I've just written an undergraduate thesis on politics: http://members.fortunecity.com/bikinia/RousseauHK.htm
I have been wondering if my thesis sounds too naive, especially the part analysing current politics. But on the other hand I don’t worry too much: when I turn on TV or read newspaper, most of the analysis there is nothing but crap. If they can say all these craps on TV I guess my naive writing would not be worse than that. Each time I see some Mainland Chinese officials talking I want to smash their faces into pieces. Recently there is much talking about Beijing-Taiwan relation (also Tokyo). This makes me think about what is really going on.
I can’t help but feeling what we, ordinary people can know about so-called international relation is only the tip of iceberg. There is so much more going on behind closed door. When we heard in the news: ‘The relationship between Taiwan and Beijing is tense.’ Beijing passes the law of unifying the country and Taiwan raises strong objection blah blah blah……It sounds like it is on the brink of war. But is it really the case? After a while Beijing suddenly allows the head of Kuomintang to visit Mainland, with a friendly-friendly face and gives such a warm welcome (plus pandas). It is such a stark contradiction to Beijing’s previous strong stance and intimidation. It reminds me of the hard cop soft cop tactics: first the hard cop scares the suspect to death, and then the soft cop consoles him and gets him to spill his gut. But in this case Beijing takes both of the roles. It never really wants to attack Taiwan. Yet the intimidation is needed to push Taiwan into dialogue (or submission). Right now Beijing pulls the pro-unifying parties in Taiwan (Kuomintang & People First Party) closer, isolates the government and the independence movement. [International Herald Tributes] http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/04/25/news/china.php . Isolates and attacks. It is an often used Communist tactic.
This 'One China' issue is never really about national pride. It is a fight for power for a handful of politicians (Hu Jintao vs. Chan Shui-bian?). Beijing-Tokyo relation is also in this nature. The military crime committed by Japan during WWII is a powerful (moral) negotiating chip for Beijing (of course, the most powerful chip is China’s growing economy). The Japanese politicians paying tribute to dead soldier at the shrine publicly is a political statement. The target audiences are not only the Japanese people, but also the rest of the world (especially Asia): Japan is powerful and we can do what we want to.
(Why would I think Beijing does not really care about Japanese military crime? If you look carefully into how Beijing treat the Anti-Japan movement, or the East Sea border argument, we can see what is Beijing’s priority--its power. The Activists protest at Japanese Embassy at least once a year. But Beijing only voices its protest when it needs to. )
I can’t help but feeling that these ambitious politicians are all the same. Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Junichiro Koisumi, Hu Jintao, Chen Shui-bian…etc. It’s like Jack Bauer of the TV series 24. (well, I'm a huge couch potato) Basically he is no difference from those terrorists. It’s just happened that he is working for the good side. All these politicians are the same type of people, the only difference is they are from different places. So they play according to the rule of their place to get power. The US rule is the leader should be similar to the majority of the people (which means being stupid?). So they got George W. Bush. Politicians try to give the impression that they are what the people want. Tony Blair was the fresh face of Britain 8 years ago. Now he barely hangs on, taking advantage of his extremely lame opponents. Hu Jintao probably goes through some especially nasty stuff to climb to the top of Chinese Communist power ladder. At the end these politicians only care about one thing: power. Sometimes it appears that they really care about the people. But this is a mean, not the end. The so-called international relation is only a game of power between these ambitious individuals. While gamblers play with money, unfortunately the politicians play with the livelihood of everyone else in the world.
