Chinese imperialism and future Australian sovereignty

[Morrigu]

The grovelling for feel-good Facebook bum slaps from the like-minded is pitiful.

You are a right piece of work aren’t you I don’t need, care about or want your or anyone else’s approval in real life or on social media and have lost friends because of my beliefs and commitment - so be it!

I support organisations that try to educate and change behaviour through consultation not dictating. Such efforts have and continue to be successful in countries like Vietnam because the people and the Government listen and learn that there are better ways than the cruelty! Not so in China despite the same approach - why is that? Too thick to be educated? Too greedy? No care factor?

Seeing you know everything perhaps you can enlighten me???

[pietillidie]

The grovelling for feel-good Facebook bum slaps from the like-minded is pitiful. And the most pathetic thing about it is we've seen this movie over and over before. From the Iraq tragedy, to climate denial, to Halal hysteria, to Trump, and now on to China.

Unfortunately, the idiotic politics, policies and politicians that arise, as always without fail, will crowd out serious politicians with serious policy solutions, burn precious time needed to respond thoughtfully and productively to challenges, and leave us exposed to heightened risk.

People who don't agree with your positions aren't stupid. Once you can accept that you might be worth engaging with.

On these subjects, I think people are being emotionally and intellectually ill-disciplined. Not stupid, but ill-disciplined, giving in to baser, destructive human tendencies such as racial scapegoating rather than seriously trying to problem solve. Keep going and the war drums will be beating as economies collapse.

Helping to incite bad policy responses through immature overreaction won't improve your life. Making the same mistake over and over again is not an achievement; it's a destructive emotional addiction.

Taking a strong stance on this doesn't mean I don't care about how you feel away from this discussion. I don't berate my mother's religion in daily conversation even though I think it's nonsense, so context matters. This is a politics forum, and I think your politics is destructive, just as I thought the Iraq War, Brexit and Trump were destructive and indeed have proven to be.

Keating once said that 'politics is the ultimate high-wire act', meaning it's a game we play that requires some ferocity, but it's also not our ordinary space, or at least shouldn't be.

[pietillidie]

The grovelling for feel-good Facebook bum slaps from the like-minded is pitiful.

I support organisations that try to educate and change behaviour through consultation not dictating. Such efforts have and continue to be successful in countries like Vietnam because the people and the Government listen and learn that there are better ways than the cruelty! Not so in China despite the same approach - why is that? Too thick to be educated? Too greedy? No care factor?

Seeing you know everything perhaps you can enlighten me???

Sure. Your technical mistake here is glaringly obvious, namely assuming that China ought to culturally and socially reflect what you find in Vietnam. You just couldn't get two totally different cultures, in two totally different geographies, with two totally different histories, if you tried. This leads to a rearrangement of values and priorities you seem unaware of.

Moreover, because you identify so closely with this cause, and find so much personal justification in it, you're finding its lack of universality personally challenging because it brings into question your perfect rightness of self.

Rather than questioning why you personally need this so much, and looking into the downsides of psychologies ardently committed to causes, you've decided to throw away an entire nation of 1.4B people. But you have form, because five minutes ago it was 1.8B Muslims you were demonising, so we know this is not all about animal welfare.

Of course, much of what you say is right. But your personal need for absolute foundations, and perfect rightness of self, when life just isn't like that, can corner you into taking extreme positions.

[think positive]

The grovelling for feel-good Facebook bum slaps from the like-minded is pitiful. And the most pathetic thing about it is we've seen this movie over and over before. From the Iraq tragedy, to climate denial, to Halal hysteria, to Trump, and now on to China.

Unfortunately, the idiotic politics, policies and politicians that arise, as always without fail, will crowd out serious politicians with serious policy solutions, burn precious time needed to respond thoughtfully and productively to challenges, and leave us exposed to heightened risk.

People who don't agree with your positions aren't stupid. Once you can accept that you might be worth engaging with.

This exactly Wokko

[Morrigu]

Not so in China despite the same approach - why is that? Too thick to be educated? Too greedy? No care factor?

Seeing you know everything perhaps you can enlighten me???

Sure. Your technical mistake here is glaringly obvious, namely assuming that China ought to culturally and socially reflect what you find in Vietnam. You just couldn't get two totally different cultures, in two totally different geographies, with two totally different histories, if you tried. This leads to a rearrangement of values and priorities you seem unaware of.

Moreover, because you identify so closely with this cause, and find so much personal justification in it, you're finding its lack of universality personally challenging because it brings into question your perfect rightness of self.

Rather than questioning why you personally need this so much, and looking into the downsides of psychologies ardently committed to causes, you've decided to throw away an entire nation of 1.4B people. But you have form, because five minutes ago it was 1.8B Muslims you were demonising, so we know this is not all about animal welfare.

Of course, much of what you say is right. But your personal need for absolute foundations, and perfect rightness of self, when life just isn't like that, can corner you into taking extreme positions.

So you don't know the answer then - you could have just said that. Although that wouldn't have been as amusing!

[pietillidie]

Yeah, um, ok.

What nonsense have you been reading? The dimwit's guide to Asia? You're confusing classical historical influence and geographic proximity with contemporary reality. China is a giant, inward-focussed empire which is run from enormous power centres. Vietnam is more decentralised, more communal, more open to foreign influence, and lacking cold climate geography.

