Huawei Could Divide the World
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
China has achieved amazing progress thanks to market reforms and entrepreneurship but certain aspects are continuously regressing under Xi's term which will last for the forseeable future. Private sector confidence is at an all-time low due to state media editorials calling for more state control and boosting state-owned corporations. There has been more and more censorship orders aimed at reducing "Western influence" regardless of whether they are politics-related. More and more Chinese citizens are travelling abroad yet their beliefs in the "Chinese system" only gets re-affirmed by mistakenly thinking that China's success is completely dependent on authoritarianism. I don't agree with fervently supporting the current regime which is oppressive, brutal, antidemocratic, and still corrupt; nor do I agree with painting an entire nation and its people as some sort of evil reincarnate for the sake of a new Cold War. I don't have the knowledge or capability to offer a solution and I am just overall disappointed at the current state of affairs.
The internet was much more open in 2008 than 2002 (neither nytimes or cnn or anything else major was blocked), but after the olympics China reversed course. Most major news sites are now blocked, but unlike 2002, CNN isn’t. Go figure.
I think the high point of Chinese liberalization in recent history must have been the late 80s, but that is pre-internet.
I think the high point was really under Hu Jintao. The transition from Hu to Xi was a very tumultuous period. Xi, unlike his predecessors, had a very contentious transition and had to fend off numerous fractions inside the CCCP. After surviving that, based partly on the backing of the PLA (his father was a PLA general), he really, really consolidated power. He now has a path forward to be president for life. His ideas are now literally part of the Chinese constitution, elevating him to the same level as Mao. Liberalization is, in some ways, the opposite of centralization. Therefore, liberalization must be stemmed.
Hu Jintao, on the other hand, didn't really have that much power. There was always Jiang and his fraction. When power is divested, liberalization is more likely.
China was liberalizing at an unprecedented rate in the 80s, to the point that the government didn't immediately react when a bunch of students gathered in Tiananmen square to protest. That could not have happened in 2008 and definitely not 2012.
Hu Jintao was not a reformer, not even close. Power was divested for sure, but the general direction of his reign was a show of opening before the olympics and then quick repression. Xi consolidated power, but did not "reverse course" on liberalization, it was already going in that direction.
This also happened in Russia 4 years and in Germany in 1936. It seems like the prestige of the upcoming games is holding the tide of authoritarian rule, which then surges unrestrained.
I don’t think this quote relates to China alone. And more recently, Brazil seems to be taking some dangerous turns.
https://isthmus.com/opinion/opinion/the-totalitarian-olympic...
This is by far the scariest part.
Even people who knowingly try to 'escape the system' still support it, as though 'the party = China'.
I believe this problem exists a little bit in Europe where so many believe the EU = Europe, they use the terms interchangeably.
There's actually a very interesting kurzgesagt video on the subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ
-- Really? A lot? I don't think so. My experience is Chinese middle class rarely care about human rights issues. Most of them are extremely cold blood. As long as their own family is not hurt, they don't care about human rights issues at all. As long as they can get rich and stay rich, they will praise the authoritarian regime.
Isn't this true for middle classes in most countries? Would there be any tangible benefit if the Chinese middle class made a symbolic show of supporting human rights (as is often done in the west), while their leaders continued to use their tax yuan to prop up polluting industries, bad working conditions, Uighur mass detentions?
Nobody knows because it hasn't been done. China, like Russia, is powerful enough that it will only become a free country if its rulers want to.
For a long time I sort of assumed that the advantages of living in a democracy are sort of self evident (provided you live there), I apparently was wrong.
I've lived in an absolute monarchy with human rights violations. I can also list a number of democracies with human rights violations, as well as very poor infrastructure, poor economy, violence, etc.
For many in the latter countries, they'll easily trade their democracy to get food, education for kids, and security.
Some democracies do well. Others don't. It's not an indicator of quality of life, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs is largely applicable.
I guess I should specify that I was thinking of the "good democracies". I get there can be things people don't like about any of them, but I figured the trade offs between those and totalitarianism was self evident if you lived in one, I guess I was wrong.
Have you lived in that totalitarianism, though? And are you aware of their perceptions of the shortcomings in your society?
Speaking more broadly, though, how great you think life is under certain circumstances is a function of your model of the world, and thus your ideology (once you get beyond food, shelter and security).
