5 ms·

This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China. Every year, neighboring countries of China like Korea, Japan, Thailand, and V

by magnio 1y ago

This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China. Every year, neighboring countries of China like Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam sent envoys to Imperial China, paying gold, women, and exotic products, in return for recognition of their sovereignty (subject to the supreme authority of Chinese emperor), military protection, and access to trade routes within China. It is interesting to see the resurgence of such imperial practices in modern-day America. I think it worked out quite well for the Tang dynasty, but arguably that was because all East Asian feudal states were authoritarian monarchy back then. A logical next step would be for POTUS to declare himself as the supreme leader of the world, emend educational materials to propound the idea that the US is superior to other tributary states, quell all internal cries of undemocratic practices, and ban books that promote historical knowledge to avoid unnecessary dissent.

camillomiller 1y ago
Stop giving them ideas!
BiteCode_dev 1y ago
> A logical next step would be for POTUS to declare himself as the supreme leader of the world Well, he is already positioning himself for being at least the US DFL, already suggesting a 3rd illegal mandate: https://www.trumpstore.com/product/trump-2028-hat/ https://www.trumpstore.com/product/trump-2028-hat/ And the US, being the most powerful country in the world, barred, maybe China, the next step is not so far-fetched.
- throwawayqqq11 1y ago
  I wish the western allies would dump their US bonds to drive bond yields into the ground and threaten US budgets, like the military one, that relying on cheap debt. But this is a difficult decision to make, do you sacrifice possible (less likely) future earnings to destabilize a super power to save it from fascism but in turn risking a power vacuum to your disadvantage? Id take this gamble but im a mere democratic citizen, that doesnt care about global pro-fascism support, like other right leaning governments do.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Unfortunately there are all kinds of interdependencies that would make such a move quite risky. But you're right in that that is one way in which the screws can be put on.
    - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
      On the other hand, continuing to hold the bonds might also be risky...
  - gruez 1y ago
    >I wish the western allies would dump their US bonds to drive bond yields into the ground Dumping bonds would increase supply and drive down prices, but that increases yields because yields is the difference between the price you paid vs the face value of the bond.
    - tromp 1y ago
      Bond yield is the return an investor will realize on a bond, so driving down prices decreases yields. Sure, it can increase the absolute value of yield as it heads into the negative...
      - gruez 1y ago
        No, because "yield" almost always refers to yield to maturity.
    - throwawayqqq11 1y ago
      *Bond yields for the US. When US bonds enter the secondary market at a discount, buyers are inclined to prefer them over the US-offerend ones who need to raise interest rates to stay competitve, so making them more expensive for the US.
  - cmurf 1y ago
    They hardly need to dump them. Merely not buy as much as they're expected to. It may have happened during the week of "liberation day" when tariffs were announced, resulting in reduced bill buys. https://fortune.com/2025/05/11/bond-vigilantes-most-powerful-people-world-treasury-market-trump-tariffs/ https://fortune.com/2025/05/11/bond-vigilantes-most-powerful...
tho23434234dfdf 1y ago
> supreme leader of the world, emend educational materials to propound the idea that the US is superior to other tributary states, quell all internal cries of undemocratic practices, and ban books that promote historical knowledge to avoid unnecessary dissent. You mean just make what is already de-facto practice, de-jure ? Yay, how benevolent our new masters are.
SllX 1y ago
> This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China. Every year, neighboring countries of China like Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam sent envoys to Imperial China, paying gold, women, and exotic products, in return for recognition of their sovereignty (subject to the supreme authority of Chinese emperor), military protection, and access to trade routes within China. The most irritating thing is that I specifically didn't want to see a return to form for this for China, but I never imagined that America in the 21st Century would somehow get there first. It was just out of fucking nowhere.
- Gud 1y ago
  How could people NOT see this coming? The prospects for the working class disappeared when you moved manufacturing to China. The population was subsequently dumbed down because there was no money for schools(except for the rich elite).
  - vkou 1y ago
    Neither Trump, nor anybody in the Republican party is, and has never been, and will never be some kind of champion of the working class. If you're in it, you're just a useful idiot to him. What you're seeing isn't a consequence of the working class finally acting in its interests by getting behind a billionaire slumlord and conman. What you're seeing is the consequence of billionaires figuring out that if you distract the working class with divisive identity politics and plain old bullshit (Trans athletes! The gays grooming your children! Antifa supersoldiers stealing elections! Socialist death panels killing granny!), you can swindle it out of anything. Trump and his friends would have had no legs in a society that hasn't been thoroughly and irreparably broken by this stupidity and the normalization thereof.
