Redirected from Peoples Republic of China/History Talk
From "People's Republic of China/History Talk:"
I removed this:
The Next 5 Years
The next 5 years represent a critical period in China's existence as China makes a bid to join the WTO. To investors and firms, China represents a vast market that is still yet to be fully tapped. This point is best illustrated by the rapid growth of cellphone users in China. Educationally, China is forging ahead as partnerships and exchanges with foreign Universities have helped to bring about new research opportunities for it's students. However, there is still much that needs to take place in China. Human rights issues continue to raise concern among members of the world community. The positive response of the Chinese Government to these concerns will help to better cooperation between other countries.
I did so for the following reasons:
No, China won't be a member until December 11 or thereabouts. Membership doesn't commence until thirty days after the deposit of the instruments of ratification :-) -- sJK
Zoe,
why are you deleting the second photo, caption?
Paektu
Paektu, restore your old version!
Once again you attack me and not respond to my charges.
172, read my paragraph above. That explains why I'm doing what I'm doing. -- Zoe
I'll accept Slrubenstein's explanation. Zoe’s name-calling is less convincing though.
My comments to Paketu were not name calling. We were having a reasoned discussion until you decided to butt in. -- Zoe
I had to defend the defenseless new user. We don’t want this potentially valuable contributor scared off by your venom, do we?
It seems to me that the two cases are, in fact, different. The "revolutionary martyrs" caption is perfectly reasonable. It refers to people who undoubtedly gave their lives for the cause they believed in (whether that cause was a "good" cause or a "bad" cause is not for us to say). According to Webster, a "martyr" is "one who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle". This clearly fits the case. The three alternative meanings listed fit also. The people illustrated are "China's third generation leaders", they are "paying homage", and the "revolutionary martyrs" undoubetedly did "help to establish the People’s Republic". The fact that we Westerners feel taken aback at the caption, being unused to thinking of martyrdom in the context of a communist revolution, points out our own limitations, not any fault with the caption - indeed, the caption helps encourage the reader to expand his mental horizons and is on those grounds to be applauded.
The second caption, however, is difficult to justify. Where the existence of and veneration for revolutionary martyrs is clearly established, the assertion that "optimism pervades" is questionable (though, on the whole, I am inclined to guess that it is probably true), and the assertion that China is "increasingly prosperous" is perhaps also questionable: SLR points out that economic growth numbers do not always equate to increased prosperity for individual citizens, and I would add that if we take a broader, more useful and not narrowly economic definition of "prosperity" then is is very easy indeed to cite examples where unquestioned on-paper "economic growth" has been an unmitigated disaster - consider the Congo Free State for an extreme example. In any case, the second picture (at least to my mind) has little aesthetic value and seems superflouous, with or without caption.
I suggest keeping the first picture as-is, and removing the second one. Tannin 07:11 Jan 12, 2003 (UTC)
How about saying "paying homage" to those who died for the cause of the Chinese revolution, or words to that effect? Let's please not use the word "martyrs". -- Zoe
I am a little uncomfortable with that, on account of blandness and not giving quite the same amount of information, but only a little. "Martyrs", "heros" and "those who died for the cause" have different shades of meaning. I rather liked "martyrs" because it gives a hint of quasi-religious veneration that seems to me to communicate something useful. But your suggestion is a sensible compromise, I think Zoe, and will save us getting into the angels and head of a pin class of time-wasting. Tannin
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump