The Chinese are upset that the Secretary of State has stated American support for a single uncensored internet. The Chinese have hit the roof.
Good. I have not seen tinhorn dictators (or in this case tinhorn dictatorship of the proletariat) so angry since Jimmy Carter boycotted the Moscow olympics.Or perhaps since Jimmy called out the Latin American dictators. Great fun.
I shall follow this story with great amusement.
Link? I want to follow and laugh too!
I’m a bit surprised that China would be surprised at our position, though. I mean, we’ve never exactly had kind things to say about censorship of any sort.
Is the PRC worried that we’ll start seriously funding anti-Great-Firewall software projects, like some of the GOP senators would like us to do?
Also - I like the post/location combo.
Yes, but we’ve never tried to impose it as aggressively - it’s been more live and let live. From their Chinese point of view it’s an issue of sovereignty, and sovereignty, like virginity, is Boolean.
Plenty of Chinese people are taking Google’s side on this, but when the sole superpower steps in and says This Is What You Should Do, the attitude changes swiftly. “Yes, it may be a bad decision, but it’s OUR bad decision, not yours.”
Here’s one link:
Although it isn’t exactly that they are upset that the US supports an uncensored internet. They are upset that it has been insinuated that they “restrict internet freedom”.
Way to blame the messenger, Foreign Minister.
I’m honestly surprised that the Chinese lack the foresight or basic understanding of world political relationships to believe that the U.S. or other Western nations would not support the idea of a single internet. Yes, there are plenty of issues out there that the U.S. has not tackled head-on (i.e. net enutrality), but overall it’s fairly clear what our stance was prior to the whole blow-up with Google. Also, with those attacks originating from the Chinese government itself, I don’t see how they could have thought the U.S. would just sit idly by and say nothing.
Perhaps they thought they had bought our silence on such issues? I don’t know, but I’ll be following this story with great interest, myself.
ETA: Removed double posting of same BBC link.
I’m surprised that anyone thinks that what the Chinese think doesn’t matter.
They practically own America, buying all the debt. I predict America will crumble on this, not China.
They have so far sent us, lead painted children’s toys, poisoned dog food, yada, yada, yada. Anyone see a trade embargo, hear talk of one? Chinese food is still on America shelves because money talks. They learned that from us and if you think the message hasn’t been learned, you’re wrong.
What’s happening in Darfur could not continue without Chinese money. The whole world knows it and is powerless to stop it, because money rules. And very soon they will own the largest part of all of the countries of the world’s debts. Another lesson they learned from us.
You know, I hear quite often that China’s ownership of large portions of American debt gives them tremendous leverage over us. And I simply don’t find these arguments persuasive. China needs the American economy to remain functional - in no small part, so that we can continue buying Chinese goods. Moreover, an unsettled American economy spills over into the rest of the world, further harming Chinese markets.
China may own a lot of our debt - but they can’t use that to pressure us, because any policy that harmed our economy in any significant way would also harm theirs. And while the American government derives legitimacy from elections, the Chinese Communist Party derives its legitimacy almost entirely from economic performance.
Really?
Anybody else shipping you leaded children’s toys? Poisoned pet food?
A mere wiff of mad cow on one farm and two years later the door was still shut to Canadian beef.
Sorry, any other country would have found themselves severely limited in what they could ship into the USA, toys still coming, dog food still coming.
China owns about 6% of the U.S. public debt, only a small bit more than Japan.
Which Americans want. Why do Americans buy Chinese tires even though they are more prone to failure than American-made tires? Because they are way cheaper.
Do you have any examples of a trade embargo of another country because of quality control problems with children’s toys, dog food, or et cetera? I doubt that you do.
You’re correct that issues like mad cow disease lead to a swift reaction from the government, but that is because agricultural products tend to be treated much differently from other ones. For example during the avian flu outbreak in 2004 America banned the importation of chicken from China, a ban that was in effect until 2009.
Any time the Chinese are upset with us, we must be doing something right.
Neither economics or politics works like this. Having our debt doesn’t give them a whole lot of leverage. We always have the option to default. It would be the nuclear option certainly, but so would China trying to pull the political strings using their debt as leverage. The relationship is pretty mutual in regards to the debt.
This isn’t like you owing money to Sammy the Shark or to Chase bank. In that relationship there is an imbalance of power. In the relationship with the US and China that same imbalance doesn’t exist.
Actually its because products from China are not any more likely to be nasty than products from most anywhere else.
What’s happening in Darfur couldn’t be happening if anyone gave a shit about what was happening in Darfur. As no one gives a shit, nothing is done.
If they have so much leverage, why didn’t they stop us from selling weapons to Taiwan recently, Obama meeting the Dalai Llama, Tire tariffs, Hillary lumping them with despotic governments in her speech Thursday, etc? Your alarmist cries have no basis in reality. If they have all this so called leverage, they are not exercising it.
Just because they haven’t doesn’t mean they won’t.
The Chinese have pegged the Yuan to the value of the dollar. Yanking the chain of our debt would have a deleterious effect on the value of the dollar, and as such the value of the Yuan.
That has to be seen in light of how much of the US total debt is foreign owned (~28%).
They have pegged, and on their whim they can unpeg.
Umm…no they can’t. Not on a whim. They have pegged it for strategic purposes, and they lose the strategic advantage the moment they unpeg. If they rattle the cage of the debt and the US devalues the dollar, then the value of debt they hold is less significant.
Perhaps you should go play chess for a while, and understand how a tactical position works. You can’t simply undo it and expect to still be in a power position.
For the moment, what you say is true. But, perhaps you noticed, times change. And that’s when tactics change. After all they needn’t worry the populace will rise up in the streets and toss them all out of office for throwing them into further poverty with their bad ‘tactics’, should the day arise.
You assume too much when you assume they are motivated by pursuit of the all mighty dollar. That’s us - not them. They’d happily throw the whole country into abject poverty to suit their political goals, and have done so in the past.
