The Dragon Still has Teeth

In the movie we watched last week in class, I do not believe that leaders can halt or reverse what they have started to reform. Once reform in an area is started, there are other uncontrollable factors leading to its continuance. Some of those factors can be from the government, but if the people accept the reform and it's ideas, it'd be too difficult to stop such reform. China does not simply rule through the communist ideology these days, as some of the actions taken by the Chinese government are not part of the communist ideology. During the Tienanman movement, the government allowed the students to protest in the beginning. They eventually stopped the protest after they thought it was getting out of control, but not as soon as the uprising started. Which seems contradictory in a communist state.

Beijing's two-pronged strategy is " a softer line toward docile civil society organizations and a harder line toward those who challenge the state." In the article, it became obvious of this. For example, the Chinese government allowed Muslims to practice their religion in a certain part of China, if they attended government-led Muslim activities. As these people practiced their religion and were not harmful to the existence to the state, the government simply regulated it and let it occur. Though in the article, it states that the government "smashes" and religious group it does not control. As an example for those who "challenge the state" the Chinese media is one of the largest groups. Though it is not necessarily the media, but the access to information. The government does not want the Chinese people to be able to access all the information they would like, so it is censored. This practice has become increasingly strict, as they have even begun to monitor the sites citizens visit. If a citizen repeatedly tries to access a blocked site, they could be arrested. If the Chinese government allowed the citizens to access the information available on the internet, I think there would be more of a push towards democratization. Though the Chinese people only have rumor and the insignificant amount of information provided to them by the government. Though because the government is becoming more lenient, I think that it is leaning towards democracy, even slightly as it is.

Multinational corporations should be held responsible in ensuring that they are not violating human rights, but because for the most part the regulation is so out of date, or non existent, a corporation can not be expected to do so without such regulation. Though, morally it is wrong, if the company is not regulated by the government to do so, they can not be expected to. Those corporations should be expected to follow the local laws, however since for the most part the local governments do not inforce such laws, the corporations do not follow them.