[Rancid]

The problem is not whether we believe in their propaganda (most of it is hilarious), the problem is that the West has failed to address the problem adequately. The lack of leadership in the West threatens democracy - not China.

That's besides the point, but I agree with it.

[Atlantis]

That's besides the point, but I agree with it.

i don't know about you, but i'm more interested in the survival of democracy than in the blame game

the populist upheaval that brought the most despicable person into white house threatens democracy more than china ever could

[Rancid]

i don't know about you, but i'm more interested in the survival of democracy than in the blame game

the populist upheaval that brought the most despicable person into white house threatens democracy more than china ever could

We'll be fiiiiiiiiiiiineeeeeeeeee

Corporate America will swoop in and save the day.

[Rugoz]

Next time we'll fucking contain China at the slightest rumor of a new virus, that's for sure.

[Beren]

Does China owe reparations for coronavirus?

Meanwhile, in the real world, China takes over global leadership.

Despite its responsibility for allowing the virus to run rampant in the first place, China has had notable success in reshaping its image as a leader by its later efforts to contain the disease and its outreach to Italy and other vulnerable countries.

“US global leadership won’t just end because they bungled their response to the coronavirus, but I think we will come to find that this was a pivotal point,” said Elisabeth Braw, the director of the Modern Deterrence Project at the Royal United Service Institute in London.

Braw argued that the coronavirus crisis will inflict more lasting damage on the US’s standing than the 2003 Iraq invasion.

“China wasn’t in the wings in 2003,” she said. “It wasn’t ready to take over that global role. Well, it’s now in a position where it can take over global leadership, and it’s just waiting for the US to misstep or to lose support among its allies … And the past couple of years have really been beneficial to China from that perspective.”

US awol from world stage as China tries on global leadership for size

I guess the UN is way ready for it too.

[Rancid]

Does China owe reparations for coronavirus?

Meanwhile, in the real world, China takes over global leadership.


US awol from world stage as China tries on global leadership for size

I guess the UN is way ready for it too.

It's time for the world to adopt communism with Chinese characteristics.

Funny enough, if everyone become like China, that would be bad for China.

[Finfinder]

The news is stating that there were only 30 reported cases of Coronavirus in China. Does that mean somewhere in China there was a giant hole in the ground which is now filled with bodies?

[Beren]

It's time for the world to adopt communism with Chinese characteristics.

Funny enough, if everyone become like China, that would be bad for China.

China doesn't want to make the world on its own image, they just aim to be the hard core of the world they lead.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is insisting that the U.N. call out Chinese origins of coronavirus.

France, a permanent member of the council, proposed a version demanding a "general and immediate cessation of hostilities in all countries," including a 30-day humanitarian pause in conflicts, to allow coronavirus-related supplies to flow, according to a text reviewed by NBC News.

But the U.S., in various drafts and edits circulated among the countries, sought to insert references to "the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Wuhan, Hubei province in the People's Republic of China (PRC) in November 2019." The PRC is China's formal name.

Another U.S. draft encouraged the U.N. to build on lessons learned in the past, "especially from the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV) coronavirus outbreak originating in Guangdong Province in the PRC in 2011."

Those demands have hit a wall with China, a veto-wielding member of the Security Council, whose diplomats accused the U.S. of "irresponsible practices" in a blistering email to other nations' diplomats this week obtained by NBC News.

"We are astonished by the choice of the United States to use this opportunity for politicizing the outbreak and blaming China, which we strongly oppose," China's mission to the U.N. wrote. "The groundless accusations and malicious fabrication from the U.S. aim at shirking its own responsibilities, which severely poisoned the atmosphere of global cooperation in containing the outbreak."

[Rancid]

China doesn't want to make the world on its own image, they just aim to be the hard core of the world they lead.

CHINA! CHINA! CHINA!

Perhaps it's time we finally yield to China's ambitions.

