China geopolitics

[walkerguy]

China will give press unlimited access when press gets unlimited acces to Guantanamo.

 

China will provide full due process to all dissidents when west provides it for the sobs in secret prisons across the globe.

 

China won`t use leathal force against its poppulus once law enforcment in the west is issued battons instead of shotguns and once trespassors cant be legally shot dead for showing up in your living room.

 

China will turn ito civil rights lovefest once the west gives a toss about rights of ppl not their citizens AND once the west stops trampling civil rights on account of the "war on terror".

 

China will respect all human life once the west stops blowing up people all over the world to promote their interest.

 

Possible thread win.

Not really. Brdavs really only described America, which certainly has problems too... but nowhere near to the extent China does.

 

And anybody claiming two wrongs make a right as Brdavs is is an enigma to me.

 

All the rest follow USA like puppies which sorta makes us accomplices.

 

And nowhere did I state that two wrongs make a right. I marely stated that we should start by marching agains our own "order of things" or atleast against what it`s turning into.

 

 

Well, I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure everybody values their human rights.

 

As such any government which maximises those, such as liberal democracy, can claim higher moral ground.

 

And any government which actively violates them likewise deserves to be demonised.

 

 

Every country in the world firstly and foremostly cares about the rights of it`s citizens. And every induvidual firstly and foremostly cares about hisown rights. The value of a life varies dramatically depending on your passport. Let us not be twofaced now...

You can get an exact number of coalition casulties in Iraq, a war (supposedly) fought over 2974 deaths. Howmany of us know the number of palestinians killed prior or post to that? Or how many Iraqis have died? All you get are estimations of "somewher in between 200k and 1mil" lol. And that`s lives we`re talking about, chew on that one for a sec. Speaking of mortgage crisis; how many millions of palestinians are displaced and howmany Iraqis?

Nobody givess a toss cos they`re them, and we`re us. Nor does any1 really give a toss about Tibet tbh, but that gets on the agenda cos we like to stick it to China. Sorta like how Kosovo was only sticking it to Russia. The Bear and the Tiger that threathen the mighty Eagle...

I wonder what the response will be the next time native amercans declare all past agreements violate and ergo null and void, + cry genocide while declaring an independant territory in the middle of the USA. Oh yea, that`s a local news joke to be laughed at.

 

 

 

 

 

In essence: any "moral high-ground" (some think) "we" are having in lecturing China is merely a Tibetan plateau worth of BS. Atleast they`re being honest. I as an induvidual can condemn what`s happening there but then agin I condemn a lot (more) of that`s happening right here.

To have a "Sand like" stance of how our righteous lberal governments and nations should disown and if possibly topple the "evil" PRC is sorta humorous conisediring the respective track records as of late (and not so as of late) - my only real beef in this conversation.

 

Stop thinking you/we are somehow fundamentaly better. We`re better off. Mostly on theirexpense. But that`s sorta it.

 

 

Mind you that is no reason to preserve a bad status quo. It is however a reason to tell our politicians to go to heck everytime they say they`re dropping bombs for freedom and to help people and when they`re being hypocritical to the border of having us for fools. China will change on itsown merrit to more suit our (and through for now superior force global) standard.

Thoe it does seem like we`re gonna meet them more than half way. But that`s a whole new topic.

 

What?

[Brdavs]

I understand it`s tough when the bubble of yourown supremacy gets burst.. but chin up lad, it`ll get better.

[walkerguy]

What?

 

I'm still confused.

[Nick_i_am]

Ah, puberty.

[Tigranes]

walkerguy, actually saying what you are confused about would be better.

 

I thought it made sense. It's a very simple fact that brdavs is talking about, and not as polemical as his other posts.

[Walsingham]

I'm not 100% behind this statement, but can anyone explain to me what on Earth is so bad about viewing China from a selfish patriotic standpoint?

[Humodour]

I'm not 100% behind this statement, but can anyone explain to me what on Earth is so bad about viewing China from a selfish patriotic standpoint?

 

It's as bad as a copper who looks the other way.

[Nick_i_am]

I'm not 100% behind this statement, but can anyone explain to me what on Earth is so bad about viewing China from a selfish patriotic standpoint?

 

Dude, that's soooo 1950s.

[Brdavs]

I'm not 100% behind this statement, but can anyone explain to me what on Earth is so bad about viewing China from a selfish patriotic standpoint?

 

The same ♠thing that is wrong with China viewing Tibet form a selfish patriotic standpoint heh? Some would say nothing at all and some would say everything I guess. Pick your flavour.

[Walsingham]

I'm not 100% behind this statement, but can anyone explain to me what on Earth is so bad about viewing China from a selfish patriotic standpoint?

 

Dude, that's soooo 1950s.

 

Call me Fallout Boy.

 

And you make a good point, Brdavs. China may well feel patriotically self-interested on Tibet. But my point was a more gfeneral one. I am a British subject and allied to the Western bloc. Is it morally wrong to observe a resurgent and aggressive China with something other than affable interest?

[Walsingham]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7308890.stm

 

Look at the map here. I'm ashamed to admit I hadn't grasped just how big Tibet is. It's the entire South West flank of China!, and especially the largest mass leading towards Afghanistan and the Middle East.

[Humodour]

I'm ashamed to admit I hadn't grasped just how big Tibet is.

 

Or perhaps how unique its culture is.

