China's new place in the world after the pandemic is over

Great Debates
61

Here is the thing–South Africa’s business isn’t my business, nor is America’s business with China any of South Africa’s. I certainly don’t mind of course on a discussion forum the sharing of ideas with anyone, but at the end of the day I think America and broadly the West have let “outside voices” govern our relationship with China for too long. One of the things Trump has gotten right is his opinion we need to put ourselves first, particularly when most of the people who are making countervailing arguments have deeply enmeshed personal financial reasons to say otherwise.

One thing to keep in mind is even though Trump got it right that China is an enemy, Trump’s actual handling of China has been amateurish and terrible. The way in which he conducted the trade war was silly, and ultimately amounted to a waste. Trump took actions with little chance of achieving lasting gain since all he was looking for was some meaningless “deal” he could tout as evidence for his superior dealmaking.

While he accidentally stumbled onto some of the right ideas (like high tariffs to build barriers to interaction with China), he missed some of the best ones: like the Obama-lead TPP, which was almost a blatant attempt to economically isolate China from its Pacific basin neighbors. It’s incredibly stupid how much Trump gave up by abandoning the TPP, all because he couldn’t stand that it was implemented by “that black man.”

62

Spoken like globalization isn’t a reality.

63

Why no, not at all. I’m well aware of it. Probably more aware of it than most 'dopers who aren’t black, as I’m Hispanic. But I’m also aware of the difference between being arrested in the US because you are a minority who, often through circumstance, committed an actual crime and being put in a concentration camp…an ACTUAL concentration camp…because of your ethnicity. Full stop. Oh, and being tortured and brainwashed. With the occasional unlucky person being used for parts because they match some rich person.

There is a huge difference between what happens in the US and what happens in China, that if you didn’t have blinders on you could fairly easily see. You could compare the US to pretty much any other European country and point out how fucked up we are. But China? Yeah, you can only do that if you either have your head in the sand (or somewhere else) or you have serious blinders on. Which, clearly, you do.

But you don’t care about this part anyway, so why are we arguing about it? It doesn’t affect you, since you are not living in China, not an ethnic miniority, and so unaffected by such trivialities.

Only if you don’t actually understand what that term means. Or you are so bone ignorant that you think it applies. I’m going to stick with the blinders thing, as I don’t think you are ignorant and I do think you know what it means.

I come back to it because, well, we are talking about human beings being incarcerated and tortured because they disagree with the system, or just because the government has arbitrarily decided to do it, and then takes those human beings out, puts them on an operating table and cuts out their organs to give to rich people. Not sure how that’s not a trump card, but I get that it doesn’t affect you and isn’t a big deal for you. They aren’t doing this in South Africa, and it’s not America so no big deal.

For me, this alone would be enough. But, of course, this is not even the tip of the CCP iceberg. Just one of the things I, myself, find particularly horrific. Know what is going to affect you there in South Africa. That whole coronavirus thingy. I know you aren’t going to blame the CCP for it, so it won’t matter, but any deaths that happen there is directly related to them fucking up. Perhaps you will thank them for it, like some Italians have done (on state run TV anyway).

Clearly not. The US is just as evil…or more eviler™…than China. I get it. And this is why China’s new place after the pandemic in the world will be a shinning star. Assuming they survive the backlash of their own people who seem to know a bit more about this than you do and who aren’t nearly as ready to sing their praises.

64

How do we distinguish between the bad Chinese roaming around the United States and the nice ones? Should all Chinese-looking people have proper papers on them in order to participate in American business?

65

I don’t know that they can all project that they are “one of the good ones” as loudly as some around here.

66

I think China is having its Imperial Japan moment.

I admit openly to biases against China’s CCP, particularly Xi Jiping. It’s unfortunate because while I never had any naive, antiseptic notions about the long-term ambitions of China, there was a time when their leadership was, in my view, more responsible and operated more in a cooperative spirit than they do now. I had somewhat favorable views (in purely relative terms, mind you) of Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. But Xi struck me early on as a fucking megalomaniac and he’s not disabused me of these ideas.

That said, I’m not oblivious to the endemic racism that underlies the American character and the innateness with which we are capable of carrying racial warfare into effect. We have, after all, a living, breathing Constitution, which still bears the language of white supremacy even today. Amendments were the attempt to cleanse its sins, but that it never fully changed its spirit. The powder keg of white nationalism is there, with its fuse and match lying in plain sight. All that’s needed is some event to light it up.

67

You can tell the good Chinese people from the bad ones easily: The bad ones are officials in the Chinese Communist Party. So they are probably not roaming the streets of America.

The Chinese people have been the victims of a totalitarian government. Do you know what totalitarian governments like to do? They like to find scapegoats they can use to deflect blame from their horrific actions. For example, by waging a propaganda campaign that seeks to equate criticism of the regime with racist criticism of the Chinese people themselves.

And why do they do that? Because it works. So long as the race card is being played with abandon, they’re happy to join the game. And a lot of people will reflexively accept and repeat what they are peddling, because they want to signal that they are not racist.

Or if they are Chinese, they repeat it because they fear their leaders who have no problem arresting, imprisoning, or executing anyone who doesn’t.

68

China is a rival, and one that took full advantage of the world wanting access to their domestic market and cheap labor. Enemy - depends on how you define it.

Having lived in China starting in the 1980’s in the countryside and in the mainland for a good 20 years, the locals certainly don’t think about the US as the “enemy”. Pretty much the complete opposite.

