Has China Won?
- Thread starter Bendman
- Start date
Khrushchev bragged in the 50s that we would be defeated by the communist and they would not have to fire a shot.
I think he was right.
I think he was right.
Agree,with you there. If you want to torpedo TPP because it was supported by Obama, at least back it up with another plan. Instead they just abandoned it, bad move.
The TPP was simply a continuation of one sided trade agreements we’ve made with China for decades. China is able to negotiate trade agreements without considering short term political impacts. A major advantage which they have capitalized on for years. There are instances where a two party system and four year presidential elections work to our detriment.
Was China in the TPP? To your other point, yes, those unfair agreements go back centuries and were coupled with assistance in addicting the Chinese with opium.
One of the problems with the TPP (at least in my opinion) was the absence of China. China looked at the TPP and said thanks but no thanks. We will negotiate our own more favorable trade deals with the participants...and they have.
China signed out of it fairly early on, and it morphed into an agreement in which it's partners were antagonistic towards China. That was supposed to be the benefit of it in the end. The U.S. was supposed to sign the TPP with all the other countries of Asia, and build a trade network that would weaken china's power over the US and China's grip on the rest of Asia. At least that's the way I remember it.
Sorta. The original agreements contained protections from other nations engaging in currency manipulation. China’s long game is taking over the currency market through such manipulations. They view America as weak and spoiled due to our world flex Dollar. And want to replace that. They don’t want to invade America. Or change our culture. They view both as inferior. They want to replace our currency. So they passed.
And Trump has done so much to further the situation with China. He hasn't done a whole lot. If he had plans that worked to better the cold war with China, I might agree with you. But he hasn't. He has simply been on the edge of amping up the trade war, and hurt the US, China, and world economy, without making any headway in improving the situation. It has been a stalemate of empty threats, and backing down from those threats. That has been the policy of both China and the US, backing down because of what damage it would do to both economies if one didn't back down. They have just delayed the game. China hasn't given in to any of the main battle lines.
Agreed. The stalled trade talks (US tariffs remain in place) are no improvement, and more recently Trump has decided that he needs to use China as an excuse for his failures and to distract people from his relationship with Russia.
There are important, real issues to resolve with China (IP protection for example!), we need a long term strategy to do so, not just another episode in the Trump-China show.
Based on our past history a successful long term strategy is difficult. China has usually simply waited for us to fold (and we do) in order to garner favorable terms. It’s going to take years before China takes our threats seriously.
Not to mention they have every Dem and most of the moderate Republican leadership in their pocket. They can wait out any threats and make gains long term. We will wake up one day, the Dollar will no longer be King, we won’t be able to print how ever much we want to spend, and the half of the American population that pays no federal tax and reaps thousands in benefits is going to be really really pissed off when the gravy train stops.
There is no strategy now whatsoever, even one to give up. China was subjected to several centuries of humiliation, domination, and addiction by the US, Europe and Japan. They teach that history in school, while few if any in the US have a clue. It has an effect. For example, one of the biggest bones of contention between China and Japan over the years has been Japan's refusal to mention the Rape of Nanking in its school history books. China is determined not to let anything like that happen again. Payback? Who knows?
Imagine that, a country with a sense of exceptionalism that uses the schools to indoctrinate the children that perceived historical oppression justifies authoritarian behavior by their own government.
Imagine praising an authoritarian government who has jailed those who dared speak out against it and censored personal freedoms for decades.
Hardly a complete picture of China and few Chinese would agree with it. US history is one of genocide and periods of ugliness (even in Tulsa) but we focus on the good parts to outweigh them.
I sat in Twin Towers fishbowl and watched the Chinese “moderates” send in the tanks in 1989. They murdered upwards of 10,000 out of our sight. They starved tens of millions with their greed and pride. There’s nothing close to either in our history. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Before this gets out of hand....let's be clear about our views.
Yes, China is not suppressing just Uighers, there's the Tibetans, Mongolians, Hong Kongers and perhaps a shot at the Taiwanese. It's ugly and I've seen if first hand in Kashgar, Hong Kong, and Tibet.
