Microsoft and linux in China

[phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

> On the government's side, the willingness of government officials to
> be bribed reflects the mirror of that.  In the not-forgotten past,
> they found it a "win-win" situation to have the army drive tanks over
> protestors.  And the legal system has the "convenience" factor that
> they don't bother permitting the accused to mount any meaningful
> defense.
>
> I expect that there will be some significant economic injury as a
> result of the recent poisonous toothpaste problem.  Based on all
> indicators, that injury seems entirely well-deserved.  The thievery
> that is taking place makes them rightly look like thieves.
>
As someone who worked in China for a summer, I have a somewhat more
nuanced view of this. China is an enormous country that is making the
transition from feudalism to a modern society, and the results are not
perfect. The leaders of China are I think constantly aware that the
country could easily collapse into chaos and civil war, and that's the
motivation behind various kinds of repression and attacks on the Falun
Gong, for example. Iraq is an example of what can happen when a centrist
dictatorship is removed without any transition plan in place. (Would
anyone here want America involved in managing the transition of some
country to 'democracy'?)

The grad students I taught understood 'democracy' to be complete freedom
to do anything - they had no concept of the resposibilities of citizens
under a democracy. The library was full of copied IEEE periodicals and the
university mainframe ran a pirated version of AT&T Unix. Some of the
concepts that we take for granted - privacy of the individual, and
intellectual property - simply do not exist in China.

But to demonize the Chinese for these 'failings' really misses the point.
It's unrealistic to expect China to make the transition to a western-style
free enterprise democracy over night.  In many respects the path that
Communist China has chosen is much more hopeful and less repressive than
the path of Communist Russia.

I'm not arguing that we should accept poisoned toothpaste. (Neither are
they, someone was executed over this.) But to have influence in China, we
need to be continue to be engaged in the conversation and then we will
then have the opportunity to influence the direction of Chinese policy.

Back in the 50's, products out of Japan were shoddy and in some cases
dangerous. That completely changed, of course, and the Chinese are as
capable, energetic and thoughtful as anyone else. Things are and will
continue to improve in China.

-- 
Peter Hiscocks
Syscomp Electronic Design Limited, Toronto
http://www.syscompdesign.com
USB Oscilloscope and Waveform Generator
647-839-0325

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