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Modern East Asia

An article on the front page of today's L A Times (Jul 8th.'06) caught my eye "Ultimate Penalty in Graft Case -- A Chinese businessman is executed..."
It is a pretty lengthy reading about reportedly the 'richest man in China' who was executed in March this year within a few hours of the provincial court in North Eastern China giving him the death penalty and 'Just three hours after the death sentence, authorities delivered the ashes from Yuan's cremated body to his wife'!
It makes a pretty good reading about the present socio-legal system in China as the country goes through its economic boom. The topic, though not suitable for MS I think, but it can definitely be opened up for discussion while teaching 'U.S. Government' in HS.
Thoughts, opinions, etc......?

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Message from vhui

That is interesting. Why was he executed?

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Message from vgairola

He was executed for using corrupt means to move his business forward. A section in the article mentioned that he had refused to fulfill a favor asked of him by an official, as a result he was 'framed'.
The thing that struck me the most was the speed with which his sentence was carried out. It can be a great point of discussion in HS while teaching 'due process' and 'rule of law' under US Government.

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Message from vgairola

An article about Cambodia caught my eye and I checked the site. If you go to the following web address, it will display the article plus others by Kevin Sites who seems to cover regions which are witnessing - or have recently witnessed - conflict and change. Besides Cambodia, he has written a first hand account on Nepal (the country boasts of 8 of the 10 highest peaks in the world) and Afganistan. I liked his write-up of "Nepal: I Am A Dog". Hope you will like his articles.

http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs7753

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Message from clockwood

In the past few months, there have been several articles in the Los Angeles Times about China displacing residents to make way for redevelopment. Saturday, July 22, there was an article titled "Shoved Out, Some Chinese Push Back."

I just returned from the study tour of China and Japan, and now it is more apparent to me the bias with which we see world events. In China, our Shanghai guide pointed to a large section of land (currrently occupied by shipping & industrial facilities) and proudly said, "Come back in a few years and that will be the location of the 2010 World Exposition. Everything will be moved and all new facilities will be built."

What I noticed was the ease with which a totalitarian government can decide to move everything in an area and build new facililties. Throughout Shanghai and Beijing, there is a building boom going on. Sets of huge apartment buildings are being constructed in what used to be neighborhoods of houses. The government owns all the land in China, so it has the power to oust/relocate tenants and build anew. It is very efficient -- no EIR's (environmental impact reports), meetings with residents, plans approved by the community, costly delays -- and this freedom has enabled China's large cities to expand rapidly. Like our guide, many people are pleased with the progress and the availability of housing.

Yet, we in the U.S. are interested in the smaller scope, the personal story. What about the people being relocated? Were they given adequate notice? Compensation? Another home? Our guide didn't bring up these personal issues, yet the U.S. newspaper prominently features the problems with construction. illustrating the article with chains and padlocks in front of houses.

Of course, the U.S. media doesn't want to glorify China's methods -- perhaps we like to show the warts of other countries just as we show our own warts. And, this kind of story is another look at the "inhumanity" of a Communist regime. Yet, I think it is important that we see multiple sides of an issue. Even though Communism is seen as a terrible form of government by the "free world," perhaps its efficiency makes sense in a huge, diverse, developing nation with a recent history of exploitation by outsiders. Yes, I would be very upset if I were forced to move on short notice (or worse, yet, come home to find all my belongings in a moving van with no destination) from a home that had been occupied for decades by my family. There is a sense of ownership in a home, even though the Chinese are aware that the government owns the land. However, after my study tour of China, I am not so quick to judge the Communist government negatively. Some of their socialist policies look to benefit large numbers of peoples, even though they upset smaller numbers. (And, since they control the media, they have the added advantage of not having to inform the populace of how upset some people are.)

Would the U.S. be a better country if we looked out for the benefit of large numbers of people more than the interests of the wealthy and well-connected? In a Chinese newspaper, our policies could be legitimately criticized.

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Message from ssaito

While we like to view Asia's criminal justice is up to par with ours in America, part of the problem in international relations is that each culture has their own judicial history with ugly side effects. If some of you remember the outcry a few years back regarding an American teen sentenced to caning for vandalism. International leaders and figures were in an uproar putting pressure on Singapore. China is notorious for public executions and if many could see what happens on a yearly basis, many would be horrified. I remember seeing an academic book on Chinese torture that showed "1000 ways to slice" a human. A 1000 cut torture was sometimes used on a crucified prisoner and kept alive for a few days. The other fact that always catch my eye is the placement of signs on the executed for the crimes they committed. I see so many parallels and ugliness like in "The Scarlet Letter," or the stars on the Jews in Nazi Germany, or even the Salem witch trials.

