China? A word, please...

The BBQ Pit
1

Well, 2 actually: FUCK YOU!!

I just finished watching “CNN: Breaking News” where they reported that China is now willing to release the crew of that American plane… and I’m so mad I could spit!

FUCK YOU, CHINA!!! We were flying a spy mission, yes (I know, there are those of you who want to nit-pick the word “spy”, but I calls it like I sees it! It was a spy mission… A legal one!), but we were in INTERNATIONAL airspace! Let me type slowly for you, China: w-e w-e-r-e i-n i-n-t-e-r-n-a-t-i-o-n-a-l a-i-r-s-p-a-c-e! We were doing nothing illegal!

I don’t know what happened to cause this collision, but I find it very hard to believe that our big, lumbering greyhound bus of a PROPELLOR-driven aircraft rammed your jet-propelled and WAY more manuverable fighter plane!

Keep the fucking plane if you want! Any equipment or data that you could get from it you probably already have… and it will be out of date next year anyhow. You can’t keep up with us, tech-wise; your system of government prevents it! Losers!

But let our people go!!

Act smug and blame us if it makes you feel better about your incompetent pilot, I don’t give a fuck. The world isn’t as dumb as you think, and anyone with a brain knows who was at fault here.

So, to sum up: FUCK YOU CHINA!!!

[sup]I have vented… [/sup]

2

Just when you thought China might be ready to sit at the Big-Boys table. I’m afraid they are going to have to keep eating off the fold-out card table.

Can anyone honestly imagine the United States, Britain, France, etc., holding the military personnel of some country hostage waiting for another country to say it’s sorry? We won’t even get into the fact that they know full well that the incident doesn’t warrant an apology, either.

Where did they learn foreign relations, from my ex-wife?

3

Any minute now, I expect the America-sucks brigade to show up.

On the one hand, the Chinese are very touchy about national sovereignty, given their history of being colonized by Western powers in the last century. However, it’s now 2001 and the Chinese need to get over their passive-aggressive style of diplomacy if they truly want international respect. I swear, the Chinese leadership reminds me of Korean hagwan owners, swelling up with wounded pride after an employee calls them on their broken promises and swinish behavior.

The Chinese have no right to tell the US we can’t fly in international waters, especially since one of the reasons we’re over there is to keep a check on Chinese military aggression.

4

I’m a little confused, Astroboy, as to why you’re so pissed? I heard Bush speak this morning, and from what I understand he explained the crew’s imminent release and expressed sorrow for the death of the pilot and his family, nothing more. Did I miss something?

And for goboy: America sucks! :smiley:

5

I coworker at the defense company I work for sent me “this”

I found it amusing

6

Well, not “America-sucks”, but just a little aside. I thought the vast majority of board members have been rational about this situation. However, the posters that stood out, at least in my mind, were those who resorted to petty insults and propaganda. (eg. The Chinese are “primitive”. They’ll make planes out of bamboo shoots). While my respect for other posters has increased greatly, I have nothing but contempt for those who substituted name-calling for well-reasoned argument.

In fact, I found it incredibly pathetic that people who had no part claiming any of America’s greatness for themselves used China’s supposed technological backwardness as justification for their own racism and idiocy.

To the rest of you guys, thanks for shedding light on the USA/China situation. (I even learned some stuff about planes in the meantime!)

7

I’m not very well-read on Chinese history, but what the heck are you talking about? AFAIK, China hasn’t been colonized by any Western power in the last century. To what are you referring, goboy?

8

The Qing dynasty was defeated by the British in the Opium War (1839-1842). The British imposed the Treaty of Nanjing (1842), the first of many unequal treaties forced upon the weak and tottering Qing. The British took the island of Hong Kong, opened 5 ports to British commerce, and made British citizens exempt from Chinese law. In the ensuing decades, other European powers and the Americans flocked to China and carved out spheres of influence for themselves.

The Boxer Rebellion, an anti-foreigner riot which the Qing officials secretly abetted, caused the vengeful Western nations to exact even more concessions in trade and influence from a prostrate and dying empire.

After the fall of the Qing and the beginning of the Republic, China was so consumed by internal power struggles
that Western businesses were able to exploit China’s natural resources at will. In the 1930’s, China was invaded by Japan in a bloody and vicious war. It wasn’t until 1949 that Mao and the Communists were able to rid China of foreign influence. The Chinese have never forgotten this era of national humiliation, which explains their desperate desire for international respect and suspicion of the West.

For some good reading, check out Jonathan D. Spence’s The Search for Modern China; Sterling Seagrave’s Dragon Lady, a sensationalized biography of Xu Ci, the last Empress of China; Diana Preston’s The Boxer Rebellion, an excellent account that explains the Chinese resentment of the West that sparked the bloody events of that summer in 1900; and Iris Chang’s * The Rape of Nanking*, an account of the bestial conduct of Japanese troops in that southern China city in 1937.