I do agree with the rest of your comments though.

69

Sounds like a description of trump…his whole China virus shtick. I can’t remember seeing “CCP” in the media and outside of scholarly works since forever until about 3 weeks ago. Keep on being a propaganda tool for trump

You obviously are painting with a stupidly big brush and have no real idea of what living in China is like. There is no love lost between me and the Chinese Communist Party. That said, “the Chinese” are so much better off now than they were in the 1980’s. It’s a night and day difference.

China is arguably much more capitalistic than the US. What has been the binding social contract between the people and the government (government is much bigger than the party), is that “you can get rich, and don’t question our right to rule.”

70

It’s pretty simple by the way–in America we have no issue with “Chinese looking people”, millions of them are Asian-American citizens and permanent residents. What we must take issue with is Chinese nationals, which are visitors to our country on a Chinese passport. We need to basically close America to them–no more of them in our research institutions or as tourists, nor on work visas and only allow temporary business travel visas granted after strict scrutiny on a case by case basis.

71

Yes, but as a businesses owner would it be my responsibility to check the paperwork for every Chinese-looking customer or not? What would be the penalty for accidentally selling a bad Chinese something?

72

Good to see we’re laying the groundwork for the next world war, we’ll be out of this depression in no time!
Keep up the good work gentlemen!

CMC fnord!

73

It’s funny how in China people are willing to give up some of their freedom to get a little capitalism and here people think that capitalism is what is taking it away.

74

The answer is of course if they agree with him.

As long as an Asian-looking guy suggests that economic war and political isolation is the appropriate response to the CCP’s actions, that economics is basically zero sum and we need to “beat” China, and probably throw in that the Chinese people themselves are filthy or something, he’ll be fine. He’ll get a slap on the back and be told he’s “one of the good ones”.

(And I’m deliberately using “he” here, and no specific poster’s name, because there are several here that have said they do not listen to any Chinese person and/or anyone attempting to push back on their extremist posts. It’s pretty much as low as you can get on a site that’s about fighting ignorance.)

75

Ha ha ha. “Not an ethnic minority”. Cute.

Actually, any deaths here are directly related to rich pricks going on ski vacations, since that’s our locus of infection.

The SA citizens who were in Wuhan have just come out of quarantine, without spreading anything.

Lovely man of straw you’ve created there, where “Not as evil as the USA” somehow translates to “shinning [sic] star”.

Where have I said, anywhere, that I view the PRC with any positive light?

(other than the B&R project, which, well, Hitler built the autobahns after all, yet people still ride on them)

76

When grades are given out, some countries will get B+ or even A and some D or F. China’s slow response was before consciousness was focused on pandemic. I’d be more critical of the GOP’s poor response, after the fact of pandemic was clear.

I wonder how the GOP’s[sup]*[/sup] score will compare with the CCP’s. One expert seems to give low marks to GOP’s performance:

[sup]*[/sup] “GOP” — I shouldn’t single out Republicans specifically. Some, I’m sure, are good people. But it’s fun to mimic the insistence on “… CCP … CCP … CCP …!” :slight_smile:

77

This sounds all well and good, but the fact is that China has enough indigenous capabilities to develop an highly advanced economy of their own, with or without our help. What you’re advocating is basically isolating China, which is not only impractical but dangerously destabilizing.

Global cooperation is much better than global isolation and competition, the latter of which simply does not have much impact on changing behaviors (witness Cuba, witness North Korea).

That’s not to say we can’t sanction China for its sins - we absolutely can. We can put real pressure on companies like Apple to take their supply chain out of China (or reduce it) until China begins to behave more like a responsible partner. I’m certainly okay with that, but that has to be with incentives, too, and that means creating a global framework of cooperation, which can incentivize good behavior while occasionally punishing the bad.

Locking Chinese nationals out of our STEM fields will backfire hilariously from the view of people who are hostile to the US, and tragically for Americans. It’s a terrible idea. There are too many institutions relying on too many damn good scientists from China to think that this is a good idea.

78

Who is this idiotic statement aimed at? At this stage, the majority of infections in the US (56% if the briefing I got a few days ago is correct) in New York are coming from Europe. Only a fucking idiot is going to target people based on their ethnicity, either early on or now. To distinguish who you should avoid, try using your brain and checking for, oh, you know, the fucking symptoms like signs of high fever, lingering dry cough, flu symptoms…you know, that stuff. Even then, you probably won’t be able to tell, since many people are asymptomatic.

Maybe try using social distancing with everyone and good hygiene discipline instead of silly racial targeting? Just a thought…

79

NM

80

You aren’t an ethnic Weiger or Tibetan, and since we were talking about those you aren’t an ethnic minority in China. You could be in your own country as I am in mine.

I wanted to post that you are right about the last part. When I re-read what I wrote, it was a straw man wrt you putting the CCP (as opposed to China, which I myself can think of lots of things to put them in a positive light) in a positive light. I let my emotions carry me away from the point I was trying to make, which is that I think the combination of propaganda, subversion of media and honored organization like the WHO and politicians are going to make it so the CCP comes out of this smelling like a rose and with much higher status than they went into this thing with. My apologies for saying you were buffing up the CCP…that wasn’t my intention since as far as I recall, while you have been vehemently anti-American I can’t say I’ve ever seen you pro-CCP.