Another aspect I've found: People who come from a country with a lot of "problems" have developed their minds to be relatively tolerant/immune to them. But small issues in the country they move to are large for them, as they've not built mental defenses against them. Don't underestimate this aspect. I recall once when I was in school a conversation between two foreign students (from different countries). A was complaining about B's culture, and was itemizing the headaches. B countered with all the problems A's culture had. A responded with "Yeah, but I know how to deal with all those problems!"
If you are a cynic, the best part about democracies is there is a much lower chance of violent overthrows - much easier to just wait it out and vote the current leaders out next election; barring an extremely corrupt leader whose existence is irreparably damaging the country - and that’s pretty much one of the few good things about it.
Leaders trade absolute power for not having to watch their backs as closely.
Why do you think the CCP is so prickly about Taiwan? And to a lesser degree Hong Kong?
They're living proof that other systems can work well for "China."
There's a clear long-term goal of destabilizing ROC and encouraging unification from the PRC side.
To provide a more nuanced view, there are different reasons for this:
- some see problems in other countries that China does not have
- some faced racism or xenophobia. For the more privileged ones, it might be the first time in their lives to get discriminated against, and they respond by becoming extra nationalistic.
- some simply don't see a way to participate in the western system, so they pragmatically buy into the Chinese system. Keep in mind that while it's hard today for a foreign company to operate in China, it's also not easy for a Chinese company to succeed in western markets, especially more competitive ones like US.
- some are being nationalistic for publicity.
(The worst part is that one is Taiwanese! Not even Chinese. And she thinks of it as insurance. She feels like things for her in the West could turn sour in a hurry, so she needs an "out" so to speak.)
I don't doubt for a second that people might be 'very proud' of their culture. For better or worse - that's normal. But to be proud of the bad stuff, even when they are literally living abroad for those reasons - now that is just weird.
So applaud you to be interested in those nuances and being empathetic!
I'm genuinely curious, in what sense EU = Europe is wrong? Granted, not all European countries are members of EU, but EU is a big block with several significant majorities among their constituents - a big population, economy, living style, culture, history, especially if UK could be included.
Why it's significantly wrong to approximate Europe as EU?
I would agree that Europe is more diverse that China. Eastern Europe + Russia is not more diverse than China. Neither is Western Europe + Iceland. And China is 10 times more diverse than the states.
source: Russian born, US raised. Also lived in Spain, France, Japan. Been to Every EU and European country, and ~80 countries total. Wife is Chinese, not from the mainland.
In computer terms, their hardware (race) is essentially identical in capability, disregarding minor individual defects. At the software level (culture) there is tremendous variance.
I often wonder what percentage of these disagreements are because of a misunderstanding of what level of the system is being discussed &/or that fact that substantial numbers of people don't/can't differentiate between race & culture.
That one would even ask this is scary!
Well ... a completely unelected Executive making laws for one. A completely unresponsive government - they do make some neat laws, but they are fully elitist, they have a total disdain for anything populist.
A system wherein there is 'no way out' i.e. they will punish anyone who leave (i.e. Brexit).
Have a look at Junkers statements regarding the Treaty of Lisbon referendums. Those words should have sparked a revolution, and he should have been jailed long ago.
If there were alternative systems to the EU, for example, a trading block that was powerful enough to counter the EU i.e. UK, Norway, Switzerland ... then people would see that they don't have to be 'pro EU' to be 'pro European' and there would be alternatives.
The EU is one country away from having to face this, because Norway, Switzerland and UK are not quite strong enough, but with one more ... then we'd see some kind of alternative.
There would be 'competitive federalization' models and people would then have choice.
Right now, it's a dictatorship of the elite, and there's no way at all to get the Executive branch to budge on any issues.
Even literally voting 'no' on the Treaty of Lisbon was not enough. You can literally vote them down and they will march forward with their plan.
That is not to say the EU isn't in a deep, existential crisis, because in many ways it is. I would simply caution against throwing out the baby with the bathwater in this case, because the fundamental achievement of the EU is something far more important than overly disconnected bureaucrats with a penchant for arbitrary regulation.
So you're arguing on my behalf: an 'EEC-like' Union would be very popular all around, and as you point out yourself 'helps with stability'.