In GD, I used reason and logic to explain why America should not apologize to China. In the Pit, I let the vitriol flow to vent my utter contempt and disgust with Americans who hate their own country and who, while knowing nothing about Asia or Asian history, presume to air their ignorant opinions. [aimed at N2K]

9

I wonder if we’ll ever know whether the Chinese actually planned to try to take down the plane, for a rummage through the technologies, or if it was just an accident plus opportunism. Hoo boy, i hope they spike all he circuit boards in addition to tossing out the hard drives… And if the US and all the countries we have in our pocket set up a little unofficial TRADE EMBARGO, who’d be laughing then?

[remember, Necros, this is the Pit…]
[and look at my sig if you think i blindly salute the flag]

10

What I was pissed about when I started this thread last night was the smugness of the Chinese official who read the statement that the 24 US crewmen would be released soon (for the record, I saw on the news about an hour ago that they have now been released and were almost out of Chinese airspace… ordinarily that would mean that they are almost safe, but apparently the Chinese consider anything within reach of their planes to be Chinese airspace). I don’t remember his name, maybe Jen Chi or something like that: apparently he was a minor party official on the island, and his statements were extremely smug and arrogant.

(not direct quotes but as near as I remember) “America must take full responsibility for this incident…” “…violating the sovereignty of China by landing without permission…” etc.

Pissed me off, that’s all!

11

Wait, wait, they’re sending the people back and you’re pissed off? What the fuck is wrong with you? If a Chinese spy plane crashed in California, you seriously think they would have been back in China the next day?

And what the hell is so wrong with wanting an apology? In my book, you kill someone, you say you’re sorry. It’s not admitting that you’re a bad person, it’s not telling the international community that out country has no dick, it’s just saying, “Oops, someone is dead at least partially as a result of our actions. It was not our intent for someone to be killed. Sorry about that.” Bush is fucking irresponsible for leaving our people over there because he was too damn proud to make an apology.

I had no opinion about this election; the election process is this country makes it damn hard to know anything about either candidate and I didn’t support either one of them. I still don’t know much about Gore, but this demonstrates to me that Bush is a serious dipshit. This all could have been resolved a lot earlier if someone on either side had shown some maturity.

And monkykong: Who would be laughing about a trade embargo? I don’t know, but it wouldn’t be us. Check your cheap plastic crap; it’s all made in China these days… ooh, that’s a good idea; we’re on the verge of a recession, let’s embargo a source of inexpensive goods.

–John

12

Astroboy, Ah. Now I understand. I would have been pissed too.

Yue Han, have you been following this and the other China threads? Hypothetically speaking, if I’m holding a knife, and someone deliberately runs at me and impales himself on my knife, while I haven’t moved, should I apologize?

13

It was international air space. Spy plane or no spy plane, we didn’t do anything illegal. It wasn’t right, but I think China’s demanding an apology had less to do with the deaths and more to do with the fact that it was an American plane. Of course, this is MHO.

I agree 100%. Bush should have apologized immediately. I still think China overreacted though. It was international air space! We had every right to be flying there. The fact that Bush was a doofus about the whole thing didn’t help, but I don’t doubt that the Americans on board still would have been kept longer than necessary.

I think pride has less to do with the debacle than Bush’s desire to establish himself as a no-nonsense, ass-kicking, isolationist, anti-foriegner Republican powerhouse. AFAICS, it was a political move, and of course he botched it, so now he’s left looking like a duckfuck.

I can just imagine some uneducated, racist, Southern jerkoff saying, “Yeah! Fuck with them thar Chiiiineeese! Let 'em know who’s boss!” That’s the mindset I abhor, in Democrats and Republicans alike.

Anyone who became pissed at that statement will kindly note that I didn’t refer to all uneducated people, all Southerners, or all Republicans. I would, however, like to extend my image to all racists. They can bite me.

14

I for one am going to start checking the cheap plastic crap I buy, and if I can possibly find a similar product made in an exploitative sweatshop from elsewhere, I will purchase that instead.

The Chinese government obviously has a lot to learn about international diplomacy. Let it be known that I now consider them my country’s enemy, with all of the benefits and detriments that are granted with such a status.

Americans don’t usually have very good long-term memories, but China, buddies, you just fucked up real bad. Let us hope you do not ever face me, or millions of others like me, from across the negotiating table, for I will ass-rape you for a nickel, and skimp on the Vaseline.

15

Even before this incident, I would try not to buy things that said “Made in China”. Always been a bit sensitive about slave labor.
That’s gotten harder in recent years. Here’s hoping that K-mart, Wal-Mart, Target, and others try a little harder to “diversify their suppliers”, as K-mart put it the other day.

16

sheesh, man, I tried to explain days ago this in the great debates. The Chinese wanted an apology. Finally, they got a great big wet “very sorry for having to make an emergency landing in China”, which according to the wire reports I read, when combined with a quarter would be worth at most twenty five cents. I don’t see where the US took responsibility for anything. And you know fucking what, the next day they let the crew go. So, did american embarress herself on the global stage and take full responsibility for the incident by making an “apology”?