[Politics_Observer]

@JohnRawls @MistyTiger @Rancid

Personally I think after all this coronavirus crap all settles down I am in favor of starting back trade with the Chinese (that's if the Chinese would be willing to). It was really stupid for Trump to engage in a trade war with China and seriously hurt our economy and our farmers. I never supported Trump's trade war with China at all. That being said, I completely understand the concern about Chinese technology theft and feel that this could have been handled without starting a trade war with China that cost our economy a bunch of money and jobs. I'm a capitalist global free trader at heart but it's also important to take into account the need for shared prosperity with workers and the right of workers to organize unions to bargain for better pay and a safe and decent work environment.

[Patrickov]

How did China start it, in your estimation? This seems to imply some deliberate act of the Chinese in creating the virus.

As I said, they didn't deliberately create anything, but their style of ruling made this happen in the first place, so yes, they started it, in a technical sense.

The virus evolved from SARS and like SARS, originated from a wild animal in nature. I posted a link. Viruses are all around us. They constantly evolve and infect people. China is a densely populated country so any infection can spread quickly.

China reported it first. The Chinese are trying to help with a cure. I would thank them, not just because I am part Chinese. I believe that they want to help.

I agree with the above observation of what happened in the first place, but from what I reported here, the Chinese government tried to suppress information first, only to report it after they could not.

[Patrickov]

Funny enough, if everyone become like China, that would be bad for China.

I am interested to know why and how.

[Rich]

The problem is not whether we believe in their propaganda (most of it is hilarious), the problem is that the West has failed to address the problem adequately. The lack of leadership in the West threatens democracy - not China.

Lack of really powerful, resolute leadership that is immune to the transient whims of popular opinion and the irresponsible, truth-happy, attention seeking, panic, hate and fear mongering media, is a feature of democracy, not a sign of its failure. In the short term dictatorships can always give the impression of greater competency.

Democracy will always be a million miles from the ideal, because the human beings that make up the electorate are a million miles from the ideal. As a free press and media will always be a million miles from the ideal because its readers and viewers area million miles from the ideal. There maybe certain rare situations in the modern world where I would not side with democracy, but generally democracy and free speech are well worth their costs.

[Rancid]

I am interested to know why and how.

If this happened, all other nations would be come far more competitive against China. One of the advantages of China's top-down structure is efficiency. Democracies, are inherently less efficient. This is probably an over simplification, but Democracies trade efficient in favor of freedoms.

Let me list a few of things all other nations would have to do to become like China.

- Closedness would make it harder for China to steal from the US/EU. One of the strengths of democracies is openness. Especially in the university research systems. Data is shared more freely in the west. This is a key thing China exploits. For example, China took AI technologies developed in the US/EU, and then adapted it for nefarious purposes like tracking citizens and doing face recognition of minorities they are persecuting ("re-educating") in Western China. That pipeline for stealing/exploiting technology would be closed to China. Another example is that China did a joint genetics project with a US university. They cataloged and track DNA of different minorities in China. The US university researchers thought the project was for medical research. Guess what China did with that data? track and persecute minorities in their own country....

- Take 51% ownership of all foreign companies. This means the US government would own 51% of Huawei in America. Think about what that means in terms of influencing/controlling Huawei. America could easily steal tech/intel from China. Recall most foreign companies in China have to operate as joint ventures with the Chinese government itself. The US or EU or whoever could also gather much more data on China this way by requiring China to have all of its servers in America, EU, where ever if they want to operate in these places. Basically, if you do exactly what China does right back at them, then it becomes harder for China to hide what its doing.

- Say fuck it to human rights, and just be more honest with hegemonic ambitions. The US and EU would have a field day reclaiming/controlling/manipulating/exploiting its former colonies. No need for the Chinese for making cheap shit anymore. This also means even more military bases around the globe to keep an eye on and check China.

- Reduce/restrict sovereignty of the citizenry. Easier for each nations' regime to maintain its power and execute on longer term goals. No need to pander to the populace on shorter term election cycles that create inefficiencies. This also creates a lot of latitude and freedom for the government itself. The US government in particular would likely challenge and become more hostile to China. Other governments would do similar.

