Article

2007-12-03 China-Japan-Koreas

Thousands riot at Chinese military academy

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Posted by lotp 2007-12-03 09:49|| || Front Page|| [6 views ] Top

#1 I think this is just the beginning. China is potentially very unstable and explosive at this time and without careful management, the wheels will come off.

Posted by DarthVader">DarthVader 2007-12-03 11:02|| 2007-12-03 11:02|| Front Page Top

#2 Sounds like corrupt school/govt. admin. taking a lot of students' money and then giving 'em the fuzzy end of the lollypop. Hope they enjoy the festivities...

Posted by PBMcL 2007-12-03 11:23|| 2007-12-03 11:23|| Front Page Top

#3 This has zip, zero to do with surplus males.

It's about a for-profit school deceiving its students as to its accreditation status. The students graduate, get their diplomas, and the diplomas are stamped 'China Military Institute' instead of 'China Military University' or what have you.

A similar incident happened here a while back. It was a beauty college that bribed the government to get permission to accept students, but didn't have authority to issue degrees. Big protests by students and parents, but of course the government would have none of it. Demonstrations do happen in China, usually for very good reasons.

Posted by gromky 2007-12-03 13:17|| 2007-12-03 13:17|| Front Page Top

#4 lotp: This is not where the real problem lies. These are mostly middle class, upper middle class and wealthy kids from urban areas. The real problem is with the endless millions of intensely poor rural peasants, lucky to even have an elementary school education.

They are not going to be pissed off for not getting a good job. They are going to be desperate for not being able to get *any* job.

Already, Beijing is crowded with millions of poor people from rural areas who cannot survive in the hinterland. Who cannot even subsistence farm.

Every year, 150 million or more people travel over a great East-West route as mostly migrant farm workers, with the majority under 25 years old. They travel hoping for work in the more developed East.

It has reached a point that if any major economic catastrophe hits, there could be close to a half-billion people in conditions as bad as during the potato famine in Ireland.

Even if the rest of the world was economically unaffected, it could probably not provide enough aid to fend off mass starvation and terrible chaos.

In its time, Ireland was preserved because the English government had anticipated the crisis many years before, and fearing an invasion of millions of starving Irish into England, made transport of huge numbers of Irish to America easy and cheap.

Had they not done so, the amount of destruction created by that many starving people would have been incredible. Even so, it took Ireland more than a century to recover.

Posted by Anonymoose 2007-12-03 13:31|| 2007-12-03 13:31|| Front Page Top

#5 OK, I'm no China expert. All I have to go on are some conversations I've had with Chinese PhD students studying computer science here. (Well that and my stepfather, who was born & raised in Beijing, but that was long ago.)

The Chinese students, maybe a dozen in all over the last 2 years, universally stated that the only way they saw to be sure of a good career was either a PhD from the US / Europe or getting into a military track. If that's not true it's at least their perception.

Gromky, IIUC the school in this article was in fact accredited for military diplomas. However, it took in more students in the cadet track than were authorized.

The Hefei People's Liberation Army Artillery Academy comprises three types of students: fully registered cadets with military status, fully registered students without military status studying for civil degrees, and self-funding contract students, according to the academy's Web site.

It's the latter group who got in without passing the qualifying exam & who are now told their diplomas are invalid.

Private colleges have boomed in China in the last decade, enrolling those who fall short in highly competitive exams required for admission to prestigiousand far more tightly regulatedstate universities.

One resident surnamed Zhu, who lives near the campus and rents rooms to students of the Academy, told RFA: Students at the Academy told me about the riot. They are worried that they wont be able to get jobs. They are really angry. They went to see the president of the academy, who was beaten by the students quite badly.

The Anhui provincial government authorized the Academy to recruit the so-called contract students outside the college-entrance-exam system to help generate income for the school.

FWIW Wikipedia says Anhui province has lagged markedly behind in economic development compared to neighboring provinces to the east.

Posted by lotp 2007-12-03 14:00|| 2007-12-03 14:00|| Front Page Top

#6 It's the latter group who got in without passing the qualifying exam & who are now told their diplomas are invalid.

Well yeah. They were lied to.

And Anhui is indeed a province of farmers and other rubes. We get them all the time here in Zhejiang. How one province can produce so many ugly young women is beyond me.

Posted by gromky 2007-12-03 15:30|| 2007-12-03 15:30|| Front Page Top

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