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On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too).
And this is precisely why a multi-polar world is needed. The world needs someone willing (and strong enough) to step up and organize the smaller nations to put pressure on those who do not play by the rules. There must be alternatives to 'play by America's rules or get fucked.' The world also needs someone willing (and strong enough) to be an independent and impartial judge of whether shenanigans are afoot, such as with the Uighurs or the Iraq WMDs or what have you.
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On September 21 2021 15:39 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 15:01 Vivax wrote:
I‘ve always regarded China as more isolationist in nature. They don‘t like that Taiwan competes with them and probably has strategic uses against them. Tibet was an exception to the rule. It‘s laughable to claim that they want all of Asia. More likely that they pursue something akin to the Monroe doctrine.
I‘d also prefer a multipolar world. Uncontested power is always abused and opposition requires compromises, or military threats depending on what your biggest strength is. War between superpowers is always going to be MAD, so if anything it‘d end up being a covert war through other means. What happened in Tibet was never an exception to the rule. Right now they are embroiled in a little war with India over control of Ladakh, which is one of the 5 fingers of Tibet according to Mao. So that's Tibet and one finger. Just Nepal, Bhutan and another few bites of India to go. Regarding Taiwan, China pursues publicly and openly their One China policy, and they aren't going to back down until Taiwan is subjugated. Then there's the whole South China Sea deal, where China claims pretty much all of it, including a lot Vietnam and the Philippines islands and coastal waters, but stretching all the way to Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. The East China Sea has a bunch of disputes with Korea and Japan. And I'm pretty sure China claims all of Mongolia is a province of theirs too, but these are kinda on the back burner in comparison to the Himalayas and Taiwan for now. So leave China to do their thing freely and there will absolutely be a big war in East Asia, because India isn't going to take all that shit lying down quietly. Now whether or not the EU should care about any of that when considering whether China or the US is a better ally is another story entirely. Pretty sure we're just hoping we can thread the needle and exert enough soft power over China to stop them from *actually* going to war. And I agree that the US's imperialism is hardly any better. Sure they don't want to annex Canada or Mexico, but they have installed enough puppets over the last 70 years that the US is more like an empire than a country. Historically and culturally the EU is obviously closer to the US than China, but how much does that matter?
A brief look into history reveals that Taiwan is traditionally more Chinese than the current mainland China is. It's like Catalunia having a communist insurrection, win a civil war and Spain getting forced to just hold say Almeria and Gibraltar. Spain gets international support and Catalunia doesn't have access to the Atlantic or whatever else.
Now you are a communist country confined to the mediterranean and you get constantly spied on by proxy from your neighbour or your trade disrupted or threatened. Of course anyone supporting Spain would regard you as a threat, but it goes both ways.
Granted, Catalunia is a bad example cause many don't regard themselves as Spanish, so they wouldn't really hold a claim to the rest of Spain. But I hope you get the analogy.
It's doubtful that the conflict with India will erupt, at most it'll be a few skirmishes or border incidents. China has nothing to gain through military means, especially against someone with nukes. What they did was compete in trade and yes, copy proprietary technology sent to them so they could assemble it cheaply. Because not doing it would be stupid. Someone just handed them their golden goose on a silver platter to save on production, thinking they wouldn't figure it out.
I don't think that US/China military actions can be compared as is either when adressing the gravity. Both had very different roles post-WW2.
China was more self-centered and definitely not an angel when it comes to fortifying communism in their country with many casualties, while the US had the role of defining a new framework for global workings, while Russia was left behind with practically nothing cause they had no leverage left even though they were probably a bigger contributor to the defeat of the nazis (just compare the casualties).
Being communist however, none of the western powers were eager to lend a hand there and offer a role equivalent to Americas to redefine the rules.
I think the US' shortcomings are that they thought they'd get through with their goals of imposing their rules on a global scale in time. We've probably reached the limits of sustainability already and the greater threat is an economic one. The biggest challenge is to keep the standard of living we're used to the in the west while preventing that demand from rising, not to mention that our monetary system has an expiration date thanks to compounding interest.
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On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too).
Interesting question.
Maybe if there's a guy beating up an old lady, then yeah. What about a guy with a gun robbing a bank? You gonna run up to him and stop him?
