China
We don't seem to have a thread on China.
People in the USA, and the older generation seem pretty scared of China, in my experience. Yet I know people who visit there regularly, or have visited there, or live there, and they've loved it. Is this an East/West thing that is outdated? I have a theory that the more people in high-income countries talk as if they're scared, the more China might want to impose tariffs (for example) on the USA or UK or Australia. Kind of like the fear reaps fear, though there should be no reason for fear. China might be afraid the US is so afraid they will harm them, and vice versa. Can't we all get along? Happy Christmas, BTW. :) |
I'm not aware of anyone in the US that fears China. Perhaps you could elaborate on what you mean.
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Have no issue with China, but if it helps, at least from a NZ point of view, it tends to be the left of politics that a scared and go on about them.
Work with Chinese people. All seem cool. One was a bit defensive when talking their history, but probably my fault for mentioning it. |
I don't like the way they treat cats and dogs.
I don't like their atrocious record on human rights and the way they hand out death sentences and do executions. As a Southeast Asian I sort of understand how so much of the population in these countries are attracted to strongmen and dictators---seems to be just what they're used to. But China's modern development is special. It's a peg short of superpower, and it still behaves like a forgettable third-rate dictatorship in many ways. |
Plenty of countries eat dogs.
Plenty of countries won't eat pigs for some stupid religious reason Personally think you are doing a disservice saying China isn't a superpower. When you have a country like the US owing you 1.17 trillion dollars, you could probably claim to have a bit of clout. Not that the US will probably bother paying it back. |
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Take a short look at Skeptical Community and you'll find a nice pocket of Sinophobes. Quote:
I'm not even going to bother with their record on women's rights, but if you can find a woman in the CCP leadership let me know. Quote:
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China is filled with dirty, nasty commies that secretly control all the (liberal) politicians we don't like. And are the real ones trying to hack American elections and put bounties on the heads of American soldiers, despite what all the treasonous intelligence agencies say. Except when it comes to trade deals, then they're good people.
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There is no special "we don't actually pay these back" stack of bonds and banks don't join in some act of nationalist solidarity and look the other way when a creditor stiffs a bank that happens to be foreign. |
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"♀ Indicates that the individual is female." |
China is a fantastic country, but it is also scary in many ways.
However, let me say that any statement about China shorter than an entire book is bound to be oversimplified. It is a huge and diverse country with several thousand years of history. Hans |
That China is a threat is a major talking point on the right. They do make some points...
China has been busily improving their military capabilities, and seem intent on using those capabilities to expand their influence in the region. They have also been expanding their influence worldwide, especially in “developing” countries in Africa and South America, often spending heavily on infrastructure and such. Of course, the US did exactly the same thing before retreating to insularity.... Their business practices are pretty awful according to US firms that have tried building/marketing there. The standard approach appears to be to demand “sharing” technology, and then blatantly stealing it and not allowing the widgets made in the US factories to be sold in China. The same widgets, copied exactly, are marketed domestically by the Chinese “mirror” factories. And of course ongoing hacking attacks against US technologies... Some see this as a road towards “world domination”... Whatever that might mean, while others simply see China’s efforts as dragging what was a 3rd-world country into the mainstream and achieving prosperity for it’s (very many) citizens. |
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They don't eat many in China - estimated at about one per 100 people per year, compared to one per 250 people per year in the US. It's only popular in a very small region of China. |
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That isn't some magical "gotcha" that was invisible at signing by using disappearing-reappearing ink. That was the deal. They agreed to it. Let's also recall that before Beijing started to assert itself this way with a "what's in it for us?" policy, its not like China was an ideal model of benevolent corporate responsibility. |
China is playing games to collect resources. It is like a smarter version of what Japan was doing up to world war 2. They understand that they don't need to directly control land to control resources. They don't understand that at some point their neighbors are going to be sick of their crap and cut them off as a group. They are exposed to a world wide embargo and their best counter is the economic damage it would do to countries like the US.
That said, Trump's efforts were nothing better than flailing around and making noise. Without help from China's other trade partners there was nothing to gain and a lot to lose. The Democrats being in bed with China is just a manufactured concept needed to vilify them. In the long run the best way to counter China is to undermine their economy by building up other countries that could do low wage manufacturing. This means more business for South and South East Asia along with whatever parts of Africa are stable enough. That has to be done in a way that keeps China out of those places. |
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Hans |
I don't like authoratarian dictatorships, period, and China certainly qualafies there.
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Gee, sounds like what they said about Joe Stalin Just a varaition on the old "But he made the trains runs on time" and I, frankly have no use for these kind of apologists. |
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But the conditions they keep the animals in in those wet markets is appalling. |
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To some degree, I think China should be feared. They're dangerous imperialist nutters. Their recent history suggests at least a huge amount of caution. Why are they hacking and interfering with tertiary institutions across NZ and Australia (and many other countries)? Why are they using their "soft" power by helping "former" members of Chinese intelligence apparatus obtain roles of importance across the world? I'd be prepared to give them a break if they showed signs of change, but I remember Tienanmen Square, along with atrocities back to Mao and it's not letting up in multiple parts of the country. I'm quite happy for them to play soldiers in the SC Sea, but their projection of power into areas they perceive as "not under our control" is disturbing and needs close watching. What they did the other day with the anti-Australian Tweet was appalling and unbelievably hypocritical. They lie, cheat and throw their weight around just like other superpowers do and have. Right now, along with wiping out islam, they're indulging in re-writing history on Genghis Khan. |
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I agree the offending Aussie propaganda thing was a bit OTT, but then so was the US's "China virus" thing. Edit: Should also tack on they are hardly taking over unis |
I live here TA, and no, people are not afraid of China anymore than they are afraid of the nebulous deep state.
Are there people who believe that nonsense, sure. There are people who believe the librul red pinko commie socialists have taken over the government. It's not a general consensus. There was a guy in New Zealand who shot up a couple of mosques because he believed in some threat or another. Would you say New Zealanders are afraid of Muslims? It would be rather stupid for me to say, people in New Zealand seem pretty scared of Muslims, in my experience. I read it in a magazine so I know. :rolleyes: BTW, we met a gent in New Zealand years back who gave us a ride, we were hitch-hiking. He said he reckoned if it weren't for us yanks they'd be speaking Japanese. :) |
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:) |
Not the worst Tori Amos song, to be sure, but far from the best, either.
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https://www.insidehighered.com/news/...om-new-zealand https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/110...ce-in-auckland https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...814_story.html Quote:
I'm a lot more concerned about their attitude to trade: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/18/aust...s-in-2020.html Quote:
[quote=Skeptic Ginger;13337670]Are there people who believe that nonsense, sure. There are people who believe the librul red pinko commie socialists have taken over the government. It's not a general consensus.[/QUOTE Like Cully, you can save the "general consensus" crap for when someone says that. Two strawmen in two consecutive posts from you and Cully there - nice work. I didn't say it was a majority, I just refuted your original point (that you confirm in the first sentence quoted above) which was: "I'm not aware of anyone in the US that fears China." Now you say you are aware of some people that do, so maybe you could decide which you actually believe. |
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Now, it's using education and technology to develop its Belt and Road initiative {Wikipedia} to connect Eurasia and allow easier transport of goods, and less poverty for itself and other countries. |
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But this is hardly a new concept when it comes to countries like ours. The US is the same with its past international smash and grab, same as the UK years ago. How many of our banks and supermarkets (in the supermarket case with their duopoly) are raking in our cash as they are owned by Aussies? At least **** tends to get done rather than farting round. |
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They don't demand that routes they travel on have all protests hidden, either. |
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Where were you thinking of? |
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And you think I'm the one that doesn't get out enough. :rolleyes: |
It wasn't that long ago our current govt were going on about the US having too much control over the GCSB.....
...While in the past running the GCSB |
And now running the GCSB
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When I went to the Dominican Republic years ago, in my early 20s, people told me it was dangerous. It wasn't, they'd had a revolution a full decade earlier. And everyone in Central America supposedly hated Americans. They didn't. People I met who were headed to FL were worried about all the crime. There wasn't any particular crime wave going on. Traveling around Ecuador (JREF Galapagos Islands side trip I took on my own) people said it was dangerous, crime everywhere. There wasn't.
I have run into trouble in more than one country, none of which anyone warned me about. Most of the time people are people everywhere you go. Bottom line though, you never see what a country or its people are like unless you go there. |
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There might be certain timings where you might want to take odd things into consideration depending on country, but usually everything will be fine. |
Political propaganda is not what most people experience in their lives. It's always something they have a nebulous concept of. Trump sycophants might rant and rave about China or librul commies but they are only a small number relative to most people. For example, Trump tried to make everyone believe there were riots all over Seattle. The protests affected a couple square blocks. Only people who spent no time in Seattle believed that crap.
The news media can make something small like that look huge. They make it sound like there are millions who believe the stuff the paper reports about when in reality there might be a couple thousand and more often than not it's a couple hundred. Yes, a lot of people voted for Trump. That's doesn't make the few who make the papers, examples of what all the rest are like. |
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