8 ms·

The China Situation Isn’t as Bad as It Looks. It’s Far Worse

67 points by dayve 4y ago

Bombthecat 4y ago
There is a reason Germany starts the discussion/ plans for a potential attack on Taiwan by 2027... https://www.txtreport.com/news/2022-12-01-germany-predicts-%22china-s-2027-attack-on-taiwan%22-and-intends-to-significantly-adjust-its-economic-and-trade-policy-towards-china-international.BynCYUIwi.html https://www.txtreport.com/news/2022-12-01-germany-predicts-%... You could say: been there, done that.
lern_too_spel 4y ago
Falun Gong is a cult — the Moonies with Chinese characteristics. The fact that the author of this article and its associated book doesn't acknowledge this tells you all you need to know about this analysis. Hitler planned for conquest of Europe. Xi is seeking to gain the territories disputed with its neighbors due to treaties signed with KMT officials instead of with CCP officials. The threat to liberal democracies is not remotely the same.
- brutusborn 4y ago
  Out of interest what makes Falun Gong more of a cult than say, Catholicism? I’m not suggesting it’s not, but all I seem to find is meditation, tai chi and some inconsistent philosophy; very similar to other religions.
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago
    Biden, a Catholic, is allowed to have beliefs different from the Pope's. Members of Falun Gong believe that the leader is a supernatural being who can read their minds. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-21/inside-falun-gong-master-li-hongzhi-the-mountain-dragon-springs/12442518 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-21/inside-falun-gong-mas...
    - oneoff786 4y ago
      I’m not sure where Biden comes into this. But plenty a preacher will tell you what you must believe in Catholicism.
      - lern_too_spel 4y ago
        Biden comes into this because he is Catholic and clearly does not have to do what the Pope tells him to do, nor does the Pope try to tell him what to do. This is not possible in Falun Gong, the Unification Church, and other cults.
        oneoff786 4y ago
        But… why bring in a political leader when he is not unique in regards to this aspect of the faith whatsoever? That just seems distracting
        lern_too_spel 4y ago
        Is there a better example of a Catholic that everybody knows? The only two I can be sure that everyone knows are Biden and the Pope.
        oneoff786 4y ago
        Identifying a specific Catholic doesn’t help the point you are trying to make. It just makes things more distracting.
        lern_too_spel 4y ago
        You seem to be the only person who is distracted. Presumably, everybody else found it helpful to have an example that they knew.
    - brutusborn 4y ago
      That sounds basically equivalent to Papal Infallibility (besides the mind reading). Seems like typical misguided religion rather than a cult. I’m not saying it’s good, but I would reserve the term ‘cult’ for Scientology and the like.
- helloworld11 4y ago
  >Falun Gong is a cult — the Moonies with Chinese characteristics. The fact that the author of this article and its associated book doesn't acknowledge this tells you all you need to know about this analysis. First, one piece of opinion in a larger body of text doesn't tell you "all you need to know" about the rest of it. Much of the other arguments might be very good even if a few are wrong. What a silly notion to say otherwise. Secondly, whether Falun Gong was cult-like or not doesn't change the fact that China brutally repressed a religious movement of tens of millions of members that didn't engage in terrorism, violence or forcibly integrate new members. This repression coupled with so many of China's other repressions of different groups and minorities makes it absurd to blame a religious group for being crushed ruthlessly, instead of the obvious giant state and police apparatus doing the crushing.
  - lern_too_spel 4y ago
    > First, one piece of opinion in a larger body of text doesn't tell you "all you need to know" about the rest of it. It certainly does when Falun Gong and the Moonies are purveyors of far right propaganda, which the author subscribes to. > Secondly, whether Falun Gong was cult-like or not doesn't change the fact that China brutally repressed a religious movement of tens of millions of members that didn't engage in terrorism, violence or forcibly integrate new members. As far as China's repression of Falun Gong, I wholeheartedly disagree with its methods, but as Falun Gong was and remains an anti-CCP entity, the repression of that organization is entirely understandable.
    - divergentnote 4y ago
      [flagged]
- meltyness 4y ago
  There is clear effort here to complicate things, regardless of the author's stated bias. More verbs and ajectives don't reduce the significance of "internment."
ggm 4y ago
He needs an editor. It's too long, it rambles, it uses language repetitively like "western elites" who exactly does this mean, beyond hand waving dislike of academia? Last time I looked a room full of academics was a disagreement, not really influential to public policy. The agencies engaged in China are mostly commercial like Tesla, apple, car manufacturing and media like News Ltd. Intellectuals my arse! There's a point to be made, and it's made: do not trust propaganda coming out of China which disagrees with basic measurements you can make from outside, or comparable situations outside which disagree by orders of magnitude in health and economics. Do not trust any licence or contract which retains substantive control inside China of a bilateral outcome, without significant evidence of mutual benefit to the state. Accusations against intellectuals and politicians in the west are at best polemic, and at worst bad faith. The author appears to want to bash western intellectuals they disagree with. Very little we do in the west would alter the trajectory inside China, and parallels with interwar Germany are over stated: the modern state of China post 49, at no point has been subject to partition (Taiwan and Hong Kong noted) or oversight or forced to pay reparations. It's grievance with the global free market economics is about the cynicism of trade agreements, the historical disagreement over Taiwan & Hong Kong and the utility inside China of harping on about Japan, Britain and the west's perfidy over time. Calling out a protest against Japan or Britain is as trivial for the Chinese state as it is