China

[Azrael]

So what happened to Xi Jinping? Does anyone know? What a pathetic bunch of unintelligent losers the Chinese leadership are, blocking their citizens from searching for "back injury" lest the entire "harmonious" society they built collapse on itself. My prediction for the next 10 years is either that China will either muddle along or will profoundly embarrass itself on the world stage.

Or society could start falling apart like Russia after the Afghanistan war. I would imagine that heroin is relatively cheap in China.

One thing is certain: the upward ascent -- and the euphoric praise for China's mafia leadership from privilege assholes like Joshua Cooper Ramos that came with it -- are gone forever.

I wouldn't be so sure . . . well, at least about the end of euphoric praise for China's mafia leadership. Some crown prince frat boy types have too much at stake (emotionally) and never learn.

[Zack Morris]

The big problem is that the CCP can't figure out what to censor and let slide, what to permit and crack down on.

Of course. But that's because they have devised what I think will prove to be an ineffective model of leadership. This is like the 'economic calculation problem' writ political. These CCP bosses are showing themselves to be lacking in intellectual horsepower. Chinese people, with their abundant respect for meritocracy and Buddhist-inspired belief that those in positions of power and wealth have earned their status, mistake the choreographed gravitas that Chinese leaders cultivate as the signs of skillful, wise, competent men.

But of course we now know better. These phlegmatic -- some would say potato-like -- dullards lose their composure at the slightest sign of trouble. In any other country of comparable economic and geopolitical clout, a leader throwing his back out playing tennis would require at most a statement from a press secretary, not a frantic mobilization of the entire state security apparatus. And for a 5,000 year old society with a deep memory and allegedly rich cultural traditions, what can we say about their 'toddler tantrum' school (or pre-school, rather) of diplomacy?

They are in a situation where the could incrementally move towards their own version of a centralized representative democracy, but I don't think the leadership has the mental flexibility. I think if pushed they would revert to crackdown mode rather than adapt. But unlike many nations in the world today the potential for political and social evolution is there, which is simultaneously exciting and depressing.

Sure, and I do think that outright chaos is extremely unlikely for cultural reasons, as you observed earlier. But I think that this myth of a wise and highly competent class of leaders educated in "real" subjects is rapidly disintegrating before our eyes. The Chinese emperor has no clothes.

[Azrael]

So what happened to Xi Jinping? Does anyone know? What a pathetic bunch of unintelligent losers the Chinese leadership are, blocking their citizens from searching for "back injury" lest the entire "harmonious" society they built collapse on itself. My prediction for the next 10 years is either that China will either muddle along or will profoundly embarrass itself on the world stage. One thing is certain: the upward ascent -- and the euphoric praise for China's mafia leadership from privilege assholes like Joshua Cooper Ramos that came with it -- are gone forever.

The big problem is that the CCP can't figure out what to censor and let slide, what to permit and crack down on.

Supposedly Xi Jinping threw his back out while masturbating. What would you do in their position? Other than get a mop?

They are in a situation where the could incrementally move towards their own version of a centralized representative democracy, but I don't think the leadership has the mental flexibility.

And, evidently Xi Jinping doesn't have the physical flexibility.

I think if pushed they would revert to crackdown mode rather than adapt.

Crackdown mode is what got him in to this mess.

But unlike many nations in the world today the potential for political and social evolution is there,

There are also a lot of potential humans there. In Xi Jinping's case, a lot of potential got wasted.

which is simultaneously exciting and depressing.

That's would Xi Jinping would say about a typical evening.

[Ibrahim]

*rimshot*

[Typhoon]

So what happened to Xi Jinping? Does anyone know? What a pathetic bunch of unintelligent losers the Chinese leadership are, blocking their citizens from searching for "back injury" lest the entire "harmonious" society they built collapse on itself. My prediction for the next 10 years is either that China will either muddle along or will profoundly embarrass itself on the world stage.

Or society could start falling apart like Russia after the Afghanistan war. I would imagine that heroin is relatively cheap in China.

One thing is certain: the upward ascent -- and the euphoric praise for China's mafia leadership from privileged assholes like Joshua Cooper Ramos that came with it -- are gone forever.

I wouldn't be so sure . . . well, at least about the end of euphoric praise for China's mafia leadership. Some crown prince frat boy types have too much at stake (emotionally) and never learn.

