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The English speaking West's relationship to China can be seen in a few things in past years. One is the UK leaving Hong Kong in 1997. The British Empire, on w

The English speaking West's relationship to China can be seen in a few things in past years. One is the UK leaving Hong Kong in 1997. The British Empire, on which the sun never set and the blood never dried, and which is causing potentially bloody Brexit chaos in Ireland today, went to war with China in 1842 in order to force opium and heroin on its citizens. The US was junior helper in these opium wars. The UK stole Chinese territory and stayed there until 1997, and unbelievable affront of imperialism. The US can be seen in having the Air Force play hot dog on the Chinese border in April 2001 (the US military was too busy doing that to protect itself from jihadis it had funded and armed in Afghanistan to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government and then betrayed by occupying Arabia - they would strike the US to end that occupation later in 2001). They crashed into a Chinese plane, killing the pilot, then illegally landed on Hainan island without permission. Then the US press and diplomacy became enraged that the Chinese were actually inspecting the plane and were holding these military personnel who killed a Chinese pilot. Then this is followed by human rights lover Trump's recent campaign against China. It is in this context that the demonization of China by English-speaking Western liberals currently happens in. Liberals who are also attacking and demonizing Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and who applauded Obama's overthrow of Honduran democracy several years ago with the US funded Honduran military's overthrow of the elected leader. But the US attacks and bombs so many countries, as does the UK, it's hard to keep up with who they have a campaign against from day to day.

Maken 8y ago
I suspect something else happened between 2001 and 2018, nobody would start a trade war over a missing plane.
Theodores 8y ago
Your comment was worth the down votes, but you can be ticked off for mentioning off topic ideas such as Brexit. The Bloomberg article was pretty good in my opinion, the writer had spent a lot of time in China and taken time to see things from a Chinese perspective. I thought his mention of 'IP' extending to the know how on how to setup factories and such like was a very good point. I also believe that people here who shoot off about China stealing IP need to look themselves in the mirror - a few years ago, when they were starting in tech, did they not steal a copy of Microsoft Office, learn Photoshop with a pirated copy and listen to some stolen MP3 files whilst they were at it? China has worked hard, Chinese people have worked hard. There is a higher percentage of people actually working in China than in America, and Americans in work do have not that many holidays, so there is no dismissal of Americans as being lazy there. Regarding Huawei, they are ahead. Yes, ahead. Their products are not cheap knock offs of Western tech, their kit is really good. They are already there with 5G and their latest smartphones do make me wonder why I would want a Google or an Apple phone when I can have things like a 40Mb camera and beautiful build quality. This is just an opinion, but I think the quality of Huawei products is superb and that is where the problems are. If I was a domestic rival I would be trying to get the government to stop them as competing is not easy! There is also the small matter of five-eyes, they are not able to cooperate with Huawei to the level they can with domestic kit manufacturers, so again, spread some FUD - projection - about 'them spying on us'. Who on this thread has taken the time and had the courtesy to listen to translated to English words uttered by the Chinese government? Or does everyone just read how the media sound-bites what news comes from China? We are familiar with weasel words from our own politicians, politicians that were born with silver spoons and went to Ivy Leagues. The Chinese leadership had no such easy start in life, they grew up under Mao and true terror. They have perspective that Western leaders lack. Clearly Obama had humble origins but there are few others in Western democracies that can claim the same. Angela Merkel is another, after that I am struggling to think of others. The aspect of China being a 'police state' with 'censorship' does not sound too bad to me. I look in disgust at the lies printed in the press in the West. I question why they must spit such bile and hatred on a daily basis, doing their best to profit from keeping people divided. Even 'liberal' Western press is far too keen to do-down the Chinese, Russian, Syrian, Iranian, Indian and African man. They have strayed far away from reporting that wins the Pulitzer Prize. The true rulers of the Western world think that democracy is great. But democracy far too often results in the most narcissistic useful idiots with no understanding of history or philosophy getting into office, lured by money and power. Our Western governments have told us about freedom but it is not freedom for us, it is freedom for their backers money. The Western experiment in neo-liberal capitalism has left us with two classes of people - the rich and the poor. Our society is like a parasite that has devoured the host, everyone including the moderately rich enslaved by debt. If you take mortgages into account everyone is burdened by debt and the governments of the West have debt that will never be paid off, the can kicked down the road for future generations to pay. China have some base or port in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, the U.S. has troops on 50 of the 55 countries of Africa. It is hard to believe if you only read the Western media (and easy to believe if you listen to what the Chinese leadership have to say) but China does seek mutually beneficial, stable trading partnerships with the rest of the world. China does not have a mindset of exploitation. Of course there are those that speak of China's human rights violations and persecution of minorities in Tibet and far beyond, but, again, have any of these people so eager to tell us this been to any of these places or shared a few words with people from these allegedly oppressed areas? No. Hence they do not know whether they are being useful idiots, allowing xenophobia to get the better of them. We are all stranded on this small rock we call earth together, in the West we must up our game to be as polite, courteous and diplomatic as our Chinese neighbours, to learn from them, to be friends and to restore this planet to the beautiful garden that it deserves to be. We must practice the art of turning the other cheek and not getting fired up by media and politicians that only have the interests of money at heart.
- Mediterraneo10 8y ago
  > have any of these people so eager to tell us this been to any of these places or shared a few words with people from these allegedly oppressed areas? No. Certainly there are people concerned about the recent news of massive Uighur internment camps who have been to Xinjiang. I myself have, twice. That region has, after all, been commonly traveled by overlanders going from Central Asia on to China and Southeast Asia. Before the Beijing Olympics, travel there was relatively hassle-free. And yes, I did do a lot of talking with the Uighurs at the time (I was keen to learn Uighur after already knowing closely-related Turkic languages of Central Asia) and I heard nothing but complaining about the influx of Han Chinese. Now, however, according to reports from travel fora, foreign travelers in Xinjiang are being pushed through the region quickly by police and prevented from any contacts with the Uighur population at all.

