Before it comes to China's alleged atrocities that every single Muslim country's parliamentarians and diplomants say they dont exist: Have you yet persecuted and jailed those who murdered 1 million in Iraq?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/31/obama-... Fuck you Obama!
Well, since your Google must not work: George W Bush is a piece of shit. Xi is also a piece of shit. Somehow, those two facts don't cancel each other out.
If they do, we aren't seeing it anywhere online. They always rant about others. And the few anti-war left and right that remains are so few that you dont even know that they exist unless you actually seek them out and follow them.
I didn’t really care for Obama but he did the right thing on that item, in my opinion.
...
Good escape mechanic to avoid cognitive dissonance you got there...
Bull. Shit.
It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Even if they weren't though, we need you to follow the rules whether others are following them are not, so pointing to what other people did isn't a good way to respond to moderation.
(Moderation is inevitably inconsistent, btw, because we don't see everything.)
It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
USAian.
Sounds cooler too because https://dragonball.fandom.com/wiki/Saiyan
USian has a self-evident meaning: a person of the US. it’s certainly more clear than “American”: a phrase which i struggled with for years as a child because i learned about continents and geography before i learned about countries and genealogy, and hence had to un-learn some of the associations i made with the word early on (despite having been born/raised in the US!)
USian lacks a strong connotation for the vast majority of speakers at present. i’d like a chance to explore it as an alternative label at least for describing myself. as demonstrated by neighbor comment about “yankee” or “ham radio”, it’s the recipient who grants power to a slur — not the speaker. so if you’re a USian like me then get over yourself: don’t deny yourself (or me) the opportunity for a better label.
That's not going to make anyone happy. It's Türkiye.
Some people you just can't insult.
It's impossible to insult someone who refuses to be insulted.
But from your clarification it seem you simply meant American without any further qualifications.
How was it not reciprocated? Whole western world benefited from the cheap Chinese labor for more than a decade.
I'd say we helped them economically and they helped us economically. When it comes to politics we don't see eye to eye. As for Hong-Kong they are introducing their politics there. Nothing we can do about it. And we are doing exactly nothing about it.
US openly calls China an enemy in their politics. US sees China like North Korea sees US. China just wants to have their own politics without western interference. It's nasty and bad politics but it's theirs.
The reason China got picked was because we wanted to reduce the power of the Soviet Union. The US policy during that time was all about stopping Soviet/Communist expansion and the thought was that we could bring China into the western world through monetary means. It was never about cheap labor. The US actively traded away it's own monetary assets for national security in that era. It wasn't about making money.
And to America's credit, it mostly worked. Japan, South Korea, and Germany are now friends of the US and the west and are irreplacable economical powerhouses. SEA didn't get quite as advanced, but they at least aren't hostile to western ideals.
China, on the other hand, saw the game being played and outplayed us. They took all the resources we "invested" in them to further their own ambitions, and cared not for cooperation or mutual friendships. They saw free real estate and fucking took the entire bank and stole the rest.
It's long past due we, the west, reassessed our approach because China is not going to become our friend no matter how much we invest in their prosperity (and consequently due to their nature our demise).
You listed countries that were dominated by US military what in at least two cases led to destruction of pre-existing setup there.
If anyone thought they'll be able to repeat it in China without invading it first was silly. So noone thought that.
US "helped" China to get access to their cheap labor. While maintaining a fasade of being hopeful it will bring in democratic peaceful transformation. I think Germany was more honestly hopeful that trading with Russia will democratize it than US was with China. US needs an enemy to excuse its military spending. Smart people in US knew that US basically grooms China so it becomes one. After all "terrorists" can only be made into a boogymen for a very limited time given their inaptitude.
The US launches rockets primarily from Kennedy Space Center and Vandenberg AFB so they spend minimal time flying overland as they fly out to sea. This is so failures or aborts pose as little risk as possible to people on the ground.
China launches rockets from inland and have dropped failed and aborted rockets on its citizens on the ground numerous times.
So yes, it is "really that hard" to shoot something down without causing collateral harm on the ground. And yes, China gives less fucks about human life than the US does.
Fixed that for you.
Sure. Taiwan, anyone in NATO, South Korea, etc.
The effect thus far has been that none of these nations have been invaded.
---
Scotty79, I'm already checked out of this conversation; it's unlikely to be productive for anyone.
Don't say it like that. Say it like as it is: "... rushed headlong into murdering 1 million people to rob their oil".
Because that's what it was. And until people start calling it as it is, this kind of thing will keep repeating.
...
And yeah, recently the US Congress arranged $500 million to anti-China propaganda, so you will see a LOT more of such smear/fear stories and a LOT of people going along with those even as they claim to have opposed the Iraq War back in the day...
https://prospect.org/politics/congress-proposes-500-million-...
(I love how such criticism still gets downvoted merely 20 years after Iraq War - its almost as if the Americans !like! to get deceived into murdering people for their oil and stuff)
Also notably, the US 5th fleet defends freedom of navigation in the Gulf, which is mostly about Oil, and China is the #1 recipient of Oil! Funny, that.
This is absurd and sounds exactly like a chinese nationalist rhetoric about what Mao did in the great leap forward. Hey, millions died, but think of how stable/prosperous everything was after that! Plus, our side had good intentions*. Two sides of the same coin.
(By the way, the US profits immensly from a stable gulf trade. Oil doesn't have to be exported to the US for america to profit from trade in the area. It's a commodity, and stable trade means stable prices internationally, which is extremely important to american interests. China might profit, too, but it's even more essential to American hegemony, which I agree can have its upsides)
Thankfully Iraq has some semblance of governance and has valuable Oil assets that it can export, courtesy of US taxpayers.
