China Meets World

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DavidD
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Re: China meets world

Post by DavidD »

sudarshan wrote:
DavidD wrote:As for changing names, it's just a name. I don't know if it's just Chinese culture or if it's a sequela of the Cultural Revolution, but in general Chinese don't hold anything as sacred. Using a Western name in a Western country is simply logical. Everyone can spell it, you don't have to answer "how do you pronounce that" every time someone sees your name, it's just more convenient than using a Chinese name. You see it in restaurants too. Japanese restaurants would have "Gyoza" or "Ramen", while Chinese restaurants instead of having "Jiaozi" or "Lamien" they just call them by their English names "dumplings" or "pulled noodles".
If using a western name in a western country is logical, then it would also be logical to:

a. use an Indian name when in India (or on an Indian forum, such as this one?)

b. use an Islamic name (which is actually again a western name, technically they're both derived from the Hebrew anyway - Yusuf/Joseph, Daoud/David, Salman/Suleiman/Solomon, Yahya/Yahanan/Johann/John, Ibrahim/Abraham, Musa/Moses...) in an Islamic country

c. use a native African name in Africa (although those guys are now mostly Xtian or Muslim anyway)

d. use local variants of western names in Latin countries ("Diego," "Pedro," "Juan," etc.) or Russian variants in Russia ("Ivan," "Mikhail," "Nikolai," "Semyon") or hard Russian names ("Boris," "Vladimir," etc.)

e. use Japanese or Korean names in those countries

Do Chinese do all that?
I haven't lived in those places, but I know of many Chinese table tennis players who moved to Japan and picked up Japanese names. In fact, I'm pretty sure every single one that I've seen play has, because every time it was the commentator who made me aware that they're actually Chinese. I used to live in Florida and have met a few ethnic Chinese who came from Latin America and they all have Spanish names.
sudarshan
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Re: China meets world

Post by sudarshan »

DavidD wrote: I haven't lived in those places, but I know of many Chinese table tennis players who moved to Japan and picked up Japanese names. In fact, I'm pretty sure every single one that I've seen play has, because every time it was the commentator who made me aware that they're actually Chinese. I used to live in Florida and have met a few ethnic Chinese who came from Latin America and they all have Spanish names.
Thanks for answering. I'll take your word for that for now. If it's a policy that Chinese follow consistently everywhere, then that's to their credit. OTOH, when I ask Chinese kids their name, and they tell me the adopted name, I try probing - "no, what's your Chinese name?" and they almost seem ashamed of it. I try to make it a point to use their original name, just like I always go by my name, surprisingly, the goras are fine with trying out my original name (though they massacre it of course). But the Chinese sometimes try to get me to adopt a more "convenient" name (western, in this case). Maybe it's just cultural.
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Re: China meets world

Post by sudarshan »

This thread got really serious for a while. Would like to remind folks that this is a trolling thread, meant to have a party and pass the tab on to the friendly neighbor. Just no racism, mocking looks, mocking speech. Most of the rest goes here (mod discretion will be involved of course).

Been waiting for a good chance to demonstrate this principle to forumites, and lo and behold, China obliges.

Thank you Beijing, for Being so oBleijing :).
Last edited by sudarshan on 08 Oct 2020 23:51, edited 2 times in total.
sudarshan
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Re: China Meets World

Post by sudarshan »

Chinese letter to Indian media, advising on how to report on Taiwan. What aukat, huh?

https://www.opindia.com/2020/10/taiwan- ... ensorship/

LETTER FROM PEKING

For those not in the know:

a. That is a 1957 novel by Pearl S. Buck
b. Peking was how the western world used to refer to the Chinese capital, before the adoption of pinyin transliteration changed it to Beijing

Next I think they will try the following:

* Send gdp growth targets to Indian states and districts (growth for this fiscal strictly *NOT* to exceed 2.3%)
* Send memos to the Indian Army on how to behave on the LAC
* Send memos to state police on how to deal with the rioters whom they unleash in Indian cities
...

I think they confused India with Pakistan? Note to Beijing: your latest province is Pakistan, not India.