for the Iranians to remind people about Jimmy Carters helicopter fiasco. If you want realistic views on China, talk to Vietnam. The Vietnamese I know from inside that economy are careful how they engage for a reason: little brother grew up, big brother doesn't fully understand it. China hasn't invaded anywhere outside its own territory for a long time. (Other states dispute what its own territory is, eg the spratleys) It bickers with India along a border. China draws attention to western military forces having been active in multiple unrelated territories consistently across the same timeframe: this is a point of some substance inside China, and in client states in Africa and pacific Islands. They sell this story to source "Coltan": we invest in you for minerals and fish: repression inside your own polity is your own business. Contrast this with world bank economic obligations or social requirements to get western funding. (We're not wrong to seek the social justice. It's hurt us economically because China doesn't and pays well) Australia and New Zealand dropped the ball in their own backyard, China picked it up. There's been a massive about face by the west reinvesting in the places China opportunistically invested in, for fisheries rights and for future military/police relationships. China asks for friendly faces in votes at the UN and related agencies on matters which don't directly affect the states it engages in. It's a low bar, easy payback. It probably has raised the price for western re-engagement which is of course beneficial for those same states. The spratleys and the other islands and sandbars of the China Sea are the major worry. The Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and japan have food for thought there. Australia's refusal to accept international court jurisdiction over its bullying and spying of East Timor undermined its own standing in the same courts acting against what China is doing. I accused the author of rambling. I've committed the same offence.
imiric 4y ago
The scariest thing about China's geopolitics is that it has embedded itself in pretty much every country on the planet. Whether that is by financing major infrastructure projects, being the world's largest creditor (beyond the World Bank and the IMF), or having hundreds of police stations around the world. This gives it immense leverage to influence governments to act in their favor. This is not even accounting for the propaganda machinery spamming the internet, or their role as the world's factory. While the US has been overthrowing governments and replacing them with puppets, China has been diplomatically and methodically setting up the chess board to be in a winning position in the long run. This makes them a far scarier adversary than the West with its military superiority.
- ProjectArcturis 4y ago
  It has certainly been their intent to buy influence by throwing money around the world. I'm not sure how effective it will be. If there is an invasion of Taiwan, the Western financial powers will give the rest of the world permission to default on their debts and renege on their deals with China (just as we "froze" $300B of Russia's that was in Western banking systems, which we'll probably give to Ukraine for reconstruction). It remains to be seen whether African countries will prefer to continue paying their debts to China or join the Western side and take all that infrastructure for free.
  - wahern 4y ago
    China's infrastructure investments are to a significant extent work programs for Chinese laborers, whom they send overseas to build these projects rather than employ local labor. The preference for Chinese laborers doesn't play well in countries where they "invest", which diminishes the political value even more. Unsurprisingly, China ends up cancelling much of this financing debt. > Chinese interest-free loans are frequently cancelled. And it’s widely understood that when China extends such credit lines, they are rarely ever paid back in full. Beijing was certainly not counting on the likes of Burundi, Congo or Mozambique to service these debts. And it has regularly rescheduled loans to African sovereigns worth billions in the last 20 years. https://africanarguments.org/2022/09/will-china-africa-debt-cancellations-make-a-difference/ https://africanarguments.org/2022/09/will-china-africa-debt-...
jacooper 4y ago
The author's book description doesn't inspire confidence in his motives > It was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe since the Second World War, and the largest man-made famine since the Great Leap Forward. And it was all for nothing. Lockdowns had never been science. Rather, they’d sprung into global policy on the order of the CCP princeling who would become the most influential member of the Baby Boom generation; an aberration thrust upon the world through an unprecedented, international influence operation. > By corrupting global institutions, promoting forged data, publishing fraudulent science, and deploying propaganda on an unprecedented scale, the CCP under Xi Jinping transformed the snake oil of lockdowns into “science,” the greatest crime of the 21st century to date. This is the story of how he did it, and why.
- exceptione 4y ago
  I agree that he mixes some good points with conspiracy theories.
- popilewiz 4y ago
  [dead]
andrewstuart 4y ago
The diplomatic messaging from the CCP became extremely aggressive a couple of years ago. The outcome of this bullying was essentially to wake up the world to the threat that China had become. This period of Chinese open hostility towards the world essentially made many countries into enemies or at least adversaries of China. A new arms race began, and many countries started to economically decouple from China or pull out entirely. Recently China seemed to realize its “wolf warrior” aggressive stance towards the world simply was leading to well armed and prepared adversaries, so the CCP stopped being so aggressive in its diplomatic stance. The most disturbing part of all this is that at least here in Australia, much of society seems to have bought the new narrative that China was never a threat and indeed it was our own government at the time (now voted out) that caused the degraded relationship with China. People seem to believe that China has gone back to being non threatening, non aggressive. They seem happy to believe that China’s clearly stated intent to control the world is no longer its goal. It looks to me like China had a short period where it showed its true hand, and realizing its error, had gone back to hiding its true ambitions behind a friendly smile. This will lull countries like Australia into a false sense of security and does not bode well for the future, in which China has realized it must carry out its plans with surprise rather than telegraphing hostility early. Our politicians are all too willing to back down and stop becoming prepared. It’s extremely unfortunate that in Australia there are many people who equate being defensively ready with warmongering. I’m no hawk but I sure do believe we should defend our sovereignty and be ready well in advance to do so. We are far, far from able to defend ourselves right now.
