From: joe@astro.as.utexas.edu (Joe Wang)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.china
Subject: Re: <Dem. China> article
Date: 26 Aug 92 10:42:22 GMT
Organization: McDonald Observatory, University of Texas @ Austin

In article <BtIGDM.43w@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> Wing Ng <wing@pegasus.com> writes:
>1.5 years ago, people said that when I posted a similar work
>"Whither China".  I think they serve some purpose, but is certainly
>not a cure-all that explains EVERYTHING.

Even if one accepts Su Xiaokang's division of cultures into land-based
and oceanic ones (and I don't), one important trend to note is that
north China is rapidly becoming an oceanic culture no less than south
China.  With the breakup of the Soviet Union, a lot of traders are
starting go on the Beijing-Moscow railroad, and the Manchurian border
is becoming an area of intense trade.

Moreover, the large numbers of Chinese students in the United States
seem to be even distributed from north and south China, and the
existence of so many students can be considered a sign of an "oceanic"
culture.

Technology is becoming such that you no longer need an "ocean" to have
an "oceanic culture."

>All the "independence"
>in Eastern Europe has been relatively peaceful except for Yugo.,
>which I think is caused by Communist-ruled Serbia intent on
>land-grabbing at the expense of the other former constituent
>republics.

The big tragedy in Yugoslavia is that it all could have been avoided
had Serbia been a bit more flexible.  The other republics only
demanded independence after their calls for a looser republic were
rejected.  Miloselvic was (and remains to this day) an idiot.

>I do not necessarily endorse the Ukrainian leaders, again, I was
>only saying that Ukraine is a survivable economic unit.

Perhaps, but who wants to just survive?  
We all want to get rich, don't we?  :-) :-) :-) :-)  

With bigger economic units, there are more opportunities for wealth.
That's why the basic reason European are unifying.

>Currently there is much talk about "GD being economically
>independent from China is such a good thing".  

Taiwan is finding it impossible to be economically independent from
the Mainland.  I don't see much chance for Guangdong.  What will
happen is that as the standard of living in Guangdong rises, the
economy will move more to high tech and factories which just require
cheap labor will start relocating inland.

You can think of economic development as a wave.  It's passed Taiwan,
it's going through Guangdong and eventually it will hit all of China.

>What if GD local leaders decide to become "bourgeois liberalization"
>and Beijing sends troops to suppress?  I already know whose side
>my opinion will be on.

One of the problems with "independence" thinking is that it looks at
conflicts in a rather dangerous way.  For example, one can look at
your hypothetical example as "central government vs. people" or as
"north Chinese vs. south Chinese."  The problem with looking at things
the latter way is that eventually people forget the original reasons
for the conflict and dislike the other group simply because they are
the other group.  At that point, you have a Yugoslavia.

What gets worse is that often politicians will intentionally recast
conflicts to promote hatreds such as this.  Yugoslavia is another
example of this.  If the presidents of the republics had tried to
portray the conflict as simply one between local government and
central government, people wouldn't have gotten as emotional as they
did, and the conflict would probably have had a better ending.



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