The US and China have so much more power than your average country that even saying you are opposed to their actions is an extremely dangerous course of action, let alone attempting to sanction them.
Its not a guy beating someone up, its 10 guys with guns beating someone up.
Then there's more specific questions, like what is the line at which you decide that sanctions are inappropriate? Do we sanction a country for selling weapons to a country that is waging an unjust war? Should the UK be sanctioned for selling weapons to the Saudis for their unjust war?
What if the government is doing as its people demanded? Are you going to punish a country for honouring democracy?
At what point does the international community demanding specific actions from countries become anti-democratic?
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On September 21 2021 23:15 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 23:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too). Interesting question. Maybe if there's a guy beating up an old lady, then yeah. What about a guy with a gun robbing a bank? You gonna run up to him and stop him? The US and China have so much more power than your average country that even saying you are opposed to their actions is an extremely dangerous course of action, let alone attempting to sanction them. Its not a guy beating someone up, its 10 guys with guns beating someone up. Is your point that if the EU sanctions the US or China they are going to invade them?
No.
My point is that they have the economic power to be able to ignore those sanctions. If they decided to retaliate against smaller countries though, they could absolutely ruin them in a day.
You can't just pretend the power imbalance doesn't exist.
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On September 21 2021 23:13 Jockmcplop wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too). Interesting question. Maybe if there's a guy beating up an old lady, then yeah. What about a guy with a gun robbing a bank? You gonna run up to him and stop him? The US and China have so much more power than your average country that even saying you are opposed to their actions is an extremely dangerous course of action, let alone attempting to sanction them. Its not a guy beating someone up, its 10 guys with guns beating someone up. Then there's more specific questions, like what is the line at which you decide that sanctions are inappropriate? Do we sanction a country for selling weapons to a country that is waging an unjust war? Should the UK be sanctioned for selling weapons to the Saudis for their unjust war? What if the government is doing as its people demanded? Are you going to punish a country for honouring democracy?
At what point does the international community demanding specific actions from countries become anti-democratic?
This is an incredibly weird take. Why wouldn't you punish a country for 'honoring democracy', if the demands of the country's people are shitty and illegal under international law? Like, I hate to go there, but Hitler had very high approval ratings -- does that mean we should have let him keep doing his thing, because you know, he was just honoring democracy and following the will of the people? Or for a Hitler-less example, if a crowd decides they want to lynch someone, whatever their reasons may be, does that make a police intervention 'undemocratic'? Clearly not.
Democracy isn't some sort of a sacred and untouchable thing, especially considering how easy it can be to sway and manipulate public opinions. If people of your state are voting for all the wrong things, it doesn't somehow excuse whatever evil acts you undertake simply because that's 'democratic.'
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On September 21 2021 23:24 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 23:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too). Interesting question. Maybe if there's a guy beating up an old lady, then yeah. What about a guy with a gun robbing a bank? You gonna run up to him and stop him? The US and China have so much more power than your average country that even saying you are opposed to their actions is an extremely dangerous course of action, let alone attempting to sanction them. Its not a guy beating someone up, its 10 guys with guns beating someone up. Then there's more specific questions, like what is the line at which you decide that sanctions are inappropriate? Do we sanction a country for selling weapons to a country that is waging an unjust war? Should the UK be sanctioned for selling weapons to the Saudis for their unjust war? What if the government is doing as its people demanded? Are you going to punish a country for honouring democracy?
At what point does the international community demanding specific actions from countries become anti-democratic? This is an incredibly weird take. Why wouldn't you punish a country for 'honoring democracy', if the demands of the country's people are shitty and illegal under international law? Like, I hate to go there, but Hitler had very high approval ratings -- does that mean we should have let him keep doing this thing, because you know, he was just honoring democracy and following the will of the people? Democracy isn't some sort of a sacred and untouchable thing, especially considering how easy it can be to sway and manipulate public opinions. If people of your state are voting for all the wrong things, it doesn't somehow excuse whatever evil acts you undertake simply because that's 'democratic.'
If a country is definitely, provably doing something that's against international law, then yeah.
However, this is normally quite difficult to prove, especially with stuff that's going on domestically. So you rely on perception and opinion.
And I hate to say this, but if Hitler hadn't tried to invade everyone, his treatment of Jews in Germany would have 100% gone unpunished.
Generally, no-one throws around sanctions at nations more powerful than themselves, but especially for domestic stuff.
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On September 21 2021 23:25 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 23:18 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 23:15 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 23:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too). Interesting question. Maybe if there's a guy beating up an old lady, then yeah. What about a guy with a gun robbing a bank? You gonna run up to him and stop him? The US and China have so much more power than your average country that even saying you are opposed to their actions is an extremely dangerous course of action, let alone attempting to sanction them. Its not a guy beating someone up, its 10 guys with guns beating someone up. Is your point that if the EU sanctions the US or China they are going to invade them? No. My point is that they have the economic power to be able to ignore those sanctions. If they decided to retaliate against smaller countries though, they could absolutely ruin them in a day. You can't just pretend the power imbalance doesn't exist. When did I pretend it didn't exist? I literally said no one is willing to do it because it would hurt them, and probably more.
Good then, we are agreed, unless there is some kind of moral judgement being placed on anyone for not interfering in other countries affairs.
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On September 21 2021 22:56 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 22:46 Salazarz wrote:On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too). And this is precisely why a multi-polar world is needed. The world needs someone willing (and strong enough) to step up and organize the smaller nations to put pressure on those who do not play by the rules. There must be alternatives to 'play by America's rules or get fucked.' The world also needs someone willing (and strong enough) to be an independent and impartial judge of whether shenanigans are afoot, such as with the Uighurs or the Iraq WMDs or what have you. I don't disagree, I wish the UN was what many people think it is, instead of what it is. I would say though that if China and US are the two poles I don't think we would be any further ahead then when USSR and US was because they could just justify any terrible action by blaming the other. Not that I have answers, the entire democratic world has shown a terrible history of starting democracies abroad and dictatorships have ranged between terrible and extremely awful. It would probably best to have as many equal or similar powers as possible, but then it always seems like a couple team up to dominate the rest.
Yeah I'm not a huge fan of the thought of a multi polar world centered around China and the US...
Frankly I'm not sure how a capitalist west actually handles China, their market is too big and lucrative, capitalism is just going to see China as too juicy to really piss off and the chinese government is too smart/abusive to not leverage that.
We really need a paradigm shift away from money and profit being the most important things so that we can address those sorts of situations where something is lucrative but potentially/probably/definitely immoral and wrong.
I'd rather have a non-polar system, or at least a polar system with so many damn poles that you need to actively cooperate with allies. A dual polar world is just going to wind up like America's two party system, and god knows noone wants anything like that.
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On September 21 2021 23:35 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 23:33 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 23:25 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 23:18 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 23:15 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 23:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too). Interesting question. Maybe if there's a guy beating up an old lady, then yeah. What about a guy with a gun robbing a bank? You gonna run up to him and stop him? The US and China have so much more power than your average country that even saying you are opposed to their actions is an extremely dangerous course of action, let alone attempting to sanction them. Its not a guy beating someone up, its 10 guys with guns beating someone up. Is your point that if the EU sanctions the US or China they are going to invade them? No. My point is that they have the economic power to be able to ignore those sanctions. If they decided to retaliate against smaller countries though, they could absolutely ruin them in a day. You can't just pretend the power imbalance doesn't exist. When did I pretend it didn't exist? I literally said no one is willing to do it because it would hurt them, and probably more. Good then, we are agreed, unless there is some kind of moral judgement being placed on anyone for not interfering in other countries affairs. No I'm judging. I think the rest of the world should economically sanction countries doing horrible things to their people and people abroad. I'm not an isolationist. The world doing a shit job of holding each other accountable does not mean we shouldn't.
I think there's a very tiny number of cases where nations 'holding each other accountable' is valid.
Its valid in clear, provable cases of breaking international law.
Otherwise the whole idea just rubs me the wrong way. Its the problem with US foreign policy, for example. How can the US hold anyone else accountable? its a giant evil military empire intent on world domination ffs.
So when the US wants to 'hold others accountable' on moral grounds, that's when things like the Iraq war happen, which you want other countries to hold the US accountable for.
