China has actually been rising, but unlikely to displace the western dominance - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#14798155
benpenguin wrote:I think it is similar to my experience with a lot of westernized liberals. Both sides are pretty darn stubborn and I never try to argue if they are not ready to listen. But to be frank I don't think the "universal progressive values" are any less flawed than Chinese ones.

Let me play the devil's advocate here - I think these kind of discussions mostly misses the point. China will change the global decision structure and challenge a lot of "universal values" dictated by progressive/liberals, but never, ever displace or replace western dominance, nor intend to. Anyone who tells you otherwise, including the patriotic Chinese mob, is delusional.

But to actually understand China, you will need to change your cultural lens, and stop trying to label China in good / evil, democratic / tyrannical dimensions. This is the whole reason why "experts" have been predicting the fall of China 50 years straight and kept failing. Some of the posters I see here just cannot resist insulting China, "expressing concerns about human rights", put China in the same group with N Korea/Iran for easy basket hatred... so on and so forth, and fail their predictions every time.

A fundamental source of conflict is that the social contract between the Government and the people is different. In a Westernized government, a government is supposed to just be a caretaker of public services, and the private sector ("The people") take the reins. A government's main focus should be balancing acts between different parties. In collective/authoritarian settings, government is the main planner of the development of the entire nation, and holds significant resources in the form of taxes, information and the SOE dominated economy. They play a game of "Simon says", where the private sector will try to understand and sometimes influence government objectives, then place bets on it.

A Westernized bureaucrat will look at the Chinese government and think "Wow, what a load of crazy slogans", and a Chinese bureaucrat will look back and think "So what do you guys even do at work?" They will never agree with each other on how to rule.

But the fact remains, authoritarianism works in large developing countries, when you need to consolidate great power to achieve great nation building projects. When you need to build a railway, you don't discuss and vote with each district you pass through, you build it. When you pursue environmental reforms, polluting factories cannot escape to another province with a different set of policy. Everything is planned and done on a great scale, and with the great scale there are often failed projects here and there, which is often used as basket dismissal for the entire system by liberals. It's not a perfect system, but if you dismiss its merits entirely, you will never understand China (Or any authoritarian country on that regard). Look no further to India, who had a much more advanced economy than China before the cultural revolution. Mao even gave them another 20 years head start - and look where we stand now. I believe it is because of a relatively lack of central power, their system often hit gridlocks and is unable to effectively execute many needed reforms. Sorry @fuser . :excited:

However, a system like that works only with society engineered to support it. Of my years spent in China, most Chinese are not people that I share similar values with. They worship authorities (Experts, experienced people, elders, organizations with a serious name... etc), they mostly believe that good governance includes the responsibility to provide moral guidance, including censorship to undesirable morals (Most westerners would have said "put your goddamn nose out of my business you government wankers"), they also criticize the government often but can be incredibly hostile to rival countries. In short, commoners are a bit similar to drones in a bee colony - but elites are a different story. Of all the nationalities I spoke to, it is often the small handful of Chinese elites that have deepest insights on any topic I want to talk about, and I continue to learn from them and manage to amaze people just by showing scraps of their wisdom - without telling them that's from mainland China. (Spoken from experience at work...) It had been like that for various industries I worked with.

Putting it together, is a highly collective system with incredibly smart, small handful of super elites up top and equally powerful and unquestioning execution below. It has been a similar system for thousands of years, when you look at historical teachings and their education system - the Chinese had not changed that much. Democracy, on the other hand, is a beautiful ideal that doesn't seem to fit anywhere in this grand picture.

(TL:DR) That finally brought me back on topic why China will never dominate. China is very much an inward looking nation that is able to execute on an amazing scale, because of its relatively homogeneous population. It's one of the hardest culture to integrate to, which is why they will never be able to win the hearts and minds of other countries, nor collaborate with them easily - both essential elements to dominate. But they will win on nation building initiatives within its own borders. I think notwithstanding any catastrophe, China will remain a strong regional power, but unlikely a global one for the foreseeable future.

Same as I expected, as a person with deeper experience in mainland China, you won't easily trust Martin Jacques' assertion. The term "worship" you used appears very accurate to describe Chinese. Indeed even they criticize the communist regime, still they consider that government the people of themselves, by contrast westerners are "outsiders", no matter how reasonable your words are, they keep hostile to you. That fundamentally stems from a racism based class system. On the other hand they would undoubtedly condemn people like me - who are identified as a traitor of their race, no matter how reasonable my thought is, because from their perspective, I can't change my skin color, my birth place, thus the loyalty. If they see another white/Japanese guy saying the same words, it might be "OK", whereas I would be unforgivable. The most openly racist people in the world. That's why I never concern about racial discrimination in the West, knowing that no people are more racist than Chinese.


