31 posts tagged “red china”

Surprisingly, I have never pasted this video on my blog before. About time that was redressed.

   The YouTube comments include one that reads, ‘Balls of steel’.

Not that I have time but when I am tired I seem to add new cars to Autocade, just to feel productive. Unlike Twitter, etc., it is not fleeting, and I feel I’ve contributed to the knowledge base of the internet. Here were a few that were out of the ordinary in the most recent series of updates.

Lotus Élan S2 (M100). 1994–5 (prod. 800). 2-door convertible. F/F, 1588 cm³ (4 cyl. DOHC). Lotus finds a way to use up the remaining Isuzu engines by issuing a limited-edition S2, while under Bugatti ownership. Handling better sorted after criticisms of too-safe original.

Dongfeng Citroën C2 (T21). 2006 to date (prod. unknown). 5-door sedan. F/F, 1360 cm³ (4 cyl. OHC), 1587 cm³ (4 cyl. DOHC). With the Peugeot brand less successful than the Citroën one in Red China, Dongfeng launched a facelifted Peugeot 206 with fairly well integrated Citroënesque front and rear ends. Mechanically identical to the 206 (which is also made in China). Fairly able, competent if a little dull.

Kish Khodro Sinad Veek. 2004 to date (prod. unknown). 5-door MPV. F/F, 1598 cm³ (4 cyl. OHC). Iranian version of Renault Mégane Scénic I, manufactured under licence by Kish Khodro. Different front end.

Pontiac G8. 2008–9 (prod. 30,693 sold to June 2009). 4-door sedan. F/R, 3564 cm³ (V6 DOHC), 5967, 6162 cm³ (V8 OHV). Americanized Holden Commodore (VE) with Pontiac grille. Critically praised by motoring journalists as a value-for-money sports’ sedan but sold very poorly, leading to cancellation after the 2009 model year, along with the Pontiac brand itself. GXP from 2009, with 6·2-litre V8.

BYD showed a new minivan at the Shanghai Auto Show—a total clone of the Toyota Previa. And most recently, it says it will make an SUV with a two-litre (really) engine. Here’s what it looks like in its ad:

   Yeah, I’ve seen this pic in a Porsche ad, too, before someone scanned it and began working on it with Photoshop.
   If Toyota isn’t suing, then Porsche might.

I had been under the impression that Red Chinese automaker BYD was a Toyota licensee, though in Autocade I stopped short of making this assertion since I had no proof of it. I did think it was odd that BYD has Mitsubishi-derived engines. It turns out there is no connection, but when you see things like the below you have to wonder.
   Two years ago, BYD issued this photograph of its upcoming model, the F1. It since renamed the car the F0, because it claimed it didn’t to get into a legal dispute with the Formula 1 people.

   Look familiar? While BYD might not want legal trouble with F1, it doesn’t seem to mind legal trouble with Toyota. Here’s a publicity photograph for the Toyota Aygo:    BYD’s general manager, Xia Zhibing, has been quoted as saying, ‘The BYD F1 is a model developed by ourselves and we hold the intellectual property right for it.’
   I guess there’s no shame at BYD, and that the ideals of truthfulness in Confucianism haven’t made a return to parts of Red China.
   Come on, Mr Xia, the only contribution BYD has made to the 2007 photo is in Adobe Photoshop! If you are going to lie about it, don’t make it so obvious by using someone else’s publicity pic first! At least use CAD to generate something new!
   Or this could be some form of getting war reparations from Japan, but that Toyota hasn’t been informed.
   And this is the company that Warren Buffett has put money in to. Somehow I think that if any BYD cars ever make it to the US as Mr Buffett intends, Toyota’s going slap a big court order on them, and not a single one will make it on to the market.
   If you look at the F3 and F6, BYD’s larger models, the doors look identical to those of the Toyota Corolla E120 and Toyota Camry XV30, but the front- and rear-end styling has been modified to resemble some of Honda’s work. I understand the dimensions are slightly different but that an expert should be able to prove objective similarity in the shapes of the doors—or enough to stop BYDs from going on sale in many markets.
   The F3 hybrid, the world’s first plug-in car, beating Chevrolet with its Volt, might have an innovative powertrain, but what is the likelihood that has come from somewhere else?
   BYD shows how out of touch parts of Red Chinese commerce is with, well, honesty and decency. I’m happy to deal with mainland Chinese firms, but only those that I am connected to by blood or referred to by family—and governments should not be signing things like free-trade agreements with the Politburo in Beijing till some of these intellectual property issues can be sorted out.
   New Zealand, of course, is a trifle too naïve, with its free-trade agreement.

