Motherland

Noticed this recently:

Number of mass protests in China:
2004: 79,000
2005: 80,000

An interesting thing about those numbers is this - public protesting is completely forbidden in China. Last year, a group of Chinese who had their homes forcibly demolished by the Government (in preparation for the upcoming Olympics) were banned from any kind of public outcry at all. An 80-year old man who was had his shelter torn down - without any form of compensation - was taken into custody for merely refusing to move out of the house that he and the other 4 families were crammed into.

Everyone outside of China knows about the abuse of human rights that go on. I live in Hong Kong, a city taken back over from the motherland less than a decade ago. One important factor regarding the takeover was that Hong Kong would exist for "50 years without change". Yet change is present everywhere; a spread of newspapers and other media have coincidentally become pro-China, while any propostions for democratical rights for Hong Kong are often met by egg-throwing and abusive words.

The public police and hospitals in China is so poorly-staffed and corrupt that those who venture into the mainland carry specially-made "insurance cards". That way, if you happen to be stabbed or injured in the streets of China, and someone happens to take you into hospital (after others had stripped you of anything of value of course) the hospital staff will find it "profitable" for them to treat you. Police will only help you with burglaries or murders if you have the money to make it a worthwhile venture for them.

I am not exaggerating on any level here. There are those in China who are content with their way of life - I believe this is heavily influenced by the control the government holds upon the access of information. While there are still people in China who have never heard of SARs or avarian disease, the recent clean-up of the Songhua river was heavily publicised by all the national newspapers. Yet the only reason the government decided to release any information at all is because the Songhua river flows into the waterways of Russia.

Billions of Chinese live in abject poverty. During my last trip to the mainland, I was confronted by a group of 8-year olds begging me for the equivalent of US$0.10. Pointing to their worn-out feet, they said they just wanted this money just buy sandals for the 16km return-walk to school every day. While this kind of poverty is prevalent both in the cities and countryside - it is far more noticeable once you decide to step a few kilometres away from the tourist strips. Yes, China is growing and advancing into a potential future superpower. But the rich are getting disgustingly rich, while the poor are ignored and deprived of basic human rights.

Yet the government deems it still important to spend the taxpayers' precious yuan to send a manned-rocket into space.