"Putting it together, is a highly collective system with incredibly smart, small handful of super elites up top and equally powerful and unquestioning execution below. It has been a similar system for thousands of years, when you look at historical teachings and their education system - the Chinese had not changed that much. Democracy, on the other hand, is a beautiful ideal that doesn't seem to fit anywhere in this grand picture."
How do you think about people in Taiwan, who are equally ethnic Chinese people. I don't think it's all about Chinese culture or East Asian culture. And Chinese people in biologically are not so homogeneous as it appear, rather they are deliberately educated like that. Racism is the core part of Chinese nationalism/patriotism.
#14798159
I don't necessary disagree @benpenguin but still I would say it will be too simplistic to say that authoritarianism of China was the main (or only) factor behind China's huge leap compared to India even though they started from relatively similar position.

In India's case for first two decade or so the major concern was to hold the country together, everyone and their pet dog was predicting back then that it will be back to business for India and she will collapse into many smaller states soon, any China style authoritarianism imo would most definitely had broken the country, no one culture in India is large enough either in territory or population to effectively dominate all others.

60+ people immolated themselves just after independence so that Hindi don't become official language or mandatory language in Schools, it was these events that forced India to take a federal and relatively non-authoritarian approach and it worked in the sense that this Country didn't collapsed into many smaller nations as the conventional wisdom then predicted.

So basically I believe that authoritarian or non authoritarian aren't universal in the sense that they will yield same result everywhere, it depends very much on social, economical conditions of the region.

It worked in China, I agree but I believe it couldn't have in India.
#14798160
benpenguin wrote:@Sasa, I don't think bring born in mainland China gives you that much credibility. It's too big of a topic and I think everybody is at a 瞎子摸象 state depending on angles. I have met plenty of Chinese liberals that are hellbent on believing that everything CCP does is evil and US is a sacred country and everybody lives by his standard of holy Chinese moralistic ideals.
And the same time the patriotic mob who will swing a bat at anything not patriotic enough.
All of these people are born and raised in the mainland.


You are right, that's not my complacency, I just like to share some experience hard to be known by "outsiders".

<<I have met plenty of Chinese liberals that are hellbent on believing that everything CCP does is evil and US is a sacred country and everybody lives by his standard of holy Chinese moralistic ideals.
And the same time the patriotic mob who will swing a bat at anything not patriotic enough.
All of these people are born and raised in the mainland.>>

That's pretty true, as a result most people including those elite liberals don't like to make things clear enough, or unable to do so, which explains why worship/belief (rather than rational thinking) appears to be a big pillar of their mentality.

Let's go back to the topic itself. The purpose of this topic is not to recognize problems of China (China is no longer my standpoint), but how should we in the West react to China's potential threat.
#14798162
AJS wrote:I wasn't comparing China as a whole to those groups, just pointing out that some of the cultural norms In China are not unique to China but common in much of the world.

I would be interested to hear more about where you think the danger lies.

So far the Gulf states seem much more interested in using their wealth for political advantage, though it may be that the Chinese are just more subtle/better at it.


I've been as optimistic as you are for decades, simply because for example, China is losing its smartest people - top students constantly moving to the U.S., senior professionals don't like to work and live in China if they can choose, as a result I don't think China has any advantage to challenge the US-led western world.

But recently I noticed that I did underrate China. YES, same as before, the top people in science/technology won't choose to serve China - in China. But Chinese firms like Baidu/Huawei can invest enough to open R&D overseas, with attractive high pay they can easily recruit talented people across the world to work for them, and indirectly strengthen the communist regime to challenge the West.

Know who is the biggest electronic maker today? Huawei
Who is the biggest video game developer today? Tencent
Undeniably they are not most technologically advanced, but they can easily become the world's biggest, and then with their biggest funding, to buy whatever they want. It works theoretically at least for now.
#14798163
fuser wrote:I don't necessary disagree @benpenguin but still I would say it will be too simplistic to say that authoritarianism of China was the main (or only) factor behind China's huge leap compared to India even though they started from relatively similar position.

In India's case for first two decade or so the major concern was to hold the country together, everyone and their pet dog was predicting back then that it will be back to business for India and she will collapse into many smaller states soon, any China style authoritarianism imo would most definitely had broken the country, no one culture in India is large enough either in territory or population to effectively dominate all others.

60+ people immolated themselves just after independence so that Hindi don't become official language or mandatory language in Schools, it was these events that forced India to take a federal and relatively non-authoritarian approach and it worked in the sense that this Country didn't collapsed into many smaller nations as the conventional wisdom then predicted.

So basically I believe that authoritarian or non authoritarian aren't universal in the sense that they will yield same result everywhere, it depends very much on social, economical conditions of the region.

It worked in China, I agree but I believe it couldn't have in India.


I personally feel, to compare India to China, is just like comparing China to Japan, completely incomparable and eventually inconclusive.
#14798164
Sasa wrote:I've been as optimistic as you are for decades, simply because for example, China is losing its smartest people - top students constantly moving to the U.S., senior professionals don't like to work and live in China if they can choose, as a result I don't think China has any advantage to challenge the US-led western world.