Back when the Japanese Bubble Economy started to deflate, there was a famous report by some Wall St frat boys as to why this was a short term event, that Japan Inc. would soon resume it's omnipotent rise.

I suspect that the Bubble situation in China is actually far worse:

Bloomberg | Shadow Bankers Vanishing Leave China Victims Seeing Scams

[Typhoon]

The big problem is that the CCP can't figure out what to censor and let slide, what to permit and crack down on.

Of course. But that's because they have devised what I think will prove to be an ineffective model of leadership. This is like the 'economic calculation problem' writ political. These CCP bosses are showing themselves to be lacking in intellectual horsepower. Chinese people, with their abundant respect for meritocracy and Buddhist-inspired belief that those in positions of power and wealth have earned their status, mistake the choreographed gravitas that Chinese leaders cultivate as the signs of skillful, wise, competent men.

Well, China did go from peasant Maosism to one of the world's leading manufacturing nations in the course of three decades or so.
However, how much of this is due to or despite the central CCP leadership is, of course debatable.

The bit about Buddhism is also debatable - a rather broad brush. Consider the hagiography of US business leaders and the "God wants you to be wealthy" version of Christianity popular in the US.

But of course we now know better. These phlegmatic -- some would say potato-like -- dullards lose their composure at the slightest sign of trouble. In any other country of comparable economic and geopolitical clout, a leader throwing his back out playing tennis would require at most a statement from a press secretary, not a frantic mobilization of the entire state security apparatus. And for a 5,000 year old society with a deep memory and allegedly rich cultural traditions, what can we say about their 'toddler tantrum' school (or pre-school, rather) of diplomacy?

The characters for China 中国 are often translated as the Middle Kingdom. This translation loses the symbolic meaning of kingdom at the centre of the universe to which all other nations should naturally kowtow.
Two centuries of humiliation, as the Chinese see it, from the Opium Wars to the Boxer Rebellion to the occupation of Manchuria by Japan to the ongoing existence of an independent [US protected] Taiwan have created a collective cognitive dissonance and national sense of insecurity which accounts for their tantrum school of diplomacy.

They are in a situation where the could incrementally move towards their own version of a centralized representative democracy, but I don't think the leadership has the mental flexibility. I think if pushed they would revert to crackdown mode rather than adapt. But unlike many nations in the world today the potential for political and social evolution is there, which is simultaneously exciting and depressing.

Sure, and I do think that outright chaos is extremely unlikely for cultural reasons, as you observed earlier. But I think that this myth of a wise and highly competent class of leaders educated in "real" subjects is rapidly disintegrating before our eyes. The Chinese emperor has no clothes.

Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.

A tendency in the West to view the CCP as a cohesive monolith is a mistaken perception.
Just as in the days of old, there is an ongoing tension between the centre and the local party bigshots who would like to be their own independent and highly corrupt little emperors.

[Nonc Hilaire]

The new China was built on selling stuff to the east. I really have no idea what they will now that their customers are all going under.

[Zack Morris]

Well, China did go from peasant Maosism to one of the world's leading manufacturing nations in the course of three decades or so.
However, how much of this is due to or despite the central CCP leadership is, of course debatable.

CCP or KMT, the outcome would have been largely the same, although I think the CCP's inward looking, paranoid tendencies have contributed to the mainland's social retardation, something that is much less of a problem in Taiwan. It could be that the underlying ordering principles that support Chinese society are much more deeply embedded than most people assume. The visible government layered on top of this still has the power to navigate the country to better or worse outcome but the ship remains seaworthy either way. Within that sort of a model, the CCP is doing a poor job of steering an otherwise remarkably resilient society. Of course, this is all un-scientific speculation because none of these theories can be tested.

The bit about Buddhism is also debatable - a rather broad brush. Consider the hagiography of US business leaders and the "God wants you to be wealthy" version of Christianity popular in the US.

And you don't think that America's peculiar brand of Christianity has had anything to do with our cultural development? We can't read too much into cultural and religious beliefs -- down that path lies Spengler and his over-intellectualized fallacies -- but I think there is some exchange between belief systems and power structures.

I can't remember where now but I recall reading an article claiming that people from different cultural backgrounds perceive their autonomy very differently. For a given sequence of actions, such as cooking a meal, a Westerner feels he has made far more conscious decisions than someone from India or China. Because of this perception that they are exercising more direct control over their lives, they tend to predicate their sense of self worth very strongly on the outcomes of choices. A Westerner is more likely to beat himself up over purchasing a bad car or set of jeans because he made the bad decision, and because this speaks to a broader lack of competence. The article claimed that someone from China would be more likely to shrug it off as a bad pair of jeans, an isolated event unconnected to his abilities let alone value as a human being.

