Tags |
|
|
Links |
|
|
Digg it UP - China!
Websites are being the boat of commerce in the modern world today; there are simply enormous things that you can do with your online business. Taking them to another level would simply mean higher standards. On the part of web site software membership, having a program to handle them will likely do the job, but this will only be as good as the one who is managing or configuring them.Working hard is always a good thing, but planning ahead and being proactive to reactive will definitely help you in your business online even in a small-scaled one will positively absorb the benefits of having a step ahead.Making sure that you keep you paying customers is not an overnight job, this too requires a lot of customer care and planning ahead to make sure they will be satisfied to your offerings in your particular niche.Customers are always the key ingredient on a successful business, using your membership website software and managing them is one of the key things you need to do and prevent them from looking or jumping to other competitors.SatisfactionA satisfied customer will likely ever jump to other sites. On your part, analyzing data, sorting out customers that are mostly profitable are the things you need to focus on, after all, they're the ones that fuel your business.Web site membership software helps in acquiring the data you need, there are limitless solutions to any online business to date, you just need to select the best and of course configure t
Yet, the social and economic improvements are huge as anyone who saw China in the '70's will confirm. Three decades ago there were no automobiles, no super markets, no highrise buildings. And there were no consumer goods to speak of. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society at that. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector is now the dominant sector of the economy. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979. The political system has changed as well, albeit not nearly as drastically as the economic system. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. It is certainly difficult today to call China a Communist State, and the regime is no longer the party of workers and peasants. Mao Zedong would be unpleasantly surprised at how things got out of hand. But then, even this political transformation is nothing new to the Chinese. In fact, historically China has often gone through periods of consolidation followe
As vice president of S & L Store Fixtures, one of my job responsibilities is online marketing and increasing the visibility of our web site in the search engines. After making a substantial investment in an ecommerce storefront, twice, I came to understand that ecommerce is like a mannequin.A mannequin, like any of the store fixtures and retail displays that we sell, is intended to both augment the visibility of product and the conversion rate. A mannequin doesn't actually make the sale for you – it only assists in the presentation of the wares which are offered for sale. A well designed ecommerce module should do the same.As our search engine performance continued to be mediocre at best, I began to investigate the situation. After speaking with a number of SEO professionals, I came to understand that a well designed ecommerce system will not only present the goods to the consumer, but also assist in making the sale – both through increased search engine visibility and increased conversions.The two – visibility and conversions – are often understood to be the same thing. This misconception leads many businesses to make fundamental errors in the selection of an ecommerce system. Let's briefly examine the two so as to better understand that which each term encompasses.A Mannequin Increases the Visibility of Your ProductJust like a mannequin torso, or any other retail displays for that matter, a properly de
On the other hand, Chinese ambivalence towards the United States can be perhaps best described by the statement of a Chinese official to a visiting American delegation to Shanghai in 2001: "I surely hope that you and the American economy do well in this global slowdown, because your economic interests and your economic development are critical to the welfare of the people in Shanghai and China.". This remarks comes at a time while China is intent at stealing U.S. military secrets from Martin Lockheed - and it is caught with both hands in the bag doing so.
And then, of course, American and Chinese joint ambivalence towards the rest of the world must be perhaps encapsulated in the philantropic website maintained at http://www.uschina.org/ where both sides are trying to convince the rest of us in English - and for those who do not get it the first time around, in Chinese - that seldom have there been in the history of humanity two great pals like the Bald Eagle and the Red Dragon. Well ... well ...