I know that gender-related laws have areas to catch up in modern Asia. Divorce rights for women? Custody? Job Harassment? Money is being made in many forms in Asia. From the tallest offices of Shanghai and Tokyo to the sweatshops in Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh City, the criminal underside is ever present in the homeland of Asian triads and organized crime. Land speculation is only one ill-fated investing strategy in the white collar world. How about the quality of life issues such as urbanization and education for the masses?? I think Asia will soon realize, if it already hasn't, that instead of catering to the Western business world and their needs, the region will have to lead in both economic development and human enrichment. When we begin to see the big philanthropist making difference for the masses like in some parts of the Western world, then I think "modernity" will be equal in many aspects of human existence with us in the future. The true cause celebre in Asia is the masses, not one specific culture or region in Asia. Human power should lead to a neo-modern reflections of traditional cultures, just like the Greeks and the Romans began to see their downfalls...

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Message from richardrodriguez

In N. Korea, Weapons Are Key Instrument of Power
Kim Jong Il has made arms projects a top priority at the expense of other needs, enabling the failed state to give even superpowers pause.
By Barbara Demick, Times Staff Writer
July 30, 2006

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-kimweapons30jul30,1,5311088.story?coll=la-headlines-world

The article discusses Kim Jong-Il’s recent testing of nuclear missiles and his ability to build a nuclear arsenal through praise of his scientists, offering them prizes and luxuries not available to normal Koreans. The article states that he has been able to attract top scientists including those from a fallen Soviet Union despite having no funds to pay them. How so? Demick states that “the missiles were given especially high priority because they were not just for self-defense but also for making money. Until recently, North Korea was believed to be bringing in as much as $500 million annually from sales of short- and mid-range missiles to Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, among other customers.”

I find it ironic that “although the North Korean army at one point was so poorly equipped that soldiers didn't have socks, funding for the development of weapons of mass destruction — particularly for the missiles and nuclear arms — has increased.”

The article points out that the N. Korean leader does not care if he bankrupts his country as long as he has a nuclear arsenal that will allow him to maintain power. After the Clinton administration gave aid in exchange for N Korea aborting its nuclear program, Kim Jong Il fortified his ego with the idea that “the United States was very weak and that all it took was one missile for them to give in to us."

According to a defector Kim Duk Hong Kim Jong Il needed the latest tests to “cement his power.” Kim Duk Hong believes that is more interested in the semblance of strength rather than anything else.

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Message from ssaito

Another way that we like to judge "modernity" for a country is often the success of their space programs. As Japan and China continues to develop their rocket programs, and even space travel like the Chinese, we also recognize their use of space technology for military and covert purposes. First the nation must have the funds and the brains to take on such endeavors. Second, the nation must have scientific purposes beyond the military/business interest to generate world acceptance. Finally, the nation must have the support and dreams of the people of its nation, always pushing ourselves to outdo one another to be "first" at something in the space race.

What scares me in this characterization of "modernity," as well as the irony is that rockets rose out of Hitler's missile technology to bomb England. What can be used to expand the human experience could also be used to end everything with a couple of attached nuclear warheads.... Is North Korea, Iran, and even the new China, preening themselves for the wars of the future, or is it the natural evolution of Einstein's nightmare?

Finally, is 'modernity' such a prize to be had, as we quickly bypass the rich traditions of the past??? How did we preserve the rich histories if modernity becomes judge by mere material wealth???

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Message from vgairola

Re: "...judge "modernity" for a country is often the success of their space programs. As Japan and China continues to develop their rocket programs..." Add to this a country from South Asia - INDIA!
To take this discussion further, besides 'old-timer', the United States which has been the biggest atmospheric polluter so far, the two most populous countries in the world - China and India - who are experiencing immense economic growth (modernity?), are also getting the dubious recognition of become substantial donors to atmospheric pollution. We are already seeing (experiencing) increased global warming leading to human and animal deaths here in the West. In Europe, last year, they attributed to about 30,000 human deaths to global warming and, this year ,the climate had been real warm again (normally cool London had a 'heat wave' for the last three weeks of about 90 deg.F).
When I left India about 25 years ago, people were still using bicycles to commute to work. Now, there is a huge increase in cars and motorcycles/scooters jostling to get around each other and one barely sees any bicycles. In Shanghai, I still saw people on bicycles - and I'm sure it is still being used more inland - but the frenetic activities and rushing around of a metropolis ilifestyle is very apparent. These two countries, besides competing to procure oil in the world market and driving up the cost of gas around the world (don't we in SOCAL know about this!), have become gross contributors in global warming.
So, what is the cost of 'modernity' and where can we draw a line?