A full on political union I suggest is the opposite of stability.
I think the EU should be 'thrown out' only because it cannot be reformed, but that a set of treaties could preserve the best parts of it - particularly those issues related to trade, some degree of tax harmonization and the ability to create some EU-level policies or regulations.
It's sad frankly because the EU is actually 'mostly good' - but it has existential flaws.
It's going to be a tough few decades in Europe.
That really depends on the countries involved and the form of the union. Even in your version of events, with a reversion to an EEC-like state, I expect we would eventually see closer political union between France, Germany, the Benelux countries and whoever else wanted to join.
You also need to figure out what to do about the Eurozone. You cannot indefinitely sustain a monetary union without closer fiscal integration, which I assume you oppose, but dissolving it has its own issues both in the short and long term (there's a reason it was created in the first place, and that reason is not solely to facilitate closer political integration - even though that was indeed a goal).
Cry me a river. The EU has been nothing but patient with the clusterf*ck that has been UK's leadership trying to both leave the EU and take all it can from the EU, and actually due to pure incompetence, doing neither.
Do you want to know what punishment for leaving a union really is? You should maybe ask the south and the confederates how their secession went down.
> ... a completely unelected Executive making laws for one. A completely unresponsive government - they do make some neat laws, but they are fully elitist, they have a total disdain for anything populist.
You mean like a QUEEN?
Sometimes is almost too sad the level of pro-brexit "arguments" thrown around.
There is no system in the world where all the decisions are made by "elected executives". There is nothing more elitist than a monarchy.
The EU parliament is elected and have the final say on laws. While I agree it's way too bureaucratic, it's still a voluntary club and there are check and balances.
The simple fact is that the EU is a remarkable achievement. That Europe could emerge from the smouldering tribal ruins of the early 20th century and build a continent-wide union of prosperity and peace is incredible. It ain't perfect but it also ain't the boogyman some morons make it out to be.
They do not create, write or formulate law - they have only the ability to reject it. Yes - they can work with the Executive to evolve legislation, however in practice, this is not really the case with most legislation. I'd argue that individual nations, via the Council etc. have more influence than Parliament.
Once again: the EU Executive is totally unelected, and fundamentally unnacountable.
2) The EU - post Treaty of Lisbon - is not a 'remarkable thing' - it's a failing system. From 1950-2000 it was more or less an economic Union, less so a political one.
Surely, European nations coming together post WW2 is 'remarkable' - but much of that is simply the 'new world order' , and of course the EEC.
Most European nations would be happy to participate in an EEC-like union of some kind - which was the basis of the 'remarkable era' that you describe.
Put another way: if Europe was right now, in a fully EEC-like Union, much like NAFTA, with visa-free travel, easy work visas, relatively frictionless borders, and some level of political cooperation - would Europeans vote to enact a political union? (Especially one in which the laws were made by an unelected group?) the answer would be a resounding 'No'.
The number of shape-shifting arguments that pro-EU folks have to get into to side step the democratic illegitimacy of the Executive is utterly astonishing.
Nobody seems to be able to provide a basic, decent argument for why in fact those who make the laws in Europe are not elected.
Most political leaders have to bend with the political wind, that's usually a good thing. Jean-Claude Junker et. al. do not care one bit what Europeans think, because they don't have to.
They voted to create the EU in the first place, which is why the EU exists. They can vote to leave the EU, and one country has. But most countries haven't, and won't.
So, presumably you're talking about the Commission here, right? So, the EU structure is pretty weird, and I would agree with you that a much more democratic structure is possible and indeed preferable.
But it's not an unelected executive. It's an executive entirely controlled by the Council of Ministers. They are the people who really don't want more EU-level democracy (like a parliament which can enact laws), because it weakens their power as national governments.
Instead, they argue about stuff for years in Council, they win loads of concessions, and then they go home and blame "Europe" for the decisions which they (claim to) disagree with. (Are you here, Mr Cameron?)
Like the EU tend to do a good job of acting like they're evil, but it tends to come from the wildly divergent interests of the states, the commission and the parliament.
A lot of the real nastiness got exposed by the financial crises, and it's a terrible shame that we don't have eurobonds for financing capital investment across the EU, but again, that's not because the EU are "evil", it's because the Germans won't let it happen (the French wanted it desperately).