    - Gud 1y ago
      I didn’t say people are acting in their best interest.
  - SllX 1y ago
    Probably because you’re talking about a whole different thing than what I was responding to. America shaking down Japan and Korea to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars wasn’t even on my bingo card for 2025, but perhaps your bingo card was more prophetic.
godelski 1y ago
I think what's most interesting to me is that they're also the party who's favorite amendment was written specifically to quell the rise of such leaders. They have explicitly talked about how that amendment was to protect the US from demagogues and autocrats. They've been fairly quiet about that recently and I'm curious how they'll make that pivot. It's only a matter of time before someone on the left starts suggesting their constituents exercise that right in at least a symbolic nature. I've seen a rise in the exercise of this right by socialist groups and other radicals. But even if it is all symbolic it sets the stage for a powder keg moment. But if the right doesn't restrict this right then how far can they go and keep their heads? It's morbidly fascinating and terrifying to me how they so successfully turned the right's worst nightmares into wet dreams. I do wonder, how far can it go? But I've never not wanted to know the answer to a question so much in my life. Please, I do not want to find out[0] [0] no, you can't literally answer this. It can only be learned through the experience. So don't reply to me as if you have an exact answer, you only have speculation. But if you have a time machine, I'd appreciate next week's lotto numbers (and the week after ;)
- danaris 1y ago
  > But if the right doesn't restrict this right then how far can they go and keep their heads? They've already started talking about banning trans people from owning guns (based on the wildly bigoted premise that being trans is a dangerous mental illness). If that goes through, I would expect to see other queer people next on the list, with similar justifications. Or possibly they'd just jump straight to banning all left-wing people from owning guns, based on their declaration that we're "domestic terrorists". (Yes, they're talking about doing that, too.)
  - perihelions 1y ago
    > "They've already started talking about banning trans people from owning guns" They've (I mean sitting Congressional representatives, not randos) have escalated their rhetoric considerably since that (*is* it rhetoric?) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ronny-jackson-newsmax-trans-people-b2828571.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... ("MAGA lawmaker calls to forcefully mass institutionalize trans people: ‘We have to get them off the streets!’" (September 17)) > "“We have to do something about this. We have to treat these people. We have to get them off the streets, and we have to get them off the internet, and we can't let them communicate with each other,” he insisted." > "“I'm all about free speech, but this is a virus, this is a cancer that's spreading across this country,” Jackson concluded. “That’s going to do great damage to normal, hard-working, law-abiding people.”" > "The hard-right lawmaker, meanwhile, is not the only member of Congress who has seemingly called for transgender people to be locked up in mental institutions." > "Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) – who spearheaded the effort to bar trans women from using Capitol Hill bathrooms that don't correspond with their sex assigned at birth – repeatedly used anti-trans slurs while saying transgender people are “mentally ill” and “should be in a straitjacket.”" Actual Nazi language. Aligns with the Fox News hosts talking about bringing back Aktion T4, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-09-14/fox-news-host-brian-kilmeade-apologizes-for-remarks-about-killing-mentally-ill-homeless-people https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20... ("Fox News host apologizes for remarks about killing mentally ill homeless people") > "Kilmeade added: “Or involuntary lethal injection or something — just kill ‘em.”"
hbarka 1y ago
Include also gunboat diplomacy, like done to Japan (“black ships”) or opium to China.
derelicta 1y ago
> A logical next step would be for POTUS to declare himself as the supreme leader of the world, emend educational materials to propound the idea that the US is superior to other tributary states, quell all internal cries of undemocratic practices, and ban books that promote historical knowledge to avoid unnecessary dissent My brother in Christ, you Americans do this already and have been doing this at least since the end of WW2. Ever wondered why communism couldn't spread in Northern Europe, South America or many places of Asia?
ammo1662 1y ago
> This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China. The two systems are fundamentally different. In the ancient Chinese tributary system, based on the principle of "厚往薄来" China's reciprocation had to exceed the value of the tribute, thereby providing tangible benefits to the tributary states. This practice even led to later restrictions on the frequency of tribute missions from certain countries

by magnio 1y ago

camillomiller 1y ago

Stop giving them ideas!

