The Year of Change

Republican Presidential candidate Senator John McCain had pulled off some stunts prior to and during the Republican National Convention that had just concluded last Thurs in St Paul, Minnesota. Since then, the newly revived Republican campaign and dynamics has dominated much of the discussions and commentaries by inquisite media that created the appearance of momentum.

First and foremost, Senator McCain has chosen to dance to the same tune of “CHANGE” that has propelled his Democratic Party opponent Barack Obama, passing the powerful “EXPERIENCE” candidate Hillary Clinton, from near-obscurity to where he is in short 18 months. McCain had obviously recognized and concluded that there is no hope to fight the waves and thirst for change by majority of American people. Instead of fighting it, he figured out correctly that a better strategy is to join and ride the Change message. In the best case, he may steal the message since change is a rather illusive term; in the worst case, he would at least neutralize Obama’s advantage and headstart. Of course, this is easier said than done. Every marketing people know in order to execute such a strategy, one still needs to differentiate McCain’s “Change” message from Obama’s. Further, for quite sometime, McCain’s has had difficulties to separate and distance himself from the Bush administration and at the same time to get material support from the conservative Republic base.

I have to say McCain and his team did manage to come up with a brilliant solution of which the nomination of Sarah Palin (or someone like her) for VP candidate is the lynchpin. First, it further differentiates McCain’s “Change” from Obama’s by doubling down on his “Reform” brand. It allows McCain play up anti-establishment image without naming names and thus dis-associate himself from whoever and whatever voters dislike about current and past Republican politicians including George W. Bush at one fell swoop. Secondly, it shores up, as expected, the support of conservative Republic base including the Evangelical Right. Salin Palin scores very high on several critical issues of concern to those for which McCain has been perceived to be too moderate. The nomination gives those conservatives just enough excuses to vote for the ticket and overlook their objection to McCain. Thirdly, with a white woman candidate on the ticket, it may just give enough excuses to some unconscious racists and feminists to vote for the ticket; few outspoken feminists (or reverse-sexists) already voiced their support without knowing much about Sarah Palin. Fourthly, being from Alaska, a sparsely populated state, her rural small town background could project a connection with many rural areas in the lower 48 states.

But can McCain really be an effective change agent and get the country onto a different and better direction? What change is he talking about? Or is it just a semantic and labeling game? Does he have visions or just dabble around some myopic reform issues with guts driven conviction? Can he persuade sufficient number of people to follow him and to chart and implement the changes needed? Is his character as strong and righteous as he likes us to believe? Or is it more like what Ted Rall wrote in his Feb 2008 CommonDreams.org article that “… McCain knows what he ought to do. He starts to do the right thing. But John McCain is a weak man who puts his career goals first”?

Yes, I do believe McCain is a decent, loyal citizen and credible career politician. With his upbringing and being born to a highly successful and decorated Navy Admirals father and grandfather, Senator McCain does appear to have a much more than average sense of honor and shame (which is good by Eastern philosophy and experience) than many typical politicians. He was ashamed of his signing of the prepared confession by North Vietnam captors after being captured, jailed and severely tortured repeatedly. As a result, he worked hard to redeem himself and demonstrated with his extreme loyalty and patriotism. He is also one of the very few Republican politicians who called for the closing of the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp and did stand up against Bush’s policy on water-boarding and torture of terrorist suspects. He was ashamed of being one of the Keating Five in mid 1980s and has worked hard to redeem himself with campaign finance reform efforts. He was ashamed of abandoning and divorcing of first wife Carol McCain after she was severely disfigured and crippled from an auto accident, as evident from his answer to Pastor Rick Warren’s question “… what would be the greatest moral failure in your life…?” during the interview in August 16^th Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency. Only thing I am wondering is how and if he has been redeeming himself for this sin of his?

But courage and patriotism can only carry you so far and is not enough. It is one thing to be a maverick in congress by disagreeing with your party and pushing alternate legislations. It is quite another to create and lead with visions and to set direction and drive a massive government machinery with stability. At the end of the day, you don’t hear congressmen or executives being called maverick when their policies got implemented and legislations got passed. Has he been over-generously rewarded by the media for his failed attempts? Reform promises in campaign often end up being just promises and pipe dreams. Sarah Palin’s resume is also too short to prove her skills and ability. To be successful, as candidate Obama often reminds us, change needs to come from below, not from above. It has to be a sustaining grass root effort backed and worked by many with a visionary leader. For the answer to the 64 billion dollars question: which vision of change is more real and promising, I would definitely take Obama-Biden’s.