But recently I noticed that I did underrate China. YES, same as before, the top people in science/technology won't choose to serve China - in China. But Chinese firms like Baidu/Huawei can invest enough to open R&D overseas, with attractive high pay they can easily recruit talented people across the world to work for them, and indirectly strengthen the communist regime to challenge the West.

Chinese firms may have bought IBM/ARM if their national government didn't intervene. Still they've bought a lot less impressive firms from less sensitive countries. You may not be aware of their threat until too late.

Know who is the biggest electronic maker today? Huawei
Who is the biggest video game developer today? Tencent
Undeniably they are not most technologically advanced, but they can easily become the world's biggest, and then with their biggest funding, to buy whatever they want. It works theoretically at least for now.
#14798170
@Sasa
That's fine. The sticking point is what do they actually do with that?

Japan dominated the electronics industry and had huge car makers who were truly global. More so than Ford or GM in many ways. They also bought huge swathes of the West and employ many people in the west.

This never really gave them a great deal of political influence, less still dominance.
#14798173
AJS wrote:@Sasa
That's fine. The sticking point is what do they actually do with that?

Japan dominated the electronics industry and had huge car makers who were truly global. More so than Ford or GM in many ways. They also bought huge swathes of the West and employ many people in the west.

This never really gave them a great deal of political influence, less still dominance.

From my observation, there are mainly two things the Chinese communist wants to implement: one is apparently to sustain and further strengthen the status quo, the dictatorship over China, beyond that they want to gradually spread their impact in the West and eventually or ideally able to dominate it.

From my point of view (I used to work in Japan as electronic engineer), Japan is completely different from China and Japan is indeed an Asian nation I appreciate and respect. There's no problem with Japan, a highly developed civilization, in terms of the conflict with other western nations. This would not need to exist if China becomes Japan.

I live in New Zealand and I can tell you by the way, the Chinese communist state run railway firm just won a bid to build the metro railway system in Auckland, as my context. I wonder if you'd tell me, no need to worry.
#14798180
I live in New Zealand and I can tell you by the way, the Chinese communist state run railway firm just won a bid to build the metro railway system in Auckland, as my context. I wonder if you'd tell me, no need to worry.

"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." - V.I. Lenin.

:)

Having said that, for what it's worth I fundamentally agree with everything benpenguin has said. There are strong cultural and economic reasons why China will never overthrow and replace Western hegemony, and nor does it even want to. The way the West has tried to 'contain' China is not by attacking or trying to colonise it (which didn't even work back in the 19th century - the West managed to destroy the Chinese system, but didn't even attempt to colonise or subjugate the Chinese nation itself; we realised how impossible that would be). Instead, we are containing the Chinese 'threat' (such as it is) by trying to integrate the Chinese economy into the capitalist global economy. If China attacks us or tries to subjugate us, they would be killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and they know it. If the West collapses, then China collapses with it. Instead of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, there is MACE - Mutually Assured Co-Existence. We'll rattle our sabres at each other now and again, but that's mainly just a game to keep the rubes on both sides happy. The fate of Hong Kong is a good example of MACE - Mao could have invaded and taken back Hong Kong at any time, but he did not. And the British, for their part, gave Hong Kong back to China lock, stock and barrel without any objections when their lease ran out. Both sides long ago decided to play the game according to the internationally agreed legal rules, and neither side shows any sign of changing their minds about that.
#14798369
Finfinder wrote:
What is there not to be sure about, grass cardboard, wood whatever they can get. Take any train from a large city in China to another and you will see the contrast in poverty levels.


I have never been to China so I would not know how rural China is. I have a cousin who works in China but he only works in Beijing and Shanghai because he is an architect who designs city buildings.
#14798421
Sasa wrote:No matter how reasonable your words are, they keep hostile to you. That fundamentally stems from a racism based class system. On the other hand they would undoubtedly condemn people like me - who are identified as a traitor of their race, no matter how reasonable my thought is, because from their perspective, I can't change my skin color, my birth place, thus the loyalty. If they see another white/Japanese guy saying the same words, it might be "OK", whereas I would be unforgivable. The most openly racist people in the world. That's why I never concern about racial discrimination in the West, knowing that no people are more racist than Chinese .

I had the exact same experience, but over the years I learnt two things:
1. You are talking to the wrong Chinese, you will find a much more engaging conversation with real, learnt elites. They exist! There is no use talking to "Drones", they are programmed to serve a specific purpose in society - just like we are in some ways. But I digress: my program is not always superior to theirs. Many westerners are just as stubborn, while at the same time claiming superiority because they are "free thinkers with google". For example, try praising China in facebook. No matter how reasonable my words are, angry hordes will come with the exact same programmed arguments... :D
2. As I said, China is very much inward looking and has great difficulty in understanding foreign perspective (Not necessiarily hostile). On an individual scale this is a big personality flaw. On a collective setting, that can be a huge boon (in certain ways). You can call it racism - but I have made peace with it. Hate it or love it, it's like a force of nature... It has nothing to do with the communists - in all our history books, the Chinese have never changed. In fact I would argue that CCP greatly improved the Chinese in some ways, based on its historical roots...


