[Forward and intro courtesy of Bahram Maskanian <ethics_in_action@venusproject.com>
If the major
conscience-less and nation-less corporations are helping the Chinese
government openly and getting paid for screwing over Chinese people, you can be sure that the very same conscience-less and nation-less
corporations are also helping our government pound the nails in our
coffins as well. I have seen a lot of changes over the past thirty (30)
years in America. None of these changes are good and will not promise
well for the future of America. We are rapidly slipping into the abyss
of an - IRON-FIST POLICE-STATE -.]
In 1998, Ethan Gutmann arrived in Beijing in search of the New China.
Formerly the chief correspondent for a television documentary series,
Gutmann rapidly made his way into the expatriate community of American
entrepreneurs. In this well-catered equivalent of a commercial boot
camp, newly arrived recruits were indoctrinated in the creed that
China's growing strength presented untapped opportunities for profit and
expansion. Motorola reps bragged of routinely bribing Chinese officials
for market access; Asia Global Crossing executives burned through
company expense accounts while racking up massive losses for the
corporation; and PR consultants provided svelte Mongolian prostitutes
and five-star hotel suites for delegations from the home office. In this
fast lane, success was measured not only by market share, but also by
the ability to pay off favors by lobbying for China's interests in
Washington.
Writing from the ground zero of his daily experience, Gutmann shows how
massive foreign investment generated prosperity - and also a feverish
new nationalism, which surged into China's universities, the dot.coms,
and the entrepreneurial centers. Beginning with the riots over the 1999
Belgrade embassy bombing, Gutmann witnessed an eruption of
anti-Americanism and a spurning of democracy even as U.S. technology and
communication companies began wholesale transfer of America's most
sophisticated technologies to the Chinese market. With the full
cooperation of companies such as Cisco, Sun Microsystems, and Yahoo!,
Chinese authorities used American technology to monitor, sanitize, and
ultimately isolate the Chinese web, creating the world's greatest Big
Brother Internet.
Losing the New China tells an insider's story of American business in
21st-century Beijing. Filled with character and event, this book is a
fascinating chronicle of the business and personal lives of strangers in
a strange land. Readers will come away from this book understanding how
and why U.S. corporations helped to replace the Goddess of Democracy
that once stood in Tiananmen Square with the Gods of Mammon and Mars
that dominate China today.
For the last several years, Ethan Gutmann worked in Beijing as a Senior
Counselor for a leading public affairs firm in China. He also worked
with Beijing Television as an Executive Producer for a US-Chinese talk
show, while writing for such publications as the Asian Wall Street
Journal, The Weekly Standard, and Investor's Business Daily.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Definition Of Boycott:
Boycott, is an inherent right of the consuming public to come together
in unity abstaining from using, buying, and or dealing with merchants of
greed and perpetrators of destructive environmental, economic and
political practices currently plaguing the humanity.
Boycott, is an instrument of gaining political grounds and objectives.
Boycott, is an expression of non-violent and constructive means of
protest to peacefully correct and replace the destructive environmental,
economic and political practices with wide-range of all encompassing
prospers policies and procedures.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Definition Of Greed:
Greed is an excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one
needs and deserves, especially with respect to material wealth
possessions. Greed grows in the absence of moral and ethical awareness,
moral and ethical aspects and implications of one's conduct, suppressing
the urge in one to prefer doing right, over wrong. Many believe and
attach to competition the stigma of selfish greed. Greed is extremely
short sighted, to the point of blindness. Greed is criminal, unethical
and highly destructive. Greed knows no limit whatsoever. Greed's endless
selfishness has brought humankind to the brink of self-annihilation.
Cooperation for survival instead of competition will stop greed in its
tracks and bring humanity closer together out of the danger zone of
self-annihilation.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Interview with Author Ethan Gutmann
Author of Losing the New China: A Story of American Commerce, Desire and
Betrayal
- Speaks candidly
- By Jose Rivera - Epoch Times Chicago Staff - August 21, 2005
Ethan Gutmann was a featured speaker at the Mid-West U.S. Economic forum
sponsored by The Epoch Times in Chicago on June 25th. His recent ook
Losing the New China: a Story of American Commerce, Desire and Betrayal
is Gutmann's personal odyssey--a story of idealism, temptation, possible
corruption, and redemption. He reports from the front lines about the
dangerous turns taking place in the U.S. relations with China.
At the forum, Mr. Gutmann commented on the recent trend of U.S.
technology companies altering its products and/or services to support
the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) goal of controlling what information
flows into and out of China, as a means of market growth. The results
are limited access of information for Chinese citizens that we in the
U.S. take for granted.