- ProjectArcturis 4y ago
  I'm surprised to hear that about Australian public opinion. In the US, we have a rare bipartisan agreement that China is our largest strategic enemy. Biden was able to do radical things like ban export of advanced chips to China, a move which has generally been approved by both sides of the aisle.
  - andrewstuart 4y ago
    Ironically, it was Australia via former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who alerted the USA to the true nature of the relationship with China. This happened when Turnbull urged the USA to ban installation of 5G by CCP controlled telecommunications companies. Australia alerting the world in this way is one of the reasons China became enraged with Australia and imposed a massive trade war against us. There are, unfortunately, many people who when presented with modern reality, say things like “we need to stop being a slave to U.S interests”. Many people I believe simply haven’t followed international affairs closely enough to realize what is actually happening, and they carry through 1970s “we are not a US colony” thinking to the present. I find it startling when people haven’t seen what is happening on our doorstep. I for one am extremely glad of the US alliance and if anything want closer defence connections. We are going to need it. It’s extremely concerning that the new Australian government has been working extremely hard to reestablish friendly and close relationship with China. This will come at a heavy price I fear.
nhchris 4y ago
> In that sense, in contrast to the Nazis’ militaristic imperialism, the CCP has resurrected a more ancient form of imperialism in which they’ve bought and groomed foreign elites to be more loyal to them than to their own people. Loyalty to one's own people, or that there even is such a thing as "own people", and not just random individuals that happen to share passports, is rather taboo in the West, isn't it?
- ggm 4y ago
  Loyalty is complicated. GK Chesterton (who was not left leaning) said "my country right or wrong is like my mother drunk or sober" It would be hard to espouse loyalty to America as a Japanese origin US citizen locked up in ww2 because of assumptions about loyalty. Somehow they did. Admirable. The modern day pledge of allegiance was confected to reassert religions role in the state (against the express wishes of the constitution drafters) as if loyalty could be measured by willingness to recite a pledge under threats implicit or explicit. The entire existence of the modern US polity is founded on a rejection of one kind of loyalty and replacement with another. Loyal british retreated to Halifax. They continued to trade with their southern neighbours. What loyalty the black panthers owed was unclear. Leo Amery M.P. (and a privy counsellor, thats loyalty) disowned his son who joined the nazi forces. He was executed at wars end 7 months after the victory in Europe.
  - nhchris 4y ago
    Your comments are about what loyalty the people owe to their government, but I was talking about the reverse - the loyalty a government owes to its people. E.g. your example of the Black Panthers - they may not have been loyal to the US government, but they were unapologetically loyal to what they considered 'their people' - African-Americans.
    - ggm 4y ago
      https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2422711-the-solution-after-the-uprising-of-the-17th-of-june https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2422711-the-solution-after-... "Die Lösung" by Bertold Brecht comes to mind
troon-lover 4y ago
[dead]
rhaway84773 4y ago
This article doesn’t resemble reality at all. It indicates that China’s subterfuge is succeeding. But all evidence points to nearly every political wing of most Western countries becoming ridiculously suspicious of China. Australia’s most left wing government in a long time has adopted an incredibly anti-China stance. The UK has become incredibly anti-China despite basing Brexit on the idea that trade with China will compensate for trade with the EU. A couple of years ago the EU was looking likely to collaborate far more with China. That has changed dramatically since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. political class is broadly anti-China. The current Democratic government has taken extremely strong steps to reduce trade with China and Trump the Republican made opposing China a centerpiece of his campaign. Edit: Unfortunately this article is little more than BS propaganda. None of the claims it makes actually follow from the evidence it provides. Just as an example, it claims that many Western countries had stricter lockdowns than China, which may be the most asinine claim I’ve ever heard. And it pretends lockdowns were about eliminating COVID. That’s absolute BS. The entire lockdown argument in the West in the beginning was about “flattening the curve”. The entire idea was to avoid the acute need for medical services that were seen in China that required it to build hospitals treating tens of thousands of people in days, the massive deaths in Italy and NYC due to the explosion of illness at a time when we knew nothing about treating COVID (the gold standard of treatment at the time, using ventilators, was almost certainly wrong and led to the deaths of thousands of people in NYC who would have been alive if we had the information we did even a few weeks later). Lockdowns happened to be extremely effective at preventing COVID, but that was a pleasant after the fact surprise. However their original justification was always “flattening the curve”.
amai 4y ago
Replace China with Russia and CCP with Putin and the article would describe the situation before the war in Ukraine perfectly.

