Estonia “set to reject” Chinese-backed Tunnel-to-Helsinki Plan - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15111506
noemon wrote::roll: But it is about you & me. I have been talking and talking about how we(me, you, our children, cousins and western population in general) will be if China becomes the global leader in economics, finance, military and politics.


Right, and I'm asking what your opinion is based on. If you have nothing, you can just say this is all just your opinion.

Still, if anyone spoke about Greece the way you speak of China, you'd be the first to go off. And I know this because I've seen you do exactly that on these boards more than once.

Anyway, China supports Greece.


#15111507
How have I spoken about China? that she is too strong, too mighty and too capable to be the global leader, that she will be unless we stop her? :knife: :lol: And you think the Chinese consider this "disrespectful racism"? :lol: :lol: :lol:

Or that the Chinese are a "subservient people"? They are, much more than you & me. They have never elected anybody, they consider their leaders next to gods, they do not disrespect them, treat them with contempt, judge them or criticise them. They are vastly more subservient than you would ever be.

As for me not providing evidence about how neither me & you would tolerate living under a Chinese junta I have provided more than sufficient examples, social benefits, censored tv, radio, internet. These are just the tip of the iceberg as you should know the case is, in all dictatorships.

It's funny how everyone who loses the debate, tries to use Greece against me one way or another. It's ridiculous.

And no dear, I have never lost the plot with anyone calling Greece a threat to their way of life which is what China is to ours.
#15111515
That's ok.

For those actually interested, here is an article about the Chinese meat buying. And that was from last year, during COVID-19, Cambridge & East Anglia has seen all its meat farms emptied by Chinese buyers who pay 50% more to get the meat back to China. This is one of the issue that I became aware of due to my job as I was unable to get my hands on produce, Bookers pointed me to the farmers, the farmers pointed me to China and that is just one issue(all of them told me that the Chinese are adding 20 or even 30 pounds on top of the price per piggie, no questions asked), speak to the real estate agents and ask them how's it going with the Chinese buying spree.

When the Chinese buy most of your meat, vegetables and fruit, you end up paying double & triple. When the Chinese dump steel onto your market, you end up paying 5 times more for your train tickets. When the Chinese complete their plan of global domination, your money will be worth same as Cubas. And by that time it will be too late to do anything about it. But yeah dude, let's pretend that it's not about you & me and that I'm just a racist guy having a racist rant cause I just felt like hating the Chinese today. :roll:
#15111518
No you didn't. I told you and you still kept insisting that it is not personal about you & me, when in fact my entire conversation has been right from the start about you & me. How our lives and money will be when the Chinese take over. And we(you & me, not some abstract entity in outer-space) will be in the shitter.
#15111521
Corporate media are so far up their own asses, they only post sensationalist nonsense while our governments are too weak & pathetic to actually do anything about it.

When it's time, and you connect your own dots please remember that you heard these here first. ;) :)

It would not be the first time, and nor will it be the last. As always, at first people think you 're crazy.
#15111525
@skinster

Skinster you don't even consider that your ideas can be wrong at any time. Noemons argument is pretty clear and has a solid basis: If the Chinese treat their own people worse than the Western countries treat their own people then why do you think that countries that might fall in to chinese influence will be treated better by them? Not even considering that average Chinese people are more "racist" in the both classical and newer understanding of this word.

@noemon

The situation is a bit overblown in my opinion. China has not reached the point of parity with the West that the Soviet Union and its block reached durring the Cold War. Considering that Soviet Union was a communist country, it is not a good thing. Current Chinese situation is not that good either. They are currently stuck in the middle income trap and i don't see a way out for them at all. There are simply to many political preasures both internal and external that basically turn in to real negative economic preasure on top of their economic policies.

For example, lets take capital flight from China. It has been put under a bit of control recently using capital controls and crackdowns. This is a system that can't exist forever and is a net negative for the whole economy. On the other hand they can't really remove it because otherwise they will start having capital outflows of roughly 5-10% of their GDP yearly. Not to mention, this begs the question of why this is happening? The usual two reasons are either bad/worsening economical situation or political risks. I suspect that both are to blame.

Then there is the general debt of the economy. The system in China is kinda funny regarding this. Most of the debt is accumulated by the State banks. So basically state banks own the debt while private and public companies pay that debt back. So if the debt defaults then how will the Chinese economy even recover. It is the States money that is going to burn and not private money like in the West. So the state won't really have an option to save the banks. And that Debt pile is huge, no printing press will be able to cover it.

