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1. Beijing rejects being merely the "workshop" of the unipolar world, embraces sovereignty (GFW), high quality development (HSR), technological innovation (4IR)

1. Beijing rejects being merely the "workshop" of the unipolar world, embraces sovereignty (GFW), high quality development (HSR), technological innovation (4IR), including in the military space (space, cyber, hypersonics). Oh and BRI. 2. Washington doesn't like that because it will displace the unipolar moment. USA has been in economic decline for half a century while PRC has been on a dramatic rise. Washington tries to break up PRC like it's a too-big company, via hybrid warfare. It tries everything possible to politically destabilize Beijing, with propaganda being a cornerstone. 3. Washington enlists anyone available to achieve this goal, including washed-up NBA benchwarmers and irrelevant Eastern European countries. They are encouraged to adopt a foreign policy that is in line with Washington's desire to preserve unipolarity and therefore hostile to Beijing. Who knows what they get in return, because it certainly doesn't make any economic sense in the long-term. 4. When Beijing responds tit-for-tat, answering sanctions with sanctions, harassment with harassment, downgrade in relations with downgrade in relations, it's a simple matter of spinning PRC as the aggressor who acted first. Alternatively, "See See Pee Bad". Propaganda works and no one is immune.

manuelabeledo 5y ago
Both China and the US are trying to protect their interests, and both are aggressors. Making it look like this is some sort of US initiated warfare is insanely simplistic, and mostly wrong.
- pphysch 5y ago
  > Making it look like this is some sort of US initiated warfare is insanely simplistic, and mostly wrong. It is a simplification, but it is mostly true. Washington has literally been trying to contain PRC's rise since it was born in 1949. Because duh, China has historically been the most prosperous civilization on the planet and they just got out from under the boot of Western/Japanese imperialism. War in Korea (and almost over Taiwan). Deny access to 1st island chain. Sino-Soviet split. War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Scorched earth policy. Deny access to SEA. Transition to hybrid war (propaganda-driven psychological warfare) as PRC opened up under Deng. Tibet. Tiananmen Sq. (20 years of relative tolerance, Washington assuming PRC won't get uppity and will follow USSR's fate) Obama's "China Pivot", anti-BRICS campaign. South China Sea. Hong Kong. ETIM/Xinjiang. Taiwan. You can spin Beijing's responses to this containment strategy as "aggression", but frankly that doesn't make much sense unless you believe Washington is entitled to global hegemony. The fact is that Beijing has been consistently outplaying Washington since Mao. And that makes Washington extremely nervous and irrational.
  - manuelabeledo 5y ago
    The Korean and Vietnam wars had nothing to do with China, but the USSR. Other than that, China was the clear aggressor in most of the conflicts you mention. China invaded Tibet with the excuse of “liberating” their people, which is essentially what the US has claimed to justify most of their foreign interventions. The CCP violently squashed the Tiananmen protests. China keeps claiming authority over large areas of the South China Sea, disregarding protests by surrounding countries like the Philippines. The CCP backtracked on their promise of keeping Hong Kong’s system of government, putting more agreeable politicians in charge, and disregarding and/or squashing any citizen movements. Taiwan is a de facto independent country whose mere existence is threatened by China. I could go on and on, but pretending that China is not the aggressor here is almost laughable.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      > The Korean and Vietnam wars had nothing to do with China, but the USSR. Frankly, this makes me want to stop reading right here. This is an outrageously ignorant comment. PLA participated in both wars, which bordered China, and backed the Northern factions. USSR did neither. But don't take my word for it. SecDef McNamara to LBJ: "1. US strategy. The February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain Communist China." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v03/d189 https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v03... You should not believe everything you read from Washington media or high school American history textbooks, as your comment implies you do. It will make you weak and exploitable.
      - manuelabeledo 5y ago
        Containing China by deploying troops is one thing. The US did deploy troops all over the world to contain advancement of countries under the USSR influence, or simply “communist” countries or governments, during that time. Starting a full on proxy war in Vietnam during the Cold War era is a completely different issue. Same goes for Korea. China wasn’t that big of a threat to the US. Pretending that it was, and that it was at the same level of the USSR, is ridiculous and close to historic revisionism at this point.
jackTheMan 5y ago
Honestly I've never liked americans because of arrogance and the way of dealing with things, but the Communist-China really unites all democracy as it is a nightmare utopia. Can't imagine anybody reasonable wants to give more power/influence to a country that destroys all differences (in minorities), killing the languages, traditions, old structures everything traditional. There is even less value there than in US, money is the god, and who is a cheater is the smart. The rule is by force. Did you see that the government hired thugs to beat up it's own people in HK? (and after used the police directly to do this?) It's said if a small irrelevant country is doing this, but if this becomes the standard of a global power, well I don't want to be nearby.
eunos 5y ago
It's not really decline but relative decline, otherwise the rest of statements stand. The most amusing thing is that people forgot that US threw the firebrand Taiwan independence advocate Chen-sui Bian under the bus.
- pphysch 5y ago
  USA has absolutely been in economic decline since the 70s. Which was okay because USD is the global reserve currency and Washington can just print USD to buy things and offset the declines in productivity/etc. However, once the USD loses global reserve status, USA is in extreme economic trouble. In 2021 alone, it will have over $1T trade deficit in goods.
  - daemoens 5y ago
    The US won't lose it's global reserve status because anyone that could, doesn't want to. Certainly not China especially.
    - pphysch 5y ago
      Of course China doesn't want a sudden collapse of the global financial system, but China is actively dedollarizing. RCEP and Russia trade is aiming to be 0% USD and may already be there. Russia and India also just announced that their bilateral trade will be 0% USD.
  - seoulmetro 5y ago
    I would hate to see what the US would be like if the US didn't get to the tech space first. It's the only pillar holding them up beyond the 20th century.
DangitBobby 5y ago
What are your thoughts on what China has done to Taiwan or the Uyghurs?
- pphysch 5y ago
  Taiwan: 1. PRC has a very clear national security interest in Taiwan not being ruled by an unpredictable regime that may host American weapon systems pointed at the mainland. See Cuban/Soviet Missile Crisis. Coincidentally, similar situation going on with Russia and Ukraine right now. 2. If/when the DPP regime falls and is replaced by a more "independent" government, that government will naturally be favorable to joining the PRC as an autonomous province. Because the economic incentives are there and there is no real ethnic/cultural barrier to reunification (there is already massive brain drain from TW to mainland). This is the outcome that Beijing is clearly planning for and they won't have to fire a single shot to get it. Uyghurs: 1. Xinjiang is a pathway to Central Asia and critical to the Belt and Road initiative. It's also a relatively undeveloped region that shares a small border with Afghanistan, with a history of widespread poverty and separatism/terrorism. 2. In the mid 2010s, Beijing was busy implementing two important policies in Xinjiang. A deradicalization campaign and an anti-poverty campaign. These are serious, fast-moving policies that involved a lot of heavy-handed action. Like getting millions of people enrolled in vocational training, Mandarin classes, and distant employment. Basically, Beijing wouldn't tolerate Xinjiang becoming Afghanistan 2.0, as much as Washington would love that. So they aggressively developed the region. Ürümqi in 2021 is probably unrecognizable to Ürümqi in 2009, when over a hundred civilians were butchered by ETIM-linked terrorists. 3. In response, Washington, through proxies like Adrian Zenz and WUC, launched a vicious propaganda campaign. Ordinary prisons for violent extremists and other criminals became "concentration camps for Uyghurs". Schools became "reeducation facilities". Vocational training and just having a job became "forced labor". Mandarin lessons became "cultural genocide". Women being lifted out of poverty became "genocide through birthrate suppression". And so on and so forth. 4. The hypocrisy from Washington is mind-blowing. On the "forced labor" front, Washington implemented sanctions against any company that uses "Uyghur labor", in other words, virtually any company that employs Uyghurs. The goal is obvious: to push Uyghurs back into poverty and therefore destabilize the critical region. Because Washington does not care about the lives of distant Muslims; the last three decades make this abundantly clear.
seoulmetro 5y ago
Yeah the writing is on the wall. Except it's being wiped out by the US and written as something else. Meanwhile the original writing wasn't so great, but it was true.