Sasa wrote:How do you think about people in Taiwan, who are equally ethnic Chinese people. I don't think it's all about Chinese culture or East Asian culture. And Chinese people in biologically are not so homogeneous as it appear, rather they are deliberately educated like that. Racism is the core part of Chinese nationalism/patriotism.

Taiwan, Japan and Korea - I use the same argument: These are just pea sized countries in comparison, China is a massive continent spanning beast that will never work without a powerful central structure (Check my examples about railways and environmental policies). And don't forget during their time of huge economic development, Japan, Korea and Taiwan all had dictators. It was when the greap leap is over, economy slowed and they got rid of the strongman.
Before you say "federation" with China, check Zhou and Han dynasty. A decentralized structure was tried before various times, and Chinese historians have mostly concluded that it doesn't work. You may argue whether we had been real generic republic and all that, but decision is made all the same. Mostly because China is a landbound country that is surrounded by rivals, they need to stick together... (Now please don't start arguing who is right and who is wrong)
Japan is a fantastic country which China will never become for various reasons. Another huge topic - I admire them but the Chinese are much better in other ways. In fact I think these two nations have a lot to learn from each other - but let's continue this some other time.

@fuser For the case of India, I understand there must be a historical context why you chose your system. I am simply pointing out how decentralization has hurt India. I think it is a worthwhile comparison with China, because both are huge, landbound and populous nations, and as underdeveloped at some point. China even had the cultural revolution and 100 years of non stop wars. India had it good in comparison... One point worth mentioning is that China was as fractured before with each provincial warlord/sub-culture doing their own thing, but they got merged by a bloody reason called Mao...

@Potemkin Thanks and I have nothing to add. We agree as always :)

One last thing for Sasa: I am born in Hong Kong, lived in Australia for 8 years, China for 3 years, and now back to Hong Kong. My wife is a mainlander. I travel a lot around South China, Taiwan and South east asia for work and leisure. I know very well what you saw, but to really understand China, you need to first challenge your own liberal westernized mindset that you are so proud of, observe a lot deeper and keep asking why. China will always be "wrong" if you are using your set of foreign standards. You will not find what you seek from New Zealand (Or Australia), or by arguing with Chinese drones. That was my personal journey for the last decade.

I think China is a great nation, and CCP has done an overall decent job. She is not the most lovable of countries, and I am sad to see the inherent hosility towards it in the "Free world". But rest assured, as per potemkin's comment: China will not rule. Economic integration is not ruling, nor is that the aim, nor is that consequential. For China, seeking world domination is seeking it's own fall.
#14798716
Potemkin wrote:"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." - V.I. Lenin.

:)

Having said that, for what it's worth I fundamentally agree with everything benpenguin has said. There are strong cultural and economic reasons why China will never overthrow and replace Western hegemony, and nor does it even want to. The way the West has tried to 'contain' China is not by attacking or trying to colonise it (which didn't even work back in the 19th century - the West managed to destroy the Chinese system, but didn't even attempt to colonise or subjugate the Chinese nation itself; we realised how impossible that would be). Instead, we are containing the Chinese 'threat' (such as it is) by trying to integrate the Chinese economy into the capitalist global economy. If China attacks us or tries to subjugate us, they would be killing the goose that lays the golden egg, and they know it. If the West collapses, then China collapses with it. Instead of MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction, there is MACE - Mutually Assured Co-Existence. We'll rattle our sabres at each other now and again, but that's mainly just a game to keep the rubes on both sides happy. The fate of Hong Kong is a good example of MACE - Mao could have invaded and taken back Hong Kong at any time, but he did not. And the British, for their part, gave Hong Kong back to China lock, stock and barrel without any objections when their lease ran out. Both sides long ago decided to play the game according to the internationally agreed legal rules, and neither side shows any sign of changing their minds about that.


What I wanted to express in the example of China taking metro project is not simply capitalism, though I know undeniably the cost if the root cause. But just think it could happen in New Zealand but unlikely in countries like the US or even Australia. NZ obviously is less cautious on China so everything is determined by money. If it's the same in the US, okay, we would say China state firm buying IBM/Qualcomm/Microsoft one day. You see Toshiba is on sale already, but no any Chinese firm bids yet, knowing Japanese government won't let it happen. And that's what we need, to contain China.

The Hong Kong handover seems another shameful business made by UK government. Similarly Britain begged for profits from China, while undermining their reputation and soft power, which they care less about already. I bet such thing might not have happened if Hong Kong were ruled by the US. They should have done plenty of stuff, like a referendum like they did in Gibraltar/Falkland. They even didn't need to "return" it to PRC legitimately - Hong Kong island was ceded permanently to UK and PRC didn't receive authorities of ROC (Taiwan).