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Message from vgairola

It is really amazing to what extent Chinese food has permeated the cuisine scene of every major cities in the world. I am visiting Auckland, New Zealand, at the moment and every block in downtown I go to has more than one Chinese food restaurant. Some of the plazas have Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indonesian and Indian food!! There is such a high sprinkling of "Oriental' folks walking around in downtown, that you can easily take it as being at the mall in Shanghai, Singapore or Bangkok!

G'day Mates!

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Message from rspringer

We are going to see fewer and fewer bicycles on the streets of China as we have seen a doubling of new car sales in China over the last year and an expected doubling next year over this past year's increase. We will see this trumpeted as "modernity" as the Olympics approach and a sign of China's increasing affluence and influence in world affairs.

13 of the 15 most polluted cities in the world are in East Asia and in my experience the United States is far far ahead of China in its pollution control. If you have been to China, the everyday experience of air pollution is very evident. I used to live in Riverside, CA growing up and it is obvious to me as I return quite frequently that Southern California has done a great deal to clean up the air pollution over the last twenty-five years.

Those bicyclists are taking their lives in their hands nowadays, aren't they?

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Message from losa

Mexico City has recently started trying to deal with pollution too. I hope China does not allow the same mistakes made in south California and Mexico to be repeated. Go Padres!

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Message from vgairola

CHINESE GARDEN OF FRIENDSHIP
Darling Harbour, Sydney, Australia
"Designed in China to celebrate the Bicentenary (of Australia), the CGofF. at Darling Harbour is a peaceful and tranquil oasis in the heart of Sydney. Winding pathways, saterfalls, lakes and pavilions follow centuries old traditons of landscape design. The CG of F. offers an insight into the rich heritage and culture of the Chinese people and is one of the few traditional public Chinese gardens created out side mainland China."

-from the brochure on C.G. of F.
http://www.sydneyvisitorcentre.com

I visited it earlier this month; photos are attached. (Apologise in advance for slow download)

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Message from mgalvez

An article about the Japanese Royal family caught my eye. It had a modern twist to it.
Since it has been four decades since the royal faimly has had a male heir, the prime minister had support of reforms to allow a woman to take the Chrysanthemum throne. However, according to a friend of the Prince Akishino, his wife, Princess Kiko is about to give birth to a boy in about 1 week. According to the article found at:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?from=rss_Asia&set_id=1&click_id=126&art_id=qw1157011561563B215
"Japan has been holding it's breath for months...". It does seem that the friend is just speculating passed on a conversations with the Prince. There has not been any confirmation to what his friend claims. I think the issue or accepatnce/ support of possibly allowing a women on the throne shows how times are changing. It might be interesting to pursue more about how that came about.

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Message from gjones

Interesting news stories of late concerning North Korean leader Kim. I believe that the N. Korean system of government is the only modern model in which the leader is deifed. Kim is seen as the "benevolent father", feared leader, and as a god.
It is interesting to note the shift in perception concerning Kim. I can clearly recall reading several stories in recent years that portrayed him as a party-loving, hard-charging bohemian (of sorts). The emphasis was on his personal habits- excessive drinking, womanizing, crazed spending etc., along with damning critiques of his leadership abilities. He was primarily portrayed as a reckless oaf who had stumbled into his position- a bumbling pretender trying to fill Daddy's considerable shoes. That has changed. More recent portrayals paint Kim Jr. as a calculating, methodical, and perceptive leader, or at the very least, as someone who has mastered the art of maintaining power. Kim has graduated from being the class clown to the star pupil in the Western press.