manuelabeledo 5y ago

Both China and the US are trying to protect their interests, and both are aggressors. Making it look like this is some sort of US initiated warfare is insanely simplistic, and mostly wrong.

pphysch 5y ago
> Making it look like this is some sort of US initiated warfare is insanely simplistic, and mostly wrong. It is a simplification, but it is mostly true. Washington has literally been trying to contain PRC's rise since it was born in 1949. Because duh, China has historically been the most prosperous civilization on the planet and they just got out from under the boot of Western/Japanese imperialism. War in Korea (and almost over Taiwan). Deny access to 1st island chain. Sino-Soviet split. War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. Scorched earth policy. Deny access to SEA. Transition to hybrid war (propaganda-driven psychological warfare) as PRC opened up under Deng. Tibet. Tiananmen Sq. (20 years of relative tolerance, Washington assuming PRC won't get uppity and will follow USSR's fate) Obama's "China Pivot", anti-BRICS campaign. South China Sea. Hong Kong. ETIM/Xinjiang. Taiwan. You can spin Beijing's responses to this containment strategy as "aggression", but frankly that doesn't make much sense unless you believe Washington is entitled to global hegemony. The fact is that Beijing has been consistently outplaying Washington since Mao. And that makes Washington extremely nervous and irrational.
- manuelabeledo 5y ago
  The Korean and Vietnam wars had nothing to do with China, but the USSR. Other than that, China was the clear aggressor in most of the conflicts you mention. China invaded Tibet with the excuse of “liberating” their people, which is essentially what the US has claimed to justify most of their foreign interventions. The CCP violently squashed the Tiananmen protests. China keeps claiming authority over large areas of the South China Sea, disregarding protests by surrounding countries like the Philippines. The CCP backtracked on their promise of keeping Hong Kong’s system of government, putting more agreeable politicians in charge, and disregarding and/or squashing any citizen movements. Taiwan is a de facto independent country whose mere existence is threatened by China. I could go on and on, but pretending that China is not the aggressor here is almost laughable.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    > The Korean and Vietnam wars had nothing to do with China, but the USSR. Frankly, this makes me want to stop reading right here. This is an outrageously ignorant comment. PLA participated in both wars, which bordered China, and backed the Northern factions. USSR did neither. But don't take my word for it. SecDef McNamara to LBJ: "1. US strategy. The February decision to bomb North Vietnam and the July approval of Phase I deployments make sense only if they are in support of a long-run United States policy to contain Communist China." https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v03/d189 https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v03... You should not believe everything you read from Washington media or high school American history textbooks, as your comment implies you do. It will make you weak and exploitable.
    - manuelabeledo 5y ago
      Containing China by deploying troops is one thing. The US did deploy troops all over the world to contain advancement of countries under the USSR influence, or simply “communist” countries or governments, during that time. Starting a full on proxy war in Vietnam during the Cold War era is a completely different issue. Same goes for Korea. China wasn’t that big of a threat to the US. Pretending that it was, and that it was at the same level of the USSR, is ridiculous and close to historic revisionism at this point.