67 points by dayve 4y ago

There is a reason Germany starts the discussion/ plans for a potential attack on Taiwan by 2027... https://www.txtreport.com/news/2022-12-01-germany-predicts-%22china-s-2027-attack-on-taiwan%22-and-intends-to-significantly-adjust-its-economic-and-trade-policy-towards-china-international.BynCYUIwi.html https://www.txtreport.com/news/2022-12-01-germany-predicts-%... You could say: been there, done that.

lern_too_spel 4y ago

Falun Gong is a cult — the Moonies with Chinese characteristics. The fact that the author of this article and its associated book doesn't acknowledge this tells you all you need to know about this analysis. Hitler planned for conquest of Europe. Xi is seeking to gain the territories disputed with its neighbors due to treaties signed with KMT officials instead of with CCP officials. The threat to liberal democracies is not remotely the same.

brutusborn 4y ago
Out of interest what makes Falun Gong more of a cult than say, Catholicism? I’m not suggesting it’s not, but all I seem to find is meditation, tai chi and some inconsistent philosophy; very similar to other religions.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  Biden, a Catholic, is allowed to have beliefs different from the Pope's. Members of Falun Gong believe that the leader is a supernatural being who can read their minds. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-21/inside-falun-gong-master-li-hongzhi-the-mountain-dragon-springs/12442518 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-07-21/inside-falun-gong-mas...
  - oneoff786 4y ago
    I’m not sure where Biden comes into this. But plenty a preacher will tell you what you must believe in Catholicism.
    - lern_too_spel 4y ago
      Biden comes into this because he is Catholic and clearly does not have to do what the Pope tells him to do, nor does the Pope try to tell him what to do. This is not possible in Falun Gong, the Unification Church, and other cults.
      - oneoff786 4y ago
        But… why bring in a political leader when he is not unique in regards to this aspect of the faith whatsoever? That just seems distracting
        lern_too_spel 4y ago
        Is there a better example of a Catholic that everybody knows? The only two I can be sure that everyone knows are Biden and the Pope.
        oneoff786 4y ago
        Identifying a specific Catholic doesn’t help the point you are trying to make. It just makes things more distracting.
        lern_too_spel 4y ago
        You seem to be the only person who is distracted. Presumably, everybody else found it helpful to have an example that they knew.
  - brutusborn 4y ago
    That sounds basically equivalent to Papal Infallibility (besides the mind reading). Seems like typical misguided religion rather than a cult. I’m not saying it’s good, but I would reserve the term ‘cult’ for Scientology and the like.
helloworld11 4y ago
>Falun Gong is a cult — the Moonies with Chinese characteristics. The fact that the author of this article and its associated book doesn't acknowledge this tells you all you need to know about this analysis. First, one piece of opinion in a larger body of text doesn't tell you "all you need to know" about the rest of it. Much of the other arguments might be very good even if a few are wrong. What a silly notion to say otherwise. Secondly, whether Falun Gong was cult-like or not doesn't change the fact that China brutally repressed a religious movement of tens of millions of members that didn't engage in terrorism, violence or forcibly integrate new members. This repression coupled with so many of China's other repressions of different groups and minorities makes it absurd to blame a religious group for being crushed ruthlessly, instead of the obvious giant state and police apparatus doing the crushing.
- lern_too_spel 4y ago
  > First, one piece of opinion in a larger body of text doesn't tell you "all you need to know" about the rest of it. It certainly does when Falun Gong and the Moonies are purveyors of far right propaganda, which the author subscribes to. > Secondly, whether Falun Gong was cult-like or not doesn't change the fact that China brutally repressed a religious movement of tens of millions of members that didn't engage in terrorism, violence or forcibly integrate new members. As far as China's repression of Falun Gong, I wholeheartedly disagree with its methods, but as Falun Gong was and remains an anti-CCP entity, the repression of that organization is entirely understandable.
