I Care About China

I love China. I've never been, but I love the art, the philosophies, the literature, poetry, colors, I don't know, oriental things seem graceful and tranquil, dragon kites and cherry blossoms, tea and rice. BUT I know there are a lot of things wrong with China: their government, to start with, treatment of women, esp. historically (foot binding and such), lack of religious freedom, lack of personal expression, lack of access to uncensored information, lack of reproductive freedom (one child policy, greater value placed on male children - now they have tens of millions of bachelors with no one in their culture and country to marry).

Last night I watched the end of a documentary about China and learned a couple things. A US company called Cisco has made tons of money selling high tech monitoring equipment to the Chinese government. Here's an article about it. The government uses this equipment to monitor and control its bazillion citizens. I guess the US didn't think it was cool that this company was making such an impressive profit off such a repressive government, but Cisco said, tough beans - we're not responsible for how our customers choose to use the products we provide.

That's the American spirit, right? Make money. Profits over ethics. Does that make anyone else sick? So, not that I go out and buy surveillance equipment often, but if I am EVER in a situation where I can choose to buy Cisco or not, I will not. It's not much, but I can boycott, and it's not nothing. Plus, now you know, you can too, and tell your friends if you'd like. The US busts up monopolies within our country .. hope you paid enough attention in your econ class to understand why. BUT US companies in foreign countries can have monopolies until their own government chooses to break it up, but if the Government is paying the monopoly ... and likes what its getting ... yes, my beautiful China has its problems.

The second thing. Very close to my heart. My senior year of high school, I was on the policy debate team, me and my partner WERE the policy debate team. The resolution that year was: The United States should change its foreign policy with China. Pretty broad. We had to prepare to defend against any policy change opposing teams might come up with, as well as come up with our own policy to defend when we were Affirmative. It was during my search for all info on China that I first recall reading about the massacre of hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators in Tienanmen Square in 1989. We all know the famous "tank man" picture. We know what happened and why (if not). It happened on June 5th, which is my birthday. So with all that ... the documentary showed the tank man picture to 4 students at Beijing University. They had no idea what they were seeing. One did maybe, but he wouldn't saw what it was, I think all he said was "1989," so maybe he knew, but knew he wasn't supposed to know. The others guessed maybe it was a parade or something. A Parade.

I haven't been to China. How is it really? It fills me with dread that the government has so much power to control everything, the economy, the history, education, religion. I take it for granted that I can type anything into Google and find stuff out. Anything. Google is strictly filtered in China. How do we Americans sit back and say that's okay, as long as I can buy all my cheap stuff at Wal-Mart, who cares about China.

Americans. Us and George W .. we all go to church on Sunday, but back to work on Monday. Pray for God to Bless America ... as we abuse our brothers and sisters in foreign lands or at least support those who abuse them. What little thing can I do for them? What can I try, even if I can't win? Tell me. My heart is heavy. So many issues, so much is wrong ...

In the words of my husband when asked to change a diaper, not the world - quoting Homer Simpson, "I'm just one man, what can I do?"