, wealthier, freer, and more stable than they are today.

For India, English and relative transparency are big advantages. For China, their absence is a big disadvantage, which it will take decades to overcome. Both these countries will do well in the years ahead. Both will achieve better lives for their people and probably the Great Power status that both desire. Yet, India soon will be the wealthier and more stable. And having captured the lead, India will retain it for many years to come. 

About the Authors

Marvin J. Cetron is president of Forecasting International Ltd. in Virginia. His e-mail address is glomar@tili.com. He will address this topic at the World Future Society's 2006 conference, World Future 2006: Creating Global Strategies for Humanity's Future.

01-07-2007, 07:12 PM

Chinese view Indians as aggressive (and underdeveloped)
http://in.news.yahoo.com/070107/211/6awkt.html

01-10-2007, 02:12 AM

QUOTEUnrest in Xinjiang - B.Raman
Pioneer.com
Uighurs are carrying on a campaign against alleged Han colonisation of western China and suppression of Islam there, says B Raman

In a report from Urumqi, the Government-controlled Xinhua news agency of China quoted a spokesperson of the local Government as stating on January 8, that the local police destroyed a terrorist camp in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region and killed 18 terrorists. One policeman was killed and another injured in an exchange of fire, which took place on January 5, in the mountains of Pamirs plateau in south Xinjiang.

The police claimed to have captured 17 terrorists and to be pursuing others. They also claimed to have seized 22 hand grenades and more than 1,500 others which the terrorists had not yet finished making. According to the police, the training camp was being run by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which was designated by the UN Security Council in 2002 as a terrorist organisation for purposes of action under the Security Council Resolution No. 1373 relating to action against terrorist funding. The Security Council, which acts as the Monitoring Committee to see the implementation of Resolution No. 1373, has to act by consensus in identifying terrorist organisations and international terrorists whose assets should be frozen.

It needs to be underlined that while the Chinese project the ETIM as an international jihadi organisation, they opposed last year the designation of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political wing of Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) of Pakistan, as a terrorist organisation by the Monitoring Committee. They endorsed the Pakistani contention that the JUD is a charitable organisation.

The Chinese claim that more than 1,000 ETIM members had been trained by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan before 9/11. The former head of the ETIM, Hasan Mahsum, was reportedly shot dead by the Pakistani troops on October 2, 2003, in an anti-terrorism operation along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The report of the incident of January 5, came in the wake of the dissemination of a message of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 to Osama bin Laden on December 20, 2006, in which he had cited East Turkestan (Xinjiang) as an example of the historic Muslim lands presently under the occupation of non-Muslim countries and stressed the need to liberate them. However, there is so far no evidence to connect the dissemination of his message with the incident of January 5.

Since September last, there were reports of large-scale preventive detentions of suspected Muslim activists in Xinjiang and other provinces of China having a Muslim population. Such preventive detentions are an annual feature coinciding with the Ramzan period and the subsequent Haj season.

Since the early 1990s, Muslim populated areas of China - particularly the Xinjiang region - have been witnessing spells of Muslim anger over the restrictions imposed by the Chinese on the observance of the holy fasting period and the holding of public prayers during the fasting period. Chinese nervousness over the public congregation of large numbers of Muslims has been responsible for such restrictions.

There has also been resentment among Muslims - again particularly in the Xinjiang region - over the ban on the construction of new mosques and over the demolition of some of the existing mosques of historical importance and construction of new ones in replacement as part of commercial buildings and shopping malls in order to remove any distinguishing Islamic architectural feature from the mosques.Â <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/specool.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='specool.gif' />

The Uighurs allege that apart from settling a large number of Han Chinese in Xinjiang, the Chinese are systematically changing the skyline and the landscape in order to remove all architectural traces of Islam from the region. They are allegedly trying to make the towns of Xinjiang look like any other town in China, without anything unique about this place recalling its historic association with Islam. There is an Islamic college in Urumqui, but the Government controls its syllabus and its teachers are approved by it. Only Government authorised editions of the Quran is allowed to be used in the college.