China's giant leap towards a Western-style, capitalistic economy presents an increasingly urgent set of challenges that must be resolved by the leading elite if they hope to sustain the miraculous economic growth, which has averaged eight percent a year for the past decade. When you consider that the People's Republic of China (PRC) has 1.3 billion people, more than four times the population of the United States, the implications of its radical economic transformation are sobering. In 2004 the Chinese added 1.8 million cars to their roads, bringing the national total to well over 10 million. At recent growth rates, the number could very well double every three to four years. Should car ownership ever match that in the United States (135 million vehicles in 2002), there would be about 600 million cars on China's roads - more than all the cars in the world today. A statistical comparison between the two giants compiled by the World Resource Institute of the United Nations reveals even more staggering figures:
CHINA vs. UNITED STATES
AREA: 3,705,820 square miles vs. 3,717,796 square miles
POPULATION: 1,288,700,000 vs. 291,500,000
DENSITY per square mile: 348 vs. 78
ENERGY CONSUMPTION per person: 880 Kg/oil per year vs. 7,960 Kg/oil per year
MEAT CONSUMPTION per person: 104 lbs. per year vs. 269 lbs. per year
PAPER CONSUMPTION per person: 73 lbs. per year vs. 730 lbs. per year
AVERAGE NUMBER OF PERSON : 1.1 per room vs. 0.5 per room
WATER USE per person : 116,000 gals. per year vs. 484,500 gals. per year
TV SETS per 1,000 persons: 292 vs. 844
VEHICLES per 1000 persons: 16 vs. 774
Since its onset in 1949 the People's Republic has gone through a lot, including a famine where 20 million to 30 million people died in the early 1960s; a cultural revolution that went on into a decade; and a skyrocketing national suicide rate as well. Yet, never in the history of the world have so many people been lifted from poverty so rapidly. President Clinton, in one of his last speeches, said that 200 million people in China were lifted from absolute poverty from 1978 to about 1999. That's equivalent to about two-thirds of the entire population of the United States in twenty years. The economic achievements, therefore, are huge. But so are the problems. The factors of economic instability are many and worry the leadership. In fact, the leading elite justifies some of the repressive political measures precisely because of what they call "the factors of instability." These factors include a financial and banking system that is basically bankrupt, with bad loans out greater than the real net reserves of the entire banking system.
There are perhaps between 80 million to 100-plus million people that are moving from the countryside on a kind of temporary contract labor into the Chinese cities. And yet a large number of urban unemployed are getting put out of business from non-competitive state enterprises. As a result China has got urban unemployed, rural unemployed coming into the cities, unsound financial system, and general resentment against a regime that has, in the past, grotesquely mismanaged things. And then, of course, there is the widespread problem of corruption that permeates every facet of society.
Indeed, corruption is not a Chinese characteristic per se. It has, however, developed in a world where old, antiquated and inefficient laws are not being replaced fast enough to keep up with the speed of present times, and the vacuum has to be somehow filled. Experts think that on one hand the economic opening will bring more outside influences and in a way more chaos to the country which is not a bad thing in some ways. But, conversely, experts agree that the leadership will try to keep a tight control so that, at the end of the day, there may actually very well be more human rights violations than ever before.
There is also an imbalance of wealth between the thirty-five percent of the population that lives in the cities and the sixty-five percent inhabiting the countryside. There is a system of residence controls. If you are lucky enough to be born in a city - and registered as a city dweller - it is easier for you to get into university. You are in the city, you can work at all the large companies and government agencies in the city. If, conversely, you are registered as a rural person there are very severe restrictions on where you can live and work. And this is actually the biggest human rights problem in China today. You have a majority of this population of 1.3 billion that are, by law, second class citizens. Furthermore, there are the other matters of the more than 20 million people who have no social security net whatsoever to assist taking care of their basic needs, as well as the environmental concerns that the new era of industrialization is bringing up. Of the ten worst polluted cities in the whole world according to the World Environmental Agency, eight are in China. And, finally, the PRC accounts for 23 percent of the global population while supply of fresh water is less than 6 percent.
Yet, the social and economic improvements are huge as anyone who saw China in the '70's will confirm. Three decades ago there were no automobiles, no super markets, no highrise buildings. And there were no consumer goods to speak of. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society at that. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector is now the dominant sector of the economy. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979. The political system has changed as well, albeit not nearly as drastically as the economic system. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. It is certainly difficult today to call China a Communist State, and the regime is no longer the party of workers and peasants. Mao Zedong would be unpleasantly surprised at how things got out of hand. But then, even this political transformation is nothing new to the Chinese. In fact, historically China has often gone through periods of consolidation followed
