Romany and Richard
Naïve or just regurgitating what you are being fed or dream up? You look. You read, but fail or refuse to comprehend what you are reading. Whether it is your job, intentional or unintentional, you obviously do not apply discipline to your research. Get beyond Xinhua, China.org, China-on-line and China's other state media.

If you are familiar with the Chinese countryside as you claim, then you must be wandering around a very different China than the rest of us work in and know. Have you tried using the www in China to connect to foreign sites? How about the Olympics? How about arable land loss? Three Gorges Dam problems? Ever wondered why you get so many error messages? You cannot be that ignorant of the many reliable and reputable links continually monitoring China's web operations.

Expats from many countries consult and work in the field throughout China on projects ranging from World Bank, foreign aid, agriculture, communications, energy, environment, pollution control, regeneration, sewage, water, to name just a few. There are also many reputable foreign journalists. Spoken to any of them?

Working in countries like China, multi disciplined expat professionals actively network, but not on the web, sharing on ground information and comment to compare with official data and media and to develop a better understanding of their working and political environment. From his articles and style, I can only assume that Arthur is also in this category but doubt if he is fully retired.

AgScientist

Continuing
As for statistics and quotes? China unloads at every opportunity at State and Provincial levels. Officials readily jump into print in state media on grand projects to show their support for the party. Your inference to a spy network exposes your purpose or the limit of your intelligence. Sharing information, networked database development and satellite imagery is not the sole and exclusive domain of military intelligence. Like me, many thousands use imagery in our daily work. Not found in Google Earth are dedicated purpose and high definition imagery widely used in agriculture, archaeology, aquaculture, cartography, demographics, economics, environment, global warming, hydrology, meteorology, oceanography, pollution forecasting, urban planning, vulcanology to name a few. Japan, South Korea and the US constantly monitor China's degrading farmlands and expanding desserts to plot the formation and paths of China's annual polluting sandstorms that shut down cities in Japan and Korea and ride the Pacific Conveyor to contribute to America's west coast air pollution. Likewise, China monitors the rest of the world for both military and civilian purposes. That's life.

To find credibility I suggest that you stop reading Ian Fleming, Dan Brown and Tom Clancy and playing with the spooks and fairies at the bottom of the garden. Grow up, do your own honest disciplined research, and become part of the real world. I am fluent in Mandarin and like many of my associates, learn much more by listening and speak Mandarin only when strictly necessary while in China.

AgScientist

I know nothing much about China. But that is not necessary to express an opinion on this topic. I think the author is saying that the Chinese Government is window dressing without much regard for the wellbeing of the people,and therefore should not have been given the Games by the IOC. China probably does have huge problems with respect to freedom, environment, and equality but why should these things disbar them from staging the Games. For one thing, the contrast between the cleaner air of the games period and the regular atmospheric pollution will, I imagine, provide a strong spur to their environmental efforts. I can imagine benefits too for other areas of Chinese life. Let's encourage the success of the Chinese Games and be encouraging rather than negative. It is possible to be firmly supportive without being nasty.

robbieju -

hey, I could have done without all the slagging off - but thanks for your post. Yours is exactly the kind of thing that's needed. Despite being accused of being partisan to China, all I continually go on about is unreliable sources - on either side of ANY question - providing unverified information that is unquestionably taken up as truth with no questioning from the gullible. Well, exactly what you accused me of, I guess.

Your post supplies the information that a) you speak the language, b) you are on the spot c) you are in contact with others in the same position and d)you are au fait with the constantly shifting tides of public opinion, government edicts, and source material in the field.

This article, the second by this author, provides no reason for credibility whatsoever.

There are no fairies, leprechauns, tongoloks, or any species of imaginary creature at the bottom of my garden. That is actually my point: the tendency to believe any old bovine excreta that falls into one's own way of thinking: I simply believe it behoves all of us to research facts before forming immovable opinions and then acting on them. I dunno, maybe you have never read any of my posts before? If you want to wade into me again take a deep breath, go read a couple and perhaps that will be more convincing.

I teach journalism and I assure you I give exactly the same opinions here to my students; constantly challenging them to find the truth about propaganda that emanates from this side as well. I take as much issue with a student telling me, for example, that there are no drugs in China as I do with an OLO poster disseminating the belief that tourists are inescapably bound to Cold War personal 'minders' dogging their footsteps.

Romany, perhaps you should also read the following before you get too starry eyed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/oct/31/china.pollution

All is apparently not all doom and gloom as is illustrated in
http://knowledge.allianz.com/en/globalissues/climate_profiles/climate_china/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=air%20pollution%20china&utm_campaign=Allianz%20Knowledge%20-%20Country%20Profiles

So I expect things to get a lot worse before any improvement is made.

David

VK3AUU,

Ah c'mon now. What have I ever posted that would reveal me as potentially "starry eyed"?

I have continually repeated - in issues from feminism to the convoluted one of China, that I take no sides. I am not taking, nor have I ever taken, sides in this dispute. I do, however, continually post about misinformation and bias.

A previous poster wondered about the level of my intelligence? It is such that I take every piece of information which comes my way with an initial grain of salt. I do not align myself with any stance which does not have verifiable facts behind it. I do not find partisanship, ignorance, Wikipedia, romanticizing, or the premise that if you repeat something often enough it becomes the truth, to be valid forums upon which to base an informed opinion.

I have had plenty of life experience in the world's trouble spots or areas of contention which has shown me, however, that the groundswell of public opinion based solely on the foregoing criteria can lead us into actions which are ill advised.

A previous poster ironically and gratuitously advised me to reform my research methods. Rigorous and far-ranging research is indeed what I am constantly advocating facrissake. My objections to articles such as this are not based upon the premises they support. They are based upon the fact that the premise bears absolutely no indication for anyone adopting it as to why it was formed.

Do I make myself clear now?