@Patrickov

The bridge/tunnel thing is something that is not really needed in my opinion. I mean that it sounds cool and all but is it really worth the 16 billion. I can take a ferry or move goods between Finland and Estonia very cheaply. My opinion has always been that we simply do not need that tunnel/bridge. Moving goods using sealanes has always been cheaper compared to other methods of transportation. Taking a ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki is 1 hour 15 minutes which goes many times a day. The only realistic benefit of this is that if you build a really fast line that it will be possible to live in Helsinki or Tallinn and then work in the other city. I just don't see any other economic upsides.
#15111529
JohnRawls wrote:@skinster

Skinster you don't even consider that your ideas can be wrong at any time.


My ideas aren't usually things I make up or about how I feel. And I'm willing to be proven wrong but that never happens with opinions.

Noemons argument is pretty clear and has a solid basis:


He's upset he had to pay a bit more for meat during a period in Sept last year when some farmers in England raised their prices after China's bought their pigs because they were lacking in them because of a swine flu type thing. I don't know of any more meat-buying China has done in England before that time in Sept or since, or how this one incident equates to "China is going to buy everything and we're going to have nothing" kind of hysteria. It's based on nothing but that one thing that happened in September of last year so it's kind of a reach, to be polite.

If the Chinese treat their own people worse than the Western countries treat their own people then why do you think that countries that might fall in to chinese influence will be treated better by them?


You have no evidence the Chinese govt treat their people worse. We have report (ITT) telling us the opposite, actually.
#15111533
skinster wrote:My ideas aren't usually things I make up or about how I feel. And I'm willing to be proven wrong but that never happens with opinions.



He's upset he had to pay a bit more for meat during a period in Sept last year when some farmers in England raised their prices after China's bought their pigs because they were lacking in them because of a swine flu type thing. I don't know of any more meat-buying China has done in England before that time in Sept or since, or how this one incident equates to "China is going to buy everything and we're going to have nothing" kind of hysteria. It's based on nothing but that one thing that happened in September of last year so it's kind of a reach, to be polite.



You have no evidence the Chinese govt treat their people worse. We have report (ITT) telling us the opposite, actually.


You can't be serious. Hong kong, camps for arabic/muslim cultured natives of China, censorship, absence of free speech etc. And those are just recent events. There are many things that i can put here. It is like you are an ostrich with your head in the sand.
Last edited by JohnRawls on 05 Aug 2020 14:40, edited 1 time in total.
#15111536
skinster wrote:He's upset he had to pay a bit more for meat during a period in Sept last year when some farmers in England raised their prices after China's bought their pigs because they were lacking in them because of a swine flu type thing.


No dear, I did not even notice much last september. That is just an article I found in a 2 second google-search since you trust articles more than my own word it seems. I know that I cannot buy any lamb right now because the chinese buyers are taking all Irish, Welsh, Australian and New Zealand lamb off the shelves. I know that I am paying 30% more right now than I was a few months ago for the little bits that I do manage to actually buy and that goes for lamb, beef, pork and chicken. I mentioned the pork specifically because I happened to visit some pork farm recently and they all told me the same thing, that a chinese buyer comes every week and takes as much as they will give him at whatever price. I know that I will pay 40% more for a house because the Chinese are buying everything in all the interesting areas. I know that the Chinese are dumping shit on our markets to cause havoc to our economies: https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... on-imports

You might think that these are minor stuff that don't matter but when you personally start realising that the money you make are not enough to feed yourself then you will start wondering what the fucks happened.


You have no evidence the Chinese govt treat their people worse. We have report (ITT) telling us the opposite, actually.


:lol: :lol:
#15111538
JR, The stories you lap up have already been dealt with by me in the various China-bashing threads that are popular this year, which I'm sure you came to figure out entirely by your own thinking and have had no input from corporate media. :lol:

No dear, I did not even notice much last september. I know that I cannot buy any lamb right now because the chinese buyers are taking all Irish, Welsh, Australian and New Zealand lamb off the shelves. I know that I am paying 30% more right now than I was a few months for the little bits that I do manage to actually buy and that goes for lamb, beef and chicken. I know that I will pay 40% more for a house because the chinese are buying everything in all the interesting areas.


You shared one story to support your position about China buying all our meat from Sept last year and nothing else. That's it? Anything from this year about China taking all our meat?

It's not China's fault bab, this is capitalism. :excited:
#15111539
As I said several times, you might think that these are minor stuff that don't matter but when you personally start realising that the money you make are not enough to feed yourself then you will start wondering what the fucks happened. And at that point you will remember this conversation and start putting the dots together.

This being "capitalism" is the reason why everyone is quiet about it, especially our media, but when it starts to bite, you will see what will happen.
#15111543
noemon wrote:As I said several times, you might think that these are minor stuff that don't matter but when you personally start realising that the money you make are not enough to feed yourself then you will start wondering what the fucks happened. And at that point you will remember this conversation and start putting the dots together.

