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That is what China is doing to US now . Decades from now , Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They wil
by anoy8888 3y ago
That is what China is doing to US now . Decades from now , Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable.
- andsoitis 3y ago> Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable. If they’re useless, how are they making chips and secret tech?
- mcny 3y ago>> Chinese will joke about how they get chips and other secret tech from shell companies in us. They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable. > If they’re useless, how are they making chips and secret tech? My reading is they are trying to make us useless but we are not there yet? I assume it takes time, right? In any case, not like the west can complain after what we did in the opium wars? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
- mechanical_bear 3y agoWhat “we” did? Speak for yourself sir.
- azathough 3y ago[flagged]
- chii 3y ago> not like the west can complain after what we did in the opium wars? the west isn't one entity. Plus two wrongs don't make a right. Just because in the past, there has been atrocities committed, doesn't mean there's justification to do so now.
- 111111IIIIIII 3y agoHistorically and culturally, the west is absolutely a meaningful entity.
- rocqua 3y agoBut the west is far from a single coherent actor. Even just consider that the hegemon that leads the west has changed from great Britain to the US.
- oneshtein 3y agoTransportation is much faster now, thus peoples are much closer to each other, so they are united at much larger scale. Few hundreds years ago, two town with few thousands were separate countries. Today European Union acts almost like single 0.5B country. In few hundred years, whole Globe will be united. In transition to Global State, whole continents, or hemispheres will be united first by geographic location, race, or religion.
- hardware2win 3y ago>Today European Union acts almost like single 0.5B country. What makes you think so
- dclowd9901 3y ago“Two wrongs don’t make a right” is a moral play. There are definitely cases in history where wrongs made rights, two or more. Some sort of moral balance has to be achieved before two forces can move forward. It will feel reasonable to both sides when it happens.
- chii 3y agoNot really - it certainly is wrong to say that because some other country has done XYZ, so now my country have the right to also do XYZ (where XYZ is commonly agreed to be be bad, such as wage war, genocide etc). Some country might feel that they're justified in what they're doing, because another country previously have done it (and got to a dominant position, perhaps, by doing it). But generally, i dont think this justification is sound, and is an excuse, rather than a real justification. Now of course no country require justification to do what they wish - that is the meaning of having sovereignty, but this also means that other countries must actively stop this sort of practise.
- nonethewiser 3y agoThe US did not fuel the opium wars
- klooney 3y agoLots of prominent New England families with their names all over everything got their start that way- Astor, Delano, Cabot, Forbes. "The old China trade" is the phrase to search for.
- gdy 3y agoThey did. [0] [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12gw8w/what_was_the_united_states_involvement_in_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/12gw8w/what_...
- trashtester 3y agoThey did join the second one, at least.
- cscurmudgeon 3y agoIs “West” a country? Can US blame China for another two hundred years for Pearl Harbor because both China and Japan are the East? The duration between the last US-UK war and Opium wars is much shorter than the Opium wars and the present. During this time, US helped China by opening up its market asymmetrically and being on its side during WW2 and even gave China aid. > President Roosevelt approved $25 million in military aid to China on 19 December 1940, permitting the Chinese to purchase one hundred P 40 pursuit aircraft. By late spring 1941, the United States had also earmarked over $145 million in lend-lease funds for China to acquire both ground and air equipment. https://www.history.army.mil/brochures/72-38/72-38.htm#:~:te https://www.history.army.mil/brochures/72-38/72-38.htm#:~:te.... The aid continues even now: https://www.usaid.gov/china https://www.usaid.gov/china
- throwaway_13140 3y agoyes - and spotted lantern flies, and lead in toothpaste, and endocrine stopping chemicals in plastic kids toys, the list goes on and on
- sublinear 3y ago> they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable That is quite a non sequitur. Who is being forced to take drugs or listen to extremist propaganda? Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. The instability of American culture is currently seen as an intrinsic virtue. China is not causing any change. They're just apparently exploiting what was already the dumbest part of America. Even America's allies do this. If America finally grows up it would be a good thing and the only way that will probably happen is more self-inflicted disaster.
- eloisius 3y ago> Those are deliberate choices made by people with low impulse control, and China has nothing to do with that. Tell that to historians, especially Chinese historians, regarding Britain’s opium trade.
- bigger_inside 3y agoI was about to comment on the obvious projection inherent in the "the Chinese are forcing drugs on the US" narrative. But it's a classic. If you want to know the nefarious things the US is doing, just look at what the claim their adversaries are doing.
- pigeonhole123 3y agoI think GP's point is the opposite. Most people agree that Britain's opium trade in China was exploitative.
- bigger_inside 3y agoI was seconding the comment I replied to, not arguing against a misreading? Though I might be misunderstanding who you mean by GP. I'm confused, sorry
- jraby3 3y ago
- deanCommie 3y agoIf there is one thing that was conclusively proven by the now almost 40 year old "War On Drugs", is that controlling their supply does nothing for their demand. The US is tearing itself from the inside because of the inevitable conclusions of late stage capitalism: there is an unsustainable wealth gap, and entrenched systemic discrimination perpetuated by cultish religiosity. Blaming China for this (or even Russia) is silly. The US is doing it to themselves. It's a Strong Link culture (vs the rest of the West which optimized for Weak Link). So it's still the best place in the world to go from nothing to riches, and stay rich. But as a society it doesn't seem like it's salvageable without another civil war.
- DontchaKnowit 3y agosystemic discrimination perpetuated by cultish religiosity? can you expound on that?
- deanCommie 3y agoSo, other than the Westernmost parts of Eastern Europe (which we can start including, since the EU has kickstarted their economic development dramatically), the US is by far the most religious country of any in what we might consider "The developed West". But it hasn't experienced a lot of the same cultural changes that it's most significant allies have gone through. Why not? There's a number of other reasons: The Strong Link culture (ie optimize for the STRONGEST members of your society rather than the weakest) that is somewhat unique. The fact that it wasn't destroyed in WW2 is another (Though neither were Canada or Australia). The fact that it felt like it was "The Leader of The Free World" for the last 80 years (and therefore had no reason to introspect). But I think the core of the disagreements within the US between the Left and the Right come down to easily 40-50% of the country fundamentally believes that there is a magical man in the sky who will reward them from being good (for a fairly regressive perception of good) with infinite blissful life after death. And this is what they fall back to when it comes to justifying white supremacy (in every extreme), the discrimination of the LGBTQ, immigrants, etc. Before you get to any other matters of policy or values, this is a fairly fundamental hurdle to get past. You either believe in a magical sky monster based on faith, and consider this to be more important than anything else you might do in your finite earthly life, or you...don't. And Americans DO at a rate more than most. Everything else flows from this. How can you even conceive of getting on the same page of what a sensible tax policy, an introspection of the culture of police, the segregation of the cities, or the crumbling education system when you can't get past a fundamental belief. So the systems prevail. The GDP grows. And just like wars stimulate scientific progress, so does the knowledge that if you fail you will wind up dead in a ditch, inspires some great entrepreneurship and ideas. A lot of which continue to change the world. Then people on this website and others wonder why the same parts of the country generating the highest GDP also have the most human misery on the streets. It's because it's the other side of the same coin.
- lern_too_spel 3y agoChina is fully aware of how exports of fentanyl and its precursors are getting into the US and is joking about it right now. The US is also aware, so it doesn't match the titanium story. https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/chinas-role-in-the-fentanyl-crisis/ https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/chinas-role-in-the-fen... Xi has said that China was a great nation until the First Opium War, which he blames for plunging China into darkness until the Party took control. Though he will never say it out loud, in his mind, he might be running that same playbook in reverse on the West. http://gh.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/sgxw/202107/t20210704_9066989.htm http://gh.china-embassy.gov.cn/eng/sgxw/202107/t20210704_906...
- rocqua 3y agoThe opium war wasn't bad for china because Chinese domestic opium use went up. The war was bad for China because a foreign nation managed to force China to change domestic policy, and then managed to set chinese trade policy to allow the British to exploit China. It was a war about power and sovereignty. Losing those is bad. It's only related to opium because the inciting incident was British worry over an opium law.
