Here’s an excellent article from a heretofore conservative apologist. Too bad the so-called conservatives in Congress don’t feel and think the same way.
Where do I put the toolbox, ladder rack? 15 sheets of sheetrock? Cord of firewood? That’s not a truck, it’s a Lego, something out of a bad remake of Battlestar Galactica.
Well Youtube has just turned into a dumpster fire over COPPA rules going into effect in January because apparently adult hobbyists showing off their lego creations are attracting kids under 13 without their parents consent…
Go on the service and type in COPPA and its just doom and gloom. As well as talk of revolt and suing FTC. If youtube was looking for a way to kill its cash cow, they succeeded. Especially when they should have fought the FTC, went to Trump, and not settled.
If kids are on Youtube and signed in, they are there with the implied consent of parents and Youtube and its content creators can’t be responsible for them as it has no way to know if kids are watching at any given time, more so for the content creators. Youtube’s caving to the blatant unconstitutionality of COPPA is a breach of trust that will bite it in the ass.
… adult hobbyists showing off their lego creations attracting kids under 13 without their parents consent … wins The Internet today. Always good to start the day with a chuckle.
MAXIMUM sanctions are coming to China from the US, regardless of China will do.
The Grayzone put out a video on YouTube how the neoliberals + neocons in America had backed and funded all the “color revolutions” and regional uprisings in and around Russia, and used those protests and uprisings as pretenses to split and weaken Russia, to take away Russia’s territories in bits and pieces. The establishment mainstream media created false narratives to conceal the facts around those events. Then, the US used those color revolutions and uprisings as pretenses to put more and more sanctions on Russia, until Russia is now under the “maximum” sanctions by the US and its allies.
Well, the US is using the exact same playbook for China right now. China is now facing the initial stage of the same onslaughts that Russia had faced from the US. So I already know “MAXIMUM sanctions” will be the final outcome for China. Forget about the trade talk. China needs to prepared for a new Cold War and sanctions that will last generations.
I love that Tesla Cyber Pickup, don’t you? What’s next, Tesla Cyber Bucket/Scoop Trucks for crowd control? Maybe. Crowd control should be sustainable like everything else.
China is set to completely offset any climate change mitigation efforts elsewhere on the planet. Any climate change policy that doesn’t include China and India is no climate change policy at all. China is doubling down on coal as the trade war with America deepens and China’s economy slows to levels not seen since the early 90’s.
China will be the next world superpower. All the power people know it, and have been preparing for it for two decades.
I have been perplexed at the complete absence of consideration from the current ‘left’ as to whether we should prefer a new world order that features a China/Russia alliance tilted against us, or rather a Russia that is more friendly to us than it is to China.
To me, that is a no-brainer, but, but, but, Orange Man BAAAAADDD!!!!
The current Cold War on China goes beyond Trump and started before him. Obama was already preparing and setting up a cold war with China with the TTP, (which was hijacked by corporations to grab powers and push their agendas.)
The Cold War and Maximum Sanctions on China will happen, (if it is not already going on,) whether Trump wins the re-election or not. Trump is just executing it in the dumbest way possible without any strong ally support, which will give China more time to diversify, prepare and react. (And thank goodness for it.)
reality checker:
“whether we should prefer a new world order that features a China/Russia alliance tilted against us, or rather a Russia that is more friendly to us than it is to China.”
I don’t know how long that alliance would hold. Both cultures consider the other sub-human — this relationship going back for centuries. Just finished reading an incredible book titled “The Bloody White Baron” that recounts much of the history between the two nations’ incessant squabbles over who got to dominate the traditional mongol homeland post-khan rule.
Who knows what alliance will hold up forever? Probably none of them, but then, same for all of us, n’est-ce pas? 🙂
History isn’t all; our modern antagonisms re Russia are obviously still pretty powerful, aren’t they?
When the world’s power poles start shifting, all will be exploring their real opportunities and vulnerabilities, from a national power perspective.
Geography matters. Consider that.
I don’t know why an American would prefer to see China in charge, per M. Chong above; the history of the great Asian empires has not been one of relentlessly maximizing individual freedom, from what I have read.
Then again, perhaps technology has finally enabled us not to need individual freedom at all anymore. What a wonderful world it could be. (eye roll)
I really do not think China are fundamentally hostile towards Russia. Sure, China and Russia have the occasional historical disputes over some far and away borderlands, but those disputes have always been somewhat insignificant. The best analogy to those Sino-Russian territorial disputes is that they are very much similar to the territorial disputes between the United States and Canada: sure, the U.S. and Canada still has territorial disputes, but very few people on either side know about those disputes or territories, and even fewer people care.
Based on my personal experience and observations, Chinese have never harbored never long-term hatred or hostility against Russians like, let say, that kind that is against Japanese. I have never heard Chinese talk shits and say any spiteful things about Russia. On the other hand, Chinese everywhere — in and out of China — often despise Japan in one manner or another.
And that hatred is not the result of “brainwashing”, “lies” or “propaganda” by the Chinese communist government as Japanese would like to believe. The problem for Japanese is that every Chinese has some relatives who were killed, raped or tortured by Japanese during WWII, and those horror stories have been passed down through generations from grandparents to parents to children to grandchildren. That kind of personal stories from elders are more powerful than any brainwashing propaganda by any government.
As a social and networking activity, Chinese from all over the world — China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, America, Europe — could get together and often exchange horror stories of how our grandparents or great grandparents had survived some Japanese massacres or prisons. Taiwan is actually the only place in which the government has been actively trying to counter those generational narratives, by actively promoting pro-Japanese narratives in schools and media — because it is a political necessity for Taiwan to get on Japan’s good side to counter China. On the other hand, the governments in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc., certainly has no incentive to be pro-Japanese in anyway.