Did you know that every package shipped within the UPS system is covered by up to $100.00 of insurance protection AT NO COST (with very few exclusions such as documents or perishables)? What happens when your packages does not arrive at its destination or arrives damaged?If you ship with The UPS Store, you contact the store and the staff will file the claim on your behalf. If you ship at a customer counter or authorized shipping outlet, you will likely have to file the claim yourself. Phone 1-800-PICK-UPS (1-800-742-5877) and speak with a representative to file the claim. Have the following information handy when you call the 800 number or your local The UPS Store (if you shipped with the store):* tracking number (most UPS tracking number start with the number "1" and the letter "Z" and are 18 characters long)* whether the contents are missing or damaged* condition of the damaged items (i.e., shattered, dented, nicked, bent, etc.)* whether or not the damaged items are repairable or replaceable* the value of the damaged or missing items* the telephone number of the recipientYou will be instructed to contact the receiver and have them retain the contents of the package, as well as the packaging material, for five business days. After the fifth business day, the recipient may retain or discard the damaged items. You will have to fax to UPS Claims department a copy of the original invoice for the items, an estimate for repair, or a repla
China's giant leap towards a Western-style, capitalistic economy presents an increasingly urgent set of challenges that must be resolved by the leading elite if they hope to sustain the miraculous economic growth, which has averaged eight percent a year for the past decade. When you consider that the People's Republic of China (PRC) has 1.3 billion people, more than four times the population of the United States, the implications of its radical economic transformation are sobering. In 2004 the Chinese added 1.8 million cars to their roads, bringing the national total to well over 10 million. At recent growth rates, the number could very well double every three to four years. Should car ownership ever match that in the United States (135 million vehicles in 2002), there would be about 600 million cars on China's roads - more than all the cars in the world today. A statistical comparison between the two giants compiled by the World Resource Institute of the United Nations reveals even more staggering figures:
CHINA vs. UNITED STATES
AREA: 3,705,820 square miles vs. 3,717,796 square miles
POPULATION: 1,288,700,000 vs. 291,500,000
DENSITY per square mile: 348 vs. 78
ENERGY CONSUMPTION per person: 880 Kg/oil per year vs. 7,960 Kg/oil per year
MEAT CONSUMPTION per person: 104 lbs. per year vs. 269 lbs. per year
PAPER CONSUMPTION per person: 73 lbs. per year vs. 730 lbs. per year
AVERAGE NUMBER OF PERSON : 1.1 per room vs. 0.5 per room
WATER USE per person : 116,000 gals. per year vs. 484,500 gals. per year
TV SETS per 1,000 persons: 292 vs. 844
VEHICLES per 1000 persons: 16 vs. 774
Since its onset in 1949 the People's Republic has gone through a lot, including a famine where 20 million to 30 million people died in the early 1960s; a cultural revolution that went on into a decade; and a skyrocketing national suicide rate as well. Yet, never in the history of the world have so many people been lifted from poverty so rapidly. President Clinton, in one of his last speeches, said that 200 million people in China were lifted from absolute poverty from 1978 to about 1999. That's equivalent to about two-thirds of the entire population of the United States in twenty years. The economic achievements, therefore, are huge. But so are the problems. The factors of economic instability are many and worry the leadership. In fact, the leading elite justifies some of the repressive political measures precisely because of what they call "the factors of instability." These factors include a financial and banking system that is basically bankrupt, with bad loans out greater than the real net reserves of the entire banking system.
There are perhaps between 80 million to 100-plus million people that are moving from the countryside on a kind of temporary contract labor into the Chinese cities. And yet a large number of urban unemployed are getting put out of business from non-competitive state enterprises. As a result China has got urban unemployed, rural unemployed coming into the cities, unsound financial system, and general resentment against a regime that has, in the past, grotesquely mismanaged things. And then, of course, there is the widespread problem of corruption that permeates every facet of society.
Indeed, corruption is not a Chinese characteristic per se. It has, however, developed in a world where old, antiquated and inefficient laws are not being replaced fast enough to keep up with the speed of present times, and the vacuum has to be somehow filled. Experts think that on one hand the economic opening will bring more outside influences and in a way more chaos to the country which is not a bad thing in some ways. But, conversely, experts agree that the leadership will try to keep a tight control so that, at the end of the day, there may actually very well be more human rights violations than ever before.
There is also an imbalance of wealth between the thirty-five percent of the population that lives in the cities and the sixty-five percent inhabiting the countryside. There is a system of residence controls. If you are lucky enough to be born in a city - and registered as a city dweller - it is easier for you to get into university. You are in the city, you can work at all the large companies and government agencies in the city. If, conversely, you are registered as a rural person there are very severe restrictions on where you can live and work. And this is actually the biggest human rights problem in China today. You have a majority of this population of 1.3 billion that are, by law, second class citizens. Furthermore, there are the other matters of the more than 20 million people who have no social security net whatsoever to assist taking care of their basic needs, as well as the environmental concerns that the new era of industrialization is bringing up. Of the ten worst polluted cities in the whole world according to the World Environmental Agency, eight are in China. And, finally, the PRC accounts for 23 percent of the global population while supply of fresh water is less than 6 percent.