BiteCode_dev 1y ago

> A logical next step would be for POTUS to declare himself as the supreme leader of the world Well, he is already positioning himself for being at least the US DFL, already suggesting a 3rd illegal mandate: https://www.trumpstore.com/product/trump-2028-hat/ https://www.trumpstore.com/product/trump-2028-hat/ And the US, being the most powerful country in the world, barred, maybe China, the next step is not so far-fetched.

throwawayqqq11 1y ago
I wish the western allies would dump their US bonds to drive bond yields into the ground and threaten US budgets, like the military one, that relying on cheap debt. But this is a difficult decision to make, do you sacrifice possible (less likely) future earnings to destabilize a super power to save it from fascism but in turn risking a power vacuum to your disadvantage? Id take this gamble but im a mere democratic citizen, that doesnt care about global pro-fascism support, like other right leaning governments do.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  Unfortunately there are all kinds of interdependencies that would make such a move quite risky. But you're right in that that is one way in which the screws can be put on.
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    On the other hand, continuing to hold the bonds might also be risky...
- gruez 1y ago
  >I wish the western allies would dump their US bonds to drive bond yields into the ground Dumping bonds would increase supply and drive down prices, but that increases yields because yields is the difference between the price you paid vs the face value of the bond.
  - tromp 1y ago
    Bond yield is the return an investor will realize on a bond, so driving down prices decreases yields. Sure, it can increase the absolute value of yield as it heads into the negative...
    - gruez 1y ago
      No, because "yield" almost always refers to yield to maturity.
  - throwawayqqq11 1y ago
    *Bond yields for the US. When US bonds enter the secondary market at a discount, buyers are inclined to prefer them over the US-offerend ones who need to raise interest rates to stay competitve, so making them more expensive for the US.
- cmurf 1y ago
  They hardly need to dump them. Merely not buy as much as they're expected to. It may have happened during the week of "liberation day" when tariffs were announced, resulting in reduced bill buys. https://fortune.com/2025/05/11/bond-vigilantes-most-powerful-people-world-treasury-market-trump-tariffs/ https://fortune.com/2025/05/11/bond-vigilantes-most-powerful...

tho23434234dfdf 1y ago

> supreme leader of the world, emend educational materials to propound the idea that the US is superior to other tributary states, quell all internal cries of undemocratic practices, and ban books that promote historical knowledge to avoid unnecessary dissent. You mean just make what is already de-facto practice, de-jure ? Yay, how benevolent our new masters are.

SllX 1y ago

> This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China. Every year, neighboring countries of China like Korea, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam sent envoys to Imperial China, paying gold, women, and exotic products, in return for recognition of their sovereignty (subject to the supreme authority of Chinese emperor), military protection, and access to trade routes within China. The most irritating thing is that I specifically didn't want to see a return to form for this for China, but I never imagined that America in the 21st Century would somehow get there first. It was just out of fucking nowhere.

Gud 1y ago
How could people NOT see this coming? The prospects for the working class disappeared when you moved manufacturing to China. The population was subsequently dumbed down because there was no money for schools(except for the rich elite).
- vkou 1y ago
  Neither Trump, nor anybody in the Republican party is, and has never been, and will never be some kind of champion of the working class. If you're in it, you're just a useful idiot to him. What you're seeing isn't a consequence of the working class finally acting in its interests by getting behind a billionaire slumlord and conman. What you're seeing is the consequence of billionaires figuring out that if you distract the working class with divisive identity politics and plain old bullshit (Trans athletes! The gays grooming your children! Antifa supersoldiers stealing elections! Socialist death panels killing granny!), you can swindle it out of anything. Trump and his friends would have had no legs in a society that hasn't been thoroughly and irreparably broken by this stupidity and the normalization thereof.
  - Gud 1y ago
    I didn’t say people are acting in their best interest.
- SllX 1y ago
  Probably because you’re talking about a whole different thing than what I was responding to. America shaking down Japan and Korea to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars wasn’t even on my bingo card for 2025, but perhaps your bingo card was more prophetic.