The fasting period of 2006 saw an intensification of the unrest due to the restrictions imposed by the Chinese on the Uighurs travelling to Saudi Arabia via Pakistan for the Haj. This is the route preferred by the Uighurs because it is less costly. Last year, the Chinese started insisting that the Uighurs cannot get their Haj visas from the Saudi Embassy in Islamabad and that they should get their visas from the Saudi Embassy in Beijing. They also exercised pressure on the Saudi authorities not to issue Haj visas to the Uighurs through their Embassy in Islamabad.

In Xinjiang itself, many Uighurs protested over the eating establishments remaining open during the fasting hours and serving food to Muslims. When some butchers refused to comply with the orders of the local authorities to keep their shops open during the fasting hours, the Chinese arrested 13 of them and prosecuted them on charges of black-marketing.

During the course of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan since October 7, 2001, the US is reported to have picked up at least 22 Uighurs and detained them in the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba. It has not accepted repeated Chinese requests to hand them over to the Chinese authorities for interrogation regarding their links, if any, with Al Qaeda. Five of them released by the US authorities last year were allowed to go to Albania.

The majority of the Uighurs are carrying on a campaign against the alleged Han colonisation of Xinjiang and the suppression of Islam there. They want the re-establishment of an independent state of East Turkistan. They do not support Al Qaeda and its pan-Islamic ideology. A small number, belonging to the ETIM, do support Al Qaeda and the Taliban. They are presently based in the Waziristan area of Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

There are also about 3,000 Uighurs living in the cities of Pakistan, who are protected by the Pakistani religious parties. They are critical of China, but keep away from the ETIM. There have been instances of attacks on Chinese engineers working in Gwadar in Balochistan and in the FATA by suspected Uighur elements. It was because of fears of a possible threat from the Uighurs that President Hu Jintao of China did not visit Gwadar and Karachi during his visit to Pakistan in November 2006.

Naresh · 01-10-2007, 05:25 AM

US tells China to reconsider $16b gas deal with Iran

BEIJING: The US has urged China to reconsider a reported multibillion dollar natural gas deal with Iran amid world efforts to sanction Tehran for its nuclear programmes, an Embassy spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Chinaâs No 3 oil company, China National Offshore Oil Corp, was reported last month to be in talks to develop Iranâs Northern Pars gas field. Around the same time, the UN Security Council unanimously agreed to impose sanctions on Iran for refusing to suspend a uranium enrichment programme that is suspected of being part of a nuclear weapons project.

Given the sanctions and Tehranâs continued defiance, âWe think this is a particularly bad time to be initiating major new commercial deals with Iran,â US Embassy spokeswoman Susan Stevenson said in an e-mail. Stevenson said US Embassy officials broached the issue in late December with the oil company, known as CNOOC, and with Chinese authorities she would not specify. The US officials were told that âno final agreement between CNOOC and Iran has been reached,â she said.

The Iranian Mehr news agency reported last month that CNOOC signed a $16 billion agreement to develop the Northern Pars gas field and build a liquefied natural gas facilities.

Meanwhile, Chinaâs Foreign Ministry on Tuesday said US sanctions imposed last month against three Chinese companies for alleged weapons trade with Iran and Syria were baseless and demanded they be lifted. ap

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

01-10-2007, 10:32 PM

QUOTEUS tells China to reconsider $16b gas deal with Iran
And China will show middle finger to US and will ask US President to say "SORRY". <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />

Naresh · 01-11-2007, 01:33 AM

QUOTE(Mudy @ Jan 10 2007, 10:32 PM)US tells China to reconsider $16b gas deal with Iran

And China will show middle finger to US and will ask US President to say "SORRY".Â <!--emo& Big Grin

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin.gif' />
[right][snapback]62933[/snapback][/right]


Mudy Ji :

I think that neither the Chinese will show the âMiddle Fingerâ to the USA nor that Bush will have to say âSOLLYâ!