I think what I dislike the most about Brexit, is that it distorts the EU balance of power. Britain often acted as a swing state between France and Germany, and without that influence, things are going to get strange.
To comment on your statements, the EU certainly united Europe more then anything in the past has achieved. At the same time it offers a scapegoat that nationalists can use to further their agenda- and some fall for that.
now you may start to explain any idea other than yours not really ideas.
-- Hannah Arendt
Almost nobody believes the West is perfect (or any other system) is perfect.
Shoot - I'll bet you could get a lot of people to buy into an authoritarian system that maintained peace.
But the issue of Han nationalism which extends to the extermination of Tibetans, to the incarceration of 100's of thousands of Uighers etc., to the total lack of democracy ... combined with the fact that the system is still hugely corrupt ...
I mean, it would be one thing if China were at least a well ordered machine, but it's not, there's corruption from top to bottom which completely undermines any legitimacy in whatever 'system' they have.
Summary: 1) Nobody really thinks any system is perfect. 2) Most people would prefer the rule of law, basic democracy, and low levels of corruption, and at least basic human rights. Those are almost universal.
You should have stopped there.
Basic democracy is so ambiguous really anything qualifies, and by all accounts, China has basic democracy. In fact, they have infinitely more democracy pre-revolution France did.
And the fact that even in the world of today, more than 2000 years after the Greeks, democracy is not universal prove your second point is not such a sure thing as you wanted it to be.
This sentiment is just Eternal September for the Internet writ large. It also over-blows/cherry picks the "bad" activities on the internet.
Those "undereducated chauvinists" pay for us techies to actually make a living through the internet because they use the services we build.
Gotta take the bad with the good.
China evolved from generally pro-west in the 1990s to mixed pro/anti western camps of today.
The early pro-west stance were mostly driven by intellectuals who have seen the stark contrast between capitalist America and communist China. They worshiped everything American, both good and bad. You can still see the lingering effect of western worship in many aspects of Chinese society today.
The pro-west stance is losing ground because people are no longer starving, and realized that they don't like to be treated as second class citizens, especially in their own country. Sometimes the backlash has swung the pendulum too far and caused some resentment towards foreigners.
To end it in a brighter note, I think the populace of China is becoming more aware of nuances of things outside of China, thanks to large amount of Chinese people returning to the homeland after living abroad. This will help prevent the pendulum from swinging too far into nationalism/anti-foreigner nazi state.
Which form did that take? Were there westerners living in China treating locals like second-class citizens?
Just to give a few examples:
- up until late 2000s, border customs dedicated extra manpower to make entering China easier for foreigners, while Chinese citizens returning home are stuck in long lines.
- not sure about now, but for a period of time, foreigners get preferential treatment in the police system, as in, crimes against foreigners gets more attention, and foreigner committing crimes gets more lenient treatment.
- foreigners sometimes get paid significantly more than locals, especially in the education system, this is still true today.
>>> More and more Chinese citizens are travelling abroad yet their beliefs in the "Chinese system" only gets re-affirmed by mistakenly thinking that China's success is completely dependent on authoritarianism
Not true, most of the well educated people won't have this simplified view of any political system. It's actually the reverse you see very common in the Western media, that China being a non-democratic nation, is an evil and destined to fail.
The west highlights the authoritarian nature of China, not the fact that it is non-democratic.
Democracy has many problems but it’s fairly robust vs discontent. Got a problem? Try to vote out the people you believe caused it. It keeps violent overthrows at bay - most of the time.
Although I am not sure if this will happen in my life time.
And, at the risk of getting political, whether the idea raised in the article about the success of China in the last forty years being due to abandoning their isolationism is at direct odds with a trade embargo anyway.
But Huawei is also being accused of enabling the Chinese government spying apparatus. Many governments are wary of using their gear, and are considering taking their gear out of network.
Finally, c) there is an open and free press, and quite a number of whistle blowers and informants to the press, which have legal protection.
That's very different from an authoritarian entity that answers to no-one, and does what they please.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_Select_Co...
You don't see the Five Eyes nations harvesting organs of their citizens.
Would you like me to list the other human rights violations China commits?
China violates human rights therefore it is OK for the Five Eyes nations to spy on people?
Your reasoning structurally unsound.
