Thailand Assures Smooth Passage For Olympic Torch Relay

[clausewitz]

Nice posts Heng. I think this Olmpics will be the best yet- the Chinese are putting in great effort to make it work.

Edited April 17, 2008 by clausewitz

[Heng]

Generations ago? So, those people have pasted on have they not? Their descendents are now Thai are they not? My mother-in-law speaks only Thai, has a Thai name and a Thai past port, and gives her loyalty to Thailand and the King. Be careful how you generalize people, people are not so simple as demographics would have them.

Ah, that's what they want you to think. Are their loyalties solely to Thailand and the King or do they have an underlying goal to promote businesses of ethnic / semi-ethnic Chinese? I think the latter.

Loyalty is to the family first.

Will have to leave it here this morning. Will be doing a transfer of a couple more shophouses in Sriracha into the Heng mojo bag. I'm just hoping there will be ethnic Thai squatters to evict.

[ThNiner]

Generations ago? So, those people have pasted on have they not? Their descendents are now Thai are they not? My mother-in-law speaks only Thai, has a Thai name and a Thai past port, and gives her loyalty to Thailand and the King. Be careful how you generalize people, people are not so simple as demographics would have them.

I can attest to this. I don't consider myself Chinese at all. In my mind, I'm 100% Thai. My loyalty totally lies with Thailand. And I'm disgusted by the way China has handled Tibet issue as well.

By the way, I'd also find it very sad and very disappointing if any Thais of my generation (whether they are Chinese or Indian or European descendants) see themselves as any other nationals except Thais.

[farang prince]

The only "smooth passage" that Thailand can promise is a smooth bowel movement after a bowl of somtam.

Edited April 17, 2008 by farang prince

[toret]

Talking about the takeover of Thailand, not Tibet.

Oops, sorry about that

[ajarnmark]

Generations ago? So, those people have pasted on have they not? Their descendents are now Thai are they not? My mother-in-law speaks only Thai, has a Thai name and a Thai past port, and gives her loyalty to Thailand and the King. Be careful how you generalize people, people are not so simple as demographics would have them.

Ah, that's what they want you to think. Are their loyalties solely to Thailand and the King or do they have an underlying goal to promote businesses of ethnic / semi-ethnic Chinese? I think the latter.

Take Thaksin for example... do you honestly think that he isn't in bed with China to some degree?

I don't think it's as cut and dry as you're portraying either.

Are you still watching Fox TV a lot?

[jstumbo]

It's just an honest opinion and doesn't necessarily have to equate to Nazi style master race talk.

I was not meaning that China is like Nazi Germany. What I was meaning was that China would have sold them the chemicals and not cared what they were being used for. They would have just said that it made good business because everyone else would not sell them the chemicals. They would say that what Nazi Germany did with them was their internal business and that no one should comment on what Nazi Germany does within its own borders.

[jstumbo]

america is wrong to invade afghanistan, of course history has shown us that whoever has the most power, behaves badly. so to point your finger at america... you'd be better to point your finger at mankind - not to excuse his actions.

And what would you have suggested the US do when we were attacked by terrorists that were based in Afghanistan, that were supported by the Afghan government? Should we just not do anything and wait for the next plane to fly into a building?

As an American, I have no problem with going into Afghanistan, they attacked us first. Iraq is a completely different animal. That was a mistake from the first. Now I wish they could just figure a way out that would not lead to the deaths of millions of Iraqis in sectarian infighting.

[jstumbo]

I can attest to this. I don't consider myself Chinese at all. In my mind, I'm 100% Thai. My loyalty totally lies with Thailand. And I'm disgusted by the way China has handled Tibet issue as well.

By the way, I'd also find it very sad and very disappointing if any Thais of my generation (whether they are Chinese or Indian or European descendants) see themselves as any other nationals except Thais.

Correct you may see yourself as Thai. But when it comes time for a wife, do you prefer a Thai-Chinese wife, or a Thai-Thai wife? Which would your family accept? When doing business, are most of the people you work with Thai-Chinese?

[wintermute]

No more so than the average American's view on TV who thinks they have the god-given right to invade other countries (like Iraq or Afghanistan) at will, just becuase they were brought up thinking they were automatically "the good guys". Similarly many ethnic Chinese have superiority complexes brought about by centuries of occasional violent annexation and continual economic domination of neighbouring states and peoples. Heng's posts, although I may not agree with the sentiment of many, I find refreshingly honest on the whole and hope he continues to say it as he thinks. Diversity is the spice of life.