Whilst Mani Shankar Ayiar was âmuckingâ about asking the Iranians to give âRich Gasâ instead of Lean Gas â I believe that the Natural Gas coming our of the Gas Well has certain Gases in addition to Methane which have a much Higher Liquefaction-Freezing Point than Methane. These other gases like Pentanes and other Hydrocarbons are removed and the final LNG - so called Lean Gas liquefied into LNG â is then transported by Ships.

While MSA was doing his Suicidal Dance the Chinese grabbed 10-20 Million Tonnes of LNG per year over a 25 Year Period.

However, it seems likely that the Scheduled Delivery of LNG to the Chinese by the Iranians will be delayed as seemingly the Iranians have not have the Natural Gas Liquefaction Plant ready by 2008-2009.

Now to the present Chinese foray into Iran. This is an entirely new Enterprise and I feel that the Chinese, to humour the USA, will go easy on the project.

IMO the Iranians will not get upset with the Chinese as the Iranians will be defaulting on the LNG delivery.

Thus the USA may claim a Pyrrhic victory.

Cheers <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' />

Husky · (This post was last modified: 01-12-2007, 04:50 PM by Husky.)

Is this okay to go here?

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/...reut/index.html
QUOTENew syphilis epidemic hits China
POSTED: 10:15 p.m. EST, January 11, 2007
Adjust font size:
HONG KONG, China (Reuters) -- Syphilis, which was largely eliminated in China between 1960 and 1980, has returned with a vengeance and urgent intervention is needed to curb the epidemic, according to researchers in China and the United States.

In a study to be published in the January 13 issue of the Lancet, they said the total incidence of syphilis in China increased to 6.5 cases per 100,000 people in 1999 from less than 0.2 cases per 100,000 in 1993.

"Syphilis has returned to China with a vengeance. The data demonstrates a syphilis epidemic of such scope and magnitude that it will require terrific effort to intervene," said lead researcher Myron S. Cohen, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

When the Communist Party took power in 1949, China was suffering one of the biggest syphilis epidemics in human history and the government launched a prolonged campaign to eliminate sexually transmitted diseases.

The study linked the re-emergence of syphilis to economic reforms and globalization in China.

"These changes have led to income gaps and a cultural climate that favors re-emergence of prostitution due to a substantial majority of men and a large migrant population of male workers," the report said.

"Changing social practices such as people experimenting with sex at earlier ages and before marriage, as well as increasing costs of individual health care, also contribute."And more.

QUOTEWhen the Communist Party took power in 1949, China was suffering one of the biggest syphilis epidemics in human history and the government launched a prolonged campaign to eliminate sexually transmitted diseases.Communist 'successes' are always shortlived. They just become the cause of more problems or cause the same problems to come back with a vengeance and in a bigger way.

01-17-2007, 12:20 AM

Daughter wanted ad draws 100-plus candidates 
QUOTEBEIJING, Jan 16 (Reuters Life!) - A retired Chinese couple have advertised for a "daughter" to look after them in place of their son who has emigrated to Canada -- and more than 100 candidates signed up to try their luck, a newspaper said on Tuesday
Result of one child policy and culture which prefer male child.

QUOTECommunist 'successes' are always shortlived. They just become the cause of more problems or cause the same problems to come back with a vengeance and in a bigger way. 
Human nature is like volcano, more you control, bigger will be disaster.
China is not yet in a crisis stage, but trend says it is heading for disaster.

Bodhi · (This post was last modified: 01-25-2007, 03:18 AM by Bodhi.)

China's satellite killer: Should India worry?

Minister of state for defence M M Pallam Raju says China's satellite-killing missile no threat to India

Husky · (This post was last modified: 01-25-2007, 08:27 AM by Husky.)