Obviously China’s human rights record is abysmal, and the five eyes countries are vastly closer to civilised.
AFAIK, the actual charges are fraud relating to representations to third parties relevant to requirements from the embargo on those third parties, but, that aside, there is nothing that stops a sovereign country from making it's laws applicable to foreign acts of foreign actors (in fact, this is mandated under international law for local law implementing certain provisions of international law), though there may sometimes be practical constraints in enforcement of such provisions.
In broader terms, any financial interaction in dollars likely goes through a US financial institution of some kind, who will be legally obligated to carry out all US embargo rules. There are ways around this, but they are, at present weird hacks that you have to go out of your way to do.
The sanction itself is purely political as well. The US overthrows the Iranian democratically elected government to maintain BP's regional dominance because the government threatened to use their country's natural resources' profits to benefit its people. Installs puppet and helps the puppet plan to build 23 nuclear reactors (and the secret police Savak among other things). Puppet gets overthrown by the people and now Iran has 'nuclear ambitions'. And that's after getting the other puppet Saddam to go to war with Iran and then getting rid of the other puppet because now he's US armed like ISIS. And now Iran has a sanction and the sanction is used against other countries.
This is a pyramid scheme of imperialism.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/...
Banco do Brasil, Bank of America, Bank of Guam, Bank of Moscow, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Clearstream Banking, Commerzbank, Compass, Crédit Agricole, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, ING, Intesa Sanpaolo, JP Morgan Chase, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, National Bank of Pakistan, PayPal, RBS (ABN Amro), Société Générale, Toronto-Dominion Bank, Trans-Pacific National Bank (now known as Beacon Business Bank), Standard Chartered, and Wells Fargo.
Since we're all about making light-hearted fun of China's non rule of law, I think it's consistent to be at least concerned about the selective enforcement of Western rule of law.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-war-on-hu...
What is the endgame of this escalation of conflict between the US+Canada and China?
If there's no endgame, why are politicians escalating the conflict?
The last thing we would want is for both sides to continue to escalate the conflict in response to further escalation from the other side, because neither side wants to end up looking "weak," to the detriment of everyone.
unlikely
Cars made in China and sold in the U.S. have a 2% tariff.
Cars made in the U.S. and sold in China have a 40% tariff.
We need to balance that eventually. If we ignore it for another 40 years there won't be any American car companies.
We don't have to have perfect balance tomorrow, or free trade exactly, its ok to allow them to exploit trade with us to some extent as there economy catches up with the west.
But it is time for that assistance and trade imbalance to start to shrink. China has given no indication that they think we should be equal trading partners even after their country becomes the world leader in economy, scientific research, and military power.
For instance when Europe put a tax on American chicken, America replied with a tax on their Trucks.
I am disappointed that we don;t get along better with Russia and China. All three governments have major faults but it is in the interest of the world for super powers to get along.
I still believe in a bright future caused by technological progress that will be a high tide lifting all boats. Yes, governments + corruption, etc. will be as bad as ever but I expect the lives of most people on this planet to get even better in the future.
On a separate note the US just recently starting to pay attention to Africa's resources and wealth and China's recent grasp on it (railroads, Somalia's coast, education systems, etc). India and many countries of Africa will play a big role in what happens to US and China in terms of trade and future sanctions is another guess.
Governments tend to be bad while almost universally people are good - that is my simplistic way of looking at the world, but it works for me. In my country, the USA, we have two parties who both support special interests and not interests of the common person. I argue that it is like this in most countries.
My idea is that we should tax the heck out of Chinese trade until they stop stealing our technology, pay their people better wages, get a freer political system, and stop challenging US global hegemony.
If China won't, or can't, do those things, at least the taxes will make our government a pile of money and help us rebuild our economy by negating the unfair advantages China's behavior gains them.
This is a country where the government forced ~10,000 women to be sterilized or see their families imprisoned in 2010, where a report came out not 2 months ago documenting how prisoners of conscience are harvested for organ transplants (the organs in question being sold; it is, after all, _state_ capitalism), a country that joined Russia in preventing the UN from sanctioning Syria after one of the worst chemical weapons attacks...I think since the Iran/Iraq war. This is the country that is stripping its citizens of their rights based on an algorithm that takes into account everything they say on the internet.