Iraq benefits far more from it's exports than the US gains from protecting them.
The first gulf war was iraq's fault for sure, but that's obviously not the war I was talking about.
"Protecting the trade of Iraqi oil in dollars to prevent them from moving to euro and other currencies" - thats 'protecting' alright. And apparently its ok if the theft is not 'direct'. Just printing dollars like a banana republic by forcing Iraq to sell their oil for dollars is ok. Of course its ok - its much better than actually robbing it since it allows printing an unspecified amount of dollars in return.
> This is absurd and sounds exactly like a chinese nationalist rhetoric about what Mao did in the great leap forward
If there is nothing wrong with the American nationalism that you blatantly exhibit, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Chinese nationalism or the nationalism of every other country.
> By the way, the US profits immensly from a stable gulf trade...
...in dollars. Too bad that its not happening anymore, as countries move to trade in Yuan, Ruble and other currencies and the inflation skyrockets in the US as unused dollars flow back to the US. Which is precisely why the us attacked Iraq to prevent them from moving off of dollar...
> it's even more essential to American hegemony, which I agree can have its upsides
What an unrepentant display of jingoist imperialism. This is not even mere 'nationalism'. So, the US bashing the heads of small countries in and forcing them to trade their commodities for dollars so it can print unlimited dollars is 'having upsides'. Im sure 1 million dead iraqis will rest in peace, knowing that how they died to make that 'upside' happen.
...
Its amazing how the comments objecting to my original criticism just 'disappear' the 1 million people that have been murdered but talk about delirious things like 'upsides'. Amazing social study opportunity on the topic of how people avoid cognitive dissonance.
This is the funniest escape from cognitive dissonance that is used in the US in this topic.
The US did rob Iraqi oil: Forcing Iraq to continue selling its oil for dollars is directly monetizing Iraqi oil. Its worse than robbing it, because in a robbery you get the actual quantity. By forcing it to be traded for dollars, the US was able to print an unspecified and unquantifiable amount of dollars, even over what the actual quantity of Iraqi oil that was sold for dollars would support - the uncontested dominance of dollar as foreign exchange currency forced everyone to stash more dollars than they needed 'just in case' they needed to buy oil and other commodities.
It was literally a money-printing operation. Over someone else's oil.
The suggestion that the US benefits more on a dollar basis than a nation selling a commodity in that currency is very false.
Iraq is the primary beneficiary of it's Oil exports irrespective of the currency it uses, and those exports are protected by the US.
If the US did not enable open commerce in the region, there would be no Iraq. Or Saudi Arabia for that matter.
If collectively those nations want to switch currencies, they can absolutely do it, but it means they are on their own in terms of security and they don't want that.
The US does gain a bit of an advantage from seigneurage, but it actually has benefits for everyone else as well. It's no some existential thing.
Of course jingoistic idiots will do what they do. But there is a kernel of unavoidable truth there.
I'm just going to assume you're not trying to say the world is evenly developed.
I didn’t get that from “if the rest of the world is allowed to develop.” But yes, parts of the world have been developing much faster than the U.S., for instance, and in many cases now surpass the U.S. by many metrics.
I don’t believe the U.S. has actually done much to prevent this. In the case of China, actually just the opposite: the U.S. government and U.S. industry have repeatedly traded away its long-term advantages for short-term political and financial wins in a series of unforced errors over the last 30+ years. But who knows, maybe this is a good thing for the world.
You are dead wrong, China is an enemy of the free world, pure and simple. South Koreans and Ukrainians would agree with me here. Especially since China has declared no limit friendship with russia
I'm not saying America is the force of evil; it has done some nice things, and some other pretty horrible things. What I'm trying to say is: if you have a sitting superpower and a rising wannabe, and you view it as a fight between good and evil, then you are practically inviting horrible things to happen, "because otherwise the bad guys will win."
Think of all the horrible things that happened during the cold war.
The outcomes between North Korea vis-a-vis Japan and Germany should speak for themselves.
Don't give free world leadership examples in Chile, Haiti, Guatemala, El Salvador, Iran, Palestine, Egypt, Bangladesh etc. The nature of the US military and economic machine as a force of ultimate good beating up truant, naughty countries must not be questioned. USA does not practice censorship, instead we have manufacturing of consent here.
What an awesome excuse.
For eg, not removing democracy in Haiti, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Iran, Palestine, Egypt, Bangladesh etc.
Or maybe staying ignorant is part of your grand strategy to avoid cognitive dissonance.
How is USA imposing a dictatorship on Chile nonsense?
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
I read section about US involvement, and nothing there says they organized coup in 1973, in opposite, this link says that many sources confirm US were not involved into the coup: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_intervention_in_...
> Are you serious?!!
My critics is directed to your propaganda-troll alike communication style: thrown 10 names of countries without any specifics.
Out of curiosity, skimmed the article a bit and look:
> They [Kissinger and Nixon] do take credit for creating the conditions that led to the coup. Kissinger says that "they created the conditions as great as possible." Nixon and Kissinger also discussed how they would play this event with the media and lamented the fact that, if this were the era of Eisenhower, then they would be seen as heroes.
Are you playing dumb or what?
> My critics is directed to your propaganda-troll alike communication style: thrown 10 names of countries without any specifics.
Seeing a spec in somebody's eye, but not noticing a log that's in your own, eh? Don't forget your tinfoil hat.
creating condition: economic sanctions, is not the same as be involved in the coup.
or it is just capitalism is much more efficient than communism, or whatever bloody kommies tried to built.