I doubt you will find many American's that think we should have invaded Iraq on TV. It is my impression from the Chinese that I have dealt with is that they have a inferiority complex, not a superiority complex. They always feel that everyone looks down on them and that they have to do so much to show the rest of the world that they are its equals.

Well, if you've reduced the Chinese to such a collection of "inferiority complex" stereotypes then why are you (and the rest of America) kicking up such a fuss over the "looming Chinese threat" or whatever nonsense is parroted in the media these days?

I have to say..whether you agree with Heng or not he has pretty much owned everyone in this thread debating against him. He's right though, how the Chinese feel about this is no different than if a collection of foreigners started telling your countrymen what to do all the while brow beating them with after school tv special moral diatribes. It's especially hypocritical for most western countries because of (not so long ago) historical atrocities committed by the same countries doing the lecturing.

Edited April 17, 2008 by wintermute

[jasreeve17]

Thailand has been colonized by the Chinese from the inside. They came a few generations ago and married into Thailand. Now, the Chinese are the only businessmen who truly have the decks loaded in their favor.

I hope the Olympics are a HUGE failure and a major loss of both face and money for the Chinese. I, personally, won't even watch it on TV.

And if that didn't happen, the indigenous folks would still be playing tokraw and rolling/mashing up balls of sticky rice.

Alas, there are so many other otherwise well educated people of Chinese ethnicity who believe such racist nonsense as well as the totally improbable nonsense that Tibet is somehow part of China. If nothing else the anti-Olympic protests will force at least some Chinese folks to questions some of the more ridiculous myths that have been instilled into their collective consciousness before they learn that always hard lesson of life encapsulated in the old proverb that pride goes before a fall. Too bad all those wacko Chines evangelicals don't take the sin of pride of heart.

Nothing racist about it as we haven't driven the indigenous people's out, nor have we slaughtered them en masse. Our method of colonialization is both humane as it is absolute (I do concede that Tibet isn't our traditional method... it's more like the western method a.k.a. the really old Mongol method). We don't force them to become one of us, we simply become one of them... at the same time maintaining our key attributes. No mess and relatively light resistance. Regcognizing that if left to their own development, it would have been at a slower rate is just a fact.

I suppose you believe that Native Americans and Oz aboriginees would have had their own industrial revolution if left to their own rate of development?

More ridiculous comments from Heng...

The Chinese slaughter nearly a million inner Mongolians after WWII, and moved in five Millian Chinese to take over their land - very humane.

Tibetans have been slaughtered on masse too (maybe not the 100,000's that you consider 'en masse').

What are the old 'Mongolian ways'? Your insecurities are rushing to the surface here. (Though it is true a tiny Mongolian population of less than 80,000 men women and children slaughtered and controlled the Chinese population of tens of millions...Whereas nowadays the Chinese billions pick on tiny populations to bully [relative to their own size].)

An interesting story: I travelled from Ulaan Bataar to Beijing (A Mongolian built city - the first dynasty being Mongolian [Kublai Khaan; Of course if it wasn't for the Mongolians it is hostorically clear that China would have developed at a much slower rate - that's just a fact... The Mongols never left. They just became your ruling dynasty.]) and visited the Forbidden City with my girlfriend. Looking at the various palaces and temples the Chinese guide of thirty years couldn't tell us the origin of many locations as he said the descriptive ancient script written on the walls was a long lost Chinese dialect. So, my girlfriend informed him what each script detailed. - It was written in Mongolian! The guide still denied it...

As far as complaints in Thailand regarding the Olympics; I don't believe that their will be any for two reasons - 1) Human rights is not top of the agenda here & 2) The Thais are in the pocket of the Chinese.

[wintermute]

As far as complaints in Thailand regarding the Olympics; I don't believe that their will be any for two reasons - 1) Human rights is not top of the agenda here & 2) The Thais are in the pocket of the Chinese.

I'm going to be very non politically correct here but whenever I see farang making this comment it makes me believe that they secretly wish that Thais were in their pocket instead.

[jasreeve17]

As far as complaints in Thailand regarding the Olympics; I don't believe that their will be any for two reasons - 1) Human rights is not top of the agenda here & 2) The Thais are in the pocket of the Chinese.

I'm going to be very non politically correct here but whenever I see farang making this comment it makes me believe that they secretly wish that Thais were in their pocket instead.

I wish that Thailand was in Thai pockets (not Chinese or English or anyone elses.)