But they were just holding Saddam accountable, right?
Basically, in the dry issues of international law, which are decided mostly on power balance and legal technicalities, then yeah, I can understand sanctions, but on moral grounds? Nah.
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On September 21 2021 23:45 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 23:43 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2021 22:56 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 22:46 Salazarz wrote:On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too). And this is precisely why a multi-polar world is needed. The world needs someone willing (and strong enough) to step up and organize the smaller nations to put pressure on those who do not play by the rules. There must be alternatives to 'play by America's rules or get fucked.' The world also needs someone willing (and strong enough) to be an independent and impartial judge of whether shenanigans are afoot, such as with the Uighurs or the Iraq WMDs or what have you. I don't disagree, I wish the UN was what many people think it is, instead of what it is. I would say though that if China and US are the two poles I don't think we would be any further ahead then when USSR and US was because they could just justify any terrible action by blaming the other. Not that I have answers, the entire democratic world has shown a terrible history of starting democracies abroad and dictatorships have ranged between terrible and extremely awful. It would probably best to have as many equal or similar powers as possible, but then it always seems like a couple team up to dominate the rest. Yeah I'm not a huge fan of the thought of a multi polar world centered around China and the US... Frankly I'm not sure how a capitalist west actually handles China, their market is too big and lucrative, capitalism is just going to see China as too juicy to really piss off and the chinese government is too smart/abusive to not leverage that. We really need a paradigm shift away from money and profit being the most important things so that we can address those sorts of situations where something is lucrative but potentially/probably/definitely immoral and wrong. I'd rather have a non-polar system, or at least a polar system with so many damn poles that you need to actively cooperate with allies. A dual polar world is just going to wind up like America's two party system, and god knows noone wants anything like that. How is China not centrally planned dictorial capitalism? I agree with the rest of what you said, I just very little communism in China outside of it being in the party name and marketing material.
What? I didnt say anything about China's economic system, I'd agree theyre an authoritarian brand of capitalism (I find it really, really fascinating actually) as opposed to communism basically at all, that authoritarian part is why they have the upper hand though imo. Like, a big part of the Great Fire Wall is its been used to create a booming tech industry, every app that theyve banned from the West has a chinese counterpart, Taobao is their Amazon, Didi is their Uber, etc. they're very comfortable being insular, they dont look to the west as an important part of the market because their authoritarian governmental nature can overrule that if its for the good of the Chinese government's aims.
As opposed to the US, which has no such control over it's companys really, they'll be chasing the Chinese market hard because its money and capitalism wants the money, theres no authoritarianism, or strong regulation, or the will really to overrule the appeal of those sweet sweet kuai.
So long as China has the ability to keep it's profit seeking under the thumb of it's authoritarian government they're in a stronger position as opposed to a less restrained capitalistic society that has no restraints on trying to get big into the Chinese market (and thus kowtowing to the Chinese government to do it.)
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United States42439 Posts
On September 21 2021 18:13 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 18:02 Erasme wrote:On September 21 2021 17:56 Salazarz wrote:On September 21 2021 17:51 Erasme wrote:
Yeah, that'd more believable if China wasn't engaged, for the past 40years, in organs harvesting from minorities to fuel their hospitals.