Every country commits human rights violations of some sort or another. No group is perfect. That being said, the breadth, scale, and malicious intent behind China's human rights violations beggars belief. These are not the actions of a nation that wants the best for the international community. These are not the actions of a nation that wants to integrate with the international community, except to loot it while enjoying the protections and rights created by that self same community of nations. Huawei is not dividing China from the world; China has done that for itself.
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/muslims-...
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/13/666287509/ex-detainee-describ...
Agree. But don't you think it is weird that this did not register during the time when moving production to China was at it's height? How come the whole west were willing to look the other way at most if not all human rights violations in China for most part of the last 3 decades, only to now raise concern?
I believe an honest assessment of those questions reveals without shadow of a doubt that humans rights violations in far off countries only become a concern for the west when it is useful for geopolitical or simple profit reasons.
It has been that way since the opium wars and longer, and we fall for it every single time.
The thinking is obviously imperfect in hindsight, but I think that Bush and Obama both feared the complications and political fallout of trying to correct course.
There have always been skeptics and strong opposition to China, and full disclosure I personally have long thought it was very foolish to sacrifice both our societal ideals and the Free Market on the alter of Free Trade (which as it's been used over the last few decades has been directly opposed to both). However at the same time I think it's unreasonable not to acknowledge that there were a lot of very smart people who were China doves out of a hypothesis that economic development would actually be the best way to peacefully and productively make China liberalize and become a strong, equal and valuable partner in the international order. It was believed that economic development would result in a growing middle class and in turn a demand for more political freedom, that enormous authoritarianism would ultimately be unsustainable, and that the moral thing to do was to not be too hard on these billion+ people most of whom were highly impoverished. And China also put on a good act, toeing various lines or making the right noises or even occasional actions, combined with carrots and sticks towards companies, while they built up.
It has now become clear however that, at least in the short term, the idea that economic development would inevitably lead to political liberalization too has not worked out. Nor has a growing panopticon proved unsustainable so far. It may be that these were simply never linked concepts, or it might alternately be that technological and societal development has rendered the modern situation fundamentally different to how the West developed and shifted the power balance such that that window of history is firmly closed.
At any rate however, while there were certainly a lot of people motivated purely by greed I think you are still overly uncharitable towards a lot of genuinely good people who had good intentions. Remember, this was coming directly off of the Cold War, a time of genuinely justified end-of-the-world terror and polarization and confrontational approaches. Even if it was naive, I can understand why some people, both exhausted by the CW and excited by an imagined future where liberal democratic societies spread throughout the world, thought building economic ties and giving China a lot of slack was an alternative approach that could work.
But at this point consensus is no, regrettably it has not worked out. That a lot of anguished doves are now changing tack rather then stubbornly refusing to adapt is admirable, not bad, and will add some needed moderation and variety to new strategies rather then letting the pendulum go all the way in the other direction.
Maybe, just maybe, these people were a little too confident because the USSR had just collapsed.
For the record, this is pretty much what happened historically e.g. in South Korea, and in Taiwan (which is culturally part of China). However, it did take a higher degree of development than we see in the mainland today, for there to be a real 'demand' for these sorts of changes.
This could be the subject of an interesting thesis paper in political psychology.
I think a couple factors were at play. First, when China was opening up the first time, the expectation was that democracy would follow shortly - within a decade. I think there was a real belief across a broad swathe of the political class in 1970's America that capitalism was a force for good, that foundations of civic society free markets created would inevitably flourish into democracy.
Additionally, I think you're wrong in saying that the whole west has been looking the other way when it comes to human rights violations in China. The Human Rights Watch has been going on about this for years, there were sanctions and massive protests against China after the Tiananmen Square massacre, and the Free Tibet movement has been going on since the...60's? There's been broad awareness of how much of a bad actor China is, and continuous
>I believe an honest assessment of those questions reveals without shadow of a doubt that humans rights violations in far off countries only become a concern for the west when it is useful for geopolitical or simple profit reasons.
I think this belies the scale of the threat to the West the Soviet Union represented. Ultimately you're correct; it's undeniable that the US in particular made policy choices with regards to China that put geopolitics first and human rights second, but the USSR represented a literal existential threat to democratic Europe. There's no moral and right choice here - opening relations with China keeps daylight between the CCP and the and the USSR, but legitimizes a regime that just murdered it's own middle class.