(Wintermute you write many good and interesting comments, but this one is unworthy of you.)

[OlRedEyes]

I wouldn't worry so much about China. It takes a lot more than the weight of population and rampant greed to make a country/people great. Amongst other things, it requires creativity, individualism and free thought. Communism certainly doesn't breed this.

[wintermute]

As far as complaints in Thailand regarding the Olympics; I don't believe that their will be any for two reasons - 1) Human rights is not top of the agenda here & 2) The Thais are in the pocket of the Chinese.

I'm going to be very non politically correct here but whenever I see farang making this comment it makes me believe that they secretly wish that Thais were in their pocket instead.

I wish that Thailand was in Thai pockets (not Chinese or English or anyone elses.)

(Wintermute you write many good and interesting comments, but this one is unworthy of you.)

I was just making an off color joke about the whole situation. I do feel that people haven't been exactly balanced about this issue. I have also noticed that it seems like it's the western media that takes great pains to browbeat China over the Tibetan cause. There's much more to this than meets the eye. It's a proxy geopolitical conflict similar to how the U.S. and the former Soviet Union used to engage in tit for tat games. China is the new economic and military kid on the block so I feel there's a measure of insecurity there felt by all g8 nations.

There's another matter that people rarely mention. Tibet is a very strategic region of control. It's a beachhead of sorts because China is surrounded by dense mountainous terrain. All humanitarian issues aside the Chinese government has legitimate concerns over national security over this region. There is a stratfor military analyst article that explains things much better than I can and it's fairly balanced in its point of view over China's concerns with the Tibetan region.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/chinese_geo...nificance_tibet

An excerpt:

The Chinese have a fundamental national interest in retaining Tibet, because Tibet is the Chinese anchor in the Himalayas. If that were open, or if Xinjiang became independent, the vast buffers between China and the rest of Eurasia would break down. The Chinese can’t predict the evolution of Indian, Islamic or Russian power in such a circumstance, and they certainly don’t intend to find out. They will hold both of these provinces, particularly Tibet.

[Plus]

Chinese and their business are welcome everywhere, just like Americans and their money fifty years ago. It will be quite some time before resentment against the "new power" builds. Chinese are just in the beginning of their ascendancy, they have plenty of time to reach the end of the cycle.

Awarding them with Olympics was unavoidable. It would be nice if eveyone laid down their arms and suspended their wars for the Games but it's not going to happen. There aren't any places left in the world that can hold peaceful Olympics without dirtying their hands one way or another.

I see two outcomes of current protests - Chinese learn that they need to be more democratic to have a smooth ride, or they learn that they are big enough to steamroll over any contentious issue, perhaps by organising even larger counter protests and claiming democratic victory.

Westerners "invented" democracy and voice of the majority but now they have to vote against a billion Chinese and very soon they'll see how good and reliable system it really is. And don't quote Churchill on this, please, in his days he had no idea what it would be like today.

[jstumbo]

It will be quite some time before resentment against the "new power" builds.

They are already seeing it in places. In the last few years there have been protests and destruction of Chinese owned businesses in Asia. I was also reading about some resentment in Africa against the Chinese.

[jasreeve17]

It will be quite some time before resentment against the "new power" builds.

They are already seeing it in places. In the last few years there have been protests and destruction of Chinese owned businesses in Asia. I was also reading about some resentment in Africa against the Chinese.

Malaysia / Singapore ring a bell?

[wintermute]

It will be quite some time before resentment against the "new power" builds.

They are already seeing it in places. In the last few years there have been protests and destruction of Chinese owned businesses in Asia. I was also reading about some resentment in Africa against the Chinese.

China's modus operandi has always been to support the government's cooperation to secure vital business and natural resource networks. It doesn't matter if Johnny Prole the African is angry they have the backpocket of the government which is most likely authoritarian as well. Whether or not it's ethical it doesn't matter..it is undeniably effective and the U.S. government has done similar things in Latin America (and right now in Iraq.) It's just business as usual.

Edited April 17, 2008 by wintermute

[Plus]

It will be quite some time before resentment against the "new power" builds.

They are already seeing it in places. In the last few years there have been protests and destruction of Chinese owned businesses in Asia. I was also reading about some resentment in Africa against the Chinese.

I think you are confusing initial resistance against takeover of the country with resentment against an established imperial power and quest for freedom. Surely someone will protest when Chinese just move in, it's manageable, there are more people with welcome mats anyway. It's when twenty years down the line locals will start asking why they sold all their resources to China for pittance, that's when you'll have a revolution on your hands.