That and a couple of cultural genocide. Ah yes, Falun Gong says their members are being harvested for organs and so we can conclude that the only thing stopping China from unleashing their armies upon Vietnam and South Korea are the noble US marines keeping a watchful vigil over the borders. Come the fuck on. The international community found the same thing though. It's weird how people see your actions differently once you start harvesting organs and erasing cultures. Maybe you can overlook that kind of thing. The same 'international community' that found WMDs in Iraq? The same 'international community' that decided war on terror would be a good idea? The same 'international community' that thought killing Gaddafi is a good plan? Yeah, sure. If that 'international community' says China is an aggressive, imperialist, culture-erasing evil empire, we better trust their judgment on that. Sarcasm aside, I have not heard of any state-sanctioned, targeted organ-harvesting programs in China. Local incidents of shitheads doing it to make cash on the side do happen, and the shitheads in question are usually prosecuted quite harshly. If you can show me concrete evidence of anything beyond that, we can have a conversation about it, although maybe it's better left for another thread -- feel free to link me a discussion on the topic if you'd like to start one. Same goes for erasing cultures. If you're talking about supposed Uighur genocide, there's basically nothing beyond tales of Adrian Zenz and his cronies, and he is a fucking lunatic and a con-artist. Again, if you'd like to discuss why you believe it's real and a serious issue, we can discuss that in a different thread. Bottomline though, neither of these things are relevant to the points I'm making. Even if entirely and completely true, what China does inside its borders is, first and foremost, an issue of China; just like police brutality and privatized, for-profit prisons in the US are, at the end of the day, an issue of the US. If their population is content living under those circumstances, that's up to them. Personally, I find drone strikes slaughtering civilians in foreign countries or sponsoring regime change of anyone deemed unfit for your state's interests a far bigger threat to 'world peace and prosperity' than whatever China is being accused of. And either way, I firmly believe that any country that is allowed to become a part of the global community and isn't antagonized the way places like Iran or North Korea are will eventually liberalize and adapt reasonable human rights. We saw it in places like South Korea, Taiwan, even the Gulf States to an extent. In my opinion, China is following a similar trajectory. They're already a far more democratic and lawful country than they were a mere generation ago. As folks gain more and more financial security and 'creature comforts', they will in turn start demanding more and more political influence and liberties. It's the natural course of every developing nation. And even if it wasn't... whatever internal issues they have, are in no way indicative of what their foreign policy might be in future. Claiming they're an aggressive expansionist empire based on their supposed treatment of minorities within their own borders is quite the stretch. edit: and as far as overlooking things goes... the US has literally just killed a bunch of kids with an unnecessary drone strike, tried to cover it up, then said well oopsie but it was 'a righteous strike' anyway when journalists kept digging and showed the truth. Or you know, the entire war in Iraq, you okay with overlooking that, yeah? Because we need to stand united against the threat of China, right?
The international community very publicly did not find WMDs which is why it wasn’t a UN thing.
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On September 21 2021 16:57 Salazarz wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 13:39 Mohdoo wrote:On September 21 2021 13:33 Salazarz wrote:On September 21 2021 12:45 Mohdoo wrote:On September 21 2021 11:09 Salazarz wrote:
The US needs Europe way more than Europe needs the US, especially if the US continues to drum up its conflict with China. The way things are going, it's not unthinkable to see US turning pretty much the entire world against them in the coming years, meanwhile EU would be perfectly fine with increasing their economic cooperation with Russia and China to make up whatever deficits they have from the US, especially as belt & road picks up steam.
China's 'perspective on personal liberties' are absolutely irrelevant for Europe's future, since unlike the US, China does not insist on exporting their own 'values' all over the world. I think you're totally misjudging China's ambitions. They will not be satisfied until they have all of Asia minimum. Are you familiar with Chinese nationalism? Chinese racial superiority complex regarding Koreans and Japanese? China isn't in a position to take over those countries but everyone involved knows it is 1000% their goal. China will never be satisfied with just China. One thing to keep in mind is the culture of the US compared to the culture of China. The average American has zero desire to ultimately take over Canada or Mexico. The average Chinese citizen is totally insanely nationalist. Even among educated folks. Oregon State University had a big problem with Chinese international students being openly aggressive towards TW/HK students. The level of conquering ambition in China is incomparable to the US. I have no idea how this dynamic is with Russia. It isn't clear to me if the average Russian wants to retake the USSR or whatever. I have zero perspective on that. But as it is extremely relevant to point out the 100 year ambitions of the US vs China are totally different. China's ambitions are chilling and they are definitely the greatest threat to the world. As for your other point, I think its fair to just say both EU and US benefit a great deal from each other. Neither would ever in a million years let that relationship sour. Married couples fight. So do allies. France has a craaaazy level of pride. Of