Just came upon this when looking for something else:

http://mangalorecity.blogspot.com/2006/04/...-replicate.html
QUOTEChina Seeks Indian Help to Replicate Bangaloreâs Success
PTI Chengdu, China / Bangalore, Apr 9: A Sino-India Software Research, Education and Training Base, the first of its kind, has been established in the south-western city of Chengdu to replicate the success of Bangalore, Indiaâs Silicon Valley, in the Communist nation which aspires to be a software giant. The base was established on April 6 between Chengdu, capital of southwest Chinaâs Sichuan province and Bangalore. The event was held on the sidelines of the Chinasoft 2006 Conference, Xinhua news agency reported from Chengdu. President of the India-China Software Association, Rex Trivad, said he hopes the two countries can use the 2006 China-India Friendship Year as an opportunity to expand cooperation in the software industry. With its world leading hardware industry and surging software development, China has strongly aroused Indian firmsâ interest in potential cooperation in recent years, he said. The market capitalisation of Indian software industry has climbed steeply from $4 billion in 1999 to about $80 billion, with software exports in 2005 reaching $15 billion, Trivad said. If countries like India and China were to concentrate on specific areas of their technological advantage, they could benefit far more than by competing across the spectrum. "I am confident that very soon Chengdu will be the capital of IT in China," he said, adding that "we are committed to cooperating fully with Chengdu and supporting the city to follow the success of Bangalore". China's software industry earned a record $48.75 billion last year, while exports surged 28.2 per cent to $3.59 billion. Why doesn't China first prove its amity by relinquishing all claims to Indian terroritory (Arunachal Pradesh) - for now and forever - and give back or sell COKashmir to us which it bought from Terroristan.

02-07-2007, 09:52 PM

Religion & democracy
China may soon become a dangerous place.
QUOTEThe poll showed a significant revitalization of traditional Chinese religions and a big growth in the number of Christians, by twelve per cent, to forty million. Nearly a quarter of those surveyed said that religion "showed the true path of life". Twenty-eight per cent said it "helps cure illness, avoid disasters and ensure that life is smooth".

While one of the pollsters, professor Liu, said, "This kind of feeling is especially common in rural areas," the survey points to another feature. More young people have become religious. A majority of believers are in the sixteen-thirty-nine age group, while less than ten per cent are fifty-five or older. "This," admitted Liu, "is markedly different from the previous decade, when most religious believers were in their forties or older."
.............

Which is bad news for the Chinese authorities. East Europe went dogmatically Christian in the years leading up to the break up of the Soviet empire. For good measure, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has invited the Orthodox Church to unite the faithful. The point is, will China travel the Soviet imperium's way of religiosity, collapse and more religiosity, or will we see the emergence of something like "Religion with Chinese characteristics"? What is the importance of the survey timing?

It is obvious as much to thinking Chinese as to the leadership that China lacks a national ideology today. Some dissident intellectuals who are Christian are using the faith. The Tibetan struggle, while non-Chinese, is largely located in the West and occasional embarrassments come for China from the Dalai Lama's asylum here. Laureate Desmond Tutu in his Gandhi Prize acceptance speech called for Tibet's independence

Husky · (This post was last modified: 02-08-2007, 04:57 AM by Husky.)

Post 272:
Dhu had stated in post 258 christian missionary thread:QUOTEThe only question is whether the missionary enterprise factors in the Communists as part of their long range (in terms of decades if not centuries') objectives. In both the cases of China and Vietnam, the Commuinsists seem to have retarded rapid christianization, while still laying the mental groundwork for eventual christianization.This is very true. It has always been the case. The Vatican was terribly happy when Orthodox Russia and other nearby Orthodox countries went communist. (The vatican was not pleased when the Catholic countries in E Europe were swallowed up by the same as well. Tsk.) And now it's sent whole legions of missionaries out to the Ukraine and Russia and other former centres of Orthodox christianity. And believe it or not catholicism is proving quite popular in these places!
QUOTEGuardian Unlimited - Pope's visit [to Orthodox Ukraine] fails to heal old wounds, June 28, 2001:
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEThis week, in his first ever visit to Ukraine as pope, John Paul has moved to try to settle the conflict before he dies. But the Moscow patriarchate has told the Vatican to get stuffed.

John Paul's central ambition has been to undo the Great Schism and ultimately unite the two faiths while at the same time celebrating and paying tribute to the Greek Catholics of western Ukraine who suffered so grievously under Stalin and became the world's biggest banned church. But the two aims are incompatible. The Orthodox still view the Greek Catholics as heretical apostates wooed or forced away by the Vatican, the Catholic Poles, and the Austro-Hungarians to assert Roman Catholicism and undermine Orthodoxy.