Yet, the social and economic improvements are huge as anyone who saw China in the '70's will confirm. Three decades ago there were no automobiles, no super markets, no highrise buildings. And there were no consumer goods to speak of. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society at that. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector is now the dominant sector of the economy. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979. The political system has changed as well, albeit not nearly as drastically as the economic system. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. It is certainly difficult today to call China a Communist State, and the regime is no longer the party of workers and peasants. Mao Zedong would be unpleasantly surprised at how things got out of hand. But then, even this political transformation is nothing new to the Chinese. In fact, historically China has often gone through periods of consolidation followe
The latest statistics show that prison gangs are present in the Federal prison system and 32 state jurisdictions. Of the 33 jurisdictions experiencing the presence of prison gangs, 29 are able to identify individual gangs by name. In those 29 jurisdictions, prison officials have identified 114 gangs with an estimated total membership of 12,634. Overall, gang members make up about 3 percent of the total Federal and state prison population.With the emergence of prison gangs, two serious conditions have developed in prisons. The first is the increased difficulty experienced by prison officials in maintaining order and discipline among inmates. The second is the rapid increase in inmate violence primarily caused by the violent nature of prison gang members and of prison gang activities such as drug trafficking, extortion, prostitution, protection, gambling, and contract inmate murders.The statistics says that prison gangs accounted for 50 percent or more of all prison problems. However, in most jurisdictions, the absence of a gang intelligence-gathering system and the inadequate monitoring of gang activities have made it impossible to assess the exact impact of prison gangs on prison operations.The inability to obtain information directly from active gang members is a frustrating experience shared both by researchers and prison administrators. Thus far, the only available method for intelligence-gathering has been the sole reliance on information provided by a few volunta
MEAT CONSUMPTION per person: 104 lbs. per year vs. 269 lbs. per year
PAPER CONSUMPTION per person: 73 lbs. per year vs. 730 lbs. per year
AVERAGE NUMBER OF PERSON : 1.1 per room vs. 0.5 per room
WATER USE per person : 116,000 gals. per year vs. 484,500 gals. per year
TV SETS per 1,000 persons: 292 vs. 844
VEHICLES per 1000 persons: 16 vs. 774
Since its onset in 1949 the People's Republic has gone through a lot, including a famine where 20 million to 30 million people died in the early 1960s; a cultural revolution that went on into a decade; and a skyrocketing national suicide rate as well. Yet, never in the history of the world have so many people been lifted from poverty so rapidly. President Clinton, in one of his last speeches, said that 200 million people in China were lifted from absolute poverty from 1978 to about 1999. That's equivalent to about two-thirds of the entire population of the United States in twenty years. The economic achievements, therefore, are huge. But so are the problems. The factors of economic instability are many and worry the leadership. In fact, the leading elite justifies some of the repressive political measures precisely because of what they call "the factors of instability." These factors include a financial and banking system that is basically bankrupt, with bad loans out greater than the real net reserves of the entire banking system.
There are perhaps between 80 million to 100-plus million people that are moving from the countryside on a kind of temporary contract labor into the Chinese cities. And yet a large number of urban unemployed are getting put out of business from non-competitive state enterprises. As a result China has got urban unemployed, rural unemployed coming into the cities, unsound financial system, and general resentment against a regime that has, in the past, grotesquely mismanaged things. And then, of course, there is the widespread problem of corruption that permeates every facet of society.
Indeed, corruption is not a Chinese characteristic per se. It has, however, developed in a world where old, antiquated and inefficient laws are not being replaced fast enough to keep up with the speed of present times, and the vacuum has to be somehow filled. Experts think that on one hand the economic opening will bring more outside influences and in a way more chaos to the country which is not a bad thing in some ways. But, conversely, experts agree that the leadership will try to keep a tight control so that, at the end of the day, there may actually very well be more human rights violations than ever before.
There is also an imbalance of wealth between the thirty-five percent of the population that lives in the cities and the sixty-five percent inhabiting the countryside. There is a system of residence controls. If you are lucky enough to be born in a city - and registered as a city dweller - it is easier for you to get into university. You are in the city, you can work at all the large companies and government agencies in the city. If, conversely, you are registered as a rural person there are very severe restrictions on where you can live and work. And this is actually the biggest human rights problem in China today. You have a majority of this population of 1.3 billion that are, by law, second class citizens. Furthermore, there are the other matters of the more than 20 million people who have no social security net whatsoever to assist taking care of their basic needs, as well as the environmental concerns that the new era of industrialization is bringing up. Of the ten worst polluted cities in the whole world according to the World Environmental Agency, eight are in China. And, finally, the PRC accounts for 23 percent of the global population while supply of fresh water is less than 6 percent.