Thirty years ago they let the US milk them, now it's Chinese turn, and, just like Americans, Chinese come with aid and investments and build roads and infrastructure - the whole deal.

[wintermute]

It will be quite some time before resentment against the "new power" builds.

They are already seeing it in places. In the last few years there have been protests and destruction of Chinese owned businesses in Asia. I was also reading about some resentment in Africa against the Chinese.

I think you are confusing initial resistance against takeover of the country with resentment against an established imperial power and quest for freedom. Surely someone will protest when Chinese just move in, it's manageable, there are more people with welcome mats anyway. It's when twenty years down the line locals will start asking why they sold all their resources to China for pittance, that's when you'll have a revolution on your hands.

That revolution will never come because China has always handled things through proxy. They let the ethnic government take care of its population while engaging in joint business ventures. They do this far better than we (as in the recent western countries) have ever done it. If you look at history western colonial ventures were often magnificent wastes of money and time that led to the gradual unravelling of their respective imperial empires. China is doing it the smart way by proxy and through golden handcuffs with the ruling governments and not though force. It's very "corporate" in its line of thinking. It's easier to buy a company out and run it with existing CEOs than to change the name brand and hire new personnel.

[jasreeve17]

It will be quite some time before resentment against the "new power" builds.

They are already seeing it in places. In the last few years there have been protests and destruction of Chinese owned businesses in Asia. I was also reading about some resentment in Africa against the Chinese.

China's modus operandi has always been to support the government's cooperation to secure vital business and natural resource networks. It doesn't matter if Johnny Prole the African is angry they have the backpocket of the government which is most likely authoritarian as well. Whether or not it's ethical it doesn't matter..it is undeniably effective and the U.S. government has done similar things in Latin America (and right now in Iraq.) It's just business as usual.

That's only one side of the Chinese coin. Your comments above are accurate and China does nothing worse than the US, British Empire, anyone with / wanting power in that regard.

The second part, which I didn't realize until I lived in the area for a sustained period, is the Chinese belief of domination and total control of people and land. They honestly believe that all of SE Asia, Korea, Japan +++ are their rightful territories. It's a dangerous ethos and it's wrong.

- I am not saying this with any prejudice as the Americans, British, French, anyone going around the World exploiting others and making them suffer is wrong. The difference is that the Americans do not belief that Irag is American soil. The British did not belief that Hong Kong was British soil. They just wanted to exploit others and get rich... The Chinese have that side whilst also holding a deep belief in their psyche that they are the rightful owners of Asia.

The first side, as written above by Wintermute, is wrong and every nation does it (sadly).

The second is a Chinese trait and very dangerous for the region (World?).

Edited April 17, 2008 by jasreeve17

[jstumbo]

Well, if you've reduced the Chinese to such a collection of "inferiority complex" stereotypes then why are you (and the rest of America) kicking up such a fuss over the "looming Chinese threat" or whatever nonsense is parroted in the media these days?

I have to say..whether you agree with Heng or not he has pretty much owned everyone in this thread debating against him. He's right though, how the Chinese feel about this is no different than if a collection of foreigners started telling your countrymen what to do all the while brow beating them with after school tv special moral diatribes. It's especially hypocritical for most western countries because of (not so long ago) historical atrocities committed by the same countries doing the lecturing.

I also agreed with most of what Heng has said. I was just saying that from my experiences in China for the last 8 years, the Chinese really care what everyone else thinks of them. They dislike the Japanese for obvious reasons relating to WWII, but also because the Japanese feel that they are better than the Chinese. This really makes most Chinese upset because they do not like to be looked down upon. But then they do exactly the same thing with SE Asia. Most Chinese that I know think that the SE Asians are below them. So I guess it could be a superioirity/inferiority complex at the same time. Or maybe I am just wrong in saying it is a inferiority complex. If you say anything bad about China to many Chinese people they will be extremely upset and think that you are putting China down. Maybe they are just a proud and nationalistic nation.

That said, I have never met a harder working group of people than the Chinese. They work very hard, very long hours. Too much for my tastes. They seem to be all consumed with making money. A combination of this and China keeping their currency artificially week does worry people. Keeping there currency weak gives them an unfair advantage over other countries.