Koreans also had plenty of horror stories about how Japanese had colonized and victimized them, and they hate Japanese even more than Chinese do. (Given that Japanese had ruled them even longer and tried to wipe out Korean culture during the period.) I bet Koreans must have similar social and networking gatherings in which they talk shits about Japanese and how their relatives had survived Japanese , which reinforce the hatred and hostility towards Japanese. It would be hilarious if Chinese and Koreans could get together to talk shits about Japanese, although I have never seen it happen.
Anyway, my point was: that does not happen for Russians. We do not talk shits about Russians or hate their guts because they had done some horrible things to our grandparents or relatives.
“Taiwan is actually the only place in which the government has been actively trying to counter those generational narratives, by actively promoting pro-Japanese narratives in schools and media — because it is a political necessity for Taiwan to get on Japan’s good side to counter China. ”
Correction: Taiwan is actually the only CHINESE place…
RC, a few years ago what you predict seemed unstoppable. The US had been under a regime of managed decline for decades while China’s economy boomed, their NSR began spreading and BRICS was going to bump off the US dollar as the reserve currency. The globalists publicly touted the Chinese model for their NWO and the mercantile Eurotrash were counting their chickens before they hatched.
The Don sat in his Black Ivory Tower pondering what if anything could be done to reverse our decline and how to market it. China’s economy was already weakening and they are surrounded not by allies but ancient enemies. He knew he would face relentless vicious opposition from most all of the establishment in and outside his own party, the media and the chattering class. He also knew his audience was out there and how to connect with them. KISS was applied, listening and straight talk was used to free people of the Newspeak lies that loyal Americans had grown to despise. Quick decisive action on promises made are now promises kept and MAGA/America First are realities.
Communist China is facing huge problems political and economic and unless they give their people freedom or they take it their superpower status is debatable.
Even the lovely George Soros has turned against them because their Imperialist expansionist policies threaten the NWO agenda.
I think geoeconomics will ruin it for Russia: there’s no way China does not come to covet Russian Siberia and eventually, the Chinese will overwhelm the tiny Russian population there. Cultural enmity or lack of it won’t matter much. Russia is as enormous as it is because it has no natural frontier short of the mountains in the south — east to west, it is all one vast open plain from Germany to the Pacific. When the Mongols ceased to matter, Russia began to expand steadily thru good times and bad, adding territory equivalent in size to the Netherlands every year (!) for roughly 150 years, and that was before Catherine the Great got started. But much of that territory was very thinly populated to begin with and the Russians did not exactly fill it up. Today, Russia’s population of roughly 145 million — half the population of the U.S. — is concentrated in the western fifth of the country, and that population total is still declining. The country is also heavily urbanized and things get very thin as you go east along the northern Kazakh border. (Kazakhstan is a country the size of Western Europe and a population of less than 20 million, though growing at a rate of nearly 1% per year.) In Eastern Siberia, there are just isolated pockets of population at best.
The Russians are not much loved, it must be said, anywhere they dominated in Soviet or Czarist Empire days, but from which they have since withdrawn. I remember being driven by the Russian embassy compound outside Havana by a tour bus operator, because the Cubans could not believe how ugly it still was, with barbed wire topping the gulag-like walls — and this was in a country where Russia had been a benefactor. Israel is the only foreign country where the Russian language is popular and widely spoken; the politics of the Russian language in former Soviet territories with large remnant Russian-speaking populations is usually fraught.
OK, new topic for those who are interested in or know the law. In Janus v American Federation of State, Local, & Municipal Employees (2018), the Supreme Court ruled that employees in a unionized workplace cannot be required to pay “agency fees” for the union’s cost in representing them, because such a requirement represents coerced speech on matters of common concern. A significant proportion of 401(k) retirement funds are invested in corporations that make significant political expenditures. How is this corporate lobbying not coerced speech on the part of shareholders? Or if it is, as I obviously think, how is this not a direct strike at Citizens United? Why do we have to go through a constitutional amendment when it seems to me that there are lots of ways legally to restructure and limit the power of corporations now.
Well, I think you got most all of those details right. And of course there are multiple judgment calls and unpredictable circumstances to affect the course of history over time.
But bigger picture, longer term, I think what will prevail is the power of markets, and I think everybody market-savvy knows that the future of economic development will be Asia-centric. To me, the immediate geo-political issue we focus on should be whether we get better results from having Russia as a temporary bulwark against Asian power, or would rather have Russia see that geography favors their siding with China now as the only Western nation allowed to do so because of the geographical contiguity (temporarily or permanently, won’t matter to us, will it?)
As to tribal antagonisms, the Koreans and Japanese, as well as the Indians, the Indonesians, the Malaysians, etc., have more in common with China than with any Western culture, don’t they?
To me, Trump is a welcome ‘finger in the dike’ to temporarily discomfort the runaway corporatist globalists. Temporary would be a good thing, IMO, considering how the recent social trends here seem to have gone well into the counter-productive zone, but it is a stretch to think we can now confidently predict that anything will truly stop the techno/corporate/globalists trends; technology simply makes it too easy to brainwash and control huge populations over time.
All I know for sure is that the fastest economic growth happens in developing markets as they move toward a stable middle class that can buy stuff, and the corporations know that and are doing long-term strategy accordingly. And have been for quite some time.
Peter: “Communist China is facing huge problems political and economic and unless they give their people freedom or they take it their superpower status is debatable.”
Just shows how much you do not know about Chinese… or people in general.
