Facts About China that will Blow Your Mind

February 25, 2010

From Business Insider, comes 15 Facts (actually 17) About China that will Blow Your Mind. Here are five of them. Visit Business Insider to see the rest and the details.

1. By 2025, China will build TEN New York-sized cities.

Shanghai river waterfront

2. China already consumes twice as much steel as the US, Europe and Japan combined.
3. If the Chinese, one day, use as much oil per person as America, then the world will need seven more Saudi Arabias to meet the demand.

Note:  Another reason why China NEEDS to go Green with their power. See my piece about this topic at China Going Green. The growing crises with industrial pollution linked to oil is another reason.

4. Chinese Internet users are five times as likely to have blogs as Americans.
5. Chinese GDP (Gross Domestic Product) could overtake the U.S. as soon as the early 2020s.

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.

If you want to subscribe to iLook China, there is a “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar.

2 Comments | America, business, China, Chinese Culture, economy, education, government, politics | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Similar “Oily” Interests

February 24, 2010

China’s hunger for oil is not equal to America’s gluttony but it is getting there. Meanwhile, America and its allies blame China for the stalemate over stopping Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

This is my confession. I’m seeking God’s forgiveness for my sins. Every American who drives a car is an accessory to a crime—9/11.  The more oil, gas or diesel consumed, the more guilt.

There are two parts to this sin.

The first stage for this crime took place during America’s Cold War with Communism. If you haven’t seen Charlie Wilson’s War, rent it.  Americans were the mad scientists who created the Frankenstein, the metamorphosis of the wolf men—the demons we call al-Qaida.

The Taliban, who supported al-Qaida’s goal to eliminate all Western Cultures and create a Caliphate—a throwback to another era, learned their Islamic Fundamentalism from Saudi Arabia’s dominant faith, Wahhabism. Oil money paid for the Wahabi schools that Saudi Arabia built around the world.  These schools teach fundamentalist Islamic principles that grow future terrorists recruited by al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Saudi Oil Wells

And who feeds Saudi oil to their SUVs, cars, trucks, eighteen-wheelers and coast to coast freight trains and jet planes?

When China blocks action against Iran’s nuclear ambitions, because the Chinese people love American food and buy GM, Ford, Volkswagen and Toyota, isn’t their hunger the same?

See America Doing Business in China

1 Comment | America, business, China, economy, environment, government, media, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

Who is Doing the Talking

February 24, 2010

I wrote about China’s assault against pornography in an earlier post, and I liked the concept. Now, I’ve discovered a discussion on the topic. After I read the comments/complaints, I wondered whom these people were and what countries they lived in.

The site is called Global Voices Online—Maybe it should be Global Vices.  Could this be a campaign by the pornographers to drum up support so they can stay in business without trouble?  After all, if one of the Chinese mother’s blocks their smut, they will have to work harder to sneak past the censors.  Some of this grumbling was funny, some of it made sense, and some made no sense. If you read the comments, tell me what you think?

1 Comment | China, Chinese Culture, government, parenting | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

After Mao

February 22, 2010

Unlike Mao’s time, today’s Chinese leaders must answer to the seventy-million party members scattered throughout China. These people listen to the 1.3 billion Chinese that do not belong to the party. The result: if an elected official is not doing his or her job, that person usually isn’t reelected.

Deng Xiaoping

Other changes took place after Mao. Under Deng Xiaoping, the People’s Republic announced a policy of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” John Gittings in The Changing Face of China quoted Deng Xiaoping as saying, “Planning and market forces are not the essential difference between socialism and capitalism. A planned economy is not the definition of socialism, because there is planning under capitalism; the market economy happens under socialism, too. Planning and market forces are both ways of controlling economic activity.”

Soon after Mao died in 1976, Deng Xiaoping’s Beijing Spring was introduced. This was a brief period lasting from 1977 into 1978. During that time, the public was allowed greater freedom to criticize the government, which wasn’t allowed under Mao.

An example of this may be seen in “The Awakening” (Su-Xing), a movie produced during this period starring Joan Chen (Chen-Chung) and Gau Fei. [ISBN: 978-7-88611-603-2]. There are no English subtitles so it helps to have someone that reads or speaks Mandarin beside you while watching the movie that can point out the subtle criticisms of the Party that appear in the film, which was considered controversial at that time.

There was also a new Beijing Spring between 1997 to November 1998 where the Chinese government relaxed some control over political expression and organization. It was during this time that China signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Learn about China’s Modern Dynasty

______________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of The Concubine Saga. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

To subscribe to “iLook China”, look for the “Subscribe” button at the top of the screen in the menu bar, click on it then follow directions.

9 Comments | China, government, politics | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

America’s Dual Dynasty

February 22, 2010

In America, the outcome for a Presidential Election is decided by the Electoral College, card-carrying members from the two major political parties. The popular vote does not elect the American president.

Today, the Communist Party acts similar to America’s Electoral College without the hypocrisy of a popular vote. Critics argue the American Electoral College is inherently undemocratic so China and America have more in common than anyone wants to admit.

Read Democracy and the threat of Authoritarianism, to see what I mean.

For this reason, President George W. Bush was elected America’s forty-third president while the popular vote went to Al Gore by more than a million. If American citizens really decided who leads America, Al Gore would have been America’s 43rd President.

Read China’s Modern Dynasty

2 Comments | America, American culture, government, politics | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Lloyd Lofthouse

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »