5 ms·

If you dont make children, who will be the soldiers building that empire? Im in China myself, I dont see blood thirsty imperialists, plotting land grabs all ar

by xwolfi 3y ago

If you dont make children, who will be the soldiers building that empire? Im in China myself, I dont see blood thirsty imperialists, plotting land grabs all around, I see an exhausted aimless populace going on in a desperate forward escape towards a childless greying future, surrounded by foreign healthcare labour, led by panicked politicians shouting meaningless patriotic slogans against the wind as the boat sink further and further My wife, whom I tried to discourage from buying property, entered negative equity on her 40-year studio mortgage she s not allowed to rent out as half her family already emigrated to the UK to reconvert from high paid service jobs to low paid blue collar jobs because at least there they can raise kids. I dont get why americans are scared of us: we're just as scared of them. It's not going well here.

alephnerd 3y ago
> I dont get why americans are scared of us: we're just as scared of them. Agreed. I'm not pro-CCP in any way, shape, or form, but the rhetoric and jingoism coming from politicians in both the US and China is stupid, and will end up causing an accidental escalation. Look at the whole balloon fiasco. Relations really need to normalize or the world is in a world of hurt. I also blame a lack of English and Mandarin fluency in China and US respectively for causing this issue. The average Chinese or American doesn't get a chance to see life on the other side, so people end up building orientalized images. Also, ime on the Hill, most of the people making China policy weren't Asian American nor had strong experience with Chinese (or Asian in general) culture on the ground. A lot of this was due to imo discriminatory hiring practices that prevented people with "ties" to a specific region from becoming a specialist for that area.
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  I doubt it’s a language or cultural problem. The CCP just aren’t very nice people. US politicians are taking advantage of the situation to score populist points at home - but their caution towards China isn’t totally unwarranted.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Journalists aren't sent abroad as much anymore. After 2008, most news bureaus shut down their foreign offices [0], and whoever is left tends to stay within a bubble around the main bureau in that country, while sourcing news from freelancers. In addition, when you can't see or understand social media in another language and on an entirely different ecosystem of platforms, you end up getting a warped view of the world. [0] - https://theconversation.com/with-foreign-bureaus-slashed-freelancers-are-filling-the-void-at-their-own-risk-108664 https://theconversation.com/with-foreign-bureaus-slashed-fre...
    - chii 3y ago
      > Journalists aren't sent abroad as much anymore. when the CCP arrests people for reporting things they dont like, it's no wonder foreign journalists don't want to go there.
  - chrischen 3y ago
    You can’t just call the billions of people in China CCP. And they also aren’t just pro US shills either. Unwarranted or not Chinese in China overwhelmingly support their own government over others, and this is in fact attributable to culture because anyone who is not Chinese is referred to in the language as an “outside country person.” Your comment also exemplifies the sort of Berlin wall of cultural exchange between the two countries. You refer to the CCP as this sort of opaque not so nice organization but in fact the political system of the two nations are not so different if viewed as a whole system rather than the superficial parts. Sure China has one party with overreaching power over industry and corporations. But when you see the US system as a whole it’s not too different with corporations controlling both parties (you’ll see they often contribute to both Democrats and Republicans). One party, controlling corporations vs corporations controlling both parties. Not much difference in the end. A lot in the west sort of just have a vague understanding of the workings of Chinese politics, and even less about the day to day life and well being of an average Chinese person. This is mostly due to the fault of China though, limiting cultural exports and making it difficult to get tourism visas for westerners. I’m not sure what that’s about. Chinese have a better understanding of foreign life but probably still a bit lacking in terms of understanding foreign politics. And even though there are a lot of overseas Chinese there’s just way more Chinese people who don’t know about the west apart from pop culture just because there are billions of Chinese (raw numbers).
- menshiki 3y ago
  > I also blame a lack of English and Mandarin fluency in China and US respectively for causing this issue. The average Chinese or American doesn't get a chance to see life on the other side, so people end up building orientalized images. I doubt the lack of English and Mandarin fluency is a big factor here. The CCP made a deliberate choice to isolate China from the outside world as much as possible.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    The crackdown on English only began around 2020-21, yet even in much more laid back times in China there wasn't much cultural exchange outside of the elites. WhatsApp and FB used to be popular for a hot second (and still were in Xinjiang and Tibet until crackdowns in 2016-18), and it used to be easy for non-Chinese nationals to join WeChat or SinaQQ until 2017-19, yet most American commentators wouldn't go on there to get a feel of discourse on the other side, or go to a Tier 2/3/4 city, while Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese tourists, journalists, and businesspeople would. People forget that most Asian Americans would could bridge the gap tend to be on the younger end (10s-30s) but most decision makers are in their 60s-70s. It's the same issue across the Pacific in China as well.
TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
> I dont get why americans are scared of us: we're just as scared of them. It's not going well here. Because your government keep threatening to start a war in the Pacific over Taiwan and no one is taking those threats lightly.
- sho 3y ago
  While it's important to respond to these threats with a credible show of deterrence, realistically speaking not many people think China can or will even try to take Taiwan anytime soon, if ever. Invasion by sea was hard even before we had missiles, satellites, and radar - it now appears almost impossible and has not been attempted at scale since WWII. Never say never I suppose, but I don't personally believe China will ever try to invade Taiwan in the traditional sense, they're just not that stupid. Of far greater concern is their increasing belligerence in their "sphere of influence" including the south china sea and surrounding island chains.
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    The problem is that everyone was saying the same sort of thing about Russia and Ukraine right up until the first tanks started to roll over the border.
    - ChatGTP 3y ago
      I was going to say the same thing. It seems missiles don’t solve all the things else there would be an “invasion” on going for 600+ days. I guess war is harder than Internet comments.
    - sho 3y ago
      I know the situations look superficially similar - big state rattling its sabres at smaller state, then actually going through with it - but when you dig deeper, they're not really comparable. There's more than 100km of sea between Taiwan and China. Not China (nor anyone else) has anything close to the blue water amphibious assault fleet it would take for an effective invasion force to cross it. It would take multiple years to build such a fleet, impossible to hide, and while they built it Taiwan and her allies would assemble the world's largest anti-shipping missile arsenal. During the hours it would take to sail across, every single one of those huge, slow-moving, landing ships filled with thousands of men and megatons of materiél would be targeted with dozens, maybe hundreds, of missiles apiece. I doubt a single ship would make it even halfway. Or forget amphibious assault, say China tries to go airborne. An even longer period unmistakably building an unprecedented heavy cargo aircraft fleet. An even longer period for Taiwan and her allies to build her already impressive air defences into an impregnable shield. Again, not a single aircraft makes it even over Taiwan's territorial waters. In fact, once war is declared and it's game on, it's a valid question if any of these large, unstealthy, slow cargo aircraft even survive long enough to be shot down over water. The Russian experience has indeed been eye-opening, but not in the direction you assumed. Developments in missile technology have totally changed the game. Even today, the vastly superior Russian air force cannot fly over ukrainian territory. The Black Sea Fleet has been driven away - and Ukraine does not even have a navy! And even given their massive advantages in size and military strength, and the 100x easier task of invading and resupplying over land, it's far from clear that Russia will prevail. No, you can't really compare the two. Russia could always have invaded any of their neighbours if they decided to. China literally can't invade Taiwan, not if you assume even the most basic preparation and competence of herself and her allies. The best they could do is perhaps a blockade, and hope for capitulation. There are pretty much no options for a traditional invasion that do not, with rather high confidence, lead to the fastest, most deadly, most expensive, and most total military defeat in history. All of this in my own non-professional opinion of course, but I'm not completely uneducated on the topic. There's more - far more - information laying things out much better than I ever could, I encourage anyone overly concerned about an imminent conventional war over Taiwan to seek it out.
berserk1010 3y ago
Most of the world, not just Americans, are angry at the Chinese government for releasing a virus that killed millions worldwide, and debilitated millions more via long covid and post covid effects like loss of smell and taste. A virus that killed their loved ones and their heroes. Most of the world, not just Americans, are scared of the Chinese governments' utmost focus on nationalism and military in the last 2 years, in exchange for economic stability. At its ability to build warships at 20 to 40 times faster than United States. At its ability to reinforce Russian military and its war against a nascent democracy in Europe. And you see, some of the world are annoyed that the Chinese, despite 1.2B large, cannot take down a mere 100M CCP party members - members that have brazenly started to oppress people like yourself with each passing day. Zeroing out your bank account. Saddle you with fines and bogus taxes. Murdered your reform hero Li Keqiang last week and kept you quiet.
- PickledHotdog 3y ago
  I mean, that is certainly an opinion
- gaoryrt 3y ago
  Yeah, they also insist that the earth is not flat.
xyzelement 3y ago
Thank you for this perspective. Coming from a naive place - why is china childless? I know there was a "one child policy" many years ago and I don't think it's there now - why aren't people having kids? Here in the west we obviously have low birth rates too, having to do with erosion of gender roles and family values and woke excuses like "it's bad for the environment." I don't imagine those factors to be in play in China - what is?
- chii 3y ago
  I think it's a similar reason to the west's low birth rate : women have more choice and therefore, a larger portion is choosing to have kids later in life (or are finding it more difficult to get a partner, as they require one that surpasses themselves in earning/status etc). I think you will find that rural areas of china has a higher birth rate than urban areas, as the opportunities in rural areas are fewer. But as more and more people move to urban areas for economic prosperity, the same birthrate will befall them just like in western advanced economies.
- JackMorgan 3y ago
  Low birth rates are happening because no one has enough money for kids and a place to house them even with two working parents. Not because of "woke excuses" and "erosion of gender roles". Correlation does not imply causation. Try giving every couple in America a 5x raise and a free house and watch a ton of kids be born the next five years. Your argument is similar to saying "no one buys houses anymore because everyone is obsessed with tiny houses and van dwelling". No, they are obsessed with these things because it's the only thing they have any chance of affording. If you split up the wealth concentrated in the top 1%, so we have an economy more like the 1950s, every family is about 2.5 million dollars richer. That's a house, only one spouse working, maybe a vacation house, two cars, and several kids. Sounds like what life was like in the 1950 right? It wasn't the woke boogyman after all, it was unions and labor getting a fair share of their efforts. Instead we have people living with roommates and parents trying to save enough money just to survive. This nonsense that no one is having kids because of "family values" and "morals" is billionaire propaganda to distract everyone from the fact that they took all our money, and we need unions to get it back. Not more church, not getting rid of woke (whatever that means). Unions, we need unions and strong labor protections to get our money back from the billionaires who took it inch by inch for the last 70 years. [1] [1] https://youtu.be/mcgC-kuPEuo?si=KDvDPEYjTZtbqOeM https://youtu.be/mcgC-kuPEuo?si=KDvDPEYjTZtbqOeM

by xwolfi 3y ago

alephnerd 3y ago

> I dont get why americans are scared of us: we're just as scared of them. Agreed. I'm not pro-CCP in any way, shape, or form, but the rhetoric and jingoism coming from politicians in both the US and China is stupid, and will end up causing an accidental escalation. Look at the whole balloon fiasco. Relations really need to normalize or the world is in a world of hurt. I also blame a lack of English and Mandarin fluency in China and US respectively for causing this issue. The average Chinese or American doesn't get a chance to see life on the other side, so people end up building orientalized images. Also, ime on the Hill, most of the people making China policy weren't Asian American nor had strong experience with Chinese (or Asian in general) culture on the ground. A lot of this was due to imo discriminatory hiring practices that prevented people with "ties" to a specific region from becoming a specialist for that area.

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
I doubt it’s a language or cultural problem. The CCP just aren’t very nice people. US politicians are taking advantage of the situation to score populist points at home - but their caution towards China isn’t totally unwarranted.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  Journalists aren't sent abroad as much anymore. After 2008, most news bureaus shut down their foreign offices [0], and whoever is left tends to stay within a bubble around the main bureau in that country, while sourcing news from freelancers. In addition, when you can't see or understand social media in another language and on an entirely different ecosystem of platforms, you end up getting a warped view of the world. [0] - https://theconversation.com/with-foreign-bureaus-slashed-freelancers-are-filling-the-void-at-their-own-risk-108664 https://theconversation.com/with-foreign-bureaus-slashed-fre...
  - chii 3y ago
    > Journalists aren't sent abroad as much anymore. when the CCP arrests people for reporting things they dont like, it's no wonder foreign journalists don't want to go there.
- chrischen 3y ago
  You can’t just call the billions of people in China CCP. And they also aren’t just pro US shills either. Unwarranted or not Chinese in China overwhelmingly support their own government over others, and this is in fact attributable to culture because anyone who is not Chinese is referred to in the language as an “outside country person.” Your comment also exemplifies the sort of Berlin wall of cultural exchange between the two countries. You refer to the CCP as this sort of opaque not so nice organization but in fact the political system of the two nations are not so different if viewed as a whole system rather than the superficial parts. Sure China has one party with overreaching power over industry and corporations. But when you see the US system as a whole it’s not too different with corporations controlling both parties (you’ll see they often contribute to both Democrats and Republicans). One party, controlling corporations vs corporations controlling both parties. Not much difference in the end. A lot in the west sort of just have a vague understanding of the workings of Chinese politics, and even less about the day to day life and well being of an average Chinese person. This is mostly due to the fault of China though, limiting cultural exports and making it difficult to get tourism visas for westerners. I’m not sure what that’s about. Chinese have a better understanding of foreign life but probably still a bit lacking in terms of understanding foreign politics. And even though there are a lot of overseas Chinese there’s just way more Chinese people who don’t know about the west apart from pop culture just because there are billions of Chinese (raw numbers).
menshiki 3y ago
> I also blame a lack of English and Mandarin fluency in China and US respectively for causing this issue. The average Chinese or American doesn't get a chance to see life on the other side, so people end up building orientalized images. I doubt the lack of English and Mandarin fluency is a big factor here. The CCP made a deliberate choice to isolate China from the outside world as much as possible.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  The crackdown on English only began around 2020-21, yet even in much more laid back times in China there wasn't much cultural exchange outside of the elites. WhatsApp and FB used to be popular for a hot second (and still were in Xinjiang and Tibet until crackdowns in 2016-18), and it used to be easy for non-Chinese nationals to join WeChat or SinaQQ until 2017-19, yet most American commentators wouldn't go on there to get a feel of discourse on the other side, or go to a Tier 2/3/4 city, while Taiwanese, Korean, and Japanese tourists, journalists, and businesspeople would. People forget that most Asian Americans would could bridge the gap tend to be on the younger end (10s-30s) but most decision makers are in their 60s-70s. It's the same issue across the Pacific in China as well.

