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Journal by Mojibake Tengu
I like the guy, he's an excellent bitchhandler...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl3wQTVTPVo
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
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You're dead, Jim.
-- McCoy, "Amok Time", stardate 3372.7
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @06:52AM (4 children)
They were too busy dealing with foreign devils a century ago to become a colonizer in Africa. The rules of the game have changed, but they will do whatever they need to do to get the resources they want.
https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/investigations/2016/07/27/china-s-dangerous-double-game-sudans [thenewhumanitarian.org]
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Friday May 05, @06:30AM (3 children)
The fundamental historical difference between USA and China in Africa is this one:
1. Apple will never produce enough of adequately priced iPads for all African population, even if they could.
2. Huawei is ready to do just that with MatePads, unstoppable.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 06, @09:08PM
And never say never. My take is Africa will be mostly developed world by 2100 - obviously there's other scenarios, I just consider this one the most likely. They probably won't care much about Apple pads by then, but they'll be able to afford whoever makes the equivalent then.
As to China's present day meddling in Africa, as long as it doesn't descend to Congo Free State levels of brutality, it'll probably be a net benefit for Africa. After all, Africa does need ports. But I wouldn't make the mistake of saying the US is worse. After all, when the US was building infrastructure, it was doing about the same thing as China is now. It's when they decide that Africa needs ideological improvements that the train goes off the rails. For China presently, that's some degree of personality cult. The US did the Liberia thing and similar stuff, trying to improve the African man. We'll see if China follows that well-traveled road or not.
Limited involvement to get infrastructure built is so far so good.
As to Varoufakis's alleged bitch-handling skills, he got an easy pitch and used it. Notice he isn't spending time talking about tough issues while he schools this ignorant reporter.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday May 10, @11:38AM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Wednesday May 10, @12:14PM
I absolutely am. The West will do everything they can to keep Africa disempowered from current technologies. Not selling hitech is just a part of this strategic policy.
And we all know what happened the very next day when golden Dinar was introduced as all-African currency in Libya.
Only China currently offers large scale industrialization projects to multiple African countries.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Thursday May 04, @02:00PM (22 children)
Uhhh.... he says they're non-interventionist.
I'd ask Hong Kong about that. Ask Taiwan. Ask Japan. Ask the U.S.
More personally, ask Canada.
He says they don't have any military ambitions, but they build roads quite capable of carrying military vehicles TO those countries.
He's a fool if he thinks China is investing in those countries for the benefit of those countries.
And they've done "soft power" because they learned from the West how better to 'invade' a country (yes, the West did a poor job, probably mostly because of the Military Industrial Complex).
He sounds like a shill for China: "Nothing to see here, folks. Just some kindly Chinese fellows who treat everyone kindly (except their own people, Taiwan......)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @04:21PM (12 children)
Taiwan is part of China. Your and my government also agree that this is true, no matter the rhetoric.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @05:04PM (4 children)
Why is Taiwan such a big deal to China? Why not just let it go? Is it worth triggering a potentially apocalyptic WW3?
Why Tiananmen Square massacre [wikipedia.org]?
Why persecute and kill (sorry, "disappear") the Uyghurs?
Who so much military and nuclear proliferation?
The world was relatively at peace a few years ago. Why cause and escalate problems?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @05:22PM (3 children)
On the other hand, why does the US want to arm and cause problems in Taiwan? China isn't supplying weapons to Puerto Rican separatists or stationing troops there. Why are we stationing troops and supplying weapons in Taiwan, which is part of China by our own admission? Why would *we* threaten nuclear war with a peer competitor over an island that holds no strategic significance to us? Why do we claim to care about Uighurs when we have more blacks in jail and prosecute more justifiably-claimed genocide against that population?
Um, where? We wouldn't be occupying so many countries and involved in so many active conflicts if there was any kind of peace in the world. We wouldn't be pulling coups and installing puppet governments in South America and Africa if we wanted peace and deescalation. We wouldn't be funding separatists and anti-government groups around the world if we wanted stability. We wouldn't be encircling and installing nuclear weapons on the borders of every country that doesn't bend the knee if we valued peace.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @09:39PM (1 child)
Yup, more deflection rhetoric. All your questions do is show how far your head is up your ass. Go study actual history, not anti-American cherry-picked crap. People like you love to use a lot of big words, but where are your facts? When you study actual history, go talk to actual people who will tell you how much they love the US and are forever thankful and indebted to the US for rescuing those people from horrific futures, if they were allowed to live at all.