And let's be honest, the US can't build an autonomous functional democracy in another culture, period. It's not the matter of resources, it's just theoretically impossible.
Just look at Afghanistan. It's "democracy" fell like a house of cards just as soon as the US had withdrawn it's troops.
Sorry to break it to you, but what had happened was exactly Afghan idea of freedom. A freedom from a puppet regime installed by invaders. It's not a healthy one, but there is nothing healthy to be expected after 20 years of being fucked by invaders "for their own good" under fancy fake slogans of "freedom".
But hey, war is peace, freedom is being a neocolony with a puppet government. Nothing new here.
> it would be better indeed to put these resources into Ukrainians
And those resources would be a shit load of NATO weaponry left to Taliban, eh?
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/21/world/asia/us-soldiers-to...
https://www.google.com/search?q=greatest+danger+to+world+pea...
You are calling historical facts "fantasies" and making personal attacks on everything else. It's your commitment to ignorance even when all the information is shoved in your face that is impressive, much more than the whataboutism.
The commitment to ignorance and refusal to read, with celebratory, fait accompli, victory smiley is not surprising :) The stereotype of the proud ignorant American isn't without reason.
You were obviously arguing in bad faith from the beginning. The links for readers who will follow and are able to read, that would mostly be non Americans :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Salvadoran_coup_d%27%C3%A...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Haitian_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
https://www.newagebd.net/article/167119/kissinger-admits-us-...
you are free to follow your beliefs.
As I said I won't read your links anymore. Anything else? :-)
If you look at dynamics by years, index was much better when US left in 2011. You want US to police Iraq forever?
All of the eastern bloc including N Korea and Cuba were subject to severe economic blockades and sanctions. Cuba performed the best and N Korea the worst. Even here, NK outperformed South Korea until 1980. Why didn't the greatness the "free world and human rights" work until 1980?
Please stop with this childish pretence of USA as the 2nd coming of Jesus and "leader of the free world". At least Iran's example should give you pause. Iran is part of the free world as long as there is a dictatorship, it is no longer part of the free world if there are democratic elections. The same goes for Chile, Haiti, Guatemala, Egypt - you name it!
This kind of behavior followed by this kind of rhetorics is exactly why half-the-world hates you so much. Disgusting, I can't believe you aren't trolling right now.
North Korea would relatively peacefully evolve from dictatorship if it wasn't for America's pressure. This is purely Newton's third law of geopolitics. Do you really think people would go like "yeah, please fuck us harder so we can topple our government" instead of consolidating around it against a much larger evil, that fucks with their livelihood much harder (you)?
Look at Afghanistan for example. Why do you think it reverted back to its baseline and why Taliban was able to assume control over the country so fast with almost no resistance just as soon as the US had withdrawn its troops?
Or take a look at practically the whole history of young Russian Federation, from supporting ISIS-like radical islamists during the second Chechen war, to most-recent achievement of turning so many hardcore anti-war people into pro-war just by letting them have a good look at your actions.
Cuba has little to none practical international support, and yet it is still "a communist dictatorship".
Or even a better example, that would probably be easier for you to process: take a look at WWII-period Great Britain. It was a total strict dictatorship shithole. And people were FINE with that, as long as it was an effective protection against Nazis.
To North Koreans (and so many other nations around the world) the US (and by extent, its allies) are the Nazis. Simply because you can't possibly dial your chauvinism down and ask yourselves some hard questions, like how come you feel like you have the right to fuck around on the other side of the globe.
Sadly, I don't even see a realistic scenario how things could change without triggering a WWIII: America + allies (15-20% world population) vs the rest of the world.
Aside from that more 'humanist' element, there is the geopolitical reality that your sovereignty is still depends on the US.
After a war - nations usually have autocratic leaders who oversee a couple of decades of reconstruction, that is normal, and for them to be 'pro American' in the contex that America literally saved your entire nation from being slaves, is understandable.
It's a bit hard to read what you have written, imagine what would happen if the US/West dropped support for literally you, either now or decades ago? Where would you be? Happy unification under democracy? My gosh.
If you can't see that Xi is operating on a different moral level than most of the free world including S. Korea, then I have bad news for you.
Putin invaded Ukraine because he thought it wold be a cake walk.
The best thing we can do to 'avoid war' is to project strength, not ambiguity. Xi is not irrational, and if Taiwan is extremely well defended he won't invade.
In fact, it's relatively easy to deter China if other nations just have some basic political courage and a basic coherent strategy, then we can mostly live happily together.
(FYI I'm not American)
Leaving politics aside, that's some very flawed alternative history thinking there.
The alternative world in which (say) Korean War era "Domino Theory" wasn't so aggresively pursued with military action and so many former Western colonies in Asia (Vietnam, Indonesia, etc) weren't defended from finding their own path post WWII is a world where factors that created an extreme North Korea, and Pol Pot in Cambodia, etc. are absent.
Who's to say where the world would be had Kissinger and friends not been so hawkish.
In Korea at least:
Nearly 5 million people died. More than half of these–about 10 percent of Korea's prewar population–were civilians. (This rate of civilian casualties was higher than World War II's and the Vietnam War's.) Almost 40,000 Americans died in action in Korea, and more than 100,000 were wounded.
In this sense, the cold war against the Soviet Union was profoundly successful. Let's hope this will be the same for the ongoing cold war with China to contain its territorial ambitions in east asia, like for Taiwan (which it is actively threatening with force[1]) and all of the other countries which China is expanding its territory into (illegally, through the use of artificial islands)[2].