We have flooring produced in many countries. We used to be able to compete. But with the weakening of the dollar it has made it even more expensive to produce in SE Asian countries. Whereas in China, it is still workable because there currency has not strengthened against the dollar as much as other countries because they fix it and do not float it. This has made the factories in China much cheaper. We could justify a slightly higher price with production in SE Asia because the quality was better than the Chinese quality. But now with things getting even more expensive in SE Asia that is becoming harder to do, when we compete against companies that purchase products from China.

Already the rest of the world is so reliant on China that China can do pretty much anything they want. What are the other countries going to do, go elsewhere? China could attack Taiwan and it would not matter that much because the rest of the world will still need them to produce products for them. China owns so much of the US debt it is crazy, they could kill the country in one fell swoop if they cashed out. All of the US dollars and Euros that have gone to China will now allow China to go on a buying spree. They have already begun to purchase companies around the world. Similar thing happened with Japan years ago. So much money went to Japan for products, eventually they started buying companies around the world to use the money. That was just a foreshadowing of what is going to happen with China. Soon you will see very major companies being bought up by the Chinese.

[LivinLOS]

It's just an honest opinion and doesn't necessarily have to equate to Nazi style master race talk.

I was not meaning that China is like Nazi Germany. What I was meaning was that China would have sold them the chemicals and not cared what they were being used for. They would have just said that it made good business because everyone else would not sell them the chemicals. They would say that what Nazi Germany did with them was their internal business and that no one should comment on what Nazi Germany does within its own borders.

What you mean like England selling Chile torture equipment ??

[LivinLOS]

america is wrong to invade afghanistan, of course history has shown us that whoever has the most power, behaves badly. so to point your finger at america... you'd be better to point your finger at mankind - not to excuse his actions.

And what would you have suggested the US do when we were attacked by terrorists that were based in Afghanistan, that were supported by the Afghan government? Should we just not do anything and wait for the next plane to fly into a building?

As an American, I have no problem with going into Afghanistan, they attacked us first. Iraq is a completely different animal. That was a mistake from the first. Now I wish they could just figure a way out that would not lead to the deaths of millions of Iraqis in sectarian infighting.

Erm what ?? you been at the Fox news again ??

Do you mean 9/11 and the mostly Saudi attackers ?? Those nice bush buddy friends ?? Those nice non democratic nation states (bringing democracy to those that oppose us)..

[Jingthing]

Erm what ?? you been at the Fox news again ??

Egads, you don't have to watch Fox News to know that the Taliban of Afghanistan was culpable for supporting the force behind the 911 attacks. They were aiming at the white house, the house of representatives, and the pentagon (which they hit). This wasn't a trivial attack. Any country is fully justified to retaliate against such an act of aggression.

[LivinLOS]

You mean the Saudi mastermind and the many Saudi attacker then yes ??

[plachon]

Erm what ?? you been at the Fox news again ??

Egads, you don't have to watch Fox News to know that the Taliban of Afghanistan was culpable for supporting the force behind the 911 attacks. They were aiming at the white house, the house of representatives, and the pentagon (which they hit). This wasn't a trivial attack. Any country is fully justified to retaliate against such an act of aggression.

A general trait of Americans is that they have a very poorly developed sense of world history and their place within it. Using your logic, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and a whole heap of Central and South American countries would have every right to attack and invade the US.

The reality is they haven't. Ever wonder why given the full justification an American (no less!) endows upon its victims of aggression? The reality also is that it wasn't Afghanistan that carried out 9/11 and there wasn't a single Afghan amongst the bombers. Two material facts you fail to appreciate thanks to the brainwashing you received from Ajarns Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc.

[Jingthing]

The reality also is that it wasn't Afghanistan that carried out 9/11 and there wasn't a single Afghan amongst the bombers.

Most Americans were united in retaliating against the Taliban, a brutal, murdering regime, which openly supported Al Queda in their Afghani borders. We won't apologize for it, nor should we. We were also widely supported for this by allies all over the world. Our national capital was directly attacked. What did they expect especially from a country with the strongest military in the world? Now Iraq is a completely different story.

Edited April 17, 2008 by Jingthing

[jackspratt]

The second part, which I didn't realize until I lived in the area for a sustained period, is the Chinese belief of domination and total control of people and land. They honestly believe that all of SE Asia, Korea, Japan +++ are their rightful territories. It's a dangerous ethos and it's wrong.

........ The Chinese have that side whilst also holding a deep belief in their psyche that they are the rightful owners of Asia.

The second is a Chinese trait and very dangerous for the region (World?).

Hmmm............a bit more evidence about this speculation would be most welcome.

In my 3+ years living in China I never encountered a single incidence of this "deep belief".