Anyway, Hong Kong was eventually handed to PRC, which is often said the end of British Empire, also a symbolic break point of the "rise of China".
#14798717
Japan dominated the electronics industry and had huge car makers who were truly global. More so than Ford or GM in many ways. They also bought huge swathes of the West and employ many people in the west.

This never really gave them a great deal of political influence, less still dominance.


Maybe if china's constitution and government were set up by the US and it had 10x fewer people, you'd have some kind of comparative point. As it stands you do not. If Japan had independence, 10x larger workforce and 10x the resources/territory (in other words if Japan was China), you think it would still be a weak liberal democracy stationing foreign troops on its soil? :lol:

China has already surpassed the collective west in terms of momentum and economic growth generation. By 2050 it will have greater economic and probably political influence on the world than Europe and the US combined. Now true, economic power does not directly translate to geopolitical power, but China is a goods trading and manufacturing single party state-where do you think its priorities lie? In the realm of Social liberal Pacifism? Global banking? :roll: No, that's the EU, western led Europe. A giant weakling. Russia is a greater geopolitical power than the collective EU, despite having a 6x smaller economy in real terms, simply because its system is one geared for self interest-like China's. Japan is very similar to western Europe which is driven by Germany, in that it too is tailored for the benefit of others, not itself, owing to its conquest and total subjugation to the neoliberal bankster elite who now reside in the US and feed off the entire system like vultures at the top of the corpse pile. Their time is fast coming to an end.
#14798720
benpenguin wrote:I had the exact same experience, but over the years I learnt two things:
1. You are talking to the wrong Chinese, you will find a much more engaging conversation with real, learnt elites. They exist! There is no use talking to "Drones", they are programmed to serve a specific purpose in society - just like we are in some ways. But I digress: my program is not always superior to theirs. Many westerners are just as stubborn, while at the same time claiming superiority because they are "free thinkers with google". For example, try praising China in facebook. No matter how reasonable my words are, angry hordes will come with the exact same programmed arguments... :D
2. As I said, China is very much inward looking and has great difficulty in understanding foreign perspective (Not necessiarily hostile). On an individual scale this is a big personality flaw. On a collective setting, that can be a huge boon (in certain ways). You can call it racism - but I have made peace with it. Hate it or love it, it's like a force of nature... It has nothing to do with the communists - in all our history books, the Chinese have never changed. In fact I would argue that CCP greatly improved the Chinese in some ways, based on its historical roots...



Taiwan, Japan and Korea - I use the same argument: These are just pea sized countries in comparison, China is a massive continent spanning beast that will never work without a powerful central structure (Check my examples about railways and environmental policies). And don't forget during their time of huge economic development, Japan, Korea and Taiwan all had dictators. It was when the greap leap is over, economy slowed and they got rid of the strongman.
Before you say "federation" with China, check Zhou and Han dynasty. A decentralized structure was tried before various times, and Chinese historians have mostly concluded that it doesn't work. You may argue whether we had been real generic republic and all that, but decision is made all the same. Mostly because China is a landbound country that is surrounded by rivals, they need to stick together... (Now please don't start arguing who is right and who is wrong)
Japan is a fantastic country which China will never become for various reasons. Another huge topic - I admire them but the Chinese are much better in other ways. In fact I think these two nations have a lot to learn from each other - but let's continue this some other time.

@fuser For the case of India, I understand there must be a historical context why you chose your system. I am simply pointing out how decentralization has hurt India. I think it is a worthwhile comparison with China, because both are huge, landbound and populous nations, and as underdeveloped at some point. China even had the cultural revolution and 100 years of non stop wars. India had it good in comparison... One point worth mentioning is that China was as fractured before with each provincial warlord/sub-culture doing their own thing, but they got merged by a bloody reason called Mao...

@Potemkin Thanks and I have nothing to add. We agree as always :)

One last thing for Sasa: I am born in Hong Kong, lived in Australia for 8 years, China for 3 years, and now back to Hong Kong. My wife is a mainlander. I travel a lot around South China, Taiwan and South east asia for work and leisure. I know very well what you saw, but to really understand China, you need to first challenge your own liberal westernized mindset that you are so proud of, observe a lot deeper and keep asking why. China will always be "wrong" if you are using your set of foreign standards. You will not find what you seek from New Zealand (Or Australia), or by arguing with Chinese drones. That was my personal journey for the last decade.

I think China is a great nation, and CCP has done an overall decent job. She is not the most lovable of countries, and I am sad to see the inherent hosility towards it in the "Free world". But rest assured, as per potemkin's comment: China will not rule. Economic integration is not ruling, nor is that the aim, nor is that consequential. For China, seeking world domination is seeking it's own fall.


<<You are talking to the wrong Chinese, you will find a much more engaging conversation with real, learnt elites.>>
Most Chinese people I exposed to are highly educated in technology fields, I agree there are more open-minded elites in China, but I dare say the former represents the vast majority and in other words much more typical Chinese.