At the same time China has made some tremendous achievements economically and 90+% citizens are pleased with the government in general.
https://ash.harvard.edu/publication...surveying-chinese-public-opinion-through-time
One could argue that China these days is what the US was in the first half of the 19th century. Aggressively moving to homogenize the country, suppress minorities and expand (South China Sea today, who knows what next year).
Yes looking at the whole picture is necessary. Seeing the similarities and differences between China and the US on all counts is important. Whether those things are positive or negative, for either country, they are paramount to good negotiations. And there will be some positive and NEGATIVE for both countries.
No matter how much their government and/or their people's view of things is misguided, some of it is correct. Whether they are misguided or correct, it is always good to try and imagine yourself walking in their shoe's, to see their motivations. Otherwise you will make zero progress at the table with them, when trying to negotiate policies of interaction.
I probably don't see as many similarities in their state and the state of the US in the early 19th century, as you do. My views are probably shaded in a different light than they are to you. But that would take a long treatise to analyze, whether that was true or not. You can't move from negative to negative in their history, leaving all the positive out as inconsequential, or not even taken into account. That leaves you with an incomplete picture of a country, and not in a solid place to negotiate.
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Pinochet, and Saddam all got similar numbers.
You can argue that China is no better than 19th century America (and that’s being generous to some parts of China btw). I’m sure the Chinese monitoring this open source are checking the box somewhere that their propaganda worked on you.
I’ve been to China. Seen the troops in the streets. Tried to use the censored internet. Changed the subject when I realized/remembered cab drivers can’t discuss politics.
You can cozy up to them in your mind if you think that makes you a better person than others. But my eyes are wide open and focused on the future, not the corrected history of our past as a crutch for apologizing for future oppression.
Let me know if you all ever want to actually discuss something instead of just spewing invective.
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Agreed. The point of interest for me was how we deal with China when we do not have a strategy for doing so. There’s an interesting book, Destined for War, by the former head of Harvard's Kennedy School that examines how established powers deal with rising powers challenging them. More often than not the result is open warfare, but it can be avoided. Conflicts examined in the book between established and rising powers go back to Athens and Sparta. The author moves from these examples to examine China’s challenge to US economic dominance and the likelihood of war. He argues navigating this relationship peacefully will take skill and understanding plus avoiding the influence of public hatred and anger.
China’s economy is as large as ours and growing faster. They are not encumbered with a huge military like the US which enables them to make large investments such as the New Silk Road (also the name of an interesting book). They are taking advantage of the opportunities that Trump has created by undermining our established international structures and relationships to build their own.
When I bring up riots in Hong Kong or treatment of Tibetans and Uighers with Chinese friends, their rejoinders place a big premium on social stability and the economic progress they have made in a very short period of time, as well as lectures on western hypocrisy, both past and current. They make some good points, although they are all Han Chinese.
We live in interesting times, hopefully we will work our way through it.
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Reports of your death were greatly exaggerated for a month.
The China haters here will get lots of red meat thrown to them next week as Trump tries to excuse his failures by blaming the Chinese, even for his killing so many American's by continuing to botch controlling the virus.
Hyping foreign threats goes goes back millennia and leads to wars. Most often by leaders who want to distract from problems at home.
China and the US have the two largest economies in the world. We need to figure out something other than going to war. Right now China's economy is doing pretty well, and many US companies are doing well because of their Chinese sales.
As we can see from Pompeo's screaming anger at Europe's refusal to back an extension of Iranian penalties, the US is becoming more and more isolated even from our traditional allies. America First is becoming America Alone. A gift to Chinese diplomacy.
Back to the original question. If America has a strategy for China, what is it? (Just blaming them for everything doesn't count).
Hyping foreign threats goes goes back millennia and leads to wars. Most often by leaders who want to distract from problems at home.
China and the US have the two largest economies in the world. We need to figure out something other than going to war. Right now China's economy is doing pretty well, and many US companies are doing well because of their Chinese sales.
As we can see from Pompeo's screaming anger at Europe's refusal to back an extension of Iranian penalties, the US is becoming more and more isolated even from our traditional allies. America First is becoming America Alone. A gift to Chinese diplomacy.
Back to the original question. If America has a strategy for China, what is it? (Just blaming them for everything doesn't count).
