• RejZoR@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    “Give bully a centimeter,he will take a kilometer.”

    I’m pretty sure China does metric units.

  • Infamousblt [any]@hexbear.net
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    2 days ago

    Trump is so cooked. Which is scary because he’s the kind of egomaniac to resort to war to get what he wants.

    Hopefully he gives up and just decides he’d rather do nothing and golf.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      23 hours ago

      The “neither Washington nor Beijing” folk always try to draw equivalences even when Trump is tanking the world economy and China is the only one with the means and reason to take a stand. The truth is, China isn’t a bully, while the US absolutely is. It isn’t China with the hundreds of millitary bases worldwide, it is always China pushing for multilateralism.

      Is China perfect? Nope. Is it getting steadily better as the US is steadily getting worse? Undoubtedly. The fact is, Socialism works, and the genocidal settler-colony of the US Empire does everything it can to make people see the PRC as equal to its evil even with the most sophisticated propaganda networks on Earth.

        • wolfinthewoods@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          I find it incredibly fascinating that many people in the West can make the connection that their own governments regularly lie and deceive them, but can’t accept that, maybe, just maybe, the same governments are lying about the Chinese government. It’s astonishing to see the contradiction there. Like, perhaps since you are well aware that your own government isn’t completely honest, why would you not question other narratives that are pushed by that same government?

  • Jimius@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 day ago

    Both the US and China are bullies. So what’s the point of this?

    Edit: don’t bother replying, I’m not buying what you’re selling.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      The “neither Washington nor Beijing” folk always try to draw equivalences even when Trump is tanking the world economy and China is the only one with the means and reason to take a stand. The truth is, China isn’t a bully, while the US absolutely is. It isn’t China with the hundreds of millitary bases worldwide, it is always China pushing for multilateralism.

      Is China perfect? Nope. Is it getting steadily better as the US is steadily getting worse? Undoubtedly. The fact is, Socialism works, and the genocidal settler-colony of the US Empire does everything it can to make people see the PRC as equal to its evil even with the most sophisticated propaganda networks on Earth.

      • Jimius@discuss.tchncs.de
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        2 days ago

        They’re both bullies. About 26 million people live in Taiwan and have faced political and military bullying from China for decades. And that’s not even mentioning Hong Kong, Xinjiang or Tibet. China tries to play friendly because it wants to create a Pax Sinica to replace America. But at the same time is militarily threatening it’s neighbours and claiming the territory of other countries as their own.

        Even if you make a choice for a lesser evil. It’s still evil.

        • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          We’re doing this again?

          About 26 million people live in Taiwan and have faced political and military bullying from China for decades.

          .

          Hong Kong

          The UK’s 99 year lease to subjugate Hong Kong ended, yes. A lease which had been forced upon Imperial China at gunpoint during the century of humiliation. Hong Kong reintegration after the lease expired was a foregone conclusion. The last minute, US-backed attempt at color revolution failed.

          Xinjiang

          .

          Tibet

          I’m pretty sure virtually all of the Tibetan people are happy to no longer be suffering under theocratic feudalism. Happy to no longer be illiterate serfs and slaves, suffering depredation under a god-king. I doubt many of them are sad that CIA asset Dalai “suck my tongue” Lama is in exile. [1] [2]

          But at the same time is militarily threatening it’s neighbours

          (n.b. the maps are a bit dated, as the US has since pulled out of Afghanistan.)

          Forward-defense ring: a perfectly normal and not at all Orwellian term of art. Meanwhile China has one foreign base in Djibouti for anti-piracy of Red Sea transport.

          • Jimius@discuss.tchncs.de
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            1 day ago

            The PRC has broken the One China principle a long time ago under Xi when he asserted the PRC as the only China with Taiwan as part of it’s territory. Also Taiwan is full of embassies which are just renamed to business development bureaus to keep the CCP from whining. The lack of recognition is a ultimately a problem on paper only. The only reason a country don’t recognize Taiwan is because the PRC will diplomatically retaliate.

            China’s inability to make allies and it’s antagonistic stance towards it’s neighbours is just making those countries choose the US. Instead of China becoming a better alternative it’s instead driving them away and is blaming the US for their own policy mistakes. It’s like Putin crying about NATO on it’s borders but at the same time giving those old soviet satellite states more and more reasons to join NATO. And then blaming NATO for the consequences of his own bad behaviour.

            • KimBongUn420@lemmy.ml
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              1 day ago

              I think China and other countries should build a bunch of embassies disguised as Business development bureaus in eastern Germany and supply them with weapons and violate the One Germany principle. The only reason acountries don’t recognize eastern Germany is because the German federal government will diplomatically retaliate.

              China’s inability to make allies

              What is Brics ? What’s the BRI?

              countries choose the US

              Coerced to choose the US. Like ASML made a killing seeling their machines to China until the US pressured them not to

              It’s like Putin crying about NATO on it’s borders but at the same time giving those old soviet satellite states more and more reasons to join NATO. And then blaming NATO for the consequences of his own bad behaviour.

              NATO is a market for privately owned weapons manufacturers and thus subject to market forces like the drive to expansion and lobbying by those groups. Did you check Rheinmetalls stock, naziboy?

        • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          Taiwanese citizens want the status quo, not independence nor reconcilliation. Framing that as the PRC “bullying them” when the US regularly tries to provoke the PRC into invading is silly. Hong Kongers were liberated from British Colonialism and the majority are happy to be folded into the PRC. Tibet is an autonomous zone currently, the Dalai Lama worked with the CIA and when the PLA liberated Tibet they freed the vast majority of people from the slave-based economy where the ruling class would relentlessly torture them. Xinjiang is also constantly misrepresented and distorted purely to discredit the PRC as an alternative to the US Empire’s constant genocidal invasions.

          It isn’t just a “lesser evil,” it’s the only realistic option that can be considered good. The US murdered 1 million Iraqis, hundreds of thousands to millions of Koreans, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Nicaraguans, Palestinians, and many, many more, just to keep feeding the Empire. There is no comparison, the US is unfathomably evil and the fence-sitters that try to paint China as somehow being equivalent are entirely wrong.

          Whether intentionally or not, this idea that China can’t be better than the US is rooted in eurocentric chauvanism that tries to desparately cling to the idea that Western countries cannot be surpassed morally and materially. There can only be morally good countries or materially prosperous countries, because the US is morally bankrupt but materially wealthy. China shatters the idea that these sins are necessary to preserve this wealth, which sends the “neither Washington nor Beijing” folk into logical pretzels and existential crises.

          • Jimius@discuss.tchncs.de
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            2 days ago

            Sounds like you live on a different planet entirely.

            Taiwan(ROC) has been independent since 1912, 40 years before the PRC even existed. Taiwan doesn’t want independence because it already is, despite all the geopolitical shenanigans. The idea that the US is somehow provoking China to invade another country is of course an odd notion at best.

            Also when HK was given over the the PRC folks in Hong Kong didn’t mind because HK was an economic powerhouse compared to the mainland and the deal was hands off for 50 years. HK would remain autonomous. But China violently broke that deal a while ago.

            And sure, the US has a history of violence, but no country is innocent of that, Mao even managed to kill 30 million of his own countrymen in just 3 years time.

            Granted, the US is on a descending slope, but to think the world will just accept Chinese morality in it’s stead is farfetched. China has almost no allies, and it has an antagonistic relationship with most of it’s neighbours. It’s wants to be the world’s steward but it’s acting like an abusive uncle.

            • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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              1 day ago

              We may live in a different universe after all, you may live in the land of fiction and that may explain your reasoning.

              The ROC’s government was taken over by the nationalist Kuomintang when they lost the Chinese Civil War against the Communists, then the US and UK propped them up to maintain a millitary foothold in the region against the rising Communist-bloc nation. The KMT massacred many who opposed them in what is known as the “White Terror.” Today, polling with Taiwan indicates precisely what I said, independence and integration are minority opinions. Meanwhile, the US constantly runs millitary simulations near the coast of the mainland between them in an effort to terrorize and provoke the PRC into taking the first move.

              For Hong Kong, you’re batting for British dictatorial colonialism and against what the majority of people wanted, despite “One Country, Two Systems” being established all the way back in 1997. They have already been integrated with China, the protests were largely sparked by controversies over extradition laws (and the protests are nowhere to be seen, anymore).

              Attributing famine in a developing agrarian country entirely to Mao and washing aside the intentional genocidal Imperialism the US has performed in order to pursue profits is nonsense. You’re comparing a mass murderer for profit to a country that went through massive economic hardship in pulling itself out of a century of US and UK colonialism, along with Japanese colonialism. And guess what? The US committed genocide on the Indigenous Americans for their land, and used slave labor to develop, and to this day is massacring innocents right this second in places like Yemen.

              Moreover, China has countless allies. The US millitary occupations in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan don’t alone mean that China is always seen as a “bully.” Plenty of its neighbors see it as friends, and year after year more people sign up for BRI and BRICS. More and more nations turn away from US loans that come with clauses requiring privatization of state industry for Chinese loans that don’t come with such stipulations, and now even the EU is turning away from the US and towards the PRC.

              You have nothing, you wash the intentional and deliberate murder of millions for the profits of a handful of US elites under the rug in a desparate attempt to draw equivalence between the world’s largest and bloodiest Empire and a country that hasn’t been at war in many decades.

              Do some introspection, this is utterly nonsense.

              • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
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                1 day ago

                Today, polling with the mainland indicates precisely what I said, independence and integration are minority opinions.

                Do you know why so many of them see the status quo as the best option?

                • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                  1 day ago

                  Meant that to say Taiwan, which is what the source reflects. And yes, I’m familiar, it’s a complicated issue juggling US investment and millitarization, and economic ties with the PRC. Presumably de-escalation and normalization would be most popular if the US would agree to that.

            • davel [he/him]@lemmy.ml
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              1 day ago

              China has almost no allies

              🤣 This is stunningly ignorant. I guess the “garden” represents the whole world to you, and the “jungle” doesn’t even exist. Yet BRICS represents 60% of the world’s population and produces more than G7, and has more land and more natural resources. It is the imperial core that is losing allies from the periphery at a quick pace to China. In fact the imperial core itself seems to be teetering on a fracturing: Will Trump’s Tariffs Drive Europe Into China’s Arms, or Into a Fight?

              • Jimius@discuss.tchncs.de
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                1 day ago

                Uhm, China’s only official ally is North Korea, thanks to the recently renewed Sino-North Korean Mutual Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty.

                China’s base Djibouti is but one of many foreign bases there, and is not the result of some alliance between the two countries.

  • twinnie@feddit.uk
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    2 days ago

    Pretty rich coming from China and their actions in the South China Sea.