course they will cry about this. It will pass. None of this is an actual big deal IMO. This is such a ridiculous make-believe take, I don't even know how to address it. You've just discounted an entire fucking continent as subservient dicksuckers a couple comments ago, and now you're talking about insane Chinese nationalism? Come on. It's actually incredible how your typical American is so eager to discuss the 'open aggression' and 'nationalism' and 'dangerous ambitions' of whatever your current enemy is while remaining entirely oblivious to what your own country does and how others might see you. The only way someone thinks what you are typing is if you don't have experience with it. There's nothing I can do to convince you of its existence if you aren't aware of it or haven't encountered it. You're just one person, I'm not bothered by you not being convinced. I just wanted to explain why I believe what I believe. Chinese nationalism dwarfs any other country, even the US and France, who are generally regarded as the two distasteful ones. I hope you never encounter what I described. It is really sad and scary. Don't have experience with it? I've been living in East Asia for the past 10+ years, I run an international business of my own and travel routinely between all of the 'hot spots' of Asia -- our offices are in Seoul, Taipei, Shenzhen, and Singapore, with clients pretty much all over Asia as well as West Coast US. I have not met a single Chinese person who actually believed in any of the ridiculous 'Chinese Manifest Destiny' nonsense you're talking about, and I've met plenty of Chinese people. China does not have any 'territorial disputes' with Korea; the only 'territorial disputes' they have with Japan are over some worthless islands that Japan is claiming, similar to Japan's row over Dokdo, Sakhalin, and half a dozen other island claims. Mao-era 'five fingers' bullshit nobody cares about at this point. Even IF they actually wound up taking over Nepal and Bhutan (and that's a massive fucking if), that still wouldn't be anywhere close to matching the amount of suffering and invasions that the US has caused in the last few decades. Their claims in South China Sea have nothing to do with the asinine fairy tales of wanting to conquer Vietnam or Philippines, it's entirely about securing maritime resources and shipping routes. Annoying for their neighbors, perhaps, but hardly world-ending, and given the US' propensity for sea-based provocations, hardly inexcusable. You're painting all these apocalyptic scenarios of Chinese world domination, but none of them make sense. It's the same stories as Putin's supposed desire to conquer Sweden and Latvia or Kim Jong Un's quest to turn California into a nuclear inferno -- it's just entirely implausible and unwanted by anyone aside from a handful of nutcases who would never survive at the top of a political pyramid anywhere ever. Think about it for a second. What does China stand to gain from invading Vietnam? Like, literally what would be the point of that? It's just such a dumb idea in 21st century. Call CCP what you want, but they aren't idiots, and they don't do evil shit just for the sake of being evil. Besides, all this conjecture about China taking over the world is ignoring the most important point I'm trying to make here. Moving towards a multipolar world isn't an invitation to turn international politics into a 'might makes right' free for all. If anything, having more equitable nations on top of the world would lead to more credible international law and more respect for the said international law. As it stands, the US routinely flaunts any and all international agreements whenever it suits their interests -- and now that China is becoming something bigger than a regional power, they're starting to ask, why can't we do the same? For international law to matter, everyone needs to abide by the same rules, and the US losing its status as sole super power leading to such an outcome is a far more realistic scenario than China randomly deciding to send troops into Okinawa or whatever wild bullshit some of you seem to think will happen the moment Uncle Sam is forced to take a step back. Show nested quote +After how close the EU got to letting Huawei build their internet infrastructure, I lost a lot of confidence in the EU. It appears to be USA or nothing for the foreseeable future. What exactly is the problem with Huawei building internet infrastructure in the EU? To this date, none of the accusations about supposed backdoors and spying from Huawei have been proven, never mind that to a EU citizen, CIA spying is hardly better than CCP spying.
A lot of this is just whataboutism while outright dismissing the findings of multiple organizations and countries. Not good enough. Conducting business with Chinese people is not the same as understanding the less business side of China. Overall this post is a big swing and a miss. You seem defensive and unable to grasp any perspective other than whatever is already in your head for some reason. There has been plenty of evidence of Huawei's data gathering.
It sounds like you are also denying uyghur genocide, so I get the feeling this conversation isn't going anywhere. uyghur genocide denial is way further than I thought you'd go, so I think I'll just call it here and wish you well.
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On September 21 2021 23:57 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On September 21 2021 23:51 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2021 23:45 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 23:43 Zambrah wrote:On September 21 2021 22:56 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 22:46 Salazarz wrote:On September 21 2021 22:41 JimmiC wrote:On September 21 2021 21:13 Jockmcplop wrote:On September 21 2021 21:09 JimmiC wrote:
In boiling it down to wsy to simple the US has been much worse outside its borders china within its borders st least in the last 50 years. Would China therfore be worse if they start going outside, who knows, but they certainly have a government with expanshionist desires.