godelski 1y ago

I think what's most interesting to me is that they're also the party who's favorite amendment was written specifically to quell the rise of such leaders. They have explicitly talked about how that amendment was to protect the US from demagogues and autocrats. They've been fairly quiet about that recently and I'm curious how they'll make that pivot. It's only a matter of time before someone on the left starts suggesting their constituents exercise that right in at least a symbolic nature. I've seen a rise in the exercise of this right by socialist groups and other radicals. But even if it is all symbolic it sets the stage for a powder keg moment. But if the right doesn't restrict this right then how far can they go and keep their heads? It's morbidly fascinating and terrifying to me how they so successfully turned the right's worst nightmares into wet dreams. I do wonder, how far can it go? But I've never not wanted to know the answer to a question so much in my life. Please, I do not want to find out[0] [0] no, you can't literally answer this. It can only be learned through the experience. So don't reply to me as if you have an exact answer, you only have speculation. But if you have a time machine, I'd appreciate next week's lotto numbers (and the week after ;)

danaris 1y ago
> But if the right doesn't restrict this right then how far can they go and keep their heads? They've already started talking about banning trans people from owning guns (based on the wildly bigoted premise that being trans is a dangerous mental illness). If that goes through, I would expect to see other queer people next on the list, with similar justifications. Or possibly they'd just jump straight to banning all left-wing people from owning guns, based on their declaration that we're "domestic terrorists". (Yes, they're talking about doing that, too.)
- perihelions 1y ago
  > "They've already started talking about banning trans people from owning guns" They've (I mean sitting Congressional representatives, not randos) have escalated their rhetoric considerably since that (*is* it rhetoric?) https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ronny-jackson-newsmax-trans-people-b2828571.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic... ("MAGA lawmaker calls to forcefully mass institutionalize trans people: ‘We have to get them off the streets!’" (September 17)) > "“We have to do something about this. We have to treat these people. We have to get them off the streets, and we have to get them off the internet, and we can't let them communicate with each other,” he insisted." > "“I'm all about free speech, but this is a virus, this is a cancer that's spreading across this country,” Jackson concluded. “That’s going to do great damage to normal, hard-working, law-abiding people.”" > "The hard-right lawmaker, meanwhile, is not the only member of Congress who has seemingly called for transgender people to be locked up in mental institutions." > "Speaking to reporters earlier this week, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) – who spearheaded the effort to bar trans women from using Capitol Hill bathrooms that don't correspond with their sex assigned at birth – repeatedly used anti-trans slurs while saying transgender people are “mentally ill” and “should be in a straitjacket.”" Actual Nazi language. Aligns with the Fox News hosts talking about bringing back Aktion T4, https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2025-09-14/fox-news-host-brian-kilmeade-apologizes-for-remarks-about-killing-mentally-ill-homeless-people https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20... ("Fox News host apologizes for remarks about killing mentally ill homeless people") > "Kilmeade added: “Or involuntary lethal injection or something — just kill ‘em.”"

hbarka 1y ago

Include also gunboat diplomacy, like done to Japan (“black ships”) or opium to China.

derelicta 1y ago

> A logical next step would be for POTUS to declare himself as the supreme leader of the world, emend educational materials to propound the idea that the US is superior to other tributary states, quell all internal cries of undemocratic practices, and ban books that promote historical knowledge to avoid unnecessary dissent My brother in Christ, you Americans do this already and have been doing this at least since the end of WW2. Ever wondered why communism couldn't spread in Northern Europe, South America or many places of Asia?

ammo1662 1y ago

> This "pay up for trade access" is similar to the tributary system of feudal China. The two systems are fundamentally different. In the ancient Chinese tributary system, based on the principle of "厚往薄来" China's reciprocation had to exceed the value of the tribute, thereby providing tangible benefits to the tributary states. This practice even led to later restrictions on the frequency of tribute missions from certain countries