Chinese imperialism and future Australian sovereignty

[David]

[pietillidie]

^I am supportive of it. But that is an old problem that has nothing to do with the present China-oriented hysteria. Japanese companies will now be able to do the very same thing; so where's the Japan hysteria?

Yes, Abbott slimed this through for the G20, meanwhile (mercifully) getting shafted by China on its secret emissions deal with the US, and no doubt hemmed in by this provision. I agree.

But focus your attention on Abbott's failed negotiations, not on demonising China for successfully outmanoeuvering Abbott and his band of fawners and crawlers. It's a bad provision regardless of which country, as you and I agree.

[David]

[pietillidie]

[pietillidie]

The point remains the same on the China clause; do you think the focus would ever have been on "big, bad Japan"? Even if Japan had have been granted that outright the complaints would've been muffled at best.

[David]

But it's surely pretty obvious why that might be the case: Japan's system of government is seen as less inherently hostile to our ongoing autonomy. Now, is that a 'racist' (!?) misapprehension, or does it have some basis in fact?

Consider the following:

a) China, not Japan, is the regional superpower.
b) China's government, in its present form, is considerably more authoritarian than Japan's.
c) China is pursuing an increasingly aggressive expansionist foreign policy in Africa and elsewhere, much as the US have done around the world for decades.

Unless you can demonstrate that one or all of those statements are false, then some level of paranoia seems like a no-brainer. Clearly, our resources are currently useful to China (at least at the moment); why not our political compliance?

On racism, the acceptance of a compliant Japan over a recalcitrant China tells you nothing because Japan is not perceived to be a threat. Racism is turbocharged by two things: competition and/or threat. Do you think Japan would hold its preferred status for one second if it began to be perceived as a threat or rival? The racist fury would take all of half second to be unleashed.

This is my point, more or less.

Direct question: do you think my position on this is racist?

[stui magpie]

As one looks through history, it seems to me that humans do have a sense of "the good." It seems far less clear to me that this is innate in any directional sense. The Nazis are a little obvious as a reference point, but they do make useful shorthand for a generalised human capacity for evil. One of the interesting, if revolting, things about Himmler and Co was their apparent conviction that they were doing moral work in ridding the earth of untermenschen. If they had not been defeated in 1945 (and there was no inevitability about that), then their Neitzschean morality might be the morality of much of Western Europe today. It is not too difficult to suppose that the course of history across most of the world might have been permanently altered in such an event.

I'm just going to chime in on this part. I'm on the side of the argument that Humans do have an innate sense of morality. Funny how such similar moral ethics have pervaded across so many totally different cultures.

What the Nazi's demonstrated was the human ability to rationalise away from morality. The white western society rationalised that blacks and natives were a lesser or sub species and therefore it was OK to go out and capture and enslave Africans, etc etc. Think how colonists acted, none of it was deliberate cruelty it was rationalising.

So even if a few people at the top of the Nazi pyramid actually believed what they peddled about Jews, and allowing for the minority of psychopaths who actually enjoyed what they did, I'd suggest the majority just went along with it and rationalised it in their own minds to make it easier to do.

[pietillidie]

^Agree with that, Stui.

The form of that rationalisation is then determined by the pool of ideas laying around at the time, and shaped by whatever forces are pushing and pulling on the individual and society.

[HAL]

What's that got to do with Constructivism wouldn't confuse the ability to imagine pink hippos on flying carpets with a stable universal phenomenon such as a notion of good ? ". "

[pietillidie]

But it's surely pretty obvious why that might be the case: Japan's system of government is seen as less inherently hostile to our ongoing autonomy. Now, is that a 'racist' (!?) misapprehension, or does it have some basis in fact?

Consider the following:

a) China, not Japan, is the regional superpower.
b) China's government, in its present form, is considerably more authoritarian than Japan's.
c) China is pursuing an increasingly aggressive expansionist foreign policy in Africa and elsewhere, much as the US have done around the world for decades.

Unless you can demonstrate that one or all of those statements are false, then some level of paranoia seems like a no-brainer. Clearly, our resources are currently useful to China (at least at the moment); why not our political compliance?

On racism, the acceptance of a compliant Japan over a recalcitrant China tells you nothing because Japan is not perceived to be a threat. Racism is turbocharged by two things: competition and/or threat. Do you think Japan would hold its preferred status for one second if it began to be perceived as a threat or rival? The racist fury would take all of half second to be unleashed.

This is my point, more or less.

Direct question: do you think my position on this is racist?

It's not really your point. You're claiming the equivalent of the following: People with anger issues always walk around angry.

The general Yellow Peril fear, combined with ongoing media brainwashing of China's irrepressible power, and the inability of the US to push China around on our behalf as a sort of proxy confirmation of that, means racist tendencies are primed for the China threat. But that racism could very quickly be directed at Arab-Muslims, Russians, boat people, Aborigines, Sudanese youths, etc. Racism is driven by compulsions that require directionality, while directionality travels most easily through primed brain pathways. Meanwhile, the Japan threat as a specific form of the Yellow Peril discourse died out with our grandparents' generation, but that doesn't mean it would take long to prime up the old pathways or create new ones.

As for you personally, perhaps you're unaware of your bias in this regard. (Your bias has become evident in spots in regard to Ukraine and Russia, which is understandable much like my Korea bias, but you might want to find out more about what holds Russian culture together). As an example, Libertarians forever and a day use terms like "reward people for their effort" when they really mean "block competition from poor people of colour who ought to stay where they are and never be given an equal chance to compete". You're putting a monumental burden on yourself if you think you don't have biases which corner you into making unfair judgements.

That is, are you sure when you refer to "China" (or, if you're honest: "Some vague, giant media entity I know only slightly more about than the Moons of Jupiter"), you're not filling in your knowledge gaps with bias? What else do you think you might be filling them in with?

Now, in your case I doubt that filler is likely to have a strong racially-directed compulsion. There is some evidence that parts of it are filled in with fairly cliched Orwellian text such as "oppressive systems of control". Regardless of whether or not that's true, the salient point is if you can't account for what you're using to fill in the gaps between the few dots you know about China, how can you be sure you're being at all fair and reasonable? Moreover, the subconscious has plenty of other nasties at hand, so it need not be racist to be an irrational compulsion of some kind.

So, I say this to challenge you because your views on China, much like everyone's views on Iraq and Afghanistan back in those days, seem far too certain for my liking. Do what you like, obviously, but at this stage of the game I'd much rather see you collect a serious set of facts, experience and formulations before pontificating on China.

The obvious retort to me concerns my biases concerning "the elite" and "capital". And in reply I can say I am onto that and busily trying to formulate a more sophisticated view of that kind of power. It's not easy, though, because the capital incentive to destructive and oppressive behaviour seems to be a particularly stubborn and pervasive one.

[David]

[pietillidie]

[David]

[pietillidie]

[Wokko]