Friday, 2 December 2011

Tiger Can't Change Stripes

When I was doing history studies, I was told that when there were one party states, the way to tell if they were Communist or Fascist was who owned the means of production - if it was the state, then they were Communists e.g. USSR and it it was in private hands, then it was Fascist like National Socialist Germany.

In the 1970's 100% of all the means of production in China was in state hands - now 80% is in private hands and its still a one party state ..... by this logic is China now a Fascist state? I ask because a story on the BBC states that the Chinese authorities are going to try and crack down on private police and 'black jails', where opponents to the regime are taken and tortured or even killed.

In a story that reminds one of Hitlers Germany, Chinese local government ministers and officials hire private thugs to dress as police, drive cars marked like the police, and then stop people who travel to Beijing to voice grievances about perceived injustices in their areas. In Beijing alone, there are estimated to be about 300,000 private security guards in the city. 
 
When a tourist was mistaken for a petitioner, and was kidnapped, tortured and killed in error, the officials responsible appear to have merely been reprimanded for the mistake of killing a tourist instead of a petitioner, not for kidnapping four people in the first place.

Tibetan Monks Leading Resistance
Tibetan Monks Leading Resistance

In Tibet, reports suggest that passive resistance in Tibet and Tibetan areas is spreading, with monks setting fire to themselves in increasing numbers ..... reports suggest that 11 monks and former monks have set themselves on fire so far this year, but all the incidents have all taken place in Tibetan areas of China proper.
 
Latest reports suggest that a monk in Tibet itself has just killed himself in this manner this week.

No comments:

Post a Comment

All comments are welcomed, or even just thanks if you enjoyed the post. But please make any comment relevant to the post it appears under. Off topic comments will be blocked or removed.

Moderation is on for older posts to stop spamming and comments that are off topic or inappropriate from being posted .... comments are reviewed within 48 hours. I don't block normal comments that are on topic and not inappropriate. Vexatious comments that may cause upset to other commentators, or that are attempting to espouse a particular wider political view, are reviewed before acceptance. But a certain amount of debate around a post topic is accepted, as long as it remains generally on topic and is not an attempt to become sounding board for some other cause.

Final decision on all comments is held by the blog author and is final.

Comments are always monitored for bad or abusive language, and or illegal statements i.e. overtly racist or sexist content. Spam is not tolerated and is removed.

Commentaires ne sont surveillés que pour le mauvais ou abusif langue ou déclarations illégales ie contenu ouvertement raciste ou sexiste. Spam ne est pas toléré et est éliminé.