waltky
Wise ol' monkey
China makin' Japan nervous, brain-washin' lil' kids...
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Chinese military concerns Japan
Wed, Aug 01, 2012 - HIGH STAKES:Japan has warned that it could use military force to defend a group of uninhabited islands that it controls in the East China Sea, but which China also claims
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Hong Kong parents fight brainwashing by Chinese officials
Wed, Aug 01, 2012 - Hong Kong parents are battling plans to introduce lessons praising Chinese Communist Party rule, saying the curriculum amounts to brainwashing and an attack on the territorys cherished freedoms.
Chinese military concerns Japan
Wed, Aug 01, 2012 - HIGH STAKES:Japan has warned that it could use military force to defend a group of uninhabited islands that it controls in the East China Sea, but which China also claims
The shifting relationship between Chinas one-party government and the military is a risk management issue for Japan, while North Korea poses a significant threat, Tokyo warned yesterday. In its annual defense report, Japan said the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) had been speaking out on foreign policy more frequently, a key shift in political-military ties that has set alarm bells ringing in Tokyo. Relations between the [Chinese Communist Party] leadership and the Peoples Liberation Army have been getting more complex, the report said yesterday, calling the shift a risk management issue. The degree of military influence on foreign policy decisions has been changing, it said.
Senior Chinese military officials have become more vocal, making public comments about US military drills in regional waters, for example, Japanese defense officials said at a briefing. China has been embroiled in separate spats over regional territorial claims with Japan as well as with several Southeast Asian nations, including Vietnam and the Philippines which have flared up in recent years. However, the report also said the PLA may have limited influence, with the number of its personnel on key political decisionmaking bodies declining, as China readies for a once-in-a-decade leadership shuffle. As part of Japans risk management, we recognize that the intention and purpose behind Chinas actions are becoming less predictable, which is a challenge when we address the country, said Toshinori Tanaka, director of the defense ministrys strategic intelligence analysis office.
Japanese Minister of Defense Satoshi Morimoto said that there is a certain degree of wariness, not only in Japan, but in the whole of East Asia, as to which direction China will be heading. Tokyo once again in this years report described Chinas response to disputes with neighbors as assertive, a description that raised eyebrows in Beijing when it was published in last years report. Chinas [military] moves, together with the lack of transparency in its military affairs and security issues, are a matter of concern, the report said, adding that Chinese defense spending had grown 30-fold in the past two decades.
The report comes days after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Morimoto suggested Tokyo could use force to defend disputed East China Sea islands, known as Senkaku in Japanese and Diaoyutai Islands in Taiwan, which also claims the islands. Tensions between China and Japan rose again earlier this month after Chinese vessels twice entered waters near the resource-rich disputed islands, sparking a diplomatic row. Tokyos comments about possibly buying the islands from their private Japanese owner generated an angry protest in Beijing. The uninhabited outcrops were the scene of a particularly nasty row in late 2010 when Japan arrested a Chinese trawlerman who had rammed two of its coastguard vessels.
Chinese military concerns Japan - Taipei Times
See also:
Hong Kong parents fight brainwashing by Chinese officials
Wed, Aug 01, 2012 - Hong Kong parents are battling plans to introduce lessons praising Chinese Communist Party rule, saying the curriculum amounts to brainwashing and an attack on the territorys cherished freedoms.
Up to 90,000 people, led by stroller-pushing parents and banner-waving children, took to the streets of the semi-autonomous territory on Sunday to denounce national education, as the subject is officially called. The issue has been on the Hong Kong Governments agenda since it was handed over from Britain to China in 1997, but a new teaching booklet lauding the China model of development has infuriated educators and parents. It will poison our childrens minds, 34-year-old office clerk Gordon Chan said as he marched with his wife and nine-month-old daughter. This is putting politics before education.
Mercury Leung, a 21-year-old university student, said: Students, especially those in primary schools, are like pieces of white paper. They absorb what is taught in schools. This subject is akin to painting the paper red. Sundays march was the third major demonstration in Hong Kong in the past two months, reflecting growing fears about the extent of Beijings economic and political influence in the southern Chinese financial center. Scores of thousands attended an annual vigil on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in early June, while on July 1, hundreds of thousands rallied on the 15th anniversary of the handover.
Like many others in Sundays protest, Chan and Leung said they did not oppose the teaching of Chinese values in Hong Kongs schools, but were against the teaching of Chinese Communist Party propaganda. Concerned parents and students have pointed out that the proposed curriculum fails to properly address upheavals in 20th-century Chinese history, such as the Tiananmen protests and the violent radicalism of the Cultural Revolution. The 34-page government-sponsored booklet called China Model praises the Chinese Communist Party as progressive, selfless and united.
Chinas one-party rule is referred to as a society-first and united system, and is compared favorably to multi-party democracy as practiced in the US, which is described as inefficient and disruptive. A section on multi-party politics comes with the headline: When the parties struggle, there is disaster for the citizens. The booklet is one small part of the national education curriculum, which was approved last year and will become compulsory for all primary and secondary students from 2016.
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