World leaders reluctant to boycott event hosted by 'genocidal' regime - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15201842
Patrickov wrote:As a Hongkonger I find China more on the butt of this than the United States.


Sure, but these games are a sporting event. They last a couple of weeks and lose purpose soon after. Forget the hypocrisy for a second. Or that the games are for the athlete not the politician. America could have used the games to have more dialogue with Chinese officials on the Uyghurs. It took Biden a year to just get a zoom meeting with Xi and this could have been a free and easy diplomatic opportunity for them. But they decided to make a statement and it perhaps is them that lose more than China given that. There isn't much I agree with BoJo on, but he is right that it is best to keep sport and politics apart.
#15201852
My country is removing asylum seekers to Mexico without a hearing. There are still thousands of children in detention on our borders. 2 million Americans from a population of 330 million people are incarcerated. 1.7 million Chinese from a population of 1.5 billion people are incarcerated. 42 percent of black children under 18 live in poverty versus about 10% of white children. Black people make up over 34% if the prison population though only 13% of our population is black. Half as many blacks and four times as many Hispanics fail to complete high school than whites.

Anyway. The US better not host the Olympics anytime soon or nobody will show up.
#15202048
Drlee wrote:My country is removing asylum seekers to Mexico without a hearing. There are still thousands of children in detention on our borders. 2 million Americans from a population of 330 million people are incarcerated. 1.7 million Chinese from a population of 1.5 billion people are incarcerated. 42 percent of black children under 18 live in poverty versus about 10% of white children. Black people make up over 34% if the prison population though only 13% of our population is black. Half as many blacks and four times as many Hispanics fail to complete high school than whites.

Anyway. The US better not host the Olympics anytime soon or nobody will show up.

The poor go to jail for smoking a joint, while the rich can poison entire continents with pollution or drugs and they walk scott free.**

** Links to Ralph Nader article on how recent book exposés about criminal corporate behavior has lead to no new laws or real punishment at all. The article suggests that our political and regulatory institutions have mastered weighted ass-kissing, rather than adressing the ethical implications of this unequal level of policing between classes.
#15202194
B0ycey wrote:There isn't much I agree with BoJo on, but he is right that it is best to keep sport and politics apart.


If he did act on this principle I would say he's really a big hypocrite as many claim him to be.

Fortunately, this is not true: UK and Canada join diplomatic boycott of China Winter Olympics

----

Meanwhile, I would condemn Emmanuel Macron for taking action on the quoted statement.

Macron said "you try to change things with useful actions" -- I will believe it when I see it!
#15202207
Patrickov wrote:If he did act on this principle I would say he's really a big hypocrite as many claim him to be.

Fortunately, this is not true: UK and Canada join diplomatic boycott of China Winter Olympics


It was something he said during a question from Duncan-Smith. We weren't sending delegates anyway so there was no need for the UK to declare they were following suit given he believed sport and politics should be separate. Very much the same position as New Zealand. Macrons position is unique in that he wouldn't have ruled out a boycott, but if you were going to do a boycott, it had to be meaningful and not symbolic.

You also have to consider where the next Olympics is. That's right, Paris. Macron isn't going to want that to be marred in controversy so he isn't going to confuse sports and politics now in particular either. Which is perhaps how it should be. And as I said, anyone who does send delegates will actually have an ear and an audience to voice any concerns they have. So in a way the US have missed a trick here. But it doesn't matter, in March next year, the games are over and any purpose the games had will be over as well. You'll then stuck will angry rhetoric towards China and have absolutely no leverage whatsoever to help the Urghurs. So if the US think they have accomplished anything meaningful here they need to think again. All they are doing is creating a geopolitical divide and no more.
#15202225
B0ycey wrote:You'll then stuck will angry rhetoric towards China and have absolutely no leverage whatsoever to help the Urghurs.


1. Actually anything short of "provoking China into starting a world war and then beating the crap out of them" is little more than angry rhetoric to me.
(If circumstances allow so, Russia and certain Middle East countries could also be included in the above statement)

2. That said, I am not sure if Uighur independence is the core issue or helps matters here. To me it's at best a "side issue".

EDIT: Yes, the title names China 'genocidal' because of the Uighurs. But it should be noted that the Chinese are also willing to do that to their own people. They never renounce attacking Taiwan, and they are already doing this sort of thing in Hong Kong -- a population cleansing is under way in the name of "rule of Hong Kong by Patriots" (愛國者治港)
#15202234
Patrickov wrote:1. Actually anything short of "provoking China into starting a world war and then beating the crap out of them" is little more than angry rhetoric to me.
(If circumstances allow so, Russia and certain Middle East countries could also be included in the above statement)

2. That said, I am not sure if Uighur independence is the core issue or helps matters here. To me it's at best a "side issue".


