Most salient point made so far.
And given what we’re dealing with here is a Communist government whose primary goal is to remain in power and extend its reach to however far its irredentist desires can carry them, this recipe has the potential to turn most unpalatable indeed.
So…you’re mocking people for being scared of China’s big bad one surplus non-operational carrier? Or are you mocking people for not being scared of China’s carrier? I honestly can’t tell.
That’s the primary goal of every government - or entity, really.
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So…you’re mocking people for being scared of China’s big bad one surplus non-operational carrier? Or are you mocking people for not being scared of China’s carrier? I honestly can’t tell.
[/QUOTE]
It’s a good question. For all I could tell, he’s saying I have beagle ticks and pelt lice…though, perhaps he’s saying I don’t have beagle ticks or pelt lice. Or, possibly he’s saying something else. If you get a translation into English from Sablicious that would be helpful, though.
-XT
Yeahbut… Communism is conflict. Without thus it dies because the populace are no longer distracted by ‘the enemy’ and instead start to introspect their own shitty existences and down the deck of cards falls.
It can be argued the USSR collapsed because it never in fact engaged in a full blown war with the US and so all the money it had pumped into military posturing had nothing to show for it ultimately; effectively resulting in the US bankrupting the Russians via the Cold War arms race. Something that’s only now catching up to the US themselves economically…
The problem with China is they’re a bigger economic power than the Ruskies ever were and their peeps are all getting plasma TVs as evidence of this; in lieu of a free train rides to the Gulag (though the Laogai worker camps do harken back to more Stalinistic style of Communist barter).
So the question is whether internal malaise can rock the junk enough to force reform or whether the Communist bubble just keeps expanding with evermore influence. 'Cause it’s not like anyone’s gonna (or can) turn their backs on the cheap Sino knock-offs at this point to pressure China into playing democratic ball. Like they’d listen anyway… lol! :rolleyes:
Mr Mod’s already warned me re. the urine bit, so I can’t give you the tag line. You’ll just have to read between the lines. 
And 1777 France. And 1687 France. Leave out “industrial” and “communist,” and your description applies to the situation of the world economy and of almost every national economy at all times in every post-neolithic, pre-industrial period of human history. Including China at all periods before the 20th Century. And yet, human history is (pace Marx) not incessant revolution.
You mean, kinda like Western governments try to distract the populace with bad television, or Islam… or China ? ;).
What internal malaise ? You just said yourself, they’re getting plasma TVs and ever-rising economic prosperity. I know the yung’uns are starting to question and criticize governmental control over information and the Confucian principles the heads of state are trying to feed them, but that’s mostly college kids - the elite by definition. Are the uneducated peasants out in the sticks in on that as well ? I have no idea, but I have seen no indication of that kind of sentiment.
They live the lives their ancestors did before them and that’s all they know. There’s no malaise there, because malaise only takes root when you can watch how much better the neighbours have it. Which goes back to the information control - but whether it’s manipulation, coercion or actual contentment, it works: China enjoys one of the highest levels of popular support for its government in the world (86% according to Wiki. And it’s not a Korean style juked stat, either: it’s from a Pew report).
In any event, I don’t think you can really call China a communist country any more. It’s authoritarian leadership to be sure, but with free-market economics and free enterprise (to a point), no more 5-year planning, a decentralized government, opposition parties (who might not have a chance to *do *anything at the moment, but aren’t rounded up either), they’re starting to have local elections… It’s far from the bleak landscape that was Soviet Russia; and there’s every indication the country is moving further and further away from that.
The Chinese are Communist, m’kay? And Communism is bad, m’kay? Well, it’s a it’s not actually cat urine, but male cats, when they’re marking their territory, uh spread concentrated urine to fend off other male cats and… a-and that could get you really high. M’kay? Re-really reeeally high. Okay? Probably shou-shouldn’t have told you that just now. M’kay? Tha, that was probably bad.
Forsooth!
But TV is all but defunct for anyone but the trailer park dwellers and Islam is a device for plying oil. China is a legitimate issue and shouldn’t derided through association wit these other ‘distractions’.
That’s the 64 million-dollar question. Because if it turns out the populace are indeed placated by mere trifle and are perfectly happy to march lockstep behind the Chinese government’s bee line towards Taiwan, Tibet, Sengoku et al, then we’re headed up shit creek without a snorkel!
Compare life in municipal factory Guandong and millionaire fraught Shanghai.
You can prove anything with stats -Homer J.
But this further buttresses the ‘river of shit’ model suggested earlier. So if in fact these are ‘unjuked’ statistics, the numbers don’t bode well for any internally fermented change taking place.
I think you’re underestimating the level of ‘capitalism’ the Chinese are willing to brook. If you look at the business relationships we have with China now, it’s almost always on their terms. For all the prosperity we’ve afforded them with our materialistic desire for cheap shit in the last three decades, they’ve hardly given an inch on issues like human rights, disputed territory, their incongruously cordial relations with rogue regimes, abstentions if not direct blocking of action directed at thus pariahs…
The UN are impotent and the Chinese are swimming in nearly a trillion dollars in US debt – who do you think holds the aces?
Not really more so than if it turns out the American populace are indeed placated by mere trifles and perfectly happy to march lockstep (or just not give much of a shit) behind the American government’s bee line towards Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya et al.