The fundamental and root cause of the protests/riots in Hong Kong is the economy: the worsening housing crisis + stagnating/declining living standard for the vast majority of Hong Kongers, which has lasted for almost two decades. People in Hong Kong are literally living in cages. In Hong Kong, the hopelessness has been going on for a generation — and Hong Konger blame China because the deteriorating situation happened under Chinese rule. The extradition bill was merely the trigger that set off the protests. Then, the US and West simply hijacked the situation and turned against China.
ON THE OTHER HAND, the economic situation in China has been the complete opposite: overall the living standard for the people in the mainland has been steadily rising for over four decades. Everyone’s life has been getting better and better under the CCP’s rule.
There is a common saying that reflects the situation in China, and it goes like this:
Forty years ago, most Chinese had to eat plain rice/noodles for every meal because they were poor and could not afford anything else.
Thirty years ago, they started to have vegetables with rice/noodles for every meal.
Twenty years ago, they could have white meat (like chicken) more and more often with their meal.
Ten years ago, red meats (beef and pork) became regular in their meal.
Now, everyone regularly has seafood, fish and shrimps and prawns — with beef and pork, poultry, and vegetable, on their rice/noodles.
That has the situation in China for over forty years: almost everyone’s life has been improving. In China, there is an overall sense of optimism everywhere: people feel their lives will get better, and people know their children’s lives will be better than theirs.
THAT is not a condition for a popular uprising. When lives of the majority of the populations are getting better, when they are overall happy with the direction of the economy is going, when they are feeling optimistic about the future, they are NOT going to protest against the government.
Why should they? “Freedom”? Don’t fool yourself.
People only rise up to protest and riot when their lives have been getting shittier and shittier for a long time . And then “democracy” and “freedom” become the excuses/pretenses/proxies for people’s demands for change. The “shittier and shittier” condition that does not exist in China, (not yet anyway,) when people’s lives are still getting better. As long as people’s lives are improving, they ain’t gonna try to get rid of the communist government.
RC, Better relations with Russia could be helpful in dealing with terrorism and the ME but their aggressive behavior in their near-abroad probably makes that impossible. We don’t need them to deal with China Economic power is the prime mover today and only we have the Navy to protect the vital flow of resourced to back it up.
Russia resembles a Mexico with Nukes but a much lower standard of living who don’t produce much that modern markets desire. Their over-dependence on commodities leaves them subject to markets they have little control over.
The high growth economies of Asia and Africa are not only an opportunity for speculators but as markets for our goods and services with fair trade. Our moderate growth rate multiplies on a much much larger and diverse base.
If you are right that Trumpism is temporary and the globalists crony capitalists will prevail I pity future generations doomed to live under that tyranny.
Finding another warrior to follow Trump and defeat these demonic forces will be difficult but he has shown we can fight them and their weaknesses are many.
None of what I am theorizing is likely to be fully consummated in my lifetime, but long-term nobody really knows for sure. I can visualize a variety of plausible scenarios from here, but they all seem to wind up being about Asia dominating the future. I know what my desires would be, but so what lol?
Q: Dominant Chinese economic power + Russian nuclear arsenal = ?
Here is a very interesting video that shows how the so-called “Five Eyes” or “Anglo Sphere” (i.e., the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) blocks and censors videos on YouTube:
Basically, if you live in any of those five countries that you would think are “free” and “democratic”, some contents are blocked because their messages do not fit into the “approved” mainstream narrative. However, if you “change” your country to outside the Anglo Zone, then those “unapproved” contents become available.
Seems like China and Russia are not the only nations that have a “firewall”.
The algorithm of YouTube would recommend videos to me based on my search records. I must have search for “Bernie” hundreds of times, and never ONCE has YouTube recommended a Bernie Sanders video to me.
RC, China has its own Nukes which are a potent deterrent but useless as offensive weapons because, MAD. Economics is a much more potent carrot and stick approach to tame their thievery and mercantile attempts at economic dominance.
Much of what happens now and in the future depends on people’s attitude and the Left has only a bad, mopey depressing attitude. If you watch a Trump rally you see and hear tens of thousands of smiling, energetic determined faces and voices even after three years of constant bombardment these people are ready for the fight. If you watch a ‘Resistance’ show you won’t see many smiles but mostly strangely blank or angry people some zombie like and any enthusiasm is robotic not spontaneous.
We live in interesting times and I hope the people who seem determined to destroy themselves don’t drag us all into the abyss.
It is far from clear that China will survive the impacts of climate change or what the world will be like as a result of climate change in even 20 years. So it is premature to say that China is the next big thing. People were saying much the same thing about Japan until stagflation hit in 1991.
If you think a China as superpower would be a good thing, you should probably talk first to the Tibetans and Uighurs who have been experiencing Chinese dominance for decades. Both China and Russia are imperialist powers. Aside from its irredentist side, Russian imperialism is typical of European imperialism. Chinese imperialism (and nationalism) are quite different from their Western analogues. Chinese nationalism is based on Han identity. That is national in the German sense of a Volk, not in terms of a country, state, or government. This carries over into its imperialism. The more Chinese you are the greater the claim and the less Chinese you are the more you get treated like cattle. If you think the US hegemonic model is a bad one, the Chinese one would be far worse.
KT Chong seems to be repeating the pro-Beijing party line of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam that the protest are economic, not political (even though the protests began over a proposed extradition to the PRC law).
Nukes are not fungible. Russia will never use its to defend China, and vice versa.
Oh, and a Trump rally looks as silly and forced, a bunch of dumbclucks cheering enthusiastically lie after obvious lie from the Great Leader, as an old video of a Nazi rally full of brown shirts and a rambling, incoherent Hitler. Getting from here to there, wherever there is for you, you are never going to get there following lying idiots. Hint: if you don’t want to be compared to fascists, stop acting like them.
