Mealy-mouthed rhetoric

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/05/china.politics.ap/index.html

Hey, the article started out on a positive note.

~~~~~~~~~~
Premier Wen Jiabao laid out
the priorities for the year:
- strong economics utilized to make sure rising prices for food and other basic goods do not hurt the poor.
- increasing subsidies for farmers, the poor and pensioners.

...it's all downhill from there
~~~~~~~~~~
Filled with all the familiar rhetoric about maintaining social harmony, and sewage treatment; all aimed at creating a pretty little picture to obfuscate the truth from world scrutiny during the 2008 Summer Olympics. Unhappy masses protesting during the Olympics would humiliate China, so they're taking action now to assuage every little complaint.

Then the article decays even further. Instead of being an article discussing bold moves that spell real change for China, this article was more of the same, with a solid 3/4 of the article immediately descending on the Taiwan issue. Military buildup, increase in military spending by 17% blah blah, we firmly oppose Taiwan independence, spending boosts the People's Liberation Army by projecting power, and blah blah...intent to back up threats to use force against Taiwan if it refuses to accept unification with the mainland.

I keep looking for something positive to say about China. Either the American media machine is going out of their way to maintain a long-winded anti-China spin, or the problems and backward politics are as genuine as we've all been led to believe.

In an earlier post, I discussed boycotting the 2008 Summer Olympics. But I reckon I'm re-considering that position. The Tiananmen Square riots were successful at shaking things up. Sometimes, people need a solid slap to the side of their noggins to break them from their trance. Maybe we'll get lucky and the Olympics will turn into a riotous ordeal that will shudder across the world, breaking the trance that currently forces China to totter with one foot in its archaic past while the other foot tries to sloppily hang-ten an economic wave into its future.

I'm not a huge sports fan. But wide-spread chaos and puffy-veined foreheads by frenetic politicians, now that's good entertainment.