1. https://www.voanews.com/a/china-reaffirms-threat-of-military... 2. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/21/china-has-full...
If anything, people aren't worried enough. Being overly sensitive about a egregious spy balloon is not the problem that should be called out right now.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/11/592694991...
Power sharing agreements between the powerful who are not accountable to the people isn't something I'd classify as "democratic".
I'd consider term limits to be anti-democratic anyway. A functioning democracy has the ability to boot politicians out, and the people within the democracy, not the law should be trusted to make that decision.
As how the US president is selected by the electoral college. The system used today is a far cry from the original scheme. Look closely and the original doesn't look very democratic, even by the standards of the time. Democracy is an idea, a collection of principals. How it is actually implemented varies considerably.
The Electoral College itself exists as a way to help keep the Executive Branch separated from the Legislative Branch. Congress (aka the Legislative Branch) can step in in place of the Electoral College if the electors deadlock to a point of no recovery, but this is considered highly unusual and an undemocratic act because it violates the Separation of Powers safeguard.
But a better comparison would be the "election" of a Pope. It's only among Cardinals, who tend to vote for a Cardinal to become Pope. Even though a vote is taking place, we are not talking about a democracy.
As to which is closest to an ideal democracy in practice: America, Vatican City, or China, the contest in my mind is who is in second and third place, not first.
There is a body of representation in China which votes on the next leader, which has rules to limit power within that system.
In the usage of the term "democracy" meaning "a group of people voting on outcomes" - China has democratic traditions within it's political system involving voting and consensus and limits of power. Part of these traditions included term limits on leadership which has been removed by the current leader (again, not unlike the way Putin removed term limits in the precursor to military adventurism).
Basically not at all. There was initially gonna be democracy, but then it was just warlords/generals controlling everything.
I mean ffs chiang kai shek stayed as president until 1975 when he died.
Taiwan didn't really become democratic until maybe 25-ish years ago.
Ha! "Democracy" (only approved ideologies need apply).
You people are impossible.
And if you think the IMF loans are so onerous, consider why Pakistan, which has allies in both China and Saudi Arabia, both of whom have lent it money in recent years, is going begging to the IMF instead.
And if the IMF is a tool of colonialism, why it is refusing to give money to Pakistan unless it agrees to measures such as the current administration not immediately using that money to fund a subsidy in oil prices right before an election. As opposed to the Saudis and Chinese who impose interest rates in the low 30%s, and acquire ownership of land and infrastructure when those payments are inevitably not made.
Where did you get 30% interest from?
I guess the colonialism has eased up in the last half-century or so. But the US definitely did our fair share.
Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, US Virgin Islands, and Northern Mariana Islands are an unincorporated territory[2] of the USA and are sovereign American territory.
Simply put: Puerto Rico, et al. cannot unilaterally end their association with the USA because they are part of the USA.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_of_Free_Association
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territories_of_the_United_Stat...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_modern_conflicts_in_th...
China doesn’t want US military bases on their side of the Himalayas. It remained an autonomous region until a bunch of clowns proposed putting US military assets there.
It has similarities to Taiwan which is de facto independent but claimed by PRC.
Tibet has 3 million people, most of who are subsistence farmers or nomadic herders. Comparisons with Taiwan are a bit much.
I get that the Dali Lama is a really nice guy, but even he admits no one in Tibet gives a shit about him and becoming a feudal lord via picking objects as a child is a bit nuts.
that's because they can't do it, not because they don't want to do it.
Let's see what happens when the investments made with the belt and road initiative gets nationalized.
In other words the current Chinese government can trace it's power back about 70 years. For the US it's about 240. So it shouldn't be a surprise the US has done more bad things since it's in general had more time, especially as a major power in the world.
And US Cold war policy definitely had some serious missteps due to extreme paranoia about communism... US intervention in Iran (overthrew a democracy, paving the way for the revolution) and various Latin American countries definitely worked out poorly in hindsight, in addition to unethical methods (eg supporting the Contras). Honestly I'm shaky on most of the details, and I want to acknowledge these things happened. Most Americans have very limited knowledge of these past misdeeds - it's not something that's emphasized in schools, and happened before most of our lifetimes, and we don't see most of the consequences day to day... so the average American is content to be ignorant of it, and of course doesn't want to apologize or pay for it in any way.
I unfortunately don't see this changing. But I also don't trust China given their terrible human rights record; they just haven't had as much ability to operate around the world as the US has, in the past.
What about the great depression in the US? The dust bowl? Various bank runs in the 19th century? Hell, African-American deaths due to slavery? Civil war deaths? Deaths of native Americans in our various undeclared wars against them?
Probably China still has a higher number either way, but if we're going to do a fair comparison, we probably should compare percentages of the population. The US civil war killed a single digit percentage of US population at the time, so perhaps not as extreme as the great Chinese famine but still huge (it was the bloodiest war for US lives ever, by a huge margin)
As to all your examples, we could have a large discussion about each, but most are from the independent actions of the populace rather than government policy forcing deaths upon the populace at effective gun point. And none of them killed anywhere near the number that the great famine did. Most of them in fact killed zero people and just caused economic hardship. (Also while the American civil war killed 1%, the Chinese great famine killed over 10% in many areas.)
When farmers are dying of starvation and aren't allowed to eat the food that they're growing, you've gone seriously off the rails.
And western countries embargoing/blockading Chinese food imports during an emerging food crisis.
American educators tend to gloss over inconvenient truths like America's role in that famine.