You seem to have fully committed yourself to the POV that your sense of morality will control the history of nations. You used to be a great analyst whose work I would routinely tout to others, but now you seem to be motivated by emotion to a disturbing degree, leading to a ‘certainty’ that is not persuasive.
I wish the analyst side of you would come back to dominance. When you can only ‘see’ the fascism on display at Trump rallies, but not at all on the Dem side, I think it is clear that some re-calibration is in order. Maybe even re-read Hayek and see what he was really talking about (Yeah I know, he’s the Devil, and you might get triggered, but he will really remind you of the inherent dangers of any central planning regime, and he knew what fascism was really about.)
Not trying to be snarky here; I think you have a great mind, and you are a consummate researcher, but your personal dislike of Trump really seems to be coloring the product of your excellent analytic skills the last couple of years. I wish we could all commit ourselves to seeing clearly, abandoning absolutes, and letting reason prevail.
We are surrounded by grays. We have to get back to honestly appraising the pros and cons in every situation. And both do exist in every situation. The smart ones have to help the rest fight the brainwashing and the binary thinking. Or else, the future may be black for all regular folks. I hope you can take this comment with the sincerely constructive attitude that motivated it. 🙂
Has Carrie Lam said the protests were economic? I have never seen her said that.
I doubt that Lam, who has enjoyed being one of the privileged and wealth class, would know anything about the economic pressures facing the Hong Kong masses and youths. She seems to be completely oblivious to what has been going on around her.
Where did you see she say the root cause of the protests were economic, not political?
Actually, I DO somewhat blame the Beijing government for the current situations in Hong Kong.
Two systems or not, Hong Kong has been under the charge of the Chinese government for over two decades. China can’t just shift the blame completely. As the government, the CCP should have put a finger on the pulse of how the economy has affected the people in Hong Kong. The fact that China has not been concerned with the economic well-being of the Hong Kongers — and has not taken the necessary actions to correct and improve the situations years ago — means that China is somewhat responsible for the current situations in Hong Kong.
My point for bringing up economics is because white people like “Peter” had foolishly thought that the Chinese people IN THE MAINLAND are in the same conditions and mood for a mass rebellion and uprising because, “for freedom!” And the Chinese mainlanders just need a little bit of “spark” like the one in Hong Kong, and then all the Chinese would be inspired to rise up against the commie government! The conditions for uprising currently do NOT exist in China — because Chinese economy has been rapidly growing for over forty year and, more importantly, the common people (not just the already-rich) have benefited from the growth. Compare that situation to, let say, America, where the economic growth and recovery for the past four decades have gone the rich and wealthy and top-percenters, while the living standards of the masses have stagnated or even declined.
Polls have shown that Chinese people in the mainland are the MOST optimistic in the world, about their lives and the future:
Do you seriously think that is the condition that creates discontents and popular uprising? “Chinese are feeling so optimistic about their lives and future — so they rise up to protest and riot against their government to demand CHANGE!”
On the other hand, Hong Kongers are pessimistic about their lives and their future — and the underlying reason is the economy. Here are some articles from JUST BEFORE the protests happened. The articles correctly pointing out that young Hong Kongers were pessimistic about their economic future:
THAT was a condition ripe for popular uprising. And China missed the signs.
I do think that the Chinese communist government is concerned with the overall economic well-being of the majority of Chinese people, having continuously lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and then continuously improving their living standards. On the other hand, the CCP government government has not exactly treated Hong Kongers like Chinese — because the CCP government has not brought some needed reforms and prosperity to Hong Kongers. Hong Kongers have been left behind and out of China’s boom and growth, and their living standards have stagnated. Of course they would rise up to protest and revolt and riot.
It’s probably too late to mollify things with Russia at least on a short timescale. The Borg sabotaged that with the help of the Neocons and Demorats. Russia and China will eventually war over Siberia and fresh water. Rivalries between China and India will also likely come to a head. The CCP is what our ‘meritocracy’ wishes it could be, but still suffers the same weaknesses.
Keep in mind when praising the escalating wealth of the Chinese that when you start from starving millions of people to death, any change looks good. Also that change was financed by the West, from their middle classes and never sustainable. Is is also impossible for China to be the worlds manufacturer. Nation states can’t afford to lose their industrial resources because in the event of a ‘real’ war between equals it will all come down to how fast can we make and ship weapons and equipment. Russia has learned this lesson but the US has not. Another thing the Demorats and neocons have agreed on since they began the great middle class purge.
What Lam said was, “There are various analyses and interpretations in the community in relation to the results, and quite a few are of the view that the results reflect people’s dissatisfaction with the current situation and the deep-seated problems in society.”
In an Oct.16, 2019 NYT article, ” In her speech, Mrs. Lam cast the popular revolt in Hong Kong, one of the world’s most economically unequal places to live, as discontent rooted in economic woes.”
450.org
Here’s an excellent article from a heretofore conservative apologist. Too bad the so-called conservatives in Congress don’t feel and think the same way.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/22/opinion/trump-impeachment.html
realitychecker
Er, what’s the body count on people locked up, and not, so far over political differences?
Stirling S Newberry
Look! A breath of fresh air! Let us dirty it up:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/11/why-journalism-matters/602431/
What a joke, real troublemakers did not have The Atlantic at there back.
S Brennan
I Thought Elon’s P-Up sucked; You?
Ten Bears
Where do I put the toolbox, ladder rack? 15 sheets of sheetrock? Cord of firewood? That’s not a truck, it’s a Lego, something out of a bad remake of Battlestar Galactica.
No doubt a plywood mock-up.
Tom
Well Youtube has just turned into a dumpster fire over COPPA rules going into effect in January because apparently adult hobbyists showing off their lego creations are attracting kids under 13 without their parents consent…
Go on the service and type in COPPA and its just doom and gloom. As well as talk of revolt and suing FTC. If youtube was looking for a way to kill its cash cow, they succeeded. Especially when they should have fought the FTC, went to Trump, and not settled.