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago

> I dont get why americans are scared of us: we're just as scared of them. It's not going well here. Because your government keep threatening to start a war in the Pacific over Taiwan and no one is taking those threats lightly.

sho 3y ago
While it's important to respond to these threats with a credible show of deterrence, realistically speaking not many people think China can or will even try to take Taiwan anytime soon, if ever. Invasion by sea was hard even before we had missiles, satellites, and radar - it now appears almost impossible and has not been attempted at scale since WWII. Never say never I suppose, but I don't personally believe China will ever try to invade Taiwan in the traditional sense, they're just not that stupid. Of far greater concern is their increasing belligerence in their "sphere of influence" including the south china sea and surrounding island chains.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  The problem is that everyone was saying the same sort of thing about Russia and Ukraine right up until the first tanks started to roll over the border.
  - ChatGTP 3y ago
    I was going to say the same thing. It seems missiles don’t solve all the things else there would be an “invasion” on going for 600+ days. I guess war is harder than Internet comments.
  - sho 3y ago
    I know the situations look superficially similar - big state rattling its sabres at smaller state, then actually going through with it - but when you dig deeper, they're not really comparable. There's more than 100km of sea between Taiwan and China. Not China (nor anyone else) has anything close to the blue water amphibious assault fleet it would take for an effective invasion force to cross it. It would take multiple years to build such a fleet, impossible to hide, and while they built it Taiwan and her allies would assemble the world's largest anti-shipping missile arsenal. During the hours it would take to sail across, every single one of those huge, slow-moving, landing ships filled with thousands of men and megatons of materiél would be targeted with dozens, maybe hundreds, of missiles apiece. I doubt a single ship would make it even halfway. Or forget amphibious assault, say China tries to go airborne. An even longer period unmistakably building an unprecedented heavy cargo aircraft fleet. An even longer period for Taiwan and her allies to build her already impressive air defences into an impregnable shield. Again, not a single aircraft makes it even over Taiwan's territorial waters. In fact, once war is declared and it's game on, it's a valid question if any of these large, unstealthy, slow cargo aircraft even survive long enough to be shot down over water. The Russian experience has indeed been eye-opening, but not in the direction you assumed. Developments in missile technology have totally changed the game. Even today, the vastly superior Russian air force cannot fly over ukrainian territory. The Black Sea Fleet has been driven away - and Ukraine does not even have a navy! And even given their massive advantages in size and military strength, and the 100x easier task of invading and resupplying over land, it's far from clear that Russia will prevail. No, you can't really compare the two. Russia could always have invaded any of their neighbours if they decided to. China literally can't invade Taiwan, not if you assume even the most basic preparation and competence of herself and her allies. The best they could do is perhaps a blockade, and hope for capitulation. There are pretty much no options for a traditional invasion that do not, with rather high confidence, lead to the fastest, most deadly, most expensive, and most total military defeat in history. All of this in my own non-professional opinion of course, but I'm not completely uneducated on the topic. There's more - far more - information laying things out much better than I ever could, I encourage anyone overly concerned about an imminent conventional war over Taiwan to seek it out.