To put things in perspective, Australia and the US are far more similar cultures, and yet the US has people walking around carrying guns and denying women reproductive health services. So, even very similar cultures can have major political differences. And China and Vietnam are that much different again.

It's not surprising that Vietnam is more open to international influence given it has long been more open than China, and as a small nation needs to build relationships and alliances beyond its boundaries. Much like Japan, China can focus inward and still do well because it has the mass to influence others (but unlike Japan it was never rebuilt after war). This in turn is a conservative force which slows down cultural absorption.

It's absurd to form such extreme conclusions based on such little knowledge. I don't get what makes you so sure there are insufficient cultural differences between the two societies and cultures to easily account for your question. Smiley faces don't cut it.

[stui magpie]

OK, David, thanks for the considered response, I don’t agree with you though. Delayed response due to chasing a 4 year old around all day, I'm fractured.

China is classified as a developing country because it wants to be considered that.

Being recognised as a developing country was one of the three key principles China insisted on when negotiating to join the WTO in 2001.

https://theconversation.com/myth-busted ... ion-124602

As far as the GDP per capita, China has the second most billionaires in the world too. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201905/ ... bafd4.html

The fact that they have a metric shitpile of people earning fvck all is all down to their “government” for not just condoning it but using it as a foundation of their economy. So when a government deliberately keeps a high percentage of it’s population in poverty, I’m not letting that fly as a genuine metric. They’re not developing.


On the feudal system, you over estimate it’s impact on their ability to get a head start, that impact all sits with their government. From the mob that deposed the Emperor right through Mao until recent times, the lack of internal economic development was choices. They have been the factory of the world for decades, the fact that little of that development created benefits internally again, was policy.

The opium wars do not make China Europe’s plaything, China plays a different game to Europe, always has always will.

I’ll give you Wikipedia as a real source

So basically, I don’t buy your response and stay with my original post.

[Wokko]

Taiwan was created by the remnants of defeated Chinese Nationalists and have built a thriving, first world, developed nation on a small island off the coast. All while being bullied by China and not being recognized due to servile foreign powers afraid of China.

China (CCP) has no excuses, they're a brutal, fascistic, hyper nationalist and racist power. **** them.

[pietillidie]

China is classified as a developing country because it wants to be considered that.

Huh?

Do you think there's a wizard behind a curtain in Beijing who can magically decide to double GDP per capita even as it lowers the Gini coefficient to zero? And to think, all that time people were classifying China as a developing country they were really under a spell that made their brains divide by three, making them mistakenly think China was a developing nation when really it was harvesting piles of golden beans!

Here is the rest of the world desperately trying to grow their economies, maintain a minimum standard of living, and somehow limit the influence of the ultra rich, but the Wizard of China could magically snap his fingers and so it would be.

Is there any random nonsense you won't put forward to confirm your imaginings about China?

[stui magpie]

Oh FFS Ptiddy, put it away. Yeah you lived in Korea, kudos. Is there any random crap you won't post in supporting China and denigrating Trump?

[pietillidie]

Taiwan was created by the remnants of defeated Chinese Nationalists and have built a thriving, first world, developed nation on a small island off the coast. All while being bullied by China and not being recognized due to servile foreign powers afraid of China.

China (CCP) has no excuses, they're a brutal, fascistic, hyper nationalist and racist power. **** them.

Now I know why you you keep up with this clueless nonsense. It's another one of your inane formulae: it can't be "culture" because they're the same "culture", and the only difference must therefore be...human will! Not social difference, or foreign influence, or geopolitics, or geography, or prior local difference, or scale, or historical difference. Nope. Instead, the mainland is simply willing itself into poverty

Nope, because they're still the same "culture", much like a wealthy graduate of Yale who runs and investment firm in NY and a poor Alabaman rural worker are of the same "culture".

And FYI Taiwan is not "first world". Have you been there? I thought the rats would abduct me. We don't use the term "first world" anymore because while many countries are no longer destitute, they're still far poorer than their high income counterparts. You clearly don't have an even vaguely realistic sense of the difference in living standard and general amenity between a country of 5,000/10,000/20,000/30,000/40,0000 GDP per capita.

[pietillidie]

WTF is wrong with you four? I haven't seen so much feverish energy invested in making mental fantasies about some distant place true since the Iraq debacle.

[stui magpie]

You think I'm investing energy in this? I'm more passionate about ensuring my toenails dont reach the point of sawing through my shoes. I'm way past nail clippers, currently on sidecutters, starting to consider the angle grinder.

[Wokko]

Now I know why you you keep up with this clueless nonsense. It's another one of your inane formulae: it can't be "culture" because they're the same "culture", and the only difference must therefore be...human will! Not social difference, or foreign influence, or geopolitics, or geography, or prior local difference, or scale, or historical difference. Nope. Instead, the mainland is simply willing itself into poverty

Nope, because they're still the same "culture", much like a wealthy graduate of Yale who runs and investment firm in NY and a poor Alabaman rural worker are of the same "culture".

And FYI Taiwan is not "first world". Have you been there? I thought the rats would abduct me. We don't use the term "first world" anymore because while many countries are no longer destitute, they're still far poorer than their high income counterparts. You clearly don't have an even vaguely realistic sense of the difference in living standard and general amenity between a country of 5,000/10,000/20,000/30,000/40,0000 GDP per capita.

Taiwan's GDP is 50,000 per capita. One place behind Germany in world rankings.

[Morrigu]

WTF is wrong with you four?

No doubt you will tell us with your special blend of word salad