If kids are on Youtube and signed in, they are there with the implied consent of parents and Youtube and its content creators can’t be responsible for them as it has no way to know if kids are watching at any given time, more so for the content creators. Youtube’s caving to the blatant unconstitutionality of COPPA is a breach of trust that will bite it in the ass.
Hugh
The breakable bulletproof glass is one for the ages. It encapsulates the whole completely missing the point of the project.
Ten Bears
… adult hobbyists showing off their lego creations attracting kids under 13 without their parents consent … wins The Internet today. Always good to start the day with a chuckle.
KT Chong
MAXIMUM sanctions are coming to China from the US, regardless of China will do.
The Grayzone put out a video on YouTube how the neoliberals + neocons in America had backed and funded all the “color revolutions” and regional uprisings in and around Russia, and used those protests and uprisings as pretenses to split and weaken Russia, to take away Russia’s territories in bits and pieces. The establishment mainstream media created false narratives to conceal the facts around those events. Then, the US used those color revolutions and uprisings as pretenses to put more and more sanctions on Russia, until Russia is now under the “maximum” sanctions by the US and its allies.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6m7uvcMrLk
Well, the US is using the exact same playbook for China right now. China is now facing the initial stage of the same onslaughts that Russia had faced from the US. So I already know “MAXIMUM sanctions” will be the final outcome for China. Forget about the trade talk. China needs to prepared for a new Cold War and sanctions that will last generations.
450.org
I love that Tesla Cyber Pickup, don’t you? What’s next, Tesla Cyber Bucket/Scoop Trucks for crowd control? Maybe. Crowd control should be sustainable like everything else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wa4U6TQlNI
450.org
China is set to completely offset any climate change mitigation efforts elsewhere on the planet. Any climate change policy that doesn’t include China and India is no climate change policy at all. China is doubling down on coal as the trade war with America deepens and China’s economy slows to levels not seen since the early 90’s.
https://nypost.com/2019/11/23/china-going-big-on-coal-guarantees-the-world-wont-meet-its-carbon-cutting-goals/
KT Chong
I’d be wary of New York Post. It is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which is coordinating worldwide smear campaigns against China.
realitychecker
China will be the next world superpower. All the power people know it, and have been preparing for it for two decades.
I have been perplexed at the complete absence of consideration from the current ‘left’ as to whether we should prefer a new world order that features a China/Russia alliance tilted against us, or rather a Russia that is more friendly to us than it is to China.
To me, that is a no-brainer, but, but, but, Orange Man BAAAAADDD!!!!
Thoughtful persons despair . . .
KT Chong
The current Cold War on China goes beyond Trump and started before him. Obama was already preparing and setting up a cold war with China with the TTP, (which was hijacked by corporations to grab powers and push their agendas.)
The Cold War and Maximum Sanctions on China will happen, (if it is not already going on,) whether Trump wins the re-election or not. Trump is just executing it in the dumbest way possible without any strong ally support, which will give China more time to diversify, prepare and react. (And thank goodness for it.)
Eric Anderson
reality checker:
“whether we should prefer a new world order that features a China/Russia alliance tilted against us, or rather a Russia that is more friendly to us than it is to China.”
I don’t know how long that alliance would hold. Both cultures consider the other sub-human — this relationship going back for centuries. Just finished reading an incredible book titled “The Bloody White Baron” that recounts much of the history between the two nations’ incessant squabbles over who got to dominate the traditional mongol homeland post-khan rule.
realitychecker
Who knows what alliance will hold up forever? Probably none of them, but then, same for all of us, n’est-ce pas? 🙂
History isn’t all; our modern antagonisms re Russia are obviously still pretty powerful, aren’t they?
When the world’s power poles start shifting, all will be exploring their real opportunities and vulnerabilities, from a national power perspective.
Geography matters. Consider that.
I don’t know why an American would prefer to see China in charge, per M. Chong above; the history of the great Asian empires has not been one of relentlessly maximizing individual freedom, from what I have read.
Then again, perhaps technology has finally enabled us not to need individual freedom at all anymore. What a wonderful world it could be. (eye roll)
KT Chong
I really do not think China are fundamentally hostile towards Russia. Sure, China and Russia have the occasional historical disputes over some far and away borderlands, but those disputes have always been somewhat insignificant. The best analogy to those Sino-Russian territorial disputes is that they are very much similar to the territorial disputes between the United States and Canada: sure, the U.S. and Canada still has territorial disputes, but very few people on either side know about those disputes or territories, and even fewer people care.
Based on my personal experience and observations, Chinese have never harbored never long-term hatred or hostility against Russians like, let say, that kind that is against Japanese. I have never heard Chinese talk shits and say any spiteful things about Russia. On the other hand, Chinese everywhere — in and out of China — often despise Japan in one manner or another.
And that hatred is not the result of “brainwashing”, “lies” or “propaganda” by the Chinese communist government as Japanese would like to believe. The problem for Japanese is that every Chinese has some relatives who were killed, raped or tortured by Japanese during WWII, and those horror stories have been passed down through generations from grandparents to parents to children to grandchildren. That kind of personal stories from elders are more powerful than any brainwashing propaganda by any government.
As a social and networking activity, Chinese from all over the world — China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, America, Europe — could get together and often exchange horror stories of how our grandparents or great grandparents had survived some Japanese massacres or prisons. Taiwan is actually the only place in which the government has been actively trying to counter those generational narratives, by actively promoting pro-Japanese narratives in schools and media — because it is a political necessity for Taiwan to get on Japan’s good side to counter China. On the other hand, the governments in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc., certainly has no incentive to be pro-Japanese in anyway.