China gets to meet the real world again.
sudarshan
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Re: China Meets World

Post by sudarshan »

Beijing Being oBleijing again.... GloTimes zindabad.
tsarkar (in mil thread) wrote:https://twitter.com/nitingokhale/status ... 2907968512
If I do, it is my right; if you do it is provocation. Old Chinese playbook.
Sums up Chinese expectation from tributary state that we refuse to be.
As one responder pointed out, that Chinese dude has such a nice Backpfeifengesicht (don't be intimidated by that long German term, go look it up - you won't regret it, I assure you).

Responses invited to the above :). Here's a couple:

* But ji, who told you that is infrastructure? That is ultrastructure onlee....

* What if we assure you that our soldiers won't use those bridges for military monitoring and control? It is for tourists. Our soldiers also will wear t-shirts/ slacks when they tour that area on those bridges (as civvies). Of course, if they foolishly choose to tour in stifling tanks instead of comfy ac cars, that is their business.

* Sure, we will amicably discuss the issue with the other side (the Tibetans, we mean).
g.sarkar
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Re: China meets world

Post by g.sarkar »

sudarshan wrote: Thanks for answering. I'll take your word for that for now. If it's a policy that Chinese follow consistently everywhere, then that's to their credit. OTOH, when I ask Chinese kids their name, and they tell me the adopted name, I try probing - "no, what's your Chinese name?" and they almost seem ashamed of it. I try to make it a point to use their original name, just like I always go by my name, surprisingly, the goras are fine with trying out my original name (though they massacre it of course). But the Chinese sometimes try to get me to adopt a more "convenient" name (western, in this case). Maybe it's just cultural.
I have worked with Taiwanese Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese in the Bay Area in the late 80s. All had taken American first names. They told me that it made life easier. They had also converted to Christianity. Perhaps that made their life easier too, but I did not think it prudent to ask them why they converted. Discussing personal and religious things at work place is taboo. But I have to say that their ancestors had converted to Buddhism too. Buddhism did not originate in any of these countries. No difference now. Also communism makes religions loose its hold on the masses.
Gautam
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Re: China meets world

Post by Kashi »

sudarshan wrote: Maybe it's just cultural.
In Han Chinese culture and also in Japan and Korea it's far more common to refer to people by their family names. In my interactions with ethnic Han folks (they are adamant that they are not Chinese, but Taiwanese or Hong Konger etc.) they revealed that in their countries a person is addressed by their given name typically only by family members or very close friends, so for a stranger or a casual acquaintance to address them by their given name is not something they are accustomed to or probably comfortable with.
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Re: China Meets World

Post by jamwal »

sudarshan
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Re: China Meets World

Post by sudarshan »

X-post from another thread:
chetak wrote: The Anti India campaign intensified since the last 2 days, right after India giving vaccine to Paraguay and saving them from Chinese blackmail of snapping ties with Taiwan.

India stoop up against heckling of China and rattled China and pharma lobby is going after PM Modi and GOI
Ah-ha! So that's what happened. I've been seeing some strident articles in Global Times lately, being highly critical of India's handling of COVID. Good for a couple of roasts.
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Re: China Meets World

Post by Vips »

Explained: Why China’s population will soon start falling.

In the decade up to 2020, China’s population grew at its slowest rate since the 1950s, mirroring trends seen in neighbouring South Korea and Japan, official census data released on Tuesday showed. It now stands at 141.2 crore people, with the rate of growth falling for the fourth consecutive year.

Last year, 1.2 crore babies were born in China, down from 1.465 crore in 2019 — a fall of 18 per cent in one year, as per census data released by its National Bureau of Statistics. The country’s fertility rate has dropped to 1.3, far below the replacement level of 2.1 required for a generation to have enough children to replace it.

The trends pose a challenge for the ruling Communist Party, as policymakers will now have to find ways of sustaining China’s high growth despite fewer young people joining the workforce and the existing population rapidly ageing.