Maken 8y ago

I suspect something else happened between 2001 and 2018, nobody would start a trade war over a missing plane.

Theodores 8y ago

Your comment was worth the down votes, but you can be ticked off for mentioning off topic ideas such as Brexit. The Bloomberg article was pretty good in my opinion, the writer had spent a lot of time in China and taken time to see things from a Chinese perspective. I thought his mention of 'IP' extending to the know how on how to setup factories and such like was a very good point. I also believe that people here who shoot off about China stealing IP need to look themselves in the mirror - a few years ago, when they were starting in tech, did they not steal a copy of Microsoft Office, learn Photoshop with a pirated copy and listen to some stolen MP3 files whilst they were at it? China has worked hard, Chinese people have worked hard. There is a higher percentage of people actually working in China than in America, and Americans in work do have not that many holidays, so there is no dismissal of Americans as being lazy there. Regarding Huawei, they are ahead. Yes, ahead. Their products are not cheap knock offs of Western tech, their kit is really good. They are already there with 5G and their latest smartphones do make me wonder why I would want a Google or an Apple phone when I can have things like a 40Mb camera and beautiful build quality. This is just an opinion, but I think the quality of Huawei products is superb and that is where the problems are. If I was a domestic rival I would be trying to get the government to stop them as competing is not easy! There is also the small matter of five-eyes, they are not able to cooperate with Huawei to the level they can with domestic kit manufacturers, so again, spread some FUD - projection - about 'them spying on us'. Who on this thread has taken the time and had the courtesy to listen to translated to English words uttered by the Chinese government? Or does everyone just read how the media sound-bites what news comes from China? We are familiar with weasel words from our own politicians, politicians that were born with silver spoons and went to Ivy Leagues. The Chinese leadership had no such easy start in life, they grew up under Mao and true terror. They have perspective that Western leaders lack. Clearly Obama had humble origins but there are few others in Western democracies that can claim the same. Angela Merkel is another, after that I am struggling to think of others. The aspect of China being a 'police state' with 'censorship' does not sound too bad to me. I look in disgust at the lies printed in the press in the West. I question why they must spit such bile and hatred on a daily basis, doing their best to profit from keeping people divided. Even 'liberal' Western press is far too keen to do-down the Chinese, Russian, Syrian, Iranian, Indian and African man. They have strayed far away from reporting that wins the Pulitzer Prize. The true rulers of the Western world think that democracy is great. But democracy far too often results in the most narcissistic useful idiots with no understanding of history or philosophy getting into office, lured by money and power. Our Western governments have told us about freedom but it is not freedom for us, it is freedom for their backers money. The Western experiment in neo-liberal capitalism has left us with two classes of people - the rich and the poor. Our society is like a parasite that has devoured the host, everyone including the moderately rich enslaved by debt. If you take mortgages into account everyone is burdened by debt and the governments of the West have debt that will never be paid off, the can kicked down the road for future generations to pay. China have some base or port in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, the U.S. has troops on 50 of the 55 countries of Africa. It is hard to believe if you only read the Western media (and easy to believe if you listen to what the Chinese leadership have to say) but China does seek mutually beneficial, stable trading partnerships with the rest of the world. China does not have a mindset of exploitation. Of course there are those that speak of China's human rights violations and persecution of minorities in Tibet and far beyond, but, again, have any of these people so eager to tell us this been to any of these places or shared a few words with people from these allegedly oppressed areas? No. Hence they do not know whether they are being useful idiots, allowing xenophobia to get the better of them. We are all stranded on this small rock we call earth together, in the West we must up our game to be as polite, courteous and diplomatic as our Chinese neighbours, to learn from them, to be friends and to restore this planet to the beautiful garden that it deserves to be. We must practice the art of turning the other cheek and not getting fired up by media and politicians that only have the interests of money at heart.

Mediterraneo10 8y ago
> have any of these people so eager to tell us this been to any of these places or shared a few words with people from these allegedly oppressed areas? No. Certainly there are people concerned about the recent news of massive Uighur internment camps who have been to Xinjiang. I myself have, twice. That region has, after all, been commonly traveled by overlanders going from Central Asia on to China and Southeast Asia. Before the Beijing Olympics, travel there was relatively hassle-free. And yes, I did do a lot of talking with the Uighurs at the time (I was keen to learn Uighur after already knowing closely-related Turkic languages of Central Asia) and I heard nothing but complaining about the influx of Han Chinese. Now, however, according to reports from travel fora, foreign travelers in Xinjiang are being pushed through the region quickly by police and prevented from any contacts with the Uighur population at all.