KT Chong
Koreans also had plenty of horror stories about how Japanese had colonized and victimized them, and they hate Japanese even more than Chinese do. (Given that Japanese had ruled them even longer and tried to wipe out Korean culture during the period.) I bet Koreans must have similar social and networking gatherings in which they talk shits about Japanese and how their relatives had survived Japanese , which reinforce the hatred and hostility towards Japanese. It would be hilarious if Chinese and Koreans could get together to talk shits about Japanese, although I have never seen it happen.
Anyway, my point was: that does not happen for Russians. We do not talk shits about Russians or hate their guts because they had done some horrible things to our grandparents or relatives.
KT Chong
“Taiwan is actually the only place in which the government has been actively trying to counter those generational narratives, by actively promoting pro-Japanese narratives in schools and media — because it is a political necessity for Taiwan to get on Japan’s good side to counter China. ”
Correction: Taiwan is actually the only CHINESE place…
Peter
RC, a few years ago what you predict seemed unstoppable. The US had been under a regime of managed decline for decades while China’s economy boomed, their NSR began spreading and BRICS was going to bump off the US dollar as the reserve currency. The globalists publicly touted the Chinese model for their NWO and the mercantile Eurotrash were counting their chickens before they hatched.
The Don sat in his Black Ivory Tower pondering what if anything could be done to reverse our decline and how to market it. China’s economy was already weakening and they are surrounded not by allies but ancient enemies. He knew he would face relentless vicious opposition from most all of the establishment in and outside his own party, the media and the chattering class. He also knew his audience was out there and how to connect with them. KISS was applied, listening and straight talk was used to free people of the Newspeak lies that loyal Americans had grown to despise. Quick decisive action on promises made are now promises kept and MAGA/America First are realities.
Communist China is facing huge problems political and economic and unless they give their people freedom or they take it their superpower status is debatable.
Even the lovely George Soros has turned against them because their Imperialist expansionist policies threaten the NWO agenda.
bruce wilder
I think geoeconomics will ruin it for Russia: there’s no way China does not come to covet Russian Siberia and eventually, the Chinese will overwhelm the tiny Russian population there. Cultural enmity or lack of it won’t matter much. Russia is as enormous as it is because it has no natural frontier short of the mountains in the south — east to west, it is all one vast open plain from Germany to the Pacific. When the Mongols ceased to matter, Russia began to expand steadily thru good times and bad, adding territory equivalent in size to the Netherlands every year (!) for roughly 150 years, and that was before Catherine the Great got started. But much of that territory was very thinly populated to begin with and the Russians did not exactly fill it up. Today, Russia’s population of roughly 145 million — half the population of the U.S. — is concentrated in the western fifth of the country, and that population total is still declining. The country is also heavily urbanized and things get very thin as you go east along the northern Kazakh border. (Kazakhstan is a country the size of Western Europe and a population of less than 20 million, though growing at a rate of nearly 1% per year.) In Eastern Siberia, there are just isolated pockets of population at best.
The Russians are not much loved, it must be said, anywhere they dominated in Soviet or Czarist Empire days, but from which they have since withdrawn. I remember being driven by the Russian embassy compound outside Havana by a tour bus operator, because the Cubans could not believe how ugly it still was, with barbed wire topping the gulag-like walls — and this was in a country where Russia had been a benefactor. Israel is the only foreign country where the Russian language is popular and widely spoken; the politics of the Russian language in former Soviet territories with large remnant Russian-speaking populations is usually fraught.
nihil obstet
OK, new topic for those who are interested in or know the law. In Janus v American Federation of State, Local, & Municipal Employees (2018), the Supreme Court ruled that employees in a unionized workplace cannot be required to pay “agency fees” for the union’s cost in representing them, because such a requirement represents coerced speech on matters of common concern. A significant proportion of 401(k) retirement funds are invested in corporations that make significant political expenditures. How is this corporate lobbying not coerced speech on the part of shareholders? Or if it is, as I obviously think, how is this not a direct strike at Citizens United? Why do we have to go through a constitutional amendment when it seems to me that there are lots of ways legally to restructure and limit the power of corporations now.
realitychecker
@ Peter
Well, I think you got most all of those details right. And of course there are multiple judgment calls and unpredictable circumstances to affect the course of history over time.
But bigger picture, longer term, I think what will prevail is the power of markets, and I think everybody market-savvy knows that the future of economic development will be Asia-centric. To me, the immediate geo-political issue we focus on should be whether we get better results from having Russia as a temporary bulwark against Asian power, or would rather have Russia see that geography favors their siding with China now as the only Western nation allowed to do so because of the geographical contiguity (temporarily or permanently, won’t matter to us, will it?)
As to tribal antagonisms, the Koreans and Japanese, as well as the Indians, the Indonesians, the Malaysians, etc., have more in common with China than with any Western culture, don’t they?
To me, Trump is a welcome ‘finger in the dike’ to temporarily discomfort the runaway corporatist globalists. Temporary would be a good thing, IMO, considering how the recent social trends here seem to have gone well into the counter-productive zone, but it is a stretch to think we can now confidently predict that anything will truly stop the techno/corporate/globalists trends; technology simply makes it too easy to brainwash and control huge populations over time.
All I know for sure is that the fastest economic growth happens in developing markets as they move toward a stable middle class that can buy stuff, and the corporations know that and are doing long-term strategy accordingly. And have been for quite some time.
KT Chong
Peter: “Communist China is facing huge problems political and economic and unless they give their people freedom or they take it their superpower status is debatable.”
Just shows how much you do not know about Chinese… or people in general.