The following is an interview conducted just after the forum.
JR: Ethan, if U.S. companies are colluding with China, and profiting
from violation of their basic human rights, what information do you have
on the open source movement, and the hacker community inside China?
EG: I don't have a lot of information on that, and that is something I
am actually interested in exploring in a future article. But let me be
really honest, I am not sure I can get back into China to do it. And one
of the problems for me in writing this book was the knowledge that to be
truly honest, I may never get to go back home.
As for hackers in China, they have been bought off to a large degree.
They are being used by the military, they have set up a special military
division, that is basically going to be comprised of hackers, that are
supposed to assault Taiwan, or us [the U.S.] should we get in the way,
with a series of viruses that will be rolled out over time and cause
economic havoc.
JR: Based on comments you made earlier about U.S. companies tailoring
its products and services to the CCP, have you seen or gathered any
evidence that the technology you mention is being brought back and used
here in the U.S.?
EG: That is a question I used to discount as just a simple "How does
this relate to the Patriot Act?" But the fact is, there is some
information I have received that Cisco Inc. is using some form of
PoliceNet (an integrated records management database for private
information, from drivers license, to medical, to employment
information, all linked and cross referenced to increase the governments
ability to monitor its citizens.) in this country, although, clearly it
is not the same PoliceNet that they are trying to sell in China. So we
are not in the same situation here, but if the only way you can get
interested in China or care about what is going on in China is the
atrocity of American companies selling this kind of equipment to the
Chinese Secret Police or imagining that it is a testing ground for
something that is going to take place here, ok believe it-- whatever it
takes to get interested in this question. I don't think that it is very
likely I think it is a way out scenario, but in today's world with
terrorist attacks anything's possible.
JR: For those companies that we can identify, that do business with the
Chinese Communist Party, and support the CCP's agenda's and philosophies
in deceiving the people of China by separating them, and or segregating
them from the larger world community by use of internet filters, and
other electronic, or physical barriers to uncensored information getting
into or out of China, what kind of resources do we [concerned citizens
of any other country] have that we can use to discourage or dissuade
these companies from continuing these practices?
EG: It's right there in front of us, we have seen the same thing with
divestment in South Africa. It was extremely successful that a very
small group of concerned citizens can make a massive difference very
quickly. Divestment from colleges is another one, Boston Common Assets
Management Agency a socially responsible management agency just launched
a shareholder proposal against Cisco Inc. and that's a major development
and very important as they can manage a lot of Cisco stock and it sets a
very interesting precedent, because it is not an individual shareholder
this is a real action.
And if politicians are feeling some heat, even the smallest amount of
input makes a tremendous amount of output in this area as well. So, I do
believe it is possible to make a difference.
The second thing is that people should be pushing for a positive result
too. There is a Global Internet Freedom Act out there lost in committee.
It was supposed to give 100 million toward reducing Internet censorship
among those countries who make it a practice to do so. This came out of
concerned people like me, and hackers and all sorts of people who are
concerned about the situation with "Big Brother" Internet in China. 100
million is not chump change, it can do a lot to defeat Cisco firewalls
[in China] and people should be pushing for that. Right now it's an
obscure issue, and America is obsessed with terrorism, but hopefully the
issue wheel is turning back and we are beginning to see China again.
JR: You mentioned earlier about the next "Tiananmen Square" and how
during the original the Chinese Communist Party was to blame. With all
the support that U.S. technology companies have been giving the CCP and
its Secret Police to not only encourage, but support the "Big Brother"
government that oversees everything the Chinese people do, what kind of
technology do you think would offer the cutting edge against the CCP if
the battlefield was the internet?
EG: The edge to this battle is not technology actually; it has a lot
more to do with things like heart. The reason I believe the Nine
Commentaries on the CCP has had such a reaction in China is because of
Chapter six, [On How the Chinese Communist Party Destroyed Traditional
Culture] where it talks about Chinese traditional values, because that
is creating a structure for a post-Chinese communist party. It is one of
the first things in a while to do that. Even the Tiananmen Square
incident didn't do that as much, and as much as you have to respect
everyone who sacrificed in Tiananmen Square, they didn't have that.
This is beginning to form the idea of some values that people can
coalesce around and that is extremely important, and that combined with
democracy is a successful blueprint. In conclusion, I think more than
any of this technology fight, yes it's interesting, it's tactics, it's
battle, it's worth doing, but the people who are writing Chapter six,
the future is in their hands.
More on Ethan Gutmann
ET Book Review - Losing the New China
'Say No to Communism' Rally Speech
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