[Cross-posted] This week, for those of you who follow me on Twitter, you will have noticed that I blacked out my avatar in protest of the amendments to the Copyright Act 1994 in New Zealand. The new law—to come in as ss. 92A and 92C—essentially (and I am highlighting only the negative bits here) gives copyright owners the opportunity to make an accusation against a netizen, with the ultimate result being that that person’s internet connection is severed. The opponents to this are touting it as a ‘guilt by association’ principle. The other provision is that anyone who provides internet services becomes an ISP under the law. Even Mr Stephen Fry, the world’s most famous Tweeter, has joined the protest by blacking out his avatar.
   You would think that given my background in fighting piracy I would be all for it. But it is unworkable. I don’t believe in the idea of guilt before innocence. If I find our copyrighted work on a server somewhere, there are already very useful provisions for getting it off, whether one is in the US or in New Zealand. I know, and I have used them, and I get results within a week. The proposed law, as far as I can see it, doesn’t work.
   However, the National Government has no intention of listening to the protest and has indicated, by my reading, that it will allow the new laws to come into effect—even though the EU and the UK have rejected similar laws. The Hon Peter Dunne MP, leader of United Future, is one of the few who have actually said anything against the amendments. (Mr Dunne’s position is protecting authors is OK, but that these go too far.) But the plan for National is to see how it all goes.
   This is a major shortcoming and backs up all my accusations about National lacking a vision. Government, as its all-too-green MPs are going to find out with this law alone, is not a forum for policy experiments. Nor are laws ways to test the waters with the public. When the sections are repealed, as they only must, someone will claim to be a hero or heroine, when the reality is that the party will simply look slow off the mark.
   Juha Saarinen at The Techsploder suggests that the government is not going to listen because:

The reason our politicians won’t listen is because they’re concerned about New Zealand having signed various WIPO treaties and that the country might not get a free trade deal with the US unless the entertainment industry that vigorously lobbies the US Trade Representative gets its way. If that’s the case, then we the voters should be told and not have our sovereignty being sold down the river on the sly like this. Incidentally, my understanding is that the local rights holders people are not in favour of the law, but have to toe the line laid out for them by their overseas masters. Too bad, if that’s true.