And that’s a China that has had economic and military power at an international level for less than 2 decades.
All that being said, there’s no real point in comparing which one has been historically worse to determine who is destabilizing the world more in any given situation.
And while the political rhetoric in the US could be better, Chinese actions worldwide, are far more destabilizing than anything the US has been doing, especially since it got out of Iraq.
Interestingly, what’s happening in Pakistan (and Afghanistan) since the U.S. left Afghanistan shows that even what one could reasonably saw were clear negative actions by the U.S., such as its occupation of Afghanistan, may not have been as clear in hindsight.
This is a partial and partly formed view of mine. I don't have great knowledge of the history.
So please, educate yourself before making a fool of yourself.
As I finished my comment, it was a partly formed view and I don't have good knowledge of history. I was hoping for some more informed replies. I was hoping they'd come without insults too, so cheers for the disappointment.
> I was hoping for some more informed replies.
You didn't ask for any.
China, on the other hand, gives precisely zero fucks what wrongs happen to the peoples within its borders. All must serve the state and only the state, at the point of a gun.
I once again ask that you educate yourself before you make a fool of yourself. Basic knowledge and understanding are prerequisites to participating in worthwhile discussions. If you took that request as an insult, then that is your loss and certainly not my problem.
https://www.powwows.com/issues-and-problems-facing-native-am...
They're not seeing the benefits of having "their lands" when those lands are still being exploited for resources by outsiders.
https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/culture-war-looms-for-r...
I'm not seeing much education or awreness in your comment.
Thank you for leaving your comment here. You have many friends in the U.S. We are more resolved than ever to ensure your freedom.
1. One balloon with something attached to it
2. In American airspace
3. The US government, that has a long, rich history of lying, said some things
We have nothing else to go off of. We have no reason to trust statements by the US government of these situations.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-02-14/us-says-m...
Thank god we had two weeks of deranged, rabid reporting about China being evil
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
There are a lot of countries Americans might consider bad. But the news media isn't subtly and constantly hinting that we might want to go to war with them. The China rhetoric is starting to sound like the WMD justification and prep drumbeat that they used to hype up the American public about the inevitability of war with Iraq.
Ironically I think the Ukraine war has shown the best demonstration for China on why they shouldn't attempt a Taiwan invasion. Their rhetoric about Taiwan I feel has gone down since that war started.
The US is trying to avoid war, not start one.
And no, informing the populace that a country is a potential aggressor is not "war propaganda".
Have you considered perhaps there is a valid stance to oppose both PRC aggression on Taiwan & other neighbouring countries, while also opposing direct escalation between the PRC and the US?
How is urging caution against U.S. domestic jingoism contradictory to not allowing the PRC to start wars?
From https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
> Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Communist Party of the Soviet Union fall to pieces? An important reason is that in the ideological domain, competition is fierce! To completely repudiate the historical experience of the Soviet Union, to repudiate the history of the CPSU, to repudiate Lenin, to repudiate Stalin was to wreck chaos in Soviet ideology and engage in historical nihilism. It caused Party organizations at all levels to have barely any function whatsoever. It robbed the Party of its leadership of the military. In the end the CPSU—as great a Party as it was—scattered like a flock of frightened beasts! The Soviet Union—as great a country as it was—shattered into a dozen pieces. This is a lesson from the past!
This excerpt is from a speech by Xi Jinping given at his inauguration as General Secretary in 2013. What would you say it implies about how he sees the USA?
I'm pretty sure the CPC has one enemy: losing control of China. That is the ultimate bogeyman, and when you view China (or Russia) from that point of view, you can understand them much better.
> What would you say it implies about how he sees the USA?
A potential cause of losing control.
America satisfies its allies. Those Allies are happy to be the enemies of China and Russia for financial benefits and some border protection . Who, despite your comment, do build consensus with their allies and they’re content with being enemies of the US also in exchange for financial benefits and border protection. All 3 countries have their own spheres of influence and all 3 project themselves to be heroes while one of the others is a villain at all times.
The OP is right here—jingoism on HN because of a balloon is something beyond what is normal here.
The US has made the same unilateral invasions that Russia has, and without approval of the UN. Almost everything you've said here is false.
Strictly, parts of the modern US were separate British colonies (colonies of the Kingdom of Great Britain, not the UK, which is newer.)
> Canada was technically a UK colony until the 1980s
Largely, it should be noted, because the Canadian provinces couldn’t agree on a method for amending the Constitution domestically to replace British Parliamentary authority.
> Countries don't buy and sell other counties anymore
I mean, Trump wanted to buy Greenland, but generally overt sale of inhabited territory is somewhat passé. Less direct means of buyingn coubtries are still, at least, actively pursued, if not always successful.
That's not how it works. And we can discuss this, but it's a change of subject. The topic was whether "the US does accept that the international stage is governed by rules", which is false. If you want to acknowledge that, then we can move on to the topic of puppet states and sovereignty.
Whatever flag now flies over Iraq, or whether the US and UK had a "solid partnership" (whatever that means), has no bearing on whether or not the US invasion of Iraq violated international rules. It was still an illegal invasion. Moving the goalposts won't work here.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/american-u-2-spy...
2018: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/10/politics/south-china-sea-flyo...
2020: https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/26/asia/china-us-u-2-spy-plane-i...
2021: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39890/did-an-rc-135-sp...
2022: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/air-force-rc-135u-elec...
2022: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/29/politics/chinese-fighter-jet-...
I know you're deliberately wording this to avoid a partisan angle, but I genuinely think that it's hurting your point here. There is no "contest" at play here. There are no "both sides". All this rhetoric is coming from one side of the aisle.