- Control the media/propaganda machine tightly. It would be much easier to stoke nationalist tendencies, and anti-China tendencies. That means the citizenry will be more willing to go to war with China. Either economically (Buy American/EU/Western, no Chinese) or conventionally.

I'm sure I'm barely scratching the surface how it would be bad for China. It's in their interest for everyone else to attempt democracy because it creates cracks/seams they can exploit as they are doing now.

In short, becoming more like China reduces the gap of China's leverage against the rest of the world because other nations would become just as efficient and thus, will not need China.

@JohnRawls @MistyTiger @Rancid

Personally I think after all this coronavirus crap all settles down I am in favor of starting back trade with the Chinese (that's if the Chinese would be willing to). It was really stupid for Trump to engage in a trade war with China and seriously hurt our economy and our farmers. I never supported Trump's trade war with China at all. That being said, I completely understand the concern about Chinese technology theft and feel that this could have been handled without starting a trade war with China that cost our economy a bunch of money and jobs. I'm a capitalist global free trader at heart but it's also important to take into account the need for shared prosperity with workers and the right of workers to organize unions to bargain for better pay and a safe and decent work environment.

This virus will do more for separating global supply chains that the trade war would ever achieve. I think we should trade with China, but we should separate all critical supply chains as soon as possible. Medical, military, technology, financial tech, etc. etc.

We should only rely on them for making cheap plastic shit.

The trade war is one thing I'm actually ok with that Trump has done. It has made it common knowledge how China steals so much shit from everyone. I remember 10-13 years ago, talking about this with coworkers. We were all asking the question "We know that China steals a lot of shit from us, but no one seems to think it's a problem. I wonder when will the US/EU start to care about that?" Looks like it's finally happening now.

With respect to technology theft, I say fuck China (the government, not the people). Fuck them and we should do everything we can to prevent them from stealing more shit from the west. Further, I have no problem with people hacking and sabotaging their systems that are used to enslave minorities in western china. The west has it's massive flaws, issues, and moral dilemmas that need to be solved. but the Chinese government is on another level. At least in the west, we have the freedom to speak out against the horrible things our governments do, and potentially change them for the better.

[Politics_Observer]

@Rancid

The trade war is one thing I'm actually ok with that Trump has done. It has made it common knowledge how China steals so much shit from everyone. I remember 10-13 years ago, talking about this with coworkers. We were all asking the question "We know that China steals a lot of shit from us, but no one seems to think it's a problem. I wonder when will the US/EU start to care about that?" Looks like it's finally happening now.

With respect to technology theft, I say fuck China (the government, not the people). Fuck them and we should do everything we can to prevent them from stealing more shit from the west. Further, I have no problem with people hacking and sabotaging their systems that are used to enslave minorities in western china. The west has it's massive flaws, issues, and moral dilemmas that need to be solved. but the Chinese government is on another level. At least in the west, we have the freedom to speak out against the horrible things our governments do, and potentially change them for the better.

I totally get the anger over Chinese Technology theft, but is it worth sabotaging profitable trade relations with them on it given that it is beneficial to our economy and jobs for Americans and profitable to our farmers? Also, is there a more measured way to effectively respond to Chinese technology theft without destroying trade relations with them?

Hacking Chinese systems can also invite a cyber war that can come back on us. How much of an IT infrastructure does China have in comparison to our own? Do we have more of an IT infrastructure than China? If so, is that IT infrastructure sufficiently hardened against cyber network attack that would be needed in a cyber war (I don't think our IT infrastructure is sufficiently hardened and prepared near as much as it needs to be)? China will respond to any network intrusions we partake in against their infrastructure.

In addition, given our own history of repressing minorities, I wouldn't be so quick to criticize or moralize with China. It is important we get our own house in order to ensure that we have first owned up to our own past before we engage with moralizing with other countries. I personally don't like the idea of moralizing and lecturing other countries even if we were to have our own house in order.

In my view, it's best to be pragmatic, unemotional and logical in our decision making when it comes to dealing with issues that harm our interests in the relations of other countries. Making decisions based on emotion will get you trouble. So we have to be pragmatic and carefully think things through when it comes to how to respond to Chinese technology theft. I'm not so sure launching a very costly trade war due to Chinese technology thefts was a measured response that would produce the best results for our interests.