<<my program is not always superior to theirs. Many westerners are just as stubborn, while at the same time claiming superiority because they are "free thinkers with google".>>
What I observed is mostly the Chinese appeared arrogant and assertive, whose superiority?
<< For example, try praising China in facebook. No matter how reasonable >>
I so far hardly saw any "reasonable China praising" and I welcome any of you to do so, and indeed I haven't seen whoever forbade you in western social platforms. I wonder the consequence won't be, the pro-Chinas got angery after I point out something and start evaluating me instead of the topic itself, like it always happened.

<<As I said, China is very much inward looking and has great difficulty in understanding foreign perspective (Not necessiarily hostile). >>
Thankfully I understand those comments written in Mandarin just under Martin Jacques' footage page on Youtube, you tell me they are not hostile to West? And I look forward to your reasonable praise on China if any.

<<You can call it racism - but I have made peace with it.Hate it or love it>>
It's not hate or something, but just the stance of disagree. I'm rational not emotional. I'm talking about how to deal with the threat of China, not how we hate it.

<< It has nothing to do with the communists>>
You still refused to answer what's the cultural difference between Chinese and Taiwanese. You simply categorized Japanese/South Korean/Taiwanese in the same group together despite they have different cutlural background while China and Taiwan share the same. Should I ask one more: what's the cultural difference between North and South Korean?

<<Mostly because China is a landbound country that is surrounded by rivals, they need to stick together... (Now please don't start arguing who is right and who is wrong)>>
So how could Taiwan the country run by ethnic Chinese works, defying your historical theory?

<<I admire them but the Chinese are much better in other ways.>>
Like most Chinese, giving definition without explaining why, other than your personal belief. I use logic to think rather than belief/emotion/sentiment.

<<China will always be "wrong" if you are using your set of foreign standards. >>
Nobody in the West likes to say Chinese are "right" or "wrong" (unlike Chinese themselves) and I bet few people are even interested to "guide" Chinese, people give logical advices to discuss with others and in order to make things better.

<<I know very well what you saw, but to really understand China, you need to first challenge your own liberal westernized mindset that you are so proud of, observe a lot deeper and keep asking why. >>
I don't find a motivation for me to seek to deeply "understand" something that fundamentally rejects freedom of mind based on people's birth place. I don't need to be "proud" of my western mindset either. I prefer westernization simply because I enjoy it and that's why I'm here in a western political forum, no need to justify anything. Unlike many Chinese migrants who deliberately left China for decades and still self-identifed as Chinese and say China is the best country.
#14798768
What I wanted to express in the example of China taking metro project is not simply capitalism, though I know undeniably the cost if the root cause. But just think it could happen in New Zealand but unlikely in countries like the US or even Australia. NZ obviously is less cautious on China so everything is determined by money. If it's the same in the US, okay, we would say China state firm buying IBM/Qualcomm/Microsoft one day. You see Toshiba is on sale already, but no any Chinese firm bids yet, knowing Japanese government won't let it happen. And that's what we need, to contain China.

And benpenguin and I have already tried to explain why China will probably always be self-containing. If the West collapses, then who's going to buy all the shit they make in their factories? Peasants living in grass huts in rural China? I don't think so. For China to attempt to subjugate the West or replace its hegemony would be like jumping off a cliff in the belief that they can fly. It's not likely to end well for them.

The Hong Kong handover seems another shameful business made by UK government. Similarly Britain begged for profits from China, while undermining their reputation and soft power, which they care less about already.

The British ruling class care about only one thing: making lots of money. They wanted to maintain Hong Kong's money-making potential, which they tap into. If they had simply refused to hand over Hong Kong when the lease ran out, then it is likely that China would simply have grabbed Hong Kong by military force - they would, after all, have had international law on their side. This would have destroyed Hong Kong's money-making potential. The Brits, wily as always, therefore complied with international law by handing over Hong Kong to China, but obtained assurances that Hong Kong's financial industries would be untouched - "two systems, one nation". This also happened to be in the interests of the Chinese government - they were, in effect, being given a ready-made Special Economic Zone to serve as a seed for their own economic liberalisation. From the Brits' point of view, this was a perfect compromise. Too bad for the people of Hong Kong, of course, but who gives a fuck about them? Certainly not the Brits.

I bet such thing might not have happened if Hong Kong were ruled by the US. They should have done plenty of stuff, like a referendum like they did in Gibraltar/Falkland.

Hong Kong and the Falklands/Malvinas are completely different cases - the population of the Falklands/Malvinas are the descendants of British settlers, whereas most of the population of Hong Kong are ethnically Chinese. And of course the Americans would have done things differently - they're not British. To us, the Americans look naive, hotheaded and impulsive; and to the Americans, we look cynical, cold and calculating. But no shots were fired in 1997, China reversed one of its major historical grievances, Hong Kong still makes money for the global capitalist elite, and only guys like you and a few whiny troublemakers in Hong Kong aren't happy with that.

They even didn't need to "return" it to PRC legitimately - Hong Kong island was ceded permanently to UK and PRC didn't receive authorities of ROC (Taiwan).

