China did it

[Xard]

The opening was ****ing mad, mad

 

Screw the riots and ****, China will do epically well in this whole show!

[SteveThaiBinh]

Filtered language notwithstanding, I think I agree. Can Britain better it in 2012, I wonder?

[Xard]

No way

 

No way

 

Only country with enough resources and people is U.S of A

 

It was utterly mad and not in small part due to China's rich cultural heritage. Mad lighting events and no one is going to top that lighting the olympic torch without shooting it into moon with a frickin' rocket

[Moatilliatta]

I personally wasn't too impressed but that probably has more to do with my lack of interest in the olympics and grand shows in general.

 

The Caucasus kinda kept my interest this noon.

Edited August 8, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Pope]

I've only seen highlights, and I was impressed. Any way to view the whole of it online?

[Brdavs]

Ya well whoever has the followup is royally fecked heh. You allways strive to top the previous one but man o man you aint gonna top that. Its a real shame cos London would easly top any previous ceremonies but I cant see anyone with the potential to put on a grander "show" tbh. Any1 trying to get close would turn out too "flashy" and "cheap" but china can pull it off cos thats sort of their history & culture. Imperial China grand style thousands of syncronised performers. Good freaking bet heh. Twas a brilliant sight.

 

And the stadium itself is simply jawdropping. Cant give anything but tips of the hat.

[Xard]

We could as well name these games as "Start Of Chinese Century" , because historians in future are going to try to pin point some event anyway.

Edited August 8, 2008 by Xard

[Azarkon]

Or the end of the Chinese decade, heh. As I said before, it's hard to predict the future of China. Too much rests on the internal conflicts within the CCP, though if the Olympics goes well, the reformers should have a window of opportunity once the recession hits (one seems to be coming).

Edited August 8, 2008 by Azarkon

[Xard]

Or the end of the Chinese decade, heh. As I said before, it's hard to predict the future of China. Too much rests on the internal conflicts within the CCP, though if the Olympics goes well, the reformers should have a window of opportunity once the recession hits (one seems to be coming).

 

If country survives Culture Revolution it survives everything

 

I wouldn't worry about China too much. Especially around the change of millenium western world was chockful of books by economical experts with "deep knowledge about China" who predicted the downfall of China. In fact it is still cycle that repeats once in few years or so. lol

 

Not surprisingly these economists were uniformly americans and brittons, working from antiqued and off the wall simplified understanding of China.

 

Really, amount of poor information and black and whiteness even in such magazines as The Times when it comes to China is really quite horrible.

 

Among those who have worked for years in China tend to be really ashamed about their homeland media and their understanding of that vast country. Which is nigh-uniformly very lacking and very biased

 

What might be even more funny are these famed experts giving suggestions to China how they should proceed. Too bad Chinese goverment has always incorporated the very same things said in their plans about year or so earlier on average, based on reports of their own, highly capable, group of experts

 

I really like the part about "Too much rests on the internal conflicts within the CCP" because as we all know China's goverment barely does anything more than fights for power and position. Really, that has no basis. Hu Jintao has the country firmly in his grasp as it is.

 

 

edit:

 

What I'm saying is: There is no doom scenario in horizon that stops China's eventual rise to biggest powerplayer of the world

Edited August 8, 2008 by Xard

[Azarkon]

I really like the part about "Too much rests on the internal conflicts within the CCP" because as we all know China's goverment barely does anything more than fights for power and position. Really, that has no basis. Hu Jintao has the country firmly in his grasp as it is.

 

Not so, if reports of 80,000+ protests lodged and wide-spread corruption are to be believed. The CCP is a huge organization - most people don't understand how huge. It's got some 70+ million members. There are bound to be internal conflicts, cliques, and the like. The Hu/Wen team is also not going to be in control forever. He is expected to retire around 2012, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Not to mention, you make it sound as though internal conflict within the CCP is necessarily a bad thing. A stable, long-lasting government is one that can deal with dissent, and dissent is what China, right now, desperately needs amidst its multitudes of failures (in areas such as the environment, official corruption, demographic change, and of course, human rights).

[Xard]

I really like the part about "Too much rests on the internal conflicts within the CCP" because as we all know China's goverment barely does anything more than fights for power and position. Really, that has no basis. Hu Jintao has the country firmly in his grasp as it is.

 

Not so, if reports of 80,000+ protests lodged and wide-spread corruption are to be believed. The CCP is a huge organization - most people don't understand how huge. It's got some 70+ million members. There are bound to be internal conflicts, cliques, and the like. The Hu/Wen team is also not going to be in control forever. He is expected to retire around 2012, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Protesters and such in China are mere drop in the ocean when it comes to numbers.