Oh wait 
Compare life in warzone Detroit and millionaire fraught Miami. What’s that supposed to mean ?
No, but they might bode well for the Chinese - they’re rich, they’re happy about it, they’re ever expanding this influence, and until new facts come to light they haven’t shown any indication of having any *manifest *violent & imperialist tendencies right now. What spreading influence they garner, they seem to rely more on convincing people or outright buying them than shooting them dead.
How is this a badevil system again ? You can argue that if influence is a zero sum gain then it’s bad news for *our *unfair hegemonic power dynamic but…yeah.
Well, yes. They have us by the financial short and curlies, they know it, and they exploit it.
Like we do whenever we have other countries by the short and curlies. We too have a spotted record on human rights (least the US has as of late), we too have fostered and propped up dubious regimes. National entities, as a general rules, act like barely restrained, purely utilitarian/cynical sociopaths. You can’t really use it to tar this or that country.
The only datapoint that really matters is how the locals would fare, were Chinese culture to spread all over.
Even if you’re of the opinion that the reported contentment of the Chinese with their government and life experience is the result of a sham and manipulation, it just goes back to the question raised by Brave New World of what is ultimately desirable: to be stupidly and ignorantly happy; or to be an enlightened and cognizant yet hopeless, cynical, disillusioned shell of a man (which any amount of serious & honest introspection will turn one into) ?
(I would also argue that our willingness to give them prosperity out of a materialistic desire for cheap shit ; and to overlook their human rights violations, disputed territories, incongruously cordial relations with rogue regimes, abstentions if not direct blocking of action directed at thus pariahs… reflects more badly on *us *than it does on them. Think about it.)
Yeahbut… they’re still fundamentally ‘free’. That is, Detriotians can complain about their shitty lot without ending up in a ‘worker camp’ for 20yrs on the grounds of cultivating ‘social unrest’.
I’m thinking more in world terms than China’s. Though I do want them to rise to their full potential too – as long as Nanjing, The Opium Wars, the sacking of The Forbidden City et cetera can be forgotten / forgiven – for they’re one of the richest cultures in human history and have given the world so much that it’s a travesty to for them to stay a Commie-fucked crap hole. A lot depends on how deep such wounds lie.
See: The flooding of Tibet with Hun Chinese in a effort to dilute the Tibetan culture in a kind of ‘passive genocide’. The 10,000,000-odd Laogai prisoners ‘remunerated’ on a couple of bowls of gruel per diem for producing a lot of the junk we use on a daily basis; most of whom who are political prisoners who have committed no crime outside of speak up for democratic reform. The hapless dislocated families who find themselves / their homes in the way of the Chinese govt’s expansionist path. The artists and democracy activists like Liu Xiaobo and Liu Wei Wei who ‘disappear’. The meat products that are injected with water to increase weight / worth, resulting produce that’s barely fit for human consumption. The 50,000 hosptalized infants and 9 dead after baby milk was ‘augmented’ with protein additives and the lack of responsibility apportioned therewith… not to mention the one father of a dead child that did stand up the affected families who… you guessed it – ‘disappeared’!
The list goes on…
Relevant viewing:
G’Day China, Sydney Writer’s Festival
Postscript:
Gaungdong riots
Edit:
How is this any different from, say, England flooding Ulster with Scots to dilute the Irish culture? Or the United States flooding the Great Plains with homesteaders to dilute the Native American cultures? Evil it might be (we’ll save that debate for another time), but it’s not an evil that’s distinctive to the communist system.
Interesting. China wants to assure India that this carrier isn’t a threat to them while India responds by launching a nuclear submarine.
A carrier requires quite a bit of asset assistance to remain free from sub threats.
I’d contend what’s happening in Tibet is, a) of a more secretive / darstardly nature, and b) a more ‘deliberate’ effort to diminish the presence / culture of a people (given the available ‘dilutant’) while still remaining within the guidelines of UN human rights mandates.
But I would agree that what’s going on there is indeed more a manifestation of nationalism than any Politburo directive. Though, obviously, one element acts through the agency of the other.
Yeah. Was brought up to speed on that subsequent to my post. If nothing else, it makes the carrier just that much more effective a tool.
Interesting, to be sure; and reinforces the concern surrounding what repercussions such posturing has for the immediate region. Then, through association / strategical interests, the US.
One, or even a few carriers (or rudimentary stealth fighters), pose little direct threat to the West. It’s the knock-on effect of China’s muscle-flexing that is the cause for concern in those parts. In fact, even at this incipient stage, the US congress have made statements to the effect of ‘standing by their Pinoy brethren’ with regards to China’s designs on some of those resource-rich islands in the region… if I’m not mistaken.
The refit Chinese carrier is now undergoing sea trials: China's first carrier starts sea trials - CNN.com?
Not coincidentally, India’s new-old Russian carrier will also undergo sea trials later this year.
It will probably enter service much more quickly than the Chinese carrier, since the Russian shipyard which built it in this first place is performing the refit. Moreover, India has decades of experience in carrier operations and China has none.
Wonder if the OP is scared of India too.
Don’t forget the upcoming Vikrant and Vishal. Soon the depraved Indian hordes may be knocking on the door of California :eek:.