Everything in that sentence is either incorrect or irrelevant. Britain did need to return Hong Kong to the PRC legitimately, under international law. Hong Kong island was not "ceded permanently" to the UK - we obtained a 99-year lease from the government of Imperial China. That lease expired in 1997. The PRC didn't receive authority from the ROC, but the ROC didn't receive authority from the Qing Dynasty either. Our deal was with the Qing, who no longer governed China. The PRC was the real, existing government of China in 1997, so we negotiated with them. The ROC in Taiwan were completely irrelevant, and were not even consulted. Why would they be?

Anyway, Hong Kong was eventually handed to PRC, which is often said the end of British Empire, also a symbolic break point of the "rise of China".

It was also a symbolic break point of China's integration into the global economic and political system. After all, the PRC agreed to retain the financial industries of Hong Kong, to maintain its economic and social links with the rest of the world, and (for the most part) to allow the inhabitants of Hong Kong to live under their own laws and (at least partly) govern themselves. The PRC has come a long way since the Cultural Revolution.
#14798773
I imagine that if Chinese purchasing power were allowed to reflect its real value, the world economy would collapse overnight. I'm not sure if the environment can handle a billion Chinese people having the same standard of living as western people. The west, for its part, is only maintaining its possession of the highest standard of living at this point out of inertia.
#14798787
Potemkin wrote:And benpenguin and I have already tried to explain why China will probably always be self-containing. If the West collapses, then who's going to buy all the shit they make in their factories? Peasants living in grass huts in rural China?

Having said before, I don’t believe China necessarily intends to destroy the western world either, which is not hard to understand. However that doesn’t mean the communist likes to be open and friendly like Japan/South Korea/Taiwan, and I gave the reason according to my analyses too. In short better off to be cautious than simply believe China is “harmful”.
Potemkin wrote:The British ruling class care about only one thing: making lots of money. They wanted to maintain Hong Kong's money-making potential, which they tap into. If they had simply refused to hand over Hong Kong when the lease ran out, then it is likely that China would simply have grabbed Hong Kong by military force - they would, after all, have had international law on their side. This would have destroyed Hong Kong's money-making potential. The Brits, wily as always, therefore complied with international law by handing over Hong Kong to China, but obtained assurances that Hong Kong's financial industries would be untouched - "two systems, one nation".

I fully understand why British gov did so and that’s why UK is not U.S. – the current world leader won’t do everything purely for tangible profits, like what I said about NZ, sadly to compare UK to this small remote country.
Potemkin wrote:Hong Kong and the Falklands/Malvinas are completely different cases - the population of the Falklands/Malvinas are the descendants of British settlers, whereas most of the population of Hong Kong are ethnically Chinese.

This argument sounds pretty “Chinese” – you simply define the willing of people according to their race? Based on this perception it’s fair enough to condemn me as a traitor of “my race”. And if you are confident enough, why not have a referendum to see Hong Kongers do choose to stay with their race or not? I guess everyone’d be able to predict the result then. If we go further with this terrible theory, Taiwan should undoubtedly to be “returned” to China, the country of their same race. Indeed you already offered an example to disprove that idea: with the U.S. majority population of British descendants chose to secede from the UK.

Nobody so far in this thread, ever answered this question straightforward: why people of Taiwan and Hong Kong desperately resist the rule of China - the race of their people in your racial perspective.

Potemkin wrote:Everything in that sentence is either incorrect or irrelevant. Britain did need to return Hong Kong to the PRC legitimately, under international law. Hong Kong island was not "ceded permanently" to the UK - we obtained a 99-year lease from the government of Imperial China.


Hong Kong Island was actually ceded to Britain permanently, the place being leased was New Territory, excluding Hong Kong Island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of ... _Hong_Kong

And ROC did formally inherit authority from Qing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi#Abdication
<<The PRC was the real, existing government of China in 1997, so we negotiated with them.>>
But PRC never ruled Hong Kong for one day, if you strictly follow lawsuits, the Chinese communist had nothing to do with either Hong Kong or Taiwan. Qing once ruled Vladivostok too, does the PRC have the legitimacy to “receive” it?
Qing, ROC, PRC are all different governments, if you know law, unless a formal transfer agreement has been signed, you cannot simply say which is the successor of which based on race, just remind you again.
<<The ROC in Taiwan were completely irrelevant, and were not even consulted. >>
What’s the point of saying ROC is “completely irrelevant”, who still preserves the original hong kong ceding document. The ROC government has never claimed as I know, they drop any historical authority deliberately.
Anyway the handover of Hong Kong is due to the lack of determination of UK to maintain its last important overseas territory, not the lack of legitimacy. It’s the power who talks.

Potemkin wrote:Hong Kong still makes money for the global capitalist elite, and only guys like you and a few whiny troublemakers in Hong Kong aren't happy with that.