The United Nations expects China’s population to begin declining after 2030, but some experts say this could happen as early as in the next one or two years. By 2025, the country is set to lose its ‘most populous’ tag to India, which in 2020 had an estimated 138 crore people, 1.5 per cent behind China.

What does China’s latest census data say?

As per the 2020 national census, China’s seventh since 1953, the country’s population has grown from 134 crore in 2010 by 5.34 per cent over the past decade. The rate of population growth, however, has been steadily falling. Annually, the country grew 0.53 per cent in the last 10 years, down from 0.57 per cent between 2000 and 2010, and was the slowest of any decade since the 1950s.

The country’s working population — between ages 15 and 59 — is now 89.43 crore or 63.35 per cent of the total, down by 6.79 per cent from 2010. The number of people above age 60 has also gone up to 26.4 crore or 18.7 per cent of the population, up 5.44 per cent from the last census.

A ray of hope, though, is the greater proportion of children 14 years or younger, who are now 25.38 crore or 17.95 per cent of the population, up by 1.35 per cent from 2010. This rise has been credited to China relaxing its strict one-child policy in 2016 and allowing two children per family.

Chinese authorities claim that the controversial one-child policy, which was put into force in the late 1970s, helped the country avert severe food and water shortages by preventing up to 40 crore people from being born.

As per the South China Morning Post, the census data also confirmed anecdotal evidence that China’s population was shifting to the more developed provinces on the eastern coast, with people moving out of central and northeastern parts of the country.

The country further urbanised in the last decade, with 63.89 per cent living in urban areas, up by 14.21 percentage points. Its rural population fell to 36.11 per cent.

So, by when is the population expected to fall?

Experts believe the country’s population will soon begin to fall, although there is disagreement about when that could happen. An April report in the Financial Times cited unnamed sources to claim a decline already took place last year, but Chinese authorities released a statement denying this.

The Asian country’s population last declined during two years in 1960-1961, when the Great Chinese Famine — a manmade disaster resulting from the policies of then-dictator Mao Zedong — caused the number of people to fall by 1 crore people in 1960 and another 3.4 crore in 1961, as per official figures.

The Chinese government in November said it expects the population to peak in 2027, and that the annual gap between the number of newborns and number of deaths will shrink to around 10 lakh over the next five years. The UN estimates the population will begin falling after 2030.

Some experts, however, say a decline could start as early as next year, if births fall below 1 crore and deaths exceed 1 crore.

What are the concerns related to a shrinking population for China?

China’s slowing population growth is part of a trend seen in many countries in Asia and the West. Last year, South Korea saw its population decline for the first time in history. In the United States too, the birth rate has dropped to 1.6, the lowest on record.

When the young population in a country declines, it creates labour shortages, which have a major detrimental impact on the economy. More older people also means that demands for healthcare and pensions can soar, burdening the country’s social spending system further when fewer people are working and contributing to it.

A problem unique to China, though, is that unlike the other developed countries part of this trend, it is still a middle-income society, despite being the world’s second-largest economy.

Prosperous countries like Japan and Germany, which face similar demographic challenges, can depend on investments in factories, technology and foreign assets. China, however, still depends on labour-intensive manufacturing and farming. A drop in demographic dividend could thus hurt China and other developing nations like India more than those in the rich world, experts say.

In an effort to tide over this challenge, the Chinese government announced this year that it would increase the retirement age by a few months every year — a decision that has received a mixed response, with some welcoming the chance to continue in their careers and others unhappy about being forced to continue working. For the past four decades, the retirement age in China has been 60 for men and 55 for women, or 50 for women in blue-collar jobs.

The government is also expected to increase incentives for couples to have more children, although such sops have failed in the past in the face of higher cost-of-living challenges and career choices. Authorities have also been urged to completely drop restrictions on the number of children allowed per family.
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Re: China Meets World

Post by Paul »

After an Indonesian Submarine Sank, China Stepped In to Help Salvage It
Beijing has deployed ships for the operation, which involves fastening slings to parts of a submarine that lay at a depth of half a mile

Military officers displayed a part of the sunken Indonesian Navy submarine during a news conference in Denpasar, Bali, on Tuesday.
PHOTO: MADE NAGI/EPA/SHUTTERSTOCK
By Jon Emont
May 18, 2021 10:45 am ET
PRINT
TEXT
SINGAPORE—China’s military is playing a key role in the recovery of an Indonesian naval submarine that sank last month, a challenging operation that analysts say could boost Beijing’s soft power in the region.