And I agree it's bad, and hurtful, and quite frankly probably doing more to help the Chinese position on the world stage than hurt it. But it's also not something that's going to be fixed by stopping a "contest". Either the republicans decide to be grownups or they don't. The democrats can't fix that.
The land bridge is their "solution".
I don't see taiwan as similarly strategic to china. It's more politically motivated - that taiwan has turned into a democracy that is pro-west, right on their door step, instead of "returning".
On the other hand, an invasion of taiwan is something that can be used to quell domestic problems...
Their goal was (and is) not that. Their goal was the destruction of Ukraine as a country, and it's forced reunification with Russia as a foundational step in the re-emergence of a Russian empire.
If you read Chinese defense arguments about Taiwan, they basically make the same hypothesis. Control of Taiwan forces the strategic sublimation of Japan and Korea, and re-establishes a Chinese empire.
Dictators don't come up with new ideas.
Russia already had naval basing rights is Sevastopol, before the invasion of Crimea. I don’t think the strategic explanations hold up.
The writing was on the wall at the time - ukraine was leaning towards the west.
Not saying this was the only reason for the invasion, but it is a factor.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it. Note these:
"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email [email protected] and we'll look at the data."
I think the best thing the gov could do is give us awareness of these things, in an objective way, so we can stay informed. I do not see the fearmongering you see, but I'm sure I could find it on Facebook and Twitter if I looked.
And then.. the things our gov does to other countries to spy and maintain intelligence is a bogeyman for others. We are a threat, as China is a threat. I wonder if we have any stray weather balloons floating over China that we don't hear about in our media.
Is China not an economic partner of the USA? I thought the huge amount of trade between the two countries made it a foregone conclusion.
U.S. foreign policy is aimed at maintaining stability and facilitating liberal capitalist democracy. We don’t regard popular movements that are communist or theocratic as “democracy” so we’re willing to support dictators to forestall that. But at the same time our foreign policy is fundamentally ideological in nature.
It would be more productive if you addressed my comment, and not some comment you just made up.
As for this:
>U.S. foreign policy is aimed at maintaining stability and facilitating liberal capitalist democracy
I believe that you believe this. But I'm not treating it as an axiom, so you'll have to give evidence for it.
https://chomsky.info/fateful02/
"Liberal capitalist democracy" - this is obvious nonsense when you list out all of the regime changes forced on the countries by the United States.
Most Americans have absurd views of American foreign policy because of ignorance. But, given your Bangladeshi origin, in your case it is not ignorance. You are just volunteering as an unpaid American propagandist or random social media forums, even though you are well aware of all the CIA coups all over the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
This is true, sometimes all they want to do is shore up some bananas. Or just help out West Pakistan to impress China.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries...
"It's some cold war boogieman horseshit. "
Xi is literally preparing his armies to invade Taiwan, he is literally putting 100's of thousand of Uyghurs into pyschological torture / re-eduacation camp and subjecting the Western Provices to Police State apparatus that is literally more onerous that anything we have seen in history.
The worst dictators in history didn't fuss about local idiots because said idiots didn't generally have the power to disrupt, but now that authoritarians have the technological means for 'Total Surveillance and Enforcement' - they do it.
In most Wastern cities there are police blocks every few hundred meters, hotels have police checks, there are minders, total surveillance aka 'total control'.
China has refused to allow the UN WHO to investigate the origins of pandemic that has thrown the entire world into chaos, wherein there is at least some possibility that they are culpable.
That's just the tip of the iceberg, I could go on.
The 'failure' of the West is not jingoism, it's the assumption that China would progress to have at least some semblance of basic human rights as they moved forward and therefore the West turned a blind eye to all the terrible actions of China for the last 25 years, which in the last 10 years have taken a horrible upturn.
There are problems everywhere, but there's a differenc between systemic failures among well meaning people, and totalitarian states.
The collective West should have dealt with this a long, long time ago:
1) Taiwan should have been recognized as an independent state 50 years ago.
2) Hong Kong should have been allowed to have a referendum in 1997 and their rights should have been defended by regional powers.
3) The rights of navigation in S. China Sea should have been strongly enforced by local parties (aka Vietnam, Singapore) and others the moment China declared it's policy and military installation should have been thwarted.
4) West should not allow 'forced tech transer' in return for access to Chinese market.
5) Economic penalties should be in place for blatant and obvious transgressinos.
6) Issues regarding Tibet and Uyghurs should be front and center in any discussions of anything. It's within China's right to have policy there obviously, but the situation does require focus.
7) Trade tarriffs in place to mitigate all of the 'externalizations' that take place in China, because we have to account for all of that indirect stuff somehow, and if we don't it will 'come home to roost' as it is now.
If China were to have retaliated with economic measures over the decades - so be it - we'd be in a better place.
Then - we could talk about 'jingoism' etc.
None of this justifies stupid fake patriotism of some people, inclding Americans, but if you want to do a comparison of deluded anti-foreigner preferenes, I double-dare you to consider what popular views in China are of anything that is not 'Han'. China is de facto a 'Han Supremacist' state, it is what it is and to some extent their choice obviously, but it'd be absurd to accost Americans too harshly in that context.
#1. THEY'RE STEALING FROM US. Constantly.
#2. Look at how they treat their own people.
#3. Look at how they treat their neighbors.