What is believing that power, wealth, and comfort are fairly and justly allotted by the universe if not the idea of a 'divine mandate'? It might be an oversimplification to ascribe this purely to Buddhism but I think it was certainly a powerful force in shaping the moral logic behind this kind of thinking.

I have an ex-girlfriend (still a very close friend of mine) who is a devout and practicing Buddhist (not the New Age hipster kind, either). Granted, it's impossible to extrapolate from one data point, but if she is at all representative of how the faith is interpreted, it's not difficult to imagine how a society of people steeped in such principles would tend to maintain a deep respect for the 'winners' of society and be reluctant to demand more control and a share of the winnings for themselves.

I think that a lot of societies operate on similar principles but it's all a matter of degrees.

The characters for China 中国 are often translated as the Middle Kingdom. This translation loses the symbolic meaning of kingdom at the centre of the universe to which all other nations should naturally kowtow.
Two centuries of humiliation, as the Chinese see it, from the Opium Wars to the Boxer Rebellion to the occupation of Manchuria by Japan to the ongoing existence of an independent [US protected] Taiwan have created a collective cognitive dissonance and national sense of insecurity which accounts for their tantrum school of diplomacy.

This very particular way of interpreting history, coupled with traditional ethnocentrism, and the nefarious propaganda of the CCP makes for a toxic brew.

A tendency in the West to view the CCP as a cohesive monolith is a mistaken perception.
Just as in the days of old, there is an ongoing tension between the centre and the local party bigshots who would like to be their own independent and highly corrupt little emperors.

I think that could be said of just about any society.

[Ibrahim]

The new China was built on selling stuff to the east. I really have no idea what they will now that their customers are all going under.

Actually they are increasingly gearing themselves towards a domestic consumer market. They've got a sizeable "middle class," it's just dwarfed by their lingering peasant/laborer class. Even so, they are looking to grow the domestic consumer base, and manufacture for it. They seem to have foreseen that selling to North America/Europe was a short-term game, probably because they held so much of the debt from those markets.

[Zack Morris]

The new China was built on selling stuff to the east. I really have no idea what they will now that their customers are all going under.

Actually they are increasingly gearing themselves towards a domestic consumer market. They've got a sizeable "middle class," it's just dwarfed by their lingering peasant/laborer class. Even so, they are looking to grow the domestic consumer base, and manufacture for it. They seem to have foreseen that selling to North America/Europe was a short-term game, probably because they held so much of the debt from those markets.

If they were smart, transparent governance, a fair judicial system, and democracy would be their top priorities. The Chinese can handle the economics on their own. But if a well off, stable country like Singapore still resists true political freedom under the pretense that they aren't sufficiently developed, what would it possibly take for China?

[Ibrahim]

The new China was built on selling stuff to the east. I really have no idea what they will now that their customers are all going under.

Actually they are increasingly gearing themselves towards a domestic consumer market. They've got a sizeable "middle class," it's just dwarfed by their lingering peasant/laborer class. Even so, they are looking to grow the domestic consumer base, and manufacture for it. They seem to have foreseen that selling to North America/Europe was a short-term game, probably because they held so much of the debt from those markets.

If they were smart, transparent governance, a fair judicial system, and democracy would be their top priorities. The Chinese can handle the economics on their own. But if a well off, stable country like Singapore still resists true political freedom under the pretense that they aren't sufficiently developed, what would it possibly take for China?

There was an article in a Hong Kong daily asking the question why China, as wealthy as it now is, can't afford to start instituting what Americans would call a "social safety net." It annoyed the CCP heads, but it's a good point. There is no reason why China couldn't adopt any number of humane or democratic forms of development, but they are banking on infrastructure and profit. Looking around the world, this seems entirely typical. Even very affluent countries like the US and Canada are trying to cut their social programs in favor of business and profitability. Maybe the active and growing Chinese labor movement can wring some concessions from the government, they are certainly putting up more of a fight than workers or citizens here.

[Zack Morris]

Why would discussion of social safety nets annoy the CCP? I was under the impression that they were already thinking about how to do this. This is something well within their comfort zone: buying authority with economic incentives. With their rapidly aging population and the enormous pressure to care for their elders, I would think the CCP would rather focus on this than risk liberating the nation by building proper public institutions.