There is plenty historical accuracy in that view. But the legions of young, American-educated theologians who are an integral element of the current Vatican roadshow exude contempt for the arcane, old-fashioned conspiracy theories of the Orthodox. In Lviv on Wednesday, a million Catholics remembered the outstanding Uniate leader of the 20th century, Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky. But in Moscow they quote him as having declared: "Ukrainians are merely the instrument of the divine scheme to wrest the Christian east from the clutches of heresy [Orthodoxy] and house it in the bosom of the [Catholic] Apostolic See and the European Community." [I.e. the Uniate Sheptytsky admits Catholics in the East are a wedge to open Eastern Orthodoxy up for Catholicism. And it seems Ukraine's separation from Russia, to join with Europe instead, is expected to be a step towards that.]</div> ( http://freetruth.50webs.org/C3.htm#CatholicVsOrthodox )

Why would anyone trade Greek orthodoxy - by all accounts infinitely to be preferred to other varieties - for the terrible and false nightmare of catholicism?

There's a vacuum that's left after communism has destroyed the old ways of life in a most calculated manner. Several generations of brainwashing and enforced communistic-atheism creates a people who have forgotten all about themselves. When free of communism, they look for some kind of culture. So even an alien culture and unnatural religion that is selling itself with a massive PR campaign (like christianity) finds immediate followers.
The old ways of life were developed over millennia, and when one is forcibly ripped from it, as happens when communism gets its way, going back is very hard. The old ways are not well-documented, they are passed down by the knowledgeable older generations who carry all the subtle aspects: the ancient traditions, knowledge and understanding. This root is exactly what communism strikes at.
In China, this is what has happened: they killed significant people of the older generation, brainwashed the younger. Now the young have grown up confused and have raised ignorant kids who make easy targets for the missionising terrorists. It is easy to see why the Vatican has struck a deal with China and traded in their present interests in Taiwan to work with the big fish instead. ( http://www.newamericancentury.org/taiwan-20050407.htm )

Communists tried to do wipe out religious-culture in Cambodia too. I know a Cambodian girl who has become christian, because she doesn't know Buddhism; her parents were passive Buddhists who don't know anything about their religion. And there was a news report (2005 or 2006) about how the members of the Khmer Rouge are 'finding jeebus' after their communist fever passed. Predictable and appropriate.
Cambodia's case is what Nepal could well be looking at.
Communists are working at the same in India too. While using textbooks and the media to create a false Hinduism distasteful to the next generation, the kids don't have any culture they respect. Christoislamism and communism, after creating the vacuum, plan to fill it with themselves. But even that is not working too well.

In North Korea, the brainwashing has gone so far, the people can't be de-programmed unless they are rescued at childhood. The documentaries I've seen on this country are mentally devastating. The people are barely alive and can't think for themselves, and those that can don't last or remain sane for long.

Bad analogy, but here goes: communism is like the forest-fire (often purposefully started by a christian smoker) that burns down all of an ancient, healthy, happy forest. Christianity is the weed that springs up (is planted) in the fertile land once the fires have burnt out.

Barring countries or regions converted by force in the colonial era, isn't it funny that christianity doesn't catch on at all in Asia unless it is preceeded by the forest-fire of communism to clear the land of all the old ways first? Asia seems to only be susceptible to communism, but immune to christianity otherwise.
(So too would Europe and N and S America have been, but their people were forcibly converted/genocided by christianity at a time before communism existed.)

dhu · (This post was last modified: 02-09-2007, 01:56 AM by dhu.)

QUOTEThe Vatican was terribly happy when Orthodox Russia and other nearby Orthodox countries went communist. 
this was back in 1917. what indications do you have that they understood the forest fire effects of communism back then? what other instances can we think of, where they have applied the forest effect for laying waste to traditional categories? church has a v long history.