I don't see anti-China policies being used to justify crack downs on freedoms like was done after 9/11. Perhaps that's coming, but we should be concerned about that when it happens. We absolutely however need to be careful about what China is trying to do by basically bifricating the world into authoritarian and democratic world orders. It's absolutely their stated goal to create a bi-polar world and thus re-create cold war conditions.
In the above post, you could substitute the word China with Germany and Cold War with World War I, and this quote could have been written verbatim by the American First coalition - who had good points going into World War II, but missed the big picture. At some point you have to defend independent countries, stand up for human rights, etc.
China's actions show no respect for any of its neighbors. Their government persecutes people based on ethnic and religious beliefs. They feel that the entire world is out to get them, but they refuse to respect democratic norms that they agreed to with the United Nations. They refuse the most basic levels of transparency. Leaving critics to fill in the gaps on questions such as genocide and the pandemic. Anyone who points out that fact is immediately branded a sinophile.
Meanwhile China is propping up Russia by buying it's exports at a time the Russians are committing genocide in Ukraine.
Even what few democratic norms that existed have been wiped away and is being replaced by a cult of personality.
May I humbly submit that you are concerned about tensions coming from the wrong country?
If china agrees to respect its neighbors, follow human rights standards, and respect toleration of people who do not worship at the church of the Party, the friction will disappear. Ironically, America was strongly pro-china going into World War II shortly after that. It's not a stretch to see that resume.
However, their literate makes it very clear that they view China as the one true civilized state and that Europe and America must be humiliated and destroyed for china to regain its rightful place at the center of the world.
This is something they already knew, even if their sole intelligence gathering exercise was opening Wikipedia, which lists the service ceiling at 65k feet. Since they reportedly got the plans for several advanced aircraft via espionage, I’m quite skeptical that this got them any significant new intelligence.
(I should note that I consider the Chinese government reprehensible from a civil rights perspective - perhaps this could be a PR stunt or trying to test U.S. response times, but I highly doubt it got them any useful technical data.)
That is, at a bare minimum, a serious problem that will take years to solve.
Now, bringing geopolitics back into things, China as a government does not have geopolitical goals that aligne with those of the western world. Without even placing value judgements on those goals, this fact alone is serious enough to warrant extreme caution in dealing with the Chinese government. Whether Western powers do bad things or China does bad things or both do or who is worse— those things are irrelevant on this point. The goals of each are incompatible and this will unavoidably cause each side(s) to come into conflict with each other.
These all leave aside any value judgements on government styles, human rights, etc. The issues above are all basic and fundamental problems and differences that should cause the west to be extremely cautious and skeptical of the surface appearance of any actions taken by the Chinese government. They are similarly wise to be cautious and skeptical on their side. This is simply the basic state of geopolitics, and acting in accordance with this state of affairs is not jingoism.
What we should hope for is to continue to work toward finding common ground at least in so far as the conflicts remain political, economic, etc. and not violent or militaristic. But you can’t engage in that sort of relationship if you keep your eyes closed to the true nature of, and differences between, the goals and values of the various players involved here.
History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
At its most basic level, China’s geopolitical goals are to increase its influence, status, and power in the world. This is not a controversial claim. As one small piece of support for this I’ll offer up this quote from one of the Chinese ambassadors during their negotiations to enter the WTO: "We know we have to play the game your way now, but in ten years we will set the rules"
If you google that quote verbatim you will find many sources that deal with China’s short and long term goals in much more detail.
This basic goal is not, necessarily, completely zero sum, but neither can it be accomplished to any significant degree without displacing some of the power & influence that the Western powers have in the world. This unavoidably brings the various sides & interests powers into conflict.
It is all much, much more complicated than this but this is a significant pillar in the foundations of China’s goals that put it at odds with the West. This alone is a strong influence on the economic conflicts and spats that arise.
That’s about the best I can do in a forum like HN without simplifying the details more than I think may be useful for this conversation. For further sources, that quote really is the key to a lot of foreign policy analysis and well-sourced research on the topic. You may also want to do a few quick searches on China’s 2049 plan along with the 100 Years of Humiliation and its social/cultural influence on Chinas view towards the western world and its economical and technological goals to enable greater self sufficiency.
I’d link to more direct sources but it’s late and I’m tired, and honestly searching on the specific terms and topics I mentioned will give you more and better information than is easily conveyed here.
And God forbid a country outside the west hasn't been completely subjugated by it. Why exactly do you think China's goals aren't aligned with the West? Have you read anything about what imperialism was doing to China (and literally everywhere else on Earth not being settled by Europeans with few exceptions) during the 100 years of humiliation? Do you honestly expect a nation to take that in stride without retribution? I think a lot of younger folks like myself forget that colonialism was alive and well until around 50 years ago, which is the blink of an eye in the long-run.
Sure, you can point to Tibet and Xinjiang as signs of hypocrisy, but I counter: where did all the native americans go in the USA and canada? What was done by the Belgians in the Congo? What was done by the French in Indochina? At least the Uyghurs and Tibetans are actually still alive in large numbers of healthy individuals. Even in China, minorities get special treatment. For example, they were exempt from the One-Child Policy. I don't think there's any example of that in western nations. In the US, black people get the privilege of seeing their children murdered at the hands of the police for minor offenses and disobedience! :)
The war drums are beating and it's fascinating to see otherwise brilliant people fall victim to what is very clearly the propaganda being turned up to manufacture popular support for the genocide of billions under the name of "freedom", "democracy" and a "rules-based system". Let's do an exercise: which nuclear states have the weakest policies preventing the use of nuclear weapons? It's the United States, France, the UK, and Pakistan. Even Putin has stated multiple times on the record (even in late 2022) that Russia will not be the first to use nuclear weapons. India and China are strictly under a policy of no first-use.