At some level you need those confluences of moral, economic, and geopolitical motives to make changes. The moral imperative against the Chinese Communist Party has always been there, China has replaced the USSR as a threat and now that the economic incentives are being hit, we're seeing the geopolitical realm hinge more on the moral side. I don't think this is just or good - I think it's just how it is.
When discussing US foreign policy, human rights is a fig leaf, not an actual cause of policy.
Lest you think I’m being unfair to the US only, China does it too. It invaded Vietnam (another communist country) in the 70s and developed an alliance with the United States after the sino soviet split, so that it could hedge against a growing USSR and Vietnam.
In general countries are very flexible on principles, and follow their interests. Realpolitik.
US is still pretty buddy-buddy with Saudi Arabia despite the Saudis' Middle Eastern regional hegemony in the GCC Gulf Area and the fact that US calling for LGBTQ rights and women rights in Saudi Arabia is almost unheard of (https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/05/opinions/un-death-penalty-res...), so there is more than a moral "protect world human rights" stance here at play when observing US policy, its more realpolitik.
Also there is no like necessary-evil situation here, the other alternative is to enable the Middle Eastern states to embrace democracy and to get rid of hereditary dictatorships.
I've been very concerned about the rise of China for many years now, the rate at which they're closing the technological capability gap with the Western world coupled with their massive population and cultural propensity to hard work and saving, wielded by an authoritarian pseudo-communist government poses a very large risk to the future well being of the world. This isn't to say it is guaranteed to produce a bad outcome, but it certainly could, and it doesn't seem terribly unlikely to me, at all.
It has been very interesting to observe the shift in public opinion on China in forum discussions over the last several years, but particularly in the last 3 months or so. Here in Canada, 4 or so years ago typically only the most hardcore "racists" would have something negative to say about China, and the typical response would be overwhelming disagreement and downvoting, if not deletion of comments and banning from the forum. Contrast that with today, where I'd say strongly anti-China sentiments are at least 50% of the comments, and heavily upvoted and rarely moderated (suggesting a change in sentiment even among moderators). Another example would be the typical discourse on tariffs when Trump first started discussing them compared to now. At the beginning, the typical comment was a hearty "oh my god, Trump thinks trade is a zero sum game, what an idiot!", but I can't remember the last time I read anyone saying that, suggesting that even the most anti-racist people out there have somehow become more educated on the topic. And you rarely hear it mentioned (it usually requires an access to information request by a journalist), but this change in public sentiment on this and related topics is definitely a serious topic of discussion behind closed political doors in Canada.
Very interesting times, I hope it all works out in the end.
The US can be seen in having the Air Force play hot dog on the Chinese border in April 2001 (the US military was too busy doing that to protect itself from jihadis it had funded and armed in Afghanistan to overthrow Afghanistan's secular government and then betrayed by occupying Arabia - they would strike the US to end that occupation later in 2001). They crashed into a Chinese plane, killing the pilot, then illegally landed on Hainan island without permission. Then the US press and diplomacy became enraged that the Chinese were actually inspecting the plane and were holding these military personnel who killed a Chinese pilot. Then this is followed by human rights lover Trump's recent campaign against China.
It is in this context that the demonization of China by English-speaking Western liberals currently happens in. Liberals who are also attacking and demonizing Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, and who applauded Obama's overthrow of Honduran democracy several years ago with the US funded Honduran military's overthrow of the elected leader. But the US attacks and bombs so many countries, as does the UK, it's hard to keep up with who they have a campaign against from day to day.
The Bloomberg article was pretty good in my opinion, the writer had spent a lot of time in China and taken time to see things from a Chinese perspective.
I thought his mention of 'IP' extending to the know how on how to setup factories and such like was a very good point. I also believe that people here who shoot off about China stealing IP need to look themselves in the mirror - a few years ago, when they were starting in tech, did they not steal a copy of Microsoft Office, learn Photoshop with a pirated copy and listen to some stolen MP3 files whilst they were at it?
China has worked hard, Chinese people have worked hard. There is a higher percentage of people actually working in China than in America, and Americans in work do have not that many holidays, so there is no dismissal of Americans as being lazy there.