In the end the who is sorse discussion is such a terrible one because it just ends up revealing how awful both are and how unwilling the rest of the world is to hold them accountable if it means more expensive shit for their people or less markets for their people to sell too. I'm not sure how much you can blame the rest of the world for not holding them accountable. They are the two biggest superpowers. There's not much anyone else can do. The whole world should be putting massive sanctions on China for how they are treating the Uighurs, it would just hurt their own economies and raise the cost of good for their own people, so they don't. The who world should have put massive sanctions on the US for Iraq, but it would have hurt their own economies so they did not. They know the world has your attitude so they won't stop. Would they stop anyway? No one knows, but no one is willing to take a hit themselves to find out. I believe it would make difference at least in the US as even if hurt others more because whatever party was in power would lose that when their economy took the hit. There is not nearly enough trust, most countries know if they did it they would stand alone and others would just pick up the slack. Should you try and stop someone who is beating up a elderly lady even if that person will likely kick you ass? I think so, I think others will join in and even if not the guy might think twice next time. But I'm willing to take a beating most countries are not. When it comes down to it we all love to point fingers but we are all self-interested (me too). And this is precisely why a multi-polar world is needed. The world needs someone willing (and strong enough) to step up and organize the smaller nations to put pressure on those who do not play by the rules. There must be alternatives to 'play by America's rules or get fucked.' The world also needs someone willing (and strong enough) to be an independent and impartial judge of whether shenanigans are afoot, such as with the Uighurs or the Iraq WMDs or what have you. I don't disagree, I wish the UN was what many people think it is, instead of what it is. I would say though that if China and US are the two poles I don't think we would be any further ahead then when USSR and US was because they could just justify any terrible action by blaming the other. Not that I have answers, the entire democratic world has shown a terrible history of starting democracies abroad and dictatorships have ranged between terrible and extremely awful. It would probably best to have as many equal or similar powers as possible, but then it always seems like a couple team up to dominate the rest. Yeah I'm not a huge fan of the thought of a multi polar world centered around China and the US... Frankly I'm not sure how a capitalist west actually handles China, their market is too big and lucrative, capitalism is just going to see China as too juicy to really piss off and the chinese government is too smart/abusive to not leverage that. We really need a paradigm shift away from money and profit being the most important things so that we can address those sorts of situations where something is lucrative but potentially/probably/definitely immoral and wrong. I'd rather have a non-polar system, or at least a polar system with so many damn poles that you need to actively cooperate with allies. A dual polar world is just going to wind up like America's two party system, and god knows noone wants anything like that. How is China not centrally planned dictorial capitalism? I agree with the rest of what you said, I just very little communism in China outside of it being in the party name and marketing material. What? I didnt say anything about China's economic system, I'd agree theyre an authoritarian brand of capitalism (I find it really, really fascinating actually) as opposed to communism basically at all, that authoritarian part is why they have the upper hand though imo. Like, a big part of the Great Fire Wall is its been used to create a booming tech industry, every app that theyve banned from the West has a chinese counterpart, Taobao is their Amazon, Didi is their Uber, etc. they're very comfortable being insular, they dont look to the west as an important part of the market because their authoritarian governmental nature can overrule that if its for the good of the Chinese government's aims. As opposed to the US, which has no such control over it's companys really, they'll be chasing the Chinese market hard because its money and capitalism wants the money, theres no authoritarianism, or strong regulation, or the will really to overrule the appeal of those sweet sweet kuai. So long as China has the ability to keep it's profit seeking under the thumb of it's authoritarian government they're in a stronger position as opposed to a less restrained capitalistic society that has no restraints on trying to get big into the Chinese market (and thus kowtowing to the Chinese government to do it.) I just misunderstood when you said "capitalism sees China as too Juicy" as that China was not capitalist itself, my bad.
S'all good, China's economic situation inspires a lot of confusion given what the dominant party calls themselves and how they actually operate lol
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EPT