  - divergentnote 4y ago
    [flagged]
meltyness 4y ago
There is clear effort here to complicate things, regardless of the author's stated bias. More verbs and ajectives don't reduce the significance of "internment."

ggm 4y ago

He needs an editor. It's too long, it rambles, it uses language repetitively like "western elites" who exactly does this mean, beyond hand waving dislike of academia? Last time I looked a room full of academics was a disagreement, not really influential to public policy. The agencies engaged in China are mostly commercial like Tesla, apple, car manufacturing and media like News Ltd. Intellectuals my arse! There's a point to be made, and it's made: do not trust propaganda coming out of China which disagrees with basic measurements you can make from outside, or comparable situations outside which disagree by orders of magnitude in health and economics. Do not trust any licence or contract which retains substantive control inside China of a bilateral outcome, without significant evidence of mutual benefit to the state. Accusations against intellectuals and politicians in the west are at best polemic, and at worst bad faith. The author appears to want to bash western intellectuals they disagree with. Very little we do in the west would alter the trajectory inside China, and parallels with interwar Germany are over stated: the modern state of China post 49, at no point has been subject to partition (Taiwan and Hong Kong noted) or oversight or forced to pay reparations. It's grievance with the global free market economics is about the cynicism of trade agreements, the historical disagreement over Taiwan & Hong Kong and the utility inside China of harping on about Japan, Britain and the west's perfidy over time. Calling out a protest against Japan or Britain is as trivial for the Chinese state as it is for the Iranians to remind people about Jimmy Carters helicopter fiasco. If you want realistic views on China, talk to Vietnam. The Vietnamese I know from inside that economy are careful how they engage for a reason: little brother grew up, big brother doesn't fully understand it. China hasn't invaded anywhere outside its own territory for a long time. (Other states dispute what its own territory is, eg the spratleys) It bickers with India along a border. China draws attention to western military forces having been active in multiple unrelated territories consistently across the same timeframe: this is a point of some substance inside China, and in client states in Africa and pacific Islands. They sell this story to source "Coltan": we invest in you for minerals and fish: repression inside your own polity is your own business. Contrast this with world bank economic obligations or social requirements to get western funding. (We're not wrong to seek the social justice. It's hurt us economically because China doesn't and pays well) Australia and New Zealand dropped the ball in their own backyard, China picked it up. There's been a massive about face by the west reinvesting in the places China opportunistically invested in, for fisheries rights and for future military/police relationships. China asks for friendly faces in votes at the UN and related agencies on matters which don't directly affect the states it engages in. It's a low bar, easy payback. It probably has raised the price for western re-engagement which is of course beneficial for those same states. The spratleys and the other islands and sandbars of the China Sea are the major worry. The Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore and japan have food for thought there. Australia's refusal to accept international court jurisdiction over its bullying and spying of East Timor undermined its own standing in the same courts acting against what China is doing. I accused the author of rambling. I've committed the same offence.