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Message from jlatimer

In the LA Times (2-13-07), there is an article about the big five countries coming to an agreement with North Korea on financial aid and nuclear disarmament. It seems all the involved nations have come to a tentative agreement that North Korea will stop its nuclear program and let in inspectors in exchange for aid. Of course, the article gives few details as to how much aid is involved and how much from each nation. Even so, this is a good sign that diplomacy still works!![Edit by="jlatimer on Feb 13, 7:45:21 PM"][/Edit]

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Message from lclark

Another "ultimate penalty" article about a sanctioned Chinese official, this one comes from the front page of the Valley Edition of the Los Angeles Times for 30 May 2007 and deals with the death sentence given to Zheng Xiaoyu, the former head of China's Food and Drug Administration. The reporter, Mark Magnier, describes the $832,00 Zheng pocketed from bribes, kickbacks and other forms of graft while in office as "not huge," at least not according to "the standards of Chinese corruption cases." Apparently what caused the public outrage that contributed to the government's giving Zheng a death sentence was the large number of untested drugs and food products he allowed into the Chinese and international markets, with the result that dozens of Chinese citizens died from untested medicines and thousands of cats and dogs perished in the US from eating pet food contaminated by toxic elements in wheat gluten exported to Canada from China. This last factor was no doubt the one that sealed Zheng's fate. China, as all the world knows, has become a major exporter of you-name-it. Whatever the product might be, it has a Chinese manufacturer and supplier. Tarnishing China's lucrative international reputation as a supplier of safe, reliable, inexpensive goods was no doubt the ultimate crime for which the hapless Zheng must pay the ultimate price.

Although many of us might like to see stiffer penalties imposed on corrupt heads of the American FDA, which has bungled, over the years, everything from thalidomide to Vioxx, still, most of us would not support a death penalty for such malfeasance. On the other hand, the officials of the People's Republic can and do administer such punishments on a not infrequent basis (see vgairola's post for 07-08-2006 in this thread on the execution of the "richest man in China" for graft). Although the fact that the Chinese administer and support such punishments probably reflects a kind of Confucian-Mencian legalist tradition antedating considerably the 1949 revolution, there seems little doubt that the severity of Zheng's sentence stems from China's new consciousness of itself as a major supplier and exporter. The Chinese FDA was established as recently as 1998, when Zheng was appointed its first director after several decades spent working for successful state-run pharmaceutical companies in Hangzhou. In 2002 the agency became responsible for approving all new drugs, thus opening the door to big pressure and even bigger bribes, according to Hao Zhao, an associate professor at Beijing's Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business. Zheng's death sentence, handed down 29 May by the Beijing Intermediate Court, is being reviewed by the state supreme court and might possibly be reduced as part of the appeals process. The article notes that a deputy governor of Anhui province was executed for corruption in 2003. And yet, the article notes also that such corruption is widespread and that employees of state-run companies who decide to become whistle-blowers can face severe retribution. Zhou Huanxi, a woman who reported to state regulators the illegal adulteration of drugs by the company she worked for, Hangzhou Aoyi Baoling Pharmaceutical, was rewarded for her courage and honesty with a three-year prison sentence "on trumped-up charges of trying to extort the company with harmful information."

So it seems that corporations are king, even in a nominally communist state where there are no corporations, at least not officially. It seems also that China's Draonian punishments by death penalty are having little effect on coporate corruption. The Chinese leaders blame corrupt officials like Zheng Xiaoyu. Confucius and Mencius would blame the leaders and call for their punishment. I agree with Confucius and Mencius, although punishment of corrupt and incompetent heads of state is no more likely a prospect in the People's Republic than it is here in the US.

Leigh Clark
Monroe High School

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Message from lclark

The Column One piece in the Valley Edition of the Los Angeles Times for Thursday, 31 May 2007, "Shattered as a lover and a spy," tells a sad story of unrequited love caught in the Cold War ideological struggle between Taiwan and the People's Republic at a time when the personal was inescapably the political. Kan Zhonggan was an eleven-year-old boy when his working-class parents sent him from Shanghai, the city of his birth, to live with an uncle in Taiwan in the months prceding the 1949 revolution. On the island young Kan was innoculated with the virulent anti-communist propaganda promoted by Taiwan's strongman, General Chiang Kai-shek (and supported by the US with its inflexible position that Taiwan, or the Republic of China, was the "true China").

Kan, now 72, recalled for reporter Ching-Ching Ni what this propaganda was like and what effect it had on him as a young man. "They [the Taiwanese government] told us the communists were the embodiment of evil, that they shared wives and tossed landlords into the sea. It seems like a joke now, but I was a kid. I believed everything. I hated the communists so much I could eat their flesh and drink their blood." Charged with such super-patriotism, Kan was ripe for recruitment by Taiwan's spy masters, who trained him in code writing, secret radio messaging and the planting and detonation of explosives. Assigned to assassinate Communist Party leaders, bomb major cities and foment counterrevolutionary resistance, the zealous 22-year-old Kan took up a cover job as a salesclerk in Hong Kong and awaited orders to report to the mainland for active undercover spy duty. But in Hong Kong in 1957 he met a young woman named Xiao Zhen, an attractive teacher involved, along with her father and brother, in counterrevolutionary resistance. Although married, she fell in love with Kan and fled with him, against his spy master's orders, to Shanghai where they enjoyed four blissful days, young and in love, with the whole world ahead of them, before both were arrested by plainclothes policemen. Kan got a 20-year sentence, Xiao five years.