[Ibrahim]

Why would discussion of social safety nets annoy the CCP? I was under the impression that they were already thinking about how to do this. This is something well within their comfort zone: buying authority with economic incentives. With their rapidly aging population and the enormous pressure to care for their elders, I would think the CCP would rather focus on this than risk liberating the nation by building proper public institutions.

It originated out of Hong Kong, and they are in the middle of a slap-fight with the mainland going back to last year. In general I'm sure the CCP would like to provide more services, but they clearly aren't making it their first priority, and they don't want to be nagged into it by Hong Kong intellectuals (even if those intellectuals happen to be right in this case).

[Azrael]

*rimshot*

That's what I needed

http://instantrimshot.com/

[monster_gardener]

The new China was built on selling stuff to the east. I really have no idea what they will now that their customers are all going under.

Actually they are increasingly gearing themselves towards a domestic consumer market. They've got a sizeable "middle class," it's just dwarfed by their lingering peasant/laborer class. Even so, they are looking to grow the domestic consumer base, and manufacture for it. They seem to have foreseen that selling to North America/Europe was a short-term game, probably because they held so much of the debt from those markets.

If they were smart, transparent governance, a fair judicial system, and democracy would be their top priorities. The Chinese can handle the economics on their own. But if a well off, stable country like Singapore still resists true political freedom under the pretense that they aren't sufficiently developed, what would it possibly take for China?

There was an article in a Hong Kong daily asking the question why China, as wealthy as it now is, can't afford to start instituting what Americans would call a "social safety net." It annoyed the CCP heads, but it's a good point. There is no reason why China couldn't adopt any number of humane or democratic forms of development, but they are banking on infrastructure and profit. Looking around the world, this seems entirely typical. Even very affluent countries like the US and Canada are trying to cut their social programs in favor of business and profitability. Maybe the active and growing Chinese labor movement can wring some concessions from the government, they are certainly putting up more of a fight than workers or citizens here.

Thank you VERY much for your post, Ibrahim.

Maybe the active and growing Chinese labor movement can wring some concessions from the government, they are certainly putting up more of a fight than workers or citizens here.

Quite Right about about the Chinese workers putting up more of a fight than we Uz do......

Remembering an incident discussed on one of the previous boards in which Chinese workers defenestrated a boss by throwing him out at window * and then blocked the road to make sure the ambulance and 'paramedics' couldn't reach and treat him before he died.......

Although as I understand it, suicide at places like FoxConn is more typical........

Was trying to find the link for the defenestration, but no luck........ Remember the discussion included a member called Red......... Can't find him here, at Diagetics, or at Spengler.

Anybody else remember this............

Found it............ the original story........

In another sign of the explosive social tensions in China, thousands of workers at the state-owned Tonghua Iron and Steel Group in the northeastern Jilin province beat the newly-appointed manager to death last Friday in an angry protest against a government-backed takeover by a privately-owned steel company

At nightfall, Chen Guojun, Jianlong’s new general manager, arrived and ordered workers to return to work. Chen reportedly declared that he would cut the 30,000 workforce to 5,000. According to a local police officer who spoke to China Daily, this infuriated the workers. “Chen disillusioned workers and provoked them by saying most of them will be laid off in three days,” he said.


Workers refused the order to return to work, battered Chen with boots when an argument broke out and pushed him from a second-storey office. He died later, as 10,000 workers reportedly prevented police and ambulance officers from rescuing him.

Workers were also incensed by the fact that Chen was paid three million yuan ($US 440,000) a year—about 300 times their average wage**—while workers retired from the plant received as little as 200 yuan ($29) a month.


The protest was only ended at 10 p.m., after the provincial government announced on television that it would permanently shelve the privatisation plan. Workers lit fire crackers to celebrate. Xinhua reported that the provincial authorities halted the merger to “prevent the situation from expanding” into a broader movement by workers in northeastern China, where large sections of state industry were shut or sold in the 1990s.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jul20 ... -j28.shtml

WOW! And the workers won......... At least as of 2009........ Anyone know more?...........

Sounds like we Uz well armed workers Down in the Black Gang are placid and phlegmatic compared to the Chinese........

Got to give the Chinese workers a Han oops I mean hand.......