Yet, the social and economic improvements are huge as anyone who saw China in the '70's will confirm. Three decades ago there were no automobiles, no super markets, no highrise buildings. And there were no consumer goods to speak of. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society at that. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector is now the dominant sector of the economy. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979. The political system has changed as well, albeit not nearly as drastically as the economic system. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. It is certainly difficult today to call China a Communist State, and the regime is no longer the party of workers and peasants. Mao Zedong would be unpleasantly surprised at how things got out of hand. But then, even this political transformation is nothing new to the Chinese. In fact, historically China has often gone through periods of consolidation followe
Actually, to just use the words ‘Payment Processor’ and ‘2Checkout’ in the same sentence is liable to get you into trouble.2Checkout is very sensitive about who they are and what type of service they provide. They do not see themselves as a ‘Payment Processor’. They are an ‘Authorized reseller/retailer’ of your products and services. So in essence, you sell your products to them and they sell it, for a 5.5% commission fee, on to someone else. The fact that the ‘someone else’ was someone who landed up on YOUR site and wanted to buy YOUR product is beside the point!So what services DOES 2Checkout provide, as an ‘Authorized Retailer’? Strangely enough, most the same services provided by a company that provides ‘Payment Processor’ services….If you sell your products or service through 2Checkout (or rather then, ‘to’ 2Checkout), you can expect to do it in the following ways:You can sell services. You can sell services such as advertising, hosting, copywriting and lots others. But be aware – check their policies on what is not allowed. For example, although normal hosting services are allowed, IRC Chat Hosting and Game Server Hosting are not.You can sell products.These can be tangible or electronic. Once again, make sure that you do read their policies on what type of products are not allowed.It might be a good point to mention at this stage that when you do sign up with them, your website and products already need to be set up so
Indeed, corruption is not a Chinese characteristic per se. It has, however, developed in a world where old, antiquated and inefficient laws are not being replaced fast enough to keep up with the speed of present times, and the vacuum has to be somehow filled. Experts think that on one hand the economic opening will bring more outside influences and in a way more chaos to the country which is not a bad thing in some ways. But, conversely, experts agree that the leadership will try to keep a tight control so that, at the end of the day, there may actually very well be more human rights violations than ever before.
There is also an imbalance of wealth between the thirty-five percent of the population that lives in the cities and the sixty-five percent inhabiting the countryside. There is a system of residence controls. If you are lucky enough to be born in a city - and registered as a city dweller - it is easier for you to get into university. You are in the city, you can work at all the large companies and government agencies in the city. If, conversely, you are registered as a rural person there are very severe restrictions on where you can live and work. And this is actually the biggest human rights problem in China today. You have a majority of this population of 1.3 billion that are, by law, second class citizens. Furthermore, there are the other matters of the more than 20 million people who have no social security net whatsoever to assist taking care of their basic needs, as well as the environmental concerns that the new era of industrialization is bringing up. Of the ten worst polluted cities in the whole world according to the World Environmental Agency, eight are in China. And, finally, the PRC accounts for 23 percent of the global population while supply of fresh water is less than 6 percent.