This being "capitalism" is the reason why everyone is quiet about it, especially our media, but when it starts to bite, you will see what will happen.


If you had said this was all based on your experience, we wouldn't be debating any of this.

And capitalism is already biting me and billions, thanks, that's why I want it abolished. Join me. :excited:
#15111587
noemon wrote:@Rugoz , you insist on operating under the assumption that once the west loses its global leadership that things will be the same and that the only thing we would need to do would be to "protect our industries", which is incredibly naive to the point of appearing of being intentional. You simply cannot digest or imagine a world in which the west is not leading the global economy, you simply cannot imagine the experience of third-tier countries because you never had the experience of what it means to your life to live in a country like Cuba or Venezuela which is where you will be a couple of decades after China has taken over our industries one by one. You might even be under the silly presumption that these countries are shit because the issue is genetic or cultural when in fact it only has to do with them being treated with hostility by those that control the global economy, which is where we will all be when China takes over. As for the argument that Chinese products will be redirected to elsewhere, that is laughable because the west and that is not just Europe, but also the US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, New Zealand & Russia are the vast majority of buyers and there is noone else to cover the gap, neither Africa nor east Asia can make up the slack. Once the west shuts them down, they are fucked, proper, not so much for us though because we can actually redirect almost the entirety of both our imports and exports to the rest of the world & each other.


Why is it naive to say we should "protect our industries"? The relationship between the West and China will never be akin to Cuba vs. the US. It will be equal or slightly unequal in either direction.

As for "shutting them down". China has a huge domestic market with regions of it already as developed as the West or close to it and trade isn't as important as you think, given the numbers we have. It's impossible.

I'm afraid of China's economic might in the sense that it will inspire authoritarians here in the West to adopt a similar model. Democracy is a fragile thing. There are always ambitious politicians out there wanting to end it. In addition, big business might be indifferent about such a change or even supportive. Of course in the US it won't be labeled communist, but something else (like MAGA). In Europe we have a trend towards centralization and the EU is already technocratic in many ways. I can see the EU being a vehicle to introduce more China-style politics in the future.
#15111630
In itself, Chinese imperialism is not worse than US imperialism. The only difference is that the former is potential, while the later is actual. Both put the national interest first in their dealings with the rest of the world. That is blindingly clear from Trump's rule which exposed all the BS about the benign US superpower.

Neither is in a position to physically/militarily control a global empire. Both need the consent of the people under their hegemony. For Pete's sake, the US can't even control a war-torn impoverished little shit hole like Afghanistan.

China will never have the soft-power of the Anglosphere to convince people of a benevolent Chinese hegemony. This is also blindly clear from Xi's reign. Wherever Beijing's rulers put their big feet, they provoke an anti-Chinese reaction. The pettiness with which the Chinese react to opposition from abroad shows that they don't have the slightest idea about how to implement their hegemonic ambitions.

Today, China is the new kid on the block, like Germany a century ago. Do we let them play or are we going for WWIII?

The confrontational US approach risks provoking military conflict. Europe should not let itself be sucked into another Yankee war. Enough is enough. Europe needs to become neutral and compete with China commercially and technologically but NOT militarily.

China has learned from the West and now is getting better at the game than the West. Those that are incapable of learning are doomed. That's why Europe now needs to learn from China (Japan, Korea, etc.) to use industrial policy for building indigenous high-tech industries capable of competing with China. After Brexit, we can trash the neoliberal doctrine pushed by the Brits and allow the State/EU to defend European industry against China and also against the US.

Let's tax US multinationals and end the tax avoidance schemes and let's introduce a system of equivalences: restrictions on European companies in China need to be matched by restrictions on Chinese companies in Europe.

I call retarded the defeatists who believe that we can't compete with China and that conflict is inevitable. We absolutely can compete while defending democracy and the European style of life.
#15111695
Rugoz wrote:Why is it naive to say we should "protect our industries"?


It's not, after all that is exactly what I am saying as well. What is naive is hoping to achieve that by doing nothing at all, which is what you are arguing, you are against my sanctions proposal, so your statement "protecting our industries" is merely an abstract statement without any policy to back it up and that is what is naive. There is a policy that we could follow, block China off the western markets totally and entirely and not just in Europe but all over the west.

We have several human rights excuses to sell it to our public, Hong Kong, Uighurs, but most importantly the Chinese are belligerent, competitive and petty indeed. The fact that Hong Kong deserves its own self-determination and the entire west is sitting silent on this while China is trying to take over a first-world territory against its own will is quite astonishing and testament to the lack of balls anywhere in the west, despite the fact that the west as a whole controls about 3/4 of the planet, of the global economy, military, technology, services and what have you. If we do not do it now then when do you figure we should do it, in 50 years time when the 3/4 will have become 1/4?

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