Further, I don’t agree with Chinese one child policy for the Han, nor believe that it has done anything positive for development or sustainability. I have however seen the eyes of “hard seat” Han Chinese when they have described their sad plight that will stay with me forever. The sacrifices the Han Chinese feel they are making for the advancement of the minorities that are allowed several children is real. So too the fact that the US/EU is promoting minority unrest & division within China as an anchor against its rise. The US in particular can’t get past the “at your knees or at your throat” thinking of the Chinese that was never a rhetoric borne out by fact.

So exactly where should any revised Chinese borders stand? The masses of collapsed inner and outer so-called “great walls” are the factual historical record showing the folly of past Han attempts to retreat into a core realm. Ultimately these were more deadly to it than the costs of administering and subsidising the poorer outlying regions of an expanded multinational state. Through history it was often raids that forced the Han to trade at unfavourable terms or otherwise be sacked. In times where Han trade was withheld by means of force a desperate poverty befell those ethno regions.

I lived in Hong Kong for 4 years, and was well aware that even my University colleagues resented the notion of democracy, while simultaneously fearing Beijing. There is only one Chinese democracy in history – Taiwan. That little island that Beijing wants to nuke and which we pretend is part of their regime.

I think you have misread my comment when you say: ‘So let’s stop wasting time worrying about their human rights and leave them to rot.� I intended to imply the opposite. My comment is basically in dispraise of JQ’s post, which I take to be arguing that we should all have shut up about Tibet because it will upset Beijing and slow the inevitable transition to democracy. I really hope China do become a liberal democracy. But I am very confident that they will not, just like I am confident that there will never be peace in Israel, ever.

I want us to be more vocal about Tien an Men and Tibet and Taiwan and Darfur and Zimbabwe and Chinese dissidents and Falungong. Like Bob Hawke said, we should stand with the guy in front of the tank. The Chinese students who monstered the Tibetan protesters in Canberra stand with the tank.

The right want us to keep silent so as not to upset trade, and even lefties like JQ (seem to) want us to keep quite because it will interrupt perceived progress. How about we just start calling a spade a spade? Tibet is not China. They are not any more Chinese than I am, regardless of previous periods within the Chinese empire. And they are being screwed. Perhaps the monks were not enlightened rulers but that does not make Beijing right.

Here is a final query that someone might be able to answer. We all call Taiwan by that name because we know it is not part of China. Yet in sporting contests, athletes from Taiwan are called Chinese Taipei. For the Olympics I expect this is a requirement of the license agreement to broadcast. But how do you explain that tennis players from Taiwan who compete in the Australian Open are also mis-named in this bizarre way? The conspiracy to not offend China runs deep.

1. Since Chinese are innately incapable of democracy, the martyrs of Tien An Mien died in vain. But, hey, they were thugs and lunatics like all Chinese so no great loss. Fewer of them for us to worry about in war of extermination that must inevitably come (and preferably sooner than later).

2. Similarly the several million Chinese dissidents currently in prison camps are all deluded fools. So let’s stop wasting time worrying about their human rights and leave them rot.

3. As Chinese, the population of hong Kong is also obviously incapable of democracy. The limited moves in that direction which occurred to date are obviously pointless and futile – what they need is a sensible pragmatic dictator like the sainted Lee Kwan Yu to keep order (at bayonet point if necessary) and protect western investment.

4. The population of Taiwan, also culturally and ethnically Chinese, are also clearly incapable of democracy. The last decade or so is just some bizarre aberration. The newly elected Guomintang government needs to junk such ridiculous notions and return to the fine traditions of their predecessor, Chiang Kai Shek.

Hey just any kleptocratic dictator and they’ll tell you democracy isn’t right for their people.

Here’s another idea, why not ask some Chinese what they think?

It used to be claimed with a straight face that East Asians were innately incapable of democracy (much like it used to be claimed blacks were really only happy as slaves).

This claim was used to justify backing a series of right-wing dictatorships across each Asia of which Lee Kwan Yu’s Singapore is now almost the last example.

Go tell the Taiwanese and South Koreans who were jailed and tortured for demanding democracy that democracy is a “western concept”.

China will becoem a democracy, it’s only a matter of time.

Howe much time, depends in part on how much time the CPC can gain by exploiting China’s nationalism.

Tossing around epithets like “thugs”, “dangerous lunatics”, “glass-jawed bullies” et cetera plays into their hands.

Imagine that in the lead up to 2000, Aboriginal activists organised demonstrations for Aboriginal land rights around the torch relay. It may have happened, for all I know. Would 1000’s of expat Australians carrying flags crashing the aboriginal demonstrations and openly monster them? Would the Australian embassy organise such events?

The Chinese government, and more broadly Chinese people around the world, are dangerous lunatics when it comes to issues of national sovereignty. We are better off facing it now rather than later.

We should not hold off saying what we think because it might stall some imaginary march towards Chinese democracy.

Well I guess if it was only a little over a thousand years ago it’s perfectly reasonable to regard it as an accurate indictator of contemporary Chinese policy.

You know like we link the Punic wars and World War II to provide a single narrative of continuous Italian aggression and like we regard the Highland clearances as an accurate guide to current English attitudes to Scotland.

Can I say your initial inclusion of the mongols on the list of the peace-loving helpless victims of unending Chinese aggression gave me one of my best laughs in ages.