I don't think the West would ever actually want to go near the issue of Uighur independence, given that would be more provocation. The main pushing point for them is human rights. The freedom of religion is enshrined in Western ideology and of course that is why we have terms of "Genocide" branded about. I don't like using this term it this way as it confuses the meaning of mass deaths with culture, but from my understanding the camps are now closed and actually that would have only happened if the West had some leverage towards China. If China starts being pushed away, as is the case with closing dialogue and removing diplomatic relationships, I can't see any improvement for the Uighurs.

As for you first point, I can appreciate that you personally would be happy for the world to be turned into dust, but even if China could be defeated and the result isn't stalemate, victory would be pyrrhic and we all would have to somehow rebuild under nuclear fallout. I don't know if you have noticed, but we are moving towards multiple hegemony powers very much as Orwell predicted, and I guess the only way forward if we don't at least have friendly relationships like Orwell also predicted won't be to defeat the other superpower using MAD, but to use war to control populations behind an ideology for said superpower. And unless you want a totalitarian states which campaign on hatred, it is better to just part ways and have no economic or diplomatic relationship and see which system works best. FYI, it wasn't bombs that broke the SU, it was the people who could see what was happening on the other side of the curtain.
#15202238
B0ycey wrote:As for you first point, I can appreciate that you personally would be happy for the world to be turned into dust, but even if China could be defeated and the result isn't stalemate, victory would be pyrrhic and we all would have to somehow rebuild under nuclear fallout.


Let me put this straight: If you all do nothing then you will find your world crumble into dust before you know it. I see this as a certainly more than a wish. I resign myself to this dystopia, not envisage to it. Hell no.


B0ycey wrote:And unless you want a totalitarian states which campaign on hatred ...


I am already living in a totalitarian state which campaigns on hatred.


B0ycey wrote:FYI, it wasn't bombs that broke the SU, it was the people who could see what was happening on the other side of the curtain.


The problem with your point is that, the Chinese do see the other side of the curtain, but they think (or in some cases, even found) themselves to be on the oppressor's seat. It is naïve to believe that CCP and the Chinese people are totally separate entities. Hongkongers and Taiwanese know very well that there are already large enough number of Chinese who are actually benefited by the CCP, that the Chinese as a whole are at least collaborators or complicit if not perpetrators themselves.

SU crumbled right next to CCP. Do you genuinely believe CCP hasn't taken note of why and how SU fell?
#15202261
Patrickov wrote:I am already living in a totalitarian state which campaigns on hatred.


The thing is Patrickov, this is the whole point of the Ayslum system. There are worse countries than China in terms of hatred. Should we go to war with everyone? What instead would be easier than mutual destruction is to grant asylum for those who reside in totalitarian regimes.

The problem with your point is that, the Chinese do see the other side of the curtain, but they think (or in some cases, even found) themselves to be on the oppressor's seat. It is naïve to believe that CCP and the Chinese people are totally separate entities. Hongkongers and Taiwanese know very well that there are already large enough number of Chinese who are actually benefited by the CCP, that the Chinese as a whole are at least collaborators or complicit if not perpetrators themselves.

SU crumbled right next to CCP. Do you genuinely believe CCP hasn't taken note of why and how SU fell?


I do think the CCP have taken notice to why the SU fell actually. But it is a home to 1.5bn people and not immune to such a fate if they ignore the standards of their people as the Soviets did. In fact, by and large China have improved the lives of most Chinese people and as such there is a patriotism now that didn't really exist during the great leap forward. So should China be ostracised by the West and we see individual economies very much like what happened during the Cold War, China won't neglect the Han people and as such, I think it won't be the same in regards to looking over the Iron Curtain and seeing wealth where you have poverty. But that doesn't do much good for you I guess. Which is why I suggest immigrating now. If you stay and hope America will come to the rescue, then you are going to be disappointed in my opinion.

The Chinese by and large are happy with their system. Even if you support Democracy, they would be the elected party given the do actually have majority support there. So what are you expecting to happen with Western interference BTW?
#15202281
B0ycey wrote:The Chinese by and large are happy with their system. Even if you support Democracy, they would be the elected party given the do actually have majority support there. So what are you expecting to happen with Western interference BTW?


Simple, you seem to advocate tyranny of the majority. This majority group (if it's true) pay no respect to those who don't agree with them but do not mess with them otherwise.

What you want to "persuade" me is dangerous because China can easily use this pretext to invade Taiwan.

Yesterday it was Tibet, today it's the Uighurs and Hongkongers, and tomorrow it will be the Taiwanese. It will be Koreans and Japanese next, and eventually it will reach your place. In fact, some Western countries are really being infiltrated or compromised, Germany being a quite good example.
#15202286
Patrickov wrote:Simple, you seem to advocate tyranny of the majority. This majority group (if it's true) pay no respect to those who don't agree with them but do not mess with them otherwise.

What you want to "persuade" me is dangerous because China can easily use this pretext to invade Taiwan.


I have no interest in persuading you Patrickov. I merely gave you advice. If you don't want to live under a regime you aren't happy with, then you should consider relocating to one you are rather than advocate for everyone to die in war. The UK take asylum for people of Hong Kong descent.