Answer the original question, or are you afraid to face the issue?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05, @06:16PM
And to the millions that died? Oh right they can't talk since the napalm burned their faces off. US imperialism has a lot of collatetal damage and was specifically to keep capitalism S the primary economic structure. We have found out now that highly regulated capitalism governed by strong democratic socialism is the best system, yet US caputalists dream of being rulers of the world sitting atop their corporate pyramids.
Facts you say? *gestures broadly at everything*!
The obvious stuff does not need explaining, if you disagree then you're the one that should broaden your studies.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday May 10, @11:35AM
It's not about Taiwan; it's about Japan and SE Asia. Revenge feelings are deep, extremely deep, in certain parts of Asia: the Japanese know that if Taiwan falls, they're next and can look forward to many Nanjings on their home turf. The rest of SE Asia knows that if it comes so far, they'll have to kowtow to a new Emperor which is more likely than not to remember the pogroms against the Chinese [merchants] in Indonesia and other countries.
In short, Taiwan is just the fuse to a giant powder keg involving at least 2 nuclear powers, China and Japan, but also India and Pakistan: and that is the strategic significance to the West.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 04, @06:49PM (1 child)
The US government officially has no opinion about who owns Taiwan.
Strategic Ambiguity [economist.com]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @08:19PM
Can you, pretty please, with a cherry on top, stop bringing facts into a propaganda campaign?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @09:03PM
You mean the Republic of China, the legitimate government of China?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05, @01:46AM (2 children)
No, it is not... It was just overrun by Chinese exiles before Japan took over and then handed it to China after the war, and then it was taken over by another Chinese exile. Taiwan belongs to the native Taiwanese, not China
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06, @04:37AM (1 child)
Good luck with that. Indigenous people make up, like, 3% of the population.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06, @08:15PM
Doesn't matter.. that's who we are supposed to defend, ironically enough
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 06, @09:23PM
What does "part of China" mean? Some similar cultures and languages? Sure. Right to invade and impose their own government rather than self-determination for the Taiwanese? No way. "Part of China" in a loose sense doesn't mean part of China as a country.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @05:06PM (4 children)
He's Chinese, that's why. Most of them are hell-bent on world domination. They're extremely clever with rhetoric and twisted lies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @06:41PM (3 children)
Ewww, fucking racists can never miss a dog whistle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @09:34PM (2 children)
And there it is with the clever rhetoric, dodging the issue, trying to lay blame, "whataboutism", specious arguments, emotionally inflammatory BS.
There are very few non-Chinese who wish to help drive the Chinese world-domination initiative. It's not at all "racist", but people like you love to use words like "racist" to catch people's emotions and grab control of too many of their neurons. Fortunately many people are mentally above you, despite your ego.
Go look up the definition of "racist".
Then retract and apologize if you're mature enough.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05, @05:23PM (1 child)
Lawl
As usual most racists think that racism means openly attempting genocide on a group of people. So dumb. Your statement about all Chinese could be used for Murricans, Russkies, Japanese and Germans not long ago. Sorry facts trigger you bro, don't make bigoted general statements about literally billions of people if you don't wanna be called racist. Your point did not need the racist bit, well unless THAT was your point. gg ez brah
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 06, @09:29PM
Like say the Tibetans or Uyghurs?
So you're saying that statement can't be so used at present, right? If you can't be bothered to distinguish between the past and the present, then how will you have any rational thing to say about the future?
Here, I'm fine with China building African infrastructure, even if it has modest strings attached. We'll see what strings are actually attached to these and how greedy the Chinese might be. With the games they have played in the recent past, I would look this gift horse in the mouth before accepting.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05, @01:08AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tibet [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_South_China_Sea [wikipedia.org] mentions Taiwan (Republic of China/ROC) like you, but adds Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. China is building islands.
Speaking of Vietnam... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War [wikipedia.org] (side note: IMO this is why Vietnam handled Covid so good... they know not to trust China. Extra funny case when, in the age of airplanes, people were talking about distances and islands vs land borders)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_War [wikipedia.org] and current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Indian_border_dispute [wikipedia.org]
I am sure there are more examples of how "nice" China can be. I remember reading news about how China handled their investments in Africa, including Chinese workers instead of natives.
What I do not understand is how West politicians and business people seem so dumb about China. All their university degrees must be a joke. Or they are corrupt. But then they are dumb beyond help too, because they will be kicked once China does not need them anymore. Something about Rome and traitors.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05, @07:16AM
They knew but didn't care because of the short-term profit. The perfect example of that is a show called Shark Tank (Dragon's Den). Before the 2020/21 season, the people pitching their companies would talk about how their stuff is Made in 'Merica, usually by veterans, in an attempt to show how good the company is. And every single time, one of the investors would balk and ask why they should pay X here when they can pay less than a tenth of that in China. Even in cases where people had dealt with manufacturers that were less than honest or had other troubles in China, the investors inevitably blamed the entrepreneurs for "doing it wrong." You only got praised if you were already successfully producing in China.
The best part is that after the 2020/21 season, its now the other way. If the entrepreneurs brag about making product in China, they are chastised and told they need to bring manufacturing back to North America. If they got hit by supply-chain disruptions from China, it is all their fault for using China in the first place. If they had troubles in America, its because they did it wrong. The only way to get a positive word said now is to already successfully produce in North America. It would be funny if it weren't so damn illustrative of how our business "leaders" go about thinking.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 06, @05:37AM
South East Asia too...
https://www.reuters.com/article/indonesia-china-idUSL4N29B32K [reuters.com]
https://mb.com.ph/2022/06/09/ph-protests-swarming-of-over-100-chinese-vessels-in-julian-felipe-reef/ [mb.com.ph]
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-malaysia-china-southchinasea-idUSKCN24F17U [reuters.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_South_China_Sea [wikipedia.org]
Plenty of those "disputed" areas are nowhere near China by reasonable standards.
Uh that's quite a stretch there. In most cases those roads are quite far from China, so they'd be carrying civilian vehicles a lot more than military vehicles and if you don't like them you can bomb them if you want.
I'd admit that China for now are into more win-win deals than the USA. So those roads and railways are more for trade and getting countries indebted[1] to them. Ask economists, war and theft aren't the only ways to get richer, trade works.
[1] Note their "debt traps" in many cases aren't that trappy - I'd love it if a Bank would give me a loan to build a house AND when I can't pay, I don't have to pay AND don't lose ownership of the house! Instead the bank gets to share use of the house BUT also pays me rent for it (that amount is taken out of the debt) for the next 99 years and after that the house is still mine assuming I'm still alive. Go check out the Sri Lankan port deal ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hambantota_International_Port#Operation_under_Chinese_joint_venture [wikipedia.org] ). Give me such debt trap deals and I'd buy more houses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 06, @09:19PM
The China will have its own troubles with their MIC. Everyone does.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Thursday May 04, @02:53PM (5 children)
So, the topic is how Americans & Europeans intervene in other nations' internal affairs where China doesn't. [1]One side argues that non-intervention is the same as ignoring evil. That is, that China is effectively promoting various ills by supporting bad regimes where the U.S. demand for countries to reform themselves (at gun barrel) is promoting good. [2]The other side is pointing at the hypocrisy of the selective moral enforcement here where the U.S. is still supporting multiple evil regimes and only really fights when there's resources to be had while China doesn't impose their moral values on other countries and invests its resources in core infrastructure for the benefit of the population.
Now, here's the problem: Behind the critique against the U.S. there's a bit of the Nirvana fallacy going around: That is, it could be argued that U.S. is genuinely trying to do good but is limited but what's actually feasible. Of course, this doesn't apply to all cases and is often used as a pretext for some very immoral activities... But still, both sides have utilitarian moral arguments with similar ambiguities so weighing-in the pros & cons here needs to be done by actually going down to specific historical interventions and looking at various outcomes and such.
Personally I think it comes down to something we can all agree on: The U.S. has been deteriorating since WW2 in almost all respects while China has been increasingly doing more good than harm with a few outliers that will probably sort themselves out over a couple of decades. So, long term, I think China will come out as the good guys. But hey, without hard numbers...
compiling...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @04:24PM (4 children)
No, it can't, unless you're a total idiot who wilfully denied all evidence in favor of US propaganda.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @05:09PM (3 children)
Sometimes the Amerifats actually are the good guys they claim to be. Chinese bugmen, not so much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @06:43PM (2 children)
Bugmen? Never heard that bit'o'racism before...
Not surprised the russian shills are shit talking China after they said Russia is the agressor in Ukraine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 04, @10:39PM (1 child)
You've been clueless your entire life, and you'll be clueless for the rest of your life.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05, @05:28PM
You were not entirely wrong, I do enjoy being clueless about your alt-wrong racism
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bugmen [urbandictionary.com]
If there was an innocent meaning to "bugmen" you could have taken the high road and informed the fiscussion. Instead you chose insults because your racism got called out. Get fucked you teenybopper nazi asshole ;^)
(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 05, @10:13AM
There is a strong anti-Greek feeling on SoylentNews, mostly due to all the irrational Teutonic racist types. But in other news, Milo is working for Kanye now, so there is that.
Oh, and an anti-Slavic, especially anti-Czech, attitude. Not to mention the Belgians.
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday May 10, @11:19AM
I rather like your thinking on a diverse range of subjects, MT, but Varoufakis? Better ask ordinary Greeks what they think about him, and why he has moved to Australia.