The KRI Nanggala-402 sank to depths of more than 800 meters (half a mile) during a torpedo drill off the coast of Bali on April 21, killing all 53 people on board. Chinese ships arrived in the area on May 1 and have participated in 13 undersea operations to collect photos and video of the submarine and secure pieces of light wreckage, Senior Col. Chen Yongjing, the Chinese defense attaché in Indonesia, said in a joint news conference Tuesday in Bali with Indonesian military officials.

“Lifting [objects] under the very deep sea is a complex problem around the world,” he said, speaking behind a display of bits of debris recovered so far.

Indonesia is eager to raise the submarine so that it can investigate why it sank and broke into at least three pieces. Underwater vehicles are being used to cinch slings around different parts of the submarine—the area is too deep for divers to operate in—and lift them to the surface. One sling snapped while attempting to lift the submarine’s sail section, which weighs more than 18 tons, said Iwan Isnurwanto, a rear admiral in the Indonesian navy. The only large piece recovered so far is a part of a life raft, according to the navy.

China’s prominent role in the operation has raised some concerns. The Nanggala sank near the Lombok Strait, a strategic waterway that is useful as a submarine transit point, said an American official with knowledge of the matter. The Chinese vessels—which involved an ocean salvage and rescue ship, a scientific salvage ship and an ocean tug—would be able to collect oceanographic data that could make it easier for Chinese submarines to navigate the area in the future, the official said.
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Re: China Meets World

Post by jamwal »

https://twitter.com/JaidevJamwal/status ... 3748866049

A large number of Uighur men are imprisoned or in labour camps. CCP has "assigned" Haan Chinese men as relatives to such households. You can guess what these Haan "relatives" are doing with Uighur women and children,
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Re: China Meets World

Post by Jarita »

These people never stop destroying the planet. They have absolute disregard for anything precious or valuable or even those who come in their way. Such a destructive non-civilization.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/chinese-ship ... 16510.html
Sewage from more than 200 Chinese vessels in the contested South China Sea waters is threatening marine life.

The damage is so extensive, it can be seen from space, according to Simularity, a US satellite imagery analysis firm.

The Philippines, a claimant to the islands in the waters, said it's in the process of verifying the report.
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Re: China Meets World

Post by yensoy »

Jarita wrote:These people never stop destroying the planet. They have absolute disregard for anything precious or valuable or even those who come in their way. Such a destructive non-civilization.
It is not just their disregard for the planet. It is how they can be so devious as to think of destroying the marine area with 200 ships with pooping sailors.
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Re: China Meets World

Post by Cyrano »

Not pooping sailors, those are special ships carrying only poop as cargo from main land to dump it in the ocean instead of doing sewage treatment.
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Re: China Meets World

Post by sudarshan »

Cyrano wrote:Not pooping sailors, those are special ships carrying only poop as cargo from main land to dump it in the ocean instead of doing sewage treatment.
It may be their next attempt at island-building. Their latest acquired province, the one which used to be an independent country to our north-west, is after all exactly this, so they might have got the idea from there.
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Re: China Meets World

Post by Cyrano »

:rotfl:
Only neighbouring countries like Indonesia and Philippines are not so amused !
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Re: China Meets World

Post by g.sarkar »

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/28/ch ... -villages/
China Is Using Tibetans as Agents of Empire in the Himalayas
What life is like for the quarter-million residents of fortress villages in Tibet.
Robert Barnett, July 28, 2021