If you say these words 20 years ago, it may appeared more convincing. But for now, who believe those unhappy with what’s going on in Hong Kong are just minority?
Potemkin wrote:It was also a symbolic break point of China's integration into the global economic and political system.

Again, more people would believe you 20 years ago, but now it looks more like the PRC has been expanding its anti-west influence into the former British territory, it’s the latter which is changing, while the Xi-Jingping led PRC appears more anti-west than that under Jiang-zemin to be honest.
Finfinder wrote:What is there not to be sure about, grass cardboard, wood whatever they can get. Take any train from a large city in China to another and you will see the contrast in poverty levels.

The problems in China is not about poor or rich. I can tell you the truth, most Chinese migrants desperately moving out of China are those rich people from Beijing/Shanghai. The fact is that the richer you become, the keener you are to leave China, as the result of "Chinese civilization".
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Last edited by Sasa on 20 Apr 2017 11:52, edited 1 time in total.
#14798792
Hong Kong Island was actually ceded to Britain permanently, the place being leased was New Territory, excluding Hong Kong Island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of ... _Hong_Kong

And ROC did formally inherit authority from Qing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puyi#Abdication
<<The PRC was the real, existing government of China in 1997, so we negotiated with them.>>
But PRC never ruled Hong Kong for one day, if you strictly follow lawsuits, the Chinese communist had nothing to do with either Hong Kong or Taiwan. Qing once ruled Vladivostok too, does the PRC have the legitimacy to “receive” it?
Qing, ROC, PRC are all different governments, if you know law, unless a formal transfer agreement has been signed, you cannot simply say which is the successor of which based on race, just remind you again.
<<The ROC in Taiwan were completely irrelevant, and were not even consulted. >>
What’s the point of saying ROC is “completely irrelevant”, who still preserves the original hong kong ceding document. The ROC government has never claimed as I know, they drop any historical authority deliberately.
Anyway the handover of Hong Kong is due to the lack of determination of UK to maintain its last important overseas territory, not the lack of legitimacy. It’s the power who talks.

None of this fundamentally changes my argument - that the British and the PRC both acted in their own material and political interests, which happened to coincide at that time. A deal was therefore struck. The legal niceties and the personal interests of the people of Hong Kong were a secondary consideration. Since when did the people of Hong Kong have democracy under British rule? Colonial subjects must do as they are told. It wouldn't surprise me if the Americans eventually sell off Puerto Rico to the Chinese one day, if the price is right. Lol. ;)

And you misinterpret my position - I am not claiming that race loyalty trumps every other consideration. Instead, I am claiming that material interests - profit - trump everything else in a capitalist system. The people of Hong Kong were not sold out by the British because they were ethnically Chinese; we sold them out because they were colonial subjects rather than British citizens, and it was in our interests to do so. :)
#14798795
Potemkin wrote:None of this fundamentally changes my argument - that the British and the PRC both acted in their own material and political interests, which happened to coincide at that time. A deal was therefore struck. The legal niceties and the personal interests of the people of Hong Kong were a secondary consideration. Since when did the people of Hong Kong have democracy under British rule? Colonial subjects must do as they are told. It wouldn't surprise me if the Americans eventually sell off Puerto Rico to the Chinese one day, if the price is right. Lol. ;)

And you misinterpret my position - I am not claiming that race loyalty trumps every other consideration. Instead, I am claiming that material interests - profit - trump everything else in a capitalist system. The people of Hong Kong were not sold out by the British because they were ethnically Chinese; we sold them out because they were colonial subjects rather than British citizens, and it was in our interests to do so. :)


Potemkin wrote:None of this fundamentally changes my argument - that the British and the PRC both acted in their own material and political interests, which happened to coincide at that time. A deal was therefore struck. The legal niceties and the personal interests of the people of Hong Kong were a secondary consideration.

I have no argument on this view. I offered historical evidence just to show you what the actual legitimacy is, if you are interested to know. But I don’t U.S. would sell their territories to China anytime soon, that’s what makes America America. NZ (like the UK) allows China to undertake their infrastructure project, which would never happen to the U.S. Thankfully it’s still the U.S. who leads the world.

Truly Hong Kong was not a democracy under British rule, which however doesn’t mean the UK shouldn’t hold a referendum in the end of its rule. It’s worth thinking that even though UK didn’t offer democracy, Hong Kongers would still choose the UK were an referendum allowed. It’s already convincing enough to indicate, people are not simply grouped by race, and I still haven’t got the point when you were saying “people in Hong Kong are totally ethnic Chinese”. I’m ethnic Chinese too, So what?
This reminds me an ironic advice to PRC government, when should they “unify” Singapore? Don't laugh, this thought is widely accepted among mainland Chinese: since you are ethnic Chinese, you deserve the rule by our unified Chinese government (though they never/forgot to mention Singapore).

I often saw the debate between Chinese/Taiwanese, the arguments Chinese mostly like to use to attach the other side is: check where your ancestors come from before saying "I'm not Chinese"! OK, Singapore, it's your turn.

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