QUOTEIt is easy to see why the Vatican has struck a deal with China and traded in their present interests in Taiwan to work with the big fish instead. ( http://www.newamericancentury.org/taiwan-20050407.htm )

this explains the problem we encountered in the another thread on China. why phillipines could easily be turned into a catholic wasteland but the related taiwan was left untouched.

QUOTEAccording to Bishop Joseph Zen of Hong Kong, the Vatican is on the verge of breaking ties with Taipei in order to establish them with Beijing, which outlaws the Catholic Church and maintains communist-controlled official churches.

No one at the Vatican has stepped forward to confirm or deny the Bishop's prediction. But it's hard to imagine such a deal with the Chinese communists being hatched at a time when John Paul II was at the height of his powers. Indeed, it's hard to see such a deal as anything but a repudiation of much of what he stood for. And it's hard to imagine what the Vatican could be thinking it might get out of any deal with the communist camarilla in Peking.

QUOTEBarring countries or regions converted by force in the colonial era, isn't it funny that christianity doesn't catch on at all in Asia unless it is preceeded by the forest-fire of communism to clear the land of all the old ways first? Asia seems to only be susceptible to communism, but immune to christianity otherwise.
(So too would Europe and N and S America have been, but their people were forcibly converted/genocided by christianity at a time before communism existed.)

QUOTEChristianity is the weed that springs up (is planted) in the fertile land once the fires have burnt out.

This is exactly what rushdie (satanic verses) said about the rise of Islam in Arabia.

why did mohammad repeatedly refer to 'Hind' as leader of the "polytheists". why is 'buth' (?) the arabian word for idol (from Buddha). christianity could not have taken root unless the social desert had been formed before the rise the christianity. why is the rise of judaism specifically associated with liberation from babylon via the indic persians.

Husky · (This post was last modified: 02-10-2007, 07:01 AM by Husky.)

QUOTE(dhu @ Feb 9 2007, 01:08 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEThe Vatican was terribly happy when Orthodox Russia and other nearby Orthodox countries went communist. 
this was back in 1917. what indications do you have that they understood the forest fire effects of communism back then? what other instances can we think of, where they have applied the forest effect for laying waste to traditional categories? church has a v long history.[right][snapback]64178[/snapback][/right]
</div>A Greek Orthodox forum of expatriates. Members were not just Greeks from Australia and the US, but Romanians, Ukrainians, some Russians, many Serbs and Slovenians I think. Many useful threads. One of which was discussing this.
But I do think the Protestant conspiracy-theorist site 'Reformation.org' blows this up a lot, even if the underlying case is true: that the Vatican was pleased about it, to say the least.

It wasn't the revolution of 1917, but more that after Stalin followed up Lenin, and when later, at war's end (WWII), the Eastern bloc engulfed countries in the east. Though the Orthodox Church in Russia was allowed significant freedom, it no longer had the patronage of the autocratic person of the czar. So when it started to whither away, the Vatican cheered. (The Vatican was afraid of communism for it's own sake: afraid of what could happen to the Catholic countries, but when it happened to Orthodoxy they saw the accidental usefulness of it.)

On another matter, the Vatican had also cheered (and celebrated with thankful prayers) when the famed Sophia Church, one of the most important and prestigious of the Greek Orthodox Churches, fell into Turkish hands. (Some even say the Vatican had a deal with the Turkish head at the time, was it Ataturk?) Either way, it was particularly pleased when Sophia was turned into a mosque then museum (or was it museum then mosque?)
The Sophia Church had long been seen as a sign of continued Orthodox defiance (having recovered from the onslaught of the Catholic Crusade against it), so the Vatican saw this final disaster as some sordid spiritual victory over the Greek Church. Meanwhile the Greek Church is still alive and well, so it was but an imaginary omen in the catholic mind. Every victory over Orthodoxy made the catholic church happy. Most infamously, this included the mass Croatian genocide of Serbs (Orthodox Christians), destruction of Serbian Greek Orthodox Churches and massacre of Serbian Orthodox priests - these were particularly planned, encouraged and blessed by the villainous catholic church.

According to some more worried members of the Greek Orthodox forums, the catholic church is also pleased about the communist presence in Greece (which had already been significant in Greece during the nazi era). I don't know how factual their fears about this are, but it can't be said to be unlikely.