Regarding Huawei, they are ahead. Yes, ahead. Their products are not cheap knock offs of Western tech, their kit is really good. They are already there with 5G and their latest smartphones do make me wonder why I would want a Google or an Apple phone when I can have things like a 40Mb camera and beautiful build quality. This is just an opinion, but I think the quality of Huawei products is superb and that is where the problems are. If I was a domestic rival I would be trying to get the government to stop them as competing is not easy! There is also the small matter of five-eyes, they are not able to cooperate with Huawei to the level they can with domestic kit manufacturers, so again, spread some FUD - projection - about 'them spying on us'.
Who on this thread has taken the time and had the courtesy to listen to translated to English words uttered by the Chinese government? Or does everyone just read how the media sound-bites what news comes from China? We are familiar with weasel words from our own politicians, politicians that were born with silver spoons and went to Ivy Leagues. The Chinese leadership had no such easy start in life, they grew up under Mao and true terror. They have perspective that Western leaders lack. Clearly Obama had humble origins but there are few others in Western democracies that can claim the same. Angela Merkel is another, after that I am struggling to think of others.
The aspect of China being a 'police state' with 'censorship' does not sound too bad to me. I look in disgust at the lies printed in the press in the West. I question why they must spit such bile and hatred on a daily basis, doing their best to profit from keeping people divided. Even 'liberal' Western press is far too keen to do-down the Chinese, Russian, Syrian, Iranian, Indian and African man. They have strayed far away from reporting that wins the Pulitzer Prize.
The true rulers of the Western world think that democracy is great. But democracy far too often results in the most narcissistic useful idiots with no understanding of history or philosophy getting into office, lured by money and power. Our Western governments have told us about freedom but it is not freedom for us, it is freedom for their backers money. The Western experiment in neo-liberal capitalism has left us with two classes of people - the rich and the poor. Our society is like a parasite that has devoured the host, everyone including the moderately rich enslaved by debt. If you take mortgages into account everyone is burdened by debt and the governments of the West have debt that will never be paid off, the can kicked down the road for future generations to pay.
China have some base or port in Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, the U.S. has troops on 50 of the 55 countries of Africa. It is hard to believe if you only read the Western media (and easy to believe if you listen to what the Chinese leadership have to say) but China does seek mutually beneficial, stable trading partnerships with the rest of the world. China does not have a mindset of exploitation. Of course there are those that speak of China's human rights violations and persecution of minorities in Tibet and far beyond, but, again, have any of these people so eager to tell us this been to any of these places or shared a few words with people from these allegedly oppressed areas? No. Hence they do not know whether they are being useful idiots, allowing xenophobia to get the better of them.
We are all stranded on this small rock we call earth together, in the West we must up our game to be as polite, courteous and diplomatic as our Chinese neighbours, to learn from them, to be friends and to restore this planet to the beautiful garden that it deserves to be. We must practice the art of turning the other cheek and not getting fired up by media and politicians that only have the interests of money at heart.
Certainly there are people concerned about the recent news of massive Uighur internment camps who have been to Xinjiang. I myself have, twice. That region has, after all, been commonly traveled by overlanders going from Central Asia on to China and Southeast Asia. Before the Beijing Olympics, travel there was relatively hassle-free.
And yes, I did do a lot of talking with the Uighurs at the time (I was keen to learn Uighur after already knowing closely-related Turkic languages of Central Asia) and I heard nothing but complaining about the influx of Han Chinese. Now, however, according to reports from travel fora, foreign travelers in Xinjiang are being pushed through the region quickly by police and prevented from any contacts with the Uighur population at all.
It’s not like the US and other Western countries are letting Chinese companies run freely amuck either. There has been increasing scrutiny against large companies like Huawei that are in cahoots with the Chinese state.
It explored how China started opening the economy and how western politics assumed that between the economy and the internet, political change in China as all but inevitable. And of course how very wrong that turns out to be in hindsight.
I’d highly recommend those episodes.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/podcasts/the-daily/china-...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/podcasts/the-daily/china-...
The reason economic liberalization happened was because Deng Xiaoping saw the writing on the wall. Additionally, corporate interests in the US (represented by the Chamber of Commerce) had been beating down the doors of politicians to relax restrictions on doing business there. If the appetite to offshore jobs was not there, there is no reason why the US would have made it easy to do business there.