   It probably is. What we do have is a government that functions at an operational level, as I have been trying to say for years about the John Key-led bunch.
   I have nothing personal against the Prime Minister, and I will even say he is far more personable in real life than he appears on television—the same can be said of his deputy. However, actions do speak louder.
   Remember when Key, then leading the Opposition, tried to paint himself the local equivalent of a Cool Britannia leader by holding an under-40s’ party in Auckland, inviting trendy types to be seen with him?
   When Labour refused to meet with HH the Dalai Lama during his New Zealand visit, Mr Key decided to stay away, too. Because it was safer, never mind the principles of self-determination.
   When I said it was terrible that the politicians all got a 4 per cent pay rise on the first Monday Key and his MPs took office, nothing was done until President Barack Obama suggested his administration should not get raises. Key didn’t seem to realize it was a good idea till Obama suggested it. A principled stand, or one that looked good that he felt he could pinch? (He said it ‘showed leadership,’ when a two-month delay showed anything but.)
   I’m not sure what Key’s policies really are, even though he is in government, but he looks like a political kleptomaniac to me, ready to get on others’ bandwagons rather than come up with initiatives of his own. I do not mind this too much—but where does he stand?
   Right now the agenda seem to be technocratic: the support of Red China (as I bore witness at the Minister of Ethnic Affairs’ splendid New Year function a few weeks back) and, if Juha is right, support of the United States’ trade policies.
   I have long been pro-American, in terms of the traditional principles of the US, and my family has a long history Stateside, but I will not support any legislation that weakens the freedom of New Zealanders. Such a law would be anathema to Americans, so how would abuse of New Zealand freedoms be appealing to a trade partner? Unless, of course, the government sees New Zealanders’ rights as below that of a foreign country’s—Labour allowed Red Chinese “diplomats” to push our own cops around to bar people they didn’t like, and National, it seems, are quite happy to put New Zealanders second to American trade lobbyists.
   Regardless of who is in the White House, New Zealanders do not enjoy their sovereignty being sold out by their elected officials.
   The American trade lobbies, even in the entertainment industry, should know that copyright law in New Zealand is actually superior already to what they enjoy in the United States, and the mechanisms for pursuing pirates are already workable if they simply had the skills to use them.
   A blanket guilt-before-innocence principle—something that any American would regard as unconstitutional, or perhaps the principles of the Bill of Rights no longer matter to lobbyists these days, when it comes to non-Americans—is not the way forward in this country.
   We had Labour passing ex post facto laws and rules against satire, now we have this. There’s not much difference between the two in their understanding of democratic government.
   But visionless governments cannot see beyond the arguments of their own citizenry. Insistent that pursuing failed technocratic policies is the only way out of a recessionary mess—when sparking innovation and creating jobs are clearly more beneficial—democracy and giving New Zealanders a “fair go” may well take a back seat under Mr Key and his ministers.

I was going throw this into the trash immediately when I got it in the post box lobby. Putting communist flags on an envelope and sending it to an expat Chinese is not a good idea. Then I thought I’d scan it for a laugh.

Some nice family news: my cousin Kevin, the second-youngest of my first cousins in my mega-large family (my father is one of eight), has decided to get baptized, which I think is very positive. I was not too surprised when I got news of this today since we had had a long discussion earlier this year about Christianity.
   It’s not so much whether one supports Christianity or not, it’s more that Kevin has made a decision about his spirituality that he believes will enrich his life.
   I was around Kevin’s age when I made the decision to be baptized. I probably started off stricter than I am now in terms of my beliefs. I still live by the idea that I am against forces that ‘rebel against God’, a commitment I made.
   Our family has had plenty of reasons to put our faith in Jesus Christ: from getting us out of Red China before the peasants revolted on our land, to the recent news that my second cousin Harold survived the NIU shooting.
   As those who watched the video clips of Harold earlier this year know, he puts his survival firmly on his faith in Christ and recently was behind the Bamboo Curtain to spread the Good Word. Being a US citizen, I am sure he was better protected than a local trying to practise Christianity within the occupied part of China.
   Atheists will argue that these are simply events that happen and some luck played a part; they are perfectly free to believe that. I can’t attack them and say that their belief lacks merit. If it works for them and they aren’t harming others by their views, and they aren’t dissing alternative viewpoints, then I can live with that. Personally, I prefer to believe there is some guiding force behind it all, whether it’s the traditional view of God or a more liberal view of co-creation. It would be boring to just have “shit happen” without something grander behind the scenes.
   I can’t fathom not having a spiritual element in my life. I do have a problem with religiosity or those who use the name of any religion to hurt others. It was actually interesting to note that at our reunion, quite a few of us, who went to a church school for the formative years of our lives, are no longer Christians.
   One reason I imagine my fellow classmates turned from Christianity and now consider themselves atheists, or “spiritual” at best (one friend, not a classmate, notes ‘SBNR’—Spiritual But Not Religious) is that religion was promoted too seriously for their liking. I probably had some mild form of ADD as a child (it did not prevent me from coming first in my year each year from 1981 to 1985) coupled with having to deal with English as a second language, so maybe it never seemed to come forth with as great an authority. I had the freedom to search for my own spirituality and included what I knew from Divinity classes at school with traditional Chinese beliefs and what I learned for myself.
   Like Timothy on Vox, I have used the ‘liberal Christian’ term for myself: less Ned Flanders, more someone who has combined elements of different beliefs in line with my personal history but ultimately accepting Jesus Christ as my personal saviour. On my Facebook profile, I list ‘spiritual’ as my belief, principally because my “version” of Christianity jars with some of what is said in the weekly eucharist. While I don’t subscribe to the Da Vinci Code version of events, I do believe the Bible has been modified by people over the centuries, but I do not believe that translation errors and the like weaken its spiritual purpose. I also don’t think God is a guy who talks like Orson Welles and has a beard. Therefore, some Christians might see me as just slightly better than an atheist on some continuum!
   I once attended church weekly and ceased doing so in the 1990s. Part of it was that I came to feel that the energy was not right. My final regular church, which was actually my first church at St Mark’s where I attended school, was fine. But I had attended many over the years to discover the hypocrisy behind some Christians, enough to leave a sour taste in my mouth that they were not willing to live the life they claimed.
   Unlike those schoolmates who turned totally from Christ, I didn’t see any reason to, but I also felt that God could hear me anywhere and it didn’t need to be at a prescribed time at a prescribed place. God didn’t hang up an ‘opening hours’ sign. Religion, in my private definition, implies some level of getting together and supporting an institution, while spirituality is personal. With my evolving view on Christianity it was better to take a personal path to figure out my dharma, and that has been an adventure in itself.
   I prefer to respect that everyone is different and that we all follow different paths.
   Kevin will have his path and I will be interested to see how he follows it. I really admire this personal choice because it’s not a commitment you see every day from someone.
   Kevin: I congratulate you on taking this step and it will be my pleasure to attend your baptism.