Guess things like that can happen when the workers are fire breathing Dragon Fire Crackers rather than just Crackers Down in the Black Gang........

No wonder the Empresario class both Dragon and Uz wants to make their money in China etc. but bring the money here to Uz and live here......

If we Uz were like them or if they had guns like Uz ....... A full scale rooting, tooting, shooting Industrial Civil War might be going on.............

Remembering another Defenestration that started a 30 year war........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague

*Dept. of Redundancy Dept.

**Where else do we find a discrepancy like that........ Right here in Uz............

[Typhoon]

Copied from another thread as it is topical here:

For delicious comparison's sake:

http://imgur.com/a/Y7oIp


http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... ed-islands

http://www.ministryoftofu.com/2012/09/c ... -violence/






“Boycott Japanese Products”, “Paralyze Japanese Economy” , “I Bought the Car First, Before Japan Got Bitchy. From Now On, Boycott Japanese Goods”



A supermarket in Huizhou, Fujian province arranged its toothpastes to look like a tank and put up a sign, “Diaoyu Islands belong to China!”




Employees at a dealership hold up a sign that says WE WILL KILL EVERY JAPANESE PERSON EVEN IF IT MEANS DEATHS FOR OUR OWN; EVEN POVERTY WILL NOT DETER US FROM RECLAIMING THE DIAOYU ISLANDS

Those pesky signaling mechanisms.....

An Audi dealership

[Typhoon]

A Taiwanese perspective:

5ks-E4U7Sbo

[Typhoon]

A review of China's current border disputes with it's neighbours:

8JS4VZbCWj8

The Chinese claims in the South China Sea are especially bemusing:



According to China, if I step into the sea off of a beach in Brunei, I'm stepping into Chinese waters.

[Juggernaut Nihilism]

Maybe China needs this. Like the kid who always got sand kicked in his face eager to show up the bully at the high school reunion. I don't know... I couldn't blame them. It would be easy from my comfy American chair, where we've gotten to kick the lavender out of everyone who looked at us funny, where even in the wars we lose we still kill 20x as many enemy soldiers and destroy their country, it would be easy to say China should just grow up. But I could see there being a feeling of unfinished business, a feeling of injustice over the fact that Japan, after all its crimes, was just taken up into the arms of the global economy and made into one of the richest nations in the world, while China, victim of Japanese rape, was made into a pariah, indeed is still looked upon as strange and foreign and dangerous. I could see where a Chinese person would feel like that itch needed scratching.

still, sure hope this doesn't get out of hand. Because there are two ways this can go: either it 100% an American problem, since the Japanese refrain from military buildup on our promise to defend them, or else the Japanese begin to doubt our commitment to that promise and decide they need to take responsibility for their own defense, starting an Asian arms race.

[noddy]

a few big arrogant empires, millions upon millions of angry unemployed men with nothing to do and not much optimism for the future, a complicated game for control of the worlds resources and a few generations of space since the last big butchering session and the memories are fading.

what does that usually end up turning into i wonder.

the end of history types thesis is really on the line at the moment.

[Typhoon]

Maybe China needs this. Like the kid who always got sand kicked in his face eager to show up the bully at the high school reunion. I don't know... I couldn't blame them. It would be easy from my comfy American chair, where we've gotten to kick the lavender out of everyone who looked at us funny, where even in the wars we lose we still kill 20x as many enemy soldiers and destroy their country, it would be easy to say China should just grow up. But I could see there being a feeling of unfinished business, a feeling of injustice over the fact that Japan, after all its crimes, was just taken up into the arms of the global economy and made into one of the richest nations in the world, while China, victim of Japanese rape, was made into a pariah, indeed is still looked upon as strange and foreign and dangerous. I could see where a Chinese person would feel like that itch needed scratching.

I have an intrinsic dislike of international politics by histrionic mobs regardless of the national origin of the mobs.

The characters for China 中国 are often translated as the Middle Kingdom.
This translation loses the symbolic meaning of kingdom at the centre of the universe to which all other nations should naturally kowtow.
Two centuries of humiliation, as the Chinese see it, from the Opium Wars to the Boxer Rebellion to the Qing suppression of any attempt at reformation inspired by the Meiji Restoration to the occupation of Manchuria by Japan to the ongoing existence of an independent [US protected] Taiwan have created a collective cognitive dissonance between 中国 and reality resulting in a national sense of insecurity which accounts for their tantrum school of diplomacy.