02-10-2007, 07:12 AM

QUOTE(dhu @ Feb 9 2007, 01:08 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEChristianity is the weed that springs up (is planted) in the fertile land once the fires have burnt out.This is exactly what rushdie (satanic verses) said about the rise of Islam in Arabia.
[...]
christianity could not have taken root unless the social desert had been formed before the rise the christianity.[right][snapback]64178[/snapback][/right]
</div>The reason christianity got going in Rome and Greece and certain small townships of Arabia was because of the christian convert-or-die genocide programmes. The same was repeated on larger scale in Arabia by islam, which then continued it in Persia, Turkestan, India besides the rest of North Africa.

Today, christians are unable to carry out the same method in Asia (although, being hopeful, they are still relying on the Constantine method in India) because outright genocide in well-connected places is un-PC. That would explain why communism is seen as a valid means of preparing the ground for conversion instead.

Bharatvarsh · 02-11-2007, 07:33 PM

QUOTEMuslim executed for trying to 'split' China

Reuters
Posted online: Friday, February 09, 2007 at 1254 hours IST

Beijing, February 9: China has executed a Uighur activist in a far-northwestern city for attempting to "split the motherland" and possessing explosives, drawing condemnation from a human rights group, which said the evidence was insufficient.

Ismail Semed, who was deported to China from Pakistan in 2003, had told the court a confession had been coerced, but he was executed nevertheless on Thursday in Urumqi, capital of the predominantly Muslim region of Xinjiang, Radio Free Asia on Friday quoted his widow, Buhejer, as saying.

"When the body was transferred to us at the cemetery I saw only one bullet hole in his heart," Buhejer told the US government-funded radio.

The exile group, the World Uighur Congress, said the prosecution had presented no credible evidence for a conviction.

"His trial, like most Uighur political prisoners' trials, was not fair," it said in an emailed statement.

A spokeswoman for the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court said a group of people had been executed on Thursday but said she had no knowledge of specific cases. The Xinjiang regional government declined to comment.

Turkic-speaking Muslim Uighurs account for 8 million of the 19 million people in Xinjiang.

The radio said the charge of attempting to split the motherland stemmed from the allegation that Semed was a founding member of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, outlawed by Beijing as a terrorist group.

But Nicholas Bequelin, Hong Kong-based China researcher of Human Rights Watch, said: "The death penalty was widely disproportionate to the alleged crimes ... his trial did not meet minimum requirements of fairness and due process."

"We don't think there was sufficient evidence to condemn him," Bequelin added.

China has waged a harsh campaign in recent years against what it says are violent separatists and Islamic extremists struggling to set up an independent "East Turkestan" in Xinjiang, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia.

Buhejer met her husband briefly on Monday shortly after being informed of the decision to execute him, RFA said.

"(It was) only for 10 minutes" that they were allowed to meet, she was quoted as saying.

He told her to "take care of our children and let them get a good education". The couple has a young son and daughter.

Semed had previously served two prison sentences for taking part in a violent uprising in 1990. He fled to Pakistan after a Chinese government crackdown in 1997.

Two other Uighurs who testified against Semed were also executed, RFA quoted unnamed sources in the region as saying.

In a reference to another case currently in court in Urumqi, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday Canadian diplomats had no right to be present at the hearing of Hussayin Celil, a Uighur accused by China of terrorism who was awarded Canadian citizenship two years ago.

Celil, also known as Yu Shanjiang, fled China in the 1990s and travelled last year to Uzbekistan, where he was detained and then extradited to China on terrorism charges.

He was cited in court documents related to Semed as a co-conspirator, Bequelin said. China has not recognised Celil's Canadian citizenship, obtained in 2005.

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=81082
Wonder why our Indian commies are not so eager to comment on this like they did when Afzal was about to be executed.

02-11-2007, 09:48 PM

QUOTEWonder why our Indian commies are not so eager to comment on this like they did when Afzal was about to be executed.
Why they are not burning buses? Too early to say, wait for Friday.

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