This year’s presidential election dynamics is an intriguing one. With less than 8 weeks to go, this is a dangerous time for Obama-Biden as Obama’s Change message gets diluted and blurred by McCain-Palin’s and the discussions get more and more focused on the character, personality and image. The danger is if the campaign continues to move down the path of contesting for being a more attractive populist, McCain-Palin can indeed pull off a big upset and surprise in November. I don’t know about you, but it is surely scary for me when I saw on TV many voters including the pundits form instant opinion of a candidate like Sarah Palin based on superficial sound bites and images. Am I asking too much of the media and people to learn, think and then make an informed choice?

Talk to you soon!

American Vice Presidents

One of the highlights of the quadrennial Democratic and the Republic National Conventions is the (official) party nomination of the Vice President candidate. After seeing strong evidences for the last eight years that the choice of Vice President (AND President) do matter, it is useful to look at the history of American Vice Presidents and the nominees this time.

The fundamental role and qualifications of the Vice President is intuitively obvious - the first successor of the President in case the President cannot perform his or her duty. Many have noted such a “spare tire” role leaves the Vice President with mostly ceremonial duties and as a result, the impact and qualifications of Vice President candidates in election was often de-emphasized. Of course, it is really up to the president how and what roles and responsibilities would his/her Vice President would have beyond attending funerals and presiding over the Senate and casting the rare tie-breaking vote. The current Vice President Dick Cheney, for example, has enjoyed tremendous influence and power being entrusted by George W. Bush for significant decisions and policy making. One also must not forget that historically, there were 9 Vice Presidents (out of 46) succeeded the Presidency before the term expired due to death and resignation (see e.g., Wikipedia entry on American Vice Presidents). Among the recent ones, Gerald Ford succeeded Richard Nixon in July 1974 when Nixon was forced to resign as a result of Watergate scandal and cover-ups. Lyndon Johnson succeeded John Kennedy when he was assassinated in 1963. Harry Truman succeeded Frank Roosevelt when he died less than 3 months into his un-precedent 4^th term on April 12, 1945.

Truman’s case is in fact most illuminating. Prior to the day Frank Roosevelt passed away, Truman was seldom contacted by Roosevelt and oblivious to major discussions and decisions of President’s office (including the Manhattan Project). Simply put it, he was not in the loop and was totally unprepared as most VPs were. According to the famous story, when offering his consolation to the widowed Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?" Mrs. Roosevelt responded, "Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now."

To his credit, now regarded as one of the great American Presidents by most historians, Harry Truman managed to learn and step up quickly to the job. He ended up making several huge and crucial historical decisions some of which were controversial and not popular during his presidency from 1945 to 1953. They include dropping atomic bombs in Japan twice to force the surrender of Japan and end the WWII, creating the Marshal Plan to help rebuild postwar Europe despite the domestic economic challenges, supporting the creation of UN and establishment of Israel, entering the Korean War under UN’s authorization. The proclamation of the Truman Doctrine in 1947 for containment of communist’s expansion led by Soviet Union set the tone for American’s foreign policy and cold war till late 1980’s and early 1990’s. In retrospect, for most parts these decisions were good ones and have had long lasting positive impacts.

At any rate, majority of Vice Presidents did not get a chance like Harry Truman or Dick Cheney did; they found it to be an extremely boring job indeed. Theodore Roosevelt, another highly regarded American President, was quoted to have said “ I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than Vice-President” when he was serving as Vice President.