imiric 4y ago

The scariest thing about China's geopolitics is that it has embedded itself in pretty much every country on the planet. Whether that is by financing major infrastructure projects, being the world's largest creditor (beyond the World Bank and the IMF), or having hundreds of police stations around the world. This gives it immense leverage to influence governments to act in their favor. This is not even accounting for the propaganda machinery spamming the internet, or their role as the world's factory. While the US has been overthrowing governments and replacing them with puppets, China has been diplomatically and methodically setting up the chess board to be in a winning position in the long run. This makes them a far scarier adversary than the West with its military superiority.

ProjectArcturis 4y ago
It has certainly been their intent to buy influence by throwing money around the world. I'm not sure how effective it will be. If there is an invasion of Taiwan, the Western financial powers will give the rest of the world permission to default on their debts and renege on their deals with China (just as we "froze" $300B of Russia's that was in Western banking systems, which we'll probably give to Ukraine for reconstruction). It remains to be seen whether African countries will prefer to continue paying their debts to China or join the Western side and take all that infrastructure for free.
- wahern 4y ago
  China's infrastructure investments are to a significant extent work programs for Chinese laborers, whom they send overseas to build these projects rather than employ local labor. The preference for Chinese laborers doesn't play well in countries where they "invest", which diminishes the political value even more. Unsurprisingly, China ends up cancelling much of this financing debt. > Chinese interest-free loans are frequently cancelled. And it’s widely understood that when China extends such credit lines, they are rarely ever paid back in full. Beijing was certainly not counting on the likes of Burundi, Congo or Mozambique to service these debts. And it has regularly rescheduled loans to African sovereigns worth billions in the last 20 years. https://africanarguments.org/2022/09/will-china-africa-debt-cancellations-make-a-difference/ https://africanarguments.org/2022/09/will-china-africa-debt-...

jacooper 4y ago

The author's book description doesn't inspire confidence in his motives > It was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe since the Second World War, and the largest man-made famine since the Great Leap Forward. And it was all for nothing. Lockdowns had never been science. Rather, they’d sprung into global policy on the order of the CCP princeling who would become the most influential member of the Baby Boom generation; an aberration thrust upon the world through an unprecedented, international influence operation. > By corrupting global institutions, promoting forged data, publishing fraudulent science, and deploying propaganda on an unprecedented scale, the CCP under Xi Jinping transformed the snake oil of lockdowns into “science,” the greatest crime of the 21st century to date. This is the story of how he did it, and why.

exceptione 4y ago
I agree that he mixes some good points with conspiracy theories.
popilewiz 4y ago
[dead]

andrewstuart 4y ago

The diplomatic messaging from the CCP became extremely aggressive a couple of years ago. The outcome of this bullying was essentially to wake up the world to the threat that China had become. This period of Chinese open hostility towards the world essentially made many countries into enemies or at least adversaries of China. A new arms race began, and many countries started to economically decouple from China or pull out entirely. Recently China seemed to realize its “wolf warrior” aggressive stance towards the world simply was leading to well armed and prepared adversaries, so the CCP stopped being so aggressive in its diplomatic stance. The most disturbing part of all this is that at least here in Australia, much of society seems to have bought the new narrative that China was never a threat and indeed it was our own government at the time (now voted out) that caused the degraded relationship with China. People seem to believe that China has gone back to being non threatening, non aggressive. They seem happy to believe that China’s clearly stated intent to control the world is no longer its goal. It looks to me like China had a short period where it showed its true hand, and realizing its error, had gone back to hiding its true ambitions behind a friendly smile. This will lull countries like Australia into a false sense of security and does not bode well for the future, in which China has realized it must carry out its plans with surprise rather than telegraphing hostility early. Our politicians are all too willing to back down and stop becoming prepared. It’s extremely unfortunate that in Australia there are many people who equate being defensively ready with warmongering. I’m no hawk but I sure do believe we should defend our sovereignty and be ready well in advance to do so. We are far, far from able to defend ourselves right now.

