British Expatriate Network

So McCartney won't play in China. Do they care?
And he won't go to the Olympics. Was he planning to?

China certainly has many issues that are abhorrent to the rest of the world, but will boycotting everything Chinese achieve anything? What do we do when we don't like something in our own country? Do we only buy foreign? It's an utterly ridiculous quest, and it won't work, because the Chinese are not the buyers of this fur, so if they are forced to stop, the buyers will simply go elsewhere. And I doubt very much the catskin blankets have a little "made in China" tag on them.

What needs to be done is to track down the buyers, find out exactly who they are and make their trade impossible.

And the child labour thing is a tricky one. If you stop buying Chinese products, what happens to the children and their families when they get no money at all? Of course it is an undesirable situation and we who (believe we) don't have this problem in our countries should be working with China to try and improve their lot. .......Although we might want to think about putting our own house in order first. There are a lot of children who are dirt poor here too, it's just they look better off because they're filmed in a Western setting.

Just a couple of thoughts.....

I tend to agree keith .... lots of folks say plenty and do lnothing about this and other human problems .
I hear a lot lately about why dont the major companies reduce profits so goods can be cheaper but dont offer to take a pay cut themselves .

As you say talk is cheap these aholes at PETA (the ones i saw anyway ) drive around in leather trimed cars and take drugs for sickness that are manufactured by killing animals , as always its a case of do as i say not as i do .

I notice that McCartney released a single in the UK this week.

Cynical, moi?

I have to say that I do think it is ironic that the complaints are about the fact that the cats/dogs are put in boiling water alive - don't we do that to lobsters? And the animals are skinned for their fur - but if you are eating the animal, isn't it more humane to use up the whole animal? the animals being taken around in very small crates - wasn't that one of the complaints with shipping sheep from the UK to the continent? And the way the animals may still be alive while being skinned - erm, wasn't there an issue with this when the supposedly stunning/killing of turkeys and chickens before being drained of blood upside down and plucked etc., wasn't actually happening and that many of the birds were still alive?

I can't help thinking that the reason why there is this outcry is more because of the type of animals this is happening to rather than what is happening because I don't see this any different to what we do to animals also.

If we choose to boycott China because of their cruelty to animals, then we need to do the same to our own countries because we are just as barbaric! We just choose to not do it to cats and dogs.

I say boycott eating chinese dogs. We'll stick to our foie gras, lobsters and veal thank you very much.

I went to Bed Bath & Beyond today, I bought some shoe trees, made in China; a Calphalon Tri-Ply pan, made in China; and some good (600 tpi) sheets, made in the USA of material made in China.

Even the stuff with Japanese names were made in China.

Right,....pot,...meet kettle... :roll:

Actually, when a US company pulls crap like this, I tend to boycott the company. Generally, all Chinese companies tend to merge into one big China Inc. ......