frank theriault wrote:
The Chinese government is punishing it's own people as we speak - they execute tens of thousands of dissidents a year.
Tens of thousands of dissidents executed a year? What's your source? I know that they execute several thousand people every year, sometimes even for petty crimes, but not what you say. There are conscience prisoners in Chinese prisons, but the regime isn't fool enough to execute them, they have learnt a big deal since the times of the Cultural Revolution and repression is much more subdued nowadays. By the way, I am against death penalty, no matter where. China is a dictatorship, the same way as many other countries, including some so-called "democracies", and I see why you feel strongly about this matter. But exaggeration doesn't help you make your point.
Don't you think that
doing something to change either the regime or getting them to soften their policies would be good for the Chinese in the long run? BTW, boycotts ~do~ work. The West boycotted South Africa, and apartheid ended and Nelson Mandell was freed and ended up leading the country. That one worked pretty well.
Perhaps you are right, Frank. Then we should boycott China, and also extend those measures against some other evil governments who invade other countries based on lies, or that keep a several decades long occupation of territories, evicting by force their inhabitants, etc. Why do we stop with China? That boycott wouldn't work. But if "the West" really cares about human rights, they should start by demanding that China, and others like India, Indonesia, etc., pay a decent salary to their workers, and give them human labour conditions. They won't demand that, because the corporations which profit from the exploitation of workers in the developing countries are mainly Western (and Japanese). Besides, that keeps a permanent threat over the heads of workers in Western countries, that their jobs will be outsourced if they don't bow and accept worse salaries and the loss of their hard earned rights. The supposed boycott against South Africa didn't make it change, it was mainly the internal situation which made the regime fall. I say "supposed" because the economic restrictions were largely imaginary and never stopped the trade ties that big business kept with South Africa.
Carlos