The fundamental and root cause of the protests/riots in Hong Kong is the economy: the worsening housing crisis + stagnating/declining living standard for the vast majority of Hong Kongers, which has lasted for almost two decades. People in Hong Kong are literally living in cages. In Hong Kong, the hopelessness has been going on for a generation — and Hong Konger blame China because the deteriorating situation happened under Chinese rule. The extradition bill was merely the trigger that set off the protests. Then, the US and West simply hijacked the situation and turned against China.
Hong Kong’s Real Problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h64hTb4on78
ON THE OTHER HAND, the economic situation in China has been the complete opposite: overall the living standard for the people in the mainland has been steadily rising for over four decades. Everyone’s life has been getting better and better under the CCP’s rule.
There is a common saying that reflects the situation in China, and it goes like this:
Forty years ago, most Chinese had to eat plain rice/noodles for every meal because they were poor and could not afford anything else.
Thirty years ago, they started to have vegetables with rice/noodles for every meal.
Twenty years ago, they could have white meat (like chicken) more and more often with their meal.
Ten years ago, red meats (beef and pork) became regular in their meal.
Now, everyone regularly has seafood, fish and shrimps and prawns — with beef and pork, poultry, and vegetable, on their rice/noodles.
That has the situation in China for over forty years: almost everyone’s life has been improving. In China, there is an overall sense of optimism everywhere: people feel their lives will get better, and people know their children’s lives will be better than theirs.
THAT is not a condition for a popular uprising. When lives of the majority of the populations are getting better, when they are overall happy with the direction of the economy is going, when they are feeling optimistic about the future, they are NOT going to protest against the government.
Why should they? “Freedom”? Don’t fool yourself.
People only rise up to protest and riot when their lives have been getting shittier and shittier for a long time . And then “democracy” and “freedom” become the excuses/pretenses/proxies for people’s demands for change. The “shittier and shittier” condition that does not exist in China, (not yet anyway,) when people’s lives are still getting better. As long as people’s lives are improving, they ain’t gonna try to get rid of the communist government.
Peter
RC, Better relations with Russia could be helpful in dealing with terrorism and the ME but their aggressive behavior in their near-abroad probably makes that impossible. We don’t need them to deal with China Economic power is the prime mover today and only we have the Navy to protect the vital flow of resourced to back it up.
Russia resembles a Mexico with Nukes but a much lower standard of living who don’t produce much that modern markets desire. Their over-dependence on commodities leaves them subject to markets they have little control over.
The high growth economies of Asia and Africa are not only an opportunity for speculators but as markets for our goods and services with fair trade. Our moderate growth rate multiplies on a much much larger and diverse base.
If you are right that Trumpism is temporary and the globalists crony capitalists will prevail I pity future generations doomed to live under that tyranny.
Finding another warrior to follow Trump and defeat these demonic forces will be difficult but he has shown we can fight them and their weaknesses are many.
realitychecker
@ Peter
None of what I am theorizing is likely to be fully consummated in my lifetime, but long-term nobody really knows for sure. I can visualize a variety of plausible scenarios from here, but they all seem to wind up being about Asia dominating the future. I know what my desires would be, but so what lol?
Q: Dominant Chinese economic power + Russian nuclear arsenal = ?
KT Chong
Here is a very interesting video that shows how the so-called “Five Eyes” or “Anglo Sphere” (i.e., the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) blocks and censors videos on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LPEif9xyiw
Basically, if you live in any of those five countries that you would think are “free” and “democratic”, some contents are blocked because their messages do not fit into the “approved” mainstream narrative. However, if you “change” your country to outside the Anglo Zone, then those “unapproved” contents become available.
Seems like China and Russia are not the only nations that have a “firewall”.
KT Chong
The algorithm of YouTube would recommend videos to me based on my search records. I must have search for “Bernie” hundreds of times, and never ONCE has YouTube recommended a Bernie Sanders video to me.
Hm.
Peter
RC, China has its own Nukes which are a potent deterrent but useless as offensive weapons because, MAD. Economics is a much more potent carrot and stick approach to tame their thievery and mercantile attempts at economic dominance.
Much of what happens now and in the future depends on people’s attitude and the Left has only a bad, mopey depressing attitude. If you watch a Trump rally you see and hear tens of thousands of smiling, energetic determined faces and voices even after three years of constant bombardment these people are ready for the fight. If you watch a ‘Resistance’ show you won’t see many smiles but mostly strangely blank or angry people some zombie like and any enthusiasm is robotic not spontaneous.
We live in interesting times and I hope the people who seem determined to destroy themselves don’t drag us all into the abyss.
Hugh
It is far from clear that China will survive the impacts of climate change or what the world will be like as a result of climate change in even 20 years. So it is premature to say that China is the next big thing. People were saying much the same thing about Japan until stagflation hit in 1991.
If you think a China as superpower would be a good thing, you should probably talk first to the Tibetans and Uighurs who have been experiencing Chinese dominance for decades. Both China and Russia are imperialist powers. Aside from its irredentist side, Russian imperialism is typical of European imperialism. Chinese imperialism (and nationalism) are quite different from their Western analogues. Chinese nationalism is based on Han identity. That is national in the German sense of a Volk, not in terms of a country, state, or government. This carries over into its imperialism. The more Chinese you are the greater the claim and the less Chinese you are the more you get treated like cattle. If you think the US hegemonic model is a bad one, the Chinese one would be far worse.
KT Chong seems to be repeating the pro-Beijing party line of Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Carrie Lam that the protest are economic, not political (even though the protests began over a proposed extradition to the PRC law).
Nukes are not fungible. Russia will never use its to defend China, and vice versa.
