Friday, February 12, 2010

The 3-T's

On my first trip to Beijing to teach some finance seminars back in 1998, I was advised to avoid talking about the three T's: Tiananmen Massacre, Taiwan, and Tibet. What I've found during my more recent trips is that local Chinese people are either ignorant or don't even want to talk about the three topics.

Recently, Taiwan and Tibet are in the news due to the US. We agreed to sell some defensive weapons to Taiwan (but no F-16s) and now Obama has confirmed that he is planning to meet the Dalai Lama, as all previous US presidents have done. In response, the CCP has been whining and bitching about "damaging" Sino-US relationships. Seriously, I think the commies need to grow up and talk about these issues. Their strategy has been to be hyper-aggressive towards Taiwan and Tibet yet ignore Tiananmen. Is this a long term strategy? Are they just focused on controlling their own population in the short term?

2 comments:

hogsman said...

yeah, if i lived in china, i'd be wary of discussing anything controversial in case big brother overheard. people there have no protection from governmental oppression -- they probably are too afraid to organize opposition because of government infiltration and retaliation in the past. i'm so thankful i grew up here in the states.

closetmusician said...

I agree with you, sadly, the more I live in China, the more pessimistic I become about its ability to ever open up and liberalize. I think for all the talk about technology being an enabler for freedom and equality, we're seeing the CCP pervert it for something much more sinister instead. Sigh.