Then we got some downright embarrassing ones without making material contributions. Topping the list was Spiro Agnew of Nixon’s vice president since 1969; the only vice president thus far had resigned from the office (in Oct 1973) due to criminal charges (less than a year later Nixon joined him and made the history as the first pair that resigned from the office). Then there was Dan Quayle, the young VP of President George H.W. Bush from 1989-1993. He couldn’t stay out of trouble even when visiting elementary schools. His infamous gaffe of correcting a student’s correct spelling of “potato” into “potatoe” stayed with him forever. Of course, he was already permanently damaged from the televised vice-presidential debate against Democratic candidate Lloyd Bentsen earlier in 1988. In that debate his attempt in comparing himself to John F. Kennedy backfired. That is the memorable moment when Senator Bentsen gave his deadly rebuttal: "Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy"

How Vice President gets selected has changed over time somewhat. According to Mark O. Hatfield’s Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789-1993, initially under the system the framers created, the candidate receiving the most electoral votes would be president. The runner-up would be vice president. This sounded good on paper but it turned out when the two could not work with each other as Jefferson and Burr showed, system was paralyzed. As a result, the 12th Amendment was ratified in 1804 to address the issue and the current system became effective whereby electorate cast separate ballots for president and for vice president and each party would put up a joint president and vice president ticket.

For the subsequent decades, party bosses have considerable sayings about who would be the Vice President nominee until Frank D. Roosevelt, the most popular American President in history, insisted on choosing his own Vice Presidential candidate in 1940. It became the common practices to this date and most of the time Party’s Presidential candidate would announce his/her pick prior to the convention.

There is no exception this year. Barrack Obama announced the veteran Senator Joe Biden as his pick two days before the Democratic Party Convention. Then John McCain shocked the world last Friday by announcing his pick of the current Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin three days before the Republican Party Convention.

While everyone would agree that vice president nominee should be someone who can step up in no time to be the President when needed, it often did not work out that way for political reasons and with calculations to increase the chance to win the election by gathering additional supports from key voter blocks. McCain’s decision can only make sense under those considerations that is ironic for someone who has always wanted to project an image of being above politics and country first. This does offer an indirect indication of the desperation that without someone like Sarah Palin on the ticket with extremely conservative stances, McCain is not likely to get strong support from the traditional Republican Christian Right voter base that would almost guarantee his defeat in Nov.

But what about the risks that the good people and the nation have to carry if McCain-Palin ticket wins? There were some parallels and analogues situations in the past. According to the Republican spin machines, Governor Palin started her major “executive” and “reformer” experience as a school PTA member (a side note; my wife served once as a PTA president of a much bigger school that would qualify her for Presidency then?), council member, and then mayor of Wasilla from 1996-2002, a small town with a population about 7,000. She was elected to the Governor late 2006. In contrast, Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s VP pick, had been the Baltimore County Board Executive for 4 years (1962-1966) and then 2 years (1966-68) as Governor of Maryland prior to his 1968 nomination to VP. Of course, Maryland and Baltimore County are much more populated than Alaska and Wasilla, respectively. Further before Nixon selected Spiro Agnew, they had only met once just like McCain and Palin. Coincidentally, Nixon had also considered George Romney for VP who was competing with Nixon for Republican presidential nomination just like McCain and Mitt Romney, George Romney’s son, were!

Some may consider these bad omens for McCain-Palin. However the only way we can make sure the history does not repeat itself with disastrous outcomes is to go to the poll in Nov and vote for Obama-Biden, don’t you agree? Before I go, here is a funny parody of McCain-Palin on Youtube for your entertainment, passed on to me from my good friend JC. Talk to you soon!

Slippery Slopes of Olympism

2008 quadrennium summer Olympic Games in Beijing has come to an end after 16 days of intensive competition of over 10,000 athletes in 302 events in 28 sports. It is time to reflect upon this arguably biggest and most expensive international event – the total cost of hosting the Beijing Olympics is estimated to be over 40 billion dollars when all public infrastructure investments are included.

First, the top controversies of the 2008 Beijing Games:

In the opening ceremony, three stories topped the news: a)lip sync by the 9-year old girl Lin Miaoke in the stadium of the song “Ode to the Motherland" which was actually performed by the 7-year Yang Peiyi, b)the 29 giant footprints fireworks which was faked with pre-recorded and computer-generated graphics, c)kids representing the 56 ethnic groups carried the national flag turned out to be all Hans, the most dominant group that accounts for over 90% of the Chinese population.

While I appreciate the pursuits of visual perfection in arts, music, filmmaking and marketing, these are poor judgment calls by the world famous Director YiMou Zhang and other decision makers involved. No question that Olympics ceremony performances are indeed entertainment and the shows were spectacular. However the sense of fair play is so important to the games that one must not overdo it. I have to say Director Zhang (or someone above him) got carried away a little too far as he became increasingly obsessed with the visual and cinematographic effects, judging from his recent works. Why can’t we acknowledge and celebrate the imperfections of human and nature? Don’t we all have enough illusions in our overly commercialized lives?