berserk1010 3y ago

Most of the world, not just Americans, are angry at the Chinese government for releasing a virus that killed millions worldwide, and debilitated millions more via long covid and post covid effects like loss of smell and taste. A virus that killed their loved ones and their heroes. Most of the world, not just Americans, are scared of the Chinese governments' utmost focus on nationalism and military in the last 2 years, in exchange for economic stability. At its ability to build warships at 20 to 40 times faster than United States. At its ability to reinforce Russian military and its war against a nascent democracy in Europe. And you see, some of the world are annoyed that the Chinese, despite 1.2B large, cannot take down a mere 100M CCP party members - members that have brazenly started to oppress people like yourself with each passing day. Zeroing out your bank account. Saddle you with fines and bogus taxes. Murdered your reform hero Li Keqiang last week and kept you quiet.

PickledHotdog 3y ago
I mean, that is certainly an opinion
gaoryrt 3y ago
Yeah, they also insist that the earth is not flat.

xyzelement 3y ago

Thank you for this perspective. Coming from a naive place - why is china childless? I know there was a "one child policy" many years ago and I don't think it's there now - why aren't people having kids? Here in the west we obviously have low birth rates too, having to do with erosion of gender roles and family values and woke excuses like "it's bad for the environment." I don't imagine those factors to be in play in China - what is?

chii 3y ago
I think it's a similar reason to the west's low birth rate : women have more choice and therefore, a larger portion is choosing to have kids later in life (or are finding it more difficult to get a partner, as they require one that surpasses themselves in earning/status etc). I think you will find that rural areas of china has a higher birth rate than urban areas, as the opportunities in rural areas are fewer. But as more and more people move to urban areas for economic prosperity, the same birthrate will befall them just like in western advanced economies.
JackMorgan 3y ago
Low birth rates are happening because no one has enough money for kids and a place to house them even with two working parents. Not because of "woke excuses" and "erosion of gender roles". Correlation does not imply causation. Try giving every couple in America a 5x raise and a free house and watch a ton of kids be born the next five years. Your argument is similar to saying "no one buys houses anymore because everyone is obsessed with tiny houses and van dwelling". No, they are obsessed with these things because it's the only thing they have any chance of affording. If you split up the wealth concentrated in the top 1%, so we have an economy more like the 1950s, every family is about 2.5 million dollars richer. That's a house, only one spouse working, maybe a vacation house, two cars, and several kids. Sounds like what life was like in the 1950 right? It wasn't the woke boogyman after all, it was unions and labor getting a fair share of their efforts. Instead we have people living with roommates and parents trying to save enough money just to survive. This nonsense that no one is having kids because of "family values" and "morals" is billionaire propaganda to distract everyone from the fact that they took all our money, and we need unions to get it back. Not more church, not getting rid of woke (whatever that means). Unions, we need unions and strong labor protections to get our money back from the billionaires who took it inch by inch for the last 70 years. [1] [1] https://youtu.be/mcgC-kuPEuo?si=KDvDPEYjTZtbqOeM https://youtu.be/mcgC-kuPEuo?si=KDvDPEYjTZtbqOeM