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Beijing is slow to realize that trying to strong-arm the West's views on Tibet, Hong Kong, etc will not work, and in fact, makes their international position we
by SubiculumCode 7y ago
Beijing is slow to realize that trying to strong-arm the West's views on Tibet, Hong Kong, etc will not work, and in fact, makes their international position weaker.
- toxik 7y agoI guess they’d need Wikipedia and the early Internet culture to know about the Streisand effect. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
- melling 7y agoChina is either the world’s 1st or 2nd largest economy, depending on how you measure it: https://www.thebalance.com/world-s-largest-economy-3306044 https://www.thebalance.com/world-s-largest-economy-3306044 https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-worlds-largest-exporters-in-2018/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/mapped-worlds-largest-expor... I think people are slow to realize their new position in the world. When US and Europe shipped all that manufacturing to China, it created this problem.
- FussyZeus 7y agoWe can manufacture elsewhere, and many companies already are. China needs us a hell of a lot more than we need China.
- SllX 7y agoMost of China’s exports are low value manufactured goods which can be made elsewhere. There’s a lot more countries in the world than there are Chinas, even if your worldview counts both of them.
- bitL 7y agoThat used to be the case; now the new Silicon Valley for producing anything is in Shenzhen with crazy innovation (kinda like what Japan used to be in the 80s). You can set up your own goods production there in minutes and in all kinds of quality as your budget allows. A regular Chinese now matches a regular American in quality of life as measured by typical economical metrics (adjusted for purchase parity, not in nominal value). Many US/EU companies reduced to selling stuff one can buy on Alibaba for 1/10th, just rebranded to appear US/EU-made. There are some areas Chinese can't do yet, like advanced metallurgy, which was generating quite a bit of business for US/EU, but that disadvantage is disappearing rapidly as they continue throwing money on it and invest into research.
- mcguire 7y agoI was with you until "A regular Chinese now matches a regular American in quality of life as measured by typical economical metrics (adjusted for purchase parity, not in nominal value)." A regular Chinese in Shenzhen, maybe. I'm not sure about someone from the part of China that isn't on the coast or Beijing.
- umeshunni 7y agoThere are 300M+ urban Chinese that now have a standard of living comparable those of their Western counterparts. There are 800M+ Chinese people living in relative poverty in rural areas that bring the average and median quality of life metrics down.
- NicoJuicy 7y agoSo, 1/3rd instead of 1/2th.
- gridlockd 7y ago> China is either the world’s 1st or 2nd largest economy, depending on how you measure it So what? Its exports account for only ~13%. According to the same data, Belgium is 2.4%. I've never even heard of anything "Made in Belgium".
- bitL 7y agoBeer
- electricslpnsld 7y agoExcellent chocolates and cheese as well. Great pommes frites, but those are harder to export.
- pgaddict 7y agoDon't forget waffles!
- ericd 7y agoAnd not just any beer, but those amazing abbey ales.
- User23 7y agoArms[1]. [1] https://www.fnherstal.com/ https://www.fnherstal.com/
- pupdogg 7y agoUmmm....Barco for one https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barco_(manufacturer) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barco_(manufacturer)
- NicoJuicy 7y agoDiamonds
- NicoJuicy 7y agoFrozen vegetables
- secraetomani 7y agoXi doesn't care, just like Putin doesn't care.
- liuliu 7y agoWhat's the end-goal? Tibet cannot be a separate country (or in that respect, Hong Kong) very much like Quebec cannot be a separate country from Canada. You can say that China becomes arrogant, but what exactly West expect other than a total war that rewrite much of the world nation borders? --- Although way passed the point to convince anyone, my comment above and below conditioned on "after WW2 (breaking up any large geographical country is unlikely)".
- nrp 7y agoQuebec is not the best example. There have been two referendums on this, the second of which was extremely close to passing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_sovereignty_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_sovereignty_movement The Supreme Court of Canada went on to confirm that a referendum is a legal method for Quebec to initiate secession: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_Re_Secession_of_Quebec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_Re_Secession_of_Queb...
- liuliu 7y agoTrue. It is just hard to rewrite nation borders once it is set and done for a country of China's size. Realistically, the West probably hope of USSR type of breakdown. To me, that is extremely unlikely given the desire of the Chinese people to remain as a united group.
- hjklhlkjh 7y agoWesterner here. I'd settle for allowing Muslims to build nice minarets on mosques in XJ without getting jailed, and for Hong Kongers to be able to choose who leads them (really choose: not from a list of candidates preselected by the Party) until 2047. The motivation? A belief that humans are entitled to at least a modicum of political self-determination.
- liuliu 7y agoTrue. But the topic here is "One-China" policy.
- guardiangod 7y agoBeijing doesn't care. Beijing only cares about 1 thing- internal unity. What better way to promote this than to show the strength of modern China. China wants other countries to fear China's economic and military power, and to bow down to China's demand (or, at the very least, fearful of repercussions from China.) I suspect that China is perfectly content with not interacting with other countries ever, as long as other countries recognizes China as the most powerful country in the world. PS. Do you know China's netizens most popular nickname for USA? "America Empire"
- vertex-four 7y agoI mean, that's a pretty common opinion of the US pretty much everywhere.