The Olympic flame now symbolizes repression in China and support of dictatorships and oppression around the world.
When China was given the opportunity to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, the country’s politicians promised to improve their image and human rights record at home and abroad. …
Article comments
26 - peace
Franco,
Did I even say anything about China's press freedom before you throw those stones at me?
Will you believe me if I tell you that people can find a lot of post, comment criticizing Chinese government and corrupt officials, and many corrupt government officials got arrested because people disclosed their crime on internet first, then people got angry, then government start to investigate, then bad guys in prison? The government does restrict the internet users to access some political website, not all of them are bad, but you do know many political website are full of news with no basis, right? The freedom of accessing website definitely should be improved more, but not to the level that everybody can access erotic website freely. Blah, blah,I do not like to talk about these things because I do not think you will believe me base on your attitude, and you can not read Chinese website.
Many people think that Chinese people are living in hell because of the communist government ( do you really believe that the Chinese government is still a real communist government?), actually, only Chinese people can know what their real life is now, it is getting better and better quickly, and we do not expect to be a country like America in one day, for everything. Things need to be changed gradually, safely, we all know the consequence of the tremendous change of the Ex Soviet Union. Only ordinary people will suffer because of that.
27 - scotchcart
Could we look at the human component here please?
The people of Zimbabwe don't care whether "Made in China" or "Made in the USA" is written on the bullet. We don't want to be shot by either of you!
Chinese guys here, this isn't a competition between you and the USA! Talk to the Zimbabweans about why you sent these weapons. Reassure Zimbabweans you will send no more.
We will accept your apology and reassurances but we need hear them from you.
28 - Franco
Chinese guys here, this isn't a competition between you and the USA! Talk to the Zimbabweans about why you sent these weapons. Reassure Zimbabweans you will send no more.
We will accept your apology and reassurances but we need hear them from you.
Excellent comment. Question is will they do it.
This just in: Chinese Arms now to be flown in to Zimbabwe
29 - Franco
New arms for Zim being flown in
Pretoria - A second shipment of considerably-more-sophisticated Chinese weaponry destined for Zimbabwe will be flown to Harare from China within the next week.
It was going to be taken by aircraft to expedite the delivery and to circumvent the controversy around last week's shipment by sea.
The decision apparently was made on Monday by Zimbabwean military generals during an emergency meeting.
30 - Franco
This Just In - Robert Mugabe link to Chinese Amrs firm
When Levy Mwanawasa, the president of Zambia, called on every country in the region to reject it, the ship became an embarrassment to Beijing, which has made a huge political and financial investment in Africa.
Mugabe forged links with the Poly Technologies management on state visits to China. Since Zimbabwe is all but bankrupt, the arms are paid for by barters of agricultural products and raw materials.
Company documents show that Poly Technologies, the manufacturer of the weapons on board the ship, is ultimately controlled by a clique from China’s preeminent military clans with close ties to the Communist party leadership and army.
Major General He Ping, the company’s chairman, is the son-in-law of Deng Xiaoping, the former Chinese leader; its president, Wang Jun, is the son of a vice-president and a Deng ally. Its upper ranks are stuffed with military veterans and their offspring, who have greatly enriched themselves with arms sales to some of Africa’s bloodiest trouble spots.
“China has done nothing wrong with regard to weapons exports to Zimbabwe,” said Guo Xiaobing, a researcher quoted by the Guangzhou Daily, in the ship’s home port.
“This is only a topic for the western media to use to put pressure on China. There is no United Nations embargo on arms to Zimbabwe, so China’s business is legal.”
Full Story
31 - scotchcart
The sale was legal but the delivery was poorly timed. There are also question marks about what was used to pay for the shipment.
see here.
Please be clear that Zimbabweans (and others) do not mind whether a bullet has "Made in China" or "Made in USA" on it. We would rather be shot be neither.
32 - Akili
Why did Britain leave massive weapons and an airforce to Ian Smiths illegal White Dominion Party, vetoing a UN Security Council resolution proposed by Ghana.
Why did CIA Congo station chief, Devlin, admit on BBC that US President Eisenhower ordered him to assassinate Democratically elected President of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba.
Why did US President Ronald Reagan and Aparthied South African Foreign Minister Pik Botha dress Mercenary, Assassin, and mass murderer, Jonas Savimbi, as a pastor, parade him at the White house, and give him stinger missles?