ProjectArcturis 4y ago
I'm surprised to hear that about Australian public opinion. In the US, we have a rare bipartisan agreement that China is our largest strategic enemy. Biden was able to do radical things like ban export of advanced chips to China, a move which has generally been approved by both sides of the aisle.
- andrewstuart 4y ago
  Ironically, it was Australia via former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who alerted the USA to the true nature of the relationship with China. This happened when Turnbull urged the USA to ban installation of 5G by CCP controlled telecommunications companies. Australia alerting the world in this way is one of the reasons China became enraged with Australia and imposed a massive trade war against us. There are, unfortunately, many people who when presented with modern reality, say things like “we need to stop being a slave to U.S interests”. Many people I believe simply haven’t followed international affairs closely enough to realize what is actually happening, and they carry through 1970s “we are not a US colony” thinking to the present. I find it startling when people haven’t seen what is happening on our doorstep. I for one am extremely glad of the US alliance and if anything want closer defence connections. We are going to need it. It’s extremely concerning that the new Australian government has been working extremely hard to reestablish friendly and close relationship with China. This will come at a heavy price I fear.

nhchris 4y ago

> In that sense, in contrast to the Nazis’ militaristic imperialism, the CCP has resurrected a more ancient form of imperialism in which they’ve bought and groomed foreign elites to be more loyal to them than to their own people. Loyalty to one's own people, or that there even is such a thing as "own people", and not just random individuals that happen to share passports, is rather taboo in the West, isn't it?

ggm 4y ago
Loyalty is complicated. GK Chesterton (who was not left leaning) said "my country right or wrong is like my mother drunk or sober" It would be hard to espouse loyalty to America as a Japanese origin US citizen locked up in ww2 because of assumptions about loyalty. Somehow they did. Admirable. The modern day pledge of allegiance was confected to reassert religions role in the state (against the express wishes of the constitution drafters) as if loyalty could be measured by willingness to recite a pledge under threats implicit or explicit. The entire existence of the modern US polity is founded on a rejection of one kind of loyalty and replacement with another. Loyal british retreated to Halifax. They continued to trade with their southern neighbours. What loyalty the black panthers owed was unclear. Leo Amery M.P. (and a privy counsellor, thats loyalty) disowned his son who joined the nazi forces. He was executed at wars end 7 months after the victory in Europe.
- nhchris 4y ago
  Your comments are about what loyalty the people owe to their government, but I was talking about the reverse - the loyalty a government owes to its people. E.g. your example of the Black Panthers - they may not have been loyal to the US government, but they were unapologetically loyal to what they considered 'their people' - African-Americans.
  - ggm 4y ago
    https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2422711-the-solution-after-the-uprising-of-the-17th-of-june https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/2422711-the-solution-after-... "Die Lösung" by Bertold Brecht comes to mind

troon-lover 4y ago

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rhaway84773 4y ago

This article doesn’t resemble reality at all. It indicates that China’s subterfuge is succeeding. But all evidence points to nearly every political wing of most Western countries becoming ridiculously suspicious of China. Australia’s most left wing government in a long time has adopted an incredibly anti-China stance. The UK has become incredibly anti-China despite basing Brexit on the idea that trade with China will compensate for trade with the EU. A couple of years ago the EU was looking likely to collaborate far more with China. That has changed dramatically since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The U.S. political class is broadly anti-China. The current Democratic government has taken extremely strong steps to reduce trade with China and Trump the Republican made opposing China a centerpiece of his campaign. Edit: Unfortunately this article is little more than BS propaganda. None of the claims it makes actually follow from the evidence it provides. Just as an example, it claims that many Western countries had stricter lockdowns than China, which may be the most asinine claim I’ve ever heard. And it pretends lockdowns were about eliminating COVID. That’s absolute BS. The entire lockdown argument in the West in the beginning was about “flattening the curve”. The entire idea was to avoid the acute need for medical services that were seen in China that required it to build hospitals treating tens of thousands of people in days, the massive deaths in Italy and NYC due to the explosion of illness at a time when we knew nothing about treating COVID (the gold standard of treatment at the time, using ventilators, was almost certainly wrong and led to the deaths of thousands of people in NYC who would have been alive if we had the information we did even a few weeks later). Lockdowns happened to be extremely effective at preventing COVID, but that was a pleasant after the fact surprise. However their original justification was always “flattening the curve”.

amai 4y ago

Replace China with Russia and CCP with Putin and the article would describe the situation before the war in Ukraine perfectly.