If he’d meant the government,he’d’ve said “the Chinese government”.  Instead, he whined about debts (surely the fault of the US!) and bad quality control at a privately-owned factory.  Yes, XYZ factory should have better quality control, but it wasn’t a government factory.  By the way, the owner not only apologized, but closed the factory and killed himself to prove the sincerity of his apology.  Will Cafferty do something to prove his sincerity?  Probably not.

Lester Ness
alive in the bitter sea

The anti Chinese crap that has permeated the air since the Tibet incident is amazing and out right racist.  The liberals and right wingers are having a contest as to which can be more anti Chinese. I suspect this campaign is being manipulated by the USA government who wants China as an enemy.

Jack is right on the money just as is Lou Dobbs! I wonder how many of those “protestors” are actually Chinese government agents. All you “liberal” free thinkers ought to go live there if you like regimentation so much.

For goodness’ sake. Cut Cafferty a little slack. He just misspoke.

He meant to say, ‘The US is run by a bunch of goons and thugs’.

In 1421, the eunuch Zheng He set out on a double mission from China.  His first order of business was to return royal visitors to their homes along the coast of the Indian Ocean; his second order of business was to make maps, locate resources, and establish trade connections with nations yet unknown to the Chinese.

The fleet of junks was large and subdivided into groups.  Each junk was massive, boasting multiple, water-tight compartments.  Food was grown onboard, and various, semi-domesticated creatures were used to fish.  The fleet sailed far and wide, mostly following currents and mapping both heaven and earth.

While Zheng He was abroad, lightening stuck the Forbidden City and it burned to the ground.  This was taken as a very bad omen for the Emperor and his expansive ideas...more so for the eunuchs like Zheng He, who had grown so powerful.  China turned inward, and only now - some 600 years later - do we see the Middle Kingdom reaching out again.

When Columbus sailed the ocean blue, he knew that he wasn’t going to sail off the end of the Earth.  He knew, because he had maps to prove it.  His curious find of a three-legged, cast-iron pot in the Caribbean is actually well explained by the information that Zheng He brought back to China.  That information was, however, secreted away and not spoken of...though a statue of the eunuch was erected.

Not many years ago, a collection of Zheng He’s maps went on display.  In Australia, the locals could easily identify landmarks.  There is a very good reason why Cilantro is also called Chinese Parsley, and that South Americans had chickens before Europeans arrived. 

By the luck of ocean currents, the Chinese would not have made landfall in Europe.  If they had, however, the Europeans would have been confronted with a civilization far more powerful and advanced than their own.  Unlike European explorers, however, there is evidence to suggest that the Chinese mission was one of peace.

We can only wonder what today would look like if the lightening had not struck the Forbidden City...if China had developed the world rather than Europe.  Unfortunately, today’s China is not its own culture anymore, but an emulation of Western culture.

This website is interesting (particularly the interactive maps), but the book is much better.  I have not had the opportunity to watch the PBS special.  I linked specifically to the first page of “evidence” There are many more, and they make for interesting reading.

http://www.1421.tv/pages/evidence/content.asp?EvidenceID=9