It's also hard to be sympathetic when China spent the last two centuries setting all time records for body counts be it through internal civil wars or misguided Maoist economic + political policies - exceeding foreign actions by several orders of magnitude and making the Japanese Imperial Army look like abject amateurs. Repeatedly snatching defeat from the dragon's jaw of victory.
Especially when such events are expunged from the official history while the actions of foreigners are overemphasized.

It does not help that the CCP is cynically using a bunch of rocks that that can barely be called islands to deflect criticism especially now that the economy is slowing.
The Chinese do have a lot to protest about: endemic corruption, lack of rule of law, complete lack of accountability of the rich and powerful, lack of clean air and water, lack of food safety, and so on.

Having said that, I'm also not a fan of J-govt policies. Such disputed rocks would be best declared to be international buffer zones.

still, sure hope this doesn't get out of hand. Because there are two ways this can go: either it 100% an American problem, since the Japanese refrain from military buildup on our promise to defend them, or else the Japanese begin to doubt our commitment to that promise and decide they need to take responsibility for their own defense, starting an Asian arms race.

The JDSF is already rather large and well armed. An arms race, of course, benefits only the manufacturers. War would be horrific and could escalate into WWIII.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong . . .

[Azrael]

Employees at a dealership hold up a sign that says WE WILL KILL EVERY JAPANESE PERSON EVEN IF IT MEANS DEATHS FOR OUR OWN; EVEN POVERTY WILL NOT DETER US FROM RECLAIMING THE DIAOYU ISLANDS

Those pesky signaling mechanisms.....

An Audi dealership

All this anti-Japanese hysteria is probably good for business, eh? Although I'm sure that didn't occur to anyone at the dealership.

Why worry about the risk of a major war when there are commissions to be made . . .

[noddy]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/chin ... Japan.html

Jin Baisong from the Chinese Academy of International Trade – a branch of the commerce ministry – said China should use its power as Japan’s biggest creditor with $230bn (£141bn) of bonds to “impose sanctions on Japan in the most effective manner” and bring Tokyo’s festering fiscal crisis to a head.
Writing in the Communist Party newspaper China Daily, Mr Jin called on China to invoke the “security exception” rule under the World Trade Organisation to punish Japan, rejecting arguments that a trade war between the two Pacific giants would be mutually destructive.

[noddy]

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/ma ... 6478698639

CHINA has pledged continued assistance to help tackle the eurozone debt crisis, saying Europe was "on the right track" but needed to implement the measures agreed to fix its problems.

Premier Wen Jiabao told EU and Chinese business leaders that Beijing had continued purchases of European government bonds in recent months and discussed co-operation with the new eurozone rescue fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

As the €500 billion ($625.27 billion) ESM becomes operational next month, "China will continue to play its part in helping resolve the European debt issue through appropriate channels," Wen said.

"Europe is on the right track in tackling its debt issue ... What is crucial now is to fully implement the policies agreed" to put it on firmer ground, he told the meeting.

The EU and China form "one of the most important partnerships in the world", added Wen, who will step down early next year as China changes leadership.


"I hold the development of this relationship close to my heart," he said after signing a 49-point, four-page agreement with the EU ranging from foreign policy to research and development, and thousands of student scholarships

these two articles read well together, in a divide and conquer kind of way.

[monster_gardener]

Thank you Very Much for the Thread, Azari

Hat Tip to Liang at the Spengler Board.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/th ... -liberals/

The tragic incidents at Foxconn's factory in China, where 10 people died after a 2,000-person brawl, throw the difficulties faced by China as it turns into a modern economy into sharp focus. It also shines a spotlight on hypocrisy in the West.

The incident has been reported as being the result of a personal dispute between employees which escalated. Such a violent escalation was made possible by the atrocious working conditions which apparently exist in Foxconn's factories. If you treat people like animals, eventually they will act that way.

I was under the impression that the Foxconn workers were just committing suicide in despair.

Unlike some Chinese Steelworkers who have been known to defenestrate an oppressive boss,

I wish the Chinese Foxconn workers well. Glad that they are doing some push back. Sorry that some were killed.

Hope that they are able to get some better pay and working conditions.

With the International Capitalist Class/Globalizing Free Trader Traitors in charge, wages are dropping to the lowest level which is largely in China, Bangla Desh etc....

If Chinese workers are able to do better for themselves, IMVHO it may be good for workers in Uz/America too.