- lern_too_spel 3y ago> The opium war wasn't bad for china because Chinese domestic opium use went up. Neither I nor Xi made that claim. China told the British to stop selling opium because it was damaging China's economy (by extracting silver, which Chinese taxes were denominated in), making more Chinese turn to drugs, creating a virtuous cycle for British East India Company and other drug traders. The British refused because they wanted Chinese tea but were unwilling to pay in silver, which was the only payment China would accept because China didn't want British goods, so the British used military power to establish British-owned ports to import opium for silver (using some of it to buy all the tea the British could drink) and dictate Chinese trade policy. Without the opium trade, none of this would have happened. China likewise doesn't care what the US thinks about fentanyl damaging the US economy, with the total damage estimated at 7% of GDP in 2020. https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/issue-briefs?ID=CE55E977-B473-414F-8B88-53EB55EB7C7C https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/democrats/issue-...
- cumshitpiss 3y ago[dead]
- camillomiller 3y agooh, so the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma are Chinese? The more you know…
- chaostheory 3y ago1. Oxycontin much weaker than fentanyl 2. China is still actively doing it https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/chinas-role-in-the-fentanyl-crisis/ https://www.brookings.edu/testimonies/chinas-role-in-the-fen...
- vGPU 3y agoBut who got all those people hooked on opioids to start with? Nobody wakes up one day and says hey, I’m going to try fentanyl.
- latchkey 3y ago> Nobody wakes up one day and says hey, I’m going to try fentanyl. That's actually what is happening... people who are already addicted to other drugs are losing access to those drugs (or realizing that fenty is cheaper) and then switching to it. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/fentanyl-has-devastated-king-countys-homeless-population-and-the-toll-is-getting-worse/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/fentanyl-... "At first, she started using meth, then later added heroin. But about six months ago, she couldn’t find it, she said. Fentanyl was the only choice. “I held out as long as I could,” Winter said."
- vGPU 3y agoThat’s exactly the point I’m making. First they get addicted to pharmaceuticals, then move to street drugs. Whoever thought the advertising campaign behind OxyContin being non-addictive deserves the death penalty.
- chaostheory 3y agoYou can use the same analogy for the Opium wars. It’s a moot point. It doesn’t change the fact that what the British Empire did and what CCP is doing now are both disgusting and wrong.
- blackoil 3y agoUS and US/British army have a weird addiction for drug. China is only a very recent player. Golden Triangle and Golden Crescent were developed by US/British armies and FBI as a drug powerhouse.
- Yoric 3y agoTo be fair, this is what US has been doing to US for a while, too.
- hkt 3y ago> They will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable. This actually happened to China: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars Weird that we in the west are now projecting about it, especially when our own pharmaceuticals companies are doing so much of the damage.
- trashtester 3y ago> This actually happened to China That was an atrocity then, and if China is returning the favor, it's an atrocity now. > especially when our own pharmaceuticals companies are doing so much of the damage. There are probably quite a few people in those companies, or among corrupt doctors and politicians taking their bribes, that belong in prison.
- hkt 3y agoThe thing is, China isn't doing it now. American capitalism is. That's what's different - the opium wars required the exercise of force, today's opium crisis simply requires the wealthy to bribe the powerful.
- lern_too_spel 3y agoIt was capitalism then too. It was only when China tried to regulate it that the narco-state of Great Britain stepped in with military force.
- hkt 3y agoYes, fair point, imperialism's jobhas always been to protect and extend capitalism.
- oneTbrain23 3y agoBasically a replay of "opium wars" with USA as "18th-19th century China" while China is the Brits back then. Instead of opium, you get the fentanyl, T-bills purchases, cheap labor and "chips". This time, however I dont USA rebounce like the Chinese in the 1950s-2010s. American historical never reach Chinese level of industrious culture unless the entire American population replaced by another one (maybe similarly happened to native Indians dying of plaques, perhaps biological war wiping Americans and some other nationalities taking over).
- pas 3y agodata simply doesn't support this. US economy, including manufacturing has already rebounded. unemployment is already below NAIRU (or close to it, labor market slack is small, the productivity slack is considerable, but that's because structural inefficiencies) contrast this with the current drop in Chinese economic output due to sanctions https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/OUTMS
- vGPU 3y ago> The [CIA] will also joke about how they secretly sell drugs to America to make them useless and make society unstable.