[julianw]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7308890.stm

 

Look at the map here. I'm ashamed to admit I hadn't grasped just how big Tibet is. It's the entire South West flank of China!, and especially the largest mass leading towards Afghanistan and the Middle East.

To be honest though, it's just a huge chunk of barren land. There are few natural resources and the lands are also poor for agriculture. Imo, it

[Azarkon]

What is most important about Tibet, from the Chinese perspective, is its geography. Look at the area on an elevation map. Notice anything? Yeah - it's the Himalayas. A natural wall.

 

That should remind you of something when thinking about Chinese history.

[Walsingham]

No time to catch up, but great article from the CS monitor:

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1117/p01s03-woap.html?s=widep

 

Particularly

 

[Humodour]

China fails fairly badly in technological prowess, however. The US is truly at the cutting edge when it comes to military research expenditure, and it's all but impossible for any country to match it.

 

Oh wait, that picture just said that. I should read more carefully.

 

Research secrets are probably one of the reasons it is resorting to hacking into government and industry databases to steal industry and government secrets; anything for an edge towards becoming an economic superpower.

 

And they get a lot further than the governments like to admit (I've seen two stories now, Australia and America respectively, where somebody leaked the full magnitude of compromised systems - in the American case, the Pentagon had been compromised for months, whilst in the Australian case, system distribution meant only certain low to medium security areas were compromised - but they were compromised entirely). I imagine it is similar in the other countries affected (pretty much anywhere and everywhere due to the nature of the type of attack).

[Azarkon]

Research secrets aren't going to get a country very far if it lacks basic things like fighter jets, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. All the more reason to believe that the Chinese aren't preparing for a military confrontation of any sort - at least, not if the leadership is at all cognizant of how important air superiority is in any major conflict.

Edited March 31, 2008 by Azarkon

[Humodour]

Research secrets aren't going to get a country very far if it lacks basic things like fighter jets, cruisers, and aircraft carriers. All the more reason to believe that the Chinese aren't preparing for a military confrontation of any sort - at least, not if the leadership is at all cognizant of how important air superiority is in any major conflict.

 

I beg to differ. Only a fool would go to war with China because some Chinese hackers are stealing very important trade secrets; they might be very important, but China isn't a pushover, and going to war because of them (with no way to directly tie the hackers back to government or industry officials) would result in a huge loss of life and mass economic disruption world-wide. The last thing the Western world wants is another war (rightly so).

 

I think it's rather ingenious personally. You knock over the big multinationals and research institutes in America and Europe, then you use the technology and secrets stolen to bolster your own country's public and private industry. Not to mention military secrets such as fighter jet plans stolen from contractors like Boeing would certainly come in handy for a country which has fallen behind in military R&D but desperately wants to leap ahead of the game.

 

I wonder how long China will keep the charade up. As long as plausible deniability exists I suppose. "We can assure you our government has never carried out military hacking attempts." But we mightn't be opposed to ensuring a private group exists whose sole purpose is to carry out 'coordinated information retrieval'."

 

If it were a tug-o-war of information and secrets between countries it wouldn't be so bad. What concerns me all evidence points to China gearing up for military confrontation (and not in a purely defensive capacity). Poor Taiwan.

 

All I can say is: Thank God that between India, America and Europe, there are enough superpowers to stop Chinese expansion (because for some reason I am doubting that Tibet and Taiwan are the end of it).

[Azarkon]

Not according to the stats, I'm afraid. If China's gearing up for military expansion, at the current rate, it'll be ready to go in... Another hundred years or so. Of course, things may speed up once China fully modernizes, but that itself is more of a maybe than a guarantee.

 

I've argued it before, but China threat mongering is really overrated. We're talking about a country that's the third biggest economy in the world, with 20% of the population - but which has about 1/100th the military projection capabilities of the US, a standing army that's about half or one-third the US's size per capita (2.3 million / 1.3 billion vs. 1.4 million / 300 million), not to mention less than 20 functioning ICBMs. If that's "gearing up for war," then what the Russians and the Americans have been doing for the last fifty years must have been preparing for the apocalypse (well, I guess that's somewhat true). China has some short-range offensive tools, basic ocean lane-guarding capabilities, and solid defense against a maritime/land invasion, but that's about it. Its logistic chain ends there, and its air power is insignificant.

 

If China was really gearing up for war, you'd know it, because the Pentagon would be the first to flaunt the numbers. This current charade of "sticking it up to the US" is nothing more than saber rattling produced for domestic consumption and deterrence. It's straight out of the military wisdom - "if you're weak, make the enemy think that you're stronger than you are, to prevent attacks; if you're strong, make the enemy think that you're weaker than you are, to soften defenses." If China was really serious about aggression, it'd not publicize things like its ability to shoot down satellites, which simply feeds into US preparedness. No, the Chinese are playing a very different game.

[Humodour]

I do essentially agree, Azarkon. I don't particularly think China plans to go to 'war'. I do however believe it intends to retake Taiwan forcefully and in that regard, evidence would indicate it is manoeuvring to do so.

 

To go to war in the 'Western' sense (Vietnam, world wars, etc) is one thing; to hold off third parties in a war with a neighbour country is another entirely - China has many advantages in the latter case.

[julianw]

Just want to point out that the Chinese leadership has somewhat softened its stance on the Taiwan issue recently. The chairman is hinting at an unified China not necessarily under the leadership of mainland government but a joint government.