Now comes the sad part. During imprisonment the flame of loved burned true and pure in both hearts. Kan once caught a glimpse of Xiao at a distance through the small window of his cell while she was out in the women's exercise area. When his jailers found out about this, they blocked up his window so that he had no more views of the outside world for the duration of his confinement in that prison. Before his time was up, Kan was moved to Qinghai province in the far west, China's equivalent of Siberia, where he was forced to do hard labor. Upon his release he worked at a string of menial jobs while he tried to reunite with his true love Xiao Zhen. In 1985 he finally located her, working in an office in Shanghai, the city of their four days of happiness a lifetime ago. Their reunion was restrained but intensely emotional, like something out of Henry James or Kazuo Ishiguro. And, in the end, it was heartbreaking. She had waited for him, as he had for her, she refusing to leave the labor camp after her five-year term was up, staying on as a prison employee, preferring life on the inside to life outside without Kan. Finally, after seventeen long years of fruitless waiting, she had married a former counterrevolutionary, a kind man who had cared for her when she fell sick in prison. She showed Kan pictures of her husband and son. To this day Kan blames himself for not having found her in time, before she remarried. But China is a large, populous country with a cumbersome bureaucracy. That he found her at all borders on the miraculous.

Is there a moral to this sad love story, other than life sucks? I think so and it has to do with the destructive force of propaganda. Noxious anti-communist propaganda, promoted by Taiwan (and the US) iinspired Kan and Xiao's quixotic espionage endeavors. Party-line communist propaganda dictated the terms and nature of their punishment. The losers are the ordinary people whose views and lives are warped by propaganda. The old Latin proverb got it wrong. In our times it is not love but propaganda that conquers all. This sad love story could be used to teach our students about the pitfalls of propaganda, especially our contemporary US variety, which would have them hate Muslim terrorists as passionately as the young Kan once hated communists, and would encourage them to throw their own lives away in service no less "patriotic" than that which once inspired idealistic spies and lovers Kan Zhonggan and Xiao Zhen.

Leigh Clark
Monroe High School[Edit by="lclark on Jun 20, 6:09:58 PM"][/Edit]

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Message from jlatimer

Buried in the World in Brief section of the LA Times was a short blurb about the Rape of Nanking toll being disputed by the Japanese (6-20-07). According to the clip, 100 Japanese lawmakers from the ruling party said the number of civilians killed by Japanese soldiers during the 1937 Rape of Nanking "has been grossly inflated." The spokesperson said that they believe only 20,000 Chinese were killed and that Chinese officials inflated the number for propaganda reasons. China has estimated the deaths at 300,000. However, most historians agree that at least 150,000 civilians were killed and tens of thousands of women were raped. I think this is another example of the Japanese government trying to re-write history.

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Message from jlatimer

I saw the LA Times article too. I fully agree with your description and analysis of the sad situation. Interestingly enough, I talked about the article in my World History class as an example of Cold War propaganda. It was good timing since we were covering the Cold War when the article was printed. Over the past year, I've made it a point to include the different aspect of propaganda from varoius sources and show how propaganda can be used, and misused, to get people do do or think something they normally wouldn't. My hope is for my students to understand what propaganda is, and its affects, so they will be better able to think critically for themselves, instead of being told how to think.

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Message from jlatimer

What steps has Mexico City taken to reduce air pollution? Also, how can pollution controlls be applied to China if they are uninterested? I'll be in mexico City this summer, so it will be interesting to see how they have done over the last time I was there. I'm just not sure how we can realistically get China to do what we have done to reduce pollution if they are only interested with industrialization. Go Padres!!

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Message from jlatimer

On a related issue, check my other posting on "From Silk to Oil" regarding the increase in oil consumption and lack of renewable energy in China. [Edit by="jlatimer on Jun 22, 3:20:45 PM"][/Edit]

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Message from ppearson

When I was in Taipei in the 1980's the air pollution was palpable and the traffic was intense. I just came across an article describing part of Taipei's answer--a still-building, very modern subway system. The article at http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/05/taipei-metro-re.html describes the system's features. What I found even more interesting are some of the comments describing aspects of "Asian culture."