As for your first point on tyranny of the majority, unfortunately that is a principle of democracy. Hitler was democratically elected. If you support Democracy, you have to also accept its flaws. But that is different from free speech which I guess is the issue you mainly have a problem with.

As for my opinion on this, I tend to think we (the West) shouldn't interfere in other nations internal affairs. It hasn't worked out well for the West when we do. Of course that is a dangerous pretext for Taiwan and Hong Kong given those two nations don't have recognised UN sovereignty, but that is the point of the asylum system. I don't expect you to agree with that and I understand your position. But you must understand the West doesn't have many cards to play here and really it is up to you to play the few cards they have given away rather than ask them to redeal the deck again because they have a 2 and a 3.
#15202296
B0ycey wrote:I have no interest in persuading you Patrickov. I merely gave you advice. If you don't want to live under a regime you aren't happy with, then you should consider relocating to one you are rather than advocate for everyone to die in war. The UK take asylum for people of Hong Kong descent.


You know that doesn't solve the issue. Even if I had emigrated I would seriously question why I had to do so.
EDIT: In fact, I feel the same to those asylum seekers from the Middle East to the West, many of whom actually DIED during their flight.

And frankly, I see "everyone to die in war" as some kind of certainty given China's (and Russia and India if they have to be included) ambitions. This is not a wish, and frankly I am not militarily trained so I am in no position to wish this to be true.
#15202298
B0ycey wrote:As for my opinion on this, I tend to think we (the West) shouldn't interfere in other nations internal affairs. It hasn't worked out well for the West when we do.


As Mensius said, "then is then, now is now". If anything, I think the problem is that the West withdrew too early, especially in the aftermath of WW2.
#15202310
Patrickov wrote:You know that doesn't solve the issue. Even if I had emigrated I would seriously question why I had to do so.
EDIT: In fact, I feel the same to those asylum seekers from the Middle East to the West, many of whom actually DIED during their flight.

And frankly, I see "everyone to die in war" as some kind of certainty given China's (and Russia and India if they have to be included) ambitions. This is not a wish, and frankly I am not militarily trained so I am in no position to wish this to be true.


Asylum is a solution to your plight now. But you could come to the UK for any purpose. Just take a flight and claim asylum on landing. You don't need to take the "people trafficker route".

As for war or your training, I am merely pointing out that geography is war matters. The US couldn't conquer China the same way China couldn't conquer America. So what can be achieved in a pyrrhic war? Nothing. But I guess should China start invading sovereign states which is your fear, it maybe that the world would have to declare war regardless, not so much to prevent or save the nation they invaded, but to reduce their military capacity from repeating the same thing again. But China hasn't indicated they are going to invade Korea or Japan and until they do so, there is no reason to cut off diplomatic ties. It certainly doesn't help the Urghurs in any case.
#15202311
Patrickov wrote:As Mensius said, "then is then, now is now". If anything, I think the problem is that the West withdrew too early, especially in the aftermath of WW2.


The problem was Nixon made a deal with China on the assumption that Chinese prosperity would turn it democratic and towards the West. He was wrong and the West now needs to cut their losses.
#15202459
B0ycey wrote:The problem was Nixon made a deal with China on the assumption that Chinese prosperity would turn it democratic and towards the West. He was wrong and the West now needs to cut their losses.


To be fair, it's 50 years ago. Probably not even Xi Jinping's own father would anticipate his son to be a monster like he is now.
#15202804
B0ycey wrote:The problem was Nixon made a deal with China on the assumption that Chinese prosperity would turn it democratic and towards the West.

This is the same Nixon who used state assets to spy on an Opposition party, Third-world dictator style?

Was this what China was supposed to become?
#15202823
QatzelOk wrote:This is the same Nixon who used state assets to spy on an Opposition party, Third-world dictator style?

Was this what China was supposed to become?


China was meant to be a proxy I guess. Nixon wasn't immune to opportunitism. He saw the collapse of the Soviet-Chinese relationship and of course China was at the time was on the great leap backwards. Mao wanted to develop China and the US wanted to "save" a Communist state by introducing capitalism to it. But even back then, when China was at its lowest, one compromise they didn't neglect on was their claim to Taiwan. So the US accepted that term on the notion that who was the accepted government was still up for debate. I guess they just assumed that ROC would eventually take control of the mainland. But all they did was finance the PRC. And now we are still discussing Nixon fifty years on. Not for his success. But how we can somehow turn what was agreed to our advantage. Hence the BS of Policy vs Principle. :hmm:
#15202827
QatzelOk wrote:
This is the same Nixon who used state assets to spy on an Opposition party, Third-world dictator style?

Was this what China was supposed to become?



They wanted to split China from Russia. We had relations with a lot of unsavory characters back then. We didn't care.

Deng's ascension to power was a restoration to the way China had been before the Cultural Revolution. Which was a communist style bureaucracy.

There was a slow move towards a market economy. It had already illegally started, Deng let it spread.

The West didn't have a thing to do with it, and Deng didn't have much to do with it, either. But he didn't oppose it.

The explosive growth of the Chinese economy came a generation later.

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