Because of their thirst to steal Africa's resources.
Now that Zimbabwe is taking their resources away from from American and British companies control, they need all the weapons they can get to defend their land and resources. This is their sovereign right.
The MDC is an EU Working Committee project to implement Settler Colonialism and Imperialism in Zimbabwe and to destroy the only Black African leader that is standing up to European Imperialism.
Right on Mugabe! Right on China!
33 - Franco
I didn't know Morgan Tsvangirai was a European Imperialist. No wonder he did not want those weapons getting in the Zim. Hey lets get the Chinese weapons back over there.
But first lets ask the anti-European Imperialist women in Zim who are opposition party supporters who spoke on April 29 of how they had their homes burnt by suspected Mugabe's ZANU-PF supporters
34 - Franco
China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms
Sudan is China's largest overseas oil project. China is Sudan's largest supplier of arms, according to a former Sudan government minister. Chinese-made tanks, fighter planes, bombers, helicopters, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades have intensified Sudan's two-decade-old north-south civil war. All international efforts have not stopped this massive Arab attact on Sudan. The fighting in Sudan's Darfur region rages on, as government-backed Arab militias remove African tribes off their land.
In Sudan, Africa's largest country, China is in a lucrative partnership that delivers billions of dollars in investment, oil revenue and weapons -- as well as diplomatic protection -- to a government accused by the United States of genocide in Darfur and cited by human rights groups for systematically massacring civilians and chasing them off ancestral lands to clear oil-producing areas. The country once gave safe haven to Osama bin Laden and is listed by Washington as a state supporter of terrorism. U.S. companies are prohibited from investing there.
Part of a broader push by China to expand trade and influence across the African continent, its relationship with Sudan also demonstrates the intensity of China's quest for energy security and its willingness to participate in genocide for its own gain.
China's largest energy company is pumping crude oil, sending it 1,000 miles upcountry through a Chinese-made pipeline to the Red Sea, where tankers wait to ferry it to China's industrial cities. Chinese laborers based in a camp of prefabricated sheds work the wells and lay highways across the flats to make way for heavy machinery.
From its seat on the United Nations Security Council, China has been Sudan's chief diplomatic ally. In recent months, the council has neared votes on a series of resolutions aimed at pressuring Sudan's predominantly Arab government to protect the African tribes under attack in Darfur and stop support for militias by threatening to sanction its oil sales. China has threatened to veto such actions while watering down the threat of oil sanctions.
China should be criticized repeatedly and without restraint on human rights issues because of its philosophical predisposition against outside pressure.
Chinese diplomatic experts say oil interests and nothing else plays the only role in Beijing's actions at the United Nations in vetoing international support efforts for Sudan's victim at the hands of Islamic Janjaweed.
In Sudan, Amnesty International reports that the Arab militant group Janjaweed, backed by the Sudanese government, has been systematically kidnapping, raping, and murdering girls as young as 8 and women as old as 80.
The Africans of Darfur and relief agencies say that, far from stopping the Janjaweed, the government is providing them with weapons, training and uniforms.
This is all a win win for China. They get the oil, they get lucritive weapons sales, the weapons are used to expand and protect the oil rich area and their huge investment in it, and this puts China in high standing and good favor with other Muslim oil producing states of the Organization of Islmic Countries (OIC) who favor the Sudan goverments actions.
I personally have conductied international business all over the world. The Chineses stand out as the most ruthless business actors of any in the world. They eat their own. Not only will they make a proftit sufferings of others, they will, with a straight face, try and sell you back the empty skin sack of their victoms. I don't know if it will evcr change, and that makes it a scary country.
Condidering the above facts and my personal expearnce, China is one of the most ruthless countries in the world.
35 - Dr Dreadful
Wow. Zimbabwean election officials must have undergone some rigorous retraining over the last few weeks. It's quite amazing how quickly they were able to declare the result of the presidential run-off, considering the hard time they had counting the votes for the original election.
[/sarcasm]
36 - Dan Miller
But but but . . . I thought the wicked and oppressive U.S. was the only imperial power in the world. Was I wrong? Nah.
Dan
37 - bliffle
I have a lot of misgivings about our willingness to get our financial and manufacturing affairs so intermingled with the Chinese. IMO our China policies of the past few years have been reckless and will be the basis of future problems.