Let's remember history: the United States is the only state to ever have used nuclear weapons to deliberately kill people. And remember doubly: those bombs were dropped for demonstration purposes, not out of necessity, even a USA general said so.
Clearly, greed and arrogance will be the downfall of Western imperialism. South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc. are all de facto USA asian tributary states under USA hegemony, but nobody wants to acknowledge that.
I hope that in the coming 5 - 10 years once you have the luxury to bear witness to western militaries indiscriminately genociding billions of civilians in the name of "maintaining a rules based order" that you realize you cannot wash the blood from your hands.
Profiling and racism by police in America is obviously a problem. Unfortunately, we don't have a nuanced view of policing in China because any criticism of laws and policing by Chinese press is illegal because no freedom of press. The stories we do hear don't paint a rosy picture. A couple of examples are death sentences for drug crimes and organ harvesting.
To your point about "USA asian tributary states under USA hegemony". First, this sounds like Chinese propaganda. Let's assume you're right for the sake of argument. All of those countries you list have free or low-cost healthcare while American society pours money into weapons and military research. They don't pay the USA any kind of tax tribute that I'm aware of. Their economies have flourished and they have kept their own culture. They set their own laws and manage their own governments. It's not clear to me what we get out of the arrangement.
From my point of view, we are gearing up to defend Taiwan if necessary. That is all. I haven't heard anyone mention anything else in the press. Can you explain to me why defending a sovereign country that has existed as long as China would make us guilty of genocide?
You seem to question this claim and yet go on to provide significant support for why China has historical reasons for this. If you are interested, Read further down in the thread of another comment to my post that I responded to and you’ll see that I cover this a little more, but to reiterate a bit of it:
The Opium Wars and Ensuing 100 Years of Humiliation, despite any change to the governmental structure post-revolution, is still very much in the zeitgeist of China’s perception of the West. And China has taken that lesson to heart, in particular the lesson that: just a little technological superiority by an adversary can nonetheless allow a massive nation with significantly more resources but a lower industrial/technological base to be decisively subjugated to the will of a much smaller opponent.
This very much informs Chinas desire to increase it’s power and sphere of influence, along with advancing to the point that it is, at minimum, significantly more self sufficient at a similar level of technological advancement to the west, and preferably more so.
This unavoidably puts its geopolitical goals at odds with the West because this cannot be accomplished to a significant degree without disrupting at least a little bit the power and influence that the west (particularly USA) has in the world.
I am deliberately not bringing anything like forms of government, realpolitik games, moral judgements and human rights issues etc into my claim because those are all extremely complicated topics and muddy the water in addressing the very narrow and simple claim that China’s goals are not the same as the goals of western powers, and this necessarily results in conflicts and disagreements between these powers.
You and I probably disagree and other aspects of these issues, but from what you wrote I don’t thing we disagree on the claim that goals differ, and that is the source of many conflicts, and that this is true before bringing in any value judgements of which side is right/wrong/has the moral high ground/etc, which are separate (thought certainly intertwined) claims.
Finally, to address the dependency issue: a significant reason that countries are worried about over reliance on China is for the same reason people should be worried about having a single point of failure in any critical system.
You can both be sceptical of the bullshit and also concerned about what’s happened to China under Xi. These aren’t mutually exclusive beliefs.
If you’ve spent any time watching China over the past two decades you’ve seen a hugely troubling transformation. Ask any resident of a state with an interest in the South China Sea.
You cannot just throw aerial devices over an enemy state (to be clear, China and the US are enemies) without people taking that insanely seriously.
What kind of propaganda are you trying to throw? Get out of here.
Intentionally entering sovereign space without prior notice and mutual agreement is a big no-no.
In case you do feel like replying, though, I just want to be clear - do you or do you not believe that China just intentionally flew a military aircraft into US airspace?
Turn off your stupid propoganda bullshit.
(for the literal net = a joke!)
What is this American Jingoism you are talking about? America has thrown open its doors to international trade with China, welcomes their students, visitors, businesspeople and immigrants in the hundreds of thousands, even millions, every year, and places very few restrictions on Chinese ownership of American firms. No nation has extended such favorable terms to another, particularly one with a diametrically opposed political system, for so long. All this while China brazenly steals intellectual property, builds and militarizes the South China Sea in open defiance of the UNCLOS, indulges in chicanery and deception to hide its handling of a deadly pandemic that has killed more Americans than all wars that America has fought in combined, rapidly builds up its navy and its fishing fleet to intimidate and coerce American allies and openly collaborates with America's geopolitical rivals, including dangerous megalomaniacs threatening the annihilation of America, such as Kim Jong-Un, Vladimir Putin, and the Ayatollahs of Iran, even to the extent of practically funding and otherwise propping them up.
It's a miracle Americans have shown such forbearance for so long, really. Jingoism indeed!
"Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
It's some cold war boogieman horseshit. And it's depressing to watch here on Hacker News, too, any comments that question the beating of those war drums go dead.
Yesterday I heard someone bemoan the supposed lack of patriotism today, and wish we could be 'united' like we were after 9/11. You know, that time we rushed headlong into two useless forever wars that ended hundreds of thousands of human lives and brutally disrupted millions more. The time we saw Sikhs assaulted in the streets for daring to sort of look like Muslims in the eyes of uncultured hicks. And when the entire media apparatus, 'left' and 'right' rallied to pump out war propaganda for years and years.
Disgusting and depressing. And it's where I fear we're headed every time I see China in US headlines anymore.