Red Chinese authorities are so busy scrambling to provide evidence that He Kexin was the right age for the Olympics that they overlooked to explain two others where there are also discrepancies. In The New York Times:

He was one of three Chinese women gymnasts whose age had been questioned in the lead-up to these Games. Cui [Dalin, the vice minister of the General Administration of Sport of China], however, did not address the reasons for the age discrepancies for the other two gymnasts: Jiang Yuyuan and Yang Yilin. Some national and provincial sports registries also have shown birth dates that would have made them too young to compete here. Yang won bronze in the all-around.

   I didn’t know much about the discrepancies for Jiang and Yang, and we have to ask this question: one administrative error, which the Red Chinese are blaming He Kexin’s 1994 birthdate on some records on, might be possible, but three? What are the odds of this, and what are the odds of two being Olympic medallists?
   Even if we took He’s passport at face value it’s hard to trust anything the Red Chinese authorities and state-controlled media tell us, given all these conflicting statements.

You’ve all heard the controversy over whether Red Chinese gymnast He Kexin is 14 or 16. A hacker has found documents in the Baidu (the Red Chinese search engine) cache that indicate she is 14. Some commenters have attacked the hacker, pointing out some potential errors in the search.
   Meanwhile, it was revealed that last year, the Xinhua news agency—a branch of the Chinese Communist Party—reported that He was 13.
   The Politburo has denied it ever gave the agency her age.
   It has emerged since that the People’s Daily, another arm of the Communist Party, reported in May that He was 14. This has not yet been covered in the western media.
   Will the Politburo dare suggest that that it never gave the newspaper her age either?
   I’m simply using the Red Chinese’s own mouthpieces to raise a question, because all this seems really contradictory: 14 before the controversy, 16 after. What gives?

The 2008 Beijing Olympics are being brought to you by Visa—and the 1·5 million people of Beijing who were illegally forced out of their homes by the Communist Party. Some have been violently evicted at night, when there are no witnesses, by the government.

   And to ensure that Beijing has enough water, a lot has been pumped out of the ground—to the extent that Beijing is literally sinking. Other towns and villages have had their water taken by the state for Beijing’s usage.
   Somehow I think the bad karma will return to bite the Reds.