For the games, the most covered and talked-about controversy is the accusation that China’s women gymnastics team has several athletes whose age are under 16, the required minimum age for the competitions by FIG (Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique). While FIG and IOC are investigating the alleged violations, it is interesting to note the emotional aspects and biases of this controversy by some media reports. To begin with, many reports appear to be less interested in the principles and the rationales behind the changes of age requirements over the years (protecting the physical and mental health of youth) than for self-interests. It all started as U.S. team is very competitive but has been slightly edged by the Chinese team when counting medals and recent performances.

For more subjectively judged sports like gymnastics, there is no lack of major controversies in the history of Olympics. The suspicion and flame reached its peak when Nastia Liukin of U.S. lost the gold medal to He Kexin in the Parallel Bar event under FIG’s tie breaking rule while she appeared to make fewer mistakes to the naked and untrained eyes like mine (and NBC’s commentators). The ignorance of the tie-breaking rule has certainly added fuel to the flame as reporters and commentators scrambled to find out how it works and declared it does not make sense without knowing the science of it (while this tiebreaker is not the only choice but it does make sense based on Statistics considerations). At one point, NBC’s anchor Bob Costas was misstating that tiebreaker of Vault was easier to understand when citing the case where that gold medal was won by Leszek Blanik of Poland over France's Thomas Bouhail in a tie. But who cares about what happens with Poland and France?

With so much attention being paid by so many, and thus the media, to the medal counts, the stars, stories, controversies, records, etc, it is worthwhile to take a step back and refresh ourselves the history and the goal and spirit of modern Olympics that was revived by Pierre de Coubertin in 1894. It is stated in the Olympic Charter, the Fundamental Principles of Olympism are:

1. Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.

2. The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.

3. The Olympic Movement is the concerted, organised, universal and permanent action, carried out under the supreme authority of the IOC, of all individuals and entities who are inspired by the values of Olympism. It covers the five continents. It reaches its peak with the bringing together of the world’s athletes at the great sports festival, the Olympic Games. Its symbol is five interlaced rings.

4. The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practicing sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play. The organisation, administration and management of sport must be controlled by independent sports organisations.

5. Any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, gender or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.

6. Belonging to the Olympic Movement requires compliance with the Olympic Charter and recognition by the IOC.

The key idea is thus the promotion of a harmony and peaceful world (between countries) with ethical principles through the joys, solidarity, and friendships developed in free practice of sports and festivals of fair competitions. To realize the Olympic movement, organization and material support is required. There are three key organizations: the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the International Federations and the 205 National Olympic Committees. Thus it is a given that geopolitical boundaries and powers need to be recognized to resolve many of the political issues and challenges; not unlike what some United Nations organizations face.

The next issue is what is a fair play and leveled playing field when different nations have distinct social, political, and economic status and systems? Prior to 1986, professional athletes like NBA players were not allowed to participate. The argument for adopting the change had to do with the dominance of the performance in 70’s and 80’s by communist bloc countries led by Soviet Union where Olympians were trained full time as a career sponsored by governments. What is the difference between sponsorship by corporations vs. by government? Recall that Article 6 of the Olympic charter stipulates that “The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries.” Nevertheless with the success of Olympics, each country is serious about winning as much as they can.

This brings us to the most serious challenge that is financial resource. Let us face it: financial health is a pre-requisite for any movement to be viable and sustaining. IOC now generates over 4 billion dollars of revenue quadrennially. The largest revenue sources, not surprisingly, come from broadcast rights (50%) and sponsorship (40%). For example, NBC paid almost $900 million dollars for the rights of broadcasting the Beijing Olympics in US. It went as far as time-shifting the programs including the opening and closing ceremonies to prime time so that it can maximize its revenue from filling those advertisement slots. Further, you can see clearly logos of many global corporate sponsors from Coca Cola to Nike are everywhere including many athletes’ apparel. No wonder until now, one out of the five rings/continents had yet to host Olympic games and you can guess which one it is.