 

Not to mention, you make it sound as though internal conflict within the CCP is necessarily a bad thing. A stable, long-lasting government is one that can deal with dissent, and dissent is what China, right now, desperately needs amidst its multitudes of failures (in areas such as the environment, official corruption, demographic change, and of course, human rights).

 

The defining years and power struggles happened back in 90's, especially in year 1997, that was truly defining year. The old conservative guard lost (and as it seems, once and for all when it comes to Big Matters) and reformists have ran country ever since.

 

Only real big source of failure so far has been enviromental issues and STILL China has done A LOT work for it and their goverment is definetly not shutting their eyes for the problem.

 

In other matters progress has been steady and promising. Nothing happens fast in China. There are hard trials, such as the problem with countryside-city unbalance but you know what, that has been pretty much number one on their issue lists and already they've done a lot to fix the problem. It is long road, but plans are sound and about as good as they can get when governing as big country as that with multitude of nationalities.

 

and ever since 90's attacks on corruption, "dear brother" systems and questionable bank and law matters have been vast. The "large corruption" in CCP is nothing but myth in western media.

 

 

And believe it or not human rights are in today's China BETTER than ever in history

Edited August 8, 2008 by Xard

[Xard]

There's one great book I'd recommend to you, but unfortunately it is not avalaible in english as far as I know

 

It was eye opener for me

[Azarkon]

And believe it or not human rights are in today's China BETTER than ever in history

 

Maybe, maybe not. The 1980s was a relatively open period of Chinese politics, so much so that dissent was springing up all across the country, particularly in the Chinese intelligentsia - Tiananmen, obviously, changed all that. Could another crackdown happen in the aftermath of the Olympics? Probably not - dissent is not strong enough, today, to justify such repression. But rather than say that the conservative old guard lost permanently to the reformists, I think you should account for the possibility that all the reformists did was struck a compromise. After all, the CCP supposedly purged the truly liberal, pro-reform apparatus of the party (ie people like Zhao Ziyang) when it cracked down during 6/4, but the reforms never stopped, so the reformers must not have been completely suppressed. The same maybe true of the conservative old guard, or else we'd not see such heavy-handed police state measures during the Olympics.

Edited August 8, 2008 by Azarkon

[Xard]

but the reforms never stopped, so the reformers must not have been completely suppressed. The same maybe true of the conservative old guard, or else we'd not see such heavy police state measures during the Olympics.

 

It is case of superpower's honor and China's own nationalistic needs.

 

China will not allow ANYTHING to tamper with these Olympics. That's why they're in such heavy wrought "nazi policy" mode now. They don't take any risks, no matter how small they are

[mkreku]

What?! I started watching at around 13.00 here in Sweden and it was pretty dull.. so I fell asleep in my couch and woke up when it was over. Are you now tellling me I missed the best show evah??

[Hildegard]

And Americans didn't have a direct feed of the opening, NBC who bought the rights didn't air it at the time!!!!! Hahahahha I guess they still have the stance: it's just a thing taking place far away from the USA, very 1950 of you NBC

[Hurlshort]

NBC is airing it during primetime, as a direct feed would be a pretty lousy timeslot.

 

I'm watching it right now. It's amazing. China has raised the bar for the Olympics. Politics aside, this is a major accomplishment for the people of China and one they should take immense pride in.

[Guest The Architect]

Best opening ceremony I've seen that's for ****in sure. It was ****in spectacular.

[Gorgon]

Didn't watch, won't until they instate some kind of mortal combat tournament where martial artists and WWF rejects fight it out to the death on a skull dais surrounded by a flaming lava moat.

[Leferd]

That was all kinds of awesomeness. Goosebumps and watery eyes.

[Walsingham]

Hmmm.... war/shiny lights. War/shiny lights. decisions de... oooh! shiny lights!

[Xard]

yeah, **** you Russia!

[Pope]

What?! I started watching at around 13.00 here in Sweden and it was pretty dull.. so I fell asleep in my couch and woke up when it was over. Are you now tellling me I missed the best show evah??

It's up on the torrents in HD

[Sand]

As far as I am concerned this is just a public relations farce. China has the worse record on human rights and having it in China like this and giving all this attention is telling them that it is okay for them to kill and oppress.

[Hurlshort]

As far as I am concerned this is just a public relations farce. China has the worse record on human rights and having it in China like this and giving all this attention is telling them that it is okay for them to kill and oppress.

 

Except China isn't one guy who we can put on trial. China is a country of billions and is made up of 20 something ethnic groups. The olympics aren't just for the government, they are also for the billions of people that live in China. This is something that the entire nation can be proud of.