Yet, the social and economic improvements are huge as anyone who saw China in the '70's will confirm. Three decades ago there were no automobiles, no super markets, no highrise buildings. And there were no consumer goods to speak of. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society at that. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector is now the dominant sector of the economy. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979. The political system has changed as well, albeit not nearly as drastically as the economic system. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. It is certainly difficult today to call China a Communist State, and the regime is no longer the party of workers and peasants. Mao Zedong would be unpleasantly surprised at how things got out of hand. But then, even this political transformation is nothing new to the Chinese. In fact, historically China has often gone through periods of consolidation followe
In my last article, I talked about the overwhelming saturation of products in the marketplace and the complacency of the consumer to listen to (yet another) advertising message. I said that if you wanted to be successful with a new product, you should seek to establish a new product category.In this article, I am going to explain what this means.A product category can be defined as a group of products that are closely related because they are intended for the same use, are sold to the same customers, or fall within the same budget. Examples of product categories might include television sets, pizzas, shampoos and so on.Creating a new product category typically means creating a variation of an existing product to create a new market for it. And being the creator of a new category offers you immense opportunity to claim the ultimate leadership position. After all, you were there first. (Think Coca Cola “The Real Thing”.)Let’s look at some examples of creating new product categories.Domino’s Pizza was not the first chain restaurant to make pizzas. But it created a new category (home delivered pizza) when it created the first US home delivery service for pizzas.Apple’s i-Pod was not the first portable music player (in fact, it wasn’t the first MP3 player either). But it was the first sexy MP3 player that used a USB port and firewire to transfer music files and came complete with fully-integrated proprietary software to make it easy for users.Fe
Yet, the social and economic improvements are huge as anyone who saw China in the '70's will confirm. Three decades ago there were no automobiles, no super markets, no highrise buildings. And there were no consumer goods to speak of. It was a Stalinist society, and a very poor Stalinist society at that. So the economic system has totally changed, and the private sector is now the dominant sector of the economy. It didn't exist at all as late as 1979. The political system has changed as well, albeit not nearly as drastically as the economic system. The China of the twenty-first century is a one-party state without a firm ideological foundation, more similar to Mexico under the PRI than Russia under Stalin. It is certainly difficult today to call China a Communist State, and the regime is no longer the party of workers and peasants. Mao Zedong would be unpleasantly surprised at how things got out of hand. But then, even this political transformation is nothing new to the Chinese. In fact, historically China has often gone through periods of consolidation followed by periods of weakening of the central authority. And the inequality of wealth is just a consequence of it all.
No issue is more pivotal and controversial in the U.S.-China relations than the question of Taiwan. On October 1, 1949 after nearly two decades of civil war, Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong declared victory over the U.S.-supported Nationalists (Kuomintang or KMT) led by Chiang Kai-shek. Mao proclaimed the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and instituted a new communist system modeled after the U.S.S.R. After his defeat Chiang Kai-shek fled to the Chinese island of Taiwan, then called Formosa, along with two million Nationalist refugees. Taiwan is located about 100 miles off China's coast. There he established a "provisional" Nationalist capital in Taipei and declared martial law. The Nationalists claimed to be the sole legitimate government of all of China, and set up the same political bodies on Taiwan which had ruled on the mainland. Under Chiang's authoritarian leadership, the Nationalist government established a successful land reform program during the 1950's which helped transform the country from an agricultural to a commercial and industrial economic powerhouse.
It is difficult for Westerners to understand why the PRC is so adamant about reunification with Taiwan, until an example is brought up by the Chinese. "Think of California as an island off America's West Coast and inhabited by Americans but under a different regime. Wouldn't Washington want to seek reunification ?" The analogy made by Yang Jiechi, Chinese Ambassador to the United States, makes perfect sense. Taiwan is the PRC's unfinished civil war. They fought a civil war with this Nationalist government. They essentially won. The Nationalists escaped out to an island which the Chinese consider an integral part of China. And then, because of American support and other intervening factors, they never finished their civil war. In terms of the military, the PRC is also developing very rapidly. It is acquiring a modern aircraft and modern battleships. Its naval force and air force are developing so fast that China is now at the forefront of Asia's military innovations. Ambivalence exists both in the political relations of China and the U.S. with Taiwan as well as between China and the U.S. over Taiwan. China pursues a policy of "One Country - Two Systems" , a policy that is working well with Hong Kong and Macau after their return to the PRC. The United States pursues a strategy aptly called "Strategic Ambiguity": it recognizes Bejing as the only legitimate government while at all times investing in and supplying weaponry to Taiwan. And Taiwan's strategy is to court the United States while increasing its trade with the PRC, now amounting to over US $40 billion per year.
It is in this complex context of political and economic balances and counter-balances that the Eagle and the Dragon are eyeballing each others. A context certainly not for the faint of heart. And yet, in the geopolitical situation of Asia the United States and China make a very good team. Both are disdainful of absolutist chieftains the likes of North Korea's Kim Il Sung, both want peace and relaxation in the region, both are fervent in their plight against terrorism and both are eager to improve trade and cultural exchange with each others. The Chinese - founders of civilization are now meeting and talking to the Americans - spearheads of contemporary society. Two great countries, two great people.
Will the Eagle and the Dragon find a common ground for peaceful co-existence and mutual understanding?
Stay tuned.
Luigi Frascati
HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.diggitup.net/article/193824/diggitup-China.html">China!</a>
BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.diggitup.net/article/193824/diggitup-China.html]China![/url]
Related Articles:
Traditional Retail Advertising is Ineffective
Article Marketing - Explaining the Mystery of Article Marketing
Bookmark it:
|