Hugh
Oh, and a Trump rally looks as silly and forced, a bunch of dumbclucks cheering enthusiastically lie after obvious lie from the Great Leader, as an old video of a Nazi rally full of brown shirts and a rambling, incoherent Hitler. Getting from here to there, wherever there is for you, you are never going to get there following lying idiots. Hint: if you don’t want to be compared to fascists, stop acting like them.
realitychecker
@ Hugh
You seem to have fully committed yourself to the POV that your sense of morality will control the history of nations. You used to be a great analyst whose work I would routinely tout to others, but now you seem to be motivated by emotion to a disturbing degree, leading to a ‘certainty’ that is not persuasive.
I wish the analyst side of you would come back to dominance. When you can only ‘see’ the fascism on display at Trump rallies, but not at all on the Dem side, I think it is clear that some re-calibration is in order. Maybe even re-read Hayek and see what he was really talking about (Yeah I know, he’s the Devil, and you might get triggered, but he will really remind you of the inherent dangers of any central planning regime, and he knew what fascism was really about.)
Not trying to be snarky here; I think you have a great mind, and you are a consummate researcher, but your personal dislike of Trump really seems to be coloring the product of your excellent analytic skills the last couple of years. I wish we could all commit ourselves to seeing clearly, abandoning absolutes, and letting reason prevail.
We are surrounded by grays. We have to get back to honestly appraising the pros and cons in every situation. And both do exist in every situation. The smart ones have to help the rest fight the brainwashing and the binary thinking. Or else, the future may be black for all regular folks. I hope you can take this comment with the sincerely constructive attitude that motivated it. 🙂
KT Chong
Has Carrie Lam said the protests were economic? I have never seen her said that.
I doubt that Lam, who has enjoyed being one of the privileged and wealth class, would know anything about the economic pressures facing the Hong Kong masses and youths. She seems to be completely oblivious to what has been going on around her.
Where did you see she say the root cause of the protests were economic, not political?
KT Chong
Actually, I DO somewhat blame the Beijing government for the current situations in Hong Kong.
Two systems or not, Hong Kong has been under the charge of the Chinese government for over two decades. China can’t just shift the blame completely. As the government, the CCP should have put a finger on the pulse of how the economy has affected the people in Hong Kong. The fact that China has not been concerned with the economic well-being of the Hong Kongers — and has not taken the necessary actions to correct and improve the situations years ago — means that China is somewhat responsible for the current situations in Hong Kong.
My point for bringing up economics is because white people like “Peter” had foolishly thought that the Chinese people IN THE MAINLAND are in the same conditions and mood for a mass rebellion and uprising because, “for freedom!” And the Chinese mainlanders just need a little bit of “spark” like the one in Hong Kong, and then all the Chinese would be inspired to rise up against the commie government! The conditions for uprising currently do NOT exist in China — because Chinese economy has been rapidly growing for over forty year and, more importantly, the common people (not just the already-rich) have benefited from the growth. Compare that situation to, let say, America, where the economic growth and recovery for the past four decades have gone the rich and wealthy and top-percenters, while the living standards of the masses have stagnated or even declined.
Polls have shown that Chinese people in the mainland are the MOST optimistic in the world, about their lives and the future:
https://today.yougov.com/topics/international/articles-reports/2016/01/05/chinese-optimism
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-china-blog-37570965
https://www.inkstonenews.com/china/china-tops-list-most-positive-countries-world/article/2166637
Do you seriously think that is the condition that creates discontents and popular uprising? “Chinese are feeling so optimistic about their lives and future — so they rise up to protest and riot against their government to demand CHANGE!”
On the other hand, Hong Kongers are pessimistic about their lives and their future — and the underlying reason is the economy. Here are some articles from JUST BEFORE the protests happened. The articles correctly pointing out that young Hong Kongers were pessimistic about their economic future:
https://qz.com/1034295/hong-kongs-internet-culture-reflects-the-deep-state-of-pessimism-of-its-youth/
http://www.ejinsight.com/20161011-why-young-people-are-pessimistic-about-hong-kong-s-future/
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/hong-kong-least-happy-city-survey-outlook-pessimism-youths-11453640
THAT was a condition ripe for popular uprising. And China missed the signs.
I do think that the Chinese communist government is concerned with the overall economic well-being of the majority of Chinese people, having continuously lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and then continuously improving their living standards. On the other hand, the CCP government government has not exactly treated Hong Kongers like Chinese — because the CCP government has not brought some needed reforms and prosperity to Hong Kongers. Hong Kongers have been left behind and out of China’s boom and growth, and their living standards have stagnated. Of course they would rise up to protest and revolt and riot.
ponderer
It’s probably too late to mollify things with Russia at least on a short timescale. The Borg sabotaged that with the help of the Neocons and Demorats. Russia and China will eventually war over Siberia and fresh water. Rivalries between China and India will also likely come to a head. The CCP is what our ‘meritocracy’ wishes it could be, but still suffers the same weaknesses.
Keep in mind when praising the escalating wealth of the Chinese that when you start from starving millions of people to death, any change looks good. Also that change was financed by the West, from their middle classes and never sustainable. Is is also impossible for China to be the worlds manufacturer. Nation states can’t afford to lose their industrial resources because in the event of a ‘real’ war between equals it will all come down to how fast can we make and ship weapons and equipment. Russia has learned this lesson but the US has not. Another thing the Demorats and neocons have agreed on since they began the great middle class purge.
Hugh
What Lam said was, “There are various analyses and interpretations in the community in relation to the results, and quite a few are of the view that the results reflect people’s dissatisfaction with the current situation and the deep-seated problems in society.”
In an Oct.16, 2019 NYT article, ” In her speech, Mrs. Lam cast the popular revolt in Hong Kong, one of the world’s most economically unequal places to live, as discontent rooted in economic woes.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/16/world/asia/hong-kong-protests-carrie-lam.html