In April 1998, with the Himalayan passes still more than 6 feet deep in snow, Penpa Tsering, a 22-year-old Tibetan herder, set off to the south from his home in Tibet across a remote 15,700-foot-high pass called the Namgung La. He was leading a train of a dozen yaks carrying tsampa (parched barley flour), rice, and fodder.
Penpa Tsering had been dispatched by the village leader of Lagyab, a settlement in Lhodrak county nearly 7 miles northeast of the Namgung La as the crow flies, to take desperately needed supplies to four other Tibetan herders who were spending the winter in a remote grassland area at 14,200 feet on the south side of the pass. Without the food that Penpa Tsering’s yaks were carrying, the herders would not survive the winter. After one day and one night of walking, Penpa Tsering reached his fellow herders and saved their lives. They later said they had expected to die. But Penpa Tsering never made it back to Lagyab: He died in an avalanche as he tried to find his way back across the pass.
In the Chinese media reports on which this account is based, Penpa Tsering’s death is presented as an act of martyrdom, a minor figure in the pantheon of China’s model citizens.His sacrifice, however, was unnecessary. The men he saved were overwintering in the high pasturelands not to improve their lives or to help their flocks but as pawns in an imperial project designed and driven by politicians in Beijing, 1,600 miles away. Today, that project has expanded into a vast network of quasi-militarized settlements along—and sometimes across—China’s Himalayan borders. Its purpose is to strengthen China’s geopolitical position in the region; it has little or nothing to do with the welfare or interests of the herders. But it cannot function without them.
No nomad freely overwinters in a tent at more than 14,000 feet on the south side of the eastern Himalayas, where storms and snowfall are especially dangerous and access is impossible for six months of the year. Normally, the four men on the south side of the pass would have returned months earlier to the shelter of their families and homes in Lagyab, only a 29-mile walk away and 2,300 feet lower in altitude, long before winter had set in. But someone in the Chinese bureaucracy had decided for reasons that seem obvious, but in fact are not, that the site of the nomad’s camp was “very important and someone needs to be stationed there all year-round.”
The reason for that decision lay in a new territorial claim by China. As Foreign Policy detailed in Part 1 of this investigation, the Namgung La marks the traditional border between Tibet and Bhutan. Thirty years after China annexed Tibet in the 1950s, Beijing changed its view of that border and declared that a 232-square-mile area of northern Bhutan, lying to the south of the Namgung La, had once belonged to Tibet and therefore was now part of China. That area was the Beyul Khenpajong, a remote and uninhabited region, famous throughout the Himalayas as a “hidden valley,” that is exceptionally sacred to the Bhutanese.
China’s claim was based on a 200-year-old document that described a Tibetan monastery called Lhalung as having grazing rights in the Beyul. However, cross-border grazing has been a normal practice in the Himalayas for centuries, with herders from neighboring countries often sharing summer pastures without any implications regarding state sovereignty and, in this case, apparently without conflict in the past. But any hope of cross-border harmony among herders in the Beyul ended on Sept. 30, 1995, when four nomads, together with 62 yaks, were sent over the Namgung La to settle the area permanently. Their mission was to deter Bhutanese herders from grazing their flocks in the area and through their presence to assert China’s claim to the territory.
Since its annexation of Tibet in 1950, Beijing has made numerous claims to territory along its Himalayan borders, transforming complicated local Tibetan histories of cross-border grazing, monastic claims, and family tradition into state-level claims by China. The nomads sent to settle in the Beyul—Mingyur Tashi, Sonam Choephel, Tsewang Tenzin, and Phuntsog Norbu—had been chosen for specific reasons. Before China’s takeover of Tibet, Sonam Choephel, born in 1939, had been a herder tied to the monastery of Lhalung, and members of his family had grazed their yaks in the Beyul in the past. After 1950, Sonam Choephel and the other three nomads, like millions of other Tibetans, became Chinese citizens, dependent on the new state for their survival in terms of how or where they could live, trade, travel, obtain loans, buy goods, settle disputes, or fulfill their other needs. The four nomads probably had little problem with resuming summer grazing in the Beyul when sent there in 1995—it was, after all, an area with important and auspicious associations for Buddhists—but they must have had deep reservations about being asked to risk their lives by overwintering there, contrary to all traditional herding practice and to common sense.
.......
Gautam
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