China colonized? WTF, remember Hong Kong reverting to China on 1 July 1997? That was a British COLONY on Chinese soil less than 4 years ago. Think about it. some Americans can still get pissed off that we were colonized up by the British until 1776. Pre-1949, The French, Germans, Japanese and British all had foreign concessions here in China. Said concessions were foreign soil, and foreign law applied. Remember a lot of what the foreign companies operating in China did was to sell opium to the Chinese. Hong Kong was grabbed at the behest of Opium traders. Read James Clavel’s Taipan for a fictionalized account. (But don’t watch the movie, I was an extra in the flick and even I couldn’t stomach more than 20 minutes of it.) The Americans were too weak during the Chinese land grab at the end of the 1800’s, and so took the moral high ground that colonies in China were a bad thing, which is the only reason why we didn’t have one.

And yep, I agree, if the Chinese want international respect, they should learn how behave in a statesman like manner. Embassy bombing was a case in point. Perfect opportunity for the Chinese to take the moral high ground. (We could get into the real story behind the embassy bombing, but that is another subject entirely.)

Astroboy, what pissed you off about the smugness of the Chinese official from Hainan Island? I mean, shit, he pissed me off too. So does my boss, so does Baby Bush. Pick some jerk local government official from a tiny island off of the most backward state in the US. Doesn’t matter which state, just pick your worst stereotype. Let him know that Baby Bush is personally gonna award him an Oscar for life if he makes a convincing performance on international TV, and how pleasant do you think that’s gonna look? Or have you never been in bumfuck USA and ran into a cop with a bad attitude that didn’t like the way you looked? Hainan is where political exiles have been sent for centuries and the waves are too damn small for surfing. It’s fucking criminal, nice beaches, hot tropical weather and surfing just blows.

Hey Monkeyking and Sofa King, what if the Chinese boycott american goods? Did you know the Chinese buy over two BILLION chicken feet a year from the US? Where the hell else can we unload that many chicken feet if China doesn’t buy em? Think about it. That would kill Tyson Foods. Do you own shares of McDonalds, Coke, Motorola, Kodak, AIG, Budweiser, Abbot, GM, Ford, Boeing? You want these shares to all tank, drag down the stock market even lower, really spark a recession, put god fearing americans out of work and let the French, German, Japanese and other industrial exporters all get a leg up on american big business? Good idea, let’s get a big boycott going on both sides of the pacific.

[Multiple posts deleted and “regret” for the posting accident accepted, albeit against the wishes of the SDMB military hardliners. -Alpha]

[Edited by Alphagene on 04-12-2001 at 09:39 AM]

17

Thanks, goboy and China Guy for the info. I guess I never thought about Hong Kong as being China. My Eurocentrism is showing. :frowning: But I never considered Japan to be a “Western power,” so while I thought about the occupation in and around WWII, I didn’t connect that with colonization by the West.

18

Sofa King, what the hell are you so angry about? The prisoners were released. Nobody on our side got killed. Nobody got tortured, apparently. Jesus. That kind of boiling hatred coming out of something like this… it’s fucked up.

No, you should say, you stupid bitch you got blood all over my knife. YES, if you kill someone, even if it’s because they were being stupid, you should apologize. Especially if apologizing, even if you don’t mean it, would solve a lot of problems.

We give China a lot of shit about human rights. (And rightfully so)The Chinese put us to a test; they said, Are you people more important to you, or your pride. Bush showed what his choice was.

–John

19

Lord knows I don’t speak Chinese, but from my understanding on the matter, the Chinese were looking for a specific word of apology from the U.S. This word, when spoken in Chinese, means not only that one apologizes for what occurred, but that the person apologizing also takes all blame for whatever occurred. Bush and Co. refused to say that (and rightfully so, in my opinion).

Yue Han, I believe you’re oversimplifying the issue a bit. The Chinese were being bullheaded about the whole affair. Their pilot screwed up (three times, actually, since he buzzed the slow-flying prop plane twice before the collision), forcing a collision in international airspace. I don’t believe the collision was intentional, but I do believe the Chinese used the opportunity to posture and bluster while they examined the electronics on board the plane. This was never about the crew; they were always going to be returned. China just wanted to drag this out as long as possible so they could examine the plane and its contents.

20

Here’s the problem I have with the apology demand: Some Chinese bigshot (I think it was Jiang Zemin, when he was in Chile) said that when two people bump into each other in the street, it is customary to apologize. If he really believes that the planes bumping into one another is analogous to two people bumping in the street, and maybe it was, then shouldn’t the US expect an apology from China also? The fact that the Chinese guy got killed and the Americans didn’t is only due to his plane being smaller, not because the US was more to blame. (If anything, the relative sizes of the planes would put China more at fault, as has been discussed ad nauseam.) Jiang’s words seem inconsistent to me; maybe it’s because he doesn’t feel that he has to make sense, given that he’s got total control over the Chinese media and therefore can quash any dissent.

I think the Chinese leadership backed itself into a corner. The planes crashed, and right away they used it as a pretext to whip up anti-American sentiment through the state-controlled media (like they did when their embassy was bombed). Then when everyone got into a good lather, they realized that letting the incident pass without rubbing America’s face in it would cause them to lose credibility, so they had to do something.