This development would not surprise anyone as further commercialization and merchandizing seems inevitable when capitalism is increasingly popular and the trend towards to globalization appears to be unstoppable.

Interestingly, in Beijing Olympics you can find may athletes represent countries other than their homeland for a variety of reasons, ranging from business to an opportunity to be in Olympics. Becky Hammon, an excellent American WNBA player who is on Russia’s women basketball team that won the bronze medal and was called a traitor by some although U.S. women basketball team did not select her. Bernard Lagat, a long distance runner on U.S. Team was from Kenya and had sparked a similar controversy in Kenya as Hammon when he had to make a choice. Henry Cejudo, 55 Kg freestyle wrestling gold medallist is a Los Angeles-born son of illegal immigrant parents from Mexico. I certainly hope his mother will not get into trouble with ICE (Immigration and Custom Enforcement) now the spot light is on. On the other hand, Liang Chow, the coach of gold medal gymnasts Shawn Johnson was from China. Same as Lang Ping, head coach of U.S. Women Volleyball team that just won the silver medal. This is not unique to U.S. Many countries including China has employed best Olympics coaches for their teams in various sports. After all, there is no fundamental difference between sports and other business when you consider the talents and monetary issues. How and when should nation’s interests (definition?) come before individual athlete’s in sports?

In all, Beijing Olympics has brought us fabulous entertainment and exciting sporting events with the best of the best; it is entertaining and inspirational. I believe open access, exchanges and communications is always a better policy than isolation and boycotting. We may not be able to solve any social political ills overnight through events like Olympic Games that require delicate balance of sportsmanship, international politics and economics. But Beijing Olympics, like the previous ones, surely has open further the hearts and minds of billions and billions of people throughout the world. That is the invaluable contribution of Olympism!

Talk to you soon!

Summer Olympics and China’s Challenge with Ethnic Minorities

The long awaited Summer 2008 Beijing Olympics is about to begin in 2 days. For quite some time, security concerns have been in many people’s mind. Not dissimilar to some previous Olympics, there have been many attempts and incidents by some to get attention of world media on various political issues of ethnic minorities with Chinese government. The most serious ones thus far have been the violent protests and crackdowns in Tibet’s (aka Tibet Autonomous Region) capital Lhasa back on March 14 and the attack that killed 16 border patrol police officers in Kashgar city of Xinjiang (aka XinJiang Uyghur Autonomous Region) only two days ago on August 4.

Everyone is familiar with the Olympic emblem of 5 rings (in blue, yellow, black, green, red). Designed in 1913, it symbolizes and promotes harmony and healthy competition of people from the world in all 5 inhabited continents. Coincidentally, for the first 16 years of the Republic since the overthrow of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, China’s national flag was a 5 colored stripes one, symbolizing “All Ethnic Groups Under One Union”; the five were: Han 漢 (red), Manchu 滿(yellow), Mongol 蒙(blue), Hui 回(white), and Tibetan 藏(black). Now one hundred years later, how far has it progressed? you may ask.

Today, China’s population is approximately 1.3 billions out of which 1.1 billions (92%) are Han Chinese. There are about 11 millions Manchus, 6 millions Mongols, 9 millions Huis, and 6 millions Tibetans; each represents less than 1% of the total population. Of course, one needs to look a lot deeper into the history, demography, etc. Historically, Han has been the most dominating ethnic group in central China and continues to do so. Manchus, originated and based in northeastern part of the country, at one time overtook the Ming Dynasty (of Han), found the Qing Dynasty and ruled China from 1644 till 1912 despite the fact they were outnumbered by Hans over 300 to 1. Although historians have continued to debate how and why Manchus successfully ruled China for so long, there is no dispute that sinicization or assimilation with Hans did take place during its rule.

500 years earlier before the Manchus’, Genghis Khan led Mongols and found the Mongol Empire that at its peak, stretched between Moscow and South China Sea as the largest contiguous empire in history. Although Genghis Khan himself did not conquer the whole China, his grandson Kublai Khan did and the Yuan Dynasty by Mongols ruled China for almost 100 years from 1271 till 1368. But in this case, assimilation with Hans did not go through its full course then. Outer Mongolia eventually proclaimed independence in 1924 with Soviets’ manipulation and intervention which remained a satellite state of the Soviet Union till 1992 when it became a democratic country known as Mongolia. Although there are about 6 millions of Mongols live in various part of China (that is about twice the number of Mongols in Mongolia), they spread across northern and western regions with a major concentration in Mongol autonomous region (also referred to as Inner Mongolia), accounting for about 17% compared to 79% of Han Chinese there.

