it is like we haven’t much choice but to buy japanese motorcycles. over decades china has built up huge export-oriented industry bases along the vast coastal regions, they can produce most consumer goods in large quantities at much cheaper price.
i went to beijing recently, I saw many motorcycle gears in small shops originally made for hein gericke and other european brands, at a fraction of the prices here. 
I was trying not to reply to this thread, as I worked in China for 4 years – in the countryside for almost 3 and then in Beijing. So I could feel a long one coming on!! I met and talked to Chinese and Tibetans and it is a very complex issue. However, my thoughts are as follows:
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Whilst I don’t condone the Chinese occupation of Tibet, I think we need to be able to draw parallels with our own country’s foreign policies and human rights record. China has occupied Tibet and murdered innocent Tibetans. We have invaded and occupied Iraq and murdered innocent Iraqi citizens. Are Iraqi lives therefore worth less than Tibetan lives and will London invite the same style of protests about our illegal occupation of Iraq in 2012?
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Whilst our own dodgy human rights record is reflected mainly in our foreign policies, it doesn’t make it any less of an issue. For example, in the 70’s we forcibly removed the Chagos Islanders from Diego Garcia, which was their island and their home and shipped them to Mauritius, where moist died homeless and in poverty. This was to make way for an American Military base on the island. Very recently the descendents and survivors went to the High Court to get their island back, but were thwarted every step of the way by our Labour government. What about the human rights of the thousands of dead Chagos islanders and those who are still unable to return home?
We sold arms to Indonesia to fight against the East Timorese – engineering the murder of thousands of innocent people. What about the human rights of the East Timorese?
In the 80’s, when half of Thatcher’s cabinet were over in Iraq hob nobbing with Saddam Hussein, we did not care two hoots about the Kurdish people. In fact, after Saddam gassed the Kurds at Halabja, our foreign office tried to suppress the news from getting out. We then rewarded Saddam with a threefold increase in trade export deals. The Turks have murdered far more Kurds than Saddam ever did, but do we care? Hypocrisy is also a human rights issue.
I could go on with many more examples – luckily I won’t!!
- Yes, there are internal human rights issues within China, but contrary to popular belief, it is not a homogenous country. Even though Communism has an element of control, beneath the political, the country mainly runs on the timeless system of ‘relationships’ or ‘guangxi’. Who you know and the relationships you build can bypass any legislation under the sun. For example, I lived a thousand miles from Beijing and our local Public Security Bureau were more concerned with hanging out and having a drink than implementing Beijing’s policies, including the one child policy, which was not implemented, as far as I could see, in that area. The woman who ran the local restaurant had three children!! So in a sense Beijing exercised a certain amount of control, but because the country is so vast, with so many remote areas and communities, the implementing of policies was patchy at the best of times.
I have gone on for a very long time – but the issue is something I feel quite strongly about and whilst do not condone the occupation of Tibet, the UK’s foreign policy decisions have also led to many human rights abuses.
Trouble is it isnt lawful to protest in those countries, just like in this country you can be asked to move on or be arrested if your in a large group, ie of 2 or more people…Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005…its nothing to do with Law its about common or decent treatment of people…we abuse peoples rights in this country all the time and we are supposed to be an open and democratic country, we hide it behind the terrorist threat at the moment, in China they are a closed and very secretive country and the abuse is on a much bigger scale…human life in China is cheap…even cheaper than it is here in this country…look at how Ken in one breath says he is all for safety and then condems us all to death on our bikes because he does not want us in bus lanes…
Protests are needed and I admire the pople who do it…in this country most people have become lemmings and couch potatoes and we let idiots like Blair and Brown take us to war and beyond and introduce laws that give us fewer freedoms than the Chinese…
FREEDOM from tyranny, stupid laws and stupid knee jerk politics…
totally agree with Hels. a lot of those things are more complicated than democracy vs. dictatorship, human rights vs. abuse, development vs. poverty… Zimbabwe and Mugabe is another example, i don’t trust most of the media reports and comments on that country, i watched with suspicion every time i passed those demonstrators outside Zimbabwe embassy in strand.
the fact they are dealing with a colonialist legacy make the issue more complicated, and britain does not have a perfect records to be proud of. the wars in afghanistan and iraq, not only discredit the US and this country’s foreign policies, but also the so-called “international society”. every time i heard politicians on tv speaking in the name of “international society” with straight faces, i feel like vomiting.
+1I normally get quite spirited in discussions like these, but this post says all I have to say on the matter.Thanks!
As an act of protest I have vowed to boycot Hookey DVD’s:D
Whilst I agree of course that human rights abuses are unacceptable it was reported by the BBC that the protesting/rioting Tibetans were indescriminately attacking anyone who looked like an ethnic Chinese… not good.
Heres my 2 cents worth:
1.) I like the fact that we can protest and see nothing wrong in it. You have a right…excercise it!!!
2.) I think sport and politics should be seperate but how else could the point be put across to raise awareness? so yeah - in this instance I am all for it.
3.) We may have gone to Iraq and killed a few folk but they werent all innocent were they! and there was a least a reason for it. (Even though that reason is very small now)
4.) Last I read the chinese were sterilising the PEACE loving Tibetans in an attempt to WIPE OUT THE ENTIRE RACE! Now thats wrong no-matter which way you look at it and is strangely reminiscent of what a little known fella called HITLER tried to do.
5.) So yes…FREE TIBET and sod China.:crazy:
The French did so much better in Paris on Sunday (they do have decent history of this sort of stuff) so I was kind of hoping for a post or two on that.
Ho Hum.
Oldguy.