Regional Geography

China has tightened their security around the Tibetan monestary and the monasteries seem to be emptying out. Monks have been setting themselves on fire in protest against Chinese repression. This is a sign of desperation from the monks.  

(East Asia topic 5)

What I gather from this video is that China sees all political resistance as being specifically aimed at its own demise, but I believe this to be false. Rather, it seems in this sense that the country's judgment has gone blind in a power rage. Never will an entire country agree on everything (or even one thing for that matter). This resistance seems to stem from diversity and the desire to maintain it, and examining historical geography proves diversity to in fact be a desirable trait and major strength. Just as the famous 13-sectioned snake cartoon from the American colonies shows, success lies in diversity. "You can't have cities without farms to feed them." I mention phrases such as this because they show the yin-yang struggle for equality and balance for greater good, which  hopefully China (especially since it is an Oriental concept and symbol) will learn from and apply in its policies towards minority groups within its borders.

China's efforts to control an area that identifies itself as a separate entity from China has been met with some extreme examples of protests. Dozens have monks have committed suicide to protest China's forced control over Tibet. Although this is causing international support from the US and others it seems like China will not change its ways. Another thing to keep in mind is China's position in the UN. As a permanent member of the security council China has the right to veto an UN resolution that could address the issues in Tibet.

I won't spend time writing up a critique of the one child policy, as that's something that requires and essay rather than a scoop article, but what I find interesting here is how the rule is only enforced in urban communities. This is partly due to the fact that intense growth in cities could be dangerous, but also due to the fact that China is such a large country with so many rural regions. In this way full enforcement of the policy is just plain impractical.

This is a big deal for me, as I'm always interesting looking into the far future for humanity as a whole. It's very important that a mistake is not made with the vast agricultural power that lays in the soil of Africa. Experiments with hybrid seeds and new technologies can yield a higher production, but at a cost we are not yet fully aware of. Many years down the line it's unclear as to what the result of this sort of farming will be, and I believe the last thing we want to do is to put all our eggs in one basket with this situation, as it could yield a worst case scenario where most of earth's farmland becomes useless for the purposes of growing due to an unforeseen long-term consequence of artificial seeds and the like. We should pursue technology with all haste and push forward without fear, but we need a reliable backup in case things go wrong.

This article first tells us about the different regions in Africa agriculturally, dealing with famine, economic, and distributive conflicts. It then tells a story about the famine killing 36 million in Chins, and how they would strategically select crops from the West in attempt to produce another "Green Revolution". Experts are saying that Sub-Saharan Africa should follow in their footsteps, but the two nations have many social, economic, and especially agricultural differences.

This write-up says a lot about how nations react to situations such as famine, and the distribution of goods aside that. Different nations have different abilities agriculturally and use these toward their peoples and social crisis's.