Tibetan people, on the other hand, has been roaming on high plateau in the backdrop of Himalayas and observing the Tibetan Buddhism for over 1500 years. As one of the most isolated, mythical, feudal and theocratic entities in the world till 50 years ago, there have been a lot of fascinations and interests by Western world (and Hollywood! see movies like Lost Horizon, 7 Years in Tibet and Kundun) about Tibet. Adding to the “excitement”, since the 1959 exile to India of the current (reincarnated) 14th Dalai Lama who serves as both the civil and religion head, Tibet Government in Exile and many Tibetans have been seeking the independence of Tibet including neighboring areas of Tibet Autonomous Region where there are significant Tibetan populations.

Today, there are almost 3 millions of Tibetans living in Tibet Autonomous Region that account for almost 93% of the population there. Chinese government has been encouraging settlements from other parts of China (primarily by Han people) and maintained a tight control over the region. The power conflict is obvious: nationalistic, single Communist Party controlled China that promotes state atheism against pro-Tibet Independence movement that desires preservation of Tibetan culture, political powers and religious practice. Given the non-violent approach by Dali Lama and teachings of Tibetan Buddhism, the movement has been largely peaceful. It is however not clear how much longer some of the younger generations will remain patient with such an approach as evident from recent violent protests.

Hui, sometimes referred to as Chinese Muslims, are more identified by their common Islamic customs and religion practice than particular physical features. Hui people have diverse origins and long history of migration and integration, starting with Arab and Persian merchants settled in South East China back in 7^th century and later those from central Asia in 13^th century when Mongols ruled the Eurasia. There have been more cooperation than confrontations between Hui and Han people in general.

This brings us to another major Islamic ethnic group – the Uyghurs that are concentrated in Southern XinJiang 新疆 (means “New Territory”). Their Turkic language and Caucasian feature made it un-mistakenly non-Han. To give you some idea about its people and culture, the hit movie The Kite Runner was shot in fact in Kashgar, an oasis city in XinJiang on the ancient Silk Road, due to its resemblance to Kabul and safety concerns of Afghanistan.

Today, XinJiang, or more precisely XinJiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, is the largest administrative area of China that spans about 1/6 of the size of the country. It locates in Western China and enjoys an important strategic position not to mention its rich natural resources including oil reserves. It is south of Russia, north of Tibet Autonomous Region, west of Mongolia, and is bordered to a few central Asia countries including Kazakhstan, Krygyzstan, Tajikistan, Pakistan, and Afghanstan. Of almost 20 millions people, there are about 9 millions (or 45% of the population) Uyghurs. Han Chinese followed right behind (41%) due to aggressive settlement policy by the Communist China government since 1949 (prior to which Uyghur population was over 75% of the whole population). As usual, there is a whole spectrum of lovely Uyghur people. For decades, there have been however some militant and religious extremists who subscribe to Islamic fundamentalist’s cause and seek to create an independent Uyghur nation in XinJiang; thus a preeminent security threat to the Beijing Olympics more so compared to Tibetan. The attack the other day in Kashgar serves as a reminder.

Why should we be surprised by all these? While I do not condone violence, I can imagine the frustration of minority groups or the weak, be it religious, ethnic, racial, economic, or by any other physical or abstract attributes. Sustained frustration can lead to desperation that can lead to violence; the spiral has been repeated daily everywhere in varying degrees and speed throughout the history of mankind. The problems that China has had and is facing with ethnic minorities are fundamentally no different from those with any other nations. Unfortunately there are no known or obvious solutions that would make everyone happy and meet all ideals.

The reality is that the history is being written everyday by everyone although some are arguably more influential than others. Minorities need to move forward aggressively to avoid being isolated and marginalized economically, thus the distinct possibility of ethnocide. It is however the responsibility of the majority in power to provide genuine helps and resources to make sure the minorities prosper and succeed as a member of the family that can only be good for everyone. What is the point of belonging to the same nation when you don’t treat each other like an equal fellow citizen?

Talk to you soon!