[Rancid]

@Rancid



I totally get the anger over Chinese Technology theft, but is it worth sabotaging profitable trade relations with them on it given that it is beneficial to our economy and jobs for Americans and profitable to our farmers? Also, is there a more measured way to effectively respond to Chinese technology theft without destroying trade relations with them?

Hacking Chinese systems can also invite a cyber war that can come back on us. How much of an IT infrastructure does China have in comparison to our own? Do we have more of an IT infrastructure than China? If so, is that IT infrastructure sufficiently hardened against cyber network attack that would be needed in a cyber war (I don't think our IT infrastructure is sufficiently hardened and prepared near as much as it needs to be)? China will respond to any network intrusions we partake in against their infrastructure.

In addition, given our own history of repressing minorities, I wouldn't be so quick to criticize or moralize with China. It is important we get our own house in order to ensure that we have first owned up to our own past before we engage with moralizing with other nations. I personally don't like the idea of moralizing and lecturing other countries even if we were to have our own house in order. In my view, it's best to be pragmatic, unemotional and logical in our decision making when it comes to dealing with issues that harm our interests in the relations of other countries. Making decisions based on emotion will get you trouble.

There are plenty of people around the world we can trade with, and as I said, I didn't say we shouldn't not trade with Cihna, we just need to be smarter about it.

As for hacking, i didn't mean the govenrment hacking, I'd like to see regular people hack them.

[Politics_Observer]

@Rancid

I wouldn't recommend anybody engage in hacking. Law enforcement has very smart people who are very capable. The legal consequences of hacking is just not worth the trouble. We do have some very capable hackers but they pretty much work with the legal consent of the US government and work on behalf of the interests of the US government given they are needed as part of national defense.

But that is their official job title too and what they are paid to do and it's a legal job though very secretive given that in the hacking world anonymity is prized and badly needed. Part of our government's strategy in dealing with Russian hackers is to "name and shame them" to where once we know who they are, we indict them in our courts and if any of those hackers ever leave Russia, they face the very real possibility of arrest and being sent to the US for trial and prison. This is one of many reasons why hackers prize anonymity and why they seek to make themselves as untraceable as possible.

[Politics_Observer]

@Rancid

One thing I do think that is important is to hardened the IT infrastructure both in government and the private sector against network attack. For example, Russia has indirectly given backing to it's hackers to attack our IT infrastructure that cost us millions in damages. By indirectly backing these hackers, it gives the Russian government plausible deniability. Plus, we also have to worry about Chinese hackers.

In many cases hackers will target your server, not because you have valuable data so much as they can use your server and accounts to launch a much wider and bigger attack. This is why it's important to hardened your server against attack even if you have nothing of value on it. But both the private sector and government need to work on hardening their IT networks given countries like to respond against us asymmetrically when we levy economic sanctions for example, by cyber-attacking both the private sector or government but in particularly the more vulnerable private sector given that is our economy.

[Patrickov]

I say fuck China (the government, not the people).

Many Chinese people are infatuated with their government that they do not know and refuse to know better.

Consider the situation to be like having about one billion of Member skinster, Donna or QatzelOk around, with a considerable number of them having a mindset similar to Member Hindsite, FinFinder, Blackjack21 or Truth to Power.

(Sorry this does not mean the above seven members are necessarily bad. I just find their behaviour / posting style convenient to explain what I perceive common Mainland Chinese)

[Rancid]

Consider the situation to be like having about one billion of Member skinster, Donna or QatzelOk around, with a considerable number of them having a mindset similar to Member Hindsite, FinFinder, Blackjack21 or Truth to Power.

I understand your point. My wife follows Hong Kong and mainland news closely. She has told me how the propaganda machine is so strong there, that the people do not understand the idea that the government is a separate entity from the people. Thus, my statement that I don't have anything against the people, but i do have something against the government would basically not be understood by many/most Chinese citizens.

It is impressive that they could achieve that level influence over the social consciousness of the country though.