tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15636692.post113605891843039822..comments2024-03-10T15:13:47.148-07:00Comments on Research-China.Org: "I Have No Money"Research-China.Orghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09137919637778021754noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15636692.post-1137446311764353092006-01-16T13:18:00.000-08:002006-01-16T13:18:00.000-08:00Brian, I apologize if this is a no-no. I have read...Brian, I apologize if this is a no-no. <BR/><BR/>I have read your blog from time to time and have enjoyed your posts. <BR/><BR/>When I looked at the reply from Mike O'neill, I thought,<BR/>"how sad he uses this place to promote his agenda."<BR/><BR/>He said in part:<BR/><BR/>"A few short years later, another President running a campaign for re-election said, "Look to your own wallet. Are you better off now than you were four years ago." Translation...Ignore the woman outside the KFC if your belly is full."<BR/><BR/>I applaud JFK's response, but take issue that Reagans was as he put it"ignore the women outside the KFC....<BR/><BR/>It is our responsibility to give and share, how can we do it if we do not have it to give?? <BR/><BR/>I am not rich, I have been a liberal and a conservative politically, right now I guess I am a moderate and float back and forth.<BR/><BR/>Let Brian use his blog to enlighten and leave the political junk out.<BR/><BR/>adpotive mom from ChinaAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15636692.post-1136299555344466932006-01-03T06:45:00.000-08:002006-01-03T06:45:00.000-08:00Brian:Here is an excellent summary (by two economi...Brian:<BR/><BR/>Here is an excellent summary (by two economists in India) of the recent UNDP report on China's rich-poor gap, a report which was produced and written by Chinese economists.<BR/><BR/>http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2006/01/03/stories/2006010300981100.htm<BR/><BR/>Cheers! FrankAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13441809988487585009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15636692.post-1136256976651164472006-01-02T18:56:00.000-08:002006-01-02T18:56:00.000-08:00Dear Brian:Thank you again for a wonderful message...Dear Brian:<BR/><BR/>Thank you again for a wonderful message. Everything you describe is true, both within China and vis-a-vis the wider world of affluence. <BR/><BR/>Indeed, the rich-poor gap inside China is exceedingly wide, with billionaires at one end of the scale and rural folks barely existing on 50 cents a day.<BR/><BR/>I'll go further: the beggars you saw on the streets of Yunnan's cities and towns are rich compared with their rural counterparts.<BR/><BR/>Yunnan is one of the poorest provinces and it is one where human trafficking (women and children) is fairly rampant, as is the smuggling of drugs from neighboring Vietnam and the resultant spread of HIV/AIDS in that province. Most of the trafficking in babies and young children within China originates in Yunnan.<BR/><BR/>The Chinese government has just announced a major push to try to drive better economic growth in the countryside, abolishing farm taxes and budgeting for free education and better healthcare, for example. But it will take much more than this to close the rich-poor gap in China.<BR/><BR/>Deng Xiaoping once said, in trying to push through his reforms against strong Marxist opposition, that "Socialism is not poverty" and hence some people and places should be allowed to "get rich before others" in order for China to break out of its past and into a different future.<BR/><BR/>But I cannot imagine that he ever imagined that the rich-poor gap would get so wide. It will take at least a decade to make even a small dent in the problem. And so there will still be many years of begging and child abandonment in rural China.<BR/><BR/>Regards, Frank Feather, <BR/>China Adoptive-Parent News group, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/China_AP_News/Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13441809988487585009noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15636692.post-1136129882587181212006-01-01T07:38:00.000-08:002006-01-01T07:38:00.000-08:00Brian:Everytime I am in China I face some of the s...Brian:<BR/><BR/>Everytime I am in China I face some of the same interior conflict that you described. I find I am in agreement with much of your thinking on the question of the inequities between our two countries.<BR/><BR/>I am reminded of a speech John Kennedy gave at the University of Michigan in 1960 in the last three weeks of his presidential campaign. It was then that he asked the students of U of M to recognize that the school did not exist just to make their lives more prosperous. He went on to ask them to commit two years to service to the globe in what would become the Peace Corps.<BR/><BR/>Later, on a somewhat more limited note, he said, "Ask not what your country can do for you...."<BR/><BR/>In both speeches he reflected the gospel message, and the message of evey other great theological construct...we're in this together.<BR/><BR/>A few short years later, another President running a campaign for re-election said, "Look to your own wallet. Are you better off now than you were four years ago." Translation...Ignore the woman outside the KFC if your belly is full.<BR/><BR/>We've come a long way and not for the better. A variety of researchers and commentators have suggested that the next world war will not be between nations or ideologies, but between the "Haves" and the "Have-Nots." <BR/><BR/>In the US Space Command’s Vision 2020 the point was made that it is part of the mission "to guard against 'the widening between haves and<BR/>have-nots' and to 'dominate and control' the earth in order 'to protect US interests and investments' and this has<BR/>been reaffirmed by the Rumsfeld Commission’s Report to Assess US National Security Space Management and<BR/>Organization in January of 2001.<BR/><BR/>In the late summer of 2006, we will go back to China to complete our fifth adoption. I'll still take my walks in the neighborhoods. I'll still sit in the parks and visit with local inhabitants. I'll still give what I can to the poor and to the manipulators because it is not my role to distinguish between the two. I'll still know that as "middle-class" or lower as we are by our standards, I return home to a lifestyle to a great degree unimaginable in most of China. And I suspect that not long after I'm home with Zi Hui my wife will start thinking about applying for an exemption from the Chinese limit of 5 children under 18 in a household so that we can begin work on the next adoption. There truly is always room in the heart and resources for one more.<BR/><BR/>Keep up the good work.<BR/><BR/>Mike O'NeillAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com