jackTheMan 5y ago

Honestly I've never liked americans because of arrogance and the way of dealing with things, but the Communist-China really unites all democracy as it is a nightmare utopia. Can't imagine anybody reasonable wants to give more power/influence to a country that destroys all differences (in minorities), killing the languages, traditions, old structures everything traditional. There is even less value there than in US, money is the god, and who is a cheater is the smart. The rule is by force. Did you see that the government hired thugs to beat up it's own people in HK? (and after used the police directly to do this?) It's said if a small irrelevant country is doing this, but if this becomes the standard of a global power, well I don't want to be nearby.

eunos 5y ago

It's not really decline but relative decline, otherwise the rest of statements stand. The most amusing thing is that people forgot that US threw the firebrand Taiwan independence advocate Chen-sui Bian under the bus.

pphysch 5y ago
USA has absolutely been in economic decline since the 70s. Which was okay because USD is the global reserve currency and Washington can just print USD to buy things and offset the declines in productivity/etc. However, once the USD loses global reserve status, USA is in extreme economic trouble. In 2021 alone, it will have over $1T trade deficit in goods.
- daemoens 5y ago
  The US won't lose it's global reserve status because anyone that could, doesn't want to. Certainly not China especially.
  - pphysch 5y ago
    Of course China doesn't want a sudden collapse of the global financial system, but China is actively dedollarizing. RCEP and Russia trade is aiming to be 0% USD and may already be there. Russia and India also just announced that their bilateral trade will be 0% USD.
- seoulmetro 5y ago
  I would hate to see what the US would be like if the US didn't get to the tech space first. It's the only pillar holding them up beyond the 20th century.

DangitBobby 5y ago

What are your thoughts on what China has done to Taiwan or the Uyghurs?

pphysch 5y ago
Taiwan: 1. PRC has a very clear national security interest in Taiwan not being ruled by an unpredictable regime that may host American weapon systems pointed at the mainland. See Cuban/Soviet Missile Crisis. Coincidentally, similar situation going on with Russia and Ukraine right now. 2. If/when the DPP regime falls and is replaced by a more "independent" government, that government will naturally be favorable to joining the PRC as an autonomous province. Because the economic incentives are there and there is no real ethnic/cultural barrier to reunification (there is already massive brain drain from TW to mainland). This is the outcome that Beijing is clearly planning for and they won't have to fire a single shot to get it. Uyghurs: 1. Xinjiang is a pathway to Central Asia and critical to the Belt and Road initiative. It's also a relatively undeveloped region that shares a small border with Afghanistan, with a history of widespread poverty and separatism/terrorism. 2. In the mid 2010s, Beijing was busy implementing two important policies in Xinjiang. A deradicalization campaign and an anti-poverty campaign. These are serious, fast-moving policies that involved a lot of heavy-handed action. Like getting millions of people enrolled in vocational training, Mandarin classes, and distant employment. Basically, Beijing wouldn't tolerate Xinjiang becoming Afghanistan 2.0, as much as Washington would love that. So they aggressively developed the region. Ürümqi in 2021 is probably unrecognizable to Ürümqi in 2009, when over a hundred civilians were butchered by ETIM-linked terrorists. 3. In response, Washington, through proxies like Adrian Zenz and WUC, launched a vicious propaganda campaign. Ordinary prisons for violent extremists and other criminals became "concentration camps for Uyghurs". Schools became "reeducation facilities". Vocational training and just having a job became "forced labor". Mandarin lessons became "cultural genocide". Women being lifted out of poverty became "genocide through birthrate suppression". And so on and so forth. 4. The hypocrisy from Washington is mind-blowing. On the "forced labor" front, Washington implemented sanctions against any company that uses "Uyghur labor", in other words, virtually any company that employs Uyghurs. The goal is obvious: to push Uyghurs back into poverty and therefore destabilize the critical region. Because Washington does not care about the lives of distant Muslims; the last three decades make this abundantly clear.

seoulmetro 5y ago

Yeah the writing is on the wall. Except it's being